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Alexander Mikaberidze - The Napoleonic Wars - A Global History-Oxford University Press (2020)

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Andres Cabra
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The Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic
Wars
alexander A Global History
mikaberidze

1
1
Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford.
It furthers the University’s objective of excellence in research, scholarship,
and education by publishing worldwide. Oxford is a registered trade mark of
Oxford University Press in the UK and certain other countries.
Published in the United States of America by Oxford University Press
198 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016, United States of America
© Alexander Mikaberidze 2020
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
without the prior permission in writing of Oxford University Press,
or as expressly permitted by law, by license, or under terms agreed with
the appropriate reproduction rights organization. Inquiries concerning
reproduction outside the scope of the above should be sent to the
Rights Department, Oxford University Press, at the address above.
You must not circulate this work in any other form
and you must impose this same condition on any acquirer.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Names: Mikaberidze, Alexander, author.
Title: The Napoleonic Wars: a global history/Alexander Mikaberidze.
Description: New York: Oxford University Press, [2020]
Identifiers: LCCN 2019019279 | ISBN 9780199951062 (hardback: alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1815. | Napoleonic Wars,
1800–1815—Influence. | Geopolitics—History—19th century. | Military
history, Modern—19th century.
Classification: LCC DC226.3 .M54 2020 | DDC 940.2/7—dc23
LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019019279

9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed by LSC Communications, Inc.
United States of America
For Anna
I am called to change the world.
—Napoleon to his brother Joseph
We have won an empire by armed might, and it must continue to rest on
armed might, otherwise it will fall by the same means, to a superior
power.
—Secret Committee of the British East India Company
Now Napoleon, there was a fellow! His life was the stride of a demigod
from battle to battle and from victory to victory. . . . It can be said that
he was in a permanent state of enlightenment, which is why his fate
was more brilliant than the world has ever seen or is likely to see after
him.
—Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
One man alone was then alive in Europe; everyone else tried to fill their
lungs with the air he had breathed. Every year France made him a gift
of three hundred thousand young men; and, with a smile, he took this
new fiber pulled from the heart of humanity, twisted it in his hands,
and made a new string for his bow; he then took one of his arrows and
sent it flying across the world, until it fell into a vale on a deserted
island under a weeping willow.
—Alfred de Musset
History is not the soil in which happiness grows. The periods of happiness in
it are the blank pages of history.
—Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel
Contents

List of Maps ix
Preface xi
Acknowledgments xix

Chapter 1 The Revolutionary Prelude 3


chapter 2 The Eighteenth-Century International Order 18
Chapter 3 The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 44
Chapter 4 The Making of La Grande Nation,
1797–1802 68
Chapter 5 The Second Coalition War and the
Origins of the “Great Game” 83
Chapter 6 The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 104
Chapter 7 The Road to War, 1802–1803 122
Chapter 8 The Rupture, 1803 148
Chapter 9 The Elephant Against the Whale:
France and Britain at War, 1803–1804 173
Chapter 10 The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 188
Chapter 11 “War Through Other Means”: Europe and the
Continental System 228
Chapter 12 The Struggle for Portugal and Spain,
1807–1812 242
viii | c ontents

Chapter 13 The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 282


Chapter 14 The Emperor’s Last Triumph 307
Chapter 15 The Northern Question, 1807–1811 332
Chapter 16 “An Empire Besieged”: The Ottomans and the
Napoleonic Wars 368
Chapter 17 The Qajar Connection: Iran and the European
Powers, 1804–1814 423
Chapter 18 Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 449
Chapter 19 Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 469
Chapter 20 The Western Question? Struggle for the Americas,
1808–1815 501
Chapter 21 The Turning Point, 1812 525
Chapter 22 The Fall of the French Empire 552
Chapter 23 The War and Peace, 1814–1815 591
Chapter 24 The Aftermath of the Great War 615

Notes 643
Select Bibliography 833
Index 884
List of Maps

Map 1: Europe in 1789 2


Map 2: The World in the Late Eighteenth Century 19
Map 3: Europe in 1792–1794 45
Map 4: Europe in 1797 69
Map 5: Europe in 1800 79
Map 6: The Middle East in 1798–1801 84
Map 7: Europe in 1803 105
Map 8: North America and the Caribbean, 1801–1805 131
Map 9: Campaign of 1805 189
Map 10: Campaigns of 1806–1807 201
Map 11: Germany Before and After the Imperial Recess 216
Map 12: The Continental System 229
Map 13: Portugal and Spain, 1807–1814 243
Map 14: The Grand Empire, 1811–1812 283
Map 15: Europe in 1809 308
Map 16: North Europe 333
Map 17: The Ottoman Empire and the “Eastern Question” 384
Map 18: The Napoleonic Legacy in the Middle East 424
Map 19: Russian Expansion in the Caucasus 427
Map 20: Revolutions in the Atlantic World, 1776–1826 448
Map 21: West Indies 458
Map 22: India, 1780–1805 470
Map 23: The Indian Ocean During the Napoleonic Wars 479
Map 24: South America, 1808–1815 502
x | l ist of maps

Map 25: Russian Campaign, 1812 527


Map 26: North America, 1812 542
Map 27: Campaigns in Germany and France, 1813–1814 553
Map 28: Europe in 1815 after the Congress of Vienna 594
Map 29: The World in 1815 614
Preface

I t has long been accepted that, together with the French Revolutionary
Wars, the Napoleonic Wars constitute a single conflict, lasting some
twenty-three years, that ranged France against shifting alliances of European
powers and produced a short-lived French hegemony over most of Europe.
Between 1792 and 1815 Europe was plunged into turmoil and transforma-
tion. The French Revolution unleashed a torrent of political, social, cultural,
and military changes. Napoleon extended them beyond the country’s fron-
tiers. The ensuing struggle was immense in its scale and intensity. Never
before had European states resorted to a mobilization of civilian and military
resources as total as during this period. What’s more, this was a contest of
great powers on a truly global scale. The Napoleonic Wars were not the first
conflict to span the globe—such a distinction probably belongs to the Seven
Years’ War, which Winston Churchill famously labeled as the first “world
war.” But this was a war that in its scale and impact dwarfed all other European
conflicts; for nineteenth-century contemporaries, it came to be known as the
“Great War.” Though provoked by the rivalries within Europe, the Napoleonic
Wars involved worldwide struggles for colonies and trade, and in scale, reach,
and intensity they represent one of the largest conflicts in history. In his efforts
to achieve French hegemony, Napoleon indirectly became the architect of
independent South America, reshaped the Middle East, strengthened British
imperial ambitions, and contributed to the rise of American power.
Starting in the spring of 1792, revolutionary France became embroiled in
a war. At first the French aspired to defend their revolutionary gains, but as the
war progressed, their armies spread the effects of the Revolution to the neigh-
boring states. With General Napoleon Bonaparte’s rise to power, France’s war
aims reverted to more traditional policies of territorial expansion and continental
xii | p reface

hegemony seen under the Bourbon kings. Born on the island of Corsica into a
noble but impoverished family of Italian descent, Bonaparte studied at French
military schools and was commissioned as a lieutenant in the French artillery
in 1785. The Revolution, which he welcomed despite his aristocratic roots,
opened career prospects that would have been unimaginable to a young captain
from a remote outpost of the French Empire. Rising rapidly in the new revolu-
tionary armies, he was given command of French forces to invade Italy in 1796
and won brilliant victories that not only secured northern Italy for France but
also helped to end the War of the First Coalition, as is called the first attempt
to stop French expansion beyond its borders. Bonaparte’s next campaign, in
Egypt, was a military fiasco that failed to achieve its goals and ultimately
resulted in the departure of the French. But it did enhance Bonaparte’s repu-
tation as a decisive leader, which helped him overthrow the French govern-
ment in November 1799. By that point, a decade of revolutionary upheaval
and uncertainty had made firm rule, and the order and stability that it prom-
ised, more enticing than the ideas and promises of radical revolutionaries.
Though youthful (he turned thirty in 1799), the gifted General Bonaparte
proved to be a figure of authority. After seizing power in a coup, he assumed
the title of First Consul of the Republic and pursued an ambitious domestic
policy to stabilize France. The reforms of 1800–1804 consolidated revolution-
ary gains, with the famed Napoleonic Code reasserting fundamental princi-
ples of the Revolution: equality of all citizens before the law and security
of wealth and private property. Neither a revolutionary nor a power-hungry
maniac, Bonaparte instead gave France a form of enlightened despotism
masked by a façade of democratic ideals. Sovereign power resided only with
the ruler, not with the people. Though some scholars describe him as a “child
of the Revolution,” it would be more appropriate to refer to him as a child of
the Enlightenment. Bonaparte had little patience for the chaos, confusion, and
radical socioeconomic changes that revolutions tend to produce; on several
occasions he had openly expressed his disdain for the crowds that played a
decisive role in shaping the course of the French Revolution. Instead, Bonaparte
felt more comfortable within the traditions that emphasized rationalism and
strong political authority as well as tolerance and equality before the law.
True to the tenets of enlightened despotism, he strove to build a strong
French state by giving the people what he believed they needed, yet never
holding out the prospect of embracing republican democracy or surrendering
sovereignty to the will of the people.
Bonaparte, who was proclaimed Emperor Napoleon of the French in
1804, is widely recognized as one of the greatest military commanders in
history, but he made few original contributions to the theory of war. His gen-
ius lay in his ability to synthesize prior innovations and ideas and to implement
preface | xiii

them in an effective and consistent manner. Between 1805 and 1810, having
crushed three European coalitions, Napoleonic France emerged as the domi-
nant continental power, extending its imperium from the Atlantic coastline
of Spain to the rolling plains of Poland. Along the way, the French armies
prompted important changes in Europe. In this regard Napoleon might be
perceived as “the revolution incarnate,” as the Austrian statesman Klemens
Wenzel von Metternich once described him, but the title must be viewed in
practical rather than ideological terms. After coming to power, Napoleon lost
the radical ideological zeal that had characterized his earlier years. But to defeat
France, European monarchies were compelled to pursue the path of reforms and
to incorporate select elements of France’s revolutionary legacy, such as greater
centralization of bureaucracy, military reforms, transformation of royal subjects
into citizens, and arousing people’s sense of rights while deflecting their
patriotic energies and passions toward defeat of a foreign enemy. In short,
they needed to employ French ideas against France.
The Napoleonic Wars should not be perceived merely as the continuation
of the revolutionary struggles. It is more appropriate to view them within the
context of the wars of the eighteenth century. Between 1803 and 1815
European powers repeatedly pursued traditional national objectives. There
were two main constants. One was France’s determination to create a new inter-
national order that would in turn produce hegemonic power. From this point
of view, Napoleon’s policies and Europe’s response to them echo Louis XIV’s
reign and the efforts of the Grand Alliance to contain expansionist France and
to preserve the fragile balance of power in Europe. The French Revolution
added an important ideological element to the Napoleonic Wars but did not
erase geopolitical issues that stemmed from earlier rivalries.
The other constant was the long-standing Franco-British rivalry, which
exerted considerable influence on the course of events. France remained offi-
cially at war with Britain for twenty years (240 months, starting in 1793),
far longer than the period France spent at war with Austria (108 months,
starting in 1792), Prussia (58 months, also starting in 1792), or Russia
(55 months, starting in 1798). Furthermore, between 1792 and 1814
Britain more than tripled its national debt and spent the staggering sum of
£65 million on subsidizing wars against Napoleon. Indeed, one may argue that
the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars constituted a new phase of what has
been sometimes described as the Second Hundred Years’ War, one that France
and Britain waged between 1689, in the wake of the Glorious Revolution
and France’s support for the overthrown King James II, and 1815, when
French imperial dreams ended at Waterloo. As in the earlier conflicts (in
addition to the War of the Spanish Succession, there was the War of the
Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War), these two powers struggled
xiv | p reface

for dominance not only in Europe but also in the Americas, Africa, the
Ottoman Empire, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, the Mediterranean
Sea, and the Indian Ocean.
Such was the determination (and capacity) of Britain that the British gov-
ernment continued its steadfast opposition to Napoleon even when it found
itself acting alone for many of those years. More often than not, however,
Britain was at the heart of a wide array of coalitions that sought to contain the
French emperor’s efforts to build a Europe-wide empire. As soon as one coali-
tion collapsed, London made efforts to create another, financed from the prof-
its of rapidly expanding trade networks and growing industrial development.
The contest between Britain and France was, in effect, the struggle between
two societies in the process of building empires. France threatened, cajoled,
and browbeat its neighboring governments on the continent, but so did
Britain, using its economic and naval might to build and protect a global
commercial empire. As one senior British official opined in 1799, “It is laid
down as an axiom applicable to the conduct of an extensive warfare by this
country that our principal effort should be to deprive our Enemies of their
Colonial possessions. By so doing we weaken their power while at the same
time we augment those commercial resources which are the sole Bases of our
maritime strength.”1
The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars have kept historians
busy for the past two hundred years. Thousands of books have been written
on Napoleon himself, and when related titles—on the Napoleonic campaigns,
politics, and diplomacy, as well as his opponents and allies—are added to
the pile, the total number of books would certainly be in the hundreds of
thousands. The last decade in particular has seen the publication of a num-
ber of new titles, including more than a dozen biographies of Napoleon.
The shelves of any decent library groan under the weight of works on the
Napoleonic Wars.
Yet it is my firm belief that the story of the French Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars is far more complex than has been dealt with by the tradi-
tional approach, which views the era either as a backdrop for Napoleon’s life
or as a means to study the intermittent coalition wars within Europe. There is,
of course, a vast body of scholarship about Napoleonic-age militaries and
diplomacy—Paul Schroeder’s The Transformation of European Politics serves as
one of the finest examples of this genre—but it remains restricted in coverage
to Europe. The few studies that extend beyond European coverage tend to
unfold entirely within the framework of Franco-British rivalry, with little
consideration of events outside it. Most recently, for example, the British
historian Charles Esdaile wrote the masterly Napoleon’s Wars: An International
preface | xv

History, “a history of the Napoleonic Wars that reflects their pan-European


dimension and is not just Franco-centric.”2 Again, though, his focus remains
firmly on Europe,
My intention is to add to the history of these wars by showing that
between 1792 and 1815 European affairs did not unfold in isolation from the
rest of the globe. Indeed, the tremors that spread from France starting in 1789
tend to overshadow the fact that the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had
truly global repercussions. Austerlitz, Trafalgar, Leipzig, and Waterloo all
hold prominent places in the standard histories of the Napoleonic Wars, but
alongside them we must also discuss Buenos Aires, New Orleans, Queenston
Heights, Ruse, Aslanduz, Assaye, Macao, Oravais, and Alexandria. We can-
not fully understand the significance of this period without involving the
British expeditions to Argentina and South Africa, the Franco-British diplo-
matic intrigues in Iran and the Indian Ocean, the Franco-Russian maneuver-
ing in the Ottoman Empire, and the Russo-Swedish struggles for Finland.
Rather than remaining at the periphery of the story, they go to the core of its
significance.
Offering a global context to the Napoleonic Wars reveals that they had far
greater long-term impact overseas than within the European continent itself.
Napoleon was, after all, defeated and his empire erased from the map of
Europe. Yet this same period saw the consolidation of British imperial power
in India, a crucial development that allowed Britain to emerge as a global
hegemon in the nineteenth century. This empire-building process required
immense commitments in terms of men and resources. More Britons died
during the years of sporadic campaigns in the West and East Indies than dur-
ing the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal.3 And it was not merely Britain’s
expansion that gives global relevance to these years. The early nineteenth cen-
tury witnessed Russia pursuing its colonial designs in Finland, Poland, and
the Pacific Northeast while seeking to expand at the expense of the Ottoman
Empire and Iran in the Balkan Peninsula and the Caucasus. In the Atlantic
world alone, the Napoleonic Wars saw three established European empires
and the young American republic actively competing, with each determined
to preserve its territory and attempting to enlarge it at the expense of its
competitors. The United States more than doubled in extent after the pur-
chase from the French of the Louisiana Territory and challenged Britain dur-
ing the War of 1812. In the Caribbean, the French Revolution produced the
Haitian rebellion, the most consequential of all slave revolts on the Atlantic
rim. In Latin America, Napoleon’s occupation of Spain in 1808 spurred inde-
pendence movements that ended the Spanish colonial empire and created a
new political reality in the region. Momentous changes were also unfolding
xvi | p reface

in the Islamic world, where the political, economic, and social upheavals in
the Ottoman Empire and Iran laid the foundation for the “Eastern Question”
dilemma. In Egypt, the French and British invasions of 1798–1807 led to
the rise of Mehmet Ali and the eventual emergence of a powerful Egyptian
state that would shape Middle Eastern affairs for the rest of the century. Nor
did South Africa, Japan, China, and Indonesia escape the effects of the European
power struggles.
On a more personal level, having studied and taught Napoleonic history
for well over two decades, I believe that there is a pressing need for an inter-
national perspective. History teaches the inexorable truth that actions have
consequences that reverberate long after the events themselves end, a fact
clearly illustrated in the period in question. The Napoleonic Wars set many
parts of the world on a separate course of development, and without them, the
Revolution itself might have remained largely a European affair and with lim-
ited influence on the outside world. But France’s ambitions and European
efforts to thwart them meant that the war spread to far-flung corners of the
world. As one American historian observed, “In part deliberately, in part
despite himself, Napoleon made the Revolution a crucial event in European
and world history.”4
What follows is divided into three parts. The first provides an overview of
the revolutionary period from the start of the French Revolution in 1789 to
General Napoleon Bonaparte’s ascent to power in 1799. It contains contex-
tual background to the subsequent events, for it would be impossible to
understand the Napoleonic Wars without looking at the decade that pre-
ceded them. The second part is organized both chronologically and
­geographically, making allowance for the fact that events were unfolding
simultaneously worldwide. It starts with Europe at peace in 1801–1802 and
explores Napoleon’s efforts to consolidate French gains in the aftermath of
the French Revolutionary Wars and Europe’s response to them. Chapters 8
and 9 concentrate on the Franco-British tensions that ultimately erupted into
a conflict that went on to consume the rest of the continent. In the subsequent
chapters, the narrative moves away from the traditional focus on western and
central Europe to consider other areas of conflict, such as Scandinavia, the
Balkan Peninsula, Egypt, Iran, China, Japan, and the Americas, demonstrat-
ing how far the Napoleonic Wars reached. The third and final part of the book
traces the fall of the Napoleonic Empire. By this point the Napoleonic Wars
had been all but resolved in Asia, so the narrative shifts to Europe and North
America and culminates in the defeat of Napoleon and the convocation of the
Congress of Vienna. The concluding chapter casts a broad look at the world in
the aftermath of the war.
preface | xvii

In undertaking this task, I have inevitably had to be highly selective and


there is much that was not included or discussed at length in this work.
I hope nonetheless that my choices will not detract from the book’s message
and will still reveal how and why the Napoleonic Wars, and those who fought
them, influenced the course of events across the globe.
Acknowledgments

L ike most people, I learned about Napoleon in early childhood. This


initial interest turned into a genuine passion when during a regular visit
to a bookstore in my hometown of Tbilisi, Georgia, I discovered a dusty vol-
ume of the French emperor’s biography written by the great Soviet historian
Albert Manfred. I was so mesmerized by Napoleon’s exploits that I searched
high and low for more books, not an easy task amid the political and economic
turmoil that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Since then I have
devoted more than two decades to studying Napoleon, and it has become one
of the defining experiences of my life. It is because of this fascination with the
emperor that I was able to leave my war-ravaged homeland to pursue a new
academic career, traveled widely around the world, met my wife, and pursued
an “American dream.” In so many ways, Napoleon changed my life.
Over the years, my views of Napoleon have evolved from the unbridled
admiration of my youth to a much more circumspect appreciation of the man
and his talents. His personality is crucial to understanding the turbulent years
that shaped Europe at the start of the nineteenth century. Napoleon was a con-
summate reader whose prodigious memory, analytical mind, and ability to
select relevant details made him a highly effective administrator. One of the
greatest military minds, he was a stirring visionary, and the scale of his ambi-
tions continues to capture people’s imagination. But his other traits are dis-
tinctly unpleasant to contemplate. He was a climber and double-dealer who
exploited others for his own gain. He was egotistical and prone to nepotism,
richly rewarding his relatives even when confronted with their continued
incompetence; his demands for efficiency often blurred lines between lawful-
ness and criminality; and he cynically exploited human weaknesses whenever
the occasion arose. He was not the “Corsican Ogre” that he is often made out
to be, but neither was he the romantic figure of the Napoleonic legend.
xx | a cknowledgments

He was a man whose many talents are incontestable but whose role and place
in history require a more nuanced evaluation; within his unquestionable gen-
ius lurk many flaws. But whatever view one takes of him, whatever aspect of
his accomplishment is discussed, whether one admires him as a superb mili-
tary leader or condemns him as the precursor of latter-day dictators, one can-
not deny that he was a self-made man who dominated his age like no other
individual, a fact that his die-hard enemies grudgingly admitted as well.
This book is the product of years of research and contemplation. Throughout
this time, I have received support, guidance, and encouragement from numer-
ous friends, colleagues, and family members. I would like to thank all of them,
especially those who were there when I first embarked on this project a decade
ago and who continued to encourage me when common sense might have
inclined them to impatience. My family has lived with Napoleon for a very
long time; in the case of my children, for the whole of their young lives. My
sons, Luka and Sergi, have become les marie-louises, frequently playing under-
neath the office desk waiting for their father to finish writing yet another
page; they merrily ask me to convey their regards to “Uncle Napo” every
time I travel to France. I am grateful to my family—Levan, Marina, Levan Jr.,
and Aleko Mikaberidze, and Tsiuri, Jemal and Koka Kankia —for tolerating
my Napoleonic passion as well as heaps of Napoleonic books and documents
scattered around the house for so many few years. This book would not have
been possible without their love, patience, and support.
I first came up with the idea of producing an international history of the
Napoleonic Wars while still in graduate school at the Institute on Napoleon and
the French Revolution at Florida State University. I was very fortunate to work
under the guidance of Professor Donald D. Horward, an eminent Napoleonic
scholar who directed more than one hundred graduate students and turned FSU
into one of the most prolific centers for the study of the revolutionary era. His
decision to respond to a simple inquiry from an aspiring student from a war-
torn country had profound ramifications for my life. Whatever accomplish-
ments I have as a scholar are entirely due to his unwearied mentorship and
guidance. Equally important to me is the support of J. David Markham,
without whom I probably would not have embarked on a career of the
Napoleonic historian.
Michael V. Leggiere and Frederick Schneid have taught me much through
their friendship and scholarship. Michael’s meticulous studies on the collapse
of the French Empire in 1813–1814 have shaped my own understanding of
this momentous event. Rick continues to amaze me with the breadth of his
knowledge and his willingness to share and assist. Despite being deeply
involved in their own research, Michael and Rick have been generous with
acknowledgments | xxi

their time, read many parts of this manuscript and shared their criticisms,
corrections, and suggestions.
My editor at Oxford University Press, Timothy Bent, has been both
extremely patient and kind in working with me, putting up with numerous
delays and accepting a manuscript that was far larger than the one he had com-
missioned. With his warm sense of humor, he gently guided me through the
editing and helped me refine the book, for which I will be eternally thankful.
I am much indebted to the guidance and dedication of my agent, Dan Green.
It has been a genuine pleasure to work with the remarkable staff at Oxford
University Press: Mariah White, Joellyn Ausanka, and especially my copyed-
itor, Sue Warga, for her meticulous scrutiny of the text. George Chakvetadze
did a splendid job designing maps for this book. I would also like to thank
anonymous readers who provided valuable criticism that made the book
much stronger.
Over the years I have been privileged to get to know and work with a remark-
able group of scholars: Katherine Aaslestad, Frederick Black, Jeremy Black, Rafe
Blaufarb, Michael Bonura, Alexander Burns, Sam Cavell, Philip Cuccia, Brian
DeToy, Charles Esdaile, Karen Greene (Reid), Wolf Gruner, Wayne Hanley,
Doina Harsanyi, Christine Haynes, Jordan Hayworth, Marc H. Lerner, Dominic
Lieven, Darrin McMahon, Kevin D. McCranie, Rory Muir, Jason Musteen, Erwin
Muilwijk, Ciro Paoletti, Christy Pichichero, Andrew Roberts, John Severn,
Geoffrey Wawro, and Martijn Wink. I have learned much from them and am
grateful to each of them for their continued support and encouragement. I have
benefited immensely from the expertise and astute judgment of Alexander Grab,
Sam Mustafa, Bruno Colson, Marco Cabrera Geserick, Michael Neiberg,
Virginia H. Aksan, Jonathan Abel, Mark Gerges, John H. Gill, and Morten
Nordhagen Ottosen, who have taken time from their busy schedules to read parts
of this manuscript and provide invaluable feedback. Nathaniel Jarrett generously
shared a treasure trove of documents that he has mined in the British archives;
Heidrun Riedl helped me research Austrian war efforts at the Kriegsarchiv
in Vienna. I will miss wonderful discussions about the impact of the Napoleonic
Wars on the Middle East with the late Jack Sigler, a Foreign Service officer who
had spent decades serving in the region and generously shared his knowledge and
experience with me. Much of what I know about French naval history is the result
of my close friendship with Kenneth Johnson, which started back in graduate
school when we were still dreamers riding around in a 1976 Buick LeSabre,
a genuine warship on wheels.
Away from the United States, I am thankful to Huw Davies for an oppor-
tunity to discuss this project at the international conference “Waterloo: The
Battle That Forged a Century” at King’s College London in 2013. Two years
xxii | a cknowledgments

later Peter Hicks extended a similar invitation to a symposium at the Fondation


Napoléon in Paris. Through the years Thierry Lentz, François Houdecek and
Pierre Branda, of the Fondation Napoléon, have generously shared their time
to discuss with me aspects of the Napoleonic history; I still hope to see an
English-language history of the Napoleonic Empire that can match Lentz’s
superb multivolume Nouvelle histoire du Premier Empire. I have benefited from
the help and counsel of many individuals from across Europe, among them
Yves Martin, Dimitri Khocholava, and Jovita Suslonova in France; Nika
Khoperia, Beka Kobakhidze, Shalva Lazariashvili, Paata Buchukuri, and
George Zabakhidze in Georgia; Ciro Paoletti in Italy; Alexander Tchudinov,
Dimitri Gorchkoff, and Vladimir Zemtsov in Russia; Michael Bregnsbo in
Denmark; and Alan Forest and Jonathan North in Great Britain. The Napoleon
Series project, where I have been involved for many years, remains an
immensely useful place for discussion and exchange of ideas. I owe a great
debt to many its members but especially to Robert Burnham, Tom Holmberg,
and Steven Smith.
I have benefited in too many ways to mention from the wonderful atmos-
phere provided at Louisiana State University–Shreveport by my colleagues,
especially Gary J. Joiner, Cheryl White, Helen Wise, Helen Taylor, John
Vassar, Blake Dunnavent, and the late Bernadette Palombo. My sincerest
thanks go to Larry Clark, Chancellor of LSUS, and Laura Perdue, Executive
Director of LSUS Foundation, for their continued support and encourage-
ment. This book has improved greatly from the discussions I have had with
students in my French Revolution and the Age of Napoleon courses, espe-
cially Ben Haines, Autumn Cuddy, Ethan Puckett, Art Edwards, Zachary
Favrot, Mitchell Williams, Douglas Smith, and Aaron Kadkhodai.
At the Noel Foundation, I am indebted to Robert Leitz, Shelby Smith,
Delton Smith, Gilbert Shanley, Merritt B. Chastain Jr., Steven Walker, Laura
McLemore, Stacy Williams, Dick Bremer and Richard Lamb for their big-
hearted support, which allowed me to undertake research trips to European
archives and to acquire many titles for the growing Napoleonic collection at
the James Smith Noel Collection. Similarly, I am appreciative of the Patten
family, whose endowment of the Sybil T. and J. Frederick Patten Professorship
helped me conduct research in the French diplomatic archives. Beyond the
confines of academia, I have discussed the Napoleonic Wars with more people
than I can remember but I owe a particular debt for the advice and encourage-
ment to Martha Lawler, Janie Richardson, Jerard R. Martin, Sara Herrington,
Ernest Blakeney, Ray Branton, Dmitry and Svitlana Ostanin, and Mikhail
and Nataly Khoretonenko. Needless to say, despite all this support, I alone
bear the responsibility for any mistakes that remain in this book.
acknowledgments | xxiii

The book would not have been done were it not for the loving support and
care of my wife, Anna Kankia, who has stoically endured all my absences,
travels and obsessions. I dedicate this work to her with these words from
Catullus 51: Nam simul te aspexi, nihil est super mi. These words are as true
today as they were twenty years ago when we first met.
Alexander Mikaberidze
Shreveport, Louisiana
August 15, 2019 (Napoleon’s 250th birthday)
Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain
(19th-century German gravure, The
James S. Noel Collection).

The Spanish royal family, with King Charles IV and Queen Maria Louisa (19th-century
Spanish gravure, The James S. Noel Collection).
Napoleon and his retinue during the Russian campaign (19th-century French print, author’s
collection).

Mehmed Ali, who took advantage of the turmoil unleashed by the Napoleonic Wars to seize
power in Egypt (Portrait by Louis-Charles-Auguste Couder).
King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia. A reserved and quiet man, he steered a careful
political course in the wake of Prussian defeat in 1806 (19th-century German gravure, The
James S. Noel Collection).

Simon Bolivar (19th-century Spanish print, The James S. Noel Collection). Nicknamed “The
Liberator,” he fought long and hard for the independence of Spanish colonies.
Admiral Edward Pellew, 1st
Viscount Exmouth (Portrait by
James Northcote, National
Portrait Gallery, London). As
commander-in-chief of the East
Indies Station, he spent four
years fighting the French in the
Indian Ocean. His son,
Fleetwood Pellew, was in
command of the frigate HMS
Phaeton that was involved in a
raid on Nagasaki in 1808.

Thomas Jefferson (19th-century American print, Author’s collection). As the third president
of the United States, Jefferson defended the nation’s interests during the Napoleonic Wars,
authorizing the first use of the American military force overseas, sanctioning the Louisiana
Purchase and implementing the Embargo Act of 1807.
Emperor Francis I of Austria (19th-century German gravure, The James S. Noel Collection).

Sultan Selim III of the Ottoman Empire


(Portrait by Joseph Warnia-Zarzecki, Pera
Museum). A reform-minded ruler, he could not
avoid getting embroiled in the Napoleonic
Wars and was ultimately overthrown in a coup.
Gilbert Elliot-Murray-Kynynmound, 1st Earl of Minto (Portrait by James Atkinson,
National Portrait Gallery, London). He served as the Governor General of the British East
India Company in 1807–1813, the height of the Napoleonic Wars.

Fath Ali Shah of Iran (Portrait attributed to


Mihr Ali, Louvre-Lens Museum, France).
The Napoleonic Wars had a profound
impact on his reign he sought to contain
Russian imperial ambitions through
alliances with France and Britain.
William Pitt, the Younger. His tenure as
a prime minister of Britain was domi-
nated by the French Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Wars (19th-century British
gravure, The James S. Noel Collection).

Richard Colley Wellesley, 1st Marquess Wellesley, the Governor General of the British East
India Company (Portrait by Thomas Lawrence, Government Art Collection, Great Britain).
He “found the East India Company a trading body, but left it an imperial power.”
Admiral James Saumarez, 1st Baron de
Saumarez (Portrait by Edwin Williams). He
played an important role in protecting
British interests in the Baltic region during
the Napoleonic Wars.

“The March on Paris”—Gebhard Leberchet von Blucher, nicknamed Marschall Vorwärts


(“Marshal Forward”), urging his men forward as they march toward the French borders
(19th-century German print, The James S. Noel Collection).
Iranian Envoy Mirza Mohammed Reza-Qazvini meeting with Napoleon I at the Finckenstein
Palace to negotiate a Franco-Iranian alliance in April 1807 (19th-century gravure based on
painting by François Mulard, The James S. Noel Collection).

“The Turkey in Danger,” declared this British caricature in May 1806. With Austria crushed,
France and Russia are preparing to carve up a “turkey” while the British sailor, proudly
wearing the “Trafalgar” and “Nile” ribbons in his hat, tries to stop them (Author’s collection).
The Battle of Grand Port was one of the worst defeats of the British Royal Navy during the
Napoleonic Wars. This painting by Pierre-Julien Gilbert shows HMS Iphigenia striking her
colors and HMS Magicienne and HMS Sirius being scuttled by fire, while HMS Nereide is
about to surrender to the French. Just four months later, the British returned with
vengeance, defeating the French and capturing the Isle de France (Musée national de la
Marine, Paris).

French troops repelling one of the Mamluk charges during battle of the Pyramids (Painting
by Paul Dominique Philippoteaux). The French invasion had shattered the Mamluk power in
Egypt and had caused major geopolitical repercussions for the rest of the Middle East.
Napoleon accepting the surrender of Madrid in the fall of 1808 (19th-century lithography
based on the painting by Antoine-Jean Gros, The James S. Noel Collection). The French
invasion marked a turning point not just for Spain but, more crucially, the vast empire it
controlled in the Americas.

King Louis XVIII hastily departing the royal palace in March 1815 (19th-century lithogra-
phy based on the painting by Antoine-Jean Gros, The James S. Noel Collection). Just hours
later, Napoleon reclaimed his crown, completing one of the most daring and improbable
invasions in history.
The Waterloo heroes assembled at Apsley House in London (19th-century British print,
Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection).

A British attack on Buenos Aires, as seen by Madrid Martinez in 1807 (Casa Rosada
Museum).
Probably one of the most recognizable Napoleonic print, this caricature by James Gillray
shows Napoleon and British Prime Minister William Pitt carving up the world. The
diminutive Napoleon, rising from his seat in order to reach the table, slices off Europe while
Pitt carves half a globe and a large slice of ocean, illustrating the respective areas of power in
the ongoing war between Britain and France (Author’s collection).

Napoleon as “der Universalmonarch.” Josiah Boydell’s caricature, published in 1813, shows


Napoleon sitting on a heap of human skulls while his feet rest on a pile of diplomatic documents.
Marshal Alexander Berthier is kneeling before him in adoration while a court official on the right
pours from a ewer marked “Tears” into a cup. Next to Napoleon, a Folly personified flings awards
to soldiers as cities are burning in the distance. In the foreground are sacks inscribed “Hessian
treasure,” “Austrian contributions,” “Domain monies,” etc. In the sky, the eagles of Prussia,
Austria, and Russia are hurling their thunderbolts at Napoleon (Author’s collection).
One of the most iconic moments of the Napoleonic Era: the meeting of Emperors Napoleon
and Alexander on the raft on the Nieman River in 1807. Tilsit marked the high-tide of
Napoleon’s power in Europe (19th-century French print, The James S. Noel Collection).

Napoleon entering Berlin at the head of his Grande Armée in the wake of Prussia’s
­catastrophic defeat in 1806 (Painting by Charles Meynier).
The Battle of New Orleans, one of the decisive moments of the War of 1812, took place after the signing of Anglo-American peace but before the news
could reach the United States. The battle featured many veteran British troops from the Peninsular War, including Major General Edward Pakenham (on
the left) who was mortally wounded. (Print by John Landis, 1840, Anne S. K. Brown Military Collection).
One of the most famous naval battles in history, Trafalgar was a decisive British victory over the Franco-Spanish fleet that confirmed the naval supremacy of
Britain. However, contrary to popular perceptions, the French naval power did not end there. Over the next nine years, Britain had much to fear from France
when it came to command of the sea. (Painting by Clarkson Stanfield).
The Napoleonic Wars
60° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30°
eridian

S W E D E N Helsingfors
Abo St. Petersburg
Prime M

Boundary of the Christiania


Stockholm Revel
Holy Roman Empire
DENMARK -
RUSSIAN
0 100 200 Kilometers EMPIRE

a
NORWAY
North

Se
0 100 200 Miles
Edinburgh Sea

ic
lt Vilna
Copenhagen Ba Königsberg

Dublin GREAT Hamburg


Danzig
PRUSSIA
BRITAIN Stettin
POLAND
Vis
(in union with Hanover) HANOVER tul Warsaw
50° a
NETHERLAMDS Berlin
London
Rhi

AUSTRIAN SAXONY
ne

NETHERLANDS Aachen
Frankfurt GALICIA Dn
Prague iest
Paris er
IR E
BAVARIA
Vienna E MP Jassy
R G Buda
SBU
Munich
ATLANTIC B
MOLDAVIA
OCEAN
FRANCE SWITZERLAND HA HUNGARY
Geneva
WALLACHIA
PIEDMONT Milan V E N
Bordeaux Turin Venice ET Bucharest
I Belgrade
Coruna Genoa Danube Varna
Toulouse
A

Florence A d TT Nish
N

Bilbao
O

r
TUSCANY PAPAL i a t i OM
Marseille STATES c S Ragusa AN Constantinople
40° Oporto
Corsica ea E MP IR
PORTUGAL Barcelona Rome E
Madrid
Taranto
Lisbon SPAIN
Naples Janina Aegean
Valencia Sea
KINGDOM OF NAPLES
Cordoba Balearic Is.
RE

Palermo Athens
d i t e r
P

Cartagena e r
M a B
U

Gibraltar n Sicily L
e IC
(British) Algiers a
Tunis n S e a Crete

Map 1: Europe in 1789


chapter 1 The Revolutionary Prelude

O n February 17, 1792, British prime minister William Pitt (the


Younger) delivered his regular budget speech in the House of
Commons. Discussing Britain’s circumstances, Pitt uttered the famous proph-
ecy that while the country’s prosperity was not ensured, “there never was a
time in the history of this country, when, from the situation of Europe, we
might more reasonably expect fifteen years of peace than we may at the
present moment.”1 Two months later began a war that dragged Britain into
a two-decade-long quagmire.
Reading Pitt’s speech, one cannot but wonder how the prime minister
could have been so wrong and why, instead of fifteen years of peace, Britain
experienced twenty-three years of war. The role of the French Revolution can
hardly be overestimated. The revolutionary decade ushered in by the events
of 1789 brought institutional, social, economic, cultural, and political trans-
formation to France and served equally as a source of inspiration and as a
source of abhorrence across Europe and beyond. The wars it inspired, which
are generally seen as lasting from 1792 to 1802, were the first general
European war since the Seven Years’ War a half century earlier. Revolutionary
ideals and institutions were spread by force and by emulation, and the lan-
guage and practices to which they gave rise have helped to forge modern
political culture.

Discussion of the origins of the French Revolution involves a paradox. Both


participants and later commentators recognized it as a global event, yet
almost none of them sought global causes for it. Indeed, much of the existing
scholarship on it falls into the category of “internalism,” which operates on
4 | the napoleonic wars

the premise that France’s domestic circumstances provide the only relevant
frame of reference for the revolutionary events. The traditional narrative of
the Revolutionary Wars follow a specific pattern: it starts around 1792 and
focuses on events in western Europe, including France’s efforts to safeguard
its revolution from neighboring monarchies, which, one by one, were even-
tually forced to accept peace with the French. But such an approach offers too
narrow a perspective and ignores a number of important developments in
other parts of the world, developments that were made possible by France’s
political and military vulnerability. The Revolution and the Revolutionary
Wars took place amid existing political tensions that exposed the weakness
of French power and in turn encouraged the imperial ambitions of European
powers elsewhere in the world. Indeed, events in eastern and southeastern
Europe, the Pacific Northeast, and the Caribbean had important conse-
quences for international politics and the situation back in Europe on the
eve of the Revolution.
In the last few decades two different approaches have emerged in consid-
ering the French Revolution in a broader context. Following the paths of
Robert R. Palmer and Jacques Godechot, historians began to focus on the
shared experiences and connections within the Atlantic world, exploring the
circulation of ideas, people, and goods around the Atlantic Ocean.2 More
recently this “Atlantic model” underwent a significant transformation to
account for the global nature of eighteenth-century commerce, finance, and
colonization. This new model operates within a far wider geographic frame
and describes the period between 1770 and 1830 as an era of “Imperial
Revolutions”—rather than the “Age of Democratic Revolution,” as Palmer
famously put it—that were precipitated by colonial competition and warfare
waged by the colonizing European nations.3
Irrespective of which model one chooses, one thing remains clear: the
Revolution was precipitated by a host of complex political, financial, intel-
lectual, and social problems, many of them with origins outside France itself.
Among the most crucial developments were the establishment of ocean trade
linkages between Asia, Africa, Europe, and the Americas in the sixteenth
century and the emergence of worldwide commercial circuits in the seven-
teenth. Both occurred within the context of fierce European competition for
diplomatic, military, and economic hegemony. By the mid-eighteenth cen-
tury, participation in the fast-developing global economy was of paramount
importance to rival European powers, which sought access to and control
over transcontinental commerce by building formidable fleets, chartering
trading companies, fostering colonial expansion overseas, and engaging in
the transatlantic slave trade.4 Despite political and military setbacks suffered
The Revolutionary Prelude | 5

during the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763), France not only retained its share
in the Atlantic slave trade and Indian Ocean commerce during the 1760s and
1770s but considerably increased it. The French slave trade reached its height
on the eve of the Revolution, with the French transporting more than
283,897 slaves between 1781 and 1790, compared to 277,276 slaves for the
British and 254,899 for the Portuguese.5 Between 1787 and 1792 the largest
share of vessels sailing around the Cape of Good Hope to India belonged not
to Britain but to France.6 Despite the setback of the Seven Years’ War, the
French continued to possess a veritable commercial empire, one that resided
on the American, Indian Ocean, and African networks and was sustained by
a banking system that rapidly assumed global dimensions to accommodate
the rising volume of international trade.7
This proved to be a double-edged sword. France depended on Spanish
silver, which was imported in large quantities to satisfy the demands of the
French mints and, in turn, to sustain the entire fiscal-political system in place
at the time.8 But developments threatened its continuing access to this bul-
lion. In the 1780s the newly established Spanish Banco Nacional put in place
tighter controls over currency exports in order to maintain Spain’s position in
international markets, and the Spanish government began to reconsider
France’s long-standing most-favored-nation trade status. This in turn affected
French manufacturing, which faced higher import duties and stiffer competi-
tion from European rivals.9 The signing of the Anglo-French commercial
treaty of 1786, which called for a mutual lowering of import duties, also
proved damaging to the French economy, as it allowed British textiles and
industrial goods to enter the French market, causing considerable damage to
the country’s manufacturing.10
The French trade in India left much to be desired. The vessels sailing to
India were, on average, smaller than those of their competitors. Unlike the
British East India Company, which brought home goods with a value of at
least three times the amount of specie shipped to India, the French balance
of trade barely broke even. More broadly, between 1785 and 1789 the French
East India Company exported some 58 million livres’ worth of goods and
specie and imported only 50 million livres’ worth.11 Imported goods posed
additional challenges, and the French monarchy’s efforts to establish a tobacco
monopoly and to protect its textile industry from Asian cloth imports actu-
ally contributed to the growth of an underground economy that soon assumed
vast dimensions and had important political implications.12 To suppress
this parallel shadow economy, the French had to introduce institutional
changes, including expanding the General Farm, a private financial company
that, beginning in 1726, leased the right to collect indirect taxes (on tobacco,
6 | the napoleonic wars

salt, beer, wine, and a variety of other goods) in exchange for advancing enor-
mous loans to the French crown.13 By the late eighteenth century, the General
Farm maintained a veritable army of some twenty thousand agents, assisted
by a reorganized criminal justice commission (funded by the Farm) that dealt
harshly with contraband cases, especially those involving salt and tobacco.
Efforts to suppress this parallel economy resulted in the prosecution of tens
of thousands of people and the expansion of the French penitentiary system.14
Recent scholarship demonstrates that the vast majority (some 65 percent) of
tax rebellions, the most common form of French protest in the eighteenth
century, were caused by the government’s efforts to suppress contraband.15
The ongoing contraband rebellion exerted considerable pressure on a state
already troubled by its inability to balance income and expenses. French
monarchs presided over an elaborate welfare system that maintained roads,
undertook public works, and provided justice, education, and medical ser-
vices, all of which required substantial expenditures. The royal court further
drained considerable sums as the king underwrote the expenses of courtiers
and granted lavish awards and pensions. To make up for its inadequate
sources of revenue, the king sold government posts, which reduced their effi-
ciency and created independent (and usually venal) officeholders who could
not be easily removed.16
Furthermore, to maintain their position relative to other states, especially
during the long rivalry with Britain, the Bourbons incurred increasingly
high expenses that lay a heavy burden on the economy. France remained on a
permanent war footing for much of the eighteenth century. This dramatically
increased military expenditures whether the country was at peace or war.
In 1694 (a year of war), they amounted to some 125 million livres. In 1788
(a year of peace), they were 145 million livres. On the eve of the Revolution,
more than half of the French budget, some 310 million livres, went to cover
interest on the money borrowed during the previous century of wars. Between
1665 and 1789, France was at war for fifty-four years, or almost one year out
of every two. The wars of King Louis XIV (r. 1643–1715), especially the War
of the Spanish Succession (1701–1714), which produced no tangible gains,
significantly weakened the French economy, leaving the state with debts esti-
mated at 2 billion livres.17 These economic problems were exacerbated by a
series of costly wars waged after 1733. The defeat in the Seven Years’ War
(1756–1763), which cost a total of 1.2 billion livres and saw France lose
many of its colonial possessions in Canada, India, and the Caribbean to the
British, had a profound economic impact on the kingdom and helped set in
motion events that ultimately led to the revolutions on both sides of the
Atlantic.18 Though inheriting a financially and militarily weakened realm,
The Revolutionary Prelude | 7

King Louis XVI (r. 1774–1792) went on to intervene in North America,


where French expeditionary forces played an important role in helping the
American colonies secure independence from Britain in 1783. However,
this success required a great deal of investment and delivered no tangible
rewards that could have rectified France’s dire financial condition.19 To the
contrary, participation in the American Revolution resulted in France bor-
rowing more than 1 billion livres, which drove the government to the brink
of bankruptcy.20
France’s wars were only partly financed by taxes due to inherent problems
with tax collection (a rather slow and tangled process) and a system of privi-
leges that saw the wealthiest groups largely exempt from paying them. In
fact, the money sustaining French colonial ambitions had its origins in global
finance. Throughout the eighteenth century France found itself increasingly
dependent on an international capital market on which it could borrow vast
sums from foreign creditors. Yet unlike Britain and the Dutch Republic,
which had more transparent management of public debt, France’s byzantine
financial accounting meant that it was forced to borrow at an interest rate of
4.8 to 6.5 percent, compared to just 2.5 percent for the Dutch or 3.0 to 3.5
percent for the British.21 Furthermore, starting in 1694, the British managed
their debt through the Bank of England—investors bought stock in the
bank, which in turn provided loans to the government. France had a publicly
funded debt too, but it was not managed or guaranteed by a national bank
(which was only established in 1804), and the French monarchy’s long his-
tory of financial difficulties and partial defaults was one reason interest rates
on its loans were higher than the market rate.22 The growth in international
trade and capital markets proved too great a temptation for the French mon-
archy, which in the late 1780s encouraged speculative investment in its credit
instruments, including the disastrous speculation on the value of the newly rees-
tablished French East India Company, which ended up costing the government
more than 20 million livres.23
France might have managed these financial strains if not for the govern-
ment’s inability to implement much-needed reforms. Any change to the sta-
tus quo implied an attack on those with tax exemptions, particularly the
clergy and nobility, and on trade guilds, municipal corporations, and provin-
cial estates, which had some role in allocating the tax burden in the lands
under their authority. Furthermore, the French kings, although popularly
envisioned as absolutist monarchs, were in reality far from exercising unlim-
ited authority and were obliged to rule according to laws and customs devel-
oped over the ages. In this respect, the provincial Estates General and royal
courts of appeal—the thirteen parlements—represented an important check
8 | the napoleonic wars

on royal authority.24 Although nominally royal courts, the parlements were, in


essence, independent bodies, given that their members purchased their seats
from the monarchy. The parlements, especially the powerful Parlement of
Paris, emerged as a potent check to the crown, claiming the right to review
and approve all royal laws to ensure that they conformed to the traditional
laws of the kingdom. In the absence of representative institutions, the parle-
ments (though representing the nobility and protecting its interests) claimed
to defend the interests of the entire nation against arbitrary royal authority,
and to the public they represented the last barrier against the “despotic” ten-
dencies of the monarchy.25 Thus, in the final decades of the Old Regime, the
French state had to contend with two kinds of “pre-revolutions”: a plebeian
one involving pervasive and intractable contraband rebellion, and its elite
counterpart, which sought to limit royal authority.
The prevalent social organization in most European countries was one of
orders that were arranged in a religiously sanctioned and legally determined
hierarchy. The groups, and the individuals who belonged to them, were
explicitly unequal in their status, rights, and obligations. France represented
a classical form of this hierarchy, in which one’s function defined one’s place.
At its simplest, this corporate society consisted of three orders, or estates,
that corresponded to the medieval notion that some prayed, some fought,
and the rest farmed or worked in some other capacity. The First Estate con-
sisted of the clergy, who were subject to their own church court system and
were entitled to collect tithes. Over the course of hundreds of years, the
Catholic church had become a wealthy institution, owning large tracts of
land and real estate; in some cases, such as the Electorate of Bavaria (in south-
eastern Germany), the church was the largest landlord. In parts of central
Europe, bishops and abbots were simultaneously secular princes, presiding
over both a diocese and secular government. While bishops and abbots
enjoyed a relatively lavish lifestyle, the parish clergy lived much more mod-
estly, often in poverty.
The Second Estate consisted of the nobility, whose status granted it the
right to collect taxes from the peasantry and to enjoy many privileges, includ-
ing exemptions from most if not all forms of direct taxation. Furthermore,
top positions in the church, army, and royal administration were traditionally
limited to nobles. They were the largest landowners in most European coun-
tries, and in parts of eastern Europe they generally possessed people (serfs) as
well as land. The nobility was not a monolithic bloc, however, and most
nobles in the ancien régime would have struggled to demonstrate the antiq-
uity of their titles. Indeed, few families could trace them through multiple
generations. Alongside the grand nobles who monopolized court positions
The Revolutionary Prelude | 9

and enjoyed enormous wealth, there was the vast multitude of the lesser
nobility, such as the noblesse de robe and the noblesse de cloche, which had titles
by virtue of holding certain government or municipal positions, and the
noblesse militaire, which earned its titles through military service. In France,
there was considerable flexibility in entering the ranks of the nobility since
the government sold certain government offices that conferred titles.
The top two estates thus enjoyed most of the privileges, and they per-
ceived government reforms as a threat to their respective positions. In France,
among the sharpest opponents of reform were many members of the tradi-
tional nobility who had fallen on hard times and clung anxiously to any and
all privileges as a way of maintaining their status.26
The Third Estate consisted of unprivileged commoners, which repre-
sented the vast majority of the population. It was a loose group, lacking com-
mon interests, since it included the wealthiest bourgeoisie, who mixed easily
with the nobility, as well as the poorest peasants. In France, the number of
wealthy commoners (merchants, manufacturers, and professionals), often
called the “bourgeoisie,” grew significantly in the eighteenth century, and
merchants in Bordeaux, Marseille, and Nantes exploited overseas trade with
colonies in the Caribbean and the Indian Ocean to reap sometimes tremen-
dous profits. These wealthy commoners were, naturally, dissatisfied with the
social and political system in France, which placed a heavy tax burden on
their shoulders yet failed to provide them with proper representation in
government.
The role of the bourgeoisie at the start of the French Revolution has been
hotly debated through the years and provides the basis for the so-called bour-
geois revolution thesis, which views revolutionary upheaval as the inevitable
result of the commoners’ struggle for class equality. Recent historical research
has downplayed such an explanation, since the boundary between the nobil-
ity and the wealthy bourgeoisie was fluid and the classes had common inter-
ests. As has been mentioned, the French nobility was not a closed caste and
was constantly renewed with the infusion of “new blood” from below. As the
British historian William Doyle points out, the nobility was “an open elite,”
and remained so throughout the eighteenth century.27 Similarly, some argue
that the bourgeoisie aspired to noble status, and many nobles were involved
in business enterprises (mining, textiles, overseas trading, etc.) that tradi-
tionally have been considered the province of the bourgeoisie. These nobles
abandoned traditional aristocratic disdain for commerce and business and
gradually acquired the capitalist mentality associated with the middle class.
In fact, by 1789, this line of thought runs, the line between aristocracy and
prosperous bourgeoisie was no longer clearly marked, and the destruction
10 | the napoleonic wars

of the aristocracy and its privileges, which was accomplished in the opening
stage of the Revolution, was not part of a preconceived bourgeois program.
Instead, it was an improvised response to the violent turmoil (known as the
Great Fear) that spread throughout the countryside in July and August 1789.
Of the groups constituting the Third Estate, the peasantry was the largest
and yet the least empowered. Unlike their brethren in eastern or central
Europe, the majority of French peasants enjoyed legal freedoms, and some
even owned land, but most rented land from local seigneurs or bourgeois
landowners. Rural conditions differed depending on the region, and such dif-
ferences later influenced peasants’ reactions to revolutionary events. In gen-
eral, the peasantry had to perform the corvée (labor service), tithe, pay royal
taxes, and bear the numerous seigneurial rights and dues owed to their land-
lords, who included both nobles and wealthy non-nobles. By the late eight­
eenth century, the heavily taxed peasants were acutely aware of their situation
and less willing to support the antiquated and inefficient feudal system, even
as landlords sought to revive old rights that had fallen into disuse, seeking to
squeeze as much profit out of their estates as possible to redress the rising cost
of living. Such practices, however, stoked tensions in the French countryside,
which was a much more populous place than just a century earlier. The popu-
lation of France grew rapidly, from around 20 million in 1715 to 28 million
in 1789. For many, such an increase brought with it greater misery and hard-
ship, particularly during the bad harvests of the 1780s, brought about by
changing climatic conditions during the 1770s. Food production could not
keep pace with population growth, contributing to rapid inflation as prices
outstripped wages. Secular attitudes become prominent in the countryside,
and tolerance for the existing social order began to wear thin.
Revolutionary movements, one prominent French historian has observed,
require “some unifying body of ideas, a common vocabulary of hope and pro-
test, something, in short, like a common ‘revolutionary psychology.’”28 The
Enlightenment movement provided such a “unifying body of ideas,” and
the ideological origins of the French Revolution can be directly linked to the
activities of the Enlightenment philosophes, who championed radical ideas
and called for social and political reform. The intellectual arguments of the
Enlightenment had been read and discussed more widely in the educated
circles in France than anywhere else. Applying a rational approach, the phi-
losophes criticized the existing political and social system. In his Spirit of
the Laws (1748), Charles-Louis de Secondat, baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu,
provided a fresh study of politics and called for a constitutional monarchy
that would operate with a system of checks and balances between its branches.
Many philosophes participated in a monumental undertaking to produce the
The Revolutionary Prelude | 11

Encyclopédie, edited by Jean d’Alembert and Denis Diderot, which applied a


rational and critical approach to a wide range of subjects and became a best-
seller that, in part, shaped the newly emerging public opinion.
The works of Jean-Jacques Rousseau proved to be especially influential.
In The Social Contract (1762), Rousseau explained the rise of modern societies
as a result of complex social contracts between individuals, who were equal
and possessed a common interest—what he called “the general will.” If the
government failed to live up to its “contractual” obligations, Rousseau main-
tained, citizens had the right to rebel and replace it. His ideas would eventu-
ally nourish the radical democratic section of the revolutionary movement.
But Rousseau also believed that though each citizen had an equal stake in the
body politic, he who broke the laws agreed upon by the general will was no
longer a member of the state and could be treated “less as a citizen than as an
enemy”—a rather ominous idea in light of the Terror and later totalitarian
regimes.29
One of the major outcomes of the Enlightenment was the growth of pub-
lic opinion, which was formulated in an informal network of groups. In 1715
the average literacy rate in France stood at 29 percent for men and at
14 percent for women. By 1789 it was 47 percent for men and 27 percent for
women, and in Paris it may have been as high as 90 and 80 percent, respec-
tively. This expansion in literacy presented writers and publicists with the
opportunity to spread political, religious, and social concepts among a wider
audience than ever before. Above all, the very notion of a “public opinion,”
independent of church and state, to which one could appeal for legitimacy
evolved in the eighteenth century. In Paris, this public opinion manifested
itself in salons, informal regular meetings of artists, writers, nobles, and other
members of the cultural elite that became forums for discussion of a variety
of ideas. Essays and various literary works presented in these salons eventu-
ally appeared in the growing number of newspapers and journals that further
disseminated information.30
The spread of the Masonic movement, which was introduced from Britain
in the early eighteenth century, stimulated discussion as well, since it advo-
cated an ideology of equality and moral improvement, irrespective of social
rank. The spread of freethinking accelerated after 1750 and affected people
from various social groups. Cafés in Paris and other cities established reading
rooms where patrons could peruse and discuss a wide range of literature,
notably the works of the philosophes. The late eighteenth century also saw
the rapid growth of pamphleteering, which was largely directed against the
government and provided ample criticism of the royal family, particularly
12 | the napoleonic wars

the widely unpopular queen, Marie Antoinette. Some pamphleteers eventu-


ally emerged as leading revolutionary orators and journalists.
The ideas that the European philosophes espoused were not limited to
the intellectual sphere. The start of the American Revolutionary War in
the 1770s, with the subsequent Declaration of Independence and the US
Constitution, strongly influenced European opinion, demonstrating that it
was possible to create a system of self-government with elected representa-
tives and without a monarch. France was particularly exposed to these ideas
since the French government actively supported the American colonies (after
1778) and contributed substantially to their ultimate victory. Parisian salons
and drawing rooms were animated by talk about North America. A number
of French officers had served there, and upon returning home they served as
an effective propaganda apparatus (together with the Americans in Paris,
such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson) to spread the word about
American experiences.31 Jefferson’s draft of the Declaration of Independence
was deeply rooted in Enlightenment thought and reflected a belief in the
universality of natural rights. This represented a break with the existing
practice of legitimizing politics by relying on divine power or on “ancient
rights and liberties,” as was the case with the English Bill of Rights in 1689.32
This universalist attitude was prevalent among French revolutionaries,
whether in 1789 or in 1793 during the Terror, who repeatedly expressed
their conviction that they were acting on a stage that transcended the bound-
aries of France and dealt with the future of mankind as a whole.

The mid-1780s witnessed the development of the French monarchy’s fiscal


crisis.33 As the ancien régime confronted its shortage of funds, it was naturally
compelled to consider the ways governments normally raised money: con-
quests, loans, and taxes. France was in no position to embark on a war of con-
quest, which required funding to mobilize and field forces, and would have
been prohibitively expensive to wage. In fact, France was struggling to protect
its interest in neighboring territories, as the Prussian intervention in the
Netherlands in 1787 revealed. Neither could France obtain any additional
loans, since foreign banks were increasingly reluctant to take on the risk. The
last option—raising taxes—thus seemed a practical choice, but the Bourbon
monarchy’s attempt to do just that met with resistance from the parlements,
which hoped to use the country’s financial predicament to restore some of the
nobility’s influence. In 1787, King Louis XVI was compelled to call the
Assembly of Notables, consisting of high-ranking nobles as well as senior
members of the royal bureaucracy and of the Provincial Estates, to support
him in facing down the parlements and proceeding with some changes. But he
The Revolutionary Prelude | 13

found little support, since even those sympathetic to reform were reluctant to
allow the monarchy free rein. Instead they called for the convocation of the
Estates General, a general assembly representing French estates of the realm,
which had not been called since 1614, to address the state’s financial predica-
ment. In 1788, bowing to mounting pressure, the king summoned the Estates
General. Louis’s decision unleashed a vociferous political debate in France, one
that eventually contributed to the outbreak of revolution.
After the Estates General convened on May 5, 1789, it became dead-
locked over the question of procedure. The first two estates, seeking to con-
trol the assembly, insisted that traditional practice stipulated that each estate
meet separately and vote as a corporate body. Such an arrangement naturally
offered great advantages to the two privileged orders (clergy and nobility),
since the Third Estate, small farmers and commoners, would always be out-
voted. The representatives of the Third Estate refused to accept such an
arrangement and instead called for a change of procedure that would have
given it greater influence. On June 17, after weeks of futile attempts to have
all three estates sit in a common assembly, the Third Estate made a revolu-
tionary move, declaring itself the National Assembly.
The persistence of the Third Estate delegates and the growing unrest in
Paris, where residents supported the National Assembly, forced the French
monarchy to yield and order the other two orders to join with the Third
Estate in the National Assembly. This was a momentous decision, one that
marked a successful challenge to the traditional political order and provided
an opening for subsequent reforms, including the drawing up of a constitu-
tion that limited the king’s power. The court’s later attempt to use army to
put down the National Assembly led to the famous storming of the Bastille
fortress in Paris on July 14, 1789, an event that had far-reaching conse-
quences since it frightened the court into withdrawing the troops. The fall of
the Bastille, a symbol of the ancien régime’s despotism, served as a powerful
inspiration for the supporters of reforms.
The reform cause was further strengthened by the peasant upheavals (the
so-called Great Fear) in late July and early August, which provided the
National Assembly with an opportunity to start the transformation process. In
August 1789 it abolished the special privileges of the nobility and the clergy,
effectively undermining the entire aristocratic structure. The Declaration of
the Rights of Man and of the Citizen embraced the universal ideals of the
Enlightenment and proclaimed inalienable rights and freedoms, including
popular sovereignty and equal treatment under the law. The Great Fear and
the effective abolition of feudalism induced sporadic emigration, particularly
among nobles, to neighboring German and Italian cities.34
14 | the napoleonic wars

The fall of 1789 witnessed the National Assembly’s assault on the First
Estate and the privileges of the Roman Catholic church, whose lands were
confiscated and put up for sale. In 1790, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy
sought to reorganize the church and transform the clergy into government
officials, who were required to take an oath to uphold the Civil Constitution.
Such treatment quickly alienated the church and devout Catholics, divided
French society, and gave opponents of the Revolution a powerful issue to rally
around. The assembly also launched far-reaching administrative and judicial
reforms that swept aside the traditional institutions of the ancien régime.
The process of transformation reached its primary goal in September 1791,
when the National Assembly adopted the first written constitution. This
document turned France into a constitutional monarchy, guaranteeing par-
liamentary government, equal treatment under the law, and careers open to
talent, while limiting suffrage on the part of propertied groups. Such changes
consolidated the rule of the bourgeoisie, which broke the power of the aris-
tocracy yet kept the common masses from asserting power.
The bourgeoisie’s desire to go no further, however, was rendered moot
by two divergent forces. On one side, a counterrevolutionary movement
driven by nobility, churchmen, and large segments of the peasantry sought to
reverse revolutionary changes. On the opposite side, a large part of the urban
population—small shopkeepers, artisans, and wage earners—was dissatisfied
with the limited nature of reforms introduced by the National Assembly.
Exasperated by economic and social hardships, they perceived the bour-
geoisie as the successor to the aristocracy as the ruling class. Whereas the
bourgeoisie sought equality of rights, basic liberties, and opportunities, the
“sans-culottes,” as the urban masses became known, called for social equality
and more far-reaching political reforms that would give the common man a
voice in the government. King Louis’s attempt to flee France (the so-called
Flight to Varennes in June 1791) to solicit foreign support against the
Revolution proved to be a major political blunder, one that turned many
against the monarchy and. strengthened the position of those who favored a
democratic republic.35

Despite its tensions, the international situation in 1789–1790 did not make
an outbreak of war inevitable. While relations between European powers
were marked by various degree of rivalry—as was the case in Holland, for
example—these powers were also preoccupied with internal affairs and
more pressing questions of their foreign policy. Thus, Austria was more
worried about the Prussian threat, unrest in Belgium, and the ongoing war
against the Turks, which brought about the near collapse of the Austrian
The Revolutionary Prelude | 15

state’s finances. For many European leaders, the French Revolution repre-
sented an opportunity, not a threat. It meant that—for a while, at least—
France could be counted out of the grand game of European politics, given
that its internal difficulties would incapacitate its foreign endeavors. Indeed,
some European statesmen simply did not see the revolutionary contagion to
be a danger. In November 1791 Wenzel Anton, prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg,
Austria’s minister of foreign affairs, submitted an official memorandum
on “the pretended dangers of contagion” of the French Revolution, while
Russian empress Catherine II argued in a memorandum in 1792 that a small
corps, with just 10,000 men, would suffice to put an end to the revolutionary
menace.36
The arrest of the Bourbon royal family following the Flight to Varennes
convinced some European monarchs that it was time to interfere in French
affairs. The thousands who had fled France and concentrated in Koblenz and
other towns along the border added fuel to the war fervor by urging European
rulers to intervene and suppress the Revolution; the revolutionaries were
naturally annoyed at the warm reception given to émigrés at some of these
courts. Threats of French action against neighboring German states that har-
bored royalist émigrés prompted Austrian emperor Leopold II, brother of
Marie Antoinette, to urge European monarchs “to restore the liberty and
honor of the [monarchy] and to limit the dangerous extremes of the revolu-
tion.”37 The only ruler who responded to Leopold’s initiative was King
Frederick William II of Prussia; Russia and Sweden were not in a position to
act, while Spain and other European states were too weak militarily. The
Prussian and Austrian monarchs then issued the Pillnitz Declaration (1791)
denouncing events in France and declaring them to be against the common
interests of all Europe. They asserted their willingness to interfere to protect
the Bourbon dynasty only if agreement was obtained from their fellow
European sovereigns. Leopold’s qualifying if—“alors et dans ce cas”—made
this declaration a largely empty gesture. A pan-European agreement among
rulers was impossible because of existing disagreements, and both Leopold
and Frederick William II knew that only too well.38
Yet whatever its authors’ intentions, the language of this declaration was
provocative and contributed to the growing war temper. In France, the king,
for one, welcomed the prospect of war. He anticipated that the French armies
would suffer defeats and that his disillusioned countrymen would then throw
themselves into his arms and beg to be saved from the Revolution. Meanwhile,
the declaration triggered a fierce nationalist and revolutionary fury among
the patriots, propelling them to action. Some revolutionaries portrayed the
declaration as an unmitigated threat by foreign powers to intervene and crush
16 | the napoleonic wars

the revolutionary process in France.39 Fired up by revolutionary enthusiasm,


the Legislative Assembly, the lawmaking body that replaced the National
Assembly in October 1791, debated the extent of France’s response. Some
deputies called for an immediate war against Austria, which was harboring
many of the émigrés and threatening to invade. They also saw war as a means
of uniting the country behind them, and regarded themselves as crusaders
against tyranny, desiring to spread revolutionary ideals to other lands as
well.40 “A people who, after ten centuries of slavery, have re-conquered lib-
erty, have need of war. War is necessary to consolidate liberty,” thundered
Jacques-Pierre Brissot, one of the revolutionary leaders.41 In December 1791
the newspaper Le patriote français reported a speech by Anacharsis Cloots, a
wealthy Prussian nobleman who had left his homeland to dive passionately
into the revolutionary turmoil, in which he urged the Legislative Assembly
to adopt war, as it “would renew the face of the world and plant the standard
of liberty over the palaces of kings, the harems of Sultans, the chateaux of
petty feudal tyrants, the temples of popes and muftis.”42 Young, patriotic,
and idealistic, the revolutionaries believed in full sincerity that France faced
an immense foreign conspiracy that could be dismantled only through the
means of war. Many revolutionaries shared Brissot’s view that the “enslaved”
multitudes of other nations would rise up in arms to welcome the French
liberators.43
As much as European powers might have been concerned about revolu-
tionary upheaval, the declarations of war did not come from them. Instead,
following a ten-day debate, the deputies of the Legislative Assembly voted in
favor of sending an ultimatum to Austria, demanding formal assurances of
peaceful intentions and renunciation of all agreements directed against
France. These demands meant war, for Austria had no intention of accepting
any of them, especially after Emperor Leopold passed away on March 1, 1792,
and was replaced by his more combative brother Francis II. With no response
forthcoming from Austria, on April 20 the Legislative Assembly declared
war on Austria (soon followed by declarations against Prussia and Holland).
It was, the assembly declared, a “just defense of a free people against the
unjust aggression of a king.” There would be no conquests, the declaration
said, and French forces would never be used against the liberty of another
people.44
When discussing the French Revolutionary Wars, heavy emphasis has
been placed on the changing nature of military conflict. In reality, the armies
involved still utilized eighteenth-century technology and weaponry, while
tactical and strategic developments that are often thought of as French
“breakthroughs” were in fact far less innovative than commonly perceived.
The Revolutionary Prelude | 17

As historian Peter Paret has noted, the turmoil in France coincided with
a “revolution in war” that had started earlier, but now the two “meshed.”45
Indeed, the army was in many respects the beneficiary of the traumatic shock
that France experienced in the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763). That defeat
had prompted the army to reform and innovate, and it placed reformers such
as Jean-Baptiste Vaquette, comte de Gribeauval, and Jacques Antoine
Hippolyte, comte de Guibert, at the vanguard of the military change.46 Many
reforms introduced in the French army during the Revolution had their
origins in the pre-1789 army.
Yet the French Revolutionary Wars did mark a new turn in warfare. For
the first time in European history the conflict unleashed ideological forces
whose power and appeal called into question the very notions that under-
pinned the European political and social system. The French revolutionary
armies carried with them the abstract notions of “nation,” “people,” “equal-
ity,” and “freedom” that directly challenged the existing monarchical regimes
based on privilege and inequality. Wars that had been the affairs of kings
were now the affairs of nations. “The tremendous effects of the French
Revolution abroad,” commented Karl von Clausewitz, “were not caused so
much by new military methods and concepts as by radical changes in policies
and administration, by the new character of government, the altered condi-
tions of the French people.” Unlike earlier conflicts, the wars turned “the
people” into active participants, throwing “the full weight of the nation” into
the balance.47 They also engendered remarkable popular enthusiasm and a
scale of mobilization that other states were compelled to match.48
The almost continuous fighting between 1792 and 1815 witnessed
national resources engaged and expended to an unprecedented degree, mak-
ing possible the continuation and expansion of the conflicts. Threat to exist-
ing power structures formed the social backdrop of the revolutionary ideology
of this conflict. In the occupied territories, the French usually pursued what
we now call “regime change,” with far-reaching political, economic, social,
and cultural consequences. The revolutionaries convinced themselves that
the Revolution would be welcome with open arms across Europe. If European
monarchies tried to launch a “war of kings,” asserted one revolutionary, “we
shall raise a war of peoples . . . who will embrace each other in the face of their
dethroned tyrants.” Humanity would doubtless suffer in the impending con-
flict, but it was a price the revolutionaries were ready to pay to bring liberty
to the entire world.49
chapter 2
The Eighteenth-Century
International Order

W hen the Legislative Assembly voted to declare war, it acted in


expectation of a short conflict from which it would emerge trium-
phant. In the event, this initial conflict between France and Austria turned
out to be the first stage of a twenty-three-year conflagration that engulfed all
of the European states and expanded overseas to the Americas, Caribbean,
Africa, and Asia. It is wrong to attribute the global expansion of European
squabbles to the French Revolutionary Wars alone, since the process can be
traced to earlier centuries. But political turmoil in Europe between 1792 and
1815 certainly provided some European states with greater freedom of action
to pursue their expansionist policies while depriving their historical rivals of
the resources and political will needed to challenge them.
The French Revolutionary Wars must therefore be considered within the
context of contemporary international politics, given that existing state
rivalries played a critical role in shaping both the short-term calculations and
long-term assumptions of individual states. During the first few years of the
Revolution, the response of European monarchies was shaped not as much by
the threat of revolutionary ideology as by what was made possible by France
in turmoil.
The eighteenth century was in general a period of major transformation in
the international order, and the system of international relations it estab-
lished survived until the start of World War I.1 At the heart of this transfor-
mation lay the balance of power maintained by a select group of states.2 Early
modern Europe was a rather contentious part of the world, one in which
states constantly clashed with one another and repeatedly sought to achieve
political equilibrium by forming successive coalitions, mainly to restrain the
180° 170° 160° 150° 140° 130° 120° 110° 100° 90° 80° 70° 60° 50° 40° 30° 20° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40° 50° 60° 70° 80° 90° 100° 110° 120° 130° 140° 150° 160° 170° 180°

The World in Late 18th Century


80°

ARTIC OCEAN
T
70° I Greenland
U
N

AY
I Iceland
T CHUKCHI
UI

RW
IN S i b e r i a
SWEDEN

NO
Alaska A
60° SK
KA St. Petersburg
NETHERLANDS
RUPERT’S LAND Moscow

Ro
(Hudson Bay Company) DENMARK
IRELAND
PRUSSIA
BRITAIN Berlin

cky
50° London Kiev
Paris Vienna KAZAKHS

NGIT
ADA NEWFOUNDLAND
CAN FRANCE AUSTRIA
Great Québec St. Pierre
UTE

TLI
Lakes Montréal NOVA and Miquelon
SCOTIA PAPAL
STATES Black Sea KHIVA Gobi Desert
Boston Rome GEORGIA KOKAND
40° PORTUGAL SPAIN Minorca NAPLES Constantinople BUKHARA
New York Lisbon PIEDMONT-

Mountai
UNITED Azores Madrid SARDINIA Beijing
Fort Ross KOREA JAPAN
IONIAN

E
Santa Fe STATES QING

ns
Gibraltar REPUBLIC Tehran
Ceuta Edo

IR
ALGIERS EMPIRE

P
Mellila TUNIS N
VI
Bermuda Madeira IRAN AN
ISTA H
EM im
CE
30° Charleston MOROCCO GH SIKH alay
O T T O M A N Cairo AF STATES as
RO
YA New Orleans Canary Islands TRIPOLI
Gulf of EGYPT BAHRAIN Delhi CACHAR

ND
LT Bahamas
ATLANTIC NEJD

SI
Y FEZZAN MANIPUR
ST. DOMINGUE OCEAN MUGHAL MARATHA BENGAL
OFMexicoHavana
ST. DOMINGO Sahara Desert EMPIRE CONFEDERACY Calcutta
20° Puerto Arabian OMAN Macao
NE
W Rico VIRGIN ISLANDS FUTA Peninsula Bobmay
Mexico Anguilla
Belize Barbuda St. Louis TORO Bay of Rangoon
S PA
IN St. Kitts Antigua KAARTA Arabian PACIFIC
Montserrat Cape Verde Coree YEMEN Bengal SIAM VIETNAM
PACIFIC Martinique Guadeloupe Sea Manila PHILIPPINE
Dominica Islands Joal Portudal SIGU FUNJI
Bangkok OCEAN
Aruba St. Lucia Fort James Island Albreda DARFUR ISLANDS
OCEAN Barbados ETHIOPIA Pondicherry
10° St. Vincent Cacheu FUTA BORCU CAMBODIA
Grenada JALLON KINGDOMS
Trinidad And Tobago HARAR
Freetown ASANTE DYO MINDANAO
KANDY MALAY
SEIRA LEONE Whydah BENIN Nicobar
Cayenne STATES
GOLD COAST Ceylon Islands
VICEROYALY OF
NEW GRANADA Fernando Po BUGANDA
0° SAO TOME Lake
Amazon MALAY
RWANDA Victoria Mombasa
TEXE STATES
Basin KUBA
DU PAPUANS
BURUBDI (To Oman) T CH
Zanzibar Seychelles P O SS ESSI O N S New
LUBA (To Oman) Batavia Guinea
10° VICEROYALY BRAZIL PORTUGUESE
OF PERU KAZUMBE Kilwa
(To Oman) MALAY
Lima ANGOLA INDIAN TIMOR
Major city LUNDA STATES
MALAWI OCEAN
MERINA

UE
S
Holy Roman Empire La Paz KINGDOM

IQ
LAY
20°

MB
BUTUA

A
Mauritius
British Possessions Kalahari MA

OZ
Rio de Janeiro Desert Reunion AUSTRALIA

M
Magadascar
French Possessions Asunción São Paulo ABORIGINAL PEOPLES

30° NEW
German Possessions VICEROYALY OF SOUTH
RIO DE LA PLATA Lord Howe
WALES Islands
Italian Possessions Santiago CAPE COLONY (Claimed by
Cape Town Britain)
Buenos Aires Cape of Sydney
Dutch Possessions Good Hope
40° New
IS
Zealand R

V I C E R O Y A L Y O F P ER U
nia
Portuguese Possessions O
A
Qing Empire M

Patago
50° Russian Possessions
Spanish Possessions
SOUTHERN OCEAN 0 800 1600 Kilometers
United States Possessions
Cape Horn
60° Strategic trade route 0 800 1600 Miles

Map 2: The World in the Late Eighteenth Century


20 | the napoleonic wars

ambitions of the larger powers. In the seventeenth century such coalitions


were aimed at Spain and France, but these conflicts gradually changed
European politics, creating localized balances, such as the ones that emerged
between France and Austria in the Italian peninsula, among Denmark,
Sweden, and Russia in the Baltic, and among France, Prussia, and Austria in
Germany. These localized balances then gradually merged into a general
balance that extended to the entire continent.3
At the start of the century, the continental equilibrium was envisaged as
France (supported occasionally by Spain and a few German states) against
Austria (joined by Britain and the Dutch Republic). After the War of
Austrian Succession (1740–1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1756–1763),
the balance involved a greater number of powerful states and covered a far
greater geographical area. These wars established British maritime and colo-
nial dominance at the expense of France and Spain and developed a clear pat-
tern of operation: the Royal Navy, with more than double the number of
warships the French had, denied the French fleet the ability to gain crucial
experience offshore, cut them off from naval supplies, and generally locked
up French military manpower on the continent, where the British secured
alliances while establishing military and commercial supremacy overseas.
By 1789 Britain was clearly the leading commercial and colonial power in
Europe. The meteoric rise of Prussia under the leadership of King Frederick II
(r. 1740–1786) and the emergence of Russia as a great power under Empresses
Elizabeth (r. 1740–1762) and Catherine II (r. 1762–1796) shifted the center
of the European balance away from the West, where it had remained for so
long, and brought to the fore new “questions”—the “Northern Question,”
on the fate of the Baltic region and the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth,
and the “Eastern Question,” on the future of the Ottoman Empire. Traditional
great powers Austria and France, by contrast, had suffered repeated set-
backs in the conflicts and experienced significant financial and political
difficulties.4
On the eve of the French Revolution, a well-defined group of five states
had thus emerged as the “great powers,” recognized to be much stronger than
their European neighbors. Collectively, Austria, Britain, France, Prussia, and
Russia shaped European politics, using war as the arbiter once the niceties of
diplomacy had been exhausted. As one eminent historian aptly observed, “To
be predator or prey: that was the choice” in early modern Europe.5 This was
particularly relevant in central Europe, which remained fragmented into
hundreds of minor principalities, ecclesiastical cities, and minor states, con-
tained within the Holy Roman Empire but susceptible to external threats.
The Italian peninsula contained several small kingdoms and principalities,
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 21

some independent and others controlled by Austria. Austrian statesman


Klemens von Metternich was very near the truth when he remarked that Italy
was no more than a geographical expression.
Yet any discussion of the “great powers system” must consider that these
individual states were also part of separate political universes that shaped
their political goals and aspirations. The Europe of this period can be divided
into three broad categories of states, each with its own set of imperial preten-
sions and challenges.6
In the first category are the “continental powers” Austria and Prussia, pri-
marily focused on maintaining their authority within Europe. The former, with
its capital at Berlin, comprised the core provinces of Brandenburg, Pomerania,
East Prussia, and Silesia, as well as enclaves in western Germany and substan-
tial territories in the east, which Prussia had gained during the Partitions
of Poland at the end of the eighteenth century. Ruled by the House of
Hohenzollern, Prussia had established itself as Europe’s newest great power
just a generation before the French Revolution, having won two major
conflicts despite seemingly impossible odds.7 Under Frederick II (known
as Frederick the Great), the kingdom had been the model state of the
Enlightenment philosophes but in actuality faced considerable challenges in
the international arena. It was in a precarious position due to its relatively
small territory (some 76,000 square miles vs. France’s 277,200 square miles)
and population (over 6 million vs. France’s 28 million and Russia’s 35 mil-
lion). By the start of the French Revolutionary Wars, Prussia remained a
comparatively necessitous power, without much industrial development or
colonial possessions, yet it heavily taxed its population to maintain its
recently acquired status as a great power.8 This explains Prussia’s desire for
territorial aggrandizement at the expense of Poland in the concluding decades
of the eighteenth century and its grander ambitions in Germany. The Berlin
court was conspicuous among European courts as a center of intrigue, embrac-
ing various schemes with the avowed purpose of despoiling its neighbors to
the east and south. Placed between three potentially hostile powers—Russia,
France, and Austria—Prussia traditionally sought to be on good terms with
at least one of them. In practical terms, its almost constant rivalry with
Austria over the German states meant that Prussia had to turn either to
France or to Russia for support.
Austria, which traditionally dominated central Europe through its con-
trol of the Holy Roman Empire, was also insecure about its position.9 The
Austrian state lacked the linguistic, ethnic, and institutional unity of some
of its European neighbors, and attempts by Joseph II (r. 1780–1790) to
establish a unified administration had largely failed. Having suffered two
22 | the napoleonic wars

defeats at the hands of Prussia in 1748 and 1763, the Austrian Habsburgs
had begrudgingly accepted that their province, Silesia, so rich in people,
trade, and resources, was now part of Prussia, at least for the duration of
Frederick the Great’s reign. But tensions between the two German rivals
remained, and in fact they had risen in the 1780s when a series of revolts
broke out across the Habsburg territories (Belgium, Tyrol, Galicia, Lombardy,
and Hungary). Prussia did its best to exploit them to further diminish
Austrian power in Germany; at one point the Hohenzollern court even
encouraged the Hungarians to rise up against Vienna and create an in­de­pend­
ent state ruled by a Prussian prince.10
Austria’s alliance with France was a recent phenomenon (formed in 1756)
and was marked by a mutual distrust underpinned by the previous two and a
half centuries of hostility. Thus, Austrian attempts to acquire Bavaria dem-
onstrated the tenuous nature of the Franco-Austrian alliance, since France
refused any assistance to Austria (even if the latter was attacked), and in the
subsequent War of the Bavarian Succession (1778–1779) the Saxon-Prussian
alliance successfully prevented Austria from acquiring the Electorate of
Bavaria. Yet despite continued frictions and disagreements, neither Austria
nor France wanted or expected war in the 1790s. Austria was keen to use its
alliance with France to safeguard its western borders and recoup its losses
through further expansion into Poland and the Balkans, where the Habsburgs
had waged a war against the Turks in 1787–1791. In fact, these seemingly
unrelated events—the Austro-Ottoman War in the Balkans and political
power struggles in Poland—had an important influence on the course of the
French Revolution. As France, the greatest continental power, descended
into political turmoil, the other major powers were preoccupied with their
own affairs and schemes for aggrandizement, giving the newly founded
French revolutionary government two years of respite.
In the second category of European powers were those whose interests
were not confined solely to Europe. These powers—France and Britain in the
first place, but also Russia, Portugal, and Spain—exploited their geographi-
cal situation and their possession of colonies to secure a large share of inter-
national trade, which in turn sustained their political and military aspirations.
Visitors to Britain and France were struck by the evident signs of prosperity
of their great Atlantic port towns, generated by the vast profits made through
colonial trade.11 On the eve of the French Revolution, the value of French
trade with America amounted to a quarter of the value of all French com-
mercial operations; the share was even higher in the case of Britain’s foreign
trade. Portugal had overseas possessions that included Brazil and numerous
trading posts in Africa, India, and China. But the Portuguese were so de­pend­ent
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 23

on their trade with Britain that, economically speaking, the country was a
British dependency in all but name. The Portuguese government—formally
ruled by Queen Maria, whose insanity made her incapable of governing and
forced her to delegate her authority to Prince Dom João—was weak and inef-
ficient. It persistently feared Spain, which had once briefly consumed its
smaller neighbor and undoubtedly would have attempted to do so again had
Britain not been determined to keep Portugal’s all-weather ports in friendlier
hands. If Portugal felt threatened by Spain, it was the only country that did.
Spain possessed the largest colonial empire in the world, with its dominions
straddling much of the Americas and extending to the Philippines in the
Pacific Ocean. But by 1789 the once-proud nation of the conquistadors had
suffered continued economic decline and political stagnation that affected its
ability to properly defend its interests.12
In the century before 1789, France had exercised a pervasive influence
over the rest of Europe. Its literature, art, and fashion were in demand every-
where, and French was the language of the elites across Europe. France was
la Grande Nation, with a vast population, considerable natural resources, and
immense possessions overseas, the nation that frequently transcended its con-
tinental interests to pursue a more comprehensive policy spanning conti-
nents and oceans.13 In the Americas alone, France had formed and settled
fourteen colonies, stretching from Canada to French Guiana.14 The range and
pace of its activities in Asia and the Americas only increased throughout the
eighteenth century, with France seeking alliances with North American
tribes, negotiating with rulers of Burma and Cochin China, and pursuing its
interests in India and the Indian Ocean islands. The French made overtures
to Iran and Muscat (Oman), where they hoped to develop trade and limit
British influence. They also had a better understanding of the strategic
importance of Egypt, where they pursued closer relations with the ruling
Mamluk elite. By the 1780s, France was reaping the benefits of its long-
standing alliance with the Ottomans, enjoying a dominant position in for-
eign trade with the Levant and eastern Mediterranean and seeking to make
inroads into the Black Sea.
But such global aspirations also carried immense liabilities. The middle
of the century saw the devastating defeat in the Seven Years’ War, which
resulted in the loss of colonies and unleashed a prolonged financial crisis that
led to an international eclipse that would last until the 1790s. France could
only stand by helplessly as its traditional ally, the Kingdom of Poland, was
partitioned by Austria, Russia, and Prussia in 1772, while a popular (and
Francophile) revolt in the Dutch Republic was put down by Prussian forces
in 1787. Just three years later France could not provide support to a short-lived
24 | the napoleonic wars

revolt in the Austrian Netherlands (present-day Belgium) and failed to honor


the Bourbon family alliance when disagreements over the Pacific Northwest
brought Britain and Spain to the brink of war.15 Despite having the second-
largest navy in Europe, France was unable to scrape together enough funds to
sustain naval operational activity befitting a great power.16
France’s longtime rival was also not limiting its interests to Europe. In
fact, British military intervention on the continent was traditionally unpop-
ular domestically and unlikely to be undertaken except to defend the coun-
try’s paramount interests, most notably the status of the estuary of the Scheldt
River (in northern Belgium and southwestern Netherlands). Britain exploited
its naval and commercial capabilities to project its interests into far-flung
regions of the world. Such aspirations, however, meant military confronta-
tions with rival powers. Britain emerged from these wars with heavy financial
burdens and faced major challenges at home, including the intractable “Irish
problem.” Just six years before the French Revolution, the British had been
humiliated by the loss of their American colonies, the result of a coalition
that included France, Spain, and the Dutch Republic. Its poor military show-
ing in America might have dented Britain’s reputation, but the country had
strengths that its rivals lacked. Its first advantage was being an island nation,
which protected it against invasion. This was guaranteed by the maintenance
of the largest and most efficient fleet in the world. Thus, despite losing
some of its overseas possessions, Britain was able to build a new empire upon
the remains of the old, and economics regained the trade that politics had
lost.17 A flexible financial and political system allowed Britain, which Prime
Minister George Grenville (r. 1763–1765) claimed to be in deep distress
in 1763, to survive the loss of colonies and a doubling of national debt and
emerge stronger than before. Colonial possessions brought it wealth, but of
even greater importance were the resources available immediately on the
British islands. The Industrial Revolution, which began in earnest in
Britain in the 1760s, exploited Britain’s abundance in coal and iron to an
extent undreamed of on the continent and gave tremendous strength to the
nation, so even the long war that began in 1793 did not reduce Britain to
bankruptcy.18
The French Revolution was initially welcomed in Britain. At the very
least, it was thought, it would weaken the old enemy; at best, it would create
another constitutional state in Europe. But the initial enthusiasm quickly
subsided, and the British government became increasingly alarmed over the
contagion of radical ideas streaming out of France. Following the French dec-
laration of war in February 1793, Britain became the target for three invasion
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 25

attempts (once through Wales and twice via Ireland) and responded with a
blockade of French ports and attacks on its colonial trade.
Russia emerged as a great power in the second half of the eighteenth cen-
tury, when it persistently pursued—and achieved—rapid and vast territorial
expansion; no other state in Europe added as much territory in such a short
period of time. This can be partly explained by the fact that, compared to
other European powers, Russia had greater opportunity for success due to its
geographic location and the relative weakness of its immediate neighbors.
The dramatic territorial changes of 1772–1775, when Russian empress
Catherine II skillfully exploited Polish weakness to carry out the first Polish
Partition, not only greatly expanded Russian territory but also served as the
catalyst for a major diplomatic realignment in Europe. Russia’s dominant
position in the eastern half of Europe was further strengthened in the subse-
quent decades as Catherine pursued aggressive policies in the Balkans, the
Caucasus, the Caspian littoral, and eastern Siberia. The Russo-Ottoman War
of 1767–1774 resulted in Russian annexation of lands along the northern
coastline of the Black Sea, while the Treaty of Georgievsk (1783) with the
Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti (eastern Georgia) extended Russian military
presence across the Caucasus Mountains. The Turks had hoped to stem
Russian expansion into the Crimea in 1783, and by declaring war they gained
the initiative, only to lose it in a series of military setbacks. In 1796 Russian
troops campaigned in Daghestan, threatening Iranian interests along the
Caspian shoreline. At the same time, Russian authority had been consoli-
dated in Siberia, where the former tsardom of Siberia was reorganized into
three provinces led by Russian governors.19 As impressive and persistent as
its success was elsewhere, Russia showed no such steadiness of policy or level
of accomplishment in Europe, and perhaps to a greater degree than elsewhere
it began to reflect the sensibility of whoever ruled it.20 With each change of
monarch—the death of Empress Catherine II in 1796, and the death of
Emperor Paul I and the rise of Alexander I in 1801—Russian domestic and
foreign policy experienced major changes.
The last category of European states included weaker polities that could
not effectively compete on the international level, frequently served as sub-
sidiaries to greater powers, and occasionally turned into conflict zones. Until
the late nineteenth century central Europe was occupied by the Holy Roman
Empire, one of the most irrational institutions in what was proudly described
as the Age of Reason.21 This was hardly an empire in the traditional sense of
the word, but rather a patchwork of more than three hundred polities owing
allegiance to the Holy Roman Emperor. The empire was ethnically, religiously,
26 | the napoleonic wars

and politically fragmented; as the French philosopher Voltaire famously


remarked, it was “neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.”22
Although the majority of the Holy Roman Empire’s inhabitants were
Germans, there were also significant non-German communities in Bohemia
and the Spanish Netherlands; the empire included numerous lay and ecclesi-
astical princes, free cities, and imperial knights, who all owed formal alle-
giance to the emperor, but the more powerful ones were almost entirely
beyond his control. Ever since the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648), imperial
authority had been backed neither by a permanent army nor by a centralized
bureaucracy. The emperor’s authority, which was not inherited but was sub-
ject to election by the most powerful princes of the empire, was largely
restricted to arbitrating disputes between the German states, which were
considered independent and capable of conducting their own foreign policy.
The imperial assembly, the Imperial Diet, to which the German states sent
their representatives, was a quarrelsome, ineffective institution that lacked
legislative authority.23
Like the Holy Roman Empire, Switzerland was also a disunited conglom-
eration of cantons, but it combined a burgeoning banking business with the
equally lucrative hiring out of mercenaries to European powers.24 Italy
remained divided into more than a half dozen states and subject to the domi-
nation of foreign powers. Lombardy remained firmly under Austrian control,
though the thousand-year-old Venetian Republic, in the northeastern corner
of the Italian peninsula, defended its interests. Meanwhile, the Kingdom of
Piedmont-Sardinia jealously guarded its position in the northwest and on the
island of Sardinia, while the popes still controlled a broad swath of central
Italy. The largest state in Italy was the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, a rather
confusing name for a realm that centered around the city of Naples but
straddled the island of Sicily and all of southern Italy.
The once-mighty Polish kingdom had degenerated into a feeble political
entity that became, as we’ve seen, the target of Russian, Austrian, and
Prussian ambitions before ceasing to exist entirely in 1795. The Dutch
Republic drew vast wealth from its East Indian possessions and the Cape of
Good Hope, but of even greater importance were its great financial centers,
to which all of Europe came to borrow money. Although affluent, the Dutch
state was also torn by internal dissent, politically weak, and dominated by its
neighbors. Defeated in the Fourth Anglo-Dutch War (1780–1784), the
Dutch experienced domestic turmoil that resulted in the Prussian invasion in
1787. In the meantime, Scandinavia comprised just two states. After enjoy-
ing its golden age in the seventeenth century, the Swedish Empire (which
included Finland) had gradually turned into a regional power whose influence
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 27

in the Baltic was continually contested by Russia and Britain. Which is why
Sweden was anxious to acquire Norway, then linked by a common crown to
Denmark, Sweden’s perennial rival.
This broad categorization of European states during the revolutionary era
is useful when discussing the variety of interests and conflicts present in this
period. Though the Revolution added a significant ideological dimension,
there was a clear continuity of interests from before the revolutionary era, and
European powers continued to be guided by traditional factors, such as long-
standing rivalries and territorial interests. So while the execution of the
French king caused the Spanish Bourbons to join the First Coalition against
France in 1793, it did not prevent the same Spanish monarchy from allying
itself to the French republic in 1796. The Polish Partitions of 1792 and 1795
reflected the continental powers’ sense of opportunity created by the out-
break of political turmoil in France as well as their concern about one another’s
expansionism.
By the late eighteenth century, commerce was the lifeblood of the great
nations, and control of the seas and the international trade lanes that ran
between the continents became one of the central elements of rivalry among
the European powers. The resources of the New World and the hugely profit-
ably trade with Asia were crucial to the financial stability and growth of
European states, and the desire to protect and exploit these sources of wealth
was closely tied to the growth of European naval power. Indeed, control of
the seas protected friendly merchant shipping (with all the benefits stem-
ming from it) and colonies, thwarted enemy trade, and projected a nation’s
authority overseas. France increased the value of its exports from 120 million
livres in 1716 to more than 500 million livres in 1789, and the growth of
British commerce was only slightly higher. The dominant political economic
theory, mercantilism, required that a nation establish a favorable balance of
trade and amass bullion. Backed by their own and crown troops, European
trade companies, most famously the British and French East India Companies,
gained control of trade with Asia, importing spices, indigo, textiles, tea, and
other items to Europe and making considerable profits in the process.
Maritime trade was thus crucial to securing the wealth necessary to sustain a
war-making capability.25
Britain’s commercial gains came largely at the expense of traditional
French markets. Despite its global aspirations, France’s preoccupation with
European affairs was partly a matter of necessity. Unlike its main rival, which
was protected by the sea, the French kingdom suffered from “amphibious
geography,” as it was located near the western extremity of the Eurasian
supercontinent and was therefore tempted to strive after supremacy on both
28 | the napoleonic wars

sea and land.26 This entailed dealing with the troublesome Dutch and English
as well as its traditional adversaries, including Austria and—ultimately the
more dangerous ones—Prussia and Russia. The French kings thus main-
tained a peacetime standing army of at least 150,000 men, which consumed
enormous resources and hampered the development of French naval power.
By comparison, Britain’s army was one-third that size (and most of it was
deployed in India and other colonies), while the Royal Navy steadily expanded
throughout the eighteenth century. In 1715 Britain had some 120 ships-of-
the-line versus 39 for France; in 1783 the Royal Navy could deploy 174
ships-of-the-line and almost 300 other warships, while France had about
70 line vessels and some 150 others. The desire to avenge the humiliation of
the Seven Years’ War sustained France’s program of naval reform and invest-
ment in the 1770s and 1780s, but the French navy suffered greatly during
the Revolutionary Wars because of officer emigration, mounting strikes, and
mutinies by seamen.
But one must bear in mind that a powerful navy was not as essential to
France’s national survival during the Revolutionary Wars as it was to Britain’s.
Attacked from almost all sides, France concentrated on building up its land
forces, and consequently the demands and expectations placed upon the
French fleet were drastically different from those of the British. The turmoil
in the French navy as well as economic, administrative, and technical innova-
tions had combined to give Britain a distinct superiority over its French,
Spanish, and Russian rivals. Britain had a far larger ocean trade than any of
its principal enemies, which provided it with a bigger reserve of professional
seamen from which to man its warships. Long deployments at sea, whether
on blockade or on convoy escort, gave British captains plenty of opportuni-
ties to train their crews, who typically achieved a higher rate of fire than their
opponents. The global nature of British power meant that its resources had
to be stretched around the world, though British naval commanders demon-
strated great flexibility and a tendency to adopt bolder methods in confronta-
tions with their enemies.
The naval struggle during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars can be
divided into two interrelated but markedly different periods. The first twelve
years of the war, from 1793 to 1805, witnessed British efforts to obtain com-
mand of the seas over its enemies, the much-weakened French and Spanish
navies. Although these fleets did engage in a number of decisive battles, most
of the British naval effort involved expeditionary warfare, which saw British
troops deployed on both sides of the Atlantic, and the blockade of coastlines
and ports. The second period, inaugurated by the British triumph over the
French and Spanish at Trafalgar in 1805, was marked by the Royal Navy’s
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 29

consolidation of its command of the sea and French efforts to rebuild its naval
capacity and challenge the post-Trafalgar status quo on the sea.

The most convenient starting point for an overview of the competition


between European powers is the beginning of the Austro-Russo-Ottoman
War in 1787. It not only showcased the existing rivalries among the great
powers—the Austro-Prussian rivalry in the center of Europe, the Russo-
Prussian rivalry in the east, and the Anglo-Russian rivalry in the south—but
also intensified them. Events in southeastern Europe represented the begin-
ning of one of the most challenging diplomatic problems of the nineteenth
century, the Eastern Question, which centered on the European contest
against the weakening Ottoman Empire.
At its greatest extent the Ottoman Empire held suzerainty over all of Asia
Minor, the Balkan Peninsula, Hungary, the Black Sea littoral, south Caucasia,
Syria-Palestine, Egypt and the coastal states of North Africa. Furthermore,
in his capacity as caliph or spiritual leader of the world’s Muslims, the
Ottoman sultan held nominal leadership over the entire Islamic world,
stretching from the Atlantic coast of Africa to India. Yet by the late eight-
eenth century the Ottomans were confronted with a host of domestic and
foreign challenges that contributed to internal turmoil and loss of provinces,
weakened Ottoman finances, and encouraged the European powers’ ambi-
tions. While the Ottoman sultans maintained nominal claims to Algeria,
Libya, and Egypt, actual power there resided in the hands of local elites, who
often defied the sultan’s authority. In the Balkans and Caucasus, the Ottomans
faced the resurgent aspirations of local peoples (Greeks, Serbs, Georgians,
etc.) and the growing ambitions of Russia and Austria, which showed inter-
est in ever-larger parts of the Ottoman realm. Between 1745 and 1768 the
Ottoman Empire experienced a period of relative peace and stability; moder-
ate reforms were introduced, but they failed to resolve the empire’s economic
problems or curb administrative corruption, nor did they succeed in estab-
lishing a modernized standing army, one of the key assets of the contemporary
European states.27
This failure proved to be consequential in 1768, when the Russo-Ottoman
conflict entered a new stage. The Russian armies scored decisive victories
over the Ottomans in the Danubian principalities, forcing Sultan Abduhamid
I to negotiate a peace at the village of Küçük Kaynarca in Bulgaria in July
1774. The subsequent treaty was one of the most pivotal in the history of
European diplomacy and marked a turning point in Ottoman history. The
loss of territories was limited but politically damaging to the sultan. The
Ottoman defeat encouraged provincial elites to contemplate breaking away
30 | the napoleonic wars

from the empire, and the sultan’s authority was openly defied by Mamluk
beys in Egypt and powerful notables in Anatolia, Syria, and Arabia.
Furthermore, the treaty recognized Russian merchantmen’s freedom to navi-
gate on the Black Sea and in the Turkish Straits (the Bosporus and the
Dardanelles), leading to the growth of a Russian merchant marine in the
region and, consequently, a more powerful Russian naval presence to protect
commerce. Equally significant was the Ottoman sultan’s decision to grant
Russia the right to build an Eastern Orthodox church in Pera, the diplomatic
quarter of Constantinople, and to accept a rather vaguely phrased provision
that allowed Russia to make representations on behalf of this church and
“those who serve it.” Russia exploited the ambiguous nature of this provision
to claim representation on behalf of all the Eastern Orthodox subjects of the
Porte, thereby justifying interference into the Ottomans’ domestic affairs.
Henceforth, in both time of war and peacetime, Russia sought to extend its
privileges and interference in the Ottoman realm.
The Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca had, in effect, laid the foundation for the
Eastern Question by turning the Ottoman Empire into the object of the
European powers’ political and territorial aspirations. The commercial con-
cession to Russia whetted appetites in France, Britain, and the Dutch
Republic, all of which sought similar concessions for their own merchants.
Furthermore, the treaty revealed the scope of Ottoman weakness. A sultan
whose armies once used to threaten the heartland of Europe thus turned into
an increasingly irrelevant ruler at the margins of European diplomatic rival-
ries, with his territories subject to diplomatic maneuverings by Russia,
Britain, Austria, and France.
The Ottomans spent the decade after the treaty reorganizing their military.
They achieved some success in modernizing their navy, while the army was
restored to its prewar status, although it continued to lag behind its European
counterparts. Throughout these years both Russia and the Ottoman Empire
complained of infringements of the Treaty of Kücu̧ k̈ Kaynarca. The sultan’s
only hope was international support, but this did not materialize. Meanwhile,
a secret Russo-Austrian alliance of 1781 proved essential in Russia’s continued
expansionist policy in the Balkans. In agreeing to this alliance, Austria was
forced to deal with the fundamental problem of its late eighteenth-century
foreign policy: that of reconciling its need for Russia’s support against Prussia
with its fundamental opposition to further Russian expansion in southeastern
Europe. By joining with Russia, Austria hoped both to strengthen its hand
vis-à-vis Prussia and to limit Catherine’s gains in the Ottoman domains.28
In 1783, to the deep resentment and humiliation of the Ottomans, Russia
annexed the Crimea, the most significant territorial change in southeastern
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 31

Europe since the Seven Years’ War.29 It was a major accomplishment on


Russia’s part, made possible by strong Austrian support in exchanges with
the Ottoman government. The Crimea provided Russia with adequate naval
bases and ports on the Black Sea—and an ability to launch a seaborne attack
directly against Constantinople. The threat of further Russian expansion at
Ottoman expense should have provoked a response from other great powers,
but it never materialized, for the reason that no single power could provide
effective logistical support to the Turks. Britain was still recovering from its
defeat in the American Revolutionary War, while France, already weakened
by economic crisis, was further neutralized by the revelation of the Russo-
Austrian alliance. In the spring of 1787 Empress Catherine II’s triumphal
procession through the southern part of the Ukraine and Crimea caused new
concerns about Russian intentions and exacerbated tensions between the
Ottoman Empire and Russia. In August of the same year, Sultan Abduhamid
I, influenced by the vociferous pro-war political factions and ulama (religious
leaders), as well as by British prodding, declared war on Russia in an effort to
reclaim territories lost in preceding conflicts.
Catherine II welcomed this new conflict. France was still mired in its
financial crisis and unable to support its traditional ally, so the Russian
empress had an opportunity to take on the Ottomans, with an eye toward
expanding influence in the Black Sea littoral and possibly fulfilling her cher-
ished “Greek Project”—the reestablishment of a Byzantine state on Ottoman
territory with Constantinople as its capital.30 Once the war began, Austria
joined it on the side of Russia.31 The Turks were ill-prepared. Although they
successfully dealt with the Austrians in the Banat (parts of present-day
Romania, Serbia, and Hungary), they could not stop the Russian advance.
His army in disarray and lacking supplies and quality recruits, the new sul-
tan, Selim III, was forced to sue for peace.32 By the Treaty of Jassy (1792),
Russia acquired the remaining parts of the Crimea and the lands between the
Bug and Dniester Rivers, consolidating its control over the northern shore of
the Black Sea. The Ottomans were forced to recognize the Russian annexa-
tion of the Crimea and to reconfirm the provisions of the Treaty of Küçük
Kaynarca.33 The end of the war with Russia and the start of the French
Revolution distracted the European powers, giving the Ottomans a few years
of respite from Western imperialism. Selim III used this moment to initiate
a period of limited reforms in the Ottoman state and sought to centralize his
authority, modernize the army, and improve finances.
The events in the Balkans had ramifications beyond southeastern Europe,
of course. Just as Russia and Austria became embroiled in the war, a crisis
erupted in the Dutch Republic, which had experienced an economic decline
32 | the napoleonic wars

in the wake of the devastating Anglo-Dutch Wars. It centered around the


ongoing conflict between the Orangists, who supported the authoritarian
policies of stadtholder (chief magistrate) William V, Prince of Orange, and
the so-called Patriots, representing the middling orders, who were inspired
by the ideals of the Enlightenment and sought a more democratic govern-
ment and society. Relying on their militias, the Patriots took control of
several cities and regions and in May 1787 defeated the stadtholder himself
near Vreeswijk in the Dutch province of Utrecht.
What made the Dutch turmoil more than just another case of civil strife
was that both sides enjoyed significant foreign support. France sided with the
Patriots, and Britain and Prussia had deep ties with the House of Orange.
The arrest and brief (but humiliating) detention of the stadtholder’s wife,
who was the sister of King Frederick William II of Prussia, provoked Prussian
intervention, though not before Berlin secured promises of assistance from
Britain. The Patriots’ appeals to France for assistance touched the greatest of
British concerns: French maritime and colonial intentions. Alarmed by the
prospect of French influence over the Dutch navy and colonies, Britain sup-
ported a Prussian invasion of the Dutch Republic in September 1787; despite
its threats to act, France was thwarted not only by its financial crisis and
internal divisions in the royal government but also by the lack of any mean-
ingful involvement from Austria or Russia, both of which were preoccupied
with the Turks. The Prussian army, under the command of the Duke of
Brunswick, quickly overran Dutch cities—the last Patriot stronghold,
Amsterdam, surrendered in early October—and restored the stadtholder to
power. Many of the Patriots fled to France, where during the Revolution they
actively lobbied for French action against the House of Orange and later sup-
ported establishment of a revolutionary government. After the suppression of
the Dutch revolt, the Anglo-Dutch-Prussian alliance of 1788 all but con-
firmed that French influence had been eclipsed in the Low Countries.
Moreover, France’s inability to prevent Prussian intervention so close to its
borders signaled its diplomatic (and military) nullity.34 Austria and Russia
paid no heed to French efforts to mediate peace in the Balkans, and Britain
took a more active role in Ottoman affairs, a role that France traditionally had
reserved for itself. In short, the Dutch crisis and its aftereffects were a humili-
ating experience for the French monarchy, as they revealed to Europe that
France could no longer be ranked among the first-rate powers.
Meanwhile, Russian preoccupation with the Turks prompted Sweden to
launch a surprise attack in July 1788. The two-year Russo-Swedish War was
inconclusive and ended with a treaty that confirmed the status quo ante bellum
with respect to the borders. But Russian involvement in these wars galvanized
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 33

a movement for domestic political reform among the Poles, who detested the
growth of Russian influence. Once a powerful state, the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth possessed but a shadow of its former glory by the late eight-
eenth century. It was dominated by a powerful aristocracy, exercising its
authority through the Sejm (an elected parliament) that limited royal execu-
tive power, often preventing effective governing of the state. A single deputy
to the Sejm could end its proceedings, declaring liberum veto (meaning “I am
free to say no”) and dissolving it. Growing corruption and foreign interfer-
ence by powerful and greedy neighbors only further exacerbated political
chaos in Poland. It was this form of government, which has been aptly
described by one historian as “a constitutional anarchy tempered by civil
war,” that European powers exploited at the end of the eighteenth century.35
In 1772 Catherine II had engineered the First Partition of Poland, claiming
much of the eastern Polish kingdom and placing her favorite, Stanislaw
August Poniatowski, on the Polish throne.36 Political struggles between
Europe’s great powers played a large role in Catherine’s choice. Austria was
alarmed by Russian successes against the Turks in the Danubian region.
Prussia was willing to accept the partition of Poland as a way to satisfy
Russia’s expansionist ambitions, to provide compensation for Austria, and to
secure for itself the long-covered Polish province of West Prussia, which sep-
arated East Prussia from Brandenburg. In all, Poland lost about one-third of
its territory and population.37
This First Partition had demonstrated the dangers the Polish state was
facing, helping nurture public opinion favorable to reform. Russo-Prussian
relations, already tense in the last years of Frederick II’s reign, further dete-
riorated after Frederick William II’s accession to the Prussian throne in 1786;
Catherine II’s anti-Prussian sentiments meant that a pro-Austrian party in
Russia soon outshone its pro-Prussian rivals and led to the Russo-Austrian
rapprochement.38 The signing of the 1781 alliance between St. Petersburg
and Vienna left Berlin isolated in Europe, a gratifying turn of events in the
eyes of Austria’s emperor, Joseph. Although Prussia remained Russia’s ally
(if only a nominal one), Frederick William II was keen to acquire more Polish
territory, and waited for an opportune moment to do it.
That opportunity arrived during the period 1786–1789, when Europe
descended into turmoil. France, rapidly drifting toward revolution and
deprived of Charles Gravier, comte de Vergennes, the talented French foreign
minister who died in February 1787, was timid and irresolute. Austria and
Russia were at war with the Ottoman Turks, while Gustavus III of Sweden
was attempting to regain from Russia the provinces of Finland and Carelia.
The Prussians quickly moved to exploit the situation, hoping to make the
34 | the napoleonic wars

most of the Austrian and Russian predicaments and to compel Austria to


make concessions in central and eastern Europe as compensation for any
gains Russia might achieve at the expense of the Turks. In 1788 Frederick
William II joined the Triple Alliance of Prussia, Britain, and the Dutch
Republic, which was designed, in the eyes of its chief architect, British prime
minister William Pitt, to lay the foundation for a collective security federa-
tion in Europe. Frederick William scored another diplomatic triumph in
January 1790 when he negotiated an alliance with the Ottomans, raising
the prospect of a joint Prusso-Ottoman action against Austria just when it
was struggling to suppress internal unrest in Hungary and the Austrian
Netherlands (Belgium).39 Only two months later Berlin concluded a pact
with King Stanislaw II Augustus of Poland, pledging Prussia to stand by
the Poles against Russia in exchange for the Polish cession of the fortified
town of Thorn (Toruń) on the Vistula (Wisła) River and the great port city of
Danzig on the Baltic Sea.
Having received Prussian assurances of support, the Poles set out to
reform their country’s debilitating political institutions and to restore
Poland’s political vitality. On October 22, 1788, the Four Years’ Parliament
(Sejm Czteroletni) opened its sessions and introduced a series of reforms that
culminated in the constitution of May 1791, which made a first step toward
overthrowing the Russian protectorate and reestablishing the Polish monar-
chy. The constitution proclaimed a hereditary, limited monarchy that could
raise enough taxes to provide for defense of the country, and it abolished
many of the domestic causes of Polish impotence, including the liberum veto,
which had incapacitated the previous Polish government. It also reformed
state finances and modernized and enlarged the royal army.40 Remarkable as
these political changes were, their success ultimately depended on Poland’s
neighbors, which had vested interests in keeping the Polish realm weak.
Preoccupied with Sweden and the Ottoman Empire, Russia could not ini-
tially react to the loss of its influence in Poland. This created a situation
favorable to Prussia, one that encouraged a Polish reform movement as a
way of weakening Russian influence and solidified Prussia’s own hegemony
in the region.
The international situation had soon changed. Alarmed by the turmoil in
Hungary, the Austrian Netherlands, and France, Holy Roman Emperor
Leopold, who replaced his brother Joseph II in February 1790, tried repair-
ing relations with the Hohenzollerns of Prussia. In July 1790 he and Frederick
William II negotiated the Convention of Reichenbach, settling their differ-
ences (at least for the moment). The convention allowed the Austrian ruler to
end the war with the Turks and to concentrate on restoring control over his
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 35

domains, with both Belgium and Hungary pacified by the summer of 1791.
Furthermore, by fostering more amicable relations between the two German
powers, the Convention of Reichenbach led Prussia to support Austria over
the intervention in France and eventual participation in the Revolutionary
Wars, as well as to the Second and Third Partitions of Poland.
After Empress Catherine II ended her wars against Sweden and the
Ottoman Empire in 1792, she turned her attention to Poland. The adoption
of a constitution prompted a backlash by Polish nobility who felt threatened
by the new ideals. Upon receiving assurances of Russian support, a group of
Polish aristocrats signed the Act of Confederation against the constitution on
April 27, 1792, just seven days after France declared war on Austria. The act,
announced on May 14 in the town of Targowica, declared the constitution
void and called for military intervention from Russia. In the subsequent War
in Defense of the Constitution, Russian troops crossed the Polish-Lithuanian
border, aiming to support the Confederation of Targowica and restore the old
form of government. The smaller and less experienced Polish-Lithuanian
army struggled to contain internal revolt and resist the Russian invasion;
Prussia had earlier pledged to come to Poland’s help but failed to do so. The
Battle of Dubienka on July 18, 1792, effectively marked the end of the war.
The Polish king, Stanislaw, hoping to preserve his royal prerogatives, decided
to join the Confederation of Targowica and cease military operations.41
In its handling of Polish affairs, Russia exploited the growing European
preoccupation with the French Revolution to increase its own freedom of
maneuver. Empress Catherine encouraged her Austrian and Prussian counter-
parts to deal with France and promised support in combatting the French
ideological menace. For her, though, events in France had always been less
important than the fate of neighboring Poland. Austria had a vested interest
in Poland and supported the Polish reform movement as a safeguard against
Prussia’s aggrandizement, but it could do little at that time to prevent a
second partitioning, as it was absorbed in the developments in France.
Furthermore, Austria’s inability to contain Russian-Prussian ambitions in
Poland was compounded by the sudden death of Emperor Leopold II in
March 1792. Leopold had always opposed any further reduction of the Polish
state and tried to uphold the status quo in the region. His passing, however,
removed this moderating influence on Russia, and Leopold’s successor,
Francis II, agreed to the Russo-Prussian partition of Poland provided that
Austria was allowed to exchange the Austrian Netherlands for Bavaria.
Remarkably, the anti-Prussian principles that had shaped Austrian policy
since 1740 were abandoned almost overnight, and the new generation of
Austrian diplomats hoped to exploit cooperation with Berlin against France
36 | the napoleonic wars

to create an enduring Austro-Prussian alliance that would replace the nebulous


alliances Austria kept with Russia and France.42 This shift in foreign policy
came at a high price. The defeats at Valmy (September 20) and Jemappes
(November 6, 1792) forced Vienna to accept that the war with France had to
be its main priority and stimulated Prussian desires for Polish lands that would
compensate for the failures in the west. In January 1793 a formal Russo-
Prussian treaty was signed in St. Petersburg, deciding Poland’s future. The
ensuing Second Partition dramatically reduced Polish territory and turned this
once proud realm into a rump state dominated by its neighbors.43
The partition marked a triumph for Russian diplomacy, which skillfully
manipulated the international situation. It was also a serious diplomatic
defeat for Austria and Britain, which strongly advocated maintaining the
balance of power in northeastern Europe. Yet the British-conceived collective
security federation required a corresponding willingness to provide the nec-
essary funding, which was nowhere to be found. Consequently, Britain’s
standing in Europe was undermined, and in 1793 it joined the war not as a
member of a multilateral coalition but as an isolated power.44

The international impact of European squabbles stemmed from the fact that
European powers were colonial empires. By the late eighteenth century just
four European states held control over two-thirds of the Western Hemisphere.45
Portugal was the weakest of the European colonial powers but still retained
control over the vast Amazonia region, where twelve royal colonies (captain-
cies) coalesced into the Governorate General of Brazil. The colonies were
initially governed from São Salvador da Bahia de Todos os Santos, in north-
eastern Brazil, but in 1763 the center of the Portuguese colonial administra-
tion shifted to Rio de Janeiro, which served as a colonial capital until 1808.
Portugal’s historic rival, Spain, controlled a wide belt of territory from Chile
to what is now the southwestern United States, the legacy of the Spanish
conquests of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In the Gulf of Mexico
and the Caribbean, Spain controlled nearly the entire coast, with the signifi-
cant exception of French-ruled Louisiana, and many islands, including Cuba
and half of Hispaniola. Most of France’s colonial possessions dated back to the
seventeenth century, when the French monarchy actively explored and colo-
nized parts of the New World. By the mid-eighteenth century France owned
parts of present-day Canada (Acadia, Canada, Louisiana, Newfoundland, Île
Royale) and the Caribbean (Saint-Domingue, Tobago, etc.), only to lose most
of them in the disastrous conflict with Britain.
At the end of the Seven Years’ War Britain had become the world’s great-
est colonial power, gaining vast territories in eastern North America, including
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 37

most of Canada and the lands east of the Mississippi River. Yet its efforts to
obtain new revenues from its American colonies to help pay for the war
sparked the American Revolution, which led to the establishment of a new
nation. Receiving considerable French support, the thirteen American colo-
nies gained their independence in 1783. The conflict that helped create the
United States also set in motion the formation of a second nation, although
achieving Canadian nationhood took more than seven decades. After the
American Revolutionary War, Britain still retained a considerable pres-
ence, exerting control over the northeastern half of North America, where
the colonies of Quebec, Nova Scotia, and Prince Edward Island remained
staunchly loyal.
Because of the challenges created by the influx of tens of thousands of
Loyalist migrants from the newly independent United States, the British gov-
ernment was forced to reorganize its North American colonies. In 1784 New
Brunswick was formed from the western shore of the Bay of Fundy, previously
part of Nova Scotia. And in 1791 Quebec was divided into two colonies,
Upper Canada (present-day Ontario) and Lower Canada (present-day Quebec).
Together, the five colonies of Upper Canada, Lower Canada, Nova Scotia,
New Brunswick, and Prince Edward Island constituted British North America.
At the start of the Revolutionary Wars, the fledgling American republic
found its sympathies divided between Britain and France. Americans
remained concerned about the continuing British presence in Canada. Under
the provisions of the 1783 Treaty of Paris, the British retained Canada but
surrendered their claims to the Ohio Country, then called the Old Northwest
Territory, which lay north of the Ohio River and south of the Great Lakes.
Yet the British still carried on trade in furs with the many tribes living there
and even refused to give up major frontier outposts in the region, such as Fort
Detroit, until the matter of colonial-era debts was resolved. British officers
who had fought in the Revolutionary War and continued to serve in Canada
openly spoke of a day when the United States would again belong to Great
Britain. Thus John Graves Simcoe, the first lieutenant governor of Upper
Canada (1791–1796), spoke of a future war with the American republic and
did his best to prepare his province for it. In the mid-1780s George
Washington’s administration attempted to establish friendly relations with
Britain, making several diplomatic overtures that were all declined. Only
when the Nootka Sound Crisis threatened to produce a war between
Britain and Spain did the British government lend a receptive ear to the
American offers.
The Nootka Sound Crisis highlights the global nature of the claims
that European powers were making by the end of the eighteenth century.
38 | the napoleonic wars

Traditional discussion of the crisis focuses on Anglo-Spanish relations and


points to the British attempt to establish a base on Vancouver Island, on the
Pacific coast of North America, as a precipitating factor. Spain had claimed
this region since the sixteenth century and never admitted the right of any
foreign power to sail or trade within its waters or land.46 Yet British vessels
frequently encroached on the Spanish claims. In 1789 the Spanish navy seized
British ships operating in the area, imprisoned the crews, and asserted exclu-
sive Spanish sovereignty over the entire Pacific coast of North America.
This discussion overlooks one more increasingly expansion-minded
European power that had interests in the Northeast Pacific and whose actions,
in fact, contributed to the start of the Nootka Sound Crisis. Russians had
reached the Pacific Ocean in the mid-seventeenth century. Over the next
decades, various Russian pioneers discovered and explored the vast expanses
of Northeast Asia and the Pacific. It was a Russian expedition, led by the
Danish explorer Vitus Jonassen Bering, that explored the northeastern coast
of Asia and the western coastline of North America, including the straits
(named in Bering’s honor) separating the two continents.47 Continuing this
tradition of exploration, Russian fur hunters (promyshleniki) and seafarers
explored the entire chain of the Aleutian Islands, reached the Alaska Peninsula
in the early 1760s, and began to explore the northeast coastline of modern-
day Canada. These discoveries were of great commercial importance, as the
newly encountered regions gave access to a vast quantity of furs, which were
sold at exorbitant prices in China.48
The British explorations of the Pacific, especially British captain James
Cook’s final expedition in 1776–1780, played a role in fostering the Russian
presence in the Northeast Pacific.49 The appearance of the British in the
Aleutian Islands and then in the Russian port of Petropavlovsk, in the
Kamchatka Peninsula, in 1779 served as a clear and forceful reminder of both
the economic value of this region and its relative defenselessness (Russia had
no warships in the far northeast); Russian anxieties were exacerbated by news
of the arrival of the French expedition of Jean-François de Galaup, comte de
Lapérouse, at Kamchatka in the mid-1780s.
Russia’s response to the news of British, Spanish, and French activity in
the Pacific was to prepare its own expeditions. During the five years follow-
ing Cook’s final voyage, news of which reverberated from Kamchatka to
St. Petersburg, the Russian government considered at least half a dozen proj-
ects for exploring the North Pacific Ocean and exploiting its latent wealth.
Catherine II gave her consent to two, a scientific expedition led by Joseph
Billings, a former British merchantman who was accepted into the Russian
service, in 1785 and a military one led by G. Mulovskii a year later.50 Both
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 39

received expansive instructions that outlined their scientific, commercial,


and political objectives. Mulovskii’s instructions included a section on the
question of Russian sovereignty in the North Pacific area.51 These reflected
the Russian official position that it was “indisputable” that Russia held sov-
ereignty over the American coast from 55° 21ʹ N and extending thence
northward, including all islands lying off the mainland of America and by
the Alaska Peninsula, as well as the Kurile Islands of Japan.52 Catherine II’s
December 1786 decree specified that Russian warships, “armed in the same
manner as those used by the English Captain Cook,” should be dispatched
around the Cape of Good Hope to protect Russian possessions in the North
Pacific.
Mulovskii’s expedition was cancelled due to the outbreak of war with
the Ottoman Empire in 1787, but it caused considerable apprehension at the
Spanish court in particular because of the longtime Spanish presence on the
Pacific coast of North America. Pedro Normande, the Spanish ambassador in
St. Petersburg, produced a steady stream of reports on Russian discoveries
and colonization in the North Pacific, which, although containing mistakes
and exaggerations, painted a frightening picture of impending Russian
expansion into North America.53 It was in response to such reports that
the Spanish government felt compelled to send out a new set of instruc-
tions to the colonial authorities in Mexico and lost no time in dispatching
warships to establish a post in Nootka Sound to enforce its claims in the
region. One of these ships was commanded by Esteban José Martínez, who,
upon his arrival at Nootka on May 4, 1789, found not Russians but British
and American ships there. In the ensuing confrontation Martínez quickly
moved to stop foreign activities in the region and ordered the seizure of the
British ships.
British prime minister William Pitt, determined to revive British power
following the American War of Independence, demanded reparations and
insisted upon access for British commerce and colonization along the Pacific
Northwest coast. Spain agreed only to the first demand, and both sides pre-
pared for war.54 The Nootka Sound Crisis placed the United States and France
in a difficult position. The United States was alarmed about the prospect
of British invasion and occupation of Spanish territories in Florida and
Louisiana, which would result in the encirclement of the United States in the
east and west of the country. Equally troublesome was that France, an ally of
Spain, was already caught up in revolutionary turmoil and unable to extend
a helping hand to the Spaniards. The United States was thus concerned that
the Franco-US alliance of 1778 might oblige it to come to Spain’s aid.
President Washington sought the advice of his cabinet in dealing with a
40 | the napoleonic wars

potential British threat. His new administration recognized the relative


weakness of the United States and the need to avoid war, but Secretary of
State Thomas Jefferson and Treasury Secretary Alexander Hamilton offered
conflicting counsel. The former argued that the United States should extract
concessions either from Britain (withdrawal from northwestern posts and a
commercial treaty) or from Spain (acquiring New Orleans, Florida, and the
right to navigate the Mississippi River) as the price for American neutrality
in the pending conflict.55 Hamilton, who sought peace with Britain at any
cost to protect his economic system, favored war against a weaker Spain and
recommended that the British be allowed to cross US soil because the United
States could neither stop them nor afford to fight another war against them.
The Nootka Sound Crisis ended when Spain chose to negotiate. According
to the terms of the Nootka Sound Convention (1790), Spain permitted
British trade and settlement in unoccupied areas along the Pacific coast above
San Francisco. It signaled the effective end of Spain’s claim to monopolize
trade and colonization in the region. The Spanish concessions strengthened
British claims to sovereignty in what became known as the Oregon Country.
Yet Britain was unable to exploit this concession fully because of the
French Revolutionary Wars, in which it became involved in 1793. This
allowed the United States to expand in later years without British opposi-
tion. The Nootka Sound incident showed the Washington administration
that the United States would not be immune from European struggles and
that Britain constituted the chief threat to US security. The crisis shaped two
fundamental principles of American foreign policy: opposition to European
colonization in the Americas (later declared in the Monroe Doctrine) and
avoidance of “entangling alliances,” as President Jefferson put it in his inau-
gural address. American leaders realized the perils caused by European rivalry
in areas around the Mississippi River. Finally, this crisis led to the establish-
ment of permanent diplomatic ties between the United States and Britain.
The British government, concerned over congressional threats to impose dis-
criminatory tariff and tonnage duties against British goods and fearful that
the United States would take advantage of the crisis to expand its territory,
sent its first minister to the United States, George Hammond, in 1791.
The wider significance of the Nootka Sound Crisis, however, was its dem-
onstration of France’s weakness in the international arena and the opportu-
nity for its rivals to benefit. It also revealed the influence the French
Revolution was to have in global events.
The Caribbean basin was first to experience a large-scale armed struggle
that was directly provoked by the Revolution, and it later served as a vital
theater of the Revolutionary Wars. Six European powers—Britain, Spain,
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 41

France, the Dutch Republic, Denmark, and Sweden—were actively vying for
the Caribbean. Of these, Britain and France were particularly attentive to the
region in the wake of the Seven Years’ War, after which the focus of the rivalry
had largely shifted away from North America and India to the Caribbean
colonies.56 France was especially sensitive to any threats to its Caribbean
interests because of its growing reliance on colonial commerce. By 1787
commodities from the colonies accounted for almost 40 percent of imports,
while more than a third of the French exports went to the Caribbean.57 One
contemporary warned that “in the turmoil currently sweeping through the
European trading system, for France to lose sight of its [Caribbean] colonies
would make it England’s slave.”58
The French Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti) was the single richest
colony in the Americas and played the leading role in sugar production. In
1789 it counted some eight thousand plantations that employed half a mil-
lion slaves, who represented 89 percent of the colony’s population; there were
just thirty thousand white inhabitants, slightly more than the number of free
people of color (gens de couleur).59 Saint-Domingue was at the center both of a
global commercial system that successfully circulated people, commodities,
and ideas and of a complex web of diplomatic intrigues. Traditional colonial
competition between European powers in the Caribbean was complicated by
the outbreak of slave uprisings following the French Revolution.
Spanish domination of the Caribbean basin had kept the British and
French from founding colonies there until the early seventeenth century. As
the sugar, tobacco, and other plantations, which relied on slave labor, turned
into a lucrative source of revenue, European powers regularly organized expe-
ditions to try to capture rival colonies or to protect their own.60 Due to the
geography of the Caribbean, such military operations largely involved naval
forces, but they were complicated by disease (most notably yellow fever) and
weather. During the War of the League of Augsburg (1688–1697), the War
of the Spanish Succession, and the War of the Austrian Succession, Spain,
Britain, and France clashed over control of the islands, but these wars pro-
duced little effect on the balance of power in the Caribbean. The Seven Years’
War, however, ended differently. The French navy was unable to protect
French islands because of a stifling British blockade, and the Royal Navy
swept through the region, capturing Guadeloupe, Martinique, and most other
French Caribbean islands. The Treaty of Paris (1763) confirmed British pos-
session of Dominica, St. Vincent, and Tobago, but Martinique and Guadeloupe
were returned to the French in exchange for Canada.
Thirsting for revenge, France got its opportunity during the American
Revolutionary War. After secretly helping the Americans, the French formally
42 | the napoleonic wars

entered the war in 1778, and major fighting at sea took place in the Caribbean,
with the French capturing Dominica, St. Vincent, Grenada, Tobago,
St. Eustatius, and St. Kitts between 1778 and 1781 but suffering a major
defeat in the Battle of the Saints (April 12, 1782), which salvaged British
positions in the Caribbean. The Peace of Paris of 1783 restored most of the
British islands to them, including the Bahamas, which had been captured by
the Spanish in 1782. Surprisingly, the profound upheaval produced by the
American Revolution had limited impact on the Caribbean colonies, and
recent scholarship assigns no significant role to the American struggle against
Britain in the Haitian uprising against the French masters.61
The French Revolution was different. It led to the start of a new conflict
between Britain and France over the Caribbean because the economic impor-
tance of colonial production to European commerce ensured that there would
be intense efforts to secure control of the West Indian islands. The traditional
colonial rivalry, however, was complicated by slave uprisings unleashed by
the Revolution. Revolutionary events in France, especially the Declaration of
the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (August 1789), had an immediate effect
in the French colonies, especially Saint-Domingue; there was a slave insurrec-
tion in Saint-Pierre, Martinique, in late August 1789, another in the south
of Saint-Domingue in early October, and a new wave of major disturbances
in the south of Martinique in November.62 Honoré Mirabeau, one of the most
prominent leaders at this early stage of the Revolution and an active member
of the Société des Amis des Noirs, publicly argued that the Declaration
implied that “there are not, and cannot be, either in France or in any country
under French laws, any other men than free men, men equal to one another.”63
Wealthy white planters hoped to gain autonomy for themselves without risk-
ing the abolition of slavery, while free men of color desired to gain the rights
listed in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. White
planters insisted that the Declaration did not apply to people of color, and
debates over mulatto citizenship increasingly turned violent.
In September 1790 civil strife broke out between aristocratic planters
and patriots of the towns of Saint-Pierre and Fort Royal on the island of
Martinique. In December there were attempted insurrections in French
Guiana and on the island of St. Lucia, and in April 1791 slave unrest erupted
in Guadeloupe.64 The French National Assembly’s decision in May 1791 to
grant full citizenship to all financially qualified men born of free fathers and
mothers led to open street battles in Port-au-Prince in Saint-Domingue, and
by early November 1791 several parishes in Martinique were roiled by slave
revolts.65 The question of freedom and citizenship as well as the ongoing
political turmoil incited slaves to rise up against their masters in the densely
The Eighteenth-Century International Order | 43

settled plains and hills of Saint-Domingue’s northern provinces.66 Nonetheless,


this strife in the French colonies did not immediately divide plantation own-
ers and their slaves. Throughout 1790 and 1791 the former successfully
employed the latter to bolster their military strength and to overcome their
revolutionary rivals. Between 1790 and 1792 the royalists triumphed in
Guadeloupe and Martinique, but in both cases they owed their victories to
having armed the slaves. Indeed, throughout this period both the patriots
and the royalists competed in their efforts to attract the rebel slaves to their
side.67 By the summer of 1791, however, the revolutionary turmoil began to
be felt outside the French colonies as well. Within a month of the initial
uprising, British authorities were able to contain threats of slave uprisings in
Jamaica.68 The British sent a delegation to the French plantation owners with
an offer of aid against slaves. The Spanish in the eastern half of the island,
meanwhile, exploited an opportunity to enrich themselves by selling arms
and supplies to the insurgent slaves. Though relations between whites and
mulattos remained tense, the free colored militia were key in fighting the
slave rebels and in the process accelerated recognition of their civil rights.
On April 4, 1792, the French National Assembly extended citizenship to all
free men of color, hoping this measure would win their loyalty and support.69
Just sixteen days later started a war that changed the world.
chapter 3
The War of the First Coalition,
1792–1797

T he war that began in April 1792 was France’s first conflict against a
continental power since the end of the Seven Years’ War thirty years
earlier. And it began abysmally for the French, whose armies had already
been affected by the pre-revolutionary financial crisis and then crippled by
the mass emigration of noble-born officers, the breakdown of discipline and
attendant mutinies, and an overall lack of equipment and supplies. France
was isolated diplomatically as well. And, despite the revolutionaries’ claims,
there was no immediate similar revolutionary response in the rest of Europe.
Distance, aristocratic control, and state constraints kept the news out of
northern, southern, and eastern Europe, where the established order held fast;
only in Poland were the reformers able to act upon their enthusiasm, but even
there success proved short-lived.
Fighting began when French forces invaded the Austrian Netherlands
(modern Belgium) and gained some success in the border regions. This
proved to be the extent of the French success at this stage of the war. In the
spring and summer of 1792 French troops suffered a series of setbacks as
Austro-Prussian forces under Charles William Ferdinand, duke of Brunswick-
Wolfenbüttel, invaded France and slowly advanced toward Paris. On July 25,
1792, the Allies issued a warning—the so-called Brunswick Manifesto—
threatening to “exact an exemplary and forever memorable vengeance by giv-
ing Paris over to martial law and complete destruction” if the French royal
family was harmed. The manifesto, one of the most notorious documents in
modern European history, represented a rather peculiar ultimatum—it
started somewhat conciliatorily and stressed that Allies had no desire “to
meddle in internal politics of France” before employing direct threats if the
20° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40°

eridian
Austrian Possesions

M
German states

Prime
North SWEDEN Italian states
Sea Copenhagen Third Holy Roman Empire
Polish partition
Baltic Sea (Russia)
GREAT DENMARK
50°
BRITAIN PRUSSIA
NETHERLANDS Third RUSSIAN
Polish partition POLAND
Berlin (Prussia) Second
London Amsterdam Second Polish partition EMPIRE
AUSTRIAN Polish partition Warsaw (Russia)
SAXONY (Prussia) Third
NETHERLANDS Brussels Polish partition
GERMAN (Austria)
Se
in Paris STATES Prague Krakow

e
R.
E
ATLANTIC Nantes Munich Vienna Pest
OCEAN Buda
IR
FRANCE SWEES MP
CONFEDERATION A U S T RIAN E
KINGDOM OF VENETIAN
Bordeaux REP.
PIEDMONT
SARDINIA Venice Bucharest
Eb Toulouse Belgrade Black Sea
40°
ro Genoa .

R.
PORTUGAL Douro R . Danube R
Andorra Marseille TUSCANY PAPAL
O
Corsica Elba STATES T
Tagus R T Constantinople
. Madrid Barcelona O
Rome
Lisbon SPAIN Minorca (Br.) KINGDOM OF Y M
A
Naples N
IC IL
Balearics SARDINIA M EM
D S OF
Cadiz
N
G PI
A

R E
S DO

Gibraltar (Br.) N
KI LE Athens
A P
Algiers N
Tunis
0 250 500 Kilometers Crete

0 250 500 Miles Mediterranean Sea

Map 3: Europe in 1792–1794


46 | the napoleonic wars

French failed to meet its demands. As so often in the time of conflict, the
manifesto produced precisely the opposite effect from the one intended and
merely fanned the flames of revolutionary fervor in Paris. The Allies intended
it as a warning, but it played into the hands of French revolutionary propa-
gandists, who presented it as a direct threat to the nation’s existence and
contributed to a new round of revolutionary violence in Paris. On August 10,
1792, crowds stormed the Tuileries palace and imprisoned the royal family.
In September the new legislature, the National Convention, abolished the
French monarchy, proclaimed a republic, and turned to the challenging task
of defending France. “La Patrie en danger!” was the rallying cry that the
French revolutionaries used to mobilize forces to defend the nation.
Not without cause. A Prussian army (with some Austrian support) was
already beyond Longwy, some two hundred miles from Paris, with nothing
to stop them from marching directly on Paris except for the unwillingness of
their commander, the duke of Brunswick. For all the ferocity expressed in his
manifesto, Charles William Ferdinand disapproved of his mission, and hav-
ing reached the Meuse River, he halted, claiming further advance impossible;
only the unexpected surrender of the fortress of Verdun shamed him to move
forward. At the small town of Valmy, about 150 miles from Paris, Brunswick
encountered a hastily reorganized French army under the command of
Generals Charles Dumouriez and François Kellermann. On September 20,
1792, he marched out to attack what seemed to be ill-disciplined throngs of
Frenchmen but came under fire from French guns. The artillery was the
branch of service least affected by the Revolution and therefore still staffed
with professionals. Deployed on the rolling hills of Valmy, the French gun-
ners refused to be silenced by the Prussian counterfire and kept targeting the
advancing enemy infantry with what soon came to be called “the cannonade
of Valmy.” As the Prussians wavered, Kellermann raised his hat and cried,
“Vive la Nation!”—a sentiment picked up again and again by almost the
entire French army. With the French soldiers cheering and eager to fight,
the duke of Brunswick seized his chance to break off the campaign, declaring
the French position impregnable and calling back his men.
The Battle of Valmy, such as it was, constituted a crucial French strategic
and political victory, for it stopped the Austro-Prussian advance and pro-
tected the revolutionary government. The patriotic emotions stirred by the
cries of “La Patrie en danger!” were bolstered by the national pride in defeat-
ing the veterans of Frederick the Great. Moreover, the French forces seized
the initiative to more vigorously prosecute the war: General Adam Custine
crossed the Rhine from Alsace and occupied Mainz and Frankfurt in October,
while Dumouriez moved into the Austrian Netherlands, defeating the
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 47

Austrians at Jemappes on November 6. This battle marked one of the turn-


ing points in the war. as the French followed up by occupying much of the
Austrian Netherlands and sending a squadron up the Scheldt to besiege
Antwerp. Simultaneously, French troops also occupied Savoy and Nice, on
the Italian front line. The victories in the fall of 1792 seemed in many respects
a miraculous deliverance for France, but their root causes lay in several fac-
tors, including internal disagreements between the coalition partners and
their preoccupation with events in Poland; the growing numerical superior-
ity of the French troops, who had demonstrated a rousing spirit to fight (élan)
that surprised their opponents; and adoption of military reforms long advo-
cated by great French military theorists such as Jacques Antoine Hippolyte,
comte de Guibert.1
Despite these victories, 1793 started badly for France. European monar-
chies were incensed by the execution of King Louis XVI on January 21 and
the National Convention’s proclamation that it was waging a popular crusade
against privilege and tyranny. The revolutionaries’ desire to establish direct
relations with peoples, going over the heads of their monarchs, posed a direct
challenge to existing regimes. The so-called Edict of Fraternity, issued by the
National Convention on November 19, gave further alarm to monarchical
states; revolutionary France promised “fraternity and assistance to all peoples
who wish to recover their liberty,” in effect offering an open invitation for the
overthrow of existing regimes. The Edict of Fraternity did indeed inspire
would-be revolutionaries in other parts of Europe, even those countries not at
war with France, to challenge their existing governments. In Britain, for
example, the French embassy held receptions for deputations from the local
radical societies, including the Norwich Revolutionary Society and the
Manchester Constitutional Society, which expressed their joy at seeing France
“fulfilling its great destinies,” as one public declaration stated, and welcomed
donations in money and armaments that the English radicals offered to the
revolutionary armies in Belgium.2
The edict reinforced belief among many French revolutionaries (and the
public in general) that continued French expansion was a moral imperative.
This was, in the words of the great French historian Albert Mathiez, “the
apogee of the cosmopolitan and humanitarian policy” of the Revolution as
“the emancipatory propaganda took the form of tutelage, almost of a dicta-
torship. Revolutionary France recognized that free peoples left to themselves
were incapable of imitating its example on their own.” The French revolu-
tionaries had to assist these peoples in carrying out revolution for them,
without them, and if need be against them.3 French expansion into the
neighboring territories soon revealed a more sinister side. The Edict of
48 | the napoleonic wars

Fraternity’s idealism was largely subverted by the law of December 15, 1792,
that decreed how the “liberated” peoples would defray the costs of French
military occupation. European radicals soon discovered that protesting
against the excesses of French occupation brought harassment, fines, and
imprisonment. Already in January 1793, Georg Forster, a German radical
who initially welcomed the French troops into the Rhineland, bitterly com-
plained that the lofty ideals of the Revolution were compromised on a daily
basis and “the brigandage of troops has succeeded all too well in alienating
souls and diverting them from the project of giving themselves to
France. . . . The inhabitants would been less cruelly deceived if the [French]
troops had told them upon arrival, ‘We have come to take everything from
you.’”4
The Revolution posed a threat not because it was impelled by powerful
ideas but because those ideas carried guns. The other countries of Europe
were quite capable of suppressing their own revolutionaries. When accused
of making war on revolutionary “opinion,” the British prime minister
famously replied, “It is not so. We are not in arms against the opinions of the
closet, nor the speculations of the schools. We are at war with armed opin-
ions.”5 It was the power of the reformed French armies that made revolution
dangerous. Early on, the French revolutionary government did reveal plenty
of sincere idealism in its foreign policy and even passed a decree repudiating
conquests and territorial aggrandizement.6 But by late 1792, having experi-
enced a first taste of success, the Revolution’s “war for liberty” had evolved
into a conflict for more traditional objectives. The French conquests in the
Rhineland threatened Austrian interests, while the invasion of the Austrian
Netherlands and the opening of the Scheldt estuary—which had been closed
by the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648 but was opened by the French in mid-
November 1792, providing them with direct access to the North Sea—struck
at the heart of British security and trade, which rested on the premise that no
other great maritime power held control of any Channel ports.
The revolution thus threatened the status quo. The intensity of Europe’s
response to the revolution was, in part, caused by a clear contrast between
France’s self-proclaimed mission to “free” the continent and the military
occupation that this entailed. The Revolution’s universal principles were
indeed welcomed by many in neighboring countries, but the French occupa-
tion bred resentment and hostility among the larger populations, as the sup-
posed beneficiaries of emancipation began to feel very much like the victims
of what one British observer dubbed “the homicidal philanthropy of France.”7
In the spring of 1793, most European states, including Britain, Prussia,
Austria, Spain, and Naples, joined their efforts in the First Coalition against
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 49

France; the pope lent his moral support to the coalition. By declaring war on
Britain the French republic had introduced a new dimension into the strug-
gle: the sea. Neither Austria nor Prussia had significant naval resources, but
Britain, of course, was indisputably the supreme naval power, and now it
used its vast naval resources to pursue French commercial and military tar-
gets. The Allies opened a new offensive, with the British attacking French
merchantmen and interdicting maritime shipments, the Prussians besieging
Mainz in the Rhineland, and the Austrians seeking to reclaim the Austrian
Netherlands. The French were defeated at Neerwinden on March 18, and
Brussels was retaken by the Austrians.
Bad news kept coming for the French.8 Army commander General
Dumouriez, fearful for his own life after the success of his political rivals in
Paris, defected to the coalition.9 General Custine suffered a defeat against the
Austrian, Hanoverian, and British forces of Prince Josias of Saxe-Coburg-
Saalfeld near Valenciennes on May 21–23 and was unable to relieve the
besieged fortress of Condé; recalled to Paris, Custine was charged with trea-
son and prosecuted by the Revolutionary Tribunal, which found him guilty
on August 27 and had him guillotined the following day. By the end of the
summer of 1793, the Austrians and Prussians had pushed the French out of
all of Belgium and the Rhineland, the Spanish army threatened France from
the south, and the British continued to blockade much of the French coast-
line. Counterrevolutionary insurrections raged in the west of France; mean-
while, acrimonious struggle among the various revolutionary groups and the
resulting civil and political instability and administrative impasse left the
armies of the Republic lacking in supplies and pay and suffering from low
morale. In late August the city of Toulon, on the Mediterranean coastline,
became a symbol of France’s political problems. First, the city’s moderate
republicans rebelled against the radical policies of the Jacobins, but they
were soon supplanted by the royalists, who invited Anglo-Spanish forces to
take over the city. Admiral Sir Samuel Hood of the Royal Navy and Spanish
admiral Juan de Langara could hardly believe the opportunity they had been
handed. In just one stroke, they had seized one of France’s key naval arsenals
along with twenty-six ships-of-the-line (about one-third of France’s entire
fleet).10
As the Republic faltered in the face of foreign invasion, internal insurrec-
tion, and economic crisis, the revolutionary leadership grew more radical. In
June 1793, the Jacobin faction seized control of the government. Facing an
extremely volatile domestic and international situation, the Jacobins called
for extraordinary measures to protect the nation and the revolutionary ideals.
They believed that only strong and centralized leadership could save the
50 | the napoleonic wars

Republic. Such was provided by the twelve-member Committee of Public


Safety (CPS), which introduced radical reforms to achieve greater social
equality and political democracy and began imposing the government’s
authority throughout the nation through violent repression and terror.
In the interest of the nation’s defense, the CPS launched a levée en masse—the
masterwork of minister of war Lazare Carnot—that mobilized the resources
of the entire nation. “From this moment until that in which the enemy
shall have been driven from the soil of the Republic,” stated the National
Convention’s decree of August 23, “all Frenchmen are in permanent requisi-
tion for the service of the armies.” In a remarkable administrative feat, the
revolutionary government had raised an astonishing fourteen new armies and
equipped some 800,000 men within a year. The CPS introduced universal
conscription of all single men ages eighteen to twenty-five, requisitioned
supplies from individual citizens, and ensured that factories and mines pro-
duced at full capacity. The success of this mass mobilization was aided by a
vast state propaganda campaign that touted the levée en masse as a patriotic
duty aimed at defending la patrie against tyranny and foreign threats. Citizens
not privileged to bear arms and fight on the front line were encouraged to
work harder to make up for it. These messages were spread via posters, broad-
sides, leaflets, and newspapers, while speakers and decorated veterans toured
the country to rouse the masses. In creating the “nation in arms,” the Jacobins
heralded the emergence of modern warfare.11
The citizen soldiers of the Republic proved their worth on the battlefields.
In September 1793 General Jean Nicolas Houchard defeated the Anglo-
Hanoverian army at Hondschoote, in Flanders, while Jean-Baptiste Jourdan
routed the Austrians at Wattignies on October 15–16, thus turning the tide
of war against the First Coalition. Two months later the French army drove
the Anglo-Spanish force out of the strategically important port of Toulon,
where an obscure artillery major named Napoleon Bonaparte first distin-
guished himself. In the west of France, the revolutionary armies brutally sup-
pressed the royalist revolt in the Vendée.12 After General Jourdan’s victory at
Fleurus on June 26, 1794, the French pushed back the coalition forces along
the northern frontier and reclaimed Belgium and the Rhineland; in January
1795 the Dutch Texel fleet of fourteen ships-of-the-line was trapped in ice and
captured by a French squadron of hussars and an infantry company riding pil-
lion behind them—the only example in history of a cavalry capturing a fleet.
In the south, the French revolutionary armies occupied Savoy and kept
the Spaniards at bay on the Pyrenean front. The French naval campaign was
less successful, largely due to the loss of the officer corps and partly as a result
of losses sustained at Toulon, where a significant part of its fleet was captured
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 51

or destroyed by the British. In the months following, the British Royal Navy
carried out a successful offensive in the Canadian Maritime Provinces and the
West Indies, seizing the islands of St. Pierre, Miquelon, and Tobago, and
invading Martinique and Saint-Domingue (though the French managed to
recover them later). Meanwhile, in European waters, the Royal Navy extended
His Britannic Majesty’s protection to the island of Corsica and celebrated
victory at the Battle of the Glorious First of June.13 However, it failed to
attain the larger strategic goal of intercepting the grain convoy delivering
supplies for the starving French population.14
French naval setbacks, however, were more than compensated for on land,
where a war that begun in defense of the Revolution and for the liberation of
oppressed people had turned into one of conquest and plunder. French military
successes were facilitated by political rivalries between the Allied powers.
Prussia, Austria, and Russia were preoccupied with the Partitions of
Poland, diverting considerable resources and political will away from France.
Furthermore, financial exhaustion and two years of campaigning with no tangi-
ble results sapped any enthusiasm for war in some countries. The favorable
progression of the war made the excesses of the Jacobins seem increasingly
unnecessary. Indeed, the excesses caused moderates in the Convention to over-
throw the CPS in July 1794 and reverse some of the more radical reforms it had
introduced. After the dismantling of the CPS, more moderate leaders took con-
trol. The Reign of Terror came to a halt, and the National Convention adopted
a new constitution that reflected the desire for stability without sacrificing, so it
announced, the ideals of 1789. The new French government—the five-member
Executive Directory and two legislative councils—was battered from all sides:
on the right, royalists sought to restore the monarchy, while on the left, Jacobin
hopes of reclaiming power were revived by continuing economic problems.15
Despite these challenges, the Directory proved to be the longest-lived of
all the revolutionary governments, though its politics were a seesaw: in the
first two years the Directory moved to the right until it was threatened by the
resurgence of royalism, whereupon it veered back to the left, which in turn
encouraged the revival of Jacobinism. Historians have long condemned the
Directory for its weakness, corruption, inept domestic and foreign policy, and
financial incompetence, which in turn seemingly justified its overthrow by
General Bonaparte. However, it is clear now that the essential institutions of
the Consulate and Empire were already in working order under the Directory,
which earnestly pursued the centralization and consolidation of government
administration. Nonetheless, the Directory also lacked public confidence from
its inception. Emotionally exhausted by years of economic, social, and political
turmoil, many French citizens fell into a mood of indifference or cynicism.
52 | the napoleonic wars

Despite the successive coups aimed at strengthening its position, the Directory
grew weaker and increasingly had to appeal to the military for support.
By the opening months of 1795, France had control of Belgium,
Luxembourg, and the left (west) bank of the Rhine, which had now become
integral parts of the French Republic.16 The spring campaign brought new
victories to the French arms as an invasion across the Pyrenees and victories
in the Rhineland caused the First Coalition to crumble. Tuscany withdrew its
unofficial support, and it was quickly followed by the new Batavian (Dutch)
Republic in May. On July 22, 1795, Spain, which two years earlier had
declared war on revolutionary France to stave off the threatening ideology of
liberty, equality, and fraternity, was forced to sue for peace after continued
military setbacks.17 Peace offered a poor alternative for Spain given that
Britain now targeted Spanish shipping, which compelled Madrid to sign a
treaty of alliance (the Treaty of Ildefonso) with France, bringing Spain into
the war against England. Thus, within a year of signing a peace with France,
Spain found itself once more at war, with Britain blockading Spanish ports
and attacking the Spanish arsenal at Ferrol.
Equally critical was France’s success with Prussia, which had hinted at its
withdrawal from war in 1794. During negotiations held in the Swiss city of
Basle, Prussian diplomats were left in no doubt of French determination to
carry on the war—“We shall trace with a sure hand the natural limits of the
Republic. We shall make sure of the rivers which, after watering several of
our departments, take their course towards the sea, and limit the countries
now subject to our arms,” declared one French delegate—but were more
concerned about the events in the east, where Russia was preparing for the
final partitioning of Poland.18 According to the terms of the Treaty of Basle,
signed on April 5, 1795, Prussia withdrew from war and recognized French
control of the left bank of the Rhine, while France returned all of the lands
east of the Rhine captured during the war.
The Treaty of Basle marked a crucial moment in German history and was,
at least according to one historian, a “death certificate” of the Holy Roman
Empire, since Prussia “rejected Reich [empire] in favor of raison d’état.”19 The
treaty not only consolidated French control of the Rhineland but divided
Germany into two spheres of influence, drawing a virtual line at the Main
River, north of which the German states—Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and the
states of the Swabian Circle (Reichkreis)—soon followed Prussia in deserting
the imperial cause and accepting neutrality agreements with France. The
treaty aroused loud criticism in Germany, and anti-Prussian attitudes were
felt very deeply in many southern German states, helping shape their policies
in the decades ahead.
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 53

With key coalition partners Prussia and Spain out of the war, France still faced
Britain on the seas and Austria and its Italian allies on the continent. In the
Mediterranean, French and British navies fought inconclusive actions in the Gulf
of Genoa (March 13–14, 1795) and at Hyères (July 13). Elsewhere, the British
narrowly escaped being trounced at the hands of a larger French force off
Belle Isle on June 17, while Admiral Alexander Hood (Lord Bridport) captured
several French vessels in a naval engagement off Île de Groix (June 23) but squan-
dered a unique opportunity to incapacitate the entire French Atlantic fleet.20
On the continent, French military operations were confined to two key
front lines: the Rhineland and northwestern Italy. In the former, four years of
incessant warfare had left the region completely despoiled; one French general
recalled that by the spring of 1796 parts of the Rhineland were so “exhausted
that it was virtually impossible to make war there before the next harvest
came in.”21 Nevertheless, France had its largest armies—General Jourdan’s
Sambre-et-Meuse (78,000 men) and General Jean Moreau’s Rhin-et-Moselle
(80,000 men)—deployed here. Facing them was the newly appointed Austrian
commander, Archduke Charles, brother of the Austrian emperor, who com-
manded some 90,000 men.22 Jourdan’s offensive across the Rhine, which
opened on June 10, enabled Moreau to cross the river at Strasbourg, but the
French offensive soon ground to a halt. Archduke Charles soundly defeated
Jourdan at Amberg (August 24) and Würzburg (September 3), forcing the
French back along the Rhine and leading to an armistice. Meanwhile, Moreau
had defeated an Austrian force at Friedberg on August 23, but after hearing of
Jourdan’s repulse, he recrossed the Rhine on October 26.23
The French war effort was saved by Napoleon Bonaparte, who took com-
mand of the Armée d’Italie in April 1796, at the age of twenty-seven.24
Facing slightly larger Austrian-Piedmontese armies, commanded by septua-
genarian Feldzeugmeister Johann Peter Beaulieu, Napoleon attacked the
junction between the two forces on early April, and after scoring a victory at
Montenotte (April 12), he interposed his forces between the Piedmontese
and the Austrians, thus introducing one of the key traits of his later cam-
paigns—dividing separate elements of a numerically superior enemy in order
to defeat their smaller, constituent parts. Holding a central position,
Bonaparte proceeded to engage the Piedmontese and Austrians, driving them
farther apart and defeating them piecemeal. Within two weeks of the start of
the war, Bonaparte occupied the Piedmontese capital city of Turin and forced
the Piedmontese to sue for peace.25 He then pursued the retreating Austrian
forces, scoring an important victory over the Austrian rear guard at Lodi,
a battle that came to establish his destiny as a hero both to his men and to
the nation—not without reason. Throughout the summer and fall of 1796
54 | the napoleonic wars

Bonaparte outmaneuvered his Austrian opponents, scoring major victories


at Castiglione (August 5) and Bassano (September 8) and besieging the
great fortress of Mantua, where half the Austrian troops were penned up.26
Reinforcements from Germany, led by Feldzeugmeister Joseph Alvinczi von
Borberek, enabled the Austrians to attempt to relieve besieged Mantua, but
after a three-day battle at Arcola (November 15–17), Bonaparte forced them
to retreat. After another Austrian attempt at relieving the fortress suffered a
decisive defeat at Rivoli in January 1797, the Austrian garrison at Mantua
capitulated, bringing to an end all Austrian resistance in Italy.27 Bonaparte’s
subsequent crossing of the Alps and invasion of Austria prompted the Viennese
court to request an armistice.
The Treaty of Campo Formio, concluded on October 17, marked a critical
moment in the Revolutionary Wars. The War of the First Coalition was effec-
tively over, and France was triumphant. Lands ceded to the French Republic
included the Austrian Netherlands; although the treaty did not contain any
major provisions relevant to the Batavian (Dutch) Republic, it effectively rec-
ognized the republic’s existence under the French sphere of influence.28 Austria
was forced to recognize French satellite republics in northern and central Italy,
and consented to the French claims on the left bank of the Rhine River, includ-
ing the strategic cities of Mannheim and Mainz.29 Austria received compensa-
tion in the form of Venice, but France was to keep the Venetian dominions in
the Adriatic Sea and Eastern Mediterranean, including the island of Corfu.30
The Treaty of Campo Formio effectively placed the Low Countries and
northern Italy under French control, rendering France a hegemonic power in
Western Europe, with Britain its only remaining major rival. Bonaparte’s
insistence on the occupation of the Ionian Islands, former Venetian posses-
sions, brought the French interest to the Adriatic shores, significantly
improved its position in the eastern Mediterranean, and introduced revolu-
tionary ideals to the Balkan peninsula, especially in Greece. The treaty, which
Bonaparte settled largely without reference to Paris for instructions, demon-
strated his elevation from a mere soldier of the Republic to a statesman who
harbored great political ambitions. Yet as advantageous as the treaty was, it
still faced resistance from the Directory, which insisted on even better terms,
especially with respect to the Rhineland, where the frontier was not formally
secured. Considering public enthusiasm for the peace, however, the Directory
and the legislative councils felt compelled to accept it.31

British spirits, dampened by the steady reports of the French triumphs on the
continent, received a much-needed tonic with the news of the Royal Navy’s
triumphs on the seas. In 1795, the French takeover of the Dutch Republic had
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 55

given Britain a unique opportunity to penetrate the Dutch colonial empire. A


year later, after the Treaty of San Ildefonso allied France and Spain, Britain
feared the prospects of facing a combined Franco-Spanish fleet that could
harass its trade and impair communications with its colonies. Indeed, the
Spanish declaration of war and Bonaparte’s victories in Italy made the Royal
Navy’s position in much of the western Mediterranean untenable. Its ships
could no longer easily replenish their supplies, and it faced a Franco-Spanish
fleet that was more than twice its size. The British were therefore forced to
evacuate the islands of Corsica and Elba and consolidate their positions around
Gibraltar and Sicily, while seeking to defeat their opponents piecemeal.
The British got their opportunity in early 1797, when the British squad-
ron (fifteen ships-of-the-line) commanded by Admiral Sir John Jervis learned
about the Spanish fleet sailing near Cadiz, attempting to join with the French
fleet at Brest for a possible invasion of Ireland. Unaware of the enemy fleet’s
size, Jervis quickly sailed to intercept it. As a thick fog enveloped the choppy
seas of Cape St. Vincent on February 14, the British engaged the Spanish
fleet, commanded by Admiral Don José de Córdoba y Ramos. The start of the
battle led to a memorable exchange between Jervis, who was unaware that he
was outnumbered two to one, and his captains, who counted the Spanish war-
ships as they emerged through the mist:
“There are eight sail-of-the-line, Sir John.”—“Very well, Sir.”
“There are twenty sail-of-the-line, Sir John.”—“Very well, Sir.”
“There are twenty-five sail-of-the-line, Sir John”—“Very well, Sir.”
“There are twenty-seven sail, Sir John!” . . . —“Enough, Sir, no
more of that: the die is cast; and if there are fifty sail, I will go through
them.”32
Go through them he did. Jervis cut the Spanish line in two, while his better-
trained and better-commanded crews outclassed their foes, killing or wound-
ing more than 3,500 Spaniards. Captain Horatio Nelson, commanding HMS
Captain, distinguished himself by a daring and unconventional maneuver
that resulted in the capture of two Spanish warships.
The Battle of Cape St. Vincent was a major strategic victory for Britain.
Although in the end Spain’s losses in ships were slight (four ships captured),
its fleet took refuge in Cadiz, where it was blockaded by the British. The
battle thus put an end to any French plans for an invasion of Ireland and,
more important, demoralized the Spanish navy and made it reluctant to join
France in future operations.33
56 | the napoleonic wars

The memories of victory at St. Vincent were still fresh when the British
celebrated another triumph, this time nearer to home. After occupying the
Dutch Republic, France sought to utilize Dutch naval resources to replenish
its ravaged fleet but was unable to move Dutch warships due to the ongoing
British blockade. In the fall of 1797, taking advantage of a number of muti-
nies that hampered Britain’s Channel Fleet, the Dutch fleet (eleven ships-of-
the-line and more than a dozen other warships) under Vice Admiral Jan de
Winter sailed out into the North Sea but was intercepted by the British
squadron under Admiral Adam Duncan, who commanded fourteen ships-of-
the-line and ten other warships. The ensuing battle at Camperdown resulted
in a decisive British victory. The Dutch fleet attacked in two loose formations
and got overwhelmed by the far superior British warships. With a desperate
final effort, the Dutch tried to escape into shallower waters but were pursued
and forced to surrender by the British, who claimed eleven warships, including
seven ships-of-the-line.
The Battle of Camperdown was rightly celebrated as one of the greatest
victories of the British fleet to date. Its effects were immediate and wide-
spread: it struck a severe blow to Dutch and French ambitions, further con-
solidated the Royal Navy’s positions in the northern Atlantic, and eased the
pressure of Britain’s naval resources.34

Perhaps the most obvious victim of the First Coalition War was the Polish
state. As previously noted, French military successes in Italy, the Low Countries,
and the Rhineland had been facilitated by Prussia, Austria, and Russia’s pre-
occupation with the fate of Poland. As we’ve seen, the Second Partition of
Poland (1792–1793) produced decisive results, though it also created an
inherently unstable situation. Russia’s position on the Polish issue was unam-
biguously in favor of further expansion; Austria clearly resented exclusion
from the Second Partition; and Prussia openly desired additional lands as
well. The establishment of Russian hegemony promoted resentment and
indignation within what was left of Poland. Indeed, Russo-Polish relations
rapidly deteriorated, reaching a nadir on March 12, 1794, when General Antoni
Madalinski rejected Russian demands to disband the Polish-Lithuanian army.
This sparked a general outbreak of anti-Russian riots throughout the country.
The uprising quickly spread through the Polish lands, and Tadeusz
Kosciuszko (Thaddeus Kosciusko), a veteran of the American Revolutionary
War, was invited to lead the insurrection. Kosciuszko returned to Poland in
late March 1794 and called the Poles to arms. The Polish army, undermanned
and poorly trained (some peasants were armed with scythes), achieved a sur-
prising victory over the numerically and technically superior Russian force at
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 57

Raclawice on April 4, 1794. The initial Polish success greatly alarmed


Catherine II, who called on Frederick William II of Prussia for military sup-
port. In May 1794 the Russian army, supported by Prussian troops in the
west, began a counteroffensive. During the summer Polish armies suffered
major defeats at Szczekociny and Chesmn; Prussian troops occupied Kraków
and, together with Russian forces, began a siege of Warsaw. Kosciuszko’s
troops managed to win several minor clashes and lift the siege of Warsaw but
soon suffered a crucial defeat at Maciejowice on October 10; Kosciuszko
himself was wounded and taken prisoner by the Russians, depriving the
Poles of their charismatic and capable leader. Between November 4 and 9,
the Russian army under General Alexander Suvorov stormed the Warsaw
suburb of Praga, where thousands of residents were massacred by the Russian
troops. The last Polish troops surrendered to the Russian army at Radoszyce
on November 17.
These Russian military victories gave Catherine II the political initiative in
postwar settlement talks, though she also recognized the need to gratify other
powers: Prussia was not going to evacuate the occupied Polish territory,
and Austria, disgruntled at its exclusion in 1793, would not allow itself to be
excluded once again. The three powers, therefore, had to agree to jointly carry
out the Third Partition, which eliminated the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
The negotiations turned out to be prolonged and complex, reflecting increased
tensions between Austria and Prussia due to their unsuccessful campaigns
against France. Russia exploited these divisions to consolidate its gains.
Catherine II quickly negotiated an agreement with Austria and, seeking
to restrain Prussia’s territorial appetite, supported Vienna over Berlin. The
Prussian intransigence led to the secret Russo-Austrian treaty (January 1795)
directed against Frederick William II, who, fearing a potential war, hurried
to conclude a peace with France at Basle in April so he could deal with the
Russo-Austrian maneuvering in Poland in October 1795. Under the agree-
ment, which was further modified in 1796–1797 and became known as the
Third Partition of Poland, Russia received some 46,000 square miles (120,000
square kilometers) of the Polish territory and 1.2 million inhabitants, Prussia
claimed over 18,000 square miles (48,000 square kilometers) and just over
1 million new subjects, and Austria gained about 18,000 square miles (47,000
square kilometers) and 1.5 million inhabitants.
The three partitions of Poland were a genuine tour de force of imperial
expansion. Poland had effectively ceased to exist, and to underline how
momentous this outcome was, all three powers agreed to never use the name
Poland in any official documentation. The Poles would not see an in­de­pend­
ent state until after World War I. The third-largest continental state had
58 | the napoleonic wars

been wiped off the map of Europe, and the balance of power in eastern Europe
was profoundly changed. Poland paid a dear price for the absence of outside
support. France, a traditional ally of the Poles, was consumed by revolution-
ary turmoil and unable to offer anything. Britain also had its hands tied due
to the nature of the conflict in Poland. Diplomatic representations alone were
unlikely to have any impact as long as Britain could not afford military inter-
vention; the English man of letters Horace Walpole remarked that the British
fleet would have to “be towed overland to Warsaw” to have any effect on the
partitioning powers.35

The limitations of British power in Poland were more than offset when it
came to the overseas regions. While the war began in Europe and would be
primarily fought there, Britain had understood from the outset that this
would be a global conflict, one that could deal another severe blow to France
(after its defeat in the Seven Years’ War), consolidate British command of the
seas, and underpin the growing British economy. The West and East Indies
represented major commercial hubs, accounting for a large share of British
and French overseas trade, so controlling these regions offered immense
financial benefits. Furthermore, the British government was concerned about
the spread of republican ideals to the Caribbean, where just 50,000 British
colonists maintained almost half a million slaves. The British entry into the
war in 1793 meant that the War of the First Coalition acquired a global
dimension, one that, as we will see, kept expanding with each passing year.
Yet implementing a successful global strategy would prove to be hard.
The British presence in the West Indies was concentrated at Jamaica and
Barbados. Given the vagaries of wind and weather, the Royal Navy made the
decision to split its forces into two commands: Vice Admiral Sir John Laforey
commanded a small squadron at Barbados, while Commodore John Ford sta-
tioned his ships at Jamaica. Neither squadron was particularly strong; the
largest Royal Navy ships were the fifty-gun Trusty and Europa. Therefore,
upon the start of the war, the most pressing need was to reinforce these
two commands with additional vessels. Accordingly, Rear Admiral Gardner
sailed with seven ships-of-the-line (and two infantry regiments) to the West
Indies in late March 1793.36
The outbreak of a general European war in 1793 had of course weakened
France’s hold on its colonies. Spain threatened Saint-Domingue from Santo
Domingo (modern-day Dominican Republic), while the slave rebels also had
to contend with the United States, which supported the white settler com-
munity with approximately $400,000 in aid until 1804.37 Britain—exploiting
this occasion to take control of Saint-Domingue outright, thereby securing
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 59

its holdings in the Caribbean against slave rebellion, and laying claim to the
lucrative sugar and coffee plantations—dispatched considerable forces to
the region. The British involvement began in the spring of 1793 when Vice
Admiral Sir John Laforey’s squadron transported British forces to capture the
island of Tobago, which the British lost to the French during the American
Revolution; the island surrendered on April 15 after the British landed a
small force, attacked the fort of Scarborough, and forced the island’s French
garrison to capitulate.
After his arrival at Barbados, Rear Admiral Alan Gardner unsuccess-
fully attempted to take the island of Martinique. The French governor of
Martinique, General Donatien Rochambeau, was in the midst of putting
down a royalist revolt when a British expedition arrived in June. Despite
being supported by several hundred royalists, the British attack on St. Pierre
on June 18 failed after running into stiff republican resistance. The British
withdrew and evacuated more than five thousand royalist refugees.38 More
successful was Commodore John Ford, commander of the Jamaica station,
who in September 1793 captured Môle-Saint-Nicolas, one of the best harbors
in the Caribbean, with the support of planters who had become wary of the
French revolutionaries’ radicalism.
In late 1793 British secretary of war Henry Dundas drew up plans for a
large expedition to the Caribbean to be commanded by Lieutenant General
Sir Charles Grey and Vice Admiral Sir John Jervis. Events in Europe post-
poned the dispatch of this expedition until November, and despite being
promised more than 16,000 men, Jervis and Grey received just over 7,000
men because of Britain’s increased European commitments. It was only in the
early spring of 1794 that Jervis and Grey undertook large-scale operations
against French colonies in the West Indies. They first targeted—again—
Martinique, which was attacked in February 1794. Despite possessing
detailed plans of the French defenses, provided by the royalists, the British
attack stalled at the forts protecting Fort-de-France, where Rochambeau
was able to hold out until March 25, thereby costing the British nearly a
month and half of the campaign season.
Nevertheless, the eventual British capture of Martinique was a major stra-
tegic success because it denied France its major naval and commercial base in
the region. The British followed up on this victory with a quick sweep of the
West Indies, capturing the islands of St. Lucia and Guadeloupe in April 1794
and occupying Port-au-Prince, the capital of Saint-Domingue, in June. Yet
these victories also proved to be costly to British manpower, which found itself
stretched between far-flung islands and suffering greatly from yellow fever.
The unexpected arrival of a small French force of two frigates and transports
60 | the napoleonic wars

resulted in the expulsion of the British from Guadeloupe by December 1794.


Grey and Jervis tried to strike back but were repelled in July 1795.
With the French firmly in control of Guadeloupe, the British faced the
daunting challenge of containing a wave of slave revolts that spread across the
islands of the West Indies. In 1796 the British government conceived a new
campaign in the Caribbean, preparing to dispatch some 30,000 soldiers.
Severe storms prevented these forces from leaving European waters until late
1795, but in early spring 1796, once the weather improved, Rear Admiral
Hugh Christian and Major General Ralph Abercromby crossed the Atlantic.
Abercromby landed on St. Lucia in late April; the French garrison put up
stiff resistance but was forced to surrender after a month-long siege. Leaving
a strong garrison on this island, Abercromby then sailed to St. Vincent and
Grenada, both of which were quickly secured.

During the summer of 1796 the British made little progress in the West
Indies, as disease claimed some 6,500 troops and confined another 4,000 to
the hospitals; barely a third of the original forces were fit for duty by January
1797. Meanwhile, in Europe, France had by this point forced Prussia and
Spain out of the war, the latter power switching sides to oppose Britain, as
we’ve seen, and thus forcing the Pitt government to end its offensive in the
Caribbean. When Spain declared war on Britain on October 8, 1796, Britain
decided to target the vulnerable Spanish colonial possessions, starting with
the Rio de la Plata and Trinidad. The former expedition was cancelled due to
lack of available ships, while the mission to Trinidad was delayed until early
1797 because of difficulty in obtaining shipping and the news of General
Louis Lazare Hoche’s expedition to Ireland. In mid-February 1797 Admiral
Henry Harvey and General Abercromby finally set course for Trinidad, which
was captured after brief resistance. In April, the British commanders pro-
ceeded to Puerto Rico, landing east of San Juan on April 18. The Spanish
governor, Don Ramón de Castro, refused the British demand to surrender,
instead reinforcing the island’s defenses. After several failed attempts to
advance on the formidable fortifications of San Juan, Abercromby abandoned
his plans and evacuated his forces during the night of April 30.39 With hur-
ricane season approaching, Harvey then chose to end the entire campaign.
The naval operations of 1795–1797 constituted some of the largest over-
seas expeditions ever mounted by Britain and involved more than 25,000
troops; combined with the forces already in the West Indies, this accounted
for almost half of the British army. Yet, considering the vast resources in
manpower and funds that they required, they produced limited results. In
the words of one British naval historian, with the failure of the British attack
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 61

on Puerto Rico, “the heyday of Caribbean warfare was over.”40 Britain instead
focused on retaining key conquests rather than continuing its offensives.
The French-held Saint-Domingue served as a center for the revolutionary
tumult in the Caribbean. Jacobin commissioners sent from Paris to Saint-
Domingue emancipated all the slaves in the French colonies (a move con-
firmed by the National Convention in Paris in February 1794) and enlisted
the support of free men of color against foreign invaders.41 One such new ally
was Toussaint Bréda Louverture, a former slave coachman who had fought in
Spanish ranks before joining the French.42 An effective leader and capable
commander, Louverture contributed to a French victory and the withdrawal
of Spanish troops in 1795 and then British troops in 1798. Even though the
British retained control of Martinique, the third major French colony in
the Caribbean, the French successes in Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe,
made possible by the black troops led by Louverture, ensured the survival
of a considerable French presence in the region. By 1798 Louverture had
emerged as the leading figure on the island and was eager to consolidate his
power by removing his former allies. He expelled French commissioners,
defeated rival mulatto generals (including André Rigaud in the War of the
South in 1799), and extended his control to Spanish Santo Domingo in 1800.
Though France was at war with Britain, Louverture pursued the best possible
relations with the British, recognizing that they were the only ones capable
of ensuring Haiti’s eventual independence. In 1801 he issued a constitution
that made him governor-general for life (with the right to name his successor)
and spoke of racial reconciliation and economic recovery. Yet in practice
Louverture pursued a different agenda, creating a repressive regime that kept
former slaves, now nominally free, as forced laborers (cultivateurs) on planta-
tions. His actions laid the foundation for what modern Haitian historians
have called the “Louverturian state,” based on centralized authoritarian gov-
ernment and repression, whose legacy can be felt in Haiti today.43

The impact of the Revolutionary Wars reached Africa and the Indian Ocean,
although it was not as profound due to limited European influence in these
regions. When the news of the war in Europe reached Calcutta on June 1,
1793, the British quickly moved to seize French commercial possessions;
most of them fell without a fight, although Pondicherry, the crucial French
colony in India, required an almost month-long siege.44 The French posses-
sions, however, were not limited to the Indian mainland; they extended to
the far-flung islands of Isle de France (Mauritius) and Bourbon (Réunion),
which served as the bases for French privateering operations in the Indian
Ocean. Supported by French warships, the privateers posed a major threat to
62 | the napoleonic wars

East Indiamen plying their trade between Europe and India. To deal with
this threat, the British dispatched Commodore Peter Rainier to Madras in
the fall of 1794. Rainier was a seasoned naval commander who had excellent
knowledge of the Indian Ocean, having fought there against the French, led
by the famed Admiral Pierre Andre de Suffren, during the American
Revolutionary War. Rainier was given the impossible task of ensuring the
maritime security of British interests in the vast region that stretched from
the southern tip of Africa to China and encompassed the entire Indian Ocean,
including the Persian Gulf and the Bay of Bengal. Upon reaching Madras,
Rainier clearly understood the challenges he faced and chose to pursue a
defensive strategy, seeking to protect the lucrative British East India trade.
But European development soon provided him the opportunity to pursue
more vigorous actions to extend the British presence in the Indian Ocean.
After the French occupation of the Dutch Republic in 1794–1795, Britain
considered it vital to secure the former Dutch possessions in the East, both to
safeguard the route to India and the East Indies for the Royal Navy and British
trade and to disrupt the French connection to Asia. In August 1795 Rainier,
now promoted to rear admiral and supported by Colonel James Stuart’s troops,
attacked Ceylon, forcing the Dutch garrison to surrender the island, which
would remain a part of the British Empire for the next 153 years.45 He then
proceeded to seize the remaining Dutch possessions in the Indian Ocean, cap-
turing Malacca, Amboyna, and the surrounding Spice Islands.46 The year 1796
also witnessed the British reduction of the Dutch colonies of Demerara,
Essequibo, and Berbice in South America, although Surinam and the island of
Curaçao, where a major slave rebellion raged in 1795, were not taken till four
years later.47 Of greater significance, however, was the Dutch colony at the
southern tip of the African continent. Capture of the Cape Colony could offer a
strategic position on the sea line of communication between Britain and India
and counter the potential danger from French privateers, who had established
a base at Mauritius, harassing British merchant shipping in the Indian Ocean.
Sir Francis Baring, chairman of the British East India Company, believed
the Cape Colony was as important to the exercise of British naval power in
the East as Gibraltar was in the Mediterranean.48 The prospect of a French
presence at the cape was too threatening for the British not to act. As Captain
John Blankett observed, “What was a feather in the hands of Holland will
become a sword in the hands of France.”49 Consequently, the British govern-
ment, claiming to act under mandate of the exiled Dutch prince of Orange
and as part of its strategy of taking the war to enemy colonies and disrupting
enemy trade, organized an expedition to the Cape of Good Hope. Departing
from Britain in March 1795, the British expedition, led by Vice Admiral Sir
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 63

George Elphinstone and Major General James Craig, arrived at Simon’s Town
in June and easily overwhelmed the small Dutch garrison. Coming ashore,
Craig then led his troops to Cape Town; after a month-long series of skir-
mishes with the Dutch forces, he captured the town in mid-September 1795.
A Dutch attempt to retake the colony in August 1796 failed, and the cape
remained in British hands until it was returned to the Batavian Republic
under the Treaty of Amiens in 1802.

Geographically separate from Europe but closely aligned in terms of culture


and politics, the newly independent United States of America pursued neu-
trality in an effort to safeguard its hard-won freedoms. In his Farewell Address
upon declining a third term as president, George Washington had left a sol-
emn legacy to his countrymen to “observe good faith and justice towards all
Nations” and to avoid foreign entanglements, holding it to be “the true
American policy to steer clear of permanent alliances with any portion of the
foreign world.”50 In pursuance of this policy, the United States had not hesi-
tated to break with its long-standing ally France and adopt a proclamation of
neutrality, sparing the fledgling American republic from a costly war at a
moment when it needed to establish firm footing. Nevertheless, the United
States could not avoid the impact of the Revolutionary Wars. Europe’s suffer-
ing worked to America’s advantage. Occupied with fierce and deadly strug-
gle in Europe, the great powers had no forces to spare for North America,
where the new republic proceeded to consolidate its position and to settle its
critical frontier issues with Spain and Britain.
At the start of the War of the First Coalition in 1792, the Franco-American
Treaty of Alliance and the Treaty of Amity and Commerce (1778) were still
in effect and raised some awkward questions, such as whether the United
States was obliged to help defend French possessions in the West Indies or to
deny ports and supplies to the British. President George Washington con-
sulted his cabinet before declaring American neutrality and seeking the war-
ring parties’ acknowledgment of this fact. The declaration, made on April
22, 1793, greatly disappointed the French government, which expected sup-
port out of republican solidarity, mutual hatred of Britain, and gratitude for
aid during the War of Independence. But it was the Anglo-American rap-
prochement that marked the turning point in relations between the United
States and France. Following independence, there remained nagging prob-
lems in America’s relationship with the former metropole. Despite pledges
made in the Treaty of Paris in 1783, the British had retained a string of forts
along the Canadian border, arguing that their presence was justified by the
Americans’ failure to pay their prewar debts to British creditors. In 1790
64 | the napoleonic wars

Gouverneur Morris, an American political figure who was engaged in private


business in France, was dispatched across the English Channel to sound out
the British government on the subject of establishing formal diplomatic rela-
tions and negotiating a settlement of outstanding disputes. Morris had sev-
eral meetings with William Pitt, the prime minister, and Lord Grenville, the
secretary for foreign affairs, but they remained noncommittal. Only when the
Nootka Sound Crisis brought Britain close to a war with Spain did the British
government become more cordial to Morris and consider the possibility of
diplomatic relations between the United States and Britain.
The prospects of an Anglo-Spanish confrontation alarmed President
Washington and his advisors, who feared Britain might request permission
to march troops through American territory to threaten Spanish-held regions.
This is in turn could be exploited by the British to tighten their hold on the
trans-Appalachian territory. The American government was divided on the
best course of action to follow.51 Some members, most notably Treasury
Secretary Alexander Hamilton, favored granting passage rights and exploit-
ing the opportunity to secure American interests along the whole of the
Mississippi River.52 But others, including Vice President John Adams,
Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, and Chief Justice John Jay, called for
refusal of such passage rights, believing that the United States should exploit
its power over commerce to compel the British government to settle the out-
standing issues. These differences were at the core of the growing struggle
between the Hamilton-led Federalists, who controlled the Senate and called
for a strong centralized government, national bank, and good relations
with Britain, and their political opponents, the Jefferson-led Democratic-
Republicans, who denounced most of the Federalists’ policies. The Democratic-
Republican efforts to introduce a national navigation act to prohibit imports
from countries that refused the import of American products in American
vessels facilitated the British decision to dispatch to Philadelphia the twenty-
eight-year-old George Hammond, who despite his youth was already a sea-
soned diplomat. Arriving in October 1791, Hammond did his best to prevent
Congress from passing a navigation act that would have been detrimental to
British interests. The British government was willing to consider a treaty of
commerce with the United States, but only if payment of prewar debts was
secured and if a neutral Indian barrier state, under British protection, was set
up along the northern frontier near the Great Lakes. The American govern-
ment naturally rejected these conditions as an infringement of its sovereignty,
so Hammond’s mission produced limited results.
News of the French declaration of war on Britain reached the United
States in April and took the government by complete surprise. According to
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 65

the 1778 Treaty of Alliance, the United States was a perpetual ally of France
and therefore obligated to assist that nation. Yet despite considerable
Francophile sentiment among the American public, few wanted to dive into
the morass of European wars, especially when the fledgling republic still
lacked a navy. Neutrality was the only sensible policy; even such bitter rivals
as Hamilton and Jefferson agreed on it. The former favored declaring the
French alliance invalid because it had been made with the French monarchy,
which no longer existed. Jefferson, on the other hand, urged avoiding entan-
glement in the war and using the alliance as a bargaining point with Britain.
President Washington chose neither. On April 22, 1793, he signed a neutral-
ity proclamation that declared the United States “friendly and impartial
toward the belligerent powers” and warned US citizens that they might be
prosecuted for “aiding or abetting hostilities” or taking part in other non-
neutral acts.53 Washington did, however, accept Jefferson’s advice that the
United States should recognize the new French republic. In the spring of
1793 Citizen Edmond-Charles-Edouard Genet, France’s new ambassador to
the United States, landed at Charleston, South Carolina, and was enthusiasti-
cally welcomed throughout his journey to Philadelphia. Yet Genet’s actions
and the growing radicalism of the French government soon dissipated this
goodwill; for many Americans, what was occurring in France resembled their
worst nightmares of anarchy and ochlocracy (mob rule). Discourse on the
French and British causes galvanized and divided American public opinion.
In July 1793, unable to maintain his political influence in Washington’s admin-
istration and embittered by his own ideological struggles with Hamilton,
Jefferson resigned as secretary of state.
At the beginning of the war Britain informed the American government
that it would take enemy property wherever it could find it, including on
neutral ships on the high seas. Thus an order-in-council of June 8, 1793,
instructed British naval commanders to detain all neutral ships bound for
French ports with cargoes of corn, flour, or meal.54 In early November an even
harsher order-in-council was issued, ordering the British fleet to “stop and
detain all ships laden with goods the produce of any colony belonging to
France, or carrying provisions or other supplies for the use of any such col-
ony.”55 Arriving in the Caribbean, the British captains thus targeted the
American merchant fleet trading with the French islands; several hundred
American ships in the West Indies had been confiscated by early 1794. News
of the British attacks on American shipping reached Philadelphia in March
1794, just as a report that British troops in the Ohio River Valley were arm-
ing Indians, who in turn attacked American settlers. A crisis was growing
between Britain and the United States.
66 | the napoleonic wars

In April 1794 Washington appointed Chief Justice John Jay special envoy to
Britain with instructions to negotiate and settle all major disputes.56 Over
the next six months Jay conducted wide-ranging negotiations with the British
that resulted in the conclusion of the Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and
Navigation, commonly known as the Jay Treaty, on November 19, 1794. The
treaty secured some American goals, including limited rights for American
merchants to trade with the British West Indies, withdrawal of British mili-
tary from forts in the Old Northwest Territory (the area west of Pennsylvania
and north of the Ohio River), and reparations for the seizures of American
ships and cargo in 1793–1794. The parties agreed to submit disputes over
wartime debts and the US-Canada boundary to arbitration. But the American
side also made important concessions, including accepting the more limited
British definition of neutral rights and granting Britain most-favored-nation
status in American commerce.57 The treaty was one-sided in Britain’s favor
but, in the words of American historian Joseph Ellis, it was also “a shrewd
bargain for the United States. It bet, in effect, on England rather than France
as the hegemonic European power of the future, which proved prophetic.”58
The terms of the Jay Treaty caused public outrage in the United States
and engendered such intense debate that some feared an outbreak of civil strife.
The Democratic-Republicans, who favored France, denounced the treaty and
called for “a direct system of commercial hostility with Great Britain,” even
at the risk of war.59 The Federalists were much more receptive to the treaty,
but even they were disappointed by the limitations on their trading rights in
the British West Indies. The Senate debated the treaty in secret and con-
sented to it on June 24, 1795. The news of the Jay Treaty prompted the
French government to suspend diplomatic relations with the United States.
This decision was further buttressed when in October 1795 the American
minister in Spain, Thomas Pinckney, negotiated the Treaty of San Lorenzo
(Pinckney’s Treaty), securing the American boundary at the 31st parallel,
strengthening US commercial rights to use New Orleans in Spanish Louisiana,
and opening access to the Caribbean from the Mississippi River.60 In
response, France began seizing American ships trading with Britain, reason-
ing that American cargo heading for British ports could be interpreted as
contraband subject to seizure. By summer 1797 French privateers and naval
vessels operating in the Caribbean and along the American coast had seized
more than three hundred ships.
Following his inauguration as the second president of the United States,
John Adams quickly moved to restore relations with France. Yet an American
attempt at diplomatic settlement with France led to the infamous XYZ
Affair, when French diplomats requested a $6 million loan to France and a
The War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 | 67

$250,000 bribe as prerequisites for serious discussions. The French demands


aroused a public outcry, with Representative Robert Goodloe Harper of
South Carolina famously proclaiming, “Millions for defense, but not a penny
for tribute.”61 But American outrage did not lead to an all-out war between
the United States and France. Instead, Congress suspended commerce with
France and authorized the capture of armed French ships, creating a separate
Department of the Navy to pursue this mission. The fledgling American
navy and privateers became involved in an undeclared war with French ships,
mainly off the American coast and in the Caribbean. This conflict, known as
the Quasi-War, saw numerous privateer actions but few significant naval
engagements.62 By 1799 French ships had been driven from the American
coast and French privateering largely eliminated from the Caribbean. In part
this result was owing to France’s recognition of its naval limitations follow-
ing the defeats at the hands of the Royal Navy. In 1800 First Consul Napoleon
Bonaparte initiated a change in French policy, opening negotiations with the
United States. The Treaty of Mortefontaine (September 1800) ended the
Quasi-War and restored normal diplomatic and commercial relations between
the United States and France. Probably more crucially, it paved the way for
the Louisiana Purchase less than three years later.63
chapter 4
The Making of La Grande Nation,
1797–1802

T he five years between 1797 and 1802 were crucial in shaping the
course of European history. France emerged triumphant and embarked
on a rapid territorial expansion in Europe, initially under the guise of libera-
tion. Just as the defeats of 1793–1794 had exerted a profound influence on
the direction of the revolutionary turmoil in France, the exhilaration of
victories in 1797–1802 shaped the outlook of revolutionary leaders and the
French public, causing them to look beyond France’s borders. This marked a
turning point in the process of redefining the “new world order,” one that was
not based on relationships between sovereign rulers.1 French foreign policy
during these five years was not “discreet, specialized, and secondary to the
internal issues of the period,” as one French historian has put it, but rather
the result of highly public discussion.2 There was a vigorous debate in the
French press about what to do with the recently conquered territories, espe-
cially Italy, and the legitimacy of French actions there.3 Such discussions
revealed divisions of opinion within France, with some calling for a return to
older boundaries while others insisted on extending French sovereignty to
what was increasingly described as the country’s “natural frontiers”—that is,
the Rhine, the Alps, and the Pyrenees.4
As we saw in Chapter 3, General Bonaparte’s Italian Campaign ended the
War of the First Coalition on terms highly advantageous to France. The gov-
ernment naturally exploited this moment of triumph to pursue a more
aggressive foreign policy, believing that war had become essential to sustain-
ing army and state, as well as providing occupation for commanders whose
ambitions were clearly not limited to military matters alone.5 The French
occupied Rome and the Papal States in February 1798 and Switzerland in
20° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40°

eridian
France

M
DENM
French satellites

Prime
North SWEDEN Holy Roman Empire

ARK
Sea Copenhagen

NO
R Baltic Sea Vilna
Dublin G EAT BR
GR RITAIN WA
50° Y
(in personal union with Hanover)
PRUSSIA RUSSIAN
Amsterdam HANOVER Berlin
London
Hanover Warsaw EMPIRE
BATAVIAN REP.
Cologne SAXONY
Kiev
Brussels
Dresden
Se
in GERMAN
e Paris STATES Krakow

R.
Strasbourg

E
ATLANTIC BAVARIA
Nantes Vienna
OCEAN Munich IR Pest
FRANCE SWEES BudaMP
CONFED. AUSTR
IAN E
Lyon Geneva
Bordeaux PIEDMONT Milan Trieste
Toulouse Turin Venice Bucharest
Eb LIGURIAN REP. CISALPINE Black Sea
ro Genoa REP. Da
Marseille nu

R.
40° Douro R be R .
.
Toulon PARMA TUSCANY O
PORTUGAL Elba T
Tagus R. Madrid T Constantinople
Barcelona Corsica Rome O
Lisbon SPAIN Minorca (Br.) KINGDOM OF Y M
Naples A
N
IC IL
Balearics SARDINIA M
Corfu
D S OF
EM
Cadiz
Cartagena
N
Io

G
Palermo
PR
A

E
ni

S DO

Tangier Gibraltar (Br.) N


an

KI LE Is
Algiers A P la
Oran
N nd
Tunis s (F
0 250 500 Kilometers r. ) Crete

0 250 500 Miles Mediterranean Sea

Map 4: Europe in 1797


70 | the napoleonic wars

April. The decision to reorganize these satellite states into républiques soeurs
(sister republics) created new ground for redefining French political discourse
and for justifying continued French expansion and interference in neighbor-
ing states.6
France’s military victories and financial exigencies, as well as local politics
in the newly occupied territories, all helped to nudge its foreign policy
toward the notion of la Grande Nation, which sought to reconcile the idea of
liberating other peoples from “tyranny” with preserving the interests of the
French state, even if those increasingly diverged from the aspirations of local
patriots. This was an important shift, because it implicitly implied the sub-
version of earlier revolutionary principles of liberty and republicanism, as
well as support for the claims of France’s wider geopolitical interests and
imperial machtpolitik. As early as 1797 General Louis Desaix jotted down in
his journal that Bonaparte “has a great and shrewd policy, which is to give all
of these peoples a grand idea of the French nation.”7 He would do so on a
global scale, starting with France’s greatest enemy.

At the end of the War of the First Coalition, the French revolutionary gov-
ernment, for the first time, could contemplate invading Britain, a threat that
would occupy considerable British military and naval resources over the
course of the next decade.
In late 1796 the French Directory organized the Expédition d’Irlande,
which involved more than forty ships and some 15,000 soldiers, all under
the command of General Lazare Hoche, to support the United Irishmen and
drive the British out of Ireland. This “unhappy country,” as the French offi-
cial newspaper described Ireland, had long served as “the experimental labo-
ratory of British colonization” and suffered greatly from the Anglo-Protestant
hegemony that had been firmly established in the wake of the Cromwellian
conquest of Ireland in the mid-seventeenth century.8 Despite representing
the vast majority of the population and outnumbering Anglo Protestants by
about five to one, the Catholic Irish were dispossessed of their land, denied
entry into certain professions, and disallowed from political participation.
The French Revolution had a major impact on Ireland. In 1791 Presbyterian
and Catholic Irish came together to form the Society of United Irishmen, led
by the Dublin Protestant lawyer Wolfe Tone.9 Influenced by French revolu-
tionary ideals, the United Irishmen called for Catholic emancipation and
major political and economic reforms, though some radical members also
envisioned an independent Irish republic free from English control.10
During the first three years of the French Revolution, the United Irishmen
published newspapers and hundreds of pamphlets expressing clear sympathies
the making of la grande nation , 1797–1802 | 71

for the French revolutionaries. The British government was naturally per-
turbed by the organization, especially after the outbreak of war between
Britain and France in February 1793, when it came to see the United Irishmen
as potentially treasonous. In 1793 the British authorities adopted several
laws targeting the society before outlawing it entirely in 1794. The United
Irishmen, forced underground, continued their struggle. The crackdown only
radicalized its members, and over the next three years they reorganized the
society, turning it into a militarized organization that made preparations for
rebellion, which France was eager to exploit.11
After mobilizing at Brest on the Brittany coast, the French launched the
operation in December 1796, amid what proved to be one of the roughest
winters of the eighteenth century. Sailing toward Bantry Bay, the French fleet
suffered greatly and was unable to make amphibious landings in Ireland.
Within a week the entire expedition was recalled, with a dozen French ships
captured or wrecked and more than 2,000 men lost. The invasion was defeated
not by the Royal Navy but rather by a combination of bad weather, poor sea-
manship, and poor French decision-making. It did, however, reveal weak-
nesses in the British defenses, especially in light of continued mutinies over
pay and conditions in the Royal Navy.
A year and a half later France organized an expedition in support of a local
rebellion in Ireland. The uprising first began around Dublin but quickly
spread to County Wexford, in southeast Ireland. On May 29 the United
Irishmen stormed the town of Enniscothy and then succeeded in taking the
town of Wexford. The rebellion soon spread to other areas as well, including
Antrim and County Down, where rebel forces assembled under the leader-
ship of Henry McCracken and Henry Monro. The Irish hoped for French
military support, but it failed to materialize. British victories at Ballynahinch
(near Belfast), New Ross and Bunclody (in County Wexford), and Arklow (in
County Wicklow) effectively neutralized the rebellion. Both McCracken and
Monro were captured and executed without proper trial. Tone, also captured,
committed suicide in jail.12
The Irish rebellion seemed over when on August 22, 1798, a French expe-
ditionary force, led by General Jean Joseph Humbert, landed at Kilcummin.
The French continued to see Ireland as Britain’s weak point, while the
Irishmen still hoped for French support in their struggle against British rule.
Upon their arrival the French forces occupied the town of Killala, where they
hoisted a green flag with the slogan “Erin go Bragh” (Ireland forever) and a
harp without a crown, inviting the Irish rebels to “assert their freedom” from
the British monarchy and join the free Frenchmen, who had “come for no
other purpose but to make them independent and happy.”13 The French
72 | the napoleonic wars

scored a minor victory over the British at Castlebar, which encouraged many
Irishmen to renew their resistance. Humbert called for further French rein-
forcements, but these did not arrive, owing yet again to poor weather in the
Atlantic. Meanwhile, British troops led by Lord Charles Cornwallis, the lord
lieutenant of Ireland, converged on Humbert, who suffered defeats at
Ballinamuck (September 8) and Killala (September 23) and was forced to
surrender. Humbert’s defeat marked the end of the rebellion, which had led
to the death of some 20,000 Irishmen, and dashed Irish hopes for in­de­pend­
ence from British rule.

Ireland was just one target among several in France’s strategy to seek a way
to solve the conundrum of how to defeat Britain without achieving command
of the sea. Another was Egypt. Straddling the isthmus connecting Africa and
Asia, Egypt constituted an axis of France’s global interests. With the loss of
India and North Africa during the Seven Years’ War, France’s presence in the
eastern Mediterranean assumed much greater importance. Egypt could serve
as a crucial link between France’s Levantine interests and its imperial aspira-
tions in Asia, as well as provide further connections with Arabia, North
Africa, and East Africa. The idea of establishing a French presence in Egypt
and the Levant had informed French strategic thinking since the time of
Louis XV, but it was during the Revolutionary Wars that France made a tan-
gible effort to carry it out.14
Egypt had been under Ottoman sovereignty since the early sixteenth
century, but it was not completely immune to French interests. French mer-
chants had had a strong presence there since the fifteenth century, and France
enjoyed a relationship with the Ottomans that could be traced back to the
sixteenth century, when the two states united in their struggle against the
Holy Roman Empire.15 While many European nations had, over the centu-
ries, made agreements and sent ambassadors to the Turkish court, the French
had been one of the most highly favored nations. The French were the first to
conclude a commercial treaty with the Ottomans; French merchants actively
traded and invested heavily in the Ottoman economy; and by the late eight­
eenth century Roman Catholics in the Ottoman Empire were placed under
French protection. During the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768–1774 France
took a pro-Ottoman stand. Though France could not provide any material
help, it was the only European power on which the sultan thought he
could rely.
Egypt felt the reverberations of the French Revolution even before French
troops landed on its shores. Within a year of the start of the Revolution,
the French consul in Alexandria was lamenting the spread of a “plague of
the making of la grande nation , 1797–1802 | 73

insubordination and licentiousness” that visiting French sailors had brought


to the French community in Egypt.16 In 1790 the sailors even organized a
major mutiny against their captains and demanded the introduction of revo-
lutionary reforms; the more radical among them organized a “national guard”
in Cairo and approached local authorities for permission to build a Temple of
Reason.17 But Ismael Bey, the Mamluk sheikh al-balad who governed Egypt
on behalf of the Ottomans and had been well disposed toward the French,
died during an epidemic in Cairo in 1791.18 His rivals, Georgian Mamluks
Ibrahim Bey and Murad Bey, seized power in Egypt and targeted the French
for their earlier involvement in the Ottoman intervention that had driven
them from power.19 In 1795 the French bemoaned the fact that “since the
beginning of the French Revolution, and particularly since the overthrow of
the monarchy, the enemies of the French people have worked in Egypt with
the same ferocity as in all parts of Europe.”20 With the French monarchy
overthrown, some had argued that the French no longer possessed protections
and privileges granted under former agreements. The French merchants in
Egypt produced a steady flow of complaints to Paris, asking for intervention.
“Could we remain in Egypt in such a humiliating position? Should the
French Republic, so accustomed to victories, submit to such humiliation?
Could she forget what is owed to national dignity, as much as to the interests
of trade?”21
French merchants’ denunciations of Mamluk despotism and demands for
forceful intervention played a significant role in shaping official French pol-
icy toward Egypt. French consul Charles Magallon inundated the foreign
ministry with demands for compensation of losses suffered in Egypt, and
among his various suggestions was a plan for a military takeover of Egypt and
the establishment of “armed trading posts” in Alexandria and Cairo to proj-
ect and protect French interests. Although Magallon’s project was quickly
shelved, it eventually found its champions in French foreign minister Charles
Maurice de Talleyrand and General Napoleon Bonaparte.22 During his trium-
phant campaign in Italy in 1796–1797, Bonaparte had already begun look-
ing eastward: besides occupying the Ionian Islands, he had dispatched a
mission to the Maniots (Peloponnesian Greeks) and another agent to the
ambitious Ali Pasha of Janina, who increasingly defied the Ottoman central
authorities.
There was also a separate issue of the French struggle against Britain.
With the French navy too weak to challenge the British navy openly, and a
direct invasion of Britain out of the question in the wake of British triumphs
at St. Vincent and Camperdown, the French government continued to look
for other methods of attacking British interests. In the summer of 1797 the
74 | the napoleonic wars

French foreign ministry prepared three reports on possible cooperation with


Indian princes against the British.23 Egypt featured prominently in these
various proposals, with Bonaparte telling the Directory in August 1797 that
“to destroy England thoroughly, the time is coming when we must seize
Egypt.”24 A French occupation of Egypt could strengthen the French pres-
ence in the eastern Mediterranean and serve as a jumping-off point for greater
ambitions in Asia. In the spring of 1798 the Directory seriously considered
mounting an expedition to Egypt, which appeared vulnerable and could con-
fer considerable advantages. With its rich and fertile soil, Egypt might prove
to be a valuable source of commodities—a worthy replacement for the loss of
Saint-Domingue.25 Such proposals were framed within the notion of a “reciv-
ilizing” mission that would restore Egypt to its ancient splendor. They
represented a continuation of the Enlightenment-era debates on “Oriental
despotism” and the revolutionary ethos against dictatorship and tyranny.26
In his memorandum to the Directory, Talleyrand expressed this ideology of
benign colonialism when he explained that “Egypt was once a province of the
Roman republic; it must now become that of the French Republic. The
Roman conquest was the era of decadence for that great country; the French
conquest will be the era of its prosperity.”
In March 1798 the Directory made a formal decision to launch the expe-
dition to Egypt and appointed Bonaparte commander in chief of the Armée
d’Orient. Bonaparte was instructed to first occupy Malta and then proceed
with the conquest of Egypt. Once the occupation was complete, he was to
establish communications with India and secure “exclusive possession of the
Red Sea for the French Republic,” which would then facilitate “the expulsion
of the English from the Orient” and a future French expedition to India.27
With remarkable speed and secrecy, Bonaparte threw himself into the
preparations for the expedition.28 The entire Armée d’Orient was ready to
depart in less than eleven weeks, instead of the months usually required to
muster an army. Bonaparte had at his disposal a force of some 36,000 sol-
diers, the majority of them veterans of the Armée d’Italie. The fleet gathered
to transport the army was equally large: about 13,000 sailors on some three
hundred ships, including thirteen ships-of-the-line under the command of
Admiral François Paul, comte de Brueys.29 Several ports of embarkation—
Toulon, Marseilles, Genoa, Ajaccio, and Civitavecchia—would launch the
enormous operation. A unique feature of this campaign was the large contin-
gent of savants Bonaparte invited to accompany the expedition. Among these
scientists were mathematicians Gaspard Monge and Étienne-Louis Malus,
chemists Jacques Conte and Claude Berthollet, geologist Déodat Gratet de
Dolomieu, and naturalist Étienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire.
the making of la grande nation , 1797–1802 | 75

French activity at Toulon had caught the attention of the British, whose
naval squadron under Rear Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson was deployed in the
western Mediterranean. It was a stroke of luck for the French that a strong
gale scattered and damaged the British ships in mid-May. By the time they
recovered, the French had already departed for Egypt. Bonaparte’s first objec-
tive was Malta, a strategically located island just south of Sicily that was
essential for the French to have a presence in the Mediterranean.
Bonaparte arrived at Malta on June 9 and secured the island without
much resistance from the Knights of Malta (formally the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem, also called the Knights Hospitaller), which had ruled the island
since 1530.30 The swiftness of the French conquest was ensured not only by
the superior force at Bonaparte’s disposal but also by a conspiracy among the
knights that the French general helped bring about even before leaving
French soil; by the time the French anchored off Malta’s shores, the conspira-
tors (all of them French knights) had helped undermine the order’s resistance.
On June 11 the order capitulated, and the knights were expelled from the
island; their leader, Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim, was offered a
German principality and a lucrative pension.
After his forces had secured the island, Bonaparte reorganized the local
government, turned the holdings of the knights into national lands, abol-
ished slavery and all remnants of feudalism, reorganized the local Catholic
church, and established new education and taxation systems.31 The French
also seized the enormous treasury of the knights, which was supposed to defray
the costs of the expedition.32 Yet the French occupation of Malta also demon-
strated an abject failure to consider the mentality of the Maltese, who
regarded the occupying force with suspicion and complained, as one knight
reported, that “such an outrage was not even committed by the [Ottomans]
at Rhodes.”33 The local population was particularly upset by enforced contri-
butions and higher taxes, as well as the changed terms of leaseholds and mis-
treatment of the Catholic church. Within three months of Bonaparte’s
departure, much of Malta was in revolt and the French garrison was driven
into Valetta, where it remained, besieged, for the next two years.34
The French capture of Malta only strengthened the determination of
Russian emperor Paul, who inherited the imperial crown in November 1796.
As a young man Paul had studied the history of the Knights of Malta and
romanticized them; to him, the knights represented an ideal union that could
instill the qualities of duty, piety, obedience, and service to God and sover-
eign, all in counterbalance to the new ideas emanating from revolutionary
France. Paul’s first move was to convince the Russian priory of the Order of
St. John to depose Hompesch zu Bolheim, the order’s leader, and elect Paul
76 | the napoleonic wars

the new grand master. Assuming the mantle of protector of Malta, Paul then
proceeded to negotiate an alliance with the Ottomans, which secured Russian
entry into the war against France.35
Bonaparte departed from Malta for Alexandria on June 18, narrowly
missing interception by Nelson’s pursuing ships on the night of June 22–23.
On July 1, after six weeks at sea, the Armée d’Orient arrived off the Egyptian
coast and began disembarking a few miles west of Alexandria.
By the late eighteenth century, Egypt had been ruled by the Mamluks for
more than five hundred years. The Mamluks were a warrior caste created
from non-Muslim boys who had been kidnapped at an early age, sold at slave
markets, converted to Islam, and trained as mounted warriors. Although
nominal vassals of the Ottoman Empire since 1517, they took advantage of
the Ottoman decline in the mid-eighteenth century to achieve a considerable
degree of autonomy under the leadership of the Georgian Mamluks, first Ali
Bey al-Kabir and later Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey.36
The French army landed at Alexandria on July 2, 1798, and easily over-
whelmed the Mamluk cavalry, which was still essentially a medieval fighting
force. After capturing Alexandria, Bonaparte engaged the Mamluks at Shubra
Khit on July 13 and then routed the main army under Murad Bey in the Battle
of the Pyramids near the village of Embabeh, just across the Nile River from
Cairo, on July 21. Bonaparte entered Cairo on the twenty-fourth and dispatched
General Louis Desaix to pursue Murad Bey, who had fled into Upper Egypt.
The French successes on land were countered by a decisive British triumph
at sea. On August 1 Nelson located the French fleet, which was anchored in
line in the shallows of Aboukir Bay near Alexandria. In the ensuing engage-
ment, known as the Battle of the Nile, eleven French ships-of-the-line and
most of the frigates were captured or sunk. The French army was stranded in
Egypt, and the British fleet had reasserted its control of the Mediterranean.
Notwithstanding his predicament, Bonaparte set about reorganizing
Egyptian society, just as he had on Malta, by introducing French-style admin-
istrative and judicial systems. He sought to abolish remnants of the feudal
system, proclaim freedom of religion and equality before the law, establish
the rule of law, and create the institution of an elected government—all,
needless to say, under French tutelage. One of his most significant acts was
the establishment of the Institute of Egypt in Cairo, which both propagated
European culture and ideas in the East and undertook research in Egyptian
culture and history, vastly expanding European knowledge of the East.
Bonaparte also discussed with Muslim clerics the possibility of converting
his army to Islam, though this and other efforts to garner popular support
failed to achieve their goal.
the making of la grande nation , 1797–1802 | 77

Following the Battle of the Nile, Bonaparte found himself in a perilous sit-
uation. Although he had defeated the Mamluks, he had not destroyed them:
Ibrahim Bey had withdrawn across the Sinai Peninsula to Palestine, while
Murad Bey had retreated southward to Upper Egypt, where he tied down the
French troops under Desaix. On September 9 the Ottoman Empire declared
war on France and began preparing two large armies for the invasion of Egypt.37
The French also had trouble controlling Cairo, where a revolt against the occu-
pation broke out on October 21 but was brutally suppressed, with approxi-
mately 2,000 Egyptians and 300 French killed. In this precarious situation,
Bonaparte made a new plan: to force the sultan to make peace. He decided to
march on Acre (at the time located in the Ottoman province of Syria, now
Akko in Israel), where the Turks were raising an army under the local governor,
Ahmad Pasha al-Jazzar (Djezzar Pasha). Still thinking of a wider, anti-British
strategy, Bonaparte wrote a letter to the ruler of Mysore, Tippu Sultan, at
Seringapatam in India, offering to cooperate against the British.
In late 1798 Bonaparte organized an expeditionary force for the invasion
of Syria. He left Cairo on February 10, 1799, and on the twentieth he seized
El Arish, where he captured several hundred Turks and Mamluks, who were
later freed on parole. Bonaparte entered Gaza on February 25 and stormed
Jaffa on March 7. At Jaffa some 2,500 Turks, many of them former prisoners
from El Arish, surrendered on the understanding that their lives would be
spared. Bonaparte, believing he could spare neither troops to escort the pris-
oners to Egypt nor the rations to feed them, ordered every one of the captives
executed.
On March 17 Bonaparte reached Haifa and began besieging the strong-
hold of Acre, just across the bay. The odds were against the French: they
lacked heavy artillery, and many of the troops had contracted bubonic plague
in Jaffa. (Bonaparte had visited the plague hospital on March 11, an incident
later commemorated in a painting by Antoine-Jean Gros.) A British squadron
under Commodore Sir Sidney Smith supported the Ottoman garrison under
Ahmad Pasha, while French émigré officers directed the Turkish artillery.
While the siege of Acre dragged on, the Turkish pasha of Damascus dis-
patched a large army to attack the French from the rear. Between April 8 and
15 the French defeated the Turkish detachments near Nazareth, near Canaan,
and on the Jordan River north of Lake Tiberias. On April 16 General Jean-
Baptiste Kléber’s 2,000 men engaged a Turkish army of 25,000 men at
Mount Tabor and resisted for ten hours, until Bonaparte arrived with rein-
forcements to rout the Turks. The French made repeated assaults on Acre but
were repulsed each time. Bonaparte finally decided to abandon the siege and
return to Egypt.
78 | the napoleonic wars

The retreat began on May 20, and the demoralized French forces reached
Cairo on June 14. One month later, another Turkish army of some 20,000
men arrived on the Egyptian coast. The Turks landed near Aboukir on July
25 but were routed by Bonaparte’s troops, who drove them into the sea.
Despite his victories, Bonaparte knew that the expedition was doomed.
The British controlled the Mediterranean, preventing the Directory from
sending any reinforcements to Egypt. After receiving the news of the set-
backs France had suffered in the War of the Second Coalition, Bonaparte
became convinced that he should return to France. On August 22, with only
the handful of men selected to accompany him, he boarded a frigate and left
the army in Kléber’s hands. After an uneventful voyage of forty-seven days,
he landed at St. Raphael in France on October 9 and was given a hero’s wel-
come by French citizens anxious for a turn in their country’s fortunes.

The arrival of the French troops on the shores of North Africa just nine years
after the storming of the Bastille reveals how quickly the revolution tran-
scended not only French borders but also those of Europe. The expedition left
a lasting legacy in science and culture—and was instrumental in establishing
the entire field of Egyptology—but was essentially a military and political
defeat. It cut straight through the traditional policies of France in the Levant,
and instead of striking a blow at the colonial power of Britain, it drove
France’s traditional ally (the Ottomans) into an alliance with its long-standing
enemies, Russia and Britain. Politically, the expedition served to showcase
the Directory’s aggressive foreign policy and facilitated the formation of the
Second Coalition in late 1798. It demonstrated the failure of the project to
combine republican ideals with colonialism and territorial expansion.38
Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt also transformed the nature of Franco-
British rivalry in the East. French forays into India, for example, had been
made from island bases in the Indian Ocean, relying on French naval power,
which the British could counter with their own fleet. Bonaparte’s attempt to
conquer Egypt by land profoundly altered this equation, however, forcing the
British government to consider not just maritime approaches to India but
also paths through territories adjacent to the subcontinent, drawing Britain
into a lasting endeavor to secure its Indian dominions against an overland
attack.
Historians often identify the French invasion as a watershed event, one
that ushered in the modern era in Egypt. But this is not entirely accurate.
The occupation itself did little to “modernize” Egyptian society, as the prin-
ciples that the French had introduced were too radical and foreign, and faced
bitter resistance. It did, however, create a political vacuum that was soon
the making of la grande nation , 1797–1802 | 79

10° 0° 10° 20°


FINLAND 30° 40°

Europe in 1800 (SWEDEN) France (frontiers of 1792)

D ENM
France (annexations 1792-99)

ian
Merid
French satellites/allies

ARK
Prime
French occupation/administration
North SWEDEN Second Coalition

- NO
Sea Neutral
W

R
AY Frontier of Holy Roman Empire

50° GREAT
BRITAIN PRUSSIA
1

GERMAN RUSSIA
2
STATES
3

ATLANTIC AUSTRIA
OCEAN
FRANCE 5 22

4
8 11
7
8 Black Sea
6 10
PORTUGAL 9 12 13 21 OTTOMAN
40°
16
14 EMPIRE
19 17
20
SPAIN 24 SARDINIA 15

18
Mediterranean Sea SICILY
0 250 500 Kilometers

0 250 500 Miles 23

1. Batavian Republic 7. Piedmont 13. Tuscany 19. Ragusa


2. Belgium 8. Cisalpine Republic 14. Roman Republic 20. Cattaro
3. Left Bank of the Rhine 9. Ligurian Republic 15. Parthenopean Republic 21. Dalmatia
4. Savoy 10. Parma 16. Piombino 22. Trento/Bolzano
5. Helvetic Republic 11. Modena 17. Montenegro 23. Malta (French garrison)
6. Nice 12. Lucca 18. Ionian Islands (to France) 24. Menorca (British garrison)

Map 5: Europe in 1800

filled by Kavalali Mehmet Ali Pasha, who within a decade of the French
departure defeated the Ottomans and the Mamluks and began laying the
foundation for a modernized and strong Egypt that would play an important
role in later Middle Eastern history.
Equally far-reaching is the campaign’s impact on the development of
Orientalism, the study of non-European cultures and languages that became
an important element of European colonialism. The Egyptian campaign rep-
resented the first (albeit not the last) modern attempt to incorporate an
Islamic society into a European empire and, in the words of Edward Said,
constituted the formative moment for the discourse of Orientalism, the
moment when all its ideological components converged and a full arsenal of
instruments of Western domination was employed to project it.39

Bonaparte’s decision to abandon his army in Egypt and return to France was
prompted by news that a new alliance had formed against la Grande Nation. By
now France had extended its military authority far beyond its traditional sphere
80 | the napoleonic wars

of influence, controlling much of Italy, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands,


and southern Germany, and it had launched expeditions overseas to Ireland and
Egypt. It was clear that the French victory in the War of the First Coalition was
not the end of French expansion, and that military convenience and opportun-
ism, ideological conviction, and the political and economic advantages of con-
tinued expansion all encouraged aggressive behavior. By the end of the year, the
Second Coalition already included Britain, Austria, Russia, Naples, Portugal,
and the Ottoman Empire. The Directory made preparations for offensive opera-
tions in Naples, northern Italy, Switzerland, and the Rhineland, while additional
forces were to defend Holland against expected Anglo-Russian amphibious
operations. Yet French armies had been considerably understrength, and none
possessed the level of morale so characteristic of the earlier revolutionary armies.
France faced a challenge that would prove difficult to overcome.
The Kingdom of Naples, which had so far avoided becoming embroiled
in the revolutionary wars, threw in its lot with the coalition in late 1798.
Soon thereafter the Neapolitan army marched into Roman territory. France
lost no time in avenging the insult. The Neapolitan forces were defeated,
while back in Naples a popular insurrection forced the Bourbon royal family
to seek refuge on a British warship, which evacuated them to Sicily. In late
1799, after brushing aside the local defenses, the French army under General
Jean Étienne Vachier Championnet entered the city and began setting up yet
another French satellite state, known as the Parthenopean Republic.
The French offensive stalled elsewhere, allowing the coalition to score a
string of major victories in the spring of 1799. Archduke Carl’s Austrians
drove the French back beyond Zurich in Switzerland and defeated a French
offensive in southern Germany. A popular uprising in Calabria, led by a char-
ismatic cleric, Cardinal Fabrizio Ruffo, challenged French control of south-
ern Italy. Austria, Russia, and Britain launched a major campaign against the
French. The Russian and British navies achieved considerable success in the
Mediterranean, capturing the Ionian Islands and the island of Corfu and
besieging Malta.40 More crucially, the Russo-Austrian forces, led by Russian
field marshal Alexander Suvorov, invaded northern Italy and routed the
French in a series of battles—Magnano (April 5, 1799), Cassano (April 27),
the Trebbia (June 17–19), and Novi (August 15)—reclaiming virtually eve-
rything that Bonaparte had conquered just two years prior. In late August an
Anglo-Russian expedition invaded the North Holland Peninsula in the
Batavian Republic, seeking to incite a popular uprising and challenge French
control of the Low Countries.41
Thus, in the span of just six months, the Second Coalition had reversed
almost all of France’s achievements in Italy and seriously threatened French
the making of la grande nation , 1797–1802 | 81

positions in the Low Countries and Switzerland. The French setbacks were
partly the result of their own poorly conceived military operations. As the
Allies approached the republic’s borders, their strategic and logistic position
significantly improved. The Jourdan Law (September 5, 1798), which insti-
tuted “universal and obligatory conscription” of all French men ages twenty
to twenty-five, raised some 400,000 new soldiers, something the Allies simply
could not match. The impending Allied invasion was averted after General
André Masséna scored a decisive victory over the Allies at Zurich (September
25–26), while General Guillaume Brune defeated an Anglo-Russian amphib-
ious invasion of Holland at Bergen and Castricum (September-October).
The French successes were greatly facilitated by tensions and political dis-
agreements between the Allied powers. Russian commanders, for example,
became increasingly frustrated by what they believed was British failure to
exploit an initial advantage. The most important fissure in the coalition
involved Austria and Russia. After expelling the French from Italy, the Russian
emperor expected restoration of the legitimate rulers of Tuscany and Sardinia,
but Austria demurred, preferring to pursue its imperial designs in Italy
instead.42 Paul felt betrayed and informed his Austrian counterpart of his deci-
sion to no longer participate in the war for Austrian aggrandizement.43 Less
acrimonious but still significant was the quarrel between Russia and Britain
over the island of Malta and the failure of the joint expedition to Holland.
Back from Egypt, Bonaparte quickly exploited political instability in
France to seize power. Assuming the title of First Consul in the three-member
Consulate that had replaced the Directory, Bonaparte offered peace to the
European monarchs and, upon their rejection, renewed his campaign in
northern Italy against the Austrians in 1800.44 Following his crossing of the
St. Bernard Pass, he won a victory, albeit narrowly, over the Austrians at
Marengo on June 14, driving them out of Italy and accepting their offer of
armistice. Despite its subsequent renown, the Battle of Marengo did not end
the war; Austria had not been beaten so decisively as to be forced to sue for
peace. A preliminary peace treaty (generally confirming the provisions of
the Treaty of Campo Formio, with some changes) was agreed upon in Paris in
late July, but Vienna refused to ratify it, choosing the continuation of war.45
The Austrian decision is often explained as a consequence of Vienna’s deter-
mination that only a victorious war could guarantee its territorial ambitions
in Italy. But Austrian actions were shaped by a far greater consideration: to
accept French demands implicitly meant to surrender Austria’s status as a
great power.46 On July 23, 1800, Britain and Austria negotiated a new alli-
ance that included two key terms: the British agreed to provide a financial
subsidy to sustain the Austrian war effort, while Austria pledged not to make
82 | the napoleonic wars

a separate peace with France.47 Assured of British support (and gold), the
Austrian government was eager to pursue the war to its conclusion and used
the armistice to rally its military. Yet when hostilities resumed, Austrian and
British military cooperation failed and Austria found itself teetering on a
political precipice. In the fall the French seized Philippsburg, Ingolstadt, and
Ulm before General Jean Moreau scored a crushing victory over Archduke
John at Hohenlinden (southern Germany) on December 3, 1800. With the
enemy cavalry outposts set up forty miles from Vienna, the Austrian monar-
chy requested armistice on Christmas Day. The war was over, and now it was
a matter of trying to preserve a peace commensurate with it.
chapter 5
The Second Coalition War and the
Origins of the “Great Game”

F or much of the nineteenth century Europeans keenly followed the


“Great Game,” a term for the strategic rivalry and conflict between the
British Empire and the Russian Empire for supremacy in Central Asia and
India. Alarmed by the expansion of the Russian Empire in Asia, Britain
feared that whenever its interests opposed Russia’s in Europe, the Russians
would threaten to invade their most precious colonial possession. It therefore
determined both to contain Russian expansion and to counter any possible
invasion.
Yet such geopolitical machinations had in fact begun much earlier and
the original “great game” involved Britain, Russia, and France. The British
government and the British East India Company (BEIC)—an English joint-
stock trading company formed in 1600 to conduct commerce in Asia—had
long been engaged in a war of diplomatic intrigue against Britain’s European
rivals in Asia, and in India in particular. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic
Wars saw this European enmity extending to much of Western Asia, most
notably Iran, Egypt, and the Arab states of the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf.
The Indian subcontinent was one of the focal points of European—
especially Franco-British—struggles in the early modern era. France had
lost most of its positions on the subcontinent following the Seven Years’ War.
Victory allowed the BEIC to consolidate its presence in India. Thus, in addi-
tion to native states, there was considerable European presence on the subcon-
tinent. The British possessions were grouped around the three presidencies,
which were politically and geographically distinct entities. The Madras pres-
idency, centered at Fort St. George, included various scattered territories in
southern India. On the eastern coastline of India, the British also controlled
30° 40° 50° 60° 70°

Caspian
OTTOMAN EMPIRE
Sea

British embassy to Iran to


Tehran gain support of Fath Ali
Shah against France,
1798-1801
Kabul
British Invasion
Mediterranean
of Egypt, 1801 Sea Damascus Baghdad
Acre IRAN

Jaffa
Rosetta Jerusalem
Aboukir Establishment of a British
Alexandria El Arish Residency in Baghdad to
check extension of French Basra
30°
French Invasion
Cairo of Egypt and Palestine,
1798-1801

EGYPT
Bandar Abbas

Persian
British invasion
of Egypt
Gulf
in 1801

Muscat
British mission to secure the
good will of Sultan ibn Ahmad
of Muscat (Omman) against MUSCAT
the French, 1798

20°
Red
Sea
Arabian Sea

After the failure of Perim


expedition, British troops
SULTANATE landed in Aden, 1799
OF LAHEJ
British expedition to occupy French invasion into Egypt
the strategically important Aden
island of Perim, 1799
0 200 400 Kilometers British diplomatic efforts
Perim British military efforts
0 200 400 Miles

Map 6: The Middle East in 1798–1801


The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 85

a large territory north of Masulipatam, called the Northern Circars, on a lease


from Hyderabad. The Bengal presidency, centered at Fort William, included
Bengal, Benares, Ghazipur, Bihar, Chittagong, and parts of Orissa. The
Bombay presidency covered the islands of Bombay and Salsette as well as a
few hundred miles of the Malabar coastline. To the northwest of the Bengal
presidency was Oudh, which the British undertook to protect; much of this
state’s income was spent on a British subsidiary force.
The eighteenth-century India witnessed the gradual erosion of Mughal
imperial power through factional conflicts in Delhi and ineffectiveness. By
1800 there had emerged several powerful regional states.1 The Marathas
Confederation, whose chieftains descended from the ancient Hindu dynasties
of northwestern Deccan, controlled vast territories in central India and held
the Mughal emperor as a virtual captive. Yet the confederacy was in disarray,
with its powerful sardars often bickering with each other.2 To the south of it
was the dominion of Hyderabad, which lost much of its power in the wake of
a crushing defeat by the Marathas at Khardla in 1795. Its ruler (known as the
nizam) thus found himself crammed between two powerful native states—
the Marathas in the north and west, and the dominion of Mysore to the south.
Like the Sindhia (Scindias) Maratha, the nizam relied heavily on the military
commanded by French.3
The BEIC, especially the Madras presidency, was actively involved in
shaping Indian politics. Facing opposition from Hyder Ali (1722–1782) of
Mysore, the BEIC struck an uneasy alliance with the Marathas and Hyderabad,
and defeated Mysore forces in the First Mysore War (1767–1769). The BEIC’s
position in India, however, remained delicate, especially in the late 1770s
and early 1780s, when Britain was preoccupied with the American War
of Independence. The French had reestablished their presence in India and
supported local Indian rulers, most notably Hyder Ali, who was dissatisfied
with the BEIC. In 1780 Hyder Ali launched the Second Mysore War and,
with French military assistance, scored a major victory over the British at
Perambakam (Pollilur) on September 10. Hyder overran Karnataka and men-
aced the British stronghold of Madras before being defeated at Porto Novo,
Pollilur, and Sholingarh in the fall of 1781. However, French naval forces
intervened with the capture of Trincomalee on the coast of Ceylon (Sri Lanka)
in 1782 and were able to send aid and arms to Hyder, as well as inflict a
defeat on the British at Cuddalore. Despite this victory, the 1783 Treaty of
Paris, which ended the American Revolution, mandated the withdrawal of
French support from Mysore, and the following year the Mysoris had little
choice but to make peace.
86 | the napoleonic wars

Hyder’s successor, Tippu Sultan, continued Mysori opposition to the


hegemony of the BEIC, prompting the outbreak of the Third Mysore War in
1790. The BEIC forces under Lord Cornwallis invaded the territory controlled
by Tippu, capturing the Mysore stronghold of Bangalore in 1791. Maintaining
the momentum, Cornwallis defeated the Mysoris at Carigat (Arikera) and
conducted a wide-ranging campaign that culminated in the storming of
Seringapatam, Tippu’s stronghold, considered one of the most formidable
fortresses on the subcontinent. The subsequent Treaty of Seringapatam forced
Tippu to surrender much of his dominion to the BEIC and its allies. The
astringent terms of peace kept Mysore antagonistic to the British.4 Tippu
used the truce that commenced in March 1792 to regroup for a new war,
which came seven years later.
When war broke out between France and Britain in 1793, Cornwallis,
governor-general of the BEIC, had ordered the seizure of all French establish-
ments in the subcontinent. The continuing Franco-British conflict did not
directly involve India again for another five years, though European political
turmoil frequently echoed on the subcontinent. By the late 1790s the fear of
a revival of French power was instrumental in driving British expansion in
India, especially under Richard Colley Wellesley, who succeeded Cornwallis
and became governor-general of the BEIC in 1798.5 A talented and ambi-
tious man, Wellesley was the first of the great nineteenth-century imperi-
alists who believed that territorial power in India would give Britain an
insurmountable advantage over its European rivals. He took advantage of the
degree of freedom he had from London—it took four months for an action in
India to become known in England and as many months for official reaction
to reach his headquarters at Calcutta (Kolkata)—to pursue his own policies.
Wellesley formulated many of his conclusions about the state of India as he
was on his way to Bengal. During a long stay at the Cape of Good Hope, he
perused available materials, including BEIC correspondence, and interviewed
BEIC officials to satisfy, as he put it in a letter, his “anxious desire to learn the
actual states of affairs in India from the most authentic source.”6
There was much to learn. The French expedition to Egypt (1798) and its
professed goal of threatening British interests in India caused considerable
apprehension in British political circles. Furthermore, in the spring of 1799
the French fleet broke through the British blockade of Brest on the Atlantic
coastline, freed the Spanish fleet at Cadiz, and proceeded to attack small iso-
lated British squadrons across the Mediterranean. The French soon surren-
dered the initiative by returning to their Atlantic ports, but their actions
shook the British. In the Indian Ocean, the French expedition to Egypt
prompted redeployment of the British fleet into the Arabian Sea, exposing
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 87

trade routes. A British convoy barely escaped destruction by the Spanish at


Macao in January 1799, while French privateers operated with great success
in the Bay of Bengal.
To the authorities in London, these actions vividly illustrated that British
superiority on the seas could be challenged at any moment and that the
British presence in India could not be taken for granted. Wellesley and Henry
Dundas, the secretary of state for war and president of the Board of Control
responsible for overseeing the British East India Company, were concerned
both by the immediate prospect of a French invasion and by continued French
intrigues with local Indian rulers. They were therefore aware of communica-
tions between the French and Tippu Sultan of Mysore, who had requested
military help from the French administration of Mauritius. With General
Bonaparte in Egypt, French soldiers of fortune training the armies of several
Indian rulers, and Zaman Shah of Afghanistan (with whom the British thought
Tippu and the French had some understanding) encroaching on India from
the northwest, the BEIC felt its interests in India were threatened, and it
acted accordingly.7
Wellesley first dealt with Hyderabad, whose ruler, Nizam Ali, had recruited
French officers to train his troops and thus allowed for “a French state in the
peninsula,” to use Wellington’s phrase.8 In September 1798, with the sup-
port of a pro-British faction at the nizam’s court, Wellesley compelled Nizam
Ali to disband his French-trained forces and replace them with a British-
officered force of sepoys. Nizam Ali may have gained security, but he essen-
tially lost control of foreign affairs. Pleased with this arrangement, the
BEIC Board of Control urged Wellesley to push for similar deals with other
Indian states.9
Next on the list of Wellesley’s targets was Mysore, which, despite the loss
in the last Anglo-Mysore War, still remained a formidable military power and
avowedly hostile to the BEIC. The news that Tippu Sultan had welcomed
French republican envoys, planted a tree of liberty at Seringapatam, and made
overtures to the French in Mauritius only further strengthened British suspi-
cions of the French threat to their position in India and made the BEIC
­governor-general determined to act at once.10 In the spring of 1799 Wellesley
went to war against Tippu Sultan, and the ensuing Fourth Mysore War was
short and decisive. British forces swept through Mysore and stormed its capi-
tal, Seringapatam, on May 4, 1799. With Tippu killed, Wellesley kept part of
Mysore under control of the BEIC and used the rest to reward his Indian allies.
So far Governor-General Wellesley had been carried along on the premise
of securing British interests against a French attack. But in 1800 he turned
his attention to the Marathas, believing that so long as they remained outside
88 | the napoleonic wars

his system, there could be no British supremacy in India. Had the Maratha
chiefs united, the BEIC could have accomplished little, but the Maratha con-
federacy was never an organized or tightly controlled polity, suffering from a
succession of inexperienced peshwas (chief ministers; the young Baji Rao II
since 1795) and their infighting with military chiefs, who were increasingly
asserting their independence. The two leading contenders for the Maratha
leadership were Daulat Rao Sindhia, who had inherited a capable military
force but lacked the necessary ability and determination, and the brilliant
Jaswant Rao of Holkar, “a man cast in the mould of an Italian condottiere,
[who] moved across the north Indian scene like a blazing and erratic comet.”11
The squabbling facilitated British intervention, especially considering the
BEIC’s suspicions of French influence with the Marathas. Wellesley was par-
ticularly concerned by French military adventurers Charles Benoit de Boigne
and General Pierre Perron, who had played an important role in setting up
armies for the Sindhia.12
Exploiting the ongoing power struggle between the Maratha contenders,
Wellesley negotiated the Treaty of Bassein with the Maratha peshwa Baji Rao
II, who accepted a subsidiary alliance, guaranteeing his security but forsak-
ing his control of foreign affairs.13 This was Wellesley’s master stroke, for
while the treaty ostensibly called for the protection of the “peace, union, and
friendship” between the Marathas and the BEIC, in reality it paved the way
for British supremacy in the Deccan because the terms effectively turned the
Maratha Confederacy into a virtual protectorate of the British. The Maratha
lords of Holkar, Sindhia, and Bhonsle naturally refused to recognize this
agreement and went to war with the BEIC, which made great use of its sub-
sidiary alliances to shore up support for the war.14 Hence, when Arthur
Wellesley, younger brother to Richard and the future Duke of Wellington,
marched to fight the Marathas, the bulk of his forces were, in fact, troops
from Mysore, consisting of five sepoy infantry battalions of the Madras Native
Infantry and three squadrons of Madras Native Cavalry. Equally effective was
the BEIC’s use of political intrigue and bribery to split up the Maratha
Confederacy (Holkar chose not to fight at the start of the war) and to encour-
age desertion among the Sindhia’s European officers (many British or Anglo-
Indian), who took up offers of generous rewards if they switched sides.
The Second Maratha War was fought on several fronts across a sizable
area. Despite serious logistical challenges, the British were able to overcome
their opponents, with Arthur Wellesley defeating the Sindhia-Bhonsle coalition
at Assaye in west-central India. This “most brilliant and important victory,”
as the Duke of Wellington put it, actually involved just one brigade of
Sindhia’s forces, with almost 50,000 men taking no part in the fighting.15
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 89

Still, Wellesley’s victory at Assaye, followed by victories at Argaon and


Gawilghur, resulted in the defeat of Sindhia’s and Berar’s armies in the
Deccan. Simultaneously, General Gerard Lake (future 1st Viscount Lake)
pushed on to Delhi (where the British took the aged emperor Shah ʿAlam II
under protection), Agra, and lands north of the Chambal River, all of which
fell after Lake defeated Sindhia’s French-trained army at Delhi and Laswari.16
These victories allowed Richard Wellesley to negotiate the Treaties of
Deogaon and Surji-Arjungaon (December 1803), which forced the Marathas
(except for Holkar) to enter into subsidiary alliances with the BEIC, to rec-
ognize the earlier Treaty of Bassein, to permit the company political access
through the stationing of a British resident at court, to cede territory, and to
banish Europeans other than the British from their service; in exchange they
would receive military and financial support in the case of internal conflict or
external threats.17
The Anglo-Maratha wars were not over, however. In 1804 Jaswant Rao of
Holkar, realizing his mistake of not supporting the neighboring Marathas,
intervened and scored quick victories that allowed him to besiege Delhi
by the end of the year. The fall of Delhi would have been unquestionably
calamitous to British prestige and interests, but the city’s garrison gallantly
defended it. The intervention of Holkar served as a signal for the exasperated
BEIC directors, and the British cabinet, to seek an end to the conflict, which
placed enormous financial strains on the Company.
British colonial expansion elsewhere followed a similar pattern. Southeast
Asia, particularly the area around the Straits of Malacca, became significant to
the British because it controlled the route to and from Canton (Guangzhou), the
only port the Manchu dynasty of China opened to the British. This region,
however, had been under control of the (Dutch) United East India Company
(VOC) since the seventeenth century. Before the French Revolution, Britain’s
concern for the security of its Indian possessions put a premium on friendly
relations with the Dutch Republic. Once the republic came under French
influence in May 1795, however, the British moved against the Dutch in the
East Indies.18 The British government ordered all Dutch property seized and
launched general reprisals against Dutch colonial possessions. A squadron
under Rear Admiral George Elphinstone, the future 1st Viscount Keith,
was dispatched to take possession of the Dutch settlement at the Cape of
Good Hope, while Commodore Peter Rainier, commanding the East India
Squadron, deployed his forces to Ceylon. Acting out of the concern that
French control of the Dutch Republic might deliver the Kandyan kingdom
of Ceylon to the French, Rainier occupied the coastal areas of the island in
1796. Five years later, at the outbreak of war between Britain and Denmark,
90 | the napoleonic wars

the BEIC took control of the Danish colonies of Frederiksnagore (Serampore)


and Tranquebar (Tharangambadi), consolidating its possessions in India.
Initially, British interests in the Persian Gulf were exclusively commer-
cial. In the seventeenth century the BEIC supported the Safavid dynasty of
Iran against the Portuguese, which allowed the British to reap handsome
rewards in regional trade. At the same time, in 1661 the East India Company
gained capitulations from the Ottoman sultan, who sanctioned British trade
in the Ottoman provinces adjacent to the Persian Gulf and fixed customs
duties on English trade at 3 percent. A BEIC factory opened at Basra in 1725
and soon forced rival Dutch merchants to move their station to Kharg Island.
By the 1750s, during the Seven Years’ War, French agents (with consular
rank) attempted to challenge the British in the region, but the BEIC’s inter-
ests rapidly became dominant. The company kept a resident (baleos) with
consular rank at Basra until 1798, when the office was moved to Baghdad.
More important, the company fully exploited its economic power to support
regional authorities even when they conflicted with the Ottoman govern-
ment. Thus the BEIC played an important role in supporting the Georgian
Mamluks who governed Baghdad until 1831 and increasingly drew their
main supplies, particularly ammunition, from India, making them heavily
dependent on the BEIC’s goodwill.
By 1800 the BEIC considered withdrawing from the Gulf coast because
of declining trade. But French political rhetoric and overtures to the Near
East made such a withdrawal unacceptable. Some French diplomats called for
expansion into the Levant as a springboard to eventual conquest of India.
“Once we are masters of the Red Sea,” explained Charles Magallon, the
French consul in Cairo, in a memorandum in 1795, “we shall soon control
the English and drive them out of India, if an operation of the kind is envis-
aged by our government.”19 Only a year later the British were alarmed by
news of a scientific expedition undertaken by the distinguished French natu-
ralists Jean Guillaume Bruguière and Guillaume Antoine Olivier to the
Ottoman Empire, an expedition the British suspected was in fact a reconnais-
sance mission. Indeed, the naturalists’ expedition was not purely scientific—
it was intended to assess the situation in the Near East, to revive the 1708
and 1715 commercial treaties with Iran, and to entice the new Iranian gov-
ernment to ally with France.20 Bruguière and Olivier spent more than three
years traveling in the Middle East and eventually made it to Tehran, where
they were received at the Qajar court. The shah of Iran, Agha Muhammad,
was not impressed by the humble appearance of the French envoys (to allay
British and Ottoman suspicions, they traveled without an entourage) and
therefore showed little interest in Bruguière and Olivier’s offers, especially
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 91

since he was preoccupied at the time with political problems in the Caucasus
and northeastern Iran. In 1798 the French envoys returned back home empty-
handed.21 By then the French invasion of Egypt was already under way, with
Bonaparte informing the members of the Executive Directory that “as soon
as he became master of Egypt, he would establish relations with the Indian
princes, and, together with them, attack the British in their possessions.”22
The French activities revived British interest in the Near East, but the
British government found itself in disagreement on what to do next. The
Foreign Office, led by Foreign Secretary William Wyndham Grenville, down-
played the importance of the French invasion of Egypt; he was more anxious
to shore up the anti-French coalition back in Europe, which wanted France
expelled from the Low Countries.23 Henry Dundas, Secretary of State for War
and President of the Board of Control of the BEIC, strongly disagreed with
this approach. He believed that Britain was an imperial state and must
focus on defending its strategic and commercial interests, leaving the task
of restraining France in Europe for the continental powers.24 The Board of
Control argued that once the French had consolidated their control of Egypt,
they would inevitably threaten British interests in Asia. They could do that
by choosing one of four lines of advance to India: (1) through Constantinople,
along the Black Sea, and through Iran and Herat; (2) through Egypt to the
Red Sea and then straight to India; (3) through Hejaz, Yemen, and Muscat to
the Indian Ocean; or (4) through Syria into southern Iraq, then across the
Persian Gulf to India. Dundas and his supporters believed the ultimate pur-
pose for the French expedition was the overthrow of British power in India.
The French must therefore be dealt with vigorously. “We have won an empire
by armed might, and it must continue to rest on armed might, otherwise it
will fall by the same means, to a superior power,” one BEIC official noted.
Another argued that “we cannot doubt for a moment that the French Republic
would try to exploit this situation to introduce into India the revolutionary
machinations she has successfully employed in almost all parts of Europe.”25
Horatio Nelson’s victory at Abukir Bay on August 1, 1798, meant that
the French lines of communication were severed, hampering Bonaparte in his
future movements. However, the threat of a French attack via the Red Sea or
the Persian Gulf prompted Dundas to send reinforcements to India and to
request that the British Admiralty increase the naval presence in the Arabian
Sea. In 1798 Jonathan Duncan, the British governor of Bombay, sought to
secure the goodwill of Sultan ibn Ahmad of Muscat (Oman), who ruled a
state whose political influence extended to most of the lower Persian Gulf
and the coastline of East Africa and southern Arabia—all very suitable stag-
ing points for a potential French expedition to India.26 In fact, Bonaparte had
92 | the napoleonic wars

already dispatched a letter to the sultan, informing him of the French occu-
pation of Egypt and asking for assistance in establishing communications
with Tippu Sultan in India. The letter was intercepted by the British navy at
Mocha and forwarded to the BEIC, where it only increased apprehensions
about French designs. In mid-October 1798 the BEIC envoy convinced the
sultan to accept the first written British treaty of friendship with an Arab
ruler in the Gulf. In exchange for preferential treatment of his merchants in
India, the sultan pledged to deny the French access to his territory and to
assist the British in their naval operations.27
The BEIC remained concerned about a possible French excursion from
Egypt. To guard against such a possibility, the BEIC government of Bombay
sent an expedition, under command of Lieutenant Colonel John Murray of
the 84th Regiment, to occupy the island of Perim, which controlled the
Straits of Bab al-Mandab, in April and May 1799.28 This expedition, how-
ever, proved to be a fiasco, since the island was inhospitable and unable to
support a garrison. After wasting away for more than five months on what
was effectively a barren rock, Murray suggested occupation of neighboring
Aden, which offered better conditions for troops and still allowed for control
of the entrance into the Red Sea. His force of some 300 men moved to Aden,
where Ahmed bin Abdul Karim, sultan of Lahej, received them hospitably
and even offered Aden to the British. As one modern historian justly noted,
Murray’s decision to occupy Aden was not as simple as it seems. It implied
that the British had permanent interests in the region and that they were
important enough to warrant a military base in Arabia. In effect, Murray was
asking the BEIC leadership to “consider for the first time, how far west and
in what form should be the farthest outposts of British India.”29 Ultimately
the British withdrew from both Perim and Aden, considering them dis­pen­
sa­ble in their defense of India. But the debate within the British government
and the BEIC over occupation of these remote locations offers revealing
insight into the factors that shaped British policies. The involvement of so
many different government bodies often resulted in perplexing and contra-
dictory policy.30 Commercial and political factors naturally played lead roles,
but so did the interests of individuals who sought independent command
and expected rewards and promotions.
The threat posed by the French presence in Egypt was alleviated in the
summer of 1799. As previously discussed, Bonaparte’s campaign in Palestine
ended in a defeat at the siege of Acre (Akko), effectively putting an end to
the possibility that the French would attempt passage to India through the
Persian Gulf or Red Sea. Meanwhile, Britain concluded an alliance with the
Ottoman Empire. General Kléber, whom Bonaparte designated as his successor
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 93

upon abandoning the army, had to negotiate with the British and Turks and
agreed in the Convention of El Arish of January 24, 1800, to evacuate Egypt.
However, after the French surrendered several key fortresses, the British vice
admiral Viscount Keith renounced the convention and the Turkish army
seized Cairo. In response, Kléber destroyed Ottoman forces at Heliopolis
on March 29 and then promptly recaptured Cairo. Alas, this was his last suc-
cess - a Muslim zealot assassinated him on June 14. The command of the
French army transferred to General Jacques-François Menou, who was both
less capable and unpopular with the troops.
In its concern for India, the Board of Control was not assuaged by the
military successes the anti-French coalition had scored in 1799. The Allies
had reclaimed most of Italy and had driven the French behind the Rhine, an
Anglo-Russian army had invaded Holland, and the fourth Anglo-Mysore
War had resulted in the defeat of pro-French Tippu Sultan of Mysore and
further reduction in Mysorean territory. Dundas was pleased to hear of these
successes, of course, but his concern continued to revolve around the possible
threats to India.31 The Franco-Spanish threats against Portugal, for example,
raised the prospect of the French securing control of Portugal’s outposts at
Diu and Goa. A French army could break out of Egypt, sail along the coast-
line, land at the estuary of the Indus, and link up with the Marathas or
Zaman Shah Durrani, who had thrice descended upon northern India between
1792 and 1797 and advanced as far as Lahore.32 British authorities were also
disturbed by the growing understanding between Paris and St. Petersburg
and reports that they were planning a joint invasion of India.
To protect British interests in India, the Board of Control desired to
establish a new frontier zone in northwestern India and in the process inserted
the issue of the North-West Frontier into British political discourse. Dundas
argued that defending British India required acquiring the island of Diu
from the Portuguese, who would be unable to defend themselves against a
French attack, and establishing control over the Maratha territory in Gujarat,
where the British could maintain a subsidiary force at the expense of the
Marathas.33 This was easier said than done, for the British victory over Mysore
created yet new challenges.34 Sir James Craig, the senior BEIC officer in
Bengal, argued that the British triumph over Tippu Sultan had alarmed local
rulers across much of India and caused them to rally around the Marathas and
Zaman Shah. Other BEIC officers contended that though a French invasion
was no longer an immediate threat, the prospect of such an invasion would
endure as long as the French stayed in Egypt.
The French army might have suffered losses during its two-year occupation
of Egypt, but in the minds of the British officers it was still a formidable
94 | the napoleonic wars

opponent, especially when it came to fighting non-Western forces, a point of


view reinforced by the French victory over the Ottomans at Heliopolis. In an
act of desperation, they might break out of Egypt and fight their way to
India, where local dissatisfaction with Britain’s recent victories would have
created fertile ground for supporting a French invasion. “The preservation of
our Indian empire absolutely requires . . . the destruction of the French army
in Egypt,” declared a senior BEIC officer in 1799.

Such wider geopolitical considerations set the ground for the final British
efforts against the French presence in Egypt.35 This undertaking consisted of
a multi-pronged strategy to secure their interests in the Mediterranean and
Red Seas, although key British officials disagreed on where precisely efforts
should be concentrated.36 Ultimately it was agreed that one force, under Sir
Ralph Abercromby, would attack the French from the Mediterranean, while
another, under Sir David Baird, would sail from Bombay to attack from the
Red Sea.37 In early 1801 Abercromby’s men were conveyed by the British
Mediterranean Fleet to the north coast of Egypt, where they landed on March
1. The British proceeded to inflict a serious blow on their opponents at
Alexandria on March 20–21. The two-day engagement claimed as many as
3,000 French and 1,400 British casualties, including Abercromby himself.
Their defeat left the French severely demoralized, and disagreements
between Menou and his generals only exacerbated the situation. French troops
were isolated from each other and confined to the major cities of Alexandria
and Cairo. General John Hely-Hutchinson, who replaced Abercromby, pushed
deeper into Egypt, capturing Cairo in late May. At this time the second
British force, under Sir David Baird, was still at sea, detained by contrary
winds. Not until July did it land in Egypt, at Kosseir on the western coast of
the Red Sea. Thence Baird’s men marched across the desert due westward to the
banks of the Nile and northward to Cairo, where they arrived in August 1801
only to find that the French had already been vanquished by Abercromby’s
expeditionary force. Beset by the Anglo-Ottoman forces, struggling to con-
tain worsening plague, and despairing of ever receiving reinforcements
from France, the French capitulated on August 31, 1801, on the promise of
repatriation to France.38

British efforts to protect their Indian possessions were not limited only to
Egypt and Arabia. Of equally grave concern was the threat emanating from
Afghanistan, where Zaman Shah Durrani had consolidated his power and
repeatedly threatened to invade northern India. In the autumn of 1798 the
Afghan leader was once more menacing the Punjab from his staging grounds
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 95

at Peshawar. For the British, restraining Zaman Shah posed a crucial chal-
lenge, one they sought to accomplish with the help of Iran.
Iran had a long history of relations with the West, though its knowledge
of Europe (and vice versa) had long bordered on the fantastic and even whim-
sical. This situation improved in the sixteenth century when the Safavid
monarchy established close contacts with European powers, employing many
Westerners (especially Englishmen) to improve its military and pursuing
commercial ties with a host of European merchants. Western travelers fre-
quented Iran, increasing European knowledge of this faraway land as well
as shaping Iranian perceptions of Europe, which were based on convictions
of Iranian civilizational and religious superiority. Indeed, the Iranian
Weltanschauung reflected a deeply held conviction that Iran was at the center
of the known world and that its rulers were the most exalted of sovereigns.39
Petrus Bedik, a Catholic Armenian missionary cum Austrian diplomat who
visited Iran in the 1670s, wrote at length of Iranian society’s growing acquaint-
ance with the farangians (Westerners), even if this understanding was marked
by a deep sense of superiority. The Persians saw the “Russians as uncultured,
the Poles as bellicose, the French as quarrelsome, the Spanish as noble, the
Italians as sagacious, the English as politically inclined, and the Dutch as
mercantile.”40
The eighteenth century saw Iran gradually awakening to the reality of
growing European power. The once-glorious Safavid dynasty fell to the
Afghan invasion in 1722, causing the state to disintegrate. Although the
military adventurer Nadir Shah briefly reunited Iran, neither he nor his
successors were able to put an end to the widespread anarchy that afflicted
Iran and Central Asia. The final phase of this prolonged civil strife took
place in the 1780s when Qajar tribesmen conducted a successful campaign
against their rivals and made their leader, Agha Muhammad Khan, undis-
puted master of Iran.
Although his reign proved to be rather brief—he was proclaimed shah in
1796 and murdered by his servants just a year later—Agha Muhammad Shah
(and his successor) benefited from the turmoil in Europe. The start of the
Revolutionary Wars drew the attention of European powers away from
Iran and Central Asia, albeit temporarily. Russian and British preoccupa-
tion with events in France and the resulting absence of their militaries in
the East meant that the Iranian armies were the strongest military force in
the region and the Qajar ruler practically an unimpeded master of the fast-
resurgent Iranian state. Before his death, Agha Muhammad could afford
to reject French offers of military cooperation and joint assistance to Tippu
Sultan in India.
96 | the napoleonic wars

The shah’s chosen successor was his nephew Fath Ali Shah, who had ambi-
tions to expand his realm westward into the Caucasus, as we’ll see, and east-
ward into Khurasan and Afghanistan to recover the former Safavid territories
held by Zaman Shah, amir of Kabul, whom the BEIC governor-general of
Bengal, Lord Wellesley, had invited to cooperate against Tippu Sultan—only
to have second thoughts about his offer. Tippu was killed in battle in 1798,
and with the Afghan assistance no longer needed, Zaman Shah’s appearance
in India could pose serious problems for the BEIC; Wellesley was aware of
negotiations the Afghan amir was conducting with the powerful Indian
princes. The Afghan menace was made even more formidable in Wellesley’s
eyes by the French invasion of Egypt and their professed interest in driving
the British out of India. Thus Fath Ali’s intention to reclaim former Safavid
territories presented the British with the opportunity to conclude a mutually
profitable arrangement that would both constrain the Afghan lord and, poten-
tially, strengthen British interests in Tehran to prevent the spread of French
influence.
In late 1798 Wellesley made his first attempt to negotiate with Fath Ali,
but it fell short of expectations, with the shah being irritated by the BEIC’s
intercession and simply promising to detain any Frenchman found along the
Iranian coastline.41 Fresh reports about Zaman Shah’s preparations to invade
Punjab prompted Wellesley to launch a more robust diplomatic effort to
Iran. In January, at Wellesley’s orders, Captain John Malcolm traveled to the
Persian Gulf, where he was instructed to solicit Iranian support to contain
Zaman Shah as well as to “counteract the possible attempts of those villain-
ous but active democrats, the French."42
The Iranian court tended to determine the status of visiting European
embassies in light of a particular country’s usefulness as well as by the splen-
dor of its mission and gifts. Malcolm, a shrewd and perceptive man, under-
stood that “the two great necessities of diplomacy in Iran were the giving of
presents and the stickling for forms,” and he was determined to make his
visit a memorable one.43 He was accompanied by an enormous entourage:
“six European gentlemen, two European servants, two surveying boys, forty-
two troopers of the Madras native Cavalry, forty-nine Bombay Grenadiers,
sixty-eight Indian servants and followers, a hundred and three Persian atten-
dants, and two hundred and thirty-six servants and followers belonging to
the gentlemen of the Mission.”44 The British mission was received by Fath
Ali Shah in Tehran on November 16, 1800.
Malcolm’s efforts soon paid off. He was able to proceed rapidly with nego-
tiations for commercial and political treaties, which were signed on January
28, 1801. Fath Ali agreed to attack Afghanistan should the Afghan ruler
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 97

threaten India, while Britain undertook to supply the shah with military
support if he was attacked by the Afghans or if a French army attempted to
establish itself “on any of the islands or shores of Persia.”45 Although signed,
the Anglo-Iranian treaty could not be enforced until it was ratified by the
respective parties. In early 1802 Fath Ali sent his ambassador Hajji Khalil
Khan to secure formal ratification, but this mission suffered a dramatic set-
back early on when, upon reaching Bombay, the Iranian ambassador was mis-
takenly killed in an altercation between his retinue and British troops. The
BEIC authorities hastened to make amends for this incident and sent such
lavish gifts to the shah that he is said to have quipped that more ambassadors
could be killed on the same terms. The threatened break in Anglo-Iranian
relations did not materialize.46 Yet by then the treaty was already obsolete:
Zaman Shah, who had struggled to contain internal dissensions within his
own realm, was deposed and blinded by his rivals in late 1800.
For Fath Ali Shah, these diplomatic overtures with Britain presented an
opportunity to deal with a threat far more serious than Afghani tribesmen:
the Russian Empire. Prior to the eighteenth century Iran and Russia had had
sporadic contacts, although commercial activity between them increased fol-
lowing Tsar Ivan IV’s conquest of Kazan and Astrakhan in the late sixteenth
century and the Russian expansion to the Caspian littoral in the seventeenth
century. The reign of Peter the Great saw a major transformation in the
nature of Russo-Iranian relations. Despite Russia’s exhaustion after the Great
Northern War (1700–1721), Peter turned his attention to the Caspian Sea,
where he campaigned (with partial success) in 1722–1723.47 Russian involve-
ment in Iranian affairs faded away after the tsar’s death. In 1732–1735 Nadir
Khan, the maverick warlord who restored Iranian power after the political
turmoil of the 1720s, forced Peter’s successors to give up previous conquests
and by the Treaties of Rasht (1732) and Ganja (1735) to withdraw the
Russian presence in the former Iranian provinces. Following the death of
Nadir Shah in 1747, Iran descended into political chaos, while Russia
remained preoccupied with the Ottomans and European affairs.
By the 1780s Russia showed growing interest in the southern Caucasus,
especially in eastern Georgia, where King Erekle (Heraclius) of Kartli-Kakheti
sought Russian help against the Ottomans and Iran. The Russian govern-
ment considered a foothold in southern Caucasia valuable for a number of
reasons. For starters, expansion fit well into Russian statecraft because it had
long been a feature of Moscow’s policy, with the process of “gathering the
Russian lands” extending back at least four centuries.48 Indeed, this “gather-
ing” was later expanded to include non-Russian principalities, with Russia
exploiting a rather fortuitous circumstance: that it was so much ­stronger
98 | the napoleonic wars

than its immediate neighbors. Russian expansion in the Caucasus raised the
prospect of accessing regional trade networks, which Russia aspired to dom-
inate. The Caucasus also offered a position from which to exert additional pres-
sure on the Ottoman Empire, Russia’s historical rival, and to project authority
into Iran, where political turmoil created favorable conditions. Furthermore,
many in the Russian government believed that local Caucasian states—whether
the Christian Georgian kingdom or its neighboring Muslim khanates—pos-
sessed vast natural resources that Russia could utilize, and that those states
would welcome the arrival of the “benevolent” northern power to counterbal-
ance Iran’s presence in the region. Thus in 1781 a Russian expedition, led by
Count Voinovich, landed near Astrabad with the goal of establishing a forti-
fied base and facilitating the subsequent conquest of Persia’s northern prov-
inces. Agha Muhammad Khan, the new leading contender in Persia’s power
struggle, quickly realized the threat and had the members of the expedition
arrested and deported. Although Agha Muhammad then tried to smooth over
relations with Russia, Catherine II felt slighted by the incident and refused
to accept the Iranian envoys. The relations between two powers continued to
deteriorate, with the Russians supporting Agha Muhammad’s opponents and
Agha Muhammad imposing tariffs on Russian products.49
The turning point in Russo-Iranian relations took place in 1783, when
the eastern Georgian kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti and Russia signed the Treaty
of Georgievsk, which placed much of eastern Caucasia under Russian protec-
tion.50 The arrival of Russian troops in Georgia was of major importance. Not
only did it challenge Iranian and Ottoman influences in the Caucasus, but it
served notice to rival European powers, most notably France, that the balance
of power in the Near East was shifting in Russia’s favor. Yet this promising
start to the Russo-Georgian relationship proved to be brief, as Russian imple-
mentation of the treaty guarantees proved sorely inadequate. In 1787, as Russia
became embroiled in yet another conflict with the Ottomans, Catherine II
recalled her troops from Georgia, effectively leaving King Erekle II of Kartli-
Kakheti to look after his own defense.51
Russia spent the next decade preoccupied with Polish and Balkan affairs,
not the Caucasus. This allowed Iran to attempt to restore its authority over
southern Caucasia. In 1795 Agha Muhammad Shah led an invasion of eastern
Georgia, unleashing the full force of his wrath on the Georgian capital city,
Tiflis (present-day Tbilisi), where thousands of local residents were massacred
or taken into captivity.52 Russia provided no military help against the Iranian
invasion, but the news of the sack of Tiflis did outrage Catherine II, who
understood that the Persians had dealt a major blow to Russia’s status in the
region. In response, she sanctioned an invasion of Iran to overthrow Agha
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 99

Muhammad and replace him with a more favorable (from Russia’s perspec-
tive) candidate. The Russian troops, led by Count Valerian Zubov, set out in
April 1796, capturing Derbent and obtaining nominal submission of most of
the east Caucasian khanates.53
The deaths of Catherine II in 1796 and of Agha Muhammad Shah in 1797
created an opportunity for rapprochement between the two powers. As we’ve
seen, Russian emperor Paul shared Catherine’s general outlook on the nature
of Russia’s interest in Western Asia and India but distanced himself from her
methods and showed reluctance to project Russian interests in the East
through force. Rather, seeking to resolve the ongoing conflict with Iran
through diplomatic means, Paul pursued, in the words of one historian, “a
pragmatic diplomacy,” one that was based on rational evaluation of local cir-
cumstances and conciliatory, if also forceful, policy toward Iran.54
The new Iranian ruler, Fath Ali Shah, also sought improved relations with
Russia, and his efforts were well received by Emperor Paul, who agreed to
limit the Russian presence in the Caspian Sea. However, Russia’s refusal to
withdraw from Georgia proved to be the most divisive issue, since no Iranian
ruler could seriously consider abandoning a region that for so many genera-
tions had been under the influence of the Iranian state. In the summer of
1798 Fath Ali urged unsuccessfully Giorgi XII, who would be the last king
of Kartli-Kakheti, to abandon his alliance with Russia and rally to the Iranian
banner.
Although Russian actions in 1787–1796 effectively invalidated the Treaty
of Georgievsk, Giorgi XII felt that he had no recourse but to seek Russian
protection.55 Aside from Iranian encroachments, he was beset by court intrigue
and challenges from his own brothers for the crown. In September 1799 the
king sent an embassy to St. Petersburg with instructions to surrender his
realm into the care of Emperor Paul—“not under his protection, but into his
full authority”—provided that his throne was guaranteed and the royal dig-
nity was preserved forever in the royal family of Bagration (Bagrationi); in
effect, Giorgi XII was seeking a status comparable to that of native rajahs
under the British Empire in India. The Russian imperial government showed
interest in the request because the French invasion of Egypt had highlighted
the possibility of European encroachment into the Middle East. Furthermore,
Giorgi’s health was rapidly declining, and considering the hard-nosed nature
of the Georgian court struggles, it was natural to expect that claimants would
seek help not only from Russia but from the Ottoman Empire and Iran, a
prospect that clearly was alarming to the Russian court.
Keen to secure his position in the region, Emperor Paul agreed to guaran-
tee royal dignity and privileges to King Giorgi, but he also took measures to
100 | the napoleonic wars

ensure greater Russian control over the eastern Georgian realm. In November
1799 a small Russian force arrived in Tiflis, and in November 1800 Paul
instructed the Russian general in command of the Caucasian front to pre-
empt any Georgian efforts to nominate an heir to the Georgian throne in the
event of King Giorgi’s death. Peter Kovalenskii, the Russian ambassador to
Kartli-Kakheti, gradually assumed control of Georgia’s foreign relations.
The Russian and Iranian courts soon exchanged fiery notes reaffirming each
court’s determination to keep eastern Georgia under its control and threaten-
ing to defend its interests by force.
Despite Iranian protestations, on December 18, 1800, in further violation
of the Treaty of Georgievsk, Russia unilaterally abolished the Georgian king-
dom of Kartli-Kakheti and had it annexed to the empire as a province.56 Giorgi
XII passed away ten days later, still unaware of the Russian imperial manifesto.
The Russian military authorities quickly moved to prevent the Bagration
claimants from acceding to the crown and to set up a temporary administra-
tion, just as Paul’s instructions required of them. Yet before he could tackle this
succession problem, Paul was himself assassinated in St. Petersburg in March
1801, leaving the Georgian question to his successor to resolve.
Russia drew several lessons from its involvement in the Caucasus and Iran.
Its political, commercial, and intellectual circles found such involvement
highly desirable because it fostered perception of Russia as the equal of the
great Western powers. Having missed out on European colonialism in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, Russia could now lay claim to membership
in the circle of great powers by securing colonies on its periphery. This was
especially important in light of Bonaparte’s expedition to Egypt. The Iranian
sack of Tiflis in 1795 was a turning point in Russian involvement in the
Caucasus and directly contributed to Russia’s permanent involvement in the
wider region, as it was a blow to Russia’s prestige and encouraged the Russian
monarchy to play a more direct and active role in eastern Georgia and beyond.

The start of the French Revolutionary Wars in April 1792 was one of the
most decisive events in modern European history—a watershed, to use an
overused word, in the development of the international system. The conflicts
that resulted from it established a new political reality, with France hege-
monic in western Europe, Russia dominant in eastern Europe, and Britain
remaining supreme on the seas. War had an immediate and direct impact on
France and its neighbors: revolutionary ideology shaped hearts and minds (to
employ another overused phrase), while revolutionary arms ravaged the coun-
tryside and required the mobilization of human and material resources on an
unprecedented scale.
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 101

Several factors contributed to the failure of the continental powers to con-


tain France and prevent political realignment. The first decade of the war was
the result of a general breakdown of the existing balance of power system
rather than of a French revolutionary challenge to it. Indeed, the threat posed
by revolutionary France did not immediately dominate European politics. In
the early stages of the war, France faced monarchies that were preoccupied by
their own concerns. Britain initially welcomed revolutionary upheaval in
France because it weakened its traditional rival and, at least at first, seemed
similar to what England itself had experienced slightly more than a century
prior. The two German powers, Prussia and Austria, continued to look at
each other with a deep antipathy that often complicated their military coop-
eration. Russia remained on the sidelines for much of the revolutionary
decade, exploiting Austrian-Prussian preoccupation with France to seek ter-
ritorial aggrandizement in eastern Europe and the Caucasus. In Germany,
some princes of the Holy Roman Empire supported the French revolutionary
armies, hoping to expand at the expense of their neighbors. The fates of
Poland and the Ottoman Empire remained overriding issues.
During the War of the First Coalition European monarchies did not neces-
sarily view revolutionary France as an irreconcilable foe, and were ready to
negotiate and conclude separate treaties with it; Austrian foreign minister
Johann Amadeus von Thugut, who loathed the Revolution, nevertheless argued
that there was no need to destroy the revolutionary regime.57 But the turmoil
in Paris meant that France was not a stable negotiating partner, and it seemed
keen on shaping Europe into its new image. The First Coalition finally col-
lapsed because of its members’ conflicting political aspirations as well as
France’s ability to exploit this disunity while mobilizing its own resources.
The Revolutionary Wars also proved to be very different from what either
side had initially expected. Despite suffering early setbacks, the French revo-
lutionaries responded by waging war à outrance, which was contrary to the
established practices of the Old Regime. French civilian and military author-
ities cooperated, albeit grudgingly and oftentimes hostilely, in forging a new
army that was at its heart the old royal army, though one that had eliminated
most of its deficiencies and retained many of its strengths. The meritocracy
ushered in by the Revolution revealed a new cadre of commanders whose
talents and abilities proved to be of great service to the revolutionary cause,
and the ruthlessness with which the revolutionary government dealt with
unsuccessful generals made the French commanders more zealous to win.
The European powers, on the other hand, struggled to adapt their military
establishments in such a way as to allow them similarly to maximize their
resources.
102 | the napoleonic wars

With the war, the French Revolution spread beyond France, threatening
traditional order and ushering in radical change. Its famous motto—“Liberté,
egalité, fraternité”—offers a concise summary of the decade that followed
1789. In France and its colonies overseas, the dismantling of the Old Regime
was rapid. The Revolution began as a patriotic reform movement champi-
oned by reform-minded ministers and aristocrats, but its failure to bring
about effective change turned it into a rather confused and incoherent effort to
replace the traditional political order with a more democratic one. This desire
to create a new society, one in which law and authority sprang from below
rather than from above, was genuinely revolutionary. It espoused the cause of
liberty and the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Citizen, which proudly
declared that “men are born and remain free and equal in rights.”
Between 1789 and 1799 the remnants of feudalism were swept aside in
France, clerical privileges were curtailed, the French middle class won its
freedom from obsolete restraints, and Protestants, Jews, and freethinkers
gained the equality and toleration that had been denied them for so long. The
Revolution made all men equal in the eyes of the law and advanced fraternity
in a broader sense by encouraging nationalism, which had existed before
1789 but became a powerful creed in the concluding decade of the eight­
eenth century. The levée en masse of August 23, 1793, served as a clear mani-
festation of this new nationalist creed, as it called for total mobilization of the
French population in the name of defending la patrie and gave various sec-
tions of the population a stake in their country and its wars.
Emboldened by their unexpected military successes, the revolutionaries
promised “fraternity and assistance to all peoples who want to recover their
liberty,” and the French armies that swept through neighboring territories
often met with shouts of revolutionary slogans in Italian, German, Dutch,
and other languages.58 But the initial enthusiasm soon became more subdued
when the harsh realities of the occupation became clear and the benefits
brought by the “liberators” seemed increasingly outweighed by the price
exacted for them. The liberationist rhetoric of the French was belied by their
exploitative practices, especially after September 1793, when the National
Convention decreed that its generals should “renounce from henceforth every
philanthropic idea previously adopted by the French people with the inten-
tion of making foreign nationals appreciate the value and benefits of liberty.”
The generals were instructed to “exercise with regard to the countries and
individuals conquered by their armies the customary rights of war.”59 This
decree effectively sanctioned spoliation of the occupied territories, where the
French forces levied massive war contributions. As one French historian
justly noted, these levies were “nothing more than well-organized looting.”60
The Second Coalition War and the Origins of the “Great Game” | 103

The armies expropriated not only monies but anything else that could benefit
the republic. Cultural artifacts—paintings, sculptures, manuscripts, and so
on—were at the top of expropriation lists, and the art treasures of Italian,
Belgian, Dutch, and German cities soon found their way to France, which, as
the official newspaper Le Moniteur brazenly declared, “by virtue of its power
and the superiority of its culture and its artists is the only country in the
world that can provide a secure refuge for these masterpieces.”61
The revolutionary decade should not be perceived as a triumphant march,
for it also revitalized the old traditions of absolutism and centralization. The
quest for revolutionary change proved to be convoluted, and oftentimes it pro-
duced not liberty, equality, and fraternity but rather disillusionment, oppres-
sion, and civil strife. In France itself, this path led to the establishment of a
government structure that was more centralized than had been the case under
the Old Regime, while the Reign of Terror showed the terrifying power of the
state, far eclipsing the supposedly absolutist monarchy of the Bourbon dynasty.
The war played a crucial role in this process, and French historian François
Furet once observed that “the war conducted revolution far more than the
Revolution conducted the war.”62 Indeed, international relations profoundly
affected the domestic development of the Revolution, and after 1792 it was
increasingly driven leftward as the war contributed to the rapid radicalization
of French political discourse. The great revolutionary journées that defined the
course of the Revolution—the revolt of August 10, 1792; the September 1792
massacres; the revolts of May 31 and June 2, 1793; even the coup of the Ninth
of Thermidor in year II (July 27, 1794)—were all responses to developments
in foreign affairs. Similarly, the war produced a new generation of military com-
manders that came to play increasingly greater role in French politics. Battered
from all sides, unable to solve the country’s economic problems, and still carry-
ing on the wars inherited from the Committee of Public Safety, the Executive
Directory increasingly relied on its military commanders to maintain its power.
The most successful of France’s conquering generals, Bonaparte was quick to
understand the facts of the political situation. He had defended the govern-
ment against a royalist uprising in 1795, successfully prosecuted war in Italy in
1796–1797, and again saved the government from another attempted coup in
1797. Newly returned from his seemingly victorious campaign in Egypt,
Bonaparte plotted with some of its leaders to take over the state in a coup d’état
that was successfully implemented in November 1799.
chapter 6 The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802

W hile the warfare from 1792 to 1815 can be viewed as a single


drama—the rise and fall of French hegemony in Europe, fueled by
the energy of the Revolution—the starting point for the Napoleonic Wars is
usually dated to the breakdown of the Peace of Amiens in May 1803. The
ensuing twelve years of warfare were nevertheless a continuation of the
Revolutionary Wars and produced major political, economic, and social
changes throughout Europe. Ideological differences are often viewed as a
major source of the conflict, but after Bonaparte’s self-coronation as the
emperor of the French in 1804, Europe was less sharply divided along ideo-
logical lines than by geopolitical considerations that predated the revolution-
ary era and were similar to those existing during the Wars of Louis XIV.
France’s military successes threatened the balance of power in Europe and led
to the creation of broad coalitions of European powers to prevent the French
from achieving complete dominance. The long-standing colonial and com-
mercial rivalry between France and Britain served as a crucial backdrop to the
Napoleonic Wars.
When General Bonaparte returned from Egypt to France in October 1799,
he found the nation still in the grip of economic malaise and recovering from
the last round of the War of the Second Coalition, in which the French expe-
rienced major setbacks in Italy and the Rhineland. The governing Directory
struggled to cope with internal and external threats, including rebellions in
the stubbornly royalist Vendée and Brittany regions, renewed hostilities with
Austria and its allies, the rapid drop in value of government securities and
paper money, and widespread banditry. But the Directory was not as incom-
petent or hapless as Bonaparte and his admirers long claimed. A more bal-
anced reassessment reveals that it had a better record on domestic
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 105

10° 0° 10° 20°


FINLAND 30° 40°

Europe in 1803 (SWEDEN) France (frontiers of 1801)

DENM
ian
France (annexations 1800-3)

Merid
French satellites

ARK
Prime
French occupation/administration
North SWEDEN

- NO
Frontier of Holy Roman Empire
Sea
W

R
AY

50° GREAT
1
BRITAIN PRUSSIA
2
GERMAN RUSSIA
STATES

ATLANTIC AUSTRIA
3
OCEAN
FRANCE 4
5

6
9 Black Sea
8
PORTUGAL
7 15 10
18 OTTOMAN
40°
Franco-Spanish 14
11
16
EMPIRE
12
invasion of Portugal 17

SPAIN SARDINIA

13
Mediterranean Sea SICILY
0 250 500 Kilometers

0 250 500 Miles 19

1. Hanover/Hamburg 7. Ligurian Republic 12. Montenegro 16. Ragusa


2. Batavian Republic 8. Parma 13. Republic of the 17. Cattaro
3. Neuchâtel 9. Italian Republic (showing Seven Islands 18. Dalmatia
4. Helvetic Confederation territory gained since 1799) 14. Piombino (French 19. Malta (British
5. Republic of the Valais 10. Kingdom of Etruria occupied) garrison)
6. Piedmont 11. Papal States 15. Lucca

Map 7: Europe in 1803

policies than most of the revolutionary governments that preceded it. The
seeds of a number of reforms that Bonaparte later claimed credit for had in fact
been planted by the Directory. But most acknowledge that the Directory had
lost the people’s trust by failing to end what seemed to be interminable tur-
moil and to restore order and stability. It was unpopular and, therefore,
vulnerable.1
Bonaparte did not have a well-defined plan of action when he reached
Paris, but he was soon approached by a group of statesmen conspiring against
the current French government. Led by Emmanuel Sieyès (himself a member
of the Directory), these men thought they could control a simple military
man like Bonaparte and were eager to exploit his status as a war hero for their
political gain. Yet Bonaparte was anything but simple. On his arrival in
Paris, he adopted the role of the modest and studious citizen, meeting with
savants, delivering speeches on the scientific work of the Egyptian expedition
at the Institut de France, and in general portraying himself as eager for
knowledge and respectful of intellect. But deep in his heart he knew that
106 | the napoleonic wars

“change here is indispensable,” and he closely observed political undercur-


rents, exploring every party and faction—there may have been more than half
a dozen active plots against the Directory—before committing to one.2 Sieyès
and his co-conspirators would soon realize that they had misjudged this man.
They envisioned a manipulable “sword” that they could use to see the con-
spiracy through and then quietly “sheathe” in the aftermath. None foresaw
that after effectively putting him in power they would be on the outside
looking in.
On November 9–10 (Brumaire 18–19), 1799, the conspirators put their
plans in motion. Claiming an imminent threat of a Jacobin plot, they induced
both legislative councils to transfer their sessions to the relative safety
(and isolation) of the former royal palace at St. Cloud, where their security
would be ensured by Bonaparte and his troops. At the same time, the whole
Directory resigned, starting with Sieyès himself; some members did so under
pressure, and for others the process was sweetened with a bribe. Despite suc-
cess on the eighteenth of Brumaire, matters did not go smoothly the following
day, when the legislative council demanded explanations. Bonaparte’s inter-
vention only heightened tensions as he was mobbed and manhandled in the
Council of Five Hundred, with some deputies denouncing him as an “out-
law.” His brother Lucien Bonaparte, who served as president of the Council
of Five Hundred, saved the day. Maintaining a cool head, he declared to the
troops outside that an assassination attempt had been made on his brother
and called upon them to restore order. In the highly charged atmosphere, this
claim was enough to sway the troops and induce them to obey orders to dis-
solve the councils. Later the same night a compliant rump of the legislative
councils was reassembled to formally vote on the dissolution.3
The ease with which the conspirators seized power demonstrated that after
ten years of revolutionary turmoil and violence, the French people had become
numbed to political upheaval and willing to accept yet another change in the
government as long as it promised order and stability. The government that
emerged from the Brumaire coup was provisional, tasked with providing
France with a new constitution and a stable government. “Constitutions
should be short and obscure,” Bonaparte is credited with saying. The new
constitution of France was both, and it demonstrated how deeply Sieyès and his
colleagues had miscalculated. In the newly established three-man Consulate,
Bonaparte, not Sieyès, was chosen as First Consul, with the authority to exer-
cise full executive power; the Second and Third Consuls were given limited
authority and could only advise the First Consul. The new constitution
provided for a three-part legislature, but one that was closely controlled by
the executive branch. It granted universal male suffrage but also created a
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 107

mechanism to constrain electoral freedoms and negate the doctrine of popu-


lar sovereignty. The primary electorate, about six million men, was the larg-
est in Europe, but they could exercise their right only by choosing communal
electors, who in turn selected departmental electors. Furthermore, it was
the consuls who decided who got into the three legislative institutions, the
Legislative Corps, the Tribunate, and the Senate; they named a majority of
the Senate, which in turn selected members of the remaining two legislative
bodies. More important, the legislative process itself was designed in such a
way as to emasculate the legislative bodies and make them incapable of chal-
lenging the executive branch. None of the legislative bodies could initiate
laws, which was the prerogative of the State Council, a body of chosen experts
presided over by the First Consul. The Tribunate could only discuss legisla-
tion, the Legislative Corps could only vote on proposed laws, and the Senate
merely considered matters of constitutional interpretation. Between 1801
and 1803 Bonaparte effectively wielded his authority to purge these legisla-
tive bodies of any individuals who created difficulties for him. He also exploited
existing loopholes in the constitution to bypass the legislature, relying on the
Senate’s privilege of issuing decrees (senatus consulta) to avoid any parliamentary
opposition.4
For France, the Consulate (1800–1804) was one of the most dynamic
periods of the entire nineteenth century.5 The Revolution was now at an end.
Its radical vestiges were swept aside, churches reopened, and émigrés were
allowed to return home if they wished. Reconciliation and restoration of
order became paramount. These policies helped secure public confidence in
the new government and allowed Bonaparte to embark on a series of reforms
that, taken together, constituted the most constructive and enduring legacy
of his career. The key elements of these reforms combined preservation of the
Revolution’s gains with restoration of order. Stability of the nation’s finances
came as the result of vigorously applied centralization. Bonaparte replaced
elected officials and local self-government, the hallmarks of the Revolution,
with centrally appointed bureaucrats—prefects for the departments, sub-
prefects for the districts, and mayors for towns and communes—who have
remained at the heart of France’s administrative system ever since.6 To remove
limitations to his power, Bonaparte resorted to various stratagems that exploited
the uncritical approbation that the majority of the French people extended to
the new head of state. He was the first political leader to make effective use
of plebiscitary democracy to legitimize and sustain his authority, a practice
that would become ubiquitous in the twentieth century.7 Behind the façade
of universal male suffrage and popular involvement in politics, Bonaparte’s
regime gave no actual power to the governed masses and instead skillfully
108 | the napoleonic wars

shaped and control political process. Thus, a nationwide plebiscite of all


French citizens, held in January-February 1800, on the establishment of the
Consulate showed more than 3 million votes in favor of the new constitution
and 1,562 votes against. The results of later plebiscites also suggested mas-
sive popular support, with the 1802 poll, which made Bonaparte a consul for
life, showing more than 3.5 million votes in favor and just 9,074 against.8 Of
course, these figures should not be taken at face value—abstention rates were
substantial, and the voting was not secret and therefore subject to intimida-
tion and manipulation, especially on the part of Minister of Interior Lucien
Bonaparte, who probably had forged as many as half of the “yes” votes.9 Yet
given that turnout was much higher than during the revolutionary era (see
Table 6.1), the plebiscites represented, in the words of French historian Claude
Langlois, “a relative success.”10 They suggested growing support for the new
government, reflected in comments many voters wrote about Bonaparte on
their ballots. “The man who has given us peace, religion and order in such a
short space of time,” declared one Parisian, “is the most capable of perpetuat-
ing these achievements.” “A hero is needed to save France by bringing back
joy and hope to our hearts and restoring liberty, justice, and peace,” observed
a voter in Lesmont (Department of the Aube).11
Bonaparte relied heavily on censorship and secret police to tame opposi-
tion. The first two years after the Eighteenth of Brumaire coup witnessed
several conspiracies, the most threatening of which occurred on Christmas
Eve of 1800. An “infernal machine”—a carriage loaded with gunpowder
barrels—exploded in the street just as the First Consul was traveling to
the Opéra. The explosion claimed at least twelve innocent bystanders and
wounded twice as many. Bonaparte, unhurt, took this opportunity to suppress

Table 6.1: Constitutional Plebiscites in France


Year Plebiscite Estimated Abstention Yes No
electorate rate
1793 Adoption of the Constitution 7,000,000 73% 1,866,000 12,766
1795 Adoption of the Constitution 7,200,000 74% 957,000 915,000
1795 The “Two-Thirds” Laws 7,200,000 94% 263,000 168,000
1800 Adoption of the Constitution 7,900,000 62% 3,011,000 1,562
1802 Making Bonaparte First Consul 7,900,000 55% 3,568,000 9,074
for life
1804 Proclamation of Empire 8,900,000 60% 3,524,000 2,579

Sources: Based on Thierry Lentz, La France et l’Europe de Napoléon, 1804–1814 (Paris: Fayard,
2007); Claude Langlois, “Le plébiscite de l’an VIII ou le coup d’état du 18 Pluviôse an VIII,”
Annales historiques de la Révolution française, 1972; Malcolm Crook, Elections in the French Revolution:
An Apprenticeship in Democracy, 1789–1799 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996).
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 109

domestic opposition. He first targeted his opponents on the left and, over-
coming considerable reluctance on the part of his associates, insisted on
introducing extraordinary measures to suppress “Jacobin agitation.” One
hundred and thirty well-known republicans were branded as terrorists and
either interned or deported to Guiana, where climate and disease claimed
many of them. With the left neutralized, Bonaparte then revealed “new” evi-
dence that pointed toward the real perpetrators of the crime—his right-wing
opponents, royalists and Chouans, led by Georges Cadoudal, who had received
support from the British government. Although Cadoudal escaped to London,
his co-conspirators were arrested, found guilty, and executed in 1801. The
events of 1800–1801 revealed that Bonaparte troubled himself little about
unorthodox methods provided they helped him suppress dissent and consol-
idate power.
This emphasis on centralization extended to public finances, which were
tightened up and put upon a sound footing after years of mismanagement
and disarray. In 1800 Bonaparte decreed the establishment of the Bank of
France as the central financial institution, tasked with stabilizing the cur-
rency and facilitating government borrowing.12 The same emphasis on cen-
tralization can be seen in Bonaparte’s approach to education. He kept most of
the revolutionary reforms that had offered free elementary education for all
children (though in practice their implementation proved to be problem-
atic). More important, Bonaparte reorganized secondary education, establish-
ing the famed lycées, which were placed under close government supervision.
In 1808 the French educational system was even further centralized and a
single system (Université impériale), incorporating the entire range of public
schools, was established.13
One of the most significant achievements of the Consulate was the codifi-
cation of laws, the Code civil des Français, which ultimately became known
as the Napoleonic Code. The French Revolution had swept away many of the
statutes and law of the Old Regime and adopted myriad new laws, but it
failed to reconcile them within a coherent legal structure. Bonaparte addressed
this problem by setting up a committee to draft a new legal code. He regu-
larly attended its meetings. In 1804 the new code was published and was
later augmented by the Code of Civil Procedure (1806), the Code of Criminal
Procedure (1808), and the Penal Code (1810). Together they represent a
remarkable achievement, one based upon three innovative principles whose
influence would transcend the codes’ actual legal application: clarity, so that
all citizens could understand their rights if they could read, without needing
recourse to jurists steeped in customary law, with its hundreds of exemptions
and eccentricities; secularism, which insisted on separating religion from the
110 | the napoleonic wars

affairs of the state, recognized marriage as a secular civil contract, and per-
mitted divorce, thereby paving the way for an entirely new form of individ-
ual and civic existence; and, finally, the right to individual ownership of
property, which was declared absolute and inviolable. The new codes reflect
the duality of Bonaparte’s legacy. The Civil Code retained the main legal
victories of the Revolution—equality before the law, the rights of citizens,
abolition of manorial privileges—but it also marked a retreat to patriarchy in
the realm of family life. The sanctity of private property, which the code
upheld to the great benefit of the property-owning middle class, bedeviled
French labor for much of the nineteenth century.14
The civil achievements of the Consulate occupied but part of Bonaparte’s
energy. The new century dawned amid unremitting hostility in Europe. As
we have seen in earlier chapters, Austria and Prussia had conflicts of interest
in Germany; Russia and Austria were at odds in the Balkans; Prussia, Austria,
and Russia had designs on Poland; and all of them looked ravenously at the
Ottoman Empire. For France, the most serious threats emanated from Britain
and Austria, which were in a wearyingly prolonged struggle.

The start of the New Year (1801) had been elaborately celebrated in Britain
and France, but for different reasons. On the British Islands, the first day of
the nineteenth century was noteworthy for the final arrangements of the Act
of Union, the defining event in modern Irish history and a focal point for the
interlacing issues of nationalism and political identity. The act was the last
stage—after the incorporation of Wales in 1535 and the amalgamation of
Scotland in 1707—of a political process that brought about the establish-
ment of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. Some one hun-
dred Irish members had been admitted into the House of Commons, and
free trade between England and Ireland was formalized. The government of
William Pitt had also promised to remove the laws against Roman Catholics
that had driven so many Irish to rebel in 1798.15 The Act of Union was osten-
sibly based on “fair, just and equitable principles,” as described by its archi-
tects, but in practice it meant very different things to different people. For
the British government, which celebrated it with salutes of gunfire and the
hoisting of the new imperial standard over the Tower of London, the act rep-
resented the fulfillment of Britain’s “civilizing mission,” as Pitt put it, and
was justified in the interests of the “power, stability, and the general welfare
of the Empire.”16 Yet for many Irish the act sanctioned continued colonialism
and exploitation by the Protestant minority of the Catholic majority.17
Across the English Channel, France was celebrating as well. The cause was
the opening ceremonies of the Franco-Austrian peace conference at Lunéville,
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 111

where a peace treaty was signed on February 9, 1801.18 The Treaty of Lunéville
ended nine years of enmity between the two powers and changed the map of
Europe materially. With the French armies within striking distance of Vienna
and Russia posturing menacingly in the east, Austria had little room for dip-
lomatic maneuver.19 The final treaty required Austria to confirm territorial
concessions it had made in the Treaty of Campo Formio, starting with the
loss of the entire left bank of the Rhine, which meant the net loss of more
than 25,000 square miles and nearly 3.5 million residents. Austria was stripped
of much of the territorial concessions it had received in Italy four years prior,
and the treaty recognized the Helvetian (Swiss), Batavian (Dutch), Ligurian
(Genoese), and Cisalpine (Lombardy) Republics, which became French
dependencies. In addition, Vienna also agreed to give up the Grand Duchy of
Tuscany and, more important, committed itself to the principle of seculari-
zation in Germany, which produced profound results within just two years.20
The Peace of Lunéville accomplished a major change in European affairs.
It pacified continental Europe for the first time in a decade and provided a
larger backdrop for France’s negotiations with other states. The peace settle-
ment was accepted, if grudgingly, by all continental powers. Even Austria
considered Lunéville a decisive settlement, much to the chagrin of the hawk-
ish Austrian foreign minister, Amadeus Frans de Paula Thugut, who under-
stood that the treaty made Austria’s decline as a great power irreversible.21
France emerged as a hegemonic state in western Europe, with its power
acknowledged in the Low Countries, Bavaria, Baden, Switzerland, and the
Italian states.
No wonder, then, that the treaty was greeted with great relief and celebra-
tion in France; the public especially cheered the news of army demobilization
and the return of thousands of conscripts who were about to be called up for
service. On February 13, in his address to the Senate, Bonaparte celebrated
the conclusion of the Treaty of Lunéville and declared that the French gov-
ernment would continue to “fight only to secure the peace and happiness of
the world.”22
Within weeks Bonaparte seemingly delivered on his promise, as he achieved
two more diplomatic successes. On March 21, 1801, France and Spain signed
the Treaty of Aranjuez, which was part of a larger diplomatic agreement
between the two states: Ferdinand, duke of Parma, relinquished his ducal
claims, and in return his son, Louis I, was granted the Kingdom of Etruria,
which was created from the Grand Duchy of Tuscany vacated by Grand Duke
Ferdinand III under the terms of the Treaty of Lunéville. The island of Elba
passed from Tuscany into French possession, but in compensation Bonaparte
agreed to transfer the Principality of Piombino and the State of Presidi (even
112 | the napoleonic wars

though he did not control either of them) to Etruria. The treaty also laid the
grounds for the cession by Spain of the vast territories of Louisiana to France.23
Just a week later, on March 28, 1801, Bonaparte turned to Naples forcing it
to accept the Treaty of Florence with Naples which made it possible for
Bonaparte to fulfill provisions of the Franco-Spanish Treaty. The Neapolitan
kingdom was saved from a French invasion by the intercession of Russia, but
the terms of the treaty were predictably harsh.24 Naples was compelled to
cede the Principality of Piombino and the State of Presidi to France, with-
draw troops from the Papal States, and close Neapolitan ports to British and
Ottoman shipping. Naples also consented to the stationing of French troops,
with Neapolitan financial support, on its territory.25
Continuing his peaceful outreach, Bonaparte negotiated with the leaders
of the revolt in La Vendée, which had festered in western France for almost
seven years. These negotiations were greatly facilitated by Bonaparte’s con-
clusion of the Concordat with the papacy on July 15, 1801.26 Although he
himself was not croyant, Bonaparte understood that the vast majority of the
French people were still devout Catholics and desired the return of organized
religion to France. He spent weeks negotiating with the Vatican, with dis-
cussions kept secret because of potential hostility from liberal intellectuals
and from the Jacobin elements still to be found in the military and many min-
istries.27 “The Government of the Republic acknowledges that the Catholic,
Apostolic and Roman religion is the religion of the great majority of French
citizens,” read the opening lines of the Concordat. This was one of the
key passages of the document, as it included acknowledgment that while
Catholicism might be the faith of “the great majority of the French,” it was
not the official state religion, thus establishing religious freedom in France.
The treaty reorganized church dioceses and parishes, and it gave the papacy
the right to depose bishops, although this made little difference because the
French government nominated them and paid clerical salaries. The most sig-
nificant provision of the treaty required the Roman Catholic church to give
up all its claims to church lands that had been confiscated and nationalized
since 1790.28 The Concordat was welcomed in rural (and conservative) areas
of France, but it was unpopular in the army, where many still retained revo-
lutionary ideals and expressed their disappointment, if not outright anger, at
the return of organized religion. When a Te Deum mass, the first in many
years, was celebrated at Notre Dame on Easter Sunday (April 18), 1802, one
of the generals was heard to remark, “Quelle capucinade! The only thing missing
is one million men who died to get rid of all this!”29
The Concordat, however, had a lasting legacy. It helped to end the decade-
long religious strife in France and remained the basis for relations between
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 113

the French state and the papacy for a century.30 Despite making a number of
concessions, Bonaparte secured all the major points of contention—although
the Catholic church returned to France, it did so under close supervision by
the state. This became especially obvious after Bonaparte issued Les Articles
organiques, a law that further strengthened the state control over the church.
Bonaparte’s goal of restoring law and order was much aided by the Concordat,
for the church became a pillar of the state.
Bonaparte’s peace offensive of 1801–1802 proved to be very successful.
Each treaty was aimed at producing immediate, tangible results, bolstering
Bonaparte’s credentials abroad and consolidating his power at home. The
First Consul preferred short negotiations to achieve deals with individual
states and avoided getting involved in prolonged discussions on a general
political settlement in Europe. Furthermore, he skillfully exploited circum-
stances to build upon each treaty negotiation. At Lunéville, for example,
Bonaparte forced Austria to give up Tuscany and then used it as compensa-
tion to Spain for turning over Louisiana to France by the Treaty of Aranjuez;
the same can be said about Franco-Neapolitan treaty that effectively subsi-
dized France’s arrangements with Spain. Yet Bonaparte’s diplomatic over-
tures proved less successful in Russia, where he genuinely hoped to establish
closer relations with the Romanov court,.
Russia seemed bereft of allies as the War of the Second Coalition produced
considerable fissures in its relations with European powers. By the end of
1799 Emperor Paul I had become convinced that Russia’s sacrifices had
proved a futile expedient and that his Austrian and British allies could no
longer be relied on as partners, a conclusion that would recur frequently in
Russian military and political circles throughout the Napoleonic Wars.
Annoyed by what he believed was the perfidy of the Austrian and British
governments, Paul began to move away from his former allies. He recalled
his troops from Switzerland, expelled the Austrian and British envoys from
St. Petersburg, recalled his own ambassador from London (who refused to
leave), and disgraced his Anglophile ministers.31 More important, he embar-
goed British trade and began working toward reviving the League of Armed
Neutrality in the Baltic. Emperor Paul’s foreign policy has long been misrep-
resented. Though grandiose, it was not inconsistent.32 For Paul, the overarch-
ing goals remained the same as those of his predecessors—to protect Russian
interests in Germany and Italy and expand them in the Balkans and the
Caucasus—but he made significant changes in tactics. Paul had been very hos-
tile to the Revolution and one of the prime movers of the Second Coalition. He
saw Bonaparte as an upstart, but one who could stabilize France and serve as
a potential partner in pacifying the whole of Europe.33 The French government
114 | the napoleonic wars

took immediate notice of the changing Russian attitude and pursued an


ambitious goal of aligning France and Russia against Britain and Austria;
even if such an alliance did not materialize, its very prospect would cause
considerable anxiety in London and Vienna. Already in the early summer of
1800 First Consul Bonaparte insisted that “it is necessary to give Paul some
proof of our esteem, to let him know that we want to negotiate with him.”34
Bonaparte was well aware of Paul’s penchant for chivalric gestures—Paul
once considered resolving international disputes by challenging the sover-
eigns of Europe to a knightly tournament—and sought to entice the Russian
ruler by playing upon such sentiments.35 First, the French government pre-
sented Paul, who was the de facto grand master of the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem (Knights of Malta or Knights Hospitaller) and entertained idealis-
tic notions of chivalry, with the sword of Jean Parisot de La Valette, the
famed grand master of the Knights of Malta who had valiantly defended the
island from the Ottoman Turks in the sixteenth century. Next Bonaparte
offered to return Malta itself—an offer that was clearly a ploy, considering
the ongoing British blockade of the island and the imminent surrender of the
French garrison. The final element in this charm offensive was the French
decision to liberate, without reciprocal exchanges and with full military hon-
ors, about 6,000 Russian prisoners of war taken in recent campaigns.36
The flattery was transparent but effective. Paul was touched by what he
regarded as acts of true chivalry on the part of the French leader and responded
positively to the overtures. Anglophile deputy chancellor Nikita Panin was
disgraced and ousted, and Louis XVIII—brother of the executed Louis
XVI—and his followers were told to leave the Russian province where they
had safely resided for the past few years.37 More important, in October 1800
the Russian foreign minister, Count Fedor Rostopchin, informed France of
Russia’s readiness to make peace on reasonable terms, which included recog-
nition of the Russian interest in Germany and the Mediterranean: Russia
required the restoration of the island of Malta to the Maltese Knights and
a mutual guarantee of the integrity of Sardinia, Naples, Bavaria, and
Wurttemberg, which had close ties to Russia.38
The French agreed to these preliminary terms, and by the end of the year
both sides designated diplomats to conduct formal negotiations. The Russian
foreign ministry prepared a lengthy memorandum surveying the European
situation and urging Russian realignment with France. The document, approved
by Paul, is noteworthy for its focus on the Eastern Question, describing the
Ottoman Empire as a “hopelessly sick man”—probably the first use of this
well-known political expression—and outlining an ambitious plan for a grand
realignment and territorial redistribution in Europe. Under the proposal
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 115

(a copy of which the French government had acquired), Russia would have
gained Romania, Bulgaria, and Moldavia, and France would have gotten
Egypt.39 To appease other continental powers, Rostopchin suggested com-
pensating Austria with parts of Bosnia, Serbia, and Wallachia, and giving
Prussia Hanover and a few North Germanic bishoprics.40 Russia was to con-
vince Sweden and Denmark to restore the League of Armed Neutrality, which
would then be extended to include France and Spain.41
Rostopchin’s proposal was unmistakably expansionist, but in sharing
the spoils of the Ottoman Empire with Austria and France, it also revealed
Russia’s awareness of its own limitations. The essence of the Russian proposal
was clear: the Franco-Russian alliance would pacify and realign Europe and
challenge British domination on the seas. This anti-British thrust of the
Franco-Russian rapprochement involved several crucial elements, not the
least of which were discussions for a joint expedition to India.42 Whether an
actual plan had ever been devised remains unclear, since no original text of
the plan has ever been located in either French or Russian archives and the
published versions contain enough inaccuracies to raise suspicions about
their veracity.43 What is more revealing is that the Russian emperor was will-
ing to act alone. In January 1801 he dispatched a corps of Cossacks to India,
instructing its commander, General Vasilii Orlov, to make common cause
with Indian princes against the British and to secure favorable conditions for
Russian trade and industry, displacing those of Britain.44
Paul’s decision to launch this expedition has been frequently depicted
as an example of his folly or madness, but the plan was conceived not from
mental derangement or megalomania (incidentally, charges made against
Bonaparte as well) but from a widely shared strategic assumption that India
represented Britain’s weakest point. It was an extension of Anglo-Russian
hostilities in Europe. A direct attack on this island nation, with its formida-
ble navy, seemed futile. India could be reached by land, and the political and
military circumstances there did not favor the British. Paul followed this
reasoning when he justified an attack on India by noting that “it is necessary
to attack [the British] where the blow will be [most] felt by them and where
they least expect it. Their establishments in India are the best for this.”45
Invading India was not necessarily a mad scheme. Invasion through Iran or
Central Asia was not inherently impossible, as testified to most recently by
the campaigns waged by Nadir Shah and Ahmad Shah Durrani, not to men-
tion those by Babur, Timur, Mahmud of Ghazneh, and Alexander the Great
before them. Yet even if a campaign to India was not in itself an irrational
undertaking, it was certainly not a judicious choice for projecting Russian
power. Zubov’s Persian campaign of 1796 had clearly shown the logistical
116 | the napoleonic wars

challenges of campaigning in Eastern realms, and the Indian project was far
more challenging.
Thus Britain again found itself standing alone against France. Not only
had its allies been defeated, but some had even become hostile to its interests.
Outraged by British searches of neutral shipping for contraband cargo des-
tined for France, northern European states took concrete steps to protect their
interests.46 The years of measures taken by Britain against Denmark, which
pursued a typical policy of neutrality, was the tipping point. The decline of
Denmark’s traditional competitor (the Netherlands) and the commercial
difficulties of other continental powers (such as France) offered the Danes a
unique opportunity to grow their share of international shipping and com-
merce; by 1805 Denmark had a mercantile marine eight times larger than it
had been forty years earlier.47 For much of the Revolutionary Wars, Denmark
steadfastly maintained its neutrality and even allowed ships from belligerent
powers to sail under its flag. Britain’s policy of arbitrary searches and seizures
forced the Danes to start using naval convoys to defend their merchant ves-
sels.48 There were several small-scale confrontations when Danish warships in
charge of convoys resisted British search. Danish frustrations culminated in
the summer of 1800 when British cruisers seized a small convoy protected by
a Danish frigate. The Danish crown saw this as an insult to its honor and
appealed to Russia and other neutrals for support. This, in turn, prompted
Britain to dispatch its fleet to Danish shores.49
The entry of the British fleet into the Baltic Sea and its refusal to accept
Russian mediation infuriated Emperor Paul, who was already lending a will-
ing ear to French diplomatic overtures. Now he adopted a distinctly anti-
British position.50 He placed an embargo on all English ships and goods in
the ports of Russia; payments to British merchants were stopped and their
goods and warehouses seized. More than three hundred British ships were
trapped in Russian ports and their crews detained.51 Paul then ordered mobi-
lization of 120,000 soldiers “for the protection of the shores of the Baltic Sea
and for operations against England” and invited Sweden, Denmark, and
Prussia to join him in protecting neutral shipping by reviving the League of
Armed Neutrality; he made it clear to them that he would view any unwill-
ingness to support him as an affront. The league, which was formed on
December 16–18, 1800, embraced the principle of “free ships, free goods”
and agreed to take adequate measures to protect it.52
By December 1800 Britain and Russia were effectively in a state of war.
But more was still to come. In early 1801 Denmark embargoed all British
goods and occupied Hamburg and Lubeck, major entrepôts for British com-
merce, while Bonaparte pressured Naples to close its ports to the English.
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 117

British trade was also threatened in Hanover, where the interests of France,
Russia, and Prussia converged.53 Prussia was a keen participant, hoping in
the process to acquire Hanover and consolidate its control of the five great
river systems (the Vistula, Oder, Ems, Weser, and Elbe) that bore the bulk of
north European commerce.54 On March 30 Prussia sent more than 20,000
men to occupy the city.55
The combined effects of French and Russian policies produced a virtual
continental blockade, one that placed almost the entire coastline of Europe,
from the Arctic shorelines of Norway to the ports of Naples, beyond the reach
of British commerce. Even Britain’s erstwhile ally Portugal was forced to
close its ports in the aftermath of what became known as the War of Oranges.
The Continental System of 1801 presaged that of 1806–1807 but suffered
from a lack of careful planning and execution. It revealed Britain’s acute
dependence on naval supplies, grain, hemp, and other resources imported
from other parts of Europe but did not last long enough to have long-term
consequences for British commerce.56
Britain responded to these threats with a combination of vigorous diplo-
macy and brute force.57 In the summer of 1800 it launched an expedition to
Spain, with British troops landing at Ferrol in northwest Spain; after finding
the defenses there to be too formidable, the expedition then proceeded to
Cadiz, another major Spanish naval base. Neither attack produced tangible
benefits, but they did showcase Britain’s ability to threaten at will. By the
end of 1800, British attention switched to the Baltic region, where the
League of Armed Neutrality was gathering steam. In January 1801 Britain
issued an order-in-council placing an embargo on Russian, Danish, and
Swedish ships. A British squadron under Admiral John Thomas Duckworth
raided the Swedish colony of St. Bartholomew and the Danish islands of St.
Martin, St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix between March and June 1801,
defeating the Swedish and Danish forces stationed there.58 In mid-April the
French evacuated the Dutch colonies of St. Eustatius and Saba, which were
quickly seized by the British. At the same time the British fleet, led by
Sir Hyde Parker and Lord Horatio Nelson, arrived at the Danish capital,
Copenhagen, attacking its defenses and forcing the Danes to suspend partic-
ipation in the league.59 As Nelson sailed to Riga, a likely Anglo-Russian
confrontation was averted by the news of Emperor Paul’s death in a palace
coup.60 At about midnight on March 23, 1801, a group of Russian noble-
men, concerned that the emperor’s unpredictable behavior and drastic poli-
cies might prove threatening to Russia’s domestic order and external security,
carried out an assassination plot that put an end to Paul’s life and, with it, to
the profound political realignment in Europe.
118 | the napoleonic wars

The Russian emperor’s assassination was a major blow for the French gov-
ernment. During his short reign Paul had nudged Russia toward an alliance
with France and a war with Britain, coercing Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia
into an anti-British coalition. In Paris, the Prussian envoy recorded the con-
sternation with which Bonaparte received the news of the palace coup in St.
Petersburg: “The news of the death of the Emperor has been a veritable thun-
derbolt for Bonaparte. In receiving it from Talleyrand, he uttered a cry of
despair. . . . He thinks that he has lost his strongest support against [Britain]
and, having counted on finding in Paul I what Frederick found in Peter III,
he does not expect to find the same in Paul’s successor.”61 The new Russian
emperor, Alexander I, put an end to his father’s ventures, forcing the League
of Armed Neutrality to dissolve, lifting the embargo on British commerce,
renouncing the grand mastership of Malta, and recalling the Cossack expedition.
More crucially, on June 17, 1801, he signed the Russo-British Convention,
which normalized relations between the two nations and destroyed France’s
anti-British policies in northern Europe.
France was not the only nation exasperated by Alexander’s decision. Prussia,
which had been able to count on Paul I, more or less, to support it in north
German and Baltic affairs, feared abandonment. The Hanover affair had
already soured relations between Berlin and London, where many believed
that the Prussians were aspiring to seize the British king’s “electoral domin-
ions.” This explains King Frederick William III’s insistence on neutrality
and the evacuation of Hanover in 1801, but such an approach also marked
Prussia’s failure to exploit Hanover as a bargaining chip in negotiations with
Britain.62 Involvement in the League of Armed Neutrality and subsequent
wrangling over Hanover damaged Prussia’s position internationally, raising
suspicions in Vienna, London, and St. Petersburg.63 This compelled Prussia
to seek closer relations with Paris, which soon resulted in an advantageous
agreement on territorial compensation. On May 23, 1802, Paris and Berlin
agreed on the terms of a treaty that brought about changes in southern
Germany. Prussia secured the possession of a number of former imperial cit-
ies and secularized ecclesiastical principalities in exchange for ceding the left
bank of the Rhine River to France and formal recognition of the changes
Bonaparte had made in Italy. In compensation, the stadtholder of Holland
received from France a share of German territory, consisting of a bishopric
and several abbeys.

With the French navy blockaded in ports and the Royal Navy concentrating
its efforts on the English Channel, the Mediterranean witnessed increased
pirate activity. The pirates, mainly based in the Barbary States (comprising
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 119

the territories of Morocco, Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli, along the North African
coast), actively preyed upon the merchant shipping of Western nations.
Depredations by the Barbary pirates were exacerbated by the start of the wars
of the French Revolution, which diverted British, Spanish, and Italian naval
resources to the struggle against France. After coming to power, Bonaparte
received a steady stream of reports on the despoliation of French trade and the
mistreatment of French fishermen by the Barbary States. He was able to con-
clude a treaty with the pasha of Tripoli (1801) and the bey of Tunis (1802),
ensuring the relative safety of French fishermen and merchantmen in
Mediterranean waters. But Mustafa Pasha, the dey of Algiers, demanded that
France offer a tribute, as Spain and the Italian states did.64 Incensed, Bonaparte
wrote to the dey reminding him that France “destroyed the Mamelukes
because they dared to demand money after having insulted the French flag. I
have never paid anything to anyone, and I have imposed the law upon all of
my enemies.” Bonaparte instructed his minister of marine to dispatch a flo-
tilla of three ships-of-the-line (reinforced by ten ships-of-the-line and five
frigates if needed) to ensure that the French flag was treated with due respect
in Barbary waters. The arrival of the French warships compelled the dey to
accede to French wishes. On August 28 the First Consul was pleased to
inform the pope that he had “just obtained from the dey of Algiers the release
of a great number of Christians.”65
While French merchantmen could seek the protection of France’s navy,
their American counterparts were more vulnerable to pirate activity after
the protection provided by the Royal Navy was lost after the American
Revolutionary War. The fledgling American republic lacked warships and
was unable to defend its citizens in the faraway Mediterranean and eastern
Atlantic. Throughout the 1780s and 1790s, the United States followed an
expedient policy of paying tribute to the Barbary States in exchange for the
safety of its commercial vessels, or on some occasions delivering a ransom for
the release of captured sailors. American shipping suffered even more depre-
dation when fighting between France and Britain extended to the American
merchant ships, as each side tried to deny the other access to goods and sup-
plies. In 1794 the US Congress passed and President George Washington
signed the Act to Provide a Naval Armament, authorizing acquisition (by
purchase or construction) of six frigates, marking the birth of the US Navy.66
This proved to be a difficult birth. Construction on the frigates was slow;
more important, there was considerable domestic opposition to the establish-
ment of an American naval force, which was perceived as expensive, imperi-
alistic, and provocative. To placate these dissenters, the bill stipulated (in its
Article 9) that in the event of a treaty between the United States and a Barbary
120 | the napoleonic wars

state, the construction work on the ships would be halted at once. In March
1796, much to the chagrin of the proponents of American naval power,
Congress approved a peace treaty with Algiers in which the United States
agreed to pay more than $500,000 to the dey of Algiers to ransom a hundred
American captives and pledged an annual tribute of more than $20,000; the
total costs of the agreement ultimately reached over $1 million, a sum that
amounted to one-sixth of the entire US budget.67 The ratification of the
treaty with Algiers resulted in the cessation of frigate construction; only
three frigates—the United States, Constitution, and Constellation—were com-
missioned. In 1796–1797 the United States negotiated additional agree-
ments with Tripoli, Algiers, and Tunis, pledging to provide tribute in return
for protection for its citizens.68
With European countries preoccupied with the War of the Second Coalition,
and despite the agreements it had signed with the Americans, the Barbary
corsairs continued to harass the European and American merchant marine,
capturing hundreds of sailors who were pressed into hard labor and mistreated.
This prompted the United States to form the Department of the Navy, tasked
with putting an end to tribute payments to the Barbary States and prevent-
ing attacks on American shipping. In 1801, just as Thomas Jefferson was
inaugurated as the third president of the American republic, Pasha Yusuf
Karamanli of Tripoli threatened the United States with war unless it paid
tribute commensurate with the one the Americans were paying to the neigh-
boring state of Algiers.69 Yet the new administration under Jefferson, bol-
stered by its recent successes in the undeclared Quasi-War against France
(1798–1800) and the addition of several powerful frigates to its naval force,
rejected Tripoli’s demands. In May 1801 the pasha declared war, ordering the
cutting down of the flagstaff in front of the American consulate and sending
out warships to take American vessels. The United States responded by dis-
patching a small squadron of three frigates and a schooner to the Mediterranean
with orders to blockade Tripoli’s coastline. The Americans scored their first
success over the Tripolitans on August 1, 1801, but the meager size of their
squadron prevented them from maintaining a close watch on the coast.
The Tripolitan War dragged on for four years with little effect on pirate
activities. This compelled Jefferson to alter his naval policies and seek greater
engagement in the Mediterranean. The American squadron visited Sicily,
where its commanders sought help from King Ferdinand IV of Naples, who
agreed to supply them with men and resources and allowed them to use the
ports of Messina, Syracuse, and Palermo as naval bases to launch operations
against Tripoli. Under the command of Commodore Edward Preble, the
American squadron performed creditably in the Mediterranean, including
The Rites of Peace, 1801–1802 | 121

the famed raid by Lieutenant Stephen Decatur to destroy the captured 36-gun
frigate Philadelphia in Tripoli harbor on February 16, 1804. Decatur’s exploit,
performed without the loss of a single man, boosted the American public’s
morale and raised the prestige of the nascent US Navy.70 American warships
launched several seaborne attacks against Tripoli in 1804, but none produced
results decisive enough to end the war. Only after the United States sup-
ported internal Tripolitan opposition to Pasha Yusuf Karamanli and launched
a land invasion across the Libyan Desert in March 1805 did the four-year-long
conflict come to an end; in June 1805 the pasha agreed to release the American
prisoners for $60,000 in ransom.71
The Tripolitan War may seem a minor episode in the larger context of the
Napoleonic Wars, but it was a reflection of the reality where European pow-
ers were preoccupied with their own affairs and unwilling (or unable) to devote
much attentions and resources to the Barbary coastline. The war was cer-
tainly of considerable political and military significance for the United States.
It marked the first instance of the American republic extending its power
well beyond its shores and raising its flag in victory on foreign soil, demon-
strating that, if necessary, it would not be content with a defensive policy and
could reach out well beyond its territorial waters. The war stimulated American
warship construction and trained a new generation of officers who, just seven
years later, took on the mightiest naval force in the world during the War of
1812.72 Still, the war failed to resolve the underlying problem. Distracted by
the Franco-British hostilities in the Atlantic, the United States was unable to
resolve the corsair problem until after the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
chapter 7 The Road to War, 1802–1803

O n March 25, 1802, France and Britain signed the Peace of Amiens,
the culmination of almost two years of negotiations that began soon
after Bonaparte came to power.1 The immediate impetus for it had come on
Christmas Day in 1799, when Bonaparte wrote a letter to King George III of
Great Britain lamenting the ongoing war between the two nations: “The war
which, for eight years, has ravaged the four quarters of the world, must it be
eternal? Are there no means of coming to an understanding? How can the
two most enlightened nations of Europe, powerful and strong beyond what
their safety and independence require, sacrifice to ideas of vain greatness, the
benefits of commerce, internal prosperity, and the happiness of families?
How is it that they do not feel that peace is of the first necessity, as well as of
the first glory?”2
Bonaparte’s olive branch produced no immediate results. George III was
known for scathingly anti-French views that had been shaped by the century-
long conflict between Britain and France. The revolution had only further
sharpened them, and George’s correspondence is filled with xenophobic
sentiments. The king believed that if the Revolution was not contained, it
would end up “destroying all religion, law, and subordination . . . without the
smallest inclination after this destruction to build up anything.”3 France and
the French were “those savages,” “that perfidious nation,” and “that unprin-
cipled country.”4 Treating with Bonaparte, the Revolution incarnate to many
contemporaries, was out of question. Writing to his foreign secretary, Lord
Grenville, George described the “Corsican tyrant’s letter” with contempt and
declared that it was “impossible to treat with a new, impious, self-created aris-
tocracy.”5 With the king refusing to reply in person, Grenville was compelled
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 123

to compose a formal response to the French, addressed not to Bonaparte but


to his foreign minister.
King George went further than a snub of Bonaparte. In February 1800 he
informed both houses of the British Parliament that further subsidies were
required to make arrangements with the continental allies, including Austria,
to counter the French threat. The news that he was asking for more than £2
million for continuation of the war caused considerable debate in Parliament,
where the opposition attacked the government’s whole policy. One opposi-
tion leader, George Tierney, argued that Britain’s original aims for going to
war with France had been achieved by Bonaparte’s destruction of revolution-
ary radicalism. “I would demand of the Minister [Pitt],” Tierney added, “to
state in one sentence what is the object of the war.” Pitt famously replied,
“Sir, I will do in a single word. The object, I tell him, is Security!” He then
proceeded to explain that revolutionary radicalism was not dead and that
Britain’s security had not been achieved. Rather, “Jacobinism” was embodied
in one individual, “who was reared and nursed in its bosom; whose celebrity
was gained under its auspices, and who was at once the child and the cham-
pion of all its atrocities.”6 There would be no peace with France. Instead, the
king’s cabinet urged Austria to continue its war and promised hefty subsidies
in return.
In late August 1800, following Bonaparte’s victory over the Austrians at
Marengo, Louis Guillaume Otto, the French diplomat and commissioner in
matters regarding prisoners of war, conveyed Bonaparte’s second peace offer
to the British. Otto’s letter to Grenville discussed the official announcement of
the Anglo-Austrian treaty of alliance and suggested expanding it to include
France “with respect to the places which are besieged and blockaded.”7
Bonaparte’s immediate goal was to rescue the French forces in Malta and Egypt,
which had been cut off from France for almost two years.8 Knowing that
he was asking too much, Bonaparte linked his proposed naval armistice to
the continental armistice with Austria. If Austria, Britain’s ally, was to have
the opportunity to resupply and reinforce its forces in the Rhineland, France
should receive similar concessions.
Pitt’s personal preference was for peace, but the cabinet was divided, with
hawks, led by Secretary of War Henry Dundas, counseling against accepting
the armistice, which would have negated many advantages that Britain had
gained since its entry into the war. In the end, Britain chose to reject the
French offer. Instead, as we saw earlier, it made final arrangements for the
expedition to Egypt and proceeded with its new treaty of alliance with
Austria, one that provided it with a financial subsidy to the sustain war effort.
124 | the napoleonic wars

The Anglo-Austrian cooperation did not last long, however. In early


December the French defeated the Austrians at Hohenlinden, and Vienna
had to sue for peace. After the loss of its key ally, British felt compelled to
enter into diplomatic negotiations with France. It was forced to recognize
that in spite of its great naval successes in the Atlantic, the Baltic, and the
Mediterranean, and despite all the effort and money it had expended on coali-
tions, France was still the strongest nation on the continent. Without sup-
port, Britain had reached the limits of what it could accomplish, particularly
since many parts of Europe had become increasingly anti-British. Continental
hostility toward Britain was summarized by Prussian diplomat Friedrich von
Gentz. “The dominant principle of European politics,” he wrote in a memo
that was quoted in a letter to Grenville in November 1800, “and the domi-
nant principle of all thinkers and political writers currently is the jealousy of
Britain’s power.” The hatred toward Britain derived from two convictions,
Gentz argued: that British wealth was generated by impoverishing the rest of
Europe, and that Britain exploited the war to further its interests.9 Indeed,
the events of the last coalition war had left ill will among British allies, who
felt that they were being used to do all the fighting.
Domestic changes also contributed to the British decision to consider peace,
including the fall of William Pitt’s government in 1801 and the formation of a
new ministry under Prime Minister Henry Addington, a candid but unimagi-
native statesman who was hardly cut out to deal with Bonaparte.10 Addington
was keen on ending a war that had now entered its eighth year and was both
draining the economy and having deleterious social effects. The country was
moving from its agricultural phase to industrialization, and this was causing
upheaval at every level. The rapidly growing manufacturing capacity meant
finding new outlets for goods; it was becoming increasingly indispensable for
Britain to have access to European markets, which had been closed to it in
recent years. Even after the collapse of the League of Armed Neutrality, British
was still excluded from many continental markets, while French diplomatic
efforts continued to score important victories. To further isolate Britain on the
continent, Bonaparte turned his attention to Portugal, Britain’s longtime ally.
After a year-long negotiation, he persuaded Spain’s King Charles IV and his
influential minister Manuel de Godoy y Álvarez de Faria to sign the Convention
of Madrid, which threatened Portugal with war unless Lisbon closed its ports to
the British and agreed to an immediate peace with France.11 Spain was prom-
ised one-fourth of Portugal’s territory as a guarantee for the return of its colonies
by Britain in the eventual general peace treaty.
In the summer of 1801 Spanish troops invaded northern Portugal and,
after a quick campaign, forced the Portuguese court to accept the terms of the
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 125

Treaty of Badajoz, which ceded the province of Olivenza to Spain and closed
Portuguese ports to Britain.12 Although it was a victory for Spain and France,
the war fell short of Bonaparte’s expectations. He was furious upon receiving
the news of the Spanish-Portuguese armistice. That Portugal would be defeated
was a foregone conclusion, he argued. The actual goal of the Franco-Spanish
alliance was to strike at Britain and deny it its last continental ally. For this,
key Portuguese areas, including Lisbon and Porto, had to be occupied. Spain’s
failure to share and implement this vision led Bonaparte to suspect either
Spanish ignorance or outright duplicity. His initial reaction was to threaten
the Spanish monarchy with direct intervention unless it rejected the Treaty
of Badajoz and pushed on with the occupation of Portugal. But this was 1801,
not 1808, and Bonaparte was not yet emperor of France nor the conqueror of
Europe, merely a French general who had been in power for just a year and a
half.13 Spain refused the French demands, arguing that it had met its contrac-
tual obligations and that there was no tangible reason for further escalation
of the conflict. Facing Spanish intransigence, Bonaparte had no choice but to
compromise. In late September 1801 France and Portugal signed a treaty end-
ing their hostilities and compelling Lisbon to cede territory in South America
and to pay a heavy indemnity in favor of France.
The War of Oranges—so called for a branch of an orange tree that the
Spanish generalissimo had sent to the queen of Spain as proof of his victory—
reverberated not only within Europe but also in South America, where Spanish
and Portuguese forces clashed over the Paraguayan borderlands. Despite its
brevity, the war marked an end to Spain’s northward expansion, setting the
boundaries of what eventually became the independent state of Paraguay.14
Portugal’s defeat also caused alarm among British ministers, who worried
that the French (or Spanish) might be able to take control of the Portuguese
island of Madeira, which lay astride the vital Atlantic trade routes. To pre-
vent this, a British expedition preemptively invaded and seized the island.15
France’s success in Portugal was balanced by its setbacks in Egypt, where
the French army, after holding out for more than a year after Bonaparte’s
departure in 1799, was forced to capitulate to the British in August 1801.
The question of Egypt had been one of the principal obstacles to a cessation
of hostilities, and its fall paved the way for an Anglo-French compromise. In
October 1801 British and French envoys agreed upon a preliminary peace
that called for a halt to the long conflict. Later that year new negotiators—
Lord Charles Cornwallis for Britain and Joseph Bonaparte, the First Consul’s
brother, for France—met at Amiens to draft the formal peace treaty.16
Throughout the negotiations, the French side was firmly resolved to make no
concessions that would admit that the advantage in the war had been on the
126 | the napoleonic wars

British side. France refused to discuss any issue related to its continental con-
quests in the previous six years, and given that Britain acquiesced to this, the
treaty that was produced tacitly accepted and endorsed two crucial outcomes
of the French Revolutionary Wars: France’s domination of western Europe
and Britain’s maritime supremacy. The negotiations instead focused on two
main issues: overseas colonies and the Mediterranean region. Britain agreed
to return all of its colonial conquests, except for Trinidad (formerly Spanish)
and Ceylon (Dutch), to restore Malta to the Knights of Malta (under nominal
Neapolitan suzerainty), and to evacuate “generally all the ports and islands
that they occupy in the Mediterranean or the Adriatic.” In return, France
pledged to evacuate its troops from Naples, Taranto, and those parts of
the Papal States that were not in the Italian Republic, the successor to the
Cisalpine Republic, which Bonaparte had established in 1797. Britain also
pledged to withdraw from Egypt, which was to be restored to the Ottoman
Empire, and supported the independence (under a Russian protectorate) of
the Septinsular Republic on the Ionian Islands. The Amiens treaty provided
for “an equivalent compensation” (Article XVIII) to the exiled House of
Nassau for the loss of its Dutch estates, but it made no mention of the futures
of Holland, Switzerland, and northern Italy, which in itself was an important
attainment for French diplomacy.17 Bonaparte ensured that no explicit provi-
sion safeguarding British trade interests on the continent had been included
in the treaty, although he agreed to respect the independence of Portugal and
the Batavian Republic (the Netherlands), which in practice would have
meant that the ports of these states would be open to British trade.18
The Treaty of Amiens brought a formal end to the French Revolutionary
Wars. With the Second Coalition now in tatters, the British recognized that
they had little prospect of bringing down the resurgent France, so they grit-
ted their teeth and largely accepted the continental status quo, allowing
France to retain conquests in the Low Countries, Rhineland, and Italy.19
Amiens had produced a complete transformation in the European balance of
power, and William Pitt had to acknowledge that the international system
established since the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 “had been so completely
done away . . . that it was idle to consider [it] as in force.”20
It has been traditional to argue that the Peace of Amiens, together with
the Treaty of Lunéville, could have been the basis for a durable peace in
Europe—had Bonaparte only chosen to uphold it. This argument seems dis-
ingenuous. French military successes had created a new European balance of
power, with France restored to the position of primacy it had not enjoyed
since the height of King Louis XIV’s reign a century earlier. At the same time
Britain’s naval power, already predominant before the war, had been further
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 127

strengthened. Even had Bonaparte fallen from power after Amiens, France
still would have sought to consolidate its position in western Europe and to
revive its colonial ambitions. This would have placed it on a collision course
with Britain. More important, the Peace of Amiens was inherently flawed.
Britain’s extensive cessions—the abandonment of the Mediterranean and the
routes to India, the surrender of almost all French and Dutch overseas colo-
nies, and a promise to evacuate Egypt—caused domestic alarm and de­spond­
ency, as it seemed to be surrendering strategic advantages acquired in eight
years of warfare. “We have yielded every point and every principle,” said one
member of Parliament.21 Many contemporaries denounced the treaty terms
as too favorable to France. One senior British politician fumed that “to have
[retro]ceded to France, Martinique, Malta, Minorca, the Cape, the Dutch set-
tlements both in the East and West Indies and even Cochin, and to have
obtained nothing in return but the name of peace, is such an act of weakness
and humiliation as nothing in my opinion can justify.”22 Britain had joined
the war in 1793 out of security concerns and yet nine years later was faced
with “a peace which gives us no security for the future.”23 Prime Minister
Addington was, in essence, relying on France to renounce the use of aggression
to consolidate its gains, but there was no evidence that it would actually do so.
In the words of a contemporary, “If ever peace was precarious, this was that
peace. If ever precarious peace was dangerous, this is that precarious peace.”24
Why, then, was the Treaty of Amiens even signed? Part of the answer lies
in the fact that the French diplomats outclassed their British counterparts.25
Assisted by a talented staff of diplomats and negotiators, Bonaparte showed
here his talent for discerning and exploiting his opponents’ inexperience and
weaknesses.26 But it would be wrong to portray Prime Minister Addington
and his foreign secretary, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Lord Hawkesbury, as
shortsighted and incapable statesmen.27 Patriotic histories of Britain tend to
compare Addington and Hawkesbury unfavorably to Pitt and Grenville. Yet
Pitt’s government was largely responsible for the difficult situation that
Addington and his ministers faced in 1801. Pitt’s war policies, often based on
false assumptions, and their haphazard implementation undermined British
strategy, alienated the country’s key allies, and left Britain in an unenviable
position of fighting alone against France.28
Equally important was the worsening domestic situation in Britain. In
1799–1800, as mentioned, the country was in the midst of economic turmoil
made worse by hard winters that had produced poor harvests. The price of
wheat and other grains steadily rose, hitting the lower ranks of society hardest.
In September 1800 food riots erupted in many parts of Britain. The League
of Armed Neutrality’s embargo of British commerce in the Baltic caused the
128 | the napoleonic wars

price of grain to rise even higher, creating shortages in some areas. The
war-weariness was increased by the direct taxation that Pitt introduced to
finance the conflict against France. In short, fears of social unrest and even
possible revolution naturally weighed heavily on Addington’s government.
Although the harvest of 1801 was good, the average price of wheat increased
by some 200 percent between 1798 and 1801 before falling precipitously
after news of the peace broke. The coincidence of the fall in grain prices with
the arrival of peace was popularly interpreted as proof that war had been the
cause of the dearth.29 When on October 10, 1801, French envoy General
Lauriston arrived in London to conduct negotiations, a large crowd unhitched
the horses from his carriage and drew him through the streets themselves.
The British elite got the point.30 Peace was necessary to grow the economy
and stem the prospects of social unrest. Furthermore, with the coalition in
tatters, there was nothing for Britain to gain by fighting on.
The Treaties of Lunéville and Amiens appeared to have stabilized the
situation on the continent, even though they created, as British politician
William Eden, Lord Auckland, had noted, “the inordinate and frightfully
overgrown power of France.”31 Britain alone could not change that reality.
What it needed was time—time to deal with its domestic challenges and time
to allow Austria, Russia, and Prussia to come to the realization, as British
admiral George Keith Elphinstone put it, that “with France as strong as she
now is, Europe can never be secure; perhaps the great continental powers will
be at length convinced of this and heartily join their forces to reduce her
within reasonable bounds.”32 As it was, the Peace of Amiens proved to be
short-lived and was already showing clear signs of stress by the end of 1802.
The circumstances and factors that contributed to the outbreak of conflict the
following spring are worth examining in detail.
The success of the revolutionary government in advancing the French
frontier into the Low Countries, the Rhine, and Italy set the framework for
Napoleonic policies. In 1796 British philosopher and statesman Edmund
Burke had lamented that the French were aspiring “to erect themselves into
a new description of Empire, which is not grounded on any balance, but
forms a sort of impious hierarchy, of which France is to be the head and the
guardian.”33 Bonaparte’s unique impact on the European international sys-
tem was his ability to consolidate power within the politically volatile French
realm and then achieve decisive military victories. By 1802 France’s foreign
policy had come to rely to several key elements: continuing struggle against
Britain; maintaining control of the Low Countries, German states, and Italy;
and reviving colonial power overseas. Over the next decade one or another of
these three aims always remained uppermost, sustained by continued French
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 129

triumphs on the battlefield. Needless to say, Bonaparte’s tremendous capacity


for work, attention to detail, and unique energy and spirit—not to mention
his vast ambition—all played an important role in shaping international
affairs and doomed Amiens.
As soon as he secured power in 1800, Bonaparte began planning for the
reduction of British economic power. His vision of a France to rival Britain
extended to his colonial projects. This was not an unusual ambition; earlier
French governments had also at intervals concerned themselves with overseas
colonies. For Bonaparte, the pursuit of colonies afforded several advantages,
including keeping his generals and troops occupied and shaping public opin-
ion through a sustained narrative of military victories that further empow-
ered and enriched France. Throughout 1802 and 1803 the First Consul
received comprehensive reports on the situation in various colonies as well
as numerous memorandums on colonial projects that France could pursue,
some envisioning France taking over administration of parts of the Spanish
colonial empire.34
The recovery of the French outposts in India provided Bonaparte with an
opportunity to send troops there. The peace of Amiens allowed France to, as
the former minister of marine put it, “h[o]ld just enough of India to be able
to say that she was not excluded.”35 In June 1802 General Charles Mathieu
Isidore Decaen, a high-spirited and impetuous man who had distinguished
himself under General Jean Moreau in the Rhineland and was well known for
his hostility to Britain, was appointed capitaine général des Indes and ordered to
lead an expedition to restore French authority in Pondicherry, one of the cru-
cial French possessions in India since the seventeenth century. His instruc-
tions required him to behave “with softness, dissimulation, and simplicity,”
to cultivate relations with the Indian princes, and to sound the depths of
Indian antagonism to British rule. “The mission of the captain general is
primarily one of observation,” the instructions noted. But the First Consul
also advised him that “the punctual execution of the preceding observations
may give the opportunity of one day acquiring the glory which prolongs the
memory of man beyond the duration of centuries.”36
The expedition actually did not set sail until March 1803.37 On his jour-
ney to India, Decaen visited the Cape of Good Hope, which the British had
restored to the Dutch in the wake of Amiens.38 He was disappointed to find
public opinion there more favorable to Britain than to the Batavian Republic,
and it was clear that in case of hostilities the colony would revert to Britain
unless measures were at once taken to fortify it, which he urged in his dis-
patches.39 Another disillusionment awaited Decaen upon his arrival at
Pondicherry, in southwestern India, in July 1803. To his dismay he found
130 | the napoleonic wars

that the British had not yet evacuated the city and the Union Jack was still
proudly waving over its ramparts; a large British squadron was ostentatiously
anchored close to the French ships. Negotiation on the landing of the French
troops and the British cession of local settlements was still under way when
news of the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens (which had happened in May)
reached India. Although the British detained some of his troops as prisoners
of war, Decaen slipped away with the larger part of them to Mauritius, which
he turned into the chief French naval and military station in the Indian Ocean
and which for the next eight years served as a thorn in the side of British
commerce.40
The first year of the Consulate, 1799, also witnessed the dispatch of the
scientific expedition of Captain Nicholas Baudin. Conceived during the
Directory, Baudin’s expedition spent four years exploring the Indian and
Pacific Oceans, reaching southern Australia in April 1802, exploring the
region christened Terre Napoléon, and stopping by the British settlement at
Port Jackson in Sydney Harbor.41 Baudin’s instructions had been explicit
about the expedition’s scientific and exploratory aims, but questions about its
political character were raised almost from the very beginning; François
Péron, one of the naturalists who accompanied Baudin, later submitted a
memo outlining a French imperial vision of Australia comparable to the con-
temporary idea of a “British Pacific,” though it remains to be seen if he did
so under any formal orders.42 Be that as it may, the French exploration caused
concerns in Britain, where it was believed that its true object was to assess the
possibility of the French conquest of eastern Australia.43
Bonaparte’s visions of French colonial empire may have floundered in the
East, but it began to take more definite form in the West. The Treaty of San
Ildefonso (October 1800) had compelled Spain to retrocede Louisiana to
France. For the development of that colony, the recovery of French colonies
and trade in the Caribbean was an absolute essential. The First Consul hoped
to knit the French possessions of the Antilles and Louisiana into a firm com-
mercial, social, and political union that would safeguard French interests in
the region and cut the United States out of the region’s lucrative trade and
commerce. This vision of the revived French Empire in the west hinged on
the recovery of Saint-Domingue.
Taking prompt advantage of the maritime truce with Britain, Bonaparte
also sent an expedition to assert France’s authority over Saint-Domingue,
which had been in rebellion since the early 1790s and was controlled by the
government of Toussaint Louverture. The relations between the colony and
metropole had been strained by Louverture’s increasingly authoritarian policies,
which alienated many French republicans; even some of the black deputies
140° 130° 120° 110° 100° 90° 80° 70° 60°

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R
30° VIRGINIA
MISSOURI

N
KENTUCKY

I
NORTH Raleigh

A
ARKANSAS CAROLINA
TENNESSEE
TERRITORY SOUTH
CAROLINA
1819

1817 ALABAMA GEORGIA


United States, 1783 TEXAS
1812
MISSISSIPPI
iti 803
Louisiana Purchase, 1803 LOUISIANA Ha 1-1
Mobile ATLANTIC n of , 180
(natural boundary) io n
SPANISH New Orleans FLORIDA as itio
OCEAN nv ed
Joint occupation with Great Britain hi xp
EMPIRE enc ueE
Ceded by the United States to Fr ing
om
Great Britain, 1818 nt-D
Gulf of Mexico Bahamas a i
Ceded by Great Britain to the eS
MEXICO Th
United States, 1818 Havana
Ceded by Spain to the St. Domingue
United States, 1819 Cuba
Spanish Empire after 1819
Port-au-Prince
Spanish Treaty Line of 1819 0 200 400 Kilometers
Jamaica Kingston
1812 New state admitted with date
0 200 400 Miles

Map 8: North America and the Caribbean, 1801–1805


132 | the napoleonic wars

from Saint-Domingue, as well as the members of the Société des Amis des
Noirs, turned against him, urging the French government to intervene.
Louverture increasingly defied the central authorities, leading a takeover
of the Spanish territory of Santo Domingo and drafting a constitution with-
out any consultation with the French government. Such news was not well
received in Paris since it underlined Louverture’s tendency to make his own
decisions and stoked fears that he would lead Saint-Domingue to complete
independence from France.44
Louverture had reason to be suspicious of Bonaparte’s intentions. The
Constitution of the Year VIII, which Bonaparte and his co-conspirators imposed
on the country in 1800, did not include an explicit declaration of rights, a
provision that the earlier constitutional documents had contained, and in
Article 91 it specified that colonies would be governed by “special laws.”45
Thus the colonies could no longer presume that they were guaranteed the
same rights as in metropolitan France, and it was possible that the “special
laws” might facilitate the restoration of slavery on the islands; the latter pros-
pect seemed likely after Bonaparte gave up on his efforts to apply the eman-
cipation law of 1794 to the French colonies in the Indian Ocean, where white
colonists vigorously contested the Directory’s attempt to emancipate slaves
in 1796–1797. Bonaparte also made it clear that he would not grant freedom
to the slaves in Martinique. This naturally raised concerns among the recently
emancipated slaves of Saint-Domingue; Louverture himself cited Bonaparte’s
decision about Martinique as one of the reasons for his distrust of the French
government’s intentions. Among other factors were Bonaparte’s overtures to
former colonial officials and his tolerance of the public efforts of former slave
owners and slave traders to defend the institution of slavery.46
Contrary to some scholars’ claims, Bonaparte had not decided from the
outset on the restoration of slavery in Saint-Domingue, and the French expe-
dition had not been prompted by lobbying on the part of exiled planters.47
Recent scholarship reveals that Bonaparte’s thinking on colonial matters,
including slavery, was contradictory and shifting. He did espouse racist views
that were prevalent in early modern Europe, but he was also a pragmatist
willing to adjust his positions whenever it was beneficial.48 After coming
to power, Bonaparte encountered three major factions that did their best to
shape France’s colonial policy. The most radical group comprised established
abolitionists, including Bishop Henri Grégoire, who wanted to preserve rev-
olutionary achievements, including the emancipation of slaves; they urged
the First Consul to seek an understanding with the rebel leadership in Saint-
Domingue and to employ black troops in consolidating French positions in
the Caribbean. The second, more moderate faction comprised a diverse group
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 133

of people who had previously served in Saint-Domingue but had been forced
to flee the island due to conflicts with Louverture and his supporters. These
men, including François-Marie de Kerversau and André Rigaud, believed
that Louverture could not be trusted and should be removed from power;
they did, however, support emancipation and advised against restoring slav-
ery in the colonies. The third and the most conservative camp was that of
planters and colonial officials who sought not only restoration of French
authority in the colonies but also return of white rule and slavery.
Bonaparte thus found himself caught between conflicting lobbying efforts.
His views underwent a gradual but drastic change within two years of his
coming to power. Bonaparte initially espoused a pro-abolitionist stance and
sought good relations with Louverture, who was not only confirmed in his
rank but also promoted to lieutenant general. Bonaparte publicly expressed
his support for the emancipation of slaves and assured the “citizens of Saint-
Domingue” that “the sacred principles of the liberty and equality of the blacks
will never be attacked or modified.”49 He also instructed that a special state-
ment—“Brave blacks, remember that only the French people recognize
your liberty and the equality of your rights”—be sewn in gold lettering on
all of the National Guard’s battalion flags in Saint-Domingue.50 Informed of
Louverture’s talks with the British, Bonaparte argued that Saint-Domingue
“might go for England if the blacks were not attached to us by their interest
in liberty.”51
By the fall of 1801 Bonaparte’s view had evolved into a far more conserva-
tive position that sought not only to remove Louverture from power but also
to restore slavery. Such a shift was facilitated not just by the presence of f­ ormer
colonial officials in senior positions of the Consulate government but also by
Bonaparte’s own exasperation with the steady flow of reports that Louverture
was asserting his authority. The expulsion of French civilian agents, invasion
of the Spanish-held part of the island in contravention of direct orders, and
publication of a new constitution that proclaimed Louverture governor-general
for life made it clear that Saint-Domingue was breaking away from the
mainland. “From this moment, there was no point deliberating,” Bonaparte
later reminisced.52
Peace with Britain made it possible to prepare a major expedition to the
Caribbean. Commanded by Bonaparte’s brother-in-law General Charles Victor
Emmanuel Leclerc, it was to proceed in three phases. First, the French com-
mander had to reassure the populace of his intentions, promising anything
“in order to take possessions of the strongholds and to get ourselves into the
country.” Once this was accomplished, the French authorities would make
further demands, forcing Louverture to surrender his authority and taking
134 | the napoleonic wars

control over the black army, which would be used to suppress any rebellious
activities. Once the island was pacified, Leclerc was to embark on the final
phase of his mission, which included the arrest of Louverture and other black
generals and officers so as to deny leadership to the black population, which
was to be completely disarmed. Bonaparte’s instructions may not have explic-
itly called for the restoration of slavery in Saint-Domingue, but the net effect
of the French activities would have been an imposition of white military con-
trol over the island and subjugation of the black populace.53
Even before the Treaty of Amiens was fully ratified, Bonaparte had ordered
Leclerc with some 27,000 men and Admiral Louis Thomas Villaret-Joyeuse
with a fleet of twenty-one frigates and thirty-five ships-of-the-line to Saint-
Domingue; counting later reinforcements, France had committed two-thirds
of its navy and more than 40,000 men to the reconquest of the Caribbean.
The French expeditionary force—one of the largest overseas military efforts
any European power had undertaken in this age—reached Saint-Domingue
in January 1802. The fleet divided into smaller squadrons, each sent out to
capture one of the coastal towns of Saint-Domingue. While some black com-
manders defected to the French, Louverture called on the entire population
to rise up against the invaders, and he withdrew into the interior of the island.
Fierce fighting raged in the island’s two major cities, Cap Français and Port-
Républicain (Port-au-Prince), as well as in the mountains between the West
Province and the North Province. Entrenched in steep-sided valleys, the black
troops fought with incredible valor and determination against superior French
forces. “Deprived of water and food in this overwhelming heat,” described
an eyewitness, “the [black] troops had to chew on balls of lead in the hope
of quenching their unbearable thirst. They suffered without complaint, out of
hope for vengeance.”54 Yet their sacrifices proved to be in vain. Leclerc gradually
persuaded most black leaders to return to the service of France by promising that
they would keep their rank, position, and property. By May 1802 Jean-Jacques
Dessalines and other black leaders were forced to end their resistance and accept
Leclerc’s authority. The French quickly moved to neutralize these leaders. In
early June, Louverture was lured into a trap and captured by French troops. He
was shipped to France, where “the most unhappy man of men,” as William
Wordsworth famously described him, was subjected to harsh treatment during
solitary confinement at Fort de Joux and died less than a year later.
The successful start of the Caribbean expedition was continued by General
Antoine Richepanse, who led some 3,500 troops to the island of Guadeloupe
in the spring of 1802. The French overcame fierce local resistance led by Louis
Delgrès, who made his last stand at Matouba, where on May 28 he and more
than three hundred followers blew themselves up rather than surrender.
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 135

The reconquest of Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe coincided with the


conclusion of the Peace of Amiens, which restored to France all of its lost
colonies. These included the islands of Martinique, St. Lucia, Tobago, and
Réunion, where slavery had never been abolished in practice since they were
in British hands. To clarify the legal status of the black populations on these
and other French colonies, on May 20, 1802, the French government approved
a new law that specified that slavery (and the slave trade) remained legal in
the islands captured by the British during the war, while the status quo pre-
vailed in colonies where slavery had previously been abolished. The law also
authorized the First Consul to reconsider the latter’s status at some point in
the future. Bonaparte did not wait long to act. In July 1802 he secretly
instructed his colonial officials to restore slavery in Guadeloupe, Guiana, and
Saint-Domingue at the earliest opportunity. This was accomplished rela-
tively easily in small colonies such as Guadeloupe and Guiana but faced sig-
nificantly greater obstacles in the much larger Saint-Domingue, where the
French position rapidly deteriorated as yellow fever decimated the troops and
news of the restoration of slavery in Guadeloupe and Martinique reinvigo-
rated black resistance.55 Moreover, the collapse of the Peace of Amiens in May
led to the resumption of hostilities with Britain, whose navy blockaded the
island, preventing badly needed reinforcements and supplies from reaching
the besieged French garrison, portions of which soon began surrendering to
the British in order to escape from black forces.
Fighting ravaged Saint-Domingue until November 1803 in what was
among the most violent conflicts of the entire revolutionary period. Soldiers
on both sides used brutal tactics, including the French use of a makeshift
gas chamber (étouffier) on board ship in which volcanic sulfur was burned to
suffocate prisoners.56 In a letter to Bonaparte, Leclerc advocated what would
now be considered a genocidal massacre: “We must destroy all the negroes in
the mountains, men and women, sparing only children younger than twelve,
destroy half of those who live in the plains, and not leave in the colony a
single man of color who has worn an officer’s epaulette.”57 Bonaparte may not
have known the details, but he was certainly aware of the savage nature of the
war in Saint-Domingue and did nothing to restrain it. On November 2
Leclerc died from yellow fever, and command of the troops in Saint-Domingue
passed to General Donatien Rochambeau, who fought in vain to maintain
control of the island. French atrocities convinced many black officers, includ-
ing Dessalines, to leave the French ranks and join the rebels. On November
18 Dessalines routed the French at the Battle of Vertières and threatened
the last remaining French stronghold at Cap Français. Rochambeau had no
choice but to negotiate the French evacuation. On leaving the island, he and
136 | the napoleonic wars

his troops were intercepted by a British squadron and remained in captivity


for most of the Napoleonic Wars.58
More than 50,000 French soldiers, sailors, and civilians and a far greater
number of black troops and civilians perished in Bonaparte’s attempt to
reclaim Saint-Domingue.59 This marked one of the worst defeats a French
army suffered during the entire revolutionary era and had profound conse-
quences for both the island and the metropole. After their victory over the
French, the black military leaders elected Dessalines “governor-general for
life” and proclaimed Haitian independence on January 1, 1804. Haiti was
the only nation in the world established as a result of a successful slave revolt
and the first independent nation of Latin America and the Caribbean. The
Haitian Declaration of Independence was only the second such act (after
the American Declaration of Independence), but it was the first to assert the
right of a nonwhite population to govern itself.
Dessalines’s short tenure as Haiti’s first emperor, a title he took in October
1804, was notable for his attempts to establish the new nation through a
combination of revolutionary reforms, virulent xenophobia, and forced plan-
tation labor.60 The new constitution proclaimed slavery “abolished forever”
and asserted that all citizens, regardless of skin color, were equal in their
rights. Yet the new regime also ordered the execution of Haiti’s remaining
French residents and prohibited whites from owning land. Most controver-
sially, Dessalines sought to create a militarized state, with no provisions for
any legislative body to limit the power of the emperor. He retained Toussaint
Louverture’s forced-labor system of agriculture, which had caused widespread
grievances on the island.
That Haiti succeeded in ending slavery and establishing a struggling but
independent state sent shock waves throughout the Caribbean and helped
usher in a counterrevolutionary reaction. On the neighboring islands, espe-
cially Cuba, planters exploiting the devastation of the once-thriving French
colony quickly moved to fill the void left in the world market for sugar. They
did so by reinforcing institutions of slavery and colonial rule, so the success
of a slave revolt in Haiti meant violent entrenchment of slavery elsewhere in
the region.61
The failure of the Saint-Domingue expedition had immediate conse-
quences for France, which was now deprived of its most lucrative colony and
a commercial hub in the Caribbean. Furthermore, the Saint-Domingue fiasco
dashed Bonaparte’s grand vision for a French colonial empire in the Atlantic.
With a new war against Britain nearly unavoidable, the French government
was concerned about its ability to protect its newly reclaimed Louisiana ter-
ritory, a vast (and vaguely defined) area stretching from the Mississippi River
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 137

to the Rocky Mountains. Originally a French colony, Louisiana, including


the port of New Orleans, had been ceded to Spain by secret treaty in 1762,
near the end of the Seven Years’ War. In 1795 the United States and Spain
concluded the Treaty of San Lorenzo (also known as Pinckney’s Treaty), which
granted the United States the right to transport and deposit goods originat-
ing in American ports through the mouth of the Mississippi without paying
duty. These concessions were crucial to ensuring American economic inter-
ests west of the Appalachians as well as the survival of thousands of set-
tlers who founded settlements in the Ohio River Valley in the decade after
independence.
France had been seeking the return of Louisiana for some time, and this
increasingly worried the Americans, who believed that Spain, a proud but
militarily ineffective power, would be unable to stem the spread of the expand-
ing American populace into its territories. Spanish military officials had long
tried to block American advances and repeatedly (but in vain) asked for mili-
tary reinforcements from Spain. France was a more formidable opponent, and
with French control of the Mississippi Valley and the British presence in
Canada the United States faced the prospect of being hemmed in between two
great powers. As early as 1798 some American leaders advocated a preventive
takeover of Louisiana and even secured a statement from Britain that it would
welcome American control of the Mississippi estuary.62
The news of the Treaty of San Ildefonso (October 1800), by which Spain
returned Louisiana to France in exchange for the newly created Kingdom of
Etruria in Italy, caused great anxiety in Britain.63 Some feared that it would
facilitate French efforts to destroy, in the words of British editor William
Cobbett, “the commercial and naval preponderance of England.”64 It was also
a source of concern in the United States, which considered its commercial
interests threatened. The United States had no agreements with the French
on its continued use of the Mississippi and New Orleans, and the Treaty of
Amiens had deprived American shippers of the windfall profits they had
earned by dominating trade while England and France were at war. Of far
greater concern was the French expedition to Saint-Domingue, which indicated
an assertive French imperial policy in the Western Hemisphere. American
political leaders were thus keen on finding a way to prevent France from
excluding the United States from New Orleans and to secure the Mississippi
River for American commerce.
With this goal in mind, the American government pursued a two-pronged
policy: threatening France with a conflict while offering to settle the problem
by diplomacy. President Thomas Jefferson sent special commissioner James
Monroe to Paris to negotiate with the French government the purchase of
138 | the napoleonic wars

New Orleans and surrounding territory, or at the very least to gain perpetual
rights of navigation and deposit.65 If France refused and threatened American
commerce, the United States was willing to consider forceful resolution of
this problem, including an Anglo-American alliance to drive the French out
of the region. Bonaparte’s efforts to reclaim Louisiana, Jefferson warned in a
letter to Pierre S. du Pont de Nemours, “will cost France . . . a war which will
annihilate her on the ocean, and place that element under the despotism of
two nations, which I am not reconciled to the more because my own would
be one of them.”66
Bonaparte realized that given the lack of firm control of Saint-Domingue,
the American threats and the prospect of a renewed war with Britain meant
that possession of Louisiana could become a huge liability for France. If he
could sell Louisiana to the Americans, he could deny the British a potential
prize in the Western Hemisphere, and not only avoid conflict with the
Americans but, more important, enable the United States to be a future rival
power to Britain. Bonaparte was therefore receptive to American inquiries
about purchasing New Orleans. In 1803, surprising American negotiators,
he instructed his minister of the treasury, François Barbé-Marbois, to offer
the entire Louisiana Territory, an area of more than 800,000 square miles, for
the price of $15 million ($11.25 million in cash and the cancellation of $3.75
million in debts owed by the French government). Formal negotiations com-
menced upon Monroe’s arrival on April 12, 1803, and continued until the
signing of the agreement on May 2.67 The final transfer of Louisiana came on
December 20, 1803.
The Louisiana Purchase called for the transfer of American bonds to
France, but the French government had no desire to hold these securities as
an investment, and it could not simply float such a huge bond issue in Europe.
Needing cash, Bonaparte therefore decided to exploit the British and Dutch
banking systems, even though Britain and France were back at war. The
Dutch banking house Hope and Company of Amsterdam and the British
banking house Francis Baring and Company of London were approached
with an offer to sell the stock in Britain and Holland and then transfer cash
to France. These banking houses were among the largest in Europe, had close
connections in the British government, and had previous experience hand­
ling American securities, all of which allowed them to successfully (and prof-
itably) implement the scheme.68
To Bonaparte, it seemed clear that the Louisiana Purchase would turn the
United States into a maritime rival of Britain, one that might in time chal-
lenge British ascendancy on the seas or at least counterbalance it. That he ceded
not a part but the whole of the Louisiana Territory, thereby breaking his
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 139

promise to Spain, testifies to his determination to prevent British control of the


Gulf, as he preferred to see it in American hands during the coming struggle.
For the United States, the Louisiana Purchase marked a watershed moment
“ranked in historical importance next to the Declaration of Independence and
the adoption of the Constitution.”69 It doubled the size of the American
republic and gave it the ability to control the whole of the Mississippi River
and much of the Gulf Coast; it was the making of part or all of fifteen new
states. The purchase created the conditions for Americans to limit the influ-
ence of foreign powers in the region, and it set into motion a pattern of
expansion that radically altered the demographics of North America. The
boundaries of the Louisiana Purchase were so vague that it made Manifest
Destiny—the idea that the United States had both a right and a duty to own
and settle these vast open spaces—almost inevitable.
American territorial aggrandizement, however, proved catastrophic for
the Native American tribes, which were increasingly dislodged from huge
tracts of land destined for future settlement by Americans. Equally important
was the impact of the Louisiana Purchase on the development of the American
West through the expansion of cotton production and slavery. Within months
of the signing of the Louisiana Purchase, South Carolina, which had banned
the slave trade in 1792 and repeatedly upheld the ban for the next ten
years, sanctioned the importation of slaves, which rapidly increased over the
next five years.70 Indeed, the Louisiana Purchase caused considerable head-
aches in American political circles.71 The American emissaries knew well that
by signing the final agreement they were going far beyond their original
authorization. The Louisiana Purchase generated considerable debate about
the constitutionality of the decision Jefferson’s government made to incorpo-
rate new territory into the Union, which in turn raised still more thorny
questions about the relations between states and the Union. The acquisition
of such vast frontier lands came with a corresponding increase in the respon-
sibility for governing it, even if the precise boundaries remained in dispute
and the loyalty of its inhabitants was questionable at best.72 Yet for every
policymaker who challenged the constitutionality of purchasing the Louisiana
Territory, there was another who complained that the agreement did not go
far enough because it failed to deliver the Floridas too.
The disappointment felt in British political and business circles about
France’s colonial policies sharpened upon their realization that Amiens had
brought not a halt to French power in Europe but an expansion of it. Indeed,
more than anything else it was France’s continental policy that undermined
its relations with Britain and caused Amiens to fall apart. Bonaparte, who was
declared consul for life in August 1802, chose to impose French he­gem­ony in
140 | the napoleonic wars

western Europe. In the Batavian Republic, Bonaparte suppressed a local leg-


islature, imposed a new constitution, and exacted financial contributions.73
This policy was motivated partly by his intention to send an expedition to
Louisiana but largely by the financial expediency of maintaining French
troops at Dutch expense.74
In September 1802 France reasserted its authority in Switzerland, which
French troops had evacuated in the wake of the Treaty of Lunéville. The Swiss
Confederation, a loose union of thirteen cantons (sovereign regions), lacked
strong central government, uniform administration, and a national armed
force; instead, each region had its own government, legal system, administra-
tive structure, and military. Cantonal governments were dominated by oli-
garchies composed either of aristocratic families (as in Bern, Lucerne, and
Fribourg) or of urban elites (as in the cantons of Uri, Schwyz, and Zug), while
the vast majority of the Swiss resided in rural communities, still subject to
feudal privileges. Swiss neutrality, which can be traced back to the sixteenth
century but was formally established by the Peace of Westphalia in 1648,
helped France survive the economic blockades of the 1790s, when the French
imported goods and provisions through Swiss intermediaries; the revolution-
aries spoke in glowing terms of the important service rendered by the Swiss.
Yet as the French revolutionary armies gained victories, Swiss neutrality ceased
to be of value to France, and “our necessary allies” came to be described as “oli-
garchs, vassals of princes, and friends of England.”75 In February 1798 French
troops invaded Swiss cantons, and in April they helped establish the Helvetic
Republic. As in other areas, the French occupation meant sudden and profound
changes. The new, French-drafted constitution ignored centuries of cantonal
autonomy when it proclaimed the Helvetic Republic as “one and indivisible.”
Despite its progressive provisions, the constitution was not welcomed by a
large number of Swiss. The document was doctrinaire in character, and the
ham-fisted nature of its introduction only stoked hostility and resistance.
Furthermore, the heavy-handed policies that the French implemented in order
to raise monies and resources in Switzerland contributed to social and economic
suffering, which soon engendered popular resistance. The French withdrawal
in 1801 had led to the rapid deterioration of political stability between
the Unitarians, who favored maintaining a strong central republic, and the
Federalists, who championed traditional cantonal sovereignty. Rejection of the
French-offered constitution, repeated coups d’état (in August 1800, October
1801, and April 1802), and the Swiss decision to conclude treaties of friendship
with Britain, Austria, and Russia without consulting the French aroused the
anger of the First Consul. Political turmoil between the Unitarians and the
Federalists soon spilled into a civil war—the War of Sticks (Stecklikrieg), as it
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 141

came to be known—that seemingly proved Bonaparte’s contention that the


Swiss could not resolve their differences and required outside intervention. The
First Consul lamented that the Swiss provided “a distressing spectacle” and
that their “history proves above all that your domestic wars could never have
been ended without the active intervention of France.”76 In October 1802,
responding to Swiss requests for help, Bonaparte dispatched a military force
under General Michel Ney into Switzerland. Less than two months later he
hosted a gathering of dozens of Swiss notables and deputies—the so-called
Helvetic Consulta—which, under the close guidance of and mediation by the
French government, developed the Mediationsakte (the Act of Mediation), a
new constitution for the Swiss Confederation.77
A landmark in the constitutional development of Switzerland, the Act of
Mediation stabilized the country without sacrificing its tradition of cantonal
independence. It reestablished thirteen cantons as near-sovereign states and
formed another six cantons with full rights. The new federal government had
limited powers and had to defer on most questions to the cantons. In a partial
reversal of the revolutionary reforms, the act allowed some cantons to revive
their earlier patrician-aristocratic styles of government, though all privileges
of place and birth were disallowed. For Bonaparte, the Swiss reorganization
was not just a means of bringing peace and order to a neighboring state but
also a way of ensuring Swiss isolation and continuing French authority in the
region. As Bonaparte envisioned it, the Swiss confederation was to be weak
and ever dependent upon France.78 Freedom of commerce and industry was
granted in name only, since both were tied closely to French economic and
commercial interests. The Swiss army was kept small, while cantons were
obliged to place their troops at the disposal of the French.
France’s actions in Switzerland produced muted reactions among the con-
tinental powers that were keen on gaining France’s favor in the impending
reorganization of Germany (discussed later). But in Britain it produced a
vocal outcry. Despite the fact that Britain had barely any national interest in
Switzerland, politicians vehemently denounced the Act of Mediation, claim-
ing that the political turmoil in the confederation was merely the “lawful
efforts of a brave and generous people to recover their ancient Laws and gov-
ernment,” as Sir Arthur Paget put it.79 The reality was more complex than
that. After the French withdrawal from Switzerland in 1801, Britain had
intervened in Swiss affairs and dispatched agents with money and instruc-
tions to encourage local unrest and pledge British “pecuniary assistance” in
case the Swiss were willing to resist the French.80 In the words of Bonaparte,
Britain sought to turn Switzerland into “a new Jersey [island] from which
troubles against France would be fomented.”81
142 | the napoleonic wars

Another nail in the coffin of the Treaty of Amiens was France’s annexation
of Piedmont in February 1803. This decision—which the French authorities
claimed was “made due to the abdication of the sovereign and the wishes
of the people”—was in line with Bonaparte’s overall policy in Italy, which
aimed at securing French supremacy in the Italian peninsula and facilitating
financial exploitation of the entire region.82 Austrian hopes of preventing
French domination of Italy had been dashed on the fields of Marengo and
Hohenlinden as well as by Russian acquiescence to the French presence in the
peninsula and by British reluctance to include Italian affairs in the Treaty of
Amiens. Yet the French also faced growing opposition in Italy, where after
five years of intermittent occupation even the warmest of their supporters were
beginning to find the French presence exasperating. In Piedmont a strong
royalist base demanded the restoration of the House of Savoy. Elsewhere
Italian patriots had grown tired of waiting for the French to deliver on their
promises of Italian independence. Yet France, whether led by the Directory
or by Bonaparte, had no interest in seeing an independent Italian state that
could restrain French interests and play a role between France and Austria.
Instead, the French government sought to become the master of northern
Italy. In early 1802 the assembly (consulta) of northern Italian notables final-
ized the constitution of the Italian (formerly Cisalpine) Republic, electing
Bonaparte as its president; in his absence, his vice president, Francesco Melzi
d’Eril, exercised authority and played a crucial role in the shaping of the new
republic.83 The Ligurian Republic was also given a new constitution and
though Bonaparte was not elected its president, he still received the author-
ity to nominate the doge and chief magistrates of the republic. The newly
established Kingdom of Etruria, formed on the basis of the Franco-Spanish
Treaty of Aranjuez, was formally independent, but with French troops pres-
ent on its territory, the Etrurian king’s authority was nominal indeed.
Bonaparte’s actions constituted a clear step toward the consolidation of
French control in northern Italy. While French rule was accomplished by
means of coercive methods, it helped develop the north of Italy, which, com-
pared to central and southern Italian states, did enjoy comparatively better
conditions. Swiss historian Anton Guilland pointed out that “her citizens, if
they did not enjoy liberty, possessed at all events equality and equitable laws.
If Bonaparte did not give the country its independence, he developed its
wealth by undertaking works of public utility. . . . Consequently, among the
Venetians, the Romans, and the Neapolitans there were many who would
have welcomed French rule or annexation to the Italian republic.”84
European courts had been alarmed by France’s actions in Italy, but none
made any demonstration, understanding that they lacked the means to back up
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 143

their protests. Moreover, as in the case of French intervention in Switzerland,


European response to the French moves in Italy was moderated by the ongo-
ing events in Germany. Britain refused to recognize the new Italian states
(Etruria and the Ligurian and Italian Republics) but was unwilling to jeop-
ardize its others interests by pressing this issue too far. Thus the fate of Italy
was not discussed at Amiens.
By late 1802 Bonaparte deemed the time ripe for resolving the fate of
Piedmont. Until then the French leader had bided his time in his relations
with the region, mainly because he was anxious to placate Emperor Paul of
Russia, who had supported the House of Savoy. In fact, in the fall of 1800
Bonaparte had actually considered the restoration of the larger part of Piedmont
(except for the territory east of Sesia, which was transferred to the Cisalpine
Republic) to the House of Savoy. The French government had invited a
Piedmontese envoy to Paris for negotiations, but these quickly stalled: King
Charles Emmanuel demanded restoration of all of Piedmont before any dis-
cussion could take place, while the First Consul argued that the king first had
to close his harbors to the British. In the spring of 1802 Bonaparte took steps
to consolidate his control over Piedmont, first by deploying a military garri-
son and then by formally annexing it to France.85
France’s actions in Italy played a key role in rekindling war tensions in
Europe and undoing Amiens. Unlike Germany, where he pursued a skillful
diplomacy, Bonaparte was far more openly forceful in his dealings with Italian
states, annexing some and imposing his will on others. There is no doubt that
such policies violated provisions of the Treaty of Lunéville, and although
Bonaparte got away with this, his activities undermined the chances for
political stability in Europe. Russia was displeased with how its Piedmontese
ally had been treated by the French, and Britain refused to recognize changes
in the Italian peninsula because they threatened general political equilibrium
in Europe.
The tacit recognition by Prussia, Austria, and Russia of the French con-
solidation in Switzerland and northern Italy was a consequence of the
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss, or Imperial Recess, which was made necessary
by French territorial expansion during the late 1790s. The Revolutionary
Wars had fractured the power of the Holy Roman Empire, which had shaped
German history for the better part of eight hundred years. In 1795 the Treaty
of Basle, by which Prussia recognized French control of the left bank of the
Rhine while France returned all of the lands east of the Rhine captured dur-
ing the war, marked a crucial moment in German history. It consolidated
French control of the Rhineland and divided Germany into spheres of influ-
ence, with the northern one, dominated by Prussia, effectively deserting the
144 | the napoleonic wars

imperial cause. Despite his pledges to defend southern German polities,


including dozens of imperial counts and knights, Emperor Francis II was
unable to stem the tide of French aggression, and this effectively undermined
his leadership among the German states. More important, French expan-
sion into the Rhineland resulted in the dispossession of the many German
secular and ecclesiastical princes, and according to Article VII of the Treaty
of Lunéville, German princes who had incurred losses during the coalition
wars, had to be compensated.86 In practice this meant mediatization and sec-
ularization, with the former signifying “the subjugation of lesser territorial
units to stronger states, while the latter meant the annexation of ecclesiastical
principalities by larger secular states.”87
In October 1801 the Diet of the Holy Roman Empire had formed a com-
mittee to discuss plans for such reorganization. Composed of representatives of
Mainz, Bohemia, Brandenburg, Saxony, Bavaria, Württemberg, Hesse-Cassel,
and the Hoch- und Deutschmeister (grand master of the Teutonic Order),
this deputation largely accepted decisions already made in a series of bilat-
eral agreements between France, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and the German
states.88 In a revival of the traditional French policy of Austrian containment,
Bonaparte sought to weaken the Habsburgs both territorially and politically
in Germany, where he wanted to create a group of middle-sized German
states (dependent on France) as a counterweight to Austria. He conveyed the
central tenets of his Germany policy in a letter to Foreign Minister Talleyrand.
Bonaparte’s intention was “not to compromise in any way France’s position in
German affairs” but also “not to take even the hundredth of a chance that
could break the peace.” Above all, the future of German rearrangement
depended on ensuring that “more than ever a disunion exists between Berlin
and Vienna.”89

France’s aims echoed in Russia, which had secured the right to intervene in
German affairs with the Treaty of Teschen, which ended the War of the
Bavarian Succession in 1779. Russian Emperor Alexander I was keenly inter-
ested in strengthening the German states of Württemberg, Baden, and
Hesse-Darmstadt, all of which were dynastically linked to the House of
Romanov. Bonaparte understood this, writing to his brother that “it [would be]
difficult to negotiate respecting Germany without cooperation of [Russia].”90
Consequently, in June 1802 Russia and France had reached an agreement
outlining key elements of the indemnification on the right bank of the Rhine
and paving the way for the transformation of German states.91
Austrian efforts to counter French (and Russian) designs by seeking closer
relations with France or developing an alliance with Prussia and Bavaria and
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 145

offering the latter some territorial compensation proved to be in vain.92 Upon


learning of Austrian advances toward Bavaria, Bonaparte wrote directly to
Maximilian Joseph, elector of Bavaria, assuring him that “the proposition
made to Your Highness by the House of Austria conforms so perfectly to the
constant aims of that august House that it appears to me to be contrary to
the interest of your own.”93 More important, France successfully divided the
German states and secured Bavarian and Prussian support by offering them
far more generous compensations than Austria was willing to consider; once
it became known that Russia would join France in a common mediation,
many secondary German states scrambled to seek the favor of the French
government, thereby further weakening Austria’s position.
The Imperial Recess represented one of the most extensive redistributions
of property in European history. This process directly affected the smaller
states of the imperial knights and ecclesiastic princes, whose territories were
designated for absorption by larger states. The Imperial Recess eliminated
112 sovereign estates, including 66 ecclesiastical principalities and dozens of
estates belonging to imperial knights; of the ten electoral states that existed
in 1792, four now became part of France. Some three million German sub-
jects had to change their allegiance, which largely benefited Bavaria (which
gained a third more subjects than it had lost), Württemberg (which gained
four times more), Prussia (which gained five times what it had lost, mainly in
the northwest), and Baden (which gained 7.5 times what it had lost). Although
Austria gained some land in the south to compensate for the loss of impe-
rial possessions in the west, the overall settlement further undermined the
Habsburg position in Germany by eliminating ecclesiastical states that
traditionally had supported them and by strengthening Prussia and other
German states that traditionally had challenged the Viennese court.
With the elimination of the secularized archbishops of Cologne and Trier
and the selection of the new electors of Württemberg, Baden, Hesse-Cassel,
and Salzburg, six Protestants and four Catholics now sat in the Imperial
Electoral College, which meant the next Holy Roman Emperor could very
well be Protestant. Furthermore, the Imperial Recess meant not only the end
of the ecclesiastical principalities’ political independence but also the out-
right confiscation of church property, which effectively destroyed the church’s
position within Germany. This, in turn, had significant social consequences
in terms of education and welfare, traditionally the responsibility of the
church. Of approximately fifty free cities, only six remained—Frankfurt,
Augsburg, Nuremberg, and the three Hanseatic cities of Lübeck, Bremen,
and Hamburg—and some of these did not survive the next wave of restruc-
turing that France would undertake three years later.
146 | the napoleonic wars

Together with the further reorganization of Germany into the Confederation


of the Rhine in 1806, the Imperial Recess determined the geopolitical
structure of Germany for much of the nineteenth century. It greatly simpli-
fied the political map of Germany and turned the Holy Roman Empire
into an obsolescent entity whose dissolution was all but inevitable, as the
leading German states were keen to profit from its growing weakness.94 The
Reichsdeputationshauptschluss was perhaps beneficial for Germany in the long
term, but in the short term it effectively undermined the existing international
order in Europe. While an indirect threat to Britain, French intervention
in Germany was a direct challenge to Austrian and Russian interests in the
region. That France could bring about a revolution so effortlessly (at least it
seemed so to many contemporaries) can be explained by several factors. The
great-power rivalries abetted the French. Britain could do little to stop these
processes, while Russia participated in them and accepted faits accomplis.
Prussia also collaborated with the French, as it sought to ensure peace in
Europe though a triple alliance of Russia, France, and Prussia that would
have partitioned Europe into spheres of influence and guaranteed the neutral-
ity of the states within each sphere. Prussia, naturally, expected to reserve for
itself the hegemony of northern Germany and was willing to overlook French
transgressions in Italy and southern Germany in exchange for rich bounty
elsewhere. Prussia’s gain, however, would have been Austria’s loss. Vienna
had vested interests in Germany and should have resisted more forcefully, but
it did not; its armies were defeated, its allies indifferent, its revenues declin-
ing, and its state debt growing. From an Austrian point of view, Prussia
could not be trusted because of existing enmity, while Russia’s support inev-
itably would have resulted in the sacrifice of some Austrian interests and
strengthening of the Russian position in the region, and because of the close
relations between Russia and Prussia, that would have meant gains for Prussia
as well.
The establishment of French hegemony over the southern German states
was the result of both military and diplomatic victories. Throughout 1801
and 1802 Bonaparte outmaneuvered his rivals by exploiting existing squab-
bles among the Germanic states and the great powers; when Austria tried to
use force to discourage territorial changes in Germany, Bonaparte quickly
sided with Prussia and Bavaria, offering them generous compensation. The
Franco-Russian accords of 1801 further strengthened France’s hand in south-
ern Germany. Bonaparte did not ignore Russian interests but rather sought
common cause with them. If there was one thing France, Russia, and Prussia
agreed on, it was the desirability of seeing Austrian power reduced in central
Europe. Without any allies, Austria had no choice but to back down. Bonaparte’s
The Road to War, 1802–1803 | 147

diplomacy, centered on gaining the cooperation of Prussia and Russia and


decreasing Austrian influence by attracting to France’s orbit a group of
middle-sized German states, thus proved to be decisive in determining the
fate of Germany. As radical as the change may seem, there was considerable
support for secularization and reorganization within the Holy Roman Empire,
as many of those middle states were keenly interested in profiting from it.
The French claim that German states would be better protected in this
new arrangement was widely accepted, and states like Bavaria, Baden, and
Wurttemberg were delighted to see their territories enlarged. Britain was not.
chapter 8 The Rupture, 1803

T he treaty of amiens lasted 420 days before it collapsed amid mutual


recriminations. The end came as no surprise. Just a few months into the
peace, the Franco-British amity was already under stress for the reasons out-
lined in Chapter 7, and it was becoming increasingly clear that the treaty left
too many questions unresolved, including France’s territorial ambitions in
Europe and commercial and colonial rivalry with Britain. These were not
new causes of disagreement but rather old issues that had bedeviled these two
nations for the preceding 150 years (at least). As it was, the Treaty of Amiens
was incapable of resolving them.
The main reason behind the collapse of Amiens was, to paraphrase
Thucydides and the Peloponnesian War, the rising power of one state and the
fear it inspired in another. France’s colonial power had been decimated dur-
ing the Seven Years’ War and then again during the Revolutionary Wars,
when the remaining colonies had been either lost to slave revolts or taken by
the British. On the conclusion of peace, Britain pledged to restore the seized
colonies, but it quickly became clear that France had changed. Its colonial
holdings had increased, as Bonaparte extracted major concessions from his
neighbors—Portugal ceded a part of Brazil, allowing the French possession
in Guiana to extend toward the estuary of the Amazon River, while Spain
returned the entire territory of Louisiana. Furthermore, France’s dominance
over the Spanish and Dutch colonies was almost certain in light of the weak-
ened state of their metropoles. The return of the Cape of Good Hope to the
Batavian Republic implied that this crucial station on the maritime route to
India would come under indirect but nonetheless strong French influence. It
was also quite clear that Bonaparte had not given up on his ambitions in the
Mediterranean, where Britain enjoyed a strong position due to its control of
The Rupture, 1803 | 149

Gibraltar, Egypt, and the islands of Minorca, Elba, and Malta. Yet under the
terms of Amiens, the last four of those places were supposed to be evacuated,
leaving Britain with just Gibraltar as a base of its operations in the vast sea.
France’s colonial ambitions could not be fulfilled without building a
strong navy, a prospect that naturally alarmed Britain. Contrary to popular
perception of Bonaparte as having a poor grasp of naval power, he in fact pos-
sessed incisive nautical knowledge and gradually developed an astute under-
standing of sea power.1 Upon coming to power, the First Consul inherited a
navy that suffered from a decade-long political, military, and financial crisis.
He knew well that it would take a long time to put France’s fleet in order. “To
pretend that France can equal England’s navy in less than ten years is nothing
but a fantasy,” he wrote Denis Decrès, minister of the navy and colonies.
“This would cause us expenses great enough to compromise our position on
the continent without, however, giving us any surety of gaining ascendancy
on the sea.”2 Bonaparte had a much longer game in mind and envisioned a
gradual expansion of French naval forces that would be augmented with
those of neighboring nations that France controlled. In 1802–1803, while
Amiens was still holding, Bonaparte increased the marine budget (in part by
diverting monies he had received from the Louisiana Purchase), made con-
tracts for the purchase of timber (for the construction of ships) from Etruria,
Sicily, and Russia, and pressured Spain, Naples, and the Batavian Republic to
keep up and increase their navies. For Britain, it was clear that France, utiliz-
ing the resources of almost all of western and southern Europe, would
progressively strengthen its navy, whether at peace or at war.
After Amiens, France was keen on restoring its commercial interests.
However, it found its foreign trade impeded by British competition nearly
everywhere, competition that was bolstered by the increased output of the
nascent Industrial Revolution. This industrial rivalry remained a principal
cause of hostility between France and Britain.3 The Treaty of Amiens was
incapable of resolving it and called for the sacrifice of too many of Britain’s
interests to be durable. The British negotiators were negligent enough to
leave the matter of trade untouched by the treaty—the word “trade” appears
nowhere in the text, while “commerce” is discussed only within the context
of the future of the island of Malta (Article X, Section 8). This was a remark-
able omission, considering that the key reason for Britain’s entry into the
Revolutionary Wars in 1793 had been the French occupation of Belgium and
the opening of the Scheldt, which directly threatened British commercial
interests. In 1802 London was willing to accept the peace, assuming that its
old commercial relations would no longer be endangered. With its manufac-
turing rapidly industrializing and the costs of producing goods steadily
150 | the napoleonic wars

falling, Britain was keen to open up continental markets to export its wares.
British statesmen had “little doubt,” as one put it, “of our trade penetrating
deep into France herself and thriving at Paris.”4
Such hopes were dashed soon after the peace was signed. The most impor-
tant coastal areas in western Europe remained under French control and
closed to British commerce.5 The absence of any commercial agreement in
the Treaty of Amiens meant that the peace not only failed to reopen the con-
tinental markets but deprived Britain of the monopoly of overseas commerce
after the captured colonies were restored to France and the Batavian Republic.
After two decades of consistent growth, Britain’s outgoing tonnage actually
decreased during the peace interval, from 2 million tons in 1801 to 1.7 mil-
lion in 1803.6 This may seem a small decline, but it was sufficient to cause
some to wonder whether war was not indeed preferable to such a peace. The
evacuation of Malta was highly unpopular in British business circles because
it would have further jeopardized British trade in the Mediterranean and the
Levant. Nor was anyone pleased with Bonaparte’s efforts to restore relations
with the Ottoman Empire, which included signing a commercial treaty that
granted France most-favored-nation status in the Black Sea ports. It is not
surprising, then, that influential British merchants were quick to denounce
the peace. In the summer of 1802 a French agent reported about widespread
dissatisfaction among the merchants in the City of London: “I am persuaded
that tomorrow all voices will be for war, if the English people, finally con-
scious of our power, realize that they cannot obtain a treaty of commerce from
us except by force of arms.”7
At first France was willing to consider some sort of commercial arrange-
ment with Britain. In the summer of 1802 a French delegation visited London
to discuss a possible agreement. Such an agreement would have been limited
in nature, since Bonaparte had no intention of signing another free trade
treaty that could have had effects similar to the Anglo-French Free Trade
Treaty of 1786, which had been a major French mistake and partly precipi-
tated the outbreak of the Revolution.8 In 1802 the conditions for an agree-
ment were even less favorable than in 1786. France had just endured a decade
of political and military turmoil that prevented its commerce and industry
from keeping up with their rivals across the Channel. French commerce and
industry were not prepared to engage in a free competition. Bonaparte under-
stood that and had no desire to alienate some of his key support groups just
as he was consolidating his power. He wished to encourage and protect French
industry and trade, which meant keeping them insulated from British com-
petitors. With this in mind, Bonaparte sought limited trade with Britain,
but this went nowhere. His request that Britain open its markets open to
The Rupture, 1803 | 151

French silks and wines was ignored because of Britain’s desire to shield its
own emerging silk industry and to honor existing agreements with Portugal.9
For its part, Britain suggested returning to the 1786 treaty with new safe-
guards that would have permitted France to take temporary measures to
protect its home industry.10 This Bonaparte could not accept since it would
have eventually opened the French market to British goods. Forced to choose
between free trade and protectionism, he instinctively chose the latter.11
Napoleon’s refusal to agree to a commercial treaty aroused resentment among
the British, who could not understand how any country could seek good rela-
tions with them while treating British goods as if they were plague-ridden.
They could see little value in a peace treaty that produced neither a lessening
of commercial duties nor the suspension of French colonial designs that could
be detrimental to British trade. Britain came to believe that Bonaparte’s sole
purpose in signing the Treaty of Amiens was to wrest back lost colonies,
rebuild French naval capacity, and humiliate Britain on its own shores. The
news of French interventions in the Rhineland, Switzerland, and Italy, not
to mention French advances in the West Indies and Egypt, as described in
Chapter 7, only reinforced their worst suspicions about Bonaparte’s designs.
The immediate cause for the collapse of the Treaty of Amiens involved the
future of the island of Malta. Of the twenty-two provisions of the treaty, the
longest (Article X) dealt with the island, indicating the degree of importance
both sides attached to it. France had a long connection to the island. For
more than two centuries prior to Bonaparte’s conquest of Malta, its trade was
closely tied to France, helped by the fact that many of the knights who were
its governors were of French descent. In 1788 almost half of the ships calling
upon the island were French; only a small percentage were British. Still,
Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign revealed Malta’s strategic value. The island
was a gateway to the East, where any French conquests would directly affect
British interests. To Britain, preoccupied above all with India, preventing
French control of the island, with is picturesque harbor and splendid fortress,
seemed a vital necessity. “If we retire beyond the Mediterranean,” argued one
senior British diplomat, “we can exercise no effectual interference either to
prevent or to modify such events. . . . If, however, we retain Malta, Great Britain
will be able, under all probable occurrences in the Levant, to adopt that line of
conduct respecting them, which may at the time best suit her situation.”12
At Amiens, France and Britain agreed that Malta and its two sister islands
of Gozo and Comino would be restored to the Maltese knights under specific
provisions. British forces would be evacuated within three months of the
treaty’s ratification, the islands would be proclaimed neutral, and their inde-
pendence would be guaranteed by France, Britain, Austria, Spain, Russia,
152 | the napoleonic wars

and Prussia; the Neapolitan kingdom, which had claimed nominal sovereignty
over Malta, would furnish garrison forces. The knights would restore a gen-
eral chapter and elect a grand master from among the natives of those nations
that preserved their langues (administrative divisions of the order); to ensure
the island’s independence with respect to themselves, France and Britain
would both abolish their respective langues.13
Implementation of Article X proved to be contentious.14 Several of the
subsidiary clauses presented particular challenges—the grand master was to
be elected in Malta by a vote of the langues, but his headquarters was formally
in St. Petersburg because the Russian tsar was officially the protector of the
order. The tsar resented that he had no say in the framing of the provisions
and that in the list of guaranteeing powers Russia was placed after Austria, a
non-player as far as Mediterranean affairs were concerned. For Bonaparte, any
further vacillation on this issue meant “adding further provisions to the
treaty,” which he could not accept.15
The real stumbling block was the fact that both sides had woken to the
value of Malta. As one British officer put it, “Situated nearly at an equal dis-
tance from the entrance of the Straits and the coasts of Syria, the whole trade
of the Mediterranean and Levant in time of war must be at the mercy of its
possessors.”16 Malta could easily command the trade in the Mediterranean Sea,
which is what both Paris and London feared. For the latter, the surrender of
the Cape of Good Hope to the Batavian Republic, France’s dependency, meant
that it had lost access to a key position on the route to India. Were the British
to evacuate Malta, they would have no control over an alternative route.
Three months after the treaty had been concluded, Malta was still occu-
pied by British troops, and naturally the French government protested.17 The
British response—that the island could not be evacuated until the provisions of
Article X had been fulfilled and the island’s independence was guaranteed—
did nothing to mollify the French. The reluctance of Russia, Prussia, and
Spain to provide their guarantees only further hardened the British posi-
tion. By the end of 1802, as the scale of Bonaparte’s foreign policy was
becoming clear, the British government clearly regretted agreeing to the
island’s evacuation and sought to find ways to avoid fulfilling its commit-
ments. In November 1802 Prime Minister Addington’s foreign secretary,
Lord Hawkesbury, instructed the British ambassador to France “to avoid say-
ing anything which may engage His Majesty to restore the island, even if
these arrangements should be completed according to the true intent and
spirit of the tenth article of the Treaty of Amiens.” Hawkesbury believed that
Britain “would certainly be justified in claiming the possession of Malta, as
some counterpoise to the acquisitions of France since the conclusion of the
The Rupture, 1803 | 153

definitive treaty.”18 Thus some members of the British government consid-


ered it conceivable to violate the treaty even before the first reports of French
overtures to North Africa and Egypt hastened a change in the attitudes of
both the British public and the government as a whole.
The publication on January 30, 1803, of General Horace Sebastiani’s
lengthy report on his tour of North Africa, Egypt, and Levant in the official
French newspaper Le Moniteur gave the British cabinet a plausible excuse for
the retention of Malta. Sebastiani’s mission sought to revive French commer-
cial interests in the Ottoman realms, but it also served as an excellent oppor-
tunity to reconnoiter the area for future military ventures.19 Sebastiani’s
observations were doubtless designed to appeal to Bonaparte. He wrote of the
enthusiastic reception he had enjoyed in Egypt and Syria, hinting that the
French would be welcomed in the region; he even claimed that a French
expedition might involve fewer than 10,000 men. The report was mainly
intended to warn Britain that if it did not honor its obligations and evacuate
Malta, France would consider renewing its efforts in the East. Sebastiani
showed just how fragile the political situation was in Egypt. The Mamluk
chiefs were disunited, the Turks were too weak to take control over the
region, and there was bad feeling between both of them and the British, who,
the report alleged, were openly detested in Cairo. Furthermore, during his
meeting with Sebastiani, the British commander, General John Stuart, non-
chalantly declared that he had no orders to evacuate Egypt and expected to
spend the winter in Alexandria. This seemed to fly in the face of commit-
ments that Britain had undertaken at Amiens, and it encouraged Bonaparte’s
bellicose attitude. On February 5, 1803, the French foreign ministry instructed
the French embassy in London to point out to the British public the wider
context in which Sebastiani’s report had been produced: Britain’s failure to
evacuate Egypt and Malta, “despite the stipulations of the Treaty of Amiens,
is an act that can provoke the renewal of war.”20
Yet the publication of Sebastiani’s report was a major mistake.21 It was an
inept attempt to apply pressure on the British, and it backfired. Bonaparte
himself seems to have realized this belatedly and tried to soften its impact, but
the damage was done.22 From St. Petersburg to London and Constantinople,
the report provoked unfavorable reactions. For Britain, the report proved that
France was still contemplating a return to the Orient, which would be cata-
strophic to British interests in the Mediterranean in general, in the Levant
and Egypt specifically, and by extension in India. Sebastiani’s report, together
with the news of Bonaparte’s order (issued in mid-January) to General Decaen
to lead a colonial expedition to Isle de France in the Indian Ocean, further
reinforced prevailing views within British political and public circles that
154 | the napoleonic wars

Bonaparte’s ambitions were boundless and had to be contained. Appreciating


the full importance of Malta and realizing their mistake in pledging to
surrender it, the British ministers began, in the words of a former British
secret agent, to “catch at anything like a fair pretext for retaining Malta.
It seems . . . as if ministers, ashamed of the cession, were unwilling to let it
slip through their fingers, and were anxious to withhold it, if they could,
without committing the honour of the nation by a violent breach of its
plighted faith.”23 Sebastiani’s report, in effect, provided Addington’s govern-
ment with an excuse to halt to all further withdrawals from Malta and India
until France fulfilled its commitments under the Treaty of Amiens.24
In late February, in light of the continued British recalcitrance on the
issue of Malta, the French government hardened its position. Bonaparte
invited British ambassador Lord Whitworth to the Tuileries, where they con-
versed for more than two hours. The First Consul denied having any designs
on Egypt in the near future, complained about the British failure to evacuate
Egypt, and warned that war would be inevitable if Britain did not follow
through on the obligations it had assumed at Amiens.25 He buttressed his
message two days later when his “Consular Exposé” on the state of the French
republic was delivered to the legislative bodies. Bonaparte wrote of Britain’s
“implacable hatred of France” and warned that “five hundred thousand men
ought to be, and shall be, ready to defend” the nation in case of war.26 New
instructions to the French embassy in London called for pressing for the expul-
sion of leading French émigrés, counteracting anti-French sentiments in the
press, and, most important, demanding that the British evacuate Malta.27 It was
clear that Franco-British relations were fast approaching a point of no return.
On March 8, before the houses of Parliament, King George III read a
speech that effectively decided the fate of the peace. Denouncing “very con-
siderable military preparations” in the ports of France and Holland, the king
“judged it expedient to adopt additional measures of precaution for the secu-
rity of his dominions.”28 He proposed the mobilization of militia forces and
an additional levy of 10,000 men for the navy, all approved by Parliament
three days later. The king’s speech further strained Franco-British relations.
“The argument of contemporaries and certain historians that this action was
on a par with the Consular Exposé is unconvincing,” observed eminent
American historian Harold C. Deutsch. “While the First Consul had played
with indirect threats, England here made a move, which, according to diplo-
matic usage, was a preliminary step to war.”29
Although the British foreign ministry tried to portray these measures as
“precautionary,” Paris reacted angrily to them.30 The French foreign ministry
declared that the British decision was an inexcusable hostile act that was
The Rupture, 1803 | 155

made based on false information—military preparations under way in the


French and Dutch port towns were not aimed at Britain but were, as officially
declared, part of an expedition to Louisiana. Furthermore, Bonaparte had the
British ambassador informed that in light of the king’s speech France might
be forced to start mobilizing as well and might consider reoccupying all of
Holland.31 On March 11, writing to Emperor Alexander of Russia, Bonaparte
complained that Britain was coming up with new excuses to avoid treaty
obligations: “How can one conclude treaties if they are so explicitly violated
in spirit and letter?” He urged the tsar to intervene, or at least rebuke the
British for their illegal retention of Malta.32 Two days later, at a diplomatic
reception at the Tuileries on March 13, Bonaparte held an audience with Lord
Whitworth at which he lost his patience and publicly derided George III’s
speech and the British failure to honor its treaty obligations. It was clear,
he exclaimed, that the British “do not respect treaties” and wanted another
decade of war. “If they are the first to draw the sword, I will be the last to
sheathe it,” Bonaparte famously concluded before storming from the room.33
The First Consul’s behavior may have violated diplomatic courtesy, but its
importance has been exaggerated by historians. It was a deliberate display of
rage.34 Over the next few days Bonaparte tried to be conciliatory toward
Britain, seeking to show that he had “no desire to go to war [and] that he has
nothing to gain from [war] and that the whole country is against it.”35 Still,
he pointed out that France’s honor demanded that Britain fulfill its obliga-
tions or risk war. Upon receiving a new dispatch from the British govern-
ment, the First Consul personally drafted a detailed response that analyzed
(and refuted) British charges and posited French offers. The note shows that
Bonaparte was willing to compromise on Egypt as long as Britain fulfilled its
obligation with regard to Malta. Even Lord Whitworth admitted that “the
tenor of this note” showed that France was not “desirous to proceed to extrem-
ities.”36 The deliberate nature of Bonaparte’s bluster is underscored by a series
of reports concerning French naval forces that he had received in March. These
revealed that the French navy was in desperate need of repair and expansion;
even the most optimistic forecasts suggested that by September 1803 the
French navy would have only twenty-two ships and twenty-eight frigates
ready for service, hardly enough to confront the Royal Navy, which had almost
four times as many ships-of-the-line. Furthermore, to complete the necessary
repairs, refitting, and construction, the navy would require a staggering four
million cubic feet of wood, an unattainable amount. And even if the supplies
were available, the French naval arsenals lacked a sufficient workforce, as hun-
dreds of trained workers had been previously dismissed. Bonaparte was well
aware that France was not ready for a war with Britain.37
156 | the napoleonic wars

On April 3 the British foreign ministry responded to the French overtures


by demanding further concessions. France was to apologize for the publica-
tion of Sebastiani’s report, accept British control of Malta, evacuate Holland
and Switzerland, and indemnify the king of Sardinia; in return, Britain was
willing to recognize the Kingdom of Etruria and the Italian and Ligurian
Republics.38 The French government was taken aback by the tone and con-
tent of the note but showed willingness to consider some concessions—
although not on the issue of Malta, on which it felt honor-bound to insist. As
a compromise, Bonaparte proposed that upon evacuation of Malta the British
be allowed a Mediterranean base on Candia (Crete) or Corfu that would serve
well to defend British interests. France was also prepared to sign a formal
convention to reassure Britain with respect to its aspirations in the East.39
If Addington’s cabinet had truly desired to maintain peace, the French
offer represented the opportunity to do so. The British reply amounted to an
ultimatum, rejecting the French offer and insisting not only on British posses-
sion of Malta but also on French withdrawal from Holland and Switzerland.40
France had just one week to consider these terms or face a break in diplomatic
relations.41
Bonaparte was, predictably, furious at the British demands, yet he still
made a counteroffer.42 The British could stay in Malta for up to four years, he
proposed, and then transfer the island into the care of a guaranteeing power
(i.e., Russia).43 The French foreign minister’s letter to his ambassador in
London reveals the extent to which Bonaparte’s position had evolved in an
attempt to avoid war: “We will never consent to a formal requirement pro-
viding for a single day of the English occupation of Malta but we will not
raise any obstacles to the [temporary] occupation . . . that can become a very
extended one.”44 The French offer seemed so appealing that Lord Whitworth
chose to disregard his government’s earlier instruction to depart from Paris,
since the French proposal could offer “an honorable and advantageous adjust-
ment of the present differences.”45
The British government, however, failed to see it that way, declining the
French offer as “loose, indefinite and unsatisfactory,” as Lord Hawkesbury
wrote to Lord Whitworth, and rejecting the guardianship of Russia on the
grounds that St. Petersburg was certain to refuse it.46 In vain did Talleyrand
assure Lord Whitworth that Russia had, in fact, reversed its stance and was
now keenly interested in resolving differences between the two powers. He
even revealed that in late April Emperor Alexander had accepted Bonaparte’s
request for mediation and had now offered his services. The change in position
was occasioned by the growing belief in Russia that the prospect of war was
“particularly undesirable” because an “inconsistent and very weak government”
The Rupture, 1803 | 157

ruled over Britain. The goal of offering mediation was, in the words of the
Russian chancellor, to “constrain France within her current boundaries” by
seeking the territorial integrity of the Ottoman Empire and “new guarantees
for the Italian states, the German Empire, Holland and Switzerland, ensur-
ing the neutrality of these states.”47 Bonaparte accepted this offer. Whether
this was a ploy to gain time or not, he had shown a willingness to negotiate
before the British forced his hand. On the evening of May 12 Whitworth,
though surprised by the unexpected revelation of Russian mediation, requested
his passports and departed from Paris.
The extent of Bonaparte’s anxiety to repair the fast-crumbling edifice of
Amiens is revealed in his final offer, which Whitworth received as he was
already traveling toward the coast. France offered Britain the right to stay on
Malta for ten years if the French could occupy parts of the Neapolitan king-
dom for a similar period; France was even willing to concede Britain’s control
of Malta until such time as an international guarantee of neutrality had been
agreed upon.48 This proposal represented a real and clear opportunity to safe-
guard peace. Again, though, Britain rejected it, making the excuse that its
obligations to Naples made such an arrangement impossible.
On May 18, 1803, Britain made a formal declaration of war against France,
launching a conflict that would last for more than a decade.49 Despite some
authors’ claims that the British government declared war with a united coun-
try at its back, there was in fact considerable anti-war sentiment, and support
for war was never either unanimous or continuous. While anti-war liberals
did agree that Britain stood for the cause of liberty and supported the govern-
ment’s declaration of war against France, this support was also conditional on
the war remaining a defensive one. Yet as the war lengthened, British actions
could hardly be styled as defensive, and anti-war sentiments rapidly increased.
Some 150,000 people from Yorkshire and Lancashire alone signed a peace
petition in 1808.50 The British government did its best to cajole the nation
into action, using the threat of compulsory training and turning to Scotland
and Ireland to recruit men primarily from Catholic areas, as it was by “no
means desirable. . . to bring away any of the Protestants of the North,” as the
historian Jenny Uglow has noted.51

At the start of the twentieth century German historian Otto Brandt high-
lighted the role the shifting Russian sympathies had played in the start of
Franco-British War. “On this relationship between England and Russia,” he
wrote, “hinged all the later developments of the Amiens question.”52 Indeed,
the court of St. Petersburg played a crucial if often overlooked role in the cri-
sis between the two powers, both of whom had sought Russian military and
158 | the napoleonic wars

diplomatic support against the other. As we have seen, while the relations
between St. Petersburg and Paris remained lukewarm in the wake of Emperor
Paul’s assassination in March 1801, they did undergo major change with the
accession of his son Alexander to the throne. Bonaparte tried to ensure con-
tinued Russian support for his policies by dispatching his trusted aide-­de-camp
Michel Duroc to St. Petersburg with instructions to outline French designs
for Germany and Russia’s possible role in them.
Duroc arrived at the Russian capital at a rather opportune moment, given
that the Francophobe faction was on the wane. Russia was keenly interested
in German affairs, since the Russian imperial family had close family con-
nections to many Germany princely houses. Alexander appears to have been
interested in gathering the help of other great powers so as to dilute France’s
influence in German affairs. Such Russian sentiments had been reinforced by
Austrian overtures suggesting a new Russo-Austrian alliance. The arrival of
Duroc, however, changed the Russian position.53 The French revealed that
the Austrians, while sounding out Russia on the question of a new alliance,
were also eagerly pushing proposals for reviving the old alliance with France.
Unpleased by this double game, the Russian court was willing to consider
French offers. On October 8, 1801, five months before Amiens, a formal peace
treaty between Russia and France was signed in Paris. The treaty consisted of
two parts, with the public section containing formal declarations of amity
and peace between the two nations, while the second part contained secret
articles in which the real conditions of Franco-Russian relations were out-
lined. In the second set of provisions, the two powers agreed to achieve a
common accord in respect to Germany, where a “just equilibrium between
the Houses of Austria and Brandenburg [Prussia]” was desired.54
The Treaty of Paris showed that Alexander was not against changes in
Germany; in fact, he hoped to work jointly with Bonaparte on German reor-
ganization as long as it satisfied Russian interests. Furthermore, Alexander,
unlike the British statesmen, differentiated between a balance of security and
a balance of power, and sought to establish the former. This could be accom-
plished not through building a coalition against France, as Britain intended
to do, but rather through forming a restraining alliance with France, so that
Paris and St. Petersburg could become “mediating arbiters” of Europe. The
Anglophile faction at the Russian court warned, however, that France was
becoming too powerful for a stable European system and that Franco-Russian
relations would be fragile. Such arguments gained in strength when it became
clear that the czar had been outmaneuvered on the question of German
indemnities and had in fact contributed materially to the establishment of
French hegemony in southern Germany. Alexander naturally refused to see
The Rupture, 1803 | 159

Germany transformed into a French protectorate and wanted to ensure that


Russia continued to have a say in the region.55
Russian protestations routinely elicited the French foreign ministry’s
response that France’s actions in Germany were no different from Russia’s in
Poland. Exasperated by this, the Russian government instructed its ambas-
sador in Paris to respond that the Polish partition was “already a thing of the
past and it was pointless to bring it up.” More concerning to Russia was
the fact that “when France incorporated the Netherlands and gave herself the
Rhine and the Alps as frontiers, her governments designated these as a com-
pensation for what others had taken in Poland. Yet, these acquisitions already
surpass those which we made then.”56
Upset at France, the Russian government was also mindful of British unre-
liability. Memories of the failed joint expedition to Holland in 1799 and of
British haggling over the financial and diplomatic price necessary for Russian
support were still fresh. With the League of Armed Neutrality formed and
Britain denied access to Baltic trade in grain and naval stores, Russia seemed
to pose a greater problem to Britain than France did. Addington’s govern-
ment understood well that repairing relations with Russia was key to strength-
ening Britain’s political and military position in Europe.57 Its first foreign
policy overtures were, therefore, directed toward St. Petersburg, and the
manner in which they were conducted reveals British preoccupation with a
Russian alliance as much as with a war against France. On March 24, 1801,
Lord Hawkesbury sent special instructions to the British minister in Berlin
granting him full powers to restore diplomatic ties with Russia. These
instructions are revealing not only for the concessions that Britain was ready
to make—fulfilling the terms of the 1799 Anglo-Russian agreement on
Malta, by which Britain accepted Russian garrisons on the island—but also
for their date of composition. On March 24 Hawkesbury didn’t yet know
that Emperor Paul, the driving force behind Russia’s recent Anglophobia,
had just been murdered. The new Russian sovereign was more favorably dis-
posed to Britain and wished to settle all outstanding Anglo-Russian disputes.
Learning of the change in the Russian government in mid-April, Prime
Minister Addington focused his diplomatic efforts on Russia, even postpon-
ing the negotiations that would lead to the Treaty of Amiens with France.
The appointment of a new ambassador reflected Britain’s desire to flatter
Russian sensibilities, given that Lord St. Helens was one of its most experi-
enced and esteemed diplomats—he had participated in diplomatic negotia-
tions ending the Seven Years’ War and had served as a minister plenipotentiary
to Spain in the 1790s. St. Helens was instructed to “propose an arrangement,”
as Hawkesbury wrote him in a letter, “which shall place everything between
160 | the napoleonic wars

the two countries on the same footing on which it was.”58 This included
abandoning the League of Armed Neutrality, opening the Baltic trade to the
British, and acknowledging Britain’s right to search neutral shipping. On
June 17, after several weeks of negotiations, St. Helens and Russian foreign
secretary Nikita Panin signed an agreement that granted Britain those terms
while temporarily setting aside the question of Malta.59
This was a major accomplishment by Addington’s cabinet, one that is
often overshadowed by the failure of the Treaty of Amiens. Already in the
spring of 1801 the British ministers envisioned joint defense plans designed
to restore political equilibrium in Europe.60 They clearly hoped that once
relations were restored, Russia would rejoin their struggle against France and
serve as a focal point for any anti-French coalition. Unfortunately for the
British, Emperor Paul’s successor, Emperor Alexander, Anglophile though he
was, sought to avoid foreign entanglements at the start of his reign. While
recognizing that Britain was one of Russia’s “natural allies,” he wanted to
avoid any hostilities with France. “I intend to follow a national policy that is
based on the benefits of [my] state and not, as is often the case, on predilec-
tions of this or that power,” he confided to one of his diplomats.61
Alexander believed that Russia required major reforms in administration,
agriculture, and industry, all of which needed peace to succeed.62 His country
would therefore remain on the sidelines of the Franco-British peace negotia-
tions. Disappointed, Britain continued efforts to promote Anglo-Russian rap-
prochement. During diplomatic negotiations with France, British ministers
sought to consider Russian positions on a number of issues and regularly shared
intelligence with Russia, causing one senior Russian diplomat to acknowledge
that this was a “grand sign of trust.”63 Yet the court of St. Petersburg refused to
openly support Britain. With Bonaparte reorganizing Germany, Russia feared
alienating the French, even if Bonaparte’s designs for Germany and the
Ottoman Empire were clearly of great concern. Thus Russian diplomats regu-
larly reminded their British colleagues that St. Petersburg could never allow
them (or the French) to annex Malta, but neither did it want to get involved in
resolving the fate of the island.64 Britain was naturally irritated by the Russian
vacillations, and its annoyance only increased when in June 1802 Russia and
France reached an agreement paving the way for the reorganization of German
states and calling for Russian mediation between the French and the Turks.65
This agreement was a major accomplishment of French diplomacy, for it was a
key element in Bonaparte’s efforts to keep Britain at bay, reconcile Russia and
Prussia, and form a coalition to isolate Austria.
Addington’s cabinet felt betrayed by Russia’s actions. Hawkesbury bitterly
complained that in light of Britain’s exertions “for the purpose of rescuing
The Rupture, 1803 | 161

Egypt from the hands of the French and of restoring it to its lawful sovereign,
it would be impossible . . . to regard the endeavors of the Russian government
to mediate a separate peace between France and the Ottoman Porte in any
other light than as a most unfriendly act.”66 Addington’s cabinet nonetheless
persevered, and its diplomatic correspondence in 1802–1803 clearly shows
that Britain was eager to make use of peacetime to build a new coalition
against France.67 As German, Italian, and Swiss reorganizations progressed,
Britain exploited Russia’s growing concern about French aggrandizement to
renew its efforts to establish an alliance against France. Addington under-
stood that any anti-French coalition had to include Russia but he also knew
that bringing both Austria and Prussia into the coalition would prove to be
a daunting task because of their long-standing rivalry in Germany, as well as
French success in mollifying the Prussian court.
Britain’s eagerness to secure Russia’s support overshadowed its relations
with Vienna. Addington was puzzled by Austria’s reluctance to become a
partner in a new continental alliance. The reason lay in its fear that in light of
recent defeats it would have to act as a junior partner and that any future set-
tlement would be dictated by Britain and Russia. Matters were further com-
plicated by the fact that during the German reorganization Russia had aligned
itself more closely with Prussia, while Britain, reversing an earlier pro-
Prussian stance, staked its interests on closer relations with Austria. In
September and October 1802 the British foreign ministry urged its diplomats
to find a way to detach Russia from Prussia and promote Russo-Austrian
cooperation. One such opportunity arose when Prussia recognized France’s
annexation of Piedmont without requesting compensation for the Piedmontese
king, a request that Russia had made repeatedly. The British Foreign Office
quickly sent out new instructions to its embassy in St. Petersburg “to take
advantage of this and of every other circumstance of the same nature which
may arise to estrange as much as possible” Russia from Prussia and to connect
it with Austria. The British embassy was asked to remind the Russian govern-
ment that Austria, whose ambitions lay in Italy and Germany, posed a much
smaller threat than did Prussia, which faced them across the Baltic.68 By late
October Hawkesbury envisioned, as he noted in a letter, “a system of defensive
alliance” between Britain, Russia, and Austria designed to contain resurgent
France and prevent “further innovations in the system of Europe.”69
British efforts once again proved to be in vain. Russia refused to jeop­ard­
ize its positions. It was clearly concerned by Bonaparte’s actions and claimed
that British efforts to form a coalition would only provoke French counter-
measures that could lead to hostilities. Russia’s finances could not sustain
another war. “The wisest policy for Russia is to stay calm and take care of her
162 | the napoleonic wars

inner prosperity,” insisted Emperor Alexander as late as January 20, 1803.70


Declining British offers of a formal alliance, Russian senior diplomats also
argued that “the interests of Russia and those of England have so many points
in common between them that the two powers can consider themselves as
allies without having any need of writing it on paper.”71
Unable to convince Russia to join a coalition with Austria, the British gov-
ernment tried to play on Russia’s concerns over the Ottoman Empire, where
Bonaparte was pursuing two major goals. First, he sought to mend France’s
relations with its former Ottoman ally. In October 1802 Bonaparte dispatched
General Guillaume Brune as the French ambassador to Constantinople with
instructions to restore French standing at the Ottoman court and to protect
French commercial interests in the region. A Franco-Ottoman treaty, signed
in 1802, mutually guaranteed the integrity of the French and Ottoman pos-
sessions and restored France’s former privileges (commercial capitulations and
the right to serve as protector of the sultan’s Catholic subjects); furthermore,
for the first time, the Porte gave French merchant vessels the right to trade
freely on the Black Sea, where Russians had long sought to establish their
trade (Article 2 of the treaty).72 With this agreement, Bonaparte largely
reversed the diplomatic revolution of 1799 that had united Russia and the
Ottomans against France, and set the Ottoman Empire and France on the road
to rebuilding their diplomatic relations. It was not a complete victory for the
French, though. Sultan Selim III remained highly suspicious of French designs
and secretly urged Britain to keep Malta. As British ambassador Lord Elgin
reported (with clear hyperbole), “The Porte does estimate the duration of its
independence by the period of our continuance in possession of this island.”73
While improving his relations with the Turks, Bonaparte also desired to
exploit Russian interests in the Near East. In detailed instructions to Michel
Duroc in St. Petersburg, Bonaparte urged his envoy to make every effort to
divert Russian attention from French actions in Italy by raising the possibil-
ity of Russian aggrandizement in the Near East: “Speak of [Russian empress]
Catherine II as of a princess who foresaw the fall of the Turkish Empire and
who realized that there would be no prosperity for Russian commerce until it
found an outlet in the south.”74 During his conversations with the Russian
ambassador, Bonaparte also frequently hinted at the dissolution of the
Ottoman Empire and the possibility of the Franco-Russian partition of its
land. Bonaparte thus pursued a double game with the Turks, wooing them
while conspiring against them. His Ottoman policy served as “a means of
diversion and transaction,” observed French historian Albert Vandal. “It was
on this terrain that he hoped to divide [his] enemies, dissolve the coalition
by stealing away one of its members, attach one of the principal courts to
The Rupture, 1803 | 163

himself, whichever it might be, [and] finally conquer the grand alliance,
which he needed in order to master the continent and vanquish England.”75
Russia rebuffed France’s suggestion, with Russian chancellor Alexander
Vorontsov stressing that it could not “participate in any hostile projects
directed against Turkey.”76 This statement is noteworthy for its duplicity
because at the very moment that it was declining France’s offer Russia
was actively expanding its influence into the traditional Ottoman domains.
Russia had long sought to gain security, power, and prestige in the Middle
East against the much weaker Ottoman and Persian Empires, something that
in turn would further enhance its standing in Europe. Russia therefore had
no interest in accepting the French offer, which represented an intrusion into
what Russia already considered its sphere of influence. The frequency with
which the First Consul hinted at the dissolution of the Ottoman power only
alarmed Russia and made it more quietly attentive to British overtures.77
Russia’s perception of the French threat in the East naturally extended to
the question of Malta, which was, as we’ve seen, so central to the rupture of
Amiens. In their negotiations with Bonaparte, the British had insisted on the
neutrality of the island, which could be ensured by a third power; to the
British this power was Russia, and in their efforts to convince Alexander to get
involved, Hawkesbury went as far as to offer to pay the costs of the Russian
garrison on the island.78 St. Petersburg was not pleased; Britain chose to over-
look the Russian protectorate over the Maltese knights, complained one senior
Russian diplomat, and so Russia could not provide guarantees for the island’s
independence, as required by Article X of Amiens.79 By the end of 1802, how-
ever, the Russian position had evolved, and this shift played an important role
in the ongoing tensions between Britain and France. In December 1802
Vorontsov suggested to the British envoy that Russia might be willing to
accept temporary British occupation of the island. A month later Prince Adam
Czartoryski, who assumed the functions of the Russian foreign minister,
informed the British embassy that the British should not evacuate Malta, a
message that was reinforced two days later when Czartoryski openly stated
that Emperor Alexander wished Britain to keep Malta.80
The news of the change in Russia’s position reached London on February
8, just as debate was raging over the publication of Sebastiani’s report on
Egypt, and played an important role in solidifying the British position on
Malta. On February 9, just a day after learning about Russia’s shift, the
British foreign minister sent new instructions to Lord Whitworth explaining
that Britain was also entitled to compensation, which should involve British
occupation of Malta.81 Thus while Lord Whitworth envisioned “a system of
observation on the part of Great Britain and Russia . . . to check the ambitious
164 | the napoleonic wars

career of the First Consul,” his superiors at the Foreign Office were more
ambitious and desired a secret defensive alliance with Russia, arguing that
Sebastiani’s report demonstrated that the Ottoman Empire had to be defended
against renewed French aggression.82 Again the Russians demurred, down-
playing France’s threat to the Ottoman Empire and arguing that any efforts
to form a coalition could directly provoke a war in Europe. However, the
Russian government was not convinced that Franco-British tensions would
lead to an actual war. Reports by the Russian ambassador to Paris suggested
that France had every reason to avoid war, which in turn caused senior Russian
officials to believe that somehow the crisis between Paris and London would
be resolved peacefully. Russia did, however, promise to act in concert with
Britain in the event of any threat to the Porte and on the subject of Malta,
promises that probably contributed to the intransigence of the British gov-
ernment in the last stages of its negotiations with France.83
Assured of Russian support (even if it was not formalized), Addington’s
government was willing to exert greater pressure on Bonaparte.84 At the
same time, unaware of the Russian diplomatic overtures to Britain, Bonaparte
sought help from Alexander, hoping that Russian mediation would compel
the British to compromise and leave Malta.85 He had realized belatedly that
his talk of an Eastern partition could strain relations with Russia, and so he
made sure to include in his new state-of-the-republic speech an implicit
rejection of any aggressive action against the Ottomans.86 The French foreign
ministry agreed to act on the long-standing Russian requests for compensa-
tion for the Sardinian monarchy and even submitted a draft convention for
that purpose.87 It was clear that Bonaparte was doing his best to appease
Russia and use its intercession to preserve peace. Emperor Alexander I thus
found himself trapped: if he refused to mediate, war would most certainly
break out between France and Britain, but getting involved would mean
endangering relations with one of the sides. The Russian emperor vacillated
throughout March and April before making a last-minute decision to accept
the French proposal and offer mediation. The Russian offer reached Paris on
May 12, by which time it was “too late” to convince Britain to accept it.88
Still, the Russian intervention put the British “in a very embarrassing situation”
of having to reject it and pursue the course for war.89
The collapse of the Treaty of Amiens is one of the turning points in modern
history. It unleashed twelve years of war and misery and shaped the destinies of
Europe and the world beyond. The question of responsibility for the collapse
of the Peace of Amiens has been the subject of endless discussion, much of it
centered on the extent to which Bonaparte personally contributed to the out-
break of the war. For many historians, responsibility for the resumption of
The Rupture, 1803 | 165

war lies squarely on the shoulders of the French leader, whose very name is
now associated with the conflict. They say that Bonaparte was driven by insa-
tiable imperial lust and megalomania. He was “not in the least interested in
peace” and was “looking for any excuse to renew the war,” charges one of
these historians.90 “All the faults were on the French side,” notes another.91
This concurs with American scholar Paul W. Schroeder’s view that “all the
wars after 1802 were Bonaparte’s wars.”92

There is no doubt that Bonaparte displayed Anglophobia (just as many


Europeans did) and that his continental and colonial policies contributed to
the British decision for war.93 But it seems disingenuous to hold him solely
responsible for the turmoil that unfolded between 1800 and 1815. As in the
case with any debate about the causes of war, evidence is often made to fit
one’s point of view. The fact is that no actor in this global conflagration is
completely innocent. Without getting too deeply into counterfactuals, per-
haps one thought experiment offers some perspective here. Had Bonaparte
died in Italy or Egypt, the first decade of the nineteenth century almost
certainly would have witnessed a period of warfare in Europe nonetheless.
Looking at a general pattern of war causation in Europe in the eighteenth and
nineteenth centuries, we can clearly see that the defense and extension of a
state power—driven by domestic pressures, external affairs, and long-­standing
interests and rivalries—was the most significant systemic factor in a decision
to fight a war. Attempts to assign blame for war to the inner dimensions of
Bonaparte’s character seem to miss a key aspect: namely, his acute geopoliti-
cal mindset, which understood France’s position within the wider interna-
tional system. Bonaparte’s policies in 1800–1802, though they did contribute
to war, were not radically new. They originated in the objectives formulated
by the Bourbon monarchy earlier in the century and represented a direct
and natural progression of the Revolutionary Wars.94 The revolutionary con-
flict, now a decade old, resulted, in the words of one German historian, in
“Germany’s helplessness, Prussia’s resignation, Russia’s retirement, Austria’s
defeat and England’s exhaustion.”95 By contrast, France had achieved its
grand goal of hegemony in western Europe and secured a cordon sanitaire of
Switzerland, northern Italy, and the Low Countries, where Bonaparte was
now seeking to consolidate French rule. Moreover, Bonaparte believed that
France was losing its struggle with Britain for the domination of global
trade, industry, and colonies. During the wars of the eighteenth century
Britain had used its superior naval power to defend and enlarge its economic
dominion, which even the loss of its American colonies did not hamper. By
1800 France was clearly losing. Between 1750 and 1800 its share of total
166 | the napoleonic wars

European manufacturing fell from 17.2 percent to 14.9 percent, while


Britain’s rose from 8.2 percent to 15.3 percent; furthermore, during the same
period British industrialization (on a per capita basis) far outpaced that of
France, its overall trade volume tripled, and its merchant marine doubled in
size.96 Given all this, it is hard to envision any French leadership that could
have pursued a docile foreign policy, as is sometimes suggested, and one that
would not have been eager to exploit circumstances to reclaim French influ-
ence on the continent. Bonaparte’s policies in the period 1800–1803 fol-
lowed a geopolitical rationale that was rooted in French fears for their position
in the global economic system against their traditional rival. Britain’s rapid
industrialization, growing share of international trade, closed colonial sys-
tem, and superior naval power meant that France faced the prospect of being
shut off from markets and raw materials and unable to maintain its position
in the wider international system. The French elite shared such concerns, which
meant, as historian Steven Englund correctly pointed out, that Bonaparte’s
expansionist policies enjoyed considerable support at home, and “the evi-
dence suggests wide popular and elite pride in . . . French aggrandizement.”97
The need to challenge and confront Britain had been recognized by French
leaders before Bonaparte came to power. Bonaparte’s predecessors in the
revolutionary governments pursued policies that were no less belligerent,
because they realized that after the defeat of the First Coalition France was in
a unique position to realize hitherto undreamed-of opportunities; such senti-
ments only strengthened after the overthrow of the Second Coalition. France’s
economy had come to depend on resources extracted from neighboring states,
and any French government would have found it difficult to compromise its
standing in the Low Countries, the Rhineland, and Italy. The army had tasted
glory and welcomed the opportunities for exploitation afforded by conquered
or occupied territories. In January 1802 George Jackson, the brother of the
British envoy involved in the Amiens negotiations, noted in his diary that
the French officers “have become dissatisfied with Bonaparte on account of the
‘premature peace’ [and] have sought to alienate the affections of his guards;
and many well-informed persons think the army is not be relied upon.”98
Those who put the burden of blame on Bonaparte make the error of
assuming that France’s interests were unnatural and worthy of condemnation
while those of Britain or its continental allies were natural and commend-
able.99 But as French historian Albert Sorel pointed out more than a century
ago, virtually every crime in international relations with which Bonaparte
has been charged could be found in the repertoire of the ancien régime states
that all too often practiced predatory behavior toward their neighbors. In the
absence of an international system regulating the behavior of states, such as
The Rupture, 1803 | 167

exists today, why should France of the early 1800s be considered more
“rogue,” as one modern historian put it, than Russia of the 1790s or Prussia
of the 1740s?100 Were Russia and Austria more justified in their partitioning
of Poland than France in annexing the Rhineland and Piedmont? Were
Bonaparte’s apparent ambitions for colonial expansion inherently so different
from British aspirations?
No European power was in a position to condemn France for changing the
official status of other areas of Europe. British, Austrian, and Russian accusa-
tions that France disregarded the will of neighboring peoples should be
considered within the context of, for example, the British incorporation of
Ireland into the United Kingdom, Austrian policies in the Balkan border-
lands, and Russian actions in Poland and Georgia, none of which represented
an exercise in free will by the affected populations. Was Britain more justi-
fied in bombing Copenhagen in 1801 to defend its interests in the Baltic
than France was in sending troops into Switzerland in 1802? Condemning
French actions in Switzerland, Russian chancellor Vorontsov claimed that
Bonaparte was ignoring that “every free nation has the right to choose a form
of government that best suits its circumstances, roots and traditions of its
people.” Yet when the French reminded him of what the Russians had done
in Poland just six years prior, Vorontsov could only respond that it was
already “a thing of the past” and it was “pointless to bring it up.”101 Pursuing
a policy of aggrandizement, France was not the only one willing to risk a
resumption of conflict. European capitals had plenty of hawks who desired to
exploit political and military turmoil to their advantage. Russia clearly nur-
tured grand imperial ambitions, and we have already discussed Rostopchin’s
memorandum regarding political realignment of Europe. No less ambitious
was the memorandum prepared by Henry Dundas, Britain’s secretary of war,
advocating colonial conquests in the Americas.102 Austria had not lost hope
of reclaiming its lost territories and of forcing France back within its ancient
limits. But France was unique among these countries in enjoying a steady
record of military and political successes, and so it could attempt to pursue
policies to which others could only aspire.
Despite claims that Bonaparte had violated the terms of the Treaty of
Amiens, he had not, at least from a legal point of view.103 French activities in
Piedmont and Switzerland were not in breach of the Anglo-French peace
treaty, nor were they as threatening as the British made them out to be. None
of these regions posed a direct threat to British interests or were in the tradi-
tional British sphere of influence; both had already been under French influ-
ence at the end of the Revolutionary Wars, and Bonaparte’s actions were aimed
at consolidating power that France had already wielded there.104 It must be
168 | the napoleonic wars

noted that Britain showed little interest in Piedmont-Sardinia until 1803, as


evidenced by the British rejection of the Sardinian request to have its repre-
sentative present at peace negotiations, which allowed French ambitions to
influence the kingdom’s fate.105 The British were on firmer ground in their
criticisms of Bonaparte’s violations of the Treaty of Lunéville by failing to
fully evacuate his troops from the Batavian and Italian Republics.106
None of this is to say that Bonaparte bears no responsibility for the twelve
years of bloodshed that started in March 1803. The First Consul’s actions and
words indicated a drive for power, not the qualities of prudence and concili-
ation that might have maintained continental peace. He was not a “builder
in love with peace,” as some of his defenders continue to claim.107 And he did
consider war to be “merely the continuation of policy by other means,” to use
Prussian military theorist Carl von Clausewitz’s famed formulation—one
that was drawn from observations of the Napoleonic era.108 Bonaparte wanted
to take advantage of every opportunity that his opponents provided him. He
prodded and nudged his neighbors as much as he could to secure what he
wanted, sowing seeds of resentment that eventually bore the fruits of war.
Considered individually, France’s actions were provocative but not casus belli.
Still, as a whole they created a new international reality wherein France was
a hegemonic power that aggressively pursued imperial designs in Europe and
overseas. This Britain could not tolerate, and it felt compelled to resist.109
This slide toward war was facilitated by Bonaparte’s misconceptions about
Britain’s economic difficulties and what he perceived as its eagerness to make
peace even on disadvantageous terms. He believed that Britain was war-weary
and would not be willing to risk a new war, especially when lacking allies on the
continent. He was wrong and the war came too soon for Bonaparte, who in 1803
rattled his saber but did not actually intend to use it.110 He knew well that his
domestic consolidation was not finished, that the country was still economically
weakened, and that his forces, especially his navy, had not reached the point
where they could seriously challenge Britain’s. He had every reason to wish for
amity. In peacetime, commerce and industry could be revived, colonies devel-
oped, and the military strengthened. That Bonaparte was not yet ready to fight
is clear from the last-ditch efforts, noted earlier, to find a compromise with
Britain on the issue of Malta, on which he had shown willingness to accept
terms that would have constrained his policies in the eastern Mediterranean.
Historians tend to discount these efforts by questioning their sincerity,
but they deserve to be given proper acknowledgment and consideration. One
may argue that in 1803 Bonaparte should have done more to maintain peace,
but this argument cuts both ways. British newspapers, journals, and gazettes
continued to explicitly express hope for the demise of the French leader, who
The Rupture, 1803 | 169

was portrayed as a yellow-skinned pygmy or a monstrous hybrid of, accord-


ing to a period tabloid, “ ‘an unclassifiable being, half-African, half-European,
a Mediterranean mulatto.”111 His family members were not spared either, with
his wife, Josephine, portrayed as a harlot and his stepdaughter, Hortense,
accused of incestuous relations. A statesman of Bonaparte’s magnitude might
have been better advised to ignore such attacks but, always acutely sensitive
to his portrayal in the press, the First Consul was furious at such characteriza-
tions; in the words of State Councilor Joseph Pelet de la Lozère, they drove
him “into a fury that resembled the lion in the fable stung to madness by a
swarm of gnats.”112 When the French envoy presented a formal list of six key
grievances to the British government in August 1802, the issue of newspaper
articles hostile to France was at the top. To prevent the spread of British news-
papers in France, Bonaparte violated the agreement made between the French
and British post offices, instructing his officials to disregard certain clauses
that related to customs duties and the conveyance of passengers.113 In the sum-
mer of 1802 he personally wrote at least five articles for the French official
newspaper Le Moniteur complaining about the British failure to restrain the
press. “Does freedom of the press reach so far,” read his August 8 article, “as to
permit a newspaper to say of a friendly nation, newly reconciled with England,
things one would not dare to say of a government with whom one was at war?”
The continued publication of diatribes in Britain only reinforced Bonaparte’s
belief that the British government was guilty of bad faith; he could never
quite accept that it was as uninvolved or powerless as it claimed. Members of
the British government had stakes in many newspapers, and British explana-
tions that the government could not interfere with traditional English free-
doms rang hollow to the French. The repressive Treasonable Practices Act and
the Seditious Meetings Acts of 1795, which had silenced all pro-French
newspaper opinion, had shown that the British government could, if need be,
restrict English press liberties. Naturally, any such action on behalf of Bonaparte
would have incited a political firestorm that could have consumed the
Addington government. Hence, despite the French complaining in the bit-
terest terms, the British government did nothing to curtail activities of the
most vociferous émigrés, and the libelous activity of the British press contin-
ued to exercise its destructive influence upon Anglo-French relations.114
The issue of the press was directly related to another thorny issue in the
relationship between France and Britain. Ever since the Revolution started in
1789, Britain had served as a refuge for hundreds of émigrés who actively
conspired against France. The British funded many royalist agents who
infiltrated back into France and incited disturbances or targeted government
members. In 1798–1799 British agents supported a French royalist plot to
170 | the napoleonic wars

assassinate the entire membership of the Directory.115 Bonaparte himself was


the target of several assassination attempts, and in the most infamous of
them, he and Josephine narrowly escaped death after the royalist agents
detonated a large bomb—la machine infernale—on the rue Saint-Nicaise on
Christmas Eve of 1800. The royalist circles continued to operate in Britain
after the signing of the Treaty of Amiens, and Bonaparte was justified in his
objections to their continued presence on British soil. It would have cost
the British government little to enforce provisions of the 1793 Alien Act to
deport some seditious writers in the French émigré community who were
particularly vociferous in their denunciations of Bonaparte.116
Britain did not go to war in 1803 out of “an irrational anxiety” about
Bonaparte’s motives and intentions, as some have suggested.117 In choosing
this course, it acted out of a clear sense that while at peace it had no ready
means to contain France in continental or colonial affairs, the reality that
Bonaparte so successfully exploited. Having occupied Holland, Piedmont,
and Naples and forced the Spaniards to send troops into Portugal, France had
effectively closed western and southern Europe to British commerce, a situa-
tion that was ratified at Amiens. The British government’s conduct during
the peace negotiations—where, in the words of Russian chancellor Vorontsov,
it “first gave everything away in the preliminaries, and then again in the
Treaty of Amiens”—placed Britain in an unenviable position because the
peace treaty made it rather easy for France to exploit its advantages and hard
for Britain to react without violating the treaty.118
That Britain was not sincere in its efforts to uphold peace was manifest
during the three months after the rupture of the Treaty of Amiens. In May-July
1803 France repeatedly made concessions only to see them rejected. It is
often forgotten that Bonaparte offered (and Russia agreed to) conditions that
went far beyond what he had been willing to concede at the start of the year. He
agreed to transfer to Britain the island of Lampedusa, which could have ensured
a permanent British naval and commercial presence in the Mediterranean.
He also pledged to evacuate Holland, Switzerland, and Naples if the British
did the same for Malta; even then, Bonaparte, who preferred to see the island
in the hands of Russia, was willing to close his eyes if Russia later decided to
transfer it to Britain. France promised to compensate Sardinia for its losses in
northern Italy, while the remaining international issues would have been
resolved at a specially summoned congress. This was truly a startling offer,
and it should have been seriously considered. If Bonaparte was insincere in
his intentions, as the British government claimed (and as many historians
continue to assert), it would have been very easy to unmask him. Considering
the French proposals would not have required much effort or time and would
The Rupture, 1803 | 171

not have jeopardized British security, given that France was not in a position
to threaten it directly—as Britain well knew. If anything, considering those
proposals would have strengthened the British position: Bonaparte would
have been forced to either follow through with his pledge or renege and
thereby compromise himself.
But the British foreign ministry demanded more general and extended bases
upon which a possible peace agreement might be concluded. This dismayed
the French government, which earlier had offered to discuss provisions of
Whitworth’s “ultimatum” of April but was now concerned that Britain’s refer-
ence to a broader base for peace settlement might involve greater concessions.
Since France had already offered to discuss the affairs of Switzerland, Holland,
and Italy, the French foreign ministry questioned the extent of the new British
demands, which seemingly extended to French control of the Rhineland and
Belgium. If so, this would have amounted to conceding almost all French terri-
torial acquisitions since 1793 and accepting restrictions on its foreign policy,
something that no French government would have been willing to accept.
In August Bonaparte finally gave up on his mediation efforts. “A media-
tion must have bases,” noted Talleyrand in one of his letters. “The English do
not wish any. . . . We realize very well that in this [mediation offer] the inter-
ests of England are well protected, and they have gone even further in this
regard than Lord Whitworth in his ultimatum, but we would have to undergo
terrible defeats before we would accept such a dishonor.”119 Bonaparte’s cor-
respondence in the summer of 1803 reveals his growing concern for his pres-
tige and how he would be perceived by the public if he backed down in this
showdown with Britain. Both nations, he argued, had critical political and
commercial interests. Unless Britain was willing to voluntarily limit its
power, France had no choice but to confront it. The British refusal to evacuate
Malta, Bonaparte argued, “made clear its intention to add the Mediterranean
to its almost exclusive commercial sphere of the Indies, America, and the
Baltic.” Of all the calamities that could arise for France, “there is none com-
parable to this [British economic hegemony].” War was therefore necessary.
France could not bow down before a nation that “makes a game of all that is
sacred on the earth, and that has, especially in the last twenty years, assumed
an ascendancy and temerity which threaten the ex­ist­ence of all nations in
their industry and commerce, the very lifeblood of states.” Consenting to
British demands would have meant opening a pathway to a peace that would
have negated everything France had striven for in the previous ten years. As
Lord Grenville observed in March 1803, “Our government [has] so contrived
things, that it is hardly possible for Bonaparte himself to recede, had he the
wish to do so. The only real support of his power in France is the influence he
172 | the napoleonic wars

possesses with a part of the army and the opinion in the country that he is
powerful and respected in Europe. If he now suffers himself to be intimidated
by our preparations, he must lose all consideration at home and abroad.”120
War had its own clear rationale. It could provide Britain with the means
to restrain France by exploiting its superiority on the seas and rallying anti-
French sentiment on the continent to revise the existing international order.
Some British statesmen, who had just recently condemned France for depriv-
ing “brave and generous people” of their “ancient laws and government,”
now spoke of inciting “three great continental powers to act, either by large
subsidies or by large offer—the Low Countries, and even Holland, to Prussia,
all Lombardy to Austria, to Russia whatever she might ask.”121 The extensive
shipbuilding program that Bonaparte initiated in 1802–1803 could have in
a few years made its navy large enough to challenge Britain’s mastery of the
seas, which was an additional incentive for Britain to deal with France while
the latter’s naval capabilities were still underdeveloped. War could be also ben-
eficial to British merchant shipping, since any trade with those countries that
were not altogether dependent on France would almost exclusively be carried
on by Britain. The case for war was facilitated by British memories of France’s
economic woes from the previous decades, not to mention the social and polit-
ical turmoil of the revolutionary era; the new French government itself could
still prove to be as short-lived as many of its predecessors had been.122
Furthermore, the Addington government faced acute domestic pressure. If in
October 1801 “the existence of the government seemed to be firmly linked
with the preservation of peace,” two years later “a vociferous demand in the
country” was in favor of a more assertive policy toward the resurgent France.123
It seems unwise entirely to dismiss, as some have, the Anglo-French
rivalry over the balance of power in Europe as having nothing to do with
provoking this war.124 It did, in many ways. The conflict between France and
Britain was one between two imperialisms, each of which sought to safeguard
its national interests by manipulating international circumstances to its
advantage. This applied not only to Europe, where France held an upper
hand, but also on the seas and beyond, where Britain jealously guarded its
positions, particularly in India. Another imperial power, Russia, could have
played a decisive role in the Franco-British relations, but the inexperience of
its young ruler, his ambiguous aspirations, and the country’s internal inter-
ests combined to make Russia more content to concentrate on domestic chal-
lenges than to try to shape the course of events in Europe.125 This, in turn,
played a major role in the final breakdown of peace in Europe.
chapter 9
The Elephant Against the Whale
France and Britain at War, 1803–1804

T he pan-european conflict that eventually became known as the


Napoleonic Wars started as a conflict between France and Britain, the
familiar spectacle of the great land power at grips with the great sea power—
the elephant versus the whale. With the largest and most powerful navy in
Europe, there was little doubt that Britain was supreme at sea. France, mean-
while, had an imposing land army led by an industrious leader. Neither side
was positioned to enter the other’s turf: the French navy was still struggling to
recover from the deplorable condition it had found itself in during the revolu-
tionary era, while the British army could hardly hope to overcome the French
veterans who had gone through the forging kilns of the coalitional wars. How
one of the two powers was to prevail over the other remained to be seen.
During the short peacetime afforded by Amiens, French businesses invested
heavily in shipbuilding to take advantage of the opening of overseas trade.
After the collapse of Amiens they suffered heavy losses, as British squadrons
began to seize French merchantmen wherever they came across them. This in
turn threatened French banks that had provided loans to these businesses or
were directly involved with maritime trade. In May-June 1803, as banks lost
millions of francs’ worth of investments, stocks plummeted on the French
exchange. To stabilize the financial sector Bonaparte turned to the Bank of
France, which had been officially formed in February 1800 but was not yet
fully capitalized. He quickly raised the bank’s capital to 45 million francs,
gave it the exclusive rights to issue paper money, and tasked it with supervising
the country’s finances.
The Bank of France was successful in mitigating the impact on the French
economy in the short term but could do nothing about the French overseas
174 | the napoleonic wars

trade, which came to a virtual standstill as the British attacked French colo-
nial holdings. For Britain, the war was first and foremost a naval conflict; the
two primary goals were to safeguard the island nation against an invasion and
to protect the imperial and maritime trading networks, which offered the
prospect of acquiring wealth and empire.1 One British newspaper observed
that “by a judicious exertion of our naval force, seconded perhaps by some
occasional expeditions, the advantage of the war may be on our side, and the
enemy may feel himself so straitened and distressed, as to wish for peace.”2 It
was no surprise, then, that as soon as the war commenced, the Royal Navy
targeted French overseas possessions. A British squadron blockaded Saint-
Domingue, preventing badly needed reinforcements and supplies from reach-
ing the besieged French garrison, portions of which began surrendering to
the British in order to escape retribution by the black forces. In the Windward
Islands (in the Lesser Antilles), Lieutenant General William Grinfield and
Commodore Samuel Hood attacked the island of St. Lucia in late June 1803,
forcing the outnumbered French garrison to surrender. The British followed
up this success with an attack on Tobago, which fell on June 30. Next were
the Dutch colonies in South America, some of which were already in turmoil.
In April 1803 the garrison in Berbice (modern-day Guyana) mutinied after
the start of the Franco-British war deprived it of supplies from the Batavian
Republic; the revolt was suppressed with the help of troops from other Dutch
colonies, but it further undermined the already weakened defenses of those
colonies. In September 1803 a British expeditionary force appeared off the
coastline of the Dutch colonies of Berbice, Demerara, and Essequibo, leaving
the Dutch colonial authorities no choice but to submit; Suriname resisted the
initial British invasion but fell to a stronger British force led by Hood and
Major General Charles Green on May 4, 1804. Thus by late spring of 1804
the Dutch colonies in South America were already in the hands of the British.3
The Franco-British hostilities also extended to the coastline of Senegal,
where France had claimed possession of St. Louis (at the mouth of the Senegal
River) and Gorée Island (adjacent to Cape Martin) since the seventeenth cen-
tury. Principally slave trading posts, these colonies had been target of British
attacks during the Seven Years’ War and the War of the American Revolution,
though France recovered them on both occasions.4 During the Revolutionary
Wars, French privateers used both locations as staging grounds for their raids
on British shipping, compelling the British government to take measures to
check their activities. In 1800 a British squadron under Sir Charles Hamilton
had seized Gorée, but the island was supposed to be restored to France upon
the conclusion of Amiens. The British never did so, regarding French control
of Gorée as “a thorn in our side” as far as their interests in West Africa were
The Elephant Against the Whale | 175

concerned. Henri Dundas’s order to the British governor of Gorée to evacuate


the island was soon countermanded by his successor. For more than a year the
French patiently awaited the British withdrawal, which kept being deferred
due to an alleged lack of transports. By the summer of 1803 the two nations
were of course already at war, and evacuation was out of the question. With
the Royal Navy in firm control of European waters, British control of Gorée
would have seemed ensured were it not for a network of French privateers
that stretched between West Africa and French Guiana in South America.
These privateers harassed British interests on both sides of the ocean, and in
January 1804 they helped a small French force launch a transatlantic attack
on Gorée. The French arrival surprised the British garrison, which had to
capitulate after a brief but valiant defense. The French success proved to be
short-lived. In March of the same year the British recaptured the island and
commenced an occupation that would last the next thirteen years.5
To challenge the British on the seas, Bonaparte focused his energies on
pursuing three main goals: denying Britain any commerce in Europe, con-
solidating control over a larger portion of Europe, and preparing for an inva-
sion of the British islands. For the first, the French government confiscated
British goods and made their importation illegal in any regions controlled by
the French; furthermore, Bonaparte ordered the incarceration of any British
subjects found within French-controlled territories. Although he justified his
actions in light of the British seizures of French merchantmen, their scale
and vindictiveness were considered outrageous and only served to portray
Bonaparte as the demonic tyrant he was painted to be in England. To compete
with the British on the seas and, when the time came, to invade the British Isles,
Bonaparte also undertook large-scale naval construction, urging his Ministère
de la Marine to build as many vessels as possible and noting that “money is
no object.”6 Bonaparte expected that by 1804 he would have more than 1,600
flat-bottomed boats—critical to bringing troops to the shore—supported by
another 1,000 fishing vessels that could be converted into transports.7

While its navy was expanding, France moved quickly to consolidate control
of as much of western Europe as possible. The Dutch were pressured to accept
a treaty of alliance and provide troops and warships, as well as material sup-
port for the French armies.8 By fall, the Swiss Confederation had also pledged to
send more than 15,000 soldiers, with another 10,000 if France was attacked.9
French troops, meanwhile, reoccupied Neapolitan ports, including Taranto,
Otranto, and Brindisi, all located on the heel of the Italian “boot.”10 In north-
ern Europe, Bonaparte sought to embarrass his British foe by occupying the
state of Hanover, which had been in a personal union with Britain since the
176 | the napoleonic wars

death of Queen Anne in 1714, when the Hanoverian rulers ascended the
British throne while maintaining control over their ancestral city-state.11
The arrangement was quite advantageous to Britain, since Hanover served as
a commercial emporium and could be turned into a base of operations in
Europe. Seizing Hanover would be of considerable advantage to France, and
in late March 1803 Bonaparte warned Prussia that in the event of hostilities
with Britain, French troops would enter Hanover to secure the North Sea
coast and cut off British commerce from the continent; the city-state could
also serve as a useful bargaining chip in future negotiations with Britain.
A French presence in Hanover, however, would undoubtedly provoke
resistance from Prussia, which could not accept French expansion so close to
its borders. When a French envoy delivered Bonaparte’s letter warning of the
impending occupation of Hanover, the court of Berlin was seized with fright
and consternation.12 Prussia had no interest in participating in the Franco-
British war and wanted to maintain the neutrality that had served it well
over the previous seven years.13 Furthermore, French intervention in Hanover
would have effectively killed the Prussian dream of north German hegemony
and affected its regional commerce. Prussian foreign minister Christian August
Heinrich Graf von Haugwitz argued that allowing the French seizure of
Hanover would be the beginning of the end for Prussia, whose “sole advan-
tage would consist in seeing itself the last victim” of Bonaparte’s “boundless
ambition.” “When England exercises supremacy [despotisme] on the seas, it is
of great inconvenience. But [France’s] supremacy on the continent is infi-
nitely more dangerous.”14 Berlin initially offered mediation between Britain
and France, coupled with a threat that if the offer was declined, Prussia would
occupy Hanover as compensation for the damage likely to be suffered by
Prussian commerce in case of Franco-British hostilities.15
The Prussian threat was hollow, however. Unlike 1801, when it was able
to occupy Hanover with French support, Berlin now faced a very different set
of circumstances. Most crucially, it lacked the support of great powers. Britain
refused Prussian mediation and, in fact, showed a certain indifference to the
fate of Hanover, which some British officials considered immaterial, consid-
ering what was at stake in any Franco-British conflict.16 The French response
was also unequivocal: either Prussia supported the French occupation of
Hanover or France would have to reconsider its relations with that state. “Our
inclinations are for Prussia,” observed one senior French diplomat. “May she
not force us to court Austria.”17
As with other issues, Russia could have made a difference through more
vigorous intervention, especially since Prussia, Hanover, and Britain had all
solicited Russian guarantees for the neutrality of northern Germany. A more
The Elephant Against the Whale | 177

assertive Russian stance might have allowed Prussia (or Hanover) to resist
French designs, even in the face of the Army of Hanover that Bonaparte was
already mustering. But yet again the Russian government chose to remain on
the sidelines. Although Emperor Alexander I harbored personal goodwill
toward Frederick William III, his senior advisors expressed annoyance over
recent Prussian policies, including the decision to offer mediation without
first consulting with Russia. They remembered well how keen Prussia had
been to keep Hanover in 1801 and how willingly it had supported the French
reorganization of southern Germany.18 Although in June 1802 Alexander and
Frederick William had met to mend fences at Memel (present-day Klaipeda),
Russian officials still had doubts about Prussian motives and suspected a
Franco-Prussian collusion to recast the balance of power in northern Germany,
which would have been contrary to Russian aspirations to maintain regional
equilibrium.19 Thus, with Austria rejoicing, Britain indifferent, and Russia
disapproving, Prussia found itself unsupported and unable to act on its ear-
lier threat to occupy Hanover. Frederick William could not afford to place
himself in a predicament similar to the one in 1801 when he had been obliged
to recall his troops under threat from Britain and Russia. Despite the calls of
his foreign minister, Haugwitz, and senior military figures for a unilateral
action, Frederick William sided with the voices of moderation, who argued
that Prussia was neither financially or militarily in a position to resist the
French. With no help coming from other powers, Prussia had a stark choice:
either allow the French to invade Hanover or fight them alone.20 It chose the
former. At the end of May 1803 General Édouard Mortier led 25,000 French
troops from Holland into the electorate, which capitulated without a fight
and signed the Convention of Suhlingen on June 3.21
The French occupation of Hanover was a key marker in European affairs
during the Franco-British war. The electorate found itself under a decade of
submission to foreign rule and required to provide vast indemnities to France;
in 1803 alone, the French extracted more than 17 million francs before forc-
ing Hanover to secure millions more in loans from neighboring states.22 More
important, the Hanoverian crisis illustrates well the attitudes prevalent among
the European powers—mutual suspicion, lack of cooperation, preoccupation
with regional interests—which would allow France to dominate the conti-
nent for the next decade. Even though northern Germany was of concern to
all the European powers, they proved unable to cooperate to prevent France
from invading Hanover and gaining a position of predominance in northern
Germany. Russia pursued an equivocal policy throughout the spring of 1803,
and its failure to stand by Prussia had made the French occupation of Hanover
possible in the first place. Interestingly, Russia belatedly realized what was
178 | the napoleonic wars

about to transpire and drastically changed its position. Just as the French force
was crossing the Hanoverian border, Russia invited Prussia to launch a joint
intervention in Hanover to protect the neutrality of northern Germany.23 But
this change of alignment occurred too late to be of any consequence, especially
after Bonaparte rushed to soothe the ruffled feelings of the Hohenzollern court.24
The outcome of the Hanoverian affair affected Prussia more profoundly
than the others. Frederick William had failed to deal with the first great
crisis of his reign and proved that he was, to borrow an apt expression from
William Shakespeare, “a lamb that carried anger as a flint bears fire.”25
Surrounded by a group of his favorite councilors—meaning those who followed
his inclinations—the king did everything he could to avoid giving Bonaparte
cause for a confrontation and ignored suggestions that he should mobilize
troops. Instead he insisted on peace at any price even as the French occupation
of Hanover directly challenged Prussian hegemony in northern Germany and
resulted in the British blockade of the Elbe, Weser, and Ems Rivers, all crucial
outlets for Prussia’s commerce. Furthermore, this crisis forced Prussia to rethink
its notion of “neutrality zone”: instead of applying it to the northern German
states, the Prussians embraced a more restrictive definition that involved only
their own territory. Under this new policy, Prussia would not take up arms
unless its own territory was attacked by the French.26 All of this meant that
Prussia’s standing in Europe had been undermined. Its failure to defend a
neighboring region from aggression naturally raised questions about its ability
to protect itself. Throughout the fall of 1803 Bonaparte continued to extract
additional concessions from Prussia, pushing hard for a Franco-Prussian alli-
ance while refusing to accept any of the Prussian conditions.27 Bonaparte’s
intransigence ultimately resulted in the collapse of these negotiations. This was
a clear failure on his part. Although France had extended its influence to north-
ern Germany, it had done so by sowing the seeds of deep discord with a state
that sought to remain neutral above all else and forcing it to seek participation
in an anti-French coalition. It was only due to its monarch’s customary indeci-
sion that Prussia did not join the Third Coalition in 1805.

“What a lesson we here receive regarding the slightest respect we enjoy abroad,”
lamented Johann Ludwig Cobenzl, vice chancellor of the Austrian Empire.
“Respect that alone constitutes the security of states.”28 After the Peace of
Lunéville, Austria indeed got no respect from continental powers, and its polit-
ical and military influence waned. The Habsburg court was isolated diplomat-
ically and unable to stem the tide of French expansion or the growing influence
of Prussia and Russia. The seemingly close relations between the Russian and
Prussian sovereigns served as a source of significant concern for Vienna, which
The Elephant Against the Whale | 179

distrusted both. Of particular concern for Austria was Russia’s interference in


Italy—either from the neighboring Ionian Islands, where the Septinsular
Republic existed as a Russian protectorate, or more directly through the
Kingdom of Piedmont, which had come to rely heavily on Russian support.
Piedmont had long posed obstacles to the Habsburg interests in Italy,
successfully exploiting the Franco-Austrian rivalry to maintain its position as
the strongest of the Italian states. The kingdom fared poorly during the
Revolutionary Wars, having been defeated and occupied by the French in 1796.
Three years later, however, as we saw, the French were driven out by the joint
forces of Russia and Austria. Yet the two powers soon clashed over the issue of
Piedmont, whose influence in the Italian peninsula the Habsburgs had tried to
limit. In 1799–1800 Austria opposed Russia’s plans for restoring King Victor
Amadeus III to his throne, one of the fundamental issues in the Russo-Austrian
rupture. Three years later, even with its survival put into question by the nascent
French empire, Austria was still aspiring to weaken Russia-supported Piedmont.
The Austrians’ reluctance to support British coalition-building efforts after
Amiens should be considered in light of their concern that such a coalition
would ultimately benefit Russia and its dependencies, including Piedmont. The
news of Anglo-Russian negotiations seemingly confirmed the worst of the
Austrians’ fears, because it envisioned restoration of the Piedmontese kingdom—
and, if circumstances allowed, expansion.29 Thus the Habsburgs faced a major
dilemma: needing to solicit Russian support to contain France while seeking
to deny Russia an opportunity to extend its influence in Germany and Italy.
Spain was France’s partner—a crucial partnership, but one skewed in
France’s favor. Paris viewed the Spanish possessions as an opportunity to rees-
tablish its own overseas empire. With a vast empire encompassing most of
Central and South America, Spain had immense resources that Paris wanted
to utilize in its war against Britain. The Second Treaty of San Ildefonso
(1800) had stipulated a defensive arrangement between France and Spain
and obliged the latter to furnish France with six ships-of-the-line, 74 guns
each.30 In 1800 seventeen Spanish warships arrived at Brest for a coordinated
effort against Britain, and although the plan ultimately failed, the Treaty of
Ildefonso seemingly reinvigorated the Franco-Spanish cooperation.
Spain’s alliance with France, however, became increasingly a one-sided
arrangement, since France rarely treated its ally equitably or fairly. Bonaparte
did not conceal his disdain for Spain’s performance in the War of Oranges.
Equally revealing was Bonaparte’s decision to sell Louisiana to the United
States in 1801. The sale violated the terms of the Franco-Spanish agreement
specifying that the retrocession of Louisiana would take place six months after
territorial exchanges in Italy; yet barely two months after Ildefonso Bonaparte
180 | the napoleonic wars

sold the territory. The sale had profound implications for Spain, which had
long strived to contain American expansionist designs in North America but
now faced a newly empowered country eager to consolidate its positions in the
Gulf of Mexico. Soon after the Louisiana Purchase, the United States insisted on
an adjustment of the newly acquired territory’s eastern boundaries, which in prac-
tice meant taking over West Florida, the strip of Spanish land between the
Mississippi and Perdido Rivers. In 1804 senior American officials, including
Robert Livingston, the US ambassador to France, urged President Jefferson to
seize West Florida by force and present the European powers, which were already
preoccupied with the preliminaries to the War of the Third Coalition, with a fait
accompli. The American claims were thwarted (temporarily) only when France
and Spain signed an agreement on January 4, 1805, by which Bonaparte pledged
to guarantee the return of any colonies that Spain lost during the war. The French
diplomatic maneuvering exasperated the United States, with one American dip-
lomat complaining that to Napoleon Spain and the United States were “a couple
of oranges . . . which [he] will squeeze at pleasure, and against each other, and that
which yields the most will be the best served or rather the best injured.”31
For Bonaparte, the War of Oranges between Spain and Portugal demon-
strated “Spain’s resolve to act in their own interests” in spite of continued
threats emanating from Paris.32 Indeed, in 1801–1802 Madrid attempted to
assert its independence from Bonaparte and French foreign policy.33 As upset-
ting as it was for Bonaparte to deal with his independent-minded ally, he still
could not forsake it. As long as Spain remained well disposed toward France,
the combined French and Spanish navies could pose an acute threat to Britain.
Spanish colonial holdings offered a huge area for France’s future territorial
aggrandizement, while the vast quantities of bullion that Spain mined in
Mexico and Bolivia could be used to subsidize the French war effort.
Spain had welcomed the Peace of Amiens because it provided an opportu-
nity to revive its commerce and to reform an economy that had stagnated as
the result of the British blockade. The value of Spanish exports skyrocketed,
from just 80 million reales de vellón in 1801 to almost 400 million in 1802,
while imports jumped by an even higher margin.34 Just as Spain was harvest-
ing the profits of the peace and seeing its economy steadily improve, the war
broke out. And just as it had in 1793, Madrid faced a strategic dilemma—
either turn away from France by declaring neutrality or continue to support
its brash ally.35 Spain’s position was complicated by the fact that it had not
only signed a peace with France in 1795 but then gone on to establish a military
alliance that, in effect, contributed to the establishment of French he­gem­ony
in western Europe. European monarchies found it hard to forgive Spain,
which in 1803 found itself isolated in the international arena.
The Elephant Against the Whale | 181

Striving to maintain a middle ground, Spain went so far as to suggest to


Russia that they form a new League of Armed Neutrality that would shun
the war.36 The Russian response was tepid, supporting the idea in general but
offering no tangible help.37 By now France had asked Spain for support in its
war against Britain, to which Spanish prime minister Godoy demurred, not-
ing that war was in France’s interests, not Spain’s. Bonaparte was increasingly
annoyed by Madrid’s delay in responding to French demands for funds as well
as by its failure to prevent the Royal Navy from attacking French shipping in
the Spanish waters. The news of Spanish militia forces mobilizing near the
French borders and speculation that the British had offered a generous bribe to
Godoy only further complicated matters. Exasperated, Bonaparte instructed
his ambassador, General Pierre Riel de Beurnonville, to exert pressure on the
recalcitrant Spaniards, who faced a stark choice: either declare for France,
demobilize their forces, and provide a generous subsidy of more than 70 mil-
lion francs, or face an army of some 80,000 men forming on the Spanish bor-
der and preparing to invade.38 Spain had until September 7, 1803, to decide.39
The French ultimatum—or “the insolent French note,” as King Charles IV
described it—was a bluff. Bonaparte knew well that he could not afford a conflict
with Spain just as he was gearing up for a war with Britain; the nation’s finances
were already stretched. The army that Bonaparte used to menace Spain existed
only on paper, and the camp at Bayonne included fewer than 6,000 men.40
Bonaparte desperately needed Spain and all that it could offer. He therefore had
to force Spain’s hand. For this purpose he both threatened and cajoled the
Bourbon court, demanding Godoy’s dismissal and warning Charles IV that his
prime minister was leading the kingdom into the embrace of the British, which
could produce dire consequences.41 Beurnonville, a career officer, delivered these
warning with the appropriate directness and brusqueness. His “conduct at
Madrid lacked any finesse and was pure power politics,” notes his biographer.42
The Spanish court refused to buckle. The September 7 deadline came and
went without Madrid addressing any of the French demands. This was partly
because of the British ambassador, Sir John Hookham Frere, who worked dili-
gently to buttress Spain’s position with regard to France.43 Bonaparte was at an
impasse: with each passing day the potency of the French ultimatum seemed to
be losing its strength, yet the French army at Bayonne was still woefully inad-
equate to enforce the threat behind it. The French government therefore
adjusted its tactics. In September it asked Charles IV for a sign of friendship by
allowing passage of French troops through Spain to reinforce Admiral Jacques
Bedout’s squadron, which had sought refuge from the Royal Navy at Ferrol, in
northwestern Spain. The Bourbon monarchy faced a difficult choice. If Spain
denied passage, that could be considered a casus belli by France; granting it,
182 | the napoleonic wars

however, would inevitably cause concern in British circles. The latter was
exactly what Bonaparte and his foreign minister, Talleyrand, hoped for, as they
expected that a seemingly minor event such as this would be misconstrued by
Britain and cause serious repercussions in its relations with Spain.
Godoy responded by assuring the British of Spain’s neutrality and by offer-
ing France the opportunity to negotiate a treaty that would preserve Spain’s
neutral status in exchange for significant subsidies. On October 19, 1803,
Spanish ambassador Joseph-Nicolas Chevalier de Azara and French foreign
minister Talleyrand signed the Convention of Neutrality and Subsidy, which
allowed Spain to remain neutral in exchange for an annual subsidy of 72 mil-
lion francs to France for the duration of its war with Britain; the first payment
was backdated to the outbreak of the war in May 1803, which meant Spain
owed five months’ worth of subsidies.44
Spain’s decision to accept these humiliating conditions should be considered
in light of the enormous challenges it was facing. The Basques were, as always,
defiant in the north, while a plague epidemic raged in the east and south of
Spain. The kingdom was heavily in debt, its troubles further compounded by a
severe earthquake that struck at Málaga on January 13, 1804. Negotiations
leading up to the convention demonstrate Bonaparte’s belief that, to paraphrase
Mao Zedong’s famous quote, diplomatic power grows out of the barrel of a gun.
France’s diplomatic overtures were always accompanied by threats to utilize the
country’s military might. Lacking resources or allies to defend itself from either
France or Britain, the court of Madrid faced the prospect of a financial despoil-
ment by the French or the dissipation of its economy by the British. In the end,
Madrid chose the former but could not avoid the latter.
Britain was understandably distraught by the developments in Spain.
Despite Spanish assurances to the contrary, the British government came to
believe that Spain’s subordination to France was now almost complete: its sub-
sidies would certainly bolster the French war effort, while French privateers
could successfully harass British shipping from the safety of Spanish ports.
Remembering the lessons of 1796–1797, when Spain’s entry into the war on the
side of France posed a major threat to Britain’s security, William Pitt, who
returned to the premiership on May 10, 1804, called for a more forceful stance
in relations with Madrid. He ordered the Royal Navy to blockade the Spanish
coastline and target Spanish shipping. On October 5, 1804, the Royal Navy
intercepted a large bullion shipment from the Río de la Plata, destroying one
Spanish warship and capturing the rest, which were carrying some 2 million
pounds’ worth of silver. The seizure caused furious political debate both in
London and in Madrid. On December 14, 1804, Spain declared war on Britain.45
The Elephant Against the Whale | 183

Spain’s entry into the war was of course welcome news for Bonaparte, who was
busy preparing for the invasion of Britain. Success in this endeavor depended
on three major factors: a well-trained and well-equipped invasion force, an ade-
quate system of transports, and a fleet capable of safeguarding the passage and
disembarkation. France already possessed one of the most formidable armies in
Europe, but Britain’s superior fleet meant that the French government could
not simply invade the enemy homeland and end the war in triumph. Any inva-
sion attempt depended on wresting control of the English Channel from the
Royal Navy. With characteristic energy, Bonaparte began working toward that
goal. This was not the first time France had attempted to invade Britain, but
the scale and intensity of the effort were certainly new, as Bonaparte hoped to
utilize experiences and resources from the previous endeavors.46
Starting in the spring of 1803 Bonaparte supervised a massive mobiliza-
tion for the invasion of England, one of the largest state-sponsored projects of
the nineteenth century. He sought to create a flotilla of more than two thou-
sand vessels capable of transporting his troops, horses, and artillery over the
twenty miles of open water that separated France from its historical rival.47
This was easier said than done. Flotillas that had been built for previous
attempted invasions in 1798 and 1801 were in the worst possible state. Many
of the ships had rotted away in ports over the years, and in March 1803 there
were only 28 flat-bottomed boats (chaloupes) and 193 gunboats surviving
from the invasion flotilla constructed just two years earlier.48 Thus hundreds
of new transports and warships had to be constructed, purchased, or procured
in some other way. The magnitude of Bonaparte’s vision was truly bewilder-
ing. A decree of May 24, 1803, established a new government institution,
the Inspection générale de la flottille nationale, whose task it was to coordinate the
creation of this new flotilla.49 The French naval officials requisitioned vessels
and demanded deliveries of ships from as far away as Spain, which only exas-
perated local populations whose sentiments were already running high from
earlier French expropriations. The Dutch were expected to provide five ships-
of-the-line and an equal number of frigates, along with a sufficient number
of transports for the embarkation of 25,000 men and 2,500 horses; an additional
350 transport vessels capable of transporting 36,000 men were requisitioned.
Six naval military districts were tasked with handling the logistical details of
purchasing ships and placing orders for new ones, their operations financed
by millions of francs loaned by French banks as well as by contributions from
businesses, municipalities, and departments, not to mention millions extracted
from the occupied countries.50 The ports of Antwerp, Ostend, Dunkirk, Calais,
Boulogne, Dieppe, Le Havre, Rouen, Cherbourg, Granville, and Saint-Malo
were tasked with constructing new vessels. To ensure uninterrupted movement
184 | the napoleonic wars

of supplies and troops, Bonaparte made major investments in improving


roads in coastal areas as well as between Paris and naval bases at Brest,
Cherbourg, and Boulogne. Almost all major ports on the Atlantic coastline
underwent renovation and expansion to meet the ambitious demands that
the First Consul had made. Overall, these naval preparations cost France
more than 40 million francs just for the construction and purchase of vessels,
along with millions more spent on improving port facilities.51 Costly as these
measures were, they serve as a testament to Bonaparte’s ability to supervise
such an immense project and to harness the resources of several nations. By
August 1805 the improved French naval infrastructure and more than 2,300
vessels of all types were ready to attempt a crossing of the Channel.

The army Bonaparte had inherited from the Revolution continued to benefit
from the qualities that had brought it victory over the first two coalitions,
and it had gained invaluable battle experience over more than a decade of
warfare. Nevertheless, what Bonaparte did with that army in 1803–1804 was
truly remarkable. On June 14, 1803, Bonaparte ordered the establishment
of six military camps along the Atlantic coast of France from Bayonne to
Holland, where he embarked on a major transformation of the French mili-
tary forces. He sought centralization of authority and a streamlined chain of
command. At the top, he formed the General Staff (État-Major), responsible
for elaborating and transmitting orders, preparing maps for Bonaparte, and
coordinating movements, intelligence, military finances, logistics, medical
services, and so on.52 This reorganization combined with the strength of his
own personality, his leadership, and his understanding of the men he com-
manded made the French army seemingly invincible.
Bonaparte—or, rather, Napoleon, as he should be known after the French
Senate elevated him to the rank of emperor in 1804—retained all the author-
ity to make decisions and preferred to supervise everything himself. “The
Emperor . . . needs neither advice nor plans of campaign,” wrote Marshal
Alexander Berthier, his chief of staff from 1796 through 1814. “Our duty is
to obey.”53 Combining the authority of head of state and supreme commander
had clear advantages: Napoleon could set objectives and pursue diplomacy
and strategy more effectively than his opponents, whose hands were often
tied by military councils or royal sovereigns—not to mention the complica-
tions of coalition warfare. The advantages of having a single person firmly in
charge of all aspects of the war effort were magnified by the fact that the one
person at the helm was arguably the most capable human being who ever lived.
His mastery of the details of political, military, logistical, and numerous other
factors was prodigious. But the extreme concentration of decision-making
The Elephant Against the Whale | 185

authority had costs as well as benefits. In an era when communications could


usually move no faster than a trotting horse, it sometimes proved impossible
for a single man, no matter how competent, to coordinate forces operating
over vast distances, often in widely separated theaters of war.
In the Boulogne camps, as the cantonments along the Channel coast are
now collectively known, the French army spent almost two years preparing
for war.54 Ineffectual officers were weeded out and talented men promoted.
Troops received systematic training not only in new tactics and maneuvers
but also in coordination between various service branches and in making
amphibious landings.55 Each camp eventually coalesced into a corps d’armée,
composed of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, and capable of fighting in­de­pend­
ently. This corps system turned the French army into a stronger, faster, and
more flexible military force, and contributed greatly to the long streak of
French victories after 1804. The concept was not an entirely new one; it was
essentially a scaling up of the all-arms divisions created by Lazare Carnot in
his reorganization of French forces in 1794; other French generals, including
Jean-Baptiste Kléber and Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, experimented with corps
d’armée, though none honed it to the same degree as Napoleon. Each corps
contained two to four infantry divisions, a brigade of light cavalry, and sev-
eral batteries of artillery attached to the corps headquarters (in addition to
the light artillery attached to each regiment). Each corps commander also
had at his disposal a staff, a medical detachment, and a unit of engineers.
Napoleon’s achievement, then, was not that he invented the corps system but
that he implemented it as the standard structural unit for the French army.
Over time, the strength of individual corps varied widely depending on their
intended purpose. Napoleon’s Grande Armée, as the newly reformed French
army became known on August 26, 1805, consisted of seven corps, the army
cavalry reserve, the army artillery reserve, and the imperial guard.56
The corps system offered Napoleon a more mobile and manageable sys-
tem of control over military forces by enabling him to issue orders to a rela-
tively small number of subordinate corps commanders. Being smaller than a
full army, a corps could travel faster and forage more easily. The ability to
march over multiple routes, change front when encountering an enemy, and
concentrate against that enemy greatly accelerated the pace of war and made it
difficult for the opposing force to avoid combat. This, in turn, allowed Napoleon
to gain the decisive battle he always sought and to bring the campaign to a
quick conclusion. As Napoleon later explained to his stepson Eugène de
Beauharnais in an 1809 letter, “Here is the general principle of war—a corps of
25,000–30,000 men can be left on its own. Well handled, it can fight or avoid
action depending on circumstances, and maneuver without any harm coming
186 | the napoleonic wars

to it because an opponent cannot force it to accept an engagement but if it


chooses to do so it can fight alone for a long time. A division of 9,000–12,000
men can be left for an hour on its own without inconvenience. It will contain a
foe, however numerous he might be, and will win time for the arrival for the
army. Therefore, it is useful to form an advance guard of no less than 9,000 men
and to place it more than one hour away from the army.”57
However, the key to a “march divided, fight united” approach was the
ability of each separately marching element to survive contact with an enemy
force long enough for its supports to arrive. While all-arms divisions already
existed, Napoleon’s organization of the permanent corps system offered fur-
ther advantages. The bigger the unit, the longer it could hold out against a
superior enemy, so the farther away the next element could be. Organization
into corps therefore facilitated marching on a broader operational front, mak-
ing use of more roads and providing access to the food resources of a larger
area. Such a system allowed large armies (like the Grande Armée of 1805) to
operate with speed and flexibility similar to what could be achieved for
smaller armies (like those of the Revolutionary Wars) with the divisional
system. The corps system allowed Napoleon to operate with greater adapt-
ability in what Clausewitz famously called the “fog of war,” when the exact
location of the enemy remained vague.58 Being a combined-arms unit, a
corps could temporarily engage a larger enemy force and hold it in place
until reinforcements arrived. This procedure eventually became standard
practice, employing a formation military historians call the “battalion square”
(bataillon carré ), borrowing Napoleon’s metaphor for an arrangement of corps
that could respond equally well to a threat from any direction, just as a literal
battalion square of infantry could on a battlefield.
All of this relied heavily on well-trained soldiery—which is where the
high quality of the French command and staff system, as well as individual
commanders’ improvisation, came into play. The corps system gave the French
almost infinite capacity to change direction at once and concentrate anywhere
within twenty-four hours, making warfare much more fluid. “Thanks to the
superb flexibility of the Napoleonic system of moving corps over vast distances
in a loosely drawn but carefully coordinated formation,” in the assessment of
British historian David Chandler, “it mattered little on what point of the
compass the foe was discovered.”59 The new system quickly showed its supe-
riority. Napoleon’s Grande Armée scored a series of decisive victories between
1805 and 1807, forcing other European armies to reevaluate their tactics and
adopt elements of the French system. Austria began reorganizing after its
defeat in 1805, while Prussia and Russia began reforming in the wake of
their setbacks in 1806–1807.
The Elephant Against the Whale | 187

By August 1805 Emperor Napoleon had enough landing craft to trans-


port more than 150,000 troops across the Channel to various points in south-
ern England. Yet the invasion was still far from realistic. The vast flotilla
faced logistical and technical challenges, not the least of which was the need
to coordinate the departure of hundreds of ships and subsequent disembarka-
tion of troops on the other side of the Channel. Britain had responded to the
threat of French invasion with vast defensive preparations. Existing systems
of signal communication were repaired and extended, to allow for a fast
delivery of news from the coastlines. Britain’s coastal defenses were organized
into several districts, where recruitment for local militias was increased while
new defensive works were hurriedly constructed. These measures reduced the
possibility of success for a French invasion force.
A far greater obstacle for the French was the Royal Navy, which still exer-
cised control over the English Channel and could easily devastate an invading
force. With their navy qualitatively and quantitatively inferior to the British,
the French had to find a way to negate this advantage. There were rumors of
using balloons to transport troops to Britain or building a tunnel under the
English Channel, though all those ideas were utterly unfeasible and mainly
fodder for the British press.60 As anxiety gripped the entire southern coast-
line of England, newspapers asked readers to “be on the alert” and reassured
them that “your native courage, acknowledged proficiency and military dis-
cipline, and the recollections of the glorious deeds performed by your illus-
trious predecessors in former times, will stimulate you to imitate their noble
example.”61
So despite Napoleon’s having turned the French army into a fearsome
fighting machine, the problem of overcoming the Royal Navy remained; the
elephant still could not best the whale. Napoleon seems to have considered
slipping across the Channel on some dark, still night with little or no support
from a protecting fleet, but he quickly realized the futility of such a daring
enterprise. Instead, by the summer of 1804 Napoleon developed a grand
strategy that, despite at least half a dozen revisions, pursued the following
basic objectives: a French fleet would break through the British blockades,
link with a Spanish fleet, and then jointly sail to threaten British imperial
possessions in the Caribbean, thus forcing the Royal Navy to redeploy. The
Franco-Spanish fleet would then swiftly return to Europe, overwhelm the
British naval force in the English Channel, and escort an invasion flotilla to
Britain’s shores. But as the French admirals began to implement this plan in
the summer of 1805, Napoleon received more distressing news: Britain,
Austria, and Russia were forming a new coalition against him.
chapter 10 The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807

L ate at night on August 21, 1803, a British frigate approached the


coastline of France. On board were eight Frenchmen led by Georges
Cadoudal, one of the leaders of the irreconcilable French royalists.1 The group
landed on rock-strewn cliffs in Normandy and quickly disappeared into
the night. Over the next few weeks additional groups of royalist émigrés
crossed the Channel from Britain, all plotting to overthrow the Consulate
and restore the Bourbon monarchy. The conspirators gradually made their
way to the French capital, where they were concealed in safe houses while
waiting for an opportunity. Believing reports on the fragility of the Consular
government, the British government extended support to these conspirators,
helping them cross over to France and providing them with funds to sustain
the conspiracy.
These reports had been written by British ambassador Lord Whitworth
and, exaggerated as they were, they did contain kernels of truth about political
and social tensions. Bonaparte’s increased authoritarianism and efforts to sup-
press dissent had caused particular disgruntlement in the army, where many
senior officials and generals were eager to see him gone. General Anne Jean
Marie René Savary, who commanded a special unit of gendarmes tasked with
guarding the First Consul, lamented “envious, mischief-making, and for the
most part narrow-minded men,” including General Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte,
who were “busy in stirring up the people” and seeking to assassinate Bonaparte.2
Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël (Madame de Staël), whom Bonaparte later
exiled from France, also spoke of “a party of generals and senators” who wished
to find means “to stop the progress of the usurpation.”3
Unfortunately for the conspirators, Minister of Police Joseph Fouché’s
agents easily infiltrated conspiracies and maintained tight supervision of
10° 15° 16° 18°
Gotha Weimar Dresden

France advance THURINGIAN Chemnitz PRUSSIA


STATES Oppeln
Austro-Russian advance Wetzlar SAXONY
Fulda
Austro-Russian retreat
Hof
Austrian Empire 50° Frankfurt Ratibor
Bavaria Eger Prague Pardubitz
Prussia BOHEMIA
French Empire FRENCH Würzburg Pilsen ARCHDUKE Olmütz

u
FERDINAND BUXHOWDEN
French dependencies

lda
EMPIRE Grand Armée
MORAVIA

Mo
Small German states Mannheim NAPOLEON Nuremberg Iglau
2 Ansbach Brünn

ine
BAVARIA KUTUZOV
1 On 2 September: Austrian General Mack

Rh
invades Bavaria and expecting Russian Budweis Austerlitz
support, advances, his army along the Ratisbon
Danube to Ulm Nikolsburg
Stuttgart Ingolstadt 6
2 23 September: Napoleon orders his corps
to cross the Rhine and make a wide sweep NAPOLEON Schongrabern/
from Landshut Hollabrunn
expected Russian support. Meanwhile Ulm Augsburg
French cavalry probes through the Black Inn Linz Danube
Forest to distract Mack 4 Pressburg
Munich Vienna
3 Late September: an Austrian force under 1
Archduke John concentrates around MACK A U S T R I A N
Innsbruck. A large Austrian army under
Archduke Charles is massing along the Neustadt
Adige to invade the Kingdom of Italy Salzburg
4 er being encircled and with
a Russian army under Kutuzov halted at Zürich
the Austro-Bavarian frontier, Mack E M P I R E
surrenders his army. Innsbruck
5 e Austrian defeat along the Danube HELVETIA 3 ARCHDUKE
results in Archduke John evacuating the JOHN
Tyrol and Archduke Charles north-
eastern Italy, both retiring eastwards INNER AUSTRIA
Innsbruck. They intend to combine their
forces to defend Vienna but are prevented
from doing so by Napoleons’ lightning
advance
6 20 October-13 November: Napoleon
advances eastward along the Danube, e
driving Kutuzov before him. Kutuzov Trent av Udine
manages to defeat a small French corps Pi Laibach

ige
and then marches north to Moravia to

Ad
ARCHDUKE
unite with Buxhöwden’s follow-up army. KINGDOM OF ITALY CHARLES
Napoleon enters Vienna on 13 November 0 25 50 Kilometers
and leaving behind garrisons on his line of Bréscia 5 Trieste
communications, turns north to pursue Milan Vicenza
the Austro-Russian forces into Moravia MASSENA Verona Venice 0 25 50 Miles

Map 9: Campaign of 1805


190 | the napoleonic wars

them. Cadoudal’s group had been detected soon after it landed in France and
police agents followed them to Paris, where they were arrested in February
1804. Cadoudal and his companions were tried, convicted, and guillotined,
while General Jean Charles Pichegru, who after a distinguished career dur-
ing the War of the First Coalition ran afoul of the Directory and now con-
spired against the Consulate, died in prison under suspicious circumstances.4
General Jean Moreau, the hero of Hohenlinden and a clear rival to Bonaparte,
was arrested, convicted, and banished from France.5 During interrogation,
one of Cadoudal’s lieutenants confessed about the participation of “a prince of
the house of Bourbon.” Talleyrand and Fouché both suspected Louis-Antoine-
Henri de Bourbon-Condé, duc d’Enghien, who resided in the neighboring
Principality of Baden.6 Wanting to send a forceful message, Bonaparte ordered
the arrest of the duke. D’Enghien was abducted from his house in Baden on
the night of March 14–15, 1804, in violation of that principality’s neutrality,
and brought to Vincennes, where he was tried for treason before a military
tribunal. Despite the lack of evidence or of any witnesses, d’Enghien was
found guilty and executed shortly after midnight on March 21. He was bur-
ied in a grave that had been dug that evening in the moat of the fortress.7
Fouché, a keen observer, remarked of the execution, “It is worse than a crime,
it is a blunder.”8
He was right. Governments all across Europe were outraged at Bonaparte’s
role in what amounted to the murder of the last prince of the illustrious
house of Condé. Even for many of his supporters, it left a stain on his repu-
tation that could not be erased by his subsequent successes. “It would be
difficult to describe the sensation which this occurrence produced in Paris.
Disturbance, dismay and consternation prevailed,” lamented a member of
the Council of State.9 That Bonaparte was misinformed by his advisors (espe-
cially Talleyrand, who had his own reasons for wanting d’Enghien done away
with) and subordinates is undeniable but does not lessen his own responsibil-
ity for this crime. Like all important state decisions, this came directly from
the Consul. Bonaparte never hesitated to take full responsibility for the act,
claiming that his decision was firmly grounded on raison d’état. The execution
of the Bourbon prince sent an unmistakable signal to Bonaparte’s opponents,
royalist or Jacobin, that he was willing to use any means necessary to protect
his power. “My veins run with blood, not water,” he sternly declared in a
lengthy speech at the Council of State before confiding to Second Consul
Jean-Jacques Régis de Cambacérès that “the House of Bourbon must learn
that the attacks it directs against others can come down on itself.”10 During a
lengthy conversation with Senator Jean-Barthélemy Le Couteulx de Canteleu,
Bonaparte remarked that he could have saved d’Enghien but that “it has been
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 191

necessary to show the Bourbons, the cabinet of London, and all the courts of
Europe that it was not child’s play to plot his assassination.”11 In this respect,
the d’Enghien affair had accomplished its goal. No further royalist plots were
made against the French leader.
Although its importance in the formation of the Third Coalition is some-
times exaggerated, the affair did provoke an adverse reaction in Europe and
cost Bonaparte goodwill outside France. Initially, the most vocal protest
came from the Swedish king, Gustavus IV, who was traveling in Germany
when he heard the news of d’Enghien’s execution. The king immediately
broke off negotiations on the Franco-Swedish alliance and vocally condemned
the French action. In many other European states, however, the reaction was
far more muted, guided by more pragmatic considerations and fear of the
powerful French neighbor.12 King Charles IV of Spain, for example, showed
no compassion for his distant relative, and his minister Godoy bluntly told
the French ambassador that “spoilt blood had to be blotted out wherever one
found it.”13 Prussia and Austria also showed little interest in the affair, and
the latter even welcomed this tough measure to put an end to conspiracies.14
Britain initially ignored the matter, but after French revelations involving
the collusion of British diplomats and agents, it was forced to defend itself.
It was in Russia that the affair’s true impact could be seen. Franco-
Russian relations, already strained since the death of Emperor Paul, took on
an air of hostility after the collapse of the Peace of Amiens. Anti-French
sentiments rapidly increased in the wake of France’s reoccupation of Italian
states and its seizure of Hanover, though Russian indecision facilitated the
latter. The Russian ambassador to France, Arkadii Markov, was known for
his Francophobia and discourteous, if not outright belligerent, attitude; his
reports made the most of Bonaparte’s bellicose rhetoric, while his conduct
often exceeded imperial instructions.15 Even more provocative were the
actions of the Russian envoy to Saxony, Emmanuel Henri Louis Alexandre
de Launay, comte d’Antraigues, a French émigré and political adventurer
who published libelous articles about the French head of state.16 Bonaparte’s
resentment at the Russian diplomatic snubs erupted at one of the state din-
ners at the Tuileries Palace, where he berated the Russian ambassador in the
presence of numerous officials and diplomats. Shortly thereafter Markov was
permitted to resign his embassy, but not before receiving from St. Petersburg
the Order of St. Andrew, one of the highest imperial awards, as a reward for
his services.
The Russian court was infuriated by the execution of a prince of royal
blood but even more so by the French invasion of German territory and the
violation of sovereignty of Baden, whose ruler was Alexander’s father-in-law.17
192 | the napoleonic wars

The violation did not occur in isolation; rather, it took place within a wider
context of French actions that belied a lack of respect for Russia’s status in
Europe. To many in the Russian government, it was time to make a public
stand against Napoleon. The court responded by going into mourning for the
duke and sending notes of loud protest to Paris and to the Imperial Diet, the
general assembly of the Imperial Estates of the Holy Roman Empire, of
which Baden was part. The latter caused considerable consternation among
the German states, which could not ignore the Russian sovereign’s demand
but also did not want to alienate their powerful French neighbor. Ultimately,
the German states reached a compromise, by which the elector of Baden
claimed that the French had given him satisfactory explanations for their
actions and asked that the matter be dropped in light of possible repercussions.
The Diet quickly approved this request.18
Russia was naturally displeased by this decision, and its anger only grew
upon receiving Bonaparte’s response to its note of protest. Rejecting Russian
protests, Bonaparte advised Alexander to mind his own business. “The com-
plaint which Russia presents today leads one to ask,” Bonaparte declared,
“whether if, when England was planning the assassination of Paul I, one had
known that the authors of the plot were to be found within a few leagues of
the frontier, one would not have hastened to seize them.”19 This was a blunt
answer, and its allusion to Alexander’s involvement in the murder of his father
was too hard for the proud sovereign of “all Russias” to swallow. He rejected
French requests for d’Antraigues’s recall, arguing that it was his prerogative,
not France’s, to choose his diplomatic representatives.
In April 1804 Alexander made Vienna a secret offer of alliance against
France, promising to contribute some 100,000 men if Austria mobilized
against Napoleon, The Austrian government, having learned from prior
experiences, questioned the Russian offer, fearing that once it had committed
to the alliance Russia might make an advantageous deal with France, leaving
it in the lurch.20 Alexander was a bit more successful in his overtures to
Prussia, entering into an understanding with Frederick William on preserv-
ing north German neutrality in case of French aggression; yet in what one
historian has described as a policy of “the hedgehog and the possum,” Prussia
continued to vacillate on its position vis-à-vis France, and what Russians
considered a defensive alliance was anything but that for the Prussians.21
Russian efforts to organize some semblance of opposition to Napoleon were
of course heartily welcomed in Britain, where the fall of Addington’s cabinet
in May 1804 brought William Pitt back to power and a more assertive policy
on the continent. In June Pitt could not but rejoice upon receiving the news
of the French ambassador’s departure from St. Petersburg, marking an effective
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 193

rupture in Franco-Russian relations and opening a door for a possible European


alliance against France.

The discovery of Cadoudal’s royalist plot hastened the completion of a project


that had been on Bonaparte’s mind for some time. The First Consul had long
pushed for constitutional changes to consolidate his power. He was successful
in obtaining the consulship for life, and in August 1802 he claimed the right
to name his own successor. It was becoming increasingly clear to many con-
temporaries that the palaces of Tuileries and St. Cloud were no longer the seat
of a republican government but rather the court of a new sovereign. “Severe
etiquette prevailed there,” observed André François Miot de Mélito, a senior
official at the ministry of war. “Officers attached to the person, prescribed
honors paid to the ladies, a privileged family; in short, everything except the
name of Consul was monarchical, and that name was destined soon to disap-
pear.” For a Prussian envoy, it was becoming clear that Bonaparte wanted to
be “a second Charlemagne,” and that there was “no doubt that he has a plan,
it is just the timing that has yet to be decided.” Bonaparte’s decision to estab-
lish the Légion d’Honneur, the highest civil and military award France could
bestow on its citizens, caused consternation among the republicans, who
accused him of creating a new nobility. As early as June 1802 the Russian
ambassador was convinced that the French republic was on its last breath and
that Bonaparte would soon take the title of “Emperor of the Gauls.”22
The plots to kill Bonaparte stirred public fears that his death might lead to
political turmoil or even the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy. Bonaparte
used the Cadoudal conspiracy to impress upon the French that his life, and
consequently their well-being, was in perpetual danger, which in turn helped
him attain general consent for the transformation of the life consulate into a
hereditary empire.23 His earlier efforts to solidify power had provoked con-
siderable resistance, but in the wake of Cadoudal’s conspiracy and the duke’s
execution, public protest was negligible, as the timid feared Bonaparte’s
wrath and the ambitious sought to benefit from the new regime.24 On May 2,
1804, the legislative bodies passed three motions that proclaimed Bonaparte
emperor of the French republic, recognized this title as hereditary within the
Bonaparte family, and called for protection of “Equality, Liberty and the
rights of the people in their entirety.” On May 18 the Senate officially pro-
claimed empire in a senatus consultum.25 Four days later, registered voters took
part in a plebiscite designed to create an illusion of popular support for impe-
rial rule and, casting individually signed ballots, approved—with a vote of
3,524,000 to 2,579—what was already a fait accompli.26 Georges Cadoudal,
upon being told about these developments, remarked from a prison cell,
194 | the napoleonic wars

“We have done more than we hoped to do. We meant to give France a king,
but we have given her an emperor.”27
On December 2, 1804, an imperial coronation ceremony was held at the
great Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.28 Napoleon, as we shall henceforth
refer to Bonaparte, had made careful preparations for this event, studying in
detail and adapting rituals of the ancien régime. Pope Pius VII, whom Napoleon
compelled to travel from Rome to Paris to attend the ceremony, occupied a seat
of honor but was otherwise relegated to the sideline. Though he appeared
to bless the emperor, he did not, in fact, crown him. In a prearranged move,
Napoleon took the crown from the hands of the pope and crowned himself.
With one hand holding a crown and another resting on his sword, the new ruler
of France was intent on demonstrating that he was a self-made man who owed
his powers to no one but himself. Napoleon’s choice of imperial regalia—his
crown, scepter, and hand of justice were styled after symbols that were believed
to be Emperor Charlemagne’s—also underscored his desire to show that he was
not the successor of the Bourbons but an emperor in his own right.
The newly revised Constitution of the Year XII removed from France the last
vestiges of parliamentarism and created a unique dichotomy of a republic ruled
by an emperor, reflected in French currency, which featured the emperor’s profile
and the title “Napoléon Empereur” on the front and “République Française” on
the back. Reminiscent of senatorial practices under the Roman Empire, the
French legislative bodies continued their obscure existence before dying a quiet
death; the Tribunate was abolished in 1807, while the Legislative Corps, deprived
of real authority, lingered in the shadows until the empire collapsed. Napoleon
himself no longer referred to the French people as “citizens,” calling them “sub-
jects” instead, and expected greater deference from his courtiers and ministers.29
Napoleon’s coronation had created a brief diplomatic crisis, as the other
powers were compelled to adjust to the new political reality in Europe. Smaller
states had little choice but to recognize the French emperor. For the great
powers, Napoleon’s decision seemed to reveal a grand design for the revival
of the empire of Charlemagne, which had covered much of western and cen-
tral Europe. Napoleon’s decision caused great consternation in Austria, where
it was perceived as a clear challenge to Austria’s own imperial aspirations. For
Emperor Alexander, already embittered by the d’Enghien affair, the procla-
mation elevated the impudent French upstart while threatening to further
undermine Russian interests in Germany. Yet neither power acted. Holy
Roman Emperor Francis felt compelled to recognize Napoleon in this new
capacity, though only after receiving assurances from France that he would be
recognized as hereditary emperor of Austria and that his imperial title would
take precedence over the French one.30 Austria’s decision to once again
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 195

compromise with France greatly annoyed Russia, whose ruler perceived


Napoleon’s new title as a “new usurpation” that demonstrated his “boundless
ambition to extend his domination still further beyond its current limits.”31
Alexander, joined by the king of Sweden, refused to recognize the new
emperor, pressuring the Ottoman Empire to do likewise.
Just a month after his coronation, Napoleon wrote letters to the rulers of
Britain, Spain, Naples, and Austria, offering to settle their differences and
establish peace on the continent.32 In a letter to King George dated January
1805, he noted that neither nation would gain much by prolonging the war.
“Peace is the desire of my heart, but war has never been contrary to my glory,”
Napoleon noted in a veiled threat. Britain was at “the highest point of pros-
perity, so what does she hope to gain from war? To coalesce some continental
powers? But the continent remains peaceful and a coalition would only
increase the preponderance and greatness of France.” Napoleon then pointed
out that “the world is big enough so that our two nations can live in peace.”33
He had good reasons for desiring peace, given that the two years of Franco-
British conflict had brought hardly any advantages to France. The British
blockade confined French fleets to their ports and had driven French trade off
the sea. France had effectively lost its foothold in the Western Hemisphere,
with Louisiana sold to the United States, Haiti proclaiming its independence,
and the British targeting the remaining French colonies in the West Indies.
Back at home, France faced a growing financial crisis, with public credit about
to reach its nadir and the burden of taxation provoking considerable unrest.
As much as Napoleon desired peace, he sought it on his own terms, terms
that would have ensured continued French hegemony in western Europe. With
France controlling the coastlines of Holland, Belgium, and Italy, Napoleon
could exercise immense control over trade and commerce on the continent.
Furthermore, Napoleon’s peaceful professions contrasted sharply with his
actions, which revolved around plans for colonial expansion, especially in the
East. These considerations led the British to dismiss Napoleon’s offer as dis-
ingenuous, merely designed to portray the British as irreconcilable enemies
of France and disturbers of peace on the continent. Equally dismissive of
Napoleon’s overtures was the Russian government, where the deputy foreign
minister, Prince Adam Czartoryski, a Polish nobleman who had embraced
Russian imperialism with the zeal of a recent convert, urged Alexander to
oppose a man who posed an acute danger to European peace and stability:
“Napoleon had cast aside everything that could have led people to believe
that he had a high and generous mission. He was a Hercules abandoning his
task of succoring the oppressed and thinking only how to employ his strength
in order to subjugate the world for his own advantage. His sole idea was to
196 | the napoleonic wars

re-establish absolute power everywhere . . . he seemed like a sinister and


devouring flame rising above all Europe.”34
Throughout the fall of 1804 and the spring of 1805, diplomats from
European powers shuttled back and forth to forge a new alliance against France.35
Such coalition-building, however, was a difficult process, with the principal
powers—Britain, Russia, and Austria—distrusting one another’s ambitions
and some states expressing reservations about reviving a coalition that had
already been twice defeated by France. Nevertheless, the process began with
Russia negotiating an agreement with Sweden (which was already allied to
Britain) in January 1805, followed by the Convention of St. Petersburg,
which Britain and Russia signed in April to “reestablish the peace and equi-
librium in Europe.” By August the Convention of Helsingfors ensured
Swedish involvement in the war and allowed the use of Swedish Pomerania as
a base of operations against France, in exchange for British subsidies.36
The Neapolitan kingdom, meanwhile, played a dangerous double game.
On one hand, it maintained the outward appearance of friendship with France
and accepted a treaty of neutrality (September 21, 1805) that resulted in the
French withdrawing from Neapolitan territory. Yet at the same time King
Ferdinand and his consort, Queen Maria Caroline, were alarmed by Napoleon’s
ambitions on the Apennine Peninsula. After the proclamation of the French
Empire, it seemed incongruous that Napoleon should hold the imperial crown
in France while serving as president of the Italian Republic. Consequently,
in March 1805 the republic was transformed into a kingdom, and in May
Napoleon was crowned at the Duomo in Milan with the Iron Crown of
Lombardy and assumed the title of “Emperor of the French and King of
Italy,” underscoring the central role Italy was to play in his imperial designs;
Napoleon’s twenty-four-year-old stepson Eugène de Beauharnais was named as
a viceroy of Italy. The kingdom encompassed much of northern Italy, includ-
ing the former Duchies of Milan, Mantua, and Modena and parts of the
Republic of Venice and the Papal States. Facing this French encroachment,
the Neapolitan Bourbons felt that they had no choice but to join the coalition.
On September 8, 1805, they signed a secret treaty of alliance with Russia and
Britain, agreeing to a joint Anglo-Russian invasion through southern Italy.
The Austrian court, still reeling from military setbacks in the period
1796–1800, was reluctant to enroll in a new coalition. Since 1801 Vienna
had showed that it was ready to swallow many humiliations before it would
be drawn into another potentially disastrous war with France. Thus it
accepted, with passive indignation, French annexation of Piedmont, Swiss
submission to a French protectorate, and the violation of Badenese sover-
eignty in the d’Enghien affair. Even when Napoleon assumed the imperial
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 197

title, Austria acquiesced, though Napoleon’s decision to accept Austrian let-


ters acknowledging his new dignity at Aix-La-Chapelle, the old capital of
Charlemagne, only further humiliated the Habsburgs. It was Napoleon’s
policies in Italy that prompted Austria to break out of its state of passive
acquiescence. Austrian sentiments were enflamed by the French decision to
reorganize parts of northern Italy, annexing the Ligurian Republic (Genoa) to
France and forming an imperial fief of Piombino for Napoleon’s sister Elisa.
Austrian anxiety and suspicion over this were all the greater because it took
place in spite of Napoleon’s solemn proclamations that the period of French
annexations had ended with the takeover of Piedmont in 1802. The French
encroachments made it clear that the Treaty of Lunéville had no longer
had any bearing since it had been so flagrantly ignored. Russia and Britain
pointed out to Austria that if it did not act promptly, it stood to lose its
standing and could not hope to get any support from the other powers. In
June 1805 Emperor Francis therefore joined the Anglo-Russian-Swedish
coalition and began to mobilize his forces. Of the remaining powers, only
Prussia, pursuing a steady policy of neutrality, refused to join the coalition,
although even Prussian patience had limits, and unrelenting French depreda-
tions would soon force King Frederick William to leave his cocoon.
The coalition identified a number of concrete objectives it hoped to achieve.
Many of these dealt with reversing territorial changes France had made over the
previous decade. The coalition wanted French withdrawal from Hanover and
northern Germany, the reestablishment of Swiss and Dutch independence, res-
toration of Piedmont-Sardinia, and complete removal of French forces from
Italy. These were daunting goals, but the Allies did not stop there. They also
sought, according to the terms of the treaty, “the establishment of an order of
things in Europe that effectively guarantees the security and independence of
the different states and present a solid barrier against future usurpations.”37
Indeed, the treaty contained many references to “tranquility,” “peace,” “secu-
rity,” and other high-minded concepts that the powers believed were needed to
set up a “federative system” that would maintain peace and stability in Europe.
However, the coalition did not seek to conquer or implement a regime
change in France. The treaty explicitly stated that the Allies did not wish “to
interfere in any way with the national wish in France relative to the form of
her Government.”38 The coalition members believed that with Napoleon’s
coronation, French revolutionary radicalism (and thus ideological threat) was
over and in time the French people would choose to replace Napoleon with
another monarch.
The coalition plans for the campaign called for unprecedented Europe-wide
coordination of operations. Its members expected Napoleon to go on the offensive
198 | the napoleonic wars

in northern Italy, and they planned to mobilize some 580,000 soldiers, identi-
fying four major theaters of war.39 In southern Germany, Archduke Ferdinand
and General Karl Leiberich Mack commanded an army of some 60,000 men
with instructions to invade Bavaria, whether its ruler, Maximilian Joseph,
remained allied with the French or not.40 Ferdinand would then remain on the
defensive, sustaining his troops with Bavaria’s resources, until a Russian army
of 50,000 troops under Field Marshal Mikhail Kutusov arrived to launch a
joint offensive. Another Russian army, this one with 40,000 men, under
Friedrich Wilhelm Buxhöwden was to join them at a later time. Meanwhile, in
northern Italy, Archduke Charles (with some 95,000 men) was to reclaim
Austria’s lost Italian provinces. Archduke John (with 23,000 men) was in Tyrol
to maintain communications between the Austrian forces in Italy and southern
Germany. The coalition’s operations were not limited to Bavaria and northern
Italy alone. The plan also called for some 45,000 Russian, British, and
Neapolitan troops to land in Naples, where they would have overpowered the
20,000 French soldiers stationed there and restored the country’s independ-
ence. At the same time, some 70,000 Russians and Swedes (with British help)
were to land in northern Germany and recover Hanover for Britain.41
This strategy contained several major flaws. First, it completely neglected
the principle of concentration, an especially grave problem because coordi-
nating operations over such vast distances was beyond contemporary capa-
bilities. Second, it mistakenly presumed Napoleon’s main attack would be
against northern Italy, and so it committed the largest Austrian army (under
the best Austrian general) to that region. Third, it was based on a drastic
underestimation of how long it would take for the French army operating in
Germany to reach the Danube. To make matters worse, the Austrian leader-
ship remained badly divided about the army’s readiness for war and the strat-
egy to be employed. Prussia’s initial refusal to join the coalition denied the
Allies many of the troops they had hoped for. Nor could the coalition hope to
gain the advantages of surprise: organizing military operations on such a
grand scale could not escape the keen eyes of Napoleon’s spies.
As he followed his enemies’ intentions and tallied up their potential
strength, Napoleon realized that to meet the coalition’s threat he must move
swiftly and seize the initiative. He quickly identified his main target. With
the Austrian forces already forming on the Danube front, Napoleon decided
to march to the Rhine with an army of 200,000 men, then push into Swabia,
gathering his south German allies, and defeat the enemy before they could
concentrate their forces. A relatively small army would pin down Austrian
forces in Italy; Hanover and Naples would not be reinforced. Any losses there
would be easy to recover if Austria and Russia were defeated in the main
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 199

theater. In late August Napoleon instructed his officers to travel to southern


Germany, making notes of everything of military value, including the nature
of roads and bridges, the width of rivers, and the condition of fortifications.
On the twenty-fifth, Napoleon issued orders for the Grande Armée to march
to the Rhine. The various corps were assigned to widely separated roads so
that they would not interfere with each other and would have no difficulties
with billets or supplies. Napoleon had personally calculated the march of his
army and expected to have his forces on the Rhine by September 23, with
some units covering three hundred miles in twenty-nine days. In Italy,
Napoleon expected the combined Franco-Italian forces (68,000 men, under
Marshal André Masséna) to keep the main Austrian army fully occupied.
Napoleon maintained secrecy surrounding the army’s movements. He
ordered some corps commanders to announce that they were simply return-
ing to France so that their movements did not raise suspicions in the enemy
camp. He prohibited newspapers from reporting on military operations and
maintained a tight cavalry screen to cover his advance. To expedite marching
to the Danube, Napoleon also made the most of his relationship with those
German princes whose territories lay in the path of the Grande Armée.
French diplomats assured the princes that Napoleon would guarantee their
lands and sovereignty in return for their political and military support. The
German princes thus found themselves between a rock and a hard place: they
felt terribly uncomfortable siding with the French against the coalition, but
they were also in no position to reject Napoleon’s demands. Seeking a way
out, the rulers of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria sought Prussian guaran-
tees for German neutrality. However, the Prussian king, unwilling as yet to
get embroiled in a war, ignored this plea, compelling Baden to accept the
French offer of alliance while Württemberg announced its neutrality, causing
the Austrians to think Napoleon would not violate its territory.
In early September the Austrian army under Mack invaded Bavaria, hop-
ing to coerce the Bavarians (and other German states) into an alliance or dis-
armament before the French arrived. Expecting the French to attack from the
vicinity of Strasbourg in November, Mack calculated that the Russian army
would have ample time to reach him before he engaged the enemy. This
move backfired, however—the Bavarians threw their support firmly behind
the French, while Austrian aggression provided Napoleon with both a casus
belli and a suitable target to engage. Mack thus found himself isolated in
Bavaria. The Russian army under Kutuzov was still far away and not expected
to arrive before mid-October.42
Traditional histories of the 1805 campaign focus on political and military
aspects and usually discuss the formation of the Grande Armée and Napoleon’s
200 | the napoleonic wars

diplomatic maneuvering on the eve of the war. Yet one crucial element is
often overlooked: financing it all. Military reforms and preparations for war
proved to be very taxing for France. By late September 1805 the French capi-
tal was jittery as the prospects of a new war combined with a disappointing
harvest to produce an economic downturn. François Nicolas Mollien, minis-
ter of public treasury, later recalled that the economic fatigue was such that
Napoleon was able to provide only several million francs for the Grande Armée,
with “the greater part coming from his own personal savings.” Military con-
tractors, who tried claiming payments for their deliveries in advance, had
threatened to suspend their deliveries, forcing Napoleon to give them 10 mil-
lion francs’ worth of state-owned land in payment. Furthermore, the Treasury
had pledged part of the revenues of 1806 by negotiating the obligations against
the payments of that year.43 Miot de Mélito, a member of the Council of State,
spoke of the Bank of France being assailed with demands for the payment of its
notes. As soon as Napoleon departed from the capital, financial circles were
seized with fears of liquidity problems, as the Bank of France could only “give
cash to the amount of 300,000 francs, accepting only one note for 1000 francs
from each creditor who presented himself.” This caused widespread dissatisfac-
tion. “The Bank, or at least the principal shareholders, were accused of trading
in the specie and of having exported a large quantity. Others laid the scarcity of
money on the shoulders of the Government and on the loans made by it to the
Bank.”44 Traveling in the streets of Paris, one would have seen how gloomy the
popular mood was. Napoleon’s call-up of tens of thousands of conscripts for a
contingency reserve only worsened it. Even in the seemingly docile Senate, the
emperor’s speech explaining the causes of the new war elicited little support
and revealed the profundity of the financial problems Napoleon faced as he
embarked on a campaign. As he departed for Strasbourg, the emperor knew it
was imperative to bring a quick end to the war.
As the Allies advanced, Napoleon raced to the critical point, exploiting
the superior mobility of his corps, which had billets and supplies arranged by
local authorities waiting for them. The smooth and rapid movement of such
a large army was unprecedented: the French troops averaged some twenty
miles per day. The Grande Armée reached the Rhine River by late September,
and after crossing at various locations between September 26 and October 2,
it advanced toward the Danube.45 This speedy advance once again revealed a
key feature of Napoleon’s character: his willingness to accept long-term
political risks for immediate strategic and operational advantages. To threaten
the enemy position, Napoleon pushed his I and II Corps through the Prussian
territory of Ansbach, flagrantly violating its neutrality. This was a politically
perilous decision, but in Napoleon’s mind it was justified by military need.
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 201

It took the Austrians by surprise, as they had received assurances that Prussia
would oppose any such move, and so they were convinced of the security of
their rear. Napoleon’s gamble paid off, but it caused considerable outrage in
Prussia and led to calls for war.
Napoleon needed to act quickly, and act quickly he did. With his spies
reporting that Mack had concentrated his forces around Ulm, he issued a new
set of orders designed to cut the Austrians off from the Russians and destroy
them piecemeal. By early October Napoleon’s forces were advancing in six
great columns in a wide arc around to the north and then east of Mack’s
position. An important element in Napoleon’s plan was his use of intelligence
to deceive his enemy, with French agents Charles (Karl) Louis Schulmeister
and Édouard Fetny well placed inside Austrian headquarters to supply
misinformation to the Austrian command while transmitting crucial Austrian
military plans to Napoleon.46

15° 20°

Campaigns of 1806-1807 Memel RUSSIAN


EMPIRE
Baltic Sea 55°

Tilsit

Königsberg
Eylau Friedland

Danzig E A S T
Kolberg A Hoff
Koslin I Elbing P R U S S I A
N Heilsberg
A W E S T
R
E Ionkovo Allenstein
M P R U S S I A Grodno
P O
Lobau
Stettin Niedmburg
Ostrolenka
Prenzlau Bromberg
Mlava
Thorn
P R I A
U S S
Vi

Pultusk
Od

st ula
er

Czarnowo
Kustrin Modlin
Berlin Praga Bug
Posen
Warsaw
Warta

Kalisch Lodz
Glogau S O U T H
P R U S S I A
SAXONY AUSTRIAN 0 25 50 Kilometers
Dresden Breslau
EMPIRE
S

L
I

E 0 25 50 Miles
S
I A French advance 1806
French advance 1807
BOHEMIA
Prussian retreat
Od
er

Russian attack
50° Prague Krakow Russian retreat
Battle

Map 10: Campaigns of 1806–1807


202 | the napoleonic wars

By September 30 Mack had realized that he was in danger of being encir-


cled, and he tried to break out of the trap and open a line of retreat toward
Vienna. In the first two weeks of October the Austrians suffered a series of
major defeats: at Wertingen (October 8), Marshals Joachim Murat and Jean
Lannes mauled the Austrian forces under Franz Auffenberg; at Haslach
(October 11), some 4,000 French troops commanded by General Pierre
Dupont managed to withstand an assault by 25,000 Austrians; at Elchingen
(October 14), Marshal Michel Ney routed the Austrians and prevented them
from escaping north of the Danube while most of Napoleon’s forces were south
of the river. By then, the French had two corps in the vicinity of Munich, eighty
miles east of Mack, severing his line of communication and closing off his more
southerly routes of escape. Napoleon’s swift advance and victories demoralized
the Austrian army. With the Russians still over a hundred miles away, Mack
surrendered his forces, consisting of some 23,500 men and sixty-five pieces of
artillery, at Ulm on October 19–20.47
The victory at Ulm was a remarkable success. In less than two months
Napoleon had marched some 200,000 men from the Atlantic coast into Bavaria
and achieved his major objective of annihilating the enemy army without even
needing to fight a major battle. It was this success, achieved at the operational
level rather than the tactical, that led his men to joke that Napoleon had found
a new way to make war: with their legs rather than their arms.48
Napoleon moved quickly to follow up on his success. He pushed his main
forces toward Vienna while André Masséna successfully engaged Archduke
Charles to prevent him from supporting the Austrian war effort in Bavaria.
Kutuzov’s Russian army had just reached Braunau after marching at a break-
neck pace for the last three hundred miles and losing thousands of stragglers
along the way.49 With Mack’s army gone, Kutuzov’s primary objective was
to save his own forces, which he did not hesitate to do in light of the odds
he faced. Pursuing the retreating Russians, Marshal Murat marched on the
Austrian capital on November 13.50 On the same day a small party of French
generals captured the principal bridge over the Danube without firing a shot,
and they did so by means of a superb bluff.51 As the Austrians on the far bank
were preparing to destroy the bridge, two French generals rode onto the struc-
ture and announced that they were coming to meet a senior Austrian general
who had requested a conference. While the Austrians dithered, Marshal
Lannes also crossed over, warning the Austrians that destroying the bridge
would violate a just-signed armistice. Murat then sent a column of grenadiers
forward. Lannes’s lies and the force of his personality deterred the Austrian
gunners from opening fire, and the French took possession of the bridge. The
French marshals, however, failed to build upon their success. Encouraged by
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 203

the success of this ruse, Murat tried it once more just two days later when he
came upon the Russian army. The Russians feigned knowledge of the nego-
tiations and amused the French marshal with fine words and negotiations;
Murat, caught in his own snare, even dispatched a messenger to Napoleon
informing him of the conditions of the armistice that the Russians pretended
to offer. Meanwhile, Kutuzov’s army marched toward Moravia, leaving
behind a small rear guard commanded by his ablest general, the fiery Prince
Peter Bagration. On November 16, upon receiving blazing criticism from
the emperor, who accused the marshal of “wasting the fruits of the entire
campaign,” Murat attacked the Russian detachment with more than 30,000
men. The Russians lost more than half of their men but were able to hold off
the French long enough to enable the main body of the Russian army to
escape to safety.52
As Napoleon advanced deeper into Austria, his army became progres-
sively weaker, a phenomenon known as “strategic consumption.” Aside from
battle losses, the French had to detach troops to protect their ever-lengthening
line of communication back to France and to engage the remaining Austrian
forces. In late November, as he began concentrating his forces near Brünn,
Napoleon expected to marshal only about 73,000 men, and that with great
difficulty.
The Allies, meanwhile, regrouped as well. Emperors Alexander of Russia
and Francis of Austria gathered some 90,000 men near Olmütz. Archduke
Ferdinand was with 18,000 men at Prague, while Archdukes Charles, with
85,000 men, was about to break out of Italy. It was clear that the Allies sought
to concentrate their superior forces and engage the Grande Armée while it
was far from home.
Moreover, the French advance through Prussian territory on the way to
Ulm had so infuriated Frederick William that on November 3, 1805, he
signed the Convention of Potsdam with Emperor Alexander, granting per-
mission to the Russian forces to pass through Prussian territory. More impor-
tant, Frederick William agreed to serve as mediator for Russia and Austria
with regard to France, and he pledged that should the mediation fail, he
would join the coalition with an army of 180,000 men.53 Napoleon therefore
desperately needed to win a decisive battle before the Allied armies could
combine to overwhelm him.
Common prudence should have suggested to the coalition that it would
be better to delay their operations until the Prussian army had taken the
field. But the Allies were deeply divided over strategy. Many senior officers,
including General Kutuzov, emphasized the importance of not engaging
Napoleon in battle and argued that everything was to be gained by delay.
204 | the napoleonic wars

A precipitate engagement could lead to a disaster. Instead of giving battle,


they proposed to gain time by withdrawing toward the Carpathian Mountains,
to allow reinforcements time to arrive from Italy and Prussia. However,
Alexander and Francis disregarded these arguments. According to Russian
military regulations, Alexander assumed command of the army while he
stayed with the troops, and although he officially kept Kutuzov in charge
of the army, his presence limited the general’s actions. The Russian emperor
was surrounded by a group of young noblemen, most notably Prince Peter
Dolgorukov, who urged him to lead the army against Napoleon notwith-
standing the strategic circumstances. These princelings persuaded the emperor
that he had the necessary qualities for military command and that his pres-
ence in the army would turn the tide of war.
Still reeling from their Ulm disaster, the Austrians also opposed withdrawal,
arguing that it would prolong French depredation of Austrian lands. They
wanted to use the Russian army to drive the French out of Moravia.54 These
arguments for an offensive fell on willing ears, since Alexander was eager to
lead the army and defeat Napoleon on the battlefield.55 After much debate,
Alexander and Francis agreed to an offensive, and the Austrian major general
Franz Weyrother prepared a plan of operations.56 Under this plan, the main Allied
forces would turn Napoleon’s right flank and cut his communications with
Vienna.57 However, Weyrother’s disposition was so complex that when the hour
of advance came, many officers had not yet sufficiently studied their own. One
of the Russian participants complained that because of Weyrother’s “confusing”
marching orders “our columns always crossed each other’s path, in some cases as
much as several times, and some columns wasted time waiting for others.”58
The Russo-Austrian army slowly moved in five columns from Olmütz to
Wischau, where its advance guard under Bagration successfully engaged
the French troops. Emperor Alexander witnessed combat for the first time.
He was initially thrilled by the action but soon came across the dead and
wounded, which shocked him; he retired to the rear and refused to eat for the
rest of the day.59 The main army, meanwhile, continued its advance in almost
complete ignorance of the French location or strength.60 The Russian emper-
or’s confidant Czartoryski recalled that “it was here that Emperor Alexander
and his advisers were in fault. They imagined that Napoleon was in a danger-
ous position, and that he was on the point of retreating. The French outposts
had an appearance of hesitation and timidity which nourished these illusions,
and reports came at every moment from our outposts announcing an immi-
nent movement of the French army to the rear.”61
The Allied success at Wischau was actually orchestrated by Napoleon,
who sought to entice the Allies into positions of his choice; he persuaded
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 205

many at coalition headquarters that the French were indeed weak and wanted
to avoid a decisive battle.62 The Russo-Austrian commanders nonetheless
vacillated over their next step. Kutuzov still argued that Napoleon was sim-
ply luring the Allies into a favorable position, where he would engage them.63
Other senior officers wanted to remain in their present positions and await
reinforcements marching from Silesia. However, the young Russian adjutants
who claimed Napoleon was too frightened to fight finally swayed Alexander.
In late November Prince Peter Dolgorukov was sent to meet Napoleon to
discuss terms for negotiations, but he acted with incredible haughtiness.64
Napoleon, infuriated though he was by Dolgorukov’s behavior, took advan-
tage of him to convey the impression of French weakness and induce the
Allies to attack. He succeeded in this: upon his return, Dolgorukov “stated
all around that Napoleon trembled, and that even our advance guard would be
sufficient to defeat him.”65 As Alexander vacillated, Dolgorukov bluntly told
him that any indecision would brand the Russians as “cowards.” Alexander
responded, “Cowards? Then, it is better for us to die.”66
As it advanced, the Allied army passed through Austerlitz on the morn-
ing of December 1 and slowly climbed the slope to the Pratzen plateau,
which the French had just evacuated. That the French had surrendered what
seemed to be key ground without a fight added to the impression of weakness
that Napoleon was cultivating. Though the Allied troops marched in good
order, the columns still became entangled, with some columns halting far-
ther along than intended.67 Bagration bivouacked his forces around Posoritz,
on the extreme right flank of the Allied position.68
In fact, the arrival of coalition forces at Austerlitz was part of Napoleon’s
operational plan. The French emperor initially had placed his men on the
Pratzen heights, just east of the village, for he recognized that this position
would be a critical point for the battle. He then moved his men westward
to lower ground, deliberately weakening and overextending his right flank
in order to make his opponents concentrate their attention on this apparent
vulnerability and to fix in their minds an impression of weakness of the over-
all French position. The French right wing seemed an irresistible target, for
if the combined Austro-Russian army could break it, the Allies could sever
the French line of retreat to Vienna (and to France) and trap Napoleon for the
winter in Bohemia. Napoleon, on the other hand, was betting that Marshal
Davout’s late-arriving reinforcements would strengthen his right flank suffi-
ciently to enable it to hold while he delivered the decisive blow elsewhere.
The coalition attack began early on December 2, when the battlefield was
still shrouded in mist, concealing the main French army. By midmorning,
the coalition forces had gained some ground on the French right flank, which
206 | the napoleonic wars

was steadfastly defended by Davout’s troops. At the critical moment, around


9:30 a.m., as the mist burned off and the “Sun of Austerlitz” lit the battle-
field, Napoleon ordered Marshal Nicolas Soult to launch an assault on the
Pratzen Heights. The French attack surprised the Allied forces, splitting
their army into two and spreading disorder among their ranks. The French
attack pressed hard against the disintegrating Allies’ left flank, with French
artillery firing at the frozen ponds to break through the ice and thus make
any retreat more difficult. By 6:00 p.m. the battle was largely over.
Austerlitz was the masterpiece of Napoleon’s military strategy. Despite
their numerical superiority, the Russo-Austrian army was decisively defeated.
The French lost some 9,000 men, of whom 1,300 were killed, but the coali-
tion army suffered around 27,000 casualties. The Russians sustained most of
the losses, with over 21,000 killed, wounded, and captured and 133 guns
lost. Looking at the flower of the Russian military lying scattered across the
bloodstained fields, Napoleon is said to have remarked, “Many fine ladies will
weep tomorrow in St. Petersburg!”
Austerlitz was a blow that Austria could not recover from. With his armies
defeated and his capital occupied, Emperor Francis of the Holy Roman Empire
had no choice but to sue for peace on December 4. Emperor Alexander of
Russia, despite his defiant rhetoric, was compelled to lead the battered rem-
nants of his army back home. The moral and political impact on Russia of the
Battle of Austerlitz was profound. On the morning of the battle, Napoleon
famously welcomed the “Sun of Austerlitz” as it rose above the December
mists. But for Russia, it could truly be said to have been the “Eclipse of
Austerlitz.” For a hundred years Russian society had been accustomed to see-
ing its army victorious, whether over the Turks, Swedes, Poles, or French, and
believed it was unbeatable. Austerlitz shattered such illusions. Alexander was
the first tsar to command the field army since Peter the Great, which only fur-
ther heightened the Russian sense of defeat on the fields of Moravia. Indeed,
the disastrous conclusion of the battle shocked Russian society. Writing from
St. Petersburg, Joseph de Maistre commented that the “Battle of Austerlitz
had a magical effect on the public opinion . . . and it seems that the defeat in a
single battle had paralyzed the entire empire.”69 The Russian nobility initially
refused to believe the extent of the loss. But as more details arrived and the
size of the defeat became clear, a strong upsurge of nationalism led to calls to
continue the war in order to recover the honor of Russia.
The triumph of 1805 gave Napoleon unchallenged mastery of western
and central Europe, where through persuasion and pressure he secured the
active cooperation of the key southern German states (Bavaria, Baden, and
Wurttemberg). The other European powers were stunned by the scale and
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 207

briskness of his victories. The campaign demonstrated their inability to form


and lead a coalition strong enough to defeat a resurgent France. As in
1798–1801, Anglo-Russian military and political cooperation was badly
strained, while relations between St. Petersburg and Vienna reached a new low,
with each side holding the other responsible for the defeat. Although Alexander
did not openly blame Austrian “treachery and imbecility,” to borrow one
British statesman’s expression, anti-Austrian sentiments, already rampant
among the Russian officers since their joint campaigns in Italy and Switzerland
in 1799, became only more pronounced.70 “As for the [Austrians],” one
Russian general grumbled to his wife, “you cannot imagine what a misfortune
it is to be with these scoundrels. . . . This bloody campaign should teach us not
to trust these Germans, who are greater enemies to us than the French.”71

Yet French victories on the continent barely had any effect on Britain itself.
In fact, France’s triumph at Ulm coincided almost to the day with the crush-
ing defeat at Trafalgar, where Horatio Nelson eliminated two-thirds of the
Franco-Spanish fleet and consolidated British mastery of the seas. As dis-
cussed in Chapter 9, in 1804 Napoleon developed a strategic plan for his
invasion of Britain. It called for Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve, in command
of the French fleet at Toulon, to slip out of the port, join a Spanish squadron,
and sail for the West Indies, thereby drawing the British Mediterranean fleet,
under the command of Nelson, away from Europe in pursuit. Once in the
Caribbean, Villeneuve was to elude the British forces, sail back to Europe,
and rendezvous with French fleets from Brest and Rochefort and Spanish
ships from the ports of Cadiz and Ferrol. This combined force would then sail
into the English Channel in early August in order to escort the invasion force
and protect it against the remaining British warships.
Villeneuve indeed set sail for the West Indies on March 30, 1805. He suc-
cessfully eluded the British blockade and met up with a Spanish fleet under
Admiral Don Federico Gravina at Cadiz. Thus reinforced, Villeneuve led the
combined fleet to the West Indies, both to divert the attention of the British
fleet keeping watch in the Channel and to rendezvous with other Franco-
Spanish naval forces. He reached the West Indies in mid-May and waited at
Martinique for other French fleets to join him. On June 11, realizing that no
reinforcements were forthcoming, he sailed back to Europe, having failed to
achieve any major objectives in the Caribbean. Nelson, who set off in pursuit
a couple of weeks later, reached the Caribbean in early June only to learn
of Villeneuve’s departure. He immediately dispatched a frigate to inform
the Admiralty in London that the Franco-Spanish forces were returning to
European waters. This information allowed the Channel fleet commanders to
208 | the napoleonic wars

be more vigilant in their blockades of French harbors. As a result, the French


fleet at Brest failed to break through the cordon of enemy vessels. Although
the Rochefort fleet had earlier managed to get out to sea, it could not rendez-
vous with Villeneuve and so it returned to port, effectively dooming the entire
enterprise. On July 22 Villeneuve’s fleet, weakened by the back-to-back cross-
ings of the Atlantic Ocean and sailing to break the blockade at Brest, stum-
bled upon Admiral Sir Robert Calder’s British fleet off Cape Finisterre
(northwestern Spain). The ensuing battle gave neither side an outright
victory—the British admiral was, in fact, later court-martialed for his
­performance—but this in itself constituted a strategic victory for the British.
Despite suffering limited losses, Villeneuve despaired of reaching Brest, where
his fleet could have joined with other French forces to clear the English
Channel for an invasion of Great Britain. Instead he turned to Cadiz, where he
was soon blockaded by the Royal Navy. Villeneuve was blamed for the failure
of the invasion plan, but Napoleon had in fact decided to abandon it even
before he learned about the failure of Villeneuve’s operations. By the time
Villeneuve docked at Cadiz, Napoleon had already broken up his camps at
Boulogne and begun the march to the Danube, where Austria and Russia were
preparing to confront him. He ordered Villeneuve to steer for the Mediterranean
to provide protection and logistical support for the French forces in Italy.
Villeneuve followed the imperial writ but, informed of Nelson’s presence at
Gibraltar, decided to reverse course and return north to Cadiz. His British
pursuers, however, intercepted him on October 21 near Cape Trafalgar.
The Battle of Trafalgar was one of the largest naval battles of the nine-
teenth century, featuring sixty ships-of-the-line engaged. On sighting his
opponents early on the morning of October 21, Nelson gave the signal from
his flagship, HMS Victory, to his twenty-seven ships-of-the-line, carrying
17,000 men and 2,148 guns, plus four frigates and two auxiliary vessels, to
prepare for battle. The Franco-Spanish fleet of thirty-three ships-of-the-line
and five frigates, carrying 30,000 officers and men and 2,632 guns, was larger
in size but could not match its opponents in terms of training and morale.72
While Villeneuve arranged his fleet in a customary single file, Nelson chose
a bolder approach, deploying his smaller fleet in two squadrons. It was a dan-
gerous maneuver, since a weak wind could have hindered British movement
and allowed the French and Spanish to pummel the lead British ships. Nelson
reckoned that in piercing the enemy’s line, he would be able to break its for-
mation and turn the battle into a series of small engagements between indi-
vidual ships (or groups of ships), where British superior gunnery, seamanship,
and morale could overcome the numerical superiority enjoyed by their adver-
saries.73 In true Napoleonic fashion, Nelson was seeking a decisive victory:
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 209

“It is . . . annihilation that the country wants, and not merely a splendid vic-
tory,” he wrote shortly before the battle.74
Just before noon, Nelson hoisted the famous signal, “England expects
that every man will do his duty,” and the British fleet commenced attack.
Despite heavy enemy fire, the British warships held their course and the two
columns drove into the long line of Franco-Spanish ships. As each British
warship passed through the line, its broadsides enfiladed the enemy vessels,
to devastating effect. “I thought [our ship] was shattered to pieces, pulver-
ized,” recalled a French participant. “The storm of projectiles that hurled
themselves against and through the hull on the port side made the ship heel
to starboard. Most of the sails and the rigging were cut to pieces, while the
upper deck was swept clear of the greater number of seamen working there.”75
The battle raged for five hours before resulting in one of the most decisive
and consequential British naval victories in history. Seventeen ships of the
Franco-Spanish fleet were captured and one was destroyed. Not a single
British ship was lost. The Spaniards lost approximately 1,000 killed and
wounded, while the French casualties exceeded 4,000 killed and wounded;
approximately 7,000 French and Spaniards became prisoners. British losses
were remarkably small—just 449 officers and men killed and 1,214 wounded,
or approximately 10 percent of the total force. The greatest loss for the
British, of course, was that of Admiral Nelson, who was mortally wounded
by one of the French marines firing onto the decks of the Victory. He died
around 4:00 p.m., but not before learning that victory was ensured.76
Trafalgar, like Ulm and Austerlitz, had profound consequences. However,
its importance tends to be exaggerated and colored by patriotic sentiment,
and it is important to distinguish between what appeared to have been won
and what in fact had been accomplished. Nelson had indeed scored a brilliant
victory, one that removed the immediate threat of a French invasion. It cer-
tainly helped to shore up the role of the Royal Navy in the forthcoming
Peninsular War, as the fight for Spain came to be called. The battle also dem-
onstrated the inability of sea power to affect the outcome of a war being
fought on the continent: victories at sea might gain momentary respites
but could not make up for inherent limits when dealing with land-based
powers. Trafalgar did not produce, as some historians suggest, “decisive
consequences”—Napoleon went on to destroy the Third and Fourth Coalitions
and engineered a geopolitical shift in the Near East, where the Ottoman
Empire and Iran aligned with France.77 For the next seven years the British
made little progress in their efforts to bring about the downfall of Napoleon
and his empire. Neither did the battle secure British command of the sea or
crush Napoleon’s maritime aspirations. Until recently, the general tendency
210 | the napoleonic wars

among historians was to conclude that the maritime struggle had ended in
1805, without much thought given to the six years of naval warfare that fol-
lowed.78 Contrary to popular perception, French naval power was not com-
pletely destroyed at Trafalgar, and despite the losses suffered, French admirals
continued to conduct wide-ranging operations in the Atlantic and the Indian
Ocean in 1806–1807. Furthermore, Napoleon continued to replenish his naval
forces by either building new fleets or acquiring them by conquest, forcing the
British to challenge him again at Copenhagen and Lisbon in 1807, Walcheren
and Aix (Basque) Roads in 1809, and the Mascarene Islands in 1810.

Victory over the Third Coalition in December 1805 offered Napoleon an


opportunity to turn his attention to the Italian peninsula, where he had
encountered significant problems. The heavy-handed introduction of French
administration (especially the more effective tax collection and conscription
systems) had provoked an uprising in Parma that Napoleon had to suppress in
early 1806.79 His instructions to General Andoche Junot demanded severe
punishment of the local populace, revealing not the slightest interest in under-
standing the particulars surrounding the origins of the revolt. “I do not share
your opinion on the innocence of the people of Parma,” the emperor told the
general, who urged a more restrained treatment of the rebels. “Punishments
should be numerous and severe; spare no one. . . . Burn one or two large villages
so that no traces remain. Say that I have ordered it. Large states can only be
maintained by acts of severity.”80 The revolt was put down in just a few weeks,
but it did reveal the nature of Napoleonic rule, which not only offered reforms
but also exacted severe punishment for any resistance. Meanwhile, Pope Pius
VII found himself on the receiving end of Napoleon’s wrath for protesting the
French occupation of Ancona during the war. Troops occupied the whole of
the Adriatic and Tyrrhenian coastlines, which represented the first step toward
the incorporation of the Papal States into the French Empire.81
More important, after ending the War of the Third Coalition, Napoleon
announced his intentions to chasten the Bourbon monarchy in Naples, whose
king, Ferdinand, had allied himself with Napoleon by the Treaty of Florence in
1801 and pledged to remain neutral in the ongoing conflict, only to break his
agreement with France, join the Third Coalition, and invite the coalition forces
to land at Naples, as we’ve seen.82 The Allies responded to Ferdinand’s invita-
tion with the dispatch of two expeditionary forces: Lieutenant General James
Henry Craig left Malta with some 6,000 British soldiers, while General
Maurice Lacy’s 7,000 Russian troops sailed from the island of Corfu. The two
expeditions converged on Naples on November 20, 1805. The timing could
not have been worse. The Austrian army had been demolished at Ulm, and the
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 211

French were already in control of the Austrian capital. In northern Italy, Marshal
André Masséna, with his Armée d’Italie, prevailed over the Austrian army
under Archduke Charles at Caldiero and pursued it toward Vicenza and then
Venice, which was soon blockaded by French forces under General Saint Cyr.83
Furthermore, upon landing in Naples, Craig and Lacy found the Neapolitan
kingdom’s defenses in a woeful state and its army in disarray. Unable to launch
an offensive as it was originally envisioned, they decided to hold a defensive
line along the northern border of the Neapolitan kingdom, with the Russians
near the Apennine Mountains and the British on the Garigliano River.84
In the wake of Napoleon’s triumph at Austerlitz, however, General Lacy
received orders to withdraw from Italy, and his departure made the British
position untenable. The prospect of the Allies’ departure threw the Neapolitan
monarchy into turmoil. King Ferdinand knew well what to expect from
Napoleon for his perfidy: in January 1805 the French emperor had warned the
Neapolitan Bourbons that “at the first sound of a war that you cause, you and
your posterity will have ceased to reign, and your children will wander like
mendicants through the different countries of Europe, begging help off their
relatives.”85 King Ferdinand’s desperate appeals caused Lacy to consider inter-
preting his orders with some latitude, but after a disagreement with Neapolitan
officials, he decided to sail back for the Ionian Islands in January 1806. His
departure was followed shortly by the evacuation of the British forces to Malta.
King Ferdinand thus found himself effectively abandoned by the Allies
and facing down the French Empire with only his poorly trained army. Now,
with the Austrian army in tatters and northern Italy firmly under his control,
the French emperor could turn to the double-crossing Neapolitans. At the
start of the New Year Marshal Masséna prepared his Franco-Italian army of
some 41,000 men for the invasion of Naples. Ferdinand, never known for
valor, fled with his court to the safety of Sicily and the “wooden walls” of the
British navy. The Neapolitan army, left to defend the kingdom under the
command of Marshal von Rosenheim and General Roger de Damas, was
dolefully unprepared for the task, with its troops demoralized by their king’s
flight and hardly cherishing the prospect of engaging the far superior French
army. Consequently, the French invasion of Naples proved to be a brief affair.
The newly designated Armée de Naples, nominally under the command of
Napoleon’s brother Joseph but actually commanded by Marshal Masséna,
crossed the Neapolitan border on February 8 and, routing the Neapolitan
armies at Campo Tenese on March 10, occupied Naples and much of the
kingdom by the end of the month. Joseph Bonaparte was installed as the new
king of Naples on March 30 and began introducing reforms intended to
modernize the kingdom’s administration and economy.86
212 | the napoleonic wars

The ease with which the French occupied the kingdom proved to be decep-
tive. Southern Italy in the early nineteenth century was among the poorest
regions in Europe, with its residents still recovering from the devastating
Calabrian earthquakes that claimed as many as 100,000 lives in February and
March 1783. The arrival of the French only increased their misery, as Joseph
Bonaparte proceeded to set up French-style administration, conscript troops,
and introduce efficient taxation to support them; numerous cases of abuses and
mistreatment perpetrated by the French troops further alienated the local
population. Many young men refused to report for conscription (or deserted
from their units) and fled into the mountains, where they turned to brigand-
age that soon evolved into an open revolt against the French authority.
The British were happy to lend support to this uprising. In late June
1806 a small British expeditionary force of 5,200 men (many of them veter-
ans of the Egyptian campaign) led by Major General Sir John Stuart crossed
the Strait of Messina and landed unopposed in the Gulf of St. Euphemia on
the Italian mainland.87 On learning of the landing, General Jean Reynier
advanced with about 6,500 men toward the gulf and took up a position over-
looking a plain and the small village of Maida.88 Here, on July 4, 1806, the
two sides fought a battle that resulted in a French defeat that claimed almost
half of Reynier’s force. The Battle of Maida is often held up as an example of
the superiority of the British line over the French column, something that
would come to feature prominently during the Peninsular War, but recent
scholarship has questioned the veracity of this claim.89
When considered within the wider scope of the War of the Third Coalition,
the Neapolitan engagement loses its significance; the British, had they been
bolder, could have caused serious problems for the French in southern Italy.
Instead they chose to retreat to Reggio before quitting the mainland in August
1806. Still, the British intervention in Calabria had a significant regional
impact. It weakened French control over Calabria, an area that was geograph-
ically, linguistically, and culturally isolated from the rest of Italy and well
suited for a partisan uprising. The local anti-French resistance raged for the
next five years and constituted the most serious challenge to Napoleon’s con-
trol of the Italian peninsula. The masse, as the rebels became known, spread
across the “toe” of Italy and quickly assumed a viciously murderous nature,
with little mercy shown by either side. The French found themselves attacked
by an “invisible” foe that operated under the cover of darkness and disappeared
as soon as the attack was over; the brigands were encouraged by the British
reward in gold for every captured live Frenchman they brought in, but as
Stuart lamented in a report, the “locals prefer butchering to gold . . . their
reward is blood. Not even the Turks are as abominable.”90
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 213

Struggling to suppress this “most monstrous of wars,” as Reynier described


it, the French authorities diverted additional forces to the region, and in
August 1806 some 6,000 men under Marshal André Masséna engaged in
anti-insurgency operations, resorting to collective punishments and execu-
tions. Masséna decreed that any peasant found with arms would be executed,
and in just three days in mid-August he had more than six hundred put to
death. By the end of the year the French had reestablished control over most
of the interior Calabrian towns but still struggled to control the countryside,
a forewarning of things to come in Spain. For the next few years the French
authority in southern Italy rested squarely on military force, repression, and
exploitation, especially after the summer of 1809, when the Calabrians rose
in another full-scale revolt.91
British victories at Trafalgar and Maida did not change the fact that by
1806 the Third Coalition lay in tatters and Napoleon dominated the European
continent. When William Pitt received the news of Austerlitz, he pointed to
a map of Europe hanging on a wall of his cabinet room and asked for it to be
removed. “Roll up that map,” he supposedly said. “It will not be wanted these
ten years.”92 Pitt was right. The triumphs at Ulm and Austerlitz made
Napoleon supreme in Italy and southern Germany and gave him a free hand
to redraw the political map of Europe. On December 26, 1805, Austria signed
a new peace at Pressburg (present-day Bratislava). In addition to confirming
French gains made in the previous Treaties of Campo Formio and Lunéville,
the Habsburgs were required to surrender all remaining Austrian possessions
in Italy, including Venice and its hinterlands, and pay a vast war indemnity.
France’s allies, Bavaria, Baden, and Wurttemberg, were all rewarded for their
loyalty and support with Austrian territories in the Tyrol and southern
Germany.93 Thus the Treaty of Pressburg marked an end to the Habsburg
influence in Germany and henceforth completely excluded them from Italy.
The Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, helplessly watched the demise of the
political institution that his predecessors had toiled so hard to maintain.
The French emperor could have concentrated on consolidating his vast
gains. Instead he pursued even more grandiose plans. The French army was
kept intact in Germany at German expense while Napoleon busied himself
with extracting contributions from Austria, Spain, Switzerland, and German
and Italian states, reorganizing the Batavian Republic into a monarchy, plac-
ing his brothers on royal thrones (Joseph in Naples, Louis in Holland), and
rewarding his loyal officers with new titles and fiefs in Germany and Italy.
Furthermore, even in peace, the emperor was keen on expanding his realm,
redrawing borders in northeast Italy and directing French intrusions into
Istria and Dalmatia.
214 | the napoleonic wars

As had been the case in 1800–1801, the most profound changes occurred
in Germany. In the aftermath of the Third Coalition’s demise, the Imperial
Reichstag was abolished (January 20, 1806), enabling Napoleon to launch a
new wave of reorganization of German states. In March he established the first
of a new set of minor German states, to be ruled by members of his family; the
newly formed Grand Duchy of Berg was given to his brother-in-law Marshal
Murat. More important, the emperor made steps toward a wholesale transfor-
mation of the Holy Roman Empire into a French-dominated German political
entity that could serve as a buffer against Prussia and Austria, a market for
French goods, and a source of military manpower for the empire. The
Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund/Confédération du Rhin) came into
formal being in July 1806 when German princes (Fürsten) accepted the Treaty
of Paris and recognized Karl Theodor von Dalberg as “prince-primate”
(Fürstenprimas) and Napoleon as the “protector” (Protektor). Among the origi-
nal sixteen German states of the confederation were Bavaria, Württemberg,
Hesse-Darmstadt, Baden, and Berg, all of which withdrew from the Holy
Roman Empire on August 1, marking the effective end of the empire; five
days later, the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, had no choice but to surren-
der the Habsburgs’ ancient imperial dignity and proclaimed himself Emperor
Francis I of Austria in its place.94 Almost a thousand years after its inception,
the German Reich, in the words of historian Sam Mustafa, “died with a whim-
per.”95 Twenty-three additional German states would eventually join the
Confederation of the Rhine, with only Prussia and Austria, alongside the
much smaller Danish Holstein and Swedish Pomerania, remaining outside it.
The establishment of the confederation was not just a product of Napoleon’s
ambition. It also reflected the fact that the south German states were deeply
apprehensive of Austrian and Prussian ambitions and willing to support France
in exchange for lands and titles. As an inducement for their support (though,
in practice, that support was often effectively coerced), Napoleon generously
rewarded his Bavarian, Wurttembergian, Badenese, and other allies. Austria
was forced to recognize the elevation of the electors of Bavaria (Maximilian
Joseph) and Württemberg (Frederick II) to the rank of kings, releasing them
as well as the newly minted grand dukes of Baden (Charles Frederick),
Hesse-Darmstadt (Louis I), and Würzburg (Ferdinand I) from all feudal ties.
Furthermore, these states were made larger by incorporating Kleinstaaten, the
smaller imperial member states that the Imperial Recess had swept aside.
Yet such aggrandizement did not come cheaply for the German states,
which had exchanged benevolent Austrian leadership for the far more con-
stricting and effective hegemony of France. The confederation was, at its heart,
a political-military alliance, and France extracted vast contributions in men
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 215

and matériel from individual members. And the Rheinbund had a deep, long-
term impact on Germany. With its establishment, Napoleon had unwittingly
placed the first brick in the foundation of the future united Germany. The
French interventions in Germany in 1801 and 1806 profoundly changed the
German political reality, reducing the approximately three hundred duchies,
ecclesiastical cities, electorates, principalities, and duchies to just three dozen
states that were ultimately united in 1871. The formation of the Confederation
of the Rhine was a crucial moment in the development of modern Germany.
If Austria’s dominance in Germany had all but vanished, the same may be
said of Prussia too. Berlin could have had a decisive effect on the outcome of
the War of the Third Coalition in 1805. King Frederick William III, a man
of good intentions but characterized by weakness of will and vacillation, had,
as we’ve noted, dithered about declaring war, and by the time he finally
decided to intervene, it was too late.96 In November Prussia signed a conven-
tion with Russia, placing some 180,000 troops on a war footing and dis-
patching its envoy Christian Graf von Haugwitz to offer armed mediation to
Napoleon under the threat of Prussian entry into the war. Napoleon kept
the Prussian envoy at arm’s length until after his victory at Austerlitz on
December 2, by which time the geopolitical situation in central Europe had
profoundly changed. Rather than present his ultimatum, Haugwitz was
forced to sign the Treaty of Schönbrunn (December 5, 1805), which created
a Franco-Prussian alliance. As a reward for Prussian acceptance of the treaty,
Napoleon agreed to transfer Hanover to Prussia in exchange for ceding the
Margravate of Ansbach to the French ally Bavaria, and the Principality of
Neuchâtel (a Prussian enclave in Switzerland) to France.
The transfer of Hanover was designed to cause frictions, if not outright
rupture, in relations between Prussia and its only potential ally in Europe,
Britain. The Prussians understood this, but the French offer was too tempt-
ing to turn down.97 Berlin initially refused to ratify the Treaty of Schönbrunn
without modifications and then made an unwise decision to demobilize
its forces. Napoleon, annoyed by the Prussian demands for revisions, at once
raised the price of peace. In February and March 1806 France rejected the
Prussian requests and instead imposed a new agreement on Berlin, requiring
it to close all north German ports to British commerce. Facing a choice
between accepting this humbling treaty and fighting a war with France,
Frederick William III chose the former, thereby bringing Prussia into even
greater dependence on France. Britain responded by declaring war and the
Royal Navy blockaded the Prussian coastline, causing considerable harm to
Prussia’s maritime trade, which in the preceding decades had contributed so
much to Prussian prosperity.
4° 5° 6° 7° 8° 9° 10° 11° 12° 13° 14° 15° 16° 17° 18° 19° 20°
KINGDOM OF
SWEDEN
Boundary of the Holy Roman Empire
Church Lands Copenhagen Baltic Sea
Church Lands governed by
the House of Wettin Bornholm
Church Lands governed by the House NORWAY
of Habsburg (Austrian Branch)
French Republic and dependent Rügen Danzig
or occupied states Elbing
1773 Kolberg 1793 to Prussia
Austro-Hungarian military boundary to oldenbg. SWEDISH
D. OF POMERANIA
zones, with dates of duration HOLSTEIN
to den. D. OF WEST PRUSSIA
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PR. OF SWISS Innsbruck SALZBURG KINGDOM OF
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(ROMAN REP.) REP. OF
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K. OF NAPLES RAGUSA Cattaro
0 40 80 Kilometers Corsica 1797 to Aust.
Ajaccio (PARTHENOPEAN REP.)
0 40 80 Miles Rome 1798-99 to Fr.

Map 11: Germany Before and After the Imperial Recess


4° 5° 6° 7° 8° 9° 10° 11° 12° 13° 14° 15° 16° 17° 18° 19° 20°
KINGDOM OF
SWEDEN

Boundary of the Confederation of the Rhine Copenhagen Baltic Sea


French Empire Bornholm
States ruled by Napoleon’s family NORWAY
Other dependent states
Rügen REP. OF DANZIG
1807-14
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1810 to Fr. 1809 Gr. Duchy
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. D
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47° Innsbruck I SALZBURG STYRIA
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Berne 1810
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H

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H E L V E T I A Brixen CARINTHIA Drava Mu
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C

REP. OF
L

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VALAIS
L
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I
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L

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E
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SAN MARINO
Florence
S

H E Sarajevo
PR. OF LUCCA
RZ
Nice EG
Marseilles Ancona OV
GR. DUCHY OF I N
43° 1808 A
TUSCANY to Italy Adriatic
PR. OF 1807 to Fr.
PIOMBINO Sea
Bastia PA PA L
Ragusa
Elba 1808 to Fr.
S T A T ES Cattaro
0 40 80 Kilometers Corsica 1809 to Fr.
1807 to Fr.

Ajaccio K. OF NAPLES
0 40 80 Miles Rome
218 | the napoleonic wars

Never had Prussia been so humiliated and isolated as it was in


1805–1806. Not only had it conceded to French demands, it stood by helplessly
as Napoleon increased his power in Europe. During the summer of 1806 the
steady stream of news about Napoleon’s reorganization of Germany and the
conversion of the Batavian Republic into the Kingdom of Holland exasper-
ated the Prussian government, which could see its standing in northwestern
Europe rapidly evaporating. The Prussian monarch was therefore particularly
incensed to discover that the confederation would include several regions for-
merly held by Prussia and presumably still within its sphere of influence.
Napoleon further aroused Prussian resentment by sanctioning the execution
of Johann Philipp Palm, a Nuremberg bookseller who had been arrested for
selling a brochure condemning Napoleon and calling for German resistance
to France.98 Tried by a military commission, Palm refused to divulge the
name of the pamphlet’s author and was shot at Braunau on August 26, 1806.
The disparity between the relative paltriness of the crime and the severity of
the punishment angered many Germans and helped to arouse Prussian (and
German in general) sentiment against France.99
But even in light of these humiliations, the Prussian monarchy seemed
reluctant to be drawn into a conflict. The events of the Third Coalition rein-
forced long-standing Prussian opinions about Britain and Russia. The latter
had a history of encouraging Prussia to oppose France before leaving it to
deal with the consequences by itself. As for Britain, the Prussians found
British naval supremacy as troublesome as French continental hegemony, and
Frederick William pledged not to be used by the British, who, as he put it,
“dangled a purse in the air” to make other powers to do their bidding.100 The
British preoccupation with South American schemes, as we will see, only
further reinforced such sentiments in some European capitals.
It was the news that Napoleon, in his abortive negotiations with the British
government, had actually offered to restore Hanover to Britain in exchange
for peace that pushed Prussia toward war. The Treaty of Schönbrunn gave the
state of Hanover to Prussia in return for territories on the right bank of the
Rhine, which Prussia ceded to France. Berlin viewed the news of Napoleon
now offering the region to London as a betrayal of the worst sort, hardly
diminished by the fact that the Anglo-French negotiations quickly broke
down. Although Napoleon’s duplicity over Hanover was the immediate cause
for war, the Prussian decision to confront France had already been made as
early as July 1806 and was provoked by a clear realization that French aggran-
dizement posed an existential threat to the vital Prussian interests in northern
Germany.101 It was an “offensive strategy out of desperation,” as the eminent
American historian Paul Schroeder aptly put it, developed on the basis of
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 219

rational calculation that “unless it broke through French encirclement by its


own offensive, [Prussia] would not be able to fight at all.”102
By the summer of 1806 anti-Gallican spirits ran high in Prussian society.
A French officer who visited Berlin in August found “evidence of the frenzy to
which their hatred of Napoleon carried the Prussian nation, usually so
calm . . . The officers whom I knew ventured no longer to speak to me or salute
me; many Frenchmen were insulted by the populace; the men-at-arms of the
Noble Guard pushed their swagger to the point of whetting their sword-
blades on the stone steps of the French ambassador’s house.”103 Open criticism
of the submissiveness of Frederick William’s foreign policy was voiced among
the high bureaucracy and the royal family, many of whom shared, in the words
of a contemporary, “a great thirst for war” and “certain hope of victory.”104
Strongly influenced by Queen Louise and the war party that still cherished
proud memories of Frederick the Great, Frederick William finally agreed to
send an ultimatum to Napoleon, demanding the immediate withdrawal of the
French armies across the Rhine and France’s acceptance of the formation of the
North German Confederation under Prussian leadership. Napoleon, finding
these demands ludicrous, did not respond. On October 9 Prussia declared
war—joining in a war against France for the first time since 1795.
Yet Prussia was not prepared for the type of war that Napoleon unleashed.
Despite being a member of a new coalition (Britain, Prussia, Sweden, Saxony,
and Russia), Prussia was in a weak position strategically and politically. The
decision to declare war was not done in concert with Emperor Alexander, with
whom the king concluded a secret agreement of support in the event of an
attack by France, and consequently no Russian troops were readily available to
support Prussia. Britain’s financial subsidies were certainly welcome but could
not replace actual boots on the ground. Sweden’s involvement produced few
tangible benefits. The indigence of Prussia’s foreign policy was equaled only
by the ineptitude of its military high command. The Prussian army enjoyed a
reputation far in excess of its actual merits. Long gone were the glory days of
Frederick the Great. The Prussian military of 1806 was much inferior to the
army that was responsible for the brilliant successes of the 1740s and 1750s.
While the Prussian soldiers continued to display admirable courage, their
aging superiors failed to fully account for changes that had taken place in the
art of war during the Revolutionary Wars.105 In the words of a Prussian
observer, they demonstrated not just “a style of fighting which had outlived
its usefulness but the most extreme poverty of the imagination to which rou-
tine has ever led.”106 On the eve of its war with France, Prussia could rely only
on its own forces and on small contingents from Hesse and Saxony, the latter
being rather reluctant to fight on behalf of their northern neighbor. The main
220 | the napoleonic wars

part of the Prussian forces, around 65,000 men, was commanded by Charles
William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick, while Friedrich Ludwig Fürst
Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen took charge of a Prusso-Saxon corps of around 45,000
men; another 34,000 men were left to protect Westphalia and Hesse, and
18,000 West Prussians were kept in reserve.107
Napoleon was better prepared for the war. He commanded a well-honed
army that had been fully trained in the camps of Boulogne and tested on the
battlefields of 1805. The Grande Armée, which had not returned to France
following the last campaign but instead remained quartered in southern
Germany, had some 180,000 men on the river Main, determined to strike at
Berlin before help could arrive from Russia. On October 6 the French invaded
Saxony and, taking advantage of the Prussian failure to block passage through
the Thüringian Forest, scored a first victory at Saalfeld (October 10), where
Marshal Jean Lannes routed an exposed Prussian-Saxon corps under Prince
Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, who was killed in action.108 The defeat dazed the
Prussian commanders, who decided to fall back to the Elbe and Berlin. It was
too late. Four days later, on October 14, Napoleon caught up with them.
Assuming that the main Prussian army was at Jena, the French emperor
divided his forces, sending Marshal Louis Nicolas Davout with the III Corps
some ten miles north to strike the enemy’s rear. When the battle commenced
at Jena, Napoleon was able to quickly concentrate some 95,000 men against
just 38,000 Prussians commanded by Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-
Ingelfingen. The Prussian commander hoped to have the support of another
15,000 men deployed about ten miles away at Weimar, but they arrived only
in the afternoon, when the outcome of the battle was no longer in doubt. The
Prussians fought valiantly but were no match for the French troops, superbly
commanded by Napoleon and his marshals. By afternoon the Prussians were
already in a retreat that soon turned into a rout.109
While Napoleon smashed what he believed was the main Prussian army
at Jena, Davout’s III Corps of just 28,000 men stumbled across the bulk of
the enemy forces at Auerstädt, where Brunswick had concentrated more than
60,000 men with 230 cannon. Realizing the danger he was facing, the French
“Iron Marshal” exploited the terrain of the Saale Valley—hilly, with deep
ravines cutting into the various plateaus—to fight a resolute action. He
formed his divisions into huge squares whenever the Prussian cavalry charged,
and he demonstrated an ability to coordinate the actions of his infantry, artil-
lery, and cavalry. Despite losing a quarter of its men, the French corps not
only held its ground but seized the initiative and pushed forward, threaten-
ing to envelop the Prussian flanks. The death of the Prussian commander in
chief, Brunswick, disheartened the Prussian army, which began to break up
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 221

even though its reserves had not yet been committed. A disorderly retreat
degenerated into chaos when the fleeing masses of Brunswick’s force crossed
paths with the Prussian survivors from Jena, whom Hohenlohe was leading
into Pomerania.110
The destruction of the Prussian forces in the twin battles of Jena and
Auerstädt caused profound demoralization in Prussia. And, in what became
one of the most thorough and rapid pursuits in history, French forces scat-
tered across the Prussian kingdom, capturing cities, fortresses, and thousands
of prisoners. The great Prussian fortresses of Spandau, Stettin, Küstrin, and
Magdeburg, with garrisons counting thousands of men, could have checked
the French advance and gained precious time for the army to reorganize.
Instead they capitulated without so much as firing a shot, effectively break-
ing Prussia’s military backbone.111 Some detachments of Prussian forces held
out for another month before capitulating one by one. Hohenlohe’s 14,000
men surrendered to Marshal Joachim Murat at Prenzlau on October 28.112
Murat then joined Soult and Bernadotte in pursuit of some 12,000 Prussians
who had shown much spirit under the fiery Gebhard Lebrecht Blücher von
Wahlstatt as they retreated to the Hanseatic port of Lübeck, hoping to unite
with a Swedish army that was reported to be there. But upon arriving on
November 5 Blücher found that the Swedes had landed only a small brigade
of fewer than 2,000 men. The following day, the French forces stormed and
sacked Lübeck, forcing Blücher to capitulate; the Prussian general’s last stand
quickly entered Prussian lore, turning him into a symbol of heroism and stead-
fast resistance for the defeated nation.113 However, in just one month Prussia
had effectively been knocked out of the war, apart from a force under General
Anton William Lestocq, which moved east to link up with the Russians,
and another under General Friedrich Adolf Graf von Kalkreuth, which was
besieged in Danzig.114
On October 25, because of its valiant performance at Auerstädt, Davout’s
III Corps was given the honor of being the first to enter the Prussian capital,
Berlin, followed a day later by Napoleon, who visited the tomb of Frederick
the Great and supposedly stood in silence for a minute before remarking, “If
you were still alive, I would not be standing here.”115
The Franco-Prussian war was brief, lasting just four weeks, but the mili-
tary and political collapse of Prussia had enormous ramifications. In contrast
to his victory over Austria in 1805, Napoleon insisted on organizing a victory
parade in Berlin, where the prisoners from the Noble Guard, who just weeks
before had sharpened their swords on the French embassy’s steps, were prom-
inently featured. The war not only destroyed Prussia’s martial reputation but
ended the country’s claims to the status of a great power. Napoleon demanded
222 | the napoleonic wars

vast concessions from Frederick William: all Prussian territory, except for
Magdeburg and Altmark, on the left bank of the Elbe was to be surrendered;
Prussia could make no alliances with any other German state and had to pay
a war indemnity. The king had a week to comply. As more and more Prussian
cities and fortresses surrendered, Napoleon revised his demands, adding the
requirement that Prussia surrender all its territory up to the Vistula. Frederick
William rejected the terms and fled, along with his family and court, to the
fortress of Königsberg in East Prussia, where he desperately grasped at the
straw of salvation proffered by Russia.
Napoleon, joined by Saxony (which had signed the Treaty of Posen on
December 11, 1806), was now free to take on these Russian forces, which,
under the command of Levin Bennigsen, marched to support their Prussian
allies. Russia had learned indelible lessons at Austerlitz and in 1806 began
rapidly reorganizing its military forces. New levies were called up and more
than 600,000 men recruited from thirty-one provinces.116 These vast human
resources allowed Alexander I to form three new armies, including two under
Bennigsen and Buxhöwden with a total of 120,000 men, to contain Napoleon’s
attempts to expand his sphere of influence into northeastern Europe.117
Hostilities resumed in November 1806, when Bennigsen maneuvered
with his 70,000 men in central Poland. Yet lack of unity of command ham-
pered Russian operations; Buxhöwden and Bennigsen were on bad terms and
refused to cooperate. Exasperated by squabbles among his generals, Alexander
lamented that “there is not a single one with the talent of the commander in
chief.”118 In worsening weather—“snow, rain, and thaw . . . we sunk down up
to our knees . . . and our shoes would stick in the wet mud,” as one participant
described it—the Grande Armée marched into Poland to engage the Russians,
who hastily withdrew beyond the Vistula.119 The French cavalry occupied the
former Polish capital city, Warsaw, on November 28. A second Russian army,
under Buxhöwden, advanced to confront the French.
On December 26, at Golymin, the French caught up with the Russian
rear guard, under General Prince Dmitry Golitsyn, whose troops were too
exhausted to march further. Golitsyn desperately held on to the town of
Golymin to help General Fabian von der Osten-Sacken’s troops, who were in
danger of being cut off. With a total of about 16,000–18,000 men facing the
corps of 38,000 men under Marshals Augereau and Murat, the Russians held
out until nightfall and then withdrew. On the same day, about twelve miles
away, General Bennigsen decided to attack Marshal Jean Lannes’s corps of
20,000 men with his 40,000–45,000 men at Pultusk. Both sides claimed a
victory, but Bennigsen, who claimed that he had defeated Napoleon himself,
left the field to Lannes.
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 223

The battles at Pultusk and Golymin demonstrated that Napoleon could


no longer hope for the swiftness of the previous campaigns. In Poland, one of
the poorest regions in Europe, there were scarce supplies, and both the French
and Russian armies starved. Bad roads and cold weather further complicated
the movement of supplies to the armies. With the Russians retreating north-
ward, Napoleon decided to move his army into winter quarters north of
Warsaw.120 Meanwhile, confusion reigned in the Russian army, as Count
Mikhail Kamensky, a field marshal Alexander appointed to lead the Russian
armies, left his post just a few days after reaching headquarters.121 Bennigsen
was then appointed to lead the Russian forces and decided to launch a sur-
prise offensive against the French left wing, scattered in bivouacs in northern
Poland. Its main objective was to protect Königsberg, where the Prussian
court and huge Russian supply magazines were established.
The Russian offensive began successfully and Marshal Ney’s corps was
forced to give ground. However, as the Russian army moved farther away from
its bases, Napoleon saw a chance to encircle his opponent. In January he con-
ceived of a maneuver that would have turned the enemy flank and destroyed
Bennigsen’s army.122 Yet, as one Russian officer observed, “the Russian God
was too great” to let that happen.123 A dispatch sent to Marshal Bernadotte
detailing the emperor’s plans was captured by a Cossack patrol. Bennigsen,
realizing he was, in the words of French officer Henri Jomini, “rushing
blindly on to his destruction,” immediately ordered his army to withdraw.124
Napoleon’s forces vigorously pursued him, and after a series of rearguard
actions, the two sides met near the small town of Preussisch-Eylau, where the
Russians drew up a position that stretched from northwest to east behind the
town.125
The battle commenced on February 7, 1807, when the French attacked
the Russian rear guard, commanded by Prince Peter Bagration, who fought
his way back through the streets of Eylau as darkness descended. The follow-
ing morning the massed Russian artillery opened the battle with a bombard-
ment that set Eylau ablaze. A daylong battle, fought in a blizzard, proved to
be exceptionally bloody, but the steadfast Russian resistance sapped French
attacks and the arrival of the Prussian corps under General Lestocq helped
bolster the beleaguered Russians, who held their positions until nightfall.126
By the end of February 8, the frozen fields around Eylau were covered with
tens of thousands of corpses, causing one participant to describe it as “the
bloodiest day, the most horrible butchery of men that had taken place since
the beginning of the Revolutionary wars.”127 Despite Napoleon’s subsequent
claims, the Battle of Eylau was far from a great victory, and it is now gener-
ally viewed by historians as a costly draw at best, with losses estimated at
224 | the napoleonic wars

more than 25,000 Russian casualties and as many as 30,000 French; the
exhausted state of the French forces rendered pursuit impossible. Both sides
went back into winter quarters to recover from this bloodletting, but with
the certain expectation of renewed fighting in the spring.128
In late March 1807 Emperor Alexander personally visited his troops in
Poland, boosting their morale in expectation of a new campaign. He held
military reviews and brought strong reinforcements, including the Russian
Imperial Guard.129 Alexander and Frederick William of Prussia visited
Heilsberg, where Bennigsen had constructed strong defensive positions and
had concentrated his army.130 On May 30, Russian headquarters received
news of the surrender of Danzig, which allowed Napoleon to divert his forces
from the fortress to the Passarge River, where the Russian army was deployed.
Ahead of the anticipated French offensive, Bennigsen decided to attack the
seemingly isolated VI Corps of Marshal Ney before the main French forces
arrived. The Russian plan failed: Ney’s 16,000 men succeeded in escaping
the superior Russian army because of the tactical skill of the French troops
and, more important, ineffectual leadership of the Allied generals, who acted
disjointedly, even insubordinately.131
Late on June 6 Bennigsen received intelligence that Napoleon was rapidly
concentrating his forces for a counterattack, and so he withdrew the Russian
army to Heilsberg, where another sanguine but inconclusive battle was fought
on June 10. Concerned about Napoleon’s possible flanking maneuvers, Russians
left the battlefield and retreated to the town of Friedland, on the Alle River.132
Wearied and in poor health, Bennigsen, who suffered from kidney stones and
had passed out from exhaustion during the Battle of Heilsberg, had barely got-
ten any rest before he was informed about the French outposts appearing in the
woods near the town. The fighting rapidly intensified as both sides committed
additional forces, and by dawn a major battle was already raging.133 Upon
receiving news of the battle, Napoleon rapidly concentrated his army at
Friedland and, noticing how disadvantageous the Russian positions were, made
quick adjustments to the French dispositions. Around 5:30 p.m. a salvo of
twenty French guns signaled the renewal of the battle.134 The French attack
against the Russian left flank proved to be unstoppable, as the advancing
French skillfully employed their artillery to maintain devastating fire at the
tightly packed masses of the Russian infantry.135 By 8:00 p.m., with its flanks
threatened, the Russian army had begun to withdraw through the narrow
streets of Friedland and across the congested bridges over the Alle River.
Friedland was a decisive military and diplomatic victory for Napoleon.
It revealed his ability to quickly size up a situation and exploit the enemy’s
mistake, tailoring his tactics according to circumstances. The battered
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 225

Russian army, which lost some 20,000 killed and wounded, retreated toward
the Niemen River, which marked the boundary of the Russian Empire. On
June 19, Marshal Murat received Bennigsen’s letter seeking an armistice.
“After the torrents of blood which have lately flowed in battles as sanguinary
as frequent,” the letter read, “[Russians] desire to assuage the evils of this
destructive war, by proposing an armistice before we enter upon a conflict, a
fresh war, perhaps more terrible than the first.” The offer was accepted, and
Alexander agreed to meet Napoleon to discuss peace. The Russian military
defeats would have lain heavily on Alexander’s mind as he traveled to this
meeting. But so would have his bitterness at Britain, which seemed to be
more interested in consolidating its interests in the wider world than in sup-
porting its allies in Europe. Talking to British ambassador Granville Leveson-
Gower, Alexander vented his frustration that “the whole burden of the war
[had] fallen upon his armies . . . that hopes had been held out that a British
force would be sent to . . . Germany—month after month however passed, and
no troops were even embarked.”136
The negotiations between Napoleon and Alexander at the end of June
1807 constituted one of the most dramatic episodes of the Napoleonic era.
The meeting between the leaders took place in the early afternoon of June 25
on a specially built raft in the Niemen River. The two emperors, accompanied
by their retinues, approached the banks of the river and boarded the vessels
that were to take them to the raft. As the boats reached the raft, the two
emperors embraced each other; it was said that Alexander greeted Napoleon
with “Sire, I hate the English as much as you do.” To which Napoleon replied,
“In that case, the peace is made.”137
Over the next few days, the two emperors conducted a series of conferences
in which they appear to have divided the continent. As if to heighten the
drama, Frederick William of Prussia was left on the riverbank, riding anxiously
up and down the shore in expectation of the outcome of the meeting, which
could determine the future of his entire state. After almost two weeks of meet-
ings, fêtes, and military reviews, on July 7 Alexander and Napoleon concluded
the Treaty of Tilsit, one of the most comprehensive treaties of the Napoleonic
Wars. The agreement proclaimed an alliance between the French and Russian
empires and effectively divided Europe into western and eastern spheres of
influence dominated by the respective powers. Alexander gave his formal rec-
ognition to the Confederation of the Rhine, firmly establishing Napoleon’s
control in central Europe while greatly weakening Prussia, which lost the port
of Danzig after the Treaty of Tilsit established it as a free city.138 Russia also
recognized the creation of the Kingdom of Westphalia under Napoleon’s
youngest brother, Jérôme, and accepted the rule of other Bonapartes: Joseph in
226 | the napoleonic wars

Naples and Louis in Holland. In what constituted one of most substantial con-
cessions, the Russian sovereign agreed to the reorganization of the formerly
Prussian-controlled Polish lands into the Duchy of Warsaw under formal con-
trol of King Frederick Augustus of Saxony, Napoleon’s close ally.139
The treaty did not stop there. Alexander agreed to offer his services in
negotiating peace between France and Britain, and he pledged that if this
measure did not produce positive results by the first day of November 1807,
he would declare war against Britain and join Napoleon’s efforts to eliminate
British commerce on the continent; Russia would also force Denmark and
Sweden to close their ports to the British and use its naval power against
British trade in the Mediterranean. Napoleon led Alexander to believe that
in return for these concessions, he was acknowledging Russia’s claim to an
east European empire. Specifically, Napoleon agreed not to impede Russian
ambitions in Swedish-controlled Finland and offered to mediate for peace
between Russia and the Ottoman Empire; if the Ottomans refused to negoti-
ate, Napoleon pledged to “make common cause with Russia against the
Ottoman Porte” and help Russia expand into the European portion of the
Ottoman Empire, with the exception of Constantinople and the province of
Rumelia (on the Balkan Peninsula).
Two days after concluding this agreement with Russia, Napoleon signed a
separate treaty with Frederick William III, one that was disastrously harsh for
Prussia. It effectively eviscerated the Prussian kingdom, forcing it to cede all
its lands west of the river Elbe and to accept territorial changes stipulated
in the Franco-Russian treaty. This meant forsaking most of the Prussian-
controlled Polish lands and the port city of Danzig. These changes resulted in
a net loss of half of the Prussian territory, from about 89,000 square miles to
just over 46,000 square miles. Prussia was required to formally recognize all
of Napoleon’s reorganizations in Germany, to enter into a military alliance
with France and Russia in the event of war against Britain, and to support the
blockade of British goods. A separate military convention reduced the strength
of the Prussian army to a minimal force (no more than 42,000 men for ten
years) while prohibiting any additional recruitment of militias or guards. On
July 12, to add insult to injury, Frederick William was coerced to accept the
occupation of all of his remaining territory by French troops pending the pay-
ment of a vast war indemnity, which was set at 140 million francs in 1808.
Tilsit marked the culmination of Napoleon’s campaigns, which in just two
years had reshaped the European balance of power. These wars “inordinately
extended the range of Napoleon’s enterprises, and so made the French Empire
merely the core of the ‘Grand Empire’ which itself began to evolve,” notes the
French historian Armand Lefebvre.140 Indeed, French hegemony now stretched
The Emperor’s Conquest, 1805–1807 | 227

from the snowy fields of Poland to the rugged Pyrenees and from the sun-
swept hills of Calabria to the misty shores of Prussia. For the first time in
millennia all of the German-speaking lands were under some degree of French
control, either annexed, allied, occupied, or recently defeated.
Returning to Paris in late July, Napoleon was greeted with almost univer-
sal public acclaim. The French capital celebrated his birthday with a splendor
that evoked Louis XIV’s era.141 The emperor’s speech at the opening session
of the Legislative Corps was one of his proudest: it spoke of the humiliating
defeats of Austria and Prussia, the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, and
a profound territorial and structural reorganization of central Europe. France’s
“new triumphs and peace treaties have redrawn the political map of Europe,”
Napoleon informed the legislators.142 Not since the days of Charlemagne had
a ruler exercised such vast power over the continent, deciding the fates of rul-
ers and millions of their subjects.143 France’s triumph over ancien régime
Europe was a crucial moment in what German historian Reinhart Koselleck
called a Sattelzeit, an epochal threshold that marked the transition from the
early modern age to modernity, a moment that facilitated the rise of nation-
alism, modernization, and state creation.144
chapter 11
“War Through Other Means”
Europe and the Continental System

A s the result of the French triumphs at Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland,


the mounting economic confrontation between France and Britain
acquired such dimensions that it engulfed almost all of continental Europe.
As noted elsewhere, the two nations had been engaged in almost continuous
conflict since the War of the Grand Alliance (1688–1697) and employed a
wide range of restrictions on trade, including tariffs and blockades, against
each other as well as against other nations, belligerent or neutral.1 As the pre-
eminent commercial (and rapidly industrializing) power, Britain understood
that seaborne commerce was the lifeblood of much of Europe, including France,
and sought to employ it to its advantage by instituting an economic block-
ade. Napoleon’s continued victories made this task progressively more chal-
lenging as they brought new territories under French control and expanded
the coastline the British needed to guard. While the French were dominant
on land but lacked a navy to challenge the British sea power, Britain found
itself in a reverse situation, resulting in a military standoff between the two
great powers.
Considered by many to be one of Napoleon’s biggest mistakes, the
Continental System was not as irrational as it is sometimes alleged. It was, at
its simplest, “war by other means,” to use Prussian military theorist Carl von
Clausewitz’s famous phrase—an attempt to utilize economic means to resolve
existing military/political problems. In this, it represented no more than a
continuation of traditional policies that had been attempted in the past, long
before Napoleon took power. The dominant economic doctrine of mercantil-
ism held that in order to gain wealth, a country had to take it from another
by achieving a more favorable balance of trade. Both Britain and France pursued
“War Through Other Means” | 229

mercantilist policies and worked aggressively to contain the export trade of


their rivals and to promote their own. The long succession of Anglo-French
economic and military rivalries was briefly interrupted by the signing of the
Eden Treaty (promoting free trade) in 1786, but it was widely believed to be
more beneficial to the British, and in any case it was soon rendered irrelevant
by the outbreak of the Revolution. With the start of the Revolutionary Wars,
both France and Britain not only reverted to their earlier policies of trade con-
trol but expanded them to restrict the trade with neutral nations as well.2
Between 1793 and 1799 Britain implemented a traditional type of naval block-
ade, obstructing trade at major French ports and closely observing and limiting
French maritime activities.3 France’s countermeasures were of limited nature
until 1800, when, as discussed in Chapter 6, French diplomacy was able to
encourage the establishment of a virtual continental blockade of British trade
along much of the European coastline from Norway to southern Italy.
The Treaty of Amiens ended this first continental system. However, it was
revived at the start of the Napoleonic Wars, when the belligerent powers

20° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40°


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Allied to Britain from Edinburgh Gothenburg
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Regions of Spain Irish Sea


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Ba
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Continental System A
S I
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Erfurt er WARSAW EMPIRE 50°
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Alicante B a le a r i c
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Sea
Algiers Mediterranean Sea Palermo Messina Ionian
Sea
KING. OF Chios
Ionian Islands
ALGIERS SICILY Catania British MOREA Athens
Tunisia
Navarino
MOROCCO
0 250 500 Kilometers MALTA
Rhodes
TUNIS to Britain
Crete
Cyprus
0 250 500 Miles

Map 12: The Continental System


230 | the napoleonic wars

began to impose blockades designed to limit trade and constrain naval activi-
ties. Britain took the lead in this. When hostilities began, the British seized
all French vessels in British ports (May 1803), began to regulate neutral trade
with the French colonies (June 1803), established a blockade of the Elbe and
Weser Rivers (June-July 1803), and eventually extended it to all French ports
along the Atlantic coastline (August 1804).4 France responded with a similar
range of policies, including prohibiting the import of British goods and rais-
ing tariffs. These efforts were only partially successful. With so many French
ships lying at the bottom of Trafalgar Bay, French colonial ambitions unful-
filled in the Americas, the steady decline of the French merchant marine, and
the marked inability of French industrialists to compete successfully with their
British counterparts, Napoleon became convinced that only the effective
isolation of the British Isles from continental Europe could bring Britain to
its knees.5 He envisioned France uniting the continent behind a barrier past
which no British products could pass. The resulting loss of markets would be
devastating to the British economy and might cause domestic political and
social unrest that would weaken the country. Conversely, by subjecting conti-
nental Europe to French economic interests, the system would also greatly
benefit the empire. “You should never forget that if English trade triumphs
at sea, it is because the British are the strongest there,” Napoleon advised his
stepson. “So it is fitting, since France is stronger on land, that she will ensure
the triumph of her own trade.”6
Three successive decrees provided the basic structure underlying the
Continental System. The first of these, the Berlin Decree of November 21,
1806, was prompted by the British decision, on May 16, 1806, to launch a
naval blockade of France’s ports and those in French-occupied Europe, span-
ning the area from Brest to the Elbe River. In response, Napoleon declared
that Britain “does not recognize the system of international law universally
observed by all civilized nations” and perpetrated a “monstrous abuse of the
right of blockade.”7 Therefore he was placing the British islands under a con-
tinental blockade that would prevent any ship sailing from Britain from
reaching a port of destination in Europe. Any British goods found in French-
controlled areas were subject to seizure as prizes.
From the British perspective, the initial blockade approved by Prime
Minister Grenville’s Whig government was relatively mild because it tar-
geted France but allowed neutral trade to continue. So after the collapse of
Grenville’s government in March 1807, the new Tory government of William
Cavendish-Bentinck, Duke of Portland, sought to strengthen the blockade,
especially in the wake of the Chesapeake-Leopard Affair that strained Anglo-
American relations, as we’ll later see. Starting on November 11, 1807, the
“War Through Other Means” | 231

Portland government issued new orders-in-council that were intended to


restrict neutral trade with the Napoleonic empire and deprive French-
controlled areas of colonial goods (cotton, sugar, coffee, etc.).8 The orders did
allow for a neutral ship to stop in a British port and then sail to a French or
allied port with British goods; the neutral trade of the United States was to
be limited but not eliminated. Napoleon responded to these new British
measures by further tightening the Continental System through two Milan
Decrees of November 23 and December 17, 1807. Because the British actions
had “denationalized the vessels of all the nations of Europe” and “no gov-
ernment may compromise in any degree its independence or its rights,”
Napoleon’s new decrees targeted neutral ships that stopped at a British port
or consented to being searched by British vessels, mandating that they could
be seized at sea as lawful prizes when captured by the French or their allies.9
The resulting Continental System thus had three interrelated parts: the
use of military victory to reduce Britain’s economic power through blockade
of British goods, the formation of an economic sphere to foster economic
development on the continent, and the consolidation of French hegemony on
the continent. The terms “Continental Blockade” and “Continental System,”
which are habitually used as if they are interchangeable, reflect these different
intents. The former comprised a wide range of political, economic, and mili-
tary measures directed against British trade. The latter reflected Napoleon’s
notion of a new political, institutional, and economic organization for Europe,
in which France enjoyed economic preeminence.10 These two concepts are not
identical. The Continental Blockade was an economic policy implemented
by a land power that sought to undermine a maritime rival; Napoleon’s
decrees tacitly admitted British superiority at sea and the French inability to
attempt a classical naval blockade British ports. The Continental System, on
the other hand, was conceptually about creating new political and economic
reality in Europe and involved far greater restructuring on the continent.
By the end of 1807, the basic contours of the Continental System were
in place. This was the most important policy initiative that Napoleon had
launched as emperor. Although it would survive for just six years, the system
served as the cornerstone for Napoleon’s policies and had a dramatic effect on
the European and Atlantic economies. The prohibition of British goods had
been enforced in France since the 1790s, but the system created after 1806
was unparalleled in its scale and scope. It was designed to encompass not only
Britain’s relations with France but also its interactions with the rest of the
European continent. In effect, it sought Europe-wide integration into a new
French-dominated economic sphere. Thus, extending control of the European
coastline became a crucial element of French foreign policy, causing Napoleon
232 | the napoleonic wars

to embark on geopolitical schemes that sought to reshape the continent and


consolidate his imperial hegemony. No one was spared in this drive: former
adversaries, close allies, and neutral states all found themselves bound to the
system. In 1807 Denmark, Prussia, Russia, and Spain joined it, while Austria
did so three years later. It was Napoleon’s desire to expand and enhance this
system that led to his decision to invade Portugal and Spain in 1807–1808,
to quarrel with Pope Pius and annex the Papal States in 1809, to take over
the Illyrian Provinces in 1809, to extend direct French control to Holland
and the Hanseatic cities in 1810, and, most crucially, to go to war against
Russia in 1812. It is hard to underestimate the importance of the Continental
System in Napoleon’s imperial vision for Europe, as well as its role in the
eventual collapse of the French Empire.
Though the Napoleonic Empire would turn out to be transient, Napoleon
had always had a political vision for the continent. “I wished to found a
European system, a European code of laws, a European judiciary. There would
be but one people in Europe,” he claimed in his exile. But this vision of
“the United States of Europe,” which was later popularized by generations
of authors and writers, should not be construed as an early version of the
European Union. It did not entail equality of its members or the creation
of an economic union with free trade and unrestricted movement. To the
contrary, Napoleon envisioned a tiered economic system that would put the
interests of France above all others—“La France avant tout,” as he noted—
and protect French commerce and industry by reviving old tariffs that con-
strained the movement of goods.11 He hoped that French exports would fill
the vacuum left by the exclusion of British goods and that French industry
would seize this historic opportunity to establish a dominant industrial presence
on the continent.12 Napoleon was little inclined to facilitate the industrial
development of other parts of Europe and refused proposals to establish a cus-
toms union among the member states of the Confederation of the Rhine
(an idea later championed by Prussia in the Zollverein) and made no effort to
economically incorporate Italy with the rest of the continent.13 He was well
aware that the Continental System would cause hardship, admitting to his
brother Louis that “the blockade will ruin many commercial towns: Lyons,
Amsterdam, Rotterdam,” and he could have added many other coastal ports
to this list.14 But Napoleon was convinced that short-term hardship would be
more than offset by the ultimate demise of the British economy and future
economic growth under French economic hegemony.
Another peculiar aspect of the Continental System was that it did not
envision the complete economic isolation of Britain. France could not actu-
ally impose a blockade to halt British shipping entirely or deny imports from
“War Through Other Means” | 233

elsewhere into the British Isles. Instead, the aim was to constrain British abil-
ity to export manufactured goods and acquire resources that could be used for
consumption and production, an approach that one historian compared to a
“self-blockade.” From an economic point of view, the system resembled more
a traditional tariff and quota restrictions than a customary maritime block-
ade. Indeed, unlike other historical examples of blockades that sought to
reduce the enemy’s military and economic power by depriving it of critical
commodities, Napoleon was quite ready to trade with the “nation of shop-
keepers” in order to sell his own goods and to create a balance-of-payments
deficit for Britain that would ultimately lead to an outflow of specie, conse-
quently reducing British wealth and productive capacity.15 Writing to his
brother Louis, the King of Holland, in April 1808, Napoleon specified, “If
you need to sell your country’s genièvre [Dutch gin], the English will buy it.
Designate locations where the English smugglers can pick it up, and make
them pay in money, never in commodities.”16 Reducing the British specie
reserve would not only have an impact on Britain’s financial health but also,
to Napoleon’s thinking, weaken its ability to subsidize continental nations’
struggle against France.
The French effort to reduce Britain’s supply of specie was partly success-
ful, with bullion at the Bank of England declining from £6.9 million in 1808
to just £2.2 million in 1814.17 The peculiar nature of the French “blockade”
was further revealed during the British grain crisis of 1809–1810, when har-
vest failures resulted in an acute shortage of wheat. Rather than seeking to
impose costs by limiting the amount of grain Britain could import, Napoleon
encouraged grain export to Britain as a way of generating an increased trade
deficit and assisting French farmers; in 1810 almost two-thirds of the wheat
imported to Britain came from France.18
During its existence, the Continental System therefore produced mixed
results. It certainly was not “little more than a theatrical gesture,” as one
eminent historian assessed it.19 The system was never simply about blockad-
ing the exports of one particular nation, but rather encompassed economic,
military, and political policies that were subject to constant changes due to
internal and external factors; changing weather conditions and resulting fluc-
tuations in the size of harvests could (and did) affect the success or failure
of the blockade. Moreover, the system was not implemented with the same
zeal and vigor throughout its existence, and consequently its impact varied
greatly depending on year, geographical location, and particular industry.
Industries dependent on imports naturally suffered from a lack of access to
critical raw materials (especially colonial products), poor land transportation
infrastructure, and weak demand from European trading partners, who were
234 | the napoleonic wars

also suffering from the effects of prolonged warfare and economic isolation.
On the other hand, there were areas that had seen a positive impact from the
system. In northern France, Belgium, and southern Germany, some indus-
tries (especially textiles) prospered because the blockade protected them from
British competition and paved the way for their future industrial growth. In
the Kingdom of Italy, agriculture experienced a period of major growth.20
The Napoleonic regime was generally business-friendly, and its policies
helped create an environment for development: political stability, relatively
stable currency, regulation of commercial credit through the Bank of France,
favorable tax treatment, and development of infrastructure and communica-
tions means. The protectionist nature of the Continental System helped some
French industries by increasing domestic consumption of manufactured goods
and fostering expansion and mechanization; in the period 1807–1810 the
most dynamic sector of French industrial development was cotton spinning.21
Though French industries had limited success in the rest of the continent
(German competition was especially strong), their exports still steadily
increased.22 Even the shortage of raw materials proved to have a silver lining.
To compensate for the loss of sugar, coffee, indigo, and other colonial prod-
ucts, the Napoleonic Empire provided incentives for innovations and new
development. To replace cotton, Napoleon turned to wool production and
sought to expand the number of merino sheep farmed in France. The short-
age of indigo prompted research (encouraged by government prizes) into new
methods of dyeing wool and silk, which soon resulted in innovations, most
notably by Jean Michel Raymond-Latour, professor of chemistry at Lyons, who
won a prize for developing new methods for dyeing textiles with Prussian blue.23
Most famously, Napoleon supported chemical industry (especially the making
of soda ash from sea salt according to the Leblanc process) and invested in the
cultivation of sugar beets as a replacement for cane sugar from the colonies.24
The Continental System existed for just six years, which was not long enough
to bring Britain to its knees. Those who argue that Napoleon had failed because
British goods were smuggled into the continent on a large scale should be
reminded that between July 1807 and July 1808, and again from the spring
of 1810 to late 1812, the Continental System was strictly enforced, drasti-
cally reducing illicit trading and exerting severe pressure on the British econ-
omy. Napoleon’s failure lay in his inability to maintain this system rigorously
for a sufficiently long period to ensure its success. In this regard, several fac-
tors played a particularly important role. First, Napoleon’s blunders in Spain
and, more important, in Russia delivered decisive blows to the system. Second,
British national and economic security was never truly threatened due to the
flexibility of the British financial system, which adjusted to the blockade.
“War Through Other Means” | 235

Finally, the French navy was not large enough to either threaten British con-
trol of the seas or to effectively enforce a blockade capable of excluding British
goods from the European continent.
Even more significant to undermining the Continental System was Britain’s
ability to deny France access to overseas markets and partially compensate for
the loss of European markets by increasing sales elsewhere. British merchants
seized every opportunity—in Buenos Aires in 1806, in Brazil in 1808, in the
Baltic in 1810—to open up new markets. Between 1806 and 1810 exports
to South America steadily increased, rising from just 1.8 million pounds to
6 million pounds, and the region would remain an important export market
for the British goods for years to come. In 1808 the establishment of the South
America Station of the Royal Navy served the dual purpose of protecting the
exiled Portuguese monarchy in Brazil and securing British economic inter-
ests in the region. Thus British government members literally laughed off
the French blockade and questioned the value of Napoleon’s policy, which in
their eyes “was worth no more than the paper on which it was written. What
was the use of talking of blockading Great Britain, when [Napoleon] had
scarcely a ship on the ocean to enforce his order? He might as well have talked
of blockading the moon, and possessing himself of all the lunar influence.”25
Yet we should not be as cavalier in underestimating the Continental System’s
impact on Britain, as it was partly successful in its central goal of causing
economic hardship. Continental Europe accounted for 40 percent of Britain’s
total exports, and the loss of this important market had serious repercussions
for British industry and commerce. By 1810–1811 Britain faced a crisis that
was compounded by bad harvests and the government’s discordant policy
toward the United States, a policy that hurt British interests in North
America. The worst period for British economy occurred when both Europe
and the United States were closed to British exports. In 1811–1812 a depres-
sion struck British industry, resulting in high unemployment and hardship.
How critical the economic situation was in 1812 can be glimpsed in the
major campaign by provincial economic interests for the repeal of the
orders-in-council.26
Similarly, the traditional claim that British commerce successfully replaced
the European market with the Latin American market belies the fact that one
of the factors in the 1810–1811 economic crisis was large-scale British spec-
ulation in the newly opened Portuguese and Spanish colonies. With European
markets closed, many British entrepreneurs, despite lacking trading and
financial knowledge of Latin America, rushed to make massive and mostly
unprofitable exports to Brazil and Spanish colonies. As these business ven-
tures failed, a financial crisis hit the very heart of the British economy. In July
236 | the napoleonic wars

1810 Brickwood & Co., one of the leading banks in London, collapsed with
debts of over £600,000 due to the failure of its merchant clients in the
Western Hemisphere. The public shock at the loss of a bank that was, in
the words of a contemporary British observer, “as solid a house as any one in
the City” was augmented by the bankruptcy later that month of another
London bank, Devaynes, Noble and Co., regarded as one of the “West End”
or premier banking institutions.27 Bank failures naturally caused subsequent
damage to their merchant clients, causing many of them to collapse (most
notably John Leigh and Co., one of the leading British transatlantic trade
companies) or suffer from acute credit contraction.28 Growing hostilities
with the United States and the strangling of British exports by the Non-
Importation Act added yet another layer of complexity.
Ultimately, the causes of the Continental System’s failure were deeply
rooted in its internal contradictions. The fact was that it was impossible to
prevent British goods from reaching European markets because they were
highly sought after and France was simply incapable of replacing them.
Furthermore, Napoleon’s policies naturally provoked much resentment and
anger from those who were forced to endure it. The economies of many previ-
ously prosperous areas, especially the great commercial centers in Holland
and the Hanseatic cities, suffered heavily under the blockade. The initial
effect of the system was to run up prices on sugar, indigo, tobacco, chocolate,
cotton, and other colonial products. Businesses dependent on overseas trade
were nearly wiped out, and bankruptcies of merchant and shipping compa-
nies, as well as manufacturing enterprises, were rampant across the French
Empire and its satellites. To satisfy demands for manufactured and colonial
goods, many Europeans encouraged smuggling, undermining the system.
Even members of the imperial family participated in it, with Louis Bonaparte
largely ignoring his brother’s dictates when it came to the Kingdom of
Holland and Murat oftentimes turning a blind eye to smuggling in Naples.
That Empress Josephine herself bought smuggled goods on the black market
only further highlighted the nature of the problem.
Smuggling was done on a continental scale, with contraband centers
emerging at key locations along European coastline. Thus the Danish archi-
pelago Heligoland served as a major transit point for contraband destined for
northern European ports, while the Ottoman Thessaloniki served as an
entrepôt for southeast Europe; in 1809 alone, Britain exported more than
£10 million worth of goods to southern Europe, almost four times as much
as just three years earlier, while its exports to northern Europe were at the
highest point since the start of the war.29 By 1811, with British blessing,
more than eight hundred vessels were engaged in smuggling operations
“War Through Other Means” | 237

between Malta and southern Mediterranean ports.30 Although Napoleon


formed a vast network of customs officers to supervise trade at continental
ports, endemic corruption encouraged them to turn a blind eye to the contra-
band. In an ingenious ploy to circumvent the blockade, English vessels
loaded with forbidden merchandise were sent out by arrangement to be cap-
tured by French privateers and taken into a French-controlled port whose
commanding officer sold the goods at a profit. While deployed in Naples,
Marshal André Masséna made a lucrative business out of such trade, though
this came to Napoleon’s ears and he confiscated some 3 million francs of the
marshal’s profit.31 Napoleon tried to stamp out corrupt administrators by
replacing them with his personal choices, creating a new customs court, and
increasing penalties, but these changes rarely produced meaningful results.
Instead, French imperial customs revenues declined from 51 million francs in
1806 to less than 12 million in 1809.32
Despite Napoleon’s best efforts to suppress it, smuggling reached such mag-
nitude that the emperor had no choice but to become personally involved.33
In 1810–1811 he softened some aspects of the Continental System, with the
Saint-Cloud Decrees (July 1810) allowing specially licensed ships to trade
with Britain in exchange for the payment of a fee, effectively providing a
legal cover for the already existing smuggling operations; the Decree of
Trianon (August 1810) permitted the importation of strategic commodities
upon payment of tariffs as high as 50 percent. Napoleon thus undermined
the very system he had created to combat his British nemesis, because block-
ading British commerce was clearly incompatible with admitting British
goods (even if only colonial produce). The new decrees meant that the object
was no longer to exclude British goods but to resort to conventional tariff
mechanisms to produce revenue, which in turn continued to benefit British
manufacturers.
In sum, the Continental System proved to be more detrimental than
advantageous to the Napoleonic Empire. It fostered the development of a
“hothouse” economy that relied heavily upon the resources of the conquered
territories but offered little incentive for technological development, despite
the best efforts of the Napoleonic regime.34 The loss of neutral and overseas trade
was damaging to France’s great port towns, including Nantes, Bordeaux,
and La Rochelle, which had flourished on colonial trade but after the imple-
mentation of the Colonial System saw their commerce virtually dry up. In
March 1808 the American consul at Bordeaux reported, “Grass is growing in
the streets of this city; its beautiful port is deserted except by two . . . schoo-
ners and three or four empty vessels which still swing to the tide.”35 Tonneins,
a small town east of Bordeaux, employed two hundred rope makers in 1801
238 | the napoleonic wars

and none ten years later, while the number of sugar refineries in Bordeaux
dropped from forty in 1789 to just eight in 1809.36 The licensing system that
Napoleon introduced in later years was of limited success because licenses
were costly, bureaucratically complicated, and conducive to corruption.37
Nor was the Continental System beneficial to French industry. The cotton
industry, which did enjoy a fast expansion when it was sheltered from the
British competition in the first three years of the blockade, ultimately could
not escape the irremediable challenge of the blockade: an insufficient supply
of raw cotton.38 The French wool and silk industries, which also experienced
short-term gains, later suffered from trade dislocations; by 1809, for example,
Rheims lost its most important markets for woolens in Spain and Portugal
because of the ongoing war there.39 French silk manufacturers in the Rhône,
Isère, and Lyons were hurt not only by a poor harvest of silkworm cocoons in
1810–1811 but also by the market dislocation caused by war.40 The creation
of special councils for manufactures and commerce was an important step
toward addressing the serious problems facing French commerce and indus-
try. Still, they had little influence over the economic policy and produced
meager results, instead fostering a sense of disillusionment and resentment
toward the imperial regime.41
The crisis of 1810–1811 was therefore the culmination of a long list of
problems fostered by the blockade. In Paris, the number of bankruptcies
reached a record high—more than sixty—in January 1811, while more than
two-thirds of 1,700 textile enterprises stopped operating and laid off their
workers. The burden of empire had stretched the French economy to the
breaking point, and in the coming years, when France’s military fortunes
waned, so did the Continental System.
The situation was even more dire in the rest of Europe. Merchants and
manufacturers faced shortages of raw materials, which they either had to buy
at prohibitive prices sanctioned by imperial tariffs or try to smuggle, which
was both risky and costly. Furthermore, unlike their French counterparts,
European merchants and manufacturers could not fully access markets in
some parts of Europe, where Napoleon restricted local manufacturing capac-
ity and established a tariff system to the benefit of French commerce and
industry. Thus Italian maritime trade came to a virtual standstill, and some
Italian industries—tanneries, tobacco factories, corn mills, distilleries, brew-
eries, glassworks, cotton printing, and the silk and linen industries—came
close to collapsing. In the Kingdom of Naples, Murat struggled to impose
the blockade, unable to overcome corruption, passive resistance to the new
central administration, and incessant guerrilla outbreaks in regions such as
Calabria. Even the mild version of the Continental System introduced by the
“War Through Other Means” | 239

Dutch king, Louis Bonaparte, proved to be devastating for Holland, which


lived almost entirely by trade. The Continental System also had a disastrous
effect on northern German states, where its effects combined with Napoleon’s
continued demands for contributions to sustain his forces. In the Iberian
Peninsula, the industrial progress that Portugal had achieved in the late
eighteenth century was all but lost in 1808; by the end of the Napoleonic
Wars, one-third of Portuguese establishments were closed or in a state of
utter decay. Far worse was the impact in Spain, where the loss of the colonial
empire and the desolation caused by the war destroyed any remaining ves-
tiges of the industrial revival achieved during the preceding decades. Even
in faraway Norway, the Continental System brought about a sharp decline in
the timber and iron industries.
The Continental System contributed to profound trade dislocations, a
major shift of capital from trade and industry toward agriculture, and dein-
dustrialization of some areas of Europe, which had already experienced social
anxiety, loss of manpower, and capital destruction due to the wars and the
upheavals they brought about. The system also caused the permanent decline
of some industries and slowed the progress of others, as it isolated much
of continental Europe from active interaction with Britain and hindered the
flow of new technologies and methods. Even in France, which enjoyed the
most preferential treatment in the system, the combined volume of indus-
trial production at the height of the empire was not much higher than in the
twilight of the Bourbon monarchy, while some parts of France experienced
what the French historian François Crouzet called a process of pastoralization
from which they never really recovered.42 The protective barrier put in place
by the Continental System did not last long enough to allow for the matura-
tion of continental industries, and so when the peace was restored in
1814–1815, the removal of tariffs and opening of markets produced an acute
economic crisis, as these industries were hit hard by British competitors. As
a whole, the continental powers lost economic ground to Britain, and about
a twenty-year lag in technological development persisted for some time after
the Napoleonic Wars ended. It would not be until the end of the century that
British factories and mills would encounter viable competitors.43
One of the most enduring legacies of the Continental System was the
shift in the location of continental industries. In the eighteenth century the
European economy was geared to overseas markets, and important industries
tended to congregate in seaboard districts to exploit vibrant maritime trade.
After 1815 the center of the continental economy shifted away from the
Atlantic seaboard toward the Rhine, as many industries turned inward and
reoriented themselves toward national markets. The economic reorganization
240 | the napoleonic wars

asked of European states was enormous, matched only by the resentment it


produced against the system and its originator. Contemplating what was
necessary to satisfy Napoleon’s demands, one German writer wondered how
any nation could simply close its ports, abandon its foreign trade, and treat
all those residing on the coasts as criminals because, having no other sustenance,
they engaged in smuggling. Yet “such are the sacrifices, which Napoleon
would exact . . . for an indefinite term, without holding out the hope of any
other return than, now and then, a majestic token of approbation. So revolt-
ing are these pretensions that . . . a sense of national dignity alone, ought, at
once, to determine their rejection.”44 The economic distress was one of the
crucial causes of the nationalistic revival that eventually ended Napoleon’s
dream of complete European domination. Across the continent, people blamed
the system for creating shortages, forcing up prices, and contributing to
overall social misery. This burning sense of bitterness and anger at being
exploited for the benefit of a foreign ruler was both profound and justified. It
helped radicalize public opinion in many parts of Europe and made Britain’s
economic ascendancy, which had been equally resented, seem a less oppres-
sive, if not preferable, alternative.
In enforcing their economic policies, Britain and France both pursued an
“either you’re with us or against us” approach. They trampled the rights of
neutral nations, tried to control their trade, and made neutral vessels fair
prizes. These policies soon brought about a significant response by the largest
of the neutral powers, the United States of America. I will discuss the details
of the American response more fully later, but suffice it to state here that
American displeasure with the Anglo-French policies resulted in the Embargo
Act, which was passed by Congress and signed by President Jefferson in
1807. Directed against trade with both belligerent powers, it ultimately con-
tributed to a war between the United States and Britain.
Meanwhile, back in Europe, Napoleon’s policies toward the hitherto
neutral nations produced important results. To ensure that the continent
remained united in cordoning off British commerce, Napoleon needed to
control the entire coastline, which he recognized early on would be an enor-
mous challenge. The Treaties of Tilsit helped France to consolidate control
over northern Germany and to extend the blockade to Russia’s Baltic coast-
lines. Napoleon next turned to minor states, pressuring them to join the
system and enforce the blockade against Britain: the Confederation of the
Rhine joined by the fall of 1807, while the Papal States, despite initial
protests, signed on in December. If states proved unwilling to enforce the
system, the emperor did not hesitate to cajole and/or threaten them; the
north German territories—Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen, and the Duchy of
“War Through Other Means” | 241

Oldenburg—were ultimately incorporated into France in order to tighten


the blockade. Napoleon’s own family members were not spared, as revealed
by his spat with his brother Louis, King of Holland, who was ultimately
removed from the throne while his kingdom annexed to France. Most sequen-
tial of all was Portugal’s refusal to embrace Napoleon’s economic policies, as it
resulted in the French invasion that marked the start of the Peninsular War.
chapter 12
The Struggle for Portugal
and Spain, 1807–1812

I n the summer of 1807 Napoleon informed the Bragança monarchy of


Portugal that it must close its ports to British commerce. Portugal thus
faced an intolerable dilemma. It was naturally reluctant to join the French-led
Continental Blockade, which would jeopardize its colonial holdings (Brazil
in particular) and commercial prosperity. Yet defying Napoleon would mean
a French invasion, occupation, and loss of overseas trade. In either case Portugal
would face immense harm, if not ruin.
Closely allied to Britain since 1373, Portugal became a virtual part of
Britain’s informal empire in 1703 when the Treaty of Methuen opened
Portuguese markets to British textiles in exchange for a privileged position
for Portuguese port wine on the British market. Over the next century British
trade so came to dominate Portugal that beneath the veneer of cooperation
and trade lurked genuine Portuguese fears of British commercial hegemony.
Thus in the mid-eighteenth century Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo, mar-
qués de Pombal, initiated a series of major reforms to revive the Portuguese
economy and control the flow of British goods without breaking the valuable
Anglo-Portuguese alliance. Pombal pursued a vigorous colonial policy, one
that sought to increase mining taxes and establish protective barriers for
Portuguese commerce and manufacturing by keeping the British out of the
colonial markets.1 The Pombaline reforms represented “defensive moderniza-
tion,” as some historians described them, and sought to increase state revenue
in order to finance Portuguese industrialization, which would in turn free
Portugal from British tutelage.2
However, their effect proved quite different. Colonists resented the new
system of taxation, while affected local and foreign merchants reacted bitterly
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 243

10° 5° 0°

Portugal and Spain, 1807-1814 Iberian Campaigns 1807-14


French advance 1807 British advance 1808-9 French victory
French advance 1808-9 British advance 1810-11 British victory
A T L A N T I C French advance 1810-11 British advance 1812-14 Fortress
Lines of Torres Vedras
16-17 January 1809: O C E A N
45°
British evacuation of Corunna

16 Jan.
F R A N C E
Coruña 1809
Santander
Lugo Oviedo Bilbao San
Sebastian Bayonne Toulouse
10 April
1814
Vigo Vitoria
Minho Astorga Pamplona
Burgos
21 June
1813
Medina Andora
14 July
1808
23 Nov. Tudela
Oporto Douro Somosierra
1808

Almeida 22 June 30 Nov.


1812 1808 Eb
Saragosa
A L

ro
Bussaco Salamanca Barcelona
27 Sept.
1810 Ciudad Tarragona
U G

Rodrigo Tortosa
Vimeiro Talavera Madrid Cuenca
21 Aug.
1808 Tagus 27-28 July
Saguntum
1809
R T

Toledo 25 Oct.
S P A I N 1811 40°
Badajoz Merida
Lisbon Gu
ad Valencia Palma
ian
P O

Ciudad Real 28 June


16 May Albuera a 1808
1811
1 July 1808: Balearic
Capitulation of Dupont’s corps Islands
to Spanish troops at Bailen

Córdoba Bailen Alicante


Guadalquivi
r
Sevilla

Granada Cartagena Mediterranean Sea


Málaga
Cádiz
0 60 120 Kilometers
Gibraltar (to Britain)
0 60 120 Miles

Map 13: Portugal and Spain, 1807–1814

to the creation of Portuguese monopoly companies. Though after Pombal’s


fall in 1777 his successors abandoned many of his economic policies, their
own policies still increased tensions within Portuguese economic and admin-
istrative circles and caused considerable discontent in Brazil. In 1789 the first
in a series of uprisings, the Inconfidência Mineira, saw the magnates of Minas
Gerais (in southeastern Brazil) embracing nativist sentiments and seeking
to create an independent state. The Portuguese authorities suppressed this
revolt, but a more powerful factor in reducing the colonists’ thirst for
independence was the outbreak of revolutionary turmoil in France and the
Caribbean colonies. In 1798 the failed revolt of the Bahia mulattoes, whose
aim was not only to establish a separate state but to level the society so that,
in the words of the rebel leader João de Deos, “all Brazilians would become
Frenchmen . . . to live in equality and abundance,” played a decisive role in
abating well-to-do Brazilians’ desire for change.3 In a slave-based plantation
society, a political change could easily turn into a social revolution. Although
these uprisings failed, they did bring about changes in Portugal’s colonial
244 | the napoleonic wars

policy. The Portuguese crown’s new, more liberal policies were welcomed
in Brazil but faced considerable criticism at home, where the merchant-
industrial oligarchy refused to accept the federative project proposed by the
minister of colonial affairs, Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho, which would have
given the colonists much greater freedom. However, by 1807 almost all
Brazilian ports showed a favorable trade balance with the metropolis, gradu-
ally relegating Portugal to a secondary position in the colonial system.4
The execution of King Louis XVI of France in January 1793 caused great
dismay in Lisbon but did not lead to outright rupture between the two
nations, as Portugal still considered it desirable to maintain diplomatic rela-
tions with France. But the Bragança monarchy found itself pressured by
Britain and Spain into joining the military expedition to invade southern
France in late 1794. When Portugal took up arms against France, which
never posed an immediate threat to Portuguese territory, it was the first time
the two nations had gone to war against each other, and it marked a distinct
change in Portuguese policy, one that proved to have great consequences.
First, Luso-Spanish military campaign resulted in a defeat—the French won
the “War in the Pyrenees” in 1795—and created a diplomatic quandary that
Portugal could not escape for more than a decade. After Spain signed the
Peace of Basle with France, Portugal found itself having to choose between
its erstwhile allies: Spain, now allied to France, declared war on Britain in
1796, placing Portugal’s national security in greater danger than at any other
moment since the Restoration War (1640–1668).5 Long at odds with its
more powerful neighbor, Portugal historically preferred alliance with Britain
but sought to avoid further entanglement in the conflict by announcing its
neutrality and declaring Lisbon a free port in 1796.6 Portugal’s decision
failed to satisfy either Madrid or Paris. The former accused its neighbor of
providing support for British warships (which often victualed in Portuguese
waters) while they were targeting Spanish shipping. France, noting that the
Portuguese government had been the first to declare war and had not negoti-
ated peace at Basle, exploited the existing state of war to target Portuguese
commerce, which suffered considerably from French privateers.7 Furthermore,
the French Directory demanded that Portugal close its ports to the British,
something that Lisbon—so heavily dependent on maritime trade, especially
in wheat—could not accept.
We saw earlier how Bonaparte, continuing the Directory’s policy, sought
to uphold a blockade of British commerce. In November 1800 he confided to
his brother that “the greatest damage we could inflict upon English com-
merce would be to seize upon Portugal.”8 Napoleon believed that Portugal
was Britain’s Achilles heel. Thus France orchestrated a Spanish invasion in
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 245

1801, and in the ensuing War of Oranges, Portugal was defeated and forced
to cede the province of Olivenza to Spain, close its ports to Britain, and pay
a war indemnity to France. Portugal accepted the Madrid agreement with
France in September 1801, and the new French ambassador, General Jean
Lannes, arrived in Lisbon in the spring of 1802, just as France and Britain
concluded the Treaty of Amiens. The Anglo-French amity rapidly deterio-
rated, of course, making life difficult for Dom João (John), the Portuguese
prince regent who governed on behalf of his incapacitated mother and tried
to remain neutral in this new European conflict. For six years, exploiting
Portugal’s relative geographic isolation, João maintained political neutrality
despite the efforts of British and French diplomats. In 1802–1803 he came
under heavy pressure from the French ambassador, who denounced the pres-
ence of royalist émigrés in Lisbon and sought to limit British influence at the
Bragança court.
A talented officer, Lannes lacked diplomatic finesse and acted, in the words
of his biographer, like a “military bull in a diplomatic china shop.”9 He
became involved in a “vitriolic diplomatic pas-de-deux” with the British
ambassador, Lord Robert Fitzgerald, and clashed repeatedly with members
of the Portuguese government, raising the diplomatic stakes by forcefully
demanding their dismissal.10 When war resumed between France and Britain
in May 1803, Lannes demanded that the prince regent sign a treaty of alli-
ance with France, closing Portuguese ports to British commerce and paying
a substantial subsidy to France. Heavy as this demand was, Dom João might
have considered it if not for Fitzgerald’s warning that any such payment
would be considered by London as a hostile act. To appease the French, the
prince regent dismissed several ministers known to be pro-British, declared
neutrality, and accepted the new Franco-Portuguese treaty (March 1804),
granting generous commercial favors to the French imports and promising to
pay a $16 million subsidy to France for its guarantee of neutrality.11
Over the next two years the Portuguese monarchy watched with appre-
hension as the Anglo-French conflict spilled across the continent. The destruc-
tion of the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar secured Britain’s dominance of
the seas, while Napoleon’s triumphs at Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland made
France’s hegemony on the continent indisputable. Portugal continued to
maintain its neutrality but irritated the French emperor by permitting ships
of the Royal Navy to use the Tagus estuary, near Lisbon, for provisioning.
In early 1805 the French foreign ministry prepared a diplomatic mission
(led by General Andoche Junot) to Lisbon with the overt goal of breaking
Portugal’s relations with Britain and creating a new political reality that would
have been more suitable for French interests in the peninsula.12 Junot’s mission
246 | the napoleonic wars

failed, and Napoleon’s designs toward Portugal now took a more definite
form. He considered it imperative to bring Portugal under his control to
close the last remaining gap in the Continental System.13 Equally important,
however, was Napoleon’s desire to replenish the war-scarred French navy
with warships from the Iberian nations; Portugal may have had a small navy,
but its warships were of excellent quality. As one of the leading historians of
the Napoleonic navy pointed out, “In nearly every order issued to the com-
mander of the invasion of Portugal, General Jean-Andoche Junot, Napoleon
stressed the need to secure the Portuguese fleet.”14
On July 19, 1807, the French government formally issued the following
demands to the Portuguese government: close its ports to British trade, con-
fiscate all British goods, arrest all British subjects on its territory, join its fleet
to the French, and declare war on Britain. The official notification was accom-
panied by the threat of force in case of refusal.15 On August 12, 1807, as the
Portuguese monarchy vacillated, a French envoy delivered an ultimatum
stating in part that “the liberties taken by the English government constitute
a veritable outrage against [Portuguese] independence.” If Napoleon had tol-
erated Portugal’s relations with Britain before, he was now intent on declar-
ing that “if Portugal should suffer any longer the oppression of which she is
the victim, he would have to consider this as the renunciation of all sover-
eignty and independence.” The Portuguese crown thus had to accede to
France’s demands or face the consequences.16 France’s requirements naturally
frightened Dom João and his ministers, who complained that it was unjust
to require Portugal, which had steadfastly observed neutrality, to declare war
upon an ally against whom it had no complaint and whose support was indis-
pensable both economically and militarily.17 The Portuguese played for time,
but their failure to provide a direct response caused the French envoy to quit
Lisbon by October 1.18
Throughout September and October, the Portuguese monarchy had found
itself between a Scylla and Charybdis: whether to pursue a policy of French
appeasement or adhere to its alliance with Britain. Neither option promised
peace and stability; both would embroil Portugal in a conflict. In the words
of British historian Alan Manchester, the Bragança monarchy was “caught
like a shellfish in a tempest between the waves of England’s sea power and the
rock of Napoleon’s armies.”19 Furthermore, the shadow of a possible reunifi-
cation with Spain also hovered in the air, as it was clear that Spanish minister
Godoy’s policy sought to secure a free hand in the peninsula and possibly
to rebuild the Iberian unity lost in 1640. The Portuguese decision-making
was greatly hampered by the struggle between a pro-British faction led by
Rodrigo de Souza Coutinho and a Francophile faction of Portugal’s chief
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 247

minister, Antonio d’Araujo e Azevedo. The prince regent tried to steer a


middle course but, in the words of an eminent Portuguese scholar, he was
“characterized by indecision, fear, and awkwardness, influenced only by
whims and pressures from favorites.”20
Britain was well aware of the threat to the sovereignty of its Portuguese ally.
Foreign Secretary George Canning had dispatched diplomat Percy Clinton
Sydney Smythe, Viscount Strangford, to Lisbon to urge the Portuguese prince
regent to hold fast to the English alliance, and then conducted negotiations
with the Portuguese ambassador in London that culminated in the conclu-
sion of a secret convention of friendship and alliance. The treaty specified that
if the Portuguese regent was forced by the French to leave his state, the
British government would facilitate his departure to Brazil; once established
there, the Portuguese government would negotiate a further agreement with
Britain concerning aid and commerce.21
Dom João hesitated to ratify the treaty, still nurturing a hope that war
with France could be avoided. He sought to appease Napoleon by making
gradual concessions to his demands, and on November 8, in a frantic effort
to safeguard his kingdom, Dom João even declared war on the British and
ordered the sequestering of British property.22 A week later a British squad-
ron, commanded by Rear Admiral Sidney Smith, arrived off Lisbon and pro-
ceeded to institute a blockade of the Lisbon harbor “so long as the present
state of misunderstanding exists.”23
The Portuguese concessions to the French were of no avail. Unbeknownst
to them, on October 27, 1807, France and Spain had signed a secret treaty at
Fontainebleau agreeing on the invasion and military occupation of Portugal,
which would be subsequently split up into three parts.24 The country’s south-
eastern provinces of Alentejo and Algarve were assigned to Godoy, who had
long desired his own personal fiefdom; the central regions, from Douro to the
Tagus, would be placed under military rule until the end of the war; northern
Portugal was to be transferred as compensation to the king of Etruria, a minor
Italian potentate whose territory Napoleon wanted to annex in an effort to
secure complete domination in Italy.25
On October 18, 1807, ten days before the treaty at Fontainebleau was
finalized, General Andoche Junot, a close associate of Napoleon—he had first
taken note of the young officer at Toulon in 1793—led his Army of Portugal
into Spain and began his march to Lisbon.26 The French were initially well
received by the Spaniards, whose goodwill enabled them to quickly progress
across the peninsula.27 On November 23, as his troops approached the
Portuguese border, Napoleon announced the dethronement of the Braganças
and the impending French invasion of Portugal.28 The news forced the prince
248 | the napoleonic wars

regent to cast his die. The next day, November 24, Dom João and his minis-
ters finally decided to implement the Brazil option, starting the evacuation
of the entire Portuguese government and court. In a remarkable logistical
achievement, the Portuguese prepared the embarkation of some fifteen thou-
sand evacuees in just five days, loading personal possessions, government
records, works of art, and the contents of the royal treasury onto Portuguese
ships anchored in the Tagus.29 The evacuation was completed on November 29
when the Portuguese fleet, under protection of the British squadron, embarked
on a long journey across the Atlantic.30 The following day, the French troops
entered Lisbon.31
The French occupation of Portugal faced only feeble Portuguese re­sist­ance,
partly due to the lack of central leadership and partly due to the reputation of
the French armies. Except for a brief riot that broke out in mid-December,
when the French organized a ceremony to replace the Portuguese flag with the
tricolor, both civil and the military authorities submitted to Junot’s orders.32
This was nonetheless a somewhat hollow victory for Napoleon, who had sent
repeated orders to Junot to get to Lisbon as soon as possible.33 The French did
take the Portuguese capital, but the great prize—the Portuguese government,
state treasures, and fleet—had escaped; in fact, the French occupation of
Lisbon strengthened the British presence in the waters off the coast of Portugal
since, under the terms of an Anglo-Portuguese treaty, the British occupied the
islands of Madeira and Azores and turned them into bases of operations.34
Still, the fall of Lisbon was a success because it achieved the termination
of trade between the British and Portuguese home ports. Napoleon had effec-
tively shut every major port in Europe (except those of Sweden) to British
trade. The French quickly moved to consolidate their authority, reminding the
Portuguese that their government had abandoned them and warning them
against resisting the occupation.35 Although a five-men regency council was
set up by the Portuguese government, Junot quickly moved to oust it and
ruled the country as a conquered territory subject to a military occupation.
New imperial instructions ordered Junot to disarm Portugal and to send the
Portuguese troops to France along with “all princes, ministers and other men
who might serve as rallying points for resistance.”36 The Portuguese army was
partly demobilized and partly converted unto a special legion that was first
sent to Spain before being deployed elsewhere to fight under the French ban-
ner. Many nobles and key officials were removed to France under various pre-
texts. The French then proceeded to levy an extortionate tax of 100 million
francs on the kingdom.37
The crisis of 1807 was a watershed event in Portuguese history. Portugal’s
personal and public wealth, most of its political leaders, and virtually all of
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 249

the country’s maritime strength were drained out. The departure of the royal
court, which would remain in Brazil for thirteen years, marked the demise of
Portugal’s ancien régime and a transatlantic shift of profound political, cul-
tural, and economic consequences. For the first time, a ruling European royal
house established itself in overseas colonies, highlighting the crucial role
colonial holdings played in the life of the metropole. Upon its arrival in
Brazil in January 1808, the royal family was greeted with an enthusiastic
welcome by its colonial subjects in Bahia. One of the first orders of business
that Dom João addressed was the inability of Brazilian merchants to export
their goods due to the French capture of Lisbon and Oporto. On January 28
the prince regent announced his decision to open the ports of Brazil to com-
merce with other nations, a decision that, in hindsight, turned out to be
the first step toward Brazil’s independence. The substantial British finan-
cial and material aid to Portugal meant that from 1808 to 1821, in the words
of Portuguese historian A. H. de Oliveira Marques, the country turned into
an “English protectorate.”38

The French invasion of Portugal had depended on Spanish cooperation. This


swift and practically bloodless conquest suggested that the French would face
but minor difficulties in establishing control in the Iberian Peninsula. To
understand what happened next, it is necessary to consider how weak Spain’s
position actually was at the start of the nineteenth century.
The great epoch of Spanish revival and reform largely ended with the
death of King Charles III in 1788.39 Historians tend to agree that the Spanish
monarchy struggled in its efforts to modernize and nationalize, and the thirty
years or so after the passing of Charles III constituted the most decisive period
in the history of modern Spain since the era of discoveries and conquests in
the Americas in the sixteenth century. The new king, Charles IV, though rich
in good intentions, lacked the necessary intellect and willpower to build on
his father’s legacy and govern effectively. Censuses showed that some 27 mil-
lion people resided in the Spanish Empire, with 10 million of them residing
in Spain itself. The remaining 17 million inhabitants of the Spanish colonies
enjoyed unprecedented prosperity that was the result of relaxation of com-
mercial restrictions under Charles III.40 The comparative prosperity of the
earlier reign, however, had given way to an economic stagnation that was
exacerbated by failures in foreign policy. At war with France in 1793–1795,
Spain reversed its position in 1796 when it joined France’s war against
Britain. The results of this decision, however, were the opposite of those
anticipated by Charles IV and his ministers. The first naval battle of the war,
fought near Cape St. Vincent in 1797, was a decisive victory for the British
250 | the napoleonic wars

over a larger Spanish fleet, and resulted in a tight blockade of Spanish ports
and the harassment of Spanish trade. The Bourbon monarchy found itself so
hamstrung that it was compelled to reverse its long-standing policy and
grant unprecedented permission for neutral vessels to trade with Spanish
ports in the Americas, a move that largely benefited the United States and
Britain.41 Alliance with France had cost Spain the loss of Trinidad, while
Spanish colonies that were not actually seized by Britain began to edge
toward independence because of strained contacts across the Atlantic. The
lull in the war in 1802–1803 brought Spain some respite and allowed Madrid
to briefly reassert its authority in the colonies. The renewal of the war in
1804 brought only new disasters. The Battle of Trafalgar finished off what
had begun at Cape St. Vincent, with Spain all but eliminated as a serious
maritime power. Throughout these years the Bourbon kingdom had gone to
every length in its efforts to appease its demanding ally—transferring parts
of its empire, furnishing considerable subsidies, ships, and troops—while
enjoying little if any benefit in return. Not surprisingly, after 1805 Spain
showed signs of wanting to break free of the heavy-handed French embrace.
Despite maintaining the appearance of an absolute monarch, King
Charles IV left government responsibilities to his ministers—José Moñino
y Redondo, conde de Floridablanca, Don Pedro Pablo Abarca de Bolea y
Jiménez de Urrea, conde de Aranda, and Manuel de Godoy y Alvarez de Faria,
encountered earlier—who had struggled to resolve Spain’s growing eco-
nomic, social, and political problems. Their effort to strengthen the monar-
chy’s authority and reform privileged corporations (the church, the nobility)
caused much resentment and social unrest, which only undermined the
reform movement.42 The Spanish nobility and the church, which together
owned almost two-thirds of the land, showed little interest in agrarian improve-
ments, leaving Spanish agriculture to suffer from low productivity. Military
setbacks had caused much economic stagnation, which was further com-
pounded by a series of natural disasters.43 Some ten thousand people perished
when a newly constructed dam on the Segura River burst in April 1802.
Just two years later, a major earthquake shook south and central Spain, caus-
ing considerable damage. The outbreak of a yellow fever epidemic was wors-
ened by unseasonable weather and harvest failures that in turn caused social
discontent.44
Public bitterness focused on the person of Manuel de Godoy, the Spanish
prime minister, as we have seen. A scion of the petty nobility who had made
a remarkable career at the Spanish court and was rumored to have been the
queen’s lover, Godoy was generally seen as narcissistic, venal, and corrupt.
While he considered himself a man of the Enlightenment and tried to sustain
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 251

limited reforms, this won him little support from the nobility, the church, or
old royal officialdom, which resented his meteoric rise to power and the influ-
ence that he wielded over the monarchy. For many ordinary Spaniards,
Godoy’s insistence on dead bodies being interred in new municipal cemeter-
ies (instead of traditional church ones) and his prohibition of bullfighting
(because it was ostensibly economically wasteful and a threat to public order)
went one step too far. Popular mistrust was fueled by the reality that Godoy
had neither an adequate education nor political or administrative experience
and committed his share of missteps that seriously harmed the Spanish king-
dom and made it subordinate to French interests. In 1806, during Napoleon’s
campaign against Prussia, Godoy came to believe that the Prussians would
win, and he made a blundering effort to assert Spain’s sovereignty by launch-
ing military preparations and calling upon the Spaniards to rouse themselves
for military service to defeat an “enemy” and thereby save the country through
a lasting peace; the “enemy” was not named, but everyone assumed it to be
France.45
A faint hope that Spain would turn against its French ally flickered to life,
only to be extinguished by the French triumph at Jena-Auerstadt just nine
days later. Godoy was forced into a swift and humiliating volte-face: he with-
drew his proclamation, agreed to join the Continental System, and dispatched
some of the best Spanish troops to the Baltic region. Even so, the imbroglio
reinforced Napoleon’s loathing of Godoy and reminded him that the weak
Bourbon leadership could harm his interests by reducing the value of Spain
as an ally.46 More important, Spain’s chief minister struggled to deal with two
warring parties—the liberals, who insisted on further reforms, and their con-
servative opponents, led by the heir apparent, Prince Ferdinand. Ferdinand
despised Godoy, whom he suspected of seeking to become the next king of
Spain. Powerful elements in the church and aristocracy had used the dull and
malleable crown prince to oppose Bourbon attempts at reform and hoped
that Godoy’s rise to the Spanish throne would shore up their privileged
status.47
By the late fall of 1807 matters had reached a crisis point in Spain. Public
disillusionment became ubiquitous, as the government’s economic, adminis-
trative, and military policies had alienated so many. The Spanish royal army
was poorly equipped and trained, with the best of its soldiers on their way to
northern Germany. Continued court intrigues only further complicated the
situation and served as a crucial backdrop to the French intervention. The sup-
porters of Prince Ferdinand, known as the grupo fernandino, hoped to exploit
the current turmoil to ensure the succession of their figurehead. Some of them
became involved in secret negotiations with the French ambassador, while
252 | the napoleonic wars

Prince Ferdinand himself appealed to Napoleon for protection and wrote obse-
quious letters to Paris. Ferdinand’s schemes were vague and futile, largely
limited to denunciations of the hated “Prince of the Peace” (Príncipe de la
Paz), as Godoy had been styled ever since negotiating a peace treaty with
France in 1795. But rumors of possible conspiracy spurred Godoy to action.
On October 27, after a dramatic confrontation at the royal palace of El Escorial,
Charles IV accused his son of having plotted to dethrone him and to murder
his mother and Godoy.48 A search of the princely apartments uncovered only
drafts of a manifesto denouncing Godoy’s influence and papers indicating that
the prince had considered possible scenarios in the case of his father’s death or
permanent incapacity. This was enough, however, to convince Charles to place
his son under arrest and imprison his alleged co-conspirators.49 This episode,
known as the Escorial affair, boosted Ferdinand’s popularity while further
undermining the position of Godoy, who was widely believed to have been
behind this effort to discredit the prince. Probably nothing could have suited
Napoleon’s design better than the scandalous revelations of domestic quarrels
within the royal family. The Escorial affair demonstrated the weakness of the
Spanish monarchy and played an important part in Napoleon’s subsequent
decision to intervene. Observing events in Spain, he came to believe that
the Bourbon government was incompetent and corrupt, a realization that, in
the words of historian Pieter Geyl, would have “offended Napoleon in what
one might call his professional self-respect.”50 The emperor was convinced
that what Spain truly needed was the strong and efficient hand of France.
However, the roots of this thinking went deeper. Napoleon’s foreign pol-
icy borrowed many elements from the ancien régime, and when it came to
Spain, as one Spanish observer justly noted, it drew inspirations from “the
foreign policy of Louis XIV, and, in particular, his attempts to harness the
Spanish nation to the wagon of his fortune.”51 Spain had much to offer in
terms of money, resources, and manpower. Napoleon was well aware of this
potential because of the scale of the transatlantic commerce with Spanish
America. During the Peace of Amiens, as noted, Spanish commerce revived
and silver remittances arrived in vast quantities from the colonies. In fact, the
period between 1802 and 1804 had marked the height of American silver
transfers over the three hundred years of Spanish colonial history; in less than
three years, more than 114 million pesos’ worth of silver and gold were
shipped to Spain.52 Napoleon quickly moved to tap this source of revenue,
forcing King Charles IV to sign the Subsidy Treaty, which guaranteed annual
payment of some 6 million francs a month to the French treasury.
The outbreak of the Anglo-French War in 1803 threatened the delivery of
subsidies, since Britain refused to consider Spain neutral and targeted the
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 253

Spanish merchant fleet and convoys returning from the colonies. Trade with
Spanish America all but collapsed after December 1804.53 Ever resourceful,
Napoleon still found a way to collect “his” monies. To prevent the British
from seizing Spanish silver convoys, he resorted to other means: beginning in
1805, the payment of Spanish subsidies was handled by French merchant par
excellence Gabriel Julian Ouvrard, who acted in a dual capacity: as war prof­
iteer and as agent of the French Treasury. In a remarkable example of com-
mercial collaboration in the midst of major military conflict, Ouvrard helped
organize a mercantile network involving French, Dutch, and British mer-
chant bankers and traders who engaged in an extraordinary endeavor to carry
Mexican treasure in neutral ships (even, on several occasions, on British war-
ships) from the New World on behalf of the Spanish king—but, in practice,
for Napoleon.54
The French emperor was thus keen to exploit Spain’s political turmoil and
prevailing anti-Godoy sentiments to exert greater control over Spain, which,
with her vast colonial holdings and long Atlantic and Mediterranean coast-
lines, could become an essential partner in France’s ongoing war against Britain.
With memories of Godoy’s Prussian imbroglio still fresh, Paris noted that
despite Charles IV’s acceptance of the Continental System, British goods con-
tinued to make their way into the peninsula through smuggling and corrup-
tion of provincial officials. Ferdinand’s sycophantic letters, which referred to
the French emperor as “that hero who effaces all those who preceded him” and
urged him to intervene in Spanish affairs, only further reinforced Napoleon’s
intention to act.55
The decision to overthrow the Spanish monarchy was not made spontane-
ously but rather evolved.56 As late as January 1808 Napoleon still considered
a matrimonial alliance with Spain, asking his brother Lucien to send his
daughter to Paris as a prospective bride for the Spanish prince. But Napoleon’s
indecision over the future of the Bourbon monarchy did not stop him from
making preparations for direct intervention. As Junot’s troops crossed Spain
on their way to Portugal, Napoleon instructed his general to document routes
and settlements. “Let me see the distances of the villages, the nature of the
country, and its resources,” he requested in one of his October letters, suggest-
ing that he was already contemplating invasion.57 By the end of 1807 Napoleon
used the French invasion of Portugal to occupy key points and fortresses in the
northern Spanish provinces, including San Sebastian, Figueras, Pamplona, and
Barcelona, where the French resorted to simple but ingenious ruses to seize
citadels.58 In February 1808 additional army corps began to cross the Franco-
Spanish border and spread out across Navarre, Biscay, and Old Castile.59
To lull Spanish suspicions, Napoleon ordered word spread that the troop
254 | the napoleonic wars

movements were part of a plan to lay siege to British-held Gibraltar and to


prepare for an expedition to North Africa.60
Napoleon formally unveiled his plan to intervene in the Bourbon kingdom
on February 16 with the announcement that France, as Spain’s ally, could not
ignore what was happening at the Spanish court and felt obliged to mediate
between the rival political factions. Four days later Napoleon appointed his
brother-in-law Marshal Joachim Murat as “lieutenant of the Emperor in
Spain” and tasked him with leading the intervention. Marshal Murat crossed
into Spain on March 10 and quickly progressed toward the Spanish capital.61
The Spanish government, predictably, had failed to respond to the news of
the French incursion; even after the French seizure of the border fortresses,
Charles IV could not bring himself to make a stand, apparently refusing to
believe that Napoleon could turn against him. As late as early April, the king
kept assuring his people that they could “breathe freely” and that the inten-
tions of “my dear Ally the Emperor of the French” were not to be feared.62
Still, anxious about these developments, the king and his court left Madrid
for Aranjuez.
The news of French intervention spurred a popular reaction that focused
mainly on Godoy, who had been accused of ruining the realm by virtually
handing it over to the French emperor. There were also rumors that Godoy
planned to take the royal family to Andalusia and the Balearic Islands, and if
necessary to Spanish America, just as the Portuguese royal family had escaped
to Brazil. On the evening of March 17 a mob of soldiers, peasants, and citizens
gathered at Aranjuez to prevent a royal flight. Shortly after midnight, as pas-
sions flared, the people broke into Godoy’s quarters and sacked it, furious at
not capturing the minister, who was hiding in a roll of matting in the attic.
The events at Aranjuez, reminiscent of the great journées of the French
Revolution, terrified the Spanish royal couple, with the queen beseeching her
son to parley with the mob. Ferdinand exploited the moment, announcing
that Godoy had been removed from office and banished from the court; thirst
and hunger forced Godoy to come out of his hiding place a day later, but he
was captured, beaten, and nearly blinded in one eye before being rescued
through the intervention of his nemesis, Prince Ferdinand. With his property
confiscated, the formerly all-powerful minister found himself imprisoned at
the castle of Villaviciosa de Odón.63 Ferdinand told his parents that their
personal safety (and Godoy’s life) could only be secured through an outright
abdication. Surrounded by mutinous crowds, Charles IV had no choice but to
issue a proclamation announcing that his age and infirmities compelled him
to resign the crown to his very “dear son and heir.”64 Ferdinand was hailed as
king amid almost universal rejoicing, and the troops took the oath to him as
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 255

sovereign. On March 24 he made an entry into Madrid, acclaimed by an


immense crowd that was elated that Fernando el deseado (the desired one)
would solve all their troubles.65

The new king faced considerable challenges. The country was full of unrest,
and the public violence that had helped bring down Godoy also caused con-
siderable anxiety among well-to-do Spaniards, who dreaded the prospects of
popular fury and civil strife. Charles IV himself regretted abdicating even
before the ink was dry on the paper, and he sought to reverse it, writing
secretly to Napoleon to deny the validity of his resignation and claiming it
had been done under duress. Thus the events at Aranjuez provided Napoleon
with a perfect opportunity to attempt a takeover of Spain.66 Ferdinand’s
decision to travel to Madrid was rather unwise considering that Murat and
the French troops had already arrived there. The French ambassador refused
to acknowledge him as king, and Murat treated him with open disdain.
Ferdinand’s timidity further played into the situation, as he wrote another
sycophantic letter to Napoleon assuring him of his loyalty and renewing his
request for a bride from the imperial house.
The revolution of Aranjuez surprised Napoleon, whose earlier designs
involved presenting himself as delivering Spain from the tyranny of Godoy.67
This was no longer possible because of Ferdinand’s accession to power.
Napoleon resolved to exploit the new political situation. Using as a pretext the
secret protest against abdication that Charles IV had sent him, the French
emperor refused to recognize Ferdinand as king and invited both father and son
to the city of Bayonne in France, where they became part of an infamous tragi-
comedy. Threatened and cajoled by Napoleon, Ferdinand resisted demands to
resign until May 6, when (under threat of being tried for high treason and exe-
cuted) he agreed to return the crown to his father. Only then did he discover
that Charles IV had already transferred his throne and all his rights to Napoleon.
With their kingdom snatched from them, the Spanish royals were conveyed
to separate estates—Ferdinand to Valençay and Charles IV to Compiègne,
then Marseille—where they remained until the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
The Bayonne abdications seemed to represent yet another of Napoleon’s
masterstrokes. But it involved an odious combination of force and deception,
which does justify one eminent historian’s conclusion that “in talents, Napoleon
was a great military captain; in character and methods, a great capo mafi-
oso.”68 Events in Bayonne marked a point of no return, a moment when the
emperor had fully committed himself to what soon turned into an impossible
situation. The sheer size of Spain, its varied geography and climate, and its
lack of proper transportation and communication infrastructure meant that
256 | the napoleonic wars

the French faced challenges they had rarely encountered before. Moreover,
Napoleon had a limited understanding of the Spanish people, their rich his-
tory and traditions, the vaunted Spanish pride and sense of dignity, and peo-
ple’s resilience and willingness to fight for their fundamental beliefs. José
Canga Argüelles, a Spanish statesman who witnessed these turbulent years
and later published one of the first studies of this period, was correct when he
contended that the war in Spain cannot be grasped without understanding
the very nature of the Spanish national character. In a lengthy discussion of
the constituent elements of “true national character,” he pointed to people’s
strong attachment to traditions, disdain of foreign customs, resistance to
innovations, loyalty to the king, “imperturbable constancy in misfortunes,”
and “extreme sensitivity to impulses of honor.”69 A voracious and inquiring
reader such as Napoleon should have known more about the country he was
invading, especially since French diplomats in Spain warned him that the
Spaniards “do not resemble any other nation . . . They have a noble and gener-
ous character but which tends in the direction of ferocity and they could not
stand being treated as a conquered nation. Once driven to despair, they would
be capable of the most valiant decisions and could commit the worst excesses.”70
Napoleon’s confidant General Anne Jean Marie René Savary later admitted that
“we did not show enough consideration for Spanish national self-esteem.”71
In many respects, the occupation of Spain was one of Napoleon’s most
fundamental miscalculations, a mistake for which he would pay a heavy
price. He could have pursued a much safer course by marrying one of his rela-
tives to Prince Ferdinand (as the latter had repeatedly asked), establishing a
matrimonial alliance with Spain that he would have been able to dominate.
Instead, the emperor chose the more radical course of getting rid of the
Spanish Bourbons and taking direct charge over their realm. In doing so,
Napoleon had failed to recognize that the animosity shown by the Spaniards
toward their royal family did not necessarily imply a corresponding enthusi-
asm for rule by a foreign power. Furthermore, he had failed to make proper
preparations. The 100,000 troops that he had assembled in Spain were hardly
the finest of the Grande Armée, with only a third of them belonging to repu-
table units and the rest lacking esprit de corps, adequate training, and equip-
ment. The emperor did not want to redeploy his veteran forces because they
were to stay in Germany to watch Austria. The ad hoc nature of the Armée
d’Espagne would be one of the reasons behind the French occupation’s initial
failures. Its principal asset—its reputation for invincibility—turned into a
major liability as soon as the French started to suffer setbacks. Napoleon’s
decision to divide the French forces and dispatch them against various scat-
tered objectives was foolhardy at best; Marshal Bon Adrien Jeannot de
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 257

Moncey’s weakened corps of less than 10,000 men, with no siege train, hardly
stood any chance of capturing the fortified city of Valencia, while General
Pierre-Antoine, comte Dupont de l’Étang, with some 20,000 Swiss and
German auxiliaries and fresh conscripts, never should have been sent unsup-
ported to faraway Cadiz.
Napoleon’s attempt to create a vassal monarchy in Spain touched off a
revolution that unleashed a tremendous force of provincial centrifugalism,
which had long been dormant under the surface of Spain’s national fabric.
Shortly after King Ferdinand was arrested at Bayonne, popular discontent
erupted into open revolt. On May 2, as rumors spread that the French were
pressuring the Junta de Gobierno, the governing council left behind by
Ferdinand, into sending the last members of the royal family to Bayonne, the
citizens of Madrid took the streets and massacred some 150 French troops.
The following day, Murat brought in reinforcements that suppressed what
became known as Dos de Mayo Uprising, so vividly immortalized by the
great Spanish artist Goya. In retaliation for the killings of May 2, the French
army executed hundreds of Spaniards but still failed to quell the revolt, which
triggered a groundswell of resistance across Spain as locally organized groups
defied French authority and began attacking foreign troops.72 Though the
Junta de Gobierno submitted to French authority and accepted Napoleon’s
decision on June 4, 1808, to place his brother Joseph on the throne of Spain,
provincial and municipal authorities rejected the new ruler and incited vio-
lent risings in different parts of Spain.73 Inspired partly by the writings of the
great Spanish scholar Francisco Suárez, these local governments argued that
the authority of the state was not derived from the divine monarchy but was
based on a social contract between the monarch and the people.74 With
Spain’s legitimate monarch in French captivity, the local governments felt
justified in transforming themselves into ad hoc governmental juntas con-
sisting of leading local figures.75 These juntas fostered nationalist sentiments,
rejected the Junta de Gobierno’s pronouncements, and called for organized
resistance to the French occupation. As early as the end of May the juntas of
Valencia and Seville decreed the mass mobilization of adult men and recruited
more than 20,000 men who swore their allegiance to Ferdinand and pledged
to fight the common enemy.76 Equally important was the fact that the juntas
made claims to speak for the entire Spanish nation, declaring null the
Bourbon renunciation of the crown in favor of Napoleon not only because it
had been done under duress but also because it lacked the consent of the
nation, a more crucial factor.77
In late May 1808 Napoleon convoked in Bayonne an assembly of repre-
sentatives of the Spanish nobility, clergy, and commoners to ratify a new
258 | the napoleonic wars

constitution that had been prepared for them.78 The Constitution of Bayonne,
publicized in late July 1808, was the first written constitution of the Spanish
world. Modeled after earlier French constitutions, it sought to introduce
revolutionary ideals into Spain while accommodating the particularities of
Spanish culture. The constitution turned Spain into a constitutional monar-
chy and introduced significant changes in the government, abolishing feudal
privileges (but not nobility), recognizing certain individual liberties, and
calling for the establishment of an independent judiciary and a tricameral
national assembly (cortes) of the representatives of the three estates.
These liberal provisions of the constitution were designed to appeal to the
afrancesados, the supporters of the French, who can be grouped into three broad
categories: those who had long struggled against the corruption and incompe-
tence of the ancien régime and saw the French dominion as the continuance of
the enlightened reforms pioneered by Charles III between 1759 and 1789;
those who saw collaboration with the French as more profitable than confron-
tation; and those who were alarmed by the popular violence that erupted in
May 1808 and felt their own interests threatened by it. These Francophiles
made up only a small minority of the population, the vast majority of which
was rural, devoutly Catholic, and conservative. Furthermore, the Constitution
of Bayonne reflected Napoleon’s authoritarian approach to governance. It
denied legislative power to the assembly, which could only discuss and approve
legislation initiated by the king. In a clear concession to Spanish sensibilities
and the power of the Catholic church in Spain, the constitution failed to rec-
ognize freedom of religion and proclaimed Catholicism as the official religion
of the country, with none other tolerated.79 Thus the constitution hardly won
the hearts and minds of the Spanish. It was received, in the words of one con-
temporary, with “a silent and equivocal indifference” in the French-occupied
cities and with “bitter contempt” in the countryside.80
The Constitution of Bayonne was also never fully implemented. By the
time King Joseph reached Madrid in late July 1808, he had a full-blown war
on his hands. The provincial juntas were busy raising troops, while the
Spanish royal army was already fighting the French. On June 14, 1808, the
Spanish fleet attacked the French squadron of Admiral François Rosily and
after five days of fighting forced it to surrender, capturing six French war-
ships and almost 4,000 men. Almost equally disastrous was the French cam-
paign on land. On Napoleon’s orders, the French corps moved to secure key
areas across Spain, with Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessières moving to occupy
Aragon and Old Castile, Moncey proceeding to Valencia, General Guillaume
Philibert Duhesme to Catalonia, and Dupont south toward Seville and Cadiz.
The French advance soon ground to a halt. In the two successive Battles of
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 259

the Bruch on July 6–14, the Spanish forces defeated a French detachment
marching toward Zaragoza, where General José Rebolledo de Palafox y Melzi
defied the French throughout the summer. Equally unsuccessful was Moncey,
whose assault on Valencia came to naught. The French strategic standing in
northern Spain was briefly salvaged by Bessières, who exploited poor coordi-
nation between the Spanish royal generals Gregorio García de la Cuesta y
Fernández de Celis and Joaquín Blake y Joyes and defeated them at Medina
del Rio Seco on July 14, 1808.81 A week later Joseph entered Madrid and was
crowned king of Spain.82
Bessières’s success proved to be the solitary French triumph, and it was
soon overshadowed by an outright disaster at Bailén. On his way to Cadiz,
General Dupont was alarmed by the news of the Spanish capture of Rosily’s
squadron and the spreading popular revolt. He decided to cut short his march
and turn back northward. Surrounded by hostile population and the Spanish
Army of Andalusia under the command of Generals Francisco Castaños and
Theodor von Reding, Dupont’s troops found themselves attacked at several
points as they attempted in vain to break through to the north. Dupont, who
despite his considerable experience and long record of service acted with sur-
prising incompetence, asked for a truce and signed the Convention of
Andujar, which stipulated the surrender of his entire corps of 18,000 men on
July 21, 1808.83
Bailén was the worst French military performance of the Napoleonic Wars,
made more humiliating by the fact that it was a triumph of the same Spanish
royal army that Napoleon had derided as the worst in Europe. The defeat
mortified the emperor, who considered Dupont’s capitulation both a personal
insult and a stain on French arms.84 Yet the emperor bears responsibility for
it. Dupont’s detachment was too weak and inexperienced to successfully
operate without support in a hostile region. This was Napoleon’s mistake and
a clear indication that he had underestimated of the gravity of the challenges
he was facing in Spain. Bailén’s repercussions were felt both within the pen-
insula and across Europe. Stunned by this defeat, King Joseph fled Madrid
and ordered a general retreat to the Ebro River, which meant abandoning
most of Spain. From his headquarters at Vitoria, Joseph clashed with his
brother, whom he accused of violating the Constitution of Bayonne and seek-
ing to conquer Spain. He tried giving up his crown, arguing that he had no
desire to impose himself on a people that did not want him: “Becoming the
conqueror amid all the horrors of a war against all the Spanish, I would
become an object of terror and execration. I am too old to live long enough
to atone for all that evil.”85 Napoleon rejected his brother’s entreaties and
instead demanded he take charge of the situation. Time was of the essence.
260 | the napoleonic wars

The defeat of the hitherto invincible imperial armies caused elation in many
parts of the continent, given the state of deep despair into which Napoleon’s
successive victories had plunged so much of Europe. Briefly obscured at
Eylau, Napoleon’s star had been shining more brightly than ever, and his
power seemed unassailable. Yet Bailén dealt a major blow to this reputation
and gave new sustenance to anti-French sentiments across Europe. In Austria,
the buoyed “war party”—those in favor of an open conflict with the French—
thought the moment was opportune for a renewed challenge to the French
Empire. And Bailén catalyzed resistance all across the Iberian Peninsula. In
June and July 1808 the Portuguese rose in revolt after the Spanish garrisons
left the Portuguese cities to aid the insurrection back home. The city of
Oporto rebelled in early June, followed by Braga, Bragança, and Viena, where
provincial juntas were formed. These soon recognized the authority of the
Portuguese Supreme Junta formed in Oporto and headed by local bishop
Antonio de Castro, whose enthusiasm for revolt far exceeded his leadership
abilities. Throughout the summer, the central and northern provinces of
Portugal were the scene of armed conflict between newly formed Portuguese
militias and French troops. In July the Supreme Junta dispatched representa-
tives to seek aid from Britain. Simultaneously the Spanish provincial juntas
of Asturia, Galicia, and Seville also appealed to London for help, urging the
British to end hostilities and instead support the Spaniards in their struggle
against the French.
Keen on exploiting the situation in the peninsula, the British govern-
ment sent envoys to establish relations with the Iberian authorities. Britain’s
immediate goal was to neutralize Spanish centrifugalism and convince the
Spaniards to join in some provisional national government that would be
strong enough to resist Napoleon and lead efforts to liberate the country. The
Spanish victory over Dupont at Bailén caused many in the British govern-
ment to overestimate the capabilities of the Spanish forces. To them it
appeared that Spain was a nation that would rise up against Napoleon and
pay no attention to its historical animus with Britain. In the summer of
1808, British foreign secretary George Canning dispatched Charles Stuart as
special diplomatic agent to the juntas at Corunna. Stuart spent weeks gener-
ously distributing money and arms to the Spanish insurgents in northern
provinces, all the while trying to direct them toward union with other prov-
inces to form a central junta. The Supreme Central Governing Junta of the
Kingdom was finally formed at Aranjuez in September, though in practice
many local juntas paid only nominal attention to it.86 The Anglo-Spanish war
union, in the formation of which Stuart played an important role, was to endure
throughout the Napoleonic Wars despite many setbacks, disappointments,
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 261

and accusations between the allies, which were often driven apart by old
jealousies and resentments.87
While its agents delivered monies and arms to Spain, the British govern-
ment also made preparations for a military expedition to the peninsula. In
August 1808 the British army landed in Portugal under the command of
Lieutenant General Sir Arthur Wellesley. The British defeated General Henri
François Delaborde at the Battle of Roliça on August 17 and, four days
later, engaged Junot’s main forces at Vimeiro, where the thin red line under
Wellesley’s superb leadership repelled poorly coordinated French assaults and
garnered a major victory.88 Despite his victories, Wellesley was still a junior
in command, and he was soon superseded by more senior officers Sir Harry
Burrard and Sir Hew Dalrymple. On August 30 Dalrymple, a cautious man
who had seen little fighting and was eager to exploit circumstances without
further resort to violence, signed the Convention of Cintra, which granted
the French very favorable armistice terms, including unmolested departure
from Portugal. Remarkably, over the next few weeks the Royal Navy evacu-
ated more than 20,000 French soldiers, with all their equipment and “personal
property,” which included plenty of looted Portuguese valuables, to France.
The news of the Convention of Cintra, which had effectively negated
Wellesley’s earlier victories, arrived in Britain in the wake of reports of the
British triumph at Vimeiro and caused a political scandal in Britain.89 Dalrymple,
Burrard, and Wellesley were execrated, and all three of them were swiftly
relieved of command in the peninsula. A specially formed commission recalled
the three commanders from Portugal and subjected them to an official inquiry.
In the end all three were cleared. Burrard and Dalrymple were quietly pushed
into retirement, while Wellesley moved on to greater things.90
The British army in Portugal was, meanwhile, placed under command of
Sir John Moore, a general who while serving at Shorncliffe Army Camp had
demonstrated an innovative approach to military training and produced
Britain’s first permanent light infantry regiments.91 In October 1808 Moore
decided to leave Portugal to join the Spanish forces, while Sir David Baird
was dispatched with reinforcements (and 150 transports) out of Falmouth to
Corunna to provide support on the British left wing. Furthermore, in a dar-
ing operation, the Royal Navy evacuated a division of 9,000 Spanish troops
under Pedro Caro y Sureda, marqués de la Romana, from Denmark and trans-
ferred them to Santander in northern Spain, where they arrived just as the
first British troops crossed the Spanish border from Portugal.92 It would have
been sensible for the British and the Supreme Central Governing Junta to
coordinate their military operations. Yet the new campaign plan, which Moore
described rather harshly as “a sort of gibberish,” called for the northern
262 | the napoleonic wars

Spanish armies to launch a double envelopment of the French forces around


Burgos and in Navarre, while Blake’s Army of Galicia was to march east to
support Moore.93 The plan thus divided the Spanish forces and failed to con-
sider how bad the Portuguese roads were, making it doubtful whether a com-
bined Anglo-Spanish force could indeed conduct joint operations.
Napoleon watched events in the Iberian Peninsula closely. He knew well
that the French setbacks in Spain had enlivened public opinion across Europe
and stirred some European states to consider challenging his imperium. He
also knew that it was essential to repair his prestige with a decisive campaign
in Spain. That his commitments were elsewhere made it a very challenging
decision. It would require the transfer of troops from occupied German states
to the peninsula while maintaining sufficient forces to keep Austrian bellig-
erence at bay. Furthermore, the fifteen months since the Treaty of Tilsit had
witnessed major changes in European geopolitics.
In fact, the early euphoria of Tilsit had by now evaporated and cold real-
ism had set in on both sides. Russia was clearly weighing the cons and pros
of an alliance with Napoleon, who in turn was regretting his concessions
with regard to the Ottoman Empire, which was still an important ally of
France in its struggle against Britain. Far from evacuating its forces from the
Danubian Principalities, as called for by Article 22 of the Treaty of Tilsit,
Russia revealed its intention to annex these realms.94 For the Romanov court,
earlier hopes of French support for the Russian acquisition of the Ottoman
provinces of Moldavia and Wallachia, not to mention the prospect of even-
tual partition of the Ottoman Empire, had dissipated. Napoleon had clearly
turned his back on pledges he had made at Tilsit and now claimed that the
Russian takeover of Moldavia and Wallachia must be accompanied by the
French acquisition of Prussian Silesia. Napoleon even expressed a desire to
take control of Constantinople and the Straits, informing the incredulous
Russians that while this move would pose no threat to Russia, Russian con-
trol of these locations would directly threaten France.95 Napoleon’s changing
position on what Russia considered modest concessions in northern and south-
ern Europe embittered the Russian court, where some urged the emperor to
show greater steadfastness in his dealings with Napoleon.96 In August 1808
Russia refused to ratify an armistice that the French had mediated with the
Turks and made preparations for the resumption of hostilities. Napoleon was
unnerved by the prospect of a partition of the Ottoman realm, though he did
not rule it out as long as Russia acquiesced to the French takeover of Morea,
Albania, or Egypt in exchange for acquiring the Danubian provinces. In short,
the situation was precarious, and both Alexander and Napoleon were motivated
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 263

to arrange a face-to-face meeting to review European politics and address any


ambiguities that had remained from Tilsit.
On September 27 the two emperors gathered at Erfurt in Thüringen (cen-
tral Germany). Greeting each other on the road between Weimar and Erfurt,
they embraced with what one French historian caustically described as “that
air of perfect cordiality of which kings alone possess the secret, especially
when their intention is rather to stifle than to embrace.”97 Surrounded by
immense crowds of soldiers and civilians, Napoleon and Alexander then
made their entry into the town, where they were joined by dozens of German
kings, princes, and hommes de lettres, among them Johann Wolfgang von Goethe,
who had a memorable meeting with Napoleon.98 As the host of the confer-
ence, Napoleon spared no expense, noting that he wanted “Germany to be
overawed by my magnificence.”99 For the next two and a half weeks the guests
were treated to a remarkable spectacle of military parades, banquets, and
balls.100 Against the background of this amiability and proclamations of
friendship, Napoleon and Alexander conducted negotiations on several major
issues, starting with the situation in Spain, where the insurgency was already
under way. Napoleon wanted Alexander to exert pressure on Austria to pre-
vent it from attacking France while he was in Spain. Alexander refused to
commit himself. Unbeknown to the French emperor, the Russian ruler had
met with the French foreign minister, who urged him to resist the French
demands. Talleyrand’s behavior has long been debated, with some accusing
him of treason and others pointing to higher ideals that motivated the min-
ister. His behavior was not so much a betrayal of France as infidelity to its
ruler, a distinction that Talleyrand always maintained. Even in Paris, the
minister kept up a vocal public criticism of the imperial government and
welcomed opposition elements gathering around him, hoping that this
would compel Napoleon to restrain his ambitions.101 Talleyrand was not yet
actively trying to overthrow the emperor, but he was already convinced that
France’s national interest required that imperial ambitions be curbed before
it was too late. To accomplish this, Talleyrand wanted the continental powers
to stand their ground and to cooperate with each other.102 It was during one
of his meetings with Emperor Alexander that Talleyrand supposedly told
him: “Sire, what have you come to do here? It is up to you to save Europe and
you will only succeed by standing up to Napoleon. The French people are
civilized, its ruler is not; the ruler of Russia is civilized, his people are not.
It is thus up to the Russian ruler to be the ally of the French people.”103
Talleyrand made a fundamental distinction between working for Napoleon
and serving the French nation, choosing the latter.
264 | the napoleonic wars

Alexander, stunned though he was to hear such counsel from Napoleon’s


own foreign minister, understood the value of cultivating his relations with
Talleyrand, who kept urging the Russian emperor to abstain from supporting
Napoleon’s projects, especially against Austria. Night after night, in casual
social encounters as well as in a secret meeting in the ladies’ drawing room,
Talleyrand unraveled the web that he helped Napoleon weave during the day.
He urged the Russian emperor to stand strong in the face of Napoleon’s blus-
ter, understanding that the more challenges Napoleon created for himself in
Spain, the more he would require Russian cooperation, and therefore he would
be forced to make concessions. Talleyrand even went as far as to instruct
Alexander on how to negotiate with the French emperor. Irritated by the
unexpectedly strong Russian pushback, Napoleon complained that Alexander
was “defiant and unspeakably obstinate. He wanted to treat with me as
between equals.”104 Talleyrand’s disloyalty continued even after he returned to
Paris; he became, in effect a Russian agent, code-named “Anna Ivanovna,” and
provided Russia with sound advice and information for years to come.105
Austria remained at the center of the Franco-Russian negotiations at
Erfurt. Napoleon wanted to see Austria disarmed but, failing this, he hoped
to secure Russian commitment for a joint war against Vienna. Alexander ini-
tially resisted Napoleon’s demands but ultimately compromised: Russia
would not join France in an attack on Austria but would stand by France if it
was attacked by Austria.106 Russian cooperation, however, would not come
free, and Alexander sought to exact significant concessions, including ac­cept­
ance of Russian annexation of the Danubian Principalities and Finland. Russia
also insisted on the withdrawal of French troops from Prussia and the Duchy
of Warsaw, the latter being too close to the Russian frontier for Alexander’s
comfort. In exchange for Russian recognition of French claims to Spain and
continued cooperation in the war against Britain, Napoleon acceded to the
Russian demands on the Danubian Principalities and Finland, but he refused
to remove French troops from Prussia, arguing that they were needed to
threaten Austria’s northern flank in the event of an Austrian attack on France.
As for the Eastern Question, in secret provisions of the Convention of Erfurt,
Napoleon recognized the Russian imperial frontier along the Danube River
and pledged not to intervene in case the Russo-Ottoman conflict rekindled,
unless Austria sided with the Turks against Russia.107
As soon as the Erfurt Congress ended, Napoleon hurried south. Taking
the helm of the French forces in the Pyrenees, he swiftly launched a cam-
paign that saw the Spaniards suffer major defeats at Espinosa de los Monteros
(November 10), Gamonal (November 10), Tudela (November 23), and
Somosierra (November 29–30). In the last of these battles, the gallant Polish
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 265

chevau-légers of the Imperial Guard made a memorable charge up the moun-


tain slopes to clear the road to Madrid.108 With the Spanish armies in tatters,
on December 4 the emperor entered Madrid, where he reestablished French
authority and initiated major reforms. Over the next few days the imperial
rescripts reorganized Spanish administration, nationalized church property,
removed internal customs barriers, and abolished feudal rights and the
Inquisition. “I did not invade Spain in order to put one of my own family on
the throne,” he later claimed, “but to revolutionize her.”109 Napoleon clearly
intended to use the modernization approach, which he had honed so well in
central Europe, to transform Spain and benefit from her “revenue of more
than 150 million francs, not counting the immense colonial revenues and the
possession of ‘All the Americas.’”110 He genuinely believed that this process
of regeneration would be popular with many Spaniards. But to convey the
seriousness of his intention, the emperor also warned the Spaniards that they
had been misled and misinformed earlier. “I have abolished everything that
was opposed to your prosperity and grandeur,” he proclaimed. “If all my
endeavors are in vain and you do not respond to my confidence, I shall have
no alternative but to treat you as conquered provinces. In that case I shall set
the crown of Spain on my head and I shall know how to make the wicked
[méchants] respect my authority, for God has given me the force and the will
to surmount all obstacles.”111 This proclamation shows both Napoleon’s
modernizing intention and his willingness to resort to brute force to accom-
plish it. It also reveals how little he understood the Spanish nature; unsur-
prisingly, this document had no impact on the Spanish resistance. But it did
increase anxiety in Vienna, where Napoleon’s threat to assume the crown of
Spain and move his brother to a different throne was interpreted as meaning
that the Napoleonic regime could possibly target the Habsburgs. While not
a decisive factor by itself, the declaration did play an important role in shap-
ing the thinking of Austrian political leaders as they pondered their options
on the eve of the war with France.112
Napoleon’s offensive may have been swift and triumphant, but it failed
to resolve the underlying challenges: Spanish regular forces continued to
fight, and resistance endured (if not increased) among the guerrillas and in
towns, of which Saragossa soon become the symbol. Furthermore, the French
faced a new threat—the British expeditionary force under the command of
Lieutenant General Sir John Moore.
After assuming command of his army on October 6, Moore left some
10,000 men in Lisbon and ordered his 23,000 men to advance to Spain,
where he hoped to join Lieutenant General Sir David Baird, whose 12,000
troops had disembarked at Corunna (La Coruña). The British advance had
266 | the napoleonic wars

been, as noted, delayed by poor roads, and it was only in early December that
Moore’s men finally reached Salamanca, exhausted. They barely had time to
rest before the news of Napoleon’s capture of Madrid arrived. Realizing the
danger he was facing, Moore made the decision to withdraw his force back to
Lisbon. But when he learned that Marshal Nicolas Soult’s corps lay isolated
north of Madrid, the British general decided to launch a quick strike and gain
a victory that would serve well in justifying the whole campaign back home.113
Napoleon was overjoyed at hearing the news of the advance of the British
expeditionary force: at last he could meet his enemies on terra firma.114 He
diverted part of his army to catch the British between the main French force
and that of Soult. But Moore anticipated this move and led his army toward
the relative safety of Corunna, where he could rendezvous with Baird and have
the Royal Navy extricate his troops. At first Napoleon personally led the pur-
suit, traveling on foot at the head of a column as a blizzard raged in the Sierra
de Guadarrama.115 As eager as he was to engage the British, shortly after the
New Year (1809) Napoleon received alarming news about Austrian move-
ments that raised the prospect of a new conflict. He relinquished direct com-
mand of his army to Soult and departed for France, leaving orders to pursue
the British to the coast and destroy as much of their force as possible.
Hurrying to Corunna, Moore left behind a rear guard under Major General
Edward Paget, who fought off the French cavalry and destroyed bridges to
delay the enemy advance. Still, the British retreat soon turned into a disaster,
as soldiers and camp followers dropped from exhaustion and cold; ultimately,
as many as 5,000 men out of 25,000 died during the retreat, while another
3,000 were sick or wounded.116 On January 11, Moore’s frostbitten and tat-
tered troops finally reached Corunna, where warmer weather and sufficient
supplies helped them recover. But the menace remained immediate and
grave. As at Dunkirk in May 1940, the British found themselves trapped on
the shore with their backs to the sea, while the enemy formed an arch around
them. At an anxious moment when the very survival of his expeditionary
corps was in doubt, Moore received news of the arrival of the long-expected
Royal Navy squadron and transports, which had been hastily dispatched
from Britain to rescue the troops. As the evacuation was under way the
French attacked Corunna, which Moore skillfully defended before being
fatally wounded when a French round carried away his left shoulder and col-
larbone. Despite their commander’s death, the British held their ground and
completed their evacuation, boarding all their troops and cannon and destroy-
ing vast quantities of ammunition that they could not remove.117
The Battle of Corunna was a success in terms of extricating a British army.
But it could not conceal the fact that the expedition sent to Spain to help
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 267

expel the French from the peninsula had itself been forced into a humiliating
retreat that claimed thousands of lives. As the London Times noted, “The fact
must not be disguised that we have suffered a shameful disaster. It was all
very well to talk of the courage and endurance of the troops but of what use
were these virtues alone when pitted against the genius of Napoleon? 35,000
men had crossed the Spanish frontier against him; 8000 had not returned.
We were unworthy of our great past.”118 Even more damaging than the phys-
ical losses were the deep fissures that emerged in Anglo-Spanish relations, as
both sides accused each other of not doing enough, if not of outright betrayal
and bad faith.119
Yet Moore’s decision to retreat to Corunna instead of Portugal proved to
be a blessing in disguise. It diverted French attention and protected the
British base in Lisbon, allowing London to pour in reinforcements, now
commanded once again by Arthur Wellesley, and plan for the next stage of
the war. Having been called away from Spain by the prospect of a new war
with Austria (as well as by rumors of intrigues by Talleyrand and Fouché that
hinted at possible conspiracy), Napoleon never returned to the peninsula.120
Even after the victory at Wagram, Napoleon showed no inclination to go
back to Spain and finish what he had started. Instead, he continued to direct
his brother Joseph and various commanders, most notably marshals André
Masséna, Nicolas Soult, Michel Ney, and Claude Perrin Victor—to consoli-
date French authority in Spain. The results of his brief fall campaign skewed
Napoleon’s perceptions of the war in the peninsula. Over the course of the
next five years, he consistently underestimated the challenges of local terrain,
logistics, and popular resistance, and frequently gave his generals instruc-
tions that were physically impossible to comply with. In hindsight, one can
see that it would have been prudent for the emperor to learn lessons from the
first year of fighting in Spain and adjust accordingly—that is, to restore
Ferdinand to the throne and seek a political compromise that would have
secured French interests in the peninsula. As it was, Napoleon had commit-
ted himself to the continuance of a war that consumed his best troops, weak-
ened his military hold in central Europe, and bolstered his enemies across the
continent.
The events of 1808–1809 had an important impact on the course of war
in Spain. After Napoleon’s campaign, the French regained control of most of
central and northern Spain but continued to face an uphill struggle in many
areas. Parts of Catalonia, Andalusia, and Extremadura strongly resisted them,
and the valiant defense of the cities only further galvanized Spanish re­sist­
ance. The most visible example of this defiance came from the city of Saragossa,
which was first unsuccessfully besieged from June through August 1808.
268 | the napoleonic wars

The French returned in December when Marshal Jean Lannes brought some
44,000 men (with more than 140 cannon) to the city’s walls. The Spanish
garrison of 34,000 men, commanded by General José Palafox, refused to sur-
render and was actively supported by some 60,000 civilians. The ensuing siege,
lasting until February 20, represented one of the worst urban combats ever
seen in Europe before the twentieth century and redefined the contemporary
notions of siege warfare. Men, women, and children armed with knives, swords,
pikes, muskets, or stones fought alongside Spanish soldiers, transforming
buildings into fortlets and repelling French assaults in spite of their own
appalling losses. Ultimately the French did succeed in taking the city, but
only after they had systematically mined and destroyed a large portion of it
and killed an estimated 54,000 Spaniards, two-thirds of them civilians.121
At least in Saragossa the French prevailed; in large parts of the Spanish
countryside they could not. The guerrilla war, with its emphasis on surprise
and shock, posed a major challenge to the French, who lamented the fact that
“an invisible army spread itself over nearly the whole of Spain, like a net from
whose meshes there was no escape for the French soldier who for a moment
left his column or his garrison.” Without uniform and seemingly without
weapons, the guerilleros easily avoided patrols or ambushed troops sent against
them. The task of finding them was insurmountable, since “men at work in
the fields would seize on the gun hidden in the earth, on catching sight of a
solitary Frenchman, while to the detachment crossing the field in which they
laboured they were but peaceful peasants.”122
This was a war of frightening totality, inhumaneness, and fervor, so
graphically portrayed in Goya’s unforgettable series of etchings entitled Los
desastres de la guerra (The Disasters of War). It posed challenges that Napoleon
could not overcome despite his continued efforts. The French relied on a tra-
ditional mixture of reform, occupation, collaboration, and repression that
had worked elsewhere. But in Spain they were confronted by an opponent
that was willing to bear the terrible costs of war, “bleeding France more than
France could bleed Spain.”123 The intrepid guerrillas absorbed the greater
part of the French army’s energy, as the French were constantly forced to
skirmish and engage in punitive expeditions and searches.124 In December
the Supreme Central Governing Junta attempted to bring some order to the
guerrillas, authorizing the creation of partidas and cuadrillas of a hundred
volunteers each, led by a comandante and subject to the same military disci-
pline as in the regular army; the partidas were considered as forming part of
the regular army and had to follow orders from the generals commanding
army units in areas where the bands operated.125 On April 17, 1809, in a
decree on so-called land privateering (el corso terrestre), the government
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 269

declared that “all inhabitants of the provinces occupied by French troops who
are capable of bearing arms are authorized to do so, even to the extent of
using forbidden weapons, to attack and despoil . . . French soldiers, seize the
provisions which are earmarked for them, and to do them as much harm as
possible.” Article 13 instructed the authorities of occupied towns and vil-
lages to furnish irregular detachments with all possible information on the
strength and disposition of the enemy, and to deliver to them the necessary
provisions. In short, the decree called for a total war in which the guerrillas
played the role of the population in arms.126
The actual nature of the guerrilla movement has been misunderstood for
a long time. Traditional narrative tended to portray it as a Spanish uprising
for “God, king, and country.” Recent scholarship, most notably by British his-
torian Charles J. Esdaile, has revealed major problems with such an approach.
It has shown that the primary concern for many rebels was not the preserva-
tion of the Bourbon (or, for that matter, Bragança) monarchy. Instead it was
a fight for land, bread, and, in many cases, revenge on the propertied classes.
The guerrillas did attack French convoys, intercept French communications,
and harass enemy rears, but they also engaged in predatory activities against
Spanish towns and villages and were routinely heavy-handed in extracting
food and supplies from their own compatriots. Neither were the leaders of
this insurgence united by common goals or ideology. To the contrary, they
entertained a variety of conflicting interests, though they did share a com-
mon desire to resist French occupation.
Consequently, any history of the Peninsular War must take into account a
great complexity, where the infamous “little war” (guerrilla) can no longer
merit the description of a “people’s war.” The guerrillas were characterized by
regionalism, fluidity of affiliation, banditry, and agrarian unrest, not to men-
tion military desertion, tax evasion, and resistance to the junta authority and,
later, to the Anglo-Spanish forces. Indeed, as Esdaile correctly argues, discus-
sion of the Spanish guerrilla war must consider the distinction between the
small units of regular troops who adopted guerrilla-style irregular tactics and
the civilian (and in many cases quasi-brigand) partidas, many of whose mem-
bers had fled to avoid conscription into the Spanish army or had deserted
after being called up. Some of the partida members were motivated by pa­tri­
ot­ism and a desire to avenge the abuse (and atrocities) committed by the
French; others were driven by sheer opportunism and preyed on their fellow
Spaniards as much as they did on the French.127
Drawing this distinction does not minimize the impact that the guerrillas
had on the war against the French or on the subsequent history of Spain. The
guerrillas signaled a new period of politicization that demonstrated that the
270 | the napoleonic wars

populace had to be reckoned with rather than simply discounted. The dam-
age inflicted by the guerrillas on the French was immense: the French forces
were constantly harassed, their attempts to requisition supplies encountered
obstacles at every step, and King Joseph’s officials trying to carry out instruc-
tions were either killed or living in constant fear of being killed.128 In July
1810 the French ambassador in Madrid lamented the fact that the guerrillas
“shrink the circumference of occupied towns and reduce the exercise of royal
authority to a very limited area. It is an evil that demands a special treatment
and which will not be destroyed until it is attacked everywhere by units spe-
cifically set up for this sort of service.”129 The war in Spain was undoubtedly
among the worst experiences French soldiers had during the revolutionary
era. They were well aware of this and expressed their frustrations in numer-
ous letters home, diaries, and, later on, memoirs. A common saying among
the troops that was scrawled in many places proclaimed, “War in Spain . . . death
for soldiers, ruin for officers, fortune for generals.”130
The Spanish armies may have survived Napoleon’s onslaught in 1808, but
so serious had been their losses that they struggled to recruit and equip new
forces. Resistance to conscription among the populace was greater than ever,
and not even generous British supplies of arms and uniforms could replace
the need for actual soldiers. The outbreak of revolutions in Latin America
only further emasculated the Spanish war effort. Still, the British decision to
keep a small force (some 9,000 men under Sir John Cradock) in Portugal
proved to be vital. The British presence, even if it was confined to the Lisbon
area, meant that the British government remained committed to the struggle
in the peninsula and that both Portuguese and Spanish resistance could receive
much-needed succor. In February 1809 General William Carr Beresford was
given the task of rebuilding the Portuguese army with the help of a small
cadre of British officers and a great deal of money and arms. Perhaps of greater
significance, in April Sir Arthur Wellesley, the hero of the first British inva-
sion of Portugal, was named commander of the British forces in Portugal.
Contrary to Sir Moore’s claim that Portugal was untenable, Wellesley argued
that if granted 20,000–30,000 men and given authority over local forces, he
would be able to establish a British bridgehead in the peninsula and fight off
any French invasions.131 Wellesley landed at Lisbon in April 1809 and lost no
time in engaging the French.
Before leaving Spain, Napoleon had laid down the general lines of the
plan that his marshals were ordered to follow. While Ney was told to remain
in Galicia, Soult was instructed to march with his corps from Corunna into
Portugal, seizing Oporto and then Lisbon. Soult duly advanced with some
23,000 men, overcoming disorganized Portuguese resistance and forcing his
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 271

way into Oporto by the end of March. Here Soult’s initiative petered out. His
corps was exhausted and hardly strong enough to sustain further offensive
operations without receiving reinforcements, but none were forthcoming.
Such was the state of affairs when Wellesley landed in Portugal. Born into
an aristocratic Anglo-Irish family, Wellesley first rose to prominence as the
victor of several major battles in India, where he served under his brother,
Richard Wellesley. Having in the process acquired much useful experience,
particularly in regard to logistics and alliance diplomacy, in 1805 he returned
to Britain and received an army command. Notorious for his stern counte-
nance and acerbic temper—he frequently reduced grown men to tears—
Wellesley was, like Napoleon, a man of contrasts: of modest personal tastes
yet with vigorous sexual appetites; possessing a keen mind yet displaying
intellectual arrogance; having a pronounced sense of duty yet tending toward
great injustice and shifting responsibility for mistakes on to others. He was
instantly recognizable for his aquiline nose and for a peculiar laugh that some
wit likened to a horse with whooping cough. To later cartoonists, these char-
acteristics made him a figure of fun, but to his soldiers he was “Old Nosey,”
a leader who was notorious for his insistence on the harshest discipline yet
inspired undying trust on account of his unerring ability to win battles with-
out excessive cost to his men’s lives.132
Returning to Portugal, Wellesley at once grasped the situation: Soult’s
corps was isolated and vulnerable. Marching with some 16,000 men to the
Douro River, the British commander made a surprise crossing of the river in
broad daylight, under the nose of the French patrols, and scored a decisive
victory over Soult at the Second Battle of Oporto on May 12. The battle
ended the second French invasion of Portugal; Soult was forced to retreat to
Spain, losing some 5,000 men and much of his artillery and baggage. Thus,
just four weeks after landing in Lisbon, Wellesley had driven the French
army out of Portugal and established a firm British presence in the region.
His success only further encouraged Spanish resistance in the neighboring
region of Galicia, where the French faced Romana’s army and local guerrillas.
To Soult’s and Ney’s credit, they were able to meet up at Lugo and regroup
their forces within just a few short weeks, taking the field once more.
Wellesley did not expect the French to recover so soon and hoped to
exploit France’s preoccupation with the war in Austria to invade Spain. With
Soult and Ney tied down in northwestern Spain, the British crossed into
Spain and joined some 30,000 Spanish troops under General Gregorio García
de la Cuesta y Fernández de Celis. However, before the joint Anglo-Spanish
force, under Wellesley’s overall command, could figure out what to do next,
French Marshal Claude Victor advanced. On July 27 at Talavera, a small
272 | the napoleonic wars

town some seventy-five miles southwest of Madrid, Wellesley engaged some


46,000 Frenchmen that Victor had amassed by using up the last reserves
from Madrid. There followed a bloody battle that lasted two days. The French
were the first to attack, directing their assault at the Spanish right and the
British left, but were unable to make headway. At daybreak on July 28, the
French resumed their attacks on British positions but were repulsed with
heavy losses, with fighting turning into a heavy exchange of cannon fire in
the afternoon. Unable to break through at any point, the French chose to
leave the battlefield, after suffering more than 7,000 casualties.133
Talavera was a British victory, but it came at a heavy price, with the
British losing a quarter of their force (over 6,000 men) in two days of fight-
ing. Wellesley, who was ennobled as Viscount Wellington for this battle,
understood the pyrrhic nature of his success and, with Soult threatening his
communication lines, had no choice but to retreat hastily back to Portugal.
His experiences during the Battle of Talavera turned Wellington against
cooperation with the Spaniards, and he became determined to ignore Spanish
affairs in order to concentrate on one essential point of his new plan: the secu-
rity of Lisbon. Anticipating a French invasion, he hoped to make himself so
strong at Lisbon that the French would exhaust themselves trying to break
through. Just weeks after returning from Spain, he gave orders for a vast sys-
tem of defensive works across the entire Lisbon peninsula—the Lines of
Torres Vedras. In what constituted the greatest single engineering feat in the
entire Napoleonic era, the Portuguese military and civilians constructed
three strong lines of mutually supporting forts, blockhouses, redoubts, and
ravelins with fortified artillery positions.
The lines were a reflection of Wellington’s comprehensive approach to the
defense of Portugal. In case of French invasion, Wellington desired that their
path be subjected to deliberate total devastation—local residents evacuated,
villages abandoned, supplies removed or destroyed, livestock slaughtered or
driven off. The enemy would find itself in a man-made wasteland in which
they would struggle to secure supplies while being harassed by specially
raised irregular home guards (the ordenança). The British army itself, with the
bulk of the Portuguese civilian population (ultimately some 200,000 inhab-
itants would be relocated), would weather the invasion behind the Lines of
Torres Vedras. Once the French forces were sufficiently weakened, Wellington
intended to bring them to battle, to which end he intended to utilize the
Portuguese army, which had been completely rebuilt under the direction of
Sir William Beresford.134
The Royal Navy was instrumental to the success of this grand strategy.
Although it was not immediately clear, control of the sea meant victory on
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 273

land, because the navy provided crucial logistical support. With an army of
some 40,000 British and German soldiers, 26,000 Portuguese regulars, and
45,000 Portuguese militia and untrained local ordenança militia, as well as
numerous Portuguese refugees, behind the Lines of Torres Vedras, maintain-
ing a steady stream of supplies quickly became a matter of tremendous
importance. This was the task that Admiral George Berkeley’s squadron of
eleven ships-of-the-line, three frigates, eight other vessels, and nearly three
hundred transports undertook, ensuring the conveyance of reinforcements
and resources from Britain and North Africa.135 This logistical effort proved
so successful that Wellington’s Anglo-Portuguese army could have theoreti-
cally resisted indefinitely. Furthermore, British sea power would provide a
route of escape in the event of some catastrophic failure of Wellington’s oper-
ation, thereby sufficiently allaying fears and enabling the entire endeavor to
take place at all.136 As Wellington admitted privately, “If anyone wishes to
know the history of this war, I will tell him that it is our maritime superior-
ity [that] gives me the power of maintaining my army while the enemy are
unable to do so.”137
Wellington’s massive preparations were soon justified. With Austria
defeated in the summer of 1809, Napoleon poured reinforcements into the
Iberian Peninsula and instructed his marshals to conduct offensive operations
to reestablish French authority. Over the next few months the French seized
the initiative, launching a massive offensive that overran Seville, Granada,
Córdoba, Málaga, and Jaén, followed by successes at Oviedo, Astorga, Ciudad
Rodrigo, Lérida, Tortosa, Badajoz, and Tarragona. In Aragon, Suchet had
already defeated the Spanish forces of General Blake at Maria and Belchite on
June 15–18, 1809, and now moved to further consolidate his authority across
the Aragonese plains. He initially took a more conciliatory attitude toward
the population and, aware of cultural differences between the French and the
Aragonese, sought to minimize the disruption his troops caused to the local
population. In 1809–1810 he was probably the most successful of the French
commanders in dealing with guerrilla war, demonstrating a keen under-
standing of social dynamics and leveraging local elites and the strong
Aragonese regionalism.138 In Catalonia, Saint-Cyr faced a far greater chal-
lenge as he tried in vain for six months to capture the fortress of Gerona,
which was defended by the resourceful Spanish general Mariano Alvarez.
Gerona was ultimately captured on December 10, 1809, but it cost some
14,000 French casualties and was undoubtedly one of the most brilliant
actions performed by the Spaniards during the entire Peninsular War.139
In Castille, the Supreme Central Governing Junta’s decision to launch
offensives in the fall of 1809 led to disastrous results. The Spaniards suffered
274 | the napoleonic wars

crushing defeats at Ocaña (November 19) and Alba de Tormes (November


26); the French victory at Ocaña was of particular significance because it
destroyed the only force capable of defending southern Spain, which was
overrun by the French during the winter of 1810. These successes marked the
high tide of French operations in the Peninsular War: much of the Iberian
Peninsula was now under French control. The Spanish juntas were reduced to
controlling the island city of Cadiz, where the Supreme Central Governing
Junta was besieged by the French, and parts of Galicia and the Levante.140
The Spanish guerrillas, while still effective in harassing the enemy, found
themselves coming under more and more pressure.
By the summer of 1810 Napoleon was already preparing for the third
invasion of Portugal, which, he hoped, would result in the destruction of the
British army. Many observers, both in France and in Britain, thought that the
end to organized resistance in the Iberian Peninsula was at hand. Britain,
which had to use specie to pay its own forces and provide subsidies to the
peninsular allies, suffered from economic problems stemming from the
Continental System and worsening relations with the United States, and
some in the British government doubted whether British involvement in the
peninsula was worth the cost. Relations between Spain and Britain remained
strained, with the Spaniards expressing profound suspicion of British motives
and aims in the war and resisting British commercial penetration of Spanish
overseas possessions. These tensions undermined military cooperation between
British and Spanish forces; Wellington frequently expressed frustration with
his Spanish counterparts.141
There was a six-month gap in the French offensive operations between the
conquest of Andalusia and the commencement of the third invasion of Portugal
as Napoleon moved nearly 100,000 more troops across the Pyrenees to consoli-
date his authority in Spain. By the summer of 1810 there were no fewer than
350,000 French troops in the peninsula, the highest number ever seen.142
Napoleon nominated Marshal André Masséna to lead the new Army of Portugal.
Masséna was one of the most talented French commanders, probably more
capable of conducting such an important campaign than any other marshal.
Napoleon pledged 100,000 men, with whom Masséna was to destroy the British
and take Lisbon. That promise never fully materialized. The French marshal
ultimately received 65,000 men and faced continued logistical challenges when
he embarked on an invasion of Portugal. He did everything he could do to
succeed, but in light of the limited resources at his disposal and the substantial
opposition he faced, his task was clearly challenging, if attainable at all.143
Delayed by the siege of the fortress of Ciudad Rodrigo (April–July),
Masséna didn’t cross into Portugal until late in August and first laid siege to
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 275

Almeida, the fortress that protected northeastern Portugal. Defended by a


strong and well-supplied garrison, Wellington expected Almeida to offer stiff
resistance to the French, but just three days into the siege a shell exploded
the main powder magazine, causing such massive destruction that it forced
the British to surrender the very next day. After two weeks of regrouping,
Masséna resumed his advance but suffered a defeat at Busaco (Buçaco)
(September 27), where Wellington defended a dominating ridge with some
25,000 British troops as well as an equal number of the newly reformed
Portuguese troops, who played such a prominent part in attaining victory
that it served as a great morale boost to these inexperienced forces.144
Nevertheless, the French marshal soon found a path around Wellington’s
front, forcing the Anglo-Portuguese army to steadily fall back to the pre-
pared positions in the Lines of Torres Vedras.
On entering the interior of Portugal, the French were surprised to find the
entire countryside stripped of supplies and inhabitants, while Portuguese
irregulars closed round their rear. By mid-October the French outposts were
within twenty miles of Lisbon when they came across the astounding sight of
the fortified lines cutting across the Portuguese countryside. For Masséna,
one look was sufficient to understand the scope of the challenge he now faced.
Reporting to the emperor, he concluded that he would compromise his army
if he were to attack in force such formidable lines.145
With neither side willing to compromise its position by attacking,
Masséna did his best to ensure his army’s survival for four long months. The
British and their allies “could have everything [they] desired from London,
freely and with great certainty,” lamented a French officer, Jean Jacques Pelet,
“while we needed more than a month and a half to obtain a very simple
answer from Paris, if one arrived at all.”146 Surprised by the French army’s
resilience in the desert-like conditions of Portugal, Wellington later acknowl-
edged that “it is astonishing that the enemy have been able to remain in this
country so long; and it is an extraordinary instance of what a French army can
do. . . . With all our money and having in our favour the good inclinations of
the country, I assure you that I could not maintain one division in the district
in which they have maintained not less than 60,000 men and 20,000 animals
for more than two months.”147 In mid-November, lacking siege equipment,
his army outnumbered, starving, and disgruntled, and fully aware of the
strength of the lines in front of him, Masséna made the decision to withdraw
his army to Santarem, some forty miles up the Tagus.148 He remained there
for another four months before realizing that his position in Portugal was no
longer tenable, and he returned to Spain in March 1811. This effectively
marked the end of the French campaign and the twilight of the marshal’s
276 | the napoleonic wars

glorious career. “Masséna had grown old,” bemoaned Napoleon as he replaced


him with the young and ambitious Marshal August Marmont.
The Torres Vedras campaign proved a deciding factor in the Peninsular
War. The British had achieved a great victory with minimal losses, although
Wellington came under great criticism. The British public was not pleased
with the methodical, Fabian nature of Wellington’s strategy, which did not
produce decisive battles and triumphs. In November 1810 Grenville bewailed
Wellington’s tactic as “desperate and wicked; it puts to hazard our safety,
failure may involve us in ruin, [while] the utmost success cannot . . . insure to
us the least permanent advantage.”149 Such criticisms stung Wellington, who
complained clamorously about the government’s handling of the war and
failure to wholly support him.150 The Portuguese decried what they perceived
as the British willingness to sacrifice Portugal, its people, and its resources;
the French success in advancing deep into Portugal raised the fear of the British
embarking on the waiting fleet and sailing home while leaving the Portuguese
to deal with the stark reality. Nonetheless, Wellington’s strategy, as destruc-
tive as it was to the Portuguese countryside, was pragmatic, perceptive, and,
most important, successful. It signaled the beginning of a new phase of the
war. The French found it impossible to mount another invasion of Portugal,
and the British built upon their success to counterattack into Spain. Equally
important was the fact that Anglo-Portuguese alliance survived this harsh
test. With the French sweeping through Portugal’s countryside, no pro-
French group emerged in Lisbon, and the Portuguese remained determined
to endure the heavy burden of war and to support the British army.151
Wellington soon discovered that guarding the Lines of Torres Vedras was
one thing and invading Spain quite another. The French-controlled border
fortresses of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz thwarted British progress and
helped lay the ground for major French counteroffensives, though none of
them succeeded. On May 16, 1811, the small town of Albuera, in southern
Spain, became the setting for one of the bloodiest battles of the Napoleonic
Wars as a combined Spanish, British, and Portuguese force led by Beresford
blocked the march of the French marshal Soult, who was trying to reach
Badajoz. In just four hours of fighting Beresford held on to his position but
lost five colors and some 6,000 men, with the British contingent losing
40 percent of its men and one of its brigades entirely destroyed in a French
cavalry charge.152 Along with an earlier battle at Fuentes de Oñoro (May 3–5),
Albuera was a tactical victory for the British but failed to change the strate-
gic situation in the Iberian peninsula. The French continued to exercise
authority in the larger part of Spain, while the British remained able to exert
only marginal influence outside Portugal. The campaign in many respects
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 277

reflected the evolving nature of Wellington’s mission in the peninsula. For


the first three years he had been defending Portugal, and his force, particu-
larly the cavalry, was sized for warfare in the mountainous Portuguese coun-
tryside. But the weakening of French positions in Spain allowed Wellington
to become bolder and grander in his plans. Still, the battles and sieges of the
fall of 1810 and spring of 1811 cost Wellington heavy losses and discouraged
him from attempting another invasion until he had procured cavalry reinforce-
ments suitable for the more open terrain of Spain and an adequate siege train.
With the support of the Royal Navy, Wellington worked to address these
challenges. In the autumn of 1811 he received a powerful siege train, one
that allowed him to strike across the border and quickly capture the fortresses
of Ciudad Rodrigo (January 20, 1812) and Badajoz (April 7), opening path-
ways into Spain. The arrival of five cavalry regiments further buttressed pros-
pects for a successful strike deeper into the Iberian Peninsula. But equally
decisive in changing the strategic situation in the peninsula was Napoleon’s
determination to invade Russia in June 1812. This massive conflict dried up
the supply of men and resources for Spain, making the spectacular gains
achieved by Wellington during the first half of the year even more signifi-
cant. The beleaguered Armée d’Espagne had seen tens of thousands of troops
recalled for the campaign in Russia. Meanwhile, Soult’s 54,000-man Army of
the South, deployed in Andalusia, continued to be tied down in the siege of
Cadiz, while the Army of the North was hunting down guerrillas in Navarre.
Marshal Suchet did have sizable forces (some 60,000 men) in Catalonia and
Aragon but had rarely shown interest in supporting his fellow marshals.
It was Marshal Auguste de Marmont’s Army of Portugal, some 52,000
strong, that posed the more immediate problem for Wellington, who in the
late spring of 1812 decided to launch another invasion of Spain. In engag-
ing Marmont, Wellington hoped to secure several major goals at once—
defeating a major enemy force, threatening the main French communications,
and forcing Soult to abandon the siege of Cadiz and withdraw from southern
Spain or risk being isolated. After spending the month of May procuring suf-
ficient food, ammunition, and fodder, Wellington launched his campaign
with almost 50,000 men and 54 cannon; the bulk of his forces were British,
but there were also the fast-improving Portuguese troops, who had proven
themselves at Busaco and were fully integrated with the British forces.
In addition, Wellington’s command included a Spanish division and regiments
of the famed King’s German Legion.
The Allied army began its advance from Ciudad Rodrigo on June 13, and
four days later its troops entered Salamanca unopposed, laying siege to small
French garrisons that Marmont had left in neighboring forts.153 For the next
278 | the napoleonic wars

several weeks, the two armies remained in close proximity to each other, cau-
tiously maneuvering into position. Neither was willing to attack; in fact, at
one point they moved parallel with each other on opposite sides of the river
Guarena, the martial music of their bands blaring loudly as they marched.
In late July, despite stormy weather, both armies continued their march
across flat and rolling countryside before deploying on the southern side of
the Tormes River, not far from the town of Salamanca. Here, on July 22,
1812, Wellington surprised Marmont with a succession of flanking maneu-
vers in oblique order that resulted in a rout of the French left wing. With
senior French officers, including Marmont, wounded, confusion reigned among
the French command, creating an opportunity that Wellington success-
fully exploited. In just a few hours of fighting the British smashed through
the French positions and gained a decisive victory.154 Six days after the bat-
tle, General Maximilien-Sebastien Foy wrote in his diary that the Battle of
Salamanca was the most skillfully fought, the largest in scale, and the most
important in results of any that the British had fought in recent times. “It ele-
vates Lord Wellington’s reputation almost to the level of that of Marlborough,”
he observed. “We knew about his prudence, his eye for choosing good posi-
tions, and the skill with which he used them. But at Salamanca he has shown
himself a great and capable master of maneuvering.”155 Salamanca thus demol-
ished the belief that Wellington was merely a defensive-minded and overly
cautious commander. Instead, it secured his reputation as a British war hero and
one of the great military leaders in Europe. This was undeniably Wellington’s
best-fought battle, and in its conception and skillful execution it compares
to Napoleon’s great victory at Austerlitz. This “beating of forty thousand men
in forty minutes,” as one French officer put it, stunned the French, who were
forced not only to lift their siege of Cadiz and abandon the entire province
of Andalusia but also to evacuate the royal capital city of Madrid, which
irreparably damaged King Joseph’s government.156
Despite his triumph at Salamanca, Wellington found himself in a precar-
ious position between Soult’s Army of the South marching from Andalusia,
Soult’s Army of Aragon in Catalonia, and King Joseph’s Army of the Center
in Toledo; even the battered Army of Portugal remained anything but inac-
tive under the leadership of General Bertrand Clausel, who had rallied and
reequipped his troops with remarkable speed. The failure of British siege
operations at Burgos (with its masterly defense by General Jean Louis
Dubreton) in September and October was accompanied by a sudden counter-
offensive by the supposedly beaten French forces, which forced Wellington to
retreat to Portugal lest he be crushed. By November the British had abandoned
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 279

Madrid to the counterattacking French forces under King Joseph’s command


and retreated westward.157
Thus the glory Wellington had gained in July petered out in the snow
and rain of a peninsular winter and was dimmed by his subsequent setbacks
and his withdrawal to Portugal, exposing him to bitter complaints in the
British newspapers and criticism in Parliament. The condition of the British
army was deplorable: well over 15,000 men were on the sick list, and a large
amount of equipment had been lost during the retreat. The state of the
Portuguese and Spanish forces was little better, and there was a growing
Spanish animosity toward the British commander in chief. Nonetheless, gen-
erally the campaign of 1812 turned out in the Allies’ favor. The victory at
Salamanca and the liberation (if temporary) of Madrid boosted morale and
helped expel the French from much of southern Spain. The Spanish guerrillas
were again rampaging across much of the peninsula, hampering French
operations.
But the fate of the Napoleonic Empire was not decided in the rolling hills
of Spain, even if Napoleon himself later claimed that “it was the Spanish ulcer
that destroyed me.” In reality, events in Spain, as important as they were, did
not threaten the survival of the French Empire, and Napoleon continued to
dominate the rest of the continent. The future of Europe was instead decided
in the snowy fields of Russia and on the green plains of Germany, where
Napoleon’s inability to score a decisive victory and impose his will on the coa-
lition leaders had, as we shall see, profound repercussions. One cannot but
wonder what would have happened if, instead of leading the invasion of
Russia, Napoleon had chosen to return to Spain in 1812 and, utilizing his vast
resources from across the entire continent (just as he did in Russia), confronted
the peninsular problems before dealing with his Russian adversaries.

As important as it was militarily, the year 1812 also left a profound political
legacy, for it was in this year that the Spanish Cortes laid the cornerstone of
the Spanish liberal tradition. The Cortes was the successor to the Supreme
Central Governing Junta, which had led the Spanish resistance to Napoleon
for two years but was compelled to summon an assembly in order to legiti-
mize the situation created by the continued absence of the Bourbon monar-
chy. In 1810, guarded by British ships and besieged by French troops at the
Isla de León in Cadiz, the Cortes opened its meetings to deputies from across
the Spanish-speaking world.158 This was the first parliamentary body to
feature representatives of both the metropole and the colonies. Amid the din
of gunfire, the deputies embarked on vociferous debates on the nature of
280 | the napoleonic wars

government, citizenship, and representation that ultimately resulted in the


adoption of a new constitution.
Three main groups shaped the proceedings of the Cortes. The first included
liberals who had been influenced by the French Revolution, embraced many of
its ideals, and wished to go beyond the mere support of the war effort against
France and draft a constitution that would introduce profound changes in
the state and society. Their opponents were the realists (realistas), who had
remained loyal to Bourbon authority and believed that sovereignty should be
shared between the king and the nation; they backed modest reforms, includ-
ing a constitutional government that had to be rooted in Spanish history
and tradition and would not jeopardize the “ancient fundamental laws.” The
third group, the americanos, consisted of deputies from the American colonies
who had campaigned on issues relevant to the overseas territories. Their ideas
reflected a mix of traditional Bourbon reformism, ideals of the Enlightenment,
and principles from the early years of the French Revolution, and they pro-
moted the introduction of universal male suffrage (based on proportional
representation), which would have benefited the colonial populations.159
The liberals dominated the drafting of the constitution throughout the
entire process, insisting on a centralized government, an efficient civil serv­ice,
equality before the law, property rights, and a wide range of socioeconomic
reforms that were reminiscent of the reforms that Napoleon had introduced
in France less than a decade prior. The new constitution’s 384 articles were
finalized in March 1812 and reflected an underlying liberal triad of “liberty,
property and all other legitimate rights.”160 The constitution was deeply rooted
in Enlightenment principles as well as concepts derived from the American
and French Revolutions. Much to realists’ chagrin, Article 3 explicitly
declared that “sovereignty belongs to the nation” and that the people had
“exclusive” rights to “to establish fundamental laws.” The issue of constitu-
tional balance served as another crucial point of disagreement between liber-
als and the realists, with the former ultimately prevailing in their insistence
on a stronger legislative branch.
The constitution thus gave Spain a strictly limited monarchy with a
single-chamber parliament that contained no special representation for the
church or the nobility. Although the deputies did their best to steer clear of
any accusations that they were borrowing from the French revolutionary leg-
acy, the final document clearly reflected the revolutionary ideals of the 1791
French Constitution, as it enshrined civil liberty (Art. 4), property (Arts. 4,
172.10, 294, and 304), personal freedom (Art. 172.11), freedom of the press
(Arts. 131.24 and 371), tax equality (Art. 339), inviolability of the home
(Art. 306), the right to a public trial (Art. 302), habeas corpus (Arts. 291 et
The Struggle for Portugal and Spain, 1807–1812 | 281

seq.), and so on.161 Grappling with the issue of what to do with colonies that
were already in the grips of political turmoil, the Cadiz liberals sought to
resolve the matter by making the colonies constitutionally part of metropoli-
tan Spain, putting the colonists—except for those of African descent (slave or
free) but inclusive of Indians and mestizos—on equal footing with regard to
political representation and taxation.162
The Constitution of 1812 was the major success for Spanish liberalism
and represented a rupture with Spain’s Old Regime in numerous ways. But
it is also a clear example of the global impact of the Napoleonic Wars. The
Cortes deputies were far more liberal than the Spanish population as a whole,
and they produced a document that was far more liberal than would have
been possible were it not for the exceptional circumstances created by war. As
a blueprint for governing a heterogeneous empire, the Constitution of 1812
went on to became the “sacred codex” of Latin liberalism, the first constitu-
tion implemented across the world, from Florida to New Spain and from
Peru to the Philippines. It offered a seemingly “viable alternative to both
continued imperial rule from a disconnected metropole and to the separatist
aspirations that emerged in the early nineteenth century across the diverse
territories of Spanish America.”163
The nascent struggle between loyalists and liberals prevented the consti-
tution from taking full effect in the colonies—in fact, it barely had an impact
in some areas, such as Peru—but it did have an enormous impact on the
formation of a generation of political leaders in Latin America and Europe.164
The constitution’s lofty liberal ideals outraged the more conservative and
traditional elements of the Spanish society and army, who just two short years
later joined the newly restored King Ferdinand in decrying the constitution
as reflecting French influences designed to undermine Spain’s monarchy and
tradition.
chapter 13 The Grand Empire, 1807–1812

H istorian thomas nipperday’s acclaimed history of nineteenth-­century


Germany opens with the sentence “In the beginning was Napoleon.”1
The idea goes to the very heart of the issue of Napoleon’s place in European
history. His victories were dramatic and even inspiring, but they did far
more than achieve military success. After Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland,
Napoleon began to speak openly of the grand empire that he hoped to con-
struct in Europe to replace the now-defunct Holy Roman Empire. His empire
marked a pivotal episode in the story of state-making in Europe, for
Napoleon’s military victories were followed by an effort to transform, for bet-
ter or for worse, European governments and societies. As French historian
Louis Bergeron observed, “Paradoxically, Napoleon was both behind and
ahead of his time, the last of the enlightened despots, and a prophet of the
modern State.”2
For Europe, the Napoleonic regime meant both a fresh outlook on the
modern world and the act of a power draining its resources and treasuries.
His “influence upon the history of the German people, their lives and experi-
ences,” wrote one German historian, whose assessment can be applied to
other parts of Europe, “was overwhelming at a time when the initial founda-
tions of a modern German state were being laid. The destiny of a nation is its
politics, and those politics were Napoleon’s—the politics of war and con-
quest, of exploitation and repression, of imperialism and reform.”3
The key question remains: what aims did Napoleon’s empire serve? The
claims of a familial affinity (first for his siblings, then for his son) as a legiti-
mate motivating force behind this empire building seem too simplistic.
Equally spurious are claims, greatly shaped by British propaganda, of
Napoleon’s megalomania for world domination. Meanwhile, admirers of
20° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40°
FINLAND Lake 60°
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The Grand Empire, Lake
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1811-1812 Islands Aland
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French Empire SWEDEN nd
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Ruled by Napoleon’s SCOTLAND DENMARK- Dago
family or other Osel
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IRELAND Sea Aarhus Moscow
Great Britain and

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Irish Malmo
Sea Copenhagen lt Memel
Ireland Dublin Ba
NORWAY Bornholm REP. OF Smolensk
Allied to Britain WALES Vilna
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ENGLAND Danzig Minsk
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Elb S I Grodno
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CONFEDERATION Jassy AB
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PORTUGAL Nice SAN Zara BOSNIA Belgrade
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MARINO Spalato Ruschuk Black Sea
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Gibraltar Cartagena Tyrrhenian Corfu Janina
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to Britain Sea
E M P I R E
Mediterranean Sea French Sea
0 250 500 Kilometers

0 250 500 Miles

Map 14: The Grand Empire, 1811–1812


284 | the napoleonic wars

Napoleon saw (and continue to see) him as man of action, a revolutionary


who brought down obsolete and repressive institutions, abolished centuries-
old customs and traditions, retooled educational and judicial systems, and
laid the foundation for a new, modern Europe that was based on individual
rights and the championing of merit. But a more nuanced answer to this
question is that Napoleon replaced one form of tyranny with another, spread-
ing reforms but also undermining civil liberties and exploiting occupied ter-
ritories. This remains, in the words of American historian Alexander Grab,
the “Janus face of Napoleon’s rule.”4
The Napoleonic Empire had France at its heart, but its borders continued
to change with each passing year, spreading reforms, along with conscrip-
tion, taxation, and political repression, to virtually every corner of Europe. In
1790 the French revolutionaries divided France into eighty-three departments;
in subsequent years that number steadily increased, reflecting the ebb and
flow of French territorial expansion. By 1800 there were ninety-eight depart-
ments, including fourteen that comprised the former Austrian Netherlands
and parts of the Rhineland and Switzerland. Over the course of the next dec-
ade the Napoleonic conquests increased the size of metropolitan France to
130 departments (with a population of some 44 million people) that stretched
from the Adriatic coastline to the North Sea. These included France proper
and the lands directly annexed to it at different times: the German left bank
of the Rhine (1802), Piedmont (1802), Liguria (1805), Tuscany (1808), the
Papal States (1809), the Illyrian Provinces (1809), and the Dutch and north
German territories incorporated after the dissolution of the Kingdom of
Holland in 1810.
The French Empire, however, was much more than the territory adminis-
tered directly by Napoleon. The informal empire also included tens of mil-
lions of people residing in the subject and allied states beyond the French
imperial frontiers. These territories can be categorized into three groups based
on the extent of control Napoleon exercised over them. The first included
states that had retained their sovereignty but became “allies” of France and
were compelled to acquiesce to Napoleonic demands and policies. For a time
Austria, Prussia, and Denmark-Norway all fell into this category, as they
were forced to submit to Napoleon’s economic, political, and military direc-
tives. The second group included nominally independent states that were
under the control of individuals whom the French emperor hand-selected.
These tended to be primarily his family members and close confidants, who
became great beneficiaries of the imperial largesse. Napoleon possessed a strong
sense of family and rewarded his brothers and sisters, believing that they
shared a blood bond of loyalty that would help him consolidate control over
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 285

the vast realm. In 1806, as the French troops occupied southern Italy,
Napoleon’s elder brother, Joseph, who had served him reasonably well in dip-
lomatic negotiations with Austria, United States and Britain, became king of
Naples. The same year Napoleon’s brother Louis became king of Holland,
while the youngest brother, Jérôme, took the reins in the newly created king-
dom of Westphalia in 1807. As we have seen, just as Joseph was trying to win
over the loyalty of his Neapolitan subjects, the emperor moved him to the
throne of Spain and granted the Neapolitan crown to his brother-in-law
Marshal Joachim Murat, while his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais became
viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy. Nor did the emperor forget his sisters—
Elisa became the princess of Piombino and Lucca in 1805 and grand duchess
of Tuscany in 1809. Pauline was given the Duchy of Guastalla in 1806,
though she soon sold the duchy to Parma and kept only the title. Caroline,
the most ambitious of Napoleon’s sisters, married Marshal Murat and was
lavished with the titles of grand duchess of Berg (1806) and queen of Naples
and Sicily (1808). In addition, Napoleon rewarded many of his generals
and senior officials with “sovereign” states, including Benevento (given to
Talleyrand), Pontecorvo (Marshal Bernadotte), Siewierz (Marshal Lannes),
and Neuchâtel (Marshal Berthier). Finally, the third category was of satellite
states that were nominally independent but closely supervised and managed
by the emperor from Paris. These included the Grand Duchies of Warsaw
and Frankfurt, the Swiss Confederation, and some of the states in the
Confederation of the Rhine (most notably Westphalia and Berg). For the last
two categories of states Napoleon laid down policy and expected complete
subordination of their interests to those of France. These satellites were
agents of political and social Napoleonic reforms: reorganization of local
authorities into a centrally controlled bureaucratic government manned by
professional bureaucrats and supported by bourgeois notables; creation of
new legal systems (based on the Napoleonic Code) that reflected the French
revolutionary ideals of secularism, equality before law, religious tolerance,
and reaffirmation of individuals’ private property rights; introduction of
more efficient systems of tax collection and military recruitment; establish-
ment of a police force and gendarmerie to maintain a close watch over the
population; and a change in church-state relations that frequently meant the
sale of property confiscated from the Catholic church.
Taken as a whole, this “Napoleonic system” represented a definitive chal-
lenge to the ancien régime societies, bringing about the abolition of the rem-
nants of feudalism in the French-controlled territories and the assertion of
revolutionary principles. It eradicated some polities and created new ones,
expanding middle-sized German states while consuming small secular polities,
286 | the napoleonic wars

ecclesiastical states, and free cities. Between 1803 and 1808, some 60 percent
of the German population had changed rulers.5 Napoleon’s correspondence is
littered with letters that reveal his desire to dismantle the old order and
install a new one. In 1807, for example, he penned the following instructions
for his brother Jérôme, whom he had placed on the throne of the newly
formed kingdom of Westphalia:
My concern is for the well-being of your people, not only as it affects
your standing and my own, but also because of the impact it has on the
whole condition of Europe. Do not listen to anyone who says that your
subjects, being so long accustomed to servitude, will fail to feel grati-
tude for the freedoms you bring to them. The common people of
Westphalia are more enlightened than such individuals would have
you believe, and your rule will never have a secure basis without the
people’s complete trust and affection. What the people of Germany
impatiently desire is that men without nobility but of genuine ability
will have an equal claim upon your favor and advancement, and that
every trace of serfdom and feudal privilege . . . be completely done away
with. Let the blessings of the Code Napoleon, open procedures and use
of juries be the centerpiece of your administration. . . . I want all your
peoples to enjoy liberty, equality, and prosperity alike and to such a
degree as no German people has yet known. . . . Everywhere in
Europe—in Germany, France, Italy, Spain—people are longing for
equality and liberal government. . . . So govern according to your new
constitution. Even if reason and the enlightened ideas of our age did
not suffice to justify this call, it still would be a smart policy for any-
one in your position—for you will find that the genuine support of the
people is a source of strength to you that none of the absolutist mon-
archs neighboring you will ever have.6
This letter (and many others like it) evokes the idealism and reforming
aspirations that made Napoleon such an appealing figure. French historian
Louis Madelin was rather fond of a story of the 1820 visit the Habsburg
emperor Francis made to the Illyrian Provinces, which had been under French
rule from 1809 to 1814. The kaiser was shown many interesting places—
palaces, schools, roads, and so on—and when he would ask who built them,
the answer would invariably be “The French, Sire.” By contrast, he noted
the air of neglect and disrepair caused by Austrian administrative misman-
agement of the last few years. “Those French devils would have done well to
have remained here a few years longer,” he is said to have remarked to his
adjutant.7
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 287

There is a certain truth in the emperor’s quip. In the long term, many
parts of Europe benefited from the French introduction of more efficient
administrative institutions, more equitable laws, fairer distribution of the
burden of taxation, careers based on merit, the destruction of some of the
nobility’s privileges and seigniorial structures, and the removal of discrimi-
natory practices (including special taxes and occupational restrictions placed
on Jews). In the Grand Duchies of Berg and Frankfurt, for example, the
French authorities modernized political and administrative institutions,
abolished the nobility’s tax exemptions, and nationalized ecclesiastical lands.8
Wurttemberg, Baden, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Nassau all followed suit, launch-
ing extensive reforms that reorganized their governments and finances. In
Bavaria, the indomitable chief minister Count Maximilian von Montgelas
played a crucial role in restructuring the Bavarian royal administration and
creating a French-style centrally controlled bureaucracy that was staffed with
professionally trained officials drawn from the middle class and nobility.9 In
all of these states, the governments, with little French intervention, adopted
legislation that proclaimed equality before the law and freedom of religion,
emancipated Jews (though denied them full equality), and retooled the edu-
cational system. The Rheinbund states embraced Napoleonic-style reforms,
especially those establishing a rational state bureaucracy and efficient taxa-
tion, because they clearly enhanced state authority.
It would nonetheless be disingenuous to claim that Napoleon had a mas-
ter plan for the development of Europe or that he introduced such reforms for
the sake of revolutionary ideology or principle. In fact, when considering
Napoleon’s political schemes, it is not always easy to determine what was end
and what was means, whether a specific policy was carried out merely for its
own sake and short-term gain or intended as a step toward some long-term
goal. The emperor’s legacy in France is undeniably immense, but beyond
French borders, his social, political, and legal impact is much more mixed.
The French emperor is often perceived as a “builder of Europe” or the “real
father” of modern European unity, or so many of his admirers continue to
claim. During an exile on St. Helena, Napoleon himself claimed that he
had planned to create a federation of Europe with a shared currency, market,
and law. Some would credit Napoleon with laying the foundation for the
key features of the present-day European Union—equality before the law,
a common legal system, a single economic market, dismantling of borders,
and so on.10
These assertions are open to question. The emperor’s devotees fail to men-
tion that France would have unequivocally dominated this European federa-
tion and that its political, economic, fiscal, and other needs would have
288 | the napoleonic wars

trumped those of other states. The present-day European Union’s monetary


union and common economic and foreign policy are based on equality of its
member states (even if recent political-economic developments have some-
what dented this image). Napoleon would have been incapable of accepting
such a model, since his vision of Europe revolved intrinsically around France’s
strength. He genuinely believed that France had a superior administrative
and legal system and that extending it to the rest of Europe would benefit
peoples elsewhere; there was also a self-serving incentive, since transforming
countries along French lines would greatly facilitate Napoleon’s own rule
over them and exploitation of their resources. The Napoleonic regime never
offered a vision of a “European” identity and by no means did it ever tran-
scend its very essence, which remained soundly French; at the end of the day,
the very survival of the empire depended on the enduring superiority of
French arms, not popular support for the imperial rule.11 If Napoleon was
motivated by any transcendent ideal, it was the ideal not of a federation of
equal nations but rather of a universal empire, closer in its spirit to that of
Charlemagne than to the European Union. He could have aspired toward a
multinational common economic market—maybe similar to the latter-day
Zollverein that helped German states prosper—that would have opened bor-
ders and allowed his various subject territories to trade unhindered across
continental Europe. Instead, he did the opposite. His insistence on agricul-
tural protectionism for France meant that many satellite states, especially in
northern Europe, experienced a deepening depression in agricultural prices
due to their inability to trade with Britain and to France’s refusal to fill
the resulting gap. While the cotton industry of Saxony benefited from
the Continental Blockade, the rest of Germany’s industry groaned under the
Napoleonic restrictions and experienced dramatic declines. Furthermore, the
imperial decrees of 1806–1810 turned the entire Kingdom of Italy into a
“reserved market” for French textile goods, to the detriment of both Italy and
its neighboring states; it is worth noting that this in turn weakened their
purchasing power and reduced their demand for French imperial exports.12
The radical nature of the Napoleonic system, therefore, must be qualified.
Napoleon’s main interest in the occupied territories lay more in their mate-
rial resources—soldiers, money, and supplies—than in their political and
socioeconomic transformation. So even though the French-imposed constitu-
tions of German states promised representative assemblies, few were actually
summoned—in Wurttemberg, in fact, King Frederick II used the reform
movement to suppress the existing Landtag and assert supreme leadership of
the state while remaining the emperor’s loyal ally. Moreover, the effects of the
Napoleonic reforms were not uniform across continental Europe. One of the
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 289

key determinants was the length of a given region’s exposure to the French
occupation. The closer to France a region was, the longer it would have stayed
under the French rule, and the more enduring the reforms that this entailed.
Beyond France, the territories where the reforms had their most enduring
impact were Belgium, the Rhineland, Piedmont, Liguria, and Lombardy, all
of them occupied during the Revolutionary Wars and staying under French
influence for more than a decade. By contrast, the Duchy of Warsaw and the
Illyrian Provinces had seen only four years of Napoleonic rule before the
empire collapsed in 1813–1814.13
The Napoleonic impact depended to a great degree to the extent to which
a given region’s own social and economic development made it receptive to
transformation. For example, the Napoleonic reforms were more successful in
Belgium and the Rhineland because these regions already possessed the nec-
essary structural elements that made them responsive to those reforms; in
fact, many of the reforms that are traditionally ascribed to Napoleon had
already been in place, and local elites usually cooperated with the Napoleonic
regime in order to defend and further their own interests. In lands where
aristocratic and clerical influences were deeply entrenched—Spain, Poland,
and southern Italy, to name just a few—the Napoleonic impact was far less
pronounced and lack of cooperation from the local elites made the reforms
virtually unachievable.
Even within France proper, the Napoleonic regime struggled to fully
impose its will on some parts of the country, as the example of Vendée, peren-
nially resistant to state demands for more taxes and recruits, amply illus-
trates. In the Duchy of Warsaw, serfdom was abolished in theory but not in
practice, and the ideal of civic equality could not overcome deep-seated prej-
udices and traditions.14 And while the Napoleonic Code is usually credited
with the “de-feudalization” of central Europe, the reality is far more complex.
The code did introduce the concept of equality before the law, but its impact
on the Confederation of the Rhine was subverted in practice when local elites
simply ignored it; the lack of French officials (or French-trained local jurists)
made it difficult to enforce the code’s legal provisions.15 Plus in those places
where the code was enforced, the gendered consequences, which stabilized
paternal power within the family and society, had lasting negative effects for
the rest of the nineteenth century.16 The reforms affecting the Jews were like-
wise conditional and were associated with new obligations that the Jewish
community actually came to resent.
The Napoleonic system represented a sort of cultural imperialism. Its
exponents—military governors and/or civilian prefects and auditors—were
convinced of the superiority of the Napoleonic system, which in their minds
290 | the napoleonic wars

represented the most rational and efficient (and therefore better) organization
of its day. To a certain degree, they saw themselves as agents of the mission
civilisatrice that entailed exporting these changes for the benefit of the peo-
ples who had found themselves under French rule. “I have come to occupy
your land,” announced a French marshal to the residents of Kassel in 1806.
“You have nothing to expect but improvements.”17 Westphalia makes for
a particularly interesting case study since it represents both the strengths
and weaknesses of the Napoleonic regime in Europe. Napoleon, who saw
Westphalia as a “model state,” imposed the first written modern constitution
in Germany, established an effective central administration, and promoted
progressive reforms. Yet the kingdom was never a “German” state per se. Its
establishment enabled French cultural imperialism, as the French culture
and language came to dominate Westphalian society, and many key civil
and military posts, especially those dealing with control of the population
(i.e., high police, interior ministry, censorship) remained in the control of
Frenchmen who reported to Paris, not their local governments. The French-
dominated government sought to suppress local dissent, turned to heavy
taxation and government control to support Napoleon’s war efforts, and
imposed conscription that mobilized thousands of Westphalians.18
The benefits of the Napoleonic system, therefore, must also be considered
within the context of the demands that France made on territories under its
control. Napoleon believed that war should support war, which in practice
meant that the French occupation brought not only the high ideals of equal-
ity before the law and freedom of religion but increased troop recruitments
and material exploitation, given that the presence of French troops invariably
imposed a heavy burden on the local population to satisfy all of their military
needs. Napoleon’s “Grand Empire” was, at its heart, one gigantic military
system that required each member state to provide troops and financial sup-
port, without which Napoleon would have been unable to maintain his
he­gem­ony in Europe. On top of fiscal contributions, the Napoleonic regime
demanded conscripts to sustain its military might. Overall, more than 2 million
men were conscripted into the Grande Armée between 1803 and 1814.
Belgium alone provided more than 216,000 troops between 1798 and
1813.19 Once it was established in 1806, the Confederation of the Rhine was
expected to supply more than 100,000 men—Berg alone was required to
furnish 5,000 men, a number that increased steadily until 1811, when it
reached 10,000, or 1 percent of its population. Westphalia was obliged to
provide a military contingent of at least 25,000 men, while the Grand Duchy
of Frankfurt provided some 7,000 men (2 percent of its population).20 The
Swiss Confederation was coerced into supplying 12,000 men, who served
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 291

alongside tens of thousands of conscripts from the Duchy of Warsaw and the
Kingdom of Italy; it has been estimated that 125,000 Italian soldiers out of
the 200,000 who served in the Napoleonic Wars perished from disease, the
elements, or combat.21 The size and scope of Napoleon’s conscription mech­
an­ism were most evident during his preparations for the invasion of Russia,
when he relied on his satellite states and allies to provide more than half of
his 600,000-man-strong army; among these were 5,000 Neapolitans, 9,000
Swiss, 17,000 Westphalians, more than 25,000 Italians, 90,000 Poles, and
some 100,000 Germans, not counting Prussians and Austrians, who formed
separate contingents.
Napoleon’s continued demand for conscripts was undeniably one of the
core reasons for popular opposition to his regime across the continent.
Reflecting on the impact of the conscription, Neapolitan writer Vincenzo
Cuoco observed that “of all the ideas, projected, executed, abandoned and
amended in the last decade, maybe the one that will most greatly influence the
future destiny of Europe will be the system of conscription.”22 Indeed, a regu-
lar conscription system was a new experience for many Europeans, who found
their traditional lives disrupted by the central government’s demand for sol-
diers. Recruits detested being separated from their families and used a variety
of means to avoid it; draft-dodging and desertion remained widespread and
unabated through the Napoleonic period, causing central authorities, be it in
France, Italy, or German states, to resort to a growing centralization and
repressive apparatus. Recent scholarship has clearly shown that conscription
was the focal point of power struggles between the central state and local com-
munities and contributed to their mounting estrangement. It created a pro-
found collision between the traditional and modern and made people choose
sides, thereby placing the very governability of the state at risk.23
Yet it would be wrong to think that Napoleon forcibly imposed French-
style conscription on other states. Conscription may have been a necessary
measure to meet Napoleon’s military requirements, but many governments
clearly perceived it as a useful way of centralizing their authority. Conscription
was one of the key elements in the process of modern state- and nation-
building, since it brought peoples from diverse ethnic, cultural, and/or
socioeconomic background into the same barracks and helped break down
traditional identities or loyalties. The Napoleonic Wars played a decisive
role in this ongoing tug-of-war between a centralizing state that demanded
recruits and local communities that were hesitant to see their sons shipped
off. By the end of the wars, the former had clearly won.24
Another crucial element of Napoleon’s imperial policy was making occu-
pied territories and satellite states useful to the empire through increased
292 | the napoleonic wars

exploitation of their markets and resources. As historian Alexander Grab notes,


an “efficient and lucrative financial system was indispensable for . . . imperial
expansion.”25 Elimination of traditional fiscal privileges and establishment of
efficient tax collection through centralized and uniform financial administra-
tion was at the core of the Napoleonic financial restructuring, which in turn
sustained the French war machine. The Napoleonic regime did not simply
introduce new or heavier taxes; it became highly adept at collecting existing
ones. Throughout the Napoleonic Wars, military costs represented the larg-
est state expenses, expenses that France alone would not have been able to sup-
port. Instead, the emperor exacted the necessary resources from his defeated
enemies and satellite states.26 Resentment against the relentless cash levies and
requisitioning for the French army’s needs was amplified by the Continental
Blockade, which hurt many of France’s subject states not only because it
denied them access to British commerce but also because of its “France comes
first” nature.27
The Napoleonic regime siphoned off resources from satellite kingdoms to
the benefit of the imperial metropole and produced considerable economic
disparities across Europe. Throughout history, of course, armies have plun-
dered and confiscated resources. The French originality lay in developing a
truly institutionalized system of confiscation. “You must make it your guid-
ing principle that the war must feed the war,” the emperor advised one of his
marshals.28 After each military conquest, Napoleon imposed vast indemnities
to pay for his war expenses, such that between 1804 and 1814 at least half
of French military expenditures were paid through contributions from con-
quered territories. In those territories French officers equipped with specially
preprinted forms required local authorities to provide argent (money) and
fournitures (matériel), all of which was carefully documented. In 1807 alone
Prussia and its allies (Saxony, Hanseatic cities, and others) were subjected
to heavy demands that ultimately exceeded 500 million francs, while the
Kingdom of Italy provided close to 300 million lire in order to maintain
a French army in the Italian peninsula.29 For much of its existence, the
Westphalian state experienced deep financial problems because, as historian
Sam Mustafa has recently shown, for every franc a Westphalian paid in taxes
to his own state, he paid an additional 1.5 francs, either in cash or in confis-
cated goods, to France. To meet French demands, the Westphalian govern-
ment also resorted to several forced bonds (Zwangsanleihe) that became
popularly known as the “French taxes” because all monies collected went
directly to France. Local authorities were required to maintain separate record
books to keep track of individuals who had not paid for the bond issue.30
Although Westphalia represented in many respects a unique and extreme
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 293

case, other German (and Dutch and Italian) satellites were obliged to provide
fiscal contributions to the French state and to grant crucial economic conces-
sions to France, opening their markets to its commerce and industry. While
the prevailing picture of Napoleon’s campaigns is that thanks to conquests
and permanent war contributions France was able to balance its economy and
keep deficits moderate, recent studies, most notably by French historian
Pierre Branda, paint a more nuanced picture of Napoleon trying to pay for
war with war but ultimately failing at this. From 1805 to 1813 Napoleon
collected close to 1.8 billion francs, including over 600 million francs’ worth
of “extraordinary contributions,” from the occupied territories. Yet his war
expenditures amounted to some 3 billion francs, forcing him to resort to tax
increases, sale of national and communal property, and loans; at one point the
emperor himself lent money he had received from the civil list to the French
Treasury. In the end, the French state bore hundreds of millions of francs’
worth of deficit until the end of the war.31
Increased taxation, forced contributions, conscription, and repression were
core reasons the Napoleonic regime failed to maintain popular support across
Europe. Whether in Germany, Italy, or the Low Countries, the aristocracy was,
naturally, irked by what the French reforms had entailed, but the bourgeoisie,
which stood to benefit the most from these changes, struggled to reconcile its
delight at its newly acquired rights and status with annoyance at being
repressed, censored, and made to suffer from heavy taxes and the Continental
Blockade. The peasants tended to bear the brunt of the Napoleonic presence
in paying higher taxes and supplying armies with food and men. For all the
talk of the French emperor being a revolution incarnate, this former Jacobin
did not embody the principles of 1793–1794, and his reforms were never
aimed at achieving socioeconomic equality. Neither did he fully represent the
principles of 1789. In France and the conquered territories, Napoleon sup-
pressed all means of organized influence or expression of opinion.
Even when it comes to feudalism, the remnants of which Napoleon is usu-
ally credited with removing, the situation is more complicated than usually
suggested. The modernizing vision that the French troops so confidently pro-
fessed in the early years of the empire was soon replaced by la politique de
grandeur, which sought to consolidate imperial rule and embellish its luster.
In the later imperial years (1809–1812), Napoleon increasingly resorted to
military administration and its heavy-handed interventions to ensure prompt
payment of indemnities. Those who advocate Napoleon as a modernizing
reformer, for example, rarely mention the domaine extraordinaire that the
emperor established between 1805 and 1810. This was a special financial
mechanism that accumulated spoils of war and siphoned off formerly feudal
294 | the napoleonic wars

revenues from occupied territories; these funds were not subject to any law
and were managed at Napoleon’s complete discretion. French historian Michel
Brugière was correct when he described “the profoundly archaic character of
this institution, which in its nature and its profits reflected only the right of
conquest of the emperor, ‘exercising the right of peace and of war.’”32 Indeed,
in Westphalia, where the Constitution of 1807 was supposed to abolish all
feudal revenues, King Jérôme’s bureaucrats kept and repurposed much of
them in order to sustain the domaine extraordinaire.33 Similar problems existed
in southern Italy, where the early modernizing impetus of the reforms was
hindered by the exploitative nature of the imperial regime.34
While espousing equality before the law, Napoleon proceeded with the
establishment of an imperial nobility and the granting of imperial fiefs that
seriously hampered the implementation of reforms. In 1804–1805 he created
imperial dignitaries and grand officers, which included the new marshals of
the empire. As the empire grew in size, so did the number of imperial titles
and the complexity of the imperial hierarchy. The French marshals and
generals—sons of grocers, tanners, merchants, wigmakers, innkeepers, and
coopers—became princes, dukes, counts, and barons, with each title supported
by a considerable land endowment. To woo talented men who could serve
him loyally in exchange for a stake in the new regime, the emperor resorted
to distributing dotations that were derived from his claim to as much as half
of the income of the domain lands seized from the feudal lords and national-
ized royal lands. The donataire (recipient) had to swear an oath of allegiance
to Napoleon and was entitled to steady revenue from designated fiefs in the
conquered territories of the Grand Empire, most notably Westphalia and the
Duchy of Warsaw. The scale of the dotation system was vast, and by the end
of the empire it counted nearly six thousand individuals who together received
some 30 million francs a year; in Westphalia alone, nearly 20 percent of pub-
lic revenues went to satisfy the needs of the donataires, greatly hampering
efforts to develop the Westphalian state and preventing it from ever being
fiscally solvent. As expected, the largest number of dotations was given to the
military. There were more than fifteen duchés grands-fiefs that granted their
holders vast tracts of lands but no rights of sovereignty. Thus Marshal
Bessières became duke of Istria, Macdonald duke of Tarento, Soult duke of
Dalmatia, Oudinot duke of Reggio. Some generals were granted victory
titles in recognition of their martial exploits. Marshal Davout became prince
of Eckmuhl and duke of Auerstaedt, Berthier prince of Wagram, Masséna
prince of Essling and duke of Rivoli, and Ney duke of Elchingen (and later
prince of Moskowa). These ducal and prince titles all provided considerable
annual incomes to their holders. Although the system was not a form of
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 295

feudalism, it still defied revolutionary precepts, including provisions of the


Napoleonic Code. In theory, these endowments were sustained by land rents
drawn from confiscated lands of nobles. In practice this meant that the
Napoleonic bureaucrats exploited legal loopholes to convert existing feudal
dues into steady incomes for the donataires, who never resided in or visited
their “fiefs.” The system underscores an important element of the Napoleonic
regime: reliance on traditional landed interests that gained economic security
and social prestige through collaborating with the imperial regime. As his-
torian Stuart Woolf once noted, “No better example could be given of the
unresolvable contradictions between the modernizing ideals of integration of
the French administrative class and the practice of exploitation that accom-
panied the expansion of the Empire.”35

Napoleon had a special relationship with the Italian Peninsula, where his
ancestors had originated and where he had first earned his laurels. A great
student of Italian history, he clearly drew inspiration from the Roman impe-
rial legacy. But he also remained rather critical of Italians’ character, describ-
ing them as “unworthy” of the sacrifices that France had made for them. “Do
not let the Italians forget that I am master to do as I like,” he told his Italian
viceroy. “This is necessary for all peoples, but especially for the Italians, who
obey only a voice of command.”36 Napoleon’s 1796–1797 campaigns brought
major political transformations in northern parts of the peninsula. Over the
next few years, abolishing or annexing some existing polities, the French
split up Austria’s holdings and set up a series of new republics, complete with
French-inspired bureaucracies and legal codes.
In 1802 Napoleon established the Republic of Italy and was elected its
president. Three years later, after his triumph over the Third Coalition, he
transformed the republic into the Kingdom of Italy, with himself as king
and his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais as viceroy. The kingdom gradually
expanded with the addition of Venice in 1806, the Marches in 1808, and the
Italian Tyrol in 1810.37 At its height, the kingdom covered an area of 35,000
square miles and had more than 6.5 million inhabitants, about one-third of
the peninsula’s population; Dalmatia, where the Republic of Ragusa fell
to the French in 1806, was briefly ceded to the Kingdom of Italy before
Napoleon annexed it directly to France. Meanwhile, Napoleon also actively
intervened into affairs of other Italian states, installing members of his family
as rulers in Naples, Tuscany, and Guastalla.
“French Italy” steadily expanded in the northwestern corner of the penin-
sula, where Piedmont was replaced by six departments that were adminis-
tered as French provinces. In later years the French-governed areas extended
296 | the napoleonic wars

to Parma and Piacenza; the Kingdom of Etruria survived until 1807, when
Napoleon dissolved it and established three new departments. In the Papal
States, Pope Pius VII frequently clashed with Napoleon over continued inter-
ference in central Italy and the extent of papal involvement in the Continental
System. The French insistence on the Italian states signing a concordat with
the pope only further strained relations, for while the treaty recognized
Catholicism as the state religion, it also confirmed freedom of religion, intro-
duced civil marriage and divorce, authorized the republic to nominate bish-
ops, and confirmed the new owners of church land that had been confiscated
and sold. Pope Pius VII, unsurprisingly, opposed these changes and fought to
preserve the traditions of his office, including the spiritual and temporal
independence of the Holy See; neither was he keen on participating in the
Continental System, which would have had a profound impact on the local
economy. These frictions with the imperial government culminated in a papal
humiliation in 1809, when Napoleon occupied and annexed the Papal States
while the pope, who excommunicated anyone who participated in this spolia-
tion, was made prisoner and transported to Savona and later to France, where
he remained under house arrest for the next five years.38
In all of these Italian territories, Napoleonic rule followed a rather famil-
iar pattern. The French administrators, alongside a core group of Italian
officeholders, supervised the introduction of administrative, economic, and
social reforms. The cooperation of the local elites as well as the legacy of local
reform movements played crucial roles in the extent to which these efforts
succeeded; their absence, as in southern Italy, not only undermined those
efforts but engendered popular resistance. Furthermore, the French reforms
were not necessarily creating a better system. Tuscany already had an excel-
lent judicial system and a relatively humane penal system—the legacy of its
enlightened Habsburg-Lorraine dukes—and was forced to accept harsher
French laws.
Overall, Napoleon did succeed in unifying these diverse regions into just
three polities—“French Italy” in the northwest, the Kingdom of Italy in the
northeast, and the Kingdom of Naples in the south—that featured uniform
legal, administrative, and financial structures modeled on the French system.
In northern Italy, French rule forged a successful amalgam between the tradi-
tional nobility and the wealthy bourgeoisie, creating a new elite that would
shape Italian destiny throughout the nineteenth century. The period saw
greater centralization of power, which made the administration more effec-
tive, professional, and reliable: prefects supervised the departments, vice pre-
fects ran the smaller districts, and mayors managed the cities. The government
laid the foundation for a modern secular secondary school (licei) system with
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 297

a uniform curriculum, and it expanded the number of elementary schools,


though the educational system as a whole continued to suffer from a shortage
of resources and qualified staff. In the Papal States, the government launched
major public works, agricultural improvements, and a new system of poor
relief, all the while drafting imposing plans for the restoration of the ancient
monuments of Rome.39 Taken as a whole, Napoleonic reforms modified the
political structure of Italy more than anywhere else. For the first time since
the fall of the Roman Empire, the Italian peninsula, with its great diversity
of spoken languages (as many as twenty different dialects), customs barriers,
differing legal systems, currencies, and systems of weights and measures, came
under control of a centralizing and standardizing authority.
All this could not efface the resentment that Napoleon’s fiscal and mili-
tary policies aroused all across Italy. The government was thoroughly
authoritarian, and modernization went hand in hand with occupation and
exploitation. The increasing efficiency of the tax system meant a rising fiscal
burden, particularly on the lower classes. The resulting doubling of state
revenues did benefit the local population—some of these monies were spent
on the construction of roads and waterways, the retirement of public debt,
and administrative costs, not to mention embellishments in almost every
major town as well as the clearing of the Po River to make it navigable by
night—but a large share of the revenues went for pay for France’s military
expenses. Francesco Melzi d’Eril, the vice president of the Italian Republic
from 1802 to 1805, had repeatedly warned Napoleon that the costs of the
military establishment were too heavy for the republic to bear; of the 12 mil-
lion francs that the republic sent to France annually, less than half ever came
back to cover the costs of provisioning the French troops deployed in the
region. On top of their fiscal contributions, Italian polities, as Napoleonic
satellites, were required to pay for the upkeep of French troops, who num-
bered over 75,000 in the Kingdom of Italy alone, and to provide tens of thou-
sands of men between the ages of twenty and twenty-five, who were drafted
for four years. Despite widespread opposition, desertion, and draft-dodging,
the Italian authorities drafted more than 150,000 men between 1802 and
1814. Italian troops fought in every campaign that Napoleon waged.40
When it came to the economy, the Italian states were brought under
tighter control and the Kingdom of Italy formed a national market by elimi-
nating internal tariffs and adopting a uniform commercial code and a single
currency (the lira). But these changes were overshadowed by Napoleon’s
rejection of Italian demands for economic freedom and his insistence on a
special tariff system with France. The emperor was not just mercantilist; he
was also a firm proponent of bullionism who defined wealth by the amount
298 | the napoleonic wars

of precious metals he had. On many occasions he remarked that his object


was to export French manufacturing and import foreign specie as a way of
promoting France’s economic growth. Such an approach hamstrung Italian
manufacturing and commerce, as the tariffs promoted the sale of French
manufactures and the export of raw materials to France. By 1810 Italians
were prohibited from importing any but French linen, cotton, wool, and
other textiles. Silk, the Italian kingdom’s main export, was the exception,
allowed to enter France for the benefit of the French silk industry. In the last
few years of the Napoleonic Empire, Italy had in effect been turned into a
colony, one that supplied raw materials to French manufacturers, whose
products were then imported into Italy and undersold local merchandise.
During the same period, the Italian economy suffered from the adverse effects
of the Continental System, which all but paralyzed coastal ports, including
those of Venice and Ancona, and caused shortages of colonial materials.41

The Neapolitan decision to break neutrality and join the Third Coalition in
1805 was an act of bad faith that Napoleon could never forgive. The French
invasion ended Bourbon rule in Naples and installed the Napoleonic regime,
first presided over by Joseph Bonaparte and later by Joachim Murat. Both
Joseph and Murat sought to reform the Neapolitan state along French pat-
terns, which included reorganizing and centralizing administration, initiat-
ing tax and judicial reforms, and introducing new, French-style legal codes
and educational reforms.42 One of the most crucial French reforms involved
redeeming and consolidating public debt, which was done through expropri-
ating church properties and turning crown and church lands into beni nazion-
ali that were then sold off; between 1806 and 1811, some thirteen hundred
monasteries, convents, and other religious institutions were abolished and
their lands sold by auction.43
Several factors constrained the new regime’s modernizing spirit. Both
Joseph and Murat struggled with the effects of a prolonged economic reces-
sion, which deprived them of much-needed funds. Thus, public works proj-
ects rarely received sufficient funding and continued to languish; this problem
routinely topped lists of local grievances. Naples had few manufacturing
industries, yet even those suffered from the economic downturn, especially
after the start of the Continental System. Murat’s efforts in 1808–1810 to
protect local industries by imposing duties on imports (primarily French)
and seeking relaxation of the embargo on British goods ended after imperial
outrage in Paris. French administrative reforms did establish a more efficient
bureaucracy, as noted elsewhere, and naturally this produced deep resent-
ment against its intrusive nature, not to mention heavy financial burdens
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 299

that local communities were asked to shoulder to maintain it. While mod-
ernizing reforms were welcomed by some urban Neapolitans, the rest of the
population was reticent to embrace them. The Calabrian provinces remained
in open revolt, while in other areas public discontent was sustained by con-
scription quotas that the government had set after initially favoring volun-
tary conscription.44 The conscription issue became especially important after
1809, when Murat doubled quotas, provoking unrest and resistance in and
around Rome in 1810 and 1811. French efforts to consolidate public debt
resulted in creditors (mostly private banks and charitable foundations) losing
a significant share of their investments.45 As one eminent historian of the
Neapolitan kingdom aptly observed, these French reforms were designed to
secure political gains for the Napoleonic regime and benefited only “groups
of senior administrators, wealthy nobles, and foreign financiers.” But these
changes also meant vast losses for what French officials described as the “pat-
rimony of the idle”—“the religious houses and corporations whose assets had
gone to pay off the debts of the ancient régime.”46
The success of the Napoleonic regime in Naples was greatly dependent on
the goodwill of the imperial government. Yet relations between Paris and
Naples were often strained due to ongoing disputes over commercial matters,
enforcement of the Continental Blockade, and contribution of troops. Equally
significant were Murat’s long-nurtured dynastic ambitions. The Neapolitan
king and his wife, Caroline, were alarmed by Napoleon’s decision to marry
Austrian archduchess Marie Louise not only because it raised the prospect of
Napoleon producing an heir but also because the new empress was a favorite
granddaughter of the Neapolitan Bourbons who resided on the island of
Sicily under the protection of the British arms. Murat feared a possible rap-
prochement between Napoleon and the Bourbons—Queen Maria Carolina
was rumored to be secretly negotiating with the emperor—that could cost
him a crown. Shortly after the imperial wedding, Murat sought to shore up
his dynastic claims by insisting on an invasion of Sicily. By late spring 1810
he had mobilized some 20,000 Neapolitan troops for the expedition and
expected to have another 15,000 French troops at his disposal. His aspira-
tions suffered a heavy blow when he learned that the French contingent
would be placed under a separate French command, and he realized that
Napoleon had never seriously considered invading the island; he had seen it
purely as a diversion that would compel the British to shift resources away
from the Iberian peninsula. It worked—the British lifted the blockade of
Corfu and suspended the transfer of troops from Sicily to Spain.
Obviously this was hardly any consolation to Murat, who had spent the
summer of 1810 on the shores of the Strait of Messina. With expedition costs
300 | the napoleonic wars

mounting and relations between French and Neapolitan officers worsening,


Murat gambled, launching an invasion. The first troops crossed the strait
during the night of September 17. As soon as they landed near Messina, they
came under heavy fire and quickly reembarked. Disheartened by this setback,
Murat disbanded the expedition. Napoleon was enraged when he got this
news, accusing his marshal of canceling the invasion without orders and
thereby contributing to the defeat of Marshal André Masséna’s forces in
Portugal, which was not the case.47
Murat’s failed expedition underscored that Sicily had become a British
stronghold in the Mediterranean basin, offering, along with Gibraltar and
Malta, an advantageous point of departure for harassing the French in Italy
and elsewhere.48 Still, relations between the exiled Bourbon monarchy and
the British authorities were hardly amicable. Queen Caroline, who domi-
nated her hapless husband, King Ferdinand, believed that while the French
were open enemies, the British were little better and could put an end to
Bourbon sovereignty, which they had already reduced to a shadow. The
Bourbons also suspected that Britain might use them as a bartering piece in
diplomatic discussions with France. Indeed, British and French diplomats
had discussed such an arrangement in 1806, and only the untimely death of
British foreign secretary Charles Fox put an end to such considerations.
Nor for their part were the British pleased with their Neapolitan allies. The
treaty of commerce that they signed with King Ferdinand in 1808 required
them to defend the Sicilian strongholds of Messina and Augusta, where they
had to deploy a garrison of at least 1,000 men. In addition, Britain was obliged
to pay the Bourbon court an annual subsidy of £300,000, backdated to
September 1805, and later increased by another £100,000. Notwithstanding
the size of this subsidy, Queen Caroline continued to demand further pecuni-
ary aid from her ally. The Treaty of Schönbrunn, which ended the Franco-
Austrian war in 1809, only further strained Anglo-Neapolitan relations.
With Napoleon’s marriage to Archduchess Marie Louise, whose mother was
the daughter of the Neapolitan ruling couple, Queen Maria Caroline had effec-
tively become the grandmother to the French emperor. In itself, this meant
little to the queen, though she hoped to exploit Austrian connections to better
position herself vis-à-vis Britain. In early 1811 the British envoy Lord Amherst
wrote exasperatingly about a diplomatic intrigue that Queen Caroline was
engaged in with the court of Vienna, which involved restoring King Ferdinand
in Naples while placing a Habsburg prince on the throne in Sicily.
Caroline’s preoccupation with the recovery of Naples and Ferdinand’s
profligate lifestyle made them both ignorant of Sicilian culture and politics.
The island had a long history of representative assemblies composed of the
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 301

barons, the clergy, and the tenants of the crown. The assembly met every four
years, and its new session opened in the great hall of the royal palace at
Palermo on January 25, 1810. The Bourbon monarchy demanded a sharp
increase in taxes as well as a special donation to the royal family, all of which
considerably affected the barons’ finances. The assembly debated the matter
for more than three weeks but could agree only on a little more than half
the sum the Bourbon crown demanded. Enraged by this tardiness, King
Ferdinand dissolved the assembly on June 13 and announced the summoning
of a new one, which he hoped would be more willing to toe the line. To
appease local sensibilities, the king promised not to appoint foreigners to key
positions and to employ the Sicilian ministers.
When the new assembly convened, it proved to be even less willing to
extend a blank check to the king, who had failed to keep his earlier promise,
appointing Neapolitans instead of Sicilians to key positions. Among the
new appointments was Marchese Donato Tommasi, who, as the minister of
finance, sought to fill royal coffers through the sale of religious property and
the more vigorous collection of increased taxes. These measures elicited an
angry response from the new assembly, which perceived them as an exercise
of arbitrary power by the monarch.49 The Sicilian barons, who controlled
some 160 votes out of the 275 in the assembly, vociferously opposed the
measure but were unable to convince the king to reverse it. Instead, Ferdinand,
at the urging of his wife, issued a royal decree to arrest five of the leading
barons who had signed a letter of protest against the royal measures.50
Matters were coming to a crisis when Lord William Bentinck, the new
British envoy who was to act as civil and military governor of Sicily, reached
Palermo in July 1811. Capable and experienced though just thirty-six years
old, he had already had served as an officer in several military campaigns and
had governed Madras in India for four years. Bentinck’s main weakness was
that, in the words of an esteemed British historian, “he was too much of an
Englishman and was apt to consider narrow English remedies as a panacea for
all political diseases whenever they might arise.”51 Bentinck initially sought
to defuse the conflict between the barons and the Bourbon court, fearing that
further escalation of tensions could threaten British control of the island. His
effort to convince the Bourbon rulers to revoke the problematic edicts and
instead compromise with the barons was met by a robust rejection. Nor was
he successful with the barons—politically a Whig, Bentinck caused growing
concern among the local elites by challenging feudal rights of the nobility
and corporate privileges.
After traveling for consultation to London in the fall of 1811, Bentinck
returned with a new set of instructions that called for treating Sicily like
302 | the napoleonic wars

“a refractory Indian ally.”52 For that purpose, Bentinck was authorized to use
British subsidies as the chief means of political pressure on the Bourbon
court. He wielded this authority with a heavy hand, demanding major con-
cessions from the crown. The ensuing power struggle with the royal family
went on for over a year, with one showdown between Queen Caroline and the
British envoy followed by another amid a flurry of accusations, letters, and
notes.53 Bentinck believed that Queen Caroline’s actions posed a significant
threat to British interests in the region and that she was in clandestine con-
tact with the enemy. Many in the British government agreed with him and
hoped to see the island of Sicily placed under firmer British control, if not
annexed outright. Bentinck himself was sympathetic to the plight of the
Sicilians and was convinced of the need for British intervention, not so much
for Britain’s sake as for the well-being of the Sicilians themselves.
Between 1811 and 1814 Bentick exploited the barons’ opposition to
cajole the Bourbon monarchy into accepting political reforms that resulted in
the summoning of a new assembly and the drafting of a liberal constitution
in 1812. The new constitution, which was composed with the English con-
stitutional framework in mind, was concise but far-reaching: it reorganized
the monarchy, affirmed the sovereign independence of Sicily, and granted the
island a far greater degree of political and fiscal autonomy than it had previ-
ously enjoyed. It also established a constitutional monarchy that recognized
the legislative authority of the parliament (a two-chamber assembly styled
after the British Parliament) while granting veto power to the king; the leg-
islature had the authority to impeach ministers and public functionaries. The
judicial branch was formed as distinct from and independent of the executive
and legislative authority. Most significantly, the constitution abolished the
feudalistic privileges and practices that had been recognized for the past sev-
eral hundred years, and outlined basic rights and freedoms that Sicilians
could henceforth exercise; this was a rather paradoxical conclusion to a proc­
ess that had begun with the nobility’s claim of constitutional rights in defense
of those very feudal privileges.54
Naturally, the sudden changes to existing laws and customary rights pro-
voked great dissatisfaction among those most negatively affected by them.
“To copy a [British] law verbatim and to apply it to a people in totally differ-
ent circumstances is to counteract and spoil the very effect we intended,”
lamented one Englishman in August 1812. “In one moment is overturned
the whole fabric of an ancient government which has existed nearly ten cen-
turies, without opening one of its records nor examining the foundations on
which it rested.”55 Even reform-minded Sicilians were alarmed at the fast-
paced nature of these political changes, with one of them warning Bentinck,
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 303

“Too much liberty is for the Sicilians, what would be a pistol, or a stiletto, in
the hands of a boy or a madman.”56
Such fears were soon realized. With the long-standing traditional bonds
ruptured and no clear sense of higher collective good prevailing over private
interests, a series of rancorous power struggles broke out between the crown,
the nobility, and the burgeoning middle class. Less than two weeks after the
constitution was approved, the parliament was prorogued, with Bentinck
lamenting that the Sicilian nation was still in its “infancy and weakness” and
that the island had to be governed with “bonbons in one hand and il bastone
[a baton] in the other.”57 Frustrated, Bentinck sought more power to effect
the change. For nine months starting in the autumn of 1813 he ruled Sicily
as a virtual dictator. Queen Caroline, who fought these changes every step of
the way, was forced into exile, with the British obligingly supplying a war-
ship that transported her to Russia so she could safely travel to the Austrian
capital city.58 Bentinck hoped that the liberal reforms he shepherded on the
island would inspire mainland Italians to challenge the Napoleonic regime.
Bentinck’s experiment in establishing a constitutional government in Sicily
lasted only a few years. With the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Ferdinand IV
returned to the throne of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies and, in one of his
first decisions, abolished the constitution. Still, the constitutional experiment
was not a complete failure: the ideas found therein lingered in the memories
of the Sicilians and had an influence on the desire for autonomy that was at
the base of the subsequent Sicilian revolutions in 1820 and 1848.

Napoleon’s long-term impact varied considerably across Europe. Nonetheless,


even in those territories where the French could not directly intervene, the
shocks of military defeat and foreign occupation had profound repercussions,
forcing local elites to accept internal reforms in an effort to deal with France.
The best example of this comes from Prussia. The post-1807 years were
marked by economic devastation caused by mounting state debts, unrelent-
ing French demands for indemnity payments, and the costs of supplying an
army of occupation. The government was forced to increase taxes, debase the
coinage, and issue paper money. The financial health of the state continued to
deteriorate, with the state debt, which stood at 53 million gulden before
1806, increasing to 112 million gulden in 1811 and over 200 million by the
end of the Napoleonic Wars.59
The effects of the French occupation stirred national sentiments among
many Germans. The plight of German states inspired Johann Fichte, a pro-
fessor at the University of Erlangen, to deliver his famous fourteen “Addresses
to the German Nation” (1808), one of the first expressions of budding
304 | the napoleonic wars

German nationalism. Selfishness and division, Fichte argued, had ruined


German states, which now faced the daunting task of surviving French domi-
nation. Evoking distinctiveness in language, tradition, and literature, he
called upon the German people to free themselves from Napoleon.60 These
sentiments echoed in patriots such as Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg,
Heinrich Freiherr vom und zum Stein, Gebhard von Blücher, Gerhard von
Scharnhorst, and August von Gneisenau, who did their best to rebuild the
country’s economy and military in the wake of the shattering defeat.
Foremost among the men to whom Prussia owed its national regeneration
were Stein, Hardenberg, and Scharnhorst. The first, the scion of an old fam-
ily of Freiherr (imperial knights), was appointed Prussia’s chief minister in
October 1807. Although Stein stayed in power for just one year, his name is
closely associated with key reforms in the system of government, social struc-
tures, local government, the army, and education. One was the Emancipation
Edict, which freed Prussian peasants from the last vestiges of serfdom. His
reforms granted a considerable degree of self-government to cities and towns,
abolished feudal restrictions on land ownership, and sanctioned free trade in
land. This in turn swept away the caste system that had underpinned occupa-
tions, facilitating the rise of talented commoners to the higher ranks of society.
Later the same year Stein was able to push through a new central government
that replaced a rather convoluted dual system under which power was divided
in varying and confusing proportions between the king’s ministers and the
king’s cabinet. Stein’s efforts, however, were interrupted in late November
1808 when a letter in which he expressed his belief that the French should be
expelled was intercepted by the French authorities.61 Napoleon demanded
his dismissal. Frederick William tried to delay complying with the demand
but was informed in no uncertain terms that the French would not evacuate
the country as long as Stein remained in the government. In December 1808
Napoleon declared Stein an enemy of France, sequestered all of his posses-
sions, and ordered Stein seized wherever he could be found. Informed of this
danger, Stein escaped to Bohemia, then part of the Austrian Empire, from
where he continued to plot Napoleon’s overthrow.
Stein’s fellow advocate of change, Hardenberg, was also not a Prussian.
Hanoverian by birth, he served in Hanover and Brunswick before entering
the Prussian service in 1790s. After years on the margins, Hardenberg got his
opportunity when Frederick William II appointed him Staatskanzler and
tasked him with leading the ministries of finance and the interior. He was
instrumental in the total reorganization of Prussia’s finances, which included
ending tax exemptions (though some were later reinstated), introducing free-
dom of enterprise, and reforming the tariff and toll systems. Gerhard von
The Grand Empire, 1807–1812 | 305

Scharnhorst, an officer of considerable intellect and talents, played a decisive


role in modernizing the Prussian military and developing new and influential
concepts in military theory and practice. As Prussia abolished serfdom,
Scharnhorst and his fellow reformers appealed to the common Prussian’s
sense of patriotism as a means to create an army of citizen-soldiers. In July
1807 King Frederick William III established a Commission for Military
Reorganization, with Scharnhorst as president. The commission conducted a
veritable purge of the Prussian army in light of its performance in the 1806
debacle, dismissing incapable officers, promoting worthy ones, and ending
the custom of recruiting foreigners. The harsh discipline of the Frederickian
army was abolished, while the stifling power of the Junkers (landowning
nobility) was relaxed, to allow for the rise of men of talent and merit. The
reforms reorganized the Prussian army into effective combined-arms brigades
along the French model, improved its drill and tactics, and developed the
Landwehr, a national militia. Equally important was the Krümpersystem (shrink-
ing system), which was designed to quickly train army recruits and move
them into the reserves so that more men could be trained while keeping
the size of the standing army at the 42,000 limit imposed by Napoleon
in the Peace of Tilsit (1807). Furthermore, the Prussian monarchy gave its
consent to the establishment of the famed Berlin Kriegsakademie (War
College), where Prussian officers began laying the foundation for a truly
modern general staff.62
Fichte’s appeals for an enlightened system of education had a noteworthy
effect. The Prussian education system was reformed and placed under the
leadership of the distinguished Prussian philosopher and linguist Wilhelm
von Humboldt (brother of the famed geographer and naturalist Alexander
von Humboldt), who used his learning and enthusiasm to lay the foundation
for what became the Humboldtisches Bildungsideal (Humboldtian education
ideal), integrating the arts and sciences with research to achieve comprehen-
sive general learning and cultural knowledge.63 Prussian universities—at
Königsberg, Frankfort on the Oder, and Halle, augmented by the newly
established ones at Berlin and Breslau—played a key role in the national
revival, kindling the patriotic spirit and training a new generation of men to
lead the Prussian state. The Prussian patriots also formed a number of secret
societies to encourage the country’s rebirth, the most prominent of them
being the Tugendbund (League of Virtue), founded in Königsberg (now
Kaliningrad) in 1808. Members of the Tugendbund were army officers, men
of letters, and sons of landowners who burned with a desire to end the French
occupation of their country and bring about, as the royal order that licensed
it stated, “the revival of morality, religion, serious taste, and public spirit.”64
306 | the napoleonic wars

The Tugendbund did not last long enough to see its members’ dreams
fulfilled. In 1809 it was blamed for instigating an anti-French rebellion.
Frederick William III, fearing Napoleon’s reaction, issued a decree dissolv-
ing this group. Nevertheless, the Tugendbund was soon replaced by new
groups such as the Deutsche Gesellschaften (German Patriotic Societies), the
Burschenschaften (German Students Associations), and the Turngesellschaft
(Fitness Society), which all strove to prepare Germans in both body and mind
for the forthcoming war against France.
chapter 14 The Emperor’s Last Triumph

I n 1809, austria decided to exploit Napoleon’s preoccupation in Spain


to redress its position in central Europe. Many key leaders in the Habsburg
court shared Foreign Minister Johann Philipp Stadion’s belief that “Napoleon
wants to destroy us because our principles and size are incompatible with a
single universal hegemony.”1 In light of Napoleon’s dethronement of the
Spanish Bourbons, the Austrian war party—those advocating open conflict
with the French—concluded that the survival of the Habsburg monarchy
could be ensured only through a forceful challenge to Napoleon. When
Napoleon sent tens of thousands of his troops across the Pyrenees in 1808,
such an opportunity presented itself. Austrian aspirations were bolstered by
the initial setbacks French had suffered in Spain, and particularly the defeat
at Bailén, the first capitulation of a major French force since 1801. The steady
stream of reports about the problems Napoleon faced in Spain, and even back
in France, seemed to suggest that he was losing his energy and fighting abil-
ity, while the news (if exaggerated) of Spanish guerrillas excited talk of a
similar popular resistance in Germany. “The French army is preoccupied in
Spain. France is at odds with the Porte, it has enemies in Italy and is hated in
Germany,” the Prussian foreign minister told an Austrian envoy. “A single
victory and the universe will rise against Napoleon.”2
Austria had learned valuable lessons from the previous defeats, and the
four years since the 1805 Treaty of Pressburg had been devoted to reforms.
Archduke Charles spearheaded structural and tactical reforms inside the
Austrian military, with many of these changes directly borrowed from the
French. Artillery was reorganized, new infantry regulations were introduced,
and corps formations—nine line and two reserve—were established. In 1808,
imitating the French levée en masse, Austria established the Landwehr, a militia
308 | the napoleonic wars

30° 20° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40°

A R C T I C
Ruled directly by Napoleon
O C E A N
Allied to France
Hostile to France
60° Occupied by Russia
FINLAND
1809 to Russia

Faeroe Is.
SWEDEN

Bergen St Petersburg

AY
Shetland Christiania Aland
Islands Islands Novgorod

NORW
Stockholm
Gotland
Gothenburg

MARK
North Riga

a
Smolensk

Se
Edinburgh Sea
lt

ic
Copenhagen
Ba

DEN
Vilna

UNITED KINGDOM
REP. OF
DANZIG
Konigsberg
EAST
Dublin OF GREAT BRITAIN Helgoland
SIA RUSSIAN
to Sweden PRUSSIA
AND IRELAND 1807-14 to Br.
US Bialystok
50°
Bremen PR Warsaw 1807 to Russia
1807-10
Amsterdam to Fr.
1810 to Fr. Hannover DUCHY OF EMPIRE
WARSAW
London
Antwerp CONFEDERATION
A T L A N T I C Cologne Tarnopol
Brussels Krakow
O C E A N Channel Is.
Frankfurt Prague 1809 to Russia
BE
Paris OF THE RHINE AUSTRIAN

SS
Vienna EMPIRE

AR
ABI
MOLDAVIA
Munich Buda Pest

A
HELVETIA
FRANCE Bern ss
ia
Ru
by
Geneva ied
up Bucharest
Lyon 1798-1814 to Fr. Milan Venice
IL L

c
Bay of Oc
YR

Bordeaux WALLACHIA
Biscay Turin Belgrade
IA

ITALY
N

T
O
PR

O T BULGARIA
Florence Ad
VI
Marseille LUCCA NC O
Toulouse r ES M
TUSCANY ia A N
Oporto PAPAL tic E M P I R E
40° STATES Se
Corsica a
PORTUGAL Madrid Rome
Barcelona NAPLES
Lisbon SPAIN Minorca Naples Aegean
1798-1802 to Br.
SARDINIA Corfu Sea
nd 1807-14 to Fr.
s

sla
ric I Athens
Balea
Mediterranean Sea Palermo Ionian Is.
Occupied by Britain
SICILY
Gibraltar
Ceuta to Spain Algiers Crete
to Spain Tunis
Malta
1798 to France
1800 to Br.
0 100 200 Kilometers

0 100 200 Miles

Map 15: Europe in 1809

force that enrolled all males ages eighteen to forty-five and could muster, at
least on paper, up to 180,000 men. These reforms did improve the Austrian
army’s capabilities, but their scope should not be exaggerated: tactics
remained antiquated, and the corps system suffered from a lack of common
doctrine and a properly trained officer corps.3
Stadion thus embarked on the path to direct confrontation with France,
which, in case of victory, would have allowed Vienna to forestall Napoleon’s
presumed plans to destroy the Habsburg Empire as well as to redress injus-
tices that Austria had suffered in the preceding two decades. In the autumn
of 1808, the war party succeeded in overcoming Archduke Charles’s opposi-
tion and secured Emperor Francis’s approval for a new conflict with France
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 309

that came to be known as the War of the Fifth Coalition.4 Austrians dis-
cussed commencing wide-ranging operations against Napoleon in southern
Germany, Poland, Italy, Tyrol, and Dalmatia, and they rather belatedly urged
Britain to launch a diversionary attack either in southern Italy (to help
Archduke John [Johann]) or in northern Germany, where the British could
land at the mouth of the Weser River and raise a German insurrection.
Compared with conditions in 1796 or 1805, Austria seemed to be in a s­ tronger
position; France was perceived to be financially weaker and militarily overex-
tended. As one senior Austrian official proudly declared, earlier defeats had
been the result of a lack of vision and leadership, but they had learned from
those previous mistakes: “Let us fight the enemy with his own weapons, let
us send him back his own bullets.” Austria must challenge French prestige
and either destroy it or “cease to exist.”5
Although the impending conflict formally involved a new coalition of
Austria, Britain, Spain, Sicily, and Sardinia, the contributions of the last four
states were rather nominal. Throughout late 1808 and early 1809, commun-
ications between the coalition members were slow, and the Austrians them-
selves did a very poor job of approaching the British and securing firm
commitments from them. In fact, London balked at the immense subsidy
Austria requested, the largest sum ever demanded and, in the words of a
British statesman, “utterly beyond the power of this Country to furnish.”6
Besides, Austria was not the only one seeking British support. Prussia also
explored the possibility of challenging Napoleon while he was preoccupied
with Spain and Austria. In the spring of 1809, a Prussian envoy secretly
asked the British cabinet to set up an arms depot in Heligoland and provide
£50,000 to support a Prussian insurrection.
In early April 1809 the British foreign ministry responded to both Prussian
and Austrian requests. The former received £20,000 in a letter of credit, with
more promised if the Prussian insurrection materialized. Far more substan-
tial was the British response to Austria. London agreed to deliver £250,000
in silver to an Austrian port in the Adriatic, while an additional £1 million
would be deposited on Malta for use by Austria once it went to war against
Napoleon.7 Britain refused to launch a diversionary attack in Germany but
promised to exert some pressure in the Iberian Peninsula, where a British
force was already present in Portugal, and, more important, to launch an
expedition to the Scheldt (in the Low Countries), where Britain had long
wanted to establish a presence.8
Austria hoped to secure the support of Prussia, which had seethed since
its military defeat in 1806. A French officer visiting Berlin reported to his
superiors that “there is not one of [the Prussian officers] who would not like
310 | the napoleonic wars

to resume the war with France. This bellicose mood, which meets well with
the hatred for the French, is pleasing to some townsmen and the greater part
of the common people, and thus influences popular opinion.”9 The Prussian
monarch was apprehensive about supporting Austria, Prussia’s longtime
rival, and feared that another failed conflict would physically eradicate his
realm. Frederick William III therefore abstained from participating in the
new coalition even though some of his senior advisors urged him to support
the Austrian challenge to Napoleon. Aware of bellicose attitudes among his
officers and senior officials, the king tried to contain them, warning of the
“disadvantageous and unpredictable consequences” that their actions might
produce.10 In early March the Prussian foreign minister’s formal note reiterat-
ing the nation’s neutrality and existing obligations to France dispelled any
hopes the Austrians had about Prussian support.
The Austrian desire to reclaim its lands and its status as a first-rate power
placed Russia in the difficult position of having to choose between its new
and old allies. Legally, Russia was bound to France by the Treaties of Tilsit
and Erfurt, the latter agreement specifying that “in case Austria should engage
in war against France, the Emperor of Russia agrees to declare himself against
Austria and to make common cause with France, that case being likewise
one of those to which the alliance that unites the two Empires applies.”11
Considering the long-standing tradition of Russo-Austrian alliance, this pro-
vision represented a drastic change in Russian foreign policy. The court at
first rationalized it by accepting Napoleon’s accusations that “perfidious
Albion’s” hand was stirring the pot in central Europe. During his meetings
with the Russian diplomats Napoleon regularly referred to Anglo-Austrian
collusion and claimed existence of “a certain agreement concluded between
England and Austria.”12 The Russian ambassador to Paris, Alexander Kurakin,
noted that Napoleon was claiming that “it is England’s money that allows
[Austrians] to cover their expenses, which are so incompatible with her [cur-
rent] possibilities. Austria imagines that she is still in the same position that
she held two hundred years ago, forgetting what she has become since then
and what France has accomplished.”13 In February Napoleon continued to vent
his anger during his meetings with the Russian envoys, telling them, “Austria
needs a slap in the face, and I will give it to her on both cheeks, and you will
see how she would thank me and ask for my orders on what to do next.”14
Russian high society, despite its cultural and linguistic bonds with France,
was hostile toward the Franco-Russian alliance and was concerned about
both the revolutionary ideas that French soldiers spread and French expan-
sion into central and eastern Europe. In their opinion, this alliance simply
made Russia subservient to French interests. An Austrian diplomat who
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 311

visited St. Petersburg in early 1809 was astonished at the welcome he received,
writing, “Everyone wants to show through outpourings of friendliness how
attached they are to the [Austrian] cause. . . . I cannot express how pronounced
the opinion is against the French. There are very few houses where they are
received, and only two or three where they are welcomed.”15 The army par-
ticularly represented a hotbed of anti-French sentiment, and many promi-
nent Russian generals, including Field Marshal Alexander Prozorovsky and
Generals Peter Bagration, Mikhail Vorontsov, and Sergei Golitsyn, were against
the war with Austria.16 Many of Emperor Alexander’s ministers and advisers
not only were against war with Austria but even urged mobilization against
France. Few Russian statesmen, Foreign Minister Nikolai Rumyantsev being
the most prominent one, supported a pro-French policy. Rumyantsev was
certainly apprehensive about French hegemony in Europe, but he also under-
stood the importance of alliance with Napoleon. For him, Napoleon was no
longer “the abominable creature of the revolution,” but rather the man who
by crowning himself emperor had put an end to the Revolution.17
Alexander also believed that Russia stood to benefit from its closer rela-
tions with France. Writing to his mother, he argued that “it is in Russia’s
interests to be on friendly relations with this colossus [Napoleon], the most
dangerous enemy of Russia. To prevent any French hostile actions, it is essen-
tial to arouse his interests in Russia that would be the driving factor in the
political life of our states. Russia has no other means to secure alliance with
France but to share . . . French interests and to convince [Napoleon] to trust
Russian intentions. All our efforts, therefore, must be directed to achieve this
goal and gain time to increase our forces and resources.”18 When Frederick
William of Prussia proposed the formation of “a triple defensive alliance of
Prussia, Russia, and Austria” against France, Alexander quickly refused it,
urging the king to pursue a more sagacious policy toward France.19
Assessing the situation in Europe and the military potentials of France and
Austria, Alexander believed that the Austrian army was unprepared for the war,
while Russia, already at war with the Ottoman Empire and Sweden, could not
afford to jeopardize its relations with France. Yet Alexander was unwilling to
forsake his former German allies completely. King Frederick William III spent
the first three weeks of the new year in Russia, where his very presence reminded
Alexander of earlier agreements and promises. As the Prussian monarch departed
from Russia in late January 1809, Alexander received the Austrian special
envoy, Prince Karl zu Schwarzenberg, who arrived in St. Petersburg to secure
Russian neutrality in case of war against France.20 Schwarzenberg faced the
challenging task of convincing Russia to support Austria, though his superi-
ors were willing to exploit Russia’s conflicts with Sweden and the Ottoman
312 | the napoleonic wars

Empire to bring about a change in the Russian attitude; Stadion considered


providing support to either of these states, as well as threatening Russia with
the restoration of Poland, should it refuse to cooperate.21
During his two-hour meeting with Schwarzenberg, Alexander accused
Austria of bellicose conduct toward France and warned that if the Viennese
court attacked first, he would fulfill his alliance obligations to Napoleon. He
also tried to assure the Austrian envoy that Napoleon had no hostile inten-
tions toward Austria and that a war would only lead to “inevitable defeat.”
Schwarzenberg, for his part, reassured Alexander that “as late as at the time
of his departure, there was no discussion [in Austria] about provoking a rup-
ture with France.” Austria armed itself in defense, the prince argued, con-
cerned that Napoleon would threaten its monarchy once he had secured
Spain. Alexander rejected these arguments, repeating that he knew “from the
most dependable” source that France was most concerned about “restoring a
general peace in Europe,” and claiming that Austria’s behavior only strength-
ened Napoleon’s conviction that Britain was inciting another war on the con-
tinent.22 Alexander was convinced that Russia’s goal should be to maintain
“balance of power in Europe whose intrinsic condition is, in my mind, the exist-
ence and integrity of three great monarchies: Austria, France and Russia.”
Therefore, Russia should “side with France in her efforts to set reasonable
limits on Austria’s ambition if the latter continued to maintain offensive
posturing, but [Russia] should also be ready to side with Austria anytime it
faces unjustified aggression from France.”23
These two principles—the preservation of peace and the integrity of the
Austrian empire—guided Russian behavior during the Franco-Austrian war.
Austria’s decision to launch war, and therefore became an aggressor, compelled
Alexander to honor his responsibilities to France, but he was naturally unwilling
to help the French in destroying one of the cornerstones of European equilib-
rium as he had perceived it. “Although this situation imposed on him an obli-
gation to send his troops into Galicia,” Alexander told Schwarzenberg he would
delay his entry into the war for as much as possible and instruct his commanders
to “avoid every collision and every act of hostility” with Austrian forces.24
The Franco-Austrian war started on April 10, 1809, when Charles and
the main Austrian army invaded Bavaria, Napoleon’s stalwart ally, as another
Austrian army under Archduke John marched into northern Italy; several
days later, Archduke Ferdinand’s corps threatened the Duchy of Warsaw,
while smaller Austrian forces invaded Dalmatia.25 The French forces in Italy,
commanded by Eugène de Beauharnais, confronted Archduke John on April
16 at Sacile, where the Austrians mounted a flank attack that threatened to
cut the French line of communication. Beauharnais recalled his troops and
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 313

made a fighting retreat, first to the Piave River and later to the Adige, thereby
conceding northeastern Italy.26 But Italy was just a sideshow, and the change
in the fortunes of the main Austrian army soon compelled Archduke John to
suspend his offensive.
The decisive theater of operations was in Germany, in the valley of the
Danube River, where the Austrians hoped to exploit Napoleon’s preoccupa-
tion in Spain to catch the French forces unaware, score early victories, and
provoke a popular insurrection in Germany. Archduke Charles led the Austrian
army of some 200,000 men into Bavaria, a French ally and the principal member
of the Confederation of the Rhine, informing the Bavarian authorities that he
intended to advance through their territory and would treat as an enemy anyone
who opposed him. A war manifesto called upon the Austrian soldiers to fight
for freedom: “Europe looks for freedom under your banners. . . . Your German
brethren wait for redemption at your hands.”27 Austrian hopes for a popular
uprising quickly faded as most Germans remained unmoved by these appeals
or patriotic agitators. Furthermore, Austrian assumptions about the French war
in Spain proved to be misplaced, as Napoleon routed the Spanish forces, captured
Madrid, and sent the British army fleeing headlong from the peninsula.
Napoleon had received reports of increased belligerency in Austria while
campaigning in Spain and spent several months rebuilding his forces in
Germany. In January 1809 he had instructed the Confederation states to
mobilize their contingents, and he combined these with the remaining
French forces east of the Rhine as the Army of Germany to deter Austria.
Eugène de Beauharnais and Prince Jozef Poniatowski both received detailed
instructions on preparing defenses of Italy and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.
Napoleon then recalled his stalwart commanders—Lannes, Lefebvre, and
Bessières—from Spain but, not willing to provoke Vienna, he remained in
Paris, appointing Marshal Alexander Berthier, his redoubtable chief of staff,
as acting commander of the French forces in Germany. Napoleon thus expected
war but did not think the Austrians would start it before May. Charles’s
attack therefore caught the French army unprepared. Berthier, as masterly as
he was under Napoleon’s supervision, struggled in the absence of the emperor.
His aide was distressed to see this man, “so calm in the midst of fire, whom
no danger could intimidate, trembling and bending under the weight of his
[new] responsibility.”28 Berthier’s confused directives, compounded by bad
weather and subsequent interruption in optical telegraph transmissions from
Napoleon, failed to concentrate the French army, which, on the eve of the
war, was split into two groups, with some corps still proceeding to their des-
ignated locations. Three French corps were scattered in the region between
Munich, Augsburg, and Ratisbon (Regensburg), while Marshal Masséna with
314 | the napoleonic wars

IV Corps was still on the march from Frankfurt to Bavaria. More significant,
Marshal Davout’s III Corps at Ratisbon was far ahead of the remaining French
forces and vulnerable to Austrian encirclement.
Had the Austrians struck in March or carried out their April offensive
with greater vigor, they perhaps could have gained victories that might have
induced Prussia to act. Instead, they dithered. And once the offensive began,
the Austrian army, even after four years of reforms, performed lethargically
and failed to exploit its advantages. As his opponent wasted precious time,
Napoleon swiftly reacted to the new threat. Leaving Paris on April 13, he
reached the front and took personal command of the army on the seven-
teenth. His presence and leadership roused the army and filled his subordi-
nates with a sense of duty and urgency. Napoleon responded to the Austrian
offensive by launching a counterstrike that used the corps of Davout and
Lefebvre as a holding force upon which the rest of the French army pivoted
to engage the enemy. On April 21, in a series of encounters that collectively
became known as the Battle of Abensberg, Napoleon engaged what he believed
to be the larger portion of the now divided Austrian army and directed most
of his troops against just 36,000 men of Feldmarschalleutnant Johann Hiller,
which formed the left flank of the Austrian army. The French overwhelmed
Hiller, driving his men across the Isar River at Landshut and seizing a quarter
of his men and most of his artillery and transports.29 It was then that Napoleon
learned that the bulk of Archduke Charles’s army was, in fact, in the north,
attacking Davout and Lefebvre at Eggmühl. The Austrians might have scored
a victory here had it not been for Davout, the “Iron Marshal,” who doggedly
defended the town. On April 22, with Davout’s men having almost exhausted
their ammunition and dropping from fatigue, the reinforcements that
Napoleon had dispatched came rushing in, forcing Charles’s army to retreat
toward Bohemia in some confusion. With the road to Vienna open, the French
entered the Austrian capital on May 13; as in 1805, the Austrian imperial
court and government had long been evacuated, but the French still secured
vast quantities of supplies that had remained in the city.30
The first week of the campaign demonstrated Napoleon’s operational
improvisation, which the Austrians simply could not match. The French tri-
umphed in five successive battles in as many days, inflicting more than
500,000 casualties on the Austrians. Napoleon had wrested the initiative
from the enemy, which could have gained victories but displayed little initia-
tive and revealed grave shortcomings in command and control. The Austrian
commander, who before the war had cautioned Emperor Francis that “the
first lost battle [will] be the death sentence of the [Habsburg] monarchy,”
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 315

was so demoralized by these setbacks that he urged his government to sue for
peace and offered to meet Napoleon with an “olive branch” in hand.31
Still, victories at Abensberg and Eggmühl, significant as they were, were
not on par with Austerlitz or Jena. The Austrian army, despite its poor per-
formance, escaped destruction and retreated to the safety of the eastern bank
of the Danube, where Charles soon rallied it and took a defensive position on
the far side of the Danube to the north and east of Vienna. With bridges across
the Danube destroyed, the only feasible way to cross the river and engage the
Austrians was by way of the floodplain of Lobau, south of Vienna, where
islands divided the Danube into three distinct channels. The French quickly
seized the islands and by May 20 had built a series of pontoon bridges over the
raging Danube, which was flooding due to melting snow and spring rains.
Emboldened by his victories and knowing that Austria would gain much from
delay, Napoleon ordered his men across the river. By dawn on May 21, Marshal
Masséna, with four infantry and two cavalry divisions, took positions on the
far bank, occupying the small villages of Aspern and Essling.32
This was a major mistake. With the French forces astride the river, Archduke
Charles counterattacked, bringing his vast army (over 95,000 men) to bear
on Masséna’s 25,000. As the French prepared to mount a counterattack, the
raging Danube washed away one of the bridges, interrupting communica-
tions between Masséna and Napoleon. The Austrian briefly captured the vil-
lage of Aspern, but the French managed to cling to their positions throughout
the day.33 Still, the heroism of Masséna’s men could not conceal the fact that
Napoleon had suffered a major setback, potentially more damaging than the
near disaster at Eylau. Napoleon’s position, far from France, with fragile
bridges over the rising river behind him and the enemy on three sides, was
one of extreme peril.
Fortunately for Napoleon, the bridge was repaired at midnight and remained
open till dawn, allowing for the transfer of reinforcements. By sunup Marshal
Lannes’s corps was safely across the river and posted to hold the central sector
of the French position. The fighting resumed at first daylight, when the
Austrian I and VI Corps launched a full-scale assault on Aspern. Throughout
May 22, a fierce battle raged over the control of the villages of Aspern and
Essling, but neither side could prevail. The Austrians were unable to push
the French into the river, and the French couldn’t break through the Austrian
positions; Napoleon’s efforts to reinforce his troops were interrupted by con-
tinued collapses of the bridges due to the ingenuity of the Austrians, who
floated blazing barges and debris down the river. When nightfall brought an
end to the fighting, Napoleon recalled his troops to the island of Lobau, leaving
316 | the napoleonic wars

behind nearly 7,000 killed; among the 16,000 who were wounded was
Lannes, who died of his injuries a week later.34
The news of the Austrian victory provoked shock and excitement in
Europe, with many welcoming the dimming of Napoleon’s star. At long last
the French emperor had been thwarted and the Austrian army had gained a
victory over Napoleon, the first in more than a decade. Despite its poor per-
formance at the start of the campaign, it showed its stronger side at Aspern-
Essling, demonstrating that the military reforms instituted prior to the war
were bearing fruit. The tactical performance of the Austrian infantry was
impressive, and when Archduke Charles was present, coordination between
units notably improved. But there were major problems as well, and the
Austrian army remained, in the words of historian John H. Gill, “an inept
offensive instrument, cumbersome in movement, difficult to coordinate, and
inflexible once engaged.”35 Amid the euphoria that spread in Austria, many
conveniently overlooked the fact that the army had failed to destroy the
French, though it enjoyed numerical superiority and a better tactical situation.
Furthermore, rather than build on the victory, Archduke Charles decided
to stand down, keeping his troops concentrated on the eastern bank of the
Danube and hoping that the logistical challenge of maintaining his troops in
the Danube valley would soon force Napoleon to withdraw.
Napoleon was clearly stung by the defeat at Aspern-Essling. He also learned
from his overconfidence and hasty preparations. The battle had showed him
that he was facing an army that deserved respect. For seven weeks thereafter,
he methodically prepared, strengthening his position on the island of Lobau
and biding his time until he could once more cross the river and renew the
fight against Charles. Time served him well, for his troops gained the upper
hand in other theaters. Eugène de Beauharnais launched an offensive in north-
ern Italy and defeated Archduke John on the Piave, forcing him to retreat
into Inner Austria, where he received the news of the Austrian success at
Aspern-Essling and, feeling emboldened, took up a position at the town
of Raab, some seventy miles southeast of Vienna. On June 14 Beauharnais
attacked and, after a heated engagement, forced the Austrians to retreat;
thereafter he marched to Vienna to join Napoleon. Meanwhile, in Dalmatia,
Major General Andreas von Stoichevich’s 8,000 Austrian troops gained ini-
tial success in crossing the Zrmanja River on April 26–30 and driving the
scattered French forces toward Knin (Kurn) and Zadar (Zara). The news of
Archduke Charles’s defeat on the Danube and of Archduke John’s retreat in
Italy, however, thwarted Stoichevich’s further advance. This allowed General
Auguste Marmont, who commanded 10,000 French troops in Dalmatia, to
counterattack, defeating the Austrians at Pribudic (May 16), Gračac (May 20),
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 317

and Gospić (May 21). As the result of his victories Marmont was able to seize
Triest on May 28 and Ljubljana (Laibach) six days later before continuing his
march northward to Vienna, where he joined Napoleon just in time for the
final showdown with the Austrians.36
By July Napoleon had concentrated nearly 190,000 men. He knew that
a victory was imperative to reclaiming his reputation and ending the war before
resistance movements, inspired by his setbacks, could spring up in other parts
of Europe. There were already signs of agitation in Germany. In late April
Friedrich von Katte, a former Prussian officer and member of the Tugendbund,
led a brief revolt in Westphalia before fleeing to Prussia, where he was promptly
arrested. The same month, another member of the Tugendbund, Wilhelm
von Dörnberg, an infantry officer in King Jérôme’s army, led a short-lived
uprising that sought to seize the Westphalian capital, Kassel. It was suppressed,
and Dörnberg fled to Austria before later entering Russian service.
Far more significant was the revolt of Major Ferdinand von Schill, a
Prussian officer who led the men of the Brandenburg Hussar Regiment across
northern Germany, seeking in vain to spark a popular uprising. Schill, one
of the very few Prussians to emerge a hero from the debacle of 1806, was
able to launch “a long ride,” as historian Sam Mustafa aptly observed, through
Germany and scored a minor success near Dodendorf; he was ultimately
hunted down by the French-allied Dutch and Danish forces and defeated at
Stralsund, where he was killed in battle. In death Schill accomplished what
he had failed to do in life: he was transformed into a martyr for the cause of
German liberation, with his stature only increasing as years passed and the
German national awakening deepened.37 The same can be said also of Duke
Frederick William of Brunswick-Oels, who had been deposed from his duchy
in the wake of Napoleon’s triumph in 1807. Two years later the duke formed
a volunteer corps in Bohemia and at the outbreak of the Franco-Austrian war
joined the Austrian war effort. His “Black Brunswickers,” featuring the infa-
mous Totenkopf (death’s head) badges on their shakos, gained the upper hand
over the Saxon and Westphalian forces in several engagements; in June they
helped the Austrians seize Dresden.38
As uprisings raged in northern Germany, the Tyroleans raised the banner
of revolt in the south. The Tyrol region had been long part of the Habsburg
domain, but the Treaty of Pressburg (1805) forced Austria to cede it to Bavaria.
The Bavarian and French authorities introduced a number of changes in
the region, including closing local assemblies and monasteries and imposing
conscription and taxes, which caused much discontent among the Tyrolean
peasants. By 1809 they were willing to take arms to defend their way of life.
The rebellion began almost as soon as the Austrians commenced the invasion
318 | the napoleonic wars

of Bavaria. On April 11–12 the rebels, led by Joseph Speckbacher and Andreas
Hopfer, surprised their Bavarian overlords and captured Bavarian garrisons
at Sterzing, Hall, and Innsbruck. Although the Bavarians, reinforced by the
French, soon reclaimed Innsbruck, the Tyrolean rebels scored a major victory
at Berg Isel (May 29) and retook the city. The rebellion soon spread to other
parts of Tyrol, with Speckbacher besieging (but failing to capture) Castle
Kufstein.39 It even spilled over into Italy, where revolts erupted in the former
Venetian provinces and the province of Emilia-Romagna, in central Italy,
where the widespread detestation of the Napoleonic regime became outright
revolt following the introduction of conscription to meet the demands of
France’s new war against Austria.40
The news of uprisings in Westphalia, Tyrol, and Italy alarmed Napoleon.
Nonetheless, he concentrated on the far more important task of destroying
the Austrian army. Headquartered at the island of Lobau, he had spent more
than a month preparing for a new offensive, gathering troops, improving roads,
and building solid bridges to secure links between the two sides of the Danube.
Starting on June 30 he ordered his men to move across these bridges and into
the plain, where the Austrian army had spent the last seven weeks largely idling.
The Austrian high command seems to have entertained hopes of a general upris-
ing in Germany that never materialized. Although French intentions to attack
were clear by July 1, the Austrian headquarters failed to prepare and was divided
as to the best countermeasures. Charles initially hoped that Napoleon would
repeat his earlier mistakes of Aspern-Essling, though he quickly realized that
the French emperor had no intention of attacking the well-defended Austrian
positions there, instead bypassing them to threaten the Austrian left flank.
At dawn on July 5 the first three French corps to cross, under marshals
Nicolas Oudinot (II Corps), André Masséna (IV Corps), and Louis Davout
(III Corps), opened the battle, attacking the Austrian positions. The French
drove back the Austrian corps of Feldmarschalleutnant Johann Graf Klenau
and Feldmarschalleutnant Armand von Nordmann, and allowed Napoleon
to pour additional forces—the Armée d’Italie under Eugène de Beauharnais
and Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte’s IX Corps (Saxons)—into the gap
between Masséna and Oudinot. Facing this French onslaught, Archduke
Charles recalled his forward troops behind the Russbach River, where he
defended his main position. By day’s end, he was content with the perfor-
mance of his army, which had withstood the French attacks. Napoleon also
was pleased with the first day of the fighting. He had successfully moved his
troops across the river and Archduke Charles’s army appeared prepared to
fight instead of retreating northward. Both sides spent the night regrouping
and readying for the final showdown.
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 319

The second day’s fighting proved to be fierce. Charles discerned a weak-


ness of the French left wing and intended to advance on his right with
Klenau’s VI Corps toward Aspern and into the French rear, seeking to cut
Napoleon off from the river and the line of retreat. At the same time the
Austrian left flank, consisting of Feldmarschalleutnant Franz Fürst von
Rosenberg-Orsini’s IV Corps, would attack the French right flank, where he
hoped for the support of Archduke John, whom Charles implored to get to
the battlefield as soon as possible. At dawn, the Austrians under Rosenberg
pushed back the French outposts and engaged Davout’s infantry divisions,
which exploited the slow pace of the Austrian advance to inflict heavy losses
on the attackers. Napoleon responded by sending the Imperial Guard and
Marmont’s XI Corps to Davout’s support. By now it had become clear that
Archduke John could not join the battle and that the Austrian commanders
had failed to properly coordinate their attacks on the flanks. While Rosenberg’s
attack was in progress, the Austrian right flank under Klenau was not yet
moving, forcing Archduke Charles to recall his unsupported attack on the
left wing.
It was at this moment that Napoleon receiving the alarming news of the
departure of Bernadotte’s Saxon corps from the village of Aderklaa, allowing
the Austrians to threaten the French center-right. He ordered Masséna to
reclaim this position, but the marshal was unable to do it because of the vast
firepower the Austrians concentrated there. By late morning the Austrians
had secured Aderklaa, while Klenau’s corps belatedly launched an attack on
the French left flank, defended by General Jean Boudet’s single division of
Masséna’s corps. As the Austrian assaults developed, Napoleon responded by
redeploying his forces. Davout and Oudinot were ordered to attack along the
Russbach, where their unrelenting attacks soon allowed the French to secure
the plateau behind Markgrafneusiedl. Masséna was told to redeploy across
the battlefield to Aspern to defend the French left flank, and to facilitate such
a risky maneuver, the emperor ordered Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bessières to
attack with his cavalry. The French cavalry charge was supported by a grand
battery of more than a hundred guns that maintained such ferocious fire that
the Austrians were forced to retreat. As soon as he noticed this, Napoleon
ordered a general advance, with the assault led at the center by Jacques
Étienne Macdonald, at the helm of three divisions of the Armée d’Italie,
which formed into a massive square.
By 3:00 p.m., after suffering more than 40,000 casualties and giving up
hope of receiving support from Archduke John, Archduke Charles withdrew
his army from the field, beaten but not broken. The French, having lost some
34,000 men, were too exhausted to pursue him. The Austrians retreated for
320 | the napoleonic wars

four days and, after suffering a setback at Znaim, asked for an armistice on
July 10, which Napoleon accepted.41 Turned into a scapegoat, Archduke
Charles was stripped of his rank and forced to resign from the command. His
replacement could do little to repair the damage, both moral and physical,
that the defeat at Wagram had caused. After three months of discussions,
Austria realized that it was in no position to continue war and accepted
Napoleon’s conditions for peace.
They were harsh. Signed on October 14, the Treaty of Schönbrunn pun-
ished Austria for starting the war and imposed stringent restrictions. Austria
recognized all the political changes in Italy and Spain and pledged to support
Napoleon’s Continental System against Britain. Napoleon also extracted an
indemnity of 85 million francs and forced Vienna to reduce its army to
150,000 men. Far worse were his territorial demands. Austria ceded the
provinces of Salzburg and Berchtesgaden, along with parts of Upper Austria,
to France, which later transferred them to its devoted ally, Bavaria. In Italy,
France secured further territorial concessions in Trieste and the Croatian
Littoral and consolidated its hold over former Venetian possessions along the
eastern Adriatic Sea, which were now transformed into the Illyrian Provinces
of the French Empire. Austria also was forced to cede small Habsburg enclaves
to Saxony and transferred its gains under the Partitions of Poland—western
Galicia (except Kraków) and the district of Zamosc in eastern Galicia—to
the Duchy of Warsaw. Russia, despite its unenthusiastic performance during
the war, was rewarded with the Galician district of Tarnopol (around Brody).
The Franco-Austrian war of 1809 had a profound impact on contempo-
rary European politics. It somewhat dimmed the aura of invincibility that
had shrouded Napoleon since the heydays of the Italian campaigns. Though
he had acquitted himself at Wagram, a careful observer could see that the
Grande Armée was no longer the splendid and fearsome instrument of the
1805–1806 campaigns. The casualties sustained in the various campaigns,
along with deployment across much of Europe, had left it with comparatively
few veteran troops. Setbacks at Aspern-Essling and the limited victory at
Wagram, which, as noted, paled in comparison to Austerlitz and Jena, sug-
gested that future conflicts would be more difficult for Napoleon to win.
Indeed, this was the last time he actually won a war. His earlier victories had
been achieved over the armies of the Old Regime, which had struggled to
keep up with dynamic warfare that the French Revolution unleashed and
Napoleon perfected. But the War of the Fifth Coalition demonstrated that
France’s rivals had gained precious experience from those defeats, and their
efforts to match Napoleon’s prowess resulted in gradual modernization of
their armies and diminishment of the qualitative advantage held by the
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 321

French troops.42 Even more dramatic were the diplomatic and political
consequences of the war. Another crushing defeat had forced Austria into
a servile alliance with Napoleon, where it remained for the next few years.
But this was not its biggest impact. The French victory compelled Austria,
Britain, and Russia to adjust their expectations and laid the ground for future
collaboration. The war thus helped pave the way for the great coalitions of
1813–1814 that ultimately brought down the Napoleonic Empire.

Meanwhile, in the late summer of 1809, the Austrians were forced to evacu-
ate Tyrol. In August Marshal Lefebvre, with 40,000 Franco-Bavarian troops,
launched a campaign to end the local revolt, though he faced an uphill strug-
gle against the rebels, who skillfully exploited the region’s mountainous ter-
rain. They scored victories at Sterzing (August 6–9), Berg Isel (August 13),
and Lofer (September 25) but suffered heavy losses. In October the Tyrolese
suffered a heavy defeat at Melleck, which marked the effective end of the
rebellion; many rebels accepted the amnesty the French offered them, while
the recalcitrant ones were hunted down. In November, at the third engage-
ment at Berg Isel, the rebel leader Hopfer was defeated; he was ultimately
captured and, on the direct order of Napoleon, executed on February 10, 1810.
The Venetian revolts, which were sparked by the rebellion in Tyrol, raged
until November 1809, when the French finally diverted sufficient resources
to suppress them, though sporadic attacks on officials in Verona, Vicenza, and
Belluno still occurred well into 1810. Equally unsuccessful were the rebels in
Emilia-Romagna. At the same time a brutal insurgency restarted in Calabria,
where the French success of 1806–1807 was undone by the new Neapolitan
king, Joachim Murat, who insisted on showing leniency to the rebels; he
reduced French military patrols in the countryside and released brigand lead-
ers who had been awaiting execution. This proved to be a mistake. By the
summer of 1809, Calabria was once again in a full-scale revolt. The rebels not
only intercepted communications between Naples and Calabria but attacked
and massacred armed convoys, including some 300 civic guards who were
lured into the woods near Nicastro and butchered. Encouraged by their suc-
cess, the rebels even raided towns, where they killed local officials and their
entire families; women and children were publicly burned. Violence only
begat violence, and the French response was swift and ruthless. The military
governor of the province, General Charles Antoine Manhès, understood the
communal nature of the revolt, which allowed the insurgents to survive in
the mountains with the help of supplies from neighboring villages. In 1810
Manhès decreed that any peasant caught outside his village with any form of
food would be executed on the spot, with no exceptions made for age or gender.
322 | the napoleonic wars

Indeed, during the summer the French shot men, women, and children who
were caught with even a piece of fruit in hand outside their communes.
The mercilessness of these measures worked, and the starving insurgents
were forced to come out of the mountains and into the valleys, where they
were hunted down by the French flying detachments. No leniency was shown;
all captured brigands were executed, their bodies left by the side of the road
as a warning. By early 1811, the last of the Calabrian bands was destroyed;
their leader, Parafante, was killed and his head displayed in the public square
of a neighboring town. Having executed hundreds, by the spring of 1811
Manhès could report that Calabria was once again at peace.43

On the eve of its war with France, Austria had tried to secure British support
and cautiously broached the subject of financial help, offering to mobilize
400,000 men in return for £7.5 million, with £2.5 million up front. Though
it had earlier encouraged the Austrians to challenge France, London showed
no interest in the offer this time around. Foreign Secretary George Canning
replied that Austria would have to fight the war on its own with little if any
help from the British; once the war was under way, London would decide how
it might help.44 Abandoning its former ally did not mean that Britain was
not interested in exploiting any advantages the Franco-Austrian war might
provide. This was a reflection of a more robust foreign policy advocated by
the new British prime minister, William Henry Cavendish Bentinck, the
Duke of Portland, and his hawkish ministers: Canning, Chancellor of the
Exchequer Spencer Perceval, and Secretary for War and the Colonies Robert
Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh.
Once the Franco-Austrian War was indeed under way, Portland decided
to participate directly by launching an attack on the Low Countries. The
British expedition to Walcheren, a vital island in the estuary of the Scheldt
River, was not an attempt to support Austria militarily; in fact, British lead-
ers were indifferent to Austria’s fate and paid attention to its war with France
only in the context of its diverting Napoleon’s attention away from the Low
Countries, making a British attack there possible. The Walcheren expedition
was conceived for British national security reasons and reflected Britain’s polit-
ical and commercial interests.45 An expedition to the Scheldt had been long
on the mind of Viscount Castlereagh, who argued that the capture of this
island would ensure British control over the trade in the Scheldt estuary and
provide a convenient point for exerting influence over the Low Countries.46
Furthermore, control of Walcheren would allow Britain to target naval instal-
lations where Napoleon’s warships were being repaired and constructed.
Napoleon had established the second-largest French naval arsenal in and
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 323

around Antwerp and sought to rebuild his naval capabilities there in the
wake of Trafalgar. Napoleon expected that British would threaten Antwerp
and had made considerable investments in fortifying its port against a pos-
sible attack. However, as historian John Bew correctly pointed out, in 1809
“intelligence reports suggested that Antwerp and Flushing had been stripped
of defenses as the French took the fight to the Austrians further south on the
River Danube.”47 Thus a British attack could neutralize the threat of the
revived French navy and possibly undermine the Continental System, which
was starting to hurt the British economy. If successful, this would be another
Copenhagen (which the British bombarded twice in 1801 and 1807), but on
a grander scale.
Political maneuvering and logistical challenges prevented the British
from completing their preparations until July. Sir David Dundas, who had
been just appointed commander in chief of the forces, argued that the British
army could not mount any expeditions since it was still recovering from the
thrashing it had endured during a failed invasion of Spain.48 Castlereagh pre-
pared a special memorandum outlining the reasons for and scope of the expe-
dition to Walcheren and solicited feedback from a number of senior officers,
who all agreed on the importance of the campaign but also cautioned about
its hazardous nature; success would be largely dependent on the speed and
energy of its execution.49 The British cabinet was still vacillating when news
of the Austrian success at Aspern-Essling reached London, putting an end to
any doubts as to the scheme’s practicability. Preparations began in earnest in
late May, and on June 22 Castlereagh requested (and received) the king’s
permission for the expedition.
The expedition was ready to be launched when the news of the Austrian
defeat at the Battle of Wagram arrived. British officials should have realized that
the battle probably meant that Austria would be forced to sue for peace, but they
opted to continue with the expedition. On July 28 a fleet of more than 600 ves-
sels, including more than 260 warships, sailed under command of Sir Richard
Strachan, carrying a 37,000-man army led by John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham,
to the Dutch shores. One eyewitness recalled feeling a sense of immense pride as
he watched “the departure of the grandest fleet that ever sailed from the shores
of England. Above three hundred vessels spread their wings to the wind, and
from North Foreland to South, the Channel was one cluster of moving vessels—
a sight never to be forgotten, whilst memory holds a seat."50
British forces landed on Walcheren on July 30, just as the momentum on
the continent had shifted back in favor of the French. Surprising local French
and Dutch forces, the British quickly proceeded to seize neighboring cities:
Middleburg and Veere on July 31 and the fortress of Batz on August 1.51 The
324 | the napoleonic wars

success of the expedition now depended on a rapid advance to Antwerp, where


the British could have delivered a very serious blow to Napoleon’s power. At
this point, however, the British campaign began to flounder. Despite his
instructions, Chatham decided to direct his efforts toward the city of Flushing,
which was bombarded from the sea and occupied by the army on August 15.52
By now the French had recovered from their shock at the invasion. Their
warships sailed upstream to Antwerp, where they were safely sheltered. Marshal
Bernadotte, who had just been removed from command for his insubordina-
tion at Wagram, was sent to deal with the British expedition. He reinforced
local defenses and brought reinforcements from St. Omer, Ecloo, Brussels,
and Louvain. By the end of August he had some 40,000 French and Dutch
forces in and between Bergen-op-Zoom and Antwerp, preventing the British
from advancing up the Scheldt and threatening Antwerp. Furthermore,
Chatham and Strachan could not agree on the future course of the campaign.
As the days passed, the British soldiers found themselves stuck on the island
in hot, swampy conditions, suffering terribly from “Walcheren fever,” a malar-
ial disease that quickly spread among the troops camped out in the low-lying
areas of the island and incapacitated entire regiments.53 On August 26 a British
council of war decided that the expeditionary force (led by Sir Eyre Coote)
should rally on Walcheren while the Royal Navy attempted to sail upstream.
On September 2 the British warships made an attempt to reach Antwerp but
were stopped by the French, who had spent the previous three weeks furi-
ously working on improving coastal defenses. Relations between Chatham and
Strachan broke down completely and on September 14 the former returned
to England. By the end of the month the majority of the British force reem-
barked aboard the Royal Navy, though a garrison force of more than 16,000
men remained on Walcheren till the end of the year.54
The Walcheren campaign was one of the poorest-organized expeditions
Britain conducted during the entire revolutionary era—a true debacle that
sent many brave soldiers to a useless death.55 While only approximately 100
British soldiers died in combat, a staggering 4,000 succumbed to disease,
while thousands more suffered from the effects of malaria for years to come; a
year later, more than 11,000 men were still listed on the rolls as sick.56 The
failure at Walcheren caused universal indignation in Britain, where public
debate raged over who was to blame for this failure. The Times called it a
national disaster, while other newspapers were even more strident in their
condemnation. In Parliament the opposition railed against the government,
which had been weakened after Prime Minister Cavendish-Bentinck suffered
a paralytic stroke. Amid the political firestorm centered on the Walcheren
expedition, some members of the Portland government indulged in intrigues,
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 325

with Canning seeking the removal of Castlereagh. In September, both men


resigned their respective positions. Their relations had become so acrimoni-
ous that on September 21, 1809, two days after resigning, they fought a duel
over the affair; Canning missed, but Castlereagh wounded his opponent in
the thigh.57 Parliament convened a formal inquiry to examine the causes of
the defeat of the expedition but failed to come to any conclusion except that
there had been a lack of unanimity among the commanders. On April 5,
1810, the Times bitterly lamented, “If the Walcheren expedition is to pass
unmarked by the general censure, then can no calamity happen on which the
British nation will deserve to be heard?”
As devastating as the Walcheren expedition was, it needs to be considered
within the larger context of British operations in 1809–1810. This was a
period that witnessed British engagement in the Peninsular War and the
colonial conquests that all but eliminated the French threat in the Atlantic
and Indian Oceans. In the Caribbean, the British seized in quick succession
the French islands of Saint-Domingue (taken by Spanish troops aided by the
British), Martinique (captured in February 1809), and Guadeloupe (taken in
February 1810 after a long blockade). Simultaneously, Fort Louis du Sénégal,
the last French possession in Africa that served as a safe haven for French
attacks on British commerce, was captured in the summer of 1809. Given
that the French threat in the Atlantic had been largely neutralized, the
British government could afford to draw down troops across the British colo-
nies and utilize these newly released forces to conduct further operations. The
fall of the French colonies in the Atlantic meant that the only remaining
French bases outside Europe were the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean
and the Dutch East Indies, all of which British targeted in late 1809 and
1810, as will see.
This discussion of the War of the Fifth Coalition has not touched on events
in the former Polish-Lithuanian lands, where Archduke Ferdinand conducted
a half-spirited campaign against Jozef Poniatowski’s Polish forces. At the start
of the war Ferdinand advanced to Warsaw, only to be checked at Raszyn on
April 19 and forced to abandon almost all of the occupied Polish territory.
Poniatowski then went upstream on the Vistula, invaded Galicia, and raised a
rebellion among the Polish population of the Austrian Empire. He forced the
Austrian garrisons to surrender and began setting up a Polish administration,
appealing to all Poles to unite in liberating their land. It was at this moment
that the Polish plans were disrupted by the arrival of Russian troops.
Russia learned about the Austrian invasion of Bavaria on April 16. Emperor
Alexander at once made it known that he would recall his ambassador from
Vienna as well as demand that the Austrian envoy leave Russia. To Napoleon,
326 | the napoleonic wars

the Russian emperor wrote, “Your Majesty can count on me; my means
are not great, having already two wars on hand, but all that is possible will
be done. . . . You will always find a faithful ally in me.”58 In reality, however,
the Russian emperor had little desire to assist the French in dismantling the
Austrian monarchy. Therefore, though Russia quickly mobilized an expedi-
tionary corps under command of the sixty-year-old General Sergei Golitsyn,
it delayed its dispatch for over a month.59
By late May, the principal Austrian army had already suffered a series of
defeats in Bavaria and Napoleon was in possession of the Austrian capital. He
was naturally displeased with the Russian foot-dragging, urging Alexander
to act and lamenting that “compliments and phrases are not armies; it is
armies which the circumstances demand.”60 This was especially imperative in
light of the French reversal at Aspern-Essling on May 21–22 and the failed
Austrian invasion of the Duchy of Warsaw that exposed Austrian weaknesses.
Napoleon insisted on the casus foederis (case of the alliance), and Alexander felt
compelled to act, ordering Golitsyn to support French operations against
Austria. On May 18 the Russian emperor issued a set of decrees and instruc-
tions that shed light on Russian intentions. Golitsyn was told to avoid battle
with the Austrian forces “by all means possible” and instead to secure key
locations and “to entice [the Polish populace] to the Russian side” because
“the stronger your position will be in the region, the more useful it will be to
our interests” after the war.61 Golitsyn, who vehemently opposed the Franco-
Russian alliance, was in no hurry to act; neither were his subordinates,
most of whom demonstrated pro-Austrian sympathies.62 As early as June 6,
Archduke Ferdinand was pleased to report that Golitsyn had promised “to
avoid all hostilities against us and to arrange his marches as slowly as possible
and leave my troops time for orderly withdrawal.”63 Poniatowski was exas-
perated by the Russian procrastination and complained to Napoleon about
“delays that, according to all reports, [the Russians] seek to put on any active
cooperation with us.”64
Relations between Napoleon and Alexander were further exacerbated by
the revelation of secret correspondence between Russian and Austrian com-
manders who sought to establish closer contacts, share intelligence, and
coordinate their actions. The most egregious example of this was the affair
involving a Russian lieutenant general, Andrei Gorchakov, in charge of the
18th Division, who corresponded with Archduke Ferdinand and expressed
hope to “see our armies unite on the field of battle” against the French.65
Gorchakov’s letter was intercepted by Polish troops, who sent the original to
Napoleon and a copy to Alexander, causing a scandal. Both emperors were
infuriated, of course. Napoleon saw it as evidence of Russian duplicity. “The
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 327

Emperor’s heart is wounded,” the French ambassador to Russia, Armand de


Caulaincourt, was informed by the French foreign minister. “This is the rea-
son why he does not write to Emperor Alexander; he cannot show to him a
confidence he no longer feels. He says nothing, he does not complain; he
keeps to himself the displeasure he feels but he no longer appreciates the
Russian alliance.”66
For his part, Alexander demanded immediate investigation of this affair
owing to “the grave nature of the accusation and in an effort to deflect false
talk that it would produce.” Gorchakov was quickly removed from com-
mand, court-martialed, and dismissed from military service.67 Still, this affair
made a major impression on Alexander, who was concerned about its impact
on his relations with Napoleon as well as growing anti-French sentiment in
the Russian officer corps. He was keen on dispelling any doubts as to the
Russian commitment to the war, but his efforts to encourage Golitsyn to
undertake more vigorous campaign failed.68
After the War of the Fifth Coalition, the Polish question emerged as one
of the thorniest issues in Franco-Russian relations. Russia was the prime
beneficiary of the eighteenth-century partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian
Commonwealth, extending its territory deep into northeast Europe. The new
lands were heavily populated and more advanced agriculturally and industri-
ally than most of the other Russian provinces, proving to be an important
economic asset for the Russian Empire. Napoleon’s establishment of the
Duchy of Warsaw in the summer of 1807 thus threatened Russian interests.
Polish demands for eventual restoration of their kingdom only increased
Russia’s concerns that it would be obliged to cede territory acquired in the
Polish partitions. Despite Napoleon’s assurances that he had no intention of
restoring Poland—“I have no desire to become the Don Quixote of Poland,”
Napoleon declared—Alexander remained greatly concerned by the existence
of the Polish duchy, especially after 1809, when Napoleon further enlarged
the duchy by retroceding to it the lands that Austria had claimed in the
Partitions of Poland.69
The War of the Fifth Coalition revealed how strained relations between
Russia and the Polish ducal authorities had become. Polish and Russian
forces repeatedly confronted each other over control of the Galician lands.
Poniatowski insisted on replacing the Austrian administration with Polish
authorities and complained about Russian indolence, which allowed the
Austrians to continue conducting operations. He was particularly upset by
the Russian decision to abolish Polish authorities in the regions occupied by
Russian troops. The Russians, on the other hand, disparaged the Poles for
inciting unrest and spreading nationalistic propaganda, which, they felt,
328 | the napoleonic wars

could spill over and cause unrest in the Russian provinces as well. “They
already considered Galicia as their new conquest, their own property, and,
through their speeches and appeals, were instilling a hope among the local
residents in an eventual restoration of Poland,” lamented the Russian court
historian Alexander Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii.70
Russia was displeased with Poniatowski’s declaration that he was “au­thor­
ized by the Emperor of the French to occupy both Galicia, accept residents’
oath of allegiance, conduct justice and punishment in [Napoleon’s] name and
replace Austrian symbols with the French eagles.” In response, Golitsyn
informed Poniatowski that that he considered “all locations occupied by
Russian troops to belong to the Russian emperor” and demanded that
Poniatowski withdraw his military forces from these territories and put an
end to the recruitment of local residents.71 An odd situation thus developed:
Russians and Austrians, officially at war with each other, essentially tussled
with the same enemy, the Poles, who were the formal allies of the Russians.
The Russo-Polish enmity became especially pronounced in the wake of
Archduke Charles’s defeat at Wagram, when Archduke Ferdinand could no
longer maintain his position in Galicia and had to abandon Krakow. Both
Russians and Poles rushed to seize this venerable city, in which generations
of Polish kings were buried. A Russian detachment rushed some forty miles
in eighteen hours to beat the Poles on July 15. Yet later the same day, the
much larger Polish force approached Krakow and forced its way into the city,
creating an impasse that could easily have erupted into open warfare had the
commanders on both sides not agreed to divide the city into two zones and
occupy it jointly.72 Just days later, the Russian commander in chief complained
that “the insolence of the Warsaw troops exceeds all boundaries. . . . Mutual
hatred reigns not only among officers but the rank and file as well. . . . I cannot
describe all the humiliation that our troops suffer from the [Poles].”73 The
Russians were particularly incensed by the Polish decision to hang in the
Krakow theater a stage curtain featuring a rising sun illuminating a coffin
from which a Polish king was rising and on which the inscription outlined
the borders of the former Polish kingdom. When Poniatowski began to iden-
tify himself as the “commander in chief of the Polish army,” Golitsyn bluntly
told him, “I do not recognize either Poland, which has long outlived itself,
nor the Polish army or troops,” and urged Emperor Alexander “to take imme-
diate measures to put an end to the insolent behavior of the Warsaw troops
and prevent the grave consequences that it could produce.”74
Polish aspirations posed an acute threat to Russia and forced its govern-
ment to devote considerable time and effort to the matter. Alexander had
been urged to consider annexing the Austrian-held Polish territories, a prospect
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 329

that clearly alarmed the Austrian monarchy.75 Golitsyn advised the Russian
emperor to annex Galicia, pointing to a group of Polish magnates who had
approached him in secrecy with an offer of immediate allegiance should
Alexander consent to restore Poland and place the country under his rule. In
late June this question was considered in a top-secret memorandum written
by Nikolai Rumyantsev that explored the pros and cons of annexing Polish
lands. As enticing as it might have been to exploit Austrian weakness and
seize new territories, the Russian government chose to reject it, arguing that
such an act would violate agreements sanctioning the three Polish partitions.
Furthermore, even if Russia annexed the new Polish lands, there was no guar-
antee that the Poles would not rally around the national cause and seek to
detach themselves completely from Russia. Comparing the relations between
Russia and Poland to those of Britain and Ireland, the imperial memorandum
spoke of “popular unrests [that] present immediate advantages to the ene-
mies of England in any conflicts and where the British government continues
to struggle with administration despite the many centuries that have passed
since England’s annexation of this land.”76
In the wake of the 1809 war, Alexander was very anxious over Polish
behavior in Galicia and wanted “to be reassured at all costs” that Poland
would not be restored. “The world is not large enough for us to settle the
affairs of Poland if the question of the Polish restoration is raised.”77 The
Russian government sent a special note to Napoleon clearly expressing its
fears of a reestablished Poland and demanding assurances that this would not
happen.78 Throughout 1809–1810 France and Russia were engaged in pro-
tracted (and bitter) negotiations over the fate of the Polish polity, which
revealed the degree of Russian trepidation over a possible Polish state. The
Russian government urged Napoleon to accept a draft convention that would
have prevented the restoration of Poland. The draft’s very first article stated
bluntly, “The Kingdom of Poland will never be reestablished,” while subse-
quent articles prohibited the contracting parties from using the very terms
“Poland,” “Pole,” or “Polish,” so that these words could “disappear forever
from all official or public acts of whatever nature.”79 Napoleon rejected these
demands.80 Furthermore, he was upset by continued Russian harping on the
Polish subject: “What is Russia pretending? Does she want war? Why these
perpetual complaints? Why these injurious worries? Had I wanted to rees-
tablish Poland, I would have said so and would not have withdrawn my troops
from Germany. Does Russia want to prepare me for her desertion? . . . Does
she not get all the fruits from the alliance?”81
Napoleon failed to see that from the Russian perspective the “fruits” of
the Franco-Russian alliance had already wilted and been replaced by more
330 | the napoleonic wars

pragmatic considerations. The foremost of them was preservation of the bal-


ance of power. In 1808–1809 the Russian emperor sought to prevent hostili-
ties in Europe; unable to achieve this, he hoped for a quick ending of the war
that would have preserved Austria as a potential counterbalance to France.
On June 20 Alexander approved a lengthy memorandum to Baron Bethmann,
who represented Russian interests in the Confederation of the Rhine. The
letter revealed that Alexander did not want to see either the Austrians or
the French scoring a decisive victory. A major victory “would have given
[Austrians] all the reasons to become overconfident and would have only
postponed the conclusion of peace . . . Europe would have again found itself
in political turmoil, and fresh and protracted efforts would have been
needed to restore order everywhere.” Yet the Russian emperor was also glad
that Napoleon did not come out decisively on top at Aspern-Essling. “His
power would have increased infinitely without having any effect on England’s
might. He would have forced Austria to accept all of his conditions but how
would Europe have benefited from this?” Instead, Alexander hoped that
France and Austria would realize how detrimental their war was to both of
them and settle their difference through negotiations. The Russian emperor
was concerned that the Austrian emperor, Francis, was captive to “illusions”
of British support. “Where does he hope to find funds to continue this expen-
sive war if England denies him subsidies? With what forces does he intend to
pursue his futile plan of reigning in France if England denies him assis-
tance?” The Russian government wanted to see if the Viennese court “was
ready to acknowledge that the restoration of peace might be worth some
sacrifices by Austria instead of gambling on continuing a war that may end
up in the complete destruction of the monarchy that holds such a glorious
place in the annals of European history.”82 On August 16, as Napoleon and
Francis began negotiating peace, Alexander commented that the intercepted
French letters revealed “certain irritation” at Russia’s behavior at the French
court. “But this is not important since in current circumstances I prefer this
irritation to what could have been if we had actively assisted [Napoleon] in
the destruction of Austria. Emperor Napoleon mentioned in one of his con-
versations, ‘I conducted negotiations with Austria only because she still
retains her army. If she had lost it, I would not have talked to her at all.’
Therefore, we should be thrilled that we did not contribute to the destruc-
tion of the Austrian army.”83
While Alexander may have wanted to project the image of a faithful ally
to Napoleon, he faced a major obstacle at home, where the nobility “was as
proud of Austrian victories as if there were our own, and everyone was enraged
by [the Austrian defeat at] Wagram.” The French ambassador was struck by
The Emperor’s Last Triumph | 331

“the state of agitation that spread in the Russian society. I have never seen
anything like it.” In the salons, Emperor Alexander was called “good but
stupid” and the malcontents spoke openly about entrusting the destiny of the
empire to firmer hands.84 Senior military figures openly condemned the
Franco-Russian alliance, which in their minds made Russia subservient to
Napoleon, and predicted that France would soon restore Poland, the first step
in the eventual decline of Russia. “Whoever might rule Russia in the future,”
one field marshal concluded, “we, the noblemen, would manage to preserve
our property. But the [Romanov dynasty], if it continues its current policy,
would lose everything it has.”85
chapter 15 The Northern Question, 1807–1811

T he wars of the third and Fourth Coalitions were far more complex
events than the traditional narratives suggest, with their focus on
Napoleon’s defeat of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. In addition to their pro-
found impact on central Europe, these conflicts decisively changed the bal-
ance of power in the Baltic region with far-reaching ramifications for the
Scandinavian countries.
At the start of the nineteenth century, Scandinavia consisted of just two
states: the kingdoms of Denmark, whose domains extended to Schleswig,
Holstein, Greenland, Iceland, and Norway, and of Sweden, whose kings
also ruled over Finland, parts of Pomerania, and the city of Wismar. Once
a dominant partner in the so-called Kalmar Union, which brought together
the Scandinavian nations in 1397, Denmark was gradually eclipsed by its
Swedish neighbors, especially in the wake of the Thirty Years’ War, when
King Gustavus Adolphus’s intervention marked the rise of Sweden as the
dominant regional power. The two states routinely went to war against each
other, with the Swedes gaining the upper hand throughout the seventeenth
century. Yet the eighteenth century had not been kind to the Swedish rulers,
who had witnessed a gradual decline of their influence in the Baltic due to
the rise of the Russian Empire. Sweden’s defeat during the Great Northern
War (1700–1721) meant that Denmark enjoyed a period of economic growth,
with its agricultural expansion stimulating an increase in maritime activity,
an important factor in Denmark’s eventual involvement in the Napoleonic
Wars. By contrast, Sweden’s economic and military weakness after the Great
Northern War did little to reduce its desire to revive past glories. The
Swedish sovereigns still harbored hopes of acquiring Norway, linked by a
common crown to Denmark since 1536.1
65 25° 20° 15° 10° 5° 0° 5° 10° 15° 20° 25° 30° 35° 40° 45°
°

Russian invasion of Finland


British Navy
Battle between Russia and Finland
Reykjavik
Battle between Norwey and Sweden, 1808-09

A R C T I C
O C E A N

Icelandinc Republic, White


1809 Sea
60 Torneå
°

Siikajoki
Skellefteå
Revolax
Brahestad Pulkkila
Trangen Gamlakarleby
Svartholm Jacobstad
Salmi
Kuopio Lake
Oravais Karstula Onega
Härjedalen
Gulf of Lake
Bothnia FINLAND Ladoga
SWEDEN
Fortress of
Bergen Sveaborg
Kongsvinger Åland
KINGDOM OF Islands Abo
Christiania Helsinki
55 Lier Jerpset land St Petersburg
°
Mobekk Stockholm of Fin
Gulf
Reval

Anglo-Danish RUSSIA
(Gunboats) War Gothenburg
mid-May,1809 Gotland
1807-1814

1801; 1807 Riga


Copenhagen Anglo-Russia War
North NORWAY 1807-1812
Lillebælt Zealand Malmo Smolensk
Sea Island
Öresund
Baltic Sea
Storebælt
Konigsberg
Lubeck Danzig Vilna
50
°
Hamburg Minsk
Amsterdam Bremen PRUSSIA
Stettin
Hannover Berlin 0 100 200 Kilometers
Brussels Warsaw
0 100 200 Miles

Map 16: North Europe


334 | the napoleonic wars

The already complex political situation in the Baltic was further compli-
cated by the start of the French Revolution, which produced contrasting
reactions on either side of the Danish Straits. In the Danish realm, the middle
class tended to be sympathetic to the revolutionary changes unfolding in
France because of reforms that were already well under way under the aegis
of a benevolent absolutism in Denmark. Danish writer Knud Rahbek liked
to describe himself, half jokingly, as “ ‘a Jacobin in France but a royalist in
Denmark,” a description that many of his fellow Danes probably would have
accepted.2 Denmark remained neutral throughout the Revolutionary Wars,
concerned more about British naval power than the spread of revolutionary
ideology. Britain was naturally concerned with maintaining trade with and
naval access to the Baltic region, elements crucial to its own naval power.
Should the Danes come under France’s influence, British trade and access
would be imperiled because of the closure of the narrow Sound, the strait that
served as British shipping’s only entry into the Baltic Sea. Moreover, the
Danish navy, considering its size and quality, could also pose a major threat,
since a possible union of the Danish, French-Dutch, and Spanish naval forces
would put British control of the North Sea, if not the rest of the Atlantic, in
jeopardy. It was these tensions that ultimately resulted in the British attack
on Denmark in 1801. Interestingly, the British aggression did not result in
a Franco-Danish alliance, partly because of Danish crown prince regent
Frederick’s dislike for Bonaparte, and France in general. The Danish govern-
ment instead strove to remain neutral, a policy reinforced by the reality of the
Danish economy’s dependence on neutral trade and shipping.
In Sweden, where there had been a growing conflict between the aristoc-
racy and a monarchy that showed an autocratic streak. King Gustavus IV
Adolf’s abhorrence of the French Revolution resulted in Sweden’s direct
involvement in anti-French coalitions, which required considerable expense
and yet brought no tangible benefits.3 In 1805 Gustavus’s decision to join the
Third Coalition led to the Franco-Swedish War, which began with the
Swedish declaration of war on France in October 1805. A month later, an
Anglo-Russian-Swedish expeditionary force landed in Swedish Pomerania
but was unable to make headway against the French troops in Hanover.
Napoleon’s triumph at Austerlitz in December forced the coalition partners
to withdraw their forces, leaving just Swedish troops to defend Pomerania.4
In 1806, during the War of the Fourth Coalition, Sweden was surprised by
the sudden collapse of Prussia and tried desperately to evacuate its forces but
was caught unprepared by the rapidly advancing French forces at Lübeck,
where, on November 6, 1806, the French routed the fleeing Prussian troops
of General Blucher and trapped the few remaining Swedish troops.5 Although
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 335

of minor military importance, this event did have political ramifications—


Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte’s respectful treatment of captive Swedish
officers earned him goodwill among the Swedes, who remembered his benev-
olence when the French marshal was considered as a possible candidate for an
heir to the Swedish throne four years later.
In early 1807, Napoleon ordered his troops to invade Swedish Pomerania
and seize its main port city, Stralsund. Marshal Édouard Mortier blockaded
the city after his efforts to capture it had been frustrated by the Swedish gar-
rison under Hans Henric von Essen. The siege lasted throughout the spring
of 1807, with Essen scoring a brief success in late March when Napoleon’s
decision to divert the bulk of Mortier’s corps to the fortress of Kolberg in
Prussian Pomerania allowed the Swedes to push the remaining French troops
away from the city, briefly lifting the siege. The Swedish offensive, in fact,
captured more than 1,500 French prisoners and several towns, reviving King
Gustavus’s hopes for a successful campaign against his French nemesis. The
unexpected nature of the Swedish success, however, proved its undoing, as
the French quickly responded to this new threat. Mortier returned in force to
Pomerania, defeated the Swedes at Belling on April 16, and compelled them
to seek a truce two days later. Napoleon, preoccupied with the military oper-
ations against the Russians and Prussians in Poland, agreed to accept the
terms of the Armistice of Schlatkow, which transferred the islands of Usedom
and Wolin (in the estuary of the Oder River) to France and allowed Swedish
troops to remain in Pomerania only north of the Peene River.6
The Armistice of Schlatkow threatened to undermine Anglo-Swedish
relations. The British government denounced it as a disgraceful capitulation
and warned the Swedish royal government against conducting formal peace
talks with France. Britain’s fears that armistice might signal a change in
Swedish foreign policy were not entirely unfounded, given that many in the
Swedish government and army believed that the long-standing Anglo-Swedish
“Common Cause” was actually detrimental to Swedish interests.7 Although
the two states entered into alliance in 1805, contemporary observers remem-
bered well that Sweden had joined the League of Armed Neutrality against
Britain just four years earlier and was in fact a much more eager partner than
Denmark. Furthermore, many Swedish officers opposed participation in the
Third Coalition and could not see any worth in their campaign in Pomerania,
a territory that their king had repeatedly tried to swap for Norway. But King
Gustavus nonetheless remained resolutely anti-French, still disgruntled by
the lack of French support for his Pomeranian-Norwegian exchange plan,
Napoleon’s meddling in German affairs, and the Imperial Recess. The final
straw that led him to become resolutely anti-French was the publication of
336 | the napoleonic wars

scathing remarks about him in the French official newspaper Le Moniteur in


the wake of his outspoken condemnation of the murder of the duc d’Enghien.
For Gustavus, the spring armistice was just a respite that allowed him to
negotiate with Prussia and Russia regarding a joint attack on the French.
On April 20, just two days after the armistice was agreed upon, Sweden joined
Russia and Prussia in the Convention of Bartenstein, in which they pledged
to make no separate peace with Napoleon and agreed that Prussian troops
should join the Swedes in Rügen for the purpose of driving the French from
Pomerania.8 After ratifying the convention, the Swedish king traveled to
Stralsund, where he took personal charge of the Swedish forces and denounced
the armistice on July 3. His decision was bolstered by the signing of two con-
ventions (on June 17 and 23) with Britain, which in addition to its usual offer
of subsidies also pledged to commit troops to the war in Pomerania.9
Gustavus’s timing for the renewal of his alliance with Britain could not
have been worse, since Prussia and Russia, militarily defeated and exhausted,
were on the cusp of signing the Treaty of Tilsit, the news of which reached
Gustavus only a few days after the rupture of the armistice. The Prussian
troops were thus withdrawn, and although the British expeditionary force
under Lord Cathcart arrived at Stralsund in mid-July, it failed to support
Swedish troops in Pomerania. Instead the British force was recalled once
news of the Treaty of Tilsit revealed the scale of Napoleon’s triumph in north-
ern Europe. Left alone to face the French, the Swedes crumbled. Napoleon
responded to the Swedish bluster by sending Marshal Guillaume Brune into
Swedish Pomerania, where the French, reinforced by their German, Italian,
and Spanish allies, quickly overran Swedish defenses and laid siege yet again
to Stralsund. Gustavus hastily departed from the city in late August, leaving
to his hapless generals the task of fighting the French. The Swedish com-
mand quickly came to the conclusion that resistance was futile, and after
spiking most of their cannon they evacuated the city, assisted in this by
Brune’s decision to allow them to depart when he could have easily annihi-
lated the Swedish army at Rügen. By September, Stralsund and the neigh-
boring island of Rügen were in French hands, while Sweden was driven out
of Germany.10
In the wake of the Swedish defeat in Pomerania and the Franco-Russian
rapprochement at Tilsit, Britain focused its attention on Denmark, which at
the start of the nineteenth century faced two main challenges: the protection
of its maritime commerce, which had been threatened by Britain, and the
preservation of its own safety in the face of the rising power of France on the
continent. We have already seen how incensed the Danes were by the British
practice of stopping and examining neutral commerce, including Danish
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 337

merchantmen, which caused Denmark to support the League of Armed


Neutrality in 1800–1801. The British attack on Copenhagen dissuaded the
Danish monarchy from participating in the league, but it also hardened Danish
sentiments toward the British. During the Wars of the Third and Fourth
Coalitions Denmark prudently adopted neutrality, though this did not spare
it from the rigors of war.
In late 1806, in the wake of Jena-Auerstadt, Napoleon’s forces approached
Danish frontiers while pursuing the retreating Prussian troops. In November,
during the fighting at Lübeck, French troops under Marshal Joachim Murat
strayed into the Danish province of Holstein, where they were promptly
engaged by the Danish border guards.11 The Danish crown prince regent
(kronprinsregent) Frederick, who acted as the regent for his mentally incapaci-
tated father, King Christian VII, protested the French violation of neutral
territory, and Murat immediately withdrew his troops, pledging to take
“extreme measures to ensure respect for the neutrality” of the Danish realm.12
However, just ten days after this exchange, the prince regent ordered his
troops to redeploy to a new defensive line along the Eyder River, which
meant that the province of Holstein had been all but abandoned by the
Danes. The Danish decision was intended to show their commitment to neu-
trality as well as ensure the goodwill of Napoleon, who was anxious to protect
his lines of communication. Yet the powers leagued in the Fourth Coalition
were upset by these Danish “sympathies” for Napoleon, since neither Russia,
Prussia, nor Britain could anticipate the lengths to which Prince Frederick
was willing to go in his efforts to appease the French emperor. In December
1806 Britain considered organizing an alliance with Sweden and Denmark to
defend northern Europe. Inspired by their experiences in Sicily, where the
Royal Navy protected the Bourbon royal family of Naples, the British
government offered to assist the Danish monarchy if it decided to leave
Copenhagen for the safety of Norway, which could be well protected by a
British squadron. Sweden expressed readiness to send troops to Denmark for
a joint defense of the realm. The Danes rejected the offer, which went against
their declared policy of neutrality and would have resulted in the French
capture of the whole of Denmark or, worse still, the country’s occupation by
Swedish troops.13 The Danish refusal to cooperate, however, upset coalition
partners, who were determined to take whatever steps were necessary to
make Denmark side with them. Thus, though the April 1807 Convention of
Bartenstein contained provisions to force Denmark to join the coalition, the
continental powers had no opportunity to put it into effect.
Britain, however, could act, and in the summer of 1807 it did. The British
decision to launch a naval attack on a neutral (however tentatively) country
338 | the napoleonic wars

caused a fierce public outcry and was condemned by many leading political
and public figures at home. George Canning, foreign secretary in the gov-
ernment of Prime Minister William Henry Cavendish-Bentinck, Duke of
Portland, claimed that the decision had been prompted by crucial intelli-
gence gained about the Franco-Russian negotiations at Tilsit—involving
Napoleon discussing the possible formation of a Franco-Russian maritime
league against Britain, a league that Denmark, Portugal, and Sweden were to
be forced to join.14 Yet when challenged by the opposition, Canning could
not produce any conclusive evidence of this, nor could he prove that Denmark
would have placed its fleet at Napoleon’s disposal.15 In later years it emerged
that some details of the Franco-Russian discussions came from a British
agent, Colin Alexander Mackenzie, whose family claimed he had procured
this information by disguising himself during the emperors’ meeting on a
raft, an exploit that can be safely rejected as preposterous.16 The intelligence
on the possible maritime league against Britain actually came from the comte
d’Antraigues, a French royalist émigré in the Russian service who, in turn,
received it from one of Alexander I’s aides-de-camp. Recent analysis has
shown that d’Antraigues’s letter was full of inaccuracies and was most cer-
tainly written to secure for d’Antraigues a permanent refuge and pension in
Britain.17 Canning believed that he had received genuine intelligence from
Tilsit, however, and his certainty would in turn have impressed other mem-
bers of the government.
While d’Antraigues’s letter may have provided an immediate cause for the
expedition, the underlying reasons for the British expedition to Copenhagen
were more complex. That the Portland government considered the situation
in Denmark so key is reflective of the Baltic region’s central role in Britain’s
notions of its security and trade. Britain’s well-being was based on the strength
and quality of its fleet. Yet with British forests all but depleted by the late
eighteenth century, the Royal Navy had become largely dependent on for-
eign wood supplies. The Baltic was crucial because it was a source of Russian
timber—the oak and fir used for masts, underwater planking, and decking.
Britain could acquire these resources from other locations (in Germany or
North America), but they tended to be inferior in some aspects and the Royal
Navy frequently rejected them.18 Equally important for the Navy was Russian
hemp, which accounted for more than 90 percent of the British needs. Though
successive British governments tried to diversify their sources by cultivating
hemp in North America and elsewhere, their efforts produced paltry results,
leaving Britain heavily dependent on Russia and the Baltic trade.19 The
Baltic region also served as an important trade emporium, one in which the
value of British exports had increased sevenfold between 1793 and 1803, a
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 339

clear consequence of the French policy of denying British trade access to


continental ports.20
London was concerned not just with safeguarding its trade and naval sup-
plies but also with denying Napoleon an opportunity to rebuild his naval
capacity after Trafalgar. Denmark’s alliance with Napoleon would furnish the
latter with a means of closing the Sound, blocking Britain’s access to the raw
materials necessary to the upkeep of the Royal Navy, while the Danish fleet—
fifth-largest in the world, with twenty ships-of-the-line (plus three under
construction), twenty-seven frigates, and sixty smaller vessels—could, in
combination with Napoleon’s naval resources, pose a serious threat to British
control of the North Sea.21
Thus from the British perspective the general situation in 1807 was far
worse than that of 1800 because it came about in the wake of Napoleon’s
triumphs over Prussia and Russia, which had extended French control all
the way to the Baltic shores. Danish withdrawal from Holstein, complains
against the British blockade of the Elbe (instituted in response to Napoleon’s
Berlin Decrees), new work on Danish coastal defenses, and, most important,
British reports (that were far from accurate) that the Danish fleet was prepar-
ing to sail within a month all reinforced the British government’s opinion
that the Danes were hostile to Britain and were only waiting for an oppor-
tune moment to show their hand.22 This threat touched Britain’s most sensi-
tive spot, and the reaction was immediate. For Canning and many other
senior British statesmen, it was time for the Royal Navy to pay another
“visit” to Copenhagen, and Denmark’s supposed inability to defend itself
against Napoleon gave Britain an excuse to portray its actions as a matter of
self-preservation.23 Danish historians might have a point when they argue
that in the wake of Napoleon’s string of victories on the continent, a forceful
action against Denmark served the political purpose of showing the British
public, and the world, that Britain had not been beaten yet.24
The British government chose to ignore (whether intentionally or not)
Danish efforts to resist Napoleon. It is deeply ironic that had the British
expedition been postponed, the Danish court still would have had to choose
whether to side with or against Britain, because Napoleon was about to force
its hand. On July 31 he ordered his foreign minister to warn the Danish gov-
ernment to take action against British violation of the Baltic Sea and to
“choose either to make war on England or on me.”25 Talleyrand, who resigned
from his post nine days later, did not convey his master’s ultimatum during
his meeting with the Danish emissary in Paris and instead assured him of
Napoleon’s readiness to let Denmark continue its existing policy of neutral-
ity. The cause for Talleyrand’s disobedience remains unknown, though a tal-
340 | the napoleonic wars

ented diplomat like him could have easily anticipated possible repercussions
of the more aggressive approach that Napoleon tended to favor. He would
have been well aware of the Danish government’s announcement that should
the French demand the closure of its ports to British ships, it would consider
Britain as its “natural ally.” Inexplicably, the British government paid no
attention to such a declaration, just as it ignored the Danish refusal to com-
ply with the French demand for the closure of the British mail route through
Denmark.26
In any case, Britain proceeded with an attack. On July 26 Admiral
James Gambier sailed from Yarmouth Roads for Copenhagen in command of
twenty-five ships-of-the-line and forty frigates and other vessels. Accompanying
him was Lieutenant General Lord Cathcart, in charge of an expeditionary
force of more than 25,000 men in 377 transports. The British fleet anchored
off Helsinger on August 3 and quickly moved to secure the Storebælt (Great
Belt) Strait to blockade Copenhagen. At this point, the experience of the
1801 expedition played a decisive role—the Great Belt had been unnaviga-
ble for anyone but the Danes until the Royal Navy charted it in 1801. The
Danes, surprised by the arrival of the British armada, rejected the British
demand to hand over their entire fleet and enter into a defensive alliance.27
They could have hardly done otherwise. Throughout 1806–1807 the Danish
monarch hoped that by avoiding overt hostile acts and asserting neutrality,
it would be able to maneuver between France and Britain.28 The arrival
of Gambier’s fleet now left them no choice. As Danish diplomat Joachim
Bernstorff lamented, “A war with England will be disastrous for us. Yet any
compliance with England’s demands must inevitably cause a rupture with
France.”29 He was correct. While war with Britain entailed financial disrup-
tion and naval destruction for Denmark, a conflict with France certainly
would have led to French occupation of Holstein and Schleswig, if not the
Jutland Peninsula—in other words, a larger share of Denmark’s most popu-
lated areas.
On August 15, with diplomatic negotiations called off, Gambier launched
his attack on Copenhagen. The British troops landed at Vedbaek and
Skodsborg, a few miles north of Copenhagen, and approached the Danish
capital. On the sixteenth, Denmark formally declared war on Britain, a dec-
laration followed by first skirmishes between the two sides. After the land
attacks failed to coerce the Danes, on September 2 the British fleet com-
menced its bombardment of Copenhagen, one that was directed not only at
the city defenses, a legitimate military target, but at the city itself. The
British applied the valuable lessons they had learned six years earlier and
organized one of the most intensive bombardments of the entire nineteenth
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 341

century, launching hundreds of bombs, grenades, and incendiary rockets,


which caused significant damage and set the central districts of Copenhagen,
including its Latin quarter, on fire, though the loss of life was surprisingly
low.30 On September 6 the Danes capitulated, agreeing to the British
demands, including the occupation of Heligoland and the Danish colonies in
the West Indies, as well as the surrender of the entire Danish fleet. No less
valuable was the seizure of supplies from the Danish naval dockyard, which
included thousands of tons of naval stores, wood, hempen ropes, sails, and
masts.31 It took six weeks of hard work—proof of how wrongheaded earlier
British promises had been—for the British to prepare as many Danish war-
ships as they could for a journey to Britain; those that could not be readied
were destroyed. On October 21 Admiral Gambier sailed back home, pleased
at having successfully prevented augmentation of Napoleon’s naval strength.
The Copenhagen expedition was a major British success, neutralizing a
potential naval threat. It was also significant for the effect it had in Portugal,
where just weeks later the Portuguese monarchy found itself faced with
British and French demands. With events in Copenhagen undoubtedly fresh
in his mind, the Portuguese king chose to accept the British offer to help him
evacuate to Brazil. Nonetheless, success at Copenhagen came at a heavy price
for Britain. Just ten days after the British departure, the Danes signed a
treaty of alliance with Napoleon and on November 4 declared war on Britain.
An unprovoked attack by a great power on a weaker neutral state had deprived
Britain of any higher moral ground in its struggle against Napoleon, whom
the British government routinely condemned for violating international
law. “We shall henceforth be dubbed the Nation of Saracens instead of the
Nation of Shopkeepers,” observed one British general.32 The bombardment
of Copenhagen aggravated the resentment that coalition partners already felt
toward Britain’s perceived unfaithfulness; Russian, Swedish, and Prussian
diplomats compared the swiftness and efficiency with which the British
government organized this expedition to Denmark with the slothfulness of
its actions when the allies needed British support.
Copenhagen echoed particularly strongly in St. Petersburg. Emperor
Alexander had already agreed at Tilsit to go to war against Britain should his
mediation fail. In August, just as the British fleet sailed to the Danish shores,
the new Russian ambassador to London, Maximilian von Alopeus, offered
the British government Russia’s mediation and was told in clear terms that
Britain was not interested; a similar response was also given to Prussian and
Austrian overtures to discuss a general peace. British intransigence, viewed
against the backdrop of bombardment of Copenhagen, did much to alienate
European powers, especially in Russia, where there was a growing belief that
342 | the napoleonic wars

the alliance with Britain no longer served Russian interests.33 Thus in a


declaration of November 5, 1807, the Russian government broke off all
communication with Britain, reproaching it for revealing global imperial
aspirations (as shown by the British invasions of Rio de La Plata and Egypt)
and for failing to adequately support its allies.34 Britain was now at war with
all but three European states (Sweden, Portugal, and Sicily).
The British attack on Copenhagen also had far-reaching consequences for
Scandinavian nations. Within Denmark, the attack caused a burst of pa­tri­ot­
ism that helped rally the people against Britain and sustained the Danish war
effort for the next seven years. The government did its best to enflame public
opinion against Britain, supporting publication of numerous articles and
pamphlets in German, French, and English and commissioning special propa-
ganda prints.35 The attack on Copenhagen turned Denmark from a neutral
power into a dependable ally of Napoleon for the duration of the Napoleonic
Wars.36 It also ignited a new conflict in Scandinavia, whose two halves were
pulled in opposite directions, and involved both of them in the wider strug-
gle between the supreme land powers (France and Russia) and the preemi-
nent sea power (Britain), which now regarded the European coastline as a
frontier zone.
The Danes may have lost their fleet but not their desire to fight back. In
the immediate aftermath of the war, thousands of Danish and Norwegian
seamen joined in Anglo-Danish hostilities that became known as the “gun-
boat war” and involved small operations in which shallow-draft vessels went
after British shipping along the North Sea and Baltic coasts. Although a
constant nuisance to the Royal Navy, the Danish gunboats never came close
to challenging British control of the seas.37 The fighting unfolded not only
in the North Sea but also in the Caribbean and India; in December 1807
a Royal Navy squadron under Admiral Alexander Cochrane captured the
Danish islands of St. Thomas (December 22) and Santa Cruz (December 25),
which remained in British hands until the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
Meanwhile, in February 1808, the British took control over the Danish
possessions at Tranquebar (Tharangambadi, in south India) and Serampore
(in northeast India). This marked an abrupt end to Denmark’s lucrative trade
in colonial wares. Denmark’s finances suffered both from the heavy burden of
financing the war and from the disruption of trade with Britain and its ship-
ping industry; by 1811, the kingdom was forced to suspend capital payments
on its foreign loans.
The Danish prince regent found himself between a rock and a hard place.
Despite his opposition, a war against Sweden became one of the key provi-
sions of the Franco-Danish alliance. Even though the decision to wage war
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 343

was not his, this was obviously how it appeared to the Danish public, the
Norwegians in particular. It drove a wedge between Denmark and Norway,
which was highly dependent on the seas for its trade and food supplies
and traditionally enjoyed close ties with the British Isles, which consumed
Norwegian timber, iron, and other commodities. With Denmark’s entry into
the war, Norway found itself subjected to a British blockade that, combined
with the bad harvests of 1807–1808, caused much hardship among its popu-
lace, some of whom were reduced to consuming bark bread for survival.38
Also not spared was Iceland, which had remained one of Denmark’s depen-
dencies since the late fourteenth century. At the start of the Napoleonic Wars,
it was a sparsely populated island (Reykjavik boasted a population of just 307
in 1801) that believed itself far enough from Europe to escape the ravages of
wars and revolutions.39 The British bombardment of Copenhagen proved
otherwise. In its immediate aftermath the British navy began to intercept
Icelandic ships, causing considerable misery.
At the same time, the British had revived earlier plans to seize the island
from Denmark and either turn it into a penal colony, similar to the infamous
Botany Bay colony in Australia, or exploit its famed cod fisheries.40 The
British government sought the advice of Sir Joseph Banks, the great British
botanist and president of the Royal Society who had led the first scientific
expedition to the island and had firsthand knowledge. Banks produced a
lengthy memorandum supporting annexation plans—Iceland quite simply
“ought to be a part of the British Empire,” he argued—but advising against
a military expedition, given that the local population lacked firearms. Banks
was instrumental in convincing the British ministry to change its policy
toward Iceland and secured the release of detained Icelandic vessels, which
were allowed to resume trade with the continent. In return, British mer-
chants were granted licenses to trade on the island.41
The first British trading expedition, led by soap merchant Samuel Phelps,
sought to trade in wool, fish, and tallow, which were readily available in Iceland.
However, the expedition caused political turmoil. Britain and Denmark were
at war and the expedition could not hope to secure the support of the Danish
governor of Iceland, Count Frederik Christopher Trampe, who remained
loyal to the metropole and tried his best to obstruct trade with Britain by
posting notices that any interaction would be a capital offense. Unable to
comprehend how Trampe could refuse an offer to relieve the suffering of the
starving Icelandic population, Phelps decided to impose “a free trade” on the
islanders, soliciting Joseph Bank’s help in securing the dispatch of a British
warship to Iceland. Returning to the island in June 1809, Phelps found that
Trampe was still intractable, and so Phelps resolved the matter by having
344 | the napoleonic wars

him detained and deposed from his post. Realizing that he had overstepped
the boundaries of his trading license, Phelps sought to distance himself
from the incident and allowed his twenty-nine-year-old interpreter, Jørgen
Jørgensen, a Dane who, as Phelps put it, “had imbibed all the quixotism of a
petit Napoleon,” to take over governance.42 On June 26, 1809, Jørgensen
assumed the role of the governor of Iceland.43
Born in Copenhagen in 1780, Jørgensen seemed an unlikely revolution-
ary.44 He had spent most of his adult life in the British navy, crisscrossing the
oceans to New Zealand, Tasmania, and South Africa. In 1807 he witnessed
the British bombardment of Copenhagen and embarked on a new career as a
privateer, attacking British vessels. This career lasted less than six months;
the ship he had commanded was stumbled upon and captured by a British
warship. and Jørgensen was put on parole. In 1809 he broke his parole by
absconding from Britain as an interpreter for Phelps’s trade expedition to
Iceland, where he found himself in charge of the local government. Jørgensen
proved to be a natural at it. He declared Iceland free and independent of
Denmark.45
Taking advantage of the islanders’ calm response to the overthrow of the
royal governor, Jørgensen began to introduce Jacobin-like political and social
reforms: the granting of basic rights and freedoms, equality before the law,
voting rights, educational reform, and relief for the poor. All debts owed to
the Danish monarchy or Danish merchants were forgiven, while taxes were
slashed in half. Jørgensen’s professed intentions were to form an Icelandic
republic with a legislative assembly that was democratically elected from
across the island. Facing pushback from certain groups within the island’s
community, Jørgensen declared himself “protector” and claimed absolute
authority until the convocation of the legislative body, scheduled for July
1810. To enforce his reforms, he also formed a militia, mainly staffed by petty
criminals, which he used to arrest dissenters. The arrival of a Danish merchant
ship with 10,000 Danish rigsdaler of overdue wages proved a boon for the new
government, which immediately seized it and used to sustain its reforms.
The Icelandic republic survived for just nine weeks before its existence
was cut short by the arrival of HMS Talbot, which was dispatched to follow
up on the success of Phelps’s trading party. Instead, Captain Alexander Jones
was astonished to find a fledgling republic governed by a former Danish pris-
oner of war. Jørgensen’s political opponents exploited this opportunity to
denounce him, prompting Captain Jones to arrest Jørgensen and declare all
proclamations and decrees issued by the new government void. On August 25,
1809, two months after seizing power, Jørgensen left Iceland as a prisoner
once again of the British.46
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 345

The brief life of the Icelandic republic highlights the impact of the
Napoleonic Wars on even remote corners of Europe, but it also offers a clear
indication of the absence of political nationalism or democratic ideas in many
areas. Jørgensen’s vision of a democratic and egalitarian Iceland was admira-
ble, but its ephemeral nature was due to the passivity of ordinary islanders,
who did not defend their newly acquired rights and freedoms. Wealthy
islanders were more concerned about a possible British ban on navigation
between Iceland and the European mainland, which would have been disas-
trous for the island’s maritime economy. Indeed, some British officials were
alarmed by the spread of the revolutionary spirit in Iceland and insisted on a
more direct involvement in its affairs. In February 1810 the British govern-
ment reaffirmed its recognition of Danish sovereignty over Iceland but
announced that the island would remain a dependency for the remainder of
the war.47
Though the Swedes were not privy to the British planning for the attack
on Copenhagen, their alliance with Britain had exposed them to charges of
being a co-conspirator. Senior Swedish officials openly expressed their com-
plaints that the British preoccupation with Copenhagen contributed to the
defeat of the Swedish campaign in Pomerania, and even those who had sup-
ported pro-British policies in the two years previous had become disillu-
sioned by their ally’s actions. They worried that the Copenhagen attack
would provoke a direct confrontation between Britain and the Franco-Russian
alliance, which would inevitably drag the Swedish kingdom into a ruinous
war and undermine its international standing even further.48 Sweden had
already of course lost Pomerania, a major blow to its ambitions in northern
Europe. In an effort to soften the impact and to retain control of the Sound,
the British invited King Gustavus to participate in the occupation of Själland
(the island of Zealand), which could economically benefit Sweden though the
collection of fees on the traffic in the Sound. But Gustavus, disillusioned by
Britain’s failure to support him in Pomerania, declined to participate in a
venture that would have further stoked suspicions of Swedish collusion in the
British attack on Copenhagen and could have gotten him embroiled in a war
with Denmark and Norway. Instead he urged Britain to ensure that Denmark
would remain neutral and serve as a buffer zone for Sweden. This was entirely
unrealistic in post-Copenhagen (and post-Tilsit) environment. The Danes
fell into the waiting hands of Napoleon, who negotiated the Treaty of
Fontainebleau on October 31, 1807. Denmark and France agreed to make
common cause for the duration of the war and not to conclude a peace with
Britain separately. Furthermore, Napoleon pledged to guarantee the territo-
rial integrity of Denmark and promised to procure compensation for Danish
346 | the napoleonic wars

losses during the war. Prince Regent Frederick committed himself to France’s
ongoing struggle against Britain and agreed to join the Continental System
and participate in all efforts to force Sweden to join the trade war against
Britain. Thus the two Scandinavian states found themselves in a unique sit-
uation: neither of them really desired to have a problem with the other, and
least of all war, but were nevertheless drawn into the vortex of international
affairs that forced them to choose sides (Britain or France) and find them-
selves at war with each other.
Denmark’s lurch toward France spurred the British to secure the strategi-
cally important Danish Straits. Britain made at least two more offers to
Sweden to protect the straits, by either occupying Zealand or deploying
British troops in Scania, the southernmost province of Sweden; to sweeten
the deal Canning even offered to transfer the Dutch colony of Surinam to
Swedish control. These offers were met with lukewarm support at the Swedish
court, which was concerned that the presence of British troops might under-
mine Swedish sovereignty and imperil a region that had served as a breadbas-
ket for the entire kingdom. As enticing as the Surinam offer was, the Swedish
ministers knew how challenging it would be to govern and protect the dis-
tant colony. The British offer only served to deepen divisions in the Swedish
government, as the king and his ministers had already found themselves
increasingly at odds over the future direction of the Swedish realm: Gustavus
believed that an Anglo-Swedish alliance could serve as a deterrent against
French or Russian aggression, while his ministers perceived this partnership
as one of the main reasons Sweden was having problems with its neighbors.
Sweden’s continued alliance with Britain caused restlessness in Russia,
which was concerned about the growing British presence in the Baltic Sea.
The Baltic was particularly critical to Russia, because the Russians had lim-
ited access to warm-water ports and were consequently deprived of a larger
share of lucrative overseas trade. The Baltic Sea provided the shortest routes
into western Europe; without access to it, Russia could not develop its econ-
omy or hope to project its status as a great European power. Russia’s presence
on the Baltic was closely intertwined with its imperial identity. In the seven-
teenth century Peter the Great spent much of his reign “opening a window
into Europe” through the Baltic. The Great Northern War between Russia
and Sweden resulted in Russia annexing territories in eastern Finland and
along the southern Baltic coastline. A new capital of the empire, St. Petersburg,
was built on the eastern coast of the Gulf of Finland, and the political center
of the Russian Empire was shifted northwest.
The struggle between Sweden and Russia continued, however. In 1741
Sweden, supported by France and Turkey, declared war against Russia; within
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 347

two years it was defeated and was forced to accept a new, more disadvanta-
geous peace concluded at Åbo (Turku).49 Forty-five years later, Sweden tried
to recover its lost lands again, but the two-year-long conflict with Russia
(1788–1790) turned out to be a draw, and the Peace of Wereloe confirmed
Russia’s previous territorial acquisitions. During the following decade, Russia
consolidated its positions along the Baltic coastline, seeking to secure
commercial routes into western Europe and to protect the imperial capital,
St. Petersburg. This could have been partly achieved through the conquest of
Finland, then in Swedish possession, but Russian involvement in the Polish
partitions and the outbreak of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars post-
poned any such designs Russia might have had. Defeats at the hands of
Napoleon contributed to growing Russian disenchantment with its allies,
especially Britain, which, as far as the Russians were concerned—as discussed
earlier—had failed to live up to its promises.
At Tilsit in 1807, Emperor Alexander had agreed to exact a measure of
“revenge” (in the words of a Swedish diplomat) on Britain by attacking
one of its last remaining allies, Sweden, though just a few months prior
St. Petersburg and Stockholm themselves had formed an anti-French coali-
tion.50 This diplomatic turn was not easy for the Russian sovereign to pull
off, and he faced considerable opposition at court. Again, here is where the
British attack on Copenhagen proved decisive. Alexander was infuriated by
the British aggression against his Danish ally and believed that it violated
the Russo-Swedish agreements of 1780 and 1800 regarding closing the Baltic
harbors to British ships and “uniting the three Nordic States for the mainte-
nance of the Baltic peace.”51 Concerned that the British squadron could sail
into the Gulf of Finland and threaten the Russian Baltic fleet at Kronstadt,
Alexander personally supervised the repair of the defensive works along the
coastline in the fall of 1807. Russian diplomats expressed interest in reviving
the League of Armed Neutrality and unequivocally warned the Swedes that a
failure to join the league would force St. Petersburg to review its relationship
with Stockholm.
Gustavus rejected the Russian proposition, arguing that it was designed
to weaken Sweden and facilitate Russian expansion in the Baltic Sea and
Finland.52 The king complained about the Russian forces massing near the
Finnish border and believed that a war with Russia was inevitable; he even
considered a preemptive attack against the Russian base at Kronstadt, which
his dismayed ministers quickly rejected, instead calling for a more peaceful
line toward their eastern neighbor. Baron von Ehrenheim, Sweden’s chancel-
lor for foreign affairs and a great opponent of the Anglo-Swedish alliance,
urged the king to abandon Britain and seek a rapprochement with Russia,
348 | the napoleonic wars

which relied on Sweden as a conduit for its trade with Britain; Ehrenheim
and his supporters believed that Sweden was not prepared for a direct con-
frontation with Russia and should instead adopt strict neutrality. The pros-
pect of a war with Russia increased Swedish public sentiment against the
king and the alliance with Britain. Visiting Stockholm in the fall of 1807,
one British traveler was surprised to find “anti-English feeling so general in
Sweden that I was advised to travel as a German through the country.”53
Indeed, passions ran so high among the members of the Swedish Riksdag
(assembly) that some already considered overthrowing the king and ending
the British alliance to avoid a war with Russia.
On November 10, 1807, Emperor Alexander forbade British ships from
entering Russian ports and suspended the property rights of British subjects
residing in Russia.54 He then demanded that Sweden close the Baltic Sea to
all foreign (i.e., British) warships. It took two months before the Swedish crown
responded, and on December 30, 1807, Russia threatened that if Sweden
continued to avoid giving a clear reply, it would be forced to act. Finally, in
January 1808, Gustavus rejected Russian demands to honor the previous
arrangements as long as French troops were present on the Baltic coast and
Napoleon had German ports closed to Britain. Russia considered this rejec-
tion as casus belli.
Russian preparations for war had begun two months earlier, when a new
corps of three infantry divisions was formed near the Finnish border.55 General
Fedor Buxhöwden assumed overall command, but his divisions were under-
strength and exhausted by the campaign in Poland; combined, they amounted
to just 24,000 men. The initial Russian strategy called for the occupation of
as much territory as possible before opening negotiations.56 Despite Russian
mobilization, the Swedes were not prepared for the campaign. Partly this was
due to an earlier political decision made by Gustavus and his advisors to
refrain from taking any measures that could provoke Russia into declaring
war. While they all considered war with Russia inevitable, they assumed that
hostilities would not happen until late spring of 1808, at which point the
Royal Navy could provide assistance. One may forgive the king and his min-
isters for thinking that the Russians would not risk a grueling winter war in
Finland. Yet this was exactly Russia’s plan of action, and the desperate dis-
patches full of warnings that the Swedish envoy to St. Petersburg, Curt von
Stedingk, had sent to Stockholm were all ignored.57 Thus the Swedish mili-
tary forces were not fully mobilized and remained dispersed in their winter
quarters.58 Matters were further complicated by Gustavus’s quarrel with the
Riksdag over war funding, which forced him to rely heavily on British sub-
sidies. On February 8, 1808, two weeks before the war began, Sweden and
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 349

Britain renewed their subsidy treaty and London promised to pay £1.2 million
a year.59 In early February, Gustavus ordered Field Marshal Mauritz Klingspor to
leave strong garrisons at Sveaborg and Svartholm and withdraw the remaining
forces to Ostrobotnia. The Swedish forces, reinforced with troops from Sweden
proper, would avoid any pitched battles and wait for an opportune moment
when, aided by the Royal Navy, they could commence a counterattack.60
On February 21, 1808, without issuing a formal declaration of war, notifica-
tion, or ultimatum (an omission that the Swedes condemned as a violation of
international law), the Russian Army invaded Finland.61 It spread proclamations
urging the local populations not to oppose the occupation and promising to
observe order and make payment for requisitions. Swedish soldiers were encour-
aged to surrender without a fight.62 The initial Russian strategy called for the
occupation of as much territory as possible before opening negotiations and end-
ing the war. Russian forces, therefore, advanced quickly, capturing Kuopio,
Tavastheus, Tammerfors, and Åbo, as well as the shoreline between Åbo and
Vaasa in March. In addition, the Russian advance guard seized the Åland Islands
and the island of Gotland, the latter success being particularly satisfying in light
of Russian fears that the British might establish a naval base there that would
directly threaten the Russian coastline.63 As Swedish forces withdrew north-
ward, the Russians added further territories, including Jacobstad, Gamlakarleby,
and Brahestad.64 The seizure of southern Finland without bloodshed convinced
the Russians that the campaign was almost over. By April, Emperor Alexander
had issued a manifesto requiring his new Finnish subjects to swear an oath of
loyalty to him, another violation of international law.
The war was anything but over, however. The campaign was waged across
the rough terrain of Finland, dissected by numerous streams, lakes, and fjords.
Immense swamps made many regions impassable to troops. The terrain was
more advantageous for defensive warfare than for offense; the Swedish army
included Finnish troops, who were familiar with the terrain and knew how to
exploit it. The climate of Finland constituted another problem for the Russian
army. A cold and prolonged winter required an effective supply system to
provide the army with provisions and warm clothes, but it limited operations
of the Russian fleet in the Gulf of Finland, which was partly frozen. The
spring thaw brought rains and sleet that further complicated troop move-
ments. The Swedes concentrated their forces in the north, where they were
better supplied and reinforced from the mainland. Russian columns, on the
other hand, were extended along lengthy lines of communication, with sig-
nificant numbers of forces tied up at the fortress of Sveaborg, pacifying a
Finnish population that displayed increasing discontent with the Russian
presence in the region.
350 | the napoleonic wars

The Swedish high command failed to exploit these advantages. Gustavus


refused calls for reinforcements to be diverted from the Norwegian front and
instead pinned his hopes on a general uprising in Finland and the great
Swedish fortresses at Svartholm and Sveaborg that were expected to wear
down Russian forces before the impending counterattack. Yet such hopes
were soon dashed. First, on March 17, the fort at Svartholm capitulated to the
Russians, who then turned their attention to Sveaborg, the largest and the
most formidable of all fortresses in Finland, well supplied and supported by
a naval squadron and defended by a strong Swedish garrison of some 6,700 men
as well as more than 1,000 cannon under Vice Admiral Karl Olof Cronstedt.
The Russians blockaded the fortress on March 19 and then attacked, but
their attacks caused no serious damage. Unwilling to jeop­ard­ize their forces
in an all-out assault, the Russians instead exploited anti-Gustavian senti-
ments in the Swedish officer corps, most notably Cronstedt himself, who was
bitter over his earlier demotion. Through ruses and bribes, Russian represen-
tatives General Paul van Suchtelen and Göran Magnus Sprengtporten con-
vinced the Swedish commander to surrender. On May 6 Cronstedt handed
over Sveaborg with its depots and military installations intact, allowing the
Russians to seize more than a hundred gunboats and some 1,200 cannon.65
The fall of Sveaborg, which was the linchpin of the Swedish defenses in
Finland, was joyously celebrated in St. Petersburg.66 Unsurprisingly, the news
startled and demoralized the Swedish side. Equally grave was the impact on
British confidence in the Swedes’ ability to successfully prosecute this war.
Sweden, meanwhile, faced a new international challenge. On March 13,
1808, as the Russians were invading Finland, the mentally deranged King
Christian VII of Denmark passed away and was replaced by Frederick VI,
who pursued a harder stance toward Sweden. Just a day later, the Danish
envoy presented a declaration of war to the Swedish government.67 Napoleon
did his best to encourage Danish ambitions of exploiting Sweden’s vulnerable
position to reclaim territories lost in the preceding century, and so the Danes
looked hopefully to the French promise, made in the Treaty of Fontainebleau,
to provide some 30,000 Franco-Spanish troops under Marshal Bernadotte to
invade Sweden.68 Both Napoleon and Frederick VI expected that Sweden
would be easily defeated in a war that would involve a Russian attack through
Finland, a Norwegian thrust against Gothenburg, and the Danish invasion
of southern Sweden from Zealand.
The surprise news of the Danish declaration of war naturally caused great
alarm in Sweden, which now found itself threatened from almost every direc-
tion.69 The Swedish public complained about the loss of Finnish territories,
the obvious lack of preparation for the war, and the lack of strong military
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 351

leadership. Even senior Swedish officials expressed their reservations over


Sweden’s situation. “The kingdom is completely exposed on the Norwegian
border and disturbing rumors already are spreading,” lamented Chancellor
Ehrenheim in March 1808, “and yet no one here [in Stockholm], not even
the most senior military officials, knows about our means to resist.”70 King
Gustavus initially intended to launch an invasion of Denmark, but the
Swedish setbacks in Finland and the prospect of fighting the French caused
him to sideline this plan; instead, the Swedish forces in Götaland were placed
in defensive positions and the focus shifted to Norway, which Sweden consid-
ered the weakest of its opponents and where it hoped to find compensation
for the loss of Finland to Russia. The king ordered a reorganization of the
Swedish forces to form a new army under command of General Gustaf Mauritz
Armfelt to invade Norway, and he appealed to Britain for military support.
“Now is the time to push England without fail since Sweden has never been
in a more perilous position than the present and England should [therefore]
send massive aid quickly, quickly, both troops and ships, and more money of
course. This aid is imperative if Sweden is to survive at all.”71
The British government well understood what was at stake in the impend-
ing war in the Baltic. Faced with the combined hostility of Russia and France,
Sweden had little chance of prevailing, and Britain was unwilling to jeop­ard­
ize its own war effort by supporting Sweden’s. The British government found
the Swedish demand to more than double the subsidy to £2.8 million impos-
sible to satisfy, and it was also reluctant to organize another major expedition,
like the one to Copenhagen, to the Baltic shore; it could find a better use for
those military resources elsewhere. Throughout March and April 1808, the
Swedes tried unsuccessfully to convince their British ally to land troops in
Norway and conduct joint operations against Denmark.72 The British foreign
secretary, Canning, remained unconvinced of the feasibility of such plans and
instead offered to maintain naval blockade of coastlines, a far cry from active
British involvement. Even when the British finally agreed to commit an expe-
ditionary force to Sweden, they stressed that it was to remain under British
command, would be limited to coastal operations, and could be recalled at
any moment.
By late March both the Danes and the Swedes were ready for military
operations, but the presence of the British naval squadron under Hyde Parker,
which had wintered in the Swedish port towns, hampered Franco-Danish
actions. Despite heavy ice floes in the Baltic Sea, Parker made a show of force
along the Danish shoreline, underscoring British control of the seas and prompt-
ing Bernadotte, whose troops were deployed in Själland just across from
Sweden, to halt his plans to cross the Danish Straits (Storebælt, Lillebælt,
352 | the napoleonic wars

and Öresund) to Sweden. The news of the revolt spreading in Spain only fur-
ther complicated the Franco-Danish operations; Bernadotte’s corps included
some 14,000 Spaniards, whose loyalties could no longer be trusted. With the
Royal Navy in the Sound, the original plan for a joint Franco-Danish inva-
sion had to be scratched. Bernadotte’s troops remained, much to the local
population’s chagrin, while the Danes placed their hopes on the Norwegians,
whose forces, about 10,000 men strong, were under command of Prince
Christian August of Augustenburg, the head of the Norwegian Government
Commission (Regjeringskommisjon), an executive institution formed in the
wake of the British attack on Denmark. This made it very difficult to admin-
ister Norwegian affairs from Copenhagen. Nonetheless, the establishment of
the commission marked an important moment in Norwegian history, since it
was only the second time in more than 270 years that Norway had gained
self-government, however limited.73
Augustenburg initially intended to invade western Sweden, but slow
mobilization, supply and equipment shortages, and the cancellation of the
Danish invasion of Scania caused him to give up on this intention. This, in
turn, allowed the Swedes to take up the offensive. In the first major operation
of the war they advanced into Aurskog-Høland but were defeated and driven
back. The Swedish commander General Armfelt then marched with 8,000
men toward the fortress of Kongsvinger, defeated the Norwegians at Lier
(April 18), and invested the fortress.74 Swedish elation at these successes was
short-lived, as the situation soon changed drastically. The Norwegians scored
minor but significant victories at Trangen (April 25), Mobekk (May 18), and
Jerpset (May 24) that prevented Armfelt from advancing farther and ulti-
mately contributed to his decision to lift his blockade of Kongsvinger due to
logistical challenges and fall back to the Swedish borders.75 Despite the
arrival of the British expeditionary force (as we’ll see), the Swedes were unable
to regroup for counterattack. The Swedish high command failed to develop a
coherent strategy, and the king and his generals frequently misunderstood
each other’s intentions. Furthermore, most of the Swedish resources had been
committed to the war in Finland, where the Swedes tried to seize the initia-
tive. In early April, the young and energetic Swedish general Karl Johan
Adlerkreutz was appointed second in command to Marshal Klingspor in
Finland. He urged an immediate counteroffensive against the dispersed
Russian forces. His victories at Gamlakarleby, Brahestad, Siikajoki, and
Revolax improved Swedish morale and resulted in a new general offensive in
eastern and northern Finland, with the Swedes scoring another victory at
Pulkkila (May 2) and seizing Kuopio and recapturing both Gotland and the
Åland Islands after the Russian navy failed to support its land forces.76
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 353

The Swedish offensives triggered popular uprisings in parts of Finland,


where local populations refused to pledge allegiance to the Russian sover-
eign and instead launched a guerrilla war, attacking isolated Russian detach-
ments and lines of communication.77 Although the Finnish guerrilla war
never matched the Spanish one in intensity, it did pose serious challenges to
the Russian military and forced the Russian authorities to compromise.78 In
June 1808, facing the prospect of a prolonged guerrilla warfare in Finland
and an uncertain political situation in Europe, Alexander issued a manifesto
pledging to uphold all existing liberties of the Finnish estates and people
and later issued orders for the convocation of the Diet of Porvoo (Borgå
Landtdag).79
Alexander’s decision should not be perceived simply as a concession to the
Finnish guerrillas. It was, in fact, rooted in Russia’s long-standing policy.
During the eighteenth century many members of the Swedo-Finnish official
class and elite were frustrated with Sweden’s ongoing wars with Russia, as
they only proved Stockholm’s inability to defend Finland and brought much
misery to the region. Russia tried repeatedly to exploit such sentiments, offer-
ing support to the Finns in 1741–1743 if they broke away from Sweden.
Although nothing came of this effort at the time, the plan was revived some
forty years later during the Russo-Swedish War of 1788–1790. Russia wel-
comed disgruntled Finnish officers, most notably Colonel Göran Magnus
Sprengtporten, who had left Swedish service and expressed willingness to sup-
port a Russian-supported autonomous Finland. By 1788, 113 officers had
formed the Anjala League (Anjalaförbundet), which advocated the idea that
Finland’s future lay not with the declining Sweden but with the rising power
of Russia; these officers believed that a Russian expansion was inevitable in the
long term and that, rather than risking a war and forceful takeover, it would
be better to seek a peaceful compromise with Russia that would entail trans-
ferring Finland to Russia on the best terms possible.80 The end of the Russo-
Swedish War in 1790 frustrated the Anjala League’s aspirations, but eighteen
years later its surviving members, led by Sprengtporten, were given a unique
opportunity to resume their work. Sprengtporten actively promoted his plan
for an autonomous Finland within the Russian Empire, and although his pro-
posal for the early convocation of a Finnish diet was postponed until 1809, his
arguments did play a role in convincing Emperor Alexander to treat the Finns
differently than other recently acquired territories (i.e., Poland or Georgia).81
The Russian monarch believed that Finnish cooperation was essential to
securing Russia’s precarious position in the Baltic at a time when the politi-
cal situation in Europe seemed volatile: with France displacing Russian
interests in Germany and the Ottomans making preparations to renew hos-
354 | the napoleonic wars

tilities against Russia in the Danubian Principalities, Russia now faced the
menace of the Anglo-Swedish alliance in the Baltic. Britain had already com-
mitted to provide a subsidy of more than £1 million to support Sweden
against France, but these monies would also sustain Swedish war efforts
against Russia. As part of the second British commitment to the alliance
with Sweden, a naval squadron under Admiral James Saumarez was dis-
patched to the Baltic in February. The squadron delayed its departure until
late April because of the addition of Sir John Moore’s 10,000-man expedi-
tionary force, which, it was hoped, would deploy to protect southern Sweden
and free up Swedish troops to undertake operations against the Russians.82
Remarkably, Moore was specifically ordered not to operate under Swedish
command, in order to avoid direct Anglo-Russian military conflict, but
Saumarez received instructions to examine the possibility of attacking the
Russian naval base at Kronstadt to prevent France from using the Russian
Baltic Fleet.83
The British expeditionary force reached Gothenburg in mid-May. Moore
was surprised to receive a rather cold reception from his Swedish allies, who
distrusted Britain’s intentions and, despite earlier promises, refused permis-
sion for the British troops to land until their future use was agreed upon.84
Yet the news from Sweden was anything but reassuring, given the steady
stream of reports of setbacks in Finland and Norway and public opinion turn-
ing against Gustavus. Moore grew especially annoyed by Gustavus’s in­sist­ence
on using British troops to consolidate control over neighboring territories.
Had the king accepted the landing of the British troops in Skåne, it would
have enabled him to move at least 10,000 soldiers to the Finnish theater,
where they could have had a major impact. As it happened, the bulk of the
Swedish army, including the best units, was kept out of the Finnish War as
the king wrangled with the British over the next course of action. In a series
of meetings Gustavus proposed several plans that involved either campaigns
against Denmark and Norway or direct attacks on Russia in Finland or the
Russian coastlines in the Baltic. These were plans that even Swedish generals
considered unfeasible. The king’s insistence on them only further antago-
nized Moore, who found all of them contrary to his own instructions; by June
he had concluded that “if we undertook anything, or once placed ourselves
under [Gustavus’s] orders, it was impossible to say the absurdity to which we
might be exposed.”85 Yet his attempts to point out the futility of such expe-
ditions only resulted in a rupture with the king, who ordered that Moore be
placed under house arrest, a move that provoked a diplomatic rift between
Sweden and Britain.86 Moore ultimately escaped and made his way back to
his troops in Gothenburg, where he received a new set of orders from the
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 355

British War Office, which, having grown impatient with the lack of progress
in the Baltic, had already shifted its attention to the Iberian Peninsula, where a
wave of popular unrest against the French offered better prospects for a vic-
torious campaign. On July 3, 1808, the British expedition left Gothenburg.87
Moore’s departure from Sweden coincided with one of the most dramatic
episodes of the Napoleonic Wars: the spiriting away of an entire Spanish
division by the British Royal Navy. As we saw in Chapter 12, in late 1807
Napoleon had bullied and pressured the Spanish king, Charles IV, and prime
minister, Godoy, into providing some of the best Spanish troops to bolster
the French army in Germany; this demand also aimed to ensure Spain’s
continued loyalty and to weaken local resistance should Napoleon need to
occupy Spain. Organized into the Division del Norte, some 15,000 Spanish
troops were placed under command of Pedro Caro y Sureda, marqués de la
Romana, a commander who participated in the American Revolutionary War
and distinguished himself during the conquest of the British-controlled
island of Minorca in 1781. Romana led his division to northern Germany,
where he spent the winter of 1808 performing garrison duties in Hamburg,
Mecklenburg, and towns of the old Hanseatic League before being assigned
to Marshal Bernadotte’s corps, which was sent to Denmark for a planned
invasion of Sweden. Although the invasion never materialized, the Spanish
troops remained in Denmark and were stationed in Jutland and on the island
of Funen. In the spring of 1808, despite France’s best efforts to intercept
Spanish communications, Romana and his officers learned about the French
occupation of Spain, the May uprising in Madrid, and the start of war in the
Iberian Peninsula. Infuriated by the news, these officers made plans to repa-
triate to Spain, then realized that the French would never let them return
home. French authorities tried to calm down the Spaniards by increasing the
officers’ pay and granting them certain privileges—Bernadotte used Spanish
troops as his personal escort—but, as one Spanish officer observed, “the more
the [French] tried to persuade us that Spain was tranquil, and had settled
down to enjoy an age of felicity under Napoleon, the more clearly did we
foresee the scenes of blood, strife, and disaster which were to follow these
incredible events.”88
In the summer of 1808, as the British sought for ways to bolster anti-
French resistance in Spain, Romana’s division began to feature prominently
in government discussions.89 A British agent, posing as a traveling merchant
of exotic goods, successfully evaded French counterintelligence and visited
Romana in Nyborg, where he shared details of the British plan: if the Spaniards
could reach the coast, the British navy would pick them up and deliver them
to any location in the Spanish Empire. Overcoming his initial reservations,
356 | the napoleonic wars

Romana consulted with his officers and agreed to the plan.90 By late July,
Admiral Richard Goodwin Keats, the commander of the Baltic Fleet, was
busy gathering transport vessels from England for the Baltic in preparation
for a daring evacuation.
For the plan to succeed, Romana needed to assemble his scattered troops
and take control of the nearby ports. He initially wanted to concentrate the
Spanish troops under a pretext of holding a grand review, but the plot almost
unraveled when new orders arrived from France that all Spanish soldiers were
required to swear an oath of loyalty to King Joseph Bonaparte. Spanish troops
on Jutland and Funen took the oath “in a more or less farcical way,” swearing
allegiance to Prince Ferdinand rather than to Joseph. But those on the island
of Sjælland, most of them unaware of the escape plans, mutinied on July 31
and were quickly surrounded and forced to surrender by the larger Danish
forces. This incident naturally alarmed the French. However, before they
could do anything, Romana learned that the British fleet was en route, and so
he decided to act. On August 7 the Spaniards seized control of the port of
Nyborg, on the island of Funen, where they were joined by the men of the
Infante, Rey, and Zamora Regiments, who were stationed on the island of
Jutland and commandeered small vessels to cross over to Funen; the Algarve
regiment, however, had failed to break through, largely due to its colonel’s
vacillation. Between August 9 and 11, the Spanish troops on Funen, number-
ing some 9,000 men, crossed to Langeland, where they overcame the Danish
garrison and waited for ten days for the arrival of the British fleet. Admiral
Keats evacuated the Spanish division and transported it to Santander, in
northern Spain, where Romana’s troops landed by mid-October. The Division
del Norte almost immediately joined the war against the French. Those
Spanish soldiers who had been captured by the French and Danish forces were
reorganized into the Joseph Napoleon Regiment and scattered through Italy,
the Netherlands, Germany, and France before being called upon to partici-
pate in Napoleon’s invasion of Russia, where many of them perished.91

The British involvement in the Baltic affair did not end with the fiasco of
Moore’s expedition. In fact, a low-intensity Anglo-Russian war—a “smoke-
less war,” as one Russian historian memorably called it—continued long
after that.92 The conflict tends to be lost in the traditional histories of the
Napoleonic Wars, largely because it failed to produce large-scale battles
and mainly involved isolated naval engagements between British and
Russian warships in the Mediterranean, Barents, and Baltic Seas. Smokeless
or not, it merits a look to reveal another aspect of the larger story of the
Napoleonic Wars.93
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 357

Russia entered this war in a weakened position because its naval resources
had been scattered across European waters; the Baltic Fleet, the jewel of the
Russian navy, had had many of its ships (including eight ships-of-the-line)
deployed to the Ionian Islands as part of the Archipelago expedition, com-
manded by Vice Admiral Dmitri Senyavin.94 Recalled to Russia in 1807,
Senyavin sailed with a larger party of his squadron (including five ships-of-
the-line) to the Baltic Sea, but bad weather forced him to anchor in Lisbon in
October 1807, just as the French invaded Portugal and forced the Portuguese
court to flee. Because Russia was at war with Britain, Senyavin found himself
trapped between the British navy blockading Lisbon and the French troops
controlling the city. After the French were defeated by the British army at
Vimeiro in August 1808, Senyavin’s squadron came under greater pressure
from the British, who now controlled both the sea and the coastline. The
British avoided a direct attack on the Russians—Senyavin threatened to
destroy his ships and set Lisbon ablaze—but pressured the Russian admiral
to transfer his ships to British control. In August 1808, Senyavin agreed to
have his ships escorted to Britain (without lowering their Russian flags). On
arriving at Portsmouth in September, he was prevented from leaving under
various pretexts until the weather made his return to Russia impossible.
After another year of virtual captivity, the Russian admiral was allowed to
leave Britain and his emaciated crewmen were delivered on British ships to
Riga, but the Russian warships remained in Britain until 1813.95
The Russian fleet faced a more daunting challenge in the Baltic, where in
the spring of 1808 Saumarez took charge of the reconstituted Baltic squad-
ron.96 He was ordered to conduct operations against the Russians in support
of the Swedes and to provide protection to ships engaged in commerce;
though the Baltic was largely closed to British shipping, the Royal Navy
facilitated neutral trade (as well as smuggling) that involved British goods.
The British squadron reached Gothenburg just as news of the Russian cap-
ture of Sveaborg arrived, causing great consternation among the British and
the Swedes. Meeting with the Swedish officials, Saumarez (together with the
British ambassador to Sweden, Edward Thornton) agreed to focus his efforts
on protecting the coastline of Sweden and keeping the Danish Sound and
entrance to the Baltic open to trade.
The first major engagement between Russian and British vessels took
place on June 23, when the Russian cutter Opyt stumbled upon the HMS
Salsette and, despite a valiant defense, was captured off Norgen Island near
Revel. Two weeks later, the Russian Baltic Fleet, twenty warships (nine of
them ships-of-the-line) under the command of Admiral Peter Khanykov,
sailed out of Kronstadt to engage the Swedish navy, led by Admiral Rudolf
358 | the napoleonic wars

Cederström. Saumarez dispatched HMS Centaur and Implacable, the 74-gun


ships-of-the-line, to support his Swedish ally. By late August both sides
deployed fleets between Hango and Örö near the southern tip of Finland.
On August 25, 1808, the Anglo-Swedish fleet sailed to engage the Russians,
who chose to avoid the actions. As the Russians retreated, the British ships-
of-the-line pulled ahead of the rest of the fleet and attacked the Russian
warship Vsevolod, which was captured and burnt.97
The naval war continued in similar fashion for the next two years. In July
1809, several Russian gunboats were captured or destroyed off Hango Head
(Hangöudde) and Aspö Head (near Fredrikshamn). In the Barents Sea, the
Anglo-Russian hostilities unfolded parallel to the Anglo-Danish “gunboat
war,” which had caused the British to impose a wide-scale blockade on the
coastline of Norway and conduct raids as far north as Hammerfest and
Murmansk, disrupting trade between northwest Russia and northern Norway.
The British warship Najaden (formerly the Danish frigate Naiad ) was particu-
larly active in these operations, capturing Russian merchant vessels and raiding
Russian settlements in the Kola district in 1809–1810.98 British control of
the seas had limited impact on Russian operations against Sweden, since the
Russian army’s supply lines remained uninterrupted on land while much of the
Gulfs of Bothnia and Finland froze in winter, constraining naval movements.
The Anglo-Russian War was unique in that both sides sought to avert
major engagements. The Russian fleet consistently avoided open confronta-
tion with the Royal Navy, while the British government, engaged in a war
against France, repeatedly indicated its desire to find common ground with
Russia. By late 1810, with Russia gradually withdrawing from the Continental
System, the war had largely subsided, and trade between Britain and Russia
grew. In fact, as Franco-Russian relations progressively worsened, Britain
laid the groundwork for a possible alliance. After Napoleon invaded Russia
in June 1812, the Anglo-Russian alliance finally materialized in the Treaty of
Örebro (July 18), which formally ended the war and laid the foundation for
the establishment of the sixth anti-French coalition.99

The departure of Moore’s expedition and the evacuation of Romana’s division


left the Anglo-Swedish “common cause” in tatters. The Swedes perceived
Britain as an unreliable partner and lamented British focus on the Iberian
peninsula at the expense of Swedish interests. The Senyavin affair, described
earlier, only further drove a wedge into Anglo-Swedish relations, as the
Swedish court complained about the British decision to release Senyavin’s
detained sailors, who upon their return to Russia were expected to join the
Russian Baltic Fleet, to the detriment of Sweden. Canning’s assurances that
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 359

the British would delay the Russian departure (which, as noted, they did for
an entire year) did little to allay Swedish suspicions that Britain would read-
ily sacrifice its ally’s interest to safeguard its own. Indeed, Gustavus believed
(wrongly) that the British fixation on Spain, where a British expeditionary
force under General Moore was already under way, meant that a crucial
opportunity for defeating the Russian fleet in the Baltic had been missed and
that this, in turn, had hampered the Swedish war effort in Finland. Chancellor
Ehrenheim openly expressed his view that British had “abandoned” Sweden
because they hoped to gain more advantages in Spain, where “there are fleets
to win, trade to revive, colonies to raise and a mass of power to direct against
points far more sensitive to Bonaparte than Russia and Denmark.”100
By 1809, Anglo-Swedish relations were characterized by mutual suspi-
cion and recrimination.101 Swedish demands for increased subsidies were met
with continued British rejections, culminating in Gustavus’s threat to close
Swedish ports to British trade unless he was paid. During a meeting with a
British envoy in late February 1809, Gustavus erupted in anger at what he
described as the continuing British refusal to fully support him. “Is your
trade to the Baltic and your intercourse with the Continent through Sweden
of no consequence to you? Will you not feel the Sound being shut against
you, or do you think that your commerce to the Spanish colonies will indem-
nify you for the loss of that in Europe? I am much reduced as to my means
but I can still do much harm and you will feel it.”102 This was no idle threat.
Gustavus quickly showed that he meant what he had said. Shortly after the
meeting, he ordered the closure of the port of Gothenburg to British trade
and placed British vessels under a forty-eight-hour embargo. This maladroit
attempt at extortion infuriated Canning and other members of the British
government, who believed that the Swedes should express greater apprecia-
tion for the support Britain had already shown them. They refused to budge
on the issue of subsidies, compelling Gustavus to sign a new subsidy agree-
ment based on older terms on March 1, 1809.
Further overshadowing Anglo-Swedish relations were fears of one side
making a deal with their common enemies. London worried that the Swedish
court was engaged in secret peace talks with the French and Russians, while
Swedish anxiety that Britain might conclude a separate peace with Napoleon
increased after learning about the new peace terms France had offered to
Britain in October 1808: ending hostilities if the British accepted Spain
under French control and Finland under Russian control. London immedi-
ately rejected the offer, and Canning assured the Swedish ambassador that
Britain was committed to Sweden’s security. Nonetheless, he was unable to
dispel Swedish doubts that surfaced after he failed to include Finland’s
360 | the napoleonic wars

r­ estoration as a precondition for any future peace settlement. In Stockholm,


this was interpreted as yet another sign of Britain’s willingness to sacrifice
Swedish territorial integrity to gain Russian support.103
Meanwhile, war was still raging in Finland. Swedish vacillation in the
summer of 1808 allowed the Russians to regroup and launch a new offensive
that turned the tide of the war. As the Russian troops pushed toward Kuopio
and Toivola, Major General Nikolay Kamenski routed the Swedish army
under Lieutenant Colonel Otto von Fieandt at Karstula on August 21 and
scored a quick succession of victories at Lappfjärd (August 29), Ruona and
Salmi (September 1–2), and Oravais (September 14). Infuriated by these set-
backs, Gustavus personally led a landing force on the southeast shore of the
Gulf of Bothnia but was repelled by the Russian forces of General Peter
Bagration in late September.104 These defeats forced the Swedes to seek a
cease-fire that the Russian commanders welcomed, because by this point they
suffered from a lack of supplies, ammunition, and reinforcements. Although
the armistice was concluded on September 29, 1808, Emperor Alexander, on
his way to meeting Napoleon at Erfurt, refused to approve it and demanded
an immediate resumption of hostilities. The armistice thus ended on October
27, and the Russian army advanced northward, capturing virtually all of
Finland by the end of the year. On December 1, rejecting the advice of the pow-
erful minister of war, Aleksey Arakcheyev, who called for outright annexation
of Finland, Emperor Alexander appointed Sprengtporten as the new governor-
general of Finland. This was a key decision because Sprengtporten was the only
governor in Russia not subordinated to the Imperial Senate but responsible to
the emperor himself, underscoring the special status of Finland within the
Russian Empire.105 In 1809 Alexander presided over the opening of the Diet of
Porvoo, confirming the rights and privileges the Finns had traditionally
enjoyed and granting them a degree of self-rule that Sweden had never permit-
ted and that no other region of the Russian Empire enjoyed.106 The diet wel-
comed Russian concessions and helped pacify the local population by disbanding
Finnish militias and calling for collaboration with the Russian authorities.
Setbacks in Finland caused the Swedes to cede the initiative in Norway,
where Danish-Norwegian forces launched a surprise attack and destroyed a
Swedish detachment at Berby in mid-September. This defeat caused a public
outcry in Sweden and forced the Swedish monarchy to send reinforcements to
shore up the front line. The Swedish operations failed to produce results,
however, so by the end of the year all of the Swedish troops were withdrawn
from southern Norway and the war in this theater had reached a stalemate;
in December the sides agreed to an armistice that lasted for the next six
months.107
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 361

In the spring of 1809, Emperor Alexander, preoccupied with the Franco-


Austrian conflict in central Europe and eager to bring a quick conclusion
to the war with Sweden, appointed General Bogdan von Knorring to com-
mand Russian forces in Finland with orders to invade the Swedish main-
land. The news of a Russian invasion spread confusion in Swedish coastline
towns; meanwhile, dramatic events unfolded at the royal capital, Stockholm.
Gustavus was unpopular even before the war against Denmark and Russia
started, but the military defeats, which were largely blamed on his ineffective
command and erratic policies, only further undermined his reputation. With
Russian troops about to cross the Gulf of Bothnia, a group of Swedish army
officers—still reeling from royal punishments for the failure of the fall offensive
in Finland—organized a coup.108 Lieutenant Colonel Georg Adlersparre,
acting commander of the Western Army, took advantage of the armistice
with the Norwegians to leave just 800 men to defend the Norwegian front
and led the rest of his force to Stockholm.109 Gustavus tried to solicit British
military support in suppressing this insurrection, but whatever goodwill the
British might have had toward him had dissipated during the acrimonious
debate over subsidies and the king’s decision to embargo British troops.110
On March 13, 1809, the rebel officers deposed Gustavus and proclaimed
his uncle, Duke Karl of Sudermania, the future Karl XIII, as the new head
of state.111
The dethronement of King Gustavus might have resolved one problem,
but it created another, as Sweden struggled with reestablishing the legiti-
macy of its government. The new government lost no time in emphasizing
Gustavus’s responsibility for the disastrous state of the Swedish kingdom,
charges that have been frequently repeated by Swedish historians, some of
whom accuse the king of being a warmonger who pursued a criminally irre-
sponsible foreign policy.112 One of the most pressing problems for the new
government was that of succession. Karl XIII was already sixty years old and
childless, while the decision to exclude Gustavus IV’s son and rightful heir,
Prince Gustavus, from the succession triggered a strong legitimist reaction
that sought to increase royal authority. Thus, besides the obvious question of
who would next occupy the Swedish throne, a greater problem lay in where
the next king would lead Sweden. The new regime removed the so-called
Gustavian group—members of the elite associated with both Gustavus III
and Gustavus IV—from positions of power and replaced them with the more
reform-minded “men of 1809,”113 who were all members of the Swedish elite,
though some, including Georg Adlersparre and Hans Järta, had shown con-
siderable sympathy toward the French Revolution and were therefore sus-
pected of radicalism and pro-French sympathies. The British envoy to
362 | the napoleonic wars

Stockholm thought that the new government would soon turn away from
Britain and seek closer relations with France.114 In light of Napoleon’s con-
tinued ascendancy in Europe, a Francophile faction soon gained influence at
the Swedish court and argued that the best course for Sweden was to make
an alliance with France and to use Napoleon’s mediation in the peace talks
with Denmark and Russia. In March, the Swedish government approached
Napoleon with a request for mediation with Russia.
However, Swedish hopes for a rapprochement with France were quickly
dashed when Napoleon responded on April 12, declining to intervene in
Sweden’s affairs.115 The timing was clearly not in Sweden’s favor, because
Napoleon had no wish to alienate Russia just when he needed its support
against Austria, which had invaded Bavaria and opened the War of the Fifth
Coalition. Sweden’s overtures to Britain were no more successful, as the British
government had grown disillusioned by Stockholm’s erratic and unfriendly
attitudes. Besides, Britain’s political attention was focused on other parts of
Europe: on the plains of Bavaria and Austria, where a new Franco-Austrian
war was already under way; on the Portuguese countryside, where General
Wellesley had launched a new (and victorious) campaign; and on the Dutch
coastline, where the Walcheren expedition was under way by late July. In
short, Sweden was hardly at the top of the British foreign agenda.
By late April 1809 the friendless and penniless Swedish government was
in such a weakened position that some legitimists plotted to overthrow it and
sought British aid for this purpose.116 The government survived this threat
but struggled to contain others. The most immediate and serious of them
came from the Russian invasion. Since the Gulf of Bothnia was still frozen,
hampering the Royal Navy’s operations, the Russian plan involved a three-
pronged offensive across the gulf, with General Bagration crossing to the
Åland Islands and advancing directly to the virtually defenseless Swedish cap-
ital; General Barclay de Tolly proceeding with his corps across the frozen
Östra Kvarken, the narrowest part of the gulf, to capture Umeå; and, further
north, General Pavel Shuvalov leading his men along the gulf coast to capture
Tornio (Torneå) and Kalix.117 The crossing was an audacious operation, and the
Russian troops braved cold weather and extreme conditions, marching in
what one participant described as a “frozen snow wasteland” where “there
were no signs of life . . . [and] no means of protecting oneself.”118 The exact
number of losses the Russians suffered during the crossing remains unclear,
but Barclay de Tolly later commented that there was “no longer any need to
map the Kvarken because I have done it with the corpses of my troops.”119
Amid continued political turmoil and commotion in the Swedish mili-
tary, Karl XIII understood that Sweden was not in a position to resist the
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 363

invasion, and so his first order was to dispatch an envoy proposing a truce and
peace talks.120 Despite clear imperial instructions to fight on, Russian commander-
in-chief Knorring hesitated, realizing that his men had been exhausted by
the crossing and lacked supplies and reinforcements. More important, the
spring weather could soon thaw the ice in the gulf, leaving the Russian corps
isolated from their bases in Finland. Fearing the Swedes would realize how
perilous the Russian situation actually was, Knorring accepted armistice.121
He ordered the immediate return of Russian forces to Finland, where the
fatigued troops, who had twice crossed the gulf in the span of two weeks,
arrived by March 31.122 Emperor Alexander was infuriated by Knorring’s
decision and once again refused to accept the armistice. He traveled to
Finland, where he praised his troops for bravery and castigated Knorring,
who was dismissed from his post. The new Russian commander in chief,
Barclay de Tolly, was given strict orders to end the cease-fire and resume the
offensive into Sweden until the Swedes surrendered.
Thus the Russians spent next four weeks preparing for yet another cross-
ing of the Gulf of Bothnia. By now the spring thaw had made it impossi-
ble to march across the gulf, while the presence of the British squadron
under Saumarez kept the Russian fleet confined to Kronstadt.123 Instead, the
Russians launched an offensive in the north, where General Shuvalov could
follow the coastline to descend upon central Sweden. Leaving Torneå, the
Russian corps marched for more than two hundred miles, twenty-six of them
up to their knees in the melting ice, to seize the Swedish town of Skellefteå.124
The resumption of Russo-Swedish hostilities also revealed fissures within
Denmark-Norway, whose king, Frederick, pushed for an invasion of Sweden.
The new Swedish government had tried sounding out King Frederick on the
question of the Swedish throne, and after being rebuffed they turned to
Prince Christian August, whose popularity, the Swedes believed, could con-
vince the Norwegians to join him if he was elected to the Swedish throne.
Tensions between Frederick and Christian August became noticeable during
the summer of 1809 when the latter refused to carry out the king’s instruc-
tions to invade Sweden.125 the Danish-Norwegian invasion of Sweden turned
out to be a limited affair, carried out in July 1809 from Trondhjem, which
remained under the northern Norwegian general command and not that of
Christian August. In July a small Norwegian force crossed into Sweden and
gained some early success before the Swedish counterattack routed them at
Härjedalen on July 24.126 An armistice, concluded the following day, eventu-
ally turned into the Treaty of Jönköping (December 10, 1809), which ended
the Dano-Norwegian-Swedish War on the basis of the status quo ante bellum.
Encouraged by this success, Karl XIII ordered a counterattack, made possible
364 | the napoleonic wars

by Saumarez’s continued naval cooperation, against the Russian forces in


northern Sweden. But the last battles of the war—at Sävar and Ratan on
August 19 and 20—failed to turn the course of the war and left the Swedes
with no choice but to agree to diplomatic talks.
As the negotiations opened in Fredrikshamn (Hamina), it quickly became
clear that even a partial restoration of Finland to Sweden was out of the ques-
tion. Russia had won the war and insisted on its right to the spoils. For the
Swedes, therefore, the most important task was to minimize further damage
to their kingdom. From the outset Russia had insisted on three key precondi-
tions for the peace: Sweden had to cede all of Finland (along with the Åland
Islands), renounce its alliance with Britain, and make peace with France,
Denmark, and Norway (which also meant joining the Continental System).127
The Swedes balked at the vast territorial concessions that Russia was demand-
ing, especially the Åland Islands—they were just twenty miles from the
Swedish mainland, and Russian occupation there could pose a profound
security threat. Yet Swedish attempts to negotiate a better deal proved futile;
the Russians had already established effective control over the territories in
question, and the Swedes had no trump cards to play. During the negotia-
tions over the new frontiers in the north, the Swedish tamely responded to
Russian demands by noting that “it behooves the honor of the [Russian]
emperor not to demand a part of Sweden. It is enough that you have taken
all of Finland.”128
The peace treaty was signed after a month’s negotiations on September 17,
1809, and incorporated the Russian demands in toto.129 It marked a critical
moment in the history of Scandinavia: Sweden had lost almost half of its
entire territory, while Russia had firmly established itself in the region and
secured its positions on the Baltic Sea.130 Indeed, the Finnish population,
after more than six hundred years of Swedish hegemony, now found itself
under new imperial masters, though its status was safeguarded by special
provisions that pledged to maintain traditional Finnish rights and freedoms,
protect private property, and allow for continued economic activity between
Finland and Sweden—all crucial factors in Russia’s success in consolidating
its authority in the newly acquired territories. In the long term, the separa-
tion of these two parts of the Swedish realm meant that different systems of
government developed on either side of the Gulf of Bothnia. While the Finns
fought to maintain the Gustavian constitutional arrangements within the
newly established Grand Duchy of Finland, the Swedes themselves insisted
on changing the old system and moved quickly to repeal the Gustavian laws
and lay the foundation for a new political system that still survives to the
present day.131 The Treaty of Fredrikshamn also forced Sweden to recalibrate
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 365

its foreign policy, as it was clear that any attempt to reclaim Finland would
result in another devastating war with Russia. Instead, the Swedes chose to
remove the “Finnish Question” from their strategic considerations and focus
their attention on Norway as compensation for the losses in the east. This
focus on Norway was owed in no small part to Georg Adlersparre, who
believed that the selection of Prince Christian August for the Swedish throne
could ensure a union of Sweden and Norway. Such aspirations were further
buttressed by signals the Russian diplomats had given at Fredrikshamn that
Russia would not necessarily oppose Sweden’s takeover in Norway. Thus the
peace at Fredrikshamn was the fulfillment of the long-standing Danish fear
that a Russian conquest of Finland would render Denmark useless as Russia’s
ally and would embolden Swedish interest in Norway. As events would
shows, the Danes’ suspicions were well justified.
With the war against Russia over, Sweden could breathe a sigh of relief.
On December 10 the Treaty of Jönköping restored relations with Denmark-
Norway, while in January 1810 a separate peace treaty was signed with
France. Yet the Swedes still faced political challenges. King Charles XIII was
ailing and, as noted, childless; it was obvious that he was close to breathing
his last and the Swedish branch of the House of Holstein-Gottorp would
end. The election of the Danish prince Christian August as the heir to the
Swedish throne allayed some of the worst fears and pointed toward a rather
harmonious future for Denmark-Norway and Sweden. To contemporaries’
great astonishment, the prince died suddenly just five months after arriving
in Stockholm. While attending a military review at Scania on May 28, 1810,
he suffered a stroke from which he did not recover. The sudden death of the
forty-one-year-old prince, who had seemed to be in good physical condition,
caused a huge public outcry, with many believing that the prince had been
killed as a result of some insidious plot. On June 20, during Christian
August’s funeral, a crowd attacked those who were suspected of conspiracy
and lynched Hans Axel von Fersen the Younger, the famed Swedish count
who had been a close friend of Queen Marie-Antoinette of France and later
served as the Swedish Marshal of the Realm.
The death of the crown prince created a crisis of succession that shaped
the course of Scandinavian history. Christian Augustus had shown himself a
mild-mannered and reasonable man who envisioned establishing a constitu-
tional Scandinavian union and, had he lived, might have brought peace and
stability to the region. As it was, his passing caused a domestic crisis. Various
political factions at the royal court and within the Swedish Riksdag clashed
over the possible candidates for the crown. Napoleon naturally paid close
attention to these discussions, understanding that they would have ramifications
366 | the napoleonic wars

far beyond Sweden’s domestic affairs; a new king could possibly ensure
Scandinavian union and strengthen the French position in northern Europe.
At first, King Frederick VI of Denmark put forth his candidacy, which was
ostensibly bolstered by the fact that Napoleon did not oppose it. Yet the vast
majority of Swedes did, finding Frederick, who was notorious for his ped-
antry, intractability, and flashes of authoritarianism, unacceptable. Equally
unacceptable was Prince Gustav of Vasa, the son of the deposed King Gustav IV
Adolph and, technically, the rightful heir to the Swedish crown.
Instead, in the summer of 1810, the Swedes were considering inviting
either the Danish king Frederick’s son, the young and charismatic Prince
Christian Frederick, or the deceased Prince Christian August’s older brother,
Duke Frederick Christian of Augustenburg, whose moderate character and
liberal leanings were well known. By late July, the latter was increasingly
considered a more suitable candidate, and attempts had been made to sound
out Napoleon on the acceptability of this candidate. The French emperor
supported the duke, with the prince as his second choice.132 Neither choice
was to the liking of Denmark’s Frederick VI, who went as far as ordering a
naval blockade of the island of Als, where the duke resided, an effort to pre-
vent his departure to Sweden.
In August 1810, the Swedish Riksdag convened to discuss the candidates.
As the debate raged, the earlier idealistic aspirations for a young, charismatic,
and reform-minded ruler were soon replaced by the more pragmatic desire to
have a candidate who was experienced in political and military matters and
could help Sweden recover its position vis-à-vis Russia. These sentiments
were particularly strong in Swedish military circles, which increasingly
looked to France for candidates. Despite having no formal authorization to do
it, they considered several prominent French political and military figures
and ultimately settled on Marshal Jean-Baptiste-Jules Bernadotte, who had
shown compassion for Swedish prisoners in 1807 and expressed genuine
interest in the affairs of the Baltic nations. The matter was decided when
Baron Karl Otto Mörner, entirely on his own initiative, offered the Swedish
crown to Bernadotte, who replied that that he would not refuse the honor if
he was elected. Although the Swedish political circles were stunned by the
news of Bernadotte’s entry into the royal race, they gradually rallied around
him, helped by Mörner’s publicity blitz, which assured his countrymen that
Bernadotte enjoyed Napoleon’s full support and was sufficiently wealthy, an
important consideration considering Sweden’s vast economic difficulties.
On August 21, 1810, the Riksdag elected Bernadotte as the new crown
prince of Sweden.133 But Bernadotte, a French citizen, still needed to be
released from his oath to Napoleon before he could accept the Swedish crown.
The Northern Question, 1807–1811 | 367

In spite of their earlier rivalry and Bernadotte’s latter-day signs of insub-


ordination, Napoleon did not oppose his selection, wishing “success and hap-
piness to [Bernadotte] and to the Swedes.”134 He was hoping that Bernadotte
would remain loyal to France, enhance French influence in northern Europe,
and support war against Britain. In September he released the marshal from
his oath of allegiance and allowed him to forswear his French nationality,
famously asking him to agree never to take up arms against France. Bernadotte
refused to make any such pledge, claiming that his new obligations to Sweden
could not allow it, and prompting Napoleon to exclaim, “Go, and let our
destinies be accomplished!”135
On November 2 Bernadotte made his solemn entry into Stockholm.
Three days later he appeared in front of the Riksdag, converted to Lutheranism,
and was formally adopted by King Charles XIII, changing his name to Charles
John (Karl Johan). Though a newcomer at the Swedish court, Bernadotte
soon emerged as the power behind the throne. He understood that his future
depended entirely on embracing his newly adopted land and pursuing poli-
cies that defended its interests, not Napoleon’s or France’s. Over the next two
years he gradually distanced himself from the Napoleonic imperial authority.
To secure Sweden’s eastern borders, he assured Russia that he would not make
any attempt to retake Finland, and instead began to look westward to Norway,
which he considered a fitting compensation for Sweden. He clearly under-
stood that his crown depended entirely on him acquiring Norway, and his
determination to achieve this played a decisive role during the War of the
Sixth Coalition in 1813–1814.
chapter 16
“An Empire Besieged”
The Ottomans and the Napoleonic Wars

T he start of the french revolution coincided with the enthrone-


ment of a new Ottoman sultan who was keen on exploiting the few years
of respite from conflict with the West that resulted from European powers’
preoccupation with France. The son of Sultan Mustafa III and his Georgian
wife, Selim III was raised by his uncle, Sultan Abdulhamid I, who granted
him some degree of freedom in social interaction. Thus, besides his classical
Ottoman training, Selim III had also developed a fondness for the culture of
western Europe, his greatest interest being in European military institutions
and practices. Even before he became sultan, he had corresponded with King
Louis XVI of France concerning statecraft, social institutions, and the mili-
tary arts. Selim III was surrounded by a small group of confidants who shared
his fascination with European customs, ideas, and institutions, and believed
there was an urgent need to introduce reforms that would restore the power
of the central government while preserving the territorial integrity of the
empire against internal and external threats.
The multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic, and multi-religious Ottoman Empire
was built on the principle of dividing the population into separate and
distinct religious communities, called millets. The system worked relatively
well, and also played a major role in preserving national cultures and distinct
ethnic and linguistic identities. The Ottoman state, centered around the idea
of religious identity, never developed a truly national identity, and instead
struggled to contain centrifugal forces that threatened it during the revolu-
tionary era. But the challenges that the Ottomans faced went deeper than
this and involved several dynamics. First, and perhaps central to much of late
Ottoman history, was the enduring struggle between center and periphery.
“An Empire Besieged” | 369

The more the central government tried to assert its control, the more it faced
resistance from the periphery, where local elites had gradually accumulated
administrative, economic, and even diplomatic independence.1 The process
of gradual disintegration of the Ottoman central power culminated during
the Napoleonic Wars when a political revolution claimed two sultans within
a span of just one year. A second underlying factor was the need for an effec-
tive military and administrative system to maintain the empire, which in
turn required an effective taxation system. In the Ottoman case, neither was
up to the task, as they suffered from a weak central authority and a corrupt
and inefficient bureaucracy. The growing national awakening among various
peoples, especially in the Balkan peninsula, only further challenged Ottoman
power, especially when considered in conjunction with external threats. Russia
posed the greatest menace to the territorial integrity of the Ottoman state,
but other European powers were keen on exploiting Ottoman weakness as
well.2 At the start of the nineteenth century, the Ottoman realm was truly, in
the words of esteemed Ottomanist Virginia Aksan, “an empire besieged.”
Selim III inherited the Ottoman throne in the middle of the Russo-
Ottoman War, and since he was unable to turn the tide of the war, he decided
to use it as a pretext for major military reforms.3 Artillery (topçu), mortar
(hambaraci), mining (lağimci), and cannon-wagon (top arabaci) were reorga-
nized, discipline was restored, and units were placed under the command of
officers trained by the French.4 The Ottoman navy was also revitalized: state-
of-the-art ships entered the service, older ones were modernized, and regula-
tions were introduced that were designed to attract able seamen. The Imperial
Naval Arsenal (Tersane) was enlarged, again with the help of the French naval
experts, and new provincial arsenals were opened.5 The unruly Janissaries—
the elite military units that came to dominate the Ottoman government in
the seventeenth century—did not escape reforms either. Their barracks were
modernized, their rolls halved to about 30,000 men, wages were raised, and
efforts were made to ensure that appointments were made according to abil-
ity. Selim III attempted to achieve a military transformation from the top
down, the main idea being to establish a European-style infantry corps and
later use it as a core around which to form a modern Ottoman military.
The name of this new Western-style corps, the Nizam-i Cedid (New Order),
became the name of the entire reform package and indeed the era.6 The first
Nizam-i Cedid regiment was established in Levend in 1795, followed by the
second unit in Üsküdar in 1799, and the third at Levend soon afterward. The
size of the corps rose rapidly, from 9,300 in 1801 to 24,000 in 1806, though
this swift expansion had affected its quality and training.7 A system of con-
scription was introduced in Anatolia in 1802, and local authorities were
370 | the napoleonic wars

required to send recruits to Constantinople for training; a similar effort failed


in the Balkans because of strong opposition by local elites. The sultan soon
recognized that he would not be able to achieve his objective without devel-
oping the wider technological and organizational support that a modern mil-
itary structure required. Among the most enduring reforms of the Nizam-i
Cedid period was the establishment of modern military schools. Technical and
military books were translated into Turkish from Western languages, and
recruits were trained based on French military manuals and by French instruc-
tors and trainers. By 1802, Selim III had combined the Mühendishane-i Cedide
(New Engineering School) and Mimaran-i Hassa Ocag˘i (State Architecture
Corps), and the resulting new institution produced both civil and military
(except for naval) engineers, offering courses in drawing, geometry, algebra,
astronomy, languages, and history. In 1806 the sultan introduced further
changes to technical education: the Mühendishane-i Berri-i Hümayun
(Imperial Military Engineering School) trained army engineers, and the
Mühendishane-i Bahri-i Hümayun (Imperial School of Naval Engineering)
provided a four-year education in naval engineering.8
These reforms required considerable funding at a time when the central
government lacked the financial power to implement such ambitious restruc-
turing. It derived its revenue from taxes but lacked the ability to collect them
in the provinces, which were dominated by local notables who nominally
accepted the suzerainty of the Ottoman sultan but in reality functioned as
quasi-independent rulers, maintaining private armies and oftentimes con-
ducting their own foreign policy. Thus the sultan could not generate revenue
without the support and collaboration of the local elites, though securing
this support also meant facing the very forces that opposed the sultan’s cen-
tralizing reforms. To increase his revenue, Selim resorted to a series of
­policies—setting up a separate treasury, the Irad-ı cedid hazinesi (Treasury of
New Revenues), debasing coinage, levying new taxes on basic consumer
goods (textiles, tobacco, wine, coffee, etc.)—that made his reforms increas-
ingly unpopular among an already overtaxed population.9 There was stiff
opposition to his reforms, especially to his Nizam-i Cedid, which represented
a direct attack on the vested interests of traditional power groups, most nota-
bly the Janissaries.10 Some Ottoman religious leaders (ulamas) condemned
the spread of European practices that, they claimed, were incompatible with
Islam. Meanwhile, the Janissaries refused to adopt any Western military
practices and objected to serving alongside the new troops, whom they
perceived as an open challenge to their traditionally dominant role.11 These
power groups, which also included members of local and inner governmental
circles, feared that the sultan’s reforms would result in the reimposition of
“An Empire Besieged” | 371

state control over economic means. A crucial element in this was control of
the land, the empire’s chief economic asset. The Ottoman local elites (ayans)
persistently tried to transform state lands (miri) into private fiefs (mülk) that
would provide them with steady revenue and help achieve control over local
communities. Hence the Nizam-i Cedid reforms engendered bitter opposi-
tion. The establishment of a modern military would have helped the sultan
assert his authority and allowed him to free himself from dependence on
traditional elites.
Sultan Selim’s push to modernize his empire was hampered by a combina-
tion of internal and external challenges that occupied much of his attention
and resources. He was unable to unite rival interest groups within his reform-
ist camp, and their rivalry occasionally sabotaged reforms and was sometimes
fatal to the leading reformers. The sultan also had to deal with numerous
power groups—“entrenched beneficiaries of the old system,” as historian
Virginia Aksan put it—that challenged his authority and vied for political
power.12 Resistance by provincial notables in Anatolia, the Arab world, and
parts of the Balkan Peninsula cost the Ottoman government heavily in rev-
enue, prestige, and resources. Ali Pasha of Janina controlled most of Albania
and northern Greece; the Mamluks under Murad Bey and Ibrahim Bey flouted
the sultan in Egypt; Ahmet Cezzar Pasha was supreme in Syria, as was
Suleyman Pasha the Great in Iraq. These local governors often openly defied
the sultan, refusing to pay taxes or accept his reforms. Time and again the
sultan had to overcome his antipathy for these seditious notables and cede
them considerable authority, mainly to secure their military support against
the external threats.
The end of the Austro-Russian-Ottoman War in 1791 marked the first
major clash between the supporters and opponents of Ottoman reforms.
During the war, the province of Serbia remained under the control of local
Janissaries, who on a number of occasions demonstrated open disdain for
central authority. Once the war ended, Selim III tried to reassert his authority
in Serbia and instructed his new provincial governor to expel all unruly ele-
ments from the province.13 The Ottoman authorities banished the Janissaries
and replaced them with Serbs, who had been amnestied for their collabora-
tion with Austria. The disgraced Janissaries did not simply vanish—they
crossed to the neighboring province of Vidin, where the local governor,
Pasvanoglu Osman Pasha, readily employed them to consolidate his power.
By the turn of the nineteenth century Pasvanoglu emerged as one of the
most powerful Ottoman notables, controlling vast amounts of territory in the
northeastern Balkans and leading a growing opposition to the sultan’s reform
scheme. The governor claimed that the sultan’s reforms were responsible for
372 | the napoleonic wars

political and economic turmoil in the countryside, and gained considerable


popularity by positioning himself as the people’s guardian against govern-
ment arbitrariness. The sultan’s repeated orders to suppress the rebel gover-
nor remained ineffectual.14
In 1798, underscoring the threat of Pasvanoglu’s power, Selim III launched
his largest military campaign, sending some 80,000 men to Vidin.15 The
campaign failed, and Pasvanoglu successfully defended Vidin for eight months,
gaining even greater prestige. Already disheartened by this turn of events,
the sultan was forced to recall his troops upon receiving the news of the
French invasion of Egypt. In early 1799, Pasvanoglu was not only pardoned
and confirmed in his position but granted the titles of vizier and pasha.16
Preoccupied with events in Egypt, Selim III hoped that these honors would
keep the unruly governor appeased and loyal to the throne. Pasvanoglu
quickly resumed his activities, however, knowing well that the sultan, already
committed to the war against revolutionary France, could not send any troops
to hinder him. Pasvanoglu’s forces conducted wide-ranging raids across the
northeastern Balkan Peninsula, spreading political chaos and causing consid-
erable economic damage.17
In Arabia, the Ottomans faced a growing challenge from the Wahhabis, a
religious sect founded by Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, a theologian
from Najd, seeking return to pure Islam by removing any false beliefs and the
regimes that support them. By 1800, the Wahhabist movement, led by Abd
al-Aziz ibn Saud, extended its authority over parts of the Arabian Peninsula
and displayed its growing confidence by attacking Iraq, Syria, and the Hejaz,
and harassing Muslim pilgrims to the holy sites. In 1804 the Wahhabists
scored their biggest victory to date when they seized Mecca and closed pil-
grimage routes to the city for all non-Wahhabists. The Wahhabists went so
far as to remove Sultan Selim III’s name from Friday’s prayers and replace it
with that of the Sauds, usurping a privileged position in the Islamic world.
Meanwhile, Sultan Selim III faced a different kind of threat in the Caucasus,
into which Russia had made considerable inroads in the late eight­eenth cen-
tury. We have already seen (in Chapter 5) that in 1800 the eastern Georgian
kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti had been formally annexed by Emperor Paul I,
who was assassinated in St. Petersburg in March 1801, leaving the resolution
of the “Georgian Question” to his successor. The new emperor, Alexander,
was at first uncertain about the issues; he strongly believed in the legitimate
rights of monarchs and struggled with dispossessing the Bagrationi of their
throne. He asked the State Council to decide whether by annexing the
Georgian kingdom he would commit an offense against this royal dynasty.
The debates in the State Council reveal the existing struggle between the
“An Empire Besieged” | 373

doves and hawks of the Russian government and represented a crucial point
in the shaping of Russian policies toward the Caucasian borderlands. Some of
Emperor Alexander I’s advisors—most notably Alexander Vorontsov and
Victor Kochubei—urged him to repudiate his father’s decision and cautioned
against expanding into Georgia, which, they argued, offered limited eco-
nomic and military advantages but would require considerable commitments
in men and matériel to resolve domestic problems.18 Alexander ultimately
chose to ignore this sound advice and sided with the more hawkish members
of the State Council, who claimed that, at the very least, countermanding
Paul’s decision to annex Georgia would dishonor Russia in the eyes of
European and Islamic powers. They argued that the incorporation of Georgia
into the Russian Empire was necessary because this was the supposed “wish”
of the Georgian people, and because the failure to take such action would lead
to Georgia’s collapse due to both internal and external factors.19 These coun-
cil members believed—and Alexander concurred—that continued Georgian
dynastic feuds offered Russia a precious opportunity to establish a foothold in
south Caucasia, which could provide a springboard for further expansion into
the Ottoman and/or Iranian realms and serve as a crucial commercial way-
point for trade with India. The emperor himself held that Iran would not
pose a serious challenge to Russian expansion, and that the benefits of Russian
rule in Georgia would soon convince neighboring Muslim state to place
themselves under his protection.20
In late 1801 Alexander ordered the drafting of a manifesto announcing
eastern Georgia’s annexation. The manifesto rejected any suggestion of Russian
self-interest and instead pointed to the continued bickering between and
rivalry among the Bagrationi claimants to the throne, which left the realm on
the verge of civil war. Alexander also underscored the responsibility of pro-
tecting fellow Christians against the Persians and Turks. The manifesto was
published in Moscow on September 24, 1801, three days before Alexander’s
coronation, and was accompanied by instructions on how to form a new sys-
tem of Russian administration in eastern Georgia. With the Georgian royal
family removed from power, the commander in chief on Russia’s Caucasian
front assumed the leadership of the central government in Tbilisi and received
the title of pravitel, or administrator, of Georgia. Alexander’s September
Manifesto was not published in Georgia until April 12, 1802, when the
Russian commander in chief in the Caucasus, General Karl Knorring, pub-
licly announced it at the Sioni Cathedral in Tbilisi and required the princes
and notables of Georgia to swear an oath of allegiance to the Russian emperor.
Although the announcement caused considerable outcry, the presence of armed
Russian guards around the cathedral underscored the futility of protest.
374 | the napoleonic wars

Those who voiced their disapproval were quickly taken into custody; the rest
were forced to pledge allegiance to the tsar.21
Alexander’s decision to annex the eastern Georgian kingdom had profound
ramifications for the Caucasus, the Ottoman Empire, and Iran. Already by the
spring of 1802 the Russian emperor was arguing that it was essential for Russia
to secure control over not only eastern Georgia but all of south Caucasia, as far
south as the Aras River. He justified it in military terms, noting that Russia could
defend its newly acquired territories only if it had established a border along the
Kura and Aras Rivers.22 This, however, meant intruding onto the traditional
sphere of influence of the Ottoman Empire, which Russia had previously chosen
not to do because of its commitments to anti-French coalitions in Europe.
While losing their foothold in southern Caucasia, the Ottomans faced an
equally serious challenge in Serbia, which had been under Ottoman control
for the previous four centuries. Here the Ottoman sultans pursued a dual
policy: they sought to detach Serbs from Austrian leanings through the
agency of the Patriarch at Constantinople, while also sending the Janissaries
away from the capital into the provinces, including Serbia, which could be
profitably plundered.23 Sultan Selim III’s reforms initially benefited the Serbs
by curtailing the Janissaries and granting some concessions, including free-
dom of religion, to the local populace. Yet the Ottoman reform movement
soon stalled, and the sultan was forced to compromise with his opponents. In
1799 Selim allowed the Janissaries to return to Serbia, where they murdered
a popular local governor and took revenge on the Serbs by beheading some
eighty Serbian notables (knezes) in what became known as the Slaughter of the
Knezes (January 1804). The enraged Serbs united behind Djordje Petrović,
known as Karadjordje (Karad̄ord̄e), in an armed revolt.24
Some scholars consider the Serbian revolt the first of the nationalist upris-
ings, but its actual causes and nature are more complicated than that. Within
the Ottoman Empire’s Christian communities, intellectuals were indeed drawn
to the ideas of the Enlightenment, especially those of German philosopher
Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803), who argued that language and liter-
ature constituted the distinct marks of a nation. The French Revolution
embraced the idea of “nation” wholeheartedly and exported it to various parts
of Europe, including the Ottoman provinces in the Balkans. However, the
Serbian revolt sprang from a different set of circumstances. It was a protest by
Serbian peasants against the usurpation of their land by the Janissaries, as
well as the result of Serbian rejection of the Neobyzantinism championed by
the powerful Phanariots (affluent and politically connected Greeks in the
Phanar district of Constantinople). These Phanariots sought to revive Byzantine
practices by empowering the Orthodox Patriarchate of Constantinople and
“An Empire Besieged” | 375

reducing the relative antinomy of other Orthodox churches. Furthermore,


the central Ottoman government initially did not oppose the revolt, since the
Serbian rebels supported the sultan’s suzerainty and targeted provincial nota-
bles (sipâhis) and Janissaries. Yet this approach allowed the revolt to accumu-
late momentum. As the Serbs gained an upper hand over the Janissaries, the
Ottoman court belatedly realized the threat and tried to wrest back control
over the region. It proved futile. The Serbs rejected the sultan’s demands to
disband and instead sought aid from foreign powers. Austria, with its hands
tied in central Europe, chose not to support the rebels, favoring continuance
of Ottoman rule instead of the establishment of a semi-autonomous (or fully
independent) Serbia that might destabilize its southern border regions;
Austrians advised the Serbs to resolve their differences with the Ottoman
authorities through Austrian mediation.25
Serbian overtures, meanwhile, put the Russian emperor, Alexander, in an
awkward position. Russia already enjoyed advantageous positions in Bessarabia,
Moldavia, and Wallachia (commonly referred to as the Danubian Principalities)
based on the Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca (1774), and recent operations against
the French had further strengthened the Russian presence there through
the Septinsular Republic (under joint Russian-Turkish control), which was
formed in the Ionian Islands. Alexander, while desiring to exploit an oppor-
tunity to extend Russian influence to the Balkans, could not afford to alienate
the Ottomans. His main concern lay with the increased French presence on
the Adriatic shores, which could pose a threat to the integrity of the Ottoman
Empire and undermine Russia’s traditional goal of gaining an exclusive sphere
of influence in the Balkan region. So a Serbian delegation to St. Petersburg
received a tepid response: military aid was out of question, but Russia might
consider providing diplomatic support.26
Encouraged by such prospects, the Serbs demanded self-government within
the Ottoman Empire. In 1805–1806 they scored major victories over the
Turks at Ivankovac and Mišar that allowed them to consolidate authority in
northern Serbia. The newly established Narodna Skupština (People’s Assembly),
which shared political authority with the Ruling Council and Grand Leader
Karadjordje, introduced major reforms, some of which drew inspiration from
the French Revolution: all feudal obligations were abolished and the serfs
were emancipated. The start of the Russo-Ottoman War in 1806 marked a
key moment in the Serbian revolt, as demands for self-government within
the Ottoman Empire evolved into a war for independence backed by the mil-
itary support of the Russian Empire.
Upon ascending the throne in 1789, Selim had been anxious to keep out
of European political complications, and so he pursued a cautious foreign
376 | the napoleonic wars

policy. He was the first of the Ottoman sultans to develop the political tools
of modern diplomacy. He appointed the first permanent Ottoman ambassa-
dors to London (1793), Berlin (1795), Vienna (1795), and Paris (1795).27
During the War of the First Coalition (1793–1797), the Ottoman Empire
declared a formal neutrality for the first time in its history. As noted, Selim
was determined to exploit European preoccupation with the complications
arising from the French Revolution to carry forward his program of domestic
reform. Ottoman neutrality did not last long, however, and the sultan soon
found himself at the epicenter of European grand politics, which revolved
around two interrelated issues concerning the fate of the Ottoman Empire.28
The first was the continued viability of the empire. It faced mounting inter-
nal and external challenges, including economic woes, ongoing decentrali-
zation, and, by the late eighteenth century, the desire of subject peoples,
especially in the Balkans, to assert greater self-governance, if not outright
independence. The traditional narrative of Ottoman history—that starting
in the 1600s the Ottomans entered a period of decline marked by steadily
weakening military capacity and institutional corruption—has recently been
supplanted by a more nuanced discussion of Ottoman resiliency and its abil-
ity to transform the empire during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.29
The second issue involved the international situation, as the Ottomans faced
the growing menace of imperial competitors who began steadily eroding the
gains the empire had made in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The ques-
tion of what to do with the “sick man of Europe” was tightly bound up with
the maintenance of the European balance of power. Though interested in
partitioning the Ottoman realm, European powers were concerned that their
“inheritance”—some 238,000 square miles in Europe alone in 1800—would
not be equitably divided, empowering some at the expense of the others.
The origins of what would eventually be called the Eastern Question can
be traced to Russia’s continued military success against the Ottomans and
the resulting territorial expansion of the Russian power along the Black Sea
littoral. For European statesmen, the crucial question of the day was whether
the Ottomans could fend off Russia’s territorial and strategic aspirations, and
if not, how the competing great powers should partition the Ottoman realm.
On the eve of the French Revolutionary Wars, Austria closely cooperated
with Russia and participated in wars against the Turks, hoping for a slice of
the Ottoman-controlled Balkans. Austrian attitudes, however, began to
change with the start of the revolutionary turmoil in Europe. After suffering
setbacks in the Rhineland and Italy in the 1790s, Vienna’s attention was,
understandably, focused on events in central and western Europe, while the
Ottoman borderlands remained in the background. Meanwhile, as the British
“An Empire Besieged” | 377

presence in India increased, the British government became preoccupied


with protecting the lines of communication to its most lucrative colonial and
trading colony. Some of these routes ran across Ottoman lands, engendering
British concern about possible encroachment by a European power. The
French invasion of Egypt indicated that such fears were not groundless, but
equally worrisome for the British was the prospect of Russia dealing a mortal
blow to the Ottomans and seizing the Bosporus and Dardanelles, which
would have established a Russian presence in the eastern Mediterranean. At
the start of the Napoleonic Wars, therefore, Britain generally tried to prop up
Ottoman power in order to maintain the balance of power in Europe as well
as to bolster its Indian defenses.
So at the start of the nineteenth century the Russian government enjoyed
a relatively free hand when it came to the Ottoman Empire and pursued three
interlinked goals: expanding territorially, which involved unilateral annexa-
tions or partitions with other European powers of the Ottoman domains;
securing great influence within the Ottoman Empire through the patronage
of the sultan’s Christian subjects and incitement of nationalist sentiments;
and maintaining the rump of the Ottoman empire as a buffer zone. The last
of these, occasionally referred to as the “weak neighbor” policy, implied
­rejection of Catherine’s famed “Greek Project” because, in the words of one
Russian minister in 1802, “Russia in its present expanse is no longer in need
of enlargement, there is no neighbor more obedient than the Turk, and the
preservation of this natural enemy of ours should be in the future the root of
our policy.”30 According to this reasoning, once Russia had deprived the
Ottomans of sufficient territory, the two empires could maintain friendly
relations but would never be equals.
The Ottoman Empire enjoyed a long-standing relationship with France
that can be traced back to the sixteenth century, when the two states united
in their struggle against the Holy Roman Empire. While many European
nations had made agreements and sent ambassadors to the Ottoman court over
the centuries, the French had always enjoyed a particular status in Constantinople.
They were the first to conclude a commercial treaty with the Turks, French
merchants actively traded and invested heavily in the Ottoman economy, and
in the late eighteenth century Roman Catholics in the Ottoman Empire were
placed under French protection. During the Russo-Ottoman War of 1768–
1774, France took a pro-Ottoman stand, and though it could not provide any
material help, it was the only great power on which the sultan could rely.
Indeed, the Ottoman Empire represented one point of France’s “eastern tri-
dent” (along with Sweden and Poland), with which it sought to restrain the
growth of the Habsburg power and later of the Russian Empire. The defeat
378 | the napoleonic wars

and humiliation of the Ottoman Empire in 1774 came as an unpleasant sur-


prise for the French monarchy, which had begun to consider Russia as its
chief rival in northeast and southeast Europe. In the wake of the Treaty of
Küçük Kaynarca, France did its best to undermine the treaty’s provisions,
thereby weakening Russia’s influence and encouraging the Ottomans to
resist.
Franco-Ottoman relations deteriorated in the 1780s, however. France’s
financial woes, followed by revolutionary turmoil, prevented it from provid-
ing any help to the Ottomans during the Russo-Ottoman War of 1787–
1791. The Ottoman sultan was well apprised of what was going on in France,
as his ambassador (and former tutor) to Vienna, Ebubekir Ratib Efendi, sup-
plied him with a steady stream of dispatches on European affairs.31 Selim III
hesitated to resume relations with the new regime in France and by now was
more interested in staying out of European affairs. Yet France’s revolutionary
crisis also deprived the Ottomans of a major ally and the sultan was keen to
find a new one. In these circumstances, securing British support seemed to be
a viable and pragmatic solution. The Ottoman court appreciated British con-
demnation of Russian expansion in the Crimea and the Black Sea region,
which, in Ottoman eyes, elevated Britain to the status of a potential ally
while France was in turmoil.32 It was no accident that Selim III dispatched
the first Ottoman resident mission to London rather than to Paris.33
By the mid-1790s the Ottomans were growing increasingly uncomforta-
ble with French expansion, which brought the tricolor to the shores of
the Adriatic. General Bonaparte was looking eastward as early as 1797:
besides occupying the Ionian Islands, he had dispatched agents to the Maniots
(Peloponnesian Greeks) and cultivated relations with the ambitious Ali Pasha
of Janina, who demonstrated admirable diplomatic and military talents as he
exploited opportunities created by the weakening Ottoman central authority
and the outbreak of the French Revolutionary Wars.34 The growing French
presence in the region was not welcomed by the Ottomans but, mindful of
long-standing amity between France and the Porte, they chose to maintain
cordial relations with their new neighbors.35 The Turks agreed to lend money
and provide supplies to the French garrison on the island of Corfu and even
considered purchasing the Ionian Islands from France as a way to mitigate
the French menace there.
Franco-Ottoman relations took a turn for the worse in 1798, when the
French Republic decided to pursue its grand design of crippling Britain by
capturing Ottoman Egypt and threatening British trade. The French inva-
sion of Egypt—extensively discussed earlier—cut right across France’s tradi-
tional policies in the Levant, which included diplomatic support for the
“An Empire Besieged” | 379

Ottomans, protection for French merchants under the capitulations, and


patronage of Latin Christians, especially in Syria and Palestine. The Ottomans
naturally felt betrayed, and their anger was amplified by French claims that
the expedition would not target their empire.36 So instead of striking a blow
at the colonial power of Britain, the French invasion had driven their tradi-
tional ally the Ottomans into an alliance with their enemy the British. In a
major change in its long-standing policy, the Ottoman government allowed
a Russian naval squadron to pass through the straits, where the residents of
Constantinople greeted it in September 1798, declared war on France, and
pledged to support Anglo-Russian fleets in the eastern Mediterranean.37 The
Sublime Porte signed treaties with Russia and Britain, joining their anti-French
coalition—the first time the Ottomans had become a party to a European
coalition.
The most important provision of the Russo-Ottoman treaty of alliance,
signed in January 1799, was contained within a secret article granting Russia
right of passage through the Dardanelles for the duration of the war. The
Ottomans participated in operations against the French in Syria, Egypt, and
the Adriatic, but that involvement only underscored Ottoman military weak-
ness and demonstrated that the empire’s alliances with Russia and Britain
clearly lacked substance. The Ottoman defense of the fortress of Acre (where
the Turks were supported by a British squadron) did thwart Napoleon’s
attempt to invade Syria. However, it was overshadowed by the Ottoman
defeats at Mt. Tabor and Aboukir in 1799 and Heliopolis in 1800. More suc-
cessful was the Ottoman policy in the Adriatic, where a joint Russo-Ottoman
fleet under Admiral Fedor Ushakov was dispatched to the Ionian Islands,
which were seized in the spring of 1799. By the Convention of 1800 the Russia
and Ottoman government agreed to turn the islands into the Septinsular
Republic under Ottoman suzerainty and Russian protection.38
The French occupation of Egypt ended in 1801, as we’ve seen, when the
British launched a two-pronged invasion from the Mediterranean and the
Red Seas. The French departure, however, left a political void that was
quickly filled by feuding political factions. The British, as the occupying
side, found themselves drawn into vicious power struggles between the
Mamluks, who were decimated by the French invasion and had become
divided into several factions, and the resurgent Ottomans, who aspired to
reclaim their former authority in the region. This left the British in a bit of
conundrum. While driving the French out, the British did not intend on
claiming Egypt for themselves. Yet withdrawing troops would leave the region
with an uncertain future. Letters written by John Hely-Hutchinson, who
succeeded General Ralph Abercromby as commander in chief in Egypt,
380 | the napoleonic wars

reveal the precarious situation in war-torn Egypt, where the Turks were in a
“deplorable state . . . without money, without provisions, without resources of
any kind.” If the British departed, “the Mamelukes, Arabs and Greeks would
be entirely overmatch for the Turks.”39
The British thus struggled with the question of to whom Egypt should be
delivered. Their withdrawal would very probably be followed by a descent
into political turmoil and anarchy that would leave Egypt vulnerable to a
European power, while the Ottomans might revert to their former cooperation
with France. An official sent from the British embassy in Constantinople to
study the situation on the ground painted a rather disheartening picture of a
war-torn region that could not be simply left on its own.40 His recommenda-
tions, which the British ambassador conveyed to London, called for a British
military occupation, British indirect rule with Ottoman consent, or, if neither
of those options was possible, the destruction of Egypt through inundation in
order to “defeat the ambitious projects of a rival power who, by the possession
of Egypt, would gain such immense commercial advantages.”41
The British cabinet rejected all these recommendations and hoped to
bring some semblance of peace and order in Egypt by restoring things to the
way they had been in 1798; the Mamluks would have their rights and prop-
erties returned, while the sultan-appointed Ottoman governor would preside
over the region. Such a proposition hardly appeased either side, especially
after the Turks made an attempt to eliminate the Mamluk beys in late 1801.42
With the enraged Mamluks retreating to Upper Egypt, the Turks refused to
consider British offers, arguing that they had a historic opportunity to destroy
the Mamluk regime and bring Egypt under greater control. As the Russian
ambassador told his British counterpart, the Turks were “only waiting for the
[British] evacuation of Egypt to act systematically against the beys, being
resolved on their destruction.”43
By 1802 the British were keen on departing from a region where no one
welcomed them. During the peace negotiations with the French at Amiens,
they pledged to evacuate Egypt and felt an increased sense of urgency to com-
plete their commitment in order to deny the French any pretexts for com-
plaint. Indeed, in the fall of 1802 Napoleon dispatched General Horace
Sebastiani to examine the situation in Egypt, verify the British evacuation,
and revive French commercial interests in the region. In his instructions
Napoleon emphasized that Sebastiani was to assure everyone in Egypt that
Napoleon “loved the Egyptians, and desired their happiness, that he often
talked about them.”44 Sebastiani’s report described a tenuous political stabil-
ity in Egypt, where the Mamluks remained disunited, the Turks were too
weak to take control over the region, and there was bad feeling between them
“An Empire Besieged” | 381

and the British, who, the report alleged, were openly detested in Cairo.
Sebastiani spoke of the enthusiastic reception he had enjoyed in Egypt and
Syria and hinted that the French would be welcomed back in the region.
I have already discussed the role of Sebastiani’s report in stoking tensions
between France and Britain on the eve of the final rupture of Amiens. But the
report had ramifications in the Ottoman world as well. The Turks were natu-
rally alarmed by Sebastiani’s mission and sought closer relations with the
British, with the Ottoman vizier reassuring the British ambassadors of the
sincerity of the sultan’s friendly feelings toward Britain.45 After the failure of
Robert Lord Blantyre’s last attempt to mediate in the long-protracted quarrel
between the Ottomans and the Mamluks, the British evacuated the country
in March 1803. Nonetheless General John Stuart, who supervised the with-
drawal, also took steps to ensure a continued British presence. Agents were
left in Cairo to protect British interests once the Turks and Mamluks “should
no longer be overawed by the presence of [the British] army and when they
should lose their recollection of the wholesome counsel of the British com-
mander.”46 Stuart also provided secret supplies of monies and arms to the
Mamluks to ensure their survival in Upper Egypt.
After seizing power in France in 1799, Napoleon embarked on rebuilding
Franco-Ottoman ties, which, as we’ve seen, had unraveled in the previous
two years. He understood that the Ottomans, despite their clear weakness,
could play a key role in his European diplomatic maneuvering; friendship
and alliance with the sultan could serve not only as a useful tool against the
commercial interest of Britain but also as a means to bend Russia to his
will. Napoleon took advantage of long-standing ties between France and the
Ottoman Empire to approach the sultan with an offer of a peace treaty. In
Constantinople, the end of the French occupation of Egypt revived old politi-
cal alignments, and Britain and Russia sought to prevent an Ottoman-French
rapprochement that could harm their interests. The Ottoman court was split
into two major factions, with Grand Admiral Küçük Hüseyn leading the
pro-French faction, which had been upset by Britain’s continued presence in
Egypt and British support for the Mamluks in a bid to secure their influence
in the region; the admiral believed that an alliance with France would serve
as a security guarantee against both Russia and Britain. Grand Vizier Yusuf
Ziya Pasha, however, looked with suspicion at the French government and
felt that an alliance with Britain could be used as a bulwark against France
and Russia. Sultan Selim III played both factions to retain his freedom of
action, unwilling to jeopardize his relations with any of European powers.
In 1801–1802 France negotiated two definitive treaties with Britain and
the Ottoman Empire.47 Article 8 of the Amiens treaty proclaimed that the
382 | the napoleonic wars

territories, possessions, and rights of the Ottoman Empire were “maintained


in their integrity, as they were before the war.” A separate Franco-Ottoman
treaty mutually guaranteed the integrity of the French and Ottoman posses-
sions, while France regained its former privileges (such as capitulations and
the right to act as protectors over the sultan’s Catholic subjects) and, for the
first time, the Porte gave French merchant vessels the right to trade freely on
the Black Sea.48 With this treaty, Napoleon reversed the diplomatic revolu-
tion of 1799 and set the Ottoman Empire and France on the road to rebuild-
ing their relations. In addition, Napoleon had opened up new markets by
which France could trade with Russia, the Balkans, and even Iran. These new
markets, he hoped, would rival and perhaps surpass British commercial inter-
ests in the East.49 The Peace of Amiens did not mean that Napoleon had
abandoned all his plans to challenge Britain’s commercial and naval interest,
nor that he had given up on territorial ambitions for France in the Ottoman
realm. He still desired to regain French control over the Ionian Islands (which
he won in 1797, but which Russia captured in 1799) and set his sights on
controlling key areas on the Adriatic Coast in the Balkans.
Napoleon pursued a multifaceted strategy toward the Ottoman Empire
and frequently used the Eastern Question to facilitate his policies elsewhere.
Thus, in 1801–1803 French diplomatic overtures to Austria and Russia reg-
ularly mentioned the prospect of partitioning the Ottoman Empire in order to
compensate them for losses suffered elsewhere in Europe; when the Austrians
complained of the “paucity” of their compensations in Germany, Talleyrand
consoled them with promises of “new acquisitions in Turkey at the time of its
impending destruction.”50 One may agree with French historian Albert Vandal
that Napoleon floated “the issue of partitioning of Turkey not to implement
it but rather as a bait.”51 The goal was to sow discord among the European
powers. Although Emperor Alexander ultimately declined France’s offers,
the British were alarmed by the fact that some senior Russian officials (espe-
cially Prince Adam Czartoryski) found those offers enticing, favored taking
action against the Turks, and rebuffed British offers for a collective engage-
ment to provide for “security and integrity of Turkey.”52 Equally anxious
were the Habsburgs, who were concerned that any Austrian aggrandizement
in the Balkans would provoke Prussian demands for compensation, and that
any Prussian acquisitions in Germany would far outweigh Austrian gains in
the Ottoman realm. Above all, Austrian emperor Francis feared a repetition
of the Partitions of Poland, into which, in his words, Austria had been “forced
and duped.” Unlike his grandmother Empress Maria Theresa, who, as Frederick
the Great caustically observed, “wept but took [Polish lands] all the same,”
Emperor Francis felt that Austria should not be involved in the Ottoman
“An Empire Besieged” | 383

partitions, as it would be saddled with more hard-to-govern territories in


which “it would be necessary to shed too much blood for each step we make
forward.”53
In October 1802 Napoleon dispatched General Guillaume Brune as the
new French ambassador to Constantinople, advising him to reclaim “the
supremacy which France had enjoyed for two centuries in that capital.” Brune
was to safeguard French commerce and take under his protection the Roman
Catholics across the empire; to showcase France’s revival, Brune was instructed
to stay put and keep the embassy fully illuminated on Muslim holidays.
Napoleon underscored how beneficial alliance with France could be for the
Turks. It would be based on reciprocal guarantee of territories, yet while the
French Republic pledged to act in order to protect Ottoman territorial integ-
rity, the sultan would assume no responsibility to take part in France’s wars.54
Brune reached Constantinople in December 1802 and remained there
for three years. Capitalizing on the anti-British feelings that resulted from
Britain’s continued occupation of Egypt, he largely succeeded in restoring
France’s position at the sultan’s court (though his further efforts to gain
Selim’s confidence were stymied by the Russian and British envoys). Among
Brune’s accomplishments was revival of the French consular service, with
consuls and agents posted in Greece, Crete, Cyprus, Syria, Wallachia, and
Moldavia as well as the Russian and Ottoman ports on the Black Sea coast.
This vast network provided Napoleon with a steady stream of information
and insights into the Ottoman realms and shaped French foreign policy. As a
result, as early as 1802–1803, Alexandre Romieu, French consul general in
Corfu, urged action in Albania, where the growing power of the local gover-
nor suggested imminent rupture with the Ottoman sultan. Ali Pasha of
Janina, who, in the words of the consul, “supremely detests the French,”
could pose serious threats to the French interests in the Balkans.55
Meanwhile, the quickly changing political situation in Europe threatened
to embroil the Ottoman Empire in yet another conflict. After the Peace
of Amiens collapsed in May 1803, Selim III was left to decide what do
next. Any involvement in European squabbles would pose a grave threat to
Ottoman interests. Despite Napoleon’s assurances of amity, the Ottomans
distrusted his intentions, remembering well how misleading French assur-
ances had turned out to be in 1798. A French landing in Morea or Albania
could mark the beginning of the dissolution of the Ottoman state. Yet the
sultan could not afford to let his relations with France disintegrate, because
he could never be sure what his Russian and British allies had in store for
him; the latter had already resorted to the precautionary measure of anchor-
ing a naval squadron at Tenedos, just outside the Dardanelles. Unwilling to
5° 10° 15° 20° 25° 30° 35° 40° 45° 50° 55°

1878 Date or period of autonomy


Vi 1878 Date of independence
Berlin stu
la
50°
RUSSIA
Warsaw

Elbe
Od
Paris Frankfurt er

e
Krakow Kiev

in
Prague

Rh
Danube
FRANCE Dn
iep
er
Vienna

AUSTRIA BUKOVINA
45° to Austria BESSARABIA Azov
HUNGARY 1775 to Russia 1774

e
to Austria 1699 Ochakov

ôn
Milan MOLDAVIA to Russia Kherson K H A N A T E O F C R I M E A

Rh
Venice Trieste TRANSYLVANIA 1829 1812
to Austria 1699 Odessa 1774 to Russia 1783
IA
AT Russian Izmail Akkerman
O BANAT Crimea
CR to Austria Russ. 1829
ITALY 1718 occupation, Turk. 1856 CIRCASSIANS Caspian
BOSNIA to Austria Rum. 1878
Theodosia
DALMATIA Belgrade 1718-39 1806-1812 DAGHESTAN
to Venice 1699-1797 SERBIA WALLACHIA Sevastopol Trib. to 1723
Sea
to Austria 1797 and 1816 Sarajevo Bucharest Constanta
to Italy 1805-9 to Austria 1718-39 e K.OF
1817 1878 nub
to France 1809-16 Da Black Sea IMERETI
RAGUSA Nish 1810
Rome MONTENEGRO Batumi KAKHETI 1801 Ku Baku
1718 (Ottoman ra
40° Cattaro Sinop until 1878)
Erivan
Kars KARABAGH
Trib. to 1730 s
Constantinople Trabzon ak
Erzurum Ar
Salonica
AZERBAIJAN
Trib. to 1730
L. Van
Ionian Is. THESSALY
to Ven. until 1797 S T A N L. Urmia
Fr. 1797-99 and 1807-15 D I
Br. Prot. 1815-63 R
GREECE Negroponte Chios U
to Greece 1863 (Euboea) K Tehran
Missolonghi 1830
Athens
MOREA Samos

8 07
Tunis

n1
to to Ven. Mosul

si
35°
Navarino 1685/99- e
IRAN
1715/18 el l
an Aleppo
D a rd
the LURISTAN
gh
Tig

rou Rhodes S Y R I A
ris

k th Eu
tac
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ph
B ritis
Crete
Nicosia ra
TUNIS tes
Cyprus Baghdad
Nominally Subject
until 1881
Fr. Prot. 1881 Tripoli Mediterranean Sea Beirut I R A Q
Damascus
Briti
sh in
vasi
on o
f Egy
pt in 1 Basra
Ottoman Vassal until 1835, 807 Jerusalem
30° Ottoman Province 1835-1912 Persian
Gaza Gulf
Alexandria
T R I P O L I
EL
Cairo HASA
C Y R E N A I C A E G Y P T Suez
Ottoman Vassal until 1835, 1811
Ottoman Province 1835-1912
Br. Occup. 1882, Br. Prot. 1912

H E J AZ

0 130 260 Kilometers


Ni
le

Red Sea
0 130 260 Miles

Map 17: The Ottoman Empire and the “Eastern Question”


“An Empire Besieged” | 385

get embroiled in European affairs, in September 1803 Selim III declared for
neutrality, for the second time in ten years.56 But Ottoman nonalignment did
not exempt them from European rivalries.
France’s Eastern policy was largely conditioned by European policies but
was also characterized by the multipronged nature of Napoleon’s design. In
1803 the French emperor was busy assuring both the sultan and the Mamluk
chiefs, who of course defied Ottoman authority, of his friendship and support,
all the while considering the prospect of partitioning the empire with other
European powers. With Austria sitting on the proverbial fence, Russia and
Britain were increasingly concerned about the possibility of French inter-
vention inside the Ottoman Empire; Russia was even willing to forestall it
through a “preventative” intervention of its own, which would “defend” the
Ottoman domain and “improve” the condition of the Christian subjects of
the sultan.57 In early 1804, to prepare the ground for such an eventuality,
Russia sent out feelers to Britain, but it was unable to secure any commit-
ments to its projects; however, Britain did appoint consul generals in Morea
and Egypt to counteract French intrigues. Still, it tended to rely on its naval
power to forestall any French ambitions in the east.58 Undeterred, the Russian
government focused its efforts on shoring up support among the Christian
population of the Balkan Peninsula and in August 1804 welcomed the news
that the prince-bishop of Montenegro had made a formal appeal to place his
principality under Russian protection.
Equally problematic was the situation in the Ionian Islands, which a joint
Russo-Ottoman expedition had captured during the War of the Second
Coalition. In April 1800 the two sides signed a convention that established
the Septinsular Republic on the islands, which remained under the su­ze­
rainty of the Porte, paying the triennial tribute, while Russia guaranteed its
administrative arrangement and continuity of its sovereignty against any for-
eign intervention.59 Largely forgotten in the histories of the Revolutionary
and Napoleonic Wars, this convention was a significant document, in that it
established the first Greek state in the modern European history. The ink was
hardly dry on the convention before both sides started to quibble over its
interpretation, with Russia insisting that the republic was virtually in­de­
pend­ent of the Porte and placing it under de facto occupation.60 Considering
the strategic location of the islands, the Russian actions are hardly surpris-
ing.61 The islands of Corfu, Zante, and Cefalonia provided convenient staging
grounds for Russian naval forces and could serve as a strategic foothold for
possible attack on Ottoman possessions in the Balkans.62 Shortly after com-
ing to power, however, Emperor Alexander made the decision to evacuate the
islands, provided that no other foreign troops would be allowed there. The
386 | the napoleonic wars

Russian withdrawal revealed deep divisions within the Ionian population.


The Septinsular Republic quickly collapsed, with its constituent islands
rejecting Ottoman authority; some preferred to declare independence (as did
Cephalonia and Ithaca), while others hoisted the British flag (like Zenta).
In light of Napoleon’s aggressive policies in Italy, Russia feared that
France might exploit the turmoil in the Ionian Islands and that the Ottomans
would be unable to counter a potential French intervention. These concerns
compelled Alexander to reverse his decision and send Russian troops back to
the islands in late 1802.63 Over the next two years the size of the Russian
garrison increased sevenfold, reaching some 8,000 men, supported by a strong
naval squadron. As instructions to its agents in the Septinsular Republic
demonstrate, the Russian government used the islands as gateways into the
Balkan Peninsula, where it sought to undermine any French influences while
strengthening its own positions by highlighting the religious and cultural
affinity between the Russians, the Greeks, and the southern Slavs. As Russian
foreign minister Prince Adam Czartoryski observed, Russia “should carefully
avoid anything that could discredit us in the eyes of the Porte, as it is impor-
tant for us to be on friendly terms with it . . . [and] to prepare everything in
such a way that it could be used for realization of any plan or decision that a
turn of events might make us choose.”64
Russian actions alarmed not only the Ottomans but also the Austrians
and British. In the fall of 1804, as Britain and Russia discussed the prospects
of forming a new coalition against France, the conversation also involved
the future of the Ottoman Empire. Britain insisted on the territorial integ-
rity of the Porte. Echoing elements of the “weak neighbor” policy, Czartoryski
countered that if the Ottoman Empire did not side with France, it would
“perhaps be best, after reestablishing her rights under old treaties, to leave
her for the moment in her present condition,” except for Serbia and the Ionian
Republic, whose fate would have to be determined. However, if during the
impending war the Turks showed any support for the French, “the ques-
tion should arise of definitively settling the fate of the Ottoman Empire in
Europe.” Czartoryski envisioned the mass of Ottoman territories in Europe
being divided into locally governed states within a Russian-led federation,
while the eastern Ottoman possessions would be placed under a Russian pro-
tectorate; Austria would be appeased with Croatia, part of Bosnia, Wallachia,
Belgrade, and Ragusa, while Russia would annex “Moldavia, Cattaro, Corfu
and, above all, Constantinople and the Dardanelles, together with the neigh-
boring ports, which would make us masters of the Straits.” In exchange for
accepting this arrangement, Britain and France would receive compensations
in “Africa and Asia.”65
“An Empire Besieged” | 387

The Russian delegation did its best to convince Britain that while France’s
territorial ambitions posed a threat, Russia’s own expansion into the Ottoman
realm would not be detrimental to British interests.66 Surprised as he might
have been to hear this, Prime Minister Pitt demurred, noting that “the real-
ization of such plan would be highly ill-advised and damaging to our main
goal [of containing France], and it would constitute a major breach of the law
of nations [droit des gens].”67 Nonetheless, on the eve of the War of the Third
Coalition, neither Britain nor Russia could afford implacable hostility to
each other’s interests. The British cabinet decided to “try to adapt itself to the
attitude of Russia as far as possible,” while Czartoryski toned down his parti-
tion rhetoric and spoke of the common interests that Russia and Britain
shared.68 Britain and Russia thus chose to overlook their differences (for now)
in favor of joining efforts against the growing French threat. The Declaration
of Alliance, issued by Austria and Russia in November 1804, solemnly guar-
anteed the integrity of the sultan’s domain.69 In December Russia agreed to
renew the treaty of alliance with the Ottoman Empire in order to “appease
the concerns of Mr. Pitt, whose system, as far back as 1790, was based on the
greatest jealousy of any new acquisitions on the part of Russia.”70
The Russo-Ottoman negotiations revealed just how frustrated the
Ottomans had become with their involvement in coalitions in which they
increasingly felt like a junior partner. Russia made no effort to conceal its
belief that the Ottoman Empire was declining and that it could no longer
afford to bear “gratuitously” the burden of defending Ottoman territorial
integrity.71 Russia therefore insisted not only on the Ottoman confirmation
of earlier concessions—notably, the right to intervene on behalf of Christian
subjects and the right to move warships through the straits—but also on a
new one that, in case of a conflict involving another European power, sanc-
tioned “preventative” occupations of the Danubian Principalities by Russia
and of Egypt and Morea by Britain.72 Britain did not object to the Russian
proposal because its cabinet had also considered occupying Alexandria should
it become necessary in the course of war against France.73 But for the Turks,
the new demands rubbed salt into old wounds. They refused to accept the
new provision, which conspicuously violated their sovereignty, and declared
that “war would be preferable to an alliance founded on such principles.”74
The sultan broke off negotiations in September, though the British con-
vinced him to return to the table once the unacceptable provision had been
dropped.75 Thus, finding themselves between the proverbial rock (Russia)
and a hard place (France), the Ottomans chose the former and on September
24, 1805, signed a renewed alliance with Russia.76 This experience left them
humiliated and keen for a way out of the Russian embrace.
388 | the napoleonic wars

The renewal of the Russian-Ottoman alliance was a major setback for


French diplomacy, which had worked so hard to drive a wedge between the
sultan and the European powers. In March 1804 Napoleon sent a secret letter
to the sultan, reassuring him of France’s good intentions and friendship and
denying any intention to invade Egypt or Greece. The emperor urged Selim
III to reestablish his authority in Egypt and Syria and to deal quickly with
the nascent Serbian revolt.77 After Russia and France severed diplomatic rela-
tions in the wake of the execution of the duc d’Enghien, Napoleon continued
to push the sultan to commit to the French cause. “I desire to support the
[Ottoman] Empire [and] I desire that it recover a little energy,” read his
instructions to Brune.78 The French emperor was willing to embellish some
facts, and in an effort to impress the sultan he claimed the existence of special
arrangements between France, Spain, and the United States against Britain.79
His efforts seemed to have produced results, at least initially, for the sultan
met France’s special envoy, declared that “Napoleon is my friend,” and agreed
that there must be “perfect harmony” between the two states.80
Still, the sultan’s pronouncements could not change the fact that Russia
had gained a considerable naval presence in the eastern Mediterranean through
its right to send warships through the straits and a continued presence in the
Ionian Islands. This worried not only France but also Britain, which wanted
to frustrate Russian ambitions but could not act openly because of its need
for Russian support against France; instead, the British embassy to the Porte
encouraged the sultan to continue modernizing his state and military. Though
well aware of Russian designs, Selim III was unwilling to risk an open rup-
ture, particularly at such a difficult moment for his empire, when it was beset
with problems in the Balkans, Egypt, and Arabia. The St. Petersburg court
exploited this situation to advance its interests in the Ottoman realm. Aside
from the renewed alliance treaty, Russian also negotiated a new agreement
that consolidated Russian positions in the Danubian Principalities and gave
it the right to intervene on behalf of the hospodars (princes) of Wallachia and
Moldavia, who were selected for a term of seven years and could not be deposed
except in cases of misconduct and by joint Russian and Ottoman inquiry. As
we shall see, the emphasis on “joint” proved to be very important, for the
sultan’s violation of this provision (at the behest of the French) in 1806 would
serve as a casus belli for Russia. Simultaneously, Russia used provisions of the
1798 treaty with the Ottomans to move its warships through the Bosporus
and Dardanelles, ostensibly to maintain communications with the Ionian
Islands. France’s opposition to the Russian naval movements and, more impor-
tant, to Russian claims to exclusive control of the Black Sea—or, as the Russian
ambassador told Brune, “a great lake belonging to Russia”—contributed to
“An Empire Besieged” | 389

the growing Franco-Russian political rivalry on the eve of the War of the
Third Coalition.81
In May 1804 Napoleon assumed the imperial title and the question of
whether or not the Ottomans would grant him recognition became of para-
mount importance to him.82 The Ottomans initially paid little attention to
the change; the title of “emperor” meant little to them. In an effort to under-
score its importance, Brune informed them that Napoleon had become
“emperor and padishah,” the latter being an Iranian title for a great king that
combined Islamic perceptions of temporal and religious authority and came
close to reflecting the sultan’s own position. Yet Brune’s effort backfired,
given that the Ottomans had already conceded the title of “padishah” to the
emperor of Russia, whose ambassador actively lobbied against extending a
similar recognition to an upstart Corsican, whose activities in Italy and
Greece pointed to his “perfidious designs against the Ottoman Empire.”
Britain shared the Russian position, stating that its new ambassador, then en
route to Constantinople, would suspend his journey until the Turks provided
assurances that they would not recognize Napoleon’s emperorship.83
The recognition of Napoleon as the emperor of the French thus became
the principal diplomatic question throughout the summer and fall of 1804,
with the Ottomans skillfully avoiding using either term (“emperor” or
“padishah”) in official correspondence. The French continued to press for rec-
ognition but kept receiving vague responses that the sultan would not get
involved in matters of Christian rulers and preferred to wait and see how
other European powers acted on this issue.84 The Ottomans were unmoved by
Brune’s arguments that the peace settlements had annulled the 1799 alli-
ances or by his warning about Russian designs. In the fall of 1804 the French
ambassador tried to force the sultan’s hand on the issue of imperial recogni-
tion, threatening to leave Constantinople if Selim kept up his refusal and
continued to allow Russian ships through the Straits. The French ambassador
was given a perfectly vague answer: “This would be arranged, if God per-
mits.” As one French historian aptly observed, “God” in this affair was the
Russian ambassador A. Italinskii, who immediately warned the Ottoman
government that the slightest change in its policy would be an affront to
Russia and Britain, and reminded it of the military dominance that the
European powers enjoyed.85 Brune therefore had no choice but to leave
Constantinople while Russia went on to negotiate a new alliance treaty with
the Turks in 1805.86
These were major setbacks for the French emperor, who lamented the
growing Russian influence at Constantinople and reminded the sultan of
Russia’s traditional hostility toward the Porte. “Most high, most excellent,
390 | the napoleonic wars

most powerful, most magnanimous and invincible prince, the great Emperor
of the Muslims, Sultan Selim, in whom all honor and virtue abound,” wrote
Napoleon in January 1805. “You, the descendant of great Ottomans, Emperor
of one of the greatest empires in the world, do you cease to reign? Why do
you suffer the Russians to dictate to you?”87 What Napoleon had failed to
consider was that the sultan feared the military and naval power of Britain
and Russia; he reasoned that they were far more capable at the time of back-
ing up their threats and ambitions with force than was France.
Emperor Alexander understood that Sultan Selim III’s commitment to the
new Russo-Ottoman alliance depended on the outcome of the War of the Third
Coalition. Napoleon’s military triumph and the humiliation of Austria and
Russia at Austerlitz naturally made a profound impression in Constantinople
and paved the way for a more accommodating attitude toward France; the
Ottomans “consider Bonaparte as an instrument in the hands of providence
to punish the iniquities of an offending world,” observed the British ambas-
sador in February 1806.88 Particular attention was paid to the 1805 Treaty of
Pressburg, which recognized French territorial gains in the Adriatic (Istria
and Dalmatia) and brought the French Empire into direct territorial contact
with the Ottomans, thereby providing Napoleon with new leverage over the
sultan. Thrilled by the “miraculous victories of our august emperor,” the
French chargé d’affaires, Pierre Ruffin, warned the Turks that any overt sup-
port of “the enemies of His Majesty, the Emperor of the French,” would risk
a direct confrontation.89 Such veiled threats were entirely unnecessary. Sultan
Selim III had quickly adjusted his policy by refusing to ratify the Russo-
Ottoman alliance, restricting Russian movements through the straits, and
suspending negotiations with Britain. In February 1806 the sultan officially
recognized Napoleon’s imperial title: “Having captured Vienna, conquered
so many countries, and defeated [Austrian and Russian] emperors together,
there can no longer be any question as to Bonaparte’s imperial title,” observed
Sultan Selim in a note to his grand vizier.90 Despite vigorous protests from the
British and Russian ambassadors, the Ottomans justified their recognition by
pointing to the new political reality in Europe, one that made France their
next-door neighbor. Besides, the Ottomans felt emboldened to express their
belief that after the defeats of 1805 Russia could no longer provide effective
support.91
France responded to the changes in the Ottoman policies with alacrity,
sending a special envoy and welcoming the dispatch of the new Ottoman
ambassador, Seyyid Abdürrahim Muhib Efendi, who arrived with great pomp in
June 1806.92 In May 1806 Napoleon sent his new ambassador, Horace François
Sébastiani, to Constantinople. His instructions reveal that he intended to use
“An Empire Besieged” | 391

the Ottomans in his ongoing conflict with Russia, hoping to force Russia
into a position whereby it had to choose whether to side with France against
Britain or face multiple threats along its borders. To this purpose, the French
hoped to render the Russo-Ottoman alliance ineffective and to make Russia’s
position in the Adriatic untenable by convincing the Ottomans to close the
straits to Russian warships. If it came to it, an armed conflict between Russia
and the Porte would be equally beneficial to France, diverting (and deplet-
ing) Russian resources away from central and eastern Europe.93
As the year 1806 progressed, it became clear that Selim III had firmly
moved toward an alliance with France, declaring his intention to close the
Bosporus and Dardanelles to Russian vessels, bolstering Ottoman defenses
along the Russo-Ottoman frontier in Bessarabia and the Danube River, and,
with French encouragement, mobilizing armed forces against the Serbs. The
latter move is particular noteworthy because Napoleon made considerable
use of the Serbian revolt, characterizing it as one of the most serious internal
challenge that the Ottomans confronted. He blamed the revolt on Russian
incitements and advised the sultan to deny Russia any participation in the
Serbo-Ottoman negotiations, arguing that the establishment of Serbian
autonomy, under Russian tutelage, would serve as a signal for other Balkan
Christians to seek similar concessions, which in turn would precipitate the
fragmentation of the Ottoman Empire.94 Of equal importance to Napoleon
was the prospect of Serbo-Russian military cooperation, which, along with
British naval supremacy in the eastern Mediterranean, could have profound
implications for French political and economic interests in the region. He
therefore encouraged Selim III to subdue the Serbian rebels by force and
without any foreign involvement. In February and March 1806 Ottoman
military preparations against the Serbs gave Russia cause for grave concern,
with Emperor Alexander instructing his ambassador to inform the sultan
that he considered such preparations to be directed against the Russian inter-
ests and, further, that he was prepared to defend the Ottoman realm against
any foreign interventions. Instead of the Serbs, the sultan should concentrate
his attention on the Dalmatian borderlands, for that was where the danger of
an external attack lay. These Russian efforts failed: in a suitably lukewarm
letter to Alexander, Selim assured Alexander that he harbored no hostile
intentions toward Russia.95
The French influence at the Ottoman court remained a source of growing
alarm in Vienna and St. Petersburg. Austria, having seen its prestige shred-
ded by the Treaties of Lunéville and Pressburg, felt justified in reversing its
earlier stance on the Serbian issue, in the hope of gaining some grounds in the
Balkans. A new appeal for help to Emperor Francis by Karadjordje offered
392 | the napoleonic wars

the Austrians an opportunity to engage the Serbs. However, their offer of


mediation was quickly spurned by the Ottomans, only further highlighting
the decline of Austrian influence in a region that had become a proxy battle-
ground for the Franco-Russian struggle.96 Meanwhile, a special meeting of
the Russian State Council examined the impact of Napoleon’s victories and
concluded that the French acquisition of Dalmatia posed a direct threat to
existing Russo-Ottoman relations and provided Napoleon with the means of
implementing his imperial designs in the Balkans. In order to forestall such
eventualities, the State Council decided that Russia should both try to retain
the confidence of the Ottoman government and pursue closer contacts with
the Porte’s Greek and Slav subjects.97 Thus, when a new appeal from the
Serbs arrived in the spring of 1806, the Russian government was already
prepared to start reevaluating its earlier reservations about supporting them.
Alexander I and his advisors believed that French agents were behind anti-
Russian intrigues in the region, and they feared that another slight might
force the Serbs to turn to France for help. Yet as long as the possibility of a
mediated resolution existed, Alexander was reluctant to intervene in the affairs
of the Belgrade pashalik, instead pursuing his interests in other Ottoman
spheres of influence, most notably western Georgia, where Russians had
moved to consolidate their authority in 1804–1806.
The growing Russo-Ottoman tensions, which soon erupted into a major
war, must be set within the wider context of the geopolitical realignment
that occurred during the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. After the War of the
Third Coalition, France came to dominate central Europe and acquired the
former Venetian territories that gave it access to the Balkans. French agents
were sent to various regions of the Balkans with instructions to undermine
Russian influence, while the French consulates in Moldavia and Wallachia
became the principal centers of anti-Russian intrigue.98 Furthermore, as the
Russian ambassador to Constantinople noted in one of his reports, the per-
ception of Russian weakness could tempt the Ottoman government to chal-
lenge Russian positions in Georgia and on the eastern Black Sea coast.99 Russia
found it hard to accept the prospect of losing ground in regions where it had
long sought to carve out its own place, and it was eager, in the words of a
British ambassador to Russia, to “retrieve the glory of her arms, tarnished by
the disasters of the late campaign, and to gratify the army by some important
conquest.”100
In early 1806 Russian foreign minister Czartoryski produced several mem-
oranda that outlined Russia’s new approaches to the Eastern Question. The
overarching goal was to “have Turkey solely at our disposal. We must try to
increase our influence on this state, having removed all rivals in such a way
“An Empire Besieged” | 393

that the Porte would not follow anybody else’s will or politics but ours.”101
Should the Ottomans continued to side with France, Russia, as a Slavic and
Christian nation, had a moral obligation to support Slavic and Christian sub-
jects of the Ottoman Empire and endeavor to create several Slavic states that
“would enjoy independent administration in their internal affairs but would
remain under supreme authority and protection of Russia.”102 Czartoryski
believed that the Ottoman Empire would not be able to survive another
major war and insisted that in the event of Ottoman dissolution the entire
area between the Black Sea and the Adriatic must come under Russian influ-
ence. This could be accomplished through the incorporation of Moldavia,
Wallachia, and Bessarabia directly into Russia, as well as the creation of sepa-
rate, autonomous states under the exclusive protection of Russia in Serbia,
Herzegovina, Montenegro, Greece, and other parts of the Balkan Peninsula.
These plans represented a marked departure from the benign Russian pro-
tectorate over the Balkan states that Czartoryski had advocated just three
years earlier. Nonetheless, they conveniently fit in with Russia’s long-term
objective of creating autonomous Balkan states that would lean on Russia for
support.103 Aside from its political motives, Russia’s policy in the Balkans
was also influenced by economic considerations. Both Alexander I and his
foreign minister recognized the commercial importance of the region to the
Russian economy and saw in the growing French influence a definite threat
to the establishment of Russian commerce. With the French already present
in Dalmatia and the sultan’s court seemingly falling under French sway, the
Russian government felt the need to maintain its armed forces on a respect-
able footing, ready to oppose France should it threaten the Ottoman Empire.
In this regard, the 12,000 soldiers and the Russian naval squadron under
Admiral Dimitri Senyavin at Corfu remained a serious tool for Russian influ-
ence in the Mediterranean. In the spring of 1806 these forces further strength-
ened Russia’s hold on the Adriatic coast by seizing Cattaro, Lissa, and Curzola,
where local Austrian authorities had welcomed them after their emperor
ceded these islands to France in the Treaty of Pressburg.104
In an effort to contain French influence in Constantinople, Emperor
Alexander sought closer relations with Britain, both as an added means of
influencing the Turks and as a way of securing an important ally in the ongo-
ing struggle against France. A special Russian envoy, P. A. Stroganov, was
dispatched to London to arrive at some understanding on the Eastern Question.
Stroganov’s instructions called for presenting any Russian acquisitions of the
Ottoman territories under the guise of “compensation” necessary for restor-
ing the balance of power in Europe and the eastern Mediterranean and for
facilitating a general peace on the continent.105 The Russian overture faced
394 | the napoleonic wars

great hurdles almost from the very beginning. The death of Prime Minister
Pitt in 1806 brought about a major change in British foreign policy, as we’ve
seen, with the new cabinet pursuing a more defensive strategy and eager to
conclude peace with France. Russian attempts thus failed to convince British
foreign secretary Fox to support the plan for partitioning the Ottoman
Empire. Even the Russian offer to allow the British to occupy Egypt, to pre-
vent it from falling into French hands, could not produce the desired results;
Fox denied that a French presence there would endanger British India in any
way.106 The British foreign secretary did, however, concede that should the
Ottomans actively side with France by ceding territory or allowing French
troops to pass through their realm, Britain would be ready to support Russia
to “act vigorously against the Porte as well as against France,” and “the fur-
ther [Russia] can push her conquests the more [Britain] will be satisfied.”107
More hawkish was the British ambassador to Constantinople, who
lamented the decline of Russian influence at the Ottoman court and urged
his government to send a Royal Navy squadron to cruise in Ottoman waters
in order to support Russia and to deter the Ottomans from pursuing an
overtly pro-French policy. The goal was “to unite a manifest disposition to
conciliate with a marked determination to act with firmness.” In practice this
meant resorting to a combination of assurances and threats, an approach also
typical of Napoleon’s diplomacy.108 Ultimately, no Anglo-Russian agreement
was ever reached, leaving Russia to wait for the turn of events that might
justify its intervention into Ottoman affairs.109
It did not have to wait long. By late spring 1806 the Ottoman govern-
ment had clearly veered toward France. A special diplomatic mission, led by
Abdürrahim Muhib Efendi, was sent to Paris, where it announced formal
recognition of Napoleon’s imperial title and, more crucially, outlined Ottoman
objectives in the emerging Franco-Ottoman alliance.110 The Ottomans
argued that it was Napoleon, through his invasion of Egypt in 1798, who
had brought about the existing state of affairs, and therefore it was appropri-
ate for the French to exert themselves in addressing the situation. As part of
any future settlement between France and Russia, the Ottoman government
wanted the French to insist on several key conditions on its behalf. These
included the annulment of the Russo-Ottoman alliance; the abrogation of
the conditions concerning the principalities that Russia had earlier extorted;
a new arrangement in the Ionian Islands that would protect Ottoman inter-
ests (in practice this would have meant the evacuation of the islands by
Russia); an explicit statement prohibiting the passage of Russian warships
through the Black Sea straits; and the return to their f­ ormer condition of the
areas Russia had captured in Georgia.111 The Ottoman envoy was instructed
“An Empire Besieged” | 395

to decline any French offers for a military alliance, noting as the main obsta-
cle France’s inability to defend the Porte against British naval power. At the
same time the French had to be reassured about the existing Ottoman agree-
ments with Russia and Britain, none of which, the Porte claimed, was
directed against France. In short, Muhib Efendi’s instructions clearly showed
the Ottoman desire to remain neutral, avoid entanglements in the conflicts
between European powers, and seize any opportunity to reduce Western
influence within its realm.
Probably no other issue exasperated the Ottomans as much as did the
berats, the passports granted by the foreign embassies and consulates to
Ottoman subjects that offered exemption from Ottoman jurisdiction and
taxes.112 Part of the long-standing practice of capitulations, the berats had
been abused by all the Western powers, especially Russia and France, depriv-
ing the Ottomans of much-needed revenue and fostering their sense of resent-
ment against foreign interference. The scale of the misuse can be gleaned
from the fact that by agreeing to revise its berats, the French embassy alone
lost 1 million francs in revenue.113 In May 1806, despite the opposition of the
European missions, the Ottoman authorities began to vigorously check the
legitimacy of the berats and reserved capitulary rights only to bona fide for-
eign representatives; among the measures they undertook was to order all
Greeks, who had used the protection of the Russian flag, to surrender their
berats within eight days or face the confiscation of their properties. Russia and
Britain were vocal in denouncing these measures, which pointed to a more
assertive Ottoman government, but ultimately chose to accept them in light
of the much larger international issues at stake.
Far more worrisome for Russia was the Ottoman attitude toward the pas-
sage of Russian ships through the Dardanelles. When the Ottoman govern-
ment declared that this jeopardized its neutrality and asked Russia to avoid
using the straits for military purposes, the Russian response was immediate
and vehement, rejecting any concessions on what the Russians considered a
“right” derived from existing treaties.114 The whole question of Russia’s
rights in the Ottoman Empire soon became a central issue in the ongoing
Franco-Russian negotiations, which led to an agreement (the Clarke-d’Oubril
Treaty, July 1806) that attempted to reconcile the two powers. Much of the
agreement dealt with French and Russian interests in the Adriatic and the
Balkans. Understanding that neither side would consent to any diminution
of its influence in the region, the agreement vaguely stated that “the inde­
pend­ence of the Ottoman Porte shall be acknowledged on both sides, and
both the high contracting parties engage to protect it and the integrity of its
possessions.” Yet, in a major concession, the Russian envoy agreed to the
396 | the napoleonic wars

Russian evacuation of Cattaro and the reduction of the Russian garrison at


Corfu, in exchange for French pledges to support the restoration of the
Republic of Ragusa and to cease any hostile activities in the eastern Adriatic.115
Emperor Alexander refused to ratify the agreement, regarding its provisions
as too conciliatory and weakening Russian positions in the Adriatic, which
he considered crucial to maintaining influence at the Porte and among the
Ottoman subjects in the Balkans.
Furthermore, by August 1806 the Russians had achieved a major diplo-
matic success that made rejection of this agreement almost inevitable. Ever
since the defeats of 1805, Russian diplomats had worked hard to negate
Napoleon’s influence by attaching Prussia to Russia through an agreement
that would have made the maintenance of Ottoman territorial integrity its
basis.116 At first Napoleon blocked Russian efforts by negotiating the Treaty
of Schönbrunn (December 15, 1805). But Prussia’s frustration with French
expansion created an opening that the Russians exploited in the summer of
1806. In July the Prussian and Russian negotiators agreed on a secret decla-
ration at Charlottenburg. Prussia would agree to turn a blind eye to France
and commit itself to guaranteeing, along with Russia, the Ottoman pos-
sessions (as well as those of Austria and Denmark).117 The Charlottenburg
Declaration in effect negated the Franco-Russian agreement, since Alexander
no longer had any incentive to support its onerous provisions.
In August 1806 Sultan Selim III lent a willing ear to the newly arrived
French ambassador, Sebastiani, whose instructions called for the closure of
the straits to Russian ships, helping the Turks to strengthen fortifications
along the borders with Russia, and restoring Ottoman authority over
Moldavia and Wallachia.118 Sebastiani started with the last of these, urging
the sultan to replace the current hospodars of Moldavia and Wallachia, Princes
Constantine Ipsilanti and Alexander Muruzi, because of their pro-Russian
sympathies.119 Despite repeated Russian warnings, Selim III indeed replaced
these princes, on the grounds that they were abetting the Serbian rebels at
the behest of their Russian patrons.120 In their place he appointed pro-French
hospodars, Alexander Suzzo and Scarlat Callimachi. But in doing so the sultan
violated the existing agreement that required Russia’s consent to dismiss or
appoint the hospodars. Although the Ottomans quickly realized their mis-
take, the damage had been done.121 Emperor Alexander considered the dis-
missals as the latest and clearest sign of growing French influence at
Constantinople, which would justify his intervention into Ottoman affairs
and compel Britain to act.122 More significant was that the Russians felt their
“weak neighbor” policy had failed—the Ottomans had proved just as likely
to fall under the influence of a rival power. Therefore, only a forceful response
“An Empire Besieged” | 397

could compel Constantinople to modify its positions; in the words of


Czartoryski, “Fear is the only means that may have an effect on the Turks in
these circumstances.”123 Alexander shared this sentiment and was determined
to use the occasion to reaffirm Russian dominance in Constantinople. In fact,
once the war began, the emperor gradually fell under the influence of his
more hawkish advisors and reverted to the earlier expansionist aims of his
grandmother.
The Ottomans thus faced the very situation that they had been studiously
trying to avoid since war broke out in Europe thirteen years earlier: having to
choose between France and its enemies. They initially sought a British medi-
ation and, admitting their mistake, offered to remove the new hospodars,
though they stopped short of reinstating the old ones. Yet that was precisely
the demand that Russians considered sine qua non.124 In mid-October, just as
Napoleon routed the Prussians, the Ottoman state council (Encümen-i Şura)
debated the issue, weighing the advantages of siding with France, maintain-
ing neutrality, or redressing Russian and British grievances. Napoleon, pre-
occupied as he was in northern Europe, had limited means of threatening the
empire, and the French military presence in the Adriatic, though ominous,
could still be contained by Ottoman forces. Russia, on the other hand, could
march to the Danube without much opposition, while Britain could attack
the entire Ottoman coastline. In the end, Sultan Selim III yielded to pressure
and decided to accommodate Russia’s demands. On October 15 the Ottomans
informed the Russian embassy of their decision to restore the dismissed hospo-
dars, which they did over the following two days.125 This was a major diplo-
matic setback for Napoleon, as the Ottomans had unmistakably revealed
their low estimation of the French threat and their far greater concern over
Anglo-Russian actions.
But Ottoman hopes of avoiding a war were soon dashed, as the Russian
government pushed for a direct confrontation. On October 28, while the
Russian armies prepared to fight Napoleon in Poland, Emperor Alexander
ordered his troops to cross the imperial border with the Ottoman Empire and
occupy Bessarabia, Moldavia, and Wallachia.126 He justified this decision by
pointing to uncertainty about Ottoman intentions. Constantinople had failed
to provide any guarantees concerning Sebastiani’s earlier threat to march
French troops across Ottoman territory to the Dniester, which would have
threatened the southern provinces of Russia. Besides, in the Russians’ judg-
ment, the Ottoman decision on the hospodars fell short of rectifying the situ-
ation.127 Over the course of the next three months, a Russian army of over
40,000 men under General Ivan Michelson advanced through the Danubian
Principalities, seized half a dozen Ottoman fortresses, and pushed Ottoman
398 | the napoleonic wars

forces back to the Danube River, where the Turks repelled a Russian attempt
to cross the river at Giurgiu (Giurgevo, located in present-day Romania).128
The Ottomans, still hoping for a mediated resolution of this conflict, delayed
their declaration of war until late December 1806.129
Napoleon, who, as noted, was fighting the Russians in Poland, welcomed
the start of the Russo-Ottoman conflict, though the news of the rapid Russian
advance into Wallachia could not have left him encouraged. He tried never-
theless to turn the events to his own advantage, publishing falsified news
stories—containing a few grains of truth and dated from Bucharest and
Tiflis—in French newspapers in order to “enlighten the public opinion.” His
goal was to showcase that by being threatened by the French in Poland, the
Turks in Wallachia, and the Persians in southeastern Caucasia, “the Russian
Empire is attacked on every side.”130 More pointedly, the emperor urged the
sultan to declare war on Russia and resist the invasion with all his might.
The news of the French triumph over the Prussians at Jena (October 14)
reached Constantinople in November and made Selim and his viziers more
susceptible to French arguments. In November, as he informed Selim of his
victories, Napoleon exhorted the sultan not make peace with Russia until he
had taken possession of the Danubian Principalities, and he assured Selim
that, owing to the French successes in Prussia, Russia had withdrawn some of
its forces from the Dniester. On December 1, 1806, he authorized Sebastiani
to conclude an offensive and defensive alliance with the Ottomans, pledging
to guarantee the integrity of Moldavia, Wallachia, and Serbia. “The moment
has arrived to restore the Ottoman Empire to her former grandeur,” Napoleon
encouraged Selim. “There is not a moment to waste; your frontiers are
invaded. Your Highness must take vigorous measures offered by the loyalty
of his people to leave our common enemies not a moment to rest. Call upon
all your loyal subjects to defend what they hold most dear—their cities,
mosques and everything Islamic the Russians wished to destroy.”131 In case
the sultan needed help defending the Danube, Napoleon was ready to dis-
patch up to 25,000 men under General Marmont by way of Vidin (where a
French agent was already stationed), and he thought the arrival of French
troops would compel the Russians to divert more troops to Wallachia,
thereby rendering his own campaign easier in Poland.
Napoleon’s strategy against Russia was revealed in a series of instructions
he sent to Marmont in Dalmatia and Sebastiani in Constantinople in January
1807. He argued that France had a unique opportunity to forge a tripartite
alliance with the Porte and Iran and threaten Russian borders across a vast
area between the Baltic and the Caspian Seas. He wanted the Ottomans to
make better use of their naval resources and pledged to send six French warships
“An Empire Besieged” | 399

(if they could escape the British blockade) to the Black Sea, where, with the
help of the Ottoman fleet, they would attack the Russian fleet and harass
Russian coastal regions. At the same time he hoped that the Iranian shah,
with whom he was already negotiating (as we’ll see), would increase his
efforts to reclaim eastern Georgia and that the Ottomans would open a new
front in western Georgia. “You must ensure that the Porte orders the pasha of
Erzerum to march with all of his forces to [western] Georgia,” Napoleon
instructed his ambassador in Constantinople. “Also maintain good disposi-
tions of the prince of Abkhazia [Kelesh Ahmed Bey] and instigate him to
participate in a grand diversion against our common enemy. So that this
prince, the pasha of Erzerum, the Persians, and the Porte all simultaneously
attack Georgia, the Crimea, and Bessarabia.”132
As conjectural as these plans may seem, some of them were in fact imple-
mented—but with doleful results. The Ottoman spring counteroffensive of
1807, led by Grand Vizier Ibrahim Hilmi Pasha himself, showed some early
promise, as the Turks attacked in two directions. They could not coordinate
their actions, however, thereby allowing the Russians to defeat the Ottoman
advance guard under Ali Pasha at Obilesti on June 13, 1807, and force the
main Ottoman army to fall back beyond the Danube.133 Even more disastrous
was the Ottoman advance in southern Caucasus, an offensive so poorly
planned by Yussuf Pasha, the serasker of Erzerum, that it was intercepted and
routed by a smaller Russian force on the Arpaçay (Akhurian) River on June
18, 1807. This was a major Russian victory, for it effectively removed any
threat of a major Ottoman invasion of Georgia and consolidated Russian
positions in southern Caucasus.
Of even greater importance were the events that took place far away from
the theater of war. First the British attacked the Dardanelles and Egypt, then
a political revolution removed Sultan Selim III from power, and finally the
Franco-Russian rapprochement at Tilsit profoundly affected the balance of
power in Europe.

The start of the Russo-Ottoman War, the French acquisitions in the Adriatic,
and, most important, the growing French influence in Constantinople left
Britain no choice but to act. Throughout the summer and fall of 1806 Britain
remained completely committed to Russia’s support of the Ottomans. As early
as September 1806, the British ambassador Charles Arbuthnot demanded
that the sultan curb French influence and allow Russian warships through
the Bosporus and the Dardanelles. Ottoman concessions in mid-October
placed him in an awkward position, as he both urged conciliation toward the
Porte and disapproved of Russia’s conduct in invading the Danubian
400 | the napoleonic wars

Principalities. Nevertheless, Britain was committed to Russia, and Arbuthnot


had no choice but to pressure the Ottoman government into further compro-
mises. Although they were aware of the dangers posed by the Royal Navy,
many in the Ottoman government, including the sultan himself, believed
that Arbuthnot’s pro-Russian sentiments did not represent the position of
the British government.134 They were mistaken. The British government
believed that a strong show of force was necessary to compel the Ottomans
to the negotiating table and had instructed Vice Admiral Sir Cuthbert
Collingwood, who commanded the Royal Navy in the Mediterranean, to
send a squadron under the command of Vice Admiral Sir John Duckworth to
Constantinople.135 Aside from supporting a Russian ally, this offered a unique
opportunity to strengthen the British position in the eastern Mediterranean.
Prime Minister Grenville envisioned several locations where the British
might “want one or two important naval points, defensible by small garri-
sons, to shut up the road to the Dardanelles when the French shall have taken
the Porte under their own protection.”136
The British squadron left Cadiz in mid-January 1807, with Duckworth
carrying orders to lead his eight warships to Constantinople and be “ready to
act with vigour and promptitude, as circumstances and the state of affairs on
his arrival may make necessary.” He was to demand the surrender of the
Ottoman fleet together with a supply of naval stores sufficient for its complete
equipment, and to enforce the British ambassador’s demands for the dismissal
of the French ambassador and for concession of Russia’s claims. Upon com-
mencement of hostilities, a British expedition would be sent from Sicily for
the occupation of Alexandria, in an effort to thwart French influence there.137
On February 10 Duckworth’s fleet anchored at the island of Tenedos, near
the entrance to the Dardanelles. A swift naval passage up the strait might have
succeeded, but the British admiral encountered unexpected impediments.138
For more than a week the wind blew directly down the Dardanelles, prevent-
ing him from sailing. The British appearance near the Ottoman shores both
distressed and incensed the Turks, who were anxious to avoid a war with
Britain. The British ambassador, aware of the Ottoman practice of taking
hostages, as they had done against the Russians in 1768 and the French in
1798, fled from Constantinople.139 This was a major blunder because, as one
British statesman observed, it made the British naval expedition “assume the
appearance of a mere military enterprise, not of a force destined to enforce the
negotiations of the ambassador by placing before the eyes of the sultan an
English fleet ready and able to bombard his capital.”140 In these circumstances,
the Ottoman court refused to consider British demands until the fleet departed
and its ambassador had returned to Constantinople.
“An Empire Besieged” | 401

On February 19, for the first time in its history, the Royal Navy began to
force the Dardanelles. It continued to face challenges. Duckworth, as one
British captain characterized him, was “a gallant, good seaman” but really only
as “second-in-command to such a man as Lord Nelson.”141 He allowed the
Turks to protract negotiations under various pretexts while unfavorable winds
continued to prevent him from sailing further and saved Constantinople from
the fate of Copenhagen. This delay gave the Ottoman government time to pre-
pare its defenses. Civilians were mobilized to help build new fortifications, and
the Ottoman fleet was brought in to defend the capital; more than a hundred
fire ships were readied for action. The city’s garrison, advised by Sébastiani and
a small staff of French engineers began improving the sixteenth-century for-
tresses along the coastline.142 Within days the Turks had mobilized tens of
thousands of men and assembled more than three hundreds of pieces of heavy
ordnance, “advantageously placed for flanking [the British fleet] in all direc-
tions.”143 Unable to overcome the Ottoman defenses, Duckworth became con-
cerned that his squadron might be encircled in the Sea of Marmara, and thus
he had no choice but to retreat back through the Dardanelles into the
Mediterranean on March 1–3. His return trip proved costlier than the initial
forcing of the straits, as the forts in the straits fired upon his ships, damaging
several ships and killing or wounding some 160 men.144
Duckworth’s expedition was a failure, both militarily and politically. “How
a government could have asked an [Ottoman] empire to ‘deliver up their fleet,’
‘to renounce all connections with France,’ and to make peace, and a disgraceful
one, with Russia, with only seven ships of the line and not a single soldier to
enforce their terms, is to me incomprehensible,” lamented one expedition par-
ticipant.145 The British attack only further increased French influence at the
Ottoman court and all but destroyed the British standing there; the sultan
sanctioned the arrest of all Englishmen and confiscation of their property, and
ordered the dey of Algeria to attack British commerce in the western
Mediterranean. Selim showered rich gifts on Sebastiani and the French military
mission, underscoring the high esteem and influence that the French now
enjoyed. By May, upon his request, dozens of French troops arrived at the
Ottoman capital, further augmenting the size of the French military mission.
Furthermore, the defense of the Dardanelles boosted Ottoman morale, and
shortly thereafter the Ottoman grand vizier left the capital in preparation for a
new offensive against the Russians in the Danubian Principalities, while the
Ottoman fleet prepared to do the same in the Aegean Sea.
Regrouping at Tenedos, Duckworth met Russian admiral Dimitri Senyavin,
who suggested forcing the straits with a joint Anglo-Russian fleet. The
British demurred—without any troops, there was no prospect of delivering a
402 | the napoleonic wars

decisive blow, especially now that the Ottoman defenses had been strength-
ened. The allies parted ways. Senyavin remained in the Aegean Sea and in
July defeated the Ottoman navy off the north Aegean island of Lemnos and
blockaded the Dardanelles. Meanwhile, Duckworth proceeded to Malta to
support the opening of another front against the Ottomans in Egypt.
In early March, just as Duckworth was sailing out of the Dardanelles, a
separate expedition of 6,000 British soldiers was dispatched to Egypt. Ever
since their success in 1801, the British had, as noted many times, grappled
with the future of this strategically important place. The resumption of war
with France in 1803 and the subsequent French triumphs increased British
fears of the French threat to Egypt, which the British believed the Ottomans
could not defend. The Franco-Ottoman rapprochement was interpreted as
opening Egypt to the French. The British were keen to act at once.146
In the three years since the British evacuation, Egypt had witnessed a
complete breakdown of law and order. The Ottoman-Mamluk power strug-
gles resumed immediately, and a wide assortment of military forces, as well
as the absence of effective central control, led to numerous abuses, harass-
ment, and outright murder. The Mamluks, deprived of the military compe-
tence of Murad Bey, who had died, and of the political prudence of Ibrahim
Bey, who was old and frail, fractured into quarreling factions led by Osman
Bey al-Bardissi and Muhammed Bey al-Alfi, who demonstrated a tragic fail-
ure to learn from past mistakes and only further weakened their cause.
In the early summer of 1803, as part of his wider efforts to restore French
positions in the east, Napoleon sent Mathieu de Lesseps as France’s new “com-
missioner for commercial transactions” to Egypt. Although de Lesseps’s
instructions forbade him from getting involved in Egyptian politics, his arri-
val naturally led the Ottomans and the British, mindful as they were of
Sebastiani’s report, to conclude that he had been sent to form a “French party”
in anticipation of another intervention. Such suspicions increased after Osman
Bey al-Bardissi, who had maintained contacts with the French throughout the
previous three years, approached de Lesseps with a request for help. The
Mamluk chief was clearly trying to play European powers off against each
other but was unable to get any commitments from the French.147 Yet the
Mamluk’s contacts alarmed the British agent, Colonel Ernest Missett, who
urged his superiors to redouble efforts to extirpate French influence in the
region.148 The opposing approaches of the British Foreign and War Offices,
however, meant that British policy remained divided over the course of action
to pursue. Missett, who was under the War Office, assiduously lobbied for
British intervention, and at his urging, al-Bardissi’s rival, Muhammed Bey
al-Alfi, decided to travel to London with a view to securing some British
“An Empire Besieged” | 403

a­ ssistance. At Malta, where Alfi had to spend some time before the British
government agreed to receive him, the Mamluk chief also negotiated with the
British commissioner Alexander Ball (also under the War Office) and broached
the idea of restoring the Mamluk rule in Egypt under British protection.
In October 1803 al-Alfi arrived at London. Although his visit aroused
enthusiastic interest in the British press, the British government proved less
welcoming, with the Foreign Office clashing with the War Office and argu-
ing against any British involvement in Egypt; Britain was the ally of the
sultan and could not participate in what would effectively mean the partition
of his realm.149 Indeed, Alfi’s visit was viewed with grave suspicion in
Constantinople, and the British ambassador there was compelled to protest
against his government receiving the Mamluk. On the other hand, Downing
Street could not afford to ignore the Mamluks, out of concerns that this
might drive them into Napoleon’s hands. Consequently, it chose a middle
course, making no tangible commitments to the Mamluks while promising
to use its influence at Constantinople to bring about a lasting reconciliation
between the Porte and the Mamluks. Al-Alfi could not have been thrilled by
this response.
Meanwhile, the Ottomans struggled to restore their authority in Egypt.
The troops that Sultan Selim III dispatched became part of the problem, not
the solution. This body of troops included some newly established Nizam-i
Cedid forces that had been trained and disciplined along European lines
(with some European officers present) as well as other contingents, notably
the 6,000-man-strong Albanian contingent. Upon arriving in Egypt, they
found the country desolate and impoverished, with commerce and trade at a
standstill, the population bled dry by heavy taxes, and money scarce. After
not receiving pay for five months, the Albanian troops mutinied, assassinated
the Ottoman commander Tahir Pasha, and chose his deputy Mehmet Ali
(a fellow Albanian who fomented disorder as part of his bid for power) to lead
them. The Ottoman viceroy (wali) Khusrav Pasha was unable to control the
situation and fled from the Egyptian capital, which fell into the hands of
Mehmet Ali and his Albanian troops, now the most powerful military force
in the region.150
A shrewd and capable man, Mehmet Ali realized that he had been given
a golden opportunity to fill the vacuum of power, and he moved to exploit it.
As one French agent observed, the Albanian was a “man as ambitious as he
was enterprising who, skillful in the art of intrigue, has for him the force of
public opinion and arms. This astute man . . . wishes to spread discontent and
cut a path to the throne without seeming to want to do so.”151 First Mehmet
Ali allied himself with the Mamluk beys to defeat Khusrav Pasha, who was
404 | the napoleonic wars

captured and deported to Constantinople. When the sultan sent two more
viceroys, they were defeated by the same Albanian-Mamluk coalition. By
1804, with the Mamluk usefulness over, Mehmet Ali exploited popular dis-
content against the heavy-handed treatment that the Mamluks had meted
out to expel them from Cairo. He then moved swiftly to consolidate power
and had Egyptian notables and religious leaders proclaim him a new gover-
nor in May 1805.152 Learning what had transpired in Cairo, Sultan Selim III
understood that the Albanian commander was a force to be reckoned with,
especially while the empire faced threats on multiple fronts. So he acquiesced
in Mehmet Ali’s appointment as wali of Egypt in July 1805, a decision that
he and his successors would come to regret on many occasions over the next
four decades.
Regarded today as the founder of modern Egypt, Mehmet Ali faced
daunting challenges at the start of his rule.153 The troops that had brought
him to power could just as easily turn against him if he failed to provide
adequate pay and sustenance. The Mamluks, though defeated, still posed a
serious threat to public security and were supported by British and French
agents who believed that the Mamluk return to power would help increase
their influence in the region. More important, the new wali was well aware of
the precarious nature of his position, extracted as it had been from Sultan
Selim III, who might try to depose him at the first opportunity.154 All these
concerns remained at the core of Mehmet Ali’s long career, and the subse-
quent history of Egypt had been to a large degree shaped by his attempt to
make his tenure more secure. Over the next year and a half Mehmet Ali dem-
onstrated an ability to forge and break alliances in order to calm the situation
in the country. In this he was assisted by the fortuitous deaths of the Mamluk
leaders al-Bardissi and al-Alfi in 1806, leaving the Mamluk factions weak
and vulnerable to the governor’s political intrigues.
Mehmet Ali was still consolidating his authority when news of the British
invasion arrived in mid-March 1807. Just as had happened six years earlier,
the British expedition, this time led by General Alexander MacKenzie-
Fraser, landed near Aboukir and captured Alexandria on March 21.155
MacKenzie-Fraser’s instructions confined his mission to capturing Alexandria;
on no account was he to advance into the interior. Missett, who had lobbied
so hard for the British intervention, was taken aback to learn of the limited
scope of the British invasion. He had evidently envisaged a much larger
undertaking, one that would have overthrown Mehmet Ali, whom he sus-
pected of pro-French sentiments, and reinstated the Mamluk beys in Cairo.156
MacKenzie-Fraser was, in fact, surprised by the extent of Missett’s commit-
ments to the Mamluks and initially refused to listen to his entreaties. But
“An Empire Besieged” | 405

Missett pointed out the impossibility of keeping Alexandria supplied with


food or water for the British army without capturing neighboring Rosetta
and Rahmaniya, which were reputed to have large granaries.157 MacKenzie-
Fraser’s attempts to occupy the Delta region were nonetheless repulsed sev-
eral times, with heavy British losses. Deprived of supplies, the British troops
in Alexandria were facing a desperate situation. MacKenzie-Fraser and
Missett blamed each other for the disaster and disagreed on the course of
action to take; the former was in favor of evacuation, while the latter insisted
on remaining in Egypt to prevent it from falling into the hands of the French.
Mehmet Ali, meanwhile, understood that he was not strong enough to drive
the British out of Alexandria by force, and so he sought a diplomatic resolution
to the conflict. He released one of the British prisoners and offered MacKenzie-
Fraser an arrangement that would allow the British to evacuate with dignity. By
September the negotiations produced an agreement that ended hostilities and
released all prisoners of war. The British pledged to evacuated within two weeks
and leave all fortification in their existing state to Mehmet Ali, whose troops
occupied Alexandria as soon as the last British soldier departed.
“So ended this foolish and disastrous enterprise,” observed a British histo-
rian.158 The news of the defeat, arriving on the heels of earlier setbacks in
Buenos Aires and the Dardanelles, caused considerable public consternation in
Britain but otherwise had limited impact on the course of the British war
effort in Europe. That the expedition had not been well thought through was
obvious. If its main goal was to influence the sultan, Egypt was too far away
to accomplish it. Of far greater importance was the effect the British expedi-
tion had in Egypt. Had it been successful, it would have undermined, if not
entirely destroyed, the power of Mehmet Ali. As it was, this crisis only further
strengthened his position. At the start of 1807 Mehmet Ali secured control
over the great port of Alexandria, which offered tremendous commercial
opportunities. British armies and fleets in the Mediterranean and the Iberian
Peninsula required vast quantities of grain, which was in short supply in
Europe. Mehmet Ali moved swiftly to satisfy British needs, and his monopoly
over the export of grain reaped substantial profits that allowed him to further
consolidate his power. Over the next four years he overhauled the revenue
machinery and began modernizing his armed forces. At the same time the
Mamluk question was also brought to a rapid and bloody denouement in
1811 when the Mamluk chiefs were massacred at a gathering in Cairo and the
surviving Mamluks were hunted down and killed. Mehmet Ali was now the
undisputed master of Egypt, paving the way for his modernizing reforms.159
406 | the napoleonic wars

Mehmet Ali’s success was partly due to the fact that the Ottoman Empire was
beset by too many problems at once. The war with Russia unfolded not just
in Wallachia but also in southwestern Caucasia and on the Black Sea littoral,
with the Ottomans unable to stem the tide of the Russian attacks. And the
situation only got worse in 1808, when the unsettled political conditions of
the empire led to the creation of a coalition of Balkan power brokers,
Constantinople-based religious leaders (ulama), and the Janissaries, who chal-
lenged the sultan in one of the bloodiest episodes of modern Turkish
history.
The sultan’s push to modernize the empire’s armed forces caused much
grief among traditional power groups, who feared that they would lose their
status and power. In 1806 the introduction of the new Nizam-i Cedid corps
in Edirne provoked a revolt by local notables, Janissaries, and conservatives.
The local government official was lynched by the Janissaries when he
attempted to read out the imperial decree announcing the introduction of the
Nizam-i Cedid troops. Sultan Selim refrained from immediately confronting
the rebels and instead adopted a conciliatory approach toward them. He
recalled the Nizam-i Cedid force to Constantinople and dismissed its capable
commanders. In reaction to further threats by the notables, the sultan even
placed the command of the Nizam-i Cedid forces in the hands of its enemies,
hoping to mollify the conservatives.
The result was disastrous. In May 1807 the Janissary auxiliaries (yamaks)
deployed in the forts along the Bosporus rebelled after a Nizam-i Cedid officer
attempted to get them to wear new uniforms and undergo new training. Selim
might have crushed this revolt but was convinced by his conservative advisors
to compromise once more. The emboldened rebels marched on Constantinople,
where they were joined by thousands of Janissaries, religious students, ulama,
and others who condemned the sultan’s modernization program. The demor-
alized sultan complied with all the demands of the rebels, including disband-
ing his Nizam-i Cedid army, removing his reform entourage, and appointing
conservatives to key positions. But even such drastic concessions could not
save his throne; they merely heartened the rebels, who dethroned and impris-
oned Selim. Next in the line of succession were Selim’s cousins Mustafa and
Mahmud. However, given that Mahmud was suspected by the rebels of being
close to the deposed sultan and sympathetic to his reforms, Mustafa was placed
on the Ottoman throne as Mustafa IV on May 29, 1807.160 These internal
political crises severely hampered the Ottoman military capabilities and com-
pelled the Ottoman forces, some of whom were commanded by provincial
notables engaged in power struggles, to seek a defensive posture against the
Russians and to maintain a defensive line on the Danube.
“An Empire Besieged” | 407

Weak and incompetent, Sultan Mustafa IV was merely a political puppet


in the hands of the rebels, who embarked on demolishing the Nizam-i Cedid
system that Selim had set up over the previous decade. They claimed that
these Western-inspired reforms violated traditional principles of law and
order and were what had caused all the turmoil and defeats. Although many
local power groups opposed Selim’s new army out of fear that a strong central
government would undermine their power, there were also powerful notables
who recognized the need to build a modern army capable of defending the
empire; to them, supporting a stronger central government was the lesser
evil when the alternative was being conquered by Christian European pow-
ers. As the new sultan and his anti-reform allies quickly realized, imperial
rule was far from being unrestrained; in effect, it extended only to the capital
and a number of its surrounding districts. The sultan could certainly project
his authority beyond these territories, but that entailed bestowing favors on
powerful notables and getting entangled in complex local rivalries. The most
powerful of the provincial notables in southeast Europe was Bayraktar
Mustafa Pasha of Ruse, who supported Selim III and opposed Mustafa IV.
Rallying other powerful notables under his leadership, Bayraktar Mustafa
Pasa marched to Constantinople in July 1808 to reinstate Selim. Mustafa
ordered the assassination of Selim and Mahmud; the former was killed but
the latter managed to escape. Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha deposed Mustafa and
installed Mahmud as the new sultan on July 28, 1808.161
Like his predecessor, Mahmud II (1808–1839) was politically impotent
and depended for his survival on Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha, the first provincial
notable ever to become the grand vizier of the empire. To generate support
for the new regime, Mustafa Pasha organized a meeting of powerful notables
in Constantinople to discuss the political problems confronting the Ottoman
Empire; although some power brokers, such as Ali Pasha of Janina and
Mehmet Ali of Egypt, did not participate in this meeting, many others from
all corners of the empire attended it. The gathering produced the Deed of
Agreement (Sened-i Ittifak, October 7, 1808), in which both the sultan and
the notables pledged to rule justly. They further promised to support reforms
and the creation of a new army, declared their loyalty to the sultan, agreed to
contribute military units to the sultan’s army, and consented to implement
the Ottoman tax system throughout the empire without diverting any reve-
nue that belonged to the sultan. Finally, they promised to respect each other’s
territory and autonomy. In return, the sultan agreed to levy taxes justly and
fairly. A remarkable document, the deed has sometimes been presented as a
first attempt at constitutionalism, the “Magna Carta of the Ottomans.”
While far from being a formal constitutional document, it was indeed a pact
408 | the napoleonic wars

between the ruler and his “barons,” limiting the powers of the sultan and
responsibilities of local authorities. Yet in the end the document failed to
deliver—the sultan, not wishing to limit his own sovereign power, avoided
signing it, and only four notables affixed their signature to it.162
Convinced that he had crushed the opposition, Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha
turned to reviving the reforms of Selim III. With his army giving the
re­formers a kind of power that even the sultan had never had, the rebellious
elements were killed or driven out of the capital. The grand vizier then
revived the disbanded Nizam-ı Cedid (under the new name of Segban-i
Cedid) and reformed the Janissary corps. Nonetheless, he clearly underesti-
mated the power of the Janissaries, the ulama, and conservative elements of
the Ottoman society, which were not deceived by new names attached to old
reforms, while the grand vizier’s arrogant demeanor also alienated the sultan
and government officials. When a revolt by a rival lord from Bulgaria forced
Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha to dispatch most of his army from Constantinople,
the opposition seized the opportunity to strike back. The Janissaries stormed
the palace and trapped Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha in a powder magazine, where
he blew himself up on November 15, 1808.163 Having learned from the mis-
takes of his ill-fated cousin, Sultan Mahmud refused to concede to the rebels,
understanding that concessions would only embolden the opposition. Instead,
he reacted quickly, ordering his men to kill Mustafa IV, in order to deprive
the rebels of the alternative candidate to the throne. He also rallied loyal
commanders to his side and, rejecting the rebel demands, attacked them by
land and sea.
The absence of an alternative to Mahmud and his ability to organize his
forces against the Janissaries convinced the rebels that they could not depose
the sultan and made them open to reconciliation. Mahmud agreed to end the
reforms and disband the new Segban-i Cedid army, and in return the rebels
agreed to recognize him as sultan. Although it initially seemed that the anti-
reform forces had gained a major victory over the sultan, Mahmud had man-
aged to survive, and he remained firmly committed to reform. The events of
November 1808 provided him with valuable practical experience, which
Selim III had lacked. The new sultan had witnessed his predecessor’s weak-
ness and indecision and drawn lessons from them. He understood that any
future reforms had to be carefully planned, had to encompass the entire scope
of state institutions, not just isolated elements of the military, and needed to
be carried out through the destruction of traditional institutions, especially
the Janissaries, who would do everything in their power to undermine the
modernization of the Ottoman army.
“An Empire Besieged” | 409

Aside from daunting domestic challenges, the new Ottoman sultan had to
confront the rapidly changing political environment in Europe. Austria had
been defeated and forced to leave the anti-Napoleonic coalition while Prussia
had been overrun. Britain continued to fight, but as far as continental powers
were concerned, its help seemed to never materialize in time. These were con-
siderations that weighed on the mind of Emperor Alexander of Russia as he
stepped on the raft in the middle of the Nieman River and agreed to a peace
treaty with France in July 1807. By the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit, Russia
recognized Napoleon’s conquests in central Europe, agreed to evacuate the
Danubian Principalities, and transferred the Ionian Islands to France. However,
this major diplomatic victory for France was gained by sacrificing the
Ottomans. In this sense, Napoleon welcomed news of the political upheaval
in Constantinople because, as he argued, the downfall of Selim III had negated
any earlier commitments France had made to him. “This is a decree of
Providence that just released me and told me that the Turkish empire can no
longer exist,” he told the Russian emperor.164 At Tilsit, France effectively
abandoned its alliance with the Porte and pledged to force the sultan to make
a settlement satisfactory to Russia. In secret provisions of the treaty, Napoleon
agreed that in the event of the sultan’s refusing the offer of mediation or of the
negotiations producing no agreement, “France will make common cause with
Russia against the Ottoman Porte, and the two High Contracting Parties
shall come to an agreement to remove all the provinces of the Ottoman Empire
in Europe, the city of Constantinople and the Province of Roumalia excepted,
from the yoke and the vexations of the Turks.”165
France’s agreement with Russia naturally riled the Turks, who felt
betrayed by the fact that the French had concluded peace without consulting
or involving them. Nonetheless, the Ottoman government also understood
the short-term benefits of the treaty, which required Russia to evacuate
Moldavia and Wallachia and to end their help to the Serbs. Sultan Mustafa
entered into negotiations with the Russians under French mediation, eventu-
ally resulting in an armistice signed at Slobozia in late August 1807. The
armistice, signed by the Russian commander in chief, General Ivan (Johann)
von Michelsohnen, required Russian withdrawal from the Danubian
Principalities within a month, while the Turks agreed to remain south of the
Danube but in possession of Serbia. The armistice proved to be short-lived.
Russia, using various specious pretexts, refused to accept the agreement and
blamed the refusal on Michelsohnen, who, it was argued, was not authorized
to conduct diplomatic negotiations, and on the Turks, who supposedly broke
the armistice by moving toward strategic areas and oppressing the Christian
population as soon as the Russians left.166
410 | the napoleonic wars

In reality, the culprit was Emperor Alexander, who had little desire to
abide by the Tilsit commitments, especially at a moment when a revolution
raged in Constantinople and the Ottoman government was in disarray. “The
Ottoman Empire is dead,” the Russian foreign minister Rumyantsev told the
French ambassador, so why should not Russia keep the spoils of war?167
Alexander increasingly thought in expansionist terms, echoing sentiments
that Rostopchin had expressed six years earlier. Russia’s future lay in expan-
sion into the Balkans and the Caucasus, where it could hope to gain territo-
ries to compensate for the loss of positions in central Europe. Hence, imperial
instructions to the Russian ambassador in Paris insisted on the Ottomans
relinquishing Bessarabia and parts of western Georgia as well as the indefi-
nite Russian occupation of Moldavia and Wallachia.168 Napoleon was ini-
tially incensed by the Russian demands and responded by noting that should
Alexander refuse to withdraw his troops from the Danubian Principalities,
France would not evacuate Prussian Silesia.169 But he also understood that he
could not press Russia too much at a time when he was preoccupied with
affairs in the Iberian Peninsula. Indeed, he needed Russian support to main-
tain political stability on the continent and if Russia demanded concessions
in the Ottoman Empire, he was ready to make them, though of course only
after they had been carefully vetted and discussed.
In the spring of 1808, as the Russian and French diplomats discussed
details of a possible partition of the Ottoman Empire, the Serbian issue con-
tinued to feature prominently. Both sides understood that Austria’s geo-
graphic interests entitled it to some territory in the event of the Ottoman
partition. Russia’s new foreign minister, Count Nikolay Rumyantsev, con-
firmed Russia’s willingness to cede Serbia to Austria, provided that France
accepted the Russian takeover of Bessarabia, Wallachia, Bulgaria, and
­southwestern Caucasia as well as control of Constantinople and the straits.
Napoleon, meanwhile, could retain Albania—“it is close to you and offers
valuable resources for your navy,” as Rumyantsev observed—along with
Greece proper, Thessaly, and Crete; the Russians were also willing to see the
French acquire Egypt, Syria, and parts of Anatolia. However, Napoleon found
the Russian claims to the Ottoman capital and the straits unacceptable.170
Through the fall of 1808 Emperor Alexander wavered between going
along with Napoleon’s halfhearted talk about partition of the Ottoman realm
and pushing ahead with extending his influence in the Porte without French
help, mainly by gaining the confidence of the Serbs and other potential allies
from within. In October the French and Russian emperors met once again at
Erfurt with the goal of consolidating their alliance. Alexander exacted a price
for supporting France against Austria and insisted on the continued presence
“An Empire Besieged” | 411

of the Russian forces in Wallachia and Moldavia because of “all the revolu-
tions and changes which disturb the Ottoman Empire and which do not leave
any possibility of giving, and in consequence any hope of obtaining, suffi-
cient guarantees for the persons and goods of the inhabitants of Wallachia
and Moldavia.” Napoleon agreed to recognize Russian control of these terri-
tories but wanted to keep it secret “in order not to compromise the friendship
existing between France and the Porte, nor the security of the French who
reside in the Turkish dominions in order to prevent the Porte throwing itself
into the arms of England.” France also agreed that in the event a Russo-
Ottoman war rekindled, it would not take any part therein, unless Austria or
any other power made common cause with the Ottomans.171 By December
1808 the French envoy in Constantinople, Florimond de Faÿ de La Tour-
Maubourg, received a set of new instructions that tasked him with convinc-
ing the Ottomans to cede the Danubian Principalities to Russia.172
The situation changed the following year. The Franco-Austrian War of
1809 left no doubts in France that Russia had become an ally only in name.
Napoleon understood this but felt that he had no choice but to stand by this
alliance even as the fissures in Franco-Russian relations became visible.
Britain, however, was only too eager to exploit them. Sir Robert Wilson was
sent on two missions to St. Petersburg, assuring the Russians that Britain
wanted to see Russian power augmented while France sought to curtail it; on
the Eastern Question, London pledged that it “never would propose the par-
tition of Turkey, but, nevertheless, if any arrangement could be made between
Austria and Russia on the basis of occupying and exchanging [Danubian]
provinces, which arrangement would secure the sincere alliance of both coun-
tries, [the British] never would make that a cause of quarrel.”173
The failure of these missions prompted the British to make direct over-
tures to the Turks, who welcomed them in an effort to play European powers
off against each other. In January 1809, after three months of negotiations
during which the French repeatedly warned the Turks not to make peace
with London, the Peace of Kala-i Sultaniye (the Dardanelles) restored Anglo-
Ottoman relations.174 The British government agreed to evacuate all occu-
pied Ottoman territories, while the sultan restored capitulatory privileges to
the British. London also agreed to mediate with Russia to obtain an Ottoman-
Russian peace that would preserve the integrity of the sultan’s territories and
resist French designs. One of its most important provisions stipulated that
the Bosporus and Dardanelles should be closed at all times to foreign war-
ships of all nations, reflecting British concern about a possible union of the
Russian and French fleets in the Mediterranean. For the next three years
Britain pursued a complex strategy of putting a stop to the Russo-Ottoman
412 | the napoleonic wars

War, developing a triple alliance with the Ottomans and Austria, and con-
taining both Russian and French influence in the Ottoman Empire. Thus
when the War of the Fifth Coalition began, just four short months after the
conclusion of the Anglo-Ottoman Treaty, Britain tried to convince the Turks
to allow a British squadron into the Black Sea and to launch a joint Anglo-
Ottoman attack on the Russian naval base at Sebastopol—a foreboding of
things to come during the Crimean War a half century in the future—in
order to “materially assist the conclusion of the Russian peace on fair terms
and secure her neutrality.”175
The Treaty of the Dardanelles was significant because it marked a turning
point in Franco-Ottoman relations. It revealed a growing realization in
Constantinople that alliance with Napoleon brought few tangible benefits.
Still, France refused to let the Turks steer clear of their alliance. Napoleon
assured them that he would not allow Russia to expand beyond the Danube
and that he would guarantee their territorial integrity, save for Moldavia and
Wallachia, which the Turks had to forsake as a price for peace. In December
1809, in a speech to the Legislative Corps, he warned the Turks of “the pun-
ishment if they let themselves be influenced by [Britain’s] wily and perfidi-
ous advice.” And to show that he meant what he said, Napoleon spoke with
satisfaction about “my friend and ally, the Emperor of Russia” extending his
authority to the Danubian Principalities.176
All this was just part of Napoleon’s efforts to keep up at least the appear-
ance of Franco-Russian amity. In reality he was feverishly exploring ways he
could contain Russia. He tried to use the prospect of Russian expansion to
secure Austrian cooperation. In early 1809, while meeting the Austrian
ambassador Metternich to discuss ongoing Austrian military reforms and the
threat they posed to France, Napoleon dangled before the Austrians’ eyes a
share in the spoils of the Ottoman Empire, threatening to make them help-
less spectators as France and Russia partitioned the Ottoman lands. All the
while the Ottoman ambassador stood just a few steps away, presumably with
his eyes wide open—“conversation like this is probably unprecedented in the
annals of diplomacy,” Metternich observed in his subsequent report.177
It was about this time that Theodore Lascaris de Ventimille, a former
Maltese knight and a descendant of the Byzantine emperors, traveled on a
mission to the Levant. Upon arriving there, the French agent contacted
Fathallah al-Sayegh, a Christian resident of Aleppo, with a request for help in
exploring trade routes, stations, and water wells in the Syrian and Iraqi des-
erts. The two adventurers embarked on a dangerous venture in February 1810
and succeeded in visiting the most remote desert corners and interacting
with various tribes. After months of traveling, Lascaris confided a remarkable
“An Empire Besieged” | 413

secret to his Arab guide—he was not there to peddle goods but, in an incred-
ible parallel to Lawrence of Arabia, to fulfill Napoleon’s instructions to
befriend local tribal leaders, unite them in a revolt against Ottoman power,
and pave the way for the French return to the Levant. The mission, as Sayegh
described it in his memoirs, was successful, and Arab tribal chiefs expressed
readiness to challenge Ottoman power and ally themselves with Napoleon.
Yet as Lascaris prepared for his journey back to France, he learned about
Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia and understood its ramifications.
He decided to travel to Egypt to see an old friend, the French consul in
Alexandria, but died of dysentery shortly after his arrival.178
The strange story of Lascaris and Sayegh contains many inconsistencies
and contradictions, and the lack of French consular or other official docu-
ments makes many elements impossible to verify.179 Imaginary as it may be,
the tale does touch upon a crucial historical fact—that Napoleon had long
expressed his interest in returning to the East and threatening British inter-
ests in the Indian Ocean. In September 1810 he envisioned a general attack
against Britain, which included an expedition to the Levant. A month later
he instructed one of his agents to visit Syria and Egypt to examine the fortress
of Saint-Jean-d’Acre, Jaffa, Rosette, Alexandria and Cairo and to report on
local conditions; the same day, he also ordered French consuls in Syria and
Egypt to submit regular memorandums on political, military, and financial
conditions in both these regions.180 These instructions seem to have been
intended to lay the ground for an expedition that was to embark to the East
after the end of the Russian campaign. Lascaris’s mission would have fit well
with Napoleon’s ongoing efforts to explore conditions in the Levant, but fur-
ther research is needed to make a definite conclusion about it.

At the start of the Russo-Ottoman war, a series of Serbian military victories,


which resulted in the capture of Belgrade on December 29, 1806 and Šabac
in February 1807, had left the Serbs in control of the former Belgrade pasha-
lik. For the Russians, then, Serbia offered an important lever with which to
crack the Ottoman resistance. Serbian leader Karadjordje openly sided with
Russia and offered to accept Russian troops, thus paving the way for the
Russo-Serbian military cooperation both on land and on the sea, with the
Russian Army of Moldavia linking up with the rebels and the Mediterranean
squadron of Vice Admiral Senyavin, stationed in Montenegro, providing fur-
ther naval support.181 Alarmed by the Russian intervention in Serbia, Sultan
Selim III tried to negotiate an accommodation with Karadjordje, offering
him terms that the Serbs themselves had earlier sought. Yet much had
changed since then, and what would have been acceptable in 1804 was no
414 | the napoleonic wars

longer sufficient in 1807. With the Russians speaking of common spiritual


and ethnic bonds that linked them and Serbians, Karadjordje was naturally
more inclined to accept their assurances of a future independent Serbia. In
March 1807 the Serbian leaders rejected the Ottoman offer and declared the
former pashalik independent of the Ottoman rule.
For the next several years the future of the Serbian state became intricately
intertwined with the much larger power struggles of the Napoleonic Wars.
Despite its promises, Russia was in fact not interested in a completely in­de­
pend­ent Serbia, preferring to maintain some type of patron-client relation-
ship. Throughout this period the Russians endeavored to exert a considerable
measure of control over Serbia’s actions, and their overall policy was deter-
mined by the oscillations in relations with France and the Ottomans.
Although the Franco-Russian Treaty of Tilsit made no mention of Serbia, the
two nations did agree to “liberate” the Balkans in case the Turks spurned
French efforts to mediate an end to the Russo-Ottoman War. A new round of
Russo-Ottoman negotiations, which had been delayed by the political tur-
moil in Constantinople, commenced in Jassy in March 1809. The negotia-
tions gridlocked almost immediately because Sultan Mahmud II refused to
yield any territories to Russia, prompting the Russians to withdraw from the
meeting and to resume military operations in the Danubian Principalities in
the fall.182
By now, two years of military operations and the presence of tens of thou-
sands of troops had caused severe socioeconomic dislocation in the region,
which suffered from widespread looting, the exodus of thousands of peasants
and the resultant sharp drop in in agricultural production, and, finally—just
to top things off—regular outbreaks of the plague. The Russian army, which
had increased to some 80,000 men, lacked adequate logistical support to
conduct decisive military operations. Neither did it have capable leadership.
Field Marshal Alexander Prozorovsky, appointed to command the Russian
Army of the Danube in 1809 despite his age (he was seventy-six) and poor
health, was a stalwart proponent of eighteenth-century positional warfare.183
Instead of conducting a rapid campaign to engage and destroy enemy forces,
he concentrated on capturing the fortresses of Giurgiu and Braila. Both
assaults were badly organized and failed utterly; at the latter fortress alone,
the Russian army lost almost 5,000 men.184 Depressed by such failures,
Prozorovsky refused to take any action for over two months.185
Meanwhile, the Turks exploited Russian idleness to launch a major offen-
sive against the Serbs in the late spring of 1809. They defeated the Serbian
army and seized control of the right bank of the Morava River, besieging the
strategic fortress of Šabac on the left. The Ottoman gains prompted Karadjordje
“An Empire Besieged” | 415

to issue a call for a general mobilization of all males between the ages of
twelve and seventy, but even this desperate measure could not save the Serbs,
who had been forced to abandon their positions and retreat northward.186 The
Serbs were particularly enraged by the Russian failure to support them after
Prozorovsky promised to send troops but then recalled the Russian forces
that had already been sent.
Annoyed by these setbacks, Emperor Alexander urged a new offensive and
a quick victory over the Turks, one that would secure the Danubian regions,
protect his Serbian allies, and free up Russian resources to deal with Napoleon
elsewhere. A contemporary observed that Russian society expected quick vic-
tories over the Turks, but “the eighty-year-old half-dead Field Marshal Prince
Prozorovsky” could not satisfy those ambitions.187 Looking for a younger and
more vigorous commander, Alexander turned to Prince Peter Bagration, one
of the brightest stars in the Russian military pantheon, and someone who had
had plenty of experience fighting the French. Sent to Wallachia in the sum-
mer of 1809, Bagration immediately launched an offensive across the Danube,
defeating the Ottoman army at Rassevat (September 16) and Tataritsa
(October 22) and capturing a number of fortresses. Although shortages of
ammunition and supplies soon forced him to return to the northern bank of
the Danube, his campaign had caused considerable harm to the Ottomans
and forced them to divert resources from the Serbian front, where the
Ottomans had been steadily gaining an upper hand. Still, Karadjordje was
extremely upset by the Russian actions. “For God’s sake, you have to help us
because you named yourself our protectors, and if you will abandon us, all
other states would disdain you. . . . I damn the soul of [Prozorovsky]. . . . Oh,
Lord, hold him accountable, for he deceived us and exposed us to the defeat”
at the hands of the Turks.188
The events of 1809 revealed deep fissures in the Serbian leadership. While
some Serbian leaders insisted on maintaining relations with Russia, other fac-
tions pointed to the Russian failure to protect them and urged seeking help
from France or Austria; even the pro-Russian Serbs advised Karadjordje to
be cautious in his relations with Emperor Alexander.189 In the fall of 1809
Karadjordje summoned the national council (Skupština) to discuss the future
of Serbia, its relations with Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. It concluded
that the promise of Russian protection was not a sufficient guarantee without
the actual presence of a strong Russian force in Serbia. The council’s decision
was conveyed to Prince Bagration, who met with the Serbian delegates and
assured them of Russia’s support in men and money.190 A pragmatic man,
Karadjordje put little faith in such promises and sought to lessen his de­pend­
ence on Russia.191 At the height of the military crisis, he appealed to Napoleon
416 | the napoleonic wars

to become “the august defender and protector of the Serbian nation” and unite
the peoples of Serbia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Montenegro, Bulgaria, and Greece
because “having all these peoples under the wings of France will make her
enemies tremble.” The Serbian leader hoped that the French troops would
seize the fortress at Belgrade and Šabac and protect the region from the advanc-
ing Ottoman armies.192 The Serbian emissary reached Vienna during the dip-
lomatic negotiations on the Treaty of Schönbrunn, when Napoleon took little
more than a cursory interest in Serbia and made no commitments.193
Karadjordje then appealed for help to the Austrian authorities, whose
apprehensions over the future of Serbia only increased in the wake of the
Treaty of Schönbrunn, which stripped them of all their Adriatic possessions.
The prospect of Russian- or French-controlled Serbia brought an unpleasant
realization that either country could easily sever key trade routes to the Near
East that were of considerable value to the Austrian economy. In October
1809, just days after becoming Austria’s new foreign minister, Metternich
prepared a special memorandum on the Serbian issue, arguing that there
were only two possible resolutions: either Serbia returned to being the
Belgrade pashalik within the Ottoman Empire or it became an Austrian
province. Austrians feared being excluded from a seemingly impending
Franco-Russian partition of the Ottoman realm; these concerns increased
after Alexander issued an imperial decree announcing his intention to annex
the Danubian Principalities. France’s silence appeared to confirm the worst of
the Austrian fears.194
And yet when Metternich broached this subject with Napoleon, he real-
ized that, far from being excluded, Austria could in fact play an important
role in the Balkans. Napoleon hoped to exploit Austrian jealousy of Russian
expansion in the Balkan Peninsula to block any further expansion in the area.
“The Danube is of immense interest to you,” he told the Austrians. “Look at
the map. The [Danubian] principalities should belong to you, rather than
Russia. And if the Russians should possess them, they would become a source
of everlasting jealousy for you.”195 On the possibility of Russia taking control
of Serbia, Napoleon expressed the following view to the Austrian minister:
“The Danube serves as a great obstacle that has, up to the present, halted the
progress of the Russian armies; but a single inch of land on the right bank in
the hands of the Russians would be, in my opinion, equal to the complete
destruction of the Ottoman Empire.”196
The French assurances, however, had failed to convince the Viennese
court, which had been simultaneously approached by St. Petersburg to accept
a Russian takeover of the Danubian Principalities in exchange for comparable
concessions in Bosnia and Serbia.197 Amid this fluctuating international
“An Empire Besieged” | 417

s­ituation, Metternich came to believe that the best means of safeguarding


Austria’s economic and political interests was to ensure continued Ottoman
rule in the Balkans. Only through restoring “legitimate” authority could the
region’s fragile balance of power be maintained. He therefore rejected the
Serbs’ offer to annex their country and instead tried to get all parties to accept
Austrian arbitration, which might end the Russo-Ottoman War and bring
some semblance of order to the Balkans.198
Metternich could not have chosen a worse moment. The Ottomans
rejected the Austrian mediation, doubtful of its sincerity.199 The memories of
the recent Austrian rejection of the Ottoman request for mediation were still
fresh: “When Austria was invited to mediate between Serbia and the Porte,
she withheld her mediation; at the present moment she comes forward with
offers of mediation and guarantee, equally unexpected and unsummoned,”
reported a British envoy in Constantinople, echoing Ottoman wariness of
Austrian intention. “To what is the change to be attributed? Is Austria only
influenced by a sudden apprehension, to which she was before insensible, of
the profit likely to accrue to herself from the reconciliation of the Porte with
its rebellious subjects; or is it that she is no longer afraid of incurring the
hostility of Russia?”200 The Turks were also well aware that the Habsburg
court, while pledging to protect Ottoman territorial integrity, was turning a
blind eye to vast shipments of supplies from Hungary to the Serbian reb-
els.201 Even more disquieting to the Ottomans were the rumors, spread by the
British, that the Franco-Austrian Peace of Schönbrunn contained secret
arrangements to compensate Austria for territorial losses in central Europe at
the expense of the Ottoman territories in the Balkans. “The intervention of
Austria,” wrote former British foreign minister Canning, “is objectionable to
the Porte, who may reasonably suspect that she acts with the consent, and
therefore under the direction of France, and to England, whose more extended
views and liberal policy may foresee and apprehend the miserable conse-
quences of her being engaged with Russia in a fruitless contest, profitable
only to the common enemy of both.”202 As a consequence, the Ottoman gov-
ernment forcefully demanded that Vienna desist from any involvement in the
affairs of the Belgrade pashalik.
The Austrian mediation offer was greeted with a similar aloofness in
Belgrade. Having been spared imminent destruction thanks to the Russian
intervention, Karadjordje could hardly afford alienating the only great power
willing to support him against the Ottomans. Mistrusting the Austrians, he
rejected their offer to negotiate: if Emperor Francis was sincere in his desire
to help the Serbs, he should dispatch troops first.203 The arrival of a Russian
political resident, with Russian financial support, swung the Serbs back
418 | the napoleonic wars

under Russian influence.204 Aware of Karadjordje’s double play, the Russian


commander in chief, Bagration, criticized the Serbs for seeking foreign aid
and expressed concerns over rumors of a peace offer that Hurshid Pasha,
Ottoman governor of Rumelia, had extended to the Serbs; as part of this
agreement, the Turks wanted to deploy up to 5,000 men at Belgrade to
ensure peace and stability in the region.205 Karadjordje promised to raise this
offer with the national council, where the discussion of the Turkish proposal
led to a division among the Serbs: one group demanding to continue the fight
until full independence was achieved, the other preferring to sign a cease-fire
and negotiate with Turkey.206 The Russians, worried about losing their foot-
ing in the region, urged Karadjordje and other Serbian leaders to ignore the
Ottoman offers and used money and rewards to ensure the council’s rejection
of the deal.207
With the Serbs appeased, Bagration then turned his attention to events in
Bosnia, where the Christian population had started a rebellion against the
Turks. He welcomed it as “useful for both the Serbians’ and our interests” and
wanted to encourage the Christian populace in other Ottoman territories to
follow their example.208 A special proclamation to the Serbian nation, which
the Russian authorities drafted and spread, claimed, “This is the time when
the Serbian people must be animated by their faith and love of motherland
and armed with the spirit of courage. All Serbs must unanimously join the
indomitable Russian army to overthrow arrogant tyrants of Serbia and estab-
lish security and peace in the country.” Stressing the close ties between Russia
and Serbia, then proclamation assured the Serbs that “your brothers, coura-
geous warriors of Russia, are marching to defend you. . . . Meet them as broth-
ers and fight the enemy together with them.”209 It is noteworthy that while
pursuing imperial designs in the Balkans, Russian authorities sought to
mask them under the guise of Serbian nationalism against the Turks.
Bagration cautioned the Russian minister in Belgrade to choose “only such
means that would not discredit” the Russians and Serbs in the eyes of other
European states. Russian actions were supposed to create an “impression”
that Serbian and other Balkan insurrections were caused by “aspirations of
these Christian nations, not by an agitation by a foreign power.”210

In 1810–1812, Emperor Alexander was eager for a resolution of the Russo-


Ottoman War, which was now entering its fifth year. With Franco-Russian
relations steadily worsening, he was genuinely concerned about the prospects
of confronting the French while still engaged in a war against the Turks.
Russian society, too, wanted immediate results, because “the war with Sweden
made [it] accustomed to quick victories; Bagration’s actions seemed rather
“An Empire Besieged” | 419

unsatisfactory. ‘So what that he crossed the Danube?’ it was said. . . . ‘Fifty years
ago that might have surprised people, but not today. Now we need to cross the
Balkan Mountains.’”211 Demanding results, Alexander dismissed Bagration,
who urged a more methodical preparation for the campaign, and replaced him
with General Nikolay Kamenski. In late spring 1810 Kamenski moved the
Russian army across the Danube once more, captured the fortresses of Silistra,
Razgrad, and Bazardjik, and encircled the main Ottoman army of 40,000 men
within the fortified camp at Shumla, which the Russians blockaded after
unsuccessful initial assaults. Kamenski then wasted his time and men on a
disastrous assault on Ruse (August 3) that resulted in almost 9,000 killed or
wounded. The Russians regained momentum next month when Kamenski
intercepted the Ottoman reinforcements marching to rescue the grand vizier’s
army in Shumla, and routed them at Batin on September 7–8.
Over the next six months, Russians swept through northern Bulgaria, cap-
turing the fortresses of Ruse, Turnu, Plevna, Lovech, and Selvi. Yet despite
these resounding victories, Kamenski still faced the same logistical challenges
that had haunted his predecessors, and he had to withdraw his army to winter
quarters north of the Danube.212 One of his last decisions was to dispatch a
small Russian detachment to Belgrade, where they arrived in January 1811
and precipitated a diplomatic crisis with Austria.213 The Russian occupation
of the Serbian capital was not dictated by military exigencies and was imme-
diately condemned in Austrian military circles, which viewed it as a precursor
to either Serbian independence or, worse, a Russian protectorate over Serbia,
which would be more detrimental to Austria’s international standing than
“the loss of the Austrian Netherlands.”214 General Radetzky and other Austrian
hawks had long called for a radical rethinking of Austria’s Eastern policies and
proposed seeking Austria’s own “natural frontiers,” which would have encom-
passed not only Bohemia, Moravia, Silesia, the Carpathians, and Bukovina in
the north and east but also the entire area between the Adriatic Sea and the
Black Sea in the south.215 For Metternich, the Russian presence in Belgrade
was worrisome because of the adverse effect it could produce on the millions
of Slavs and Orthodox Christians residing in the Balkans, as well as within
Hungary and Croatia, thereby jeopardizing the empire’s internal stability. The
Austrians demanded explanations of the motives behind the Russian occupa-
tion of Belgrade and ordered the strengthening of frontier defenses across the
Danube from the Serbian capital. The Russian response, as expected, denied
any ulterior intentions and sought to allay Austrian fears. A special envoy was
dispatched to Vienna, where he assured Metternich that the deployment of
Russian troops was undertaken by the Russian generals on their own judg-
ment and “for purely military purpose.”216
420 | the napoleonic wars

Austrians found these explanations unconvincing, and they were right.


The Russian troops in Belgrade were of little military value but offered tre-
mendous diplomatic leverage. As Franco-Russian relations continued to
deteriorate (Napoleon interpreted the Russian action in Serbia as yet another
breach of the Erfurt Agreement), Alexander understood that in case of war
against France he stood little chance unless he was able to secure either the
support or neutrality of Austria, which could otherwise threaten southwest-
ern Russian provinces. During the winter and spring of 1811 Emperor
Alexander tried to use the Serbian issue as a bargaining tool, to induce Austria
to make commitments. Vienna refused to even consider them until Russia
clarified its goals in the Balkans. “Finish this matter with the Turks, and then
we will talk,” Metternich bluntly told the Russian envoy in February 1811.217
The Russian occupation of Belgrade was, therefore, designed to indicate to
the Austrians the seriousness of Russia’s intentions, and to prompt serious
diplomatic discussions. The Russian sovereign was ready for unprecedented
concessions. Writing directly to Emperor Francis, Alexander spoke of his
readiness to cede all of Serbia and the Danubian Principalities up to the
Sereth River, and to accept Austrian supremacy in Italy in return for Vienna’s
pledge of nonalignment.218 As enticing as this offer was, Metternich under-
stood that accepting it would have been tantamount to declaring war against
the Ottoman Empire, if not France as well, given that Napoleon fully appre-
ciated the strategic impact of the Russian advance to Belgrade. The Austrian
government could not afford another war less than two years after the last
disastrous one and had no choice but to reject the Russian offer.
Equally fruitless proved Russian overtures to Sultan Mahmud, who
rejected the Russian offer to abandon the Serbian cause if he agreed to cede
the Danubian Principalities. The Turks knew that time was of essence. A
conflict between Russia and France was now becoming imminent. They
therefore refused to open talks until Russia acknowledged the status quo ante
bellum, giving up all the conquests of the previous five years.219 Frustrated
with these diplomatic setbacks, Emperor Alexander replaced Kamenski with
General Mikhail Kutuzov in March 1811 and gave the new commander in
chief strict orders to bring a victorious conclusion to the war as quickly as
possible. Kutuzov withdrew Russian garrisons from most of the fortresses
and concentrated his army near Ruse, on the right bank of the Danube. In
June 1811 the Ottoman army, under Ahmed Pasha, launched an offensive
against the Russians, but it was defeated near Ruse on July 4. However, con-
cerned about the Ottoman forces at Vidin that could threaten his flank,
Kutuzov abandoned Ruse and withdrew his army to the left bank of the river.
In July and August Ottoman forces made several unsuccessful attempts to
“An Empire Besieged” | 421

cross the Danube, which gave Kutuzov sufficient time to devise an operation
to surround and destroy the entire Ottoman army. On September 10, 1811,
he allowed Ahmed Pasha and his army to move across the river at Slobozea,
near Ruse. He then dispatched a small corps of some 11,000 men to ford the
river downstream and capture the Ottoman camp and the fortress of Ruse in
the back of the Ottoman forces. Ahmed Pasha was thus surrounded and
pushed against the river, where his men were gradually starved into submis-
sion before surrendering on December 5.220
The victory at Ruse was the stroke that broke Ottoman resistance. The
sultan agreed to engage in diplomatic talks in October, hoping that the
impending war between France and Russia would change the political situa-
tion in his favor. Hard pressed by the gathering threat of a French invasion,
Russia finally chose to compromise with the Turks and signed the Treaty at
Bucharest on May 28, 1812, just one month before the first French troops
stepped onto Russian soil.221 Emperor Alexander reluctantly agreed to restore
Moldavia and Wallachia to the sultan and accept Bessarabia, a slice of land
between the Dniester and Prut Rivers in eastern Moldavia, as compensation
for Russian losses in the war. This was a far cry from the earlier Russian aspi-
rations to the whole of the Danubian Principalities, but at this point Russia
was more concerned about securing its southern frontiers and freeing up tens
of thousands of troops in time for a war against France. The Treaty of
Bucharest compelled the Turks to relinquish their claims to western Georgia,
which had been under Russian influence for the better part of the previous
decade. The Serbs suffered the most from this peace, as Russia coolly aban-
doned them. The treaty stipulated autonomy for Serbia, but Article 8 gave
the Turks a free hand to suppress the Serbian rebellion. The treaty also con-
firmed earlier Russo-Ottoman agreements except those deemed obsolete,
which included the treaty of alliance of 1805. This effectively meant that the
Turkish straits would remain closed to Russian warships.
Europe’s preoccupation with Napoleon in 1813–1815 provided a crucial
respite for the Ottoman central authority; it declared its neutrality in the
ongoing European conflict and refused Britain’s suggestions to allow Russian
warships to pass through the straits to launch an expedition to Italy. Sultan
Mahmud used this window of opportunity to reassert his authority over
rebellious provinces and to lay the groundwork for his eventual moderniza-
tion program of defensive developmentalism. The end of war against Russia
allowed him to divert military resources to Serbia, where in 1813 the
Ottomans routed the Serbian forces and occupied Belgrade by December of
that year. This effectively marked the end of the First Serbian Uprising, as
Karadjordje and his supporters fled to Austria while some Serbian knezes, led
422 | the napoleonic wars

by Karadjordje’s rival Miloş Obrenoviç, accepted the restoration of Ottoman


rule. However, Ottoman abuses and misrule soon alienated these Serbian col-
laborators. In September 1814 a revolt by Prodan Gligorijević (Hadži-
Prodan) briefly threatened Ottoman rule in west-central Serbia before being
suppressed. A more serious challenge came from Miloş Obrenoviç, who
launched the Second Serbian Revolution on Palm Sunday, 1815. Napoleon’s
defeat at Waterloo and the end of the Napoleonic Wars greatly assisted the
Serbs, as now the Russians were free to support the Serbs against the
Ottomans. Sultan Mahmud acted with prudence, fearing the possibility of
Russian intervention. He granted the Serbs limited autonomy and recog-
nized Miloş Obrenoviç as the Prince of Serbia. It was a politic move, but in
doing this, he had unwittingly taken the first step toward the political frag-
mentation of the Ottoman Empire.
chapter 17
The Qajar Connection
Iran and the European Powers, 1804–1814

T he qajar rulers of iran had initially benefited from the fast-changing


international situation in Europe. As noted earlier, with European pow-
ers focused on revolutionary France, Agha Muhammed Khan and his succes-
sor Fath Ali Shah could contemplate wide-ranging campaigns to reassert
Iranian influence in the region and consolidate their authority at home.
Contemporary Europeans viewed the Qajar rulers as “Oriental despots” who
wielded unlimited power, fusing the legislative, executive, and judicial func-
tions of the state. In reality, the shah’s authority was sharply curtailed due to
the lack of a state bureaucracy or a standing army, as well as by powerful
regional potentates whose collaboration was instrumental to implementing
any royal decisions at the local level.
France’s expedition to Egypt, and the geopolitical threat that it seemingly
posed to British India, placed Iran in the limelight of European politics. The
Qajars also profited from Empress Catherine II’s unexpected death in
November 1796. Paul I showed no interest in pursuing his mother’s imperial
policies in the Caucasus; indeed, he recalled Russian forces already there,
thereby freeing the Qajar shahs to strengthen their power base. The sense of
legitimacy and importance conferred by contacts with foreign delegations
made the Iranians receptive to the approaches of European powers—in 1801,
the Anglo-Iranian treaty established a tentative alliance between the two
nations.1
Iran then had the benefit of just four years of respite. After the French
departure from Egypt in late 1801, the British lost their interest in Iran—the
British East India Company’s Indian possessions were seemingly safe from
French threat, and London was more preoccupied with the affairs in Europe.
20° 25° 30° 35° 40° 45° 50° 55° 60° 65° 70° 75° 80°
SERBIA Crimea
Serbian Revolt, R U S S I A Perovsk
Sevastopol
1804-1813 BULGARIA
C
a
u
40° Adrianople Black Sea c K H O K A N D
ABKHAZIA a

DA
Constantinople Sinope MINGRELIA s
u Tashkent

GH
1803 1865

ES
Batumi IMERETI s Caspian KHANATE OF Khiva Kashgar
Aegean 1801 Khokand

TA
KHIVA

N
KARTLI-KAKHETI Sea
GREECE Sea Ankara Trabzon 1873 1876
Greek Revolt, Akhaltsikhe 1801 Ganja Bukhara Samarkand
1821-1830 1813 1866 1868
ANATOLIA
Navarino Erzurum KHANATE OF
7
TURKM ENS

Ded
80 Konya 1884 BUKHARA 1893
,1 1881

oc
35° ck K h
tta Crete U u s
ha R 1857 k

an
it is Ardabil KASHMIR
Br
es Tarsus French outreach to D I S
Tabriz Merv u
e Adana T
the Arab ribes, 1810-1813 A d
Aleppo N Serahs n
Cyprus Mosul i 1849
Tehran Peshawar
Mediterranean Sea 1837 H Kabul
French dip. missions, 1805-1808
Brit 1856 1839
ish
Inv Beirut Homs 1814 1809 1831-1833 1809
180 asio Herat PUNJAB
1, 1 ns Qum
807 Damascus
I R A N AFGHANISTAN Lahore
30° Syrian Desert
Baghdad Kandahar
Alexandria Isfahan
Jerusalem
EGYPT IRAQ 1839
Under the Georgian Quetta Multan
Cairo
mamluks until 1831
Aqaba Basra
Jauf Kelat
Ruled by Mehmed 1847
Ali in 1805-1848 AL-NUFUD
KUWAIT
N
us

Tabuk A
Ind

T 1843
25° IS
Tayma Hail H INDIA
Bandar Abbas C SIND
U
Qatif A L 1891 Hyderabad
HEJAZ Buraydah B
Damman
Khaybar Ayaina BAHRAIN
Rass Hofuf Gulf of
Aswan
Dariya QATAR
N A J D Oman
Medina Riyadh
Yanbu Buraymi
Khaif Kharj
Muscat
Hauta
20° OMAN
(MUSCAT) 1801-1 Gulf of
Mecca 814
Jeddah Khurma Cambay
Taif Turaba Bombay
I MASIRA
L
A
H
- K
L
A S I R A
Red Sea B
N A J R A N U
- R
L
A Arabian
HADHRAMAUT
Ottoman Empire
Sharifs of Mecca
Sea
First Wahhabite Empire (till 1818) YEMEN
Second Wahhabite Empire (till ca.1890) Massawa
Sana 1801
Mukalla
Turco-Egyptian Expedition, 1811-1813 Aksum Adua Hudaydah
Turco-Egyptian Expedition, 1816-1818
Turco-Egyptian Expedition of 1836 Mukha
Egyptian campaigns, 1839-1841 ABYSSINIA Aden 0 90 180 Kilometers
Russian lines of advance, with years
Lines of advance of Great Britain, with years 0 90 180 Miles

Map 18: The Napoleonic Legacy in the Middle East


The Qajar Connection | 425

British imperial priorities clearly did not include Iran—several Iranian embas-
sies dispatched to the BEIC headquarters in Calcutta were received without
much enthusiasm, and the treaty of 1801 remained unratified.2 Furthermore,
the death of Emperor Paul brought to power Alexander, whose views on the
southern Caucasus differed dramatically from his father’s and were more in
line with his grandmother’s. While Europe was preoccupied with the revolu-
tionary turmoil, Alexander turned to southern Caucasia, which, again like his
grandmother, he knew could serve as a conduit for Russian imperial ambitions
in the Middle East. We have already seen that the eastern Georgian kingdom
of Kartli-Kakheti sought an alliance with Russia as a means of protecting
itself from Ottoman and Iranian encroachment. In 1801, in violation of the
Treaty of Georgievsk, signed by his grandmother, Emperor Alexander issued
a manifesto annexing the eastern Georgian kingdom to Russia, marking an
unequivocal Russian involvement in Caucasian affairs that would endure. But
within months of the decision it became clear that the region would not be
easily acquired and the conquest would exact a high toll in men and resources.3
Russian authorities were undeterred, confident of quick and easy success.
Alexander, for his part, argued that the annexation of Georgia was done for the
“benefit of the people”—by which he meant the Georgians—and not out of a
desire to consolidate Russian interests in the region.4
The key figure in Russian efforts to pacify eastern Georgia and expand
Russian rule in southern Caucasia was Prince Paul Tsitsianov, who was
appointed Russian commander in chief in the Caucasus in 1802.5 A scion of
the powerful Tsitsishvili family of Georgian lords, Tsitsianov was neverthe-
less an uncompromising Russian imperialist who believed in Russia’s mission
civilisatrice in Asia.6 The Russian plan of conquest for southeastern Caucasia
envisioned a multi-step process, starting with the removal of the Bagration
dynasty and the subjugation of the Georgian principalities. In 1802, after
Prince Regent David Bagration was forced to step aside, Emperor Alexander
ordered all members of the Georgian royal family to be resettled in Russia.
The Georgian nobility protested the imposition of direct Russian rule and
demanded implementation of the provisions of the Treaty of Georgievsk.
When Russian authorities began to arrest and exile protesting nobles, a
rebellion erupted in Kakheti (eastern Georgia) and the Bagration princes
solicited support from Iran. Apprised of the uprising, Russian authorities
under Karl Knorring took emergency measures to protect Tbilisi, brought
reinforcements, and blocked strategic routes across the mountains. The
Russian measures soon had an effect—the uprising withered away, the
Georgian princes were forced to flee to Iran, and many Georgian nobles were
made to reconsider their opposition to Russian rule. In the spring of 1804
426 | the napoleonic wars

another rebellion, sparked by the introduction of Russian customs and regu-


lations, erupted in the highlands of Kartli (central Georgia), quickly spread-
ing through the region before being suppressed later that same year.7
To ensure the safety of Georgia, the Russian authorities believed it was nec-
essary to expand further west and south and to draw a border along the Aras
River all the way to its estuary at the Caspian Sea. This frontier would be main-
tained from military bases at Yerevan and Nakhichevan, and be protected by a
third forward base to the south in Talish, which would allow Russia to threaten
the Iranian provinces of Ghilan and Mazendaran. Between 1802 and 1804
Tsitsianov proceeded to impose Russian rule on the western Georgian Kingdom
of Imereti, the principalities of Mingrelia and Guria, and the khanates located
south of Georgia. Some of the khanates submitted without a fight, but the
khanate of Ganja resisted, prompting a Russian invasion that sacked the city of
Ganja. Russian expansion into eastern Caucasia, which Iran considered part of
its sphere of influence, posed a clear challenge to the Iranian regional hegemony.8
Fath Ali Shah felt the need to enhance his legitimacy by asserting sovereignty
over this region because, as a Qajar ruler, he understood that ideological justi-
fication for his dynasty’s royal pretentions was that the Qajars had reunited
the “breakaway” regions into the Guarded Domains of Iran (Mamalek-e
Mahrusa-ye Iran) and had therefore restored the power of Shiite Islam. Russian
expansion in eastern Caucasia posed a direct and grave threat to the pillar of
ideological justification propping up the new Iranian monarchy.9
In May 1804 Iran demanded the Russians withdraw from Caucasia. They
refused, and in June Iran declared war. This encounter with one of the great
European powers proved to be a sobering experience for Iran, for it struggled
to match the Russian army’s firepower and discipline; the history of the nine-
year-long Russo-Iranian War is peppered with examples of small Russian
forces successfully fending off much greater numbers of Iranian troops. Fath
Ali Shah sought British support to expel the Russians from the eastern
Caucasus, but the Anglo-Iranian alliance failed this first major test. The Qajar
shah interpreted provisions of the 1801 treaty as committing Britain to sup-
porting Iran if it was threatened by any third party (i.e., Russia) in return for
the Iranian guarantee to do the same for the British in India or wherever they
might request his assistance. Throughout 1805–1806 he made several requests
to the BEIC for military and financial assistance; all were denied. BEIC offi-
cials and the British government viewed the situation very differently, noting
that the treaty had never been formally ratified and thus was nonbinding.10
Furthermore, even if it had been ratified, the British argued, its provisions
applied only to a threat from France, not Russia. Indeed, Britain had no inter-
est in supporting Iran against Russia, a valuable ally in its war against
The Qajar Connection | 427

35° 40° 45° 50°


KHANATE OF
CRIMEA
1783 to Russia
45°
Kuba
n
CI
RC GREAT
BLACK SEA AS KABARDIA
SI
1829 AN From 1761 nominally
S dependent
PROVINCE From 1825 complete
Russian control Te
rek
1864
1817
ABKHAZIA Vladikavkaz
1810 1858 Petrovsk
1806 1784 1784
MINGRELIA CHECHNYA
Black Sea 1803 K. IMERETI 1859 Caspain
Poti 1810
1829 GURIA
1804 Kutaisi Derbent Sea
KINGDOM OF DAGHESTAN 1806
Batumi 1828
1829 KARTLI-
KHANATE OF
KAKHETI 1801 1806
KUBA
1878 KHANATE OF
Aleksandropol SHAKKI 1806
OTTOMAN EMPIRE Kars 1805 1828 1804
Ganja 1806
(Yelizavetpol) 40°
KHANATE OF KHANATE Baku
KHANATE OF OF
YEREVAN
KARABAGH SHIRVAN
1805 1805
KHANATE OF
Russian Empire 1761 NAKHCHIVAN
KHANATE OF
Acquisitions 1762-1796 (Catherine II) 1828
TALISH
Acquisitions 1796-1801 (Paul I) 1813
Acquisitions 1801-1825 (Alexander I) IRAN
Acquisitions 1825-1855 (Nicholas I) Tabriz
Acquisitions 1855-1881 (Alexander II)
Lake
Boundary of Russia 1914 0 60 120 Kilometers Urmia Turkmenchay
1806 Date of acquisition Resht
0 60 120 Miles

Map 19: Russian Expansion in the Caucasus

Napoleon in Europe; some senior British officials even condoned Russian


expansion in the Caucasus. Fath Ali Shah was, naturally, exasperated by what
he perceived to be Britain’s reneging on its pledge of assistance. He believed
he had made a treaty of equals. Now he realized that the British would not
treat him as an equal, and he gradually began turning to France.
The Russian commander in chief in the Caucasus, Tsitsianov, was eager to
fight Iran, claiming that war had to be waged quickly and decisively in order
to establish a Russian foothold in the region.11 The Russians seized the initi-
ative at the very start of the war when Tsitsianov led some 3,000 troops to the
khanate of Yerevan after its ruler, Muhammad Khan, refused to accept
Russian sovereignty. In June the Russians besieged Yerevan and defeated
Iranian forces at Gumry (Leninakan); the following month Tsitsianov scored
a victory over the Qajar crown prince Abbas Mirza not far from Yerevan.12
After these defeats, Iranian forces retreated to regroup, while Tsitsianov con-
tinued to exert pressure on local khanates. In 1805 Karabagh, Shakki, and
Shirvan recognized Russian authority when Tsitsianov’s troops conducted
raids as far as Resht in northwestern Iran.13 In February 1806 Tsitsianov
reached Baku, intending to impose Russian authority on the local khan. But
428 | the napoleonic wars

on February 20, 1806, during a meeting with the khan, Tsitsianov—who,


with his characteristic bravado, arrived at the meeting with just two
­companions—was ambushed and murdered by the khan’s guards, who then
sent the Russian commander’s head as a present to Iran’s shah.14
Tsitsianov’s death deprived the Russian Empire of a devoted and capable
individual, someone who did much to determine the nature and character of
the Russian conquest of the Caucasus. His tenure as commander in chief was
marked by bluster, determination, energy, and, above all, a ferocious drive to
remove any obstacles to Russian imperial power.15 Iranian celebrations at the
death of the “shedder of blood,” as Tsitsianov became known in Iran, proved to
be short-lived. Tsitsianov’s successor, Ivan Gudovich, repelled an Iranian inva-
sion in Karabagh in the summer of 1806 and pressed on with an offensive that
soon conquered the khanates of Derbent and Kuba. In October the Russians
stormed Baku, exacting harsh vengeance for the death of their commander.16
Despite early success in the war, before long Russia found its war efforts
in the southern Caucasus hampered by a host of unforeseen challenges. The
most important of these was the start of the War of the Fourth Coalition
against Napoleon in 1806. Russia’s political and military focus therefore
shifted to northeastern Europe, where over 100,000 Russian troops were
committed to fighting the French. Furthermore, in December 1806 Russia
became embroiled in a new war against the Ottoman Empire, which tied
down another 40,000 troops. The Russo-Ottoman War spilled over into
western Caucasia, where the Ottoman sultans had long claimed suzerainty,
forcing the Russian authorities to divert to the Ottoman frontier troops orig-
inally sent to fight Iran. The Russo-Swedish War, which began in February
1808, and the Russo-Austrian War of 1809 complicated matters still further.
All these conflicts had direct repercussions in the Caucasus, since Russia
could not commit any additional resources to its struggle against Iran. Thus
Russia had no more than 50,000 men in the entire Caucasus region, and
fewer than 10,000 troops could be committed to the theater of war in south-
eastern Caucasia; by 1811, there were fewer than 5,000 men deployed against
the numerically far superior Iranian forces.17 Aside from these military chal-
lenges, there were also financial problems. Russia’s accession to the
Continental Blockade and the ensuing Anglo-Russian hostilities disrupted
Russian trade and constrained its ability to sustain war funding in the
Caucasus. Contrary to their expectations, the Russians were unable to utilize
their naval prowess in the Caspian Sea either for attacking Iranian coastlines
or supplying Russian troops in eastern Caucasia. Aside from perilous weather,
the Russian flotilla was woefully unprepared for the task and lacked the funds
to improve the situation.18
The Qajar Connection | 429

All of this meant that Caucasian affairs became of secondary importance to


Russia, at least for the moment. Emperor Alexander, preoccupied with European
affairs, tried to end the war with Iran on several occasions between 1806 and
1808. Two years of military setbacks had made the Iranian government equally
willing to seek a respite. The chief obstacle to peace was the Russian demand for
Iranian cession of all territory north of the Aras River, though much of that
region was under no more than nominal Russian authority. Showing a complete
disregard for the seriousness of Iranian interests in the region, Alexander insisted
that his troops establish the border on the Aras because, as Caulaincourt wrote
to Napoleon, it was “necessary to prevent the incursions of barbarian peoples
who inhabit the land.”19 Russian diplomats feared a possible rapprochement
between Iran and France—which was indeed happening—while Russia was still
burdened with commitments in Europe and the Danubian Principalities. To
prevent this, it was ready to seek British intercession and to take advantage of
friendly relations between Fath Ali Shah and the British East India Company.
Reflecting the deep distrust the Russians felt toward the Iranians, a memoran-
dum prepared in 1806 outlined three immediate priorities for Russian diplo-
macy in southeast Caucasia: “1. It is necessary to negotiate peace with Persia,
without fully trusting their commitments, in order to prevent their union with
the Porte; 2. To postpone, until a more advantageous time, the establishment of
[the Russian imperial border] on the Kura and Aras Rivers; 3. To make military
preparations in case of the union between the Turks and the Persians.”20
In the summer of 1806 Britain missed a key opportunity. Both Russia and
Iran were seeking a peaceful settlement, and Fath Ali Shah, strapped for cash and
anxious to find an ally, made a request for British support. The British could have
played a decisive role in mediating peace were it not for their preoccupation with
European affairs, as well as the erroneous belief that as long as they maintained
good relations with Russia and the Ottoman Empire, little if anything had to be
done about possible French influence in Iran, which was not expected to have any
tangible impact. Furthermore, London was concerned that any intervention in
Iran would upset the Russians, whose support they were so keen on maintaining
against Napoleon. This effectively opened the door for France to use Iran to
threaten both Russian and British interests. As the British ambassador to the
Ottoman Empire, Charles Arbuthnot, put it in August 1806, “To please the
Emperor [of Russia], we have thrown away all our influence in Persia.”21
In October 1806 Russia and Iran settled on the Uzun-Kilissa Armistice,
which halted hostilities during the winter of 1807.22 The negotiations that
unfolded over the next several months revealed a chasm between Russian and
Iranian conditions for peace. The Iranian hope that Russian aspirations in the
south Caucasus might be moderated after the assassination of Tsitsianov were
430 | the napoleonic wars

quickly dashed. His successor, Gudovich, insisted that the Iranian cession of
Georgia and south Caucasian khanates was “necessary for the establishment of
secure frontiers that make for amicable neighbors.”23 The Iranians, unsurpris-
ingly, rejected such demands and instead insisted on a complete Russian with-
drawal from the region and establishment of imperial frontiers in north
Caucasus.24 Despite the intransigent nature of the discussions, both sides were
willing to continue them. For Russia, negotiations with Iran offered a crucial
opportunity to regroup its forces and deal with the growing Ottoman threat in
southwest Caucasia (discussed later). Meanwhile, with an Iranian embassy
already on its way to meet Napoleon, Fath Ali Shah certainly hoped that by
tying up the Russians in negotiations he would get a better bargaining position
in forthcoming negotiations with the French, which is why the Russian emis-
sary was, in the words of the French envoy General Claude Mathieu Gardane
(Gardanne), “neither turned away nor completely rejected. The shah instead
bid for time in expectation of the outcome of negotiations with France.”25

The setbacks Iran experienced during the first two years of the war clearly
demonstrated its need for an ally to overcome Russia, and the Qajar court was
compelled to seek European help. Which meant they soon got caught up in
the diplomatic maneuverings of the Napoleonic Wars. The shah, as noted,
showed a preference for aid from Britain, but London’s refusal to support Iran
at this difficult hour opened doors for the French. Napoleon’s ambitions in the
East reflected elements of traditional French foreign policy and sought to
uphold the Ottomans and Iran as a buffer for French interests in the region.
Even as early as the Egyptian campaign, Napoleon—as we’ve seen—had envi-
sioned Iran as a possible foothold for threatening British interests in India,
and once Franco-Ottoman tensions had been resolved in 1802–1803, the
French leader consistently demanded more information about Iran from his
diplomats stationed in Constantinople.26 In 1803–1804 Napoleon made dip-
lomatic overtures to Iran through his ambassador at Constantinople as well as
through Jean Rousseau, French consul at Baghdad (residing at Aleppo), and
Louis Alexandre de Corancez, French commissary of commercial relations at
Aleppo.27 By 1806 he was contemplating using the Ottoman Empire and Iran
against his principal enemies, Russia and Britain. “The unwavering aim of my
policy is to make a triple alliance of myself,” Napoleon wrote to Talleyrand in
May 1804, “the Porte and Persia, aimed directly or by implication against
Russia.”28 France’s imperial strategy envisioned the Ottoman Empire (sup-
ported by France) as guarding French interests against Russia in southeastern
Europe while Iran would help project Napoleon’s influence further eastward
and serve as a basis for the renewed French threat to India.
The Qajar Connection | 431

These efforts seemingly produced results when Fath Ali Shah, annoyed by
the British ambivalence in the war against Russia, sought French help though
his ambassador at Constantinople. The French welcomed the Iranian over-
ture, and in March 1805 Napoleon dispatched the well-known Orientalist
Pierre Amédée Jaubert to Tehran with instructions to inform himself of the
situation in Iran, “province by province,” and of the attitude of the governor
there.29 Just one month later, Napoleon sanctioned another mission, this one
led by French diplomat Alexandre Romieu.30 Both envoys traveled through
Constantinople, where Pierre Ruffin, French chargé d’affaires there, provided
them with the most recent information from Iran.31 Their arrival caused
great concern at the British embassy, which reported that “Romieu has the
reputation of being a man of talents, of having a considerable sum of money
at his disposal, and of being a great proficient in the science of intrigue.”32
The French envoys’ paths diverged at the Ottoman capital. Tracked by
British agents, Romieu survived an assassination attempt—allegedly or­gan­
ized by a British consul in Aleppo—and reached Tehran in September 1805.
He delivered to the shah Napoleon’s letter praising him as the worthy succes-
sor of the great warrior ruler and urging him to defy the Russians and the
British. “You will imitate and surpass the examples [your predecessors] have
left behind. Like them you must distrust the counsels of a nation of shopkeep-
ers, who, in India, traffic the lives and crowns of sovereigns; and you must
oppose the valor of your people to the incursions of the Russians.”33 Romieu
did not get to accomplish much because he suddenly became sick after attend-
ing a dinner at the shah’s palace; he died on October 12, 1805 after three days
of fever and vomiting. Although it could well have been dysentery, the French
claimed that Romieu had been poisoned by the British, who steadfastly denied
any involvement.34 Before he died, Romieu submitted an insightful report on
the state of affairs in Iran, noting the shah’s desire to send an ambassador to
France as well as emphasizing the shah’s frustration with the British refusal to
provide Iran with military assistance against Russia.35
France’s second envoy, Jaubert, faced hurdles of his own. To deceive British
agents, he changed his name and traveled incognito across Anatolia as far as
Bayazid (modern Dogubeyazit), on the Turkish-Persian frontier, before being
arrested by the covetous local governor, who kept him in an underground cell
for several months.36 In June 1806 Jaubert finally reached the Qajar capital and
presented another letter from Napoleon expressing interest in a Franco-Iranian
alliance.37 Fath Ali Shah welcomed the offer and dispatched his envoy Mirza
Mohammed-Reza Qazvini on a diplomatic mission to France. By November
the Iranian mission had reached Constantinople, where it met the Ottoman
grand vizier to discuss forming a joint front in south Caucasia. The Iranians
432 | the napoleonic wars

also held brief discussion with the French ambassador Sebastiani, who, follow-
ing Napoleon’s instructions, dispatched several French officers to start advising
the Iranian military.38 After another two months of travel, Mirza Mohammed-
Reza reached France, only to discover that Napoleon was no longer in Paris but
in the snowy fields of Poland, where his Grand Armée was recovering from the
bloody encounter with the Russians at Eylau. The Iranian envoy went to
Poland, where he conducted negotiations that culminated in the Franco-Iranian
Treaty, signed at the castle of Finckenstein on May 4, 1807.39
Set against the backdrop of the wars in Europe and the Russo-Iranian
conflict in the Caucasia, the Treaty of Finckenstein reflected Napoleon’s
interest in forming a triple alliance with the Ottoman Empire and Iran to
shore up France’s positions in the east. In a rather flattering letter to the shah
written on January 17, Napoleon announced his successes in the war against
Prussia and Russia and raised the prospect of a joint Franco-Ottoman-Iranian
front against a common enemy. “Let us all three join together and form an
eternal alliance,” he urged the shah.40 The Treaty of Finckenstein was a mani-
festation of this ambition: it was designed to use Fath Ali Shah to carry out
diversionary attacks against a common Russian enemy, and, exploiting Iran’s
position as a western neighbor of India, to threaten British interests in the
subcontinent. The treaty established a Franco-Iranian alliance that guaran-
teed the territorial integrity of Iran and recognized eastern Georgia and other
south Caucasian polities as Qajar possessions (Articles 2–4). Napoleon
pledged to “direct every effort to the ouster of the Russians” from these ter-
ritories and, toward that end, to provide arms and military experts to mod-
ernize Iranian forces and “to organize it in accordance with principles of
European military art” (Articles 6–7). The remaining articles were designed
to stymie British influence in Iran, with the shah agreeing to declare war
against Britain, expel all British presence from Iran, obtain Afghan coopera-
tion in a French attack on India, and provide bases and supplies for a French
naval squadron in the Persian Gulf.41
Almost immediately after concluding it, Napoleon tasked General Gardane,
a man of considerable talent and resourcefulness who had family connections
to Iran, with leading the French military mission to Iran.42 Napoleon pro-
vided the general with detailed instructions that illustrate the scope and seri-
ousness of Napoleon’s ambitions in the East. He pointed out that Iran was
important to France for two primary reasons: its enmity with Russia, France’s
rival, and as the means for a military passage to India, where France could
challenge Britain. He urged Gardanne to obtain thorough information about
Iran’s military capabilities and to submit precise description of routes, for-
tresses, and ports throughout Iran and the Persian Gulf.43
The Qajar Connection | 433

Accompanied by an impressive staff of military and civilian assistants,


Gardane left Poland on April 30.44 While he was on his way to Iran—an ardu-
ous trip taking several months—momentous changes occurred both in the
Caucasus and in Europe. As noted, Russo-Iranian hostilities were suspended
during the winter of 1807. For Russia, in light of its continued commitments
in Poland and the Danubian Principalities, this armistice served as a highly
welcome respite, to regroup and, more important, to prevent the creation of
an Irano-Ottoman alliance, which would have posed a serious threat to Russian
positions in the Caucasus. Indeed, the Russian authorities took advantage of
the negotiations with the Iranians to concentrate their efforts on waging war
against the Turks, keeping only a small detachment to observe the Persian
border, where no fighting (apart from occasional raids) took place.
Persian inactivity therefore allowed Gudovich to launch a three-pronged
attack targeting the Ottoman garrisons at Akhalkalaki, Poti, and Kars, although
the Turks repelled these attacks and, in the case of Akhalkalaki, inflicted heavy
losses on the Russians.45 Disheartened and facing bad weather, Gudovich had
no choice but to end his campaign. Happily, from his perspective, a poorly
planned Ottoman counteroffensive gave him an opportunity to make up for
the earlier setbacks. In June Yussuf Pasha, the serasker of Erzerum, marched
with some 20,000 men toward the Russian frontier, where they were inter-
cepted and routed by a small Russian force on the Arpaçay (Akhurian) River
on June 18, 1807. This was a significant Russian victory, for it effectively
removed the threat of a major Ottoman invasion of Georgia and consolidated
Russian positions in southern Caucasus.
Just a month later, in the wake of the Franco-Russian rapprochement at
Tilsit, Gudovich was instructed to conclude an armistice with the Turks—on
the condition that they were not to commence military operations without giv-
ing prior notification. While the Russians were fighting on the banks of the
Arpaçay, Crown Prince Abbas Mirza, with almost 20,000 Iranian troops, was
camped between Yerevan and the Algez Mountains. He could have exploited
this moment to strike at the Russians. Instead he chose a more cautious
approach, waiting for the outcome of the battle, hopeful that it would result in
a Russian defeat. Gudovich’s victory thus left him no choice but to congratu-
late the Russian commander on his victory and seek further n­ egotiations.46 Far
more momentous were the changes going on in Europe. Four days before the
Russian victory at the Arpaçay, Napoleon routed the Russian army at Friedland
and forced Alexander to sue for peace. The resulting Franco-Russian treaty, as
has been discussed, proved disastrous for Iran. Facing a choice between the
Russian Empire and faraway Iran, Napoleon chose the former and ignored his
earlier pledges to Iran. This all but destroyed the whole raison d’être for the
434 | the napoleonic wars

Eastern alliances that he had so carefully built over the previous two years.
However, this need not have meant the end of Napoleon’s interest in Iran,
because in his betrayal of Iran’s trust the French emperor turned out to be as
skillful at reinterpreting words as Britain had been. Unwilling to support Iran
against his newly acquired Russian ally, he was still keenly interested in using
it as a doorway to India. In his mind, what remained operative of the Treaty of
Finckenstein was Iran’s obligation to defend French interests. Napoleon there-
fore chose to proceed with Gardane’s mission. Informed of the change in
Napoleon’s policy, the French envoy was instructed to promote peace between
Russia and Iran and to urge the Qajar ruler to act against British interests.47
Undercut by Napoleon’s volte-face at Tilsit, Gardane tried to make the
best of the circumstances. He negotiated a commercial treaty that confirmed
concessions French had received in 1708 and 1715, and a military convention
for the delivery of muskets.48 He also dispatched French officers to survey the
areas that might provide access to India. Exploiting the respite in Russo-
Iranian hostilities, the French military mission became actively involved in
the training of the Iranian military, the first major Westernizing reforms in
Iran’s history. The Iranian army, though much larger than its Russian coun-
terpart, was a traditional force, relying on cavalry forces provided by tribal
levies. The cavalry was better suited to operating in the eastern Caucasian
terrain, so the Iranians employed tactics appropriate to it, such as raiding
Russian settlements and isolated detachments and avoiding large-scale bat-
tles. British observers noted that Crown Prince Abbas Mirza frequently
repeated his uncle Agha Muhammad Khan’s saying, “Never come within
reach of the Russians guns, and never, by the celerity of the cavalry, allow a
Russian villager to sleep in peace.”49 In terms of discipline and gunpowder
weapons, the Iranian infantry was a far cry from the Western soldiers, but
what it lacked in armament it more than made up for in martial spirit;
Western visitors frequently remarked on the Iranian soldiers’ bravery and
capacity to endure hardship.
The Qajar army’s biggest problem stemmed less from the technological
superiority of the Russian arms than from a fundamentally different approach
to military organization and maintenance, and the prosecution of war. Tribal
forces, which as noted dominated the Iranian military, were hard to control
and coordinate. They naturally placed their tribal interests ahead of national
ones and struggled to adjust to Western-style warfare. Fath Ali Shah and his
advisors (most notably his son Abbas Mirza) were keenly interested in reform-
ing their forces along Western lines. The shah was well aware, as he wrote
Napoleon, that “the French troops, better drilled than those of the Orient in
the handling of arms, are more accustomed to maneuver and are more
The Qajar Connection | 435

c­oordinated in their movements. For this reason the soldiers of the West
always have the advantage over Oriental irregulars.”50
Despite the daunting challenges involved in introducing Westernizing
reforms, the French officers spent more than a year forming, equipping, and
training three battalions (about 4,000 men) of the Iranian recruits. These
newly formed sarbaz units represented an amalgamation of Iranian and
Western ­practices—their uniforms combined traditional sheepskin hats with
European-style jackets. The French military mission also supervised con-
struction of military barracks, arsenals, powder mills, and cannon foundries,
which soon cast twenty cannon. French engineers taught their Iranian coun-
terparts the basics of military engineering and tried improving existing for-
tifications in northwestern Iran.51
These were all important first steps in modernizing the Iranian military
and remained only partially successful. The Qajar request that France send
additional officers and artisans, along with promised weapons deliveries, was
never fulfilled because of the Franco-Russian rapprochement. Financial
­problems prevented the Iranian government from maintaining all the sarbaz
troops as a standing army, which meant that many of the reformed troops
received only limited training. Thus when the hostilities with Russia
resumed, the sarbaz were not fully prepared for fighting, as the Franco-
Russian alliance prevented French officers from leading the troops in bat-
tle. More important, these reforms were highly unpopular; a good number
of religious leaders denounced them as un-Islamic. The Qajar monarchy’s
efforts to portray these reforms as a revival of early Islamic practices—spe-
cific Quranic references were publicized to bolster these claims—fell flat.
The sarbaz soldiers disliked the rigid discipline that their French officers
subjected them to and resisted any efforts to erase their tribal solidarity.
As the French military mission progressed, Gardane sought to lessen the
impact of the Treaty of Tilsit by making a number of promises that neither
France nor Russia would have been able to accept or keep. In February 1808
he received instructions from Napoleon to serve as a mediator between Russia
and Iran during the negotiations that were about to take place in Tehran.
Napoleon framed his position as affirming a pledge he had made at
Finckenstein to “make all effort to force Russia to evacuate Georgia and
Persian territory.”52 He wanted to urge the shah to honor his part of the bar-
gain by ending all commercial relations with Britain and by expelling British
agents from Iran.53 In conveying the imperial wishes, Gardane tried to con-
vince Fath Ali Shah that Napoleon exerted a great deal of influence over
Emperor Alexander and would be able to compel him to cede the disputed
Caucasian territories. In fact, the French envoy urged the shah and his ­advisors
436 | the napoleonic wars

to maximize their demands in their negotiations with Russia and tried to


strengthen Iranian resolve in confronting the Russians.54
Such promises were doomed for failure. With his army entangled in Spain
and facing growing discontent in central Europe, Napoleon could hardly
afford to alienate Russia by insisting on concessions to Iran. In the larger
scheme of things, Iran’s interests were not as crucial to France as Russia’s.
Emperor Alexander knew this. During a private meeting with the French
ambassador on August 12, 1808, Alexander rejected French mediation in
Russo-Iranian affairs, comparing it to a hypothetical Russian mediation
between France and Spain. “As the affairs of that country [Spain] do not con-
cern me, those that I have with Persia [should be] of no interest to the
Emperor,” noted Alexander, before explaining that he would not “take any
backward steps” in the Caucasus and had no intention to accept Iranian
demands.55 Indeed, Russia remained as intransigent as ever on the issue of the
Caucasus. Russian officials misinterpreted Iranian intentions in an earlier
diplomatic overture, which seemingly acknowledged the loss of Georgia to
Russia, and continued to insist on the Iranian surrender of the entire territory
north of the Aras River.56 Such demands were bolstered by the Russian belief
that the Qajar monarchy was in dire straits and that the shah, facing a
number of domestic rebellions, was too weak to act forcefully. Therefore,
Gudovich, the Russian commander in chief in the Caucasus, was instructed
to pursue a hard line in his negotiations with the Iranians, insisting on a
frontier that corresponded to the line occupied by the Russian troops.57
The presence of the French legation at Tehran caused great anxiety in the
British government and the BEIC. The news of the Treaty of Finckenstein
and Gardane’s mission caused a stir in Calcutta, where the BEIC governor-
general, Gilbert Elliot, Lord Minto, felt frustrated by France’s “great dili-
gence” in spreading “subversion” and “intrigues” to the borders of India.58
His alarm increased after hearing of Gardane’s success in signing Franco-
Iranian treaties on commercial and military matters. As before, BEIC officials
began to see the specter of a French invasion of India beginning to material-
ize. Early in 1808 Lord Minto dispatched John Malcolm, who had been pro-
moted to brigadier general, on a second mission to Iran. Minto’s first priority,
as revealed in Malcolm’s instructions, was to “detach the Court of Persia from
the French alliance, and to prevail on that Court to refuse the passage of
French troops through the territories subject to Persia.”59
Malcolm arrived at Bushire (in southern Iran) in May 1808. Gardane threat-
ened to leave Tehran if the British envoy was received there. Fath Ali Shah
desired good relations with Britain but was keener still on preserving the
French alliance, which seemed to offer greater advantages in Iran’s conflict with
The Qajar Connection | 437

Russia. So, to appease Gardane, the shah refused to allow the British envoy to
travel to the Qajar capital and instructed him to communicate only with the
provincial authorities in Fars. Incensed by this treatment, Malcom returned to
India, though not before scolding the Iranians for not upholding provisions of
the 1801 treaty and threatening the shah with British intervention if he did
not expel the French mission at once. Malcolm’s contemptuous treatment of
the Qajar monarchy elicited an angry response not only from Tehran but from
his own superiors in the BEIC, with Lord Minto admonishing his envoy.60
Fath Ali Shah showed his continued interest in reviving his alliance with
Napoleon against Russia by dispatching a new envoy, Askar Khan Afšar, to
France and offering a new agreement that would have given France control of
the island of Kharg (in the Persian Gulf) once it fulfilled commitments it had
made in the Treaty of Finckenstein.61 Gardane assured the Qajar officials that
France would do its utmost to protect Iran and that Russia, now that it was
allied to France, would avoid making any hostile actions—provided that the
Iranians abstained from any provocations.62 Yet French mediation failed to
secure tangible gains for the Iranians. As negotiations between Russian and
Iranian delegations stretched through the summer of 1808, it became progres-
sively clear that Russia was paying no heed to French mediation and refused to
consider any Iranian proposals, not even those offering to extend a truce and
transfer negotiations to Paris (as Gardane suggested, in contravention to his
own instructions). In fact, Gudovich bluntly told an Iranian envoy that the
Qajar court was “wrong to count on the good offices” of Napoleon because the
Treaty of Tilsit had effectively negated the Franco-Iranian alliance.63
The failure of his initiatives must have left Gardane feeling deeply humili-
ated, especially after Fath Ali Shah conveyed his exasperation that French medi-
ation had not accomplished anything as of yet. Qajar officials reminded the
French that they had fulfilled their commitments under the Treaty of
Finckenstein by refusing to receive Malcolm’s mission and limiting contacts
with the BEIC. Understanding that the shah’s goodwill would not last long,
Gardane decided not to await instructions from Paris and made one last effort to
mediate the Russo-Iranian conflict. In October 1808 he dispatched his secretary,
Félix Lajard, to urge Gudovich to return to negotiations and warn him that “any
attack” on Iran would be considered a provocation against its ally France.
Gardane then assured the Qajar court that until both the French and Russian
emperors weighed in on the negotiations, the Russians would make no hostile
moves nor do anything to disrupt the relations between the two empires.64
Gardane’s last gamble failed.65 Instead of negotiating, Gudovich, hard
pressed by Emperor Alexander and, at sixty-six years old, increasingly
­irascible and aware that he was not equal to the demands of his position,
438 | the napoleonic wars

decided to force the Iranians into concessions by breaking the armistice and
marching on Yerevan, which he did in October 1808. The Russian campaign,
launched late in the season and poorly conceived, failed after a six-week siege
of the Iranian fortress, where the Russians lost almost 1,000 men.66 Gudovich
tried to excuse his setback by claiming that the French officers had helped the
Iranians defend the fortress, but his superiors knew better.67 Alexander was
furious when he learned how haphazardly the campaign had been planned.
Gudovich was given no choice but to resign.68
Despite its failure, the Russian offensive had a major impact on Franco-
Iranian relations. For starters, it revealed the tenuous nature of the alliance,
which looked fine on paper but offered no tangible protection in practice.
Compelled to tread a fine line between supporting Iran and honoring
Napoleon’s commitments to Russia, Gardane promised too much, and the
Russian invasion of Yerevan made a mockery of his assurances. After spend-
ing much of the summer assuring the Iranians that Russia would not dare to
defy Napoleon and resume hostilities while the French were mediating the
negotiations, Gardane’s response to the Russian offensive was to order the
French officers attached to the Iranian army, who were expected to command
the units they had trained, to withdraw and to avoid involvement in any
hostile action against France’s ally. This incensed many at the Qajar court,
including Crown Prince Abbas Mirza and Qaim Maqam Mirza Issa Farahani,
who lamented that Napoleon entertained such friendly relations with
Emperor Alexander and ignored the bonds he had formed with Iran.69
A turning point in the relations between Napoleonic France and Iran
occurred on November 23, 1808, when Fath Ali Shah held an audience with
the French envoy. The shah complained that despite the guarantees that
Gardane had given him, the war had been resumed. He was particularly irri-
tated by the withdrawal of the French officers, which had hampered opera-
tions of the newly formed Iranian battalions. “Everything seems to have
conspired against us,” Fath Ali Shah told Gardane. “Emperor Napoleon has
not yet informed us whether his feelings toward us correspond with what we
expect from his loyalty and greatness, and the way in which he abandons us
is more and more astonishing to us. We have not concealed from you the true
situation in which things are, and everything has reached a point at which
France may perhaps no longer come to our aid.”70 Gardane tried, feebly, to
excuse Napoleon’s inaction on the grounds of Russian perfidy. Once he real-
ized “the strange behavior” of Russia, the French ambassador argued,
Napoleon would demand heavy reparations and, “like a thunderbolt, he
would fall on the enemies and destroy them.” The “thunderbolt” line must
have irked the Iranian shah, as he responded, “And what kept the thunder-
bolt from striking in the last ten months? . . . Do you still think of Russia as
The Qajar Connection | 439

an ally of France when it has a secret liking and an old friendship for England?
Do you not see its contempt for your sovereign even in its current steps?”71
It was now clear that French influence at the Qajar court was on the wane.
The shah gave Gardane just two months to clarify France’s intention toward
Iran.72 Considering the distances involved, the French envoy could not have
hoped to secure new instructions (the last instructions dated back to July
1808) within such a short period of time. His standing at the Qajar court was
further undermined by the arrival of a British mission led by Sir Harford
Jones, a longtime British resident in Basra and Baghdad who had formed per-
sonal connections with key Qajar figures. Unlike Malcolm, who represented
the BEIC, Jones was the British king’s envoy to Tehran and, in Qajar eyes,
carried greater diplomatic weight. The shah, still nurturing hope for an alli-
ance with France, initially commanded the British envoy be kept at the
shores of the Persian Gulf. But as time passed Fath Ali Shah came to realize
Napoleon’s inability, if not unwillingness, to do anything for him, and once
again weighed a British alternative. He knew full well that approaching
Britain for help would entail major concessions since, unlike in 1801, Iran
would now have to negotiate from a weaker position and Britain was upset
about what it considered Iran’s abandonment of the earlier treaty. In late 1808
the shah countermanded his earlier order and allowed Jones to travel to Tehran.
On February 13, 1809, the day before the British emissary entered the Iranian
capital, Gardane left the city, embarking on the long journey back home.73
Writing to Paris, he noted that that the “state of affairs of this empire [Iran]
is such that it will always be under the influence of and de­pend­ent on the near-
est neighbor who has a greater force at his disposal. I do not believe France can
hope to establish its influence here while her armies are so far away.”74
Like Malcolm in 1800, Harford Jones arrived laden with rich gifts and
promises, which greatly impressed the Qajar court. He showed sympathy for
the Iranian cause and emphasized the advantages of Anglo-Iranian relations,
urging Fath Ali Shah to break his alliance with France, which was already
practically void, in exchange for an alliance with Britain against Russia,
which had declared war on Britain in the wake of the Treaty of Tilsit. As an
incentive, Jones offered British expertise in training Iranian troops and, most
important, a hefty annual subsidy for as long as the war lasted. The second
Anglo-Iranian treaty, signed in March 1809, remedied the key defects of the
earlier treaties that the Qajars had signed with European powers. Britain
pledged to train and equip the Iranian military and come to Iran’s aid if it
was attacked by a European power, as well as provide financial assistance. The
price for all this was Iran’s abrogation of all agreements and concessions made
to France and a pledge to stop any European power that might attempt to
cross Iranian territory to reach India.75 The inclusion of the term “European”
440 | the napoleonic wars

was an important Qajar victory, though the term was interpreted differently
by the contracting sides: for Iran, it meant Russia, and for London, it meant
only and always France. Britain had little interest in constraining Russian
imperial designs in the Caucasus.
Despite Jones’s success, Britain’s interests in Iran had not yet been secured.
The shah had tried to maintain some latitude to play the British against the
French in order to obtain tangible help against Russia. Although Gardane
was gone, members of his mission remained at the Qajar court, much to the
chagrin of the British, and by cultivating relations with them Fath Ali Shah
tried to pressure the British into increasing their subsidy. Interestingly,
Jones’s mission caused a rift between the British home government and the
BEIC. Lord Minto, governor-general of the BEIC, understood the value of
Jones’s accomplishment—especially in light of his own setback with
Malcolm’s mission in 1808—and tried to sabotage Jones by ceasing to
honor his bills, which raised questions about the British envoy’s legiti-
macy.76 Furthermore, Minto recalled Jones (despite lacking authority to do
so) and dispatched John Malcolm on a third mission to Tehran. However,
Minto’s power play was thwarted by London, which confirmed Jones as the
official envoy to Iran and demanded that Malcolm be recalled. Lord Minto
complied but made sure that Jones was removed as well.

In February 1809 General Alexander Tormasov, sent as a replacement for


Gudovich, took over command of the Russian forces in the Caucasus.77 A
capable and energetic man who had distinguished himself fighting the Turks
and Poles in the 1790s, Tormasov found himself in an exceedingly difficult
situation—that of having limited means to achieve ambitious goals set by
the imperial government. The Russian forces in North Caucasus comprised
23,500 men, while just 18,500 troops were available to protect Georgia from
possible attacks by the Turks or Iranians. More alarming was the situation in
Georgia, Azerbaijan, and North Caucasus, where entire regions were in
revolt. Russian authorities struggled to contain an insurrection in Daghestan,
while in Abkhazia, a northwestern part of Georgia under Ottoman su­ze­
rainty, a power struggle raged between the sons of local ruler Çeles Bey
(Shervashidze), who sought help from the Ottomans.78
Equally concerning was the threat posed by King Solomon of Imereti
(western Georgia), the last independent Bagrationi monarch, whose opposi-
tion to the Russian presence in the Caucasus only hardened in the wake of the
Russian overthrow of the Bagrationi dynasty in eastern Georgia. If some in
the Georgian elite had once felt that the Orthodox Russians would save them
from their traditional Muslim enemies, the events of the past few years had
The Qajar Connection | 441

revealed that the Russians were interested not in Georgia’s salvation but in
its annexation. Solomon’s court in Kutaisi became a center of opposition
against the Russians, even after Tsitsianov forced Solomon to pledge an oath
of fidelity to the Russian emperor in 1804.
In light of the political, economic, and social turmoil in southern Caucasia,
Tormasov initially preferred to act cautiously, in order not to provoke any
large-scale hostilities with the Turks or Iranians. He offered Iran a negotiated
settlement of the war, though negotiations proved to be challenging, as both
sides failed to agree on territorial claims. Furthermore, this time it was
Britain that insisted that Iran should reject Russian offers and fight on.
London did so out of concern over Russia’s alliance with France and the pros-
pect of growing Russian engagement in Europe should Russia end its war
with Iran. The Qajar court reluctantly agreed, though one senior Qajar offi-
cial noted presciently to Harford Jones that if the situation in Europe
changed, Britain would probably leave Iran in a “tight spot.” In fact, this is
exactly what happened in the coming years. As the Russo-Iranian War pro-
gressed and the Franco-Russian alliance splintered, Britain found itself in the
difficult position of having to assist Iran against Russia, which London was
hoping to use to fight Napoleonic France in Europe.
The summer of 1809 turned out to be a frenetic one for Tormasov.
Instructed to remain on the defensive, he watched as the Iranians mobilized
forces along the frontier. However, Russian superiority in arms manifested
itself once more and the Iranians were put to flight at Guymri and Ganja
(Elisavetpol). Tormasov, meanwhile, pursued a tougher line with the Turks.
With the Russo-Ottoman War continuing in the Danubian Principalities, he
renewed hostilities in western Georgia and attacked Poti, a port town that
could intercept communications between the Porte and the Caucasian moun-
taineers and secure an anchorage for the Russian fleet bringing supplies to the
troops. A joint Russo-Georgian attack on Poti proved successful, and the port
town was seized in mid-November.79
Simultaneously, Russian troops marched into Imereti, defeated the
Georgian royal army, and captured King Solomon himself. Escaping from
Russian captivity, Solomon tried launching a rebellion but was defeated and
fled to Trebizond.80 Unable to make much headway against the Russians, he
turned for support to foreign powers. He traveled to Yerevan to enlist the
shah’s aid but was given only a small subsidy and advised to apply directly to
the sultan for military help. Solomon sent a mission to Constantinople with
letters to both the Ottoman sultan and the French embassy there. The latter
packet contained the first of several letters that the Imeretian king wrote to
Napoleon, asking him to put Georgia under his protectorate and liberate it
442 | the napoleonic wars

from Russia.81 Addressing Napoleon as “the most august of Caesars, the


mightiest king,” Solomon complained of the malicious actions of Russian
sovereigns. “It is already twelve hundred years my family has ruled over this
land; never before was our authority challenged . . . now only Your Excellency
can rescue us. . . . I appeal [to you] to take my kingdom under your protection
and liberate us from the Russians, either by war or peace.” Napoleon never
formally responded to these letters, but Georgia continued to figure in his
plans. In 1812, on the eve of the Russian invasion, Napoleon seems to have
nurtured an Oriental project of campaigning to India, and envisioned Georgia
as a staging ground for it. “Imagine Moscow taken, Russia overthrown, [and]
the tsar reconciled or murdered by a palace plot,” he told his trusted
­aide-de-camp, “and tell me that it is impossible for a large army of Frenchmen
and auxiliaries starting from Tiflis to reach the Ganges, where the mere touch
of a French sword would be sufficient to bring down the framework of
[Britain’s] mercantile grandeur throughout India.”82
Tormasov’s victories in 1809 ensured that the following year was rela-
tively peaceful. In late spring the Russian and Iranian negotiators met again
near Askoran to discuss a possible cease-fire. Despite seventeen days of nego-
tiations, the sides were unable to reach an agreement. Iran demanded Russian
withdraw from the occupied eastern khanates. The Russian authorities were
particularly incensed by the active role the British played in shoring up the
Qajar resolve to continue war.83 Hostilities therefore resumed at once. Crown
Prince Abbas Mirza marched to Migri, on the Aras River, and was twice
defeated by General Peter Kotlyarovskii’s much smaller detachment. These
defeats not only dampened the Iranian enthusiasm for war but raised con-
cerns over the security of Iran’s northwestern provinces, prompting the shah
to reinforce Tabriz.
Unable to make headway against the Russians on the Aras, the Iranians
discussed with the Turks the possibility of a joint operation—to combine
their troops and invade Georgia from the southwest. In August Fath Ali Shah
dispatched some 7,000 men under Huseyn Kuli (Hüseynkulu) Khan, sardar
of Yerevan, to Akhaltsikhe, where they were joined by some 3,000 local
Turkish troops under Sherif Pasha, and the combined force advanced to
Akhalkalaki, with the intention of proceeding as far as Tiflis (Tbilisi). Upon
learning of these movements, Tormasov swiftly counterattacked, a small
detachment under Colonel Lisanevich leading the way. On September 17,
1810, after three days of marching in bad weather, Lisanevich came across the
Turko-Iranian camp on the outskirts of Akhalkalaki and launched a nighttime
attack. It was a complete rout. The Russian victory effectively ended Turko-
Iranian cooperation, as each side blamed the other for the failure and retreated
The Qajar Connection | 443

home. Tormasov followed up this success with a new offensive that aimed at
the southern borderlands. The focal point of the attack was the Ottoman
­fortress of Akhaltsikhe, which the Russians besieged for ten days in late
November 1810 but were unable to capture due to an outbreak of plague.84
The Qajar ability to successfully wage the war against Russia was hampered
by the threats posed by the Wahhabists in Arabia and the Ottoman Kurds in
Iraq. The former inflicted stinging defeats on the Iranians in 1811, while the
latter’s attacks in 1811–1812 meant that a Qajar army of some 30,000 men
was tied down in Iran’s western provinces. Fortunately for the Qajars, the
British did provide officers and weapons for a Western-style army (along with
the money to pay for it). Starting in 1809, British officers supervised a renewed
restructuring of the Iranian army that, in its essence, was similar to the French
one but on a larger scale. Over the next five years Britain supplied more than
15,000 muskets and 20 cannon, in addition to sabers, gunpowder, and gun
carriages. Naturally, the British faced the same core problems that the French
had confronted. Their efforts were further complicated by the existence of
French-trained sarbaz units that resented their British-trained rivals and
resisted any and all efforts to place them under British command.
At the start of 1811 Tormasov had fewer than 19,000 men at his disposal in
Georgia. Facing renewed Ottoman and Iranian military preparations, he
appealed for reinforcements from Russia so that he could launch preemptive
strikes on strategically important positions at Derbent, Baku, and Sukhum
Kale. His request was denied. More than that, Minister of War Mikhail Barclay
de Tolly even inquired whether Tormasov couldn dispatch some of the Caucasian
regiments to the western borders of Russia, where Napoleon’s Grande Armée
was already beginning to take shape. In the summer of 1811 the Turks and
Iranians, having completed their preparations, agreed to concentrate their
troops on the Arpaçay River. In June, the serasker of Erzurum, Emin Pasha,
arrived with some 24,000 men at Kars, where he camped to await the Persians.
Informed of what was happening, Tormasov once again gambled on the supe-
riority of the Russian arms and decided to attack the Turks before the arrival of
the Iranian army. This could have been a risky enterprise, but once again prov-
idence smiled on the Russians. During a hunt, a traditional pre-battle event,
the Ottoman commander was shot by his longtime rival, thereby throwing the
entire Ottoman campaign into disarray. Learning of the incident, the pasha of
Trabzon, who had gathered more than 10,000 men at Batum in expectation of
a joint Turko-Iranian attack, called off the campaign. The Iranian army, led by
Huseyn Kuli Khan, had no choice but to turn back.85
This was Tormasov’s last “success” in Georgia. He was soon recalled to
command an army of observation that was forming in Volhynia (western
444 | the napoleonic wars

Ukraine) in expectation of a possible war with France.86 Shortly after his


departure, the Russian forces in the Caucasus were divided into two in­de­
pend­ent contingents. Lieutenant General Nikolay Rtischev was appointed
to command troops in the north Caucasus, while Lieutenant General
Marquis Philip Paulucci took charge of the troops in Georgia and began
his tenure with a new offensive against Akhalkalaki, which the Russians
(led by the intrepid Kotlyarovskii) captured in a daring raid on December
19, 1811.87
Several new developments strengthened Iranian resolve to continue fight-
ing the Russians in the new year. The Anglo-Iranian treaty of 1809 proved of
limited value, but the Qajar monarchy understood that it had no alternative
to a British orientation now that France had proven itself incapable of provid-
ing sufficient military assistance. To deepen his ties with King George III’s
court, the shah dispatched his ambassador Abu’l-Hasan Khan to London. He
returned with a new British envoy, Sir Gore Ouseley, a former BEIC official
who was well acquainted with local affairs and instrumental in defending
British interests at the Qajar court over the next few years. Under Ouseley’s
auspices, the 1809 preliminary treaty was renegotiated and formalized into
the Definitive Treaty of Friendship and Alliance (March 1812). The treaty
confirmed the earlier promises of military assistance and increased the amount
of the British subsidy to £150,000.88
Bolstered by the new British commitment, Iran rejected Russian offers to
negotiate and instead launched a major offensive, with Crown Prince Abbas
Mirza leading more than 20,000 men into the khanate of Talysh (southern
Azerbaijan).89 This was an important campaign because Russia seemed to be
weaker at this point than it had been since the start of the war in 1804. In
early 1812 a major uprising erupted in Kakheti (eastern Georgia) in response
to Russian authoritarianism and abuses. The weather in the first six months of
the year was unusually bad, leading to poor harvests and rising food prices.
The Russian authorities nevertheless insisted on quartering troops with house-
holds that were required to feed and house the soldiers, who frequently mis-
treated their hosts. Unsurprisingly, tempers flared, leading to a revolt.90 The
Qajars quickly moved to exploit the situation by providing help to Georgian
prince Alexander Bagration (the son of King Erekle II), whose anti-Russian
sentiments were widely known.91 In the spring the Georgian rebels defeated
the Russian detachments, massacred garrisons at Akhmeta and Tianeti, and
took control of almost all of Kakheti, forcing the Russian authorities to seek a
brief armistice. The Russian positions were further weakened in June 1812
when Napoleon led almost half a million men across the Niemen River and
launched his fateful invasion of Russia. The scale and intensity of this assault
The Qajar Connection | 445

meant that Russia had to devote all available resources to defending its heart-
land, leaving peripheries like south Caucasus to fend for themselves.
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia produced a political realignment in Europe,
but it also placed Britain in an ambiguous position in Iran. With France
attacking Russia, London had formed a new alliance with St. Petersburg,
pledging a joint front against the French. Yet in the Caucasus, the new
Iranian offensive involved some 2,500 British-trained troops led by British
military advisors, including Captain Charles Christie and Lieutenant Henry
Lindesay, with Major D’Arcy directing artillery. When Ouseley learned of
the Anglo-Russian rapprochement he tried recalling British officers from the
Iranian army. This decision provoked anger at the Qajar court, and he was
quickly compelled to keep some officers and drill sergeants with the troops.
These British-led forces participated in a battle near Soltanbud, some fifty
miles from Shusha, where the Russian detachment was soundly defeated.
This was a rare Iranian victory over the Russian forces, and naturally it bol-
stered Iranian morale. It also revealed major deficiencies in the newly trained
troops, including their failure to maintain discipline when victory was immi-
nent and prisoners and booty beckoned.92
Paulucci understood that the Kakhetian uprising threatened Russia’s
entire war effort in the Caucasus. His conclusion was reinforced by the
Russian defeat at Soltanbud. He responded by redeploying the few available
forces from north Caucasia and the Ottoman front, including a detachment
led by General Kotlyarovskii, the hero of earlier campaigns against the Turks.
In October the Iranian army reached the Aras River, where it stumbled on
Kotlyarovskii’s small detachment (2,200 men) near Aslanduz. Confident of
his success, Crown Prince Abbas Mirza rested his army on the left bank of the
Aras River, with few outposts deployed to watch for Russian movements. On
October 31, 1812, knowing that the Iranians avoided fighting in the dark,
General Kotlyarovskii led his men in a forced march to the Iranian camp and
launched a surprise nocturnal attack. The result was a stunning Russian vic-
tory. The British-led sarbaz troops did hold ground, but the rest of the army
fled in disorder. Kotlyarovskii’s men killed or captured more than 2,000
enemy troops (including Captain Christie) and more than three dozen cannon
and falconets.93 At the start of the New Year, the Russians seized the initia-
tive, driving the Iranians back and storming Lenkoran (January 13, 1813),
where the Russians took no prisoners.94
These Russian victories dealt a heavy blow to any remaining Iranian hopes of
winning the war. The Qajars suffered heavy losses: some 10,000 men in just
three months of campaigning. Iranian dreams of a successful uprising in Georgia
also did not materialize. Prince Alexander Bagration, who tried to lead his
446 | the napoleonic wars

detachments into eastern Georgia, was defeated at Sighnaghi and forced back
across the border. The rebellion continued for another four months, though ulti-
mately it gave way to superior Russian military might and was brutally sup-
pressed in early 1813. Fath Ali Shah, who expected continued British support
against Russia, was told by the British—and in no uncertain terms—that Iran
must make peace with its enemy. With Napoleon defeated in Russia and a new
European coalition formed against France, Britain was determined to support
“our good friends and Allies the Russians even in this remote quarter” and to
end a war that no longer served its imperial interests.95 Threatening to withhold
subsidy payments, the British ambassador Ouseley persuaded the shah to accept
peace talks in the summer of 1813. Negotiations were held at Gulistan, a small
village in northern Karabagh, where, on October 24, 1813, a British-mediated
peace treaty was at long last signed between Russia and Iran.96
The treaty confirmed a Russian victory in the decade-long war against
Iran and forced the Qajars to relinquish their claims to almost all territories
north of the Aras River, including Daghestan, western and eastern Georgian
kingdoms and principalities, and eastern Caucasian khanates (except for
Nakhichevan and Yerevan).97 These territorial concessions not only reflected
an Iranian loss of sovereignty in the Caucasus but undercut Ottoman claims
to some of these lands. Additionally, the loss of these territories meant the
disappearance of considerable amount of revenue that had to be replaced by
some other means. The unavoidable tax increase made the government quite
unpopular and contributed to domestic instability.98 Further, the shah sur-
rendered Iranian rights to navigate the Caspian Sea and granted to Russia
exclusive rights to maintain a military fleet in the Caspian, as well as to enjoy
capitulatory rights to trade within Iran. Equally humiliating was the provi-
sion involving Russia in Iranian internal affairs, as Russian support would
henceforth be required to guarantee the accession of the crown prince to the
throne. The treaty provisions were worded so vaguely as to suggest that the
Russians would be able to freely interfere in Iran in the future. Continued
Russian encroachment into the southeastern Caucasian territories, as well as
the mistreatment of Muslim populations, seriously strained Russo-Iranian
relations. They also ultimately led to a second war, thirteen years later.
With Napoleonic France defeated, Britain no longer had any interest in
supporting Fath Ali Shah, especially if it meant a possible showdown with the
Russian Empire. The British government therefore pushed hard for a revision
of the clauses of the Definitive Treaty of 1812 that bound Britain to aid Iran
in the event its sovereignty was violated (as clearly it now was). Fath Ali Shah
saw no alternative to a British orientation now that Napoleon was gone and
Russia had become his principal and most dangerous enemy. A mere year after
The Qajar Connection | 447

the Treaty of Gulistan, he accepted a watered-down version of the Definitive


Treaty, which reiterated the shah’s commitment to denounce all alliances with
European nations hostile to Britain and resist any encroachment on his coun-
try by European armies hostile to Britain. The treaty’s provisions dealing with
British support of Iran were significantly revised. They specified that the pur-
pose of the alliance was strictly defensive, and that British military assistance
or an annual war subsidy, along with weapons, would be provided only in the
event Iran was attacked by a foreign state. This provision, however, was effec-
tively negated by Article 6, which stipulated that should any European state
that was at peace with Britain attack Iran, Britain would not provide military
aid and would instead “use its best endeavors” to mediate peace between the
two side. The treaty cast a long shadow over Anglo-Iranian relations.
The Napoleonic Wars had a major impact on Iran, which, despite its glo-
rious imperial past, found itself a pawn in the hands of European powers.
Double-crossed by both France and Britain, it had suffered a humiliating
defeat at the hands of Russia. The war revealed glaring inefficiencies in the
Qajar state and convinced some leading Qajar statesmen of the need for mili-
tary reforms. Herein lies one of the most enduring legacies of the Napoleonic
Wars in Iran. Reform-minded men such as Crown Prince Abbas Mirza
believed that the introduction of European-style military reforms would
enable the shah to consolidate his power internally and to protect the state
more effectively from outside threats. Inspired partly by the Ottoman
reforms, Abbas Mirza set out to create an Iranian version of the Ottoman
Nizam-i Cedid troops and reduce Qajar dependence on both tribal forces and
foreign support. After the Russo-Iranian war, he began sending students to
Europe to learn Western tactics and employed British and French officers (as
well as a few renegade Russian officers) to raise and drill troops. The number
of foreign instructors increased after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, when
many unemployed European officers traveled far afield in search of positions.
For his part, Abbas Mirza built a gunpowder factory and an artillery foundry
in Tabriz, established a printing press to translate and publish European mil-
itary textbooks, and tried out a new recruitment system to create a steadier
supply of manpower and to make himself independent of the local elite.99 As
with earlier reforms, Abbas Mirza had to overcome public resistance. And, as
ever, the religious and traditional power groups disliked change—especially
the European appearance of the new regiments and the presence of “infidel”
instructors. The military reform did have some effect: by 1831 the army con-
sisted of about 15,000 men who played a critical role in maintaining order
and in defending the Qajar authority within Iran. What it failed to do was
secure Iran from external threats.
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Map 20: Revolutions in the Atlantic World, 1776–1826


chapter 18
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare,
1805–1810

B y the late eighteenth century, gaining control of the seas and the
international trade lanes that ran through them became a central strate-
gic element of the rivalries among European great powers. Yet during the
Revolutionary Wars, a powerful navy was not as essential to the survival of
France as it was to Britain. Attacked from almost all sides, France concen-
trated on building up its land forces, and the expectations placed upon the
French fleet were far less demanding than those on the British. Economic,
administrative, and technical innovations in Britain’s Royal Navy had com-
bined with the turmoil in France to give it a distinct military superiority at
sea over its French (and, after 1796, Spanish) rivals. Britain had a far more
extensive oceanic trade than its principal enemies. This provided a larger
reserve of professional seamen from which to man its growing fleet, which by
1805 was the largest in the world and exceeded the combined strength of the
next five naval powers.1 British naval commanders adopted bold methods in
confronting their enemies, and their victories had laid the foundation for
naval hegemony of the Atlantic and the Mediterranean basins. In the fall of
1805 the British triumph at Trafalgar partly offset French military victories
on the continent, leaving Napoleon unable to contest British control of the
Atlantic. Consequently, Britain conducted naval operations across the entire
Atlantic basin, revealing ambitions that were as grand in design as those of
its main adversary.
To forestall Napoleon from strengthening French positions in South
Africa, the British government dispatched a major expedition under Admiral
Sir Home Riggs Popham and Lieutenant General Sir David Baird to seize the
Cape Colony. Originally formed by the Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde
450 | the napoleonic wars

Oost-Indische Compagnie, VOC), the Cape had a small settler population of


about 14,000 people (and a slightly higher number of slaves) who frequently
clashed with the local Xhosa and their allies for the control of the region.
The trekboers—from the Dutch boer, meaning “farmer,” and trek, meaning
“to pull,” as in a wagon—resorted to various means to seize ever-larger tracts
of agricultural land.2 The two sides fought several conflicts in the late eight-
eenth century. The most recent one had raged between 1799 and 1803, when
the Xhosa threatened European settlers, who were experiencing internal
divisions.
The invasion by a British force a few years earlier, in September 1795, had
ended almost 150 years of VOC rule. The first British occupation lasted for
eight years, until the Treaty of Amiens required the restoration of this colony
to the Batavian Republic. The Dutch interlude that followed was brief but
full of ambitious projects. A specially appointed commissioner general named
Jacob Abraham de Mist tried to implement social and economic reforms that
the Dutch hoped would make the Cape Colony prosperous and orderly. But
neither the local settler population nor the available resources allowed for
completion of these reforms.
More to the point, the Dutch had run out of time. The first British war-
ships reached the Cape on Christmas Eve 1805 and immediately began
blockading the colony, whose governor, Lieutenant General Jan Willem
Janssens, could do little but watch as the British massed for the invasion.
After a delay caused by rough seas, Baird landed at Melkbosstrand, north of
Cape Town, on January 6–7 and, after easily defeating Janssens’s small gar-
rison forces at the Battle of Blaauwberg, he seized Cape Town on January 9.
Janssens did continue resisting gallantly in the mountains for a week before
being obliged to yield to superior numbers and accept the Articles of
Capitulation on January 18.3
Like the Dutch before them, the British considered the Cape as a crucial
midpoint on their route to India and the Far East. They made little structural
change in the colony, seeking mostly to stimulate trade and the local econ-
omy. While not condoning the local slave-based economy, they became dis-
tinctly pro-settler and played a major role in the consolidation of white
control in the South African countryside. A British commissioner appointed
for the purpose examined the frontier situation and reported that lasting
peace between the Xhosa and the European settlers could be achieved only by
keeping these societies completely separated until the white population was
strong enough to dominate the region. This report served as the blueprint for
the eventual apartheid system, which encompassed the use of military force
to dislodge black farming population in Southern Africa. It also fostered the
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 451

development of a colonial society that would be well protected following the


British military campaigns in 1811 and 1812. The Xhosa were ruthlessly
expelled from their tribal territories, and thousands of European settlers
began to acquire farmland along the west bank of the Fish River.4
The British government next explored prospects of appropriating Spanish
America, hoping that even the possibility of a British attack might induce
Spain to break its alliance with France. In early 1805 Henry Dundas, the
First Lord of the Admiralty, who had a long track record of embracing revo-
lutionary plans for Spanish America, examined new projects based on the
argument that Britain should not wage a defensive war against France but
rather go on the offensive outside Europe.5 Since the Spanish monarchy had
allied itself with France, Britain would be justified in targeting the vast
Spanish domains in the Americas.6 One such venture came from Sebastián
Francisco de Miranda y Rodríguez de Espinoza, a Venezuelan adventurer who
had spent the previous two decades trying, unsuccessfully, to incite a revolu-
tion in South America. In 1805 Miranda secured informal British support for
an attempted invasion of the Captaincy General of Venezuela. Unfortunately
for him, Guevara Vasconcelos, the captain general of Venezuela, had been
alerted to the attack and had ample time to prepare for it.7 On April 27–29,
when Miranda attempted to disembark near Puerto Cabello, his efforts were
thwarted by Spanish warships. This setback did not dampen the spirits of the
would-be revolutionaries, who continued to enjoy unofficial British support.
Miranda was allowed to regroup in the British colonies, and in August he set
sail from Trinidad on his second expedition to Venezuela and this time was
able to land at the port of La Vela, near Coro. This expedition failed as well,
due to diligent Spanish defensive preparations and a propaganda effort that
labeled Miranda a secret agent for Britain and a “traitor” who had committed
heinous crimes. Landing on August 1, Miranda and his men found the nearby
towns deserted, with most of the population fleeing at their approach. After
ten exasperating days spent issuing decrees and appeals, Miranda understood
that he would not secure popular support. When Spanish royal troops gath-
ered near Coro, Miranda beat an ignominious retreat into exile.8
Miranda might have failed to incite a revolution in Venezuela, but his
ideas and example had immediate effect elsewhere. Encouraged by his success
at the Cape, Admiral Popham determined to take matters into his own hands
and pursue greater glory (and financial reward) in South America.9 His deci-
sion to invade Río de la Plata was not sanctioned in London, though it was
clearly influenced not only by the exaggerated rumors of disaffection in
Spanish colonies that Miranda had spread but also by long-standing British
imperial aspirations to penetrate Spain’s South American colonies with a
452 | the napoleonic wars

view toward obtaining a position favorable to British trade; between 1702


and 1783, Spain had repelled no fewer than six such attempts by Britain. The
Revolutionary Wars provided new opportunities for the British, who consid-
ered several plans, including one in which Nicholas Vansittart, Thomas
Maitland, and, of course, Francisco de Miranda would seize Spanish colonies.
Prime Minister William Pitt and other members of the British cabinet agreed
that weakening Spanish authority in the region and opening new markets for
the British economy would be of immense consequence. They were, however,
not convinced that a military occupation was practical. Yet with the French
and Spanish fleets depleted, the situation seemed ripe for a British attack on
the Spanish colonies. That was why, without waiting for the orders from the
Admiralty, Popham attacked the Río de la Plata where he hoped to replicate
the success of the British invasion of the Cape Colony, conquer parts of South
America, and open new large markets for British manufacture. The English
commander explained that his project had “not arisen from any sudden
impulse, or the immediate desires of gratifying an adventurous spirit.”
Rather, it was the outcome of a plan that he had previously framed at the
request of senior government members for “a general emancipation in South
America.”10
The British fleet sailed for Río de la Plata in mid-April 1806. After a
brief stop at St. Helena Island to pick up provisions and reinforcements,
Popham reached his destination on June 8.11 The lack of planning became
quickly apparent. The British discovered that the estuary was too shallow
for their warships to get close enough to lend support to the landing forces.
Nevertheless, Popham pushed forward with a hastily drawn plan to capture
Buenos Aires, which, new intelligence revealed, was poorly fortified; it was
also weakly defended, because a part of the Spanish garrison had been dis-
patched to Upper Peru (today’s Bolivia) to guard the frontiers from the rem-
nants of Túpac Amaru II’s indigenous uprising. More exciting was the news
that the city was the repository of a large amount of bullion from Peru. On
June 25–26 William Beresford, newly promoted to general, led 1,500 men
onto the shore at Quilmes (near Buenos Aires) and, after defeating a small
Spanish force, captured the city the next day; the Spanish viceroy, Marquis
Rafael de Sobremonte, fled to Córdoba. Popham and his men were naturally
thrilled by such an easy victory, which garnered them a sizable booty and, in
the words of Popham, “open[ed] an extensive channel to the manufactures
of Great Britain.”12
Expecting to be welcomed as liberators, the British were surprised by the
hostile reception they received from the locals. Although the members of the
cabildo, the Spanish administrative council governing a municipality,
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 453

c­ollaborated with the British, the city’s population was distraught by the
British occupation and particularly displeased by the British decision to
repeal the Spanish monopoly on commerce and to open the Río de la Plata to
free trade, which harmed local economic interests.13 By August the city’s resi-
dents, who came to dislike the firm hand of British sea power more than the
despotism of distant Spain, were resisting the British. Martín de Alzaga, one
of the leading merchants and a member of the Buenos Aires cabildo, used his
vast fortune to organize a group of conspirators, who were supported by
Jacques de Liniers, a French officer in the Spanish military service who rallied
a sizable local militia at Montevideo. On August 4 Liniers marched to Buenos
Aires, where Alzaga and his men incited an uprising on August 10. While
Popham sailed helplessly up and down the Río de la Plata looking on, General
Beresford, outnumbered and unable to receive any reinforcements, was com-
pelled to surrender his entire command on August 14, causing much joy and
celebration in and around Buenos Aires. A newly published ode celebrated
the liberation of “our beautiful capital city” from “the British brutes.”14
Furious at this setback, Popham spent the next four months blockading
the Río de la Plata before he was replaced by Rear Admiral Charles Stirling,
who brought more troops under General Sir Samuel Auchmuty. In mid-
January 1807 this new British invasion force landed near Montevideo, which
fell on February 3, after a short siege. The local population, however, remained
avowedly hostile, and British control over the city and its vicinity was tenu-
ous. The situation improved somewhat later that spring when Admiral
George Murray arrived with further reinforcements under Lieutenant General
John Whitelocke. Whitelocke was determined to attack Buenos Aires, which
served as the center of Spanish resistance. On June 28, with the Royal Navy’s
support, he landed with some 11,000 men near Buenos Aires and defeated
Liniers’s Spanish force on the outskirts of the city on July 1. It was a brutal
fight. The British attack on the city led to ferocious resistance. House-to-
house fighting claimed more than 2,500 British troops and forced Whitelocke
to withdraw. A truce was negotiated with local authorities. The British
agreed to evacuate all of their forces and end their blockade of the Río de la
Plata.15
The failed British invasions had left an enduring legacy. Resistance to the
British had involved nearly all of the Río de la Plata’s residents, from the
wealthiest merchants to the plebeian crowds of craftsmen, apprentices, and
slaves, all of who saw their victory as affirming their community’s unique
destiny. A group of fourteen-year-olds who participated in the fighting even
formed a military unit, Jóvenes de la Reconquista, with the permission of
their parents and the approval of Liniers.16 Having defeated a great power
454 | the napoleonic wars

with little help from Spain, the local leaders were emboldened to assert
themselves. Just two days after the British surrender in August 1806, the
cabildo of Buenos Aires organized the Junta General, that asserted control
over all regional military units, thereby challenging traditional colonial
authorities and paving the way for a novel political discourse that involved
popular participation. During the second British invasion, the streets of
Buenos Aires were the scene of public demonstrations with people shouting,
“Muera el virrey” (death to the viceroy), “Viva la libertad” (long live liberty),”
and “Vamos a fijar la bandera republicana” (let’s raise the republican flag).
The newly formed Junta General then stripped the viceroy of his power and
ordered his arrest.17 This was the first salvo in the Latin American colonial
independence movement, shattering the institutional status quo established
in 1776 with the creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata. Spain
would never fully reclaim its positions in the viceroyalty. Existing colonial
administrative structures (viceroy, audiencia, cabildo) struggled to adjust to
new political realities on the ground, most crucially the emergence of an
armed and politically active plebeian population.18
The events in Buenos Aires represented some of the largest British setbacks
of the Napoleonic Wars; Admiral Popham, General Whitelocke, and other
officers involved in them were court-martialed and censured. The invasions are
also noteworthy for what they reveal about Britain’s imperial thinking. The
slowness of communications between South America and London and the pre-
cariousness of the situation in Europe, where Napoleon had already shattered
Austria and Prussia and was on his way to defeating Russia, played key roles in
shaping the frame of mind in British society and government. When news of
the successful capture of Buenos Aires reached London in September 1806, for
example, jubilant crowds thronged the streets, singing “Rule, Britannia” to
mark the first great success in a year empty of victory. The fact that Popham
and Beresford were British officers commanding British forces for clearly British
ends meant that this expedition was treated differently than other forays into
South America (such as Miranda’s). The news was particularly welcomed in
merchant circles, which had struggled to dispose of their ever-growing quantities
of goods in France-dominated Europe and now perceived the fall of Buenos
Aires as an opportunity to enter new markets. Britain’s trade with South
America was already running at well over £1 million a year. The news of the
British capture of Buenos Aires provoked a speculative commercial boom as
merchants anticipated vast profits to be made in newly opened markets, revealing
frenzied expectations that were clearly outlandish.
The British government thus found itself in the awkward position of hav-
ing to censure Popham for undertaking an unsanctioned expedition while
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 455

also facing a growing tide of popular support for the action.19 The “Ministry
of All the Talents,” as the coalition government formed by William Grenville
in February 1806 was called for supposedly embracing “all the talents,” was
aware of the complicity of the previous administration but hesitated to sup-
port either an outright partition of the Spanish domains or efforts to instigate
the very revolutionary turmoil that Britain was fighting against elsewhere.
“How far shall we now countenance it or engage in it,” wondered Prime
Minister Grenville about Miranda’s expedition to Venezuela.20 The same
could be said of the government’s initial response to Popham’s expedition.
Foreign Secretary Charles Fox (and his allies), who had long castigated Pitt’s
war policy, opposed greater British engagement in South America before
European affairs had been settled. Pitt’s death in September 1806 opened the
way for more hawkish members of the cabinet. With public support for
Popham’s scheme swelling, the British government was keen on exploiting a
conquest that it had earlier disapproved and, in doing so, made the same
mistake as the leaders of the expedition who came as liberators but remained
as conquerors. At the Board of Trade, William Eden, Lord Auckland, urged
the government to do something to help British merchant houses because, as
he put it, “the entire downfall of the Continental powers makes it more than
ever necessary to advert to interests which are merely British. I feel strongly
that in the actual predicament of Europe, the extension of our commerce is
become the most efficient measure of war.”21 Such sentiments echoed in the
Foreign Ministry, where Secretary Charles Grey, Lord Howick, had contended
that it was time for Britain to abandon the European continent, where three
coalitions had come and gone without much success against France, and to
look after its own interests elsewhere.
Such thinking shaped British positions vis-à-vis European powers in the
fall of 1806 and was the reason Prussia, for example, found Britain uninter-
ested in another coalition against Napoleon. In responding to a Prussian plea
for help against Napoleon, Lord Howick brusquely noted that “[Britain],
having supported the great pressure of the contest against France during so
many years in which Prussia has been at peace, has a right to expect that His
Prussian Majesty should avail himself to the utmost of the resources of his
own dominion before he can justly call upon [Britain] for pecuniary assis-
tance.”22 William Windham, Britain’s secretary of state for war and the colo-
nies, filled with expansionist ideas, argued that since the current situation in
Europe no longer afforded any scope for the deployment of British power,
Britain must pivot to South America, where it should incite revolutionary
upheaval and retain whatever territory it could in order to counterbalance
France’s continental hegemony. With British interests secured in South
456 | the napoleonic wars

America, Windham noted, “the period may not be far distant, nor exceed the
term to which we can afford to wait, when the power of Bonaparte may begin
to totter.”23
Throughout the fall of 1806 the British cabinet drew up plans for the
takeover of South America. One expedition was designed to navigate Cape
Horn, seize the port of Valparaiso in Chile, and, after crossing the Andes,
establish a chain of forts before conquering the whole southern half of the
continent. Another envisioned separate attacks on Peru and Panama. Even
Grenville, usually reserved when it came to overseas overtures, fell prey to
this “imperial fever.” In October he considered probably the most audacious
of these plans: detaching several thousand men from the British force at
Buenos Aires, transporting them across the Atlantic, and collecting 1,000
men from the garrison of the Cape of Good Hope; continuing to India, where
they would be joined by 4,000 sepoys; invading the Philippines; and, finally,
sailing across the Pacific to attack Mexico from the west. Another British
expedition, from the West Indies, was to attack it at that precise moment
from the east! The plan was presented to Wellington, who, fortunately,
brought much-needed common sense to the discussion and pointed to the
obvious impossibility of launching and coordinating such a global opera-
tion.24 Noting that the proponents of this expedition called for the establish-
ment of an independent Mexico (under one of the Bourbon princes), Wellesley
pointed out that no consideration had been given to “in what manner the
government recommended to be established in that country should be kept
in existence, carried on, and supported after the revolution should have been
effected, particularly against the attempts which might be made upon it by
the United States.”25
The news of the British defeats in the Río de la Plata made these plans
moot. Still, they revealed that the British government was ready to pursue
policies no less opportunistic and exploitative than those of Napoleon,
whom it so often castigated for his imperial ambitions. After the fall of
the Ministry of All the Talents in March 1807, the new cabinet of William
Henry Cavendish, Duke of Portland, reexamined past plans and criticized
its predecessor for the lack of a definitive policy toward South America.
Further, it recognized that the conquest of such a vast region was hopeless
unless the interests of the locals were taken into consideration. This marked
a crucial change in British policy, one that had profound repercussions for
the entire region.

Between 1803 and 1810, the West Indies remained an important theater of
the Napoleonic Wars, where operations were complicated by deadly diseases
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 457

and the vast distances involved, as well as the necessity for cooperation
between the army and navy and the continued threat of slave revolts.26 Once
hostilities against the French were resumed in May 1803, a British squadron
blockaded Saint-Domingue, preventing badly needed reinforcements and
supplies from reaching the besieged French garrison, which ultimately sur-
rendered to the British. In the Windward Islands, Lieutenant General
William Grinfeld and Commodore Samuel Hood attacked St. Lucia in late
June 1803 and easily defeated the much smaller French garrison led by
General Jean François Xavier Noguès. The British then followed up on this
success with the capture of Tobago and the Dutch colonies of Demerara,
Essequibo, Berbice, and Surinam, where conflicting interests between the
French-influenced central government and the Dutch colonial authorities
resulted in local efforts to safeguard trade and investments even at the price
of supporting a British invasion.27
In 1805 Napoleon turned his attention to the Caribbean, where, as part of
a larger plan for the invasion of Britain, he wanted his various fleets to rendez-
vous in order to harass the British commerce and to divert British naval forces
from European waters. Admiral Édouard de Missiessy had sailed from
Rochefort with five ships-of-the-line and three frigates. Arriving at Martinique
in February 1805, Missiessy quickly proceeded to attack the nearby British
island of Dominica, in expectation of Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve, who had
avoided the British blockade fleet under Vice Admiral Lord Nelson at Toulon
and sailed westward into the Atlantic, where he was joined by a Spanish
squadron. After dropping off reinforcements at Guadeloupe, Missiessy raided
St. Christopher (St. Kitts), Nevis, and Montserrat, where he collected hun-
dreds of thousands of francs in contributions. In March, the French admiral
received news that Villeneuve’s initial attempt to break out of Toulon had
failed. So he decided to complete his mission by reinforcing the French garri-
son of Saint-Domingue and returning to France.
Unbeknownst to Missiessy, however, Villeneuve had successfully crossed
the Atlantic with the combined French and Spanish fleets and reached
Martinique in mid-May. The French attacked and captured Diamond Rock, a
little islet off the southern coast of Martinique that had been fortified by the
British. Fresh from this success, Villeneuve learned that Missiessy had already
returned to France and that the Brest fleet had not even left European waters.
Realizing the planned rendezvous of the French fleet was no longer feasible,
Villeneuve decided to attack Barbados in June. En route, he learned of the pres-
ence of a British fleet nearby, called off the attack, and sailed back to Europe.
This was to be the last French major offensive in the West Indies. In
October 1805, Villeneuve’s combined fleet was destroyed at Trafalgar, greatly
90° 80° 70° 60°

FLORIDA B a
Spanish possessions Dutch possessions
West Indies 1783 to Spain;
h a
m
1819 to US Gr. Bahama (B a British possessions French possessions
ri
ti I s 1811 Date of Independence from Spain

l
sh

)
a
Eleuthera Is. 1830 Date of separate statehood

n
Gulf of Mexico
Andros Is.

d s
San Salvador ncer
Havana Tropic of Ca
Long Is. ATLANTIC
Acklins Is. OCEAN 20°
Mérida CUBA
G r Caicos Is.
Campeche e a Baracoa
REPUBLIC
t Navidad Isabella
Grand e Santiago Puerto L
r 1804 1804 Rico e
OF MEXICO Cayman Puerta de St. Martin
s

Port-au-Prince Santo Domingo


s

1821 1821 Toyasal Santa Gloria San Juan Sta. Cruz Barbuda
e

BELIZE A REP. OF HAITI Antigua


r

Puerto de Jamaica Kingston n 1822-44 s Montserrat


t l e
A

Caballas Trujillo i l Guadeloupe Marie Galante


GUATEMALA Dominica
n t

V I
Antigua 1821 Gracias C E Caribbean Sea Martinique
R O
HONDURAS St Lucia
i l l

U Y A
N MOSQUITO L T Y
St. Vincent
IT Barbados
e s

O F N
ED NICARAGUA COAST E W S P A I N
PR Léon Brit. Prot. Aruba Grenada
O claimed St Andrews Bonaire
V Tobago 10°
S. until 1860 Rio de la Hacha Curacao Margarita
O Coro Tortuga Trinidad
F Santa Marta
18 C E Puerto Cabello Caracas Cumana
23 N
-38 T R COSTA Cartagena Maracaibo
AL Nombre de Dias Barquisimeto San Felipe
AM RICA
PACIFIC ER Mompos
PANAMA Panama
ICA San Sebastian Merida VENEZUELA
OCEAN ESSEQUIBO
Santa Maria 1811 1830 DEMERARA
REP. OF NEW GRENADA
0 150 300 Kilometers
1811 1830 (REP. OF GREATER COLUMBIA)
0 150 300 Miles Santa Fé 1819-30
de Bogota

Map 21: West Indies


Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 459

hampering French naval capability. The French had lost more than two dozen
ships in the span of a few months, with the tattered remains of their squad-
rons sheltered at ports that were invested by the assiduous Collingwood. The
end of the threat of French invasion was widely celebrated in Britain and
caused some senior officials to reevaluate naval strategy: the First Lord of the
Admiralty, Charles Middleton, Lord Barham, called for the withdrawal of the
Atlantic blockade in order to reduce costs and damage to the Royal Navy.
Barham had clearly underestimated the French threat, however, and sub-
sequent events demonstrated the enduring French threat to British interests
in the West Indies. It is true that after 1805 the French were unwilling to
risk their remaining capital ships in large fleet actions, which made the pros-
pects of another general fleet-in-fleet battle unlikely. In 1811 the secretary of
the British Admiralty lamented that “it is now six years since we had a gen-
eral sea fight and we are growing impatient.”28 On the other hand, Napoleon,
who had been encouraged by the success of Vice Admiral Charles-Alexandre
Linois’s squadron in the Indian Ocean and South China Sea in 1803–1804
and Rear Admiral Zacharie Allemand’s “Invisible Squadron” in the Atlantic in
1805, concentrated his efforts on commerce-raiding campaigns and instructed
Vice Admiral Honoré Ganteaume, in charge of the Brest fleet, to prepare
strong squadrons for service in the Atlantic, where they were to target
enemy merchant marine and inflict damage on the British economy.29 These
imperial orders set the stage for a series of transoceanic operations that have
often been overlooked in the discussion of the Napoleonic Wars. They none-
theless qualify any claims that the victory at Trafalgar had secured British
control of the seas.
French naval power did not end in October 1805. To the contrary, over
the next nine years Britain had much to fear from France when it came to
command of the sea. Napoleon did his best to unite the fleets of several
nations, and had it not been for British countermeasures at Copenhagen and
Lisbon, he could have taken control over the Danish and Portuguese fleets,
which counted almost seventy warships. In addition, British operations also
prevented the Swedish fleet from falling into French hands and bottled up
the Russian Baltic Fleet (about twenty warships) in the Gulf of Finland.
Napoleon then further weakened his hand through his intervention in Spain,
which cost him the support of the Spanish fleet (over two dozen warships),
which refused to acknowledge French authority. Traditional accounts over-
look the fact that even in the post-Trafalgar period French admirals contin-
ued to cause plenty of trouble for their British counterparts. In 1806 alone
the French launched several expeditions into the Atlantic basin. Captain
Amand Leduc, with three frigates, raided British whaling and merchant
460 | the napoleonic wars

v­ essels around Iceland and Greenland, inflicting some 2.5 million francs’
worth of damage before his men succumbed to scurvy, forcing him to return
to France.30 Commodore Jean-Marthe-Adrien Lhermitte led an expedition to
West Africa, where he conducted an effective raiding operation, capturing 10
million francs’ worth of merchant ships before returning to France.31 Despite
the British blockade, Captain Louis-Charles-Auguste Delamarre de Lamellerie
managed to escape with four frigates and spent the next six months cruising
along the western coastline of Africa and in the West Indies before returning
to the Bay of Biscay.32
Far more significant were two large squadrons that Ganteaume placed
under command of Vice Admiral Corentin-Urbain Leissègues and Contre-
Admiral Jean-Baptiste Willaumez. In December 1805 Leissègues broke out
of Brest with five ships-of-the-line and two frigates, delivering reinforce-
ments and supplies to the besieged garrison in Santo Domingo; he was then
to spend two months blockading Jamaica before cruising along the American
eastern seaboard and returning to France. After successfully accomplishing
the first part of his mission, Leissègues decided to stay at Santo Domingo in
order to finish the much-needed repairs on ships that had been ravaged by
tropical storms. He never got his chance to complete his mission. Word of
the French breakout reached Britain on Christmas Eve of 1805 and prompted
an immediate response. Lord Barham ordered several additional squadrons to
prepare for sea in search of the missing French squadrons and guarding the
vital trade routes. One of them, under Rear Admiral Alexander Cochrane,
crossed the Atlantic in early 1806 and joined Vice Admiral Sir John
Duckworth’s fleet anchored at Barbados. The British scouting frigates soon
sighted Leissègues’s squadron off the port of Santo Domingo, where Duckworth,
leading a fleet of seven warships and two frigates, surprised and destroyed the
French on February 6, 1806.33 Napoleon was enraged by Leissègues’s failure
to follow his orders to reach Havana, where he would have completed the
necessary repairs in the safety of the Spanish fortifications. “This is not bad
luck but rather unparalleled stupidity and calamity,” the emperor bemoaned.34
The other French squadron, under Willaumez, was tasked with raiding
the shipping lanes of the South Atlantic before sailing to the Leeward Islands
and supporting the French forces in Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Cayenne.
Leading six ships-of-the-line and two frigates (with the emperor’s younger
brother, Jérôme Bonaparte, on one of them), Willaumez departed alongside
Leissègues but steered for the South Atlantic, intending to pass into the
Indian Ocean and cruise off the Cape of Good Hope, lying in wait for the
British China Fleet, a large annual convoy of East Indiamen that carried
lucrative Chinese goods. Willaumez encountered his first major obstacle
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 461

when the crew of a captured merchant ship informed him of the British cap-
ture of the Cape Colony.
With this crucial supply base no longer available to him, the French
admiral decided to remain in the South Atlantic, unaware that the British
squadrons under Vice Admiral Sir John Borlase Warren and Rear Admiral Sir
Richard Strachan were hunting for him hundreds of miles to the north.
Warren spent the first three months of 1806 in the eastern Atlantic, hoping
to find the elusive French squadron. Early at dawn on March 16, 1806, his
lookouts reported sails to the northeast. Instead of Willaumez, these was the
stragglers of Linois’s squadron, which had spent the last three years sailing
across the Indian Ocean and were greatly weakened by detachments and
shipwreck. In the ensuing action of March 13, Linois tried desperately to
escape but was attacked and captured by the superior British fleet.
Enthused by his success, Warren returned to Britain, leaving only Strachan
still hunting for Willaumez’s squadron in the vast ocean. After weeks of
futile search, Strachan finally learned that Willaumez was in fact in the West
Indies, where the French had raided British commercial shipping. As Strachan
embarked on yet another transatlantic crossing, Rear Admiral Alexander
Cochrane’s squadron sighted the French off St. Thomas, where Willaumez
intended to attack Britain’s annual Jamaica convoy, which was preparing to
sail out of Tortola. Cochrane’s appearance forced the French to move to the
Bahama Banks, where the French admiral still hoped to intercept the convoy,
which counted nearly three hundred vessels laden with goods and monies.
Yet with the British refusing to allow the convoy to sail until the where-
abouts of the French squadron had been determined, Willaumez spent most
of July in futile anticipation. By August, no longer able to delay the depar-
ture of the convoy, Cochrane allowed one part of the convoy—more than a
hundred ships escorted by just one warship and two frigates—to depart. The
convoy passed through the Bahama Banks just as Willaumez was frantically
searching for Jérôme Bonaparte, who, on his own initiative and without
informing the admiral, sailed his ship, Vétéran, northward in search of bounty.
By the time Willaumez realized what was happening, the convoy was already
on its way to Britain.
Meanwhile, Admiral Warren, having delivered Linois to Britain and
refurbished his ships, had returned to the Atlantic in search of Willaumez. In
August he explored the eastern Bahamas but missed the French, who at that
time were further to the north. The Great Coastal Hurricane of 1806, which
had ravaged much of the East Coast of the United States in August 1806, had
badly damaged the French ships, scattering them across a large area and mak-
ing some of them easy pickings for the British. One of them, Impétueux, tried
462 | the napoleonic wars

to escape the British pursuers by steering closer to the American coastline


but was still boarded and burnt. Ultimately, of Willaumez’s original
squadron only one ship—Jérôme Bonaparte’s Vétéran, which had seized
and destroyed several British merchant vessels from the Quebec convoy—
returned back home as scheduled in 1806; three more ships had to undergo
extensive repairs in the United States before eventually returning to France
three years later.
The forays of 1806 left a mixed legacy. They resulted in the capture or
destruction of some sixty British vessels, worth an estimated 27.5 million
francs. However, these losses, as significant as they may seem, barely affected
the overall volume of British commerce, which involved more than 19,000
vessels. Furthermore, the French paid dearly for these gains, and more than
half of the vessels that ventured out on these cruises never returned to
France.35 Undaunted, Napoleon continued to plan large-scale commerce-
raiding expeditions until his minister of marine made clear to him the dire
straits of the French navy. “The difficulties of maritime operations have never
been as great as on this occasion,” wrote Denis Decrès. “The enemy has never
had as many ships available and we have never had fewer ports of call and
greater shortages in our distant ports. All of these expeditions . . .appear to me
to have no chance of success, and especially no parity between their probable
advantages and the nearly inevitable dangers that are associated with it.”36
Following Decrès’s advice, Napoleon limited French naval operations to
those involving only isolated frigates that were tasked with maintaining
communications with the remaining French colonies. Aside from Allemand’s
expedition from Brest to Toulon in 1808, no other large-scale French
naval campaigns were fought in the Atlantic Ocean during the rest of the
Napoleonic Wars.
This does not mean that Napoleon had given up on the war at sea. To the
contrary, starting in 1808, as we’ve seen, he concentrated his efforts on
rebuilding the French fleet and pursuing a “fleet-in-being” strategy that
involved a massive naval buildup across the entire French Empire. This
change in French naval strategy coincided with several key developments.
First, the Spanish imbroglio not only entangled Napoleon in a six-year war
but deprived him of both the Spanish fleet and access to the Spanish colonies
that had served as the bases for privateers against British trade; now these
possessions could serve as a weapon against the remaining French outposts in
the Caribbean. The Spanish fleet, despite its many problems, was of tremen-
dous value to French naval operations. This it demonstrated on several occa-
sions and even as late as the spring of 1808, when the British fleet searching
for Admiral Ganteaume’s French squadron near the tip of the Italian Peninsula
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 463

was distracted by the news of the Spanish fleet sailing out to sea; as the
British rushed to Minorca, Ganteaume safely returned to Toulon.37
Second, the French naval expeditions of 1806 had showed that the French
maritime power, though weakened, could still pose a major threat, especially
in light of the continued French triumphs on land. Indeed, by late 1807 the
overall British position was far from satisfactory. With Russia, Prussia, and
Austria defeated, London found itself almost entirely excluded from the
European mainland and had no major continental ally except for the tepid
Swedes in the north and the weak Neapolitan Bourbons in the south. In fact,
the threat from Napoleon was so great and in so many different locations
that the British government had no choice but to reassess its strategy.
In the Mediterranean, where its invasion of southern Italy had failed in 1806,
Britain decided to pursue a defensive strategy, reinforcing its forces in and
around Sicily in anticipation of Napoleon’s next move. British Secretary of
War and the Colonies Castlereagh believed that if the war was to continue,
colonial and maritime warfare were the only instruments at the disposal of
Britain until new continental allies had been gained. Castlereagh sought to
formulate a naval policy tied to this military urgency and concluded, “The
more I have had time to reflect on our future prospects in this war, the more
impressed I am with a conviction that neither peace nor independence can be
the lot of this nation [Britain] till we . . .counteract at sea what [France] law-
lessly inflicts and enforces on shore.”38
Castlereagh’s plan of operations consisted of two main parts. One was to
take advantage of Britain’s maritime superiority to effect an economic block-
ade of the enemy’s harbors that might inflict on the French as much injury as
possible. The other was to make full use of Britain’s military force by trans-
porting it from place to place by sea, compensating for its inferiority upon
land. The orders-in-council discussed earlier were the result of the first prop-
osition, while the great expeditions to the Iberian Peninsula, Scandinavia,
and the West Indies were the result of the second. In 1807–1808 the Royal
Navy conducted a wide-ranging sweep of the Caribbean, netting the Dutch
colony of Curaçao and the Danish islands of St. Thomas, St. John, and St.
Croix.39 They stormed the French outposts of Marie-Galante and Désirade,
thus denying safe anchorage to the remaining French privateers. In the fall of
1808 a new Anglo-Portuguese expedition was prepared to seize the colony of
French Guiana. Commanded by Lieutenant Colonel Manoel Marques, the
expedition involved some 550 men, who in December were carried aboard
Portuguese transports escorted by a British frigate to Guiana. The Anglo-
Portuguese forces quickly captured the districts of Oyapok and Approaque,
and after just five days of fighting, the French authorities agreed to capitulate
464 | the napoleonic wars

on January 12.40 The fall of French Guiana was the last critical step in British
preparations for an invasion of Martinique, the largest remaining French out-
post in the Caribbean. After intercepted documents revealed the weakness of
the French defenses there, the British launched the largest expedition—some
12,000 men aboard a fleet of six ships-of-the-line, nine frigates, five sloops,
nine brigs, and dozens of transport ships—in more than a decade, landing on
the island in January 1809. As in 1793, the British invasions unfolded along
several axes and overwhelmed the French garrison of just 2,300 men, which
fell back toward the fortifications around Fort-de-France, where they val-
iantly held out for a whole month before surrendering on February 24.41
Building upon this success, the British then seized the remaining French
dependency, the Îles des Saintes, and forced the remnants of the French gar-
rison of Santo Domingo to capitulate by mid-July.42
Napoleon responded to these British successes with a vast program of
shipbuilding. Despite frequent invocation of his supposed inability to com-
prehend naval warfare, the policy that he and naval minister Decrès followed
between 1808 and 1813 was worthily conceived and conducted. Dozens of
warships were constructed at Texel, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Flushing,
Antwerp, Cherbourg, Brest, L’Orient, Rochefort, Bordeaux, Toulon, Genoa,
Naples, and Venice.43 At many of these locations Napoleon expanded or built
new harbors, docks, wharfs, and fortifications. The overarching aim can be
gleaned from the emperor’s annual exposé published in June 1811: “We shall
be able to make peace with safety when we shall have 150 ships of the line;
and, in spite of the obstacles of the war, such is the state of the Empire that
we shall shortly have that number of vessels.”44
As new warships were constructed, they were kept ready to set sail in vari-
ous ports, forcing the British Royal Navy to spread itself over a vast area and
to guard against possible breakouts. This inevitably caused significant wear
and tear on men and ships. The fleet might remain at sea for months, con-
suming its victuals and enduring Atlantic or Mediterranean gales. Maintaining
the fleet’s efficiency was one of the greatest challenges the British Admiralty
faced during the war, especially if one considers how few and far between
were the dry-dock facilities necessary for major ship repairs.45 The Royal
Navy was unable to utilize Italian or Spanish dockyards, while the one on
Malta was not completed. Thus, facing constant battering from wind and
water, the British had no choice but to resort to trips back to home ports at
Plymouth, Portsmouth, or Chatham. Shortages of materials (especially of
timber) and of experienced seafaring men (by 1810 the British seafaring pop-
ulation had reached 145,000 men, or 2.7 percent of the total male popula-
tion) meant that although the total size of the Royal Navy peaked at 728
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 465

vessels in 1809, it was never able to put more than 130 ships-of-the-line in
service at any one time.46 Napoleon’s naval buildup therefore concentrated on
ships-of-the-line, a significant share of them being the massive 130-gun
warships.
Since ships-of-the-line underpinned the British mastery of the sea, they
received priority in men and supplies at the expense of smaller vessels that
could reconnoiter and, more crucially, target French coastal trade in waters
too shallow for the larger warships. This coastal trade was of great impor-
tance to French imperial interests, made evident by the enormous efforts
Napoleon took to protect it through construction of coastal defenses; in 1810
the French had more than 3,600 cannon mounted in some 900 places around
the European coastline, manned by 13,000 gunners.
The lack of British cruisers that could be used to scout was one of the key
reasons the French could launch excursions from their ports after 1805,
including Allemand’s successful departure from the Atlantic to the
Mediterranean to join Ganteaume in 1808, Willaumez’s sailing in 1809 from
Brest to the Aix Roads, and Allemand’s redeployment of warships from
L’Orient to Brest in 1812 without any of their ships being intercepted. In
fact, from 1807 to 1813, occasions on which the British were able to destroy
French ships-of-the-line were few and far between, with the most significant
occurring in 1809 at the Basque Roads.47
Alarmed by the British victories in the West Indies, Napoleon belatedly
dispatched an expedition there. In late October 1808 he instructed the
squadrons at Lorient and Rochefort to deliver reinforcements and supplies to
Martinique, but the British blockade impeded their departure. In February
1809 Admiral Jean-Baptiste Philibert Willaumez was ordered to raise the
blockade with the Brest fleet to allow smaller French squadrons to make their
way to the Caribbean. Willaumez, with eight ships-of-the-line and two frig-
ates, did chase off the British ships from Lorient. However, poor weather
delayed the French squadron’s departure until late February, and that would
prove to be too late. As three French frigates tried to sail out, they were inter-
cepted by a British squadron of three ships-of-the-line and forced to accept a
fight at Les Sables-d’Olonne. Remarkably, the much smaller French frigates
fought off the British warships and survived the battle, though at the cost of
such irreparable damage that they were subsequently decommissioned.
Willaumez, meanwhile, sailed to Rochefort, where he found the local
squadron ravaged by sickness and incapable of sailing out. The subsequent
arrival of a large British fleet under James Gambier meant Willaumez was
trapped in Rochefort. With General Moore’s expedition already in Portugal
and preparing for advance into Spain, the British Admiralty was very concerned
466 | the napoleonic wars

that the concentration of the French fleet at Rochefort might affect military
operations in the Iberian Peninsula. Consequently, the First Lord of the
Admiralty, Lord Mulgrave, urged an attack on the French fleet by means of
“fireships,” which were packed tightly with explosives. Gambier opposed
the plan, regarding fireships as “a horrible and anti-Christian mode of war-
fare.”48 His subordinate Thomas Lord Cochrane, a man of daredevil courage,
embraced the plan and was given twenty-one such ships.49 On the evening of
April 11, 1809, despite hard winds and high seas, Cochrane sailed with his
ships into Basque Roads, a sheltered bay northwest of Rochefort, where he
attacked the French fleet. Although the French had been alerted to the British
attack, Admiral Allemand, who had earlier replaced Willaumez, was unable
to stop four of the British fireships from breaking the mile-long boom of
heavy spars and chains that he had placed to protect the fleet. To Cochrane’s
consternation, however the fuses, which had been intended to burn for fifteen
minutes, lasted little more than half that time, causing the fireships to blow
up prematurely, filling the air with shells, grenades, and rockets but largely
missing their targets. Still, they caused considerable indirect damage by
spreading panic among the French crews, who attempted to escape the tight
confines of the bay. In the ensuing confusion, most of the French ships drifted
ashore, so that at daylight on the morning of April 12 the whole of their
squadron, with the exception of two French warships, was helplessly aground.50
Cochrane signaled Gambier to launch an attack, and by afternoon on that
same day, the British warships joined him in capturing and destroying four
French ships-of-the-line and one frigate—but Gambier’s irresolution allowed
the rest of the enemy fleet to survive.51 The Battle of the Basque Roads was a
key British victory, even if it fell far short of its intended goal, which was the
destruction of the entire French fleet. In the words of British naval historian
Noel Mostert, the battle revealed a dual nature of the Royal Navy: “Here one
saw the old navy, never lacking valour, but deep set in its cautions, its imbued
hesitation before the price and penalties of risk which might chance a national
setback and a ruined reputation. . . . Here, too, was the entrenched perma-
nence of acrimonious rivalry, the jealousies of opportunity and advancement,
the ever-simmering hatred by one of being passed over by another, and on top
of it all even a showing of the rising antipathy between the evangelical and
the secular. But fortunately here, too, was Cochrane’s example of Nelsonian
daring and initiative.”52
Building upon the naval successes of 1809, the British switched back to
the West Indies, where in January 1810 they launched a full-scale invasion of
Guadeloupe. The French general Manuel Ernouf held out for a couple of
weeks before surrendering on February 6. From Guadeloupe, the British
Britain’s Expeditionary Warfare, 1805–1810 | 467

swept through the island of St. Martin and the Dutch colonies of St. Eustatius
and Saba. By the end of 1810, the French and their allies had lost all their
West Indian colonial possessions.
As excruciating as the loss of France’s Caribbean colonies was, Napoleon
focused on the far more important task of building up his navy. Losses that the
French fleets had suffered in 1808–1810 were soon offset by new construc-
tions. The French fleet at Toulon steadily increased to twenty-four ships-of-
the-line (six of them 130-gun warships) that exploited local conditions to
conduct almost daily exercises, often venturing as far as eight leagues from the
port.53 In late 1811 British admiral Edward Pellew, commander in chief of the
Mediterranean Fleet, noted in a letter home that “I have never seen a French
fleet in one half the order of the Toulon one is. They have, I am sorry to say,
adopted too many of our arrangements. . . . They also keep everyone on board
so that French officers are now of necessity obliged to find their amusement in
their duty; and become acquainted with their people. Their ships are magnif-
icent.”54 Shipbuilding continued at a fast pace at other ports, including Venice,
where four 74-gun warships were built and five more were under construc-
tion, so by the end of the war France had thirty ships-of-the-line ready in the
Mediterranean Sea, with another twelve or so nearing completion.
In the Atlantic, Napoleon prudently shifted the center of French naval
operations away from Brest, where timber supplies had been largely exhausted
and the British were in the best position to keep watch from Plymouth, to
bases in the south (L’Orient and Rochefort) and the north (Cherbourg).
Between 1808 and 1812 he embarked on a massive expansion of shipbuild-
ing facilities at Antwerp, intending to establish a winter anchorage for no
fewer than ninety warships (with Antwerp and Flushing holding fifty war-
ships and Terneuse the remaining forty) and capable of departing twenty
fully loaded ships on a single tide. The imperial authorities encountered
many challenges in bringing such dreams to fruition. The work at Flushing
had to be started all over in 1810 after the British expedition to Walcheren
destroyed the newly built facilities. Meanwhile, the construction work at
Terneuse was complicated by the local soil, which was poor and proved inca-
pable of supporting the necessary foundations for shipbuilding. Nevertheless,
by the end of the war Antwerp boasted some of the best naval facilities in
Europe and was capable of building fifteen ships at one time. Further north
Napoleon supervised the improvements at the Dutch ports of Rotterdam and
Amsterdam, which collectively produced more than a dozen warships.
All this activity meant that in the foreseeable future Napoleon could hope
for near parity with the Royal Navy, at least in the number of ships-of-the-
line. This balance of force tilted in favor of the French when one accounted
468 | the napoleonic wars

for firepower, since French had built at least half a dozen 130-gun warships
and none that had fewer than 74 guns; Britain, on the other hand, had no
ships of more than 120 guns and quite a few under 74.55 Napoleon’s decision
to invade Russia therefore came at a fortunate hour for Britain. The Royal
Navy was stretched to the limit, forced to undertake operations not only in
the Baltic and Mediterranean Seas but also in the Atlantic, Indian and Pacific
Oceans. Had Napoleon focused his efforts on the Peninsular affairs and gained
sufficient superiority at sea, the struggle for Europe might have had a differ-
ent outcome for France. By building up his navy in well-protected harbors,
he could have prepared for a day when his fleet would be ready to challenge
the Royal Navy on the sea. As it was, preparations for the invasion of Russia
had first slowed and later completely stopped work in the French dockyards,
as shipwrights and sailors were conscripted to reinforce the French army
fighting for the survival of the empire.
chapter 19 Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815

I ndia has been described by nineteenth-century contemporaries as the


“jewel in the crown” of the British Empire. The vast subcontinent was
the most valuable of British possessions, serving both as a source of seem-
ingly inexhaustible natural resources and as an immense market for British
goods. The growth of Britain’s commerce with India and the enormous prof-
its derived from it played a decisive role in Britain’s emergence as the great
power. Revenues transferred from India were reinvested in other economic
enterprises, including the factories that later underpinned British economic
might and sustained British military power, most famously the Royal Navy,
which successfully defended the nation’s interests around the globe. Without
India there probably would have been no British Empire.1
Victorian historian J. R. Seeley famously argued that Britain’s empire in
India was acquired “in a fit of absence of mind,” but there was nothing acci-
dental about British conquests.2 They were brought about by a potent mix of
political hubris, “precautionary” occupations, direct intervention, and, above
all, robust economic appetites.3 Many of them were the result of the actions
of the British East India Company, a monopolistic joint stock venture founded
in London in 1600. The BEIC received trading concessions from the Mughal
emperors of India and set up its first trading posts in the subcontinent at the
start of the seventeenth century. During the course of the next century and a
half, it exploited the weakening of the Mughal Empire and moved beyond its
original commercial activities to pursue a political and military agenda that
attempted to establish a strong polity in India. This entailed far more than
the preservation of trade and marked the BEIC’s gradual shift from a com-
mercial focus to a military focus.4 British historian Timothy H. Parsons
rightly observes that “the Company’s directors in London never planned to
65° 70° 75° 80° 85° 90° 65° 70° 75° 80° 85° 90°

India 1780 India After 1805


KASHMIR 35°
Peshawar Srinagar KASHMIR
AFGHANISTAN Rawalpindi Kabul
T I B E T Peshawar
30° PUNJAB C H I N A
lahore AFGHANISTAN C H I N A
SIKHS
Multah
ROHIL Kandahar
UPPER KHAND lahore
NEPAL PUNJAB T I B E T
Delhi 1801 1792 Chinese Trib. 30°
DOAB Bareilly Multah
Khairpur 1803 LO
W OUDH KUMAON
RAJPUTANA Agra 1801
ER 1801
25° Jaipur D Bijnaur
O Lucknow Patna
Haidarabad Jodhpur A BAHAWALPUR

IA
B 1775

H
Karachi 1802–17 1765

04
BIHAR 1765 BURMA NEPAL

18
Buxar

ND
Tropic of SIND Th a r Delhi Bareilly
Cancer Plassey 1769 Chinese Trib.

SI
BUNDELKHAND 1764 Desert
MALWA CHOTA- 1757 ALWAR
BENGAL Agra OUDH
NAGPUR RAJPUTANA
CUTCH Ahmadabad MARATHA Chandernagore Chinsura, 1759 to Br. Lucknow

AR
1794–1815 to Br. Calcutta Jaipur
Indore

LK
Arabian Sea GAIKWAR Serampore SIND Jodhpur
1805 1805 Baroda to Den. 25°

HO
CONFEDERACY Patna
20° KATHIAWA 1803 Haidarabad
Gawilgarh ORISSA 1803
BIHAR
1803 BHONSLA BUNDELKHAND
Diu Surat KHANDESH
1804 Cuttack
to Port. Daman Assaye Argaon Tropic of Canc
er
to Port. 1803 BERAR
1757 to Br., Bassein 1803
B E N G A L

RS
1803 Ahmadabad

A
Bombay NIZAM’S Bhopal Calcutta
1661 to Br. DOMINIONS RC Bay of Bengal
I N D I A N CI GUJARAT Baroda MARATHA
PEISHWA(HYDERABAD) RN Indore s
O C E A N 1800 Junagarh CONFEDERACY ge
1802 HE Ga n
Hyderabad RT Somnath Surat NDS M o u t h of t h e
O Yanaon, 1751 to Fr. S LA
15° Guntur N Diu HWA ORISSA
1786 20°
(Portuguese)
Gulf of PEIS
Cambay Daman
Nizampatan (Portuguese)
Goa 1800/39 1801 1751 to Fr., 1763 to Br. Cuttack
to Port.
Arabian Sea
1800 Bombay
KANARA Andaman Is. (British)
1799 Pulicat, 1781-85, 1795-1818 to Br. Pune NIZAM’S
1789-96 to Br.

T I C
MYSORE Bangalore Madras 1753/81
Mangalore 1799 1760 DOMINIONS
COORG Wandewash––– 1761 to Br. 1765 to Fr. CIRCARS
1800 1778 to Br. 1785 to Fr.
SALEM Pondicherry

N A
1725 to Fr., Mahe 1793 to Br. 1814 to Fr. Hyderabad Yanaon
10° 1792 1801
Laccadive Is. MALABAR 1792 1799 Tranquebar to Den. (French) Bay of Bengal

R
1791/1855 to Br. Calicut Karikal, 1738 to Fr. Karnaul
1792 to Br. Tanjore Negapatam, 1782 to Br. 15°
Goa

T RA
Cochin Jafna, 1795/1802 to Br. (Portuguese)

C
1795 to Br.

VA N
1801 Ceded

CO
Quilon Tuticorin Trincomalee 1795/1802 to Br. Districts

RE
1781 to Br. 1781-1817
1800 to Br. KANARA
CEYLON I N D I A N MYSORE
Maldive Is. Madras
1798 Br. Crown Col. O C E A N Mangalore
1796/1802 to Br., Colombo Bangalore
WY

5° 1795/1802 to Br., Galle Mahe Pondicherry


NA

(French) CARNATIC (French)


Calicut
AD

0 150 300 Kilometers 10° MALABAR Tanjore Tranquebar (Danish)


COCHIN
Karikal (French)
Laccadive Is.
0 150 300 Miles 1791/1855 to Br. Palk Strait
Cochin
Jafna (British)
British acquisitions under Clive 1756-67 British acquisitions under Wellesley 1800 Year of acceptance of subsidiary TRAVANCORE
Gulf of
1798-1805 alliance with Britain Mannar Trincomalee
British acquisitions under Warren (British)
Hastings 1772-85 1765 Year of acquisition Names underlined are those of princes CEYLON
who accepted subsidiary alliance 1798/1815 to Br. British territories
British acquisitions under Cornwallis States under subsidiary alliance with Britain Colombo
0 100 200 Kilometers Maldive Is. (British from 1796) British protectorates
1786-93 Maratha Confederacy 1805 1815 to Br.
Battle Galle (British) Other Indian states
0 100 200 Miles

Map 22: India, 1780–1805


Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 471

acquire an empire, but they were powerless to prevent their opportunistic


employees from parasitizing Asian imperial systems.”5 By the second half of
the eighteenth century, the BEIC, largely by force and subversion, disman-
tled and appropriated existing commercial relationships and political and
cultural networks, preparing the way for the eventual conquest of India.6
Early modern India was a sophisticated civilization with some 150 mil-
lion inhabitants, nearly a fifth of the world’s population at the time. But it
was not, in the Western sense at least, a single nation. The Mughal dynasty,
which came to power in the sixteenth century, governed a vast array of states
with a congeries of ethnic groups and religions. The empire reached its height
in the seventeenth century and then, after the death of the last great emperor,
Aurangzeb, in 1707, suffered from political turmoil, social unrest, and sec-
tarian violence. The Mughal emperors continued to sit on the famed jewel-
encrusted Peacock Throne, but their authority was increasingly circumscribed
by the rival kingdoms and rebellious warlords that sprang up throughout the
Indian subcontinent. At the same time, Europeans began to intervene more
forcefully into Indian politics, manipulating and exploiting rivalries between
Indian states and slowly building up alliances to secure their own political
and commercial advantages.
The BEIC proved to be particularly adept at establishing and extending
its presence in India. The turning point in this process was the Seven Years’
War, during which Siraj-ud-Daula, the nawab of Bengal (in northeastern India),
captured Calcutta, the key British outpost in India, and brought “an unwilling
foreign trading company into the perilous game of Indian power politics.”7
Under the leadership of Governor General Robert Clive (1725–1774), the
BEIC defeated Siraj-ud-Daula and his French allies at Plassey, laid the foun-
dation for its rule in Bengal, and steadily expanded its authority to other
parts of India.8 The Company’s increasing military commitments and con-
comitant financial strains soon compelled its leadership to solicit the help of
the British state, which resulted in greater government involvement in and
control over the entire organization. The Regulating Act of 1773 and the
East India Company Act of 1784, occasioned by the company’s misconduct
in India, brought about British government’s supervision over the BEIC and
established a dual system of control.9 The Company remained in charge of
commerce and day-to-day administration, but important political matters
were reserved to the Board of Control, which included members of the British
government. The principal object of the 1784 reform was “to take from the
Company the entire management of the territorial possessions and the politi-
cal government of the country.” The board was in a position to direct “what
political objects the Company’s servants were to pursue.”10
472 | the napoleonic wars

Furthermore, the Declaratory Act of 1788 granted the Board of Control


power to send Company troops to India without regard to the wishes of the
directors. These developments were of great consequence because they effec-
tively turned the BEIC into the main instrument of British imperial policy
in India and transformed its Indian possessions from an enterprise that some
Britons considered as morally questionable into the exact opposite—a civi-
lizing mission. This change occurred concurrently with the British state’s
centralization, with industrialization, and with the consolidation of national-
ism, all of which helped create a new narrative of imperialism, one that justi-
fied British sovereignty and economic domination in India.11
The American Revolutionary War briefly halted Britain’s Indian overtures.
Having lost an empire in the West, the British made up for it by gaining new
domains in the East. Flush with profits and maintaining its own armed forces,
the BEIC fought a series of wars—most notably the Anglo-Mysore Wars and the
long Anglo-Maratha Wars—that extended its influence and administrative sys-
tem to many parts of the Indian subcontinent. Success in these wars allowed the
BEIC to bring new administrative order (as well as social and cultural changes)
to a region that lacked strong central control. Still, the question remains: how
did a few thousand foreigners from a small windswept island—Britain’s terri-
tory was about 120,000 square miles, compared to over 1 million square miles
under Mughal control—in northwestern Europe succeed in conquering and rul-
ing this distant and vast subcontinent? The rise and growth of British power in
India have been long debated. Early advocates of British colonialism in India
credited it to character. Others ascribed Britain’s success to the superiority of its
arms. The reality, however, is more complex, and the reasons the British man-
aged it can be explained by a combination of long- and short-term factors.
Compared to other parts of the world, European states were generally more
mobilized for warfare and more ruthless in prosecuting it. Europe’s close con-
fines compelled all competing political units to innovate constantly in order
to deal with different terrains and climates as well to ensure technological
parity with their rivals. Over time more efficient financing and taxation
emerged in Europe to deal with the endemic wars. In Asia, meanwhile, the
great empires, such as the Mughal of India, felt less military pressure to adapt
and could afford to remain indifferent to modernization. India was spared the
vicious wars of religion and trade that afflicted Europe until the eighteenth
century. As British historian C. A. Bayly astutely observed, “In some ways,
Asia’s relative peace in the seventeenth century was its undoing.”12
It is sometimes argued that inadequate armies—that is, a lack of trained
infantry and the weakness of indigenous artillery—placed the Indian states at
a great disadvantage to the British.13 While partly true, this argument
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 473

ignores fairly significant military developments in India in the eighteenth


and early-nineteenth centuries. Recent studies have shown that the techno-
logical gap between Indian and British forces narrowed considerably by the
end of the eighteenth century. This was largely the result of India’s borrow-
ing European technology as well as recruitment of European (mostly French)
officers and mercenaries to train its troops. A number of rulers, including
Tippu Sultan of Mysore and Ranjit Singh of Punjab, made considerable prog-
ress in improving their armed forces and reforming supply and ammunition
systems. Indeed, popular perceptions of the British expansion in India tend
to overlook the fact that the British were not always successful on the battle-
field. In 1779 a British army suffered a setback at the hands of the Marathas
at Wadgaon, while a year later Haidar Ali of Mysore invaded the Carnatic
and destroyed a British force under William Baillie at Pollilur (Pollilore).14
The latter battle remains one of the most crushing British defeats in India,
redressed only through skillful diplomacy that divided the BEIC’s foes.
The late eighteenth century witnessed continued improvement in Indian
infantry and artillery. British officers noted as much in the Battles of Buxar
and Patna in 1764. Tippu Sultan launched a major military reorganization of
the Mysore forces, which included a large number of light cavalry. This posed
a serious threat to the British, who ultimately prevailed only after adapting
their tactics and seeking help from the Maratha cavalry. The performance of
the Maratha forces during the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803–1805) had
also revealed a high degree of infantry and artillery capability; after the Battle
of Laswari in 1803, the British general Gerard Lake, who had fought the
French in Flanders in 1793, was stunned by the viciousness of the Maratha
fighting, commenting, “I never was in so severe a business in my life or any-
thing like it, and pray to God, I never may be in such a situation again.”15
Moreover, the British army did not operate alone, and its continued pres-
ence in the Indian subcontinent was dependent on the Royal Navy’s control of
the sea. The unquestioned supremacy of its sea power meant that the British
could come and go as they wished, repair their losses, and attack the Indian
coastline at will. The BEIC was naturally attentive to any threats to its naval
dominance. For example, in February 1756, a British squadron under Rear
Admiral Charles Watson raided Gheria, a small stronghold on the west coast of
India, after it became clear that the local ruler was building up his fleet, one
capable of posing some threat to the British naval presence. As British historian
Jeremy Black points out, this victory largely put an end to the development of
Indian naval power. For decades to come, British squadrons continued to patrol
the seas around India, destroying native fleets, maintaining the imperial life-
line, and allowing for a sustained expansion in India.16
474 | the napoleonic wars

If there was any single factor decisive to British colonialism, it was sea
power. Without it dominion in Asia would have been simply impossible. But
sea power in itself could not guarantee that success. In the first half of the
eighteenth century, India underwent a struggle for political power that all
but destroyed central authority. The invasion by Nadir Shah of Iran in 1739
and incursions by the Afghani tribesmen of Ahmad Shah Abdali in the 1750s
and 1760s sped up the breakup of the Mughal Empire and the assertion of
autonomy (if not outright independence) by subahdars (provincial governors).
Had the Mughal Empire overcome these difficulties and consolidated its
authority, the BEIC would have faced a much more formidable enemy in the
latter half of the century. As it was, the subcontinent was not a centralized
state and lacked not only central political leadership but also the sense of a
single identity and a common cause. Indian troops were devoted not to their
nation (since there was no such concept as an Indian nation) but to their lead-
ers, whose political ambitions, rivalries, and jealousies sustained continued
civil strife in the subcontinent. This meant that the BEIC never faced a
united front of Indian forces and could use coercive action, threats, and diplo-
macy to prevent local rulers from putting up a united struggle.
Equally valuable to the British was the civil discipline and talents of the
BEIC’s officials, both senior and secondary. Through their esprit de corps, pride
of service, and dedication to a cause, they played a decisive role in shaping the
British colonialism in India. This is not to say that there was no mismanage-
ment, personal corruption, or abuses by BEIC officials—the trial of Governor-
General Warren Hastings between 1788 and 1795 made abundantly clear that
there was.17 But BEIC leaders such as Clive, Cornwallis, and Wellesley skillfully
exploited local rivalries within and between the Indian states to successfully
advance the Company’s economic and political interests in the region. They
might have gone no farther their Portuguese, Dutch, or French counterparts had
it not been for the military and financial resources at their disposal, the result of
a flourishing British economy and the nascent Industrial Revolution. The BEIC
exploited the fact that the Indian subcontinent, with its agricultural subsistence
economy, could not contend with the burgeoning British capitalist system. The
divided Indian states could never equal Britain’s resources, which allowed the
BEIC to maintain significant military forces, repair their losses, and, increas-
ingly, to resort to raising armies of Indian sepoys trained in the European man-
ner.18 Such armed forces were sufficiently effective on the battlefield and, more
important, cost less in pay than regular European troops. Consequently, the
costs of expanding the company’s domain remained relatively low.
The BEIC’s use of subsidiary alliances—a type of alliance between a dom-
inant nation and a nation that it dominates—underscores this point. In the
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 475

mid-eighteenth century, Governor-General Clive sought to secure power in


India while minimizing the responsibilities the BEIC had to shoulder. He
preferred an indirect approach, one that secured actual power for the BEIC
while leaving titular authority to native rulers. He began this policy by plac-
ing his ally Mir Jafar as the nawab of Bengal. In return, Mir Jafar pledged to
provide financial support to the BEIC. As the BEIC’s influence grew, more
Indian states (especially those that were smaller and more vulnerable to
indigenous warfare) entered into such subsidiary arrangements, which
meant a growing loss of Indian autonomy. The essence of the system lay in the
BEIC’s pledge to protect a given state from any external dangers and internal
disorders in return for control of its foreign relations. For this purpose, the
local ruler agreed not to enter into alliance with any other power without
the BEIC’s permission, thus binding himself irrevocably to British power.
Indian rulers also agreed to accept a subsidiary force of Company troops, who
were usually stationed in a cantonment near the state capital, and to pay for
their maintenance—providing, as it were, the means of their own coercion.
Frequently, in lieu of payments, these rulers forfeited part of their territory to
the BEIC, which further increased the company’s hold over the region.
Naturally, one may wonder why the Muslim and Hindu rulers failed to
foresee the risks they were running in becoming the Company’s allies. Partly
this was due to the BEIC’s leaders, who, as noted, were generally capable,
determined, and risk-taking, and who frequently ignored interference from
distant Britain. Although there was considerable squabbling between the
BEIC’s offices in Bombay, Madras, and Bengal, the company nevertheless was
a much more centralized and consolidated institution that any of the Indian
states it faced, and at key moments its offices tended to cast their rivalries
aside and mobilize necessary resources.
The Indian states, on the other hand, faced considerable challenges in
effectively competing with the BEIC. Understanding the need for stronger
armed forces, Indian rulers sought to increase revenues from every social
group. This transition from traditional to European-style state forms was not
smooth, however, and generated many frictions and conflicts—which, of
course, the BEIC then exploited to its own advantage. Amid intermittent
warfare between regional rulers, a subsidiary alliance with the BEIC could
deliver a crucial advantage over a rival. They could do this and seem to save
face, for while the company’s governors-general might have had more politi-
cal power than some Indian rulers, they made no display of royal trappings or
behavior. Until 1857 the BEIC continued to recognize the sovereignty of the
Mughal emperor and claimed to be acting in his interest. The Company
made no claims to titular authority and did not interfere with native law,
476 | the napoleonic wars

religion, and tradition, which made its authority more palatable to some
indigenous elites.
In practice, all of this meant that the BEIC could use Indian resources and
manpower to overcome Indian resistance. This was not always a straightfor-
ward process. In 1770s, the BEIC unsuccessfully meddled in the Maratha
civil war and suffered setbacks in the First Anglo-Maratha War (1775–1782).
Shortly afterward it allied itself with the Marathas but let this founder with
the rise of Haidar Ali of Mysore, who allied with the French, the Marathas,
and Hyderabad. To contain the British, Haidar Ali set out to beat the BEIC
at its own game, improving his administration, reforming the army, and
exploiting France’s rivalry with Britain. He campaigned successfully in the
Carnatic, but his death in 1784 led to the collapse of the alliance between
Mysore, Hyderabad, and the Marathas. Charles Cornwallis, the new governor-
general of the BEIC (1786–1793), formed an alliance against Mysore with
Hyderabad, and after the Marathas joined the Tripartite Alliance of the
British, Hyderabad, and the Marathas in 1790, the British position in India
was greatly bolstered, since the BEIC could rely now on support from these
two allies against Mysore. It took three sustained campaigns to bring Mysore
to heel but ultimately half of its dominions ended up in the hands of the
BEIC and its allies.
At this junction in history an important change occurred in British policy
in India. There were two principal causes. First, there was a growing belief
within the British government and the BEIC that only British control of
India could end the constant wars on the subcontinent and create satisfactory
conditions for commerce and trade. A greater cause was the transformation of
European politics in the wake of the French Revolutionary Wars. The French
invasion of Egypt raised the prospect of a direct threat to India, where the
French could find many to welcome them, not least Tippu Sultan, who suc-
ceeded Haidar Ali in Mysore and was eager to see the British gone. The
appointment of Richard Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington’s elder brother,
as the governor general of the BEIC marked the decisive moment in the rise
of the British dominion in India. As discussed in Chapter 5, Wellesley closely
followed the revolutionary turmoil that had tied down much of Europe, and
he was convinced that this created a moment for the British to consolidate
their position in India, whose vast resources could then serve British interests
worldwide. Wellesley used the fear of the French as a cover for his own impe-
rialist designs and as a justification for British expansion. His treatment of
the Indian states marked a discernible change of attitude toward the subsid-
iary system. Earlier BEIC leaders had used it as a defensive instrument to
safeguard the company’s interests and possessions. But in the hands of
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 477

Wellesley, these subsidiary alliances became an offensive device with which


to subject independent and even friendly states to British control.
The new political reality that emerged in India between 1798 and 1805
was the result of Wellesley’s avowedly imperialistic aspirations.19 Indeed, in
his vigor, decisiveness, sense of purpose, and dynamism, along with his high-
handedness, impatience, and pride that verged on insolence, Wellesley came
close to being a British twin to Napoleon, and one cannot but wonder what
he could have accomplished had he been placed in circumstances similar to
those of the First Consul. His thoughts and actions revealed him to be an
astute statesman rather than a mere administrator, and his chief accomplish-
ment was the elevation of the BEIC to a position of paramount power in
India.20 The once-mighty Mughal empire was all but shattered as a political
entity, though it had been a major part of Wellesley’s policy to preserve and
utilize its vestiges. The Mughal emperor, Shah Alam, was therefore estab-
lished at Delhi under British protection, with considerable provision made
for his dignity but none for his political authority.
Another central Wellesley legacy was a vast increase in the BEIC army,
which expanded to more than 190,000 men during his tenure, making it the
largest European-trained and -led army in Asia.21 It constituted a military
presence that no other European power could rival. Only 13 percent of its
troops were European; the vast majority were sepoys, and these native sol-
diers remained the basis of British military power in the east for the rest of
the nineteenth century. Equally important was the role of the Royal Navy,
which was deployed in the “Eastern Seas” on a previously unprecedented
scale. Led by capable and independent-minded captains such as Commodore
Peter Rainier, the British fleet was instrumental in consolidating the British
presence in Indian coastal waters as well as establishing it in new areas (the
Dutch Spice Islands in 1796 and the Red Sea in 1801).22
Yet for all his successes, Wellesley was ultimately removed from his post.
All of his major policies were directed at achieving two interrelated objects:
securing British predominance in India and using India’s vast resources in
containing the menace of France’s global ambitions. Whether or not he genu-
inely believed that the French would march overland to India, Wellesley
exploited the threat of overland invasions to disguise his own empire-building.
In the period 1798–1800 the British cabinet and the Company directors
repeatedly acquiesced to Wellesley’s aggressive policies because they believed
that the French threat to India was real and immediate. But the situation
changed dramatically over the next few years. When the war with France
resumed in 1803, Napoleon was threatening Britain itself. “However jealous
France is of our power in the East, and however steady she may be in her
478 | the napoleonic wars

purpose of aiming at positions, from which she might one day hope to shake
that power,” wrote Lord Castlereagh, president of the Board of Control, to
Wellesley in March 1803, “I cannot persuade myself that she has, or she can
have for a length of time, the means to attempt any direct attack against pos-
sessions so defended as ours are.”23 By 1805, British cabinet members were
dismayed that Wellesley’s Indian policies required precious resources that
they simply could not spare; as one British historian aptly noted, “Britain
could not afford an indefinite Indian war in the year of Trafalgar and
Austerlitz.”24 The BEIC was, first and foremost, a commercial organization
that was expected to produce a profit. One can imagine how exasperated
Company shareholders were to observe the mounting expenses associated
with the Mysore and Maratha Wars, which almost doubled the Company’s
debt. The prospect of a prolonged war after British setbacks at the hands of
Holkar prompted them to seek Wellesley’s removal.
The BEIC spent the next decade dealing with Wellesley’s legacy. The
directors insisted on financial retrenchment—no further costly acquisitions
of territory and no entanglements with states outside the existing borders of
British India. Wellesley’s immediate successor, Lord Cornwallis, was tasked
with opening negotiations with Holkar to end the Maratha War, but he died
after holding office for a little over two months. Still, as long as he could hold
a quill, Cornwallis busied himself reversing his predecessor’s gains, a policy
that continued under Sir George Barlow, who succeeded provisionally to the
post of governor-general in 1805. Understanding that the directors felt
unprepared to undertake imperial responsibilities, Barlow sought a reduction
of the company’s commitments, and his tenure saw the BEIC’s withdrawal
from central India, where the Maratha rulers of Holkar and Sindhia enjoyed
greater freedom in ravaging the Rajput states, which had been abandoned by
the BEIC despite earlier commitments. Barlow’s guarded policies and success
in converting a financial deficit into a sizable surplus were welcomed by the
Company shareholders. But they failed to satisfy the British government,
which appointed a more dynamic governor-general, Gilbert Elliot-Murray-
Kynynmound, Lord Minto, in 1807.
The state of India when Minto arrived in Calcutta on July 31, 1807, was
precarious, not only because of continuing political turmoil in central India
but also because of new challenges to British power. Napoleon’s recent string
of successes—military triumphs over Prussia in 1806 and Russia in 1807 and
diplomatic overtures to the Ottomans and Persia—had made a renewed
French threat to British India seem acute and immediate. The Continental
System, inaugurated in late 1806, challenged Britain’s economic interests on
the continent, while French privateers were enjoying some success in
A S I A
GEORGIA
Constantinople
Samsun Baku Peking 40°
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OTTOMAN EMPIRE
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Eu Teheran Meshed Kabul Yellow Yellow

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ate JAPAN
Mediterranean Sea s Sea
Damascus Bagdad TIBET
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AFGHANISTAN C H I N A
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British movements
French raids
0 450 900 Kilometers
The Indian Ocean during the Napoleonic Wars
0 450 900 Miles
20° 40° 60° 80° 100° 120° 140°

Map 23: The Indian Ocean During the Napoleonic Wars


480 | the napoleonic wars

d­ isrupting British trade in the Indian Ocean. In India itself, the Vellore
Mutiny of sepoy troops (1806) revealed deep-seated resentments toward the
British, a foretaste of fifty years later, when the major rebellion took place.25
A year later, the states of Travancore and Cochin, exasperated by the financial
burdens of subsidiary treaties they had accepted, rose in rebellion against the
BEIC, though they were suppressed.
The six years of Minto’s administration coincided with the height of
the Napoleonic Wars. The Treaty of Tilsit (1807) and the resulting Franco-
Russian alliance revived British fears of a French-sponsored Russian attack
across the Central Asian steppes. At the same time, with General Gardanne
arriving in Tehran to deepen Franco-Persian cooperation and the French offices
engaged in military surveys of Iran, many at the BEIC believed that, in the
words of British diplomat Mountstuart Elphinstone, “it appeared as if the
French intended to carry the war into Asia.”26 Consequently, Lord Minto spent
next seven years working steadily to counter these threats. He pursued a mul-
tipronged foreign policy that combined diplomatic overtures with forceful
projection of power across much of South Asia.27 To guard against a possible
French land attack, Minto dispatched several missions to secure northwestern
approaches to India. Elphinstone led the first official British mission to the
Afghan kingdom, where he met Shah Shuja at Peshawar in the spring of 1809.
The two sides negotiated a treaty of “friendship and union” that established a
defensive alliance between the British and the Afghans, with the latter pledg-
ing to block any joint French advance through their territories. The agree-
ment proved to be short-lived; shortly thereafter the shah was overthrown and
driven into exile.28 At the same time, two British missions to Iran also brought
some dividends. Sir John Malcolm and Sir Harford Jones were able to coun-
teract French influence and sign a treaty of alliance with Fath Ali Shah that
formed an Anglo-Iranian alliance against Russia, involving an annual subsidy
of £120,000 for as long as that war lasted. Also in 1809, another BEIC diplo-
mat, the young Charles Metcalfe, traveled to Punjab, where he negotiated
with Ranjit Singh of the Sikh Empire the Treaty of Amritsar, which defined
British and Sikh spheres of influence, secured Sikh support against possible
French attack, and settled Anglo-Sikh relations for a generation.

Both Barlow and Minto sought to secure British dominion in India by neu-
tralizing the remaining French outposts in the Indian Ocean and beyond.
Scattered throughout the Eastern Seas, the British warships did their best to
protect the merchant marine while hunting down the French and their allies.
These efforts occasionally resulted in British intrusions into the Asian powers
that had long been suspicious of European presence in the region.
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 481

By 1800 maritime commerce had connected much of the Indian Ocean and
western Pacific basins into vibrant and fluid trade networks, with East Africa,
India, China, Japan, Korea, and Southeast Asian states trading extensively with
one another.29 Having appeared in the sixteenth century, Europeans—first the
Portuguese, next the Dutch, and then the British—had successfully penetrated
this East Asian maritime world and were not averse to using force to gain access
to trade routes. They faced serious hurdles. European products were not in
demand in Asia, and European merchants were compelled to supply large
quantities of bullion, which constrained European commerce. European trade
often went hand in hand with missionary activity. Priests from the Jesuits and
other religious orders sought new converts to the Christian faith overseas,
activity that caused considerable anxiety in many parts of East Asia.
Japan became the first to limit interaction with Europeans. With a popula-
tion of some 30 million people in 1800, Japan was three times larger than
Britain. In the early seventeenth century, after prolonged feudal strife, the
realm came under the government of the Tokugawa shoguns (bakufu), who
brought some economic and agricultural prosperity but restricted contact with
the outside world. Already suspicious of European missionary activities, the
Tokugawas came to associate Christianity with domestic disorder after Christian
samurai sided with the bakufu’s political opponents. In 1614 the government
issued the Christian Expulsion Edict, which outlawed Christianity and expelled
all Christians and foreigners except for the Dutch, who were allowed to main-
tain a small trading operation in Nagasaki. For more than two hundred years
after that, the Dutch emporium served as Japan’s window to the outside world.
Once a year Dutch East India Company (DEIC) merchants arrived from Java to
conduct business.30 The Dutch struggled to develop their trade in Japan but
continued to maintain it largely because of the earnings it yielded to individual
participants rather than for any greater advantages it might provide.31
The British were well aware of this, which is why the BEIC did not
attempt to penetrate the Japanese market. The Napoleonic Wars changed
this rationale. The Dutch Republic was now under firm French control, and
British warships therefore targeted Dutch shipping in East Asia. Between
1795 and 1806 the Royal Navy maintained a loose blockade around Dutch
colonies and routinely captured merchant ships. The Dutch responded by
chartering neutral ships to freight cargo between their possessions, but in
1807, as part of their larger struggle against Napoleon’s Continental System,
the British targeted neutral shipping and instituted an even tighter blockade
of the Dutch colonies.32 Although the Dutch did not own Dejima—a small
fan-shaped man-made island built by local merchants in the Bay of Nagasaki
in 1634—the British regarded it as a Dutch possession. In ­mid-August 1808
482 | the napoleonic wars

the residents of Dejima were thrilled to learn that a sail had been observed on
the horizon. This arrival was later in the season than normal, but neither
Japanese authorities nor DEIC representatives suspected anything.33 As
usual, Dutch representatives rowed out to welcome the visiting ship. Instead
of finding their fellow compatriots, they were greeted by Fleetwood Pellew,
the twenty-seven-year-old son of a British admiral and captain of the British
frigate Phaeton, who had disguised his warship as a Dutch trading vessel in an
attempt to seize any traders licensed to dock at Dejima, a stratagem that the
British had already tried once in Manila (Philippines) in January 1798.34
Pellew captured the Dutch representatives; their Japanese escorts managed to
escape by jumping overboard. Not finding any Dutch vessels, Pellew
demanded that water and provisions be delivered to his ship, threatening to
hang his captives and set fire to all the Japanese vessels and Chinese junks.35
Unable to do anything against the British warship, the Japanese authorities
were forced to satisfy the British demands, and the Phaeton left two days later.
Although a minor incident, the Nagasaki affair had ramifications for Japan.
The Japanese government was incensed at Britain’s insolence, which at the very
least violated a Japanese law prohibiting ships from leaving the port of Nagasaki
without the approval of the local governor. Yet that paled in comparison to the
humiliation that the bakufu felt at their inability to counter this intrusion. The
Japanese coastal batteries had failed to identity a foreign vessel; in the event of
a direct confrontation, their antiquated guns certainly would have been obliter-
ated by a first-class British warship. Equally mishandled was the Japanese
domainal defense system. Instead of the 1,000 soldiers that were required,
fewer than 60 men were on duty as the result of complacency, fiscal difficulties,
and the Japanese assumption that no ships would arrive in the off-season. The
Nagasaki magistrate did call up some 8,000 troops and forty ships to confront
the British, but they arrived long after the Phaeton had departed.36
The Nagasaki affair thus revealed the more broadly structural and organ-
izational roots of Tokugawa military weakness. The main problem lay not so
much in Japan’s technological inadequacies as in fundamental problems in its
civil and military administrations. Following the attack, the bakufu ordered
the strengthening of coastal defenses and later issued a law, Muninen-
uchikowashi-rei, that called for the use of force to drive foreign vessels from
the Japanese coastal waters.37 Perhaps equally significant was that the Phaeton
incident made the Japanese government keen on learning about the outside
world. The bakufu ordered the training of official interpreters in English and
Russian; in 1814, the Dutch interpreter Motoki Shozaemon produced the
first English-Japanese dictionary.38
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 483

This affair was not an isolated case of a European attack on Japan, as it


occurred amid growing Russian pressures. Unlike other European powers,
Russia was a latecomer to Japan, the first Russian ships appearing in the ter-
ritorial waters of Japan only in the early 1700s.39 The Russians had made
several attempt to open trade with Japan but were habitually rebuffed. In the
late eighteenth century, concerned by British voyages of exploration that
seemed to threaten its interests in the Far East, Russia sought to shore up its
“indisputable” sovereignty over not only Alaska but the islands lying off the
Eurasian mainland.40 In December 1786 Empress Catherine II decreed that
Russian warships, “armed in the same manner as those used by the English
Captain Cook,” should be dispatched around the Cape of Good Hope to pro-
tect Russian possessions in the North Pacific.
Russia’s encroachment on Japan entered a new stage when Emperor Alexander
sent Nicholas Rezanov, a veteran of the Russian fur trade who avidly pro-
moted Russian colonization in the Far East, to negotiate a commercial treaty
with Japan. Rezanov reached Japan in late 1804. His abrasive and haughty
character failed to endear him to his hosts.41 After months of waiting, he left
Japan empty-handed, enraged by his treatment by the Japanese and threaten-
ing that the Russian emperor would teach the Japanese proper respect for his
personage.42 Indeed, Rezanov returned with a venge­ance in 1806, when he
waged a self-declared war on Japan, raiding and burning Japanese settlements
on the islands of Sakhalin and the Kuriles, and threatening to ravage all of
northern Japan if the Japanese persisted in refusing Russian trade.43
The Russian attacks jolted the Japanese, who had become accustomed to
the peace and stability of the Tokugawa regime. They reacted by increasing
the number of soldiers defending the northern provinces, strengthening the
central administration of Sakhalin and neighboring islands, and expanding
the uchi narai system, which sanctioned firing on and driving away foreign
vessels.44 The Phaeton incident occurred while the Japanese government was
still reeling from Rezanov’s actions, and it responded to the event with some
of the most substantive Japanese military reforms of the nineteenth century.45
The Japanese reinforced their coastal defenses, revised the system for verify-
ing incoming vessels, and established new signal networks to improve long-
range communications and facilitate a faster response. These reforms, as
promising as they were, proved ineffective in the long term because they
focused primarily on improving infrastructure, instead of a more comprehen-
sive overhaul of a defensive system that continued to suffer from a lack of
codified procedures and a clear division of responsibility.
484 | the napoleonic wars

Despite being the primary source of trade in Asia, China, even more than
Japan, was long reluctant to open up to the West. The imperial government
carefully regulated foreign maritime trade through the special “Canton
System,” which required all foreign merchants to reside in the southern city of
Canton, where they could only buy from and sell to the local merchant monop-
oly, the cohong, which was able to fix prices arbitrarily. Dissatisfied with these
restrictions, Europeans sought to circumvent the system. Their requests for
greater diplomatic engagement failed to make any impression on the Chinese
emperors, who had long used trade as a political tool to reward or punish their
satellite states. Europe was no exception. Europeans wanted Chinese products,
while China wanted hardly anything from Europe, exporting more goods and
inventions to Europe than it received. The imbalance of trade between East
and West was made worse by Chinese insistence on being paid in bullion,
which had been intermittently drained from the West since Roman times.
In the eighteenth century it was Britain’s turn to endure the pains of a
growing trade imbalance that was caused by its seemingly insatiable demand
for tea, porcelain, and silk. To narrow this trade deficit, the British sought to
find products that could be sold to the Chinese, an effort that contributed to
the development of illegal traffic in the one commodity Chinese did want:
opium. Starting in 1773 the BEIC had a monopoly on the manufacture of the
drug, which was sold to various smugglers and merchants. By the start of the
nineteenth century, vast quantities of the drug were sold over the sides of
European ships in the Canton River.
British merchants, especially the influential supercargoes, continually lob-
bied the government to seek a new understanding with China, one that would
revise the Canton System.46 Many of them did not see why China should be
able to dictate the terms of trade with Britain, which in their minds was the
preeminent European power. In 1787 Charles Cathcart was instructed to
negotiate with the Qianlong emperor (r. 1735–1799) for permission to use
Macao (or Amoy, modern-day Ziamen) as the entrepôt for British commerce;
the British envoy, however, died en route. Six years later King George III
sanctioned a diplomatic mission led by George Macartney to negotiate the
relaxation of trade restrictions on British merchants in Canton, to secure the
opening of new ports for British trade in China, and to establish a permanent
embassy in Beijing. On this first major British embassy to China, Macartney
was accompanied by an entourage of more than eighty people, who brought
with them hundreds of cases packed with British goods—clocks, telescopes,
globes, plate glass, Wedgwood pottery, woolen cloth, carpets, and many other
items—that they hoped would impress the Chinese and help open the vast
Chinese market to British commerce. Yet the mission failed to achieve its
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 485

objectives. Macartney refused to perform the kowtow—the traditional kneel-


ing on both knees and bowing the head to the ground in front of the Chinese
emperor—and the Qianlong emperor denied him a formal audience at the
Forbidden City in Beijing. The British envoy was at last permitted to meet
more informally with the emperor at a summer retreat, but no negotiations
followed because the Chinese saw no merit in the British requests. As the
Qianlong emperor pointed out in his formal reply, China “possesses all things
in prolific abundance and lacks no product within its own borders.”47
The British thus had no choice except to seek an arrangement with the
Portuguese, who had a long-standing presence at Macao, the gateway to the
great emporium of Canton (modern Guangzhou), which the British had had
their eye on for decades. India’s first governor-general, Warren Hastings, openly
coveted Macao, which in his mind was mismanaged by Portugal: “Macao has
been so neglected by the Government of Goa, that it is now the fit resort only
of Vagabonds and Outcasts. . . . A place so little valued might perhaps be eas-
ily procured from the Court of Lisbon, and should it ever fall into the hands
of an enterprising People, who knew how to extend all its advantages, we
think, it would rise to a State of Splendor, never yet equaled by any Port in
the East.”48 This was easier said than done. During the eight­eenth century, the
relations between British and Portuguese authorities in India evolved slowly.
The Portuguese, unsurprisingly, resisted British penetration of the subconti-
nent and sought to protect their interests by supporting native powers against
the BEIC. The British victories in India threatened Portuguese interests there
and left them with no alternative but to forge stronger ties with the British.
Francisco Antonio da Veiga Cabral, Portuguese viceroy of Goa, offered amity
and cooperation to the BEIC and supported the British expedition against
the French in the Red Sea in 1801.49 The same could not be said about the
Luso-British relationship in Macao, where the Portuguese were still keen on
protecting their turf. Thus the Portuguese traders tended to support an Anglo-
Portuguese alliance on national issues but were undeniably anti-British on
local issues and commerce.50 Even when the French invasion of Portugal left
the Portuguese monarchy entirely de­pend­ent on Britain’s goodwill, Portuguese
authorities in Macao continued to act against British interests in China and
refused to let the British use their harbor as a military anchorage.51
In 1801 France, supported by Spain, invaded Portugal, and the BEIC
directors feared that this might lead to the French takeover of Portugal’s
overseas possessions. In an effort to forestall it, in March 1802 British war-
ships delivered troops with the intention of “protecting” the small Portuguese
garrison in Macao against a “possible” French invasion. When the British
anchored their ships at Lintin, they discovered that the Portuguese governor
486 | the napoleonic wars

of Macao, Jose Manuel Pinto, did not trust them and refused to let them in,
leaving the expedition leaders in an awkward situation. The governor-general
of India, Richard Wellesley, was in favor of a forceful takeover, arguing
that “in the event of opposition on the part of the governor of Macao,”
the Portuguese colony had to be taken “by force of arms.” But the Select
Committee of the BEIC urged caution and a more diplomatic approach,
in order to avoid confrontation with China. The Portuguese authorities of
Macao understood this, and so their first decision was to protest both to
the viceroy of the Liang-Guang and to the Portuguese bishop in the Chinese
capital, who conveyed the news to the Jiaqing emperor (r. 1799–1820).52
As expected, the Jiaqing emperor responded resolutely, rejecting British
explanations—“We do not have to lend any credence to them because the
intention of the English was no more than to take the town,” was the impe-
rial response—and demanding immediate withdrawal of British forces.53 The
British initially refused to comply, forcing the Chinese authorities to cut off
their food supplies. A confrontation was averted only when the news of the
signing of the Peace of Amiens reached Macao.54
As soon as the hostilities between France and Britain resumed in 1803,
the question of what to do about the Portuguese colonies came back to the
fore. For the first four years of the Napoleonic Wars, the British authorities
in India “did not think Macao was in danger [of French takeover] because the
Chinese would not allow the weak Portuguese to be replaced by a strong
French presence.”55 But with the continued threats by French and Dutch
privateers to Britain’s trade, the BEIC increased patrols along the Chinese
coastal areas and particularly near Canton, where the local Chinese magis-
trate actually requested British help in suppressing piracy.56 This request
posed a problem, since it went against the long-standing Chinese imperial
injunction against any foreign military presence in Chinese coastal waters.
Echoing this sentiment, one BEIC official noted that “the jealous and suspi-
cious nature of the Chinese Government leads us to doubt whether the arrival
of an English Naval Armament without the previous consent of the Chinese
Government would not be highly offensive to that Government.” Such
healthy skepticism did not extend to Macao. Partly this was due to Napoleon’s
occupation of Portugal, which created a new sense of urgency in Britain to
prevent the French takeover of the Portuguese colonies in Asia and led to the
sending a military expedition to Macao in October 1808.57
Writing a few months after the expedition, the BEIC’s Select Committee
argued that “from the successes of the French in Europe, the exertions of their
newly arrived capital force in Java, and possessing the control in Manilla, [the
French threat to Macao] did not appear improbable. . . as this was to be
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 487

accomplished with facility by the introduction of either officers or a garrison


from Portugal.”58 By the late summer of 1808 the BEIC felt that the French
threat to their China trade was direct and imminent; considering that it pro-
vided up to one-sixth of the entire income of the British crown, a forceful
resolution was in order. Company officials were convinced that they had “no
reason to apprehend any opposition on the part of the Portuguese Government
but have every reason to believe that any objections or impediments on the
part of the Chinese would be of a temporary nature.”59
Lord Minto decided to act. Securing the support of the Portuguese viceroy
of Goa, he dispatched a British squadron under Rear Admiral William
O’Bryen Drury to East Asian waters with instructions to force Gia Long, the
Nguyen emperor of Vietnam, to open his ports to British trade and then to
proceed to Macao, where British troops were to be regarded as auxiliaries,
assisting the Portuguese in defending this locale against French threat.60 If
the Portuguese refused, the town would have to be seized by force because of,
as Drury was told, “the necessity . . . to prevent it falling into the hands of the
French, which would involve in it the destruction of [British] commerce
with China.”61 The British were well aware of possible Chinese resistance to
their incursion but thought the prospect of cessation of the immensely lucra-
tive trade through Canton would be worse, making the Chinese authorities
more willing to compromise.62
Drury failed to fulfill his first task. What we presently call Vietnam has
been historically divided into two: the Trinh lords ruled in the north, while
the Nguyen were supreme in the south. In the late eighteenth century, dur-
ing the Tay Son Rebellion, the two sides fought a prolonged conflict that
ultimately brought the Nguyen to power. To prevail in this power struggle,
a Nguyen prince, Nguyen Anh, sought an alliance with France, and in 1787,
less than two years before the French Revolution, he signed a treaty of alli-
ance with King Louis XVI of France, pledging to cede territory and grant
concessions to the French in exchange for military support. The French mon-
archy collapsed before it could implement this treaty. Still, the agreement
marked the starting point of French colonialism in Vietnam and the wider
region. French missionary Pierre Pigneau de Behaine raised funds and or­gan­
ized a private venture of several French ships to sustain the Nguyen cause;
French-trained military allowed Nguyen Anh to win the war and secure his
power by 1802. He was the first to control the whole length of the Indochinese
peninsula, and upon assuming imperial title he took the dynastic name Gia
Long. The rise of the new dynasty in Vietnam coincided with the outbreak of
the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in Europe. Considering the
extent of French influence at the court of Gia Long, it is unsurprising that the
488 | the napoleonic wars

Royal Navy targeted the French-commanded Vietnamese merchant ships. In


1803–1804, two British envoys sought to convince Gia Long to abandon his
alliance with France and open his realm to British trade; both missions failed.
By 1808, the British were concerned that Napoleon might exploit Franco-
Vietnamese ties to establish his presence in Southeast Asia, where he might
help the Nguyen ruler build a navy that could threaten British trade in
the South China Sea. Drury’s mission was to prevent this from happening.
Arriving in the Gulf of Tonkin, Drury tried to sail up the Red River to strike
against the Vietnamese navy and force Gia Long to compromise. Yet the
Vietnamese fought back, destroying several of Drury’s ships and forcing
the main body of the British squadron to sail on to Macao. After this setback,
the British made no further attempt to intervene in Vietnam until 1822.63
Drury was even more unsuccessful with his second mission. He arrived in
Macao in late September 1808 and immediately informed the Portuguese
governor, Bernardo Aleixo de Lemos Faria, of his intention to occupy the
town in order to protect it from the French. The Portuguese demurred, and
the governor, having received no instructions from Lisbon, refused to accept
the sanction of the Portuguese viceroy of Goa as sufficient authority for sur-
rendering the place. He also explained that Macao’s protection was the
responsibility of the Chinese government, not Britain or the BEIC.64
Unsure whether he should call off the expedition or not, Drury sought the
advice of the BEIC’s Select Committee, which consisted of supercargoes and
therefore possessed a better understanding of local circumstances. The com-
mittee argued in favor of a more forceful action. British supremacy on the seas
ensured almost complete control of the Chinese export trade and offered the
British a favorable moment to compel another round of negotiations with the
Chinese imperial authorities, who might have granted more favorable terms
to avoid any disruptions to their revenues. Drury consequently compelled
Faria to assent to a British occupation—a Luso-British convention sanctioned
the landing of some three hundred British troops in Macao on September 21.65
In occupying this territory, Drury ignored the fact that it belonged to
China and that the Chinese had to be consulted. In effect, the British admiral
was daring the Chinese, if they were serious about claiming ownership of
Macao, to challenge the occupation.66 China’s response was swift and reso-
lute. Provincial governor-general Wu Xiongguang asserted Chinese sover-
eignty over the region and rejected British explanations for the occupation of
Macao, arguing that Drury could have easily protected the Portuguese from
the alleged French threat by stationing his warships in the bay, without
necessitating a military takeover. Drury refused to withdraw, claiming that
his mission was to foster relations between Britain and China, “two great
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 489

nations [that have] mutual interests in the friendship, peace and happiness of
their people.”67 He also noted that should the mandarins foment hostilities,
“nothing in his instructions prevented him from going to war with China.”
Infuriated by such audacious response, the Chinese provincial authorities
halted all trade and negotiations until the British troops were removed.68
In the face of what he considered temporary Chinese intransigence, Drury
brought additional reinforcements to Macao, moving some 700 men to shore
up the defenses and, in his words, “to pre-empt the Chinese from a feeling of
success and save further embarrassments from their side.”69
But the Chinese authorities were not bluffing. By November they had
withdrawn Macao’s Chinese inhabitants, closed all shops, gathered several
thousand troops near Canton, and diverted dozens of junks to block the Pearl
River against any movement upstream. On October 28, as the British ships
tried to force their way to Canton, they encountered armed junks drawn across
the river and were threatened by Chinese troops.70 The situation remained
very tense for the next few weeks, with Company commanders reporting that
circumstances were so volatile that they could “place us in a most critical
Situation and involved in a serious War” with China.71
Yet, barring immediate withdrawal of all British forces from Macao, the
Chinese emperor refused to even consider negotiating, believing that only a
forceful response would keep the British encroachment in check. “The minis-
ters of England, full of deference for [our] dynasty, ordinarily send ambassadors
bringing tribute,” the imperial rescript declared. “But in these actual circum-
stances, they have no fear of offending us. In truth, they have exceeded the
limits of permitted behavior. Therefore, it is extremely important to punish
them.” The emperor rejected British justifications for the attack: “Remember
that the warships of China have never sailed overseas to land and quarter troops
on your territory. However, the warships of your country dare to sail into Macao
to land and live there! This is indeed a grievous and rash blunder. You say you
fear that France might attack the Portuguese; do you not know that the
Portuguese are living in Chinese territory?”72 With the Chinese emperor
threatening to send 80,000 men to drive the British out by force if they did not
leave willingly, Drury had no choice but yield. On December 20–23, 1808, the
British troops were evacuated and the fleet set sail for the Indies. “The most
mysterious, extraordinary and scandalous affair that ever disgraced such an
armament,” as Drury described it in his final report, was over.
The British expeditions to Macao underscored a growing desire on the
part of the BEIC to exploit the turmoil in Europe to secure its foothold in
East Asia. The execution of it was poorly conceived and haphazardly carried
out, with the “invade, then negotiate” attitude shaping British thinking.73
490 | the napoleonic wars

Neither expedition considered what the Chinese reaction might be to what


effectively constituted the first hostile incursions into Chinese territory by a
European power, and any hope that the Chinese would accept British troops
in Macao was completely misplaced. Writing to the emperor, the provincial
governor correctly noted that “the English nation is more powerful and more
crafty than any other. . . . They have their views on and their eyes fixed on
[Macao] . . . though they have so far not committed any act of violence and
may mean to do any evil, it is possible if they possess Macao that they would
pretend to the exclusive trade to the loss of all other nations.”74
The French sinologist M. C. B. Maybon observed that the Macao affair
showed that early nineteenth-century China was still capable, alongside its
well-known overconfidence, of demonstrating “a spirit of defiance and a will of
resistance against foreign intervention . . . [and] to force a great European power
to back down.”75 From the Chinese perspective, the Macao affair was indeed an
important victory against a formidable opponent, but this conclusion overlooks
the wider international context of the British involvement in the Napoleonic
Wars. With its military committed in Europe and the Royal Navy scattered
across the oceans, Britain had no interest in entangling itself in yet another
conflict, especially when it involved a crucial source of revenue. The affair
allowed the British to gauge Chinese reaction to a possible territorial infringe-
ment and showed that the Qing court would not tolerate any such thing; this
understanding shaped British policy toward China for years to come. For the
rest of the Napoleonic Wars (and beyond) Britain preferred to maintain a neu-
tral stance toward China and to continue to benefit from a trade that sustained
its economy and war effort. The Canton trade continued to grow, especially
after the BEIC began supplying opium shipments to its licensed traders, who
then smuggled them into China; between 1805 and 1813 the company reaped
profits as high as 900 percent, with opium replacing cotton as the chief British
export to China. This contraband trade facilitated a massive currency drain and
contributed to a financial hemorrhage that the Chinese government desperately
tried to stop. When faced with Chinese “intransigence” over the opium trade
in the late 1830s, Britain did not shy away from confrontation and used its
naval and gunnery power to inflict a quick and decisive defeat on China.

By the late eighteenth century, the Indian Ocean formed an essential part of the
vast network of trade routes that sustained the British economy. Each year,
starting in the early 1600s, dozens of East Indiamen—ships sailing under char-
ter or license of the BEIC—embarked on transoceanic journeys, carrying mil-
lions of pounds’ worth of goods from Indian port cities such as Bombay or
Calcutta to Britain.76 Considering the immense value of this trade, it was natural
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 491

that the BEIC and the British Admiralty made the security of these naval
routes a priority during the Napoleonic Wars.77 The capture of the Cape of
Good Hope in 1806 was just the first step toward neutralizing the threat of the
French raiders and privateers who used the surviving French possessions—
principally Réunion and Mauritius in the Mascarene archipelago—as the bases
for their operations in the in the Indian Ocean. British naval forces east of the
Cape were divided between two command stations. Rear Admiral Sir Edward
Pellew led the East Indies Station, tasked with protecting British shipping in
the eastern half of the Indian Ocean, while his colleague Rear Admiral Thomas
Troubridge was given command of the new Cape Station. Tragically, he per-
ished with his entire crew in a cyclone in February 1807. His successor, Admiral
Albemarle Bertie, was called upon to defend the western half of the Indian
ocean from 1808 to 1811. Such a division compromised the effectiveness of the
British war effort in the region; the British squadrons found themselves scat-
tered over a vast area and struggled to coordinate their operations.
Napoleon had recognized the importance of the Mascarene Islands but had
trouble keeping them supplied with troops, ammunition, and supplies due to
the continued hemorrhaging of French naval power in the Atlantic. After
General Decaen departed with a small force for the French East Indies in 1803
(see Chapter 7), Napoleon was able to allocate only a few frigates to reinforce
him. Despite a lack of support from the metropole, the high-spirited but
ill-tempered Decaen turned Mauritius into the chief French naval and military
station in the Indian Ocean and for eight years harassed British commerce.78
Despite this, the French position in the Indian Ocean was precarious.
There was little hope of receiving anything from the mother country. In June
1805 Napoleon announced that Decaen must “live from the product of [his]
prices . . . All the money sent thither will be squandered.” The French raiders
were not unsuccessful, inflicting significant damages on the British shipping and
capturing more than a dozen richly laden ships between 1807 and 1809. But
there was the constant problem of procuring sufficient naval supplies to repair
ships that suffered from the usual wear and tear as well as occasional hurricanes,
such as the one in 1806 that wrought havoc on the islands. This was not simply
a matter of local concern. Lack of provisions and supplies meant that when dis-
cussing his Eastern projects in 1803, 1805, 1807, 1808, and even as late as 1812,
Napoleon faced a crucial question: that of whether the French islands could pro-
vide sufficient victuals for any large French expeditions dispatched to India.
Undaunted by the challenges he faced, Decaen threw himself into the strug-
gle against the British. He tried to use diplomacy to strengthen the French
presence in the Indian Ocean littoral and directed his attention to southern
Arabia, where the Sultanate of Oman had emerged as a key regional player.
492 | the napoleonic wars

Franco-Omani relations became strained during the Revolutionary Wars, when


French privateers targeted local shipping. Napoleon, who during his stay in
Egypt had acquired a good understanding of the importance of Oman as a way-
point on the path to India, sought to redress this situation, instructing Decaen
to seek closer relations with Oman. A month after his arrival at Mauritius, the
French governor dispatched an agent, M. de Cavaignac, to Muscat, with orders
to convince Sultan ibn Ahmad to accept him as a French resident and to do his
utmost to undermine British interests in the region.
De Cavaignac reached Muscat in October 1803 but was not allowed to
disembark due to the absence of the Omani sultan, who was in the interior.79
Conveniently, Captain David Seton, the BEIC’s resident, was away on a cruise
in the Persian Gulf, increasing French hopes for success. When the sultan
finally returned, he refused even to meet with the French envoy, due to the
just-received news of the collapse of the Treaty of Amiens and the resumption
of hostilities between France and Britain; accepting a French resident would
violate the agreement he had made with the British in 1798, and there were
almost two dozen large Omani vessels at British-controlled ports that could
become target of British reprisals. The British warning that “if the French
obtain a footing at Muscat on any terms or in any situation, all communica-
tion between Muscat and India must cease” was clearly fresh in the sultan’s
mind.80 Also a factor in the sultan’s decision was his hope to secure British
military support against the two great threats to his rule, the Wahhabis of
central Arabia and the Qawasim of the Pirate Coast.81
The failure of the French mission demonstrated the BEIC’s influence in
southern Arabia. But it did not preclude the French from turning Muscat
into a clearinghouse for the spoils of war. The Omani sultan argued that his
agreement with the BEIC to form a formal alliance with the British still
allowed him to continue to engage in commercial relations with the French.82
The BEIC chose not to insist on a stricter interpretation of the treaty, as it
would have deeply involved them in Muscat. This issue came to the fore in
1806, when Sultan ibn Ahmad’s successor, Said ibn Sultan, allowed a French
privateer to replenish its supplies and recruit seamen to do repair works in
Muscat. The captain of a British frigate that also stopped by the Omani port
denounced this as a violation of the Anglo-Omani Agreement of 1798 and
demanded an immediate expulsion of the French ship. The sultan had no
choice to comply. As soon as the French brig put to sea, it was captured by
the British frigate, which had been patiently waiting for it just below the
horizon. The French ship was towed to Bombay and sold as a lawful prize of
war. This placed the Omani ruler in an awkward position vis-à-vis the French,
one he tried to remedy by protesting the capture in a British court in Bombay.
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 493

By then it was too little too late. In late 1806 Decaen retaliated against the
Omanis by attacking and capturing their merchant vessels. Said ibn Sultan thus
found himself between a rock and a hard place when what he really desired was
to be allowed to remain a neutral actor who could take advantage of French pri-
vateering spoils while simultaneously exploiting relations with the British gov-
ernment in India to deal with his domestic and external challenges.83 Dispatching
an envoy to Bombay, the sultan urged the BEIC either to return the captured
French ship or to provide naval protection to Omani shipping, which was now
harassed by the French. After weighing its options, the Company decided to
reduce its commitments in southern Arabia and advised Said ibn Saud to assume
a neutral position and to repair his relations with the French. To help the cause,
the company restored the captured French brig. This meant the end of Oman’s
involvement in the Napoleonic Wars, for the sultan negotiated a commercial
agreement with Decaen and accepted a French resident in late 1807.
Knowing that the Anglo-Maratha War had absorbed most of the BEIC’s
resources and that the British fleet could not effectively guard the vast Indian
coastline, Decaen wanted to conduct more rigorous naval operations. The news
of the sepoy mutiny at Vellore strengthened his belief that the situation was ripe
for stirring up trouble. However, with Napoleon preoccupied with the War of
the Fourth Coalition, Decaen could not hope to receive any reinforcements, and
without them he lacked means to conduct any interventions in India. His great-
est resource was the veteran Admiral Charles-Alexandre Léon Durand Linois’s
small squadron, which was tasked with raiding the British merchant marine.
Linois excelled at this, capturing a few East Indiamen before he faced the chance
of a lifetime at Pulo Aura on February 15, 1804, where he encountered the
British China Fleet, consisting of almost thirty ships carrying trade goods worth
the staggering sum of £8 million. Remarkably, the British convoy had no escort,
making it vulnerable to a French attack. The convoy’s commander, Commodore
Nathaniel Dance, had disguised some of his merchant ships as warships to create
the impression of a well-protected convoy; to further confuse his opponent,
Dance made aggressive maneuvers to show his intention to engage enemy ships.
The stratagem worked. Linois, observing the enemy ships sailing in a line
of battle, became convinced that the convoy was defended by more than half
a dozen warships and quickly broke off the contact.84 The escape of the China
Fleet was widely celebrated in Britain, and Dance was rewarded with a
knighthood and a general financial award. Linois, meanwhile, found himself
the subject of ridicule, not to mention imperial disgrace—Napoleon raged
against this abject failure to cause major harm to British trade. “My admirals
see double and have discovered, I know not how or where, that war can be
made without running risks,” Napoleon seethed in a letter to his minister of
494 | the napoleonic wars

marine. “Tell Linois that he has shown want of courage of mind, that kind of
courage which I consider the highest quality in a leader.”85
Linois spent the next two years conducting cruises across the Indian Ocean,
but he was never able to escape the shadow of Pulo Aura. While his new raids
did cause significant concern among the British authorities, the actual damage
he inflicted on British shipping remained negligible and his operations
became known more for their setbacks than their successes.86 At no point did
he cause any major disruption to British trade, and his decision to devote his
flagship Marengo, a 74-gun ship-of-the-line, to chasing merchantmen was, in
the words of a British historian, akin to “employing a steam-hammer to crack
a nut.”87 While Linois’s shortcomings did contribute to the overall failure of
these operations (especially at Pulo Aura), he operated in very challenging
circumstances, with meager naval resources, separated by vast distances from
friendly ports, and, of course, facing a far superior British fleet that had
acquired a new base of operations with the capture of the Cape of Good Hope
in early 1806.88 Equally problematic was the lack of stocks at naval stores. The
French had no proper supply of masts, copper, and rope and were forced to
utilize ships to find replacements. Prices for vital naval stocks skyrocketed and
made ship repairs prohibitively expensive. Repairing just two frigates in the
Indian Ocean in 1806 required more than 700,000 francs; constructing a
brand-new one cost less back in France.89 Frustrated and kept in the dark over
events in Europe, Linois decided to return to France. He was intercepted and
captured by a Royal Navy squadron in the Atlantic on March 13, 1806.
With Linois’s ships gone, Decaen might have been forced to remain on
the defensive if not for the mistakes the British themselves committed. The
Royal Navy was concerned that Decaen might receive reinforcement from
France and wage a more robust guerre de course, one that could wreak havoc
with the East India Company merchantmen. A crucial element in disrupting
any such plans was preventing the French from acquiring any bases close to
Indian waters. In light of Napoleon’s overtures to Fath Ali Shah, British
attention was naturally drawn to Iran’s coastline; rumors claimed that the
French were already close to securing a base at Bandar Abbas, on the Persian
Gulf. On receiving these reports, the BEIC ordered Admiral Pellew to lead
his squadron to the Strait of Hormuz, where he could control the entrance
into the Persian Gulf. Remarkably, the admiral refused the order; he was
doubtful of the veracity of those reports on French movements and, more
important, understood that he would have little opportunity to distinguish
himself in the Iranian backwaters.
Still, the news from Iran was hardly encouraging. British political agents
reported Franco-Iranian rapprochements and the discussion of a treaty of alliance,
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 495

one article of which called for French control of Bandar Abbas and the island
of Hormuz. For BEIC directors, this intelligence once again raised the pros-
pect of a French invasion of India and made a blockade of the Persian Gulf a
strategic necessity. Pellew disagreed once more, refusing to believe that the
report was true. His continued refusal to sail into the Persian Gulf underscores
an important element in British naval commanders’ aspirations. “Like every-
body in India,” notes one eminent historian, “[Pellew] had gone out to make
money [but] for two years the more profitable eastern half of [the Indian Ocean
command] had been taken away from him.” Instead of the Persian Gulf,
Pellew was more keen on raiding Dutch colonies in the East Indies, where
success and prize money could be easily had. Hence in late October 1807 he
sailed to the East Indies, leaving behind just a couple of small warships while
three more frigates were under repair at Bombay. BEIC officials were still con-
cerned about the French threat in the Persian Gulf and hoped, in the words of
Minto, that Pellew would soon share their belief that “the western side of
India [was] the most important and immediate object of vigilance.”90 They
insisted on dispatching a small squadron, led by Captain John Ferrier of HMS
Albion, to Bandar Abbas, where the British arrived in early February.
Pellew’s departure for the East Indies and Ferrier’s to the Persian Gulf had
exposed the Bay of Bengal to French privateers, who had raided local com-
merce so effectively as to cause merchants to complain to the BEIC governor-
general. Minto had decided to dispatch a special mission to Tehran to sway
the shah against supporting the French or granting them access to the Iranian
coastline. As we have seen, he selected John Malcolm for this mission, but his
initial intention to accompany the envoy with some 4,000 men and a strong
British naval squadron—“the impression from the appearance of a British
maritime force in the Gulf cannot be otherwise than salutary,” he argued—
drew the ire of Admiral Pellew, who refused to send his ships on such a mis-
sion.91 He argued that the fleet could not be used as an offensive weapon and
that his instructions were to defend India and the BEIC trade. Besides, what
effect would a naval force have on a land power like Iran, which was not heav-
ily dependent on maritime trade? Unable to compel the admiral to do his
bidding, Minto had no choice but admit that “the line of battle ships are not
necessary for any purpose connected with the designs or operation of the
enemy by land.”92 Still believing that the French threat to India was immi-
nent, the BEIC governor-general resorted to diplomacy, dispatching missions
to Sind, Punjab, and Afghanistan in an effort to secure all possible overland
routes the French might take.
Unbeknown to him, the French menace was about to emerge on the seas.
Decaen made his next serious attempt at disrupting British trade in 1809.93
496 | the napoleonic wars

This was made possible by the arrival of Captain Jacques Félix Emmanuel
Hamelin, who had sailed from Europe with a frigate squadron in late 1808. He
reached Mauritius in March 1809, having already captured several prizes on the
way. Over the next several months Hamelin conducted a masterful campaign,
destroying the BEIC base at Tappanooly on Sumatra and capturing British
ships. Impressed by these successes, Napoleon reinforced Hamelin with another
frigate (the only one able to break through the British blockade), which arrived
at Mauritius in early 1810. As the cyclone season ended, Hamelin launched a
new campaign, raiding the Bay of Bengal and the east coast of Africa, where, in
July 1810, his men defeated a convoy of East Indiamen.94
Concerned by Hamelin’s operations, Admiral Albemarle Bertie at the
Cape of Good Hope ordered Commodore Josias Rowley to hunt down the
French frigates and blockade the Mascarene Islands in the Indian Ocean, to
prevent their use as raiding bases. In August 1809 the British seized the
island of Rodrigues, a success of great strategic consequence. The Cape of
Good Hope and India were separated from the Mascarenes by more than
2,500 miles (in the case of Bombay, more than 3,000 miles) of open seas.
Rodrigues, on the other hand, was just 380 miles away from Mauritius. Hence
it could serve as both a forward station for the British frigates and as a stag-
ing ground for the invasions. As early as September 1809, unable to bring
Hamelin’s ships to battle, Rowley decided to raid the fortified anchorage of
Saint-Paul on Réunion, where he captured one of Hamelin’s frigates and res-
cued two East Indiamen. The success of this raid demonstrated the quality—
or lack thereof—of French shore defenses and the British ability to strike at
the French anchorages directly. It encouraged Rowley to consider a larger
operation to seize the entire island.
Over the next several months Rowley made plans for the invasion with
the support of Lieutenant Colonel Henry Keating, who commanded a
­contingent of British army regulars and BEIC sepoys. On July 7, 1810, the
British expedition, numbering more than 3,500 men supported by five frig-
ates, reached Réunion and landed at several locations. The British easily over-
whelmed a small French garrison (less than 600 men, with some 2,500
militia) and seized the entire island.95 This was a significant British victory
because Réunion provided secure anchorages for the Royal Navy and allowed
the British to concentrate their operations on the sole remaining French ter-
ritory in the Indian Ocean, Mauritius. However, the ease with which the
island had been captured had also left the British with an inflated sense of the
possibilities. Just weeks after the capture of Réunion, Rowley was already
busy planning the capture of Mauritius. As a preliminary stage for the
impending invasion, he wanted to secure the smaller islands that controlled
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 497

the passage of shipping through the coral reefs surrounding the island. In
August, one of Rowley’s subordinates, Captain Samuel Pym, seized Île de la
Passe near Grand Port but was unable to prevent a French squadron under
Captain Guy-Victor Duperré from passing into the harbor nine days later.
The ensuing Battle of Grand Port (August 22–23) turned into a disaster, as
two British frigates got irretrievably grounded in the shallow waters of the
bay while the French captured two others along with their entire crews.96
Set against the great actions of the age, the Battle of Grand Port was
a small-scale event, especially in the wake of the Battles of the Nile and
Trafalgar. But it was, nonetheless, one of the worst defeats the Royal Navy
suffered during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars.97 Rowley’s five frig-
ates had been reduced to just one while more than 2,000 British seamen
(including four captains) were dead, wounded, or captured; the French lost
barely 150 men. More disturbing to the British was the fact that their war-
ships had failed to put up their usual fight, causing a contemporary British
historian to lament that “no case which we are aware more deeply affects the
character of the British Navy than the defeat it sustained at Grand Port.”98
The Battle of Grand Port could have left Britain’s vital trade convoys in the
Indian Ocean exposed to attack from French frigates. However, its effects
proved to be short-lived, failing to produce strategic consequences. With his
squadron drastically weakened, Rowley made urgent requests for reinforce-
ments from the British authorities in Cape Town and Madras. Hamelin tried
to exploit the fact that any British reinforcements would arrive piecemeal and
cruise in unfamiliar waters. In September he twice forced the surrender of
British frigates, only to allow Rowley to recover his ships each time. On the
second occasion, on September 18, the British not only liberated their warship
but also netted Hamelin’s flagship Vénus, bringing an end to the activities of
his squadron. The loss of such a dynamic and capable French naval commander
was a serious blow to the French, who all but ended their raiding operations
and were forced to retreat to Mauritius, where Rowley blockaded them.
By now, the shock of the defeat at Grand Port had jolted the British into
action, and available resources were quickly diverted to the region while prepa-
rations were made to invade and subdue Mauritius. In November 1810 Admiral
Albemarle Bertie and General John Abercromby launched one of the largest
British amphibious operations ever attempted in the Indian Ocean, involving
more than 6,500 men and some seventy warships and transports traveling 3,000
miles of open seas. They all converged on the tiny fortified island in midocean.
On November 29 the first troops landed on Mauritius unopposed by the French
garrison, which counted just 1,300 regular troops. Just two days later the British
invasion was under way, leaving Decaen no choice but to capitulate. He did so
498 | the napoleonic wars

under advantageous conditions: he and his entire garrison were allowed to be


repatriated with honors, retaining their personal arms and colors.99
The fall of Mauritius eliminated the last French outpost in the Indian
Ocean. Britain not only seized the last remaining French frigates but acquired
a key base for its further operations across the entire Indian Ocean. Renamed
Mauritius, the island remained part of the British Empire until 1968. The
news of the British capture of the Mascarene Islands did not reach France until
after Napoleon, still thrilled by the French victory at Grand Port, had sanc-
tioned Commodore François Roquebert to lead a small squadron to the Indian
Ocean.100 Roquebert reached the Mascarene Islands in February 1811 only to
find them in British hands; a British squadron soon gave chase and captured
all but one of the French warships near Tamatave (a trading post on Madagascar)
on May 20, 1811.101 The Battle at Tamatave marked the final French naval
engagement in the Indian Ocean and all but ended any French threat to
British merchant ships. Although Napoleon continued to plan various small
expeditions to the Indian Ocean, only one—to the Dutch East Indies during
the winter of 1811—materialized. In the end, the French efforts resulted in
the loss of thirteen out of fourteen frigates sent to the Eastern Seas, while the
their commerce-raiding campaign proved ineffective.102

The fall of Réunion and Mauritius confirmed British dominance of the seas
east of the Cape of Good Hope and allowed the British to turn their attention
to the Dutch East Indies, the last remaining area where French influence still
survived. Established by the Dutch East India Company in the seventeenth
century, the Dutch East Indies centered around the city of Batavia (present-day
Jakarta), which served as a center of the Dutch trading network in Asia.103 The
Dutch colonies gradually fell under French influence after France’s occupa-
tion of the Dutch Republic in 1795. Four years later the Dutch East India
Company’s charter was not renewed, allowing the Dutch Republic to take
over all of the DEIC’s possessions (and debts). The Dutch authorities were well
aware that acquiring these vast colonial holdings carried immense liabilities,
including spreading the new sociopolitical system that had been established
at home and defending possessions from the predatory activities of the British.
The revolutionary changes were slow to appear in the colonies. In 1802, a new
draft charter for the government of the East Indies called for “the greatest pos-
sible welfare of the inhabitants of the Indies, the greatest possible advantages
for Dutch commerce, and the greatest possible profits for the finances of the
Dutch state,” but it was never implemented.104
In 1807, after reorganizing the Dutch Republic into the Kingdom of the
Netherlands, Napoleon appointed Marshall Herman Willem Daendels as
Britain’s Eastern Empire, 1800–1815 | 499

governor-general of the Dutch East Indies and granted him immense authority
to administer and reform the colonies. Upon arriving at Java in 1808, Daendels,
a thoroughly military man and admirer of Napoleon, had no connections with
the clique that for the last twenty years had run the DEIC’s affairs at Batavia.
Hence he launched a series of major administrative and legal reforms that
dismantled the old system of governance and laid the foundations for the new.
The real object of Daendels’s mission lay in the military realm. In the instruc-
tions he had received, twelve out of thirty-seven articles dealt with military
affairs, with Article 14 specifying that military reorganization and the
strengthening of defenses were to be the first of his duties.105 Between 1808
and 1810, Daendels improved local defenses by building new fortifications,
coastal batteries, military barracks, and arms factories; in a remarkable feat of
engineering that cost a great many human lives, he constructed an almost six-
hundred-mile-long road across northern Java, from Anjer to Panaroecan.
Daendels’s willingness to ignore the advice of the old-timers and push
through ambitious reforms was both his strength and his weakness. His
authoritarianism alienated the Javanese nobility, with the result that many of
them were willing to support the British against the Dutch and French.
Daendels was also unable to bring his reforms to completion. He had made so
many enemies that by 1811 they were strong enough to have him recalled and
replaced with Jan Willem Janssens, who arrived in Java in April 1811, accom-
panied by several hundred French troops. Janssens had previously served as
governor-general of the Cape Colony, where he had been forced to capitulate
to the British in 1806. The same fate was about to befall him in Java.
After the success of the Mauritius expedition, the British knew that it was
imperative for them to seize the Dutch East Indies before Daendels’s projects
were completed. In August 1810, the Board of Control wrote to Lord Minto,
the governor-general of the BEIC, that it had no hesitation in supporting his
plan of expelling the French from the island of Java and from any other place
they still occupied in the Eastern Seas. “While the Dutch were independent,
or at least nominally independence of France,” the board concluded, “it was
neither their interest nor their policy to give us much annoyance from Batavia
or their other settlements in those seas. But the case is now materially altered.
Holland is now incorporated with France and we must be prepared for the
most active and inveterate hostility.”106
In preparing for his expedition to Java, Lord Minto first targeted small
Dutch colonies: Captain Edward Tucker seized the island of Amboyna and
adjacent islets in the spring of 1810, while Captain Christopher Cole cap-
tured the Banda Islands, completing the conquest of the Dutch Spice
(Maluku) Islands.107 Minto now concentrated on a more challenging task:
500 | the napoleonic wars

invading Java itself. By late spring of 1811 the British force was ready to set
sail. Commodore William Robert Broughton held the naval command.108
The expeditionary corps of some 12,000 men was placed under command of
Lieutenant General Sir Samuel Auchmuty. The expedition departed from
various Indian ports in May and, after sailing through the Malacca Straits,
arrived at the Dutch East Indies at the end of June.
On August 4 the British troops landed near the estuary of the Marandi
River and immediately marched toward Batavia, which had been abandoned
by Janssens on August 8. The Franco-Dutch force retreated into the newly
built Fort Cornelis, where they were besieged by the British, who finally
stormed it on August 26. In the words of Lord Minto, the French fortification
was “most formidable in strength, and it really seems miraculous that mortal
men could live in such a fire of round, grape, shells, and musketry . . . The
slaughter was dreadful, both during the attack and in the pursuit.”109 Among
the few who escaped from the fort was Janssens, who rallied the remaining
defenders in a strong position south of Semarang and sought, in vain, help from
the Javanese princes. Alas, only one remained loyal to the Dutch; the rest,
embittered by their earlier experiences, embraced the British. On September 18
Janssens signed the capitulation treaty, which transferred Java, along with its
dependencies of Timor, Macassar, and Palembank, to the British.110
The fall of Java marked the end of the war in the Eastern Seas. Every fresh
gain France had made in Europe since 1803 was followed by a corresponding
loss in the Eastern Seas. By 1812, Napoleon no longer had any bases east of
the Cape, and so thoroughly had the fleets of France been swept from the
Indian Ocean that the French emperor was forced to postpone any thoughts
of naval operations there until after he had resolved his ongoing tensions with
Russia. Between 1812 and 1815 the East Indies squadron of the British Royal
Navy rested on its much-deserved laurels, consolidating its gains and stand-
ing guard against possible threats. British trade to India, China, and other
parts of Asia flourished and supplied the government’s coffers with the much-
needed revenue that enabled continued war efforts in the Iberian Peninsula
and coalition-building in central Europe. As Governor General Minto himself
proudly informed the secretary of state for war, “The British nation has neither
an enemy nor a rival left from the Cape of Good Hope to Cape Horn.”111 The
British victories between 1803 and 1815 constituted a crucial step in the con-
solidation of a disparate collection of dependencies acquired at various times
and in various ways into what became the British Empire.
chapter 20
The Western Question?
Struggle for the Americas, 1808–1815

M ore than any other region, Spanish America demonstrates the


global ramifications of the Napoleonic Wars. Largely ignored in tradi-
tional narratives of the war, the crisis and collapse of Spain’s empire in the
Americas were direct results of the political turmoil in Europe. If the Eastern
Question revolved around the key question of the fate of the Ottoman
Empire, there was a corresponding “Western Question,” one that centered on
Spain and its imperial domains. During the Napoleonic Wars, this vast
empire got fragmented and was henceforth relegated to the sidelines of world
politics. Spanish colonial elites, like their English-speaking counterparts in
North America a generation earlier, seized upon the moment of European
turmoil and political weakness to declare political regimes of their own,
independent of colonial rule.
By the end of the eighteenth century, the Spanish colonial empire extended
thousands of miles from modern-day California, Utah, and Colorado all the
way down to the tip of present-day Argentina. Originally divided into two
viceroyalties—New Spain, created in 1535, with its capital at Mexico City,
and Peru, created in 1542, with its capital at Lima—the empire eventually
came to include two additional viceroyalties: New Granada, with Bogotá as
its administrative center; and Río de la Plata, with Buenos Aires as its capi-
tal. Within each territory, a viceroy exercised a broad military and civil
authority as the direct representative of the king of Spain. He was advised by
the audiencia, an advisory council and judicial body consisting of twelve to
fifteen judges, and supported by the cabildos, administrative councils that
governed municipalities.1 By the late 1700s Spanish colonies had become
fairly prosperous and were self-sufficient producers of provisions, textiles,
502 | the napoleonic wars

80° 60° 40°


Dominica,
to Br. Martinique, to Fr.
Caribbean Sea Curaçao to Neth. Sta. Lucia, Barbados, to Br.
Aruba Bonaire to Neth. to Br.
Puerto Tobago, 1815 to Br.
Maracaibo Cabello
Cartagena Caracas Trinidad, to Br.
Panama Barquisimeto Carabobo, 1821
Mompos VENEZUELA Angostura
Cucuta 1811
1819-29 to Gr. Colombia
PANAMA 1830 rinoco Georgetown New
Antioquia O Amsterdam
1821 to Gr. Colombia Boyaca
M BIA ESSEOUIBO Paramaribo
Cartago 1819 L O 1815 to Br.
1799-1802, 1809-17 Cayenne
O A T L A N T I C
Bogota RC E
1804-16 to Br. to Brazil
DUTCH FRENCH
NEW GRANADA T GUYANA O C E A N
EA DEMERARA
1811 1831
GR -30
SURINAM
Pasto F 1819
Quito O Rio N
e g ro
P.

J ap u Belem do Para
RE

Picgincha Pu ra Amazon
Equator
1822 t umayo
Guayaquil ECUADOR Manaus Gurupa Saõ Luis
1822 1822 to Gr. Colombia R I O
Tumbes PARÁ
1830 MARANHÃO Ceara
Ma r a n
no Tabatinga N E G R O CEARÁ
Piura
us
EMPIRE OF RIO GRANDE
DO NORTE
Uc a ya l

ur
eir
a BRAZIL PARAIBA
P

Trujillo i PIAUÍ
ad Kingdom 1815 1822 PERNAMBUCO Pernambuco
Huanuco M
ALAGÔAS
Junin PERU

co
SERGIPE From 1823

r ancis
1824
Lima 1821 1821 MATO GROSSO BAHIA
Callao

S an F
Ayacucho Cuzco GOIÁZ Salvador
Pisco 1824 Lake (Bahia)
Titicaca Cuiaba
Arequipa BOLIVIA guay Goiania Minas Santa Cruz
La Paz ara Novas
1825
P

Tacna Diamantina
P A C I F I C Arica Chuquisaca MINAS GERAIS ESPIRITO
O C E A N Potosi (La Plata) SANTO 20°
Iquique
SÃO PAULO
Atacama PARAGUAY RIO DE JANEIRO
Desert Jujuy Saõ Paulo
Antofagasta Concepcion Saõ Rio de Janeiro
Salta 1811 Ciudad Real Vicente Santos Tropic of Capricorn
Asuncion
1812
Tucuman SANTA CATARINA
S. Felix S. Ambrosio Copiapo 1812
Desterro
to Chile ARGENTINE CONFEDERATION RIO GRANDE
1810/16 United Prov. of La Plata DO SUL 1822 to Brazil
1810 1824-53 Arg. Confederation Ituzaingu
La Serena Banda
CHILE 1817 Cordoba Oriental 1827
1810 1818 Chacabuco Santa Fe
URUGUAY
Valparaiso 1814 1828 Sarandi
1825
Juna Fernandez Is. Santiago Mendoza San Luis 1816-28 part of Brazil,
to Chile Maipu Buenos Aires as Cisplatine Prov. from 1821
Rancagua 1818 Montevideo
1814
Concepcion

Valdivia 10°

Ancud Carmen de Patagones


Chiloe I.
Patagonia South America,
1808–1815
Rep. of Greater Colombia, 1819-30,
from 1830 deparated into indep. states
Islas Malvinas 1810 Date of independence from Spain
(Falkland Is.)
1770-1820 to Sp. 1818 Date of separate statehood
1820-33 to Arg.
0 350 700 Kilometers Last Spanish fortresses 1826
Battle in the wars of independence
0 350 700 Miles

Map 24: South America, 1808–1815

and consumer goods. Although the silver mines of Peru had all but run dry,
Mexico’s silver mines were still the richest in the world, providing a steady
stream of specie that accounted for at least 20 percent of Spanish revenue.2
The Spanish monarchy’s decision to adopt free trade policies in the latter
half of the eighteenth century stimulated trade, which grew rapidly between
1778 and 1788. This commercial growth could not cover up the stark reality
of Spain’s growing financial and industrial weakness, which the Bourbons,
The Western Question? | 503

despite their best efforts, could not overcome. Spain’s inability to keep sea-
lanes to colonies open in time of war meant that Spain saw its Mexican silver
remittances dwindle to almost zero, especially during the years from 1797 to
1799. Furthermore, colonial manufacturing suffered a heavy blow under
free trade policies that involved opening colonial ports to foreign vessels of
neutral origins—and which, in practice, meant those of the United States.
This concession meant that during the Revolutionary Wars a spirited com-
merce developed between the United States, the Caribbean, and the South
American colonies, resulting in a growing and prosperous colonial elite that
increasingly drew its inspiration from Enlightenment thought and whose
aspirations soon transcended the boundaries of their municipalities and
viceroyalties.3
Spanish institutions had been grafted onto the Americas in the sixteenth
century, but the resultant societies had by the end of the eighteenth century
not yet evolved to the point of coalescing into national entities. Instead, colo-
nial society reflected four distinct social groups. The peninsulares—numbering
about 30,000, all of them born in Spain—were dominant, holding key lead-
ership positions in the church and government through various arrangements
with the Spanish crown. Their main contenders for power were the criollos
(and their Portuguese counterparts, crioulos), some 3.2 million individuals of
European descent who were born in the colonies. But terms like criollos/crio-
ulos were more than just birthplace distinctions; they represented distinct
social classes within an existing casta system. These were individuals who
largely controlled the colony’s commercial and economic life but struggled to
break into the higher-level government and ecclesiastic positions filled by the
peninsulares. Further down the socioeconomic ladder were about 2 million
individuals of mixed background—mestizos (of Spanish and Indian parent-
age), cholos (of mestizo and Indian descent), mulattos (of Spanish and black
parentage), zambos (of Indian and black origin), and others—who accounted
for the larger part of artisans, farmers, soldiers, and small businessmen.
Almost 8 million Indians, the descendants of the America’s original inhabit-
ants, and approximately 1 million African slaves occupied the lowest levels
of the social ladder. Together, these social groups formed a vibrant colonial
society of about 14 million people.
A growing sense of restlessness developed as racial, ethnic, and class privi-
leges fueled discontent.4 The criollo elite resented the patronizing attitudes
and dominance of the peninsulares, and decried both the lack of political rep-
resentation and the commercial restrictions imposed by the Spanish monar-
chy, which greatly benefited from the vast outward flow of riches through
taxation and control of markets. For mestizos and Indians, lack of opportunity,
504 | the napoleonic wars

overt racism, and widespread discrimination all sustained a growing sense of


resentment toward criollos and peninsulares.5
As pronounced as these grievances might have been, any resort to a revo-
lutionary transformation would have been difficult before 1789. The mid-
eighteenth century did witness frequent Andean Indian rebellions, most
notably the 1780–1782 massive uprising led by José Gabriel Condorcanqui,
an Indian cacique (chief) who assumed the name of Tupac Amaru II. The
causes of this revolt lay not in Enlightenment ideas of popular sovereignty,
toward which the eighteenth-century Latin Americans were hostile, but in
the rampant abuses of the Indian population by Spanish royal officials. The
colonial government was strong enough to suppress this and other manifesta-
tions of dissent, offering only limited concessions in their wake. The Tupac
Amaru revolt not only threatened to end the repartimiento system of forced
labor imposed upon the indigenous population but raised the colonial elite’s
fears of racial and class warfare. Even the disaffected criollos did not wish to
completely dismantle the existing system, one that granted them privileged
positions; instead, they sought to reform it so that it would allow them
greater participation. Despite the considerable wealth and sophistication
found in such colonial cities as Buenos Aires, Lima, and Bogotá, very few
intellectual or regional leaders entertained serious notions of radical reform
or outright independence from Spain.
Events in Europe proved the catalyst that would change all this. We have
already seen that the French Revolution unleashed an outpouring of violence
in the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which affected the neighboring
Spanish colonies as well.6 During the Revolutionary Wars, Spain retained its
possessions in the Americas and the Caribbean, although its hold on these ter-
ritories was tenuous and subject to the vagaries of both colonial politics and
international relations. In the early years of the French Revolution, the French
government considered exporting its revolutionary ideology and welcomed
overtures from the Spanish colonial revolutionaries such as Miranda, who had
urged the French revolutionary leaders to free the Spanish Americas. At least
one of them, Brissot, agreed that the “time has come to free the Spanish colo-
nies.”7 Indeed, the Girondin leaders—Brissot, Jérôme Pétion de Villeneuve,
Pierre-Henri-Hélène-Marie Lebrun-Tondu, and Charles Dumouriez—even
considered forming an alliance with Britain to “free” and partition the Spanish
colonies in the Americas. They were certain that the British would be enticed
by the “immense benefits” that the emancipation of the Spanish colonies
would give them.8 But any British gains would be only temporary. After the
French become “masters of the Dutch navy,” they would be strong enough to
take on and destroy England, possibly with the American help.9
The Western Question? | 505

In early 1793 the French government had considered sending an expedition


to the Americas, but discussion of the plan was undercut by the entry of Britain
and much of Europe into the War of the First Coalition.10 Still, the instructions
sent to the French ambassador to the United States, Edmond-Charles Genêt,
called for securing American support for the liberation of the Spanish colonies
by suggesting that it was in the Americans’ interests to spread liberty and inde-
pendence.11 Although the American government remained lukewarm about
the French offer, individual Americans did support plans for a revolution in the
Spanish colonies. They rallied around George Rogers Clark, a veteran of the
American Revolutionary War who had distinguished himself in the Northwest
Territories and was now eager to see the United States expand southward as
well. Like many living in the American West, he was upset by the continued
Spanish control of Louisiana, which denied Americans free access to the
Mississippi River. Given that President George Washington was unwilling to
consider any forceful actions against Spain, Clark approached Genêt with a pro-
posal to lead an expedition to capture St. Louis and New Orleans, then proceed
to threaten other Spanish possessions. This “will be humbling Spain in its vital
parts,” he told the French, “and by conquering New Mexico and Louisiana, that
of all Spanish America, with its mines, may soon after be easily achieved.”12
Genêt approved the plan and appointed Clark “Major General in the Armies of
France and Commander-in-chief of the French Revolutionary Legion on the
Mississippi River.”13 As Clark made preparations for a campaign, his efforts were
undercut by Washington, who issued a proclamation forbidding Americans
from violating US neutrality and threatened to dispatch troops to stop the
expedition. Furthermore, the French government recalled Genêt and revoked
the commissions he had granted to the Americans for the war against Spain.
Clark’s planned campaign thus came to naught.
Spain’s decision to join the First Coalition in 1793 ensured that its colo-
nial trade continued uninterrupted. Just two years later, by the terms of the
Treaty of Basle, the Bourbon government unilaterally ended hostilities with
the French and went to war with Britain. As the British attacked Spanish
shipping, Spain’s transatlantic trade collapsed and its connection with its
South American colonies was weakened, encouraging foreign encroachments.
The United States was keen on exploiting this opportunity, and its political
leaders demonstrated an assertive attitude towards Spanish possessions. In
1796 the Treaty of San Lorenzo guaranteed Americans navigation rights on
the Mississippi River, paving the path toward greater US influence in a
region long dominated by Spain.14 Indeed, the American leadership was keen
to see that none of the European powers was permitted to secure any portion
of Spanish dominions that shared borders with the United States.
506 | the napoleonic wars

The news of the French acquisition of Louisiana therefore provoked con-


siderable apprehension in American political circles, which the British were
eager to exploit. During his meetings with the American ambassador, Rufus
King, British foreign minister Lord Hawkesbury had raised the issue of
the Spanish secession of Louisiana as early as 1801, expressing his concern
that such “acquisition might enable France to extend its influence up the
Mississippi and thro’ the lakes even to Canada.” This would, the British
argued, directly threaten their interests in North America, since “the facility
with which the Trade . . . might be interrupted and the [British West Indies]
Islands even invaded, should the transfer be made, were strong reasons
why England must be unwilling that this territory should pass under the
dominion of France.”15 Consequently, Britain was only too pleased to see the
American effort to contain French influence in North America; the British
ambassador to the United States encouraged and supported plans of American
senator William Blount of Tennessee and John Chisholm, veteran Indian agent,
for joint Anglo-American actions against Spanish Florida and Louisiana as
a way of preventing their falling into the hands of a nation that could menace
British interests. Although the conspiracy ultimately collapsed, it is still
revealing of the motives of British policy in the region.16 Interestingly, the
British government was not interested in acquiring the territory for itself.
In 1803, in a conversation with an American ambassador, Prime Minister
Addington noted that in case of war with France and its Spanish ally, one of
the first British actions would be to occupy New Orleans but that “England
would not accept the Country [Spanish Louisiana and Florida] were all agreed
to give it up to her; that were she to occupy it, it would not be to keep it but
to prevent another power from obtaining it.”17 Americans were pleased to
hear such talk since they were “unwilling to see [Louisiana and Florida]
transferred [to anyone] except to ourselves”; at the very least, they had “no
objection to Spain continuing to possess it; they were quiet neighbors and we
looked forward without impatience to events which . . . must, at no distant
day, annex this [region] to the United States.”18 A similar discussion took
place between British ambassador Edward Thornton and President Thomas
Jefferson in late May 1803 when the former, “half-jokingly,” asked whether
the United States would oppose British occupation of Florida and New
Orleans “for the purpose of offering them on certain conditions to the
Americans.” Jefferson’s response underscored a long-term American perspec-
tive on the Spanish possessions in North America: “the continuance of the
Spaniards in the possession of these countries and their own [American]
enjoyment of their present or greater privileges in the navigation and outlet
of the Mississippi until acquiring greater strength and involved from whatever
The Western Question? | 507

cause in a war, they [United States] could dispossess the latter entirely of
[these territories].”19
Thus at the start of the nineteenth century Britain faced a dilemma: both
France and the United States coveted Spanish possessions and the question
was which to prefer. Throughout the period 1801–1803 British statesmen
hesitated on what course of action to take. They were aware of Napoleon
pressuring Spain to transfer the Louisiana territory but were unable to pre-
vent it. Ultimately, they came to the conclusion that a US acquisition of the
Spanish possessions in North America was the lesser of two evils and tried
to entice America into a British alliance, painting a dire picture of Napoleon
building a colonial empire that would threaten the young republic. In 1803
Prime Minister Addington informed the Americans that his government
would be content with the addition of Louisiana to the US territorial domain
in an effort to “prevent its going into the hands of France.”20 Hence, upon
learning about the Louisiana Purchase, the British foreign secretary informed
his American counterparts about “the pleasure with which His Majesty
[King George III] has received this intelligence.”21 The sentiment was
hardly genuine. The British were aware of the Americans’ inflated expecta-
tions, including their interpretation that the newly acquired territory
included everything that was not Canada. Nevertheless, for the next few
years Britain paid little attention to these matters—even when some
American statesmen solicited British support for establishing a sovereign
state, under British protection, in the newly acquired territories—because
of the ongoing war against Napoleon.22
In the wake of the Louisiana Purchase, the American desire for Spanish
territory further intensified. The US government suspected Britain of covet-
ing the Floridas, a suspicion that persisted well beyond the Napoleonic Wars.
A more immediate goal was to exploit British maritime strength to thwart
any French colonial aspirations. By 1807, the Americans were already consid-
ering joining the British, in order, as [James] Wilkinson wrote to Jefferson, “to
preserve the western world from Napoleon and his unwilling ally, the king of
Spain.”23 Some American proposals envisioned Anglo-American occupation
of the Floridas and Cuba and independence for Mexico, Peru and other
Spanish colonies.24 At the same time, reflecting growing American frustra-
tion with British policies, the United States preferred not to see Britain’s
position strengthened in the New World. In April 1807, President Jefferson
instructed the American ambassador to Spain to warn its colonial authorities
against any political or commercial rapprochement with Britain, and noted
that their continued existence depended on American goodwill. “Never did
a nation act towards another with more perfidy and injustice than Spain has
508 | the napoleonic wars

constantly practiced against us. And if we have kept our hands off it till now,
it has been purely out of respect for France, and from the value we set on the
friendship of France.” Jefferson went on to express hope that Napoleon would
compel Spain to make concessions for the United States or “abandon its to
us.” In the latter case, “we ask but one month to be in possession of the city
of Mexico.”25
The United States was not alone in their interest in the Spanish America.
Political and economic tumult in Spain and Portugal created unique circum-
stances for the extension of Russian influence in the Western Hemisphere. As
early as May 1806, Count Nikolai Rumyantsev, the Russian minister of com-
merce, argued that Russia could easily procure colonial goods of the finest
quality directly from the Americas, circumventing the services of the
Hanseatic merchants, and the money spent “on the commissions and profits
of the Hamburg merchants,” as he put it, could be used to promote domestic
industry and expand the size of the Russian merchant marine. Such senti-
ments became especially widespread after Russia was forced to join the
Continental System in the summer of 1807.
A distinctive symptom of economic malaise in post-Tilsit Russia was
speculation in foreign goods and the rapid inflation that accompanied it.
The lifestyle of the Russian upper classes, reported the governor-general of
St. Petersburg, had made colonial goods essential articles of consumption,
second only to the most rudimentary necessities of life. Effective measures to
alleviate scarcities arising from Russia’s accession to the Continental System
were therefore demanded. Efforts to find solutions to the mounting crisis
increased Russian interests in South America. In 1808, Russian officials
pointed to the wealth of Portuguese colonies in South America as possible
sources of commercial relief: with a vast array of colonial products (citrus,
fruits, tobacco, coffee, sugar, spices, etc.) to offer, Brazil was increasingly
perceived as a “land that awaits only human hands to yield up its precious
gifts.”26
Over the next three years the Russian government considered several pro-
posals by the mercantile elite for expeditions to South America with the goal
of establishing Russian commercial presence there.27 These commercial ties
faced a major obstacle: Russia remained part of the Continental System that
banned British goods from the continent. With Spain and Portugal in alli-
ance with Britain, the Russian government would have naturally faced
French questions about admitting Spanish or Portuguese vessels (potentially
carrying British goods) into its ports.
The Russian decision was simple but inspired. In December 1809
Rumyantsev informed his Portuguese counterpart that the government
The Western Question? | 509

would ban any “Portuguese” ship from entering Russia but would not extend
this restriction to “Brazilian” vessels, as long as the Portuguese court would
offer reciprocal treatment to Russian merchants in Brazil. This decision
reflected Emperor Alexander’s desire to establish closer ties with Latin
America. With Portugal and Spain in turmoil, he expected profound changes
in the Americas, where, as he observed in a letter to the Russian envoy to the
United States, several independent states might be soon established. “It is
difficult to calculate just what changes such an event would produce in the
political and commercial relations of Europe but it is easy to foresee that they
will be of great importance.”28 In discussing Russo-Brazilian ties at the State
Council in January 1810, Rumyantsev pointed out that Russia faced a unique
moment, one in which it could expand its commercial interests overseas and
undermine those of Britain.
The council accepted his arguments and approved the proposed Russo-
Portuguese trade agreement, which was reached in May 1810 and revised in
1811–1812. Simultaneously the Russian government sought to establish its
commercial presence in Spanish America. On receiving the news of revolt in
Venezuela in 1811, it welcomed envoys from Caracas on several occasions,
exploring possibilities of establishing direct trade relations.29 However,
Emperor Alexander ultimately chose not to pursue ties with the Spanish col-
onies. He found the prospects of extending recognition to the insurgent colo-
nial authorities unappealing and, more important, his priorities had changed
with the start of the Franco-Russian War of 1812. For the next few years
Russia was preoccupied with the struggle over the future of Europe, devoting
little (if any) attention to relations to the Spanish colonies. Nonetheless, the
legacy of Russia’s overtures to Latin America endured, and would play an
important role in later decades.
The event that triggered Spanish-American power struggles and, ulti-
mately, independence was the French takeover of Spain in 1808, when
Napoleon removed King Charles IV of Spain and his son Ferdinand from
power in Madrid and named his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of
Spain. The Spaniards refused to accept the new monarch and, in the words of
a British historian, “their indignation rumbled hoarsely for a time, like a
volcano in labour, and then burst forth in an explosion of fury.”30 The crisis of
1808 was unique in that it effectively truncated the existing government
leadership by removing the entire royal family and breaking down central
authority. Into this political void stepped the regional ruling councils
(juntas), which rejected French rule and argued that, in the absence of a king,
legitimate government devolved to the local level. The numerous juntas, which
emerged across Spain and claimed sovereign powers, were not revolutionary
510 | the napoleonic wars

in nature but rather acted like a collective sovereign still upholding the
concept of monarchy and traditional privileges.31
The exodus of the Portuguese monarchy to Brazil and the turmoil at the
Spanish Bourbon court were much talked about in the Spanish colonies.
There was a spark of enthusiasm that accompanied the accession of Ferdinand
VII in March 1808, when the colonial governments pledged their allegiance
to the new king. Only weeks later they learned about the tragicomedy that
unfolded at Bayonne—the capture of the Spanish royal family, the subse-
quent national uprising, and, most crucial, the Spanish victory at Bailén.
Resistance to the Napoleonic regime sprang up across the Spanish American
colonies, which turned a deaf ear to French promises of administrative reforms
and modernization. In vain did French foreign minister Jean-Baptiste de
Nompère de Champagny and Spain’s new minister of the Indies, Miguel
José de Azanza, assure colonial officials that the changes were limited to the
ruling dynasty alone, that the Spanish nation has “preserved the integrity of
its dominions and its independence” and that “such a splendid monarchy
will not lose a single one of its precious possessions.”32 French emissaries
who had slipped through the Royal Navy blockade to announce King
Joseph’s ascension in the Americas tried to convince colonial administrators
to support a Napoleonic monarchy in Spain.33 However, their arguments
that this would “cure their homeland of evils that it has endured for so long”
and that the convocation of the Bayonne Assembly was the first step towards
“the regeneration of the country” were rejected out of hand, along with
any suggestion of French influence.34 As one emissary reported, the officials
in Buenos Aires “had no desire whatsoever for any other king than Ferdinand
VII. Many of them were of the opinion that they should take violent
measures against me.”35
The absence of a Bourbon monarch who could claim legitimate authority
created a unique situation. Some colonial leaders insisted on continued loy-
alty to the Bourbon cause; others hoped to exploit the monarch’s absence to
secure greater independence. The latter argument was based on the premise
that the Americas were joined with Spain in a personal union under a ruling
sovereign, and that the deposition of Ferdinand VIII had destroyed the link
that bound the colonies to the metropole. The Chilean Patriots, for example,
later contended that the “Bourbons have abandoned the nation against the
will of the people, and by this act they have lost even those obscure rights
upon which their dynasty was raised. A nation left without a chief, on account
of their domestic quarrels, could not belong to those emigrants. Ferdinand,
from [the chateau of] Valençay, could not keep in his hand the extremity of
the noose, or, speaking more properly, of the chain which fastens America.”36
The Western Question? | 511

As early as mid-July 1808, there were attempts to establish representative


institutions in Mexico City, in the Viceroyalty of New Spain, and in Caracas,
in the Captaincy General of Venezuela.37
Furthermore, the Portuguese monarchy, which had fled to the safety of
Brazil, tried to exploit all the tumult to extend its control in South America.
Rodrigo de Sousa Coutinho, the Portuguese minister of war and foreign
affairs, initially appealed to the “Cabildo and People” of Buenos Aires and the
whole Viceroyalty of Río de la Plata to accept the Portuguese monarchy’s
protection against the French. When a British squadron commanded by Rear
Admiral Sidney Smith visited Rio de Janeiro in May 1808, the Portuguese
proposed a joint military operation into the neighboring Spanish viceroyalty,
arguing that Infanta Carlota Joaquina (1775–1830), daughter of the deposed
Spanish King Charles and wife of the Brazilian regent João VI, could, as a
member of the Spanish royal family, act as a regent for the duration of the
conflict.38 Disregarding earlier British setbacks in Buenos Aires, Smith sup-
ported these plans.39 This plan failed, partly as the result of the actions of the
newly arrived Percy Clinton Sydney Smythe, Viscount Strangford, British
ambassador in Rio de Janeiro, who, unlike Sidney Smith, was committed to
upholding Spanish imperial integrity and opposed any Portuguese efforts to
intervene into Spanish colonial affairs. Strangford believed that “the most
effective way of retaining colonial friendships was by allowing the [Spanish]
colonists to work out their situation in their own way, without external inter-
ference.”40 He therefore saw to it that Rear Admiral Smith was removed from
command and recalled to England and that the infanta was admonished
by her husband, who was told in no uncertain terms how important British
support was for the Portuguese monarchy.
Strangford’s position is noteworthy because it underscores a change in the
British policy in South America. Britain had long sought to penetrate Spain’s
imperial possessions, and the two nations had gone to war on several occa-
sions in the eighteenth century, including the memorably named War of
Jenkins’ Ear (1739–1748).41 Starting in 1796, the Franco-Spanish alliance
gave Britain the pretext it had been seeking to challenge Spanish hegemony
in the Western Hemisphere. The threat of American intrusion into Spanish
colonies also loomed large in British thought. While William Pitt was at the
helm, the British cabinet seriously considered the emancipation of Spanish
colonies as a part of its foreign policy; the economic advantage of such an
event would have been tremendous, and the idea was popular with the mer-
cantile classes. Although Pitt died in early 1806, his cohort continued to
exercise influence, resulting in British attempts to force their way into
Spanish American markets in 1806–1807, in the form of support for
512 | the napoleonic wars

Miranda’s expedition to Venezuela and expeditions to Buenos Aires, the capi-


tal of the Viceroyalty of La Plata (modern Argentina) and the Atlantic gate-
way to the silver of the high Andes.42
This forceful “liberation policy” was effectively dead by 1807, with the
new Portland cabinet preferring a subtler approach to the issue. As outlined
by the new secretary for war and the colonies, Castlereagh, Britain was to
ensure the success of its policies not through a military conquest but by offer-
ing support to the Spanish colonial populace. “In looking to any scheme for
liberating South America, it seems indispensable that we should not present
ourselves in any other light than as auxiliaries and protectors. In order to
prove our sincerity in this respect, we should be prepared to pursue our object
by a native force, to be created under our countenance; and the particular
interest which we should be understood alone to propose to ourselves should
be the depriving our enemy of one of his chief resources, and the opening to
our manufactures the markets of that great Continent.”43
Just as Castlereagh and other British statesmen explored what to do in
South America, they were confronted with an event that forced a reevaluation
of official policy. The envoys of the juntas of Asturias, Galicia, and Seville
informed the British government of their decision to resist the French and
requested British support. Britain’s years-long hope of turning Spain against
France had thus been fulfilled. The British reaction was immediate: members
of Parliament famously declared that the British had to do better than merely
“filching sugar islands” and “nibbling at the rind,” while the newspapers
wrote that “of plundering and marauding expeditions we have had quite
enough.” All agreed that Britain needed to devote itself to one great project
and rescue the world.44 As the British government pledged to support the
juntas, all existing South American projects were put on hold. From now on,
London would position itself as a protector rather than as a predator in South
America, although its final goal of safeguarding Britain’s economic interests
in the Americas remained unchanged. This policy ensured that Britain would
use its naval superiority to insulate Spanish colonies from any French threats
while furtively encouraging them to seek greater independence. As the
French sought to get Spanish American support against the British, the latter
felt the “duty” to make, as Castlereagh noted in a letter, “every exertion for
preventing the American provinces of Spain from falling into the hands of
France by the same treachery which is subjugating Spain itself.”45
By the end of 1810, events in South America had convinced British states-
men to work “toward increasing and stabilizing the Latin American trade
and maintaining the fondness for England which the [Spanish] colonists had
recently shown. The idea of conquest had vanished from ministerial minds;
The Western Question? | 513

even the prospect of abetting colonial independence by means of armed inter-


vention had lost its appeal.”46 The British policy thus aimed at opening colo-
nial markets to British commerce and ensuring that neither France nor the
United States gained a foothold in the South America. The former goal was
partly achieved when the Portuguese prince regent, upon his arrival in Rio de
Janeiro, announced the opening of Brazilian ports to British commerce. Rio
de Janeiro henceforth was to become, in the words of Foreign Secretary
Canning, “Brazil’s emporium for British manufactures destined for the con-
sumption of whole of South America.”47 Fearful that Britain would support
the revolutionaries in the colonies, the Spanish Council of Regency in Cadiz
sought to appease the British by permitting them to trade directly with the
colonies for the duration of the war.
Meanwhile, Napoleon continued his efforts in the Spanish colonies. Facing
continued resistance from the Spanish royalist authorities, he adjusted his
policy and sought to precipitate a formal break between Iberian and American
Spain. “[I] will never oppose the independence of the continental nations of
America,” he declared in an address to the Legislative Corps on December 12,
1809. “That independence is in the natural course of events. . . . Whether the
people of Mexico and of Peru should wish to elevate themselves to the height
of a noble independence, France will never oppose their desires, provided
that these peoples do not form any relations with England.”48 Throughout
next few years, as relations between the colonial juntas and the Spanish
juntas (and later the Regency Council) deteriorated, Napoleon dispatched
dozens of agents to the Americas to foment rebellion and issue proclama-
tions. He considered projects for military expeditions to South America,
offered financial and military aid to the insurgents, and debated over rec-
ognizing Venezuelan independence in 1811–1812, only to be sidetracked
by the preparations for the invasion of Russia.49 Ultimately none of these
efforts produced tangible benefits. Protected by the Royal Navy from any
seaborne threats, the Spanish colonial government concentrated on internal
challenges.

Starting in 1809, colonial juntas, styled after those in Spain, appeared in


many Spanish American cities. They took it upon themselves to safeguard
Spanish governance and interests against possible meddling by outside pow-
ers. On May 25, 1809, a junta was formed in Chuquisaca, Upper Peru; on
July 16, in La Paz, Upper Peru; on August 10, in Quito, New Granada; on
May 25, 1810, in Buenos Aires, Río de la Plata; and on September 18 a
national junta was established in Chile.50 Although these juntas were initially
designed to support the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, the power and autonomy
514 | the napoleonic wars

they enjoyed soon emboldened their leaders to realize that in the absence of
royal supervision and the concomitant drain of funds, their managerial efforts
could not only sustain but enhance local conditions. Throughout the first
year of the political tumult in the colonies, two key questions remained:
whether these juntas should exist or not, and if they should exist, whether
they were temporary organizations to be disbanded upon the restoration of
the Bourbon monarchy or precursors to a permanent transfer of power from
Madrid to the Americas. Loyalist/royalist peninsulares made the former argu-
ment, pointing out that the colonies had properly sanctioned royal bu­reauc­
racy in the persons of the governing viceroys and administrators, which made
juntas redundant at best and seditious at worst. The more independent-
minded criollos, however, argued that in the absence of the monarchy the
colonies should follow the example of the Spanish juntas and form their own
governing council, to rule until the return of Ferdinand VII. Furthermore,
inspired by Enlightenment ideals as well the American and French revolu-
tions, the criollo leaders were eager to exploit the turmoil in Europe in order
to seek greater autonomy and a refashioning of colonial societies.51
Tensions between these groups quickly escalated into fighting that raged
for almost two decades. The wars, initiated and driven by the criollo and pen-
insulare elites, were fought almost entirely independently within each of the
four viceroyalties that made up Spanish America. Members from all levels of
the casta system fought on both sides of the conflict, but the criollos, who
liked to style themselves as the “Patriots,” made up most of the revolutionary
political and military leadership. They enjoyed significant advantages over
the predominantly European-born royalists, whom they outnumbered. Being
at the top of the economic and social pyramid, these groups stood to gain or
lose much from the war’s outcome and did their best to sway the lower
groups, which represented the vast majority of the colonial population.
Hence both sides made efforts to draw people of mixed background and
Indians to their banner. Royalists, for example, made changes to Indian trib-
utes, while Patriots spoke of legal equality and emancipation of slaves in
exchange for service. Local support varied region to region; often, as happens
in times of strife, loyalty was simply extended to existing local leaders.
Among the challenges the royalists faced was the ongoing war on the
Iberian Peninsula. This made sending fresh royalist reinforcements extremely
difficult. In later years, when the troops from Spain did arrive, royalists suf-
fered from rivalries between the royal officers and veteran colonial officers,
who found their new Spanish counterparts arrogant and ignorant of local
people and customs. Furthermore, the royalist cause was also complicated by
internal divisions between conservative absolutists, who wanted to restore the
The Western Question? | 515

old monarchy without change, and liberal constitutionalists, who denounced


the Bourbon abuses and corruption and preferred a constitutional monar-
chy. When the Supreme Central Governing Junta called for representatives
from local provinces and overseas possessions to meet in an “Extraordinary
and General Cortes of the Spanish Nation,” it marked a major departure from
the absolutist practices that had long shaped the Spanish colonies. This
showed that a new government was shaping up in Spain, undermining royal-
ist positions and encouraging demands for greater self-governance and repre-
sentation for the colonies. This political debate over the nature of government
was further affected by the dissolution of the central junta and establishment
of the Regency Council, which, in an attempt to win support throughout the
Hispanic world, pledged to extend political equality and representative gov-
ernment to the colonies.
The criollos suffered from internal splits and fighting as well. They dis-
agreed over the territorial boundaries and constitutional issues, with the
Federalists preferring to see weak central governments within a loose confed-
eration of strong individual states and the Centralists preferring a strong
federal government and limited states’ rights. After initial success, the criollos
sometimes turned against each other in rapidly escalating civil wars that left
an enduring legacy of discord and conflict, one that shaped local societies
long after the colonies had gained independence.52
The news of the situation in Spain first sparked a political crisis in the
viceroyalty of New Spain. In July 1808, Viceroy José de Iturrigaray, who was
upset at the downfall of his protector, Godoy, and warily pledged his alle-
giance to Ferdinand VII, was approached by the criollo-controlled city council
with a suggestion to form an autonomous government of New Spain (with
Iturrigaray at its head). It would govern the region until the Bourbon dynasty
was fully restored in Spain. This incited a power struggle between the royal-
ist peninsulares, who were convinced that Iturrigaray was attempting to a
create a government that in no way depended on Spain, and the more-reform
minded criollos, who pressured the viceroy to form a congress of representa-
tives and to share power with the colonial notables.
The tensions culminated on September 16, 1808, when armed peninsulares
charged into Mexico City’s viceregal palace to depose the viceroy in favor of an
octogenarian field marshal (mariscal de campo) named Pedro de Garibay, who
was deemed more loyal to the old monarchy.53 Political and social discontent
continued to fester and reached its climax in 1810.54 Distraught by wide-
spread poverty and hardship, a priest in the small village of Dolores, Padre
Miguel de Hidalgo y Costilla, took the first step toward righting what he
considered injustices against the men and women of Mexico. On September
516 | the napoleonic wars

15, 1810, he delivered his “Grito de Dolores” (“Cry of Sorrows”), still known
throughout South America, which urged the people to take arms and depose
the peninsulares, all in the name of Ferdinand VII and the Virgin of Guadalupe.
Just days later, Hidalgo led thousands of peasants and other supporters toward
Mexico City. The rebellion remained entirely rural and failed to garner any
support from urban areas, and the intensity of the rebels’ anti-monarchical
stance, along with their violence, horrified the creole elite, many of whom had
initially supported the anti-colonial cause but now turned their backs on it.55
The rebels initially defeated the royalist army under General Torcuato Trujillo
in a battle at Monte de las Cruces on October 30. Yet Hidalgo turned his
troops back; although they outnumbered the royal army, they lacked the dis-
cipline of trained soldiers and were armed only with machetes and crude
homemade weapons. This proved to be a fateful mistake, for it allowed the
royalist forces to regroup and counterattack. In January 1811 they crushed the
rebels at the Bridge of Calderon (forty miles east of Guadalajara); the ferocity
of the rebellion was matched only by the government’s thirst for revenge.
Thousands were executed, including Hidalgo himself.56
Hidalgo’s death did not end the revolution, which rallied around the lieu-
tenants he had dispatched to various parts of New Spain. The most promi-
nent of these was the defrocked priest José María Morelos y Pavón, who was
initially sent to take control of the port of Acapulco, on the Pacific coastline.
Despite facing superior royalist forces and having no prior military experi-
ence, Morelos demonstrated considerable talents, leading his ragtag troops to
consecutive victories. By the end of 1811 his forces had grown to some 9,000
men, allowing him to secure much of the southwestern coastal region.57
Although defeated by the royalist army at Cuautla in May 1812, Morelos was
able to rally his troops and launch a new offensive that netted him the cities
of Huajuapan and Oaxaca.
Instead of attacking vulnerable Mexico City, he decided to lay the
foundation for a new government. In 1813 Morelos convened the National
Constituent Congress of Chilpancingo, which included representatives from
the rebel-controlled provinces. The congress discussed and approved an
ambitious program of political and social reforms, the Sentimientos de la
Nación (Sentiments of the Nation), which drew its inspiration from the
French Revolution. The delegates established a representative government,
abolished slavery and racial social distinctions, prohibited torture and
monopolies, and so forth. In one of his most radical reforms, Morelos called
for the termination of the Catholic church’s privileges and the compulsory
tithe exacted from poor parishioners, and demanded nationalization of the
large land estates.58
The Western Question? | 517

On November 6, 1813, the National Constituent Congress declared


inde­pend­ence, producing the first official document of its kind in Spanish
America. Yet as exhilarating as these developments were to Mexican reform-
ers, their aspirations were ultimately thwarted by the failure to win the war.
If Hidalgo’s uprising had surprised wealthy criollos, Morelos’s vision for a
radical sociopolitical transformation increased their hostility and strength-
ened their resolve to fight. Morelos was defeated at Valladolid on December
23–24, 1813, and at Puruaran on January 5, 1814. By mid-spring the
Patriots had lost all their gains in the south and the National Constituent
Congress was forced to evacuate to a safer location. Guiding the legislature
through royalist territory, Morelos came under a royalist attack at Tezmalaca
(November 5, 1815), where he was decisively defeated, captured, and exe-
cuted. His death marked a turning point for the revolution in New Spain.
Deprived of capable and charismatic leaders, the rebels chose to accept the
more conciliatory policies of the new viceroy, Juan Jose Ruiz de Apodaca,
who offered amnesty to any Patriot who laid down his arms. The First
Mexican Revolution came to an end.59

Meanwhile, more than a thousand miles farther south, in the Viceroyalty of


Río de La Plata, the news of the French takeover of Spain had not only sur-
prised the local authorities, which were still celebrating their victories over
two British expeditions just two years earlier, but emboldened the peninsula-
res who wished to return to the old order. The revolutionary processes in Río
de la Plata proved to be complex and multifaceted, involving not only out-
side interventions but regional disintegration within the viceroyalty itself.
In this regard the conflict of two colonial centers—the viceregal capital city
of Buenos Aires and Montevideo, the capital of the Banda Oriental prov-
ince of Río de la Plata—is particularly central. In 1806–1807 both cities
resisted British invasions, providing matériel and human resources to expel
the invaders. Then their paths diverged. “The powerful merchants of Buenos
Aires . . . resented Montevideo’s commercial autonomy, the need to maintain
agents in the city and the required payment of taxes and fees to local authori-
ties there.”60 During the British invasion of 1807, Montevideo served as a key
commercial entrepôt for British goods in Río de la Plata and greatly bene-
fited from trade with the United States and Portugal, much to the chagrin of
the neighbors in Buenos Aires.61
During the political crisis triggered by the French occupation of Spain, the
two cities found themselves increasingly at odds. In 1808 Napoleon’s emissary
Claude Henri Étienne Marquis de Sassenay arrived in Buenos Aires, request-
ing local authorities to pledge allegiance to Joseph Bonaparte. The French-born
518 | the napoleonic wars

interim viceroy of Río de la Plata, Jacques de Liniers, vacillated over his


response, leading the governor of Montevideo, Francisco Javier de Elío, and
his cabildo to raise suspicions about the viceroy’s loyalty and to challenge his
legitimacy. After rejecting Napoleon’s request and swearing loyalty to Spain’s
Supreme Junta, Liniers attempted to assert his authority over Montevideo, a
popular move among the mercantile elites of Buenos Aires. However,
Montevideo vigorously resisted Liniers’s power grab. When Liniers’s agent
Juan Ángel de Michelena arrived in the city in late September 1808, he was
greeted with a popular revolt that prevented the removal of Governor Elío and
soon led to the formation of a junta gubernativa (governing council) that
rejected the authority of Buenos Aires and swore loyalty to Ferdinand VII.62
In June 1809, the Supreme Central Junta in Seville (Spain) dispatched
Admiral Baltasar Hidalgo de Cisneros y Latorre to restore order in Río de la
Plata. On his arrival, Liniers relinquished office and Cisneros restored royalist
control in the region, forming the Political Surveillance Court to root out the
supporters of “French ideologies.”63 But he faced new challenges in Upper
Peru, where juntas had been formed in Chuquisaca on May 25 and La Paz on
July 16. In October Cisneros sent royalist forces to restore order in both
places. In doing so, however, he inadvertently drew down the Spanish garri-
son in Buenos Aires and gave greater leverage to the criollo-controlled mili-
tias. In May 1810 news of the dissolution of the Seville junta and the
establishment of the Regency Council of Spain convinced many criollos that
with both the king and the junta now removed from power, Cisneros no
­longer had any legitimacy to govern. The viceroy tried to maintain the polit-
ical status quo, but a group of criollo lawyers and military officials organized
an open cabildo, which, after a weeklong (May 18–25) series of discussions,
denied recognition to the Regency Council of Spain and declared the estab-
lishment of the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata under the control of
the Primera Junta in Buenos Aires.64
This was the first successful revolution in South America. It also unleashed
the Argentine War of Independence, which raged for the next eight years.65
The Primera Junta claimed authority over the entire viceroyalty of Río de la
Plata, generating political disputes with other regional centers. Thus just as
Buenos Aires sought to break away from Spain, Montevideo rejected its author-
ity and embraced royalism, becoming a bastion of Spanish loyalism and mon-
archism in South America. Furthermore, the Regency Council of Spain
declared Buenos Aires a rogue city and moved the viceregal capital to
Montevideo, where Elío was appointed the new viceroy. At the same time,
the former viceroy, Liniers, organized a royalist uprising in Córdoba (about
450 miles from Buenos Aires) and expected reinforcements from the
The Western Question? | 519

n­ eighboring (and still royalist) Viceroyalty of Peru to suppress the revolution


at Buenos Aires.
The Primera Junta’s first decision was to suppress the uprising in Upper
Peru. In early July a small expeditionary force, under Colonel Francisco Ortiz
de Ocampo, was dispatched there. The expedition first stopped at Córdoba,
where it defeated and captured Liniers and the other leaders of the Córdoba
counterrevolution. After Ocampo balked at executing these prisoners, he was
removed from command. A political commissioner, Juan José Castelli, put the
Córdoba prisoners to death on August 26, 1810, while Antonio González
Balcarce, who had replaced Ocampo as a military commander, moved to con-
solidate the Primera Junta’s authority in Upper Peru. Despite being defeated at
Cotagaita (October 27, 1810), the Patriots triumphed at the subsequent battle
of Suipacha (November 7), which gave Buenos Aires control over the region;
the royalist leaders, including generals Vicente Nieto, Francisco de Paula Sanz,
and José de Córdoba y Rojas, were captured and executed. As Castelli consid-
ered crossing the Desaguadero River and invading the Viceroyalty of Peru, the
royalist Captain General José Manuel de Goyeneche counterattacked with his
Peruvian troops and crushed the Patriots at Huaqui (Guaqui) on June 20,
1811, opening the path for the royalist invasion of the Río de la Plata.66
The setbacks in Paraguay and Upper Peru resulted in the Primera Junta
being replaced by an executive Triumvirate, comprising Manuel de Sarratea,
Juan José Paso, and Feliciano Chiclana, in September 1811. The new govern-
ment was convinced that if Peru remained in royalist hands, independence
throughout South America would be threatened. To this end, the Triumvirate
reorganized the Army of the North and appointed General Manuel Belgrano
to lead it. Facing the far stronger royalist army of General Juan Pío de Tristán,
Belgrano resorted to scorched-earth tactics and organized the Jujuy Exodus,
evacuating thousands of inhabitants of Jujuy and Salta provinces while
destroying the countryside. The stratagem worked. Belgrano was able to
defeat the royalists at the decisive battle of Tucumán (September 24–25,
1812) before forcing the bulk of the royalist army to surrender at Salta on
February 20, 1813. These victories not only safeguarded the Patriot govern-
ment in Buenos Aires but ensured its authority over most of the northern
territories of the former Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata—although the
royalist victories Vilcapugio (October 1, 1813) and Ayohuma (November 14)
meant that the war continued here with intermittent success.
A civil war had also erupted in the Banda Oriental (modern Uruguay).
Montevideo had long sought greater autonomy within the viceroyalty of Río
de la Plata, but it was the political crisis caused by the Napoleonic Wars that
allowed its mercantile elites to achieve their goal.67 Their preferred political
520 | the napoleonic wars

option was royalism and, throughout 1809–1810, the local royalists consoli-
dated their power under the leadership of Viceroy Elío. Yet support for mon-
archism was not unanimous in the Banda Oriental and faced stiff resistance
from republican factions led by José Gervasio Artigas Arnal. On February 28,
1811, the local republican patriots issued the famous “Grito de Asencio” (Cry
of Asencio), urging their Argentine brethren to help them in their struggle
against the royalists. The appeal opened a new, Uruguayan theater in the
ongoing civil wars as the invading Argentine forces clashed with the royalists
throughout April–June 1811. Victory at Las Piedras, on May 18, allowed the
Patriots to march directly on Montevideo but the resultant siege failed in
October. To resist the revolutionaries, Elio sought aid from the Portuguese
queen, Carlota Joaquina. The Portuguese, who had long had aspirations to
acquire the Banda Oriental, wasted no time in seizing the opportunity. The
queen convinced her husband to intervene, and before British ambassador
Strangford could do anything, the Brazilian Portuguese army, some 4,000
men strong, invaded the region and forced the Patriots to break their siege in
July 1811.
As thrilled as Elío was by this success, he soon realized the grave mistake
he had made in inviting the Portuguese. Portuguese commander Diego de
Souza assured the local population that the Portuguese monarchy had no
intention of conquering the region, but he also showed no intention to leave,
claiming the continued need to defend this region from republican attacks.
Thus small-scale hostilities persisted throughout 1812–1813 until a British
mediation resulted in the conclusion of the Rademaker-Herrera Treaty
between the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata and the Empire of
Portugal (May 26, 1812) that ended the Portuguese intervention in the
Banda Oriental.68
After the Portuguese departed in the summer of 1812, the Argentine
Patriots, now led by Manuel de Sarratea, launched a new invasion of the
Banda Oriental and besieged Montevideo for a second time. As in the previ-
ous year, they did not have the land strength to storm the walls or the navy
to blockade the harbor. To address the latter problem, the United Provinces
of the Río de la Plata acquired ships from the United States and formed its
own squadron under command of William Brown, an Irishman who had
formerly served in the Royal Navy against the French and now emerged as
“the father of the Argentine navy.” In June 1814 Brown’s fleet, crewed by
British and American sailors, conducted a methodical campaign in the Río
de la Plata, and its naval blockade of Montevideo allowed the Argentine army
to seize the city in June 1814, thus ending the royalist presence in the Banda
Oriental.69 Instead of joining Argentina in the United Provinces of Río de la
The Western Question? | 521

Plata, however, Artigas decided that the Banda Oriental would remain inde-
pendent. In 1814 he organized the Unión de los Pueblos Libres (Union of the
Free Peoples), of which he was declared protector. The following year he
defeated the invading Argentine forces and reorganized the Union of the Free
People into the Federal League, which stood independent of the United
Provinces of the Río de la Plata as well as of Spain.70
Meanwhile, the Primera Junta was preoccupied with the Intendancy of
Paraguay, which rejected its authority and prompted an invasion of the
Patriot force under General Manuel Belgrano. Expecting little opposition,
the Patriots gained an early victory at Campichuelo in December 1810, then
were routed in the battles of Paraguari (January 19, 1811) and Tacuari (March
9, 1811) and forced to retreat. These victories emboldened many Paraguayan
patriots, including José Gaspar Rodríguez de Francia, who had resisted the
invasion but had no desire to see royalism prevail. Instead, flushed with vic-
tory earned without royal aid, they chose to turn the defeat of Belgrano into
the launching pad for their own liberation. The Paraguayan campaign thus
developed into a conflict between the criollos themselves. Those supporting
the Primera Junta clashed with their Paraguayan counterparts who did not
want to be controlled by Buenos Aires. On May 17, 1811, Paraguay broke its
links with the Spanish crown and the Buenos Aires–based junta and declared
its independence.71

In New Granada (modern-day Colombia), Viceroy Antonio José Amar y


Borbón, rejected the criollos’ demands and opposed the junta movement.
Upon learning that a junta was formed in Quito on August 10, 1809, he
dispatched royalist troops to restore order but struggled to suppress new
juntas appearing in other locations. By late July, however, he himself was
deposed and a junta was formed in Bógota itself.72 The viceroyalty was soon
divided into regions that supported juntas and the royalist areas. The prov-
inces of Guayana and Maracaibo, in the eastern and western portions of the
viceroyalty, remained royalist and royalist forces continued to control of key
areas in the south (including Popayán and Pasto) and the north (Santa Marta,
near Cartagena). The juntas failed to form a common front and soon quar-
reled over contrasting visions for the future of the viceroyalty. Some champi-
oned a loose confederation of states that would pursue their own domestic
policies while accepting the authority of the federal government, the United
Provinces of New Granada. Other juntas, most notably that of Bógota, which
had long served as a capital of the viceroyalty and therefore had much to lose
in a decentralized system, insisted on a more centralized leadership. The
Bógota leaders rejected the confederation plans and instead formed their
522 | the napoleonic wars

own state of Cundinamarca, which fell under the “semi-dictatorial authority”


of Antonio Nariño.73 In the neighboring Venezuela captaincy general, the
Caracas junta faced resistance from the royalist-leaning city of Coro, whose
governor, José Ceballos, refused to accept its authority.74 Denouncing Ceballos
as an agent, the junta mobilized some 4,000 men against him but suffered a
sudden defeat from the much smaller but more inspired royalist force at Toro,
on the outskirts of Coro, on November 28, 1810. The defeat precipitated a
political crisis in Caracas, where a special congress was convened to deter-
mine the future government.
The political debates at the congress reflected the growing appeal of rad-
ical voices, like those of Francisco de Miranda and Simón Bolívar, who had
returned after unsuccessfully seeking British recognition and aid, and insisted
on a complete break with the Spanish monarchy.75 Although the First
Venezuelan Republic was declared on July 5, 1811, it proved to be short-
lived. A devastating earthquake hit republican provinces in March 1812,
killing thousands and destroying much of existing infrastructure. Then a
royalist counteroffensive under Domingo de Monteverde defeated the revolu-
tionaries at the Battle of San Mateo (La Victoria, June 20 and 29, 1812) and
brought the capital of Caracas back under Spanish control. Miranda’s deci-
sion to accept a capitulation agreement on July 25, 1812, shocked his repub-
lican supporters, including Bolívar, who condemned it as a treasonous act
and, along with other officers, arrested Miranda and then handed him over to
the Spanish army. Once a great champion of colonial independence, Miranda
spent the last five years of his life in a Spanish prison.
Bolívar assumed the mantle of leadership of the Venezuelan forces under
the direction of the Congress of United Provinces of New Granada. In the
summer of 1813 he launched his “Admirable Campaign” to free Venezuela
from Spanish control. In late May, his forces entered the town of Merida,
where he was proclaimed “El Libertador” (the Liberator), the sobriquet by
which he would be known throughout South America. Two weeks later he
seized Trujillo and issued his infamous decree “Guerra a Muerte” (War to the
Death) decree on June 15, which ordered the extermination of all Spaniards
who refused to change sides and support the revolution. This brutal measure
represented a deliberate rejection of the rules of war in pursuit of the specific
political goal of splitting the royalist opposition. It did produce short-term
gains, as republican forces reclaimed Caracas and established the Second
Venezuelan Republic, with Bolívar as its leader. But the republicans failed to
secure the countryside, where the royalists continued to draw considerable
support; neither could they prevent the landing of Spanish reinforcements at
Puerto Cabello that further bolstered royalist forces.
The Western Question? | 523

Despite victories at Mosquiteros (October 14, 1813) and Araure


(December 5), the republicans suffered from internal divisions and intrigues
that prevented them from forming a common front. In 1814, the royalist
general José Tomás Boves led a new counteroffensive, delivering a crushing
defeat to Bolívar at La Puerta on June 15, 1814, and seizing control over
much of Venezuela. With the second republic destroyed, Bolívar had no
choice but to flee to New Granada, where he tried rallying his supporters
only to find himself engaged in a fight with rival republicans. Frustrated, he
fled the country in disgrace and sought shelter in Haiti, where he was wel-
comed by Alexandre Pétion, the president of the newly independent Haitian
republic, who promised material and military support to him.76 Bolívar’s
return to Venezuela in 1816 launched a new phase of the wars of in­de­pend­
ence that would continue for almost a decade.
While revolutions raged in New Granada, New Spain, and Río de la
Plata, the viceroyalty of Peru remained solidly royalist. The viceroy of Peru
José Fernando de Abascal y Sousa was a talented administrator who played a
crucial role in organizing armies to suppress uprisings in Upper Peru and
successfully containing the aspirations of the Argentine junta. He was unable
to prevent the spread of the junta movement in his viceroyalty, however. The
Captaincy General of Chile, an autonomous region since 1778, witnessed the
establishment of a junta in Santiago in September 1810. The junta pledged
allegiance to King Ferdinand VIII but also proclaimed Chile an autonomous
republic within the Spanish monarchy and organized the first National
Congress of Chile in 1811. By now, the more radical Patriots had called for
Chile’s complete independence from Spain and organized a coup that was led
by José Miguel Carrera (a newly returned veteran of the Peninsular campaigns)
and his two brothers Juan José and Luis Carrera. Yet the pro-in­de­pend­ence
camp was deeply split along lines of patronage and personality. In early 1813
Viceroy Abascal tried to restore the royalist authority in Chile, dispatching
some 6,000 men under Antonio Pareja to Santiago. In the ensuing campaign,
Carrera was outmaneuvered and outfought by his royalist opponent, result-
ing in his dismissal.
The Chilean criollos now rallied under the leadership of Bernardo
O’Higgins, a prominent criollo of Spanish and Irish ancestry, who fought the
royalists to a standstill and negotiated the Treaty of Lircay, which ended hos-
tilities but also reaffirmed Chile as an integral part of the Spanish monarchy.
Outraged by this concession, the Carreras and their supporters rejected the
treaty and challenged O’Higgins’s authority. The Patriots’ descent into civil
strife was halted by the news of a royalist offensive in the fall of 1814.
Although Carrera and O’Higgins pledged to join forces against the common
524 | the napoleonic wars

enemy, their eventual discord ensured a royalist victory at Rancagua on


October 2, 1814.
This last battle was a crushing defeat for the Patriots. Of some 1,700 men,
O’Higgins lost 600 killed, 300 wounded, and another 400 taken prisoner.
With the royalists entering Santiago, he and the few remaining troops (along
with their families) had no choice but to flee across the Andes to the United
Province of Río de La Plata, where they welcomed by José de San Martín, the
new governor of Cuyo Province. A veteran of the Peninsular campaigns
against the French, San Martín had left Spain upon receiving news of politi-
cal tumult in South America in 1812. Joining the Patriot forces, he distin-
guished himself by forming a regiment of horse grenadiers whose superb
discipline and training made it one of the best units in all of South America.
Appointed the governor of Cuyo, he reorganized local forces and put the
entire region on a war economy of rations, forced loans and compulsory labor.
With the Chilean patriots beseeching him for help, San Martin proposed a
grand plan for winning the war. Instead of taking the usual path through
Upper Peru, he suggested launching an attack across the snowy passes of the
Gran Cordillera in the north-central Andes. Over the next two years, with
crucial political and material support from Juan Martín de Pueyrredón,
supreme director of the United Provinces, San Martín laid the groundwork
for the eventual reconquest of royalist Chile.
chapter 21 The Turning Point, 1812

B y the start of the second decade of the nineteenth century, Napoleon


had achieved what no one had been able to accomplish in a thousand
years: supremacy over continental Europe. In terms of square miles of territory
under French control, 1810 marked the height of the Napoleonic Empire.
After Austria’s defeat in the previous year, Napoleon extended his control
southward along the Adriatic coast, and, because his brother Louis had shown
himself more sympathetic to Dutch than to French interests, incorporated the
Dutch kingdom directly into the French Empire. With new acquisitions
along the North Sea coast, France proper now consisted of 130 departments
(instead of the original 83), while its imperial authority stretched across a vast
area—from the Baltic shores of the Danish Peninsula to the Adriatic coastlines
of Italy and Dalmatia, from Andalusia in Spain to the borders of the Russian
Empire. Napoleon was practically unchallenged on the continent.
Yet beneath the apparent strength and stability of the empire lurked a
number of worrisome signs. The fall of the Mascarene Islands and Java in
1811 meant that Napoleon no longer had any overseas colonies left. The
British victory was, in fact, so complete that it marked an end to more than
two hundred years of European maritime imperial rivalry in Asia. Britain
also, as we’ve seen now, enjoyed ascendancy in Iran and Arabia, while the
Royal Navy controlled the seas. The situation was equally dire for the French
interests in the Western Hemisphere, where Napoleon no longer had any
footing whatever: the Louisiana Territory had become an American domain,
Haiti was independent, the remaining French islands in the Caribbean had
been seized by the British, and Spanish America, which Napoleon had hoped
to sway, quickly descended into civil strife.
The question then arises: had Napoleon managed to sustain his authority
in Europe, would the outcome of the Napoleonic Wars have been different in
526 | the napoleonic wars

light of these global developments? France had lost a global war and now
could only hope to win a regional one. But even in Europe Napoleon faced
considerable challenges. His mistreatment of the pope earned him the bitter
enmity of many Catholics. The war in Spain continued to sap financial and
human resources with no tangible gains to show for it. The Ottoman Empire,
war-fatigued as it was, did formally remain Napoleon’s ally but was increas-
ingly distancing itself from France. The Continental System had aroused
widespread resentment, including in France, where the economic crisis of
1810–1811 revealed signs of growing discontent among the bourgeoisie,
hitherto Napoleon’s strongest supporter. The French model of government
and administration may have stood for efficiency and uniformity but had
little appeal for the common people, whether rural or urban, who resented
increased taxation, conscription, and the efficient police forces that came
with them. Reforms, no matter how enlightened and progressive, lost much
of their appeal when they came from the barrel of a gun.
Indeed, French imperial power had awakened the force of the national
spirit in Italy, Holland, and the German states, where French occupation
aroused patriotic reaction on the part of educated elites and eventually com-
mon people. National sentiments were stirring in Prussia, where prominent
German writers and philosophers who turned against Napoleon devoted
their great talents to nationalist propaganda and fostering a new sense of
freedom.1 The earlier military defeats and resulting deep sense of embar-
rassment and humiliation helped change the very nature of the German
Enlightenment thought, imparting it with romantic and nationalist traits at
the expense of its earlier cosmopolitanism and rationalism. German and
Austrian political leaders fostered this national spirit as a weapon against
Napoleonic imperialism, with Prussian reforms exploiting the groundswell
of patriotic feelings to strengthen the state and the Habsburg monarchy
approving a national propaganda campaign.2 Similarly, Italian writers and
thinkers, even those who initially welcomed the French in 1796–1797, grew
disillusioned with Napoleon and engaged in a fierce polemic in prose and
verse whose call for Italian unity reverberated through a generation.3
Napoleon’s decision to invade Russia in the summer of 1812 was his
greatest effort to sustain the French imperium in Europe. It resulted in war
on a colossal scale and produced results diametrically opposite to those the
French emperor wished to attain. The six-month-long campaign furnished
numerous episodes of triumph and hardship, transcendent courage and wan-
ton depravity, but it offered many military lessons as well. In the grandeur of
its conception, its execution, and its abysmal end, this war had no analogy
until the German invasion of the USSR in June 1941.
The Turning Point, 1812 | 527

20° 25° 30° 35°

St. Petersburg

Advance of the Grande Armée


Retreat of the Grande Armée
Marshal Macdonald's X Corps

a
e
S
c
i

Riga
t
l
a
B

55° Memel
Gulf of
Danzig
Tauroggen
Königsberg Niem
Tilsit en
Kovno Polotsk
Danzig Moscow
Elbing
S IA Vitebsk
Valutino
Gzhatsk
Borodino
US Vilna
PR Ostrovno Lubino Vereja
ST Smorgoni Borovsk Vinkovo
EA Oshmiana Studienka Inkovo Vyazma
Orsha Tarutino
DUCHY OF Borisov Maloyaroslavets
Grodno Minsk Krasnyi Smolensk
WARSAW
Mogilev Oka
ina

Slonim
0 50 100 Kilometers
Berez

Warsaw
0 50 100 Miles

Map 25: Russian Campaign, 1812

The conflict between Russia and France began without formal declara-
tions of war, but it did not come as a surprise to contemporaries. Relations
between the two empires had become increasingly tense in 1808–1811.4
Napoleon’s Continental System, which Alexander had agreed to join under
the terms of Tilsit, proved highly disadvantageous to the Russian economy.
Russia was still a largely agrarian empire and heavily depended on exports of
its key raw materials. The number of manufacturing plants gradually grew
but, compared to Britain or France, Russia’s industrial base lagged far behind.
To export its resources, it relied less on its merchant navy and more on a
foreign merchant marine, with Britain as the leading trade partner. The
Continental System thus caused considerable hardship due to the disappear-
ance of trade with Britain, whose purchasing power was very hard to replace.
In 1802, during the Peace of Amiens, out of 986 merchant ships that visited
the Russian ports of St. Petersburg and Kronstadt 477 were British; only five
were French.5
The negative effects of the Continental System were augmented by the
start of the Russo-Swedish and Russo-Turkish Wars, which further limited
Russia’s trading partners. Russian ports became stockpiled with raw materi-
als (grain, hemp, tallow, flax, timber, leather, cattle, iron, etc.) that could not
be sold. Prices for exports fell precipitously, while prices of imports sharply
increased.6 The Russian frustration with the Continental System culminated
528 | the napoleonic wars

in 1810 when Britain suffered from a poor harvest, whereas Russia had a
bountiful one. Napoleon permitted (and heavily taxed) the export of grain
from French control ports to Britain, but Russia could not sell any of its har-
vest to the British despite having the lowest prices anywhere on the conti-
nent. Needless to say, Russian landlords were fuming about this.
In 1807 French merchants had had high hopes of replacing their British
rivals on the Russian market. Three years later they were facing the grim
reality of losing their footing there. Due to the ongoing war with the British,
they could not maintain direct maritime trade with Russia, which in 1808
received no French ships at all. This left land trade as the only alternative,
though conveyance of goods across central and eastern Europe was signifi-
cantly slower and more expensive, undercutting profits. The developing cri-
sis in the Russian economy was of great concern for France, given that many
of its own industries relied on the Russian market. Shortly after the start of
the Continental System, the Lyon Chamber of Commerce, for example,
warned Napoleon that the French silk industry was on the brink of devasta-
tion because of the loss of the Russian market. Aside from the vast distances
involved, Franco-Russian commercial relations were hampered by a lack of
credit and rapidly depreciating Russian money.7 The termination of trade
with Britain could not have hit Russia at a worse time: its economy was
already saddled with a heavy foreign debt, while the national deficit, which
stood at about 7 million rubles in 1801, reached 143 million rubles in 1809.8
This contributed to the collapsing value of the paper ruble, made worse
by the government’s attempt to cover the growing deficit by printing more.9
As a result, the value of the paper ruble plummeted from a high of 67 silver
kopecks in June 1807 to just 25 kopecks in December 1810. This had a dra-
matic effect on the cost of maintaining Russian armies in far-flung regions of
the empire and waging wars on several fronts. By 1812 Russia was facing
economic calamity, as the actual value of the state’s tax income was just
­two-thirds of what it had been prior to Tilsit.10
Starting in 1810, the Russian government took measures to stabilize the
economy, reducing the amount of money printed, raising taxes, cutting
spending, and restricting the import of luxury items through prohibitive
tariffs. Alexander agreed to impose tariffs on luxury items (which were mostly
French) and to relax restrictions for vessels under neutral flags, regardless of
whose goods they carried. As trade rebounded at the Russian ports, Napoleon
raged that “the Spanish, Portuguese, American, Swedish, and even French
flags serve as a disguise for English trade. All these vessels are English; they
are loaded for English commerce and with English merchandise.” If Russia
would only make serious efforts to counteract such trade, he believed, Britain
The Turning Point, 1812 | 529

would be on its knees within a year.11 Instead, in 1811, Alexander’s new


decrees effectively took Russia out of the Continental System.
Poland was one of the crucial sources of friction between the two leaders.
Napoleon’s creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, “a splinter in the body
of Russia,” as Emperor Alexander once described it, awakened Russian fears
of a full reconstitution of Polish lands and national identity. Napoleon
rebuffed Russian efforts to secure written guarantees that Poland would never
be restored. He believed that the Duchy of Warsaw must endure as a strategic
barrier against Russia: “The interests of France, those of Germany and Europe
require it; the policy commands it . . . and honor demands it.”12 Franco-
Russian interests also clashed over the future of the Ottoman Empire;
Alexander’s ambition of securing the Dardanelles appeared to be a move that
Napoleon—fearing Russian interference in the Mediterranean—was deter-
mined to block. Neither could Russia and France agree on their designs to
partition the Balkan Peninsula. Moreover, Napoleon’s reorganization of the
Confederation of the Rhine affected one of Russia’s core interests in Europe.
The Russian imperial house had long-standing familial connections with the
German ruling princes, some of whom had seen their status affected by
Napoleon. Alexander’s own brother-in-law lost his domain when Napoleon
annexed the Duchy of Oldenburg to France in 1810, a move that Alexander
perceived as a deliberate insult, though the actual cause of it had been the
Duke of Oldenburg’s violation of the provisions of the Continental System,
permitting British products to be smuggled into the duchy.13
It was apparent by the end of the first decade of the nineteenth century
that the political settlement reached at Tilsit had outlived its course and that
a new European war would soon ignite in Europe. French foreign minister
Jean-Baptiste de Nompère de Champagny’s “Report on Continental Affairs”
(1810) argued that the alliance with Russia had served its purpose and that
France should return to its traditional reliance on the Ottoman Empire,
Sweden, and Poland to contain the “Russian imperial colossus.”14 Alexander
and his advisors had also reached the conclusion that war with France was
imminent, and therefore sought to entice Berlin and Vienna to turn against
Napoleon. But the French presence in the Germanic states and the defeat of
Austria in 1809 left little choice for these countries other than to submit to
Napoleon.15 According to a treaty signed on February 24, 1812, Prussia
agreed to allow French and allied forces free passage through its territory and
to supply 20,000 troops for a possible campaign against Russia; Prussia
would also provide the French military with necessary supplies.16
France likewise negotiated an alliance with Austria. Having suffered four
defeats at Napoleon’s hands in the preceding fifteen years, Austria was not
530 | the napoleonic wars

particularly interested in defying France, and the memories of Russia’s sup-


port of France against Austria in 1809 remained fresh. In 1810–1812
Napoleon endeavored to tie Austria closer to France. His marriage to Austrian
archduchess Marie Louise was the first step in this direction, followed by
overtures to convince the Austrian emperor, Francis I, to accept an alliance.
Austrian foreign minister Metternich exploited this opportunity to pursue a
more conciliatory, yet pragmatic, policy of maintaining good relations with
France—so long as Napoleon was on top of his game. In the new Treaty of
Paris (March 14, 1812), France and Austria pledged mutual support and
Austria agreed to raise an auxiliary corps of 30,000 men, under Karl Philipp,
Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, that would report to Napoleon’s supreme command
in case of a war against Russia. Austria, however, played a duplicitous game.
One month later Metternich assured Emperor Alexander that Austria would
not pursue any war aggressively.17
Although Napoleon’s overall strategy for any war against Russia consid-
ered the use of Sweden and the Ottoman Empire to form his extreme flanks,
he was unable to exercise influence over either power. Sweden, though led by
a former French marshal, Bernadotte, formed an alliance with Russia in April
1812. By the terms of the Treaty of St. Petersburg, the two nations pledged
to “ensure safety of their possessions and the independence of the North,
which are equally threatened by the ambitious and predatory plans of France.”
St. Petersburg and Stockholm agreed to create a combined force to land in
Swedish Pomerania, which had been seized by France, and Russia agreed to
aid Sweden in annexing Norway either by negotiations with Denmark or by
rendering military assistance.18 The treaty had immediate consequences as
well, as it secured Russia’s northern frontiers and freed up military forces
deployed in Finland. As for the Ottomans, their traditional alliance with
France made them a natural ally for Napoleon, but their six-year war against
Russia had been disastrous. Their armies were defeated and their treasury
exhausted. As noted, Russia achieved a significant diplomatic success in May
1812 when the Turks agreed to sign the Treaty of Bucharest. Although com-
pelled to surrender most of its conquests in the Danubian Principalities,
Russia did retain Bessarabia and western Georgia, and, most important, freed
up the entire Army of the Danube to participate in military operations
against Napoleon.19
Between the spring of 1810 and summer of 1812 Napoleon undertook
preparations for war on a scale larger than any he had done before. The popu-
lar belief is that he underestimated the difficulties that lay before him.
Actually, he was well aware of the challenges he would face in Russia, and the
wide array of issues discussed in his correspondence during this period proves
The Turning Point, 1812 | 531

this. Together with a study of the history and geography of Russia, his previ-
ous campaigns in Poland had provided him with personal experience in
fighting in underpopulated areas that lacked supplies and good roads.20 He
warned that war in Russia would “in no way resemble one in Austria; with-
out means of transport, everything would become useless,” and that “we can
hope for nothing from the countryside and accordingly must take everything
with us.”21 New levies of conscripts were called up, and French garrisons in
northern Germany, particularly at Danzig and Hamburg, were reinforced.22
Napoleon then coordinated the organization and redeployment of the twelve
corps that made up his new Grande Armée, meticulously supervising the
movements and outfitting of tens of thousands of troops and the establish-
ment of a vast supply of ammunition depots to support them. The valley of
the Vistula River became a logistical base for the Grande Armée. Supply and
ammunition depots were set up at Danzig, Glogau, Küstrin, Stettin, Warsaw,
Modlin, Thorn, and Marienburg, and an enormous number of supply trains
were formed, tasked with transporting forty days’ worth of supplies during
the invasion.23
After the Russians scored a decisive victory over the Turks at Ruse in late
1811 and forced the sultan to sign an armistice, Napoleon fast-tracked his
preparations. By the spring of 1812 the Grande Armée of some 600,000
men, with 1,372 guns and 180,000 horses, had assembled in northern
Germany and the Duchy of Warsaw.24 Approximately half of its manpower
consisted of troops from Napoleon’s allies, including Austria, Prussia, Saxony,
Spain, Bavaria, Poland, and Italy. The army was divided into three primary
commands deployed in an area ranging from Tilsit to Lublin, with the center
and right wing remaining under direct command of the emperor, who,
despite the vastness of the theater of war—his forces were scattered over a
distance of some 250 miles—stayed true to his principle of unity of com-
mand. Russia fielded about 650,000 men in 1812, but they were scattered
throughout Moldavia, the Crimea, the Caucasus, Finland, and other regions,
leaving just 250,000 men with something over 900 guns in the western
provinces to fend off Napoleon’s invasion. These forces were organized in
three major armies and several separate corps, with Mikhail Barclay de Tolly
leading the First Western Army and Prince Peter Bagration in charge of the
Second Western Army.
On June 23–24 the Grande Armée crossed the Nieman River. Knowing
the scope of the Russian Empire, Napoleon planned to engage the Russians
as soon as possible and had every confidence that he could achieve victory
within three weeks by waging decisive battles in frontier regions. His first
intent upon crossing the Nieman was to envelop the enemy in a sweeping
532 | the napoleonic wars

flanking maneuver through Vilna.25 If successfully executed, this operation


would have defeated the Russian armies. Yet neither Napoleon’s advance to
Vilna to envelop the First Western Army nor his brother Jérôme’s effort to
pin down the Second Western Army succeeded. On June 28 Napoleon
reached Vilna, where the Polish residents received him with acclamation. He
knew better than to celebrate. The Vilna maneuver was Napoleon’s first
major operation of the war and it proved to be a failure, one that largely set
the tone for the next two and half months. The First and Second Western
Armies avoided direct confrontation with superior enemy forces and
embarked on a continuous retreat that eventually brought them to the gates
of Smolensk. As they withdrew, the Russians turned to a scorched-earth
policy, destroying supplies and provisions to deny resources to the enemy.
The searing heat and torrential rains further hampered Napoleon’s plans and
led to unexpectedly high losses for the Grande Armée. By July 1, hundreds
of decomposing animal carcasses choked the road from Kovno to Vilna.
Events around Vilna showed how the sheer size of the Grande Armée
sapped its leadership’s ability to cope with challenges. The dramatic increase
in the size of units produced vacancies for commissioned and noncommis-
sioned officers, which were filled with less-than-suitable candidates; just
eight days into the campaign, Napoleon himself complained about his staff
officers and the fact that “nothing gets done.”26 Indeed, internal reports and
correspondence reveal that Napoleon’s headquarters operated in a fog of war.
Despite having experienced military intelligence and a strong cavalry force,
the French headquarters had rather limited knowledge about the enemy’s
location and virtually nothing about its intentions. Even simple tasks such as
identifying villages and routes became difficult, causing Marshal Berthier to
grumble that “the maps we currently use are not sufficiently detailed and we
do not really know where [units] are located.”27 A day later it was Napoleon’s
turn to complain that “our maps are so deficient that they are practically
unusable.”28
Even more worrisome were the logistics. Almost as soon as it crossed into
Russia, the Grande Armée began encountering problems that undermined
its operations. In previous campaigns Napoleon’s troops had dispersed to
subsist off the land and frequently remained on the move to avoid exhausting
a region’s resources. This campaign should have been no exception to this
practice, and the very timing of the invasion points to Napoleon’s intention
to take full advantage of the harvest cycle. The late summer would have pro-
vided fresh crops of hay and oats to replenish his stocks. However, Napoleon’s
earlier campaigns had been conducted in central Europe’s densely populated
and well-developed regions, places where the agricultural revolution and a
The Turning Point, 1812 | 533

compact network of first-rate roads (in many cases, paved chaussées) had cre-
ated a favorable environment for the mobile style of warfare that Napoleon
preferred. By comparison, Russia’s western provinces were among the most
underdeveloped regions in Europe. Napoleon and his commanders quickly
realized that the heavy four-horse caissons could not, for the most part, be
used in Russia because of their weight and the condition of roads (especially
after heavy rains), forcing them to switch to smaller carts seized from the
locals. This, however, resulted in delays and disorder. Thus in the first few
weeks of the war it was not so much lack of supplies that affected Napoleon’s
men as the inability to transport stocks to them in timely fashion.
The first month of the war also showed mixed results for the Russians.
On the diplomatic front they had negotiated treaties not only with Sweden
and the Ottoman Empire but also with Britain. The Treaties of Örebro,
signed between Russia, Sweden, and Britain on July 18, 1812, put an end to
the conflicts that these nations had been engaged in and paved the way for
their cooperation against France, effectively laying the foundation for the
establishment of the Sixth Coalition, which fought Napoleon in 1813–1814.29
Two days later, in the Treaty of Velikie Luki, Russia became the first great
power to officially recognize the representatives of the Spanish Cortes, which
was waging a bloody guerrilla war against Napoleon; both sides agreed to
coordinate their struggles against France.30
However, as key as these diplomatic successes were, they failed to deliver
what Russia needed the most—immediate military support against the invad-
ing Grande Armée. Sweden preferred to wait and see the outcome of the war
before openly confronting Napoleon.31 Britain’s position was more complex.
Though much has been made in the historical literature of British shipments of
weapons, the reality is that despite its promises to provide 150,000 muskets,
less than a third of that was actually delivered before the war was over. And even
then Britain sold, at inflated prices, older weaponry that turned out to be of
larger caliber than the existing Russian ammunition.32 As a result, it had to be
retrofitted at the Russian arsenals at additional cost.33 Neither was Britain will-
ing to provide subsidies to alleviate Russian military expenses. Castlereagh
informed the Russian envoy that the war had distressed British finances.34
Britain’s financial position had indeed been weakened by the effects of the
Continental System, the poor harvests of 1810–1811 (which contributed to
popular unrest in the Midlands and North of England), and the outbreak of
large-scale Luddite riots against new industrial technology.35 Moreover, the
British were not fully convinced that Russia would be able to resist Napoleon
and were concerned that Emperor Alexander might be compelled to accept
another Tilsit-like agreement. Hence, their position was that should Russia
534 | the napoleonic wars

engage in a war with France, they were ready to help as far as they could without
providing direct and immediate aid. British statesmen believed that their prin-
cipal war efforts needed to be made in the Iberian Peninsula, where they could
do more to undermine the French war effort and thus indirectly help Russia.
As their armies united at Smolensk, the Russians faced a crisis of com-
mand, one that stemmed from discord between the old Russian aristocracy
and the foreign-born officers who had gained influence at the court and mili-
tary headquarters. The immediate cause of friction lay in the contrasting
strategic views evident among senior officers, who represented opposing par-
ties. Barclay de Tolly, the nominal commander in chief, was surrounded by a
group of officers (many of them of German descent) who supported the defen-
sive strategy and urged a continued Russian withdrawal to weaken Napoleon.
Opposing them was the much larger “Russian party,” led by Prince Bagration
(himself a Georgian), urging an immediate counteroffensive. Anti-Barclay
sentiments were so strong among the senior officers that they called for the
appointment of Bagration to the supreme command; some even encouraged
Bagration to replace Barclay de Tolly by force.
Bending to this pressure, Barclay de Tolly agreed to an offensive at
Smolensk, in an attempt to break through the French center and destroy the
remaining French corps piecemeal. But due to differences among the com-
manders—made worse by Barclay de Tolly’s indecision—precious time was
lost in futile maneuvering, which allowed Napoleon to recognize Russian
intentions and seize the initiative. In a maneuver that once again showcased
his operational skill, Napoleon moved more than 100,000 men across the
Dnieper River and, flanking the Russian forces, rapidly advanced on
Smolensk. Yet a resolute stand by a small Russian rear guard at Krasnyi
(August 14) halted the French movement and enabled the Russians to pre-
pare Smolensk for defense. On August 15–16 the Russians repulsed the
enemy assaults on Smolensk but were forced to abandon the city and with-
draw east toward Moscow.
Napoleon spent several days at Smolensk and could not conceal his frus-
tration. In the five weeks since crossing the Niemen, he had failed to bring
the enemy to battle and succeeded only in occupying a few towns and vil-
lages. The supply system had already begun to collapse, and the lack of provi-
sions caused significant disorder in the army, while bands of marauders who
had abandoned their units roamed the countryside. The scarcity of drinking
water during the hot midsummer season forced Napoleon’s men to consume
polluted water from swampy streams and lakes, which naturally resulted in
the outbreak of dysentery and other diseases, affecting tens of thousands of
troops.36 A Württembergian physician lamented that diarrhea “assumed such
The Turning Point, 1812 | 535

violent scope that it was impossible to assure normal service, let alone indulge
in any kind of drill. The houses were all filled with sick men, and in the camp
itself there was such a continuous running back and forth behind the front
that it was as though purgatives had been administered to entire regiments.”37
Attrition rates due to malnutrition, disease, and other factors were uncom-
monly high, and some units had already lost up to half of their strength.38
Napoleon seemed unsure about what course to take. He could halt his
operations and regroup. He had already considered such an idea at Vilna and
had told one of his officers that his intention was to advance as far as Smolensk
and then return to Vilna and establish winter quarters closer to the border.
But he based this plan on the assumption that the Russians would have been
defeated by now. As it stood, Napoleon had little to show after almost two
months of campaigning. Furthermore, several new factors had appeared to
complicate his circumstances. He had thought the Russian forces on the
flanks would follow the movements of their main armies, but the Third
Western Army of General Alexander Tormasov held ground and even scored
a major victory over Schwarzenberg in the south, while the Russian general
Peter Wittgenstein held his own against Marshals Oudinot and Saint-Cyr.
More important, the conclusion of peace between Russia and the Ottoman
Empire released the Russian Army of the Danube under Admiral Pavel
Vasilievich Chichagov, who clearly intended to move up from the Danubian
Principalities and threaten the right wing of the Grande Armée. The Russo-
Swedish negotiations promised to do the same in the north, where the
Franco-Prussian corps was already bogged down near Riga. Battles and stra-
tegic consumption had reduced the strength of the central army group to
fewer than 180,000 men.
Aside from logistical and operational concerns, Napoleon also had to
account for the political aspect of the war. He was not just a commander in
chief but also the head of state, presiding over a vast empire. In his mind,
political considerations rendered any retrograde movement unthinkable, as
it would appear tantamount to failure in the eyes of Europe and might jeop­
ard­ize the French imperium. For Napoleon, the only course was to continue
the advance in the hope of forcing the Russians to accept a decisive battle,
which would allow him to dictate peace terms. With at least two months of
good weather still ahead of him, he thought he had sufficient time to accom-
plish this.
The surrender of Smolensk created an uproar in the Russian army and in
Russian society at large, and caused Emperor Alexander to replace Barclay de
Tolly with General Mikhail Kutuzov, who had led the Russian troops at
Austerlitz seven year earlier. Assuming command at the end of August,
536 | the napoleonic wars

Kutuzov with­drew the combined Russian armies still farther to the east, tak-
ing positions near the village of Borodino, about seventy miles west of
Moscow. Here, on September 7, Napoleon finally got the decisive battle that
he had sought for so long.
Borodino was neither Austerlitz nor Wagram. In a savage and bloody
struggle involving close to 300,000 men, both sides displayed great bravery
and steadfastness but suffered horrendous losses—upward of 35,000 French
and 45,000 Russian killed or wounded in twelve hours of fighting.39 The
battle produced no decisive results militarily or politically. The Russian
emperor was unshaken in his determination to fight, while his army remained
unbroken and made an orderly retreat toward Moscow, which Napoleon
expected the Russians to defend. Moscow was the largest Russian city, had
served as the former capital, and was the very representation of the entire
country, which Europeans had long referred to as “Muscovy.”40 He was mis-
taken about what the Russians would do, however: in a striking decision, the
Russians ordered the evacuation of the entire city, a quarter million people—
the first time such an evacuation had been attempted in the modern era—and
abandoned it without a fight. On September 14, the French emperor rode
down the deserted streets of the great Russian city, which would soon be
completely destroyed in the ensuing conflagration. The fire was certainly not
a deliberate action by Napoleon, who had every reason to preserve the city.
Nor was it the outcome of long-term Russian planning, as has long been
alleged: the fire began while the Russian army was still withdrawing through
the city, and no Russian leader would have deliberately sanctioned such a
potentially catastrophic action. The conflagration was caused by a combi-
nation of factors. Moscow governor Fedor Rostopchin contributed to it by
ordering the destruction of a supply depot, as well as through his propaganda
broadsheets, which in the preceding weeks had shaped the popular psyche
and encouraged people to destroy their homes rather than see them despoiled
by the enemy. The general evacuation of Moscow was an unprecedented move
on the part of the Russian authorities, since no major European city had ever
been completely evacuated in the face of the enemy. The invading army
began its despoliation of the city almost immediately, providing the oppor-
tunity for fire to break out. And once the spark took hold, the spell of dry
weather combined with strong winds and a lack of firefighting equipment
(which had been evacuated) to spread the flames, which found plenty of fuel
in the thousands of wooden buildings. The fiery devastation of the Russian
capital had a profound effect on the troops of the Grande Armée, as they
were forced to billet amid the ruins, lacking proper provisions and shelter.
Discipline became lax; many turned to pillaging.41
The Turning Point, 1812 | 537

Napoleon spent thirty-six days in Moscow. It is impossible to explain, one


French general later observed, “this pertinacity in prolonging the stay of the
army in the center of Russia, amidst the smoking ruins of the ancient capital,
except by supposing that he was nearly certain of the speedy conclusion of
peace.”42 Simply abandoning Moscow and retreating was, in Napoleon’s
opinion, tantamount to acknowledging defeat. Yet staying in the burnt-out
city offered only bleak prospects for ending the war. Signing a peace treaty
could have offered a way out of this situation, but Napoleon’s repeated pro-
posals were rejected. Like many of his contemporaries, Napoleon had misread
Alexander’s character and believed that the Russian emperor lacked strength
of will.43 He sustained his hopes for peace with the recollections of Tilsit and
Erfurt, believing that the Francophiles in the Russian court would push
Alexander in that direction.44 Napoleon thus failed to understand how pro-
foundly his relationship with Alexander, as well as the mood of Russian soci-
ety, had changed. The tsar was well aware of the widespread displeasure that
prevailed in Russia over his perceived subservience to Napoleon. Such senti-
ments only further intensified in the wake of the continual withdrawal of the
Russian armies and loss of Russian provinces. Just days after the fall of Moscow,
Grand Duchess Catherine warned her brother of people’s exasperation.
“Discontent is at its highest and your person is far from being spared,” she
noted. “If such news reaches me, you can imagine the rest. You are openly
accused of having brought disaster upon your empire, of having caused gen-
eral ruin and the ruin of private individuals, lastly, of having lost the honor
of the country and your own personal honor. I leave it to you to judge the
state of affairs in a country whose leader is so despised.”45 Even had he desired
it, Alexander could not afford to compromise with the man who had invaded
and despoiled his realm: public opinion was against it, and any sign of weak-
ness on Alexander’s part might have led to tragic consequences. A second
Tilsit would have sealed the condemnation of his reign, and Alexander knew
only too well what happened to unpopular monarchs in Russia—the preced-
ing eighty years had witnessed a number of palace coups and murders of
reigning sovereigns, including Alexander’s own father.
With a Russian response to his peace offers not forthcoming, Napoleon
had no choice but to leave Moscow. The sudden defeat of one of his corps on
the river Chernishnya, north of Tarutino, on October 18 served a wake-up
call for the emperor, who realized the urgency of the need to abandon the
devastated ruins of Moscow before winter arrived and the Russians descended
upon him. His forces had dwindled to just 100,000 men, accompanied by
thousands of civilians and stragglers as well as an enormous baggage train
laden with loot. “Anyone who did not see the French army leave Moscow,”
538 | the napoleonic wars

observed one eyewitness, “can only have a very weak impression of what the
armies of Greece and Rome must have looked like when they marched back
from Troy and Carthage.”46 Traffic on this scale not only slowed the army’s
movements but also distracted the troops, many of whom were more con-
cerned about securing their portion of plunder than about maintaining
discipline.
Burdened as it was, the Grande Armée ground along, gridlocking when
encountering streams and defiles. To make matters worse, autumnal rains
turned the roads into rivers of mud. Although Napoleon had gained a tactical
victory at Maloyaroslavets on October 24, it was in fact a strategic defeat
because the Russian army had prevented him from reaching the still-intact
and abundant southern provinces. Instead, the Grande Armée had to retrace
its steps along the devastated route via Smolensk.47 This battle also signaled
a change in the very nature of the campaign. Napoleon’s strategic withdrawal
from Moscow had by now turned into an outright retreat, with the Grande
Armée ceasing offensive operations and seeking only to get out of the occu-
pied provinces as fast as possible. The morale of the army plunged as the
troops marched across the battlefield of Borodino, still covered with corpses
half eaten by wolves or pecked at by carrion crows.
By early November Napoleon, beset everywhere by the Russian forces,
had reached Smolensk, where his cold and hungry soldiers—many of whom
had subsisted on horseflesh for the past few days—ravaged the magazines,
leaving virtually no provisions to sustain the army. It was here that Napoleon
received news from France that a false report of his death had led to a failed
coup by General Claude François Malet in Paris. This event revealed the
nature of the empire and deeply affected Napoleon, making him sensible to
the necessity of quitting the army as soon as he could and returning to Paris
to consolidate his control over the empire.48
Napoleon weighed his options. The strategic situation had clearly turned
against him. During the fourteen days since departing from Moscow, the
Grande Armée had suffered thousands of losses. With each passing day, the
number of men under arms diminished, while the number of stragglers
swelled. Remaining at Smolensk appeared pointless; the city was untenable
and the stores were exhausted. With Russian forces closing from the north,
south, and east, the French emperor believed his only chance of escape was to
quit Smolensk, beat the converging Russian forces to the Berezina River, and
seek better winter quarters farther west.
As the French army departed Smolensk, it came under attack from the
Russian forces near Krasnyi, where the two sides fought a series of engage-
ments on November 15–18. Individual French corps were temporarily cut
The Turning Point, 1812 | 539

off but kept fighting on, a testament to the enduring resilience of the French
organization and leadership, especially on the part of Marshal Ney, who got
separated from the main forces and made a heroic fighting retreat across the
Dnieper River. Napoleon escaped the Russian encirclement but at the cost of
losing some 30,000 men and almost all of his artillery. While the army still
counted “corps” and “divisions,” many were reduced to regimental strength,
and the total number of combat-ready troops could not have exceeded 30,000
men, who were heavily burdened by tens of thousands of stragglers.
As Napoleon retreated westward the Russians had a unique chance of
trapping him at the Berezina River. The main Russian army under Kutuzov
pursued the Grande Armée from the east, while Wittgenstein’s corps con-
verged from the northeast and Chichagov’s army marched from the south-
west. They surrounded the enemy near the small town of Borisov on the
Berezina. In the desperate fighting that took place on November 25–29,
Napoleon crossed the river with a core of his army but lost up to 40,000 men,
most of them stragglers. Napoleon’s escape was due not to his own genius but
to his dedicated and skilled troops, the sound leadership of the French officer
corps, and, most crucially, the lack of Russian military initiative and
coordination.49
The retreat from the Berezina to the Nieman River contains little of mili-
tary interest. Much of the Grande Armée was now gone; although the chain
of command remained relatively intact, relations between officers, especially
corps commanders and marshals, deteriorated. Napoleon himself considered
his job as a military leader largely done and decided to return to Paris to
assume his mantle of political leader, which had been shaken by the recent
coup attempt. On December 5 he appointed his brother-in-law Marshal
Murat to take charge of what was left of the army and departed for France.50
So ended, in the words of a British eyewitness, the “severest campaign of six
months on record in the annals of the world.”51 Indeed, there are few other
examples of wars involving such enormous forces, vast distances, logistical
challenges, and decisive outcomes within such a short period of time. The war
had disastrous consequences for the Napoleonic Empire; it had been previously
tested, but none of its earlier setbacks approached the scale of the defeat in
Russia. The Grand Armée was almost entirely destroyed. The invasion ulti-
mately involved some 600,000 men—450,000 men in the main thrust and
about 150,000 reinforcements brought in later in the war—but fewer than
100,000 re-crossed the Niemen in December; of the half a million losses, prob-
ably as many as 100,000 deserted and more than 120,000 had been captured.52
The rest perished from disease, battle wounds, or exposure to the elements.
Equally catastrophic was the loss in matériel. Napoleon lost more than 920 of
540 | the napoleonic wars

some 1,300 cannon and his cavalry was virtually wiped out—approximately
200,000 trained horses lay dead in the Russian countryside. Neither the
­artillery nor the cavalry fully recovered during the subsequent campaigns.
It has long been claimed that “General Winter” defeated Napoleon in
Russia. Such claims are dubious. Contemporary data from meteorological sta-
tions reveal that the winter was in fact mild until late November, by which
time Napoleon had already all but lost the war. The Grande Armée had lost
almost half of its strength in the first eight weeks of the war, due to garrisoning,
diseases, desertions, and casualties. It had neither the high standard of disci-
pline nor the wholehearted devotion that it had demonstrated in previous cam-
paigns. The troops included more than a dozen nationalities, so they were bound
to lose cohesion and discipline under the vicissitudes of failure. Although
Napoleon had made thorough logistical preparations, his supply system failed
to function properly: major depots were established at too great a distance from
the army, while lack of transport infrastructure within Russia prevented the
timely delivery of available supplies to the troops. The Russian strategic plan
of attrition through strategic withdrawal and a scorched-earth policy meant
that the countryside provided the enemy with few provisions, especially in
forage, which led to heavy losses in transport animals and war horses.
Napoleon did demonstrate glimpses of his military genius, and his oper-
ations at Vilna, Minsk, and Smolensk were well conceived and could have
delivered a decisive victory. Yet time and again the emperor failed to bring
them to fruition. His subordinates frequently showed lack of initiative or
made poor tactical choices, which had effects on the operational level. Finally,
Napoleon had initiated a vast campaign without a clear political strategy in
mind. Hence we see him showing uncertainty and lingering too long at Vilna
(eighteen days), Vitebsk (twelve days), and Moscow (thirty-five days) while
he considered what to do next.
The Russian side must be given its share of credit as well. Its troops per-
formed admirably and demonstrated fortitude and devotion, while their gen-
erals, despite frequent infighting and jealousy, acted with sufficient tactical,
operational, and strategic foresight to win the war. Russian diplomats had
successfully outsmarted their French counterparts, maintaining secret con-
tacts with Prussia and Austria and negotiating treaties with the Ottoman
Empire and Sweden, which in turn resulted in the ability of two Russian
armies to operate on the wings of the Grande Armée.
Upon reaching the imperial border, the Russian leadership debated whether
to cross it in pursuit of Napoleon or to remain at home and regroup. Some sen-
ior figures were against crossing the frontier, arguing that it was not for Russia
to liberate the rest of Europe. Chief among them was Kutuzov, who looked
The Turning Point, 1812 | 541

beyond strictly military factors and believed that it was not in Russia’s best
interests to weaken Napoleon. “I am by no means sure that the total destruc-
tion of Napoleon and his army would be such a benefit to the world,” Kutuzov
noted. “His succession would not fall to Russia or any other Continental power,
but to the power which already commands the sea [Britain], and whose domi-
nation would then be intolerable.”53 Besides, continuing war against France
would involve additional losses at a time when it was important to preserve the
army to ensure Russia’s role in future political developments in Europe. “Our
young hotheads are angry at me,” the Russian commander in chief lamented,
“for I restrain their frenzy; but they do not realize that . . . we cannot reach the
frontiers with empty hands [i.e., without an army].”54
The Russian emperor, however, disagreed. As he stood on the frozen banks
of the Nieman River, Alexander appreciated the momentous nature of the
event he was witnessing. The French colossus was teetering, and the future of
Europe was at stake.

Napoleon’s invasion of Russia commenced almost simultaneously with the


American attack on Canada, an event often labeled as a “forgotten conflict.”55
Historian William Kingsford’s observation at the end of the nineteenth century
that the Anglo-American War of 1812 had not been forgotten in Britain
because it has never been known there is largely true because the North
American events remained, for a long time, overshadowed by the titanic strug-
gles in Europe. Nevertheless, these events were of great significance to the fate
of North America and had direct ramifications for the Napoleonic Wars.
Contrary to (often mythologized) public perceptions of the War of 1812,
this was not a conflict between a peaceful American republic and an arrogant
imperial power. Rather, the dispute sprang from several crucial circum-
stances. Britain was engaged in a decisive struggle against Napoleonic France
and was prepared to go to any length to prevail over its rival, including by
denying neutral trade, which was dominated by the United States. The
American leaders had chosen to stay out of European squabbles in order to
exploit the advantages that a neutral stance conferred. Furthermore, they had
pursued aggrandizing policies and exploited events in Europe to challenge
the imperial status quo in North America. In July 1805 the French ambas-
sador to Washington, Louis Marie Turreau, noted that the United States was
simply waiting for an opportune moment to pursue territorial claims against
the Spanish Empire and quoted US secretary of state James Madison’s state-
ment that “when the pear is ripe it will fall of its own accord.”56 This conflict
represented, as historian Troy Bickham observed recently, American assertion
of national sovereignty against its former imperial master.57
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Map 26: North America, 1812


The Turning Point, 1812 | 543

In a confidential address to the US Congress, President James Madison


enumerated a long list of grievances, but the principal causes of the war can
be distilled to three issues: British incitement of Native Americans, impress-
ment of American seamen by the Royal Navy, and British interference with
American trade.58 Relations between the United States and Native Americans
were tense, if not outright hostile; the problems were not new and predated
the existence of the American republic. The growing white settler popula-
tion meant increased demand for land that could be secured only at the
expense of the native population; there was a mounting “land hunger,” as
some historians describe it, and many Americans openly embraced the idea of
not only dispossessing native tribes but also targeting neighboring European
possessions. In June 1812, Thomas Jefferson wrote to Madison that the
young men of Virginia were eager to fight, and “the only enquiry they make
is whether they are to go to Canada or Florida.”59 The Creeks, Cherokees, and
other tribes faced heavy pressure to surrender their lands. In the 1790s the
United States organized several military expeditions against the tribes that
resisted white settlers’ encroachment on their lands. The talented Miami
chief Little Turtle successfully repelled some of them, inflicting one of the
most disastrous defeats on the American forces in the Battle of the Wabash in
November 1791. The young Shawnee warrior Tecumseh distinguished him-
self on this occasion and went on to become a leader of a Native American
confederation that challenged US encroachments. In August 1810 he opposed
US takeover of the lands that are present-day Illinois and Indiana, where the
Shawnees and other tribes had long resided, and launched what became
known as Tecumseh’s War. Although the high point of this conflict occurred
in the US victory at Tippecanoe in 1811, Tecumseh gained British allies in
Canada and continued his resistance within the wider North American con-
flict that erupted in 1812. To restrain US ambitions, many Native Americans
turned to Britain for help; unsurprisingly, the British welcomed these over-
tures and provided arms to the tribes, which they considered as “natural
allies,” as the London Times put it in 1812, against US expansionism.60
The other US grievances were interrelated since both dealt with maritime
issues. Impressment, illegal in principle and unjust in practice, strained rela-
tions between Britain and the United States. It was occasioned by the contin-
ued demands of British operations against France between 1793 and 1812,
when the size of the Royal Navy increased from 235 to 584 warships, with a
corresponding increase in the number of seamen from 36,000 to 114,000.
Britain was hard pressed for sailors to maintain its naval stations across the
globe while blockading the French-controlled European ports. But this prob-
lem was not, as traditional historiography has long claimed, because of harsh
544 | the napoleonic wars

working conditions, poor pay, or the image of a warship as a floating hell full
of, in the apt description of Winston Churchill, “rum, sodomy, and the lash.”61
The Royal Navy, in fact, remained popular with experienced mariners and
unskilled landsmen, who considered it a good opportunity for advancement.
Nor was there a lack of volunteers; recent scholarship has shown that volun-
teers accounted for as many as 70 percent of seamen aboard British warships.
Instead, manpower problems were caused by a shortage of available skilled
sailors, many of whom turned their backs on the dangerous life aboard a
British warship in favor of a more lucrative one on an American merchant
ship; since the start of the French Revolutionary Wars in Europe, the American
merchant navy had been steadily increasing in size, becoming, in terms of ton-
nage, second only to Britain’s fleet. By 1812 the British government esti-
mated that as many as 20,000 British sailors served on American ships. Hence
the Royal Navy regularly intercepted and boarded American vessels in search
of British subjects who could be impressed. The exact number of sailors
impressed from American ships is hard to establish, but probably as many as
6,500 seamen were taken by the British during the Napoleonic Wars.62
The period of neutrality after 1793 had seen brisk economic activity and
commercial growth for the United States, with benefits clearly visible in
shipbuilding and export industries.63 Both the British orders-in-council
and Napoleon’s Continental System dramatically changed the situation in
1806–1807, however. Neutral vessels, including American ones, were
increasingly forced to enter British ports before proceeding to their destina-
tions, which in turn exposed them to French retribution, as Napoleon author-
ized the capture of any vessels that submitted to British demands.
Britain’s orders-in-council caused rapidly escalating frictions with the
United States, and on June 22, 1807, the two countries were brought to the
brink of war in the Chesapeake-Leopard affair. The American frigate Chesapeake,
sailing from Norfolk, Virginia, to the Mediterranean Sea, was intercepted by
HMS Leopard, which insisted on its right to examine the American ship for
deserters. Upon the American refusal, the British warship opened fire, killing
or wounding twenty-one American seamen. After inspecting the ship and
impressing four men, Leopard sailed away, while Chesapeake limped back to
Virginia.64 The news of the incident triggered an explosion of indignation
across the United States and inflamed national sentiment, with many clamor-
ing for a war with Britain. Unwilling to risk a violent confrontation with
London, President Thomas Jefferson preferred a more circumspect approach.
In July he ordered all British warships from American waters.
Facing further depredations by France and Britain, Jefferson toughened
his stance with the Embargo Act (December 28, 1807), which prohibited
The Turning Point, 1812 | 545

US exports. The purpose of this embargo was to compel Britain and France
to modify their decrees by denying them access to American commerce. The
embargo hit Britain harder than France. It also proved to be quite detrimen-
tal to the United States. Rear Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan, the American
exponent of sea power, later observed that this embargo had all the deficien-
cies of a blockade by an enemy and none of the advantages of actual war,
such as the opportunity to capture British ships or threaten British territory.
This self-imposed blockade had a profound impact on American ports,
undermining American economic prosperity and cutting into government
revenues. British traveler John Lambert, who visited New York in the spring
of 1808, described “the melancholy dejection that was painted upon the
countenances of the people, whose seemed to have taken leave of all their
former gaiety and cheerfulness.” Grass was growing at the New York
wharfs.65 As in the case of Napoleon’s Continental Blockade, Jefferson’s
embargo was impossible to fully enforce. It produced widespread smuggling
that benefited British ports in Nova Scotia and generated considerable dis-
gruntlement in New England.
With opposition to the embargo increasing, in March 1809 the US
Congress repealed the Embargo Act, substituting for it the Non-Intercourse
Act, which interdicted American waters to all British and French vessels but
allowed American vessels to freely conduct trade. At the same time, George
Canning, the British minister of foreign affairs, dispatched D. M. Erskine to
negotiate with the United States. The resulting Erskine Agreement (April
18–19), which Erskine concluded in violation of his instructions, pledged to
end the orders-in-council, establish free trade between Britain and the United
States, and settle grievances stemming from the Chesapeake-Leopard affair;
President Madison pledged to end the American non-intercourse stance as
soon as the British orders-in-council were withdrawn. None of this came to
be. The British government repudiated the agreement, given that Erskine
had been unable to meet Canning’s request to gain American acquiescence to
British enforcement of orders-in-council and the acceptance of the colonial
trade laws.66 This setback only further soured Anglo-American relations.
Napoleon exploited these circumstances to sanction the confiscation of more
American vessels. His Vienna (August 4, 1809) and Rambouillet decrees
(March 23, 1810) argued that since all American ships were banned from
trading with France, any vessel claiming to be American while visiting
French ports had to be engaged in smuggling. In May 1810 the United
States adopted Macon’s Bill No. 2, named after North Carolina congressman
Nathaniel Macon, that was designed to discourage European belligerents
from targeting American vessels. It repealed the Non-Intercourse Act of
546 | the napoleonic wars

1809 and proclaimed that the United States would resume trading with both
belligerents. Macon’s Bill had a direct and significant impact on the war in
Europe. Over the next months, vast quantities of American wheat and flour—
more than one million barrels of flour alone—were shipped to the Iberian
Peninsula, where they sustained British military operations against the
French.67 This was a crucial moment in the Peninsular War. In the summer
of 1810 French Marshal André Masséna had led some 70,000 men across the
Portuguese frontier and pursued the Duke of Wellington to the Lines of
Torres Vedras, where, as we have seen, the British and their Portuguese
allies hunkered down while the French spent months eking out an exist-
ence in a devastated countryside. American supplies were crucial in sustaining
Wellington’s forces throughout this period.
Napoleon was alarmed by the prospects of revived commercial ties
between Britain and the United States, as they would have undermined his
Continental Blockade. Therefore, he quickly moved to exploit the Macon
Bill’s provision that should France repeal its decrees, the United States would
renew its policy of non-importation against Britain, but that should Britain
repeal its orders-in-council, the US would reimpose the non-importation
policy on France. On August 5, 1810, the French foreign minister informed
the American minister to France, John Armstrong, that Napoleon was revok-
ing his earlier decrees, effectively preempting the British repeal of the orders-
in-council.68 Curiously, Napoleon had no intention of overhauling the
Continental Blockade to suit American interests, nor could a simple note
from the French foreign minister suspend such fundamental regulations.
Madison nonetheless accepted the offer at face value, envisioning a diplo-
matic success. Britain refused to acknowledge France’s revocation as valid
and demanded more definitive proof before it would act. In response, the
US Congress, still without proof that Napoleon had revoked his orders,
declared that the non-intercourse provisions were in effect against Britain as
of March 1, 1811, and forbade the entry of British ships and goods into the
United States.69
Still in Portugal, the Duke of Wellington closely followed American eco-
nomic policies, since they could have a direct impact on his war effort in the
Iberian Peninsula. American supplies had become, as we’ve seen, crucial to
the British war effort in Portugal and Spain: shipments of American grain
increased from 80,000 bushels in 1807 to more than 230,000 in 1810 and an
incredible 900,000 in 1812. On the eve of the War of 1812, a third of all
ships arriving in Lisbon were American. One British observer noted that “if
it was not for the supplies from America, the army here could not be main-
tained.”70 Unsurprisingly, in March 1811, Wellington was very concerned
The Turning Point, 1812 | 547

that closure of the American ports would cause significant food shortages for
his troops and that it was “at all events desirable not to neglect any means
which can be adopted to secure so desirable an object [grain].”71 Bitter as it
was at the US government for the non-importation policy, the British gov-
ernment understood that its options were limited. American supplies were
too critical to its wartime economy, especially in the wake of the poor har-
vests in Britain in 1810. British business interests, especially in manufactur-
ing, urged the government to take whatever steps were necessary to reopen
trade with the United States. Following debate in Parliament, the British
government repealed its orders-in-council restricting neutral trade on June
16, 1812. It would be weeks before this news became known in Washington,
and by then it was too late. On June 18, 1812, the US Senate approved a
declaration of war against Britain.72
The North American theater involved enormous geographical, opera-
tional and logistical challenges. George Prévost was the British governor-
general of Canada and commander in chief, and the scope of his command
was truly staggering. It stretched from Halifax, Nova Scotia, to Amherstburg
in southwestern Upper Canada, an expanse of some 1,200 miles—a third
greater than the distance from Paris to Warsaw. London, meanwhile, was
3,200 miles away from the seat of the British government in Canada. Prévost
had just 10,000 British troops, supported by the Canadian militias and
Native American allies, to defend this vast area. Unlike Europe, the region
lacked a dense road network, but it did benefit from the presence of the Great
Lakes and the oceanic coastline. Still, communications between various the-
aters of war in Upper Canada and the Niagara were laborious.73
The British war plans reveal that its focus was first and foremost on the
struggle against Napoleon in Europe. “It must be needless for me to point
out to you,” wrote Lord Liverpool, secretary of state for war and colonies, to
Prévost, “that the Exigencies of Public Service in Europe render it desirable
that every Reduction of the British Force should be made in our distance pos-
sessions.” Britain was engaged in a worldwide conflict against Napoleon, and
resources were needed to “prosecute the contest with additional vigour in
that quarter of the World, in which the Interests of the Country are . . . more
immediately committed.”74 Liverpool’s letter makes it clear that Canada was
on its own and that the British strategy in Canada had to be defensive, designed
to prevent any territorial gains by the Americans; even in later years, when
the British launched attacks in the Gulf Coast and the Chesapeake, the overall
aim of these campaigns was to ease pressure on the Canadian front line.75
On the other side, American aims included not only concessions on the issues
of impressment and maritime rights but also territorial aggrandizement
548 | the napoleonic wars

at the expense of both Canada and the pro-British Native American tribes,
like the great confederation established by the Shawnee chiefs Tecumseh and
Tenskwatawa.76
On the eve of the war, Senator Henry Clay declared in a speech on the
floor of the US Senate that “the militia of Kentucky are alone competent to
place Montreal and Upper Canada at [our] feet.”77 He could not have been
more wrong. But such sentiments prevailed in the minds of many American
statesmen who, while itching for a war, refused to provide sufficient funding
for it; they knew that the tax increases needed to sustain the war effort would
be highly unpopular, especially during the election of 1811, when many seats
in the US House of Representatives were at risk. Thus, the United States
embarked on a war against one of the most powerful European powers having
limited funding, a poorly prepared military, and a small navy. The American
war plan envisioned a three-pronged invasion of Canada—principally around
Lake Erie, near the Niagara River between Lake Erie and Lake Ontario, and
near the St. Lawrence River and Lake Champlain—and the destruction of
British naval forces on the Great Lakes. There was a general belief in the
United States that, with their numerically superior forces and Britain deeply
committed to the struggle against Napoleon in Europe, these objectives
would be easily attained; there was also significant American immigration to
the border areas, due to the offer of land grants to immigrants, raising the
prospects that these settlers would favor the American cause. Invasion would
be “a mere matter of marching,” former president Thomas Jefferson noted
optimistically in August 1812.78
It was not. The first five months of the war constituted a succession of
American defeats as the more experienced and better-led British army pre-
vailed over an untested opponent that struggled to implement an ill-conceived
strategy and suffered from inadequate logistical support. “The best overall
explanation for American defeat,” concludes one American historian, “is that
they had, from the start, ambitiously reached for all of Canada without
the wherewithal to take and permanently hold any part of it.”79 In the middle
of July the British captured Fort Mackinac, which controlled the strategic
straits between Lake Michigan and Lake Huron, and by extension the fur
trade on the Great Lakes. The American invasion under Brigadier General
William Hull was thwarted by a vigorous British counterattack—under
Major General Sir Isaac Brock, who had been actively supported by the
Native American tribes under Tecumseh—that forced the Americans to
retreat and abandon Fort Dearborn (present-day Chicago), leaving the entire
Michigan Territory in British hands. On August 16 the British troops entered
Detroit, sending shock waves across the entire American northwestern
The Turning Point, 1812 | 549

f­rontier.80 In September the Seminole Indians and Black Seminoles, who


had a long history of relations with the Spanish and British, launched
raids into Georgia and defeated an American counterattack under Colonel
Daniel Newnan in northern Florida. Indian attacks also occurred in the
Indiana and Missouri territories.
Meanwhile, Major General Brock marched with his men to the eastern
end of Lake Erie, where, in October, some 3,000 American troops (of whom
just 900 were regulars) under New York militia leader Major General Stephen
Van Rensselaer attempted to cross the Niagara River at Queenston Heights.81
On October 13 Brock, despite being outnumbered, exploited divisions on
the side of the Americans, whose militia contingent refused to leave the ter-
ritorial limits of the United States, and attacked the small force of American
regular troops as it was crossing over to the Canadian side. The ensuing battle
led to a British victory, which was tempered by the death of Brock, a talented
and charismatic officer who could have made a major impact in the war.
Equally unsuccessful was the American attempt, under Major General Henry
Dearborn, to invade Canada at Lacolle Mills near Champlain, Ontario.
Defeated by a coalition of British regulars, Canadian militiamen, and
Mohawk warriors, the Americans were forced to return to Plattsburgh,
New York. Later the same month, US forces under Brigadier General
Alexander Smyth made several poorly conceived and poorly implemented
attempts to cross the Niagara River and invade Upper Canada, and were
defeated at the battle of Frenchman’s Creek (November 28).82
In bright contrast to the dismal performance of the US Army, the small
but efficient American navy took on British sea power and celebrated suc-
cesses in several single-ship actions.83 Probably none was more famous than
the destruction of HMS Guerrière by USS Constitution on August 19, 1812.
The American frigate eluded a British blockade and, after making an epic
three-day escape from a British squadron, encountered a British frigate,
which it demolished in just a half-hour action. Throughout the fall of 1812
the US Navy demonstrated that, ship for ship, its seamanship and gunnery
more than matched the vaunted British fleet and underscored the superiority
of American ship designs—“superfrigates” powerful enough to engage any
enemy frigate, yet fast enough to evade any ship-of-the-line. These dramatic
ship-to-ship engagements, which Americans won, may not have threated
British control of the seas but were still a disruptive factor that had wider
repercussions for British commerce and the war effort. The impact of American
commerce raiding was especially impressive: on one occasion the raiding
sloop Argus captured twenty-one prizes in just a few months, throwing
English merchants into a panic. Containing such attacks required substantial
550 | the napoleonic wars

British naval resources—for example, in the summer of 1813 the Royal Navy
had more than fifteen men-of-war searching for Commodore John Rodgers
and his President—and was made more difficult by communication problems
between the Lords of the Admiralty and the various commanders of the
North American station.84
A spate of American victories in 1812 shocked the British government,
which rushed naval reinforcements to the western Atlantic, ensuring that
after the summer of 1813 the Royal Navy dominated the war at sea.
Furthermore, Britain’s strategy came to include an economic blockade of
almost the entire American coastline, which produced swift and severe
effects. The Royal Navy interfered with American foreign trade, preventing
export of agricultural goods and colonial commodities. As naval communica-
tions became more perilous, US commerce was forced inland, where the
lack of cheap coastal shipping made it reliant on more expensive (and
­time-­consuming) overland transportation. This meant that farmers had to
dispose of their goods at neighboring markets, depressing prices locally while
increasing them for distant urban customers. All of this in turn affected cus-
toms revenue, the principal source of tax income for the American republic,
creating a major budget deficit and forcing the government to become more
dependent on public credit, a rather perilous (and unreliable) development,
considering the war-driven economic recession and the absence of a national
bank that could coordinate the nation’s fiscal policies.85 Here lies one of the
crucial consequences of the war: the lack of an effective banking system,
which had been the subject of a bitter political debate so famously waged by
Alexander Hamilton, Thomas Jefferson, and others, revealed the pitfalls of
fiscal decentralization and unregulated currency, and was ultimately addressed
(albeit temporarily) through the creation of a national bank in 1816.
The war in North America had a direct impact on the Napoleonic Wars.
It diverted Britain’s resources and prevented American trade from reaching
Russian, Portuguese, and Spanish ports.86 In April 1812, as it moved closer
to declaring war, the US Congress passed a ninety-day embargo, stopping all
exports from the United States. In Spain, Wellington was soon astonished to
learn that “the Americans have laid a general embargo on all vessels. This is
a measure of importance as all this part of the Peninsula has been living this
year on American flour.”87 He immediately began considering other potential
sources for supplies, including Brazil and Egypt, that could “keep the stores
supplied with corn in the event then expected [March 1812] of the stoppage
of the intercourse with America.”88 Fortunately for Wellington, the start of
the Anglo-American hostilities did not affect his military operations, as the
flow of American supplies continued for some time after the declaration of
The Turning Point, 1812 | 551

the war. Given that the shortages increased the price of grain in Portugal and
Spain, many American merchants became willing to circumvent con­gres­
sional restrictions to reap profits. The British sanctioned a licensed trade,
permitting American vessels to deliver crucial supplies without interference
from the Royal Navy.89 This proved but a temporary measure, and by
November 1812 the British government stopped this policy. The decision
was partly reflective of an effort to exert greater economic pressure on the
United States and partly the result of British confidence about securing
sufficient supplies from the Barbary States and Mehmet Ali of Egypt.
chapter 22 The Fall of the French Empire

T he news of Napoleon’s defeat in Russia sent shock waves through-


out Europe, dramatically altering the balance of power and signaling an
opportunity to cast off French hegemony. The Convention of Tauroggen,
signed by Russian negotiators and Prussian general Johann von Yorck in
December 1812, had already marked the start of a new phase of the Napoleonic
Wars. The Prussian general’s decision to declare his Prussian contingent of
the French army neutral was a clear act of defiance both against his French
superiors and against the Prussian king, Frederick William III, who had con-
sistently discouraged the more patriotically minded Prussian officers and
statesmen from openly opposing Napoleon. Although Frederick William ini-
tially disowned the convention, the die had been cast.1 Yorck’s decision
altered the military situation, making it impossible for the French forces to
hold ground in East Prussia. Marshal Macdonald abandoned Königsberg
(present-day Kaliningrad) on January 4, 1813, and the Russians entered the
city later that same day.2 Emperor Alexander, who reached Königsberg on
January 22, was beseeched by the local authorities to take control of the prov-
ince and summon the local assembly. Once convened, the Estates of East
Prussia declared themselves against Napoleon without waiting for instruc-
tions from the Prussian king, and began raising armed forces for the forth-
coming war. Despite Frederick William III’s condemnation, similar acts were
repeated throughout Prussia, sparking off a wide-scale uprising that forced
the Prussian monarchy to switch sides.
Though often unheralded in Napoleonic histories, the Treaty of Kalisch
was of great consequence. Signed by Prussian chancellor Karl August Fürst
von Hardenberg and Russian field marshal Mikhail Kutuzov, the agreement’s
fourteen provisions declared a cessation of hostilities between Russia and
The Fall of the French Empire | 553

Küstrin Theater of Operations


Elbe
IA Berlin in Germany, 1813
S
S vel Frankfurt-on-Oder
U Ha 23 Aug.
Grossbeeren
R
P
Oder
5 Apr.
Möckern Baruth
Magdeburg 6 Sept.
Dennewitz
Rosslau Wittenberg Oder

Bobr
Wartenberg Luckau
Dessau Glogau
3 Oct.

Spree
Zörbig
Sal

Düben
El
le

be

Halle Torgau Hoyerswerda


Leipzig Eilenburg h
Elster 16-19 Oct.
Bunzlau ac
Grossenhain Königswarta tzb
Ka
Mu

Merseburg Weissenberg
Luppe 26 Aug.
ld

14 Oct. Bautzen Görlitz


Meissen
e

Weissenfels Lützen Grimma 20-21 May 23 May Jauer


Liebertwolkwitz Lowenberg
Naumburg 2 May 26-27 Aug. Löbau
Zwenkau Colditz Weissig
Pegau 5 May Dresden
Teuchern 26 Aug.
Schweidnitz
Pirna Zittau SI
Altenburg SAXONY Königstein LE
Jena Altenberg Reichenbach SI
Kulm
29-30 Aug.
A
0 25 Kilometers
Teplitz
Saalfeld Marienberg 0 25 Miles

Campaign in France, 1814


9-10 Mar
Laon
Festieux
Ais Craonne
ne
Berry
Soissons 7 Mar
se
Oi
Fismes
Rheims
13 Mar Verdun
17 Mar Ma Metz
rne
Epernay
Château-Thierry
30 Mar 12 Feb 14 Feb
Meaux Châlons
Marchais Vanchamps Vertus
Montmartre Montmirail Champaubert Bar-le-Duc
11 Feb 25 Mar
10 Feb
Paris Sezanne
La-Fère-
Vitry
Chalmes Nancy
Champenoise St. Dizier
Aube 27 Jan
20-21 Mar
Se

Guignes Nangis
in

Provins Arcis-sur-Aube
e

17 Feb Nogent Mery-sur-Seine 29 Jan


Montereau Bray Brienne Joinville
Fontainebleau

18 Feb Troyes 1 Feb La Rothière


Bar-sur-Aube
Sens
27 Feb
Se
in

Chaumont
e

Châtillon

0 25 Kilometers

0 25 Miles

Map 27: Campaigns in Germany and France, 1813–1814

Prussia and established a military alliance between the two countries, with
both sides pledging to deploy large military contingents (80,000 Prussians
and 150,000 Russians) against France, and not to negotiate or sign unilater-
ally any agreements with Napoleon. From the start, the Russians made it
very clear that they would be the senior partner in this alliance. The secret
554 | the napoleonic wars

provisions of the treaty were particularly noteworthy because Russia pledged


to restore Prussia to its “statistical, geographical, and financial” power and
status as of 1806, but also permitted Prussia to retain only those Polish ter-
ritories that it had received during the First Partition in 1772, together with
a narrow strip of territory to connect it with Silesia. Thus Prussia was deprived
of the territories it had gained in the Second and Third Partitions of Poland
in 1793 and 1795 and had to acknowledge Russian hegemony in Poland. As
a consolation, on March 19, 1813, Russia agreed in the separately signed
Treaty of Breslau to compensate Prussia with territories taken from German
states allied to France, with Saxony quickly becoming the target.3
The Russo-Prussian treaties served as the first steps toward the creation of
the Sixth Coalition, which would go on to defeat Napoleon. They are also
noteworthy for revealing Russia’s pragmatic approach to the war. When the
Prussians issued a proclamation calling for the Germans to rise up against
Napoleon and participate in the war of liberation, the Russians objected,
accusing their allies of acting “politically irresponsibly.”4 For Emperor
Alexander and his advisors, this was more than a war of German liberation.
Here was the chance to reorganize the continent and to extend Russian
interests into eastern Europe (and maybe beyond), and they were keen on
exploiting it. The Russo-Prussian treaties were silent about the liberation,
freedom, or unity of Germany; neither did they reflect earlier diplomatic
discussions, including that on the constitutional federation in Germany dis-
cussed in 1807. Instead, Emperor Alexander approved a harsh occupation
statute that formed a central administrative council, the Zentralverwaltungsrat,
with “unlimited” authority over the military and financial resources of the
conquered areas in Germany.5 When some German princes refused to support
the Allies, as Prussia, Russia, and their partners will be called hereafter, they
were denounced as tools of the French and forced to leave their states. Even
the kings of Saxony and Bavaria had to seek the support and protection of
Austria.
Both Alexander and Frederick William hoped that Emperor Francis I of
Austria would join them, but their actions in Germany only raised concerns
in Vienna. The Habsburg court welcomed the news of the French defeat in
Russia, which raised the prospect of making changes to the imperial settle-
ment that Napoleon had imposed on Europe. But would this necessarily be
to Austria’s advantage? If the French emperor was defeated decisively, it
seemed all too likely that French hegemony would be supplanted by the
dominance of Russia—hardly an appealing prospect for Austria. Consequently,
Austrian foreign minister Metternich’s national security objectives meant
that Austria remained a wild card throughout the spring of 1813. Austrians
The Fall of the French Empire | 555

might have loathed Napoleon, but neither were they enamored of the
Russians. Metternich was well aware of Russian meddling in Austrian affairs,
most recently in the conspiracy of Archduke John, who came close to inciting
a major revolt in the Tyrol and Illyria; in late February Metternich’s agents
intercepted the conspirators’ messages to the Russians, and with the evidence
in hand, the foreign minister quickly suppressed the conspiracy. Equally
worrisome for Vienna was the manifesto that the Russian high command
issued in late March, calling upon the German princes to accept the protec-
tion of the Russian emperor, destroy the French-controlled Rheinbund,
and build a new Germany. Should individual rulers fail to cooperate, they
would be destroyed “by the force of public opinion and the power of the
righteous arms.”6 For Austria, the key question was what kind of “new
Germany” this would be. Metternich understood that the Russian manifesto,
which had threatened the German princes, also created an opportunity for
Austria to reclaim some of its lost standing by assuming the mantle of German
protector.
Aware of Austria’s precarious position, however, Metternich argued in
favor of maintaining an armed neutrality to remove war from the Austrian
borders and to seek mediation between Russia and France.7 In keeping with
this drive toward neutrality, Austria reached an armistice with Russia at
Willenberg on January 30, 1813, and, much to the chagrin of the French,
withdrew its forces to Galicia.8 Throughout the spring of 1813, just as
Prussia, Russia, and France clashed on the rolling hills near the Bohemian
borders of Austria, Metternich slowly worked toward his grand project of
reviving the Habsburg power. His overriding goal was to form a tripartite
Germany, one that included Prussia, Austria, and, most crucially, neutral
“Germany” in between. To accomplish this, the Austrian minister had to
remove French control on the territories east of the Rhine and Russian influ-
ence west of the Vistula. Only through the revival of a European equilibrium
could Austria and other smaller continental states maintain some semblance
of independence and authority. In this regard, Austrian intentions coincided
with British aspirations. By late 1812, Prime Minister Liverpool’s cabinet
had already been authorized to place £500,000 at Vienna’s disposal should
Austria be drawn into hostilities against Napoleon.9 That attempt to turn
Austria against Napoleon failed, but by April 1813 Austrians were firm in
their intention to pursue armed meditation and, if Napoleon rejected nego-
tiations, to join the Allies.10
Napoleon had returned to Paris on December 18, 1812, the day after the
29th Bulletin announced to the nation that the grandest army it had ever
sent out was lying dead in the frozen fields of Russia. The news shocked the
556 | the napoleonic wars

French public and undermined Napoleon’s prestige within the German


Confederation, where the German nationalists made calls for Befreiungskrieg—
­a war of liberation. The situation in Spain was even more volatile. But
Napoleon never lost countenance, and his public pronouncements and the
explanations given to his allies and to the Senate showed the confidence of a
victor. “My army has had some losses but it was due to the premature rigor
of the season,” he claimed in his address to the Senate on December 20.11
A letter to the king of Denmark demonstrates his public attitude toward
the Russian debacle, with Napoleon asserting that the Russians were “always
beaten” and captured “neither an eagle nor a gun from my army.” Any set-
backs were due to the winter. “My army has suffered greatly, and suffers still,
but this calamity will cease with the cold,” the emperor concluded.12
Despite the terrible news coming daily to Paris, Napoleon began prepara-
tions for a new campaign. As noted in Chapter 21, out of the roughly 600,000
men who took part in the Russian campaign, fewer than 100,000 returned,
and almost half of those were part of Austrian and Prussian contingents. So a
new French army had to be built. Napoleon still had vast resources at his
disposal, and few would have predicted in early 1813 that the year would
witness the collapse of the Napoleonic Empire. The Russians had suffered
nearly as much as their foes and reached the Niemen River with barely
40,000 effectives. What Napoleon needed was time. He urged Eugène de
Beauharnais, who had assumed command of slightly over 100,000 men in
Poland, to hold on to his positions for as long as he could, supported by
French garrisons along the Elbe, Oder, and Vistula Rivers. To everyone
Napoleon spoke of victory as certain. “You must always say,” he instructed in
one letter, “and yourself believe that in the next campaign I shall drive the
Russian back across the Niemen.”13
As Napoleon was dictating orders, the situation was rapidly changing in
Poland. By the end of February, as the Russians advanced into East Prussia,
Beauharnais had no choice but to fall back beyond the Vistula and the Oder.
Napoleon pushed ahead with mobilization of new recruits and supplies in
France, the Confederation of the Rhine, and Italy. The measures were hugely
unpopular, but Napoleon was still in firm control in the west and could
employ a range of effective methods against defiant satellites, including use
of force. Besides, many of these princes owed their very political existence to
him and had a vested interest in seeing him prevail.14 By the end of April the
French emperor had created a new army of over 140,000 men, with addi-
tional units finishing their mobilization by August. This new force could not
compare in quality with the French armies of earlier years. It had a high
proportion of young and inexperienced soldiers and was sorely lacking in
The Fall of the French Empire | 557

artillery and cavalry. “I would be in a position to settle the affairs quickly


if I had fifteen thousand more cavalry, but I am rather weak in this branch,”
the emperor complained to King Frederick of Württemburg.15 Nevertheless,
creation of such a massive army in a matter of just four months testifies to
Napoleon’s administrative genius and the effectiveness of the bureaucracy
that he had forged over the last decade.
The campaign resumed in earnest in April as the Russo-Prussian forces
liberated Berlin and invaded Saxony, whose king remained loyal to Napoleon.
By late April the Allied armies had concentrated east of the Saale River near
Leipzig, where Emperor Alexander appointed a new Allied commander in
chief, General Peter Wittgenstein, after Field Marshal Kutuzov passed away
of illness on April 28. By now Napoleon had led the newly formed Army of
the Main into Germany to link up with remnants of his old Grande Armée.
His plan was to defeat the Russo-Prussian allies as quickly as he could, push
the Russians beyond the Vistula, and suppress the rapidly spreading national
tumult in northern Germany.16
On May 1 the French crossed the Saale River and marched on Leipzig, seeking
to threaten the Allies’ interior lines. Yet the lack of cavalry prevented Napoleon
from conducting a forceful reconnaissance, which left him unaware of almost
90,000 Allied troops under Wittgenstein massing on his right flank. It was while
visiting the site of Swedish king Gustavus Adolphus’s 1632 victory at Lützen
that Napoleon heard the gunfire and learned of Marshal Ney stumbling upon the
enemy. He immediately reinforced Ney and diverted his other corps toward
Grossgörschen, near Lützen, where Napoleon first struck Wittgenstein with
heavy artillery before sending in his Imperial Guard. With the guardsmen
smashing through the Allied center, Napoleon threatened both Allied flanks
with enveloping maneuvers that left Wittgenstein no choice but to beat a retreat.
The battle ended with a French victory, though it was far from a complete
one. The lack of cavalry meant there was no French pursuit of the Allies, who
withdrew in good order; in fact, the Allied officers and soldiers refused to
accept that they had been beaten and pointed to, in the words of a senior
Prussian officer, “the resoluteness and gallantry of the combined forces of two
nations seized with ardent love for their Fatherlands.”17 The battle once again
highlighted Napoleon’s military talents and his ability, even with inexperi-
enced troops, to respond to a new situation with an improvised but effective
plan of action. If not for the lack of cavalry, Napoleon would have completed
his double envelopment maneuver to shatter the Allied forces and possibly
end the war before it got under way.
The defeat at Lützen created a brief rift in the Allied high command as
Prussians and Russian laid the blame for it on the other. The former urged
558 | the napoleonic wars

moving northward to guard Berlin, while the Russians wanted to march


eastward to Breslau in order to remain closer to their home territory. The
armies were about to separate when King Frederick William, understanding
the disastrous results this would produce, gave in. Leaving the defense of
Berlin to General Bülow’s weak corps, the combined Prusso-Russian army
moved to Bautzen, about thirty miles northeast of Dresden, and took up a
position on the heights behind that town, where they were joined by rein-
forcements led by General Mikhail Barclay de Tolly. On May 16 the Prussian
minister Hardenberg and Russian foreign minister Karl Robert von Nesselrode
expanded the Kalisch-Breslau war aims to include the dissolution of the
Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund) and the end of French rule in Spain,
Holland, and Italy.
After regrouping at Dresden, Napoleon initially considered threatening
Berlin in an effort to split the Allies. On learning of the Allied army biv-
ouacked at Bautzen, however, he marched there with his main forces.18 He
once again successfully implemented his principle of concentration of supe-
rior forces, so the Russo-Prussian army of 96,000 men found itself face-to-
face with some 144,000 men under Napoleon. The emperor sought the
decisive victory that had eluded him at Lützen and devised a plan that called
for Marshal Ney to perform a manoeuvre sur les derrières against the Allied
right wing in order to cut off the Allies’ line of retreat and deliver the deci-
sive blow.
The first day of the Battle of Bautzen, May 20, unfolded as Napoleon
expected: the French main army, deployed west and northwest of Bautzen,
attacked the Russo-Prussian army, pinned it down frontally, and pretended
to envelop the enemy’s left flank, forcing Wittgenstein to commit most of his
reserves there. Now all that was needed was for Ney to successfully complete
his maneuver the following day. Yet the marshal lost sight of the strategic
importance of his mission. Upon reaching the battlefield at noon on May 21,
he misinterpreted imperial instructions to attack the enemy’s line of com-
munications and instead hurled his men upon the Kreckwitz heights near the
village of Preititz, which he thought formed the key to the Allied position.
For the next few hours he wasted precious time and men fighting the Prussians,
who steadfastly defended their position.19
The Battle of Bautzen ended by nightfall. Although it was a French vic-
tory, it was, once again, an incomplete one. Had Ney continued his advance
as Napoleon intended, the Allies would have been decisively defeated. But
the moment was lost and the Allied forces, though mauled, were still intact
and ready to fight again. Their high command, however, was again deeply
divided. In the aftermath of two defeats, Wittgenstein’s position as Allied
The Fall of the French Empire | 559

commander in chief was untenable, and he was replaced by Barclay de Tolly,


who suggested falling back to the Russian frontiers to rest troops and estab-
lish a proper supply system for the worn-out army. The Russian officer corps,
who had spent almost a year campaigning, welcomed the prospects of a
respite. The Prussians, naturally, objected. They could not afford to abandon
Silesia and expose Berlin, both so crucial to the Prussian war effort, and risk
another despoliation of Prussian territory by French troops. Ultimately,
Emperor Alexander, understanding the importance of safeguarding his alli-
ance with Prussia, ordered his armies to remain in Silesia. The northern prov-
inces of Prussia were, however, abandoned to the French. Napoleon, still
preoccupied with the enemy field armies, ordered Oudinot to seize the
Prussian capital, but the marshal was unable to break through steadfast
Prussian resistance under General Bülow at Luckau.20
For the Allies, the situation was fairly precarious. They had been defeated
twice and in just one month’s time driven back from the Salle to the Oder, a
distance of 250 miles. Their armies had suffered from want of supplies;
although the Allied soldiers fought magnificently, they were exhausted from
marches; and wastage from sickness was quite high. Even more disheartening
was the news from Hamburg, which the Allied troops, led by Lieutenant
Colonel Friedrich Karl von Tettenborn, had initially seized on March 18.21
This was the first time the Allies had invaded the territory of the French
Empire itself—Hamburg was annexed to France in 1810—and the capture
of this major port city was welcome news to the coalition partners, especially
Britain, which could use it as a gateway to northern Europe. Just two weeks
after the capture of Hamburg, Britain dispatched a small expeditionary force
that landed at Cuxhaven, seventy miles to the northwest of the port, to secure
its foothold in the region.22 The Allied celebrations proved to be prema-
ture, however. Ordered by Napoleon to reclaim the city, Davout, the “Iron
Marshal,” drove the Allies out of Hamburg on May 30.
The continued difficulties pointed toward the Allied need for respite and
especially for outside help. Although Bernadotte, the former French marshal
turned Swedish crown prince, had supported Russia since 1812, no one
expected him to produce sufficient military assistance. Britain pledged to
provide a subsidy but little in terms of actual troops, committed as it was to
Peninsular affairs. Thus only Austria could make a truly decisive impact on
the course of the war. Yet the Habsburgs, having suffered four humiliating
defeats in thirteen years, were not in a rush to challenge Napoleon. The
French ruler was still a formidable foe with a large army, and Emperor Francis
was not convinced that the Russo-Prussian coalition could defeat him. If
Austria took the field against them and lost, the victorious French would be
560 | the napoleonic wars

certain to wreak vengeance on the already reduced Habsburg dominion.


Moreover, as noted, Austria had no desire to bring about Napoleon’s defeat
if this meant Russia becoming the arbiter of Europe. Nonetheless, staying
out of the conflict was not an option either, since a Russo-Prussian victory
(as remote as might have seemed in late May) would have left Austria on the
political sidelines.
The news of a possible truce between France and the Allies was thus wel-
comed in Vienna, which quickly expressed a desire to serve as mediator. Both
sides agreed, and an armistice was signed at Pleischwitz on June 4 and sus-
pended hostilities until July 20, although the truce was eventually extended
to mid-August.23
In hindsight, the Pleischwitz Armistice was one of Napoleon’s greatest
mistakes. He tried explaining that even though “this armistice interrupts the
course of my victories, I decided on it for two reasons: the shortage of cavalry,
which prevents me from striking decisive blows, and the hostile attitude of
Austria.”24 There were other reasons for Napoleon’s willingness to consider a
truce. He might have won the first battles but they cost him up to 40,000
casualties, and twice as many men were sick and convalescing in hospitals.
These losses had to be quickly replaced. His supply system was inadequate,
and the enemy detachments bedeviled French lines of communication
through Germany. In one particularly brazen incident, a Russian flying
detachment had actually captured the city of Leipzig on June 7. Equally
problematic was the uninspired leadership of corps commanders and mar-
shals, many of whom were simply tired of war. “The turn of the wheel of
Fortune has ravaged these souls of iron,” was the despondent observation by
Napoleon’s first secretary, Baron Agathon Jean François Fain, as he listened
to them talk at the camp.25
Political motivation was by far the decisive factor in Napoleon’s ac­cept­
ance of the armistice. He knew about Austria’s increasingly hostile attitude
and felt he had no choice but to negotiate. With his old confidence restored
by recent victories, he hoped to use this respite to ensure that his Austrian
father-in-law stayed by his side so that he could concentrate on crushing the
Prussians and chasing the Russians back across the Niemen. These were all
valid factors to consider, but they still do not hide the fact that the Allies had
much more to gain from the respite than Napoleon. The Allied armies were
exhausted and in a strategic cul-de-sac in Silesia, so another hard blow likely
would have caused the coalition to collapse. For the Prussians and Russians,
armistice was a godsend because they could use the much-needed respite to
not only reorganize and reinforce their armies but also formalize the new
coalition.
The Fall of the French Empire | 561

Austria played the decisive role in all of this. Metternich did his best to
hold out the prospect of Austrian entry into the war on either side, hoping to
convince Napoleon to negotiate while helping the Allies formulate peace
terms that would bring about a general settlement in Europe. This required
the Austrian foreign minister to pursue an intricate diplomatic campaign,
one that occasionally stumbled in the face of Russian and French obduracy.
Moreover, throughout the process, Austria, under the guise of neutrality, also
carried out a covert mobilization of its forces, which was made public on June
14 with the calling up of the reservists and the Landwehr; by late July some
200,000 men had been gathered in Bohemia, while two more armies were
mustered along the Danube.
The Allies, meanwhile, were preoccupied with diplomatic negotiations.26
The British government had long acted as the paymaster for anti-French
coalitions, and despite some handicaps, it endeavored once again to use its
influence to bring the three continental powers together and push them
toward the common end of defeating Napoleon.27 Writing to the British
envoy to Russia, Foreign Minister Castlereagh urged him to take advantage
of any opportunity to advance the Allied war effort based on “the general
principle of giving confidence to all powers which can be induced to take a
part in reducing the power of France and restoring the independence of
Germany.”28 To achieve this, London made the promise of British gold.
Negotiating the finer details of subsidies, however, proved to be challenging.
Emperor Alexander instructed his ambassador in London, Count Christoph
Heinrich von Lieven, to request £7 million to maintain the 200,000 men of
the Russian army but to be ready to reduce the sum to £4 million on the
condition that half of it be given as weapons and ammunition.29 Britain had
already committed itself financially (to the tune of some £4 million) to
Sweden, Portugal, and Spain and was negotiating separate subsidy offers
with Prussia and Austria. So the British government balked at the magni-
tude of the Russian subsidy request, causing the Russian envoy to note that
British ministers were “pleading to tears” when it came to the reduction of
subsidies to Russia.30 Castlereagh understood that subsidy treaties with indi-
vidual powers were not enough; what Britain needed was a treaty combining
all the powers at war into a coalition that Napoleon would be unable to
break, whether by diplomacy or by brute force.
Forming a coalition was therefore a crucial element in the overall strategy
that Britain pursued in 1813–1815. It consisted of three broad goals. First
and foremost was Britain’s desire to maintain its colonial and maritime
supremacy. By now the British had already secured all of the French, Dutch,
and Danish colonies, and the only overseas possessions still not under British
562 | the napoleonic wars

control were those of its allies. Control of these vast dominions offered Britain
a diplomatic weapon of great value, one that could be wielded to secure a
continental settlement it desired. This was especially important with regard
to the maritime rights that the British so jealously guarded not only against
France but also against the United States and Russia. It was, therefore, a car-
dinal point of British policy to insist on excluding any mention of maritime
issues from the negotiations. Second, Britain had to fulfill the obligations it
had already undertaken under earlier agreements. These included promises to
restore governments in Portugal, Spain, and Naples, as well as a pledge to
support Swedish claims to Norway. Finally, the third task was to ensure an
enduring political arrangement on the continent by reducing France to its
pre-Napoleonic frontiers and constraining the rising Russian power. In this,
London shared some common ground with Austria.31
On June 14–15, by the Treaties of Reichenbach, Britain pledged £2 mil-
lion to Russia and Prussia and, renewing its earlier offer, offered £500,000 as
an inducement for Austria to join the coalition. The latter was an interesting
change for the British, who just a few short months earlier had provided tens
of thousands of pounds to finance a revolt in the Austrian Tyrol. The Austrians
again paid no heed to the British offer; Metternich was preoccupied with
political wrangling with the Russians on the issues of Poland and Serbia.
There was still a sizable gap between the Austrian and Russian positions.
While Russia pledged to support restoration of Austria to its status as of
1805, this was far less than the Habsburg court expected, as by 1805 Austria
had already lost most of its possessions in Italy. Equally divisive were the two
powers’ conflicting aims on Germany, where the Habsburgs looked with sus-
picion at the existing Russo-Prussian rapprochement as a sign of Austrian
exclusion from German affairs. Metternich initially tried to position himself
as the protector of smaller German states against the Russo-Prussian depre-
dation, as mentioned earlier, and his efforts were partly successful: the Treaty
of Prague (April 20) extended Austrian protection to Saxony, which was
already threatened by Prussian territorial claims.32 Still, this success proved
fleeting—after Napoleon’s victories in May, the German princes had flocked
back to the French banners.
During the summer armistice, Metternich assumed a lead role in negotia-
tions with both the Allies and France. His overall goal was to reduce French
dominance and to prevent Russia from becoming dominant in its place.
Toward this end, he pushed for Russia and France to retire behind their
respective frontiers of the Vistula and the Rhine, and remain separated by an
independent and strengthened central Europe. Under this plan, Napoleon
would be forced to cede territory to restore Austria and Prussia to their
The Fall of the French Empire | 563

s­tatuses in 1805 and 1806, respectively, which, in turn, would ensure that
there remained no territory to compensate either country for the cession of
their Polish provinces to Russia. In his negotiations with the Allies,
Metternich seemingly accepted Russo-Prussian demands on Poland and out-
lined the key elements of what he called a “good peace”: the dissolution of the
Duchy of Warsaw, as Russia had long wished; the restoration of Prussia to its
former status; the reinstatement of all territories France had annexed east of
the Rhine; the independence of Holland; the surrender of all Italian prov-
inces seized by France; the restoration of the Papal States; the return to
Austria of all territories lost in the Treaty of Lunéville; and the cessation of
Napoleon’s supremacy in Germany and Italy.33 Metternich also believed that
the Allies had to offer a minimum program in order to attract Napoleon
to the peace table. Therefore, separate from the “good peace” proposals,
Austrians also suggested two sets of minimal claims that would serve as
grounds for the opening of preliminary negotiations. For Austria, these were
the recovery of the Illyrian Provinces, the dissolution of the Duchy of Warsaw,
and a new frontier with Bavaria. For the Russo-Prussian coalition, the terms
included the restoration of Prussia to its former status, Napoleon’s surrender
of all German territory east of the Rhine, and, most crucial, the removal of
French influence from the Confederation of the Rhine.34
Throughout May the Allies debated the final details of these terms, insist-
ing, among other things, on adding the independence of Holland and Italy
to the list of minimum demands. Further impediment appeared after the
Treaties of Reichenbach were concluded in mid-June. As a price for its finan-
cial support, Britain insisted on the restoration of Hanover and a pledge that
neither coalition member would sign a separate peace with Napoleon. British
involvement meant that additional demands, most notably with regard to
Spain, Portugal, and Naples, would be unavoidable in future negotiations
with France. Still, amid deep mistrust and mutual suspicions, neither side
could afford to go the distance alone: confronting Napoleon required a col-
lective action.
On June 26, Metternich had a long interview with Napoleon in Dresden.
It was a moment of truth for the entire war. The preliminary proposals that
the Austrian minister delivered, and which were later discussed at the Peace
Congress in Prague between July 12 and August 10, included the following:
the dissolution of the Duchy of Warsaw, which would be divided among the
Allied powers; the reorganization of the Confederation of the Rhine; return
of the Illyrian Provinces to Austria; restoration of the Hanseatic cities, which
France had annexed in 1810; and the reestablishment of Prussia to the posi-
tion it had enjoyed before 1806.35 Had Metternich convinced Napoleon to
564 | the napoleonic wars

compromise and accept a diplomatic solution to the problem, history would


have taken a rather different course. But Napoleon rejected them in the
course of a heated conversation that underscored his sense of invulnerability
even after the Russian catastrophe. “So you want war?” he told Metternich,
“Well, you shall have it. I have already annihilated the Prussian army at
Lützen; I have defeated the Russians at Bautzen; now you want to have your
turn. Very well, we shall meet at Vienna.”36 Metternich left Dresden con-
vinced that a genuine negotiation with the French ruler was no longer pos-
sible. One may say he knew this even before the meeting. As he set out for
the interview in Dresden, he had already instructed his diplomats to sign, on
June 27, the Treaty of Reichenbach, by which Austria joined the Allies—
thereby completing the formation of the Sixth Coalition—and pledged to
declare war on France if the peace conditions offered to Napoleon were not
accepted.37
In hindsight, Napoleon’s reaction to the Dresden Proposals is hardly sur-
prising considering the scope of concessions demanded of him. Even after the
French setbacks in Russia and Spain, these were hardly the lenient terms they
are often argued to have been. Despite holding military advantages (at least
in Germany) and still maintaining control over much of central Europe and
Italy, Napoleon was told to give up twenty years’ worth of French conquests
and to surrender positions across the continent. Would any head of state, not
to mention one in the mold of Napoleon, would have considered such mas-
sive concessions at a moment when he was buoyed by a string of recent vic-
tories? Would any of the Allied leaders themselves have considered comparable
offers with regard to their own imperial interests, be it in India, the Caucasus,
or the Danubian Principalities? Was Napoleon’s attitude any different from
Britain’s, whose statesmen believed that the empires must be won and main-
tained by “armed might,” otherwise they would fall by the same means to a
superior power?38
There is no denying that Napoleon was reluctant to negotiate, but claims
that he had no goal other than fighting or that the Allies had agreed to make
peace with Napoleon on the basis of minimal conditions seem misplaced.39
Like his opponents, the French emperor was seeking to achieve his own par-
ticular vision of a continental peace, and winning was a crucial element in
this. The set of demands presented at Dresden were designed to start prelimi-
nary discussions only, and if the French had accepted them, the Allies would
have raised new demands at the final negotiations. Napoleon knew that, and
he clearly felt that he could not agree to the terms while he was in a relatively
strong position militarily. His intransigence concealed two specific goals: to
settle directly with Russia, the strongest of the coalition members, and to
The Fall of the French Empire | 565

chastise Austria for breaking away from its alliance with France. Napoleon
was explicit about this in the instructions he gave to Caulaincourt, who had
been dispatched to negotiate in Prague.
The conference in Prague, however, produced no breakthroughs. It is
often described as a farce, and Karl Nesselrode, the Russian representative,
himself acknowledged that “neither side was particularly intent on a peace.
The congress was just a sham.”40 There is a certain truth to this. Of the four
sides involved, only Austria was keenly interested in organizing a general
peace conference, and Metternich did his best—even at the cost of mislead-
ing his allies—to convince the French emperor of his peaceful intentions.41
Napoleon remained suspicious, believing that the Austrians were offering an
olive branch with one hand while readying a sword with the other. He was
not mistaken in this, because the Habsburg court did take advantage of the
armistice to complete its army mobilization. However, Napoleon’s actions
were based on other considerations. First, whether out of his sense of family
loyalties or a patronizing view of Austrian military capabilities, he was genu-
inely convinced that Emperor Francis would not fight his own son-in-law; to
emphasize these dynastic ties, Napoleon had conferred on Empress Marie-
Louise—Francis’s daughter—the position of regent during his absence from
France.42 Second, the prospect of accepting a “dishonorable” peace weighed
heavily on the emperor’s mind. He believed that the French people would not
accept the loss of national glory that was, in the words of a British historian,
“one of the vital four pillars—along with national property rights, low taxa-
tion and centralized authority—that bolstered his rule.”43 Napoleon was
wrong. It is hard to imagine that he was unaware of the public expressions of
joy that news of the armistice provoked across much of France; prefects’
reports spoke of “the desire for peace [becoming] daily more intense, and if
this hope appeared to have solid grounds, public jubilation and gratitude
towards the Emperor would burst forth everywhere.”44
The final set of demands that Napoleon received on August 9 (with the
deadline on the tenth) represented his last major opportunity to negotiate
from a position of relative strength.45 Accepting the terms would have meant
renouncing much of what he had achieved in the previous thirteen years and
would have meant that the sacrifice of hundreds of thousands of lives had
been in vain. Of course, the way was still open for Napoleon to deal with the
situation through skillful diplomacy and timely concessions, exploiting the
war-weariness of Europe, the mutual distrust and jealousies of the coalition
members, and sovereigns’ fear of the popular movements that the war could
unleash. But such an approach also would have meant renouncing the Grand
Empire, and that Napoleon simply could not bring himself to accept. He
566 | the napoleonic wars

preferred the simpler but riskier path of war. Just a few months earlier he had
observed grimly that “in this world, there are only two alternatives—to com-
mand or to obey.”46 Still, Napoleon did consider the Allied terms, accepting
some and rejecting others. For example, he remained silent on renouncing his
protectorate of the Confederation of the Rhine but agreed to the dissolution
of the Duchy of Warsaw (which was to be partitioned by the Allied powers)
and restoration of the Illyrian Provinces to Austria; he refused to give Danzig
to Prussia but agreed to turn it into a free city. These were major concessions
even if they fell far short of Allied expectations. Furthermore, had Napoleon
conveyed them to Prague right away, the Allies might conceivably have
accepted them as a basis for preliminary negotiations. Yet, whether out of his
sense of pride or mere stalling, he delayed sending his counterterms, which
reached Prague on August 11, after the deadline had passed.47 The Russian
and Prussian envoys, in the words of eminent American historian Enno
Kraehe, with “their eyes fastened on the clock, their faces registering the
smiles of vindicated prescience, did not wait a minute beyond the stroke of
midnight to declare their powers expired.”48 The very next day, Austria
declared war on France.49 For the first time since the start of the Napoleonic
Wars, France faced the combined efforts of Europe’s great powers, whose
armies were already in the field and ready to coordinate their actions.
The Pleischwitz Armistice was thus the turning point of the war. If at the
start of the armistice Napoleon more than matched his foes and was indeed
close to winning the campaign, by the time the truce ended the Allies were
at least twice as strong as he was and united in their purpose to eject him
once and for all from central Europe. They understood that even after recent
setbacks, only an unprecedented cooperative effort could liberate Europe
from Napoleon’s control. Their sense of mission was further boosted by the
news of continued British successes in the Iberian Peninsula.

Wellington, who, as we have seen, had retreated to Portugal after his victory at
Salamanca in the fall of 1812, had spent the winter regrouping his army, which
increased to some 80,000 men, more than half of them British. Meanwhile, the
French forces in Spain had been weakened by Napoleon’s decision to recall
thousands of troops for the campaign in Germany. To take full advantage of
this, Wellington launched a fresh invasion of Spain in May 1813, sending
Lieutenant General Sir Rowland Hill, with 30,000 men, as a diversion to
Salamanca while the main Anglo-Allied force advanced across northern
Portugal before coming down behind the French defensive lines. By early June
his entire force was already on the northern side of the Douro River, much to
the surprise of the French, who began to hastily redeploy to meet the new
The Fall of the French Empire | 567

threat in the north. But such was the speed of the British advance that the
French, under King Joseph, were forced to abandon Burgos on June 13 and
were then caught unprepared near Vitoria a week later. The ensuing battle
resulted in such a decisive defeat of the French army that as the troops fled they
abandoned their entire baggage train, more than 400 caissons, and all but two
of 153 guns. More incredible, however, was the sheer amount of treasure—the
fruits of six years of plunder, which included paintings by Titian, Velázquez,
and Murillo—that King Joseph left behind as he fled the battlefield.
After Vitoria, the British swept through northern Spain as the French
retreated in great confusion and disorder. A few scattered garrisons and
Marshal Suchet’s command in Catalonia and Aragon were all that remained
of the Napoleonic Kingdom of Spain. Although the French tried to relieve
the besieged fortresses of San Sebastian and Pamplona, they were repelled at
Sorauren (July 28–30) and San Marcial (August 31) and forced across the
Pyrenees. To all intents and purposes, the Peninsular War was over. Wellington
was now in a position to plan for the invasion of France itself. The situation
in Spain lay heavily on Napoleon’s mind. He understood the urgency of
delivering a decisive blow to the coalition in Germany so that he could turn
his attention to the Pyrenees.50
Now that he had rejected a peace settlement, the only alternative for
Napoleon, as had been the case so often in the past, was rapid and ruthless
military action. This time, though, he was facing a rather different enemy.
The Allies had shown the ability to learn from their past mistakes, and per-
haps nothing illustrates this point better than the councils of war they held
at Trachenberg and Reichenbach during the armistice. Here they developed
an attritional strategy that was designed to counteract Napoleon’s military
genius. The Allies pledged to deploy up to half a million men in three major
armies: the Army of Bohemia, with some 230,000 men, under the command
of Austrian field marshal Karl Fürst zu Schwarzenberg; the Army of North
Germany, of more than 140,000 men, under the Swedish crown prince,
Bernadotte; and the Army of Silesia, with 105,000 men, led by a Prussian
general, Blücher.51 These were multinational forces designed to constrain any
coalition member’s ability to act out of national self-interest, and to prevent
Napoleon from defeating them piecemeal. These armies were to accept battle
only if their superiority was undoubted; if attacked by Napoleon, an army
was to fall back while other Allied armies would advance to increase pressure
on his flanks and communications and, if possible, destroy any forces the
French emperor had dispatched under his lieutenants on separate missions.
Once Napoleon was sufficiently weakened, the Allies would be in a position
to unite their armies for the decisive battle.52
568 | the napoleonic wars

Armed with the new strategy, the Allies soon seized the initiative and
gained a series of early victories. On August 23 Marshal Oudinot, whom
Napoleon again instructed to seize Berlin, was defeated by Bernadotte’s
Army of North Germany at Grossbeeren and pushed back from the Prussian
capital.53 This was an ominous preview of what would happen once Napoleon
delegated authority to his subordinates. Two days later Blücher defeated
France’s Marshal Macdonald on the Katzbach River and expelled the French
from Silesia.54 Napoleon slightly tilted the balance in his favor when he
exploited a mistake by Schwarzenberg and surprised the exposed Army of
Bohemia at Dresden on August 26–27; despite being outnumbered almost
two to one, the emperor outmaneuvered his opponent and won an impressive
tactical victory that cost the Allies more than 30,000 men.55 Had the victory
been followed up with vigor, Dresden might have ranked as one of Napoleon’s
decisive victories. But the combination of a lack of cavalry, bad weather, and
Napoleon’s own lack of resolve meant that the battle ultimately proved pyr-
rhic. At least the Emperor could draw solace from the news that his long-
standing rival General Jean Moreau, who had returned from exile to support
the Allies, had been killed by a French cannonball. “That rascal Bonaparte is
always lucky,” Moreau wrote his wife shortly before his death.56
Moreau did not live long enough to see his rival’s run of good luck expire.
Two days after Dresden, General Dominique Vandamme, whom Napoleon
had left in charge of the pursuit of Schwarzenberg, found himself surrounded
at Kulm, where his entire command was captured. On September 6 it was
Marshal Ney’s turn. Dispatched by Napoleon to seize Berlin, Ney was
defeated at Dennewitz. Meanwhile, following the Trachenberg plan, the
Allied forces withdrew as soon as Napoleon confronted them, forcing him to
march back and forth between the Elbe and Bober Rivers in a futile attempt
to gain a decisive victory. All the while, Schwarzenberg advanced into
Saxony.57 The Allied plan was clearly working. In less than a month of cam-
paigning, the French had suffered thousands of losses with no tangible gains
to show for them. The remaining troops were exhausted by the incessant
marching and fighting, as well as the heavy rain that all but sapped the sup-
ply lines. Encouraged by these successes, the Allies concluded the Treaties of
Toeplitz, on September 9, which reinforced earlier coalition agreements and
further outlined general principles upon which postwar settlement would be
reached. The general terms called for the material restoration of Austria and
Prussia to their pre-1805/1806 status, dissolution of the Confederation of the
Rhine, the restoration of the states of northwestern Europe to their 1803
status, and the partition of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw along lines that
would be determined later. All three governments vowed not to make a
The Fall of the French Empire | 569

s­eparate peace with Napoleon and each agreed to keep an army in the field
until the end of the war.
After Dennewitz, Napoleon adjusted his strategy. He made one more
chase at Blücher’s Army of Silesia and Bernadotte’s Army of North Germany,
but both of them declined battle and retreated across the Saale River. This
was one of the most vital moments in the entire campaign. Blücher and
Bernadotte had all but abandoned Berlin, which was defended by a small
Prussian garrison. Had Napoleon decided to leave Silesia and shift his forces
northward, the campaign would have followed a completely different course.
Until this point the French operations were centered on Dresden, which
offered many advantages, not the least of which was its central location. But
it was also an unfortified town that could be easily threatened by the Allies.
By shifting operations to the north, Napoleon could have turned the for-
tresses of Magdeburg, Torgau, Wittenberg, Küstrin, and Stettin into his
bases of operation while leaving the Allied armies in the despoiled Saxon
countryside. Yet he chose a different strategy. After months of chasing an
elusive enemy, he decided to hunker down in Leipzig, let the Allies come to
him, and wait for the chance to strike separately at their converging armies.
The Allies slowly closed around Napoleon at Leipzig. On October 15, as
Schwarzenberg approached the city from the south and Blücher from the
north, the French emperor still would have had a real chance of success if he
had acted with his old vigor.58 But by the sixteenth it was too late. When the
battle began that overcast October morning, the Allies already had more
than 200,000 men against Napoleon’s 170,000. It was a day of desperate and
bloody fighting that ended with neither side prevailing. But Napoleon’s
army, with its fixed number, was now pitted against an enemy that kept
receiving reinforcements; 40,000 Russians under Bennigsen were followed
by some 60,000 men under Bernadotte, bringing the total strength of the
Allied armies to some 380,000 men and 1,500 guns, while Napoleon could
barely muster 200,000 men and 900 cannon. The French emperor waited
irresolutely through the seventeenth, though he should have either attacked
or retreated. He sent a letter to the Austrian emperor proposing an armistice
and vaguely hinting at concessions. But his enemies knew that he was at last
in their coils, and they had no interest in letting him out.
On October 18 the battle resumed, with the odds now clearly stacked
against the French, especially after the Saxon and Württemberg contingents
had crossed over to the Allies. Disputing every inch of ground, the French
were steadily pushed back to the city. By nightfall Napoleon had ordered a
general retreat, and all that night his troops were crowding back into the
town and jamming the western gates of the city. Remarkably, Napoleon had
570 | the napoleonic wars

made no special preparations for the withdrawal and no extra spans had been
erected across the Pleisse and Elster Rivers. The mass of the French army was
retreating across a single bridge that quickly became blocked. To crown this
day of disasters, a corporal left behind to blow up the bridge over the Elster
got alarmed by the approach of enemy troops and prematurely lit the fuse as
the French troops were still crossing it. As the charges exploded, the air was
filled with flying fragments of the bridge and transports, not to mention the
unfortunate horses and men who happened to be on it.59 Thousands of French
soldiers were stranded in the city and were captured; some tried to swim to
safety and, like Marshal Jozef Poniatowski, drowned in the process.60 Darkness
brought an end to the battle. The magnitude of the Allied victory had
eclipsed all previous battles of the Napoleonic Wars, with the French suffer-
ing staggering losses of more than 60,000 killed, wounded, and captured;
thirty-six French generals were among the prisoners; and a third of all cannons
were lost. The Allies losses were equally sanguine, more than 50,000.
The Battle of the Nations, as the engagement at Leipzig came to be called,
was a transformative event, one that shattered the legacy of Austerlitz and
Jena. If before the battle there had still remained a flickering possibility of
Napoleon emerging victorious from this war, Leipzig extinguished it. The
whole fabric of the Napoleonic Empire came crumbling to the ground. This
defeat left Napoleon’s German allies with no other option than to join the
Allies. The next month (November 18–24) Russia, Austria, and Prussia
declared the Confederation of the Rhine dissolved and negotiated new agree-
ments with German princes, who were tasked with providing troops and
supplies as well as procuring vast amounts of money for the continued strug-
gle against their former master. The contingent of each German state was
rated at double what it had furnished to Napoleon, with Saxony and Hanover
furnishing 20,000, Hesse and Württemberg 12,000, and Baden 10,000.
Ultimately, the German states provided more than 100,000 regular troops
and an equal number of Landwehr troops.61
More crucial is that these German states now found themselves part of a
bitter power struggle between Russia, Prussia, and Austria. The Habsburg
court succeeded in negotiating separate military conventions with some
German states (i.e., Hesse-Darmstadt and Württemberg), raising the pros-
pect of an Austria-dominated southern Germany, which both Prussia and
Russia considered detrimental to their interests. Taking advantage of his
dynastic ties to many German princes, Emperor Alexander forced his way
into the Austro-Württemberg alliance on November 2, 1813, and insisted
on his involvement in the Austro-Bavarian treaty as well. Furthermore,
between November 20 and December 2, the Russian diplomats negotiated
The Fall of the French Empire | 571

separate agreements with Baden, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and Hesse-


Kassel and put forth claims to Saxony, Thuringia, Hesse-Darmstadt, and
Nassau, where Russian governors were supposed to set up administrative
districts. Equally grasping was Prussia, which demanded vast compensations
in Saxony and continued to occupy the Grand Duchy of Berg even after the
last French soldier had left its territory.62
One might have expected the elated Allies to invade France, rushing in to
overthrow the man who had tormented them for so long. Instead, in the
aftermath of Leipzig they halted their operations to regroup. After taking up
positions along the Rhine River, the coalition representatives assembled at
Frankfurt to discuss what to do next. They were all concerned about the pros-
pects of invading France: the memories of the French levée en masse and popu-
lar rising of the 1790s were still fresh, and the Allies were disinclined to pay
the high price in men and matériel that the invasion would exact. More
important, the coalition’s conflicting aims and wishes had reasserted them-
selves. Disagreements had been scarce while the coalition struggled for con-
trol over central Europe. But now that it had been accomplished and the
Allies stood on the banks of the Rhine, their unity began to wane. Bernadotte,
the crown prince of Sweden, had occasionally demonstrated lackluster com-
mitment to the Allied cause and was against the idea of invading France. His
opposition came about not because he had once been a Frenchman but rather
because he had far greater ambitions to satisfy, including taking charge of
France once Napoleon was overthrown; if that failed, he was keen on strength-
ening Sweden’s positions in northern Europe.63 These political motives, along
with his dynastic concerns, shaped Bernadotte’s performance during the
entire war.64 Indeed, no one knew better than Bernadotte himself that his
Swedish throne depended entirely on his accomplishing his goal of acquiring
Norway—hence his decision to join the Allies only on condition that they
would help him secure this realm from Napoleon’s ally Denmark. Throughout
the campaign he often deliberately kept his Swedish troops out of action
because he thought he might need them later for conquests in the north.
Austria, having played such a decisive role in the events of 1813, had
effectively fulfilled its goals, removing French influence in Germany. The
Viennese court had no interest in the complete overthrow of Napoleon, who
was, after all, married to Emperor Francis’s daughter. To continue the war
meant further sacrifices of men and money, while its result would inevitably
advance the interests of St. Petersburg and Berlin more than those of Vienna.
For Metternich, reaching the Rhine signaled the time to negotiate a peace,
one that would create a balance between the great powers by using France
as a counterweight against Russia. Equally important for Austria was to
572 | the napoleonic wars

f­rustrate Russo-Prussian designs on Poland and Saxony as well as any other


plans they might have for Germany that would threaten the national inter-
ests of Austria.
So it was Emperor Alexander and the Prussian senior officers—King
Frederick William was anything but bellicose—who clamored for a continu-
ation of the war. For the Russian ruler, the advantages were obvious. Aside
from the symbolic importance of entering his enemy’s capital city, he knew
that the more prominently he figured in the taming of the Revolution incar-
nate, the more his voice would carry in the final settlement. Alexander’s
grand vision for Russia’s place in postwar Europe required an energetic exe-
cution of the war and the destruction of French power. A negotiated peace
with Napoleon while the French emperor was still on the throne and with
French armies in the field could not provide the leverage that Alexander
needed to secure his objectives, including forcing France to surrender Alsace
to Austria as compensation for Vienna’s cession of Galicia to Russian-
controlled Poland. Furthermore, continued friction with the Austrians also
raised Russian doubts whether they could gain sufficient support from any
party involved in the negotiations; even Prussian support was seen as waver-
ing, raising questions about the viability of Alexander’s fundamental demand,
which was incorporating Prussian Poland into his Polish domain and com-
pensating Berlin with Saxony.
Despite the demands of the war party, Metternich and the peace party
prevailed. The Allies offered Napoleon what became known as the Frankfurt
Proposals. Drafted under Metternich’s close supervision, the terms would
have ensured the survival of the Napoleonic monarchy in France in exchange
for Napoleon’s acceptance of augmented natural frontiers. Napoleon would
surrender Holland, Germany, Italy, and Spain but still retain Belgium, the
left bank of the Rhine, and Savoy in northwestern Italy—which is to say, the
original conquests of the French Revolution. These were generous terms, if
one considers that Napoleon had already lost control over Germany, Italy, and
Spain, and agreeing to them simply would have confirmed the reality on the
ground. France still would have emerged larger that it had been since
Charlemagne, and the Napoleonic monarchy certainly would have survived
beyond 1815. And that was the exact purpose of the proposals. They reflected
Metternich’s firm belief that Russia would be the future threat to Europe’s
equilibrium; Russian insistence on the war and regime change in France
only unnerved the Austrians, who interpreted this as Alexander’s attempt to
turn France into a Russian satellite. With Prussia already playing the role
of a Russian associate, this postwar arrangement would have ensured
Russian dominance on the continent. Containing ambitious tsars required the
The Fall of the French Empire | 573

p­ reservation of France as a great power, and granting natural frontiers ensured


that the French would have sufficient resources to deter Russian aggrandize-
ment in Europe.
How sincerely the offer was meant has been long debated by historians,
but given continued dissent between the powers, it is probable that Napoleon
could have had peace on these terms had he accepted the offer at once. Instead,
he dithered. He was prepared to surrender Spain and Germany but balked at
giving away Italy, which, in his words, “could make a diversion to Austria,”
and Holland, which “afforded so many resources.”65 Equally important for
him was the realization that the price the Allies were asking for French
acceptance of these terms was not the cessation of hostilities but the start of
negotiations, and the Allies specified that these negotiations would not sus-
pend military operations. Thus, even after he had renounced his conquests,
he would not have obtained the certainty of preserving France from invasion.
Grumbling that the coalition considered “the lion dead,” Napoleon agreed to
negotiate, and he instructed his envoy to inform the coalition that he was
accepting “the general and summary bases” for talks.66 Throughout November
1813 the envoys shuttled back and forth, discussing preliminary terms for
opening negotiations.
British intervention soon rendered these negotiations moot. By now
Wellington was already in southern France, and his military presence, along
with the vast subsidies that the Allies continued to receive from London,
gave Britain considerable bargaining power. The news of the Frankfurt
Proposals alarmed the British government because its representative, the Earl
of Aberdeen, not only had accepted Metternich’s vision of postwar equilib-
rium but had promised to restore captured French colonies, and he had
neglected to protest against British maritime interests being brought into
the discussion. It was decided that Lord Castlereagh, the foreign secretary,
must immediately go to Allied headquarters. As a favored apprentice of
Prime Minister Pitt, Castlereagh had been long actively involved in British
foreign policy and shared Pitt’s broad vision of a post-Napoleonic settlement:
the return of France to its 1792 borders, restoration of sovereigns overthrown
during the Napoleonic Wars, acceptance of Russian expansion as long as
Austria and Prussia were compensated, the formation of a territorial buffer
zone around France to prevent any future aggression, and the conclusion of a
general agreement for the mutual protection and security of the great powers.67
This was a general program that Castlereagh tried to realize in 1813–1815.
His instructions also specified the independence of Holland, Spain, and
Portugal and made clear that Aberdeen was to be adamantly against any set-
tlement that would have left France in control of any part of the Low Countries
574 | the napoleonic wars

(especially Antwerp), which could threaten the British Isles.68 Crucial to


British interests was the question of maritime rights, of course, for they
underpinned British imperial interests around the world. Castlereagh had
made it clear that British naval power was such that the Allies should not
even broach it in their discussions.69
The Frankfurt Proposals alarmed the British because they made clear that
Metternich was steering the coalition in a direction that would leave many of
Britain’s war aims unfulfilled. Austria, as a continental power, harbored little
concern for the issues that most concerned the British, such as maritime trad-
ing rights or the Low Countries. On the other hand, British influence in
southern Italy was deeply worrying to Vienna, which preferred to see the
Italian peninsula under its authority. To achieve his goals of containing Russia,
maintaining political equilibrium, and preventing future revolutions, Metternich
sought to isolate the British and, if possible, exclude them from negotiations
that would have kept Napoleon on the French throne and limited France to its
natural frontiers. This was an unsettling prospect for Britain.
Upon arriving on the continent, Castlereagh found the Allies lacking
military and diplomatic unity. The Russian emperor’s refusal to identify his
objectives suggested his intention to use the war to push Russian influence
deep into central Europe. Relations between Alexander and Metternich had
been embittered to such a degree that the Austrians threatened to halt
further military cooperation unless the Russians scaled back their ambitions.
Castlereagh immediately set about the task of reconciling their differences,
binding the Allies closer together, and, most crucial of all, creating a mech­
an­ism by which the coalition could act in unison against Napoleon and reor-
ganize the continent after a generation of warfare. Here lay one of Castlereagh’s
greatest contributions to the Napoleonic Wars. He was one the least insular
of British statesmen and demonstrated both common sense and a good grasp
of the issues at stake. He diligently worked to bridge the divides between the
Allies, and his eventual success generated a veritable diplomatic revolution
in international affairs.70
Castlereagh did not believe that any peace would last as long as Napoleon
continued to wear the imperial crown. Britain and Austria thus appeared dia-
metrically opposed on this issue, one that might have proven insuperable if not
for a rift in Anglo-Russian relations that paved the way for an Anglo-Austrian
rapprochement. To encourage the Allies to fight on, Castlereagh informed
them of the British offer of £5 million and a willingness to establish a Grand
Alliance in which Russia would take the lead role as Britain’s partner. However,
Alexander rebuffed any offer that did not guarantee his major objective, Poland.
He then departed for the front on January 16, leaving Metternich behind in
Basle. The Austrian cleverly exploited this window of opportunity to seek, in
The Fall of the French Empire | 575

his words, “an identity of thought and feeling” with Castlereagh. As soon as the
British secretary reached the Swiss town, the Austrian minister arranged for
several private meetings with him and during them offered a deeper perspec-
tive on the coalition’s problems. Metternich understood that, given British
intervention, the Frankfurt terms were no longer viable. Though he mistrusted
the British, he also needed their help against Russian intrigue, and so he pre-
sented himself as a flexible proponent of Anglo-Austrian entente, in direct
contrast to the Russian recalcitrance. He persuaded Castlereagh that if Russia
was unchecked, Russian hegemony would replace French.
During the negotiations, the British secretary insisted that the former
Dutch territories be merged with Belgium to form the Kingdom of
Netherlands, which would be entrusted to the House of Orange, while Spain
and Portugal would be returned to their former rulers. In exchange for
Austrian support on these issues, Britain was willing to help Vienna in Italy
and reach a compromise settlement in Germany. Metternich had no objec-
tions to Britain’s plans in the Low Countries or to its unwillingness to discuss
maritime rights, and the two statesmen agreed that for a lasting peace in
Europe it was important to maintain a strong France as a counterbalance to the
Russian Empire. Castlereagh, for his part, contended that British public opin-
ion demanded Napoleon’s abdication. Metternich preferred to see Napoleon
remain on the throne, which meant that the emperor’s son (and Emperor
Francis’s grandson) would eventually inherit the crown. However, Metternich
was also willing to compromise on this issue, one that Britain clearly consid-
ered vital to its interests. For Austria, the only alternative to keeping Napoleon
was restoring the Bourbon Dynasty, which would ensure the revival of
France’s traditional position as a counterpoint to Russia.
These discussions shifted the balance within the coalition against Russia.
Castlereagh came to share Metternich’s view of the potential threat Russia posed
to the European balance of power, and agreed with his half brother, Sir Charles
Stewart (Britain’s ambassador to Prussia), that Russia’s vast human and natural
resources had been augmented further during the Napoleonic Wars. “If we con-
sider all these circumstances in all their bearings and dependencies,” observed
Charles William Vane, Marquis of Londonderry, “is there a serious and reasonable
man in Europe that must not admit that the whole system of European politics
ought, as its leading principle and feature, to maintain, as an axiom, the necessity
of setting bounds to this [Russian] formidable and encroaching power?”71

By January 1814, France’s military prospects looked grim. The great empire
that once had stretched from the Douro to the Niemen had been dissolved in the
course of a single year. Napoleon’s resources and manpower had been strained to
the extreme. More than 100,000 men were tied down in besieged fortresses
576 | the napoleonic wars

beyond the Rhine, while some 50,000 men, under Eugène de Beauharnais, were
stuck in northern Italy and along France’s Alpine borders. All the minor German
states had, more or less willingly, joined the Allies. In Italy, Marshal Joachim
Murat, hoping to safeguard his Neapolitan crown and encouraged by his wife
(and Napoleon’s sister), Caroline, had defected to the Allies, issued a proclama-
tion denouncing the “mad ambitions” of his former benefactor, and marched
with 30,000 men to support the Austrian efforts to reclaim northern Italy.72
Spain had been liberated, and Wellington’s Anglo-Allied army had already estab-
lished itself in an unassailable position near Bayonne, in southern France.73 The
Allies commenced an invasion of France with three armies—Schwarzenberg’s
Army of Bohemia (200,000 men) advancing from Switzerland, Blücher’s Army
of Silesia (more than 50,000 men) moving from Germany toward Metz, and
Bernadotte’s Army of North Germany (120,000 men) proceeding toward
northwestern France, with some of its units invading the Low Countries.
To confront these threats, Napoleon decreed new levies that raised a force
of almost 120,000 men, many of them mere boys who were nicknamed marie-
louises after their young empress.74 With almost 100,000 troops committed
to contain the British in southern France and another 20,000 to 30,000 to
defend the Alpine borders, Napoleon could devote only 75,000 to 80,000
men to the east and northeastern frontier, where the main Allied invasion was
unfolding. He made some effort to revive the spirit of 1793—allowing pub-
lic performances of “La Marseillaise” and sending out a new generation of
commissaries to the departments—but rebuffed suggestions to resort to pop-
ular support because he feared social instability and chaos. In any case, the
nation itself was not ready for a repetition of 1793. After a decade of almost
continuous warfare, the country’s economy in decline and its industry at a
standstill, two great armies destroyed in as many years, and the country men-
aced by foreign invasion, the public desire for peace was passionate and uni-
versal. Napoleon could no longer count on a popular response to calls of “la
patrie en danger.” Reflecting this uncertain mood, the Senate and Legislative
Corps showed their first signs of defiance, with the latter urging the emperor
to come to terms with the Allies and demanding civil and political liber-
ties.75 Napoleon’s response was, as expected, swift and imperious. He pro-
rogued the legislature and delivered a blistering attack on his critics:

You call yourselves Representatives of the Nation. It is not true. . . . I alone


am the true Representative of the Nation. Twice 24,000,000 French
called me to this throne: who of you would undertake such a bur-
den? . . . What, who are you? Nothing—all authority is in the throne;
and what is the Throne? A few boards covered with velvet? No! I am
the Throne! . . . Must I sacrifice pride to obtain peace? I am proud,
The Fall of the French Empire | 577

because I am brave. I am proud because I have done great things for


France. In a word, France has more need of me than I have need of
France. In three months we shall have peace, or I shall be dead.76

During these critical days Napoleon once again demonstrated the duality of
his character. On one hand, here was a man who despite his brilliance, inci-
siveness, and clarity of mind regularly rejected rational thought and acted
out of pride and egotism. At moments Napoleon had recognized that the
Continental System was “a chimera,” that the Confederation of the Rhine was
a “bad calculation,” and even that the Grand Empire was a lost cause.77 Yet
he never did anything about this and, instead, denounced those who dared to
wish “to descend from the height to which I have raised France, to become a
simple monarchy again instead of a proud Empire.”78 He regularly raged
against client states that had turned their backs on him. Discussing the
defection of Bavaria, his eyes flashed with anger: “Munich must burn! And
burn it shall!”79 This intransigence of temper played a decisive role in his
downfall. If not state interests, common sense should have required him to
conclude a peace.
But beneath it all remained the young and brilliant general who had stunned
Europe twenty years earlier. He was still that talented, pensive, and hardwork-
ing man who was less the favored child of fortune than its maker. There were
still flashes of the old genius. Despite everything arrayed against him, the new
campaign saw the return of the younger and more energetic Napoleon—“I have
put on my Italian boots,” he famously quipped, referring to his great Italian
campaigns of 1796–1797. He hastened preparations for a campaign based on
the strategy of safeguarding the heart of his empire, Paris. His defensive cam-
paign in February of 1814 remains a classic example of how a small force,
resourcefully handled, may inflict defeat on an enemy superior in numbers. Of
course, Napoleon’s task was greatly facilitated by the Allies’ continued bicker-
ing over the outcome of war and Europe’s future prospects. Having liberated
central Europe, they had already made it clear that there was wide disagreement
as to how they would deal with the problems raised by Napoleon’s defeat. These
political discords had been made more serious by personal friction between the
Allied leaders. Thus, even as the invasion began, their headquarters still debated
their ultimate object: to overthrow Napoleon completely or to compel him to
accept a peace that might still leave him in charge of France? Military operations
were therefore often conducted disjointedly and lackadaisically.
In the opening phase of the campaign of 1814, Napoleon used the advantage
of his central position to attack the various Allied armies in turn and push them
back. On January 29 he surprised Blücher’s Army of Silesia at Brienne-le-
Château (where Napoleon had studied as a schoolboy), inflicting 4,000 casualties
578 | the napoleonic wars

and forcing the Prussian general to fall southward. Three days later Napoleon
was attacked by Blücher at La Rothière. A severe snowstorm blinded both sides,
and while Napoleon managed to hold ground until nightfall, he was eventually
forced to retreat.80 This setback seems to have jolted the emperor, who on
February 4 gave Caulaincourt permission to treat with the Allies. Several factors
made Caulaincourt’s task impossible. Six days earlier, the four Allied powers
(Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia) had signed a secret protocol at Langres in
which they agreed to make all the major decisions concerning postwar European
settlement themselves. The agreement affirmed a balance of power as the guid-
ing principle and promised to develop “a system of real and permanent Balance
of Power in Europe” at a congress that would be organized after the war.81
But the Allies still lacked unity. The Austrians, sensing the growing
ambitions of the Russian ruler, attempted to slow the pace of Allied military
operations. Alexander saw through the Austrian smokescreen and refused to
allow any delay. After the Prussian success at La Rothière, he instructed his
envoy to suspend negotiations, and he argued that he could march straight to
Paris and dethrone Napoleon. He also refused to bind himself to any declara-
tion of war aims, insisting that none should be identified until Napoleon had
been defeated and declaring that all options regarding France’s future dynasty
should be considered. Castlereagh had some stormy meetings with the
Russian ruler before the latter agreed to resume negotiations.82
This was one of the focal moments in the campaign. The Russian emperor
had realized that he could not win without Austria’s military support and
British subsidies. Conversely, Metternich knew that as long as the Anglo-
Austrian entente remained firm, he would be able to restrain Russian ambi-
tions. Castlereagh shared this sentiment after he came to perceive Alexander
“as an uncooperative and ungrateful ally.”83 On January 29, 1814, the Allies
signed the Protocols of Langres, which reflected the discussions they had held
over the previous four weeks. The protocol affirmed that the balance of power,
not sovereign equality, was the idea of the moment, and it reserved all major
decisions concerning postwar reconstruction to the great powers themselves.
It was agreed that France should be restricted to its “ancient frontiers” (again,
as of 1792) and that all other questions, except maritime rights, would be
settled at a congress to be held at Vienna.84
At the peace conference at Châtillon-sur-Seine, which opened on February 5,
Napoleon was surprised to learn that the Allied terms no longer involved
the 1797 frontiers (as envisioned in the Frankfurt Proposals) and had substi-
tuted those of 1792.85 He found this a hard pill to swallow, refusing to accept
any terms that would have reduced France to the boundaries of the ancien
régime. His intransience only increased when his repeated requests about the
The Fall of the French Empire | 579

plans that the Allies had made for Germany and Italy were ignored. The
Allies could hardly tell him what they were, since they had not yet agreed on
the issues themselves, but their response that German and Italian matters
were of no concern to France only served to embitter the French emperor.
The Châtillon-sur-Seine conference continues to serve as a classic example
of how difficult it is to conduct diplomatic negotiations while a war rages.
When he was losing, Napoleon was willing to get what he could; with any
glimpse of winning, he would change his mind. Thus just hours after dis-
patching his envoy to negotiate at Châtillon-sur-Seine he was already
stretched out on the floor, poring over his maps and sticking pins into them.
The reason for this change of attitude was newly received reports that the
Allies had split their forces and that while Schwarzenberg’s Army of Bohemia
was slogging along the southern route toward Paris, Blücher’s Army of Silesia
remained unsupported in the valley of the Marne to the north. Napoleon was
tempted to destroy the Prussians, which, in his mind, would have strength-
ened his position at the ongoing negotiations with the Allies. After a quick
dash from Troyes, Napoleon launched one of his most remarkable campaigns,
winning a quick succession of victories over the Russo-Prussian forces at
Champaubert, Montmirail, Château-Thierry, and Vauchamps in the five days
between February 10 and 14. The French then turned to Schwarzenberg’s
Austrian army, which in the meantime had begun its leisurely advance,
defeating it at Mormant, Montereau, and Méry between February 17 and
February 21.86
These were amazing accomplishments, but their overall impact would
actually make it impossible for Napoleon to win the war. Although the
French pushed the Allies back to Bar-sur-Aube and inflicted greater casual-
ties than they suffered, their losses were still significant in light of the lim-
ited resources they had at hand. Furthermore, these victories emboldened
Napoleon to order his envoy at the Châtillon congress to accept nothing less
than the previously offered (and rejected) Frankfurt Proposals.
His hopes that his six-day campaign would splinter the coalition would
not come to fruition, however. Allied self-confidence was indeed dented, and
new fissures threatened to undermine their war effort. Recriminations
between Austria and Russia had reached new heights, with Alexander feeling
betrayed by the lackluster Austrian performance. Each power suspected that
the other was trying to preserve its forces in order to have greater leverage
during postwar negotiations over the spoils. But Castlereagh’s timely inter-
vention once again saved the day. He pointed out to the Allies the strength
of their position, allayed their mutual suspicions, and, in his most crucial
contribution, warned that Britain would never restore its colonial conquests
580 | the napoleonic wars

unless there was a peace on the continent such as it desired. “Nothing keeps
either power firm but the consciousness that without Great Britain the peace
cannot be made,” Castlereagh reported in late February.87
Castlereagh’s efforts soon rallied the quarrelling Allies and helped to them
rediscover their joint purpose to fight Napoleon. They confirmed this com-
mitment in the Treaty of Chaumont (March 1), which Castlereagh helped
negotiate and that formed what became known as the Quadruple Alliance.
The Allies agreed to let Napoleon retain his throne only if he was willing to
accept the offer of the “ancient frontiers” of France in return for a cease-fire.
The Allies pledged that if the terms were rejected, they would fight the war
against France to a conclusion, with each of the powers committing 150,000
troops to victory. Britain promised to contribute a subsidy of £5 million to the
effort. More significantly, each member of the alliance agreed not to seek a
separate accommodation with Napoleon—thus eliminating any possibility of
his breaking up the alliance—and to remain united for twenty years following
the conclusion of hostilities in order to ensure France’s observance of the
peace terms. These terms included a confederated Germany, an in­de­pend­ent
Switzerland, an Italy divided into independent (but Austria-influenced) states,
a free Spain under the Bourbons, and an enlarged Holland under the House of
Orange.88 Here was the origin of the alliance that was to dominate European
politics for three decades. It was designed, in the words of its chief architect,
“not only as a systematic pledge of persevering concert among the leading
Powers, but a refuge under which all the minor States, especially those on the
Rhine, may look forward to find their security upon the return of peace.”89
Napoleon rejected the offer, still firmly believing that a military cam-
paign could turn the tide of war and cause the coalition to collapse. This
rejection confirmed what many members of the coalition had suspected—
namely, that the French emperor had never had any intention of negotiating
in good faith, and that the only way to deal with him was through brute
force. In early March he again targeted Blücher’s Army of Silesia, ordering
Marshals Marmont and Mortier to pursue the Russo-Prussians while he made
a flanking maneuver to cut off their line of retreat. Blücher was surrounded
on all sides, and the only way out was through the French-held fortress of
Soissons. Incredibly, the Allied officers managed to convince the French com-
mander of Soissons, General Jean-Claude Moreau, to abandon the fortress,
allowing Blücher’s weary troops to escape across the Aisne River.90
The Allied capture of Soissons on March 3 had a critical impact—
“incalculable harm,” in the words of Napoleon—on the course of the 1814
campaign.91 Without this fortress, Blücher’s men would have been forced to
fight with their backs against the river and could have suffered another defeat
The Fall of the French Empire | 581

à la Friedland.92 But the opportunity was lost and the fall of Soissons proved
fortuitous for the Allies. Once the Army of Silesia was safely across the river,
they left a strong garrison at Soissons, blocking French operations and com-
pelling Napoleon to turn to Craonne, where he sought to cross the Aisne
River in order to flank the Army of Silesia. After his cavalry scouts seized an
intact bridge at Berry-au-Bac, Napoleon received intelligence of Allied forces
concentrating on the plateau near Craonne. Assuming that Blücher was still
trying to retreat, Napoleon concluded that this was probably a covering force
for the Army of Silesia and decided to destroy it. Instead, he came across
Blücher’s entire army.
The Battle of Craonne on March 7 did not go as either side planned.
Blücher could not get all his forces into action, while Napoleon did not yet
appreciate how powerful his opponent was. After several hours of fighting, in
which the troops of Russian general Mikhail Vorontsov particularly distin-
guished themselves, Blücher decided to break off the action and had the
troops fall back to the main position at Laon, about six miles to the north-
west. Although Napoleon could claim a victory at Craonne since he was left
in possession of the field, his army suffered heavy losses that it could not
afford. After the battle both sides remained very much in the dark as to each
other’s actual strength and intentions. Still believing that Blücher was in
retreat, Napoleon sought another opportunity to destroy part of the Army of
Silesia. This led to a two-day battle at Laon, where the Allies successfully
repelled French attacks and forced Napoleon to fall back.93
Soon the French emperor’s situation turned grim. Ill tidings appeared
from every quarter. While Napoleon was fighting Blücher at Craonne and
Laon, Schwarzenberg had kept moving closer to Paris. In southern France,
Wellington had crossed the Pau River and defeated Marshal Soult at Orthez
on February 27. By mid-March the flag of the Bourbons appeared in Bordeaux,
and the city shortly surrendered to the British without a fight.94 Searching for
any bit of good news, Napoleon grasped at a timely piece of intelligence. The
Allies, encouraged by their recent successes, had gotten careless and left a
single Russian corps under the French émigré General Emmanuel Saint-
Priest at the city of Rheims, seeking to maintain communications between
Blücher and Schwarzenberg. Located at the junction of major routes to Paris,
Rheims was also important symbolically as the ancient coronation site for
French kings. Napoleon immediately saw that the Russian corps (with a
small Prussian contingent) was isolated and unsupported by the Allied forces.
Consequently, he diverted part of his army to reclaim Rheims and crush the
Russians. The first of his columns reached the town after a bruising march of
twenty hours. It was near nightfall on March 13, and Saint-Priest had no idea
582 | the napoleonic wars

what he was facing. He initially marched out to confront the enemy force,
but his troops were soon manhandled back into the town by the stronger
French forces. The ensuing Battle of Rheims resulted in an Allied defeat and
cost the coalition as many as 5,000 men, almost half of them killed, includ-
ing Saint-Priest himself.95
The French victory at Rheims stunned the Allies, who had already writ-
ten off Napoleon only to see him reincarnate and shatter another Allied corps.
Furthermore, in one quick march Napoleon had placed himself between the
Allied armies and was in position to threaten the rear of both. For a moment
the Allies vacillated about their next moves. Their hand was forced by the
new French offensive. Napoleon chose to exploit his success at Rheims by
moving farther eastward with a striking force and linking up with the French
garrisons near the Rhine that were blockaded by the Allies. This, combined
with growing partisan activity in the eastern part of France, would sever the
supply lines of the Allied armies. However, before this bold strategic move
could be undertaken, Napoleon decided to first target Schwarzenberg’s Army
of Bohemia, which had gotten dangerously close to Paris. Leaving Marshals
Marmont and Mortier to watch Blücher in the north, he marched south with
the remaining forces. aiming at the rear end of the Army of Bohemia. Upon
learning about the French movement, Schwarzenberg, uncharacteristically,
decided to halt his retreat and fight the French. In the ensuing battle at
Arcis-sur-Aube (March 20) the Allies proved victorious primarily because
Napoleon underestimated their strength—Schwarzenberg began with just
20,000 on the first day but mustered four times as many troops by the end of
the battle.96
To recover his position, Napoleon then resorted to his earlier plan of
marching eastward and linking up with the garrisons to cut the Allied sup-
ply lines. This was a bold course indeed, and Napoleon thought it was the
best one available. On March 23 he outlined his plan in a short letter to his
wife, Marie-Louise. It was intercepted by Allied scouts. The letter offered
crucial intelligence on the French emperor’s plans, his intent, and even his
initial line of march and allowed the Allies to shift their attention to the
French capital, where, as additional captured dispatches revealed, the politi-
cal situation was very unstable. Napoleon’s ministers spoke of the alarming
extent of subversive activity, as well as of the weak defenses of the city.
Emperor Alexander now insisted that the Allied armies immediately march
on to Paris. By noon on March 30 the Allies had reached the Buttes-Chaumont
and, ascending a nearby hill, surveyed the French capital spreading in front
of them in the distance. Only hours separated them from a triumphant entry
into the capital of their greatest enemy.
The Fall of the French Empire | 583

Paris was defended by the battered corps of Marshals Marmont and


Mortier. The Allies first targeted the north of the city, the aim being to take
the heights of Montmartre, which would have offered them the dominant
position. Although far outnumbering the French defenders, they began their
attack on a broad front and quickly got tangled up in a series of uncoordi-
nated assaults on the northern faubourgs. The fighting continued all day and
was desperate and bloody, especially around the faubourg of Pantin. By
nightfall the French prevented the Allied forces from getting into Paris
proper. Nonetheless, it was clear that the fate of the city had already been
decided. During the night Marmont and Mortier accepted coalition parleys
and agreed on terms of surrender at two in the morning on March 31, 1814.
At the same time, Talleyrand, who had played such a crucial role in Napoleon’s
rise to power, now played an equally important part in his downfall. The
former foreign minister organized a virtual coup d’état, forming a provisional
government that opened negotiations with the Allies. It was he and fellow
renegade Joseph Fouché, the former minister of police, who convinced the
Allied leaders to restore the Bourbon dynasty on the throne of France and had
the Senate adopt a special proclamation deposing Napoleon on April 2, 1814.
Now holed up at Fontainebleau, Napoleon was still determined to fight.
His marshals were not. Tired of defending what they had begun to consider
a lost cause, Marshals Ney, Oudinot, Lefebvre, Moncey, and others called for
an end to the war. The Allies already occupied much of northern France, and
the British were making significant advances in the south.97 The marshals
were anxious to secure their own futures before it was too late. In early April
a group of them confronted Napoleon, hoping that he would resign in favor
of his son and thus ensure the survival of the Napoleonic regime, from which
they all had benefited. Napoleon reluctantly agreed to sign a conditional
abdication, provided that his son was first recognized as his successor.
Caulaincourt and marshals took this offer to the Allies.
On April 4, while Caulaincourt pleaded with the Russian emperor and the
marshals emphasized that the army would stand by Napoleon and fight if the
offer was spurned, stunning news was brought to Alexander that negated all
of their arguments. Marshal Marmont had surrendered his entire command to
the Allies, who hereafter insisted on unconditional abdication. Napoleon
signed the document of abdication on April 6.98 Five days later, on April 11,
his fate was settled formally by the terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau:
Napoleon renounced the throne of France and was, in turn, recognized as the
sovereign of the island of Elba and granted an annual income of 2 million
francs from France. For a man who had fought the Allies so bitterly and for so
long, this was hardly a harsh settlement, but for Napoleon the fall was great;
584 | the napoleonic wars

the following day he attempted unsuccessfully to commit suicide by taking


poison. On April 20, in a now-famous scene depicted by French painter
Antoine Alphonse Montfort, Napoleon bid farewell to his Imperial Guard at
the Fontainebleau palace and, escorted by the Allied troops, set off for Elba.
The journey proved to be an ignominious one. Encountering public enmity
and at one point pelted with stones, he was forced to briefly disguise himself
in a Russian uniform and a round hat with a white Bourbon cockade.99
Thus ended the longest coalition campaign of the Napoleonic Wars. The
Treaty of Paris, signed on May 30, 1814, formally ended the War of the Sixth
Coalition and restored “perpetual peace and friendship” to the entire conti-
nent for the first time in twenty-two years.100 In drafting this treaty the Allies
considered three major questions: Should France be allowed to retain prewar
territory and status, or should it be stripped of much of its territory in order
to permanently break its power? Should the French, who had exploited the
entire continent for the better part of a decade, be treated likewise and
obliged to pay reparations? How could the Allies ensure that postwar Europe
remained stable and peaceful?
Once again these negotiations revealed significant differences between the
oalition partners. Prussia, and the German states, which had been subjected to
French economic exploitation and felt vulnerable to French aggressions in the
future, insisted on harsher conditions that would have seen France lose key
frontier territories and pay a considerable indemnity. Russia, Austria, and
Britain were more conciliatory, understanding that reducing their former nem-
esis to the status of second-rate power would have served no useful purpose and
would only further undermine the fragile political stability reached on the con-
tinent. Of course, neither did the victors want to handicap the restored French
government with overly harsh peace terms that might provoke another popular
tumult. The moderates ultimately prevailed, and probably the most striking
feature of the final treaty was how surprisingly lenient the Allies were toward
the vanquished France. In a major concession, they agreed to evacuate French
territory even before a final treaty was formally ratified. Furthermore, no restric-
tion was placed on the future size of the French army, and France was assessed
no indemnity nor asked to compensate for the immense sums that its troops
had exacted in conquered and occupied areas of Europe. Surprisingly, the Allies
did not even require France to give back the vast majority of art treasures that
Napoleon had pilfered during his conquests.
France was forced to recognize the loss of the remainder of its conquests
in Holland, Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, but it was allowed to retain the
borders that it had held as of January 1, 1792.101 This meant that the defeated
nation, far from being forced to give up its own territory, actually retained
The Fall of the French Empire | 585

parts of Savoy, the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium), the Rhineland, and the
papal enclaves of Avignon and Comtat Venaissin. France was defeated but
emerged from the war with a territory that was larger—by 150 square miles
and 450,000 inhabitants—than the one it had held at the start of it.102 The
Allies also returned all of the French overseas colonies, with the notable
exception of the islands of Tobago and St. Lucia in the West Indies, and Île
de France (Mauritius), Rodrigues, and the Seychelles in the Indian Ocean. All
of those Britain retained. The treaty with France was only first step toward
the general reorganization of Europe, which the Allies hoped would create a
system based on a “real and permanent balance of power in Europe.”103
Accordingly, the agreement stipulated that the Allied powers would convene
a special congress to reach a general settlement.

Before venturing into the world of diplomatic intrigues in Vienna, we should


briefly return to events in North America, where the war between Britain and
the United States had entered its second year. After early setbacks in 1812,
American fortunes soon recovered, as Britain remained preoccupied with the
Napoleonic Wars. Tens of thousands of British troops remained committed in
the Iberian Peninsula, while millions of pounds sterling were spent on sus-
taining coalitions in Germany. The Americans took advantage of this.
In the spring of 1813, Major General (and future president) William H.
Harrison took charge of the Army of the Northwest and defeated the British at
Fort Meigs, near Perrysburg, Ohio. In September, US Navy master comman-
dant Oliver Hazard Perry, despite failing to develop a clear plan or provide
proper direction to his subordinates, won a naval battle on Lake Erie, capturing
all six British warships that opposed him and establishing American naval
supremacy on the Great Lakes.104 Supported by Perry’s squadron, Harrison was
now ready to resume the offensive with his 7,000 seasoned troops. He recap-
tured Detroit on September 29 and pushed the British and their Native
American allies down the Thames River into the Upper Canada, where, on
October 5, he scored a victory near Chatham, Ontario.105 The Battle of the
Thames (or Moraviantown), as this encounter became known, consolidated
American control over the northwest frontier but could not affect the course of
the war. In fact, the US War Department ordered Harrison’s militia disbanded
and sent home, while his regular troops were diverted to the Niagara front line.
Enraged, Harrison resigned his commission and returned to civil life.
The defeat on the Thames, meanwhile, had a profound impact on Britain’s
key ally, the Native American tribal confederacy, which collapsed after its
leader, the Shawnee chief Tecumseh, was killed during the battle. Even more
disastrous was the turn of events for Britain’s other Native American ally, the
586 | the napoleonic wars

“Red Stick” Creeks, who had found themselves caught between the growing
United States, the last gasps of the Spanish Empire, and meddling British trad-
ers and agents. The Creek Nation was hard pressed to pick a side and was
deeply divided about waging war. This was particularly apparent when, on the
eve of the Anglo-American conflict, Tecumseh had approached the Creeks with
an offer of a pan-Indian militancy, and some Creek chiefs had failed to rally to
the anti-American cause. Although neither British nor Spanish governments
officially aided the tribes, individual traders from each nation did, probably
with tacit state approval. Britain had long-standing relations with the tribes in
the Gulf borderlands and was naturally interested in exploiting them to divert
American manpower and supplies from the main frontline in the north.106
In July 1813 Mississippi militiamen and settlers from the Tensaw area
attacked the Red Stick warriors near Burnt Corn Creek in a vain attempt to
keep them from resupplying their ammunition at Pensacola. A retaliatory
strike against a fortified settlement owned by Samuel Mims, now called Fort
Mims, was a Red Stick victory. It shocked contemporaries by the brutality of
the assault, in which some 250 civilians were killed. The massacre outraged
the American public, and “Remember Fort Mims” became a national rallying
cry.107 Since regular American troops were committed to the Canadian front
lines, Tennessee, Georgia, and the Mississippi Territory mobilized their own
militias, which were placed under command of Colonel Andrew Jackson.108 In
a year-long campaign Jackson inflicted a series of defeats on the Creeks—most
notably at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend (near Dadeville, Alabama) on March
27, 1814—that all but destroyed them militarily before Britain could free
itself from the Napoleonic wars and substantially resupply and rearm the
Creek warriors. Instead, the trounced Creeks were forced to cede more than
21 million acres of land—half of Alabama and part of southern Georgia—to
the United States by the Treaty of Fort Jackson (August 9, 1814).109
Victory over the Creeks came at an opportune moment, because any
reprieve that Americans had in their war against Britain ended with
Napoleon’s defeat. The British were finally able to redeploy substantial naval
and army resources across the Atlantic. Of the forty-four units dispatched,
almost half were from Wellington’s veteran regiments from the Peninsular
Army.110 Their arrival dramatically increased the size of the British forces in
North America to over 50,000 (versus the US Army’s 35,000 to 40,000 men)
and facilitated swift escalation in military operations that involved an inva-
sion of New York states from Lower Canada, ambitious operations in the
Chesapeake Bay area, and an operation designed to threaten American inter-
ests in New Orleans, whose capture would have allowed the British to con-
trol the trade in the Mississippi estuary.111
The Fall of the French Empire | 587

The fighting in New York began in the summer of 1814. The US secre-
tary of war, John Armstrong, had sought to secure a victory in Canada before
British reinforcements arrived there. In the newly reorganized US Army of
the North, Major General Jacob Brown was given command of the Left
Division, with orders to threaten Kingston, the main British base on Lake
Ontario. As a contingency, he was instructed to lead an attack across the
Niagara. To attack Kingston, the Americans needed naval support, but
Brown was unable to cooperate with Commodore Isaac Chauncey, who com-
manded the American naval squadron at Sackett’s Harbor, New York, and
refused to move until he had received additional warships. Brown, therefore,
settled for the second plan of attack. In early July he led his men across the
Niagara River, forced the surrender of Fort Erie, and defeated Major General
Phineas Riall, who commanded the Right Division of the British Army in
Upper Canada, at the Battle of Chippawa on July 5.112 While this victory
showed the much-improved fighting capabilities of the American troops, it
failed to produce a breakthrough in the war. Nor did the Battle of Lundy’s
Lane—one of the bloodiest of the war—which was fought on July 25.113
For all their success, the Americans could not overcome British opposi-
tion, which was buttressed by the newly arriving troops from Europe. In fact,
American victories required so many casualties that the US forces were ulti-
mately forced to fall back, and the Niagara campaign, as a whole, swung the
tide of war to the British side. George Prévost, British governor-general of
Canada and commander in chief, received substantial reinforcements from
Europe, including several thousand veterans of Wellington’s Peninsular
Army, which he intended to deploy along the coastline of Lake Champlain
and into Upper New York.114 His plan was to employ a newly constructed
naval squadron to gain naval supremacy on Lake Champlain, while the land
forces would take the town of Plattsburgh. By September 6 the British
reached Plattsburgh, where they encountered American positions manned by
only 1,700 regulars under the command of Brigadier General Alexander
Macomb. Had the British attacked, they might have gained a victory. But
Prévost delayed his ground assault in order to wait for his naval squadron
under Captain George Downie, which was expected to defeat the American
flotilla, led by Master Commandant Thomas Macdonough, and establish
British control of Lake Champlain. Yet in the naval clash on September 11
the Americans outmaneuvered their British counterparts and emerged
­decisively victorious. Prévost was so discouraged by this setback that he
abandoned the attack by land against Macomb’s defenses and retreated to
Canada, arguing that even if Plattsburgh was captured, his troops could not
be supplied without control of the lake.115
588 | the napoleonic wars

Meanwhile, the British had carried out a major diversion in the Chesapeake
area, hoping to draw off American forces facing Prévost. In a bold plan, Vice
Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane and Major General Robert Ross decided to
capture Washington, D.C., whose location near the Chesapeake Bay made it
vulnerable to an amphibious assault. Cochrane successfully cornered the
American squadron of Commodore Joshua Barney in the Patuxent River and
opened a path for Ross’s ground invasion, which was fully under way by late
August. The British defeated Americans at the Battle of Bladensburg and, on
August 24, captured Washington, where they proceeded to burn public
buildings in retaliation for the American destruction of Tork (Toronto) and
Newark earlier in the war. The British departed the following day only to
return several weeks later to seize Baltimore, a vital port and a privateer hub
some forty miles northeast of Washington, though the land and naval assault
on the city on September 13–14 failed.116 The British bombardment of Fort
McHenry accomplished little beyond inspiriting Francis Scott Key, an
American negotiator who was detained on a British warship and, “by the
dawn’s early light,” watched “the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in
air,” to write the poem that eventually became the American national anthem.
The American successes at Lake Champlain, Plattsburgh, and Baltimore
halted British advances in the Mid-Atlantic states and denied the British
negotiators at the newly opened peace discussions at Ghent (Belgium) lever-
age to demand any territorial claims against the United States on the basis of
uti possidetis, that is, retaining territory they held at the end of hostilities. After
the failure of the Baltimore attack, the British forces withdrew to the West
Indies, there to regroup and await reinforcements. In the fall the British com-
menced a joint land and naval campaign against American targets in the Gulf
Coast. The campaign sought to deprive the United States of access to the cru-
cial areas around the Gulf and ultimately influence peace negotiations to safe-
guard British interests in the region. The principal focus of the campaign was
the city of New Orleans, a large commercial hub that served as the main outlet
of American goods in the Gulf region and, as noted earlier, c­ ontrolled access
to the Mississippi River basin. The British also hoped to exploit the fact of the
recent incorporation of these areas into the United States and solicit support
from the Spanish and French residents, as well as Native American tribes,
against the Americans. As early as the spring of 1814 Cochrane had sought to
incite the Seminoles, in Spanish Florida, to fight against the Americans.
In mid-August a small British detachment, led by Major Edward Nicolls
of the Royal Maines, captured the naval anchorage at Pensacola Bay, West
Florida, and received support from some local Indians. A month later Nicolls,
supported by a Royal Navy squadron under the command of Captain
The Fall of the French Empire | 589

William H. Percy, marched against Fort Bowyer, at the mouth of Mobile Bay
but was unable to overcome the American garrison, commanded by Major
William Lawrence. Losing one ship and suffering dozens of casualties, the
British were forced to withdraw in mid-September. The British assault soon
provoked an American counterattack. In November the American commander
along the Gulf Coast, Major General Andrew Jackson, recaptured the town of
Pensacola, easily overcoming local opposition. Next he moved against the
British-held forts, causing the British to evacuate Pensacola Bay. Jackson then
proceeded on to New Orleans, where he arrived on December 1, just in time
to supervise defensive preparations against the impending British attack.
The British fleet, consisting of seven ships-of-the-line and numerous frig-
ates and smaller vessels, and an even larger number of transports, carrying an
expeditionary force of some 6,500 British regular soldiers, 1,000 marines,
and approximately 1,000 West Indian troops, had sailed from Jamaica under
the command of Admiral Cochrane and anchored in the Gulf of Mexico to
the east of Lake Pontchartrain. By mid-December the British expeditionary
force began to march toward New Orleans, where a decisive battle took place
on January 8, 1815. The British commander, Lieutenant General Edward
Pakenham, launched a frontal attack on Jackson’s strong positions, where
American musket- and gunfire mowed down large numbers of the attackers,
including Pakenham, who was killed. After several hours of fighting, the
British were forced to withdraw, leaving behind some 40 percent of their
men as casualties. The Americans lost just 13 dead and 58 wounded.117
The Battle of New Orleans was a grand American victory, but it did not
determine who was going to control this important commercial hub in the
postwar world. Britain gave no thought to retaining any conquered territory as
long as the United States accepted the terms being discussed in Ghent. Far
from coveting New Orleans, Prime Minister Lord Liverpool dismissed it as a
settlement that was “one of the most unhealthy in any part of America.”118
Furthermore, the Battle of New Orleans, which is sometimes called the
“Needless Battle,” had no direct influence on the terms of the ongoing Anglo-
American peace negotiations, which culminated in the signing of the Treaty of
Ghent on December 24, 1814. Because the news had to cross the Atlantic
Ocean by sailing ship, it did not reach the United States until February 1815.119
Though “needless,” the Battle of New Orleans was important because it com-
pelled Britain to abide by the final peace terms and part with any further inter-
est in acquiring New Orleans or in securing control over the Mississippi estuary
and regional trade. Both sides agreed to restore the status quo ante bellum.120
The Anglo-American war thus ended in a draw but left an enduring legacy.
For the United States, the war was hardly the resounding success that President
590 | the napoleonic wars

James Madison’s administration made it out to be. Hardly any American war
aims had been fulfilled, and the final treaty made no mention of the direct
causes of the war, including impressment of American citizens and British
maritime practices. But the war did reshape American politics. It contributed
to the collapse of the Federalist Party and ushered in the so-called Era of Good
Feelings, reflecting a new sense of national purpose and unity among Americans
in the aftermath of the war. The conflict also spurred American industrializa-
tion and highlighted the need for economic and financial reforms, which would
be hotly debated for decades to come. The one unambiguous American success
of the war was the advent of the United States Navy as a potent force and the
backbone of American national security. In this sense, the war completed what
had been started in 1775, securing the hegemony of the United States in North
America and facilitating its emergency as the first postcolonial power.
Similarly, the war was a pivotal moment in Canadian history. Canada defied
contemporary expectations that parts of its territory, especially in Upper Canada,
would fall into American hands. Instead, American invasions were defeated and
Canada survived the conflict unscathed. But the notion of the Canadians uniting
in their efforts and forging their nation in a struggle against their southern
neighbors is a myth. For the vast majority of Canadians, the response to war was
one of apathy, resistance to requisitioning, and desertion. It was only in the post-
war years that the Canadian elites developed a propaganda narrative about
“unshaken loyalty, fidelity and attachment” shown by the Canadian volunteers
and militiamen in defeating the American invaders.121
As for Britain, the War of 1812 was a direct outgrowth of its struggle
against Napoleonic France, and its conduct of the war was inherently connected
to the events in Europe. This conflict never seriously threatened British stand-
ing in North America, but some observers were concerned that “we should be
considered both in America and Europe as partly beaten and partly intimidated
into pacification.”122 By late 1814 Britain had more troops in Canada than in
Europe and had an opportunity to inflict a lot of punishment on its opponent.
But it was too late. Earlier setbacks had sapped its will to fight this expensive
and remote conflict. Many Britons, especially those residing in port towns suf-
fering from the loss of American trade, opposed this war and harshly criticized
their government for its failure to bring a quick end to it. “The happiness and
tranquility of this country,” proclaimed the Leeds Mercury, “are much more
closely connected with this subject than with victories in Spain or the move-
ments of contending armies in Russia.”123 The war served as a major distraction
from British efforts to defeat Napoleon, sapping much-needed human and
material resources and constraining British diplomatic efforts in Vienna, where
the stage was set for the greatest diplomatic spectacle of modern times.
chapter 23 The War and Peace, 1814–1815

T he Congress of Vienna was one of the most distinguished assem-


blages in European history. Its uniqueness derives from the fact that a
peace with the defeated power had already been achieved in the Treaties of
Paris, and the congress was convened to deal with a general settlement of
Europe and not just the resolution of a particular conflict.
The Congress of Vienna was not, strictly speaking, a congress at all. The
delegates never met in a plenary session. Rather, a select group of them, rep-
resenting the most powerful states, operated on the sidelines, away from the
vibrant and effervescent social life in the Austrian capital city. Emperors,
kings, and princes had descended upon Vienna along with numerous court-
iers and pleasure-seekers, and the Austrian court did its best to cater to their
wishes. Despite emerging from the war with one foot in bankruptcy, the
Austrian emperor, Francis, risked the remainder in hosting this meeting.
He had approved the creation of a special committee whose task it was to
come with new forms of amusement for the thousands of visitors while keep-
ing in mind their varied tastes and preferences, not to mention rank protocol.
Many crucial decisions regarding the future of Europe were achieved at social
events, where statesmen ate, drank, and engaged in dalliances. The Austrian
government used an intricate system of espionage that employed countless
housemaids, porters, coachmen, and other servants to procure every bit of
information that might give it an advantage in diplomatic negotiations.1
Each of the Allied powers that had joined the struggle against Napoleon
had done so at the time that seemed best suited to its own interests. Over the
course of the 1813 campaigns, they had entered into separate treaties with
each other to coordinate war efforts and to cement commitments. Despite all
the efforts directed to fighting Napoleon, little attention had been given to
592 | the napoleonic wars

precisely what would happen after his overthrow. The Allies had discussed
some political, territorial, and economic concessions—for example, Russia’s
claims to Poland, Sweden’s to Norway, and the restoration of Prussia and
Austria to their prewar status—that member states deemed essential to their
interests, but they had provided no mechanism by which to pursue such
aims. In this sense, the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont in 1814 had far-
reaching consequences. The Allies not only clarified their war aims and reaf-
firmed commitments not to make separate peace with France but agreed on
broad provisions for a future European settlement: independence of Spain
and Switzerland, restoration and enlargement of Holland, the establishment
of a confederated Germany, the division of Italy, and so forth. The view that
the treaty was to be integral to the reconstruction (and maintenance) of the
postwar European order was acknowledged by its architects, who argued that
it was intended “not only as a systematic pledge of preserving concert among
the leading powers, but a refuge under which all the minor States, especially
those on the Rhine, may look forward to find their security upon the return
of peace relieved of the necessity of seeking a compromise with France.”2
Yet Chaumont suffered from several drawbacks, chief among them being
that it contained no provisions for matters that had been discussed in earlier
agreements. Thus Prussia’s aspiration to Saxony was not covered in the treaty;
Russia’s pledges to support a restoration of Austrian and Prussian prewar
status were mentioned but not the exact prewar configurations. The treaty,
further, did not reflect territorial arrangements that the Allies had already
considered in Scandinavia, where Emperor Alexander had promised to com-
pensate Sweden for the loss of Finland by supporting Swedish claims to
Norway. Finally, the greatest beneficiary of the treaty was Britain, which had
successfully excluded the question of maritime rights from any discussions.
This meant that the British, who had seized vast overseas territories, alone
could decide their future status and interpret maritime regulations.
The provisions of the Treaty of Chaumont set the cornerstone for the
European alliance system and were further elaborated in the Peace of Paris,
which also called for the convening of a “general congress” to discuss and
complete the postwar settlement of Europe. Invitations were extended to
“All the Powers engaged on either side in the present war,” but in the
secret provisions of the Treaty of Paris the Allied powers also agreed to
reserve the de facto decision-making process to themselves so that they
could decide upon “a system of real and permanent balance of power in
Europe.”3 Minor powers were unaware of this arrangement and remained
under the impression that they would be given a chance to contribute to
the new European order.
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 593

Delegates began to arrive in Vienna toward the end of September 1814.


They included representatives from Spain, the Papal States, Portugal, Sweden,
Hanover, Bavaria, Württemberg, and dozens of other minor states. Two del-
egations came from Naples, one of them charged with the interests of King
Joachim Murat, the other acting on behalf of the Bourbon dynasty. Spain was
represented by Don Pedro Gómez de Labrador, while its neighbor Portugal,
whose government was still in Brazil, sent Pedro de Sousa Holstein, Count of
Palmela, to defend its interests.
French foreign minister Prince Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand was sent on
behalf of the French Bourbon monarchy. He faced perhaps the most formi-
dable task of all: reviving the fortunes of a defeated country. While he hoped
to retain the French eastern frontier and to minimize any further losses over-
seas, by far his most important task was to safeguard France’s status as a great
power. Talleyrand thus considered Prussian aggrandizement as a direct threat to
France and preferred some version of balance of power, a thought that squared
well with Castlereagh and Metternich’s own ideas about the future politi-
cal settlement. A master pragmatist, Talleyrand had begun his career as a
Catholic bishop before the revolution and had served every French govern-
ment in a course of his fifty-year career. To his admirers, he was a statesman
who nobly served the interests of France. To his detractors, he was driven by
self-interest. Both sides agree that he was fond of money and used his politi-
cal access to amass an immense personal fortune. The great revolutionary
orator Honoré Mirabeau observed that Talleyrand “would sell his soul for
money; and he would be right, for he would be exchanging dung for gold.”4
Even with the challenges he faced, the self-assured and witty Talleyrand
thrived in the circumstances of 1814–1815, and his talent as a diplomat
never shone brighter than during the nine-month-long conference in Vienna.5
The four great powers were represented by the same statesmen who had
long transacted business together. Although Emperor Francis of Austria
hosted the congress, he delegated diplomatic responsibilities to his minister,
Metternich, who was assisted by a knowledgeable cadre of officials, including
his deputy, Johann Philipp Freiherr von Wessenberg, and his personal secre-
tary, Friedrich von Gentz, whose vivid letters and diaries remain a rich source
of information about the period.6 In addition, Freiherr von Binder advised on
Italian issues and Johann Graf Radetzky von Radetz on military matters.
Metternich was a talented and experienced diplomat who, by his own
admission, was “bad at skirmishes . . . but good at campaigns.”7 A supreme
opportunist, he based his policies on a certain set of “principles,” none of
greater value than that of “equilibrium,” which he had consistently applied
in his domestic and foreign policy. Metternich believed that European
594 | the napoleonic wars

30° 20° 10° 0° 10° 20° 30° 40°

Europe in 1815 After


the Congress of Vienna
German Confederation

ICELAND A R C T I C
to Denmark
O C E A N
0 100 200 Kilometers

0 100 200 Miles


60° FINLAND

Faeroe Is. KINGDOM OF


to Denmark SWEDEN-NORWAY
United until
1905 St Petersburg
Christiania
1 Lucca
Stockholm
2 Modena
3 Parma
4 Republic of Cracow
SCOTLAND
North
RUSSIAN

a
Se
Edinburgh Sea
lt

ic
Copenhagen Ba
DENMARK EMPIRE
Dublin GREAT
SIA
IRELAND BRITAIN Hamburg US
PR
50° WALES HANNOVER Warsaw
ENGLAND Amsterdam Berlin
London KINGDOM OF CONGRESS
NETHERLANDS POLAND
SAXONY
Brussels 4
Krakow
Prague
BAVARIA
Paris Stuttgart
ATLANTIC Vienna
BADEN WÜRTTEMBERG
MOLDAVIA
OCEAN
NEUCHATEL AUSTRIAN EMPIRE
FRANCE SWITZERLAND
WALLACHIA
Bay of LOMBARDY
VENETIA
Bucharest
Biscay 3 2 O SERBIA
Genoa T
1 Florence A T
PAPAL dr Zara O
M A
TUSCANY STATES ia N E M P I R E
Oporto tic
40° S ea
MONTENEGRO
Corsica
PORTUGAL Madrid Rome

Naples
SPAIN PIEDMONT- Aegean
Lisbon SARDINIA KINGDOM GREECE Sea
d
la n
I o to Gre
s

s OF THE
ric I
n i at

Balea Athens
a n Bri

Mediterranean Sea TWO SICILIES la


I s tain

Sicily nd
Gibraltar s
Algiers Crete
Tunis
MOROCCO

Map 28: Europe in 1815 after the Congress of Vienna

s­ocieties rested in a kind of balance that had been upset by the French
Revolution and the Napoleonic conquests. Bringing Europe back to stability,
therefore, had to involve returning “legitimate” rulers to their thrones and
reversing some, if not all, of the changes that Napoleon had brought. Political
equilibrium also informed Metternich’s goal of defending Austria’s position
in Europe by constraining France in the west and preventing Russian domi-
nance in the east. Austria could not accept exclusion from Poland (as Russia
insisted on) and could not sanction the appropriation of Saxony (as Prussia
desired) because these threatened the balance of power in central Europe. To
prevent this, Metternich would use every expedient to detach German states
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 595

from Russian and Prussian influence and was open to rapprochement with
other powers, even France, to achieve these goals.8
The Russian delegation included Emperor Alexander I and his advisors,
among them Karl Nesselrode, Count Giovanni Antonio Capo d’Istria, and
Charles André (Carlo Andreo) Pozzo di Borgo.9 Alexander was the only
ruler who personally participated in the negotiations, and he revealed him-
self as a figure of intelligence and imagination, with a keen eye for finding
ways of strengthening Russian positions in Europe. The great successes of
1812–1813 had also stoked the Russian sovereign’s vanity and religious
mysticism, making his actions sometimes hard to predict. Alexander believed
that guns spoke louder than words and that Russia, having played the deci-
sive role in the defeat of Napoleon, was entitled to a dominant role in the
postwar settlement.
The Prussian mission was led by Karl von Hardenberg, the Prussian chan-
cellor, who acted on behalf of King Frederick William III. The king was also
present in Vienna but mostly abstained from direct diplomatic negotiations.
Other principal Prussian delegates were Wilhelm von Humboldt (probably
the most distinguished intellectual figure among the peacemakers), General
Karl Friedrich von dem Knesebeck, Johann Gottfried Hoffman (one of the
best statisticians in Europe), and Heinrich Freiherr vom und zum Stein. The
Prussians expected a fit reward for the sacrifice of thousands of Prussian sol-
diers and the martial leadership of Blücher, nicknamed “Marschall Vorwärts”
(Marshal Forward) for his indomitability. Although the Prussian delegation
produced more memoranda than any other power, its role in the diplomatic
deliberations failed to reflect its technical proficiency. The Prussians were
still perceived as junior partners in the Russo-Prussian alliance; the Prussian
king not only deferred to Russia on the issue of Poland but showed himself
ready to follow Russian dictates on other matters of policy as well. Meanwhile,
the Prussian generals, especially Blücher and the talented chief of staff,
August Wilhelm Antonius Neidhardt von Gneisenau, had views and objects
of their own, generally more belligerent than those of their sovereign and
centered on an undying abhorrence of France, one that no concession could
fully assuage.
Britain’s delegation was initially led by Foreign Secretary Castlereagh
(relieved by the Duke of Wellington in February 1815), who was assisted by
his half-brother, Charles Stewart and Richard Le Poer Trench, Second Earl of
Clancarty. One of the chief architects of the last coalition against Napoleon,
Castlereagh was a talented but deeply solitary individual whose background,
character, and accomplishments divided his contemporaries.10 Throughout
1814 and 1815 he was determined to see that Britain played a leading role in
596 | the napoleonic wars

the territorial settlements of Vienna. Because of Britain’s unique position as


an island nation and a naval superpower, it had no territorial ambitions on
the continent (a position that was buttressed by its decision to restore almost
all captured colonial possessions) and could play the role of a disinterested
mediator—as long as its maritime and commercial interests were safe-
guarded. On the other hand, at the start of the congress Britain had the dis-
advantage of being the only Allied power still engaged in a major war, as the
Anglo-American conflict had entered its second year.
The first meetings of the representatives of the four major powers—
Metternich, Castlereagh, Hardenberg, and Nesselrode—took place on
September 15, 1814, and led to the adoption of procedural rules for the
congress, which officially opened on October 1.11 This was a key step in con-
figuring the conference, as there were no precedents to use as a model. The
“Big Four,” as Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia might be described,
rejected the idea of summoning a plenary session of all representatives because
this would have involved too many actors, most of whom were “without pre-
vious concert in all the preliminary questions of difficulty,” as Castlereagh
put it in a letter to the prime minister, and would have therefore complicated
the negotiating process.12 One key outcome of these early deliberations was
drawing a distinction between “great” and “small” powers, with the four
victorious Allies constituting the former group while the rest of the European
states fell into the latter category. On September 22, at Prussian insistence,
the great powers adopted a special protocol to deny France any participation
in their discussions. Castlereagh voiced his opposition at such harsh treat-
ment of France now that it was under friendly Bourbon rulers. He insisted on
adding a special declaration calling for relations with France and Spain to be
conducted, based on amicable dispositions.13 In practice this meant forming
a directing committee of six powers (Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, France,
and Spain), while actual decision-making would be still restricted to an inner
committee of the first four.14
Talleyrand, who arrived in Vienna on September 23, denounced the Allied
agreement of September 22 as both illegal and improper. He declared that
France intended to defend the small powers and act on the understanding
that all states should be represented at the congress and therefore to partici-
pate in discussions. His actions were designed to drive a wedge between the
Allied powers and to enhance France’s bargaining power. On September 30
he and the Spanish representative, Labrador, received an invitation to a pre-
liminary meeting of the plenipotentiaries, where the proposals made by
the four great powers were presented. Talleyrand challenged them at once.
He questioned his solitary representation of the French delegation. In response
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 597

he was told that only the heads of each cabinet had been invited. Talleyrand
retorted that Humboldt, who had accompanied Hardenberg, headed no cab-
inet. When informed that Humboldt was present because of Hardenberg’s
deafness, Talleyrand, who suffered from a bad leg, quipped, “We all have our
infirmities and can exploit them when necessary.”15 Talleyrand thus made the
Allied powers agree that each country could be represented by two delegates
at the meetings. This was a seemingly minor concession. He then attacked
the reference to “Allies” in the protocol. Inquiring whom the powers were
allying against, given that that Napoleon had been defeated, he was told that
the term was used for the sake of brevity. “Brevity,” he replied, “should not
be purchased at the price of accuracy.” He argued that the Quadruple Alliance
had become obsolete after the signing of the Treaty of Paris, and that any
power that had taken part in the Napoleonic Wars had the right to partici-
pate in the congress’s proceedings. The four Allies had no legal or moral jus-
tification for their actions. He refused to recognize their authority to ­discuss
issues without the full congress.16
Talleyrand’s challenges were welcomed and supported by the minor pow-
ers, forcing the Big Four to withdraw their proposals. The French foreign
minister then contended that a directing body of the eight powers signatory
to the Treaty of Paris had to be established and that the whole congress must
confirm its authority in a plenary session. He thus succeeded in reducing the
control that Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain had arrogated to themselves
and ensured the inclusion of France, Spain, Sweden, and Portugal in major
deliberations. Furthermore, Talleyrand demanded that all discussions and
procedures of the congress be based upon the principles of legitimacy and
public law. In his characteristic fashion, Talleyrand, having succeeded in get-
ting France into the group of major players in January 1815, then abandoned
the minor states and concentrated on his next objectives.
Two separate bodies directed the congress. The Council of Ministers of
eight powers (France, Britain, Austria, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, and
Russia) organized ten separate committees to deal with specific issues. The
committees varied in their composition and status: the German Committee,
the Slave Trade Committee (or Conference), the Swiss Committee, the
Committee on International Rivers, the Committee on Diplomatic Precedence,
the Statistical Committee, the Drafting Committee, the Committees on
Tuscany, the Committee on Sardinia and Genoa, and the Committee on the
Duchy of Bouillon. At the same time, the Allied sovereigns held their daily
meetings, in which they often discussed and agreed on issues in ways con-
trary to instructions given to their negotiators. These inconsistencies under-
standably led to unexpected difficulties.
598 | the napoleonic wars

The first major crisis was over the Polish-Saxon issue. As noted, after
Napoleon had established the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807, Russia had felt
threated by the prospects of a revived Polish state, one that could reclaim ter-
ritories Russia had seized in the Polish partitions. In 1810 Alexander had
tried unsuccessfully to secure French promises that Poland would never be
restored. Napoleon’s monumental failure in 1812 provided Alexander the oppor-
tunity to negate this threat once and forever. He intended to secure the larger
part of the Polish lands under his control, thereby safeguarding Russia’s west-
ern provinces as well as projecting its power deeper into Europe. Alexander
knew the ramifications his plans would have in Europe, particularly given that
the other powers, especially Austria and Prussia, would undoubtedly object.
“Making public my intentions on Poland will certainly drive Austria and
Prussia into the arms of France,” he noted on January 13, 1813.17
Despite almost universal opposition from his own advisers, Alexander
pushed for the creation of a larger Kingdom of Poland under Russian control.
This raised two fundamental questions: how far would Poland’s autonomy
extend, and what would be the extent of Poland’s new borders? The Russian
intention to form a constitutional Polish kingdom challenged Austria’s
national security objectives of limiting Prussia’s influence in Germany and
restraining Russian expansion in central Europe. Metternich worried that the
new Polish state would encourage political unrest in the Austrian-controlled
Polish territories. At a meeting on September 19, before the congress was
convened, he objected to the very use of the term “Poland” out of fear that it
would serve as a rallying point for the Austrian Poles and destabilize Galicia.18
Neither was Vienna or Berlin thrilled by the prospect of having a constitu-
tional polity next to their borders, which could encourage their own subjects
to demand similar concessions. Ultimately, it was the question of territory
and political equilibrium, with attendant military and strategic consider-
ations, that caused the great powers to oppose Russia’s proposal. Alexander
might have claimed that Polish restoration under Russian suzerainty would
mean a separate administration and a representative constitution for the
Poles, but other powers saw the plan as a barely concealed attempt at Russian
expansionism. Austria, Britain, and France were not entirely opposed to the
restoration of a Polish state but wanted to see it independent of Russia.19
Emperor Alexander thus found himself nearly isolated, with only Frederick
William III willing to consider ceding territories that Prussia had acquired
in the Polish Partitions so long as Prussia was compensated with lands else-
where, preferably in Saxony, whose king had supported Napoleon and there-
fore, in Prussian eyes, had to be penalized.20 Realizing how politically
sensitive this project was, Emperor Alexander refused to make an open
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 599

s­tatement of his intentions with respect to Poland and repeatedly changed


his position, promising British envoys that he would not press his claims on
Prussian Poland while proposing to Austria that it cede the whole of Galicia
in exchange for Russian support of the Austrian takeover of Alsace from
France.21 All this only served to deepen suspicions on the part of Britain and
Austria, both of which were dubious about Russian reassurances that the
Poles would retain their freedom. Both Castlereagh and Metternich saw
the entire project as a scheme to extend Russian influence into central
Europe and place Russian forces within striking distance of Berlin and Vienna.
For the British, there was the additional concern of Prussian expansion in the
Rhineland, leading them to greater ambitions in the Low Countries, which
they considered crucial to Britain’s national security.
The Allies’ failure to come to an agreement over the status of Poland and
Saxony in early 1814 meant that these issues became one of the core problems
facing the Congress of Vienna. In October and November 1814 Castlereagh
tried his best to convince Alexander to scale back his demands and to arrange
some sort of compromise, but he failed. Russia insisted on Polish lands and
Prussian compensation in Saxony; “the right of conquest is a legal title for the
acquisition of sovereignty over a conquered country,” stated a Russian memo-
randum.22 Ever mindful of the need to keep a political equilibrium in central
Europe, Austria pursued a more duplicitous route. Metternich first assured
Alexander that Austria would support his Polish claim if he prevented Prussia
from expanding into Saxony. The Austrian minister, meanwhile, approached
the Prussian representative, Hardenberg, promising to support the Prussian
claim in Saxony if Prussia in turn opposed Russian designs in Poland.
However, the Prussians ignored the offer—Saxony was already under Russian
occupation, and Berlin was certain of getting something out of its earlier
treaties with the Russians.23
As tensions mounted, Talleyrand took advantage of it to play the great
powers off one another. Citing the principle of legitimacy, he argued that
Russia and Prussia had no authority to deprive the lawful king of Saxony of
his territory and throne. “To recognize such a disposition as legitimate, one
would have to hold it true that kings can be judged,” he wrote. “That they
can be judged by those who wish to and can seized their possessions . . . that
sovereignty can be lost and gained by the single fact of conquest. . . in a word,
that all is legitimate for him who is the strongest.”24 By posing as a defender
of legitimacy, Talleyrand effectively turned France from a defeated nation
into a crucial partner for anyone seeking to constrain the aggressive behavior
of Russia. This was, naturally, very welcome news for the British and the
Austrians.25 British prime minister Lord Liverpool had already reconsidered
600 | the napoleonic wars

his position vis-à-vis the nation his government had fought for so long. “The
more I hear and see of the different courts of Europe,” he observed, “the more
convinced I am that the King of France is, amongst the great Powers, the
only Sovereign in whom we can have any real confidence.”26
As the year drew to an end, meetings of the great powers became ever more
contentious. On December 30, exasperated by the British and Austrian refusal
to compromise, the Prussian envoy, Hardenberg, threatened to consider any
further delays in acknowledging Prussia’s claims to Saxony as a declaration of
war; Castlereagh countered that if such ill tempers prevailed, it would be bet-
ter to end the congress at once.27 This was an alarming turn of events, and
some expressed the concern that a war might erupt between the former allies.
Tensions mounted rapidly. By late December, the Danish envoy was startled
when Castlereagh asked him how many men Denmark could deploy in case of
war. The Prussian ambassador was increasingly convinced that “a second war
is necessary, and it must take place sooner or later.”28 Talleyrand had already
threatened to deploy as many as 300,000 men to support Saxon sovereignty,
while the Austrians were taking stock of their armed forces and preparing
plans for a possible mobilization. With the great powers rattling swords, the
minor powers joined the fray as well. The Bavarians stood by their Saxon
neighbors, and Prince Wrede, who represented Bavaria and commanded its
army, assured the French delegation that some 40,000 Bavarian troops were
ready to come to Saxony’s aid. Meanwhile, the Danes were encouraged by the
prospects of a new war against Prussia and Russia, hoping it would lead to
their recovery of Norway and the containment of Sweden and Russia.29
The situation changed dramatically at the start of the new year. The first
week of January brought unexpected news that Britain and the United States
had ended their war. “The news of the American peace came like a shot here,”
wrote a British observer in Vienna. “Nobody expected it.” Talleyrand quickly
understood the massive implications of this event, calling it “la paix ster-
ling.”30 Indeed, “released from the millstone of an American war,” as
Castlereagh put it, Britain could now make the necessary financial and mili-
tary commitments in Europe.31 The impact was immediate and sweeping. To
contain the Russo-Prussian ambitions, Talleyrand, Metternich, and Castlereagh
agreed on a secret alliance to be directed against the former coalition mem-
bers. Rather than submit to the Russo-Prussian demands, they would show
the resolve to fight. The agreement, signed on January 3, 1815, created a
secret military alliance with France, Britain, and Austria, in which each
pledged mutual support in the event any one of them became involved in a
war. France and Austria promised to deploy 150,000 men, while Britain
would supply them with money and consider any attack on Hanover or the
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 601

Low Countries as a casus belli. Thus, less than a year after being defeated,
France succeeded in assuming a major role at the congress, exploited divisions
among the great powers, and created a new axis of political alliances. This was
a remarkable achievement. “The Coalition is dissolved,” the jubilant Talleyrand
wrote to Louis XVIII. “France is no longer isolated in Europe.”32
The secret treaty mentioned previously was, however, a colossal bluff.
Talleyrand knew that France was in no position to wage another war less than
a year after Napoleon’s defeat. Castlereagh acted against the instructions of
his government in signing the agreement; Liverpool had warned him that “it
would be quite impossible to embark this country in a war at present,” and
there could be no doubt that the British parliament would have refused to
give its consent to a new conflict in Europe while fighting an old one in
North America.33 Austria’s financial difficulties and its preoccupation with
Italian affairs made it doubtful that Vienna would be capable of mounting a
major military effort against Russia. But the ploy worked. Although the
details of the alliance were kept secret, the news of its formation was carefully
leaked, much to the surprise of the Russian and Prussian delegations. Facing
the prospect of a general European war, neither Emperor Alexander nor King
Frederick William was prepared to risk his gains, and both chose, as the
proverb goes, a bird in hand to two in the bush.34
The crisis was effectively over by February. Austria submitted the proposal
that served as the basis for the final settlement of the Polish-Saxon question.
The great powers agreed that Poland would be turned into an ostensibly inde-
pendent kingdom but a Russian protectorate. This was a greatly reduced ver-
sion of the state—some 49,000 square miles with a population of some 3.2
million people—that Emperor Alexander had hoped for, since Prussia surren-
dered Warsaw but retained Posen and Thorn, while Austria kept the province
of Galicia; Kraków was declared a free city under the joint Austro-Prussian-
Russian protection. A similar compromise was struck in Saxony, where Prussia
received two-fifths of the state (with a population of some 900,000 people)
but the rest of Saxon territory was left under its legitimate ruler, King
Frederick Augustus I. The Prussian senior officers were clearly disappointed
by this arrangement and shared Blücher’s sense of frustration and anger at
exchanging Prussian territories for “300,000 Poles and just as many Saxons,
who hate us and could never replace these faithful and self-sacrificing broth-
ers.”35 The Polish-Saxon question required more energy, emotion, and negoti-
ation than any other issue discussed at the c­ongress. Once it was resolved,
however, the delegations made considerable progress on other topics—until
their work was interrupted by a sudden and improbable event.
602 | the napoleonic wars

In March 1815, Napoleon stunned Europe by daring to return to France.


During his ten months of active government over the miniature kingdom on
Elba, the emperor was well supplied with information from the mainland of
Europe. He was therefore aware of the widespread discontent and knew that
he retained considerable popularity in France. He undoubtedly took pleasure
in observing the Allies’ troubles and especially those of the French Bourbons.
The monarchy of King Louis XVIII, who had spent the past quarter of a cen-
tury in exile, was neither tyrannical nor malevolent, aspiring to restore peace
and stability to the people, who desired both. But it struggled to reconcile
some of its supporters’ unilateral tendencies with the reality of the trans-
formed French society. Louis XVIII returned to France with a strong desire
to heal the country’s wounds and to achieve, as he stated, “the fusion of the
two peoples into one.” France was indeed a nation divided against itself. If a
good number of people welcomed the return of a king, equally as many
remained supportive of Napoleon; furthermore, the newly returning die-hard
emigrés (or Ultras, as they became known) hoped for a wholesale reversal of
the social and political changes that the Revolution had unleashed in France.
Yet the king agreed to grant the Charter of 1814 in order to calm popular
sentiment as well as to satisfy the wishes of the Allies. This was a liberal con-
stitution, one that retained the Revolution’s social changes and Napoleon’s
administrative organization, promising representative government, ministe-
rial responsibility, and protections for civil rights and freedoms.36 It declared
that “all justice emanates from the king” but also preserved the Napoleonic
codes and other legal reforms, ensuring that when it came to social organiza-
tion and equality of opportunity, France would remain a splendid exception
on the continent, which was dominated by conservative ideology.37
Yet while experiencing intense relief at the end of a seemingly unending war,
the French also became disillusioned with the new government. In practice the
Bourbons had revealed that, as a wit said, “they had learned nothing and forgot-
ten nothing.” The Ultras, though small in number, were vocal about their ambi-
tions to see their former power and property restored. Their insistence on holding
ceremonies honoring those who had fought against the Revolution raised serious
questions about the prejudices of the new government. Many disapproved of the
change of the national flag from the tricolor to the white flag of the Bourbon
dynasty and resented the presence of Allied agents meddling in French affairs.
Although the king refused to satisfy all the Ultras’ demands, his decision to
restore property still in the hands of the state alarmed many French citizens who
had purchased church or noble property in the previous quarter century; rumors
that the land settlements of the Revolution would be reversed and that feudal
obligations and church taxes would be revived were rife among the peasants.
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 603

The Bourbon monarchy, already lacking national support, further aggra-


vated the situation through a series of unpopular if unavoidable decisions.
The decision to grant the charter also backfired, as the Republicans and
Bonapartists exploited their civil freedoms to openly criticize the govern-
ment. When the crown imposed censorship, it provoked loud protests, even
from the former anti-Napoleon intellectuals. Furthermore, it was inevitable
that the Bourbons would start increasing taxes and dismantling the imperial
war machine, both necessitated by financial crisis, the end of war, loss of
empire, and France’s peaceful stance toward the rest of the continent. The
dismissal of thousands of troops and the placing of officers on half pay, along
with the appointment of Ultras to high positions in the government and
army, were bound to stir angry feelings. Disgruntled officials and soldiers
soon scattered all over France, sowing hatred against the Bourbon govern-
ment and laying the foundation for the Napoleonic legend. Against an out-
of-touch monarchy led by an elderly invalid, Napoleon shone out again as the
great man of action. The failures of the imperial regime were soon over-
looked, and instead popular focus shifted to past glories. For soldiers, there
was solace in remembering victorious campaigns; peasants remembered that,
despite its many drawbacks, the Napoleonic regime never would have
required them to relinquish lands that had previously belonged to the church
and nobility. Though in practice it would have been impossible for the Ultras
to reclaim their former lands and privileged status, public perception mat-
tered more than practicality. Even the description of the charter as a “gift”
from the king to the people posed a problem. Many feared that while it
might be safe under the childless Louis XVIII, it could be endangered by his
brother and heir, Charles, comte d’Artois, who was far more conservative and
narrow-minded.38
From his palace in Portoferraio on Elba, Napoleon closely followed these
developments in France as well as the bitter disputes over the spoils of war
between the victorious Allies in Vienna.39 By late February 1815 he had
decided to return to France, reasoning that now that the French had endured
twelve months of a mediocre government, they would be ready to take him
back, and that the Allies, already at each other’s throats, would be unwilling
to risk another general war just to keep Louis XVIII on the throne. “There is
no historic example that induces me to venture on this bold enterprise,” he
told a companion. “But I have taken into account the surprise that will seize
on men, the state of public feeling, the resentment against the allies, the love
of my soldiers, in fine, all the Napoleonic elements that still germinate in our
beautiful France.”40 On February 26, accompanied by his staff and about
1,000 soldiers, he left Elba and set sail for France.
604 | the napoleonic wars

What happened next—popularly called the vol d’aigle (flight of the


eagle)—was undoubtedly one of the most audacious and breathtaking ven-
tures in history. “The eagle will fly from belfry to belfry until it reaches the
towers of Notre Dame,” Napoleon promised in a proclamation published
upon his landing on the shores of the Gulf of Juan on March 1, 1815.41 So it
proved. As he marched toward the capital, Napoleon used the bitter memo-
ries of the previous year to navigate the more conservative areas, such as
Provence, and make his way toward more sympathetic regions, such as
Dauphine, where he was greeted with jubilation by both peasants and urban-
ites who genuinely dreaded the prospects of the restoration of the ancien
régime. The army also considered him far more preferable to the Bourbons;
when generals tried to rally troops to the king’s side, they were told by their
officers, “When you cry ‘Long Live the King!’ our men, and we, will answer
‘Long Live the Emperor!’”42 An entire royal detachment sent to arrest
Napoleon switched sides in a thrilling and emotional encounter at the village
of Laffrey. As Napoleon approached the troops blocking the path, a royalist
officer ordered his troops to open fire, but no one obeyed. Instead, Napoleon,
stepping toward soldiers with muskets leveled at him, cried, “Soldiers! I am
your Emperor. Do you not recognize me? If there is one among you who
would kill his general, here I am!” Shouts of “Vive l’empereur!” were the
response, with the troops rushing to embrace Napoleon.43
Heartened by the outpouring of support, Napoleon made rapid progress
toward the capital. What began as a perilous march turned into a triumphal
procession. At Grenoble, a crowd greeted him on the outskirts of the city
and, since the local governor had fled with the keys to the city, tore down the
main gates and presented them to the emperor. On March 10 he was in Lyon,
where he began issuing imperial decrees and welcomed the defection of addi-
tional royal forces, including those led by Marshal Michel Ney, who had
earlier promised the king to bring Napoleon “in an iron cage” but now pub-
licly declared that “the cause of the Bourbons is lost forever.”44 Ten days later,
on March 20, Napoleon entered Paris, where a jubilant crowd carried him up
the grand staircase into the Tuileries Palace, which King Louis XVIII and his
court had abandoned just hours earlier on their way to Belgium. To many
contemporaries, the “flight of the eagle” appeared nothing short of miracu-
lous. “This was the greatest miracle made by God,” exclaimed Honoré de
Balzac, sixteen years old when Napoleon made his comeback. “Before him
did ever a man gain an empire simply by showing his hat?”45 Despite being
defeated by the combined forces of Europe, Napoleon had reclaimed the
crown in just three weeks, against all odds and by sheer force of will. The
house of cards that the Allies had so hastily erected in France collapsed.
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 605

Once in Paris, however, cold reality set in, forcing him to look beyond the
passion inspired by his return. Napoleon knew how capricious public support
could be, noting that “the people have let me come, just as they let others go.”46
He understood that he could not restore the imperial regime as it had existed
before. The situation demanded something different. He was surprised to see
that the Bourbon misrule had rejuvenated the vigor of the revolutionary ideals,
and he moved quickly to exploit this powerful force.47 Napoleon assumed the
mantle of defender of the Revolution and tailored his rhetoric to the character
of his audience, pledging to shield the peasants from feudal and clerical reac-
tion and to defend the gains that the bourgeois had made during his rule.48 He
presented himself as a ruler who had made some mistakes, but these had been
occasioned by the exigencies of war. He assured his compatriots that he had
changed and would no longer harbor grand ambitions. “Can one be as fat as I
am, and still have ambition?” he joked, patting his stomach with both hands.49
Just two days after his arrival in Paris, Napoleon reconstituted his govern-
ment, calling upon his old officials to return. He formed a French version of
the Ministry of All Talents that included professional men like Martin-
Michel-Charles Gaudin (finance), Caulaincourt (foreign affairs), and Marshal
Davout (ministry of war), alongside the seasoned veteran Joseph Fouché
(ministry of police) and republicans like Lazare Carnot (ministry of interior).
“I have renounced the ideas of the Grand Empire,” he proclaimed, “which
during the last fifteen years I had only begun to found. Henceforth the hap-
piness and consolidation of the French Empire will be the objects of my
thoughts.” He promised more representative government and asked one of
the leading liberals (and a longtime critic), Benjamin Constant, to draft the
Additional Act to the Imperial Constitution, which, once approved in a pleb-
iscite, created a two-chamber freely elected parliament to govern alongside
the emperor. The constitutional changes also introduced ministerial respon-
sibility, ended censorship, and protected freedoms of press and expression.50
To underscore his newly discovered revolutionary credentials, Napoleon sup-
ported popular assembly at the Champ de Mars, the scene of the great festival
of federation twenty-five years earlier, and allowed the creation of a federative
movement (fédérés) that was modeled after the one of 1789–1791.51
It is hard not to view Napoleon’s latter-day conversion with skepticism.
Eager as he was to exploit the popular fervor, he was not pleased to see the
revival of the revolutionary spirit, with its focus on republicanism. Later,
when exiled in St. Helena, he seemed to admit that he regretted accepting
the Additional Act and probably genuinely intended to suspend it and dis-
miss the chambers in the event of a victorious campaign. A liberal parliament
could never durably coexist with Napoleon, who believed that “a deliberative
606 | the napoleonic wars

body is a fearful thing to deal with.”52 And the first signs from the revived
chambers were not encouraging. In early June, the lower house rejected the
emperor’s nominee for its presidency and proceeded to elect an ex-Girondin
revolutionary with a long history of opposing Napoleon. By June 11 the
Emperor was already warning the chambers, “Let us not imitate the example
of the later [Roman] Empire, which, invaded on all sides by the barbarians,
made itself the laughingstock of posterity by discussing abstract questions
when the battering-rams were breaking down the city gates.”53
Neither should we assume that support for Napoleon was everywhere.
The duc d’Angoulême was able to gather some 10,000 troops in southern
France and march on Lyons before being defeated by the imperial forces. By
mid-May, open revolts broke out in Brittany and the Vendée. More worri-
some was the fact that in many regions of southern and western France—
Flanders, Artois, Normandy, Brittany, Vendée, Languedoc, and Provence—the
local notables largely refused to rally to Napoleon’s cause. Interior Minister
Carnot was forced to dismiss a number of local officials and replace them with
loyal cadres, but the new appointees did not inspire much confidence on the
ground and only further added to public discontent. And yet what makes the
Hundred Days such a remarkable moment in the Napoleonic saga is that
Napoleon was ultimately brought down not by domestic opposition or a
revolt but by foreign intervention. If not for a war, the Napoleonic regime
would have survived the immediate challenges of the restoration. Though
hundreds of thousands of Frenchmen showed indifference to the restored
Napoleonic government, there was also a powerful national expression of
revolutionary élan, bellicose nationalism, and popular Bonapartism that
would have carried the new regime forward.54 By rallying behind Napoleon,
many believed they were defending the revolutionary legacy, which was, in
turn, a matter of mixed self-interest and principle.
As extraordinary as Napoleon’s return was, it would have been better for
France had he stayed on Elba. It is rather surprising that Napoleon ever seriously
entertained hopes that the Allied powers, having spent more than a decade in a
hugely costly effort to defeat him, would simply acquiesce to his return. The
coalition members may have suffered from internal divisions, some of them very
deep-seated indeed, but nothing could make them forget what it had meant to
deal with the Napoleonic Empire. On receiving the news of Napoleon’s escape
at half past seven in the morning of March 7, Metternich immediately informed
Emperor Francis, who instructed him to convey the news to Emperor Alexander
and King Frederick William. By half past eight the minister had met both
Allied leaders, who agreed to start mobilizing their forces. In the words of
Metternich, “Thus the war was decided on in less than an hour.”55
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 607

Napoleon tried to assure the Allies of his peaceful intentions but, unsur-
prisingly, found all diplomatic channels closed and none of the great powers
willing to consider his offers. Instead, the news of his return galvanized the
Allies. The plenipotentiaries of eight leading powers in Vienna declared their
support for Louis XVIII and denounced Napoleon as “Enemy and Disturber
of the Tranquility of the World” who, by breaking the Treaty of Paris of
1814, had turned himself into an outlaw. Much of the rest of Europe sup-
ported the Allies, although Marshal Joachim Murat, who was still hoping to
reclaim his Neapolitan crown, declared for him. Murat’s actions were signifi-
cant because any expectation Napoleon might have had of altering the
Austrian position was dispelled when Murat invaded the Papal States and
called upon the Italians to revolt and accept him as a new king.56
By March 25, five days after Napoleon’s entry into Paris, these powers
were resolving practical matters to form the Seventh Coalition. Each of them
pledged to furnish an army and to not lay down arms until Napoleon had
been decisively defeated and, in the words of the coalition treaty, “rendered
absolutely incapable of stirring up further troubles.” The Allied plans called
for a Prussian army of almost 120,000 men (led by Blücher) and an Anglo-
Allied army of about 100,000 (under the Duke of Wellington) to invade
Belgium and threaten northwestern France, while an Austrian army of more
than 200,000 troops (under Schwarzenberg) would take up a position on the
Upper Rhine. Meanwhile, Russian field marshal Barclay de Tolly would lead
150,000 troops to the Middle Rhine, and an Austro-Italian army of 75,000
men (led by General Johann Frimont) would cross France’s southeastern bor-
der. Britain, ever the anti-Napoleon bank, pledged to place £5 million at the
disposal of the coalition.
In light of the last campaign, waiting until the Allied armies had crossed
the frontier would have been militarily and politically disastrous for Napoleon.
With the nation divided and apprehensive, and the enemy expected to deploy
more than 700,000 men, Napoleon’s only chance was a quick and resounding
victory that might rally the French population behind him and cause the coa-
lition to splinter. In the three months after his return the emperor raised an
army of more than 250,000 men, but after the necessary deductions had been
made to suppress royalist revolts and to defend the southern and southeastern
frontiers, he had no more than 130,000 men to face the Allied invasion on
the Rhine. In contrast with 1814, he now had plenty of hardened veterans
(including returned prisoners of war) who were eager to fight once more under
the imperial eagle. But the choice of available officers, especially generals, was
critically limited. The greater number of former generals rallied to Napoleon;
still, a good number remained aloof or refused to come. Marshals Masséna and
608 | the napoleonic wars

Macdonald were offered commands but declined them while four others—
Victor, Marmont, Augereau, and Berthier—were struck off the marshals’ list
for departing with Louis XVIII; Napoleon had hoped that the indispensable
Berthier, would come back but the marshal, exhausted and disillusioned, fell
to his death from a window of his home in Bamberg on June 1. Of the remain-
ing marshals, Suchet was given command in the Alps, while Davout, perhaps
the most capable of the marshals, was asked to stay in Paris as minister of war,
a decision that many Napoleonophiles still lament. Instead, as he marched to
war, Napoleon was accompanied by Marshal Nicolas Soult, who had no expe-
rience as a chief of staff; Marshal Michel Ney, who had struggled to recover
from the physical and psychological strains of the last three years of campaign-
ing; and the newly promoted Marshal Emmanuel Grouchy, a good cavalry
commander but entirely untried in independent command.
The strategic situation at the outbreak of hostilities was that Napoleon
had 128,000 men, concentrated in the area of Beaumont, in northern France.57
He knew that the Austrian and Russian armies would not reach France’s
eastern frontiers before July. His immediate opponent was the Prussian
army—of which Blücher was the head but Gneisenau the brain—which was
deployed in the southeastern Netherlands, with General Wieprecht Graf von
Zieten’s 1st Prussian Corps (30,000 men) holding position at Charleroi, next
to the French border. To the northwest, Wellington, with a mixed force of
100,000 British, Dutch, Belgian, and German troops, held the area around
Brussels. Napoleon’s operational plan involved getting between the Prussian
and Anglo-Allied armies and, using this central position, forcing the enemy
forces apart and then defeating them piecemeal. The concentration of the
French army was effectively conceived and executed, such that neither
Blücher nor Wellington was aware of the start of the French offensive on June
14. The French army was divided into two wings (commanded by Ney and
Grouchy) and a reserve (the Imperial Guard under Napoleon himself), a for-
mation that was perfectly suitable to Napoleon’s strategic and operational
goals but required effective and timely staff work to coordinate both wings
and, more important, a clear grasp of his intentions by wing commanders.58
By June 15 the strategic situation clearly favored the French; their oppo-
nents proved to be slow in reacting. Wellington was still at Brussels, attending
the Duchess of Richmond’s famous ball, when he was surprised by the news
of the French offensive. Shocked by the speed of the enemy concentration and
advance, he supposedly exclaimed, “Napoleon has humbugged me, by
God!”59 Meanwhile, Blücher decided to concentrate his forces around Ligny,
offering the French a chance to destroy the Prussians before the Anglo-Allied
army could come. Accordingly, Napoleon led the Army of the North into
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 609

Belgium and defeated Blücher at Ligny on June 16. This victory cost the
Prussians one-fifth of their 80,000 men and almost claimed Blücher’s life.60
Yet Ligny fell far short of Napoleon’s original intention and remains a prime
example of a tactical victory that leads to a strategic defeat. The Prussians
may have been “damnably mauled,” as Wellington observed, but they still
remained an organized force led by officers who had shown themselves more
than capable of executing a compact and orderly retreat. Furthermore, Ligny
revealed crucial weaknesses on the French side. As he engaged the Prussians
in battle, Napoleon instructed Ney to march northwest and overcome any
enemy troops at the crucial road junction at the small village of Quatre Bras,
then envelop the Prussian right flank. Napoleon intended to move his reserves
first to support his left wing against the Prussians and then swing westward
to join Ney and march toward Brussels, where the Anglo-Allied army would
have been defeated. If properly implemented, the plan probably would have
resulted in the defeat of both Allied armies within the first week of the war.
But it went awry. Soult’s failure to establish a proper staff and the opacity
of the orders he sent out was outstripped only by Ney’s inability to grasp the
overall strategy. He advanced along the Brussels road with unneeded caution
and might have carried the Quatre Bras position even as late as eleven in the
morning had he pressed hard. Instead he postponed operations till the after-
noon, allowing the surprised Wellington to rush his reinforcements to sup-
port the small German brigade from the Dutch-Belgian division that held
the road junction.61 When the French attacked, they found the enemy posi-
tions too strong to carry. Exasperated, Ney diverted the corps of General
Jean-Baptiste Drouet, comte d’Erlon, which originally had been allotted to
the left wing but was recalled by Napoleon to complete the Prussian defeat
at Ligny. When the marshal learned that d’Erlon had inexplicably turned
around, he sent him urgent orders to retrace his way to Quatre Bras. These
countermanding orders meant that d’Erlon spent much of the day marching
between Quatre Bras and Ligny without participating in either battle,
depriving the French of a decisive victory.
Still, the possibilities for the following few days looked propitious. Given
the strength of his reserves, Napoleon could either complete the rout of the
Prussians or turn his attention to Wellington, whose forces were stretched
between Brussels and Quatre Bras. Over the next twelve-hour period, how-
ever, Napoleon showed himself uncharacteristically indecisive, failing to
organize the pursuit and losing contact with the Prussians by the following
morning. Quite unlike the disciplined man of the earlier years, he slept late
and wasted the advantage of the early morning hours.62 It was not till noon
on June 17 that Napoleon ordered Grouchy, with 33,000 men, to pursue the
610 | the napoleonic wars

Prussians, while Ney was entirely ignored and received no new instructions
to renew his attacks to pin down Wellington, who could have been easily
defeated by Napoleon. Hence, by the time the emperor joined Ney at Quatre
Bras, the Anglo-Allied army had already disengaged and retreated toward
the villages of Mont Saint-Jean and Waterloo, where Wellington decided to
fight upon receiving Blücher’s assurance that at least one Prussian corps
would come to his help. Napoleon followed the retreating British army, but
the pursuit was not particularly vigorous. Heavy rains during the night of
June 17–18 did not make the going easy.
On June 18, 1815, some 140,000 men converged on sleepy hamlets of
Mont St. Jean, Belle Alliance, Hougomont, Placenoit, and Waterloo in what
is today Belgium.63 The future of the French Empire, if not the entire
European continent, was at stake. The peculiarity of the subsequent battle
was its narrow compass, with tens of thousands of men crammed into just
three square miles at the start of the battle; the front was less than two miles
wide, compared to six miles at Austerlitz or Borodino. Wellington, a superb
defensive commander, had chosen his favorite position: on a rise where the
reverse slopes offered protection to his infantry from enemy artillery fire. He
took great care in deploying his troops, distributing his sturdy British
­divisions to stiffen the less-experienced Dutch-Belgian units.
Napoleon, on the other hand, underestimated his opponent and ignored
the warnings of his Peninsular War veterans about the British commander
and the firepower of his infantry, responding with bravado that “Wellington
is a bad general, that the English are bad troops, and that this affair is noth-
ing more serious than eating one’s breakfast.”64 Instead of attempting to turn
an enemy flank, Napoleon, just as he had at Borodino, chose a frontal assault
designed to smash through the Allies’ army. Because torrential rains had
made the ground too sodden to admit of the easy movement of troops or artil-
lery bombardment, he delayed the French attack until half past eleven, even
as the news arrived of Prussian troops appearing on his right flank. Napoleon
had earlier dismissed the Prussians as incapable of doing anything for at least
another day and hoped that Grouchy would be able to fulfill his mission of
preventing Blücher from reaching the battlefield. Much ink has been spilled
blaming Grouchy for not marching “to the sound of the cannon,” and Napoleon
himself left a contemptuous assessment of the marshal. But Grouchy’s lack of
initiative, for which he compensated through literal obedience to orders at a
time when improvisation would have been more suitable, was compounded
by Napoleon’s own errors and imprecise orders.65
Starting in the afternoon, the French launched repeated assaults to break
the enemy front line. The British and their Dutch, Belgian, and German
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 611

allies held their ground and repulsed the assaults with a combination of
steely resolve and a massive concentration of firepower. Napoleon’s own per-
formance was unimposing and his decision to leave the tactical handling of
the battle to Ney resulted in the latter’s misreading the enemy movements
and launching an impressive but utterly impractical cavalry charge against
the British infantry, which formed squares and wore down the charging
enemy horsemen. Equally ineffective was Napoleon’s handling of the fight-
ing at Hougoumont, where he originally intended to launch a diversionary
attack to draw away the enemy reserves but eventually committed more than
thirty battalions (some 14,000 men), who struggled to make headway against
the British defenses. And yet by late afternoon the situation for Wellington
was precarious, as the French capture of La Haye Sainte had threatened to
pierce the center of the Anglo-Allied positions.
It was at this crucial moment that Prussians began to stream onto the
battlefield. Leaving one corps at Wavre to pin down Grouchy, Blücher led the
rest of his army, some 50,000 men in total, to support Wellington. The
Prussian arrival boosted the morale of the battered Anglo-Allies and drew
away Napoleon’s reserves, which otherwise could have been used against
Wellington’s center. In a last, desperate attempt to turn the tide of battle,
Napoleon sent his elite Imperial Guard up the ridge, but even these famed
veterans could not break through Anglo-Allied lines and were met by with a
hail of musketfire and grapeshot. As the Guard staggered and fell back, a cry
went up through the rest of the French army, one unheard on European bat-
tlefields in some fifteen years of fighting: “La Garde recule!” (The Imperial
Guard is falling back!).66 All was lost for the French: a general panic set in,
and thousands of French troops began to flee from the battlefront. As the
darkness descended, some 65,000 men (two-thirds of them, Frenchmen) had
been killed or wounded or were otherwise missing.
Waterloo was a comprehensive French defeat, both at the tactical level
(where Napoleon had effectively conceded authority to his subordinates,
especially Marshal Ney, who could do no better than launch frontal attacks)
and at the operational level (where the failure was either compounded or
caused, depending on one’s point of view, by Grouchy’s actions in the wake
of Ligny). In this regard, the Battle of Waterloo is rightly celebrated as the
end of French ascendancy in Europe. But upsetting as this might be to the
British national pride, it was not the battle that forged a century. The fate of
Europe had already been decided in the rolling hills of Leipzig and sealed
amid the balls and festivities in Vienna. At the risk of sounding like a histori-
cal determinist, the argument here is that Napoleon had lost the war at the
strategic level even before the first shot was fired. It is hard to envision any
612 | the napoleonic wars

turn of events in which the Allied powers would have accepted his presence
at the helm of France. Austria, the only power that Napoleon might have had
a chance of wooing, was determined to see him ousted. Even as early as April
9, 1815, Metternich observed, “The Powers will not have Napoleon Bonaparte
[and] will make war against him to the last.”67 By June 1815 the coali-
tion ranged against France comprised Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, the
Netherlands, Hanover, Portugal, Piedmont-Sardinia, the Two Sicilies, Sweden,
Spain, the Swiss Confederation, and the Duchies of Nassau, Brunswick, and
Tuscany. This was not a coalition that Napoleon could possibly defeat in bat-
tle. Even had the opening campaign been won, the emperor could not have
changed the facts on the ground, which included the great powers’ firm com-
mitment to fight him. If not at Waterloo, he would have met his defeat at
some other small hamlet in the Rhineland or northeastern France. Napoleon
should have stayed on Elba; while it would have meant a less dramatic end to
his remarkable life, France would have been better off. One cannot but feel
sympathy for the French veterans who after the end of the war told “stories of
his genius and execrated his government in the same breath. His officers cursed
him as an Emperor and adored him [as a general] in the field. . . . Everywhere
Napoleon was called ‘bon general, mais mauvais souverain.’”68
Despite the disaster at Waterloo, Napoleon still had some fight left in him.
Returning to Paris on June 21, he believed that “all is not lost” and considered
raising another army of some 300,000 men to continue the fight.69 As irate as he
might have been at Grouchy, he still welcomed the news of the general’s success-
ful retreat from Wavre, which preserved some 30,000 French troops. Napoleon’s
companions even urged him to seize power and declare himself a dictator.
However, whatever plans he might have been formulating, he was thwarted by
the actions of those who now fully understood that the war had been lost and that
immediate action had to be taken to mitigate the impact of the defeat. Minister
of Police Joseph Fouché emerged as a key leader in the behind-the-scenes
intrigues that resulted in the formation of a special committee. This committee
insisted that Napoleon give up the throne and that a provisional government take
charge of the nation, a demand seconded by the legislative chambers.
On June 22, Napoleon abdicated once more in favor of his son, the four-
year-old Napoleon II, the king of Rome. However, Fouché, who in the words
of one contemporary had become “the regent de facto and the central point of
every intrigue,” insisted on the restoration of the Bourbon dynasty.70 The
disillusioned legislators, anxious to be rid of Napoleon, called up the National
Guard to prevent any attempt at dissolving the chambers. With Wellington
and Blücher advancing on Paris and Louis XVIII following “in the baggage
train of the allies,” it was increasingly becoming clear that Napoleon could
The War and Peace, 1814–1815 | 613

no longer stay in France. On June 29 he traveled to the Atlantic coastline,


arriving four days later at Rochefort, where he considered escaping to
America. A British naval blockade made such a venture doubtful. Instead,
after spending almost two weeks vacillating, the emperor surrendered to
Captain Frederick Lewis Maitland of the HMS Bellerophon on July 15, writing
his famous letter to the prince regent of Britain asking for asylum: “I have
finished my political career, and I come, like Themistocles, to sit at the heart
of the British people . . . the most powerful, constant and generous of my
enemies.”71
Napoleon seems to have had ambitions of settling down as an English
country gentleman, but his appeal put the British government in an awk-
ward position. It could not allow such a potent symbol of power and trans-
formation to seek shelter on the British islands themselves. No one could
imagine Napoleon simply retiring to private life. Allowing him any public
involvement could pose significant risks, considering the radical undercur-
rents that had emerged in Britain at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
Furthermore, on August 2, the victorious Allies ruled that Napoleon was a
prisoner of war and had to be confined to a place from which he would not be
able to escape; they entrusted the British with the task of finding such a
place. After careful deliberation, it was decided to send “Boney,” as the
British public came to call Napoleon during the war, to the bleak island of
St. Helena in the South Atlantic, more than 1,500 miles from the nearest
African coastline and some 4,500 miles from France.72 As the Royal Navy
controlled the Atlantic, escape from St. Helena was virtually impossible.
Nonetheless, to further reduce the odds, the British deployed a small garri-
son on the island to watch Napoleon in his solitary, windswept house at
Longwood. Surrounded by a small personal entourage, the fallen emperor
spent the last six years of his life feuding with his British captors and waging
his last and undoubtedly most successful campaign—that for posterity.
Imagining parallel histories is dangerous. Still, one cannot but speculate
whether Europe would have been better off had the Napoleonic Wars ended
differently. The Napoleonic conquests undoubtedly resulted in exploitation
as well as in harsh repression. Yet the French armies also brought with them
reforms that were built upon revolutionary ideals. They promised legal
equality, personal freedom, and the inviolability of property; they proclaimed
religious tolerance, reformed administrative and judicial systems, and stan-
dardized weights and measures. Whatever and however many his faults,
Napoleon was a more enlightened figure than most autocratic rulers of
Europe, and his defeat meant a setback for many of the ideals that underpin
modern society.
ARCTIC OCEAN

Greenland
Arctic Circle Iceland
26 to Den. to Den. FINLAND
f 18
ALASKA ne o Godthaab Julianehaab 1809
60° ty Li NORWAY St. Petersburg Yakutsk Okhotsk
Trea Founded 1775
Sitka NORTH-WESTERN TERRITORIES UNITED R U S S I A N E M P I R E Kamchatka
Kodiak I. Founded 1799 KINGDOM DENMARK Yeniselsk Pen.
1784 Moscow

Br. Cro
Rupert Land United from 1801
First Russian settlement GER.
OREGON London
Aleutian Is. 1818 CANADA CONFED. Sakhalin
COUNTRY

NEWFOU wn Col.
Paris Kuril Is.
Jointly occupied by

NDLAND
Ottawa AUSTRIA
U.S. and Gt. Britain 1818 St. Pierre and FRANCE
1818-46 Miquelon
1803 OT
CHINA
Treaty Line o PORTUGAL Madrid TO Constantinople Beijing

f1
UNITED STATES New York Azores

8
MA
19 SPAIN NE KOREA JAPAN
San Francisco Malta Crete
MP
Founded 1776 1783 Gibraltar ALGERIA IRE Edo
Los Angeles Madeira 1830/48 1800 1822/40 Cyprus IRAN
30° Founded 1781 to Egypt TIBE T Deshima (Nagasaki)
San Diego El Paso Bermuda TRIPOLI
MOROCCO 1641-1859
ATLANTIC Canary Is. Cairo
Florida Delhi NEPAL PACIFIC
FEZZAN EGYPT Ryu Kyu Is.
MEXICO Bahamas OCEAN 1811 Chandernagore 1815 Canton
1821 autonomous ARABIA Serampore OCEAN
Diu Formosa
S a h a r a INDIA Calcutta Macao
Hawaiian Is. Hawaii Jamaica
HAITI Puerto Rico Daman Mariana or
Mexico Bobmay
NUBIA Yanaon ANNAM Ladrone Is.
BR. HONDURAS St. Croix Guadeloupe Cape Verde Is. SENEGAL 1820/22 to Egypt Philippine Is.
Goa Pulicat SIAM
Mosquito St. Lucia Barbados Andaman Is.
UNITED PROV. OF Bathurst Mahe 1825
CENTRAL AMERICA Coast Tobago 1815 1816 ABYSSINIA Pondicherry1789-96
Laccadive Is. Karikal Caroline Is.
1823-38 Trinidad 1797/1802 SIERRA LEONE Paulo Condore
Caracas Ningo (Ft. Fredensborg) 1791-1855
PACIFIC Santa Fe BR. GUIANA 1787/1809 Assinie Accra Nicobar Is. Pattani 1787
de Bogoto LIBERIA 1784 1824
OCEAN DUTCH GUIANA Maldive Is. Ceylon
REPUBLIC OF FR. GUIANA Elmina Fernando 1798/1815 Malacca 1824
Poo 1815 1819 Halmahera
0° GREATER COLUMBIA Singapore
1819-30 1827-43 Sumatra Borneo Celebes
1795

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Equator Quito Mandus 1824, Batang Kapas
Galapagos Is. Seychelles 1828
Chagos Is. 1824, Benkulen D U T C H E A S T I N D I E S New Guinea
Ascension 1769 to Fr. Makassar
1794 to Br. 1784 Batavia
EMPIRE OF 1815 Loanda Timor

ZANZIB
PERU Java
1821 BRAZIL
1822

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Lima Bahia
La Paz INDIAN

ANG
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(Salvador) AF I. Sainte Marie

ST
St. Helena OCEAN
BOLIVIA Magadascar 1818
Mauritius (I. de France)
Bourbon 1810

P ORT. EA
PARAGUAY Rio de Janeiro NEW
Tropic of Capricorn (Reunion) WESTERN
Asunción 1810-14 to Br. SOUTH WALES
Pitcairn I. ASUTRALIA
1814 to Fr. 1788
1808/93 ARGENTINE Delagoa Bay 1829
CAPE Port Natal Lord Howe I.
30° CHILE CONFED.
1810 1824-39 Perth

Prime Meridian
1818 URUGUAY Cape Town COL. 1788 to N.S.W.
Santiago 1806/14 Sydney
Buenos Aires Montevideo Tristan da Cunha
D
1815 LAN
ZEA 0
Gough I. VAN DIEMEN’S LAND NEW 1814/4
Patagonia 1816
Chatham Is. Crozet Is.
1791 1772 Kerguelen
Islas Malvinas Auckland Is.
(Falkland Is.) 1772 1806
Macquarie Is. Campbell I.
1820-33 to Arg.
1811 to Tasmania 1810
150° 120° 90° 60° 30° 0° 30° 60° 90° 120° 150°

60°
SOUTHERN OCEAN
Antarctic Circle

Spanish Possessions Portuguese Possessions British Possessions French Possessions Dutch Possessions Danish Possessions United States’ Possessions Russian Possessions

Map 29: The World in 1815


chapter 24 The Aftermath of the Great War

T he battle of waterloo marked the endpoint of what many contem-


poraries (especially in Britain) came to consider the “Great War.” It her-
alded the start of a period of relative peace that would last for decades and help
Europe recover from revolutionary turmoil and devastation. A decisive step
toward this new era was taken just nine days before the Waterloo, when the
Congress of Vienna adopted its Final Act, which completed its remapping of
Europe and outlined significant changes to its political reorganization.1
The post-Napoleonic settlement reached at Vienna was based on four fun-
damental principles. First, the European powers sought to ensure an interna-
tional equilibrium of political and military forces by discouraging the
domination of Europe by any single state and encouraging a collaborative
approach to the maintenance of peace. Although their interests were fre-
quently in conflict, the great powers possessed enough mutual interest in
safeguarding their own sovereignty from potential aggressor(s) to form
the Concert of Europe, whose main purpose was to maintain peace and sta-
bility. This was not the balance of power in the traditional sense of the con-
cept because the Napoleonic Wars left Europe rather unbalanced. In 1819
Dominique de Pradt, the French archbishop and a rather keen political
observer, lamented the fact that “two giants have now established themselves
in Europe, England and Russia. . . . It is true that in earlier times, before this
new order arrived, dominant powers existed but they were never exclusively
preeminent and never wielded such a disproportionate force vis-à-vis the
other states.” Pradt concluded that the new political reality in Europe could
no longer be considered as based on the principle of the balance of power, but
rather reflected the hegemony of Britain and Russia.2 The archbishop’s assess-
ment echoed in the writings of many subsequent historians, including Enno
Kraehe and Paul Schroeder, but the post-Napoleonic state of affairs requires
616 | the napoleonic wars

a more nuanced approach.3 As powerful as Britain and Russia were after the
Napoleonic Wars, the European security regime was not necessarily bipolar,
and it continued to be fluid and flexible, allowing other states to remain
actively involved in it.4 Self-interest and traditional ideas about political
equipoise informed the Allies’ decision not to weaken France unduly, so that
it could serve as a counterweight to Russia, and to restore Austria and Prussia
to their prewar status, so that they could serve as a bulwark against France.
For nearly a century after the Congress of Vienna, the desire to maintain this
equilibrium was an important component of international relations in
Europe. It ensured that the first four decades after the end of the Napoleonic
Wars were peaceful, while conflicts during the second half of the nineteenth
century never morphed into a larger conflagration. Unlike the eighteenth
century, which saw several lengthy conflicts involving virtually every European
state, the post-Napoleonic conflicts in Europe tended to be events involving
two or three nations and rarely lasting longer than two years.
Second was the principle of legitimacy, which was ostensibly aimed at
restoring the legitimate monarchies and therefore preserving traditional
institutions on the continent. Despite the many military victories of the
French Revolution and under Napoleon, the older order of monarchical
states, presided over by an established aristocracy, had survived and ulti-
mately won the war. But the principal ideas of liberalism—individual free-
doms, equality before the law, laissez-faire economics—were by no means
defeated in 1815. In the post-Napoleonic period, as liberalism became iden-
tified with the middle class, many intellectuals and larger social groups felt
that liberal ideology did not go far enough to satisfy their needs. The new
generation of radicals desired to replace monarchical rule with republics and
sought greater economic and social equality even if it entailed using violence
to achieve those goals. These were very drastic ideas that even liberals found
hard to support. In their struggles against conservative regimes, liberals and
radicals did occasionally join their forces, but only up to a point.
The radical changes unleashed by the Revolution had their most profound
impact on France and those areas of the Low Countries, Italy, and Germany
that Napoleon had incorporated into his empire; economic liberalism, mean-
while, was embraced most enthusiastically in Britain. Their impact was
milder to the east of the Rhine River, and they made only limited headway in
the largely agricultural societies of eastern Europe. The Prussian progressive
reforms stemmed not from French revolutionary influence but rather from
within—the Prussian military and civil officials who were convinced the state
needed to be modernized to defeat the French. In Prussia and Austria, not to
mention smaller central European states, authority remained in the hands of
The Aftermath of the Great War | 617

an aristocratic class that was eager to combat subversion of the monarchical


order by popular movements. It found in conservatism a political and social
philosophy with which to contend against the wave of radicalism.
The foundation for the conservative philosophy had been laid in 1790
when British political theorist Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the
Revolution in France and refined by later generations of conservative writers,
who were terrified of the revolutionary excesses. These writers rejected any
claim that society was based upon a “social contract” between people and
government, one that could be redrafted as the need arose. They argued that
society was an enduring partnership between the past, present, and future
generations, or, in the words of Russian conservative writer Nikolai Karamzin,
a living social organism that evolved over many hundreds of years and could
not be cut off from its past if it was not to perish.5 Like everything that lives,
the state was God’s creation, and no one generation had the right to destroy
it; rather, it was their duty to pass it on. Hence, new rights and freedoms
could not be based upon abstract concepts of natural law but had to be
derived from preexisting rights and traditions.
After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, conservatives strove to revive pre-
Napoleonic regimes, a process that included restoring “legitimate” rulers
overthrown during the war and resurrecting systems based on contractual
rights, services, and dependencies. None of the powers seriously contem-
plated returning all of the deposed rulers to their thrones or treating all rulers
as legitimate. Therefore, the “restoration” of 1815 should not be considered
as a return to Europe as it had been in 1789. For all their conservatism, the
statesmen at Vienna were well aware of the unfeasibility of such an endeavor
and understood the need to change and evolve gradually. In practice, they
used the principle of legitimacy as a general guidepost to be respected in
some instances and ignored in many others.
What lay behind this focus on collaboration and legitimacy was fear of
revolution and upheaval that could once more set Europe on fire. Hence,
closely related to the principle of legitimacy was the third pillar of post-
Napoleonic settlement: intervention. The great powers agreed to protect
each other and Europe in general against the infection of the revolutionary
spirit. Whenever a state was threatened by turmoil, these powers, drawing on
existing treaties and respecting current territorial arrangements, would
intervene and uphold legitimate (read: conservative) order. When the powers
collaborated in the 1820s and 1830s, they successfully put down liberal revo-
lutions and maintained the conservative order of the day.
Finally, those three principles were tempered by the fourth: mutual com-
pensation. In a general restructuring of Europe, the victors agreed that if one
618 | the napoleonic wars

nation gave up territory or compromised on a certain interest, it would


receive compensation in some shape or form. As we’ve seen, in the Polish-
Saxon crisis, the great powers reached a compromise solution based on mutual
compensation. A Polish state, better known as the Congress Poland, was
resurrected within the Russian Empire and ostensibly granted a constitu-
tional government that was far more liberal than that of the Russian patri-
mony. To form this new Polish entity, Russia convinced Prussia to surrender
the Warsaw region (but without Posen) in exchange for being compensated
with 40 percent of Saxony, the last remaining strip of the Swedish Pomerania
on the Baltic, and all of the previous holdings in Westphalia, which were
further augmented by a large tract of land on the left bank of the Rhine.
Austria, meanwhile, gave up western Galicia and allowed Krakow to become
a free city, but kept all the Polish lands that the Habsburgs had annexed
south and east of the Vistula River and recovered those areas that Russia had
claimed in 1809.6
Such compensations, however, flouted the very spirit of national self-
determination that the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had unleashed.
Nationalism was a sentiment arising from an awareness of belonging to a
community that shared bonds of common ethnicity, language, customs, reli-
gion, and cultural ties. It could only be stimulated and flourish in a society
whose social and economic development allowed for a certain degree of polit-
ical independence, popular education, and general participation in politics.
Nationalism posed a great threat to states that had failed to develop national
identities based on allegiance to common ideals, institutions, and shared
political vision, so that citizenship became the criterion of nationality. France
was the first nation fully to embrace these elements, and Napoleon’s armies
introduced them to other parts of Europe. Yet the powers that defeated
Napoleon lacked these elements. This meant that a sense of nationality
became intertwined with cultures and identities, which in the case of great
European empires were rather diverse. Of course, subjects of the Austrian,
Russian, and Ottoman Empires shared a bond to the sovereign and the alle-
giance to the empire as a whole but, as time progressed, they—whether
Czechs, Poles, Hungarians, Bulgarians, Greeks, or others—became increas-
ingly conscious of their own cultural uniqueness and of preserving it. This
awareness of national individuality was the first step toward national self-
determination, which threatened the integrity (if not the very existence) of
the empires and endangered the European political order as set at the Congress
of Vienna. For much of the nineteenth century, liberalism and nationalism
represented twin forces of subversion, since the aspiration of national unity
and independence did not appear possible without liberal transformation.
The Aftermath of the Great War | 619

With the Final Act in hand, the European powers went about redrawing
territorial boundaries and creating long-term stability on the continent.
Napoleon’s violation of the First Treaty of Paris and the wholehearted sup-
port he had received in many parts of France strengthened the arguments of
those Allied leaders who had long advocated that leniency had to be replaced
by firmer treatment. After Napoleon’s second downfall, the Prussian repre-
sentatives were particularly vocal in their argument that the French nation
had forfeited every right to a generous peace. Prussia and others called for
harsher conditions that would further constrain and weaken France. Castlereagh
brushed aside the Prussian arguments, pointing out that imposing exacting
demands on France would only undermine the Bourbons at home and might
contribute to further political instability, which could, in turn, upset the del-
icate balance of power the Congress of Vienna sought to revive. “It is curious
to observe,” wrote Castlereagh in one of his letters, “the insatiable spirit of
getting something without a thought of how it is to be preserved. There is
not a Power, however feeble, that borders France from the Channel to the
Mediterranean that is not pushing some acquisition under the plea of secu-
rity and rectification of frontier.”7 After long negotiations, which continued
well after the Congress of Vienna had completed its work in June 1815, the
Allies signed the Second Treaty of Peace with France in Paris on November
20, 1815. The treaty consisted of several agreements dealing with key post-
war issues, including indemnity, military occupation, deserters, territorial
arrangements, private claims upon France, and the slave trade.
The most important of these agreements was the Definitive Treaty, signed
in Paris on November 20, 1815, which outlined the final peace between
France and the Allies. This agreement was considerably harsher than the one
of 1814, forcing France to surrender additional frontier territory and for-
tresses and reducing French borders to those of 1790, rather than 1792. This
meant the surrender of parts of Savoy, the Austrian Netherlands (Belgium),
and the Rhineland that France had retained in 1814.8 Furthermore, the treaty
obliged France to pay a war indemnity of 700 million francs and bear the
costs of an Allied army of occupation for up to five years, to maintain order
and tranquility in the country in which, as the treaty noted, “the state of
uneasiness and of fermentation . . . after so many violent convulsions, and par-
ticularly after the last catastrophe,” was expected to endure.9
Disillusionment, anger, and a sense of national humilation were wide-
spread in France. The Allied Council, consisting of representatives of the
victorious powers, set de-Bonapartization, demilitarization, and payment of
reparations as its short-term goals. It largely fulfilled the first two goals
within two years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon was exiled
620 | the napoleonic wars

to St. Helena, while the Bonapartes were banned from France and closely
monitored in the rest of Europe.10 The French government and military were
purged of Bonapartist officials and officers, many of them choosing to flee to
North America.11 King Louis XVIII demobilized Napoleon’s Grande Armée,
reducing its size from half a million to slightly over 200,000. The decision
was necessary for the peace in Europe, as well as for balancing national
finances, but it was bound to incite considerable anger among tens of thou-
sands of Napoleonic veterans, who were condemned to lives of begging, pov-
erty, petty crime, and institutional exploitation.
The question of reparations, however, hung heavily over France for several
years. The Allies insisted that all money accounts arising out of the Definitive
Treaty be settled before their forces of occupation withdrew. These reparations
fell into two broad categories: war indemnities and claims made by private
citizens against France. However, the Allies also expected the Bourbon mon-
archy to honor debts contracted by earlier French governments in territories
occupied during the Napoleonic Wars, and to bear the costs of maintaining
the forces of occupation. The total costs of reparations, therefore, would have
been closer to 1.3 billion francs. As a whole, these reparations represented a
new development in the history of conflict resolutions. Unlike earlier histori-
cal examples of reparations in which a victorious side compelled the losing one
to pay particular costs of war, in 1815 the Allies wielded reparations as a
­punitive measure. In the words of economic historian Eugene N. White,
“Reparations now became part of a tougher peace package, assessing a penalty
for threatening the new European order and a deterrent against future
[hostile] ventures. Payment of reparations was also an incentive, whose fulfill-
ment would allow France to resume its role as a Great Power in the manage-
ment of European affairs.”12 Another innovation was the use of the regime of
military occupation to extract payments from the host country.
France’s new prime minister, Armand-Emmanuel de Vignerot du Plessis,
duc de Richelieu, was well placed to represent France in these difficult nego-
tiations. A scion of a distinguished French aristocratic family, he emigrated
from France during the Revolution and served in Russia, where Emperor
Alexander came to appreciate his administrative skills and entrusted him
with the governorship of a large province. Now back in France, Richelieu,
with the support of French finance minister Louis Emmanuel Corvetto, took
advantage of the fact that France had undergone a major financial restructur-
ing, including bankruptcy during the Revolution, and that Napoleon had
left behind little national debt.13 With the help of a consortium of for-
eign banks led by Alexander Baring, Richelieu floated loans and obliga-
tions at low rates. By 1818, when the European powers met for a congress at
The Aftermath of the Great War | 621

Aix-la-Chapelle, France had paid a total of 368 million francs. At that con-
ference, Richelieu convinced the allies to accept a one-time payment of 280
million francs in lieu of the remaining reparations. The French government’s
ability to pay what constituted, in absolute terms, the biggest war repara-
tions in modern history was of profound consequence. Reparations restored
public credit in the French government and allowed the French state to
entice new investments at lower rates. More crucial was that they served as a
conduit for the transfer of capital from British bankers to continental govern-
ments that received French reparations and, hence, played a role in spurring
recovery in postwar Europe.14
The Allies’ longer-term aim in 1815 was achieving stability and perma-
nence in international affairs. Mindful of France’s historical penchant for ter-
ritorial aspirations, they agreed to form defensive barriers around it. At the
northern end was the new Kingdom of the Netherlands, which was formed
by merging the former Austrian Netherlands with the Dutch provinces; the
new polity was placed under the rule of the House of Orange.15 Further along
the northeastern boundary of France were a number of German states on
the left bank of the Rhine, bolstered by Prussia’s newly acquired territory
there. Eastern approaches to France were guarded by the newly reorganized
Switzerland. The specially formed Swiss Committee spent much time dis-
cussing the future of nineteen Swiss cantons, which were represented at the
congress by separate delegations. Ultimately the committee agreed that an
enlarged Switzerland of twenty-one cantons would be established under the
rotating leadership of Zürich, Lucerne, and Berne; the five great powers then
recognized the permanent neutrality of Switzerland.16 Continuing along this
defensive barrier down to the Mediterranean was the restored kingdom of
Sardinia-Piedmont, which not only reclaimed its former possessions but was
enlarged by the addition of Liguria (with Genoa), Nice, and a part of Savoy.17
Finally, in the south of France, Spain was once again independent and under
Bourbon rule, with Ferdinand VII joyfully greeted by his subjects in Madrid.
Farther to the east lay Prussia proper, Austria, and a confederation of the
German states. The former, as we have seen, was restored to its pre-1806
status and power and was allowed to retain Posen and the port city of Danzig
and annex portions of Saxony in return for giving up parts of Poland. Austria
reclaimed all the territories it had lost since 1792 and was compensated for
its loss of the Austrian Netherlands with Venetia and Lombardy in northern
Italy. The Habsburgs were also pleased with the recovery of the Illyrian
Provinces in the Adriatic, and Salzburg and the Tyrol, the last two having
been lost to Bavaria in 1809.18 One of the most important changes that the
congress had made concerned the future of the minor German states. The
622 | the napoleonic wars

German Committee, formed to discuss the reorganization of the former


Confederation of the Rhine, consisted of representatives of Austria, Prussia,
Bavaria, Württemberg, and Hanover but was later enlarged to include
Saxony, Hesse-Darmstadt, the Netherlands, and Denmark. It helped create
the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund), a loose union of thirty-eight
states and four free cities, whose mission was defined by the Vienna treaty as
the “maintenance of the external and internal safety of Germany and of the
independence and inviolability of the confederated states.”19 All members
states pledged to defend not only “the whole of Germany” but each individ-
ual state of the union, and not to make war on each other.20 The new confed-
eration included individual German states such as Saxony, Württemberg,
and Bavaria, as well as territories of the sovereign princes (the kings of
Denmark, Britain, the Netherlands, Austria and Prussia) and the free towns
of Germany. Excluded, however, were the Polish provinces of Prussia and
those Habsburg-governed regions that lay outside the boundaries of the now-
defunct Holy Roman Empire: Lombardy, Venetia, Hungary, and Polish
Galicia. The German Confederation was administered through a federal Diet,
under the presidency of Austria (whose emperor was still regarded as the tra-
ditional leader of Germany), that was established at Frankfurt to draft the laws
and regulations of the Confederation.21 Although the German Confederation
encompassed almost all the German-speaking peoples of Europe and had the
appearance of a national polity, it did not embrace the ideology of national-
ism and was simply an expedient way of organizing and managing central
European states.22
The Congress of Vienna also agreed upon major territorial adjustments
outside central Europe. Sweden’s involvement in the Sixth Coalition was, as
we’ve seen, driven by the desire to acquire Norway, which Alexander had
promised to Bernadotte at Abo in August 1812. To fulfill this transfer, the
Allies forced King Frederick VI of Denmark to accept the Treaty of Kiel
(January 1814), which ceded Heligoland to Britain and Norway to Sweden
in exchange for Swedish Pomerania. However, the treaty was rejected by
the Norwegians, who under the leadership of Prince Christian Frederick of
Denmark, governor-general of Norway and heir presumptive to the thrones
of Denmark and Norway, convened a constitutional assembly that proclaimed
Norwegian independence and adopted a liberal constitution. Christian
Frederick tried to gain support from the great powers, but none responded to
his entreaties. Instead, they supported Bernadotte during the short Swedish-
Norwegian War (July–August 1814), which saw unexpected Swedish defeats
at Lier, Matrand, and Langnes before Swedish superiority in numbers made
Norwegian defeat inevitable. The Congress of Vienna had thus confirmed the
The Aftermath of the Great War | 623

Swedish acquisition of Norway and the loss of Finland to Russia. Pomerania,


which under the Treaty of Kiel Sweden ceded to Denmark, was ultimately
given to Prussia, which compensated Denmark with the small Duchy of
Saxe-Lauenbourg.23
Italy was dealt with as a geographic rather than political entity, and its
hopes for unity, revived under Napoleon, were soon quashed. Beyond the
defensive barriers (Piedmont-Sardinia and Austrian-controlled Lombardy
and Venetia), the congress restored a number of Italian rulers to their thrones.
Pope Pius VII returned to the Papal States, while the Duchies of Parma,
Piacenza, and Guastalla were awarded to Napoleon’s wife, Empress Marie-
Louise, for her lifetime. Naples and Sicily were once again reunited into the
Bourbon-led Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, while the House of Habsburg-
Lorraine returned to Tuscany and Modena.
Besides territorial divisions, the Final Act of the congress addressed other
important issues. Britain, for instance, sought the total abolition of slavery.
In early February 1815 the Slave Trade Committee adopted a declaration
unanimously condemning the slave trade.24 Although it was later included in
the Final Act, the declaration had no binding provisions for signatory powers
and did not prescribe when or how the trade should be abolished. Therefore,
Britain eventually concluded separate agreements with states engaged in the
slave trade. The Jewish community in Germany succeeded in lobbying
the Prussian delegation to place the issue of Jewish rights on the agenda
of the German Committee, which formally confirmed them in some German
states and made a recommendation to extend them to others.
The Committee on International Rivers, established on December 14,
1814, discussed the question of navigation on the major rivers of Europe. It
was agreed that navigation on key waterways, including the Rhine, Moselle,
Neckar, and Meuse, would be free. The Rhine Commission was established
to eliminate trade barriers and standardize navigational regulations, police
ordinances, and emergency procedures on rivers.25
Another lasting achievement of the Congress of Vienna included settle-
ments of diplomatic precedence and rank. It was agreed that the precedence
of diplomatic representatives in a given country would be determined by the
date of the official notification of their arrival at their mission. Diplomatic
officials were organized into four classes: ambassadors and papal legates, min-
isters plenipotentiary, resident ministers, and chargés d’affaires. French was
selected as the language of international diplomacy, confirming a state of
affairs that had existed since the reign of Louis XIV.26
It can be safely argued that the state that gained most from the Napoleonic
Wars was Britain, although its performance at the Congress of Vienna did
624 | the napoleonic wars

not fully reflect the military, diplomatic, and financial efforts the wars had
demanded of it. Britain voluntarily abandoned almost all of its colonial con-
quests, retaining the former Dutch colonies of Ceylon (Sri Lanka), Demerara
(in Guiana, now Surinam), and the Cape Colony (on the southern coast of
Africa). Britain had annexed nothing on the European continent. Furthermore,
British negotiations had failed to secure an agreement to abolish the slave
trade, and the Final Act contained only a brief declaration condemning in
principle the traffic in slaves but leaving its actual suppression to future
negotiations.
Such setbacks (if they can be termed such), however, belied some very
considerable advantages that Britain had gained. During the Napoleonic
Wars, the British took advantage of their naval supremacy to gain territory
in virtually every part of the world and chose to retain those that offered
strategic advantages. These included the island of Malta in the Mediterranean,
which controlled the narrowest section of the Mediterranean Sea and ensured
Britain’s ability to control both sides of the Mediterranean basin; the island
of Heligoland, in the North Sea, which sat at the estuaries of the two major
German rivers (the Elbe and the Weser) and offered an excellent position to
control trade in northwestern Germany; and, as we’ve seen, the Cape Colony,
in southern Africa, which was a crucial waypoint on the only sea-lane con-
necting Europe to India and East Asia, and the island of Ceylon, which
secured British control of trade routes around the southern tip of India. At
the same time, the islands of St. Lucia, Tobago, and Trinidad in the Caribbean
and Mauritius, the Seychelles, and Rodrigues in the Indian Ocean served as
strategic bases for projecting British power and protecting its economic
interests on both sides of the world. Most crucial, the British delegation
managed to restore a semblance of European balance of power; it was not
precisely the one Castlereagh and his colleagues had hoped for at the start of
the congress, but, flawed as it was, the new international system offered the
promise of keeping Europe at peace and of ensuring that Britain would not
have to face alone another hegemonic power in Europe.
Not part of the congress but directly stemming from it was an agreement
among the sovereigns of Austria, Prussia, and Russia to employ Christian
principles in administering their nations and guiding their relations with
other states. This idea for what became known as the Holy Alliance (Sainte
Alliance) was suggested by Emperor Alexander as a means to maintain the
conservative order. Some congress participants downplayed its relevance,
with Castlereagh describing it as “a piece of sublime mysticism and non-
sense” and Metternich famously calling it a “loud-sounding nothing.”27
Nevertheless, the idea was supported by European sovereigns, and a formal
The Aftermath of the Great War | 625

treaty was signed on September 26, 1815. Emperor Francis I, King Frederick
William III, and Alexander I all agreed to take as their political guides “the
precepts of that Holy Religion, namely, the precepts of Justice, Christian
Charity, and Peace, which, far from being applicable only to private concerns,
must have an immediate influence on the councils of Princes, and guide all
their steps.”28 The contracting monarchs then pledged to join in “bonds of a
true and indissoluble fraternity,” to administer Europe with a sense of
“Religion, Peace, and Justice” that was deeply rooted in Christianity, and to
“lend each other aid and assistance” in case of need. Almost all the ruling
princes of Europe eventually joined the alliance, except for the prince regent
of Britain (who decried its reactionary spirit), Pope Pius VII (who felt no
need to join a treaty to ensure that he acted according to Christian princi-
ples), and the Ottoman sultan.
In practical terms, a far more important treaty was signed on November
20, when the representatives of Austria, Britain, Prussia, and Russia agreed
to renew their wartime coalition. This Quadruple Alliance had its antecedent
in the Treaty of Chaumont (March 1814), when the powers pledged not to
seek any separate peace with France and to maintain their military coalition
until Napoleon had surrendered. Threatened by the diplomatic crisis over
Poland and Saxony, this agreement returned to life during the Hundred Days
and was now validated once more. The new treaty, approved on the same day
of the signing of the second Treaty of Paris, formalized the alliance, with the
powers pledging to secure Europe through a collective effort and committing
them for twenty years to contribute tens of thousands of troops should the
French attempt to overturn the Vienna settlement.
But the agreement went beyond military assurances. The post-Napoleonic
Europe was fearful that the revolution would reappear in new forms and
sought to take measures to prevent this. In Article VI of the treaty, the Allies
agreed to hold “meetings at fixed periods . . . for the purpose of consulting
upon their common interests.” By agreeing to periodic conferences, the Allies
could also use joint diplomacy, in concert with combined military measures,
to ensure the execution of the political settlement made in Vienna. This
arrangement represented a pioneering approach to establishing a new inter-
national security system that was designed to maintain peace, stability and
order on the continent. This security came at a high price, however. For years
to come European government demonstrated a growing obsession with the
threat of radical conspiracies, a menace often exaggerated by self-serving
agents and spies as well as high administrators eager for greater procure-
ments. This was in many ways a “phantom terror,” as historian Adam
Zamoyski points out, but one that affected not just conservative states but
626 | the napoleonic wars

the most liberal regimes as well, with Britain expanding repressive state
powers and limiting civil liberties in the post-Napoleonic period. The new
European security system entailed creation of a host of new control mecha-
nisms, including larger state security bureaucracies, new passport controls,
improved communication systems, and transnational police systems to track
fugitive “terrorists.” European states invoked a circular logic that treated
their populations as objects of suspicion and justified surveillance and repres-
sion, which in turn engendered popular resistance, which then demanded
more surveillance and repression. This paranoia drove European governments
to centralize their administrative controls, expand policing to previously
unprecedented levels, and stifle reform movements. The modern national
security state was thus born.29

The Napoleonic Wars were perhaps the most powerful agents of social change
between the Reformation and World War I. They fundamentally transformed
the nature of sovereignty in Europe and demonstrated the growing ability of
European states to achieve levels of social-military mobilization and eco-
nomic production that allowed them to engage in prolonged and destructive
conflicts. For the generations born at the end of the eighteenth century, the
Napoleonic Wars were the defining event. Their cost in human lives seems
incalculable in every sense, since documents on military casualties are either
missing or suspect, as governments usually were (and still are) reluctant to let
the public to learn about the full extent of sacrifices. Even more challenging
is accounting for civilian losses. Hence, any discussion of the cost of the war
inevitably requires some broad assessment.30
Overall, the Napoleonic Wars probably claimed about two million sol-
diers’ lives in Europe; hundreds of thousands troops were wounded, and per-
haps 15 to 20 percent of them were disabled for life. This number would
increase if we account for civilian losses as well as military casualties from the
French Revolutionary Wars. A rough estimate is that as many as 4 million
people perished in Europe between 1792 and 1815—more than 2.5 percent
of the estimated 150 million people living there. Of these, about 1.5 million
Frenchmen died during military action, whether of wounds, diseases, acci-
dents, starvation or other causes, during the entire period, including almost
a million men lost under the First Empire. Well over a third of the genera-
tion of Frenchmen born between 1786 and 1795 died on the Napoleonic
battlefields.31 The Napoleonic Wars left deep scars on French society that
took years to recover from. France “has bled at every pore and appears a vast
mourning family,” observed a visiting Englishman in the summer of 1815.
“Three people out of five that one meets are habited in black.” At every step
The Aftermath of the Great War | 627

one could see traces of the war; in Paris, “there was scarcely a driver of a fiacre,
a waiter at a cafe, or a man in middle life, who had not been in a battle, served
a campaign, or been wounded by a shot.” Visitors to France were struck by
the national mood: people “spoke of war as a thing of course, of its horrors as
‘le sort de la guerre’ as if the miseries of war were as much a constituent part of
the existence of continental nations as their climate. There was an apathy, a
notion of dark destiny about the thing, as though the bloody turmoil the ris-
ing generation had lived in had utterly destroyed their perceptions of right.”32
Other continental powers were hard hit too. Russian losses exceeded
500,000 people. Prussian, German, and Austrian casualties reached half a
million, while Polish and Italian losses numbered as high as 200,000. Despite
being relatively insulated from the continental struggles, Britain lost some
300,000 men, with the heaviest losses falling during the concluding years of
the war, when the British army alone lost around 25,000 men each year. In
fact, in its struggles against Napoleon, Britain lost as many men, as a propor-
tion of its overall population, as it would in its conflict with Germany a
hundred years later, although this loss of life took place over a much longer
period of time. Between 1805 and 1813 the British army suffered nearly
200,000 casualties due to combat, disease, or accident.33 The Royal Navy lost
close to 100,000 men, with the vast majority of deaths attributed to disease;
shipwrecks and fires accounted for another 13,000 lives (including the fateful
night of December 23, 1811, when a storm claimed more than 2,000 men),
while just 6,000 sailors were killed in combat.34
More British men died of disease and accident in the West and East Indies
than during the entirety of the Peninsular War, which claimed a higher pro-
portion of lives than any other Napoleonic conflict.35 France, Spain, and
Portugal bore the brunt of the losses in the Peninsula, with the war claiming
an estimated 200,000 Frenchmen, more than 200,000 Portuguese, and at
least 500,000 Spaniards; contemporary Spanish estimates suggested overall
war casualties of 1 million people, which would have amounted to about
5 percent of the Spanish population and represented more than double the
loss of the devastating Spanish Civil War of 1936–1939. The Peninsular War
remains the bloodiest war in Spain’s modern history. While the British battle
losses during this war amounted to 8,178 killed and 37,765 wounded (with
another 6,000 missing), death in battle did not represent the only cause of
loss; in fact, far more British soldiers died of sickness, and a recent study sug-
gests that two-thirds of the more than 55,000 British deaths (from eleven
theaters of war) were not combat-related.36
Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812 and the subsequent campaigns in
Germany and France were steeped in blood. The six-month Russian campaign
628 | the napoleonic wars

claimed more than half a million lives, with the Grande Armée accounting
for much of them; the total casualties at Borodino were as high as 70,000
men, or a staggering rate of 108 men each minute during the ten-hour battle.
In the Mozhaisk district alone, local authorities gathered more than 52,000
human and more than 41,000 horse cadavers that had to be quickly interred
in mass burials out of fear of the spread of contagion. Russia lost about
200,000 troops during this campaign, though to get a complete picture of
the Russian losses we must also account for thousands of civilian losses, both
from military actions and from disease and malnutrition. The work on gath-
ering and burning cadavers continued for months after the fighting ended.
Losses during the last year and half of the Napoleonic Wars were no less san-
guinary. Just three battles—Lützen, Bautzen, and Leipzig—collectively
claimed more than 150,000 casualties, and although many of the sick and
lightly wounded ultimately returned to their units, the dead would have
accounted for about a quarter of that number while thousands more would
have been maimed and disabled. The massive Battle of the Nations at Leipzig
in October 1813 was the largest Napoleonic battle, with over 80,000 killed
and wounded. Further complicating an exact assessment, tens of thousands
of civilians suffered from disease and malnutrition; an estimated 250,000
civilians—about 1 percent of the German population—died from the vicious
typhoid epidemic that raged in central Europe in 1813–1814.37 Meanwhile,
bubonic plague claimed thousands of lives in the Balkan Peninsula before
reaching southern Russia in 1812, when almost 10 percent of the population
of Odessa perished, and Italy in 1815, when the town of Noja, on the Adriatic
coastline, lost one in seven of its population; the town was promptly sealed
off and the progress of the epidemic halted.
These numbers do not reflect losses from conflicts in the Balkans and
Danubian Principalities, the Caucasus, the Middle East, India, North
America, and Spanish America. As we have seen, these struggles are directly
linked to the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and left hundreds of thou-
sands more killed, wounded, or disabled, so the global human costs of the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era are most probably over 6 million lives. In
Saint-Domingue alone, the twelve-year rebellion saw some of the most
vicious fighting of the entire period, reducing its population by approxi-
mately 150,000–200,000 lives, with many others permanently scarred and
crippled. The Anglo-American conflict in 1812–1815 saw the deaths of more
than 20,000 soldiers, the vast majority from sickness rather than combat.
The civilian toll of the war remains uncertain but undoubtedly no less severe.
And on it goes. The Serbian Revolt of 1804–1813 resulted in the loss
of about a quarter million lives. Egypt and Arabia saw their populations
The Aftermath of the Great War | 629

significantly reduced as the result of the continued turmoil that raged in the
wake of the French invasion of 1798. Russo-Ottoman military operations in
the Danubian Principalities and the Caucasus probably claimed more than
100,000 lives—the failed Russian assault on the Ottoman fortress of Braila
alone cost almost 5,000 casualties (half of them killed) on May 1, 1809, and
caused profound hardship for local populations. By 1810 Wallachia, formerly
one of the most fertile regions in southeastern Europe, was in such a state of
disorder that entire communities suffered from famine and local authorities
could no longer satisfy the Russian army’s demands.38 Far more destructive
was the unremitting violence that began in Spanish America after Napoleon’s
takeover of Spain in 1808 and continued for seventeen years. Although pre-
cise statistics are hard to come by, we would not be mistaken to estimate that
close to 1 million people perished during this conflict; in New Spain (Mexico)
alone, over a quarter of a million people died between 1810 and 1821, while
Venezuela lost as many as 200,000 people—a third of its total population.39
In neighboring New Granada, as many as 250,000 people were killed achiev-
ing Gran Colombia’s independence.40
Next to the loss of life were the immense material costs. Military expenses
consumed a lion’s share of states’ resources, forcing governments to cut
expenses elsewhere and find ways to extract additional resources. Many parts
of Europe suffered because of the greater tendency of armies to live off the
land and to be employed for prolonged occupation of countries. In Portugal
and Spain the war had devastated a great number of towns and villages, as the
repeated rampages by armies and guerrillas stripped the fields of their sup-
plies and the pastures of their livestock. The Spanish province of Extremadura
lost nearly 15 percent of its population. The town of Puerto Real, occupied
by the French during their long siege of Cadiz in 1810–1812, lost 40 percent
of its buildings and half of its population; less than half of its former farm-
land could be cultivated after the siege, and only one-quarter of its olive tree
were still standing. The invasion route of the Grande Armée in Russia was
marked by the smoldering ruins of dozens of villages and towns, including
the great city of Moscow, which was completely devastated, with 6,350
houses (out of just over 9,000) destroyed, along with hundreds of taverns,
shops, inns, and markets. Germany, where the fate of the Napoleonic Empire
was decided in 1813, witnessed hundreds of thousands of French and Allied
troops denuding towns and countrysides of grain, forage, and livestock. In
1814–1815, thousands of foreign troops occupied French regions, causing
economic hardship to already impoverished areas. One Russian officer was
astonished to find the French countryside “extremely poor . . . the people are
deprived of most necessities.”41
630 | the napoleonic wars

Nature only further complicated the process of post-Napoleonic recovery.


In April 1815, the massive eruption of Mount Tambora, on the island of
Sumbawa (in modern Indonesia), spewed a vast cloud of dust and ash that
spread across the globe and altered weather patterns in many parts of the
world; the eruption’s effect was compounded by earlier volcanic activity
that contributed to a global cooling.42 A year after the eruption, the Paris
Observatory recorded summer temperatures more than five degrees Fahrenheit
below the mean. “Melancholy accounts have been received from all parts
of the continent of the unusual wetness of the season,” reported the Norfolk
Chronicle in late July 1816. “In several provinces of Holland, the rich grass-
lands are all under water, and scarcity and high prices are naturally appre-
hended and dreaded. In France, the interior of the country has suffered greatly
from the floods and rains.” In Hungary brown-colored snow fell during the
winter of 1816, while in northern Italy the snow remained on the ground till
the end of spring. The changing weather affected crop yields and caused food
shortages across Europe, which in turn led to social unrest, misery, and death.
England, France, and parts of Germany and Switzerland witnessed riots and
disturbances in 1816–1817 while a famine (and a typhus epidemic that
accompanied it) claimed thousands of lives in already impoverished Ireland;
in 1817, celebration of the second anniversary of the battle of Waterloo
turned out to be an occasion for extensive food rioting in Brussels.43 In the
remote Croatian village of Zminj, the parish priest bemoaned the “fatal year”
of 1816, which, because of frequent rain and other bad weather, turned out
“so sterile that many citizens could not prepare enough cereals to last them
for half a year, and some not even for two months.” The following year was
even worse; by March, “people began to be affected by Black Famine; yet they
supported each other as long as they had anything to eat. . . . But it was of short
duration . . . Reduced to the uttermost misery they were walking around and
falling dead, some at home, some along roads, some in the forests etc.”44 This
natural calamity struck just as Europe and many parts of the world were
recovering from the disruptions of the Napoleonic Wars. Poor harvests
resulted in skyrocketing prices for food, especially grain, and complicated
postwar reconstruction.
For more than two decades, European powers resorted to mercantilist
practices to safeguard their interests and undermine rival economies; they
also took measures against neutral shipping that could have transported
enemy goods. As a result, international trade suffered from repeated disrup-
tions and volatility, especially during the period 1806–1812, when France
instituted the Continental System while Britain maintained its own block-
ade through orders-in-council. Wartime freight, insurance, and licensing
The Aftermath of the Great War | 631

dramatically increased the costs of doing business; in 1812, for example, they
accounted for up to 40 percent of British wheat prices.45 And yet the British
economy continued its growth despite war and blockade. Development of a
more efficient transportation network featuring coastal shipping, canals, and
turnpike roads resulted in the integration of British domestic markets and
more efficient specialization between different regions. Sound public finance
and the growth of the banking sector further sustained British manufactur-
ing growth. However, British rents rose considerably toward the end of the
Napoleonic Wars, garnering handsome profits for landowners, who were
reluctant to lose them once the war ended. The result was political lobbying
for what became the Corn Law of 1815, which closed the British domestic
market to foreign grain; the law was fiercely opposed by the rising class of
industrialists who wished to maximize their profits by reducing wages that
were already insufficient to feed workers.
The war cut swaths of devastation across western Russia, northern France,
Germany, Spain, and Portugal. Industries linked with the Atlantic trade suffered
a steep decline during the Continental System (although import-substituting
industries saw some growth), and traditional centers of international trade
waned as colonial empires collapsed. France came out of war without Louisiana
and Saint-Domingue. The Spanish presence in the New World had been
reduced to Cuba and Puerto Rico, while there was a growing rift between
Portugal and Brazil, which ultimately led to the latter’s in­de­pend­ence in
1822. The Dutch lost South Africa, Ceylon, and the West Indies; in fact,
Amsterdam saw its standing as a key center of international trade irreversibly
undermined through the combined effects of French occupation, the
Continental System, and the British blockade. On the other hand, by the war’s
end, Britain had firmly secured the position of the world’s dominant economic
power, and the extent of its immediate postwar hegemony can be gleaned
from the share of world shipping that it had garnered: it jumped from 25 per-
cent in 1780 to over 40 percent in 1820.46 The fact that Britain enjoyed naval
dominance served as a crucial precondition for the development of a broadly
liberal international economy during the rest of the nineteenth century.47
The trade effects of the war extended well beyond European shorelines. The
War of 1812 caused significant disruptions in North American trade, but these
paled in comparison to the economic downturn in Latin America. Indeed,
one of the most profound impacts of the Napoleonic Wars was the virtual col-
lapse of European empires in the Western Hemisphere and the emergence of
independent states that pursued their own, mostly competing, commercial poli-
cies. Former Spanish colonies adopted mercantilist policies to protect their econ-
omies, policies that had a huge effect on regional trade and commerce. A crucial
632 | the napoleonic wars

feature of the emerging economic reality in South America was bilateral trade
between newly independent states and Britain; before the war Latin America
accounted for only 0.06 percent of British manufactured exports, but its share
steadily increased to 3.3 percent in 1804–1806, more than 6 percent in
1814–1815, and some 15 percent by the 1820s.48 Mexican silver output was
also distressed by war blockades and political disorder in the Spanish colonies.
It had averaged more than 20 million piasters between 1792 and 1806 before
rapidly declining to just 16 million in 1807–1813, 11 million in 1814, and
less than 9 million in later years. The shortage of Mexican silver had conse-
quences for global trade. Britain’s trade with India and China relied less on
silver shipments and more on exports of merchandise, constituting an impor-
tant change in the nature of economic relations between these states. The only
region of the world that bucked the trend, and in fact experienced economic
growth, was Southeast Asia, which was relatively unaffected by the Napoleonic
Wars. While exports to Europe declined, Chinese and American merchants
exploited this opportunity to profit in the spice trade, acquiring cloves, pepper,
sugar, and coffee and shipping them to their home markets.49
Discussion of international trade would be incomplete without mention-
ing the wars’ impact on Europe’s traditional mercantilist practices in Asia.
The Napoleonic Wars marked the end of the era of great European trading
monopolies. The Dutch East India Company, which was still recovering
from the impact of the Anglo-Dutch War of 1780–1784, ceased to exist in
December 1799, and most of its possessions were subsequently occupied
by Great Britain during the Napoleonic Wars. Meanwhile, the British East
India Company also felt the effect of wartime conditions and lost its monop-
oly on trade with India in 1813.50
Neither should we forget that the Napoleonic Wars disrupted the Atlantic
slave trade. With the Caribbean and Latin America in turmoil, it became
increasingly more challenging to deliver slaves to colonies in those areas.
Moreover, in February 1807, the British Parliament abolished the slave trade
between Africa and British colonies and henceforth worked steadfastly to
ensure that other countries followed suit. The Royal Navy’s West Africa
Squadron, established in 1808, regularly patrolled the African coastline,
while British diplomats frequently used the lure of British subsidies to con-
vince nations to end the slave trade. In 1810 an Anglo-Portuguese treaty
compelled Portugal to restrict slavery, while the Anglo-Swedish treaty of
1813 did the same for Sweden. In 1814, by the Treaty of Paris, France agreed
with Britain that the slave trade was “repugnant to the principles of natural
justice” and agreed to abolish it in five years. That same year an Anglo-
Netherlands treaty ended Dutch slaving. The United States put an end to the
The Aftermath of the Great War | 633

slave trade in 1807 but not to slavery itself, which survived until the
Emancipation Proclamation in 1863.51
For the Allied powers, the maintenance of a stable political and interna-
tional order was the paramount goal in the post-Napoleonic era. Peacetime
nevertheless proved no less disruptive than wartime. During a quarter of a
century of revolutionary turmoil and conquests Europe had experienced
major political and economic reconstruction, and many elements of what
constituted the ancien régime had been dissolved. Old social, political, and
economic bonds had been loosened (in some cases completely severed), and a
new society was in the process of formation. The downfall of the Napoleonic
Empire, therefore, marked an abrupt reversal in this process, as the governing
classes of the ancien régime had reclaimed their power. The victorious powers
were genuinely concerned with the preservation of conservative regimes in
Europe, an aspiration that was bolstered, at least in the short term, by the
general exhaustion and war-weariness on the continent. In the streets of Paris
in 1815 the cries of “Vive la paix!” reflected the general mood of the French
public far better than “Vive les Bourbons!” The same can be said of the public
in the rest of Europe, which suffered from war fatigue and economic chaos.
For many Europeans, peace and order were worth having at any price.
The memories of the Revolution filled European leaders with a fear of
popular ideologies and political movements that threatened to undermine
the Viennese settlement. But they also came under immense pressure from
the forces of economic and social change: industrialization, agricultural
improvements, and the greater sophistication of economic enterprise, as well
as improvements in transportation, communication and other areas, were
transforming European societies and compelled political leaders to act.
Therefore, we should not perceive them as myopic reactionaries who stub-
bornly refused to adjust. Even conservative governments in Austria and
Russia understood the inevitability of change and in fact advocated reforms
to remedy existing weaknesses in their own systems of government. However,
they believed, in the words of a Russian emperor, that any and all changes
should come from above rather than below. The process of reform had to be
carried out in an orderly manner within the existing political and social
framework. In practice, all governments struggled to reconcile their under-
standing of the need for change with a fear that changes might unleash pop-
ular forces that they would be unable to control, as happened in France in
the 1790s.
Their efforts were complicated by the fact that the end of the Napoleonic
Wars did not usher in a period of economic growth and prosperity. To the
contrary, peace brought a postwar depression with a precipitous drop in the
634 | the napoleonic wars

demand for manufactured goods and provisions, while the global climatic
calamity caused some of the worst harvests in more than a century and
resulted in food prices rising precipitously. The end of the Continental
System was not followed by any serious attempt to revive open trade. Instead,
a narrow economic nationalism triumphed, and European agriculture and
industry suffered from the new tariff walls raised by European states. Prussia
and Russia, for example, found their exports of grain and timber hindered by
Britain’s protective tariffs, including the Corn Law of 1815, which forbade
the importation of cheaper foreign wheat. Meanwhile, prohibitive Russian
and Austrian tariffs seriously affected the linen industry in Silesia, one of the
chief manufacturing centers of Prussia. Napoleon’s efforts to integrate manu-
facturing areas of the Rhineland and Westphalia within France’s economic
system meant that after the war local industries declined as France turned
inward and imposed tariffs on imports.

The agricultural and manufacturing downturn in the post-Napoleonic era


meant that there was little employment for the returning thousands of sol-
diers, while the condition of the poor remained near the point of desperation
in most European countries. Unsurprisingly, these circumstances contrib-
uted to further agitation for individual freedom and written guarantees of
rights, and forms of socialism that espoused democratic representation and
equitable distribution of wealth. The post-Napoleonic unrest, therefore, was
a manifestation of a larger struggle between forces of changes and tradition
that helped create a modern Europe.
The political turmoil that the Napoleonic Wars unleashed continued to
reverberate for decades to come. Major revolutions in 1820–1821, 1830, and
1848 were interspersed with numerous examples of smaller upheavals in
1819, 1822, 1825, 1832, 1834, 1839, and 1844, to mention just a few. In
confronting these threats, European governments benefited from one impor-
tant legacy of the Napoleonic Era: the war had swept aside many old admin-
istrative flaws and irregularities, so European governments now had more
control over bureaucracy, law enforcement, and taxation. They thus were fur-
nished with the apparatus with which to maintain power and initiate repres-
sive measures. In 1819 the onset of political repression in much of Europe
forced German governments, alarmed by the spread of liberalism, to impose
the Carlsbad Decrees, which stifled political freedom. In Britain, abandon-
ment of wartime taxes, continued industrialization (with its greater reliance
on machines that contributed to high unemployment), and the general post-
war economic downturn in Europe created one of the most volatile periods in
the nation’s history. Climatic calamity contributed to widespread unrest,
The Aftermath of the Great War | 635

which affected much of the country. In August 1819 this dissent reached its
height when tens of thousands of demonstrators converged on St. Peter’s
Field outside Manchester, demanding not just bread but political reforms as
well. The British government, like its continental counterparts, denounced
such radical activity as unpatriotic and inspired by French “Jacobinism.” It
resorted to forceful action to suppress it. A peaceful demonstration at
Manchester was violently dispersed, a move that the ruling elite welcomed as
a victory against extremism but radicals denounced as the “Peterloo
Massacre,” a caustic reference to the British victory over Napoleon five years
earlier. Following the example of continental powers, the British government
suppressed radicalism throughout the 1820s, but uneven economic growth
and prosperity continued to pose major challenges for years to come.52
The conservative ascendancy further gained momentum in 1820, when
popular revolts threatened the Spanish and Neapolitan monarchies. European
powers convened three congresses—Troppau (1820), Laibach (1821), and
Verona (1822)—to confront these revolutionary challenges and relied upon
the principles laid out at the Congress of Vienna to deal with them. Russia
and Prussia supported Austrian interference in Naples and Piedmont, while
France assisted the reactionary Bourbon monarchy in reclaiming its power in
Spain. In 1825 it was Russia’s turn to experience political unrest when a
group of army officers exploited the death of Emperor Alexander to seek lim-
ited constitutional changes. The Decembrist Revolt lasted just a day before
being crushed by Emperor Nicholas I’s military. In France, Louis XVIII dem-
onstrated pragmatism and intelligence in dealing with the revolutionary leg-
acy and postwar challenges. Assisted by capable statesmen—Eli-Louis, duc
de Decazes, and Armand-Emmanuel du Plessis de Richelieu, to name just a
couple—he steered a middle course between ideological extremes, averting
national bankruptcy and paying off a vast war indemnity. The fact this was
accomplished while France was still occupied by a coalition force of 150,000
men may seem all the more astonishing, but the occupation left the French
monarchy no choice except to undertake much-needed reforms to meet its
financial obligations. The occupation played a crucial role in the post-Napoleonic
economic and political reconstruction of France, which, needless to say, was
achieved only after considerable public outcry from all the groups that had
been affected by fiscal rigor and reform.53 Louis XVIII’s death and the ascent
of his brother Charles X tilted the scales in favor of the reactionary party,
whose missteps ultimately resulted in the revolution of 1830.
Of the post-Napoleonic revolutions, only those in Greece and South
America proved to be successful, though for different reasons. The Greek
Revolution was part of a succession of revolts by native ethnic peoples (largely
636 | the napoleonic wars

Slavic and Greek Orthodox) against Ottoman rule, but its causes, timing,
and outcome were dependent as much on internal social and political factors
within the Ottoman Empire as they were on broader developments in Europe.
The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars shaped the intellectual and
political context and contributed to the dissemination of the idea of national
liberation and struggle against ancien régime monarchies. Unlike other anti-
Ottoman uprisings, the Greek cause aroused widespread sympathy and sup-
port from European elites—including Lord Byron—who were inspired by
classical Greek culture and history and eager to extend a helping hand. At the
same time, the leaders of the European great powers were concerned by
the implications of a revolt that violated the principles of legitimacy and bal-
ance as upheld at the Congress of Vienna. Rival powers felt tempted to inter-
vene in Greece to protect their own interests. In the post-Napoleonic climate
of conservatism and reaction, the great powers were initially loath to support
the rebels’ bid to topple legitimate Ottoman authority. However, in part
because of their suspicion of each other’s motives and in part because of their
own motives, they became involved in the conflict on the side of the Greeks
in 1827 and ensured the establishment of a completely autonomous Greek
state in 1830. Russia was instrumental in this. In addition to long-standing
ties with Christian populations of the Balkan peninsula, Russia had long
desired to have freer access to the Mediterranean Sea. As historian Matthew
Anderson pointed out, Russia’s interest in the fate of the Ottoman Empire
increased dramatically after the Napoleonic Wars. “The settlement and
development of the fertile lands of the Black Sea steppe was bringing with it
a spectacular growth in grain exports to western Europe. Odessa, by far the
greatest center of this trade, was in the second decade of the nineteenth cen-
tury the most rapidly growing port in the world. All this increased sharply
for Russia the importance of free movement of her merchant ships through
the Straits.” By 1815 Russia had achieved the Ottoman concession of free
passage for Russian merchant ships, which within five years resulted in a
dramatic increase in Russian grain exports through the Black Sea ports.
However, the Ottoman decision in the 1820s to restrict Russian movements
through the straits caused considerable anxiety in Russian political and eco-
nomic circles. Russia’s early attempts at industrialization had resulted in the
establishment of several thousand factories that, as Peter Hopkirk explained,
“were becoming desperate for new markets.”54
The Greek crisis marked the first major change in the map of Europe
since the end of the Napoleonic Wars. It severely tested the Congress of
Vienna settlement because it represented both a threat and an opportunity
for European powers. The major powers did not want to be seen as supporting
The Aftermath of the Great War | 637

rebellion but also understood that there was an opportunity to project


more power into the region. They took a more active role in the conflict and
used Greek factions, explicitly aligned with one or another foreign side, to
protect their own interests. The aftermath of the war hardly allayed such
mutual jealousies, for in the end the Kingdom of Greece had a Bavarian
monarch, French military advisors, and British administrators at the helm
of government. As for Russia, the Treaties of Adrianople (1829) and Hünkar
Iskelesi (1833) explicitly reaffirmed Russian privileges in the Danubian
principalities and gave Russian merchant ships free navigation in the
Ottoman Empire. The Greek Revolution exposed the weakness of the
Ottoman Empire and set a precedent of great power intervention, protec-
tion, and guarantee of fledgling Balkan states; in 1829, with Russia defeat-
ing the sultan’s forces, the European capitals were anticipating the collapse
of the Ottoman Empire, and French foreign minister Jules de Polignac even
approached Russia to discuss the partition of Ottoman territory. The
Ottoman defeat thus aroused the ambitions of other ethnic groups, who
relied on the historical-cultural justifications used for Greek secession as a
template for their own national movements.55
Even more significant were events in South America, where, as we have
seen, the first phase of the wars of independence ended in 1815. It had pro-
duced mixed results. All of the independence movements had been effec-
tively stifled except those in Buenos Aires and Paraguay. Nevertheless, there
were clear signs that Spanish royal authority was tottering. The downfall of
the Napoleonic France did not mean an immediate end to the insurrections,
despite what Spanish royalists had hoped. José Fernando de Abascal, the vice-
roy of Peru, complained in the fall of 1815 that despite the Allied victory
over the “Misanthrope of Corsica,” there still remained an acute threat to
Spanish royal authority from “the harmful and false news [falsas noticias] with
which [Napoleon’s] vile henchmen attempt to transform the world.”56 At the
helm of the largest political jurisdiction in South America, Abascal was well
aware that the return of King Ferdinand VII of Spain and his insistence on
restoration of the royal prerogatives that had been constrained by the
Constitution of 1812 had exacerbated tensions between the royal metropole
and its American colonies. Having experienced representative government,
even if on a rather limited scale, creoles from Mexico to Chile had little inter-
est in returning to absolute rule. In his effort to maintain “unity” between
the colonies and Spain, Abascal resorted to a wide range of measures, from
crushing insurgencies to running an effective propaganda campaign to coun-
ter Napoleonic “False news.”57 The revolutionary spirit, however, festered for
years to come. The history of the Spanish colonies in the post-Napoleonic era
638 | the napoleonic wars

is one of internal turmoil, bloodshed, and repression. The road to in­de­pend­


ence was long and difficult. In New Spain, the royalists had gained the upper
hand, though two main guerrilla groups, led by Guadalupe Victoria in
Puebla and Vicente Guerrero in Oaxaca, continued to operate beyond 1815.
A congress of criollos declared their independence in September 1821 and
formed the First Mexican Empire under Agustín de Iturbide the following
year. This was the first independent postcolonial state in Mexico and the only
Spanish colony to establish a monarchy after independence. However, the
empire proved to be short-lived. In 1823 Mexico became a republic and
embraced the right of self-determination, paving the way for the formation
of the United Provinces of Central America, a federal republic modeled after
the United States that brought together the states of Guatemala, Honduras,
El Salvador, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua between 1823 and 1840. In New
Granada and Venezuela, the republican patriots, under Simón Bolívar,
Francisco de Paula Santander, Santiago Mariño, and others, lingered in the
vast Orinoco River basin and along the Caribbean coast, often with material
aid coming from Haiti. After several unsuccessful attempts to regain Caracas,
Bolívar crossed the Andes to liberate Colombia before proceeding to Venezuela.
The republicans defeated Spanish royalists at the Battle of Boyacá (August 7,
1819) and soon thereafter captured the Colombian capital, Bogotá. With
Colombia secured, Bolívar moved on to defeat the royalists at the Battle of
Carabobo in June 1821 and declared the independence of the Republic of
Gran Colombia, which united Venezuela and Colombia. Bolívar supported
republicans in Ecuador, where the royalists suffered a major setback at the
Battle of Pichincha (May 24, 1822). On July 13, 1822, Ecuador was incorpo-
rated into Gran Colombia, which survived for another eight years. The royal-
ists exercised strong authority in Chile, but across the Andes the Patriots
remained in control of the United Provinces in the Río de La Plata (modern
Argentina).
Few expected the independence movement to recover from the heavy
blows it had sustained in 1812–1815. Yet in one of the greatest feats of the
wars of independence, San Martín’s Argentinian army crossed the Andes,
joined the Chilean criollos under Bernardo O’Higgins, and defeated the royal-
ists at the Battle of Chacabuco on February 12, 1817. A year later O’Higgins
declared Chilean independence, while San Martín, aided by thousands of
Chilean troops and a large contingent of British soldiers who had joined the
revolution after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, continued his campaign
northward to liberate Peru. Although Peruvian independence was proclaimed
in December 1820, it would be another six years before the last royalist
stronghold fell and the republicans consolidated their power.
The Aftermath of the Great War | 639

Compared to Spanish America, Brazil’s road to independence was rela-


tively uneventful. King João VI, who had fled Portugal in 1807, stayed in
Brazil for six years after the end of Napoleonic Wars. In 1816 he elevated the
colony to the level of a kingdom and granted it considerable concessions.
When João VI returned to Europe in July 1821 to deal with a liberal revolu-
tion in Lisbon, his son, Dom Pedro, stayed in Brazil as regent. Relations
between the metropole and colony quickly deteriorated as the Portuguese
Cortes (representative assembly) sought to restore Brazil’s original colonial
status. Pedro, who had spent much of his life in Rio de Janeiro, refused the
Cortes’s demand that he return to Portugal and instead declared Brazil’s
independence on September 7, 1822. In his famous “Grito do Ipiranga” (Cry
of Ipiranga), Pedro removed Portuguese insignia from his uniform and
declared, “Independence or death!” The resulting war between the newly
established Brazilian army, which was supported by British veterans of the
Napoleonic Wars, and Portuguese forces resulted in the former’s victory and
compelled Portugal to formally recognize Brazil’s independence in 1825.
The turmoil in Latin America illuminated a crucial issue of the post-
Vienna era—namely, the European powers’ ability to intervene in colonial
affairs and reverse the outcome of ongoing rebellions across the Atlantic.
Considering the distances involved and its naval power, Britain played a vital
role in this process. The British government was dismayed by the reactionary
policies in Europe, where progressives were persecuted and imprisoned; in
Spain, many of them were executed in gruesome fashion. Little surprise then
that Britain refused to participate in such practices and increasingly dis-
tanced itself from continental powers. In 1825 Britain recognized the
inde­pend­ence of several American republics: Mexico, Colombia, and Argentina.
Eager to stress the morality and political soundness of his policy, Britain’s
new foreign secretary, George Canning, famously claimed that he “called the
New World into existence to redress the balance of the Old.”58 But he also
understood that if Spanish America was allowed to become a possession of the
Bourbon crown, British trading opportunities would inevitably be limited
and restricted.
When it came to the Western Hemisphere, the policy of the United States
was, in general, quite similar to that of Britain, meaning aimed at promoting
American economic interests and preventing European meddling in the
region. Such aspirations were bolstered by improving Anglo-American rela-
tions. After the War of 1812, John Quincy Adams, the US secretary of state
from 1817 to 1825, made the most of Britain’s desire to seek friendlier rela-
tions with the US and gain access to American cotton and other supplies in
exchange for manufactured goods and investment capital. In a sign of greater
640 | the napoleonic wars

Anglo-American cooperation, the Rush-Bagot Agreement of 1817 limited


naval armaments on the Great Lakes and effectively demilitarized the
US-Canada border. The subsequent Anglo-American Accords of 1818 resolved
several issues left hanging after the War of 1812, with Britain recognizing
American fishing rights off the Canadian coastlines, agreeing to the joint
occupation of the Oregon Territory, and setting the boundary of the Louisiana
Territory abutting Canada at the 49th parallel.
The northern borderlands secured, the United States flexed its muscles in
the south. Given that Spain was still struggling to recover from the impact of
the Napoleonic Wars and entangled in the independence movements in South
America, many in the United States thought that the time was ripe for the US
expansion in Florida and on the Pacific. Men such as General Andrew Jackson
believed that Spanish control of Florida posed an unacceptable threat to the
security of the southern US regions and insisted on preemptive occupation of
Spanish territory. In the spring of 1818 Jackson led an invasion of Spanish
Florida, ostensibly to destroy the encampments of the Native American tribes
(the Seminoles) who straddled the Spanish-American border and occasionally
raided neighboring Georgia. Jackson also viewed invasion as an opportunity
to advance American claims to Florida. “Let it be signified to me through any
channel,” he wrote to President Monroe, “that the possession of the Floridas
would be desirable to the United States, and in sixty days it will be accom-
plished.”59 Although President Monroe censured Jackson for exceeding his
orders and had the expedition recalled, Secretary of State Adams exploited the
new reality on the grounds. The invasion of Florida made it apparent that
Spain, weakened by the Napoleonic Wars, did not have the means to retaliate
against the United States. So Adams threatened and cajoled the Spanish offi-
cials into making concessions. In the Adams–Onís Treaty of 1819, Spain
yielded to American threats, recognizing the prior American seizures of West
Florida and ceding East Florida. Furthermore, Adams secured American con-
trol over the vast territory in the west, as the treaty drew the new boundary
between the Louisiana Territory and the Spanish Southwest and had Spain
relinquishing all of its claims to the Pacific Northwest.60
Encouraged by these achievements, the US government looked beyond its
immediate borders. Central to the American success was Britain’s refusal to
intervene or support Spain in its confrontation with the Americans; even
Jackson’s decision to execute two British subjects during the occupation of
Florida made no dent in official British policy, which was focused on retain-
ing close economic ties with the United States. Moreover, Britain and the
United States agreed that Spain’s reconquest of colonies would have been
detrimental to their economic and political interests and that it was of far
The Aftermath of the Great War | 641

greater advantage for them to have a multiplicity of fledgling republics


instead of a single domain in the hands of a European power. Recognizing
this common interest, the British foreign secretary, Canning, proposed in
August 1823 that the two countries issue a joint statement opposing any
European attempt to restore colonial authority in the Western Hemisphere.
The Monroe administration rejected the offer because it came with a string
attached: a pledge not to annex any former Spanish territory. Instead, in
December 1823 President Monroe delivered his annual State of the Union
message, which contained a memorable passage on the American territorial
interests in the Western Hemisphere.
Better known as the Monroe Doctrine, this document made two broad
and bold claims. First, it challenged Russian expansion along the Pacific Coast
from Alaska to California and asserted that the “American continents . . . are
henceforth not be considered as subject to future colonization by any European
power.” The second claim dealt with European interventions in Western
hemisphere. Referring to the possibility of European powers acting against
the new Spanish American republics, Monroe issued a warning. “We owe
it . . . to candor, and to amicable relations existing between the United States
and those powers, to declare that we should consider any attempt on their
part to extend their political system to any portion of this hemisphere as dan-
gerous to our peace and security.”61 The United States had assumed a special
position as the guardian of the New World liberties, although it was the
threat of British sea power rather than the words of an American ­president
that prevented European interventions in Latin America.

The Napoleonic Wars cast a long shadow over the nineteenth century. They had
shaken the traditional way of life and the legitimacy of institutions such as mon-
archy, aristocracy, and slavery. They also left many issues unsolved. Hence, suc-
ceeding generations struggled over the legacies of conservatism and liberalism,
centralization and modernization, republicanism and monarchism, industriali-
zation and radicalism. In his exile on St. Helena, Napoleon nurtured a political
legend that quickly evolved into a powerful myth of a benevolent emperor
who was celebrated and idealized by the descendants of the very people who
fought against him.62 “During his life,” remarked French writer François-René
de Chateaubriand about the fallen emperor, “the world slipped from his grasp,
but in death he possesses it.” The Napoleonic heritage and Bonapartism—the
political ideology centered on a strong popular national leader—were of vital
importance in molding contemporary France as well as Europe.
The Napoleonic Wars were above all a European conflict, but they shaped
Europe’s relationship with the rest of the world. This conflict both compelled
642 | the napoleonic wars

and encouraged European states to undergo a painful process of reform and


modernization, which changed the balance of forces between different parts
of the globe. For much of its history Europe lagged behind the more advanced
and sophisticated civilizations in China and the Islamic world. And yet by
the end of the Napoleonic Wars, European superiority in military matters,
industrial development, and technological strength over the rest of the world
was pronounced. This was the start of the Great Divergence, and the magni-
tude of this transformation would become ever clearer as the nineteenth
century progressed.
notes

Prelim
1. Henry Dundas to Richard Wellesley, October 31, 1799, in “Contents of
Mr. Dundas’s Letters to the Marquis Wellesley . . . Governor-General of India,
1798–1800,” NLS, MS.1062, 53.
2. Charles J. Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars: An International History, 1803–1815 (New
York: Viking, 2008), xiv–xv.
3. “After long and careful thought and study,” observed one eminent British his-
torian, “I have come to the conclusion that the West Indian campaigns [alone],
both to Windward and Leeward [in 1794–1801], cost England in army and
navy little fewer than 100,000 men, about one half of them dead, the remain-
der permanently unfit for service.” John William Fortescue, A History of the
British Army (London: Macmillan, 1906), IV, part I, 565.
4. Owen Connelly, The French Revolution and Napoleonic Era (Orlando, FL: Harcourt,
2000), 361.

Chapter 1
1. Budget Speech of February 17, 1792, in The Speeches of the Right Honourable
William Pitt in the House of Commons (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees and Orne,
1806), II:36.
2. For classic works on the Atlantic revolutions, see Robert R. Palmer, The
Age of the Democratic Revolution: A Political History of Europe and America,
1760–1800, 2 vols. (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1959–1964);
Jacques Léon Godechot, La Grande Nation: L’expansion révolutionnaire de la
France dans le monde de 1789 à 1799 (Paris: Aubier, 1956). Also see Pierre
Serna, “Introduction—L’Europe une idée nouvelle à la fin du XVIIIe siècle?”
in “Dire et faire l’Europe à la fin du XVIIIe siècle,” ed. Pierre Serna, special
issue, La Révolution française 2011, no. 4 (2011), available at http://lrf.revues.
org/252.
644 | notes to pages 4–5

3. See Jeremy Adelman, “An Age of Imperial Revolutions,” American Historical


Review 113 (2008): 319–40; David Ermitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam, eds.,
The Age of Revolutions in Global Context, c. 1760–1840 (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2010); Alan Forrest and Matthias Middell, eds., The Routledge
Companion to the French Revolution in World History (London: Routledge, 2016);
Wim Klooster, Revolutions in the Atlantic World: A Comparative History
(New York: New York University Press, 2009); Christopher Bayly, “The
‘Revolutionary Age’ in the Wider World, c. 1790–1830,” in War, Empire, and
Slavery, 1770–1830, ed. Richard Bessel, Nicholas Guyatt, and Jane Rendall
(Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 21–43.
4. See Bailey Stone, The Genesis of the French Revolution: A Global-Historical
Interpretation (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Christopher
Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and
Comparisons (Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2004); Lynn Hunt, “The French
Revolution in Global Context,” in The Age of Revolutions in Global Context,
c. 1760–1840, ed. David Ermitage and Sanjay Subrahmanyam (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 20–36.
5. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade Database, https://www.slavevoyages.org/
assessment/estimates (accessed July 30, 2019).
6. Philippe Haudrère, La compagnie française des Indes au XVIIIe siècle 1719–1795
(Paris: Librairie de l’Inde, 1989), 4:1, 215.
7. Richard Drayton, “The Globalization of France: Provincial Cities and French
Expansion, c. 1500–1800,” History of European Ideas 34 (2008): 424–30; Paul
Butel, “France, the Antilles, and Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth
Centuries,” in The Rise of Merchant Empires: Long Distance Trade in the Early Modern
World, 1350–1750, ed. James D. Tracy (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1993), 153–73.
8. See Louis Dermigny, “Circuits de l’argent et milieux d’affaires au XVIII siè-
cle,” Revue historique 212 (1954): 239–78; Louis Dermigny, “La France à la fin
de l’ancien régime: Une carte monétaire,” Annales: Économies, sociétés, civiliza-
tions 10, no. 4 (December 1955): 480–93; Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein,
Silver, Trade, and War: Spain and America in the Making of Early Modern Europe
(Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2000), 52–53, 130–31, 143; Carlos
Marichal, Bankruptcy of Empire: Mexican Silver and the Wars Between Spain,
Britain, and France, 1760–1810 (New York: Cambridge University Press,
2007).
9. Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in
the Age of Charles III, 1759–1789 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
2003), 305–37; Guillaume Daudin, Commerce et prospérité: La France au XVIIIe
siècle (Paris: Presses l’université Paris-Sorbonne, 2005), 235–37.
10. For a recent discussion, see Charles Walton, “The Fall from Eden: The Free
Trade Origins of the French Revolution,” in The French Revolution in Global
notes to pages 5–7 | 645

Perspective, ed. Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and William Max Nelson (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 44–56. Also see Marie Donaghay, “The
Ghosts of Ruined Ships: The Commercial Treaty of 1786 and the Lessons of
the Past,” CRE 10 (1981): 111–18.
11. See Jules Conan, La dernière compagnie française des Indes, 1715–75 (Paris: Marcel
Rivière, 1942).
12. See Marc Vigié and Muriel Vigié, L’herbe à nicot: Amateurs de tabac, Fermiers
généraux et contrebandiers sous l’Ancien Régime (Paris: Fayard, 1989); Jacob Price,
France and the Chesapeake: A History of the French Tobacco Monopoly, 1764–1791,
and of Its Relationship to the British and American Tobacco Trades, 2 vols. (Ann
Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1973); Edward Depitre, La toile peinte
en France au XVIIe et au XVIIIe siècles: Industrie, commerce, prohibitions (Paris:
M. Rivière, 1912).
13. Gary B. McCollim, Louis XIV’s Assault on Privilege: Nicolas Desmaretz and the
Tax on Wealth (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2012), 14–49.
14. Michael Kwass, “The First War on Drugs: Tobacco Trafficking, Criminality,
and the Fiscal State in Eighteenth-Century France,” in The Hidden History of
Crime, Corruption, and States, ed. Renate Bridenthal (Oxford: Berghahn Books,
2013), 76–97.
15. See Jean Nicolas, La rébellion française: Mouvements populaires et conscience sociale,
1661–89 (Paris: Seuil, 2002); Michael Kwass, “The Global Underground:
Smuggling, Rebellion, and the Origins of the French Revolution,” in The
French Revolution in Global Perspective, ed. Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and
William Max Nelson (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 22.
16. For more details, see Joël Félix, “The Economy,” in Old Regime France,
1648–88, ed. William Doyle (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 33–35;
Michael Kwass, Privilege and the Politics of Taxation in Eighteenth-Century France:
Liberté, Égalité, Fiscalité (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000).
17. Jan deVries, The Economy of Europe in an Age of Crisis, 1600–50 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1976), 203; Richard Dale, The First Crash: Lessons
from the South Sea Bubble (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 56.
18. Frank W. Brecher, Losing a Continent: France’s North American Policy, 1753–63
(Westport, CT: Greenwood, 1998), 44–50.
19. For a concise discussion, see Félix, “The Economy,” 31–39.
20. Michel Morineau, “Budgets de l’État et gestion des finances royales en France
au dix-huitième siècle,” in Revue historique 536 (1980): 289–36; Félix, “The
Economy,” 36–41; Claude H. Van Tyne, “French Aid Before the Alliance of
1778,” American Historical Review 31 (1925): 20–40; James C. Riley, “French
Finances, 1727–1768,” Journal of Modern History 59, no. 2 (June 1987): 209–43.
21. Guillaume Daudin, “Profitability of Slave and Long Distance Trading in
Context: The Case of Eighteenth-Century France,” Journal of Economic History
61, no. 1 (2004): 144–71.
646 | notes to pages 7–12

22. François R. Velde and David R. Weir, “The Financial Market and Government
Debt Policy in France, 1746–1793,” Journal of Economic History 52, no. 1 (1992):
1–39.
23. George V. Taylor, “The Paris Bourse on the Eve of the Revolution,
1781–1789,” American Historical Review 67, no. 4 (1962): 951–77.
24. J. Russell Major, From Renaissance Monarchy to Absolute Monarchy: French Kings,
Nobles, and Estates (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994); Donna
Bohanan, Crown and Nobility in Early Modern France (New York: Palgrave,
2001); Julian Swann, Provincial Power and Absolute Monarchy: The Estates General
of Burgundy, 1661–90 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003),
230–99. For details, see John J. Hurt, Louis XIV and the Parlements: The
Assertion of Royal Authority (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2004).
25. Julian Swann, Politics and the Parlement of Paris Under Louis XV, 1754–74
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 1–26, 45–86.
26. For details, see John McManners, Church and Society in Eighteenth-Century France
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1998); Dale K. Van Kley, The Religious Origins of the
French Revolution: From Calvin to the Civil Constitution, 1560–91 (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 1996); Timothy Tackett, Religion, Revolution, and
Regional Culture in Eighteenth-Century France: The Ecclesiastical Oath of 1791
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1986); Guy Chaussinand-Nogaret,
The French Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: From Feudalism to Enlightenment
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995); Jay M. Smith, The French
Nobility in the Eighteenth Century: Reassessments and New Approaches (University
Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2006).
27. William Doyle, Origins of the French Revolution (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1980), 21.
28. George Rudé, Revolutionary Europe, 1783–15 (New York: Harper Torchbooks,
1966), 74.
29. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract (New York: Hafner, 1947), 31.
30. For an excellent discussion, see Part Three, “The Products of the Press,” in
Revolution in Print: The Press in France, 1775–1800, ed. Robert Darnton and
Daniel Roche (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 141–90.
31. On the long- and short-term impacts of the American Revolution on France,
see David Andress, “Atlantic Entanglements: Comparing the French and
American Revolutions,” in The Routledge Companion to the French Revolution in
World History, ed. Alan Forrest and Matthias Middell (London: Routledge,
2016), 159–74.
32. For a good discussion, see Lynn Hunt, Inventing Human Rights: A History
(London: W. W. Norton, 2007), 15–34.
33. For a concise discussion, see John Hardman, French Politics, 1774–89: From the
Accession of Louis XVI to the Fall of the Bastille (London: Longman, 1995). A
brief note should be made of the French royal family itself. King Louis XVI,
who ascended the throne in 1774, was an intelligent, kindhearted, and generous
notes to pages 13–16 | 647

man, but he struggled to contain the political turmoil that demanded a man
of firmer will and energy. His wife, Marie Antoinette, who exerted a strong
influence over the king, was a beautiful and vivacious woman whose Austrian
origin proved to be an important factor in shaping contemporary attitudes
toward her. Although allied since 1756, France and Austria were historical
enemies, and the French public was unsympathetic to the young Austrian
archduchess when she wed the heir to the French throne. Her lavish lifestyle,
exaggerated by pamphleteers, and unfounded rumors about her sexual esca-
pades created a deeply negative impression of the queen and further damaged
the prestige of the monarchy among the French public. For details, see John
Hardman, The Life of Louis XVI (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2016); Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey (New York: Doubleday,
2001).
34. For details, see Donald Greer, The Incidence of the Emigration During the French
Revolution (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1951).
35. See Timothy Tacket, When the King Took Flight (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 2003).
36. “Réflexions du Prince Kaunitz sur les prétendus dangers de contagion, dont la
nouvelle constitution française menace tous les autres États souverains de
l’Europe,” November 1791, in Alfred Ritter von Vivenot, ed., Quellen zur
Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserpolitik Österreichs während der französischen Revolution
1790–1801 (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1879), I:285–86; Charles de
Larivière, Catherine la Grande d’après sa correspondance: Catherine II et la révolution
française d’après de nouveaux documents (Paris: H. Le Soudier, 1895), 363.
37. Padua Circular, July 5, 1791, accessed at http://chnm.gmu.edu/revolution/
d/420.
38. Austro-Prussian Declaration, August 27, 1791, in Vivenot, ed., Quellen zur
Geschichte, I:233–43, 255.
39. Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–48 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 87–91. For a more in-depth look at the
causes of war, see Timothy C. W. Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary
Wars (London: Longman, 1986); John Harold Clapham, The Cause of the War of
1792 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1899).
40. For details, see Linda Frey and Marsha Frey, “‘The Reign of Charlatans Is
Over’: The French Revolutionary Attack on Diplomatic Practice,” Journal of
Modern History 65 (1993): 706–44; Marc Bouloiseau, “L’organisation de
l’Europe selon Brissot et les Girondins, à la fin de 1792,” Annales Historiques de
la Révolution Française 57 (1985): 290–94; Sylvia Neely, “The Uses of Power:
Lafayette and Brissot in 1792,” Proceedings of the Western Society for French History
34 (2006): 99–114.
41. Jacques-Pierre Brissot’s speech of December 16, 1791, in Alphonse de
Lamartine, Histoire des Girondins (Paris: Furne, 1847), II58. Also see Hippolyte
Adolphe Taine, The French Revolution (New York: Henry Holt, 1881), II:101;
648 | notes to pages 16–20

Antonino de Francesco, “The American Origins of the French Revolutionary


War,” in Republics at War, 1776–40: Revolutions, Conflicts, Geopolitics in Europe
and the Atlantic World, ed. Pierre Serna, Antonino de Francesco, and
Judith A. Miller (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 27–45.
42. Le Patriote Français, no. 857, December 15, 1791, 689. Digital version of the
periodical accessible at http://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/cb32834106z/date.
43. Jacques-Pierre Brissot, Second discours de J. P. Brissot, député, sur la nécéssite de
faire la guerre aux princes allemands, prononcé à la société dans le séance du vendredi
30 December 1791 (Paris: Sociéte des Amis de la Constitution, 1791), http://
books.google.com/books?id=EUtZAAAAcAAJ.
44. Procès-Verbal de l’Assemblée nationale (Paris: L’imprimerie nationale, 1792),
VII:336. For an excellent discussion of the context in which this declaration
was made, see William Doyle, The Oxford History of the French Revolution
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990), 159–84; Timothy C. W. Blanning,
The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars (Harlow: Longman, 1986): 97–99;
John Hardman, “The Real and Imagined Conspiracies of Louis XVI,” in
Conspiracy in the French Revolution, ed. Peter Robert Campbell, Thomas E. Kaiser,
and Marisa Linton (New York: Palgrave, 2007), 63–84.
45. Peter Paret, “Napoleon and the Revolution in War,” in Makers of Modern
Strategy: From Machiavelli to the Nuclear Age, ed. Peter Paret (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1986), 124.
46. See Howard Rosen, “The Système Gribeauval: A Study of Technological
Development and Institutional Change in Eighteenth Century France,”
Ph.D. dissertation, University of Chicago, 1981; Jonathan Abel, Guibert:
Father of Napoleon’s Grande Armée (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press,
2016).
47. Karl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. and trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 592, 609–10.
48. Annie Crépin, “The Army of the Republic: New Warfare and a New Army,”
in Republics at War: Revolutions, Conflicts, Geopolitics in Europe and the Atlantic
World, ed. Pierre Serna, Antonino de Francesco, and Judith A. Miller (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 131–48.
49. See speeches cited in Stephen M. Walt, Revolution and War (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1997), 46–100.

Chapter 2
1. For a concise and insightful overview, see Jeremy Black, European International
Relations, 1648–1815 (New York: Palgrave, 2002).
2. See Stuart J. Kaufman, Richard Little, and William C. Wohlforth, The Balance
of Power in World History (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007).
3. Between 1700 and 1789 there were sixteen major conflicts involving European
powers, with just thirty-three years of peace when no European power was at
war on the continent.
notes to pages 20–23 | 649

4. George Liska, Quest for Equilibrium: America and the Balance of Power on land and
Sea (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1977), 56.
5. Timothy C. W. Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary Wars (London:
Longman, 1986), 37.
6. There have been several attempts at classifying European states. In his seminal
work on the revolutionary era, R. R. Palmer uses a different threefold classifi-
cation: an eastern zone dominated by Russia, Austria, and the Ottomans; a
middle zone with the smaller Italian and German states, as well as Switzerland;
and to the north and west, an outer ring of nascent national states, including
Sweden, Denmark, Prussia, Holland, Britain, France, Spain, and Portugal.
See The Age of the Democratic Revolution, vol. 1, The Challenge (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1959), 27–54. On the other hand, French histori-
ans Roland Mousnier and Ernest Labrousse placed European states into five
groups: western (Britain, Holland, and France), southern (Spain, Portugal, and
Italy), eastern (Russia, Poland, and the Ottoman Empire), central (Switzerland,
the Holy Roman Empire, Austria, and Prussia), and northern (Denmark-
Norway and Sweden). See Le XVIIIe siècle; révolution intellectuelle technique et
politique (1715–15) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1953).
7. During the Seven Years’ War (1756–63) Prussia fought one of the greatest
coalitions ever seen in Europe—Austria, France, Russia, Sweden, and most of
the German states of the Holy Roman Empire—and survived intact.
8. For details, see Christopher M. Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of
Prussia, 1600–47 (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University
Press, 2006), ch. 9; Willy Real, Von Potsdam nach Basel; Studien zur Geschichte
der Beziehungen Preussens zu den europäischen Mächten vom Regierungsantritt
Friedrich Wilhelms II. bis zum Abschluss des Friedens von Basel, 1786–95 (Basel:
Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1958).
9. For a concise survey, see Charles W. Ingrao, The Habsburg Monarchy, 1618–15
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 105–77.
10. Ernst Wangermann, “Preussen und die revolutionären Bewegungen in Ungarn
und den österreichischen Niederlanden zur Zeit der französischen Revolution,”
in Preussen und die revolutionäre Herausforderung seit 1789, ed. Otto Büsch and
Monika Neugebauer-Wölk (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1991), 22–85.
11. “Much as I had read and heard of the commerce, wealth and magnificence of
[Bordeaux],” wrote British traveler Arthur Young, “they greatly surpassed my
expectations.” See Travels in France During the Years 1787, 1788 and 1789
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1929), 58.
12. For challenges Spain faced in the late eighteenth century, see Stanley J. Stein
and Barbara H. Stein, Apogee of Empire: Spain and New Spain in the Age of Charles
III, 1759–89 (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2003).
13. For a good overview of France in the eighteenth century, see Colin Jones, The
Great Nation: France from Louis XV to Napoleon (New York: Penguin Books,
2003).
650 | notes to pages 23–27

14. James S. Pritchard, In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670–30
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
15. Orville Theodore Murphy, The Diplomatic Retreat of France and Public Opinion on
the Eve of the French Revolution, 1783–89 (Washington, DC: Catholic University
of America Press, 1998). For a concise and insightful discussion, see Jeremy
Black, France from Louis XIV to Napoleon: The Fate of Great Empire (London:
University College London Press, 1999), 128–48; Hamish M. Scott, The Birth
of a Great Power System, 1740–15 (London: Pearson Longman, 2006), 143–236.
16. Henri Legohérel, Les trésoriers généraux de la Marine, 1517–88 (Paris: Éditions
Cujas, 1965), 350–55.
17. For an interesting discussion of the notion of “British empire,” see Eliga H. Gould,
“The Empire That Britain Kept,” in The Oxford Handbook of the American
Revolution, ed. Edward G. Gray and Jane Kamensky (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2013), 465–82.
18. For an excellent overview, see P. J. Marshall, ed., Oxford History of the British
Empire, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998).
For a revisionist take on the role of coal, see Gregory Clark and David Jacks,
“Coal and the Industrial Revolution, 1700–1869,” European Review of Economic
History 11 (2007): 39–72. I am grateful to Prof. Michael Leggiere for turning
my attention to this study.
19. Nicholas Riasanovsky and Mark D. Steinberg, A History of Russia (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2011), 262–63, 305–6.
20. John A. Garraty and Peter Gay, The Columbia History of the World (New York:
Harper & Row, 1972), 785.
21. For an overview of the Holy Roman Empire and its institutions, see
Peter H. Wilson, The Holy Roman Empire, 1495–1806 (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1999); John Gagliardo, Reich and Nation: The Holy Roman Empire as Idea
and Reality, 1763–1806 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980).
22. Voltaire, Essai sur l’histoire generale et sur les moeurs et l’esprit des nations, ed.
M. Beuchot (Paris: Lefèvre, 1829), II:238.
23. For details, see Peter Wilson, Heart of Europe: A History of the Holy Roman Empire
(Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2016).
24. For example, there was a considerable Swiss presence in the French army, where
the Swiss numbered between 10,000 and 20,000 men for much of the eight-
eenth century. Some 10,000 Swiss troops served in the Spanish army in the
1790s. There were also mercenary Swiss units serving under the British banners.
See René Chartrand, Louis XV’s Army: Foreign Troops (Oxford: Osprey, 1998);
René Chartrand, Spanish Army of the Napoleonic Wars, vol. 1, 1793–1808 (Oxford:
Osprey, 1998); René Chartrand, Émigré and Foreign Troops in British Service, vol. 2,
1803–15 (Oxford: Osprey, 2000); John McCormack, One Million Mercenaries;
Swiss Soldiers in the Armies of the World (London: Leo Cooper, 1993), 125–61.
25. Jeremy Black, Britain as a Military Power, 1688–15 (London: Routledge,
1999), 221.
notes to pages 28–33 | 651

26. Theda Skocpol, States and Social Revolutions: A Comparative Analysis of France,
Russia, and China (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 60–61.
27. For an insightful discussion, see Virginia H. Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 1700–70:
An Empire Besieged (New York: Pearson, 2007); Stanford J. Shaw, History of the
Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1976), I:217–76; Brian Davies, Empire and Military Revolution in Eastern Europe;
Russia’s Turkish Wars in the Eighteenth Century (London: Continuum, 2011), esp.
180–84. For the Ottoman role in the Seven Years’ War, see Virginia H. Aksan,
“The Ottoman Absence from the Battlefield of the Seven Years’ War,” in The
Seven Years’ War: Global Views, ed. Mark Danley and Patrick Speelman (Leiden:
Brill, 2012), 165–90.
28. Isabel de Madariaga, “The Secret Austro-Russian Treaty of 1781,” Slavonic and
East European Review 38, no. 90 (1959): 114–45. The secret treaty came about
as the result of an exchange of letters written in their own hands by Joseph II
and Catherine. See Joseph II und Katharina von Russland, ed. Alfred Ritter von
Arneth (Vienna: W. Braumuller, 1869).
29. See Alan F. Fisher, The Russian Annexation of the Crimea, 1772–83 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1970).
30. Hugh Ragsdale, “Evaluating the Traditions of Russian Aggression: Catherine
II and the Greek Project,” Slavonic and East European Review 66, no. 1 (1988):
91–117.
31. For Austrian involvement in this war, see Matthew Z. Mayer, “Joseph II
and the Campaign of 1788 Against the Ottoman Turks,” MA thesis, McGill
University, 1997; Matthew Z. Mayer, “The Price for Austria’s Security:
Part I. Joseph II, the Russian Alliance, and the Ottoman War, 1787–1789,”
International History Review 26, no. 2 (2004): 257–99; Michael Hochedlinger,
Austria’s Wars of Emergence: War, State and Society in the Habsburg Monarchy,
1683–97 (London: Longman, 2003).
32. For details, see Aksan, Ottoman Wars 1700–1870, 129–79, esp. 147–50.
33. For an interesting discussion of the negotiations of the treaties of Jassy and
Sistova (Ziştovi) that ended the Russo-Austrian-Ottoman War, see Câbî Ömer
Efendi, Câbî Târihi—Târîhi Sultân Selim-i Sâlis ve Mahmûd-ı Sânî—Tahlîl ve
Tenkidli Metin I, ed. Mehmet Ali Beyan (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu,
2003), 28–31.
34. Munro Price, “The Dutch Affairs and the Fall of the Ancien Régime,
1787–1787,” in Historical Journal 38, no. 4 (1995): 875–905; Orville T. Murphy,
The Diplomatic Retreat of France and Public Opinion on the Eve of the French Revolution
(Washington, DC: Catholic University of America Press, 1998), 459–72.
35. Robert Nisbet Bain, The Pupils of Peter the Great: A History of the Russian Court
and Empire (Wesminster: A. Constable, 1897), 6.
36. For Russia’s motives, see Herbert H. Kaplan, The First Partition of Poland (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1962); Robert E. Jones, “Runaway Peasants
and Russian Motives for the Partitions of Poland,” in Imperial Russian Foreign
652 | notes to pages 33–36

Policy, ed. Hugh Ragsdale and V. Ponomarev (Cambridge: Cambridge University


Press, 1993), 103–18. For a discussion of Russian domestic politics and their
role in the Second Partition, see Jerzy Lojek, “Catherine’s Armed Intervention
in Poland: Origins of the Political Decisions at the Russian Court in 1791–1792,”
Canadian-American Slavic Studies 4 (1970): 570–93.
37. Russia obtained Byelorussia and Latvian Lithuania to the Dvina and Dnieper
Rivers with some 1.3 million inhabitants. Austria received the province of
Galicia, with a total population of 2.6 million. Prussia took the so-called
Royal, or Polish, West Prussia, except Gdansk (Danzig) and Torun (Thorn).
38. Catherine’s contempt for the Prussian king, the “stupid lout” she dubbed
“Gu” (after Frédéric-Guillaume), was only matched by her scorn for the
English king George III, the “marchand drapier” she dubbed “Ge.” After their
cooperation in the Dutch Republic in 1787 they were amalgamated into a sin-
gle object of derision: “Gegu.” Blanning, The Origins of the French Revolutionary
Wars, 59.
39. For a good discussion, with Ottoman documentation, see Kemal Beydilli,
1790 Osmanlı-Prusya ittifâkı (Istanbul: İstanbul Üniversitesi Yayınları, 1984).
40. For details, see Jerzy Kowecki, ed., Sejm czteroletni i jego tradycje (Warsaw:
Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1991); Jerzy Kowecki and Bogusław
Lesʹnodorski, Konstytucja 3 maja 1791, statut Zgromadzenia Przyjaciół Konstytucji
(Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1981).
41. For details, see Robert H. Lord, The Second Partition of Poland: A Study in
Diplomatic History (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1915); Adam
Zamoyski, The Last King of Poland (London: Jonathan Cape, 1992), Jerzy
T. Lukowski, The Partitions of Poland, 1772, 1793, 1795 (Harlow: Longman
Higher Education, 1998); Norman Davies, God’s Playground: A History of Poland
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1982), I:409–12, 511–46.
42. Wenzel Anton, prince of Kaunitz-Rietberg, the great Austrian diplomat and
architect of anti-Prussian policy, saw his influence ebb away and be replaced by
that of Baron Anton von Spielmann and Count Karl Johann Philipp Cobenzl,
who rapidly gained influence under the new emperor. In the summer of 1792
Kaunitz resigned from his post as chancellor of Austria.
43. Russia gained the vast area of Byelorussia and Volhynia, including Minsk,
Zytomier, and Kamieniec, while Prussia received an area nearly twice the size
of its First Partition gains. For details on the Second Polish Partition, see
Robert Howard Lord, The Second Partition of Poland: A Study in Diplomatic
History (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1915); Jerzy Lukowski, The
Partitions of Poland: 1772, 1793, 1795 (London: Longman, 1999).
44. Nathaniel Jarret, “Britain and the Polish Question,” paper presented at the
annual meeting of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era, February 2015.
I am grateful to the author for sending me the full version of the paper.
45. There was also a significant presence of other European states. Russia was
slowly expanding into Alaska, while Denmark controlled Greenland and the
notes to pages 38–39 | 653

Danish West Indies (islands of Sankt Thomas, Sankt Jan, and Sankt Croix) in
the Caribbean. The Dutch held colonies in the Guianas (Berbice, Essequibo,
Demerara, Pomeroon, Surinam), Curaçao, St. Eustatius, and dependencies.
The Swedish held sway on the island of St. Barthélemy.
46. For details, see Warren L. Cook, Floodtide of Empire: Spain and the Pacific Northwest,
1548–19 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973); F. W. Howay, “The
Spanish Settlement at Nootka,” Washington Historical Quarterly VIII, no. 3
(1917): 163–71.
47. O. W. Frost, Bering: The Russian Discovery of America (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2003).The strait was first discovered by Semyon Dezhnyov
in 1648. The first visit of Russian navigators to the American coast was made
in 1732 by the geodesist Mikhail Gvozdev, who reached Bolshaya Zemlya
(close to Cape Prince of Wales).
48. For concise discussions, see A. Sokol, “Russian Expansion and Exploration in
the Pacific,” American Slavic and East European Review 11, no. 2 (1952): 85–105;
Theodore S. Farrelly, “Early Russian Contact with Alaska,” Pacific Affairs 7,
no. 2 (1934): 193–97; N. Nozikov, Russian Voyages Round the World (London:
Hutchinson, 1945). On the development of the Russian fur trade in the eight-
eenth century, see Raisa Makarova, Russians on the Pacific, 1743–1799, trans.
and ed. Richard Pierce and Alton Donnelly (Kingston, ON: Limestone Press,
1975).
49. “The English in Kamchatka, 1779,” Geographical Journal 84, no. 5 (1934):
417–19.
50. Seeking to contain encroachments by three European powers on what Russia
considered its sphere of influence, Billings was instructed to pay special atten-
tion to “little-frequented and quite unknown islands lying to the leeward of the
North American coast,” and to make every effort to bring the new encountered
peoples under the Russian scepter’s sway. The expedition was required to main-
tain secrecy over its overall objectives, and Billings’ instructions specified that
“never, under any pretext whatsoever, are you to reveal to anyone the end or
operations of this venture.” Bad weather and changing political circumstances
back in Europe delayed Billings’s expedition, but he eventually reached the
Aleutians in 1790 and stayed in the region for two years. For details, see
“Instructions from Catherine II and the Admiralty College to Captain Lieutenant
Joseph Billings for His Expedition to Northern Russia and the North Pacific
Ocean,” in Basil Dmytryshyn, ed., Russian Penetration of the North Pacific Ocean,
1700–97 (Oregon: Oregon Historical Society Press, 1988), II:269–90.
51. For an excellent discussion, see Glynn Barratt, Russia in Pacific Waters,
1715–25 (Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press, 1981),76–96.
52. “A Memorandum from Count Alexander Vorontsov and Count Alexander
Bezborodko Concerning Russia’s Rights to the Islands and Coasts of North
America Which Were Discovered by Russian Seafarers,” in Dmytryshyn, ed.,
Russian Penetration of the North Pacific Ocean, II:321–24.
654 | notes to pages 39–42

53. They reported, for example, Catherine’s intention to declare Russian sover-
eignty over North America from Mount St. Elias on the Pacific to the shores
of Hudson’s Bay. See Cook, Floodtide of Empire, 115–17; Herbert Ingram
Priestley, José de Gálvez: Visitor-General of New Spain (1765–71) (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1916), 300.
54. The most thorough and balanced accounts of the Nootka Sound Crisis are
Christian de Parrel, “Pitt et l’Espagne,” Revue d’histoire diplomatique 64 (1950):
58–98, and William Ray Manning, “The Nootka Sound Controversy,” Annual
Report of the American Historical Association for the Year 1904 (Washington, DC:
AHA, 1905). Lennox Mills, “The Real Significance of the Nootka Sound
Incident,” Canadian Historical Review 6 (1925): 110–22, offers interesting
interpretation centered on “irreconcilable British and Spanish principles of
colonial sovereignty.” John M. Norris, “Policy of the British Cabinet in the
Nootka Crisis,” English Historical Review 70 (1955): 562–80, focuses more on
economic interests.
55. Samuel Flagg Bemis, A Diplomatic History of the United States (New York; Holt,
Rinehart and Winston, 1965), 89.
56. See Francois Crouzet, La guerre économique franco-anglaise au XVIIIe siècle (Paris:
Fayard, 2008).
57. For details, see Paul Butel, L’Economie française au XVIIIe siècle (Paris: SEDES,
1993).
58. Guillaume de Lamardelle, “Eloge du Comte d’Ennery et réforme judiciaire à
Saint-Domingue,” April 2, 1788, cited in Frédéric Régent, “Revolutions in
France, Revolutions in the Caribbean,” in The Routledge Companion to the French
Revolution in World History, ed. Alan Forrest and Matthias Middell (London:
Routledge, 2016), 61.
59. Paul Butel, Histoire des Antilles francaises (Paris: Perrin, 2007), 184; James
Pritchard, In Search of Empire: The French in the Americas, 1670–30 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), 424. For comparison, there were 700,000
slaves in all of the United States.
60. By 1789, the annual earnings from a slave exceeded 200 livres tournois.
Compare it to 196.98 for a Frenchman in France and 157.25 for an Englishman.
For details, see Vertus Saint-Louis, Mer et liberté Haïti (1492–94) (Port-au-
Prince: Bibliothèque nationale d’Haiti, 2008).
61. See Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
62. Régent, “Revolutions in France, Revolutions in the Caribbean,” 63–69. Also
see the introduction and ch. 1 in François Blancpain, La colonie française de
Saint-Domingue: De l’esclavage à l’indépendance (Paris: Karthala, 2004).
63. Courier de Provence, August 20–21, 1789.
64. Yves Bénot, “The Chain of Slave Insurrections in the Caribbean, 1789–1791,”
in The Abolitions of Slavery: From Léger Félicité Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher, 1793,
1794, 1848, ed. Marcel Dorigny (Paris: Éditions UNESCO, 1995), 147–54.
notes to pages 42–48 | 655

65. For an interesting discussion of the ceremony supposedly held by the insurrec-
tionary leader Boukman Dutty at Bois Caiman to launch the August 1791
slave uprising see David Geggus, “The Bois Caiman Ceremony,” in his Haitian
Revolutionary Studies (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002), 81–92.
66. Jeremy D. Popkin, A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell,
2012), 30–46.
67. Frédéric Régent, “From Individual to Collective Emancipation: War and the
Republic in the Caribbean During the French Revolution,” in Republics at War,
1776–40: Revolutions, Conflicts, Geopolitics in Europe and the Atlantic World, ed.
Pierre Serna, Antonino de Francesco, and Judith A. Miller (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013), 165, 167.
68. David Geggus, “Jamaica and the Saint Domingue Slave Revolt, 1791–1793,”
The Americas 38 (October 1981): 223.
69. For an excellent discussion, see Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and
Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804 (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2004).

Chapter 3
1. See Jonathan A. Abel, Guibert: Father of Napoleon’s Grande Armée (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 2016), esp. 156–93.
2. Décret de la Convention nationale, du 19 novembre 1792, l’an Ier de la république
françoise: Par lequel la Convention déclare qu’elle accordera fraternité & secours à tous
les peuples qui voudront recouvrer leur liberté (Rennes: Imprimerie Nationale du
Département d’Ille et Vilaine, 1792); Albert Goodwin, The Friends of Liberty:
The English Democratic Movement in the Age of the French Revolution (London:
Hutchinson, 1979), 236–51.
3. Albert Mathiez, La révolution et les étrangers: cosmopolitisme et défense nationale
(Paris: La Renaissance du Livre, 1918), 84.
4. Marita Gilli, ed., Un révolutionnaire allemand, Georg Forster (1754–94) (Paris:
Éditions du CTHS, 2005), 440.
5. Speech of June 7, 1799, in The War Speeches of William Pitt the Younger, ed.
R. Coupland (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1915), 244. “They will not accept,
under the name of liberty, any model of government, but that which is con-
formable to their own opinions and ideas,” declared British Prime Minister
William Pitt. “And all men must learn from the mouth of their cannon the
propagation of their system in every part of the world.” Speech of December 1,
1793, in The War Speeches, 37. Also see Debate in the House of Commons,
February 3, 1800, in Parliamentary Register or History of the Proceedings and
Debates of the Houses of Lords and Commons (London: Wilson, 1800), X:319–24.
6. Debates of May 22, 1790, in Archives Parlementaires de 1787 à 1860 (Paris: Paul
Dupont, 1883), XV:662. Also see Hamish Scott, “Diplomacy,” in The Oxford
Handbook of the Ancien Régime, ed. William Doyle (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 50.
656 | notes to pages 48–53

7. Edmund Burke, The Works of the Right Honorable Edmund Burke (London:
Rivington, 1801), VIII:204.
8. In March 1793 the French did, however, occupy a large part of the Bishopric
of Basel and absorbed it into France as the Department of Doubs. This had
removed a key element in the Swiss defense, since the Jura defense line was
lost. This opened a pathway for the French expansion into Switzerland, where
France, which had been subject to an economic blockade, could procure impor-
tant commodities, including grain, cattle, and saltpeter, from Swiss merchants
and wartime speculators. For an interesting discussion of the importance of
Swiss neutrality and trade to revolutionary France, see Edgar Bonjour, Geschichte
der schweizerischen Neutralität: vier Jahrhunderte eidgenössischer Aussenpolitik (Basel:
Helbing & Lichtenhahn, 1965), vol. 1.
9. J. Holland Rose and Alexander M. Broadley, Dumouriez and the Defence of
England Against Napoleon (London: J. Lane, 1909), 145–86.
10. See J. Holland Rose, Lord Hood and the Defence of Toulon (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1922); Robert Forczyk, Toulon 1793: Napoleon’s First Great
Victory (Oxford: Osprey, 2005).
11. Thomas Hippler, Citizens, Soldiers and National Armies: Military Service in France
and Germany, 1789–1830 (London: Routledge, 2008), 81–82.
12. For a recent discussion, see Jean-Joël Bregeon and Gérard Guicheteau, Nouvelle
histoire des guerres de Vendée (Paris: Perrin, 2017).
13. Desmond Gregory, The Ungovernable Rock: A History of the Anglo-Corsican Kingdom
and Its Role in Britain’s Mediterranean Strategy During the Revolutionary War,
1793–97 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985).
14. See Sam Willis, The Glorious First of June (London: Quercus, 2011); Michael
Duffy and Roger Morriss, eds., The Glorious First of June 1794: A Naval Battle
and Its Aftermath (Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2001).
15. For details, see R. B. Rose, Gracchus Babeuf: The First Revolutionary Communist
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1978).
16. Albert Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution française (Paris: Plon Nourrit, 1903), V:20.
17. For a lengthy discussion of the War in the Pyrenees, see Antonio Canovas del
Castillo, Historia General de Espana (Madrid: El progreso editorial, 1891–93),
vols. XVI–XVIII.
18. Cited in Francois Guizot, France (New York: P. F. Colllier & Son, 1902), 318.
19. Geoffrey Bruun, Europe and the French Imperium, 1799–14 (New York: Harper
& Row, 1965), 116; Frederick C. Schneid, Napoleon’s Conquest of Europe: The
War of the Third Coalition (Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005), 39.
20. For an in-depth discussion, see Kenneth Gregory Johnson, “Louis-Thomas
Villaret de Joyeuse: Admiral and Colonial Administrator (1747–1812),” PhD
diss., Florida State University, 2006, 103–44.
21. Laurent, marquis de Gouvion Saint-Cyr, Mémoires sur les campagnes des armées du
Rhin et de Rhin-et-Moselle de 1792 jusqu’à la paix de Campo Formio (Paris: Anselin,
1829), III:4.
notes to pages 53–54 | 657

22. Archduke Charles was supported by the 80,000 men of Dagobert Sigismund,
Count von Wurmser, but Wurmser was soon ordered to lead part of his troops
to Italy while the rest of his forces were garrisoned at key cities. Wurmser’s
departure was, in fact a blessing in disguise since it gave Archduke Charles
greater flexibility to operate.
23. The failure of the French offensive on the Rhine in 1796 was the result of sev-
eral key factors, most notably profound logistical challenges and the treason of
General Jean Pichegru. For details on the latter, see Georges Caudrillier, La
trahison de Pichegru et les intrigues royalistes dans l’Est avant Fructidor (Paris:
Alcan, 1908). For the campaign in general, see Steven T. Ross, Quest for Victory:
French Military Strategy, 1792–99 (New York: Barnes, 1973); H. Bordeau, Les
armées du Rhin au début du Directoire (Paris, 1909); Ramsay Weston Phipps, The
Armies of the First French Republic and the Rise of the Marshals of Napoleon I
(London: Oxford University Press, 1926), vol. 2; Timothy C. W. Blanning,
The French Revolution in Germany: Occupation and Resistance in the Rhineland,
1792–1802 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1983). For the Austrian
side, see Archduke Charles, Archduke Charles’ 1796 Campaign in Germany,
trans. George F. Nafziger (West Chester, OH: Nafziger Collection, 2004);
Gunther E. Rothenberg, Napoleon’s Great Adversaries: Archduke Charles and the
Austrian Army, 1792–1814 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1992);
Lee W. Eysturlid, The Formative Influences, Theories, and Campaigns of the Archduke
Carl of Austria (Westport CT: Greenwood Press, 2000).
24. Martin Boycott-Brown, The Road to Rivoli: Napoleon’s First Campaign (London:
Cassell, 2001); David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (New York: Macmillan,
1966), 53–87; Ramsay Weston Phipps, The Armies of the First French Republic
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1931), vol. 3. For a broad overview of the war
in the Piedmont before Bonaparte’s appointment, see Léonce Krebs and Henri
Moris, Les campagnes dans les Alpes pendant la Révolution, 1794, 1795, 1796 (Paris:
Plon, 1895); Ciro Paoletti, La guerra delle Alpi (1792–96) (Rome: USSME, 2000).
25. See Treaty of Paris, April 29, 1796, AN AF/IV/1702/4/2; Treaty of Turin, May
15, 1796, AN AF/IV/1702/4/3; Domenico Carutti, Le Corte di Savoia durante
le rivoluzione e l’impero francese (Turin: L. Roux, 1888), vol. I. For a broad discus-
sion of Piedmont’s position before and during the Revolutionary Wars, see
Ciro Paoletti, Dal ducato all’unità: Tre secoli e mezzo di storia militare piemontese
(Rome: USSME, 2011).
26. See Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, 88–112; Jean Thiry, Bonaparte en
Italie, 1796–97 (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1973); Guglielmo Ferrero, The Gamble:
Bonaparte in Italy, 1796–97 (New York: Walker, 1961).
27. Phillip R. Cuccia, Napoleon in Italy: The Sieges of Mantua, 1796–99 (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 2014).
28. For an in-depth discussion, see Raymond Kubben, Regeneration and Hegemony:
Franco-Batavian Relations in the Revolutionary Era, 1795–1803 (Leiden:
Martinus Nijhoff, 2011), 501–66.
658 | notes to pages 54–61

29. See Articles 3, 7, 8 and Secret Article 1 of the Treaty of Campo Formio, 1797,
AN AF/III/59/235/1.
30. Article 6 and Secret Article 4 of the Treaty of Campo Formio, AN AF/
III/59/235/1. Also see George B. McClellan, Venice and Bonaparte (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1931).
31. Michel Kerautret, Les grands traités du Consulat, 1799–1804. Documents diploma-
tiques du Consulat et de l’Empire (Paris: Nouveau Monde Editions, 2002), I:93.
32. John Jervis St. Vincent, Memoirs of Admiral the Right Hon. the Earl of St. Vincent,
G.C.B., &c., ed. Jedediah Stephens Tucker (London: Richard Bentley, 1844),
I:255.
33. William James, Naval History of Great Britain (London: Richard Bentley, 1837),
II:29–53; John D. Harbron, Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy (Annapolis, MD:
Naval Institute Press, 1988), 118–20; Claude Farrère, Histoire de la marine fran-
çaise (Paris: Flammarion, 1934); Noel Mostert, The Line upon a Wind: The
Greatest War Fought at Sea Under Sail 1793–1815 (London: Vintage, 2008).
34. James, Naval History of Great Britain, II:68–78; Christopher Lloyd, St. Vincent
and Camperdown (New York: Macmillan, 1963); Sam Willis, In the Hour of Victory:
The Royal Navy at War in the Age of Nelson (New York: W. W. Norton, 2014).
35. Horace Walpole to Sir Horace Mann, April 27, 1773, in Letters of Horace
Walpole, Earl of Orford (London: Richard Bentley, 1843), II:237. Walpole spoke
à propos the First Partition of Poland, but the statement reflected the limited
nature of British power on the continent.
36. B. Collins, War and Empire: The Expansion of Britain, 1790–1830: The Projection
of British Power, 1775–1830 (London: Longman, 2010); M. Duffy, “World-
Wide War and British Expansion, 1793–1815,” in The Oxford History of the
British Empire, vol. 2, The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2001).
37. See Robin Blackburn, “Haiti, Slavery, and the Age of the Democratic
Revolution,” William and Mary Quarterly 63 (2006): 643–73.
38. Pierre Pluchon, Histoire des Antilles et de la Guyane (Toulouse: Privat, 1982),
304–305; Révolutions aux colonies (Paris: Publication des Annales historiques de
la Révolution française, 1993), 55–60.
39. The British attack on the Spanish possessions prompted a Spanish response. In
1798, a Spanish flotilla with some 2,000 men attacked the British settlement
in the Bay of Honduras; after several small and unsuccessful engagements with
the British forces, it was forced to withdraw in confusion.
40. Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar and Seapower: The British Expeditions to West Indies
and the War Against Revolutionary France (Oxford: Clarendon, Press, 1987),
291. Also see Michael Duffy, “The Caribbean Campaigns of the British Army,
1793–1815,” in The Road to Waterloo: The British Army and the Struggle Against
Revolutionary and Napoleonic France, 1793–1815 (London: National Army
Museum, 1990), 23–31.
notes to pages 61–66 | 659

41. Jeremy D. Popkin, A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell,
2012), 48–61.
42. For a biography of Louverture, see George Tyson, ed., Toussaint L’Ouverture
(Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1973); Pierre Pluchon, Toussaint
Louverture: Un révolutionnaire noir d’Ancien Régime (Paris: Fayard, 1989).
43. For an excellent discussion, see Sabine Manigat, “Les fondements sociaux de
l’État louverturien,” in La Révolution francaise et Haiti: Filiations, ruptures, nou-
velles dimensions, ed. Michel Hector (Port-au-Prince: Sociéte haitienne d’histoire
et de géographie, 1995), I:130–42.
44. W. James, The Naval History of Great Britain from the Declaration of War by
France in 1793 to the Accession of George IV (London: Macmillan, 1837),
I:118–20.
45. Lennox Algernon Mills, Ceylon Under British Rule 1795–1832 (London:
Milford, 1933), 9–15.
46. Graham Irwin, “Governor Couperus and the Surrender of Malacca, 1795,” in
Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 29, no. 3 (1956):
86–113.
47. See Wim Klooster and Geert Oostindie, eds., Curaçao in the Age of Revolutions,
1795–1800 (Leiden: KITLV Press, 2011).
48. Francis Baring to Henry Dundas, January 12, 1795, in George M. Theal, ed.,
Records of the Cape Colony (London: Government of the Cape Colony, 1897), I:22.
49. Captain John Blankett to Under-Secretary Sir Evan Nepean, January 25, 1795,
in Theal, ed., Records of the Cape Colony, 26.
50. President George Washington’s Farewell Address, September 11, 1796, http://
avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/washing.asp.
51. For an interesting discussion, see John Lamberton Harper, American Machiavelli:
Alexander Hamilton and the Origins of the U.S. Foreign Policy (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2004), 65–102.
52. Ron Chernow, Alexander Hamilton (New York: Penguin, 2004), 389–408.
53. “Proclamation 4—Neutrality of the United States in the War Involving
Austria, Prussia, Sardinia, Great Britain, and the United Netherlands Against
France,” April 22, 1793, American Presidency Project, http://www.presi-
dency.ucsb.edu/ws/index.php?pid=65475&st=&st1=. For an old but still use-
ful study, see C. M. Thomas, American Neutrality in 1793: A Study in Cabinet
Government (New York: Columbia University Press, 1931).
54. American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive, of the Congress of the
United States, ed. Walter Lowrie and Matthew St. Clair Clarke (Washington,
DC: Gales and Seaton, 1833), I:240.
55. American State Papers, I:430.
56. In June 1794 the US Congress once again stressed American neutrality in
European conflicts by passing the Neutrality Act, which made it illegal for
an American to enlist in the service of a foreign power and prohibited the
660 | notes to pages 66–70

“providing or preparing the means for any military expedition or enter-


prise . . . against the territory or dominions of any foreign prince or state of
whom the United States was at peace.” The Neutrality Act, June 5, 1794, in
United States Statutes at Large, 3rd Cong., Sess. I., 381–84.
57. The Jay Treaty, 1794, and Associated Documents, Yale Law School, The
Avalon Project, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/subject_menus/jaymenu.asp.
58. Joseph Ellis, Founding Brothers: The Revolutionary Generation (New York:
Vintage Books, 2000), 136–37.
59. “American Affairs,” in Report on the Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq. Preserved
at Dropmore (London: HMSO, 1899), III:526.
60. Treaty of Friendship, Limits, and Navigation Between Spain and the United
States, October 27, 1795, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/sp1795.asp.
61. Eric Robert Papenfuse, The Evils of Necessity: Robert Goodloe Harper and the
Moral Dilemma of Slavery (Philadelphia: American Philosophical Society,
1997), 27–28.
62. For details, see George C. Daughan, If by Sea: The Forging of the American Navy
from the Revolution to the War of 1812 (New York: Basic Books, 2008), 325–45.
63. Convention Between the French Republic and the United States of America,
September 30, 1800, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/fr1800.asp.

Chapter 4
1. French historian Marc Belissa, for example, draws an apt comparison with the
fall of the Berlin Wall in 1988. See his Repenser l’ordre européen (1795–1802): De
la société des rois aux droits des nations (Paris: Éditions Klimé, 2006).
2. Bernard Gainot, “Révolution, Liberté = Europe des nations? Sororité conflic-
tuelle,” in Mélanges Michel Vovelle sur la Révolution, approaches plurielles, ed. Jean
Paul Bertaud (Paris: Société des études robespierristes, 1997), 457–68.
3. For discussion related to Italy, see Anna Maria Rao, “Les républicains demo-
crats italiens et le Directoire,” in La République directoriale, ed. Philippe Bourdin
and Bernard Gainot (Paris: Société des Études Robespierristes, 1998), II:
1070–76; Antonio de Francesco, “Aux origins du movement démocratique
italien: quelques perspectives de recherché d’après l’exemple de la période
révolutionnaire 1796–1801,” Annales historiques de la Révolution Française 308
(1997): 333–48.
4. For an interesting discussion of this concept, see Peter Sahlins, “Natural Frontiers
Revisited: France’s Boundaries Since the Seventeenth Century,” American
Historical Review 95, no. 5 (December 1990): 1423–51; Norman J. Pounds, “The
Origin of the Idea of Natural Frontiers in France,” Annals of the Association of
American Geographers 41, no. 2 (June 1951): 146–57.
5. Jeremy Black, France from Louis XIV to Napoleon: The Fate of Great Empire
(London: University College London Press, 1999), 173.
6. In Italy alone, the French established a dozen republics that were merged,
expanded, or outright abolished over the next several years: Republic of Alba
notes to pages 70–73 | 661

(1796), Ligurian Republic (1796), Cispadane Republic (1796), Bolognese


Republic (1796), Republic of Bergamo (1797), Republic of Crema (1797),
Republic of Brescia (1797), Republic of Pescara (1797), Republic of Ancona
(1797), Tiberina Republic (1798), Parthenopaean Republic (1799), Subalpine
Republic (1800). In addition, there was the Batavian Republic (1795) in the
Low Countries, the Cisrhenian Republic (1797) on the left bank of the Rhine,
and the Helvetic Republic (1798) in Switzerland. See Michel Vovelle, Les
Républiques Soeurs sous le regard de la Grande Nation (Paris: L’Harmattan, 2007).
7. Louis Charles Antoine Desaix de Veygoux, Journal de voyage du general Desaix,
Suisse et Italie (1797), ed. Arthur Chuquet (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1907), 256.
8. Gazette Nationale, ou Le Moniteur Universel, no. 123, 3 Pluviôse An 8, 487;
Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order and the
Lessons for Global Power (New York: Basic Books, 2004), 49.
9. “Declaration and Resolutions of the Society of United Irishmen of Belfast,” in
Theobald Wolfe Tone, Life of Theobald Wolfe Tone: Memoirs, Journals and Political
Writings, Compiled and Arranged by William T. W. Tone (Dublin: Lilliput Press,
1998 [1826]), 298–99.
10. Richard Hayes, Ireland and Irishmen in the French Revolution (London: Ernest
Benn, 1932). For political demands, see “The United Irishmen’s Plan of
Parliamentary Reform,” in Edmond Curtis and R. B. McDowell, eds., Irish
Historical Documents 1172–1922 (New York: Barnes & Noble, 1968), 237–38.
11. “The Organization of the United Irishmen, 1797” in Curtis and McDowell,
Irish Historical Documents, 240–41. Also see W. Benjamin Kennedy, “Conspiracy
Tinged with Blarney: Wolfe Tone and Other Irish Emissaries to Revolutionary
France,” CRE 1978, 48–57.
12. For details, see Cathal Poirteir, ed. The Great Irish Rebellion of 1798 (Dublin:
Mercier Press, 1998); Thomas Bartlett, ed., 1798: A Bicentenary Perspective
(Dublin: Four Courts, 2003); Patrick Geoghegan, The Irish Act of Union: A
Study in High Politics, 1798–1801 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1999);
Stephen Small, Political Thought in Ireland, 1776–1798: Republicanism,
Patriotism, and Radicalism (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2002); Jim Smyth, ed.,
Revolution, Counter-revolution, and Union: Ireland in the 1790s (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2000).
13. Joseph Stock, A Narrative of What Passed at Killalla in the County of Mayo and
the Parts Adjacent During the French Invasion in the Summer of 1798 (London:
J. Wright, 1800), 23–24.
14. For example, in 1769, the French foreign ministry proposed conquering Egypt
to compensate for the loss of French colonies in the Americas. Francois-Charles
Roux, Les origines de l’expédition d’ Egypte (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1910), 294–95.
15. See Raoul Clément, Les Français d’Égypte aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles (Cairo: Impr.
de l’Institut français d’archéologie orientale, 1960); Paul Masson, Histoire du com-
merce français dans le Levant au XVIIe siècle (Paris, Hachette, 1911).
16. Clément, Les Français d’Égypte aux XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles, 274.
662 | notes to pages 73–74

17. Roux, Les origines de l’expédition d’Egypte, 246.


18. In March 1789 Ismael Bey sought French assistance against his political rivals.
Yet the political crisis of 1789 prevented the Bourbon monarchy from acting
on this request.
19. Daniel Crecelius and Gotcha Djaparidze, “Relations of the Georgian Mamluks
of Egypt with Their Homeland in the Last Decades of the Eighteenth Century,”
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 45 (2002): 320–411.
20. Guillaume-Antoine Olivier, Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman, l’Egypte et la Perse . . . (Paris:
H. Agasse, 1801), III:202–3.
21. Olivier, Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman, III:209. Also see Roux, Les origines de
l’expédition d’Egypte, 248.
22. For details on Magallon’s plan and Talleyrand’s revisions to it, see Roux, Les
origines de l’expédition d’Egypte, 323–29. Also see Henry Laurens et al.,
L’Expedition d’Egypte, 1798–1801 (Paris: Armand Colin, 1989), 28.
23. Clément de La Jonquière, L’expédition d’Égypte, 1798–1801 (Paris: H. Charles-
Lavauzelle, 1899), I:169.
24. Napoleon, Correspondance générale, ed. Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2004),
I:1118.
25. See Talleyrand’s lengthy report of February 14, 1798, in La Jonquière,
L’expédition d’Égypte, 1798–1801, I:154–68. Not the least of the advantage
was the Directory’s calculation to neutralize General Bonaparte, an extremely
popular general who might pose a political threat. As one British historian
aptly put it, the Directors sent Bonaparte to Egypt “partly to get rid of him,
partly to gratify him, and partly to dazzle and delight that portion of Parisian
society who . . . had considerable influence on public opinion.” Henry Richard
Vassall-Fox, Lord Holland’s Foreign Reminiscences (New York: Harper & Brothers,
1851), 158.
26. For details, see Henry Laurens, Les origines intellectuelles de l’expédition d’Égypte:
l’Orientalisme Islamisant en France (1698–1798) (Paris: Éditions Isis, 1987).
27. Arrêtes du Directoire, 23 Germinal an VI (April 12, 1798), in Correspondance
de Napoleon, IV:50–54.
28. The campaign discussion draws on Christopher Herold, Bonaparte in Egypt
(London: Hamish Hamilton, 1962); Irene Bierman, Napoleon in Egypt (Los
Angeles: Gustave E. von Grunebaum Center for Near Eastern Studies, 2003);
Juan Ricardo Cole, Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2008); Paul Strathern, Napoleon in Egypt (New York:
Bantam Books, 2008); Nathan Schur, Napoleon in the Holy Land (London:
Greenhill Books, 1999). For an Egyptian perspective, see ʻAbd al-Raḥmān
Jabarti, Napoleon in Egypt: Al-Jabarti’s Chronicle of the French Occupation, 1798
(Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 2004); Abdullah Browne, Bonaparte in Egypt:
The French Campaign of 1798–1801 from the Egyptian Perspective (London:
Leonaur, 2012).
29. Jonquière, L’ expédition d’Égypte, 1798–1801, I:518–27.
notes to pages 75–79 | 663

30. See Desmond Gregory, Malta, Britain and the European Powers, 1793–1815
(Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996); William Hardman,
A History of Malta During the Period of the French and British Occupations,
1798–1815 (London: Longmans, Green, 1909).
31. See various orders in Correspondance de Napoléon, IV:143–76.
32. Jonquière, L’ expédition d’Égypte, 1798–1801, I:644. Also see Ernle Bradford,
The Shield and the Sword: The Knights of St. John of Jerusalem, Rhodes and Malta
(New York: Dutton, 1973), 215–16.
33. Pierre Marie Louis de Boisgelin de Kerdu, Ancient and Modern Malta (London:
R. Phillips, 1805), II:98–99. For documents on the French occupation, see
Hannibal Publius Scicluna, Documents Relating to the French Occupation of Malta
in 1798–1800 (Valletta: Empire Press, 1923).
34. For good insights into the causes of the revolt, see Jean de Bosredon de
Ransijat, Journal du siège et blocus de Malte (Paris: Valade, 1801), 278–86.
35. See Roderick McGrew, “Paul I and the Knights of Malta,” in Paul I: A
Reassessment of His Life and Reign, ed. Hugh Ragsdale (Pittsburgh: University
Center for International Studies, 1979), 50; Norman E. Saul, Russia and the
Mediterranean, 1797–1807 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970),
35–39, 64–65. Bonaparte decreed that any contacts between Malta’s Greek
population and Russia would be punishable by death: “All Greek vessels navi-
gating under the Russian flag, whenever captured by French ships, will be
sunk.” Order, 17 June 1798, in Correspondance de Napoléon, IV:168–69.
36. The Mamluks rose to power after overthrowing the Ayyubid dynasty in 1250,
and over the next five centuries, two dynasties ruled Egypt: the Bahriyya (Bahri)
Mamluks (1250–1382), mostly of Turkish origin, and the Burji (Burgite)
Mamluks (1382–1517, though they retained a great deal of influence until
1811), mostly of Caucasian descent (Georgians, Circassians, Armenians). See
Thomas Philipp and Ulrich Haarmann, The Mamluks in Egyptian Politics and
Society (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); Jane Hathaway, The
Politics of Households in Ottoman Egypt: The Rise of the Qazdaglis (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1997); Daniel Crecelius and Gotcha Djaparidze,
“Georgians in the Military Establishment in Egypt in the Seventeenth and
Eighteenth Centuries,” Annales Islamologiques 42 (2008): 313–37; Daniel
Crecelius and Gotcha Djaparidze, “Relations of the Georgian Mamluks of
Egypt with Their Homeland in the Last Decades of the Eighteenth Century,”
Journal of the Economic and Social History of the Orient 45, no. 3 (2002): 320–41.
37. For Franco-Ottoman relations before and during the Egyptian expedition, see
̇
İsmail Soysal, Fransız Ihtilali ve Türk-Fransız Diplomasi Münasebetleri
(1789–1802) (Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu, 1999).
38. Ian Coller, “Egypt in the French Revolution,” in The French Revolution in Global
Perspective, ed. Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and William Max Nelson (Ithaca,
NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 131.
39. See Edward W. Said, Orientalism (New York: Vintage Books, 1979), 79–88.
664 | notes to pages 80–81

40. See Eugene Tarle, Admiral Ushakov na Sredizemnom more, 1798–1800 (Moscow:
Voennoe Izdat. Ministerstva Oborony SSSR, 1948); Desmond Gregory, Malta,
Britain and the European Powers, 1793–1815 (Madison, NJ: Fairleigh Dickinson
University Press, 1996).
41. See Alexander Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii and Dmitrii Miliutin, Istoriya voiny
Rossii s Frantsiei v tsarstvovanie imperatora Pavla I v 1799 g., 5 vols. (St. Petersburg:
Tip. Shtaba voenno-uchebnykh zavedenii, 1852–57); Édouard Gachot, Souvarow
en Italie (Paris: Perrin, 1903); Carl von Clausewitz, La Campagne de 1799 en
Italie et en Suisse (Paris: Champ libre, 1979); Christopher Duffy, Eagles over the
Alps: Suvorov in Italy and Switzerland, 1799 (Chicago: Emperor’s Press, 1999).
42. In his instructions to Semen Vorontsov, Russia’s ambassador to London, Paul
outlined his reasons for the break with Austria. Russian and British forces
alone were not strong enough to defeat France, so instead Paul desired an alli-
ance with Prussia to prevent Vienna “from executing its intention of seizing
Piedmont, Genoa, and the Three Legations, in lieu of restoring these lands to
those to whom they belong by right.” If the king of Prussia would agree to an
alliance, Paul was prepared to send him aid “in order to deliver Italy from the
rapacity and boundless ambition of the House of Austria.” In such a case, nei-
ther Russia nor Britain should object to the king making some acquisitions on
the Rhine. Paul envisioned an alliance of Russia, Britain, Prussia, the Porte,
Sweden, and Denmark that would put Austria in its place and was “capable of
giving the law to all of Europe.” Emperor Paul to Semen Vorontsov, October
15, 1799, Dropmore Papers, VI:32–34.
43. Emperor Paul I to Emperor Francis, October 22, 1799, in Mikhailovskii-
Danilevskii and Miliutin, Istoriya voiny Rossii s Frantsiei, III:332. The British
ambassador to Austria, Gilbert Elliot, Earl of Minto, warned his government
that Austria’s primary goal was to take control of the Italian conquests of
France and it was willing to take extreme measures to accomplish this. The
Austrian government “would probably make it the pivot on which their sys-
tem would hereafter turn and . . . they would in the choice of their Allies,
choose that Power, or those Powers, which should concur or acquiesce in
this view. It seems to me as if a determine opposition on the part of Great
Britain . . . might probably throw Austria once more into a connection with the
French Republic, and become a motive . . . for a separate peace on that condi-
tion.” Life and Letters of Sir Hilbert Elliot, First Earl of Minto, ed. the Countess
of Minto (London: Longmans, Green, 1874), III:95.
44. Gaspar Jean Marie René de Cugnac, Campagne de L’Armée de Réserve en 1800
(Paris: Libr. Military R. Chapelot, 1900); David Chandler, The Campaigns of
Napoleon (New York: Macmillan, 1966), 264–97.
45. See Alexandre de Clercq, ed., Recueil des Traités de la France (Paris: A. Durand
et Pedone-Lauriel, 1880), I:395–96. In six days of negotiations, the Austrian
envoy, Count de Saint-Julien, was outwitted by the French foreign minister,
Talleyrand, and despite lacking authority to do so, he signed preliminaries on
notes to pages 81–86 | 665

terms that were disadvantageous to Austria. Vienna disowned Saint-Julian and


refused to ratify the agreement.
46. Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 209.
47. See Debate in the Commons on the Subsidies to the Emperor of Germany, July
18, 1800, in The Parliamentary History of England from the Earliest Period to the
Year 1803 (London: T. C. Hansard, 1820), XXXV:431–54. Volume 6 of the
Dropmore Papers, featuring letters of Willian W. Grenville, provides important
insights into the Anglo-Austrian relations in 1800.

Chapter 5
1. John F. Richards, The New Cambridge History of India. Volume 1.5: The Mughal
Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995), 253–81; C. A. Bayly,
The New Cambridge History of India. Volume 2.1: Indian Society and the Making of
the British Empire (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 7–44.
2. Among these leaders were the peshwa of Poona, the Gaekwads of Baroda,
the Holkars of Indore and Malwa, the Sindhia (Scindias) of Gwalior and
Ujjain, the Bhonsales of Nagpur, and the rajah of Berar. For details see
Stewart Gordon, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 2.4, The Marathas,
1600–1818 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993), 154–74. Also
see V. G. Hatalkar, Relations Between the French and the Marathas (Bombay:
T. V. Chidambaran, 1958); Umesh Ashokrao Kadam, History of the Marathas:
French-Maratha Relations, 1668–1818 (New Delhi: Sundeep Prakashan, 2008).
3. On Hyderabad, see Sunil Chander, “From a Pre-Colonial Order to a Princely
State: Hyderabad in Transition, c. 1748–1865,” Ph.D. diss., University of
Cambridge, 1987, 71–88.
4. Under the terms of the treaty, Mysore ceded almost half of its territories. The
peshwa acquired territory up to the Tungabhadra River; the nizam was awarded
land from the Krishna to the Penner River and the forts of Cuddapah and
Gandikota on the south bank of the Penner. The BEIC received a large portion
of Mysore’s Malabar coastal territories between the Kingdom of Travancore
and the Kali River, as well as the Baramahal and Dindigul districts. Mysore
also granted the rajah of Coorg his independence, although Coorg effectively
became a BEIC dependency.
5. For a biography of Richard Wellesley, see Iris Butler, The Eldest Brother: The
Marquess Wellesley, the Duke of Wellington’s Eldest Brother (London: Hodder and
Stoughton, 1973). For the Wellesley brothers in India, see John Severn,
Architects of Empire: The Duke of Wellington and His Brothers (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 2007), 65–194.
6. Wellesley to Henry Dundas, February 28, 1798, in Henry Dundas and Richard
Wellesley, Two Views of British India: The Private Correspondence of Mr. Dundas
and Lord Wellesley, 1798–1801, ed. Edward Ingram (Bath: Adams & Dart,
1970), 28.
666 | notes to pages 87–89

7. For details, see documents in “Contents of Mr. Dundas’s letters to the Marquis
Wellesley . . . Governor-General of India, 1798–1800,” NLS, MS.1062; Arthur
Wellesley, A Selection from the Despatches, Treaties, and Other Papers of the Marquess
Wellesley, ed. Sidney Owen (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1877); Dundas and
Wellesley, Two Views of British India.
8. “Memorandum on Marquess Wellesley’s Government in India,” in Wellesley,
A Selection from the Despatches, Treaties, and Other Papers, lxxv.
9. Dundas to Wellesley, 18 March 1799, “Contents of Mr. Dundas’s Letters to
the Marquis Wellesley . . . Governor-General of India, 1798–1800,” NLS,
MS.1062, p. 7.
10. In a letter to Dundas, Wellesley inquired as to what number of French troops
in Tippu’s service could be considered as a cause for hostilities. Dundas replied
that in light of the circumstances, any number should be considered as such.
Dundas to Wellesley, March 18, 1799, “Contents of Mr. Dundas’s Letters to
the Marquis Wellesley . . . Governor-General of India, 1798–1800,” NLS,
MS.1062, pp. 7–8.
11. Percival Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India, 1740–1947 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1965), Part III, 111.
12. Stewart Gordon, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. 2, part 4, The
Marathas, 1600–1818 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993),
166–72; Kaushik Roy, War, Culture and Society in Early Modern South Asia,
1740–1849 (New York: Routledge, 2011), 109–17; Radhey Shyam Chaurasia,
History of the Marathas (New Delhi: Atlantic, 2004), 21–65.
13. The full text of the Treaty of Bassein (1802) is in Treaties and Engagements with
Native Princes and States in India, Concluded for the Most Part in the Years 1817
and 1818, BL, India Office Records, IOR/A/2/21, ix–xii; Richard Wellesley,
The Despatches, Minutes, and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, ed.
Montgomery Martin (London: W. H. Allen, 1837), III:627–31.
14. For events leading up to the Anglo-Maratha War, see Govind S. Sardesai, New
History of the Marathas, vol. 3, Sunset over Maharashtra, 1772–1848 (New
Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1986), 333–79; Pratul Chandra Gupta, Baji
Rao II and the East India Company, 1796–1818 (Bombay: Allied, 1964), 27–39;
Rory Muir, Wellington: The Path to Victory, 1769–1814 (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2013), 106–25.
15. Arthur Wellesley, The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, During His
Various Campaigns . . . , ed. John Gurwood (London: John Murray, 1834), I:398.
16. Muir, Wellington, 130–47; Randolf G. S. Cooper, The Anglo-Maratha Campaigns
and the Contest for India: The Struggle for Control of the South Asian Military Economy
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 82–212; K. G. Pietre, The Second
Anglo-Maratha War, 1802–05 (Poona: Dastane Ramchandra, 1990), 134–35.
17. Treaties and Engagements with Native Princes and States in India, xv–xviii;
Wellesley, The Despatches, Minutes, and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley,
III:634–36.
notes to pages 89–91 | 667

18. The Treaty of The Hague, signed on May 16, 1795, established a defensive
alliance between France and the Batavian Republic. The latter, however, was
clearly in a subservient position, for it was compelled to cede the territories of
Maastricht, Venlo, and Flanders to France, pay a heavy war indemnity of 100
million guilders, support a French army of occupation, and provide cheap
loans to the French republic.
19. AE Correspondance consulaire et commercial, “Alexandrie,” 16. Excerpts from
the memorandum are published in Francois Charles-Roux, Les origines de
l’expedition de l’Egypte (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1910), 273.
20. AE Correspondance politique, “Perse,” 8.
21. Georges Cuvier, “Eloge historique de Guill.-Ante. Olivier,” and “Extrait d’une
notice biographique sur Bruguières,” in Recueil des eloges historiques lus dans les
séances publiques de l’Institut royal de France (Paris, 1819), II:235–65, 425–42.
Olivier returned to France alone in 1798 because Bruguière, never in good
health, died in Italy in 1798. For an account of their travels, see G. A. Olivier,
Voyage dans l’Empire Othoman, l’Égypte et la Perse, 6 vols. (Paris: Agasse,
1801–1807).
22. Paul Barras, Mémoires de Barras, membre du Directoire, ed. George Duruy (Paris:
Hachette, 1896), III:161. The French foreign minister, Talleyrand, reinforced
such sentiments in a February 1798 memorandum in which he argued that
“having occupied and fortified Egypt, we shall send a corps of 15,000 men from
Suez to India to join the forces of Tippu Sahib and drive away the English.”
23. Glenville to Eden, January 16, 1798, FO, 7/51. For an interesting discussion
of the debate between Grenville and Dundas over British strategy in
1799–1801, see Edward Ingram, “A Preview of the Great Game in Asia, III:
The Origins of the British Expedition to Egypt in 1801,” Middle Eastern
Studies 9, no. 3 (1973): 296–314.
24. See Dundas to Wellesley, October 31, 1799, in Dundas and Wellesley, Two
Views of British India, 206.
25. Secret Committee to the Governor General at Bengal, East India House, June
18, 1798, and H. Douglas to Governor General, Bengal, November 27, 1798,
cited in Mubarak Al-Otabi, “The Qawasim and British Control of the Arabian
Gulf,” Ph.D. diss., University of Salford, 1989, 65. It is noteworthy that the
British East India Company itself was rife with divisions and struggles between
the City, Indian and private trade, and shipping interests, which frequently
shaped British policies in Asia. For details, see C. H. Philips, The East India
Company, 1784–1834 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1961);
Philip Lawson, The East India Company: A History (London: Longman, 1993).
26. Patricia Risso, Oman and Muscat: An Early Modern History (New York: St.
Martin’s Press, 1986); Jeremy Jones and Nicholas P. Ridout, Oman: Culture and
Diplomacy (Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2012). For French rela-
tions with Muscat, see A. Auzouz, “La France et Muscate aux dix-huitième et
dix-neuvième siècles,” Revue d’histoire diplomatique XXIII (1909): 518–40.
668 | notes to pages 92–94

27. Anglo-Omani Treaty (October 12, 1798), in Sir Charles U. Aitchison, ed., A
Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sunnuds Relating to India and Neighboring
Countries (Calcutta: O. T. Cutter, 1865), VII:208–10; J. B. Kelly, Britain and
the Persian Gulf, 1795–1880 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968), 65–67. The
sultan also allowed the British East India Company to establish the first trad-
ing station in the Persian Gulf, and a British consul was posted to Muscat. A
supplementary Anglo-Omani treaty was negotiated by John Malcolm in January
1800, specifying that an English political agent should reside at Muscat.
Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and Sunnuds, VII:210–11.
28. The expedition consisted of 1,000 men and 14 cannon, supported by a small
naval squadron. Edward Ingram, “A Preview of the Great Game in Asia, I: The
British Occupation of Perim and Aden in 1799,” Middle Eastern Studies 9,
no. 1 (1973): 3–18.
29. Ingram, “A Preview of the Great Game in Asia, I,” 10.
30. For example, British policy in Asia was subject to discussions by the
Departments of War and Foreign Affairs, the Board of Control, and the BEIC
government of India. In the case of the Near East, the British viewed it as
comprising two distinct areas: the Mediterranean basin was in the purview of
the Levant Company, while Arabia and the Persian Gulf was in that of the East
India Company, with each side bitterly resenting any intrusion into its domain.
31. In November 1799 he lamented “the total forgetfulness we seem to labour
under” with regard to the French presence in Egypt, which, he argued, repre-
sented a menace to India. “While there is [even] one thousand French troops
anywhere in Egypt, I cannot concur in viewing the question in that light.”
Dundas to William Pitt, November 25, 1799, Dropmore Papers, VI:39. Also see
Dundas to Grenville, November 24, 1799, Dropmore Papers, VI:37–38.
32. Dundas to Lord Grenville, June 13, 1798, in Wellesley, The Despatches, Minutes,
and Correspondence of the Marquess Wellesley, I:689–91; Dundas to Lord Grenville,
September 2, 1800, in Dropmore Papers, VI:312–13. For a broader discussion,
see Edward Ingram, Commitment to Empire: Prophecies of the Great Game in Asia,
1797–1800 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 47–48; Piers Mackesy, Statesmen
at War: The Strategy of Overthrow, 1798–1799 (London: Longman, 1974), 7.
33. Dundas to Wellesley, September 27–November 1, 1799, in Dundas and
Wellesley, Two Views of British India, 180, 203.
34. In October 1799, Wellesley did negotiate an agreement with the Portuguese
to place a British garrison in Goa to preclude a possible French invasion.
35. For details see Piers Mackesy, War Without Victory; The Downfall of Pitt,
1799–1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1984), 142–62; E. Ingram, “A Preview
of the Great Game in Asia, III,” 303–10.
36. Dundas favored focusing on operations in and around Egypt, calling for direct
invasion of Egypt from the Mediterranean and Red Seas. But neither Grenville
nor Wellesley had any interest in the Near East. Like Dundas, Wellesley was
concerned about the French threat to India but thought that it would come by
notes to pages 94–97 | 669

a more traditional route around the Cape of Good Hope and utilizing the
island of Mauritius as a base of operations. In late 1800, therefore, Wellesley
focused his efforts on launching an expedition to Mauritius, only to face refusal
of the British East Indies squadron commander to support it.
37. This British expeditionary force under Sir Ralph Abercromby had idled away
much of the previous year between Italy, Minorca, Cadiz, and Malta, causing much
discontent in British military circles. “What a disgraceful and what an expensive
campaign we have made! Twenty-two thousand men, a large proportion not sol-
diers, floating round the greater part of Europe, the scorn and laughing stock of
friends and foes,” lamented one senior British official. Charles Cornwallis to Major
General Ross, November 6, 1800, in Correspondence of Charles, First Marquis
Cornwallis, ed. Charles Ross (London: John Murray, 1859), III:300–301.
38. For details, see Georges Rigault, Le général Abdallah Menou et la dernière phase de
l’expédition d’Egypte (1799–1801) (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1911); Muḥammad
Shafiq Ghurbāl, Beginnings of the Egyptian Question and the Rise of Mehemet Ali
(New York: AMS Press, 1977).
39. For an interesting discussion, see Abbas Amanat and Farzin Vejdani, eds., Iran
Facing Others: Identity Boundaries in a Historical Perspective (New York: Palgrave,
2012).
40. Petrus Bedik, Cehil sutun, seu explicatio utriusque celeberrimi, ac pretiosissimi theatri
quadraginta columnarum in Perside orientis, cum adjecta fusiori narratione de religione,
moribus (Vienna: Universitatis Typogr., 1678), 387–88.
41. This diplomatic overture was conducted by the BEIC’s talented and versatile
Iranian employee, Mahdi Ali Khan, who was appointed as the resident at
Bushire. When in 1799 Fath Ali Shah sent some of his cavalry forces to Herat
on his own accord, the British considered it within the context of their diplo-
matic efforts and wrongly attributed it to Mahdi Ali Khan’s measures.
42. Malcolm initially visited Muscat, where he was able to negotiate a new agree-
ment with the local sultan on January 18, 1800. He then proceeded to Persia,
where, as Malcolm noted, his mission was threefold: “To relieve India from the
annual alarm of Zaman Shah’s invasion, which is always attended with serious
expense to the Company, by occasioning a diversion upon his Persian prov-
inces; to counteract the possible attempts of those villainous but active demo-
crats the French; to restore to some part of its former prosperity a trade which
has been in a great degree lost, are the leading objects of my journey.” John
William Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir John Malcolm
(London: Smith, Elder, 1856), I:89–90.
43. Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir John Malcolm, I:111.
44. Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir John Malcolm, I:116.
45. Treaty of Tehran (1801), in Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements and
Sunnuds, VII:112–17; Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 70–73; Denis
Wright, The English Amongst the Persians: Imperial Lives in Nineteenth Century
Iran (London: I. B. Tauris, 2001), 4–5. In addition, the treaty secured British
670 | notes to pages 97–99

commercial interests in Persia, stipulating that English iron, lead, steel, and
broadcloth should be admitted free of duty.
46. Percy M. Sykes, History of Persia (London: Macmillan, 1915), II:300–302;
Birendra Varma, From Delhi to Teheran: A Study of British Diplomatic Moves in
North-Western India, Afghanistan and Persia, 1772–1803 (Patna: Janaki Prakashan,
1980), 186–92. Also see Malcolm Yapp, Strategies of British India: Britain,
Iran, and Afghanistan, 1798–1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980); Robert
Gleave, “The Clergy and the British: Perceptions of Religion and the Ulama
in Early Qajar Iran,” in Anglo-Iranian Relations Since 1800, ed. Vanessa Martin
(New York: Routledge, 2005), 40–41.
47. Lindsey Hughes, Peter the Great: A Biography (New Haven, CT: Yale University
Press, 2004), 174–75; Paul Bushkovitch, Peter the Great (London: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2001), 137–38. By the Treaty of St. Petersburg (1723), Russia
gained control of western coastal areas of the Caspian Sea and the Iranian prov-
inces of Gilan, Mazandaran, and Astrabad.
48. Janet Martin, Medieval Russia, 980–1584 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2003), 195–97, 261–35.
49. For a good overview, see Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Imperial Policies and Perspectives
Towards Georgia, 1760–1819 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000), 14–62.
50. See Giorgi Paichadze, Georgievskii traktat (Tbilisi: Metsniereba, 1983);
A. Surguladze, 1783 tslis georgievskis traktati da misi istoriuli mnishvneloba (Tbilisi:
Tsodna, 1982); Zurab Avalov, Prisoedinenie gruzii k Rossii (St. Petersburg:
Montvid, 1906). The treaty’s text can be accessed at www.amsi.ge/istoria/sab/
georgievski.html.
51. See David M. Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, 1658–1832 (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1957), 209–12.
52. See Marie F. Brosset, Histoire de la Géorgie: depuis l’antiquité jusqu’au XIXe siècle
(St. Petersburg: Impr. de l’Académie impériale des sciences, 1849), vol. II.
53. Catherine to Zubov, February 19 (March 1), 1796, and Imperial Manifesto to
the Iranian Peoples, March 27 (April 7), 1796, in Nikolai Dubrovin, Istoriya
voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze (St. Petersburg: Tip. Skorokhodova, 1886),
III:70–80, 125–29; V. Potto, “Persidskii pokhod Zubova,” in Kavkazaskaya
voina v otdelnykh ocherkakh, epizodakh, legendakh i biografiyakh (St. Petersburg:
Tip. E. Evdokimova, 1888), I:285–96; Muriel Atkin, Russia and Iran, 1780–1828
(Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1980), 40–42.
54. For an insightful discussion, see Muriel Atkin, “The Pragmatic Diplomacy of
Paul I: Russia’s Relations with Asia, 1796–1801,” Slavic Review 38, no. 1 (March
1979): 60–74.
55. The prominent British historian David Lang aptly noted that “by withdraw-
ing her troops in 1787, failing to send them in time against Agha Muhammad
in 1795, and again evacuating Georgia in 1797, Russia had undeniably for-
feited any juridical right to demand Georgia’s continued adherence to the
Treaty of Georgievsk.” Lang, The Last Years of the Georgian Monarchy, 173.
notes to pages 100–106 | 671

56. For details, see Gvosdev, Imperial Policies and Perspectives Towards Georgia,
77–98; Nikolai Dubrovin, Georgii XII: Poslednii tsar Gruzii i prisoedinenie eia k
Rossii (St. Petersburg: Tip. Departamenta udelov, 1867); Laurens H. Rhinelander,
“The Incorporation of the Caucasus into the Russian Empire: The Case of
Georgia,” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1972; Zurab Avalov (Avalishvili),
Prisoedinenie Gruzii k Rossii (St. Petersburg: Montvid, 1906).
57. Karl Roider, Baron Thugut and Austria’s Response to the French Revolution
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1987), 86.
58. Décret de la Convention nationale, du 19 novembre 1792, l’an Ier de la république
françoise: Par lequel la Convention déclare qu’elle accordera fraternité & secours à tous
les peuples qui voudront recouvrer leur liberté (Rennes: Imprimerie Nationale du
Département d’Ille et Vilaine, 1792).
59. Archives parlementaires de 1787 à 1860: recueil complet des débats législatifs et poli-
tiques des chambres françaises (Paris: Librairie administrative Paul Dupont,
1909), LXIV, 231. Also see Virginie Martin, “In Search of the ‘Glorious Peace’?
Republican Diplomats at War, 1792–1799,” in Republics at War, 1776–1840:
Revolutions, Conflicts, Geopolitics in Europe and the Atlantic World, ed. Pierre
Serna, Antonino de Francesco, and Judith A. Miller (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2013), 46–64.
60. Jacques Godechot, “Les variations de la politique française à l’égard des pays
occupés de 1792 à 1815,” in Occupants, Occupés 1792–1815. Colloque de Bruxelles,
29 et 30 janvier 1968 (Brussels: Université libre de Bruxelles, Centre d’histoire
économique et sociale, 1969), 27.
61. Cited in Jacques Godechot, La grande nation: l’expansion révolutionnaire de la
France dans le monde de 1789 à 1799 (Paris: Aubier, 1956), II:660.
62. Francois Furet, Interpreting the French Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1981), 127.

Chapter 6
1. See Georges Lefebvre, The Thermidorians and the Directory: Two Phases of the
French Revolution (New York: Random House, 1964), 387–45; William Doyle,
The Oxford History of the French Revolution (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990),
318–68; Martyn Lyons, France Under the Directory (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1975); Denis Woronoff, The Thermidorean Regime and the
Directory, 1794–1799 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984). For
insights into contemporaries’ perceptions, see Paul Thiébault, The Memoirs of
Barton Thiébault, trans. and ed. Arthurt Butler (New York: Macmillan, 1896),
II:13–14; Antoine-Marie Chamans, The Memoirs of Count Lavallette (Philadelphia:
Thomas T. Ash, 1832), 71–72.
2. The quote is from Napoleon’s conversation with General Marmont, cited in
J. Holland Rose, The Life of Napoleon I (London: George Bell and Sons, 1907), I:218.
3. For an in-depth discussion, see Malcolm Cook, Napoleon Comes to Power: Democracy
and Dictatorship in Revolutionary France, 1795–1804 (Cardiff: University of
672 | notes to pages 107–110

Wales Press, 1998). For concise treatments see Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A
Life (New York: Viking, 2014), 215–27; Michael Broers, Napoleon: Soldier of
Destiny (New York: Pegasus Books, 2014), 203–29; Robert B. Asprey, The Rise
of Napoleon Bonaparte (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 327–39.
4. Thierry Lentz, La France et l’Europe de Napoléon, 1804–1814 (Paris: Fayard,
2007), 107–46.
5. For discussion of the Consulate, see Thierry Lentz, Le grand Consulat:
1799–1804 (Paris: Fayard, 1999); Jean Tulard, Le Directoire et le Consulat (Paris:
Presses universitaires de France, 1991); Lefebvre, Napoleon from Brumaire to
Tilsit, 71–92, 122–59.
6. Lentz, La France et l’Europe de Napoléon, 151–94.
7. For discussion of the electoral system, see Lentz, La France et l’Europe de
Napoléon, 98–106.
8. Lentz, La France et l’Europe de Napoléon, 97; Isser Woloch, Napoleon and His
Collaborators: The Making of a Dictatorship (New York: W. W. Norton, 2001),
94–96.
9. The 1800 plebiscite saw about 80 percent of voters abstaining, and the number
of “yes” votes was in fact close to 1,5 million. For an excellent discussion, see
Malcolm Crook, “Confidence from Below? Collaboration and Resistance in the
Napoleonic Plebiscites,” in Collaboration and Resistance in Napoleonic Europe: State
Formation in an Age of Upheaval, 1800–1815, ed. Michael Rose (New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 19–36. For a local view of Lucien’s falsifications, see
Bernard Gainor, “Réflexions sur le plebiscite de l’an VIII à partit de l’exemple
de la Saône-et-Loire,” in Le Bonheaur est une idéee neuve: Mélanges en l’honneur du
Professeur Jean Bart, ed. Jean Jacques Clère (Dijon: Presses universitaires de Dijon,
2000). The abstention rate remained high. For example, in Marseille, a city of
100,000 people, only 1,200 votes were cast. See Claude Langlois, “Le plébiscite
de l’an VIII ou le coup d’Etat du 18 Pluviôse an VIII,” Annales historiques de la
Révolution française, 1972, 43–65, 231–46, 396–415; Claude Langlois, “Napoléon
Bonaparte plebiscite?” in L’Election du chef d’Etat en France: De Hugues Capet à
nos jours, ed. Leo Hamon and Guy Lobrichon (Paris: Beauchesne, 1988), 81–93.
10. Langlois, “‘Le plébiscite de l’an VIII,’” 414.
11. Crook, “Confidence from Below?,” 31; Jeff Horn, “Building the New Regime:
Founding the Bonapartist State in the Department of the Aube,” French
Historical Studies 25, no. 2 (2002): 241.
12. Lentz, La France et l’Europe de Napoléon, 391–42.
13. Joseph N. Moody, French Education Since Napoleon (Syracuse: Syracuse University
Press, 1978); Stewart McCain, The Language Question Under Napoleon (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), 117–50.
14. For a concise overview of Napoleon’s reforms, see Robert B. Holtman, The
Napoleonic Revolution (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967).
15. Patrick M. Geoghegan, The Irish Act of Union: A Study in High Politics,
1798–1801 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1999); Daire Keogh and Kevin
notes to pages 110–112 | 673

Whelan, eds., Acts of Union: The Causes, Contexts, and Consequences of the Act of
Union (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2001); Hilary Larkin, A History of Ireland,
1800–1922 (London: Anthem Press, 2014), 9–26.
16. William Pitt’s speech of January 31, 1799, in The Speeches of the Right Honourable
William Pitt in the House of Commons (London: Longman, 1808), III:29.
17. For historiographical discussion, see Liam Kennedy and David S. Johnson,
“The Union of Ireland and Britain, 1801–1921,” in The Making of Modern Irish
History: Revisionism and the Revisionist Controversy, ed. D. George Boyce and
Alan O’Day (New York: Routledge, 2006), 34–49.
18. For the start of Franco-Austrian negotiations, see August Fournier, “Die
Mission des Grafen Saint-Julien im Jahre 1800,” Historische Studien und Skizzen
1 (1885): 179–210.
19. “Everything gets confused more and more, and we fall into an inextricable
incoherence,” lamented Austrian foreign minister Johann Amadeus Franz de
Paula Thugut on October 19, 1800, as he described the Austrian position at
Lunéville and the prospect of Franco-Russian rapprochement. See his letters
from October-November 1800 in Franz de Paula Thugut, Vertrauliche Briefe des
Freiherrn von Thugut (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1872), vol. 2, esp. 317–18,
321–22, 352–53. For an interesting discussion of Austrian internal politics,
see Harold C. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1938), 7–13.
20. The text of the treaty is in Alexandre de Clercq, ed., Recueil des traités de la France
(Paris: A. Durand et Pedone-Lauriel, 1880), I:424–29; Georg Friedrich Martens,
Recueil des principaux traités d’alliance, de paix, de trève, de neuralité, de commerce, de
limites, d’échange, etc. (Gottingue: Librairie de Dieterich, 1801), VII:538–44.
21. See Karl Roider, Baron Thugut and Austria’s Response to the French Revolution
(Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), 371–73.
22. Bonaparte to the Senate, February 13, 1801, in A Selection from the Letters and
Despatches of the First Napoleon, ed. D. Bingham (London: Chapman and Hall,
1884), I:341.
23. Clercq, Recueil des traités de la France, I:431–32.
24. Joseph Élisabeth Roger, comte de Damas d’Antigny, Memoirs of the Comte Roger
de Damas, 1787–1806, ed. Jacques Rambaud (London: Chapman and Hall,
1913), 298–99.
25. Clercq, Recueil des traités de la France, I:432–34.
26. The treaty was not ratified and was published only nine months later, once
Bonaparte ensured that there would be no opposition to this treaty in the leg-
islative bodies.
27. For a good summary of negotiations, see M. Barbara, “Napoleon Bonaparte
and the Restoration of Catholicism in France,” Catholic Historical Review 12,
no. 2 (1926): 241–57.
28. The text of the treaty can be seen at www.napoleon.org/fr/salle_lecture/articles/
files/Concordat_18011.asp.
674 | notes to pages 112–115

29. Louis Pierre Édouard Bignon, Histoire de France, depuis le 18 brumaire, novembre
1799, jusqu’à la paix de Tilsit (Juillet 1807) (Brussels: J. P. Meline, 1836), 173.
30. See Claude Langlois, “La fin des guerres de religion: La disparition de la vio-
lence religieuse en France au 19e siècle,” French Historical Studies 21, no. 1
(1998): 3–25.
31. In an effort to minimize the damage, the Russian ambassador in London, Semen
Vorontsov, described the Russian emperor as an infantile person and pleaded
with the British cabinet members that “one should not be angry with infants.”
Vorontsov to Lord Grenville, July 2, 1800, in Dropmore Papers, VI:259, 261.
32. One Russian historian, Aleksandr Kornilov, called Paul a “crowned psycho-
path” and characterized his reign as “a sudden incursion, an unexpected squall,
which fell in from without, confused everything, turned everything topsy-
turvy, but was unable for long to interrupt or to profoundly alter the natural
course of the ongoing process.” Aleksandr Kornilov, Kurs istorii Rossii XIX veka
(The Hague: Mouton, 1969), 58. For a more judicious and insightful discus-
sion, see Ole Feldbaek, “The Foreign Policy of Tsar Paul I, 1800–1801: An
Interpretation,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Östeuropas XXX (1982): 16–36; Hugh
Ragsdale, “The Origins of Bonaparte’s Russian Policy,” Slavic Review 27, no. 1
(1968): 85–90; Hugh Ragsdale, Détente in the Napoleonic Era: Bonaparte and the
Russians (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1980).
33. Robert Meynadier, “Un plan de l’Empereur Paul de Russie,” La Revue de Paris
6 (November-December 1920): 193–94; Sergey Tatishchev, “Paul 1er et
Bonaparte,” Nouvelle revue XLIX (1889): 260; Alexander Mikhailovskii-
Danilevskii and Dmitrii Miliutin, Istoriya voiny Rossii s Frantsiei v tsarstvovanie
imperatora Pavla I v 1799 g. (St. Petersburg: Tip. Shtaba voenno-uchebnykh
zavedenii, 1852–57), V:494.
34. Bonaparte to Talleyrand, June 4 and July 4, 1800, in Napoleon Bonaparte,
Correspondance Générale, ed. Thierry Lentz, Michel Kerautret, François Houdecek,
et al. (Paris: Fayard, 2006), III: 280, 326.
35. For contemporary coverage, see Monthly Visitor XVI (January 1802): 11–15.
36. See Franco-Russian diplomatic correspondence in Alexander Trachevskii,
“Diplomaticheskie snosheniya Frantsii i Rossii v epokhu Napoleona I,
1800–1802,” SIRIO LXX (1890): 1–10; F. Martens, Recueil des traités et conven-
tions conclus par la Russie avec les puissances étrangères (St. Petersburg: A. Böhnke,
1902), XIII:250–70.
37. In response, Britain ordered its commanders not to admit the Russians to
Malta for fear that they would close the port of Valletta to the British navy.
38. Diplomatic Note, October 8, 1800, in Trachevskii, “Diplomaticheskie snosh-
eniya,” 10–11.
39. According to the memorandum, “Greece with all the islands of the Archipelago
will be established after the example of the Venetian islands as a republic,
under the protection of the four powers. . . . But for now, the Greeks themselves
will come under the scepter of Russia.”
notes to pages 115–116 | 675

40. Emperor Paul scribbled on the margins, “Maybe too much!?” Rostopchin
argued the Austrian “emperor and his ministers would be as satisfied with the
partition of Turkey as would be a ruined man who has just gained the grand
prize at the lottery.”
41. See “Zapiska grafa F.V. Rostopchina o politicheskikh otnosheniyakh Rossii v
poslednie mesyatsy Pavlovskago tsarstvovaniya,” Russkii arkhiv, 1878, I:109–10.
For the French version, see Duc de Broglie, “La Politique de la Russie en 1800
d’apres un document inédit,” Révue d’histoire diplomatique 3 (1889): 1–12.
42. Mark McKinley Lee, “Paul I and the Indian Expedition of 1801: Myth and
Reality,” MA thesis, Texas Tech University, 1984, 74–219. Also see V. T. Lebedev,
V Indiyu, voyeno-statisticheskiy i strategicheskiv ocherk (St. Petersburg: Tipografiy
a A. A. Porokhovskchikova, 1898); Alex Zotov, “The Failed Franco-Russian
Expedition to India, 1801,” http://history-gatchina.ru/paul/india/index.htm.
43. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz, Mémoire de Leibnitz à Louis XIV sur la conquête de
l’Égypte (Paris: Edouard Garnot, 1840), 37–51; Curt Bogislaus Ludvig Kristoffer
von Stedingk, Mémoires posthumes du feldmaréchal comte de Stedingk: rédigés sur des
lettres, dépêches et autres pièces authentiques laissées à sa famille, ed. Magnus Fredrik
Ferdinand Björnstjerna (Paris: A. Bertrand, 1845), II:6–9. Also see P. Karatygin,
“Proekt Russko-frantsuzskoi ekspeditsii v Indiyu 1800 g.,” Russkaya starina 8
(1873): 401–9.
44. In his Napoleon’s Wars: An International History (88–89), Charles Esdaile rightly
downplays the importance of this expedition but incorrectly ties it to “a quite
separate crisis” in Georgia that suffered from a Persian invasion for its pursuit
of closer relations with Russia. Esdaile implies that the Cossack expedition was
a response to the 1795 invasion of Georgia by Agha Muhammad Khan of
Persia. But such a connection is disputable. Russia, in fact, responded to the
Persian invasion of Georgia the very next year (1796) when Catherine II dis-
patched a Russian corps, under command of Count Valerian Zubov, to south-
ern Caucasus. Zubov successfully attacked Persian interests in what is today
Daghestan and Azerbaijan, capturing Baku in June 1796. It was Emperor Paul
who, upon his accession to the throne, stopped the Russian invasion of Iran
and recalled troops back home.
45. Paul to Orlov, January 12/24, 1801, in Nikolai Shilder, Imperator Pavel I (St.
Petersburg, 1801), 417.
46. Lord Grenville believed that for Britain, the right to search convoys was a “ques-
tion of little less than its independence, affecting all its sources of greatness, and
shaking the very foundations of its naval power.” Cited in Piers Mackesy, War
Without Victory: The Downfall of Pitt, 1799–1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
1984), 134.
47. T. K. Derry, “Scandinavia,” in The New Cambridge Modern History, ed.
C. W. Crawley (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1975), 484.
48. Philip G. Dwyer, “Prussia and the Armed Neutrality: The Invasion of Hanover
in 1801,” International History Review 15, no. 4 (1993): 662–64.
676 | notes to pages 116–117

49. For details, see Alfred Mahan, The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution
and Empire, 1793–1812 (Boston: Little, Brown, 1918), II:41–45; Ole Feldbaek,
Danmark og Det væbnede neutralitetsforbund 1800–1801: småstatspolitik i en verdenskrig
(Copenhagen: Institut for økonomisk historie ved Københavns universitet, 1980).
50. Hugh Ragsdale, “A Continental System in 1801: Paul I and Bonaparte,”
Journal of Modern History 42, no. 1 (March 1970): 70–89. Also see his “Russia,
Prussia, and Europe in the Policy of Paul V,” Jahrbücher für Geschichte Östeuropas
XXXI (1983): 81–118.
51. David Macmillan, “Paul’s Retributive Measures of 1800 Against Britain:
The Final Turning-Point in British Commercial Attitudes Towards Russia,”
Canadian-American Slavic Studies VI, no. 1 (1973): 72–77.
52. Originaltraktater med främmande makter (traktater), August 31, 1805,
Riksarkivet, SE/RA/25.3/2/39/A-B; Russian Imperial Declaration (August 27,
1800), Convention Between Russia, Sweden, and Denmark-Norway (December
16, 1800), and Convention Between Russia and Prussia (December 18, 1800)
in August James Brown Scott, ed., The Armed Neutralities of 1780 and 1800:
A Collection of Official Documents (New York: Oxford University Press, 1918),
489–92, 531–49.
53. Hanover was joined to the British crown by personal union and was an impor-
tant commercial emporium in northern Germany, an obvious target for any
state wishing to apply diplomatic pressure to Britain.
54. Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–48 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 220.
55. Declaration of the King of Prussia, in Scott, The Armed Neutralities of 1780 and
1800, 592–94. For more details, see Paul Bailleur, ed., Preussen und Frankreich
von 1795 bis 1807: Diplomatische correspondenzen, vol. 2 (Leipzig: S. Hirzel,
1881–1887). Also see Dwyer, “Prussia and the Armed Neutrality,” 661–87;
Guy Stanton Ford, Hanover and Prussia, 1795–1803: A Study in Neutrality
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1903), 192–268.
56. See the excellent discussion in Eugene Tarle, Kontinentalnaya blokada (Moscow:
Zadruga, 1913); William F. Galpin, The Grain Supply of England During the
Napoleonic Period (New York: Macmillan, 1925); Robert G. Albion, Forests and
Sea Power: The Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652–1862 (Cambridge MA:
Harvard University Press, 1927).
57. For a broader discussion of the British strategy in 1800–1801, see Mackesy,
War Without Victory, 95–201.
58. William Laird Clowes, The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to the
Present (London: Sampson Loaw, Marston, 1899), IV:470–71; The Naval
Chronicle, ed. James Stanier Clarke (London: Bunney & Gold, 1801) V:162,
444–45; VI:148; Neville A. T. Hall, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies: St.
Thomas, St. John and St. Croix, ed. B. W. Higman (Kingston: University of the
West Indies Press, 1994), 26.
notes to pages 117–121 | 677

59. See Ole Feldbæk, The Battle of Copenhagen 1801: Nelson and the Danes (Barnsley:
Leo Cooper, 2002).
60. Some Russian contemporaries believed that the British government was involved
in the assassination and that the English gold helped finance the conspiracy. For
contemporary testimonies see Tsarubiistvo 11 marta 1801 goda: Zapiski uchast-
nikov i sovremennikov (St. Petersburg, 1907); Arkhiv kniazya Vorontsova (Moscow,
1870–1895), X:113–14, XIV:146–48. Also see James J. Kenney, “Lord
Whitworth and the Conspiracy Against Tsar Paul I: The New Evidence of the
Kent Archive,” Slavic Review 36, no. 2 (June 1977): 205–19.
61. Luccesini’s report of April 17, 1801, in Paul Bailleu, ed. Preussen und Frankreich
von 1795 bis 1807: Diplomatische correspondenzen (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1887),
II:38.
62. Dwyer, “Prussia and the Armed Neutrality,” 86.
63. See Ford, Hanover and Prussia, 271–90.
64. For correspondence between Bonaparte and Mustafa Pasha, see Pièces curieuses
ou Alger en 1802 (Paris: Palais Royal, 1830), 5–16.
65. A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, ed. Bingham,
I:397, 398–99, 401.
66. The text of the act is available in A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation:
U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875, http://memory.loc.
gov/cgi-bin/ampage?collId=llsl&fileName=001/llsl001.db&recNum
=473.
67. Treaty of Peace and Amity, September 5, 1795, Yale University, The Avalon
Project, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/bar1795t.asp. Also see Martha
Elena Rojas, “‘Insults Unpunished’: Barbary Captives, American Slaves, and the
Negotiation of Liberty,” Early American Studies: An Interdisciplinary Journal 1,
no. 2 (2003): 159–86.
68. Treaties with Tripoli (November 4, 1796), Algiers (January 3, 1797), and
Tunis (August 28, 1797), Yale University, The Avalon Project, http://avalon.
law.yale.edu/subject_menus/barmenu.asp.
69. Joseph Whelan, Jefferson’s War: America’s First War on Terror, 1801–1805 (New
York: Carroll and Graf, 2003); Michael L. S. Kitzen, Tripoli and the United
States at War: A History of American Relations with the Barbary States, 1785–1805
(Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1993).
70. Spencer C. Tucker, Stephen Decatur: A Life Most Bold and Daring (Annapolis,
MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004).
71. Richard Zacks, The Pirate Coast: Thomas Jefferson, the First Marines, and the Secret
Mission of 1805 (New York: Hyperion, 2005); Richard Parker, Uncle Sam in
Barbary: A Diplomatic History (Tallahassee: University Press of Florida, 2004).
72. Joshua London, Victory in Tripoli: How America’s War with the Barbary Pirates
Established the U.S. Navy and Shaped a Nation (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley,
2005).
678 | notes to pages 122–124

Chapter 7
1. For an excellent discussion, see John D. Grainger, The Amiens Truce: Britain and
Bonaparte, 1801–03 (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press, 2004). Also see James
Raymond Weinlader, “The Peace of Amiens, 1801–02: Its Justification in
Relation to Empire,” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1977.
2. Bonaparte to George III, December 25, 1799, in Napoleon, Correspondance
générale, ed. Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2004), II:1115.
3. George III to Lord Grenville, September 4, 1792, in The Letters of King George
III, ed. Bonamy Dobree (London: Cassell, 1935), 215.
4. George III to Lord Grenville, August 2, 1792, in The Letters of King George
III:218–19; George III, The Later Correspondence of George III, ed. Arthur
Aspinall (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1963), II:73.
5. George III to Lord Grenville, January 1, 1800, in The Later Correspondence of
George III, III:308.
6. Earl Philip Henry Stanhope, Life of the Right Honourable William Pitt (London:
John Murray, 1867), III:215–16. Also see Robert Bisset, The History of the
Reign of George III to the Termination of the Late War (London: A. Strahan, 1803),
VI:350–51.
7. Otto to Grenville, August 24, 1800, in The Parliamentary History of England,
from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803 (London: T. C. Hansard, 1820),
XXXV:540–41.
8. The first force that Bonaparte had in mind was that in Egypt. The men of the
army that Bonaparte led to the shores of North Africa had been greatly reduced
in number by disease and casualties, but they still maintained effective control
over significant territory in Egypt. Yet Admiral Nelson’s naval triumph at
Aboukir Bay (1798) had severed their connections with France, and it was
clear that unless something decisive was done, the French army would gradu-
ally waste away. Bonaparte understood this well and was keen on extricating
his troops. The second force on Bonaparte’s mind was that on the island of
Malta, where the French garrison of Valetta had been under siege by coalition
forces for the best part of two years. For Malta, see William Hardman, A
History of Malta During the Period of the French and British Occupations,
1798–1815 (London: Longmans, Green, 1909), 107–35.
9. Carysfort to Grenville, November 12, 1800, Dropmore Papers, VI:374–76.
Carysfort’s letter contained two of Gentz’s mémoires describing European
sentiment.
10. For detailed discussion of Pitt’s resignation and its impact, see John Ehrman,
The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1996), 495–533. Some French historians argue that the resignation of
William Pitt’s government, which included notable hawks, had been made as
a “strategic ploy” to avoid both the humiliation of being forced to negotiate
peace with France and to have hands free in case of a future return to power.
notes to pages 124–127 | 679

See Edouard Driault, Napoléon et l’Europe. The Politique Extérieure du Premier


Consul (1800–03) (Paris: Felix Alcan, 1910), 162–64.
11. Bonaparte to Talleyrand, July 28, 1800 (no. 5034), September 30, 1800
(no. 5120), January 27, 1801 (no. 5327), February 13, 1801 (no. 5365), and
March 2, 1801 (no. 5426); Bonaparte to the King of Spain, November 8, 1800
(no. 5165), in CN, VI:426–27, 469, 499, 590–92; VII:22–23, 54–55; Traité
préliminaire d’alliance signé ã Madrid, January 29, 1801; Ratification du
Premier Consul . . . sur le traité préliminaire d’alliance signé à Madrid, February
17, 1801, in Alexandre de Clercq, ed., Recueil des traités de la France (Paris:
A. Durand et Pedone-Lauriel, 1880), I:420–24.
12. Angelo Pereira, D. João VI principe e rei (Lisbon: Empresa Nacional de
Publicidade, 1953), I:70; Valentim Alexandre, Os sentidos do Império: questão
nacional e questão colonial na crise do Antigo Regime português (Porto: Edições
Afrontamento, 1993), 102–3, 115–16, 121–26; Albert Silbert, Do Portugal de
antigo regime ao Portugal oitocentista (Lisbon: Livros Horizonte, 1981), 49–52.
For treaties of Badajoz and Madrid, see Georg Friedrich Martens, Recueil des
principaux traités d’alliance, de paix, de trève, de neuralité, de commerce, de limites,
d’échange, etc. (Gottingen: Librairie de Dieterich, 1801), VII:348–51; 373–76.
13. Frederick C. Schneid, Napoleon’s Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005), 23.
14. For effects of the War of Oranges outside Europe, see Mark A. Frakes,
“Governor Ribera and the War of Oranges on Paraguay’s Frontiers,” The
Americas 45, no. 4 (1989): 489–508; Barbara Anne Ganson, The Guarani Under
Spanish Rule in the Rio de la Plata (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
2003), 155–56.
15. See Desmond Gregory, The Beneficent Usurpers: A History of the British in Madeira
(London: Associated University Presses, 1988), 47–64.
16. The final treaty was also signed by José Nicolás de Azar for Spain and Rutger
Jan Schimmelpenninck for the Batavian Republic.
17. There was a separate Franco-Dutch agreement of August 1801 that required
the removal of French troops from Holland when the general peace was signed.
Also, the Treaty of Lunéville had a separate provision for recognizing the inde-
pendence of the Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Ligurian Republics.
18. Treaty of Amiens, March 25, 1802, Fondation Napoléon, https://www.­
napoleon.org/histoire-des-2-empires/articles/le-traite-de-la-paix-damiens.
19. The return of the captured colonies was an important concession, and it made
it abundantly manifest that Britain had not waged war with the sole view of
enlarging its colonial empire.
20. Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury (London:
Richard Bentley, 1845), IV:69.
21. William Eden Baron Auckland, The Journal and Correspondence of William, Lord
Auckland (London: Richard Bentley, 1862), IV:143–44.
680 | notes to pages 127–129

22. Lord Grenville to William Pitt, October 6, 1801, Dropmore Papers, VII:50–51.
Also see Duke of Buckingham and Chandos, Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of
George the Third (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1855), III:178.
23. Auckland, Journal and Correspondence, IV:143–44.
24. William Woodfall, ed., The Parliamentary Register, or an Impartial Report of the
Debates that Occur in the Two Houses of Parliament (London: John Stockdale,
1802), I:64.
25. Schroeder correctly notes that the Amiens treaty was a testament to “France’s
skill and persistence in negotiations, the Addington government’s distraction
and weakness, and Cornwallis’s inexperience as a negotiator.” Paul W. Schroeder,
The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1994), 227.
26. Piers Mackesy, War Without Victory; The Downfall of Pitt, 1799–1802 (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1984), 215–16. It must be noted that the British ministers,
all honorable but not very experienced men, were willing to accept agreement
because they believed that British interests in India and the Caribbean had
been safeguarded by the retention of Ceylon and Trinidad, which could serve
as important staging grounds.
27. For example, Conrad Gill condemns them for framing “the provisions with the
confidence of inexperience and with the joy of restoring peace to Europe. In their
pacific enthusiasm the ministers made terms which Pitt and his colleagues
would have rejected without a second thought.” “The Relations Between
England and France in 1802,” English Historical Review XXIV, no. 93 (1909): 61.
28. For an interesting discussion, see Michael Duffy, “British Diplomacy and the
French Wars, 1789–1815,” in Britain and the French Revolution, 1789–1815,
ed. H. T. Dickinson (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1989), 127–45; Piers
Mackesy, “Strategic Problems of the British War Effort,” in Britain and the
French Revolution, 1789–1815, ed. H. T. Dickinson (New York: St. Martin’s
Press, 1989), 147–64; Paul Schroeder, “The Collapse of the Second Coalition,”
Journal of Modern History LIX (1987): 244–90.
29. Charles Creighton, A History of Epidemics in Britain (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1894), II:159–60. The price of wheat was 61s 8d per quarter
in the spring of 1799, 94 s 2d. in December 1799, 134 s. 5d. in June 1800,
and 180s in late summer 1801. It fell back to 57–60s. in 1802 (II:162).
30. Auckland, Journal and Correspondence, IV:144.
31. Auckland, Journal and Correspondence, IV:144.
32. Admiral Viscount Keith, The Keith Papers: Selected from the Papers of Admiral
Viscount Keith, ed. Christopher Lloyd (London: Navy Records Society, 1950),
II:376.
33. Edmund Burke, “Letters on a Regicide Peace,” in The Works of the Right Hon.
Edmund Burke, ed. Henry Rogers (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1841), II:334.
34. Carl Ludwig Lokke, “French Designs on Paraguay in 1803,” Hispanic American
Historical Review 8, no. 3 (August 1928): 392–405.
notes to pages 129–130 | 681

35. Pierre-Alexandre-Laurent Forfait’s memorandum, 12 Germinal An X (1802),


cited in Henri Prentout, L’Ile de France sous Decaen, 1803–10 (Paris: Librairie
Hachette, 1901), 14.
36. Bonaparte to General Berthier, July 18, 1802; Bonaparte to Admiral Decrès,
January 15, 1803, in CN, no. 6189, VII:524; no. 6544, VIII:176–78.
37. Prentout, L’Ile de France sous Decaen, xiv-xxii, 1–4, 16–31. Only thirty-four
years old, Decaen was largely unknown and unconnected with any previous
colonial ventures, and seemed unlikely to cause any trouble: writing in January
1803, British ambassador Whitworth observed that Decaen “is a young man,
and bears a very fair character in private life, but possesses no very shining
talents either as a general or a statesman. We may therefore conclude that, as
far as he is concerned, it is intended rather to improve what possessions they
[the French] already have in India than to extend them by conquest or
intrigue.” Oscar Browning, England and Napoleon in 1803, Being the Despatches
of Lord Whitworth and Others (London: Longmans, Green, 1887), 45. For some
historians, Bonaparte’s decision to select Decaen, “an avowed fire-eating
Anglophobe,” served as yet another example of his “scarcely concealed con-
tempt” for peace with Britain. W. M. Sloane, “Napoleon’s Plans for a Colonial
System,” American Historical Review 4, no. 3 (April 1899): 441.
38. George McCall Theal, History of South Africa (London: Swan Sonnenschein,
1908), I:93–108.
39. Also see reports of English residents at the Cape in J. Holland Rose, “The
French East-Indian Expedition at the Cape in 1803,” English Historical Review
15, no. 57 (1900): 129–32.
40. Prentout, L’Ile de France sous Decaen, 31–60.
41. Journaux du capitaine de vaisseau Nicolas Baudin, commandant de l’expédition,
1800–1803, AN MAR/5JJ/35-MAR/5JJ/40/D; Nicole Starbuck, “Constructing
the ‘Perfect’ Voyage: Nicolas Baudin at Port Jackson, 1802,” Ph.D. diss.,
University of Adelaide, 2009; Serge M. Rivière and Kumari R. Issur, eds.,
Baudin-Flinders dans l’océan indien: Voyages, découvertes, rencontre (Paris: L’Harmattan,
2006), Ernest Scott, Terre Napoléon: A History of French Explorations and Projects
in Australia (London: Methuen, 1910).
42. For instructions, see Ernest Scott, “Baudin’s Voyage of Exploration to Australia,”
English Historical Review 28, no. 110 (April 1913): 341–46. For documents
related to the expedition, see Nicolas Baudin, Mon voyage aux terres australes:
journal personnel du commandant Baudin (Paris: Imprimerie nationale éditions,
2000).
43. See François Péron, French Designs on Colonial New South Wales: François Péron’s
Memoir on the English Settlements in New Holland, Van Diemen’s Land and the
Archipelagos of the Great Pacific Ocean, ed. Jean Fornasiero and John West-Sooby
(Adelaide: Friends of the State Library of South Australia, 2014). Some modern
scholars still argue that “in spite of almost total absence of documents, [they]
still persist in believing in the political character of the Baudin expedition.”
682 | notes to pages 132–134

Jean-Paul Faivre, “Preface,” in Nicolas Baudin, The Journal of Post Captain


Nicolas Baudin, Commander-in-Chief of the Corvettes Géographe and Naturaliste,
ed. and trans. Christine Cornell (Adelaide: Libraries Board of South Australia,
1974), xiii. For a countering view, see Scott, Terre Napoléon, 122–89, 262–82.
44. For a succinct discussion of Toussaint’s motives, see Jeremy D. Popkin, A
Concise History of the Haitian Revolution (Oxford: Blackwell, 2012), 111–13.
45. Constitution du 22 frimaire an VIII (December 13, 1799), AN AE/I/29/4.
46. Laurent Dubois, A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the
French Caribbean, 1787–1804 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2004), 288–89, 326–27, 351.
47. See C. L. R. James, The Black Jacobins; Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo
Revolution (New York: Vintage Books, 1989), 270, 275, 294; Claude Wanquet,
La France et la première abolition de l’esclavage, 1794–1802: le cas des colonies orien-
tales, Ile de France (Maurice) et la Réunion (Paris: Karthala, 1998), 636. Napoleon’s
own reminiscences provided sufficient fodder for such claims. See his state-
ments on Saint-Domingue in Emmanuel de Las Cases, Mémorial de Sainte Hélène
(Paris: Gallimard–La Pléiade, 1956), 769; Barry O’Meara, Napoleon in Exile: or,
A Voice from St. Helena (New York: William Gowans, 1853), II:199.
48. For an excellent discussion of racism in early modern Europe, see Miriam
Eliav-Feldon, Benjamin Isaac, and Joseph Ziegler, The Origins of Racism in the
West (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009).
49. “Aux citoyens de Saint-Domingue,” December 25, 1799, in CN, no. 4455,
VI:42.
50. Arrête of December 25, 1799, in CN, VI:43. Also see Pierre Pluchon, Toussaint
Louverture (Paris: Fayard, 1989), 447–48.
51. Pierre-Louis Roederer, Mémoires sur la Révolution, le Consulat, et l’Empire (Paris:
Plon, 1942), 131.
52. “Notes sur Saint Domingue,” in CN, XXX:529. For Bonaparte’s decision to
launch the expedition, see Popkin, A Concise History of the Haitian Revolution,
116–19; Philippe R. Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon: Toussaint Louverture
and the Haitian War of Independence, 1801–1804 (Tuscaloosa: University of
Alabama Press, 2011), 33–49. Also Pierre Branda and Thierry Lentz, Napoléon,
l’esclavage et les colonies (Paris: Fayard, 2006); Marcel Dorigny, Rétablissement de
l’esclavage dans les colonies françaises 1802: Ruptures et continuités de la politique
colonial française (Paris: Maisonneuve-Larose, 2003). On the last two years of
Toussaint’s life, see Philippe Girard, Toussaint Louverture: A Revolutionary Life
(New York: Basic Books, 2016), 217–52.
53. “Notes pour server aux instructions à donner au capitaine general Leclerc,”
October 31, 1801, in Charles Leclerc, Lettres du Général Leclerc, ed. Paul Roussier
(Paris: Société de l’histoire des colonies françaises, 1937), 263–74.
54. See Michel-Étienne Descourtilz’s memoirs in Jeremy D. Popkin, ed., Facing
Racial Revolution: Eyewitness Accounts of the Haitian Insurrection (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 2007), 306.
notes to pages 135–138 | 683

55. Restoration of slavery in Guiana was the work of French colonial administrator
Jean-Baptiste Victor Hugues, who had vocally championed emancipation of
slaves during the Revolution only to gradually revive it in 1802–1803.
56. For details, see Claude Ribbe, Le crime de Napoléon (Paris: Cherche Midi, 2013);
Laurent Dubois, Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2004), 293; Adam Hochschild,
Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves (New
York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 293–94.
57. Leclerc to Bonaparte, October 7, 1802, in Lettres du Général Leclerc, 256.
58. See Girard, The Slaves Who Defeated Napoleon, 159–247, 291–312.
59. Between 1791 and 1803 some 100,000 people perished in the revolutionary
turmoil, the vast majority of them being blacks.
60. For Dessalines, see Timoleon C. Brutus, L’homme d’Airain, étude monographique
sur Jean-Jacques Dessalines, fondateur de la nation haïtienne, 2 vols. (Port-au-Prince:
N. A. Theodore, 1946–1947); Henock Trouillot, Dessalines: ou, La tragédie
post-coloniale (Port-au-Prince: Editions Panorama, 1966).
61. For an illuminating study, see Ada Ferrer, Freedom’s Mirror: Cuba and Haiti in
the Age of Revolution (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
62. For details, see Life and Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. Charles R. King (New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1896), III:61.
63. Treaty of San Ildefonso, October 1, 1800, www.napoleon-series.org/research/
government/diplomatic/ c_ildefonso.html.
64. William Cobbett, “Cession of Louisiana” (editorial), in Cobbett’s Annual Register
(London: Cox and Baylis, 1802), I:46. For a concise and insightful discus-
sion of Britain’s position, see Bradford Perkins, “England and the Louisiana
Question,” Huntington Library Quarterly 18, no. 3 (May 1955): 279–95.
65. James Madison to Robert Livingston and James Monroe, March 2, 1803, in
The Papers of James Madison: Secretary of State Series, ed. Mary A . Hackett
(Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1984), IV:364–78.
66. Jefferson to Pierre S. du Pont de Nemours, April 25, 1802, in The Writings of
Thomas Jefferson, ed. Andrew A. Lipscomb (Washington, DC: Thomas Jefferson
Memorial Association, 1903), X317. In a long letter to Robert Livingston,
American minister to France, Jefferson explained that “the day that France
takes possession of New Orleans fixes her sentence which is to restrain her for-
ever her low water mark . . . From that moment we must marry ourselves to the
British fleet and nation.” Jefferson to Livingston, April 18, 1802 in Memoir,
Correspondence and Miscellanies from the Papers of Thomas Jefferson, ed. Thomas
Jefferson Randolph (Boston: Gray and Bowen, 1830), III:492.
67. Convention entre la République française et les Etats-Unis d’Amérique réglant
l’application du traité de cession de la Louisiane aux Etats-Unis d’Amérique,
AN AF/IV/1704/6/12. Also see “The Louisiana Purchase” collection of docu-
ments at The Napoleon Series, www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/
diplomatic/c_louisiana.html; Monroe and Livingston to James Madison,
684 | notes to pages 138–140

May 12–13, 1803, in The Papers of James Madison, ed. William T. Hutchinson
et al. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1965), IV:590–94, 601. Also see
Robert D. Bush, The Louisiana Purchase: A Global Context (New York: Routledge,
2014), 69–96.
68. Under the agreement, the two banks promised to provide for an exchange of
stock for specie (mainly from Britain) in three installments, paying a total of
53 million francs for securities that had a face value of 60 million, keeping the
difference as a fee. The US Treasury redeemed all bonds between 1812 and
1823, with banks and bondholders earning over $8 million in interest. For
details (and relevant documents), see James E. Winston and R. W. Colomb,
“How the Louisiana Purchase Was Financed,” Louisiana Historical Quarterly
XII (1929): 189–237.
69. Henry Adams, History of the United States of America During the First Administration
of Thomas Jefferson (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1889), II:49.
70. “From 1804 to 1808, traders flooded Charleston with 39,075 African slaves,
over one-tenth of the total number of slaves brought into all of British North
America over the previous two hundred years—probably the strongest surge
in the history of the global slave trade.” Jed Handelsman Shugerman, “The
Louisiana Purchase and South Carolina’s Reopening of the Slave Trade in
1803,” Journal of the Early Republic 22, no. 2 (Summer, 2002): 263–90.
71. For details, see Sean M. Theriault, “Party Politics During the Louisiana
Purchase,” Social Science History 30, no. 2 (Summer 2006): 293–324; Joyce
Appleby, “Jefferson’s Resolute Leadership and Drive Toward Empire,” in Major
Problems in American Foreign Relations, ed. Dennis Merrill and Thomas G. Paterson
(Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005), I:99–103; Charles A. Cerami, Jefferson’s
Great Gamble: The Remarkable Story of Jefferson, Napoleon, and the Men Behind the
Louisiana Purchase (Naperville, IL: Sourcebooks, 2003); Jon Kukla, A Wilderness
So Immense: The Louisiana Purchase and the Destiny of America (New York: Knopf,
2003); Peter Kastor and Francois Weil. Empires of the Imagination: Transatlantic
Histories of the Louisiana Purchase (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press,
2008); Patrick G. Williams, S. Charles Bolton, and Jeanne M. Whayne. A
Whole Country in Commotion: The Louisiana Purchase and the American Southwest
(Fayetteville: University of Arkansas Press, 2005).
72. Jeremy D. Bailey, Thomas Jefferson and Executive Power (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2010), 171–94.
73. J. A. van Houtte, “The Low Countries and Scandinavia,” and Anton Guilland,
“France and Her Tributaries (1801–1803),” both in The Cambridge Modern
History, ed. A. Ward et al. (New York: Macmillan, 1906), 88–91, 469–70.
74. In August 1801 Bonaparte signed a Franco-Dutch convention pledging to
reduce French occupying forces to 10,000 men. In return, the Dutch were forced
to pay a vast indemnity of 5 million florins. See George de Martens, Recueil des
principaux traités d’alliance, de paix, de trève, de neuralité, de commerce, de limites,
d’échange, etc., 2nd ed. (Gottingen: Librairie de Dieterich, 1831), VII:368–73.
notes to pages 140–142 | 685

75. I base my discussion on Holger Böning, Der Traum von Freiheit und Gleichheit.
Helvetische Revolution und Republik (1798–1803). Die Schweiz auf dem Weg zur
bürgerlichen Demokratie (Zurich: Orell Füssli Verlag, 1998); Andreas
Grünewald, Die Helvetische Republik 1798–1803 (Reinach: Multipress-Verl.,
2001); Clive H. Church and Randolph C. Head. A Concise History of Switzerland
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013); James M. Luck, A History of
Switzerland (Palo Alto, CA: Society for the Promotion of Science and
Scholarship, 1985). For excellent analysis of Swiss political culture during the
revolutionary era, see Marc H. Lerner, A Laboratory of Liberty: The Transformation
of Political Culture in Republican Switzerland, 1750–1848 (Leiden: Brill, 2012),
10–136.
76. See Bonaparte’s proclamation of September 30, 1802, in Johannes Strickler,
ed., Actensammlung aus der Zeit der Helvetischen Republik (1798–1803) (Bern:
Buchdruckerei Stämpfli, 1902), VIII:1437.
77. Bonaparte’s Proclamation of September 30, 1802, in CN, no. 6352, VIII:
53–55. Also see Clive H. Church and Randolph C. Head, A Concise History of
Switzerland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013), 138–42. The
Act of Mediation, the constitutions of the nineteen cantons and the Constitution
of the Confederation are available in Repertorium der Abschiede der eidgenössischen
Tagsatzungen vom Jahr 1803 bis Ende des Jahrs 1813 (Bern: Rätzer, 1843).
78. Bonaparte secured strategically important areas, including the Simplon and its
approaches, and forced the Swiss to surrender the Valais region so France could
build a military road connecting it to northern Italy. When in 1804 the Swiss
tried to introduce military reforms, Bonaparte promptly forbade them. For
an interesting discussion, see Gabrielle B. Clemens, “The Swiss Case in the
Napoleonic Empire,” in The Napoleonic Empire and the New European Political
Culture, ed. Michael Broers, Peter Hicks, and Agustin Guimera (New York:
Palgrave, 2012), 132–42.
79. Note of October 9, 1802, in Arthur Paget, The Paget Papers: Diplomatic and
Other Correspondence of the Right Honorable Sir Arthur Paget, G.C.B. (1794–1807),
ed. Augustus Paget (London: William Heinemann, 1896), II:62–63. Bonaparte
was “audaciously interfering to deprive the gallant Swiss of the right of estab-
lishing their liberties,” railed Sir John Wrottesley in the House of Commons.
Parliamentary History of England, XXXVI:950.
80. The New Annual Register, or General Repository of History, Politics, and Literature
for the Year 1803 (London: G. and J. Robinson, 1804), 238.
81. Bonaparte to Talleyrand, November 4, 1802, in CN, no. 6,414, VIII:90.
82. “Message to the Chambers,” in Napoleon, A Selection from the Letters and Despatches
of the First Napoleon, ed. D. Bingham (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884), II:5.
See Arrêté, April 12 (backdated to April 2), 1801, in CN, no. 5526,
VII:117–19.
83. See Bonaparte’s acceptance speech, January 26, 1802, in CN, no. 5934,
VII:371–73. For a broad overview, see Alexander Grab, Napoleon and the
686 | notes to pages 142–149

Transformation of Europe (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003), 159–65. The


consulta’s first choice as the president of the Italian Republic was a prominent
Italian republican, Francesco Melzi d’Eril. But the notables were told that they
could make a better choice and, taking a hint, offered the position to Bonaparte.
84. Anton Guilland, “France and Her Tributaries (1801–1803),” in The Cambridge
Modern History, ed. A. Ward et al. (New York: Macmillan, 1906), IX:88.
85. See Arrêté, April 12 (backdated to April 2), 1801, in CN, no. 5526, VII:117–19.
86. In 1796 France negotiated treaties with the princes of Baden and Wurttemberg
that also called for compensation for lost territories. See de Clerq, Recueil des
Traités, I:283–87, 292–99. For an interesting discussion, see Sydney Biro, The
German Policy of Revolutionary France: A Study in French Diplomacy During the
War of the First Coalition, 1792–1797 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1957), vol. 2.
87. Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe, 88.
88. For pertinent documents, see “The Reorganization of Germany,” www.­
napoleon-series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_germany.html.
89. Bonaparte to Talleyrand, April 3, 1802, in Correspondance générale, III:948.
90. Bonaparte to Joseph Bonaparte, January 20, 1801, in The Confidential Correspondence
of Napoleon Bonaparte with His Brother Joseph (New York: D. Appleton and
Company, 1856), I:53. Also see Bonaparte’s instructions to Talleyrand asking
to clarify Russia’s position on German matters, Bonaparte to Talleyrand, April
3, 1802, in Correspondance générale, III:944–48.
91. See treaty’s text in Du Clercq, Recueil des traités de la France, I:583–87.
92. See Harold C. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1938), 38–55.
93. Bonaparte to Maximillian Joseph of Bavaria, October 11, 1801, in CN,
no. 5796, VII:285.
94. Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, 1648–1840 (New York: Alfred
A. Knopf, 1967), 367–68; Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe, 88–89.

Chapter 8
1. My understanding of Napoleonic sea power has been shaped by long discus-
sions with Dr. Kenneth G. Johnson of the Air University, who has shined
much new light on this subject. Until the publication of Johnson’s opus on
Napoleon’s use of seapower, the most concise treatment of this subject is his
long essay “Napoleon’s War at Sea,” in Napoleon and the Operational Art of War,
ed. Michael V. Leggiere (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 387–475.
2. Notes pour le Ministre de la Marine, February 19, 1802, CN, no. 5968,
VII:395–96.
3. As Talleyrand explained in 1806, Napoleon “does not imagine that any partic-
ular article of the Treaty of Amiens produced the war. He is convinced that the
true cause was [his] refusal to make a treaty of commerce, which would necessarily
have been prejudicial to the manufactures and industry of this country.” Cited
notes to pages 150–152 | 687

in Conrad Gill, “The Relations Between England and France in 1802,” English
Historical review 24, no. 93 (1909): 78.
4. Life and Letters of Sir Gilbert Elliot, First Earl of Minto, ed. Countess of Minto
(London: Longmans, Green, 1874), III:209.
5. The agreement ended the British blockade of the ships of France and its client
states, but it did nothing about the French prohibition of British shipping
within four leagues of the French coast. Consequently, a number of British
ships had been seized and confiscated by the French authorities, who, in
response to British protests, declared that they were only carrying out existing
laws, just as the British had done with regard to their newspapers.
6. See the data in Jedidiah Morse, The American Geography, or A View of the Present
State of All the Kingdoms, States and Colonies (Boston: Thomes & Andrews,
1812), II:72; Willian Cunningham, The Growth of English Industry and Commerce
in Modern Times (London: Frank Cass, 1968), appendix F, 933.
7. Cited in Harold C. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), 100.
8. See Charles Walton, “The Free-Trade Origins of the French Revolution,” in
The French Revolution in Global Perspective, ed. Suzanne Desan, Lynn Hunt, and
William Max Nelson (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 2013), 44–56.
9. The Methuen Treaty of 1793 stipulated that Portuguese wines imported into
England would be subject to a third less duty than wines imported from
France. A. D. Francis, “John Methuen and the Anglo-Portuguese Treaties of
1703,” Historical Journal 3, no. 2 (1960): 103–24.
10. In the meantime, the British government refused to recognize commercial
agents that France had sent, arguing that a commercial treaty had to be con-
cluded first. For French complaints, see AE “Angleterre,” 600.
11. Bonaparte was a mercantilist by inclination and believed that he could direct
commerce much the way he could the military. For interesting insights into
his views on commerce, see Jean-Antoine Chaptal, Mes souvenirs sur Napoléon
(Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit, 1893), 274–76, 281–83. “A prohibition imposed to
such a degree had the character of a real blockade against England, and its
object was to make her perish of want in the midst of her riches,” argued one
French historian. “This has been regarded [by Britain] as a deliberately hostile
act by Napoleon,” counters a modern British historian. “But no state is required
to enter into a commercial treaty she knows would work to her disadvantage.”
Pierre Lanfrey, Histoire de Napoleon Ier (Paris: Charpentier, 1869), II:454;
Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York: Viking, 2014), 308.
12. “Lord Elgin’s Report on Levantine Affairs and Malta,” February 28, 1803,
English Historical Review 36, no. 142 (1921): 236.
13. Treaty of Amiens, www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_
amiens.html.
14. See Desmond Gregory, Malta, Britain and the European Powers, 1793–1815
(Madison, NJ: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1996), ch. 8.
688 | notes to pages 152–154

15. Bonaparte to Alexander I of Russia, 11 March 1803, SIRIO, LXXVII (1891): 55.
16. Preface, in A Description of Malta, with a Sketch of Its History and That of Its
Fortifications, tr. from the Ital., with Notes, by an Officer Resident on the Island
(Malta, 1801), iv.
17. Britain had also failed to evacuate entirely its garrison from Egypt, and some
of its troops remained in Alexandria after Egypt was formally restored to the
Ottomans. It was not until France issued a demand for its complete with-
drawal that Britain satisfied the conditions of the treaty on this point.
18. Hawkesbury to Lord Whitworth, November 14, 1802, in Charles Duke
Yonge, The Life and Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, K.G.
(London: Macmillan, 1868), I:97.
19. For the scope and purpose of Sebastiani’s mission, see Bonaparte to Talleyrand
(August 29, 1802) and Bonaparte to Sebastiani (September 5, 1802), CN,
VIII:9–10, 25–26. For details on Sebastiani’s visit to Tripoli, see André
Auzoux, “La mission de Sébastiani à Tripoli en l’an X (1802),” in Revue des
études napoléoniennes XVI (1919): 225–36.
20. AE “Angleterre,” 600. Steven Englund raises other possibilities: “Was the
publication in Le Moniteur intended as a diversion from the rout that the
French had suffered in the Antilles? It was certainly a trait of Bonaparte’s to
try to cover a retreat with a diversion, but it was equally true that Napoleon
was obsessed with a ‘return’ of Egypt both to vindicate his personal honor and
as a stepping-stone to his ‘Alexandrian’ dream of an Eastern empire. Then, too,
maybe Sebastiani’s piece was also ‘payment’ for the favorable review that the
London Times (a semi-official newspaper) accorded to a book that teemed with
libels about Bonaparte’s Egyptian campaign.” Steven Englund, Napoleon: A
Political Life (New York: Scribner, 2004), 259.
21. It is noteworthy that Bonaparte personally edited Sebastiani’s report and,
clearly anticipating British response, tried to mitigate its tone by replacing
words or cutting sentences. For details see Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic
Imperialism, 117–20.
22. Bonaparte instructed his foreign minister to meet Lord Whitworth, “denying
any the smallest intention of the First Consul’s again interfering in the
affairs of Egypt [and] that he was heartily tired of Egypt.” Lord Whitworth’s
report of February 7, 1803, in Oscar Browning, England and Napoleon in 1803,
Being the Despatches of Lord Whitworth and Others (London: Longmans, Green,
1887), 63.
23. William Miles to Stephen Rolleston, June 10, 1803, in The Correspondence of
William Augustus Miles on the French Revolution, 1789–1817 (London: Longmans,
Green, 1890), II:333.
24. It was already too late to halt the British evacuation of Egypt, since the
orders had left London in November and preparations were under way just
as Sebastiani’s report appeared. The evacuation was duly completed on March
11, 1803.
notes to pages 154–156 | 689

25. Even as he disclaimed any designs on Egypt, in the very same sentence
Bonaparte also suggested that “sooner or later Egypt would belong to France,
either by falling to pieces of the Turkish Empire, or by some arrangement with
the Porte.” Lord Whitworth’s report of February 21, 1803, in Browning,
England and Napoleon in 1803, 79–80. And Napoleon’s minister in London
underscored the French position on Britain’s adherence to all of the treaty’s
provisions by invoking the formula “either all of the treaty or none of the
treaty,” to which the British foreign secretary replied, “Either the state of the
continent as it was or none at all.” Talleyrand to Bonaparte, November 3, 1802,
in Lettres inédites de Talleyrand à Napoléon, 1800–1809, ed. Pierre Bertrand
(Paris: Perrin, 1889), 23–24.
26. “Exposé de la situation de la République,” February 20, 1803, in CN, no. 6591,
VIII:219.
27. Instructions for Ambassador Andréossy, February 19, 1803, AE “Angleterre,”
600. Also see Andreossy’s report of March 1, 1803, in the same source, 600.
28. George III, George III, The Later Correspondence of George III, ed. A. Aspinall
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968) IV:83. The royal statement
seems to have incorporated (verbatim) parts of Addington’s letter to the king
of March 6, 1803, IV:82.
29. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism, 128.
30. See Andreossy’s report of March 8, 1803, AE “Angleterre,” 600.
31. Talleyrand to Andreossy, March 12, 1803, AE “Angleterre,” 600; Lord
Whitworth’s reports of March 12 and 17, 1803, in Browning, England and
Napoleon in 1803, 110–12, 127.
32. Bonaparte to Alexander I, March 11, 1803, SIRIO, LXXVII (1891): 55; CN,
no. 6625, VIII:236–37.
33. Lord Whitworth’s report of March 14, 1803, in Browning, England and Napoleon
in 1803, 115–17; Markov’s report of March 16, in SIRIO, LXXVII (1891):
63–67.
34. Hortense Beauharnais, Mémoires de la reine Hortense, ed. Jean Hanoteau (Paris:
Plon, 1927), I:146–47; Lord Whitworth’s report of March 14, 1803, in
Browning, England and Napoleon in 1803, 126.
35. Lord Whitworth’s report of March 17, 1803, in Browning, England and Napoleon
in 1803, 128.
36. Lord Whitworth’s report of March 18, 1803, in Browning, England and
Napoleon in 1803, 129. Hawkesbury’s letter and Bonaparte’s memo are both in
AE “Angleterre,” 600.
37. See Minister of Marine Decrès’s report to Bonaparte, March 31, 1803 (Archives
Nationales, IV 1190), cited in unpublished paper, Kenneth Johnson, “Bayou
to the Baltic: Napoleon’s Campaigns of 1803–1804.”
38. “Notes of an Arrangement to be Concluded by Treaty or Convention Between
His Majesty and the French Government,” April 3, 1803, in Browning,
England and Napoleon in 1803, 151.
690 | notes to pages 156–157

39. Lord Whitworth’s report of April 9, 1803, in Browning, England and Napoleon in
1803, 162–67; Talleyrand to Andreossy, April 9, 1803, AE “Angleterre,” 600.
40. Talleyrand noted, “Here we have, without doubt, the first verbal ultimatum of
which the history of modern negotiations has any record, and when one thinks
in what circumstances this procedure is employed, it is difficult to avoid the
painful idea that the English government is planning to bring about a rup-
ture.” Talleyrand to Andreossy, April 29, 1803, AE “Angleterre,” 600.
41. Lord Hawkesbury to Lord Whitworth, April 23, 1803, in Browning, England
and Napoleon in 1803, 182–83.
42. In light of the British behavior, “no consideration on earth should induce him
to consent to a concession in perpetuity of Malta in any shape whatever,”
Bonaparte declared. Lord Whitworth’s report of April 23, 1803, in Browning,
England and Napoleon in 1803, 183.
43. Talleyrand to Whitworth, May 2, 1803; Lord Whitworth to Hawkesbury,
May 4, 1803, in Browning, England and Napoleon in 1803, 218–22. Also see
Talleyrand to Andreossy, May 3, 1803, AE “Angleterre,” 600.
44. Talleyrand to Andreossy, May 3, 1803, AE “Angleterre,” 600.
45. Lord Whitworth’s report of May 4, 1803, in Browning, England and Napoleon
in 1803, 220.
46. Lord Hawkesbury to Lord Whitworth, May 7, 1803, in Browning, England
and Napoleon in 1803, 224.
47. Alexander to Bonaparte, Alexander to Markov, and Vorontsov to Markov, all
April 22, 1803, in SIRIO, LXXVII (1891), 100–112; Lord Whitworth’s report
of May 12, 1803, in Browning, England and Napoleon in 1803, 236.
48. Lord Whitworth’s report (May 14) and the French memo are in Browning,
England and Napoleon in 1803, 242–43. The French ambassador’s instructions
of May 13, 1803, authorized him to conclude a formal convention on these
terms. See correspondence between Talleyrand and Andreossy, May 13–20,
1803, AE “Angleterre,” 600.
49. The declaration of the war listed a number of factors contributing to the
British decision to resume hostilities. It first complained about France’s failure
to accept a treaty of commerce with Britain and open its market to the British
commerce. Next came protests against France’s continued military presence in
Holland, intervention in Switzerland, and annexations of Piedmont, Parma,
Placentia, and Elba. The British government argued that in light of France’s
actions, it could not fulfill its obligation to evacuate Malta. It justified its
action by noting that some provisions of Article X had not been yet fulfilled:
a grand master had not been elected and Austria, Russia, and Prussia had
failed to provide guarantees for the protection of the island. Furthermore,
Britain argued that the order of the Maltese knights itself had undergone
changes that were deep enough to make it unable to survive on Malta. Out of
five langues that existed in 1802, two (Aragon and Castile) had been abolished
by Spain, one (Italy) had disappeared after the French annexation of Piedmont,
notes to pages 157–160 | 691

and the property of the fourth one was about to be sequestered by Bavaria. The
British government accused France of masterminding these changes in an
effort to emasculate the order so as to make it “incapable of maintaining inde-
pendence.” These changes, therefore, constituted a breach of the treaty. The
declaration of war also argued that despite pledging to guarantee the integrity
of the Ottoman Empire, France still entertained views hostile to the Turks.
Therefore, Britain could not be “justified in evacuating the island of Malta
without receiving some other security.” Finally the declaration mentioned
Bonaparte’s ill-treatment of the British ambassador, demands for expulsion of
French émigrés from Britain, and coercion of the Hamburg newspapers to
publish anti-British articles as further examples of French indignities toward
Britain. “Declaration of War Against France,” May 18, 1803, in The Annual
Register . . . for the Year 1803 (London: W. Otridge and Son, 1805), 734–42.
50. For details, see J. E. Cookson, The Friends of Peace: Anti-War Liberalism in
England, 1793–1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982).
51. Jenny Uglow, In These Times: Living in Britain Through Napoleon’s Wars, 1793–1815
(New York: Macmillan, 2014), 342. Also see Kevin Linch, “A Geography
of Loyalism? The Local Military Forces of the West Riding of Yorkshire,
1794–1814,” War and Society 19 (May 2001): 1–21; J. W. Fortescue, The
County Lieutenancies and the Army, 1803–1814 (London: Macmillan, 1909),
26–48, 64–69.
52. Otto Brandt, England und die Napoleonische Weltpolitik, 1800–1803 (Heidelberg:
C. Winter, 1916), 210.
53. For Duroc’s reports, see AE “Russie,” 140, 168–215.
54. Alexandre de Clercq, ed., Recueil des Traités de la France (Paris: A. Durand
et Pedone-Lauriel, 1880), I:467–68, 474–75.
55. VPR, I:442–45, 463–66; Frederick W. Kagan, The End of the Old Order.
Napoleon and Europe, 1801–05 (New York: Da Capo Press, 2006), 60–66.
56. Vorontsov to Markov, February 10, 1802, in SIRIO LXX (1890): 332–33.
57. As Hawkesbury explained in his letter to the British ambassador in Vienna,
peace with France would be inherently of a fragile nature, and “we ought never
to forget that is possible we may have no choice, and that we may be reduced
to the necessity of trying again the chances of war; and, even if peace could be
concluded, the power of France on the Continent of Europe [has] become so
formidable, that it is of the utmost importance that a good understanding
should subsist amongst the other great powers of Europe.” Hawkesbury to
Minto, April 24, 1801, FO 7/63.
58. Hawkesbury to St. Helens, April 30, 1801, FO 65/48.
59. See The Parliamentary History of England, from the Earliest Period to the Year 1803
(London: T.C. Hansard, 1820), XXXVI:18–25.
60. For details, see Hawkesbury’s letters from March to June 1801 at FO 65/48
and 65/51. In his instructions (May 19, 1801) to St. Helens, Hawkesbury
underscored that Russia must be informed that Britain is “actuated by now
692 | notes to pages 160–163

views of ambition and aggrandizement, but solely by a desire of restoring


peace to Europe, on terms which may insure its duration”; FO 65/48.
61. Alexander I to Semen Vorontsov, November 12, 1801, Arkhiv knyazya
Vorontsova (Moscow: Tip. Gracheva, 1876), X:300.
62. See the memorandum “Du système politique de l’empire de Russie,” 28 July
1801, VPR, I:63–66.
63. Panin to S. Vorontsov, September 14, 1801, Arkhiv knyazya Vorontsova, XI,
155. For British letters, see FO 65/48. The Russian government was certainly
pleased to hear from Hawkesbury that “of the three powers, Turkey, Naples
and Sardinia for whom the [Russian] emperor has [expressed] a peculiar inter-
est, the first two have been effectually provided for in the preliminaries.”
Hawkesbury to St. Helens, October 16, 1801, FO 65/49.
64. St. Helens to Hawkesbury, September 10, 1801, FO 65/49.
65. See treaty’s text in Du Clercq, Recueil des traités de la France, I:583–87.
66. Hawkesbury to Vorontsov, January 8, 1802, FO 65/50. Interestingly, the
British continued to defer to the Russian court, sharing key details of their
negotiations with France.
67. For details, see H. Beeley, “A Project of Alliance with Russia in 1802,” English
Historical Review 49, no. 195 (1934): 497–502.
68. See Hawkesbury’s letters of September 11, 1802, FO 65/51.
69. Hawkesbury to Warren, October 27, 1802, FO 65/51.
70. Alexander I to S. Vorontsov, January 20, 1803, Arkhiv khyazya Vorontsova,
X:304–6. Also see Alexander I to S. Vorontsov, November 18, 1802, VPR,
I:327; Alexander Vorontsov to Markov, January 5, 1803, SIRIO (1890),
LXX:616.
71. F. de Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie avec les puissances
étrangères (St. Petersburg: A. Böhnke, 1895), XI:68.
72. Traité de paix entre la République française et la Sublime Porte ottomane.
Paris, le 6 messidor an X, AN AE/III/53.
73. “Lord Elgin’s Report on Levantine Affairs and Malta,” February 28, 1803,
English Historical Review 36, no. 142 (1921): 234–36.
74. Bonaparte to Duroc, April 24, 1801, in CN, VII:134.
75. Albert Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre Ier, l’alliance russe sous le premier Empire
(Paris: 1896), I:3.
76. Vorontsov to Markov, January 5, 1803, in SIRIO LXX (1890): 619. Almost a
month later, Vorontsov again explained that Alexander was “satisfied with the
lot which providence has assigned him and does not plan aggrandizement in any
direction. He expects that no one should aggrandize himself at the expense of
Turkey.” Vorontsov to Markov, February 1, 1803, SIRIO, LXXVII (1891): 20.
77. Vorontsov to Markov, January 5, 1803, SIRIO, LXX (1890): 616.
78. Hawkesbury to St. Helens, October 3, 1801, FO 65/49.
79. See Kurakin’s letter of August 13, 1802, in Martens, Recueil des traités et conven-
tions conclus par la Russie, XI:67.
notes to pages 163–165 | 693

80. For details, see Warren’s reports of December 10, 1802–20 January 1803, FO
65/51.
81. Hawkesbury to Lord Whitworth, February 9, 1803, in Browning, England and
Napoleon in 1803, 65–68.
82. Lord Whitworth to Hawkesbury, February 14, 1803, in Browning, England
and Napoleon in 1803, 70.
83. A. Vorontsov to Warren, March 21, 1803; S. Vorontsov to Alexander I, March
25, 1803, VPR, I:393, 399. Also see A. Vorontsov to Markov, 5 January 1803,
SIRIO, LXX (1890): 616.
84. British statesmen complained about the erratic nature of Russian promises. As
Lord Malmesbury wrote, “Russia was now what she has ever been since she had
held . . . a place among the greater powers of Europe—cajoling them all and
courting flattery from them all, but certainly never meaning to take an active
part on behalf of any of them. . . . I fear we here rely too much on Russia: she
will give us advice, but not assistance.” Diaries and Correspondence of James
Harris First Earl of Malmesbury (London: Richard Bentley, 1844), IV:252.
85. Bonaparte to Alexander I, March 11, 1803, SIRIO, LXXVII (1891): 55; CN,
no. 6625, VIII:236–37.
86. “It has sufficed that you should have expressed the wish for it,” Talleyrand
assured the Russian ambassador, “that the First Consul has inserted in this
publication a phrase of such a nature as to reassure the Ottoman Porte on all
the evil rumors which may have reached her.” Talleyrand to Markov, February
21, 1803, in SIRIO, LXXVII (1891): 42.
87. Markov to Alexander, March 16, 1803, in SIRIO, LXXVII (1891): 61;
Whitworth to Hawkesbury, May 4, 1803, in Browning, England and Napoleon
in 1803, 223.
88. Lord Hawkesbury supposedly made this remark upon receiving the offer. See
The Diaries and Correspondence of the Right Hon. George Rose, edited by Rev.
Leveson Vernon Harcourt (London: Richard Bentley, 1860), II:43n.
89. Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris First Earl of Malmesbury, IV:259. In
fact, Addington went as far as to conceal its existence during his speech to
Parliament, when he claimed that “if the interposition of Russia had been
offered, due regard would have been paid it.” This statement drew a vociferous
response from the Russian embassy that accused the prime minister of mis-
leading the public. See Vorontsov’s account in The Diaries and Correspondence of
the Right Hon. George Rose, II:43–44.
90. Alan Schom, Napoleon Bonaparte (New York: HarperCollins, 1997), 307. French
historian Pierre Coquelle argued that Bonaparte desired war to establish an
empire; Napoléon et l’Angleterre, 1803–1813 (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1904), 80.
91. John D. Grainger, The Amiens Truce: Britain and Bonaparte, 1801–1803 (Rochester,
NY: Boydell Press, 2004), 211.
92. Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 230. “It is difficult not to conclude that
694 | notes to pages 165–167

it was thanks to [Bonaparte] that all chance of a lasting peace was lost,” argues
British historian Charles Esdaile, but he is also careful to observe that “this is
not say that Napoleon deliberately sought a rupture of the Treaty of Amiens.
Indeed, though he may have believed that war with Britain and the other pow-
ers was inevitable in the end, he had no desire for the breathing space he had
obtained in Europe to come to an end after only one year.” Charles Esdaile,
Napoleon’s Wars: An International History (New York: Penguin, 2008) 132–33,
153.
93. Bonaparte’s Anglophobia manifested itself in many areas, some rather trivial.
Thus in September 1802 he complained that the Louvre had on public display
a Gobelins tapestry showing the 1346 English siege of Calais. “Such subjects
should not be available for public viewing in Paris,” he observed. Napoleon,
Correspondance Générale, ed. Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2004), III:1104–5.
But it must be also noted that there was strong anti-British feeling in French
society as a whole and especially in the trading classes, which faced British
competition. On behalf of the Committee of Public Safety Betrand Barère
famously insisted that “young French republicans must suck in hatred of the
name of Englishman with their mother’s milk.” For an interesting discussion,
see Frances Acomb, Anglophobia in France, 1763–1789: An Essay in the History
of Constitutionalism and Nationalism (Durham, NC: Duke University Press,
1950); Albert Sorel, L’Europe et la revolution Française (Paris: Plon-Nourrit,
1904), VI:262–63.
94. For the most recent reassessment of the role of “natural frontiers” in French
foreign policy, see Jordan R. Hayworth, Revolutionary France’s War of Conquest
in the Rhineland: Conquering the Natural Frontier, 1792–1797 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2019).
95. Hermann Stegemann, Der Kampf um den Rhein. Das Stromgebiet des Rheins im
Rahmen der großen Politik und im Wandel der Kriegsgeschichte (Stuttgart: Deutsche
Verlags-Anstalt, 1924), 464.
96. Paul Kennedy, Rise and Fall of British Naval Mastery (London: Ashfield, 1976),
97–98, 106–20. Also see Paul Kennedy, The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers
(New York: Random House, 1987), 148–49.
97. Englund, Napoleon, 261.
98. The Diaries and Letters of Sir George Jackson, KCH, from the Peace of Amiens to the
Battle of Talavera (London: Richard Bentley and Son, 1872), I:56.
99. One French historian acerbically notes, “Britain’s justification [for war] was
the preservation of the European balance of power but this grave concern did
not extend to the seas, since in her eyes God had created the oceans for the
English.” Georges Lefebvre, Napoleon: From 18 Brumaire to Tilsit, 1799–1807
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1969), 179.
100. See Frederick Kagan, “The View from a Rogue State: What Napoleon Can Tell
Us About Dealing with Iran,” C-SPAN, July 20, 2006, https://www.c-span.
org/video/?193520-1/the-end-order.
notes to pages 167–168 | 695

101. Vorontsov to Markov, February 10, 1802, in SIRIO LXX (1890): 332–33. Also
see Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie, IX, 67.
102. Henry Dundas submitted this memorandum to the government’s considera-
tion in late March 1800. Correctly noting that commerce and naval power
were “essential to the permanent interest and prosperity of the British Empire.”
Dundas believed that decisive victory over France was unattainable and the
government must do everything to seize and defend new markets for the
British industry and commercial enterprise; if Britain did not act, France
would exploits its military successes to seize the markets for herself. To pre-
vent this, Dundas advocated forceful penetration of the Spanish colonies,
including seizing the island of Tenerife, New Orleans, the mouths of the
Orinoco River and the river Plate, and La Concepcion on the Chilean coastline.
In the fall of 1800, Dundas secured a qualified approval from the cabinet to
pursue his plans for the capture of Cuba and other Spanish possessions. See
Dundas’s memorandum of March 31, 1800, in “Papers of Henry Dundas,
First Viscount Melville, 1779–1813,” David M. Rubenstein Rare Book and
Manuscript Library, Duke University.
103. For example, Tim Blanning claims that France violated the terms of the 1802
Peace of Amiens by not evacuating troops from the Batavian Republic, annex-
ing Piedmont, occupying Parma, and intervening in Switzerland. However,
none of these events constituted a breach of the actual provisions of the Treaty
of Amiens. In fact, France honored its obligations by discussing the fate of
prisoners of war (Article II), recognizing the republic of the Seven Islands
(Article IX), and evacuating from Naples and the Roman State (as required by
Article XI). The rest of the treaty dealt with Spanish (Articles IV, VII), Dutch
(Article V, VI), and, most important, British obligations (Articles III, VI,
VIII, IX, X, XV). Blanning, The Pursuit of Glory: Europe 1648–1815 (New
York: Viking, 2007), 654.
104. It must be noted that Britain was actively trying to stir up turmoil in
Switzerland. For British efforts to use “pecuniary assistance,” see The New
Annual Register, or General Repository of History, Politics, and Literature for the Year
1803 (London: G. and J. Robinson, 1804), 238.
105. Nicomede Bianchi, Storia della monarchia piemontese dal 1773 sino al 1861
(Turin: Fratelli Bocca, 1879), III:419–20. Russia did try to uphold Sardinian
interests, and the Russian envoy to Paris raised this question in conversations
with Bonaparte.
106. In Article XI of the treaty, Austria and France pledged to “mutually guaranty
the independence of the Batavian, Helvetic, Cisalpine, and Ligurian repub-
lics, and the right of the people who inhabit them to adopt what form of
government they please.” Traité de paix entre la République française et
S.M. l’Empereur, et le corps germanique signé à Lunéville, in Leopold Neumann,
ed., Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par l’Autriche avec les puissances étrangères
depuis 1763 jusqu’à nos jours (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1856), II:1–6. The treaty
696 | notes to pages 168–170

was signed on February 9 and ratified by Austria on March 9 and by France on


March 11, 1801.
107. Michel Franceschi and Ben Weider, The Wars Against Napoleon: Debunking
the Myth of the Napoleonic Wars (New York: Savas Beatie, 2008), 11. In 1902
Arthur-Lévy asserted that “during the whole of his reign, Napoleon’s sole aim
was to arrive at a just and lasting peace which would ensure to France that sta-
tus to which she is entitled.” Arthur-Lévy, Napoléon et la Paix (Paris: Nelson,
1902), 15.
108. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, trans. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2007), 28.
109. As Peter Englund aptly put it, “Bonaparte did not have to drive England to war,
but in view of what he did, England had to declare it.” Englund, Napoleon, 262.
110. Bonaparte’s letter of January 15, 1803, to Decaen shows that he anticipated
the peace would survive for at least another year and a half. Correspondance
Générale, no. 7425, III:30.
111. Morning Post, February 1, 1803.
112. Joseph Pelet de la Lozère, Napoleon in Council or the Opinions Delivered by Bonaparte
in the Council of State (London: Whittaker, 1837), 308.
113. Grainger, The Amiens Truce, 147–48.
114. One of them, Jean-Gabriel Peltier, was eventually tried for criminal libel and
found guilty in February 1803. The start of the war, however, meant that he
was never imprisoned. Hélène Maspéro-Clerc, “Un journaliste émigré jugé à
Londres pour diffamation envers le Premier Consul,” Revue d’histoire moderne et
contemporaine 18, no. 2 (1971): 261–81.
115. Michael Durey, “Lord Grenville and the ‘Smoking Gun’: The Plot to Assassinate
the French Directory in 1798–1799 Reconsidered,” Historical Journal 45, no. 3
(2002): 547–68.
116. Furthermore, Britain’s suspension of habeas corpus allowed the arrest and
imprisonment of persons “on suspicion,” without requiring charges or a trial.
117. Frank McLynn, Napoleon: A Biography (New York: Arcade, 2002), 269.
118. Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie, IX, 70. “The real
cause of the rupture,“ states the eminent British historian J. Holland Rose,
“was an essential divergence of view on Oriental policy, in which the future of
India, Egypt, and Malta stood in vital relation.” But Charles Esdaile, one of
the best British historians of the Napoleonic Era, believes that “what it came
down to was that Napoleon could not accept the notion that there should be
curbs on his freedom of action. At the same time, however, Britain had no
means of imposing those curbs except through war. With neither Britain nor
France prepared to make fundamental concessions, there could be in the end
be but one outcome.” A counterpoint is offered by Harold Deutsch: “Britain
had allowed herself to be inveigled into a bargain which she later felt herself
incapable of living up to, for the peace she signed was the utter negation of
every principle for which her traditions commanded her to fight to the bitter
notes to pages 171–175 | 697

end. Not only was the balance of power on the Continent overthrown, but all
the axioms of this doctrine were equally strained. In addition to this, the great
French colonial empire, which the cherished peace of 1763 was thought to
have abolished for all time, seemed on the point of being re-established.” Rose
in Thomas Ussher, Napoleon’s Last Voyages, Being the Diaries of Sir Thomas Ussher,
ed. J. Holland Rose (New York; Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1906), 51n.; Esdaile,
Napoleon’s Wars, 153; Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism, 96.
119. Talleyrand to Hédouville, August 29, 1803, AE “Russie,” 142.
120. Bonaparte to Talleyrand (letter with two annexes), August 23, 1803, CN,
VIII: 490–91; Lord Grenville to the Marquis of Buckingham, March 22,
1803, in Memoirs of the Court and Cabinets of George the Third (London: Hurst
and Blackett, 1855), III:267.
121. Note of October 9, 1802 in Arthur Paget, The Paget Papers: Diplomatic and
Other Correspondence of the Right Honorable Sir Arthur Paget, G.C.B. (1794–1807),
ed. Augustus Paget (London: William Heinemann, 1896), II, 62–63; Diaries
and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury, IV:279.
122. British ambassador Lord Whitworth’s reports often exaggerated domestic prob-
lems in France and claimed that “nine people out of ten” opposed Bonaparte’s
government and that every year “weakens the Consular Government, unsup-
ported as it stand by confidence or affection” and strengthens those whose “object
and interest it is to overturn it.” See his report of December 1, 1802, in Browning,
England and Napoleon in 1803, 18.
123. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism, 141–44.
124. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 243.
125. For Alexander’s position, see his instructions of September 1801 in Martens,
Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par Russie, II:374–75.

Chapter 9
1. For an interesting discussion, see Daniel A. Baugh, “Great Britain’s ‘Blue-Water’
Policy, 1689–1815,” International History Review 10, no. 1 (1998): 33–58; Jeremy
Black and Philip Woodfine, eds., The British Navy and the Use of Naval Power in
the Eighteenth Century (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1988).
2. Morning Post, August 25, 1804.
3. For an in-depth discussion based on the Dutch archival sources, see Martijn
Wink, “Een militair debacle? Bataafse militaire inzet in West-Indië
1802–1804,” BA thesis, University of Leiden, 2018. I am grateful to Martijn
Wink for sharing his work with me.
4. Martin A. Klein, “Slaves, Gum, and Peanuts: Adaptation to the End of the
Slave Trade in Senegal, 1817–48,” William and Mary Quarterly, 66, no. 4
(2009), 895–914.
5. Walter Frewen Lord, “Goree: A Lost Possession of England,” Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society 11 (1897): 139–52; J. M. Gray, A History of the Gambia
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 284–86.
698 | notes to pages 175–177

6. Napoleon to Decrès, June 17, 1803, in Édouard Desbrière, 1793–1805: projets


et tentatives de débarquement aux îles Britanniques (Paris: R. Chapelot, 1902), III:84.
7. See Desbrière, 1793–1805, III:107–109, 355–56, 380, 411.
8. Franco-Dutch Convention, June 25, 1803 in Georg Friedrich Martens, Recueil
des principaux traités d’alliance, de paix, de trève, de neuralité, de commerce, de limites,
d’échange, etc. (Gottingue: Librairie de Dieterich, 1801), VII:702–706.
9. Franco-Suisse Conventions, September 27, 1803, in Martens, Recueil des princi-
paux traités, VIII:132–39.
10. Charles Auriol, La France, l’Angleterre et Naples de 1803 á 1806 (Paris: Plon-
Nourrity, 1904), I:352–447.
11. On the role of Hanover in British policies of the revolutionary era, see Torsten
Riotte, Hannover in der Britischen politik (1792–1815) (Münster: Lit, 2005),
esp. 61–162.
12. Bonaparte to Frederick William of Prussia, March 11, 1803, and Bonaparte to
Duroc, March 12, 1803, CN, no. 6629, VIII:243–46.
13. For details, see Brendan Simms, The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics,
Foreign Policy, and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 67–148.
14. F. de Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie avec les puissances
étrangères (St. Petersburg: A. Böhnke, 1895), VI:310.
15. Frederick William to Bonaparte, March 25, 1803, Archives du Ministère des
Affaires Étrangères, “Prusse,” 227.
16. For details, see Paul Bailleur, ed., Preussen und Frankreich von 1795 bis 1807:
Diplomatische correspondenzen (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1887), II:95–102; Philip
G. Dwyer, “Two Definitions of Neutrality: Prussia, the European States-
System, and the French Invasion of Hanover in 1803,” International History
Review 19, no. 3 (1997): 525–28.
17. Talleyrand to Laforest, May 17, 1803, in Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich,
II:142–45.
18. For better insights into Russian foreign policy, see Patricia Grimsted,
“Czartoryski’s System for Russian Foreign Policy, 1803,” in California Slavic
Studies, ed. Nicholas V. Riasanovsky and Gleb Struve (Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1970), V:19–92.
19. A Prussian envoy reported that senior Russian officials, including Chancellor
Vorontsov, believed that by offering to occupy Prussia, Prussia had become “the
executor of Bonaparte’s will [volonté].” Heinrich Ulmann, Russisch-preussische poli-
tik unter Alexander I. und Friedrich Wilhelm III. bis 1806 (Leipzig: Duncker und
Humblot, 1899), 61–62. For interesting insights, see Uta Krüger-Löwenstein,
Russland, Frankreich und das Reich 1801–1803; zur Vorgeschichte der 3. Koalition
(Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1972), 43–63, 104–25.
20. See Haugwitz to Frederick William III, October 26, 1803, and Haugwitz’s
Memorandum of November 3, 1803, in Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich,
II:209–13.
notes to pages 177–180 | 699

21. Louis Pierre Bignon, Histoire de France depuis 1793 jusu’en 1812 (Paris: Charles
Bechet, 1830), III:128–30; Adolphus William Ward, Great Britain and
Hanover (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1899), 202–8; Friedrich von Ompteda,
Die Ueberwdltigung Hannovers durch die Franzosen (Hanover: Helwing, 1862),
126–27.
22. Harold C. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1938), 169.
23. See “Projet de concert à établir entre sa majesté l’empereur de toutes les Russies
et sa majesté le roi de Prusse,” VPR, I:442–44, 463–65. Also Alopeus to
Haugwitz, May 19, 1803, VPR, I:434; Vorontsov to Alopeus, May 24, 1803,
in Martens, Recueil des traités conclus par la Russie, VI:314.
24. For discussion of Russian motives, see Ulmann, Russisch-preussische politik, 69;
W. H. Zawadzki, “Prince Adam Czartoryski and Napoleonic France,
1801–1805: A Study in Political Attitudes,” Historical Journal 18, no. 2
(1975): 248–49. For Bonaparte’s overtures see Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich,
II:148–51, and Johann von Lombard’s report on his negotiations with
Bonaparte, 183–89; Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism, 165–68.
25. The Works of William Shakespeare: The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, edited by Michael
MacMillan (London: Methuen, 1902), 132.
26. Haugwitz to Frederick William III, and Frederick William III to Haugwitz,
June 4–9, 1803, in Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich, II:152–54, 159–61.
27. For details, see letters by Lucchesini and Talleyrand, November–December
1803, in Bailleu, Preussen und Frankreich, II:215–20, 223–32.
28. Cobenzl to Colloredo, July 6, 1802, in Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic
Imperialism, 58.
29. Article II, Anglo-Russian Treaty, April 11, 1805, in J. Holland Rose, ed.,
Select Despatches from the British Foreign Office Archives Relating to the Formation
of the Third Coalition Against France, 1804–1805 (London: Royal Historical
Society, 1904), 266.
30. Andrés Muriel, Historia de Carlos IV (Madrid: Imp. de Manuel Tello, 1894),
XXXIV:82–87.
31. Armstrong to Monroe, May 4, 1805, cited in Clifford L. Egan, “The United
States, France, and West Florida, 1803–1807,” Florida Historical Quarterly 47,
no. 3 (1969): 234.
32. Frederick C. Schneid, Napoleon’s Conquest of Europe: The War of the Third Coalition
(Westport, CT: Praeger, 2005), 24.
33. For details, see Salvador Bermúdez de Castro y O’Lawlor, marqués de Lema,
Antecedentes políticos y diplomáticos de los sucesos de 1808; Estudio histórico-crítico
escrito con la presencia de documentos inéditos del Archivo Reservado de Fernando VII,
del Histórico-nacional y otros (Madrid: F. Beltrán, 1912), esp. 231–32.
34. Javier Cuenca Esteban, “Statistics of Spain’s Colonial Trade, 1792–1820:
Consular Duties, Cargo Inventories and Balances of Trade,” Hispanic American
Historical Review 61, no. 3 (1981): 409.
700 | notes to pages 180–184

35. See André Fugier, Napoléon et l’Espagne, 1799–1808 (Paris: F. Alcan, 1930),
I:185–89; Jacques Chastenet, Godoy: Master of Spain, 1792–1808 (London:
Batchworth Press, 1953), 118.
36. Ana María Schop Soler, Las relaciones entre España y Rusia en la época de Carlos IV
(Barcelona: Universidad de Barcelona, Cátedra de Historia General de España,
1971), 88.
37. Schop Soler, Las relaciones entre España y Rusia, 116–17.
38. Spain was also given an “option” of declaring war on Britain, which would
then require a Spanish contribution of two corps, one to invade Portugal and
another to blockade Gibraltar.
39. Napoleon to Talleyrand, August 14–16, 1803, in CN, nos. 7,007–7,008,
VIII:458–63.
40. Fugier, Napoleon et l’Espagne, I:220–22.
41. Bonaparte to Charles IV, September 18, 1803, CN, no. 7113, VIII:680–81.
42. Michael W. Jones, “Fear and Domination: Pierre Riel, the Marquis de
Beurnonville at the Spanish Court and Napoleon Bonaparte’s Spanish Policy,
1802–05,” Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 2004, 80.
43. Frederick H. Black, “Diplomatic Struggles: British Support in Spain and
Portugal, 1800–1810,” Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 2005, 47–72.
44. Alexandre de Clercq, ed., Recueil des Traités de la France (Paris: A. Durand et
Pedone-Lauriel, 1880), II:83–84. In December, Portugal signed a similar
agreement with France, buying its neutrality for a price of 16 million francs
and the opening of Portuguese markets to French commerce.
45. Charles-Alexandre Geoffroy de Grandmaison, L’Espagne et Napoléon,
1804–1809 (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1908), I:1–5; André Fugier, Napoléon et
l’Espagne, 1799–1808 (Paris: F. Alcan, 1930), I:186–97, 204–47, 294–313.
46. See Desbrière, 1793–1805, vol. I for preparations in 1794–1797 and volume
II for 1798–1801.
47. See instructions and reports in Desbrière, 1793–1805, vols. III–IV, and in
Napoleon, Correspondance Générale, ed. Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2004),
vols. 4–5. Well over a third of Napoleon’s correspondence for the years 1803
and 1804 relates to the planning of the invasion of Britain. Also see
H. F. B. Wheeler, Napoleon and the Invasion of England: The Story of the Great
Terror (London: John Lane, 1908), vol. 2.
48. See documents in SHD MV BB1, 26.
49. Probably the best study on the national flotilla remains Jacques Blanc, “La
flottille nationale, 1803–1805,” MA thesis, Université Paris IV, 2007.
50. Peter Lloyd, The French Are Coming! 1805: The Invasion Scare of 1803–1805
(Kent, UK: Spellmount, 1991), 24–25, 29–30.
51. Spending costs estimated based on data in Desbrière, 1793–1805, III:90–92,
97, 111–12, 149, 152, 174, 350, 358, 384–85, 389, 452, 463, 538.
Documents preserved in the French archives also provide wealth of data on this
point. In August 1803, a report to the Minister of the Navy showed that prices
notes to pages 184–186 | 701

for gunboats and transports ranged between 6,000 francs for a caique (small
fishing boat) to 140,000 francs for a flat-bottomed transport. See documents in
SHD MV BB1, 28 and AN Archives du Consulat et de la Secrétairerie d’État
impériale AF/IV/1195, 1203–205.
52. Martin van Creveld, Command in War (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1985), 65–78, provides a good summary of Napoleon’s headquarters
and staff system. For the unheralded but crucial figure of Intendant General
Pierre Daru, see Bernard Bergerot, Daru, Intendant-Général de la Grande Armée
(Paris: Tallandier, 1991).
53. Berthier to Ney, January 18, 1807, in Jean Baptiste Modeste Eugene Vachée,
Napoleon at Work (London: Adam and Charles Black, 1914), 24; Gunther
Rothenberg, The Art of Warfare in the Age of Napoleon (Bloomington: Indiana
University Press, 1978), 129.
54. Napoleon established six camps along the Atlantic coastline. Soult took com-
mand of the camps around Boulogne, called “camp de Boulogne et de Saint-
Omer”; Ney commanded “camp de Montreuil,” established near Étaples;
Davout was in charge of camps in the north, near Bruges and Ambleteuse. The
locations of some of these camps are particularly noteworthy, since they
allowed Napoleon to draw on resources from outside France. Thus, the Bayonne
camp, commanded by Marshal Pierre Augereu, was located on the border with
Spain, and its presence (with the implied threat to Spain) compelled the
Spanish court to buy its neutrality with a large financial subsidy. Desbrière,
1793–1805, III:68–77; Fréderic Lemaire, “Les camps napoléoniens d’Étaples-
sur-Mer (camp de Montreuil, 1803–1805). Recherches en cours,” in Revue du
Nord, 2010, 39–49 n. 388. For French threats against Spain, see Bonaparte to
Talleyrand, August 14, 1803, CN, no. 7007, VIII:458–61.
55. Jean Roch Coignet, Les Cahiers du capitaine Coignet (Paris: Hachette, 1883),
161–62. For discussion of officers and soldiers of the Grande Armée, see
Michael J. Hughes, Forging Napoleon’s Grande Armee: Motivation, Military
Culture, and Masculinity in the French Army, 1800–1808 (New York: New York
University Press, 2012); Jean-Claude Damamme, Les soldats de la Grande Armée
(Paris: Perrin, 1998); John Robert Elting, Swords Around a Throne: Napoleon’s
Grande Armée (New York: Free Press, 1988).
56. “Note pour le Bureau de l’Organization, 8 fructidor an XIII” (August 26,
1805), in Paul Claude Alombert-Goget and Jean Lambert Alphonse Colin, La
Campagne de 1805 en Allemagne (Paris: R. Chapelot, 1902), I:330–32; see also
“Composition of the Grande Armée as of 30 September 1805,” II:158–68.
57. Napoleon to Eugène de Beauharnais, June 7, 1809, in CN, no. 15310, XIX:81.
58. “War is the province of uncertainty: three-fourths of those things upon which
action in War must be calculated, are hidden more or less in the clouds of great
uncertainty. Here, then, above all a fine and penetrating mind is called for, to
search out the truth by the tact of its judgment.” Carl von Clausewitz, On War,
trans. J. J. Graham (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1908), I:48–49.
702 | notes to pages 186–190

59. David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (New York: Scribner, 1966), 185.
60. For a long term impact of this scare on the British public, see Eve Darian-
Smith, Bridging Divides: The Channel Tunnel and English Legal Identity in the
New Europe (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1999), 71–93.
61. Cited in Donald Graves, Dragon Rampant: The Royal Welch Fusiliers at War,
1793–1815 (Barnsley, UK: Frontline Books, 2010), 51.

Chapter 10
1. See Louis Georges de Cadoudal, Georges Cadoudal et la chouannerie (Paris:
E. Plon, 1887), 292–317; G. Lenotre, Georges Cadoudal (Paris: B. Grasset,
1929); Patrick Huchet, Georges Cadoudal et les chouans (Rennes: Éditions Ouest-
France, 1998); Jean François Chiappe, Georges Cadoudal ou la liberté (Paris:
Librairie académique Perrin, 1971); Jean de La Varende, Cadoudal (Paris:
Éditions françaises d’Amsterdam, 1952).
2. Anne Jean Marie René Savary, Memoirs of the Duke of Rovigo (London: Henry
Colburn, 1828), I:287. On Bernadotte’s involvement in these intrigues, see
Dunbar Plunket Barton, Bernadotte and Napoleon, 1763–1810 (London: John
Murray, 1921), 47–65.
3. Anne-Louise-Germaine de Staël, Ten Years’ Exile (London: Treuttel and Wurtz,
1821), 68–69.
4. John R. Hall, General Pichegru’s Treason (London: Smith, Elder, 1915), 349–51.
For Pichegru’s earlier intrigues, see G. Caudrillier, Le Trahison de Pichegru et les
intrigues royalistes dans l’Est avant Fructidor (Paris: Félix Alcan, 1908).
5. Frances Montgomery, “General Moreau and the Conspiracy Against Napoleon
in 1804: The Verdict of the Court and of History,” Proceedings of the Consortium
on Revolutionary Europe, 1988, 165–87; Ernest Picard, Bonaparte et Moreau
(Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1905), 352–405. Also see Pierre Savinel, Moreau, rival
républicain de Bonaparte (Rennes: Ouest-France, 1986); Soizik Moreau, Jean-
Victor Moreau: l’adversaire de Napoléon (Paris: Punctum, 2005).
6. Jean-Paul Bertaud, Bonaparte et le duc d’Enghien: le duel des deux France (Paris:
R. Laffront, 1972); Henri Welschinger, Le duc d’Enghien (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit,
1888). The duke had commanded royalist troops during the Revolutionary
Wars and sworn opposition to the revolutionary government.
7. Henri Welschinger, Le duc d’Enghien. L’enlèvement d’Ettenheim et l’exécution de
Vincennes (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1913); Andréa Davy-Rousseau, “Autour de la
mort du duc d’Enghien,” Revue du souvenir Napoléonien 334 (1984): 2–15;
Jacques Godechot, The Counter-Revolution: Doctrine and Action, 1789–1804
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1981), 376–81.
8. André François Miot de Mélito, Memoirs of Count Miot de Mélito, Minister,
Ambassador, Councillor of State and Member of the Institute of France, Between the
Years 1788 and 1815, ed. Wilhelm August Fleischmann (New York: Scribner,
1881), 311.
9. Miot de Mélito, Memoirs, 310.
notes to pages 190–193 | 703

10. Miot de Mélito, Memoirs, 312–14; Vincent Cronin, Napoleon Bonaparte: An


Intimate Biography (New York ; Morrow, 1972), 244.
11. “Récit de Le Couteulx de Canteleu,” in Correspondance du duc d’Enghien
(1801–1804) et documents sur son enlèvement et sa mort (Paris: A. Picard, 1908), II:443.
12. Henri Welschinger, “L’Europe et l’exécution du duc d’Enghien,” in Revue de la
Société des études historiques 8 (1890): 1–19, 73–94.
13. Cited in Harold C. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1938), 193.
14. Welschinger, “L’Europe et l’exécution du duc d’Enghien,” 84.
15. When told that his conduct was not reflecting the wishes of his sovereign,
Markov replied, “The emperor may have his opinion, but the Russians have
their own.” Talleyrand to Laforest, October 4, 1803, in Paul Bailleur, ed.,
Preussen und Frankreich von 1795 bis 1807: Diplomatische correspondenzen, vol. 2
(Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1881–1887), II:205.
16. See Jacques Godechot, Le comte d’Antraigues: Un espion dans l’Europe des émigrés
(Paris: Fayard, 1986); Léonce Pingaud, Un agent secret sous la révolution et l’empire:
le comte d’Antraigues (Paris, E. Plon Nourrit, 1894).
17. The Russian foreign minister noted in his memoirs: “The seizure of the Duc
d’Enghien by a French detachment in an independent country with which
France was at peace, and his trial and execution which immediately followed,
produced a general feeling of stupor and indignation which those who did not
witness it could not easily realize.” Adam Czartoryski, Memoirs of Prince Adam
Czartoryski and His Correspondence with Alexander I, ed. Adam Gielgud (London:
Remington, 1888), II:14.
18. Edouard Driault, Napoléon et l’Europe. Austerlitz, la fin du Saint-empire
(1804–1806) (Paris: F. Alcan, 1912), 53–64; Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic
Imperialism, 200–204.
19. Czartoryski, Memoirs, II:15; Albert Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution française
(Paris: Plon Nourrit, 1903), VI:361.
20. For the Russian overtures to Austria, see VPR, I:216, 222–23, 236, 246, 251
and 295. For the Austrian side, see Adolf Beer, Zehn jahre österreichischer politik,
1801–1810 (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1877), 73–77.
21. The Berlin Declaration, May 24, 1804, in F. de Martens, Recueil des traités et
conventions conclus par la Russie avec les puissances étrangères (St. Petersburg:
A. Böhnke, 1895), VI:337–45. For a broad discussion, see Deutsch, The Genesis
of Napoleonic Imperialism, 160–71; Schroeder, The Transformation of European
Politics, 253–55.
22. Miot de Mélito, Memoirs, 248; Lucchesini’s report of July 20, 1802, in Bailleur,
Preussen und Frankreich, II:106; Markov’s report of June 5, 1802, in SIRIO
(1890) LXX:427.
23. Joseph Bonaparte argued this point in one of his letters: “The conspiracy of
Georges and Moreau decided the declaration of a hereditary title. With
Napoleon as Consul for a period, a coup de main might overthrow him; as
704 | notes to pages 193–196

Consul for life, the blow of a murderer would have been required. He assumed
hereditary rank as a shield. It would then no longer suffice to kill him; the
whole State would have had to be overthrown. The truth is that the nature of
things tended towards the hereditary principle: it was a matter of necessity.”
Cited in Claude-Francois Méneval, Mémoires pour servir à histoire de Napoléon Ier
depuis 1802 jusqu’à 1815 (Paris: E. Dentu, 1893), I:330.
24. Henri Welschinger, Le Pape et l’Empereur, 1804–1815 (Paris: Librairie Plon-
Nourrit, 1905), 15.
25. Constitution de l’an XII: senatus-consulte du 28 floréal an XII conférant le
titre d’empereur héréditaire des Français à Napoléon Bonaparte, AN AE/
II/1512. For details, see Thierry Lentz, ed., La proclamation du Premier Empire
(Paris: Fondation Napoléon, 2002).
26. Lentz, La France et l’Europe de Napoléon, 97. The results show that 60 percent of
some 8.9 million voters had abstained.
27. Louis Madelin, The Consulate and the Empire (New York: AMS Press, 1967),
I:212.
28. The date itself was a compromise between Napoleon’s demand for November
9 (the fifth anniversary of the Eighteenth of Brumaire coup) and the pope’s
desire to have the coronation coincide with Christmas (the 804th anniversary
of Charlemagne’s coronation). For details, see Thierry Lentz, Émilie Barthet, et
al., Le sacre de Napoléon, 2 décembre 1804 (Paris: Nouveau Monde, 2003).
29. Lentz, La France et l’Europe de Napoléon, 27–84; Irene Collins, Napoleon and His
Parliaments, 1800–1815 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979).
30. In July 1804, with Austrian delaying the recognition, Napoleon threatened to
take action. In July the Russian envoy reported a conversation Napoleon had
with his aides-de-camp where he threatened that “if [Austria] continued to
prevaricate, he would fix a term for her to make a decision and then, if she let
that term pass without sending new letters of accreditation to her ambassador,
he would change the face of Europe.” Oubril to Czartoryski, July 6, 1804,
SIRIO, LXXVII (1891): 659.
31. Czartoryski to Razumovskii, June 19, 1804, VPR, II:31.
32. Napoleon to Francis of Austria, to Charles IV of Spain, and to Ferdinand of
Naples, January 1–2, 1805, in CN, X:98–99, 101–3.
33. Napoleon to George III, January 2, 1805, in CN, X:100–101.
34. Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, Mémoires du Prince Adam Czartoryski et Correspondance
avec l’Empereur Alexandre Ier (Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit, 1887), I:388.
35. Deutsch, The Genesis of Napoleonic Imperialism, 257–332; Schroeder, Transformation
of European Politics, 258–72; Frederick W. Kagan, The End of the Old Order:
Napoleon and Europe 1801–1805 (New York: Da Capo, 2006), 83–228.
36. For details, see the Russo-Swedish Convention, January 14, 1805, and the
Russian Declaration of Guarantee of the Anglo-Swedish Convention, August
31, 1805, in Originaltraktater med främmande makter (traktater), Riksarkivet,
SE/RA/25.3/2/42/A-H, SE/RA/25.3/2/43/A-B. Also see Convention Between
notes to pages 197–202 | 705

Russia and Kingdom of Both Sicilies, September 10, 1805, VPR, II:570–77;
Russo-Turkish Treaty, September 23, 1805, VPR, II:584–94; Article I, St.
Petersburg Convention, April 11, 1805, VPR, II:356.
37. Article 2 in Martens, Recueil des Traités, II:435.
38. Separate Article 6, Martens, Recueil des Traités, II:443.
39. Kagan, The End of the Old Order, 234; Moritz Edler von Angeli, “Ulm und
Austerlitz. Studie auf Grund archivalischer Quellen über den Feldzug 1805 in
Deutschland,” Mittheilungen des Kaiserlichen und Koniglichen Kriegsarchivs
(Vienna, 1877), 398–400; in Paul Claude Alombert-Goget and Jean Lambert
Alphonse Colin, La Campagne de 1805 en Allemagne (Paris: R. Chapelot, 1902),
I:39–69; David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (New York: Scribner,
1966), 382–83.
40. As war loomed between France and Austria, Napoleon sought allies from among
the larger German states, some of which had territory to gain and greater auton-
omy to acquire by siding against the Habsburgs. Bavaria was the first to throw
in its lot with France, signing a treaty of alliance on September 23, 1805,
followed by Baden and Württemberg on October 1 and 8, respectively.
41. Alfred Krauss, Beilagen zu 1805 der Feldzug von Ulm (Vienna: Seidel und Sohn,
1912), Beilage III:1–6.
42. Much has been made in English-language studies of the difference of twelve
days between the Gregorian and Julian calendars used, respectively, in Austria
and Russia. However, archival documentation, including original correspond-
ence between Russian and Austrian high commands, does not support such
claims. In fact, Russian letters carried dates under both calendars.
43. François Nicolas Mollien, Mémoires d’un ministre du trésor public: 1780–1815
(Paris: Félix Alcan, 1898) I:408–9.
44. Miot de Mélito, Memoirs, II:142–43.
45. For a concise but insightful discussion of the Grande Armée’s march to the
Rhine, see Frederic L. Huidekoper, “Napoleon’s Concentration on the Rhine
and Main in 1805,” Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United States
XLI (1907): 207–20.
46. Eric Arnold, “Fouche Versus Savary: French Military Intelligence in the Ulm-
Austerlitz Campaign,” in Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe,
1976, 55–67. Also see Jean Savant, Les espions de Napoléon (Paris: Hachette, 1957),
123–45; Paul Müller, L’Espionnage militaire sous Napoleon 1er Ch. Schulmeister (Paris:
Berger-Levrault, 1896); Abel Douay and Gérard Hertault, Schulmeister: dans les
coulisses de la Grande Armée (Paris: Nouveau Monde Éditions, 2002).
47. Two Austrian detachments, however, did break out of the encirclement, only
to surrender later: the Archduke Ferdinand, with 13,000 cavalry, eventually
capitulated at Trochtelfingen, while another 12,000 men wound up laying
down their arms at Neustadt.
48. Elsewhere the minor Allied operations failed as well. The British and Swedes
had achieved little in Hanover, while the Russian expeditionary corps was
706 | notes to pages 202–204

turned back by a storm. In southern Italy, the French defeated the British-
supported Neapolitans and chased them from the mainland to Sicily.
49. On October 2, Major General Peter Bagration, who commanded the Russian
advance guard, reported: “I made forced marches on [September 27–28], the
first march lasting continuously for almost 24 hours, and the second one even
longer than that.” Bagration to Kutuzov, October 2, 1805, in Dokumenti shtaba
M. I. Kutuzova, 1805–1806, ed. A. Karvyalis and V. Soloveyev (Vilnius:
Gos. izdatelstvo polit literatury, 1951), 59–60. Kutuzov complained that
the Russian soldiers were given rest only after four days of forced marches.
Consequently, the number of sick greatly increased while “the healthy soldiers
are so exhausted that they are barely standing on their feet. Furthermore,
due to damp weather, most of our troops have already worn down their boots
and are forced to walk bare-footed and suffer so grievously from marching on
paved roads that they can no longer remain in ranks.” Kutuzov to Strauch,
October 1, 1805, in M. I. Kutuzov: Sbornik dokumentov, ed. Liubomir Beskrovnyi
(Moscow: Voennoe izdatelstvo Voennogo Ministerstva Soyuza SSR, 1954),
II:68–69.
50. Murat to Napoleon, November 13, 1805, in Paul Le Brethon, ed. Lettres et
Documents pour servir a l’histoire de Joachim Murat, 1767–1815 (Paris: Librarie
Plon, 1910), IV:146–48.
51. For an excellent discussion of this incident, see Frederic L. Huidekoper, “The
Surprise of the Tabor Bridge at Vienna by Prince Murat and Marshal Lannes,
November 13, 1805,” in Journal of the Military Service Institution of the United
States XXXVI (1905): 275–93, 513–30.
52. Napoleon to Murat, November 16, 1805, in Napoleon, Correspondance générale,
ed. Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2008), V:856.
53. Russo-Prussian Convention, November 3, 1805, VPR, II:613–19.
54. However, the relations between the Russian and Austrian officers remained
tense—the former loathed the latter, who, they claimed, had lost every battle
in the campaign and now wanted the Russians to do the heavy work. These
sentiments were reinforced by Russian accusations that some Austrian officers
were spying for the French. Kutuzov to Liechtenstein, November 24, 1805,
Dokumenty shtaba M.I. Kutuzova, 1805–1806, ed. V. Karvyalis and A. Solovyeov
(Vilna, 1951), 199–200.
55. Alexander later observed, “I was young and inexperienced; Kutuzov told me
that we had to act differently, but he should have been more persistent in his
arguments.” Nikolai Shilder, Imperator Aleksandr Pervyi, ego zhiznʹ i tsarstvovanie
(St. Petersburg: A. S. Suvorin, 1897), II:134.
56. Weyrother was among a few Austrian officers who had influence over Alexander.
Prince Adam Czartoryski, the Russian emperor’s trusted confidant, recalled
that Weyrother was “an officer of great bravery and military knowledge, but,
like General Mack, he trusted too much in his combinations, which were often
complicated, and did not admit that they might be foiled by the skill of the
notes to pages 204–205 | 707

enemy.” Czartoryski, Memoirs, 102. Similar characterization of Weyrother in


W. Rüstow, Der krieg von 1805 in Deutschland und Italien (Zürich: Meyer &
Zeller, 1859), 325.
57. Christopher Duffy, Austerlitz 1805 (London: Seeley Service, 1977), 75.
58. The Czar’s General: The Memoirs of a Russian General in the Napoleonic Wars,
trans. and ed. Alexander Mikaberidze (Welwyn Garden City, UK: Ravenhall
Books, 2005), 56. Alexey Yermolov, one of the most distinguished Russian
generals of the early nineteenth century, commanded a horse artillery company
in the Russian advance (and later rear) guards.
59. Shilder, Alexander, 135; Alexander Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie pervoi
voiny imperatora Aleksandra s Napoleonom v 1805-m godu (St. Petersburg: Tip.
Shtaba otd. korpusa vnutrennei strazhi, 1844), 142; Czartoryski, Memoirs,
104; Alexander-Andrault Langeron, “Journal inédit de la campagne de 1805,”
in Relations et rapports officiels de la bataille d’Austerlitz, 1805, ed. Jacques
Garnier (Paris: La Vouivre, 1998), 31.
60. “Disposition for Offensive to Menitz and Sokolnitz Against the Enemy Right
Flank on December 1, 1805,” n.d. (ca. November 30, 1805), RGVIA, f. 846
op. 16, d. 3117/1, ll. 47.
61. Czartoryski, Memoirs, II:105.
62. Langeron, Journal inedit de la campagne de 1805, 31. Major General Stutterheim
observed, “The Allies flattered themselves that [Napoleon] would not risk the
fate of a battle in front of Brünn. After [the action at Wischau] this hope became
the prevailing opinion at the headquarters.” Stutterheim, La Bataille d’Austerlitz,
par un militaire témoin de la journée du 2 décembre 1805 (Paris, 1806), 44.
63. “Additional Bulletin, December 31, 1805, Correspondence of Olry, Istoricheskii
Vestnik 147 (1917): 458–59.
64. Dolgorukov to Alexander, November 25, 1805, in Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky,
Opisanie, 144. Listening to Dolgorukov’s overbearing remarks, Napoleon lost
his temper: “Away with you! Go and tell your emperor that I am not in the
habit of tolerating insults of this kind. Be gone immediately!” Paul-Philippe
Ségur, Histoire et mémoires (Paris: Librairie de Firmin-Didot, 1877), II:448.
Also see Jean Lambert Alphonse Colin, “Campagne de 1805,” Revue Historique
77 (1907): 284–90; Anne Jean Marie René Savary, Memoirs du duc de Rovigo
(London: H. Colburn, 1828), II:198–99.
65. Langeron, Journal inedit de la campagne de 1805, 30; Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky,
Opisanie, 145.
66. “Additional Bulletin, December 31, 1805, Correspondence of Olry, in Istoricheskii
Vestnik 147 (1917): 460–61.
67. Duffy, Austerlitz, 81; Rüstow, Der Krieg von 1805, 356–57; Dokhturov was near
Hostjeradek and Kinmeyer’s detachment was at Augezo. General Langeron’s col-
umn was on Dokhturov’s right flank. Przybyszewsky was at Pratzen. Kollowrath
stopped behind him and Liechtenstein was even further behind the third and
fourth columns.
708 | notes to pages 205–210

68. “Deployment of Troops, December 1, 1805,” in Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky,


Opisanie, 145–48; Langeron, Journal inedit de la campagne de 1805, 41; Jean
Lambert Alphonse Colin, “Campagne de 1805,” Revue Historique 77 (1907): 291;
Michel de Lombarès, “Devant Austerlitz,” Revue historique de l’armée 3 (1947): 47.
69. Joseph de Maistre, Peterburgskie pisma (St. Petersburg, 1995), 61. Similar informa-
tion in Correspondence of Olry, in Istoricheskii Vestnik, 147 (1917): 433.
70. Diaries and Correspondence of James Harris, First Earl of Malmesbury (London:
Richard Bentley, 1845), IV:339.
71. General Dmitri Dokhturov’s letters to his wife, Russkii arkhiv 12, no. 1 (1874):
1091–2.
72. Peter Goodwin, The Ships of Trafalgar: The British, French and Spanish Fleets, 21
October 1805 (London: Conway Maritime, 2005); Robert Mackenzie, The
Trafalgar Roll: The Officers, the Men, the Ships (London: Chatham, 2004); Brian
Lavery, Nelson’s Fleet at Trafalgar (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2004).
73. See Roger Knight, Pursuit of Victory: The Life and Achievemnt of Horatio Nelson
(London: Allen Lane, 2005), 502–8; Adam Nicolson, Men of Honour: Trafalgar
and the Making of the English Hero (London: HarperCollins, 2005).
74. Nelson to Rose, October 6, 1805, in The Dispatches and Letters of Vice Admiral
Lord Viscount Nelson, ed. Nicholas H. Nicholas (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2011), VII:80; also see his October 9, 1805, letter to
Collingwood.
75. Captain Pierre Servaux’s account in Edward Fraser, The Enemy at Trafalgar: An
Account of the Battle from Eye-Witness Narratives and Letters and Despatches from the
French and Spanish Fleets (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1906), 214.
76. For a discussion of the battle, see Alan Schom, Trafalgar: Countdown to Battle,
1803–1805 (London: Penguin, 1992); John Harbron, Trafalgar and the
Spanish Navy: The Spanish Experience of Sea Power (London: Conway Maritime,
2004); John Terraine, Trafalgar (London: Wordsworth, 1998); René Maine,
Trafalgar: Napoleon’s Naval Waterloo (London: Thames and Hudson, 1957);
Gregory Fremont-Barnes, Trafalgar 1805: Nelson’s Crowning Victory (Oxford:
Osprey, 2005).
77. For example, Ian Christie, Wars and Revolutions: Britain, 1760–1815
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1982), 266; J. Steven Watson,
The Oxford History of England, vol. XII, The Reign of George III, 1760–1815
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1960), 433; Roy Adkins, Trafalgar: The Biography of
a Battle (London: Little, Brown, 2005), 277–78; David Andress, The Savage
Storm: Britain on the Brink in the Age of Napoleon (London: Little, Brown, 2012),
124. Also see Arthur Bryant, Years of Victory, 1802–1812 (New York: Harper
& Bros. 1945); C. Northcote Parkinson, Britannia Rules: The Classic Age of
Naval History 1793–1815 (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1977).
78. Piers Mackesy lamented that fact that “the struggle at sea has generally been
written as thought it ended at Trafalgar before the war had run a quarter of its
course.” Piers Mackesy, The War in the Mediterranean 1803–1810 (Cambrdge,
notes to pages 210–213 | 709

MA: Harvard University Press, 1957), vii. For a recent discussion, see James
Davey’s excellent study, In Nelson’s Wake: The Navy and the Napoleonic Wars
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015).
79. Michael Broers, The Napoleonic Empire in Italy, 1796–1814: Cultural Imperialism
in a European Context? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 190–92; Charles
McKay, “French Mismanagement and the Revolt of Parma, 1806,” Proceedings
of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1995, 445–52.
80. Napoleon to Junot, February 7, 1806, in CN, XII:18–19.
81. Henri Welschinger, Le pape et l’empereur, 1804–1815 (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1905),
46–62; E. Hales, Napoleon and the Pope: The Story of Napoleon and Pius VII (London:
Eyre & Spottiswoode, 1961), 178–79, 184–89. Also see Margaret M. O’Dwyer,
The Papacy in the Age of Napoleon and the Restoration: Pius VII, 1800–1823
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1985); Carla Nardi, Napoleone e
Roma: la politica della consulta romana (Rome: Ecole française de Rome, 1989).
82. John A. Davis, Naples and Napoleon: Southern Italy and the European Revolutions
(1780–1860) (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006); 130–34; Harold Acton,
The Bourbons of Naples, 1734–1825 (London: Methuen, 1956), 520–40.
83. Frederick C. Schneid, Napoleon’s Italian Campaigns: 1805–1815 (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2002), 3–46.
84. See William Henry Flayhart, Counterpoint to Trafalgar: The Anglo-Russian inva-
sion of Naples, 1805–1806 (Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2004);
Piers Mackesy, The War in the Mediterranean, 1803–1810 (Cambridge, MA:
Harvard University Press, 1957), 78–84.
85. Napoleon to Queen Caroline of Naples, January 2, 1805, in CN, X:103–4.
86. Robert Matteson Johnston, The Napoleonic Empire in Southern Italy and the Rise
of the Secret Societies (New York: Macmillan, 1904), 88–96.
87. Schneid, Napoleon’s Italian Campaigns, 51.
88. For details, see Richard Hopton, The Battle of Maida 1806: Fifteen Minutes of
Glory (London: Leo Cooper, 2002).
89. See James R. Arnold, “A Reappraisal of Column Versus Line in the Peninsular
War,” Journal of Military History 68, no. 2 (April 2004): 535–52.
90. Stuart to Windham, July 6, 1806, cited in Milton C. Finley, “The Most
Monstrous of Wars: Suppression of Calabrian Brigandage, 1806–1811,”
Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1989, II:254.
91. For an in-depth discussion, see Nicolas Cadet, Honneur et violences de guerre au
temps de Napoléon: La campagne de Calabre (Paris: Éditions Vendémiaire, 2015);
Milton Finley, The Most Monstrous of Wars: The Napoleonic Guerrilla War in
Southern Italy, 1806–1811 (Columbia: University of South Carolina Press,
1994).
92. John Ehrman, The Younger Pitt: The Consuming Struggle (Stanford, CA: Stanford
University Press, 1996), 822–23.
93. Bavaria received the Margravate of Burgau; the Principality of Eichstadt; the
Tyrol, Vorarlburg, Hohenems, Königsegg-Rothenfels, Tettnang, and Argen; and
710 | notes to pages 214–218

the City of Lindau. Württemberg gained the cities of Ehingen, Munderkingen,


Riedlingen, Mengen, and Sulgen; the County of Hohenberg; the Landgravate
of Nellenbourg; and the Prefecture of Altorf. The Electorate of Baden, elevated
to a grand duchy, received part of the Brisgau, the Ortenau, the City of
Constance, and the Commandery of Meinau. As a small form of compensation,
Austria was allowed to annex Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, and the Estates of the
Teutonic Order.
94. See Peter H. Wilson, “Bolstering the Prestige of the Habsburgs: The End of the
Holy Roman Empire in 1806,” International History Review 28, no. 4 (December
2006): 709–36. Sixteen states joined the Rheinbund on July 12, 1806:
Bavaria, Württemberg, Aschaffenburg/Regensburg, Baden, Berg, Arenberg,
Nassau-Usingen, Nassau-Weilburg, Hohenzollern-Hechingen, Hohenzollern-
Sigmaringen, Salm-Salm, Salm-Kyrburg, Isenburg, Leyen, Liechtenstein, and
Hesse-Darmstadt. Grand Duchy of Wützburg joined on September 25 and
Saxony on December 11. Four days later the Confederation enlarged to include
Saxe-Coburg, Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Hildburghausen, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-
Weimar-Eisenach. The next major expansion occurred in April 1807, when
twelve more states joined.
95. Sam A. Mustafa, Germany in the Modern World: A New History (New York:
Rowman & Littlefield, 2011), 94.
96. For great insights into Prussian government, society, and culture, see Peter
Paret’s The Cognitive Challenge of War: Prussia 1806 (Princeton: Princeton
University Press, 2009).
97. Michael V. Leggiere, Blucher: Scourge of Napoleon (Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press, 2014), 91; Simms, Prussian High Politics, 269–96.
98. The original booklet was reprinted on its centennial anniversary in 1906, and
its authorship has been credited to Philipp Christian Gottlieb Yelin. See
Deutschland in seiner tiefen Erniedrigung (Stuttgart: Lehmann, 1906), https://
books.google.com/books?id=gAgSAAAAYAAJ. The booklet’s title, “Germany
in its Deepest Humiliation,” would feature as a prominent refrain on the pages
of Adolf Hitler’s Mein Kampf.
99. “The abominable crime of Braunau has electrified everyone,” one Austrian
statesman noted in late September. A Nassau diplomat, Hans Christoph von
Gagern, was more forceful in his condemnation: “The time will come when
this national injury will be bathed in blood,” he told the French foreign
­minister. “It will never be forgotten.” Friedrich von Gentz to Metternich,
September 23, 1806, in Briefe von und an Friedrich von Gentz, ed. Friedrich Carl
Wittichen (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1913), III:59–60; Hellmuth Rössler,
Zwischen Revolution und Reaktion; ein Lebensbild des Reichsfreiherrn Hans Christoph
von Gagern, 1766–1852 (Göttingen: Musterschmidt-Verlag, 1958), 108–9. In
his most recent study, French historian Michel Kerautret referred to the Palm
affair as a “state crime.” See Un Crime d’État sous l’empire: L’Affaire Palm (Paris:
Vendémiaire Editions, 2015).
notes to pages 218–221 | 711

100. Cited in Brendan Simms, The Impact of Napoleon: Prussian High Politics, Foreign
Policy, and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1997), 279.
101. Simms, Prussian High Politics, 296–300.
102. Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, 304. “In short, the simple desire
for survival, not the fear of losing territorial gains, motivated Prussia’s stand in
1806,” argues Brendan Simms. Simms, Prussian High Politics, 298.
103. Jean-Baptiste Antoine Marcellin Marbot, The Memoirs of Baron de Marbot
(London: Longmans, Green, 1903), I:173.
104. Cited in Karen Hagemann, Revisiting Prussia’s War Against Napoleon: History,
Culture and Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 34.
105. Dennis Showalter, “Reform and Stability: Prussia’s Military Dialectic from
Hubertusberg to Waterloo,” in The Projection and Limitations of Imperial Powers,
1618–1850, ed. Frederick C. Schneid (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 89–97; Olaf
Jessen, “Eingeschlafen auf den Lorbeeren Friedrichs des Großen?,” in 1806:
Jena, Auerstedt und die Kapitulation von Magdeburg: Schande oder Chance?, ed.
Mathias Tullner and Sascha Möbius (Halle: Landesheimatbund Sachsen-
Anhalt, 2007), 110–29.
106. Carl von Clausewitz, On War, ed. Michael Howard and Peter Paret (Princeton,
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1976), 155.
107. See Friedrich Eduard Alexander von Höpfner, Der Krieg von 1806 und 1807
[i.e. achtzehnhundertsechs und achtzehnhundertsieben]: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der
Preussischen Armee nach den Quellen des Kriegs-Archivs bearbeitet (Berlin: Schropp,
1850), I, chs. 1–7.
108. Höpfner, Der Krieg von 1806 und 1807, I:265–300; David G. Chandler,
“Napoleon, Operational Art, and the Jena Campaign,” in Historical Perspectives
of the Operational Art, ed. Michael D. Krause and R. Cody Philips (Washington,
DC: Center for Military History, 2007), 39–44.
109. See Gerd Fesser, 1806, die Doppelschlacht bei Jena und Auerstedt (Jena: Bussert und
Stadeler, 2006); Gerhard Bauer and Karl-Heinz Lutz, Jena 1806: Vorgeschichte und
Rezeption (Potsdam: Militärgeschichtliches Forschungsamt, 2009).
110. The Prussians lost around 10,000 killed and wounded at Jena, along with
15,000 prisoners, 34 colors, and 120 guns, against a loss to Napoleon of
around 5,000 men. At Auerstädt, the Prussian casualties amounted to some
10,000 dead and wounded, 3,000 prisoners, and 115 guns, while the French
lost 7,000 dead and wounded, 25 percent of Davout’s entire force. For discus-
sion of the campaign, see Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon, 452–506; Oscar
von Lettow-Vorbeck, Der Krieg von 1806–1907, vol. I, Jena und Auerstedt
(Berlin: Mittler und Sohn, 1896); F. N. Maude, The Jena Campaign (New York:
Macmillan, 1909); F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia—1806
(London: John Lane, 1907); Paul Jean Foucart, Campagne de Prusse, 1806:
d’après les archives de la guerre (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1887); Henri Bonnal, La
manoeuvre de Iéna (Paris: Chapelot, 1904).
712 | notes to pages 221–223

111. For current German historiographical debate on the fortress capitulations


and their impact, see Mathias Tullner and Sascha Möbius, eds., 1806: Jena,
Auerstedt und die Kapitulation von Magdeburg: Schande oder Chance? (Halle:
Landesheimatbund Sachsen-Anhalt, 2007). The most notable articles are
Mathias Tullner, “Die preußische Niederlage bei Jena und Auerstedt
(Hassenhausen) und die Kapitulation von Magdeburg” (130–39); Wilfried
Lübeck, “8. November 1806—die Kapitulation von Magdeburg, die feige Tat
des Gouverneurs v. Kleist?” (140–52); and Bernhard Mai, “Die Belagerungen
von Magdeburg, Kolberg und Breslau 1806/07” (153–72).
112. Petre, Napoleon’s Conquest of Prussia—1806, 236–55.
113. Leggiere, Blucher, 108–12.
114. Dennis E. Showalter, “Hubertusberg to Auerstedt: The Prussian Army in
Decline?,” German History 12 (1994): 308–33.
115. Napoleon then took the great Prussian king’s sword as a personal trophy.
116. Alexander Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie vtoroi voini Imperatora Aleksandra
s Napoleonom v 1806–1807 godakh (St. Petersburg, 1846), 47–53.
117. Bennigsen commanded some 70,000 men with 276 guns. Buxhöwden had
55,000 men with 216 guns. In addition, General Essen’s corp of 37,000 men
with 132 guns was marching from the Dniestr. Order of Battle of Bennigsen’s,
Buxhöwden’s and Essen’s Corps, Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie vtoroi voini
Imperatora Aleksandra (1846), 63n., 69n. Also see Army Rosters, RGVIA,
f. 846, op. 16, d. 3164, ll. 25–33.
118. Alexander to Tolstoy, n.d., in Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie vtoroi voini
Imperatora Aleksandra (1846), 72–73. General Mikhail Kutuzov, one of a few
able Russian commanders, was disgraced after the defeat at Austerlitz.
119. Jean-Roch Coignet, The Narrative of Captain Coignet, Soldier of the Empire,
1776–1850 (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1890), 138. For the Russian per-
spective, see Alexander Mikaberidze, ed., The Russian Eyewitness Accounts of the
Campaign of 1807 (London: Pen & Sword, 2015), 27–108.
120. For discussion of the operations in late 1806, see Höpfner, Der Krieg von 1806
und 1807, III:1–157; Mathieu Dumas, Précis des événements militaires, ou, Essais
historiques sur les campagnes de 1799 à 1814 (Paris: Treuttel et Wurtz, 1826),
XVII:99–205; Karl Ritter von Landmann, Der Krieg von 1806 und 1807: auf
Grund urkundlichen Materials sowie der neuesten Forschungen und Quellen (Berlin:
Voss, 1909), 300–327; Carl von Plotho, Tagebuch während des Krieges zwischen
Russland und Preussen einerseits, und Frankreich andrerseits, in den Jahren 1806 und
1807 (Berlin: F. Braunes, 1811), 1–43; F. Lorain Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in
Poland, 1806–7 (London: Sampson Low, Marston, 1901), 59–118.
121. His appointment was a big mistake. Kamensky was sixty-nine years old and
had not commanded an army in over a decade. He was already in such bad
health that upon reaching Vilna in late November, he complained that “I
almost completely lost my vision. I am not able to find any locations on the
map and had to ask other to find them. I suffer from [excruciating] pains in the
notes to pages 223–224 | 713

eyes and head and cannot ride the horse. . . . I am signing [orders] without
even knowing what they prescribe.” Kamensky to Alexander, December 22,
1807, in Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie vtoroi voini Imperatora Aleksandra
(1846), 76.
122. Höpfner, Der Krieg von 1806 und 1807, III:193–94; E. Grenier, Étude sur 1807:
Manoeuvres d’Eylau et Friedland (Paris, 1911), 51–53; Oscar von Lettow-
Vorbeck, Der krieg von 1806 und 1807 (Berlin, 1896), IV:31–49; Colmar von
der Goltz, From Jena to Eylau: The Disgrace and the Redemption of the Old-Prussian
Army: A Study in Military History (London, 1913), 197–203.
123. Denis Davydov, “Vospominaniya o srazhenii pri Preussisch-Eylau 1807 goda
yanvarya 26-go i 27-go,” in Russkaya voennaya proza XIX veka (Leningrad:
Lenizdatm, 1989), http://www.museum.ru/1812/Library/Davidov7/index.html.
124. Antoine Jomini, Vie politique et militaire de Napoleon, racontée par lui même (Paris,
1827), II:355.
125. See James R. Arnold and Ralph R. Reinertsen, Crisis in the Snows: Russia
Confronts Napoleon: The Eylau Campaign 1806–1807 (Lexington, VA: Napoleon
Books, 2007).
126. For the battle of Eylau, see Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon, 535–51;
Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland, 158–208; Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky,
Opisanie vtoroi voini Imperatora Aleksandra (1846), 161–217; Höpfner, Der Krieg
von 1806 und 1807, III:201–58.
127. Jean-Baptiste Barrès, Memoirs of a Napoleonic Officer (London: G. Allen &
Unwin, 1925), 101.
128. À l’Armee; Napoleon to Berthier, 60th–61st Bulletins, February 16–19,
1807, in CN, XIV, nos. 11,816, 11,820, 11,822, 11,827, 11,830, 11,832,
381–91; Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie vtoroi voini Imperatora Aleksandra
(1846), 233–34; Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland, 215–37.
129. Bennigsen, “Memoirs,” Russkaya starina 100 (December 1899): 700; Robert
Wilson, Brief Remarks on the Character and Composition of the Russian Army and
a Sketch of the Campaigns in Poland in the Years 1806 and 1807 (London:
C. Roworth, 1810), 128–29; Ob uchastii gvardii v kampaniu 1807 g., RGVIA,
f. 846, op. 16, d. 3163, ll. 1–13.
130. Hardenberg’s Notes on Alexander’s Meeting with Friedrich-Wilhelm III, in
VPR, III:546; Landmann, Der Krieg von 1806 und 1807, 388–89; Bennigsen,
“Memoirs,” Russkaya starina 100 (October 1899): 226–28; 100 (December
1899): 697–700.
131. In a letter to Alexander, Bennigsen accused General Sacken of insubordination
and held him responsible for the failure of the maneuver at Guttstadt. Sacken
was eventually subjected to a court-martial and justified his actions by refer-
ring to Bennigsen’s confusing orders. The hearings on Sacken’s case continued
for over three years. The court found him guilty but did not impose any pun-
ishment because of Sacken’s distinguished career. Bennigsen, “Memoirs,”
Russkaya starina 101 (January 1901): 272; Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie
714 | notes to pages 224–227

vtoroi voini Imperatora Aleksandra (1846), 298–302; Höpfner, Der Krieg von
1806 und 1807, III:583.
132. “Relation de la Bataille de Heilsberg le 10 Juin 1807,” RGVIA, f. 846, op. 16,
d. 3204, ll. 9–10; Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie vtoroi voini Imperatora
Aleksandra (1846), 307–8; Höpfner, Der Krieg von 1806 und 1807, III:602–22;
Landmann, Der Krieg von 1806 und 1807, 412–15.
133. Petre, Napoleon’s Campaign in Poland, 304–9; Höpfner, Der Krieg von 1806 und
1807, III:652–53; Plotho, Tagebuch während des Krieges, 163. For the most recent
English-language account, see James R. Arnold and Ralph R. Reinertsen,
Napoleon’s Triumph: La Grande Armée Versus the Tsar’s Army: The Friedland Campaign,
1807 (Lexington, VA: Napoleon Books, 2011).
134. Harold T. Parker, Three Napoleonic Battles (Durham, NC: Duke University
Press, 1983), 17–18.
135. Maurice Girod de L’Ain, Grands artilleurs: Drouot—Sénarmont—Eblé (Paris:
Berger-Levrault, 1895), 180–81, 224–26.
136. Leveson-Gower to Canning, June 17, 1807, cited in Herbert Butterfield, The
Peace Tactics of Napoleon, 1806–1808 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1959), 197–98.
137. As overheard by one of British commissioner Robert Wilson’s contacts.
Michael Glover, A Very Slippery Fellow: The Life of Sir Robert Wilson, 1777–1849
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978), 40. For an alternative version in
which Alexander’s first words were “I will be your second against England,”
see Napoleon to Alexander, July 1, 1812, in Correspondance générale, XII:787.
Also see Louis Pierre Bignon, Histoire de France depuis le 18 Brumaire jusqu’a la
Paix de Tilsit (Paris: Charles Béchet, 1830), VI:316; Armand Lefebvre, Histoire
des cabinets de l’Europe pendant le Consulat et l’Empire (Paris: Pagnerre, 1847),
III:102.
138. Russia also agreed to cede the port town of Cattaro (now Kotor, Montenegro)
and the Ionian Islands to France, strengthening Napoleon’s presence in the
Adriatic Sea.
139. Treaty of Tilsit, July 7, 1807, Fondation Napoléon, https://www.napoleon.org/
histoire-des-2-empires/articles/traite-de-tilsit-avec-la-russie-7-juillet-1807.
140. Lefebvre, Napoleon, 249. Another eminent French scholar, Jean Tulard, agrees:
“The notion of the Grand Empire succeeded, starting from 1805, that of the
Grand Nation.” See Jean Tulard, ed., Dictionnaire Napoléon (Paris: Fayard,
1987), 833.
141. Claire Élisabeth Rémusat, Mémoires de Madame de Rémusat 1802–1808 (Paris:
Calmann-Lévy, 1880), III:202–5.
142. “Discours de S. M. L’Empereur et Roi à l’ouverture du Corps Législatif,”
August 16, 1807, in CN, XV:498–500.
143. At home, Napoleon further augmented his power by abolishing the Tribunate.
Senatus Consultum, August 19, 1807, www.napoleon-series.org/research/
government/legislation/c_tribunate.html.
notes to pages 227–230 | 715

144. SeeReinhartKoselleck,“ÜberdieTheoriebedürftigkeitderGeschichtswissenschaft,”
in Theorie der Geschichtswissenschaft und Praxis des Geschichtsunterrichts, ed. Werner
Conze (Stuttgart: Klett, 1972), 10–28; Niklas Olsen, History in the Plural: An
Introduction to the Work of Reinhart Koselleck (New York: Berghahn Books, 2014),
167–202.

Chapter 11
1. Wars involving Britain and France since 1697 included the War of the Spanish
Succession (1701–1714), War of the Austrian Succession (1740–1748), Seven
Years’ War (1756–1763), American Revolutionary War (1775–1783), and
French Revolutionary Wars (1793–1802). Britain and France were allied on
just one occasion, during the War of the Quadruple Alliance (1718–1720).
2. Eli F. Heckscher, The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1922), 18–27, 42–43, 47, 77, 91; J. Holland Rose, “Napoleon
and English Commerce,” English Historical Review 8 (1893): 704–25. On the
question of neutral powers, see W. Allison Phillips and Arthur H. Reede,
Neutrality: Its History, Economic, and Law, vol. 2, The Napoleonic Period (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1936).
3. In June 1793 Britain prohibited all food imports into France but rescinded
this decision a few months later.
4. Heckscher, The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation, 81–83. Also see
Frank Edgar Melvin, Napoleon’s Navigation System: A Study of Trade Control During
the Continental Blockade (New York: University of Pennsylvania, 1919), ch. 1.
5. The last hundred years had seen the appearance of a number of studies (mostly
unpublished theses and dissertations) on the general nature of the Continental
System and its effect on European states. The topic is long overdue for a fresh
reassessment, with Heckscher’s The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation
remaining the only global survey. Recent valuable additions to the historiog-
raphy include Katherine Aaslestad and Johan Joor, eds., Revisiting Napoleon’s
Continental System: Local, Regional and European Experiences (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2014) and Francois Crouzet, “The Continental System: After
Eighty Years,” in Eli Heckscher, International Trade, and Economic History, ed.
Ronald Findlay, Rolf G. H. Henriksson, Hakan Lindgren, and Mats Lundahl
(Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2006), 323–42. My discussion of the Continental
System is based on additional readings of Geoffrey James Ellis, Napoleon’s
Continental Blockade: The Case of Alsace (New York: Oxford University Press,
1981); Harley Farris Anton, “The Continental Study: A Study of Its Operation
and Feasibility,” MA thesis, Louisiana State University, 1976; Merritt
P. Whitten, “France and the Continental System of the Berlin Decree,” M.S
thesis, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1964; François Crouzet, L’économie
britannique et le blocus continental, 1806–1813 (Paris: Presses universitaires de
France, 1958); Albert John Daeley, “The Continental System in France as
Illustrated by American Trade,” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison,
716 | notes to pages 230–233

1949; John Baugham Harrison, “The Continental System in Italy as Revealed


by American Commerce,” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1937;
Leah Julia Fritz, “Napoleon’s Continental System in the North German States,”
MA thesis, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1937; Andrew Wellington
Tuholski, “The Continental System of Napoleon,” MA thesis, Columbia
University, 1919.
6. Napoleon to Eugène de Beauharnais, August 23, 1810, Correspondance de
Napoléon, XXI:60.
7. Berlin Decree, November 21, 1806, in Correspondance de Napoléon, XIII:555.
8. British Order-in-Council, November 11, 1807, in American State Papers:
Documents Legislative and Executive of the Congress of the United States, ed. Walter
Lowrie and Matthew St. Clair Clarke (Washington: Gales and Seaton, 1832),
III:269–70.
9. Milan Decree, December 17, 1807, in Napoleon, Correspondance Générale, ed.
Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2004), VII:1361.
10. A distinction between these two terms has long been maintained by French
historians Marcel Dunan and Roger Dufraisse. See Marcel Dunan, “Le système
continental,” Revue des études Napoléoniennes 3 (1913): 115–46; Dunan, “L’Italie
et le système continental,” Revue de l’Institut Napoléon 96 (1965): 176–92;
Roger Dufraisse, “Régime douanier, blocus, système continental: essai de mise
au point,” Revue d’histoire économique et sociale 44 (1966): 518–34; Dufraisse,
“Napoléon pour ou contre l’Europe,” Revue du souvenir Napoléonien 402 (1995):
4–25.
11. Napoleon to Eugène de Beauharnais, August 23, 1810, Correspondance de
Napoléon, XXI:60.
12. In the words of Eli Hecksher, this was “the French continental market design,”
an assessment echoed by another great scholar, G. Ellis, who described it “a
one way common-market.” See A. Chabert, Essai sur les mouvements des revenus et
de l’activité économique en France de 1789 à 1820 (Paris: Librairie de Médicis,
1949).
13. For example, in 1810, a new tariff disallowed the Italian kingdom from import-
ing any but French linen, gauze, cotton cloth, and wool cloth. Owen Connelly,
Napoleon’s Satellite Kingdoms (New York: Free Press, 1965), 48.
14. Napoleon to Louis Napoleon, December 15, 1806, in Lettres inédites de Napoléon
1er (an VIII–1809), ed. Leon Lecestre (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1897), I:82.
15. See P. K. O’Brien, “Public Finance,” in The Rise of Financial Capitalism:
International Capital Markets in the Age of Reason, ed. Larry Neal (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1990), 201–22; O’Brien, “Public Finance in the
Wars with France, 1793–1815,” in Britain and the French Revolution, 1789–1815,
ed. H. T. Dickinson (New York: St. Martin’s, 1989), 165–87.
16. Napoleon to Louis Napoleon, April 3, 1808, in Correspondance de Napoléon,
XVI:473. When Scottish peer Alexander, marquess of Douglas and Clydesdale,
offered Jacques Louis David the enormous sum of 1,000 guineas for a portrait
notes to pages 233–235 | 717

of the emperor, Napoleon gave his consent provided the portrait (the celebra-
ted Napoleon in His Study) was paid for in cash. For details, see Philippe Bordes,
Jacques-Louis David: Empire to Exile (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2005), 113–21.
17. B. R. Mitchell and Phyllis Deane, Abstract of British Historical Statistics
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1962), 441–43.
18. See Roger Knight, Britain Against Napoleon: The Organization of Victory,
1793–1815 (London: Allen Lane, 2013). For a discussion of whether France
could have starved out Britain, see William Freeman Galpin, The Grain Supply
of England during the Napoleonic Period (New York: Macmillan, 1925), 109–22,
168–201.
19. Heckscher, The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation, 93.
20. For an in-depth look, see Eugene Tarle, Kontinental’naya blokada (Moscow:
Zadruga, 1913); Carlo Zaghi, L’Italia di Napoleon dalla Cisalpina al Regno
(Turin: UTET, 1986). For a more concise discussion, see Alexander Grab, “The
Kingdom of Italy and Napoleon’s Continental Blockade,” in Revisiting Napoleon’s
Continental System: Local, Regional and European Experiences, ed. Katherine
Aasletad and Johan Joor (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 98–111;
Grab, “The Politics of Finance in Napoleonic Italy (1802–1814),” Journal of
Modern Italian Studies 3, no. 2 (1998): 127–43.
21. Alexandre Chabert, Essai sur les mouvements des revenus et de l’activité economique en
France de 1798 à 1820 (Paris: Librairie de Médicis, 1949), 368–69; François
Crouzet, “Wars, Blockade, and Economic Change in Europe, 1792–1815,”
Journal of Economic History 24, no. 4 (1964): 575–77.
22. See Louis Bergeron, Banquiers, négociants et manufacturiers parisiens du Directoire
à l’Empire (Paris: Éditions de l’EHESS, 2000), chs. 10–11.
23. See Agusti Nieto-Galan, Colouring Textiles: A History of Natural Dyestuffs in
Industrial Europe (Boston: Kluwer Academic, 2001), ch. 3.
24. Bergeron, France Under Napoleon, 159–60, 162–67, 172–84; Heckscher, The
Continental System: An Economic Interpretation, 286–94; François Crouzet, “Wars,
Blockade, and Economic Change in Europe, 1792–1815,” Journal of Economic
History 24, no. 4 (1964): 567–88. Soda ash (sodium carbonate) and potash
(potassium carbonate) are vital chemicals in the glass, textile, soap, and paper
industries. In 1791 Nicolas Leblanc patented a new process of producing these
alkalis from sea salt, but his success was interrupted by the French Revolution,
when the revolutionary governments confiscated Leblanc’s plant and publi-
cized his methods. Napoleon restored the plant to Leblanc, but Leblanc strug-
gled to compete against rival companies that exploited his invention.
25. House of Lords, Orders of Council, February 15, 1808, in The Parliamentary
Register (London: John Stockdale, 1808), I:365.
26. B. H. Tolley, “The Liverpool Campaign Against the Order in Council and the
War of 1812,” in Liverpool and Merseyside: Essays in the Economic and Social History
of the Port and Its Hinterland, ed. J. R. Harris (New York: Augustus M. Kelley,
718 | notes to pages 236–237

1969), 98–145; D. J. Moss, “Birmingham and the Campaign Against the


Orders-in-Council and the East India Company Charter, 1812–13,” Canadian
Journal of History 11 (1976): 173–88; Antonette L. McDaniel, “‘Thus Has the
People Gloriously Triumphed’: Petitioning, Political Mobilization and the
Orders-in-Council Repeal Campaign, 1808–1812,” PhD diss., University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, 1992.
27. The Bank—The Stock Exchange—The Bankers—The Bankers’ Clearing House—
The Minister and the Public (London: E. Wilson, 1821), 75. The West End
banks sprang up in and around Westminster and the Strand to serve British
elite, i.e., the gentry, nobility, and mercantile elite. See Eric Kerridge, Trade
and Banking in Early Modern England (Manchester: Manchester University
Press, 1988), 76–84.
28. Mina Ishizu, “Boom and Crisis in Financing British Transatlantic Trade: A
Case Study of the Bankrupcy of John Leigh & Company in 1811,” in The
History of Bankruptcy: Economic, Social and Cultural Implications in Early Modern
Europe, ed. Thomas M. Safley (New York: Routledge, 2013), 144–54.
29. B. R. Mitchell, British Historical Statistics (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1988), 495. On British efforts in northern Europe, see A. N. Ryan, “The
Defence of British Trade in the Baltic, 1808–1813,” English Historical Review
74, no. 292 (1959): 443–66.
30. For an interesting discussion, see Knight, Britain Against Napoleon, 386–416.
31. R. P. Dunn-Pattison, Napoleon’s Marshals (London: Methuen, 1909), 60–61.
32. Knight, Britain Against Napoleon, 403.
33. For an interesting discussion, see essays by Silvia Marzagalli (“The Continental
System: A View from the Sea”), Jann M. Witt (“Smuggling and Blockade-
Running During the Anglo-Danish War from 1807 to 1814”), and Michael
Rowe (“Economic Warfare, Organize Crime and the Collapse of Napoleon’s
Empire”) in Revisiting Napoleon’s Continental System, ed. Aaslestad and Joor,
90–93, 153–69, 196–99. Also see Gavin Daily, “Napoleon and the ‘City of
Smugglers,’ 1810–1814,” Historical Journal 50, no. 2 (2007): 333–52; Daily,
“English Smugglers, the Channel, and the Napoleonic Wars, 1800–1814,”
Journal of British Studies 46, no. 1 (2007): 30–46.
34. For an interesting discussion of French industrial development during the
French Revolution and Empire, see Jeff Horn, The Path Not Taken: French
Industrialization in the Age of Revolution, 1750–1830 (Cambridge, MA: MIT
Press, 2006), chs. 5–7. Horn argues (quite provocatively) that the main reason
for France’s failure to adopt the “liberal” industrial policies of the British was
not Napoleon’s failure to comprehend them but rather the legacy of the French
Revolution, most notably the fear of worker revolt. If British industrialists
could count on the British state to keep workers in their place, French indus-
trialists lived in the shadow of the great revolutionary turmoil and could not
similarly count on the French state.
35. Cited in Melvin, Napoleon’s Navigation System, 48.
notes to pages 238–244 | 719

36. François Crouzet, “Wars, Blockade, and Economic Change in Europe,


1792–1815,” Journal of Economic History 24, no. 4 (1964): 571.
37. Melvin, Napoleon’s Navigation System, 114–17, 120, 124, 128–29, 135–37,
173–78, 300–307. For an in-depth study, see Silvia Marzagalli, Les boulevards
de la fraude: La négoce maritime et le Blocus continental 1806–1813, Bordeaux,
Hambourg, Livourne (Villeneuve-d’Ascq: Presses universitaires du Septentrion,
1999); Marzagalli, Bordeaux et les États-Unis, 1776–1815: politique et stratégies
négociantes dans la genèse d’un réseau commercial (Geneva: Droz, 2014); Daeley,
“The Continental System in France as Illustrated by American Trade.”
38. Heckscher, The Continental System: An Economic Interpretation, 258, 272–77.
39. F. Evrard, “Le commerce des laines d’Espagne sous le Premier Empire,” Revue
d’histoire moderne et contemporaine 4 (1937): 212–18.
40. Jean Labasse, Le Commerce des soies à Lyon sous Napoléon et la crise de 1811 (Paris:
Presses universitaires de France, 1957), 70–83.
41. See Richard J. Barker, “The Conseil General des Manufactures Under Napoleon
(1810–1814),” French Historical Studies 6, no. 2 (1969): 198–213.
42. For insights, see François Crouzet, “Les consequences économiques de la
Révolution: à propos d’un inédit de Sir Francis d’Ivernois,” Annales historiques
de la Révolution francaise XXXIV (1962): 182–217.
43. David Landes points out that “the 1850s and 1860s were the years when west-
ern Europe caught up with Britain. Not in a quantitative sense; that was to
come later, and then only in certain areas. Nor even qualitatively, whether in
scale and efficiency of production of given industries, or in degree of industri-
alization of the economy as a whole.” David S. Landes, The Unbound Prometheus:
Technological Change and Industrial Development in Western Europe from 1750 to the
Present (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 41–230 (quoted from
228–29). Also see François Crouzet, “Wars, Blockade, and Economic Change
in Europe, 1792–1815,” Journal of Economic History 24, no. 4 (1964): 578, 585.
44. August Wilhelm von Schlegel, The Continental System, and Its Relations with
Sweden (London: J. J. Stockdale, 1813), 86–87.

Chapter 12
1. H. V. Livermore, A New History of Portugal (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1966), 213–38; António Henrique R. de Oliveira Marques, History of
Portugal (New York: Columbia University Press, 1972), I:407–17, 421–25.
2. Stanley J. Stein and Barbara H. Stein, The Colonial Heritage of Latin America:
Essays on Economic Dependence in Perspective (New York: Oxford University Press,
1970), 113.
3. Kenneth R. Maxwell, “The Generation of the 1790s and the Idea of the Luso-
Brazilian Empire,” in Colonial Roots of Modern Brazil, ed. D. Alden (Berkeley:
University of California Press, 1973), 118–21.
4. For an excellent overview, see Kenneth R. Maxwell, Conflicts and Conspiracies: Brazil
and Portugal, 1750–1808 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1973).
720 | notes to pages 244–246

5. Though Spain and Portugal fought several conflicts—in 1735–1737,


1761–1763, and 1776–1777—in the eighteenth century they involved colo-
nial holdings in South America.
6. For details on the historical relationship between Britan and Portugal, see
Davis Francis, Portugal, 1715–1808: Joanine, Pombaline and Rococo Portugal as
Seen by British Diplomats and Traders (London: Tamesis Books, 1985), 197–202,
237–43; A. B. Wallis Chapman, “The Commercial Relations of England and
Portugal, 1487–1807,” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society 1 (1907):
174–79; Harold Edward Stephen Fisher, The Portugal Trade: A Study of Anglo-
Portuguese Commerce, 1700–1770 (London: Methuen, 1971). On Portuguese
neutrality and the declaration of Lisbon as a free port, see George Friedrich
Martens, Recueil des Principaux Traités . . . conclus par les Puissances de l’Europe
(Gottingen: Jean Chrétien Dieterich, 1800), VI:606–8; VII:140. Some Portuguese
ministers, most notably Antonio d’Araujo e Azevedo, sought closer ties with
France and even concluded a secret treaty (1797) with France pledging to close
the ports of Portugal to British vessels. But London demanded Lisbon disavow
it and the treaty was not ratified. See Martens, Recueil, VII:201; Dropmore
Papers, III:282, 355, 359, 373.
7. Valentim Alexandre, Os sentidos do Império: questão nacional e questão colonial na crise
do Antigo Regime português (Porto: Edições Afrontamento, 1993), 100–104.
8. Napoleon, Correspondance générale, ed. Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2004), III:438.
9. Margaret Scott Chrisawn, The Emperor’s Friend: Marshal Jean Lannes (Westport,
CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 87.
10. Chrisawn, The Emperor’s Friend, 93.
11. Ángelo Pereira, D. João VI principe e rei (Lisbon: Empresa Nacional de
Publicidade, 1953), I:106–7; Alexandre, Os sentidos do Império, 129–35.
12. Charles de Mouy, “L’ambassade du général Junot à Lisbonne d’après des docu-
ments inédits,” in Revue des deux mondes CXXI (1894): 144–45; Charles Hugh
Mackay, “The Tempest: The Life and Career of Jean-Andoche Junot,
1771–1813,” Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 1995, 89–100.
13. Napoleon to King Charles IV, Sep`tember 7, 1807, Correspondance générale,
VII:1106.
14. Kenneth G. Johnson, “Napoleon’s War at Sea,” in Napoleon and the Operational
Art of War, ed. Michael V. Leggiere (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 440. For examples of
Napoleon’s demands, see his letters to Junot in CN, XVI:128–30, 147–48,
156. The recently published volume VIII (1808) of Correspondance générale
shows how much time Napoleon devoted to the rebuilding of the French navy.
Out of 3,021 letters included in the volume, well over 200 were sent to Decrès,
Napoleon’s naval minister, containing technical details and plans for a naval
buildup and various maritime expeditions.
15. Napoleon to Talleyrand, July 19, 1807, CN, XV:433. Also see Alphonse
Louis Grasset, La Guerre d’Espagne, 1807–1813 (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1914),
I:94–121.
notes to pages 246–247 | 721

16. For further details, see Hauterive to Rayneval, July 30, 1807; Rayneval to
Talleyrand, August 12, 1807, AE “Portugal,” 126.
17. See Araujo to Rayneval, August 21, 1807, AE “Portugal,” 126.
18. Rayneval to Champagny, October 2, 1807, AE “Portugal,” 126.
19. Alan K. Manchester, British Preeminence in Brazil, Its Rise and Decline: A Study
in European Expansion (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933),
54. Also see Livermore, A New History of Portugal, 248.
20. Oliveira Marques, History of Portugal, I:425. To one British historian, Dom
João was “alternately swayed by fear and indolence, a miserable example of
helpless folly.” William Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula and in the
South of France (London: John Murray, 1828), I:143.
21. Manchester, British Preeminence in Brazil, 58–63. Gordon Teffeteller, “England
and Brazil: Strangford and Joao VI,” Proceedings of the Consortiium on Revolutionary
Europe, 1990, 203–5.
22. André Fugier, Napoléon et l’Espagne, 1799–1808 (Paris: F. Alcan, 1930),
II:347–48.
23. Extract from “Official Declaration of the Blockade of the Mouth of the Tagus,”
cited in Donald D. Howard, “Portugal and the Anglo-Russian Naval Crisis
(1808),” Naval War College Review 34 (1981): 49–50.
24. Convention secrète et Convention relative à l’occupation du Portugal, October
27, 1807, in CN, XVI:118–21. The treaty called for a French army of 25,000
infantry and 3,000 cavalry to march across Spain to Lisbon. A Spanish force of
8,000 infantry and 3,000 cavalry, under French control, would join the French
in Lisbon. Another 10,000 Spanish troops would seize Oporto, while some
6,000 men would occupy Portuguese Algarve. In case of a British attack,
France had the right to send 40,000 more troops to Portugal.
25. Etruria was formally ruled by Charles Louis but, due to his age (he was just
four years old when he inherited the crown in 1803), his mother, Maria
Luisa of Spain, served as the regent. In August 1807 French troops invaded the
kingdom on the grounds that it had become a center of smuggling and
espionage.
26. Mackay, The Tempest, 122–27.
27. After the French troops passed Salamanca, there were instances of pillage com-
mitted by the French soldiers, some of whom were murdered by Spanish peas-
ants. Adolphe Thiers, Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire (Paris: Paulin, 1849),
VIII:329–30. For challenges the French troops faced, see Mackay, The Tempest,
138–46. Also see David Buttery, Wellington Against Junot: The First Invasion of
Portugal, 1807–1808 (Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2011), chs. 3–4. For a
Spanish perspective on the French march, see Pedro Agustín Girón, Recuerdos
(1778–1837), ed. Ana María Berazaluce (Pamplona: Ed. Univ. de Navarra,
1978).
28. On November 12 Napoleon sent Junot a set of instructions for the occupation
of Portugal. Junot was ordered to seize the Portuguese fleet, disarm the
722 | notes to pages 248–249

Portuguese army, and send some 6,000 of its soldiers to France; the prince
regent was to be convinced to go “willingly” to France, while the French
troops were to confiscate British goods and detain British subjects. The
French general was told to “set an example of absolute incorruptibility.” CN,
XVI:156–57.
29. Manuel de Oliveira Lima, Dom João VI no Brazil: 1808–1821 (Rio de Janeiro:
Journal do Commercio, 1908) I:45–55. Also see Sir Sidney Smith’s letters and
other documents in John Barrow, The Life and Correspondence of Admiral Sir
William Sidney Smith (London: Richard Bentley, 1848), II:261–69; Charles
Oman, A History of the Peninsular War (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1902), I:30.
30. Manchester, British Preeminence in Brazil, 65–68. For details on the embarka-
tion, see Thomas O’Neill, A Concise and Accurate Account of the Proceedings of the
Squadron Under the Command of Rear Admiral Sir Will. Sidney Smith, K.G., in
Effecting the Escape and Escorting the Royal Family of Portugal to the Brazils on the
29th of November 1807 (London: R. Edwards, 1809).
31. Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, I:30–31. This was just a ragged van-
guard of some 1,500 men (out of 25,000) who had undertaken a forced march
to get to Lisbon in time. In the rugged terrain of the border districts near
Almeida, the French suffered terribly from the lack of supplies and torrential
rains. As one French participant recalled, “The state we were in when we
entered Lisbon is hardly credible. Our clothing had lost all shape and col-
our . . . [soldiers were] fagged out, unwashed, ghastly objects . . . no longer [with]
strength to march even to the sound of the drum.” Paul Charles Thiebault, The
Memoirs of Baron Thiebault (London: Smith, Elder & Co., 1896), II:199.
32. Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, I:31.
33. Napoleon to Junot, October 17–31, 1807, in CN, XVI:98–99, 130; Napoleon
to Clarke, October 28, 1807, in New Letters of Napoleon I Omitted from the Edition
Published Under the Auspices of Napoleon III, ed. Mary Loyd (New York:
D. Appleton, 1897), 53.
34. Lord Russel of Liverpool, Knight of the Sword: The Life and Letters of Admiral Sir
William Sidney Smith (London: Victor Gollancz, 1964), 168–69; Paul C
Krajeski, In the Shadow of Nelson: The Naval Leadership of Admiral Sir Charles
Cotton, 1753–1812 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000), 56–58.
35. Fugier, Napoléon et l’Espagne, II:352–54.
36. Napoleon to Junot, December 23, 1807, in CN, XVI:214–16.
37. Georges Lefebvre, Napoleon (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1969), II:15.
38. Oliveira Marques, History of Portugal, I:429.
39. Allan J. Kuethe and Kenneth J. Adrien, The Spanish Atlantic World in the Eighteenth
Century: War and the Bourbon Reforms, 1713–1796 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2014), 133–66, 231–33, 271–73, 280–84, 350–53.
40. John R. Fisher, Commercial Relations Between Spain and Spanish America in the
Era off Free Trade, 1778–1796 (Liverpool: Centre for Latin American Studies,
University of Liverpool, 1985), 9–19.
notes to pages 250–252 | 723

41. John R. Fisher, The Economic Aspects of Spanish Imperialism in America, 1492–1810
(Liverpool: Liverpool University Press, 1997), 197–216; Adrian J. Pearce, British
Trade with Spanish America, 1763 to 2008 (Liverpool: Liverpool University Press,
2007), 161–229. In 1799 Charles IV revoked the decree on free trade, but colo-
nial officials continued to trade with “neutrals,” arguing that this was essential
to raising sufficient revenues to defend the colonies, as well as to ensure the loy-
alty of the colonists, who benefited from the relaxation of trade restrictions.
42. Gabriel H. Lovett, Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Spain (New York: New York
University Press, 1965), I:1–46. Also see Scott Eastman, Preaching Spanish
Nationalism Across the Hispanic Atlantic, 1759–1823 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University, 2012), 1–44.
43. Vicente Pérez Moreda, “Spain’s Demographic Modernization, 1800–1930,” in
The Economic Modernization of Spain, 1830–1930, ed. Nicolás Sánchez-Albornoz
(New York: New York University Press, 1987), 34.
44. Elizabeth Vassall Fox Holland, The Spanish Journal of Elizabeth, Lady Holland,
ed. Giles Stephen Holland Fox-Strangways (London: Longmans, 1910),
II:85–86, 123–24.
45. Proclamation of Godoy, October 5, 1806, in Oman, A History of the Peninsular
War, I:603.
46. Napoleon’s disdain for Godoy was quite well known. When in 1801 Godoy
asked Lucien Bonaparte to send him a portrait of the First Consul, Napoleon
forbade it. “I shall never send my portrait to a man who keeps his predecessor
in a dungeon [the Count of Aranda, Godoy’s predecessor, was imprisoned] and
who adopts the customs of the Inquisition. I may make use of him, but I owe
him nothing but contempt.” Napoleon, A Selection from the Letters and Despatches
of the First Napoleon, edited by D. Bingham (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884),
I:349. And as early as 1805, Napoleon had told a confidant that “a Bourbon on
the throne of Spain makes for a dangerous neighbor.” Jean-Baptiste Jourdan,
Mémoires militaires du Maréchal Jourdan (guerre d’Espagne) (Paris: Flammarion,
1899), 9. Also see Robert B. Mowat, The Diplomacy of Napoleon (New York:
Longmans, Green, 1924), 208–9.
47. This discussion is mainly based on Fugier, Napoléon et L’Espagne, I:22–395;
II:85–211; Geoffroy de Grandmaison, L’Espagne et Napoléon (Paris: Plon-
Nourrit, 1908), I:72–169.
48. Copia de un real decreto por el que se comunica haber evitado una conjura para
destronar a Carlos IV, October 31, 1807; Copia de una circular expedida para
que todos los pueblos solemnicen acción de gracias por haber evitado una con-
jura para destronar a Carlos IV, November 3, 1807, Archivo de la Real
Chancillería de Valladolid, Cédulas y Pragmáticas, Caja 30.41, 30.42.
49. Grandmaison, L’Espagne et Napoléon, I:99–114. For a more detailed discussion
see Fugier, Napoléon et L’Espagne, II:216–345.
50. Pieter Geyl, Napoleon: For and Against (New York: Penguin Books, 1982), 92.
For a French diplomatic report on the situation in Spain, including characteristics
724 | notes to pages 252–254

of the Bourbon royalty and Godoy, see Tournon to Napoleon, December 20,
1807, AN, AF IV 1680.
51. Conde de Toreno, Historia del Levantamiento, Guerra y Revolución de España, ed.
Joaquín Varela Suanzes-Carpegna (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y
Constitucionales, 2008), 4.
52. Michel Morineau, Incroyables gazettes et fabuleux métaux: les retours des trésors
américains d’après les gazettes hollandaises (XVIe–XVIIIe siècles) (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1985), 454. Also see Carlos Marichal, La bancar-
rota del virreinato, Nueva España y las finanzas del imperio español, 1780–1810
(México: El Colegio de México, Fideicomiso Historia de las Américas, Fondo
de Cultura Económica, 1999), 173; Javier Cuenca, “Statistics of Spain’s
Colonial Trade, 1792–1820: Consular Duties, Cargo Inventories and Balance
of Trade,” Hispanic American Historical Review 61, no. 3 (1981): 381–428. Also
see Barbara H. Stein and Stanley J. Stein, Edge of Crisis: War and Trade in the
Spanish Atlantic, 1789–1808 (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press,
2009).
53. Richard Herr, Rural Change and Royal Finances in Spain at the End of the Old
Regime (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989), 137–38.
54. Francis Baring, head of the highly influential Barings Company, secured the
support of the British government to ship the Mexican silver. For a detailed
discussion, see Adrian J. Pearce, “The Hope-Barings Contract: Finance and
Trade Between Europe and the Americas, 1805–1808,” English Historical
Review 124, no. 511 (2009): 1324–52; John A Jackson, “The Mexican Silver
Scheme: Finance and Profiteering in the Napoleonic Era, 1796–1811,”
Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1978; Carlos Marichal, Bankruptcy
of Empire: Mexican Silver and the Wars Between Spain, Britain and France,
1760–1810 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), ch. 5.
55. A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First Napoleon, II:352.
56. Paul Schroeder is correct in noting that Napoleon undertook “the Spanish ven-
ture, like many others, for varied reasons—anti-British, familial and dynastic,
economic, military, and personal. It is useless to debate which was decisive and
wrong to suppose that a venture which had such profound effect must have
had equally profound causes.” Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European
Politics, 1763–1848 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 341.
57. Napoleon to Junot, October 17, 1807, in Correspondance générale, VII:1204.
58. Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, I:36–37.
59. Nick Lipscombe, The Peninsular War Atlas (Oxford: Osprey, 2014), 30–32.
60. Napoleon to Champagny, March 9, 1808, in Correspondance générale, VIII:237.
61. See Napoleon’s instructions in CN, XVI, nos. 13626, 13632, 13652, 13656,
13675, 13682. For an interesting study on Murat in Spain in 1808, see
Joachim Murat, Murat, lieutenant de l’empereur en Espagne 1808: d’après sa corre-
spondance inédite et des documents originaux (Paris: E. Plon, 1897).
notes to pages 254–257 | 725

62. Royal Decrees of March 16–21, 1808, in Biblioteca Histórica Municipal


(Madrid), C 34363. On April 8, 1808, another royal decree declared the
Spanish king’s avid desire to “consolidate the bonds of friendship and the inti-
mate alliance” between France and Spain.
63. Simon Barton, A History of Spain (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009),
165–66; José Joaquín de Mora, Mémoires historiques sur Ferdinand VII, roi des
Espagnes (Paris: Librairie Universelle, 1824), 35–45, 334–37; Manuel Godoy,
Memorias (Gerona: Libreria de Vicente Oliva, 1841), VI:1–62.
64. See Royal Proclamation of March 19, 1808, in “Expediente sobre la abdicación
de Carlos IV a favor de su hijo Fernando VII, la confirmación en sus puestos de
todos los ministros de los tribunales, y sobre la llegada del nuevo monarca a
Madrid,” Archivo Histórico Nacional (Madrid), Consejos, 5511, Exp.2. Also
see Royal Decree of March 18–19, 1808, on the events at Aranjuez and the
arrest of Godoy, in Biblioteca Histórica Municipal, C 34363.
65. Grandmaison, L’Espagne et Napoléon, I:99–114; Fugier, Napoléon et L’Espagne,
II:383–93; Richard Herr, “The Constitution of 1812 and the Spanish Road to
Parliamentary Monarchy,” in Revolution and the Meanings of Freedom in the
Nineteenth Century, ed. Isser Woloch (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press,
1996), 70–71.
66. Napoleon’s recently published correspondence for the year 1808 contains
numerous letters announcing his intention to oversee Spanish matters in per-
son, yet he did not leave Paris, ultimately informing Murat that “circum-
stances have forced me to delay my departure.” He blamed this delay on
Russia’s declaration of war on Sweden, but in reality he was already preoccu-
pied with a secret dynastic project that would have overthrown the Bourbons
and replaced Charles IV with Louis Bonaparte. The project failed when Louis
refused the crown. See Napoleon’s letters of March 23–27, 1808, Correspondance
générale, VIII, nos. 17,462, 17,510.
67. Godoy was rescued from captivity and transported to France, where he spent
the next few years living in exile, first at Fontainebleau, then at Compiègne,
and finally Aix-en-Provence. After the fall of Napoleon, Godoy was denied
return to Spain and lived for many years in Italy. He was allowed to return to
Spain only in 1844 but remained in France, where he died in Paris in 1851.
68. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 343.
69. José Canga Argüelles, Observaciones sobre la historia de la guerra de España
(London: D. M. Calero, 1829), I:37–39.
70. Tournon to Napoleon, March 13, 1808, cited in Francisco Martí Gilabert, El
motín de Aranjuez (Pamplona: Universidad de Navarra, 1972), 106.
71. Anne Jean Marie René Savary, Mémoires du duc de Rovigo: pour servir à l’histoire de
l’empereur Napoléon (Paris: A. Bossange, 1828), III:358.
72. Juan Pérez de Guzmán, El dos de mayo de 1808 en Madrid (Madrid:
Establecimiento tipográfico sucesores de Rivadeneyra, 1908), 361–417; on the
726 | notes to pages 257–259

impact of the Madrid revolt, see 465–540. For the French side, see Murat, lieu-
tenant de l’empereur en Espagne 1808, 314–45.
73. Louis Bonaparte declined the Spanish crown, and Jérôme was equally unen-
thusiastic about it.
74. For details, see Jean-Paul Coujou, “Political Thought and Legal Theory in Suárez,”
in A Companion to Francisco Suárez, ed. Victor M. Salas and Robert L. Fastiggi
(Leiden: Brill, 2014), 29–71; Brian Hamnett, “The Meieva Roots of Spanish
Constitutionalism,” in The Rise of Constitutional Government in the Iberian
Atlantic World: The Impact of the Cádiz Constitution of 1812, ed. Natalia
Sobrevilla Perea and Scott Eastman (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press,
2015), 19–41; Richard Hocquellet, Résistance et revolution durant l’occupation
napoléonienne en Espagne, 1808–1812 (Paris: La boutique de l’histoire, 2001),
140–54.
75. In some juntas, revolutionaries took the lead and constituted the majority,
while in other cases people of prominence before the upheavals retained their
positions. Charles J. Esdaile, Spain in the Liberal Age: From Constitution to Civil
War, 1808–1939 (Oxford: Blackwell, 2000), 17.
76. Manuel Ardit Lucas, Revolucion liberal y revuelta campesina: un ensayo sobre la
desintegracion del regimen feudal en el Pais Valenciano (1793/1840) (Barcelona:
Editorial Ariel, 1977), 139–40; Lovett, Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Spain,
I:166.
77. See Joaquín Varela Suanzes-Carpegna, La teoría del Estado en las Cortes de Cádiz:
orígenes del constitucionalismo hispánico (Madrid: Centro de Estudios Políticos y
Constitucionales, 2011). On the emerging notions of Spanish nationalism,
see Scott Eastman, Preaching Spanish Nationalism Across the Hispanic Atlantic,
1759–1823 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2012).
78. Despite Napoleon’s efforts, most of the leading Spanish notables refused to
participate in the assembly, which ultimately comprised fewer than a hundred
members, mostly from the nobility and the Bourbon bureaucracy; it was far
from being regarded as a genuine national institution. The assembly was con-
vened on May 24, began its sessions on June 15, and finished its work on July
7, 1808.
79. The text of the statute is available at https://es.wikisource.org/wiki/Constituci%
C3%B3n_de_Bayona_de_1808.
80. Louis François Joseph Bausset-Roquefort, Private Memoirs of the Court of
Napoleon and of Some Public Events of the Imperial Reign, from 1805 to the First of
May 1814, to Serve as a Contribution to the History of Napoleon (Philadelphia:
Carey, Lea & Carey, 1828), 188–89.
81. Lipscombe, The Peninsular War Atlas, 44–46.
82. Owen Connelly, The Gentle Bonaparte: A Biography of Joseph, Napoleon’s Elder
Brother (New York: Macmillan, 1968), 99–116.
83. See Eugène Titeux, Le Général Dupont: une erreur historique (Puteaux-sur-Seine:
Prieur et Dubois et Cie, 1903), vol. 3; Francisco Vela, La batalla de Bailén,
notes to pages 259–261 | 727

1808: el águila derrotada (Madrid: Almena Ediciones, 2007); Dominique


Vedel, Relations de la campagne d’Andalousie, 1808 (Paris: La Vouivre, 1999);
Charles Clerc, Guerre d’Espagne: Capitulation de Baylen (Paris: Ancienne Libraire
Thorin et Fils Albert Fontemoing, 1903).
84. Upon his return to France, Dupont was court-martialed, cashiered, and impris-
oned at Fort de Joux; other commanding officers also bore the brunt of impe-
rial anger. Meanwhile, the French rank and file spent six long years in captivity.
The prisoners were placed aboard prison hulks in Cadiz, where they suffered
from abuse, malnutrition, overcrowding and bad weather. In later years, they
were transferred to the island of Cabrera, where, largely abandoned by the
Spanish authorities, they endured indescribable hardship. Fewer than half sur-
vived in captivity. For documents relating to the enquiry that Napoleon organ-
ized in 1812 to investigate circumstances of the French surrender, see Susan
Howard, “The Bailen Enquiry,” The Napoleon Series, http://www.napoleon-
series.org/military/battles/1808/Peninsula/Bailen/BailenEnquiry/c_bailen
Enquiry.html. See Théophile Geisendorf-Des Gouttes, Les prisonniers de guerre
au temps du Ier empire. La déportation aux Baléares et aux Canaries (les archipels
enchanteurs et farouches) des soldats de Baylen et des marins de Trafalgar
(1809–1814) (Geneva: Éditions Labor, 1936); Pierre Pellissier and Jérôme
Phelipeau, Les grognards de Cabrera: 1809–1814 (Paris: Hachette littérature,
1979); Denis Smith, The Prisoners of Cabrera: Napoleon’s Forgotten Soldiers,
1809–1814 (New York: Four Walls Eight Windows, 2001).
85. Connelly, The Gentle Bonaparte, 117–18.
86. Formed in September 1808 at Aranjuez, the Supreme Central Governing Junta,
led by the aged conde de Floridablanca, Spain’s former secretary of state
(1776–1792), consisted of members of each of the provincial juntas. Ultimately
driven to the southern port city of Cadiz, it presided over the governance and
prosecution of the war for the next two years. Esdaile, Spain in the Liberal Age, 22.
87. Mildred Fryman, “Charles Stuart and the Common Cause: Anglo-Portuguese
Diplomatic Relations, 1810–1814,” Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary
Europe, 1977, 105–15.
88. Oman, Peninsular War, I:210–12; Jac Weller, Wellington in the Peninsula,
1808–1814 (London: Nicolas Vane, 1962), 30–31; Lipscombe, The Peninsular
War Atlas, 60–65.
89. For an example of public response, see Lord Byron’s satirical poem in The
Gentleman’s Magazine (January 1809), 62: “And ever since that martial synod
met, Britannia sickens, / Cintra! at thy name.” The Complete Works of Lord
Byron, ed. Henry Lytton Bulwer (London: A. and W. Galignani, 1841), 74. For
a full account of the British public reaction to the convention, see Michael
Glover, Britannia Sickens: Sir Arthur Wellesley and the Convention of Cintra
(London, Leo Cooper, 1970).
90. John Joseph Stockdale, The Proceedings on the Enquiry into the Armistice and
Convention of Cintra, and into the Conduct of the Officers Concerned (London: Stockdale,
728 | notes to pages 261–263

1809). For Wellesley’s involvement in the convention, see Rory Muir, Wellington:
The Path to Victory, 1769–1814 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013),
264–82.
91. See Stephen Summerfield and Susan Law, Sir John Moore and the Universal
Soldier, vol. 1, The Man, the Commander and the Shorncliffe System of Training
(London: Ken Trotman, 2015).
92. Oman, A History of Peninsular War, I:368–75.
93. D. W. Davies, Sir John Moore’s Peninsular Campaign 1808–1809 (The Hague:
Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 63–65; Christopher Summerville, March of Death:
Sir John Moore’s Retreat to Corunna, 1808–1809 (London: Greenhill Books,
2003), 23.
94. Treaty of Tilsit, July 7, 1807, Fondation Napoléon, https://www.napoleon.org/
histoire-des-2-empires/articles/traite-de-tilsit-avec-la-russie-7-juillet-1807.
95. Albert Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre 1er: l’alliance russe sous le 1er Empire (Paris,
1894–97), I:165–77, 182–87, 190–203; Vernon J. Puryear, Napoleon and the
Dardanelles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), 234–35, 248–49.
See also SIRIO LXXXIII (1892) and LXXXIX (1893) for documents related to
General Anne Jean Marie Rene Savary’s mission to St. Petersburg in late 1807
and General Tolstoy’s embassy to Paris.
96. For examples of Russian disillusionment see SIRIO LXXXIX (1893):194–95,
366–68, 407–11, 476–79. Also see E. Driault, Napoléon et l’Europe: Tilsit.
France et Russie sous le premier empire. La Question de Pologne (1806–1809) (Paris:
F. Alcan, 1917), 272–91.
97. Pierre Lanfrey, The History of Napoleon the First (New York: Macmillan, 1894),
III:487.
98. Johann Wilhelm von Goethe, Mélanges par Goethe, ed. Jacques Porchat (Paris:
Hachette, 1863), 307–9. King Maximilian Joseph of Bavaria was not initially
invited, reflecting certain tensions that emerged between Napoleon and this
Bavarian ruler. In the end, the latter still came to Erfurt. For an interesting discus-
sion, see Matthias Stickler, “Erfurt als Wende—Bayern und Württemberg und das
Scheitern der Pläne Napoleons I. für einen Ausbau der Rheinbundverfassung,” in
Der Erfurter Fürstenkongreß 1808: Hintegründe, Ablauf, Wirkung, ed. Rudolf Benl
(Erfurt: Stadtarchiv, 2008), 266–300.
99. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, Mémoires (1754–1815) (Paris: Plon, 1982),
439. Also see Mémoires, documents et écrits divers laissés par le prince de Metternich
(Paris: Plon, 1881), II:227.
100. See Gustav Brünnert, Napoleons Aufenthalt in Erfurt im Jahre 1808 (Erfurt:
Druck von Fr. Bartholomäus, 1899).
101. For insights, see Mémoires d’Aimée de Coigny, ed. Etienne Lamy (Paris: Calmann-
Lévy, 1902), 193, 209–12, 239.
102. For discussion of Talleyrand’s intentions, see Emile Dard, Napoléon et Talleyrand
(Paris: Plon, 1935), 203–17; Georges Lacour-Gayet, Talleyrand, 1754–1838
(Paris: Payot, 1930), II:238–54; Georges Bordonove, Talleyrand (Paris: Pygmalion,
notes to pages 263–267 | 729

2007); Emmanuel Waresquiel, Talleyrand: Le prince immobile (Paris: Fayard, 2006).


There is sufficient evidence to suggest that Talleyrand was in the pay of Austria
from 1809. See E. Dard, “La Vengeance de Talleyrand,” Revue des deux mondes XX
(1934): 215–29.
103. The quote is as reported by Metternich after the conversation with Talleyrand.
Mémoires de Metternich, II:248.
104. Armand-Augustin-Louis de Caulaincourt, Memoirs (London: Cassell, 1935), I:540.
105. Eugene Tarle, Talleyrand (Moscow: Urait, 2017), 96. Also see Émile Dard, “La
vengeance de Talleyrand (1809),” Revue des Deux Mondes 20, no. 1 (1934):
215–29. After Erfurt, the Russian government dispatched the young Count
Karl von Nesselrode, officially as an advisor to the Russian ambassador, to
serve as a personal liaison between Emperor Alexander and Talleyrand.
106. “Posolstvo grafa P.A. Tolstogo v Parizhe v 1807 i 1808 gg,” SIRIO LXXXIX
(1893): esp. 689–94.
107. See Articles 8 through 11, Convention of Erfurt, October 12, 1808, www.
napoleon-series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_erfurt.html. In Article
11, France and Russia pledged to “maintain the integrity of the other posses-
sions of the Ottoman Empire, not wishing to undertake themselves or suffer
that there should be undertaken any enterprise against any part of that Empire,
unless they should be previously informed of it.”
108. Equally decisive were French operations in Catalonia, where they routed
Spaniards at Cardedeu (December 16) and Molins de Rei (December 21).
Lipscombe, The Peninsular War Atlas, 70–87.
109. Neil Campbell, Napoleon on Elba: Diary of an Eyewitness to Exile, ed. Jonathan
North (Welwyn, UK: Ravenhall, 2004), 50.
110. Napoleon, Correspondance générale, VIII:489.
111. Proclamation of December 7, 1808, in Grandmaison, L’Espagne et Napoléon,
I:402.
112. John H. Gill, 1809: Thunder on the Danube: Napoleon’s Defeat of the Habsburgs
(Barnsley, UK: Frontline Books, 2008), I:14–15.
113. Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula, I:425–49; Davies, Sir John Moore’s
Peninsular Campaign, 114–53; Lipscombe, The Peninsular War Atlas, 80, 88.
114. Bausset, Private Memoirs, 238.
115. Aymar-Olivier Le Harivel de Gonneville, Recollections of Colonel de Gonneville
(London: Hurst and Blackett, 1875), I:189–90; Bausset, Private Memoirs, 239.
116. Davies, Sir John Moore’s Peninsular Campaign, 178–238; Napier, History of the
War in the Peninsula, I:473–97; Summerville, March of Death, 131–78, 180.
For a more concise treatment, see Philip Haythornthwaite, Corunna 1809: Sir
John Moore’s Fighting Retreat (Oxford: Osprey, 2001).
117. Lipscombe, The Peninsular War Atlas, 89–96.
118. Cited in Christopher Hibbert, Corunna (London: Batsford, 1961), 188.
119. Charles Esdaile, The Peninsular War: A New History (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2003), 151–56.
730 | notes to pages 267–270

120. After a six-day dash across northern Spain and most of France, Napoleon
reached Paris in the morning of January 23. Five days later, the imperial fury
rained down on Talleyrand, who was sacked from the Office of the Grand
Chamberlain. Fouché was spared, but was instructed in no uncertain terms to
concern himself only with affairs relating to his ministry.
121. Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, II:90–143; Jacques Belmas, Journaux des
sièges faits ou soutenus par les Français dans la Péninsule de 1807 à 1814 (Paris:
Firmin Didot Frères, 1836), vol. II; Raymond Rudorff, War to the Death: The
Sieges of Saragossa, 1808–1809 (New York: Macmillan, 1974).
122. Andre ́ François Miot de Melito, Memoirs of Count Miot de Melito, Minister,
Ambassador, Councillor of State and Member of the Institute of France, Between the
Years 1788 and 1815, ed. Wilhelm August Fleischmann (New York: Scribner,
1881), 557.
123. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 343.
124. For a good example of the sheer effort required for convoying, see Rafael Farias,
ed., Memorias de la Guerra de la Independencia: escritas por soldados franceses
(Madrid: Hispano-Africana, 1919), 269–87.
125. Fernando Diaz Plaja, La historia de Espaňa en sus documentos. El siglo XIX
(Madrid: Instituto de Estudios Políticos, 1954), 74–76.
126. “Instrucción que su Majestad se ha dignado aprobar para el corso terrestre con-
tra los ejércitos franceses,” April 17, 1809, Archivo Histórico Nacional
(Madrid), Estado, 11, A, http://pares.mcu.es/GuerraIndependencia/catalog/
show/2728028.
127. See Charles J. Esdaile, Fighting Napoleon: Guerrillas, Bandits and Adventurers in
Spain, 1808–1814 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004); Esdaile,
The Peninsular War: A New History (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003). For
a more traditional interpretation of la guerrilla, see Ronald Fraser, Napoleon’s
Cursed War: Popular Resistance in the Spanish Peninsular War (London: Verso,
2008); John Tone, The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat
of Napoleon in Spain (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994).
128. For a concise discussion, see Don Alexander, “The Impact of Guerrilla
Warfare in Spain on French Combat Strength,” Proceedings of the Consortium on
Revolutionary Europe, 1975, 91–103.
129. Antoine René Charles Mathurin de La Forest, Correspondance du comte de la
Forest, ambassadeur de France en Espagne 1808–1813 (Paris: A. Picard et Fils,
1905), IV:31; also see IV:49, 98, 204; V:209, 304. Napoleon did establish a
special corps of French gendarmerie to provide protection against the guerril-
las. See Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, III:203–204; Grandmaison,
L’Espagne et Napoléon: 1804–1809, III, 251–52.
130. Denis Charles Parquin, Souvenirs et campagnes d’un vieux soldat de l’empire
(1803–1814) (Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1903), 254.
131. Muir, Wellington: The Path to Victory, 283–98.
notes to pages 271–273 | 731

132. Among the many biographies of Wellington of particular importance are Rory
Muir’s two-volume magnum opus Wellington: The Path to Victory, 1769–1814
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013) and Wellington: Waterloo and the
Fortunes of Peace (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2015), and Huw
Davies’s Wellington’s War: The Making of a Military Genius (New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 2014).
133. See Andrew Field, Talavera: Wellington’s First Victory in Spain (Barnsley: Pen &
Sword, 2006); Rene Chartrand, Talavera 1809: Wellington’s Lighting Strike into
Spain (Oxford: Osprey, 2013).
134. Donald D. Horward, “Wellington’s Peninsular Strategy, Portugal and the
Lines of Torres Vedras,” Portuguese Studies Review 2 (1993): 46–59; Ian Fletcher,
The Lines of Torres Vedras 1809–11 (Oxford: Osprey, 2003); John Grehan, The
Lines of Torres Vedras: The Cornerstone of Wellington’s Strategy in the Peninsular
War 1809–1812 (Staplehurst: Spellmount, 2000). On Beresford and the
­reorganization of the Portuguese army, see Samuel Edison Vichness, “Marshal
of Portugal: The Military Career of William Carr Beresford, 1785–1814,”
Ph.D. diss., Florida State University, 1976, 218–381; Malyn Newitt and
Martin Robson, Lord Beresford and British Intervention in Portugal, 1807–1820
(Lisbon: Impr. de Ciências Sociais, 2004).
135. Brian de Toy, “Wellington’s Lifeline: Naval Logistics in the Peninsula,”
Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1995, 361; Donald
D. Horward, “Admiral Berkeley and the Duke of Wellington: The Winning
Combination in the Peninsula,” in New Interpretations in Naval History, ed.
William B. Cogar (Annapolis MD: Naval Institute Press, 1989), 105–20;
Horward, “Wellington, Berkeley, and the Royal Navy: Sea Power and the
Defense of Portugal (1908–1812),” British Historical Society of Portugal
Annual Report and Review 18 (1991): 85–104; Horward, “British Sea Power
and Its Influence upon the Peninsular War (1808–1814),” Naval War College
Review 31, no. 2 (1978): 54–71. Also see Brian de Toy, “Wellington’s
Admiral: The Life and Career of George Berkeley, 1753–1818,” Ph.D. diss.,
Florida State University, 1997, 492–565. For a book-length treatment of the
role of the navy during the Peninsular War, see Christopher Hall, Wellington’s
Navy: Seapower and the Peninsular War 1807–1814 (London, 2004). For an
in-depth discussion of British logistics, see T. M. D. Redgrave, “Wellington’s
Logistical Arrangements in the Peninsular War, 1809–1814,” Ph.D. diss.,
King’s College London, 1979.
136. Donald D. Horward, “Logistics and Strategy in the Peninsula,” Proceedings of
the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1999, 357–59; De Toy, “Wellington’s
Lifeline,” 361; Hall, Wellington’s Navy, 95.
137. Rear Admiral Martin to Lord Keith, September 21, 1813, in Letters and Papers
of Admiral of the Fleet Sir Thos. Byam Martin, ed. Richard Vesey Hamilton
(London: Navy Records Society, 1898), II:409.
732 | notes to pages 273–274

138. Don W. Alexander, Rod of Iron: French Counterinsurgency Policy in Aragon During
the Peninsular War (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1985); Mark A. Reeves,
“Iberian Leech: Napoleon’s Counterinsurgency Operations in the Peninsular,
1807–1810,” MMAS thesis, US Army Command and General Staff College,
2005, 81–84; Philippe H. Gennequin, “‘The Centurions vs. the Hydra’:
French Counterinsurgency in the Peninsular War (1808–1812),” MMAS the-
sis, US Army Command and General Staff College, 2011, 44–76. Also see
John L. Tone, The Fatal Knot: The Guerrilla War in Navarre and the Defeat of
Napoleon in Spain (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1994);
Jean-Yves Puyo, “Les expériences de Suchet à l’armée d’Aragon,” Revue du sou-
venir Napoléonien 439 (2002): 8–15; David J. Lemelin, “Marshal Suchet in
Aragon,” Military Review 78 (1998): 86–90.
139. Lipscombe, The Peninsular War Atlas, 148–51; Oman, A History of the Peninsular
War, III:9–66.
140. In late January 1810, the Supreme Central Governing Junta dissolved itself
and handed power to a five-man Council of Regency that was to serve on behalf
of the still-captive Bourbon monarchs.
141. For details, see François Crouzet, L’économie britannique et le blocus continental
(1806–1813) (Paris: Presses universitaires de France, 1958), I:284–403; John
Severn, A Wellesley Affair: Richard Marquess Wellesley and the Conduct of Anglo-
Spanish Diplomacy, 1809–1812 (Tallahassee: University Presses of Florida,
1981), 46–131; Muir, Wellington: The Path to Victory, 319, 327, 346–47.
142. But the question remains whether the French could have ended war at this
junction. For some historians, the answer is yes. “Had the invasion of Portugal
proved successful, there would have been no power of resistance left in Galicia,
in Cadiz, in Valencia, or even in Catalonia; and the war would have ere long
flickered out,” notes Charles Oman. His conclusion is echoed in the works of
another great British scholar, Charles Esdaile, who believes that had Napoleon
provided a constant supply of reinforcements, the French “could have crushed
resistance in Spain and then marched against Portugal in such overwhelming
force that even Wellington could not have overcome them.” It must be noted
however that the French continued to face profound logistical challenges in
Spain’s rugged environment and struggled to maintain control of some areas.
Marshal Pierre Augereau, who had replaced Saint-Cyr in Catalonia, continued
to face an uphill struggle against the enterprising and obstinate Catalans,
while Suchet was checked at Valencia and faced fresh disturbances in Aragon
in 1810. Charles Oman, “The Peninsular War, 1808–1814,” in The Cambridge
Modern History, ed. A. W. Ward et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1969), IX:458; Esdaile, Napoleon’s Wars: An International History, 351.
143. For an excellent eyewitness account, see Jean Jacques Pelet, The French
Campaign in Portugal, 1810–1811: An Account by Jean Jacques Pelet, trans.
Donald D. Horward (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1972).
notes to pages 275–281 | 733

144. See Donald D. Horward, The Battle of Bussaco: Masséna vs. Wellington
(Tallahassee: Florida State University Press, 1965); René Chartrand, Bussaco,
1810: Wellington Defeats Napoleon’s Marshals (Oxford: Osprey, 2001).
145. Maurice Girod de l’Ain, Vie militaire du Géneral Foy (Paris, E. Plon, Nourrit,
1900), 343. For an in-depth discussion, see John Grehan, The Lines of Torres
Vedras: The Cornerstone of Wellington’s Strategy in the Peninsular War, 1809–1812
(London: Spellmount, 2000).
146. Pelet, The French Campaign in Portugal, 273.
147. Wellington to the Earl of Liverpool, December 21, 1810, in The Dispatches of
Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington During His Various Campaigns in India,
Denmark, Portugal, Spain, the Low Countries, and France from 1799 to 1818, ed.
Lt. Colonel Gurwood (London: John Murrat, 1837), VII:54. Also see Muir,
Wellington: The Path to Victory, 399–406.
148. Esdaile, Peninsular War, 328.
149. Grenville to Grey, November 1, 1819, Dropmore Papers, X:61–62.
150. Muir, Wellington: The Path to Victory, 402–3.
151. Donald D. Horward, “Wellington and the Defense of Portugal, 1808–1813,”
Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1987, 101; Muir, Wellington:
The Path to Victory, 399–400.
152. See Guy Dempsey, Albuera 1811: The Bloodiest Battle of the Peninsular War
(London: Frontline Books, 2008); Mark S. Thompson, The Fatal Hill: The Allied
Campaign Under Beresford in Southern Spain in 1811 (Chapelgarth, UK: n.p.,
2002). The French lost 7,000–8,000 men, about a third of their total force.
153. Gates, The Spanish Ulcer, 343–50.
154. The best account of this battle is in Rory Muir, Salamanca 1812 (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2001). For a more concise treatment, see Ian
Fletcher, Salamanca 1812: Wellington Crushes Marmont (Oxford: Osprey, 2004).
155. Girod de l’Ain, Vie militaire du Géneral Foy, 178.
156. Napier, History of the War in the Peninsula, III:130.
157. Gates, The Spanish Ulcer, 372–73.
158. Few of these deputies had been elected directly because of the ongoing war in
Spain. Deputies from Spanish America had been selected by the oligarchic
cabildos (city councils).
159. Luis Palacios Bañuelos, Ignacio Ruiz Rodríguez, and Fernando Bermejo Batanero,
eds., Cádiz 1812: origen del constitucionalismo español (Madrid: Dykinson, 2013),
117–66; Burton Laverne Showers, “The Constitutional Debates on the Spanish
Constitution of 1812,” M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin–Madison, 1950.
160. The text was drafted by a special commission of fifteen deputies throughout
1811. It was then debated by the Cortes and approved on March 18, 1812.
161. See Arnold R. Verduin, “The Spanish Constitution of 1812 and the Influence
of the French Revolution Thereon,” M.A. thesis, University of Wisconsin–
Madison, 1930. The text of the Constitution of 1812 can be found at Biblioteca
734 | notes to pages 281–287

Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, www.cervantesvirtual.com/servlet/SirveObras/


c1812/12159396448091522976624/index.htm.
162. Charles R. Berry, “The Election of the Mexican Deputies to the Spanish Cortes,
1810–1822,” in Mexico and the Spanish Cortes, 1810–1822, ed. N. L. Benson
(Austin: University of Texas Press, 1966), 22–31; John R. Fisher, Government
and Society in Colonial Peru: The Intendant System, 1784–1814 (London: Athlone
Press, 1970), 217–18.
163. Natalia Sobrevilla Perea and Scott Eastman, eds., The Rise of Constitutional
Government in the Iberian Atlantic World: The Impact of the Cádiz Constitution of
1812 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2015), 264.
164. On Peru, see Natalia Sobrevilla Perea, “Loyalism and Liberalism in Peru,
1810–1824,” in The Rise of Constitutional Government in the Iberian Atlantic
World, ed. Natalia Sobrevilla Perea and Scott Eastman (Tuscaloosa: University
of Alabama Press, 2015), 111–32. On the formation of political leaders, see
Adam Sharman and Stephen G. H. Roberts, eds., 1812 Echoes: The Cadiz
Constitution in Hispanic History, Culture and Politics (Newcastle upon Tyne:
Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2013).

Chapter 13
1. Thomas Nipperday, Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck 1800–1866, trans.
Daniel Nolan (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1996), 1.
2. Louis Bergeron, France Under Napoleon (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1981), xiv.
3. Nipperday, Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck, 1.
4. Alexander Grab, Napoleon and the Transformation of Europe (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2003), 19.
5. James J. Sheehan, “State and Nationality in the Napoleonic Period,” in The
State of Germany: The National Idea in the Making, Unmaking, and Remaking of a
Modern Nation-State, ed. John Breuilly (Harlow: Longman, 1992), 47–59.
6. Napoleon to Jérôme, November 15, 1807, in Napoleon, Correspondance générale,
ed. Thierry Lentz (Paris: Fayard, 2004), VII:1321.
7. Louis Madelin, La Rome de Napoléon; la domination français à Rome de 1809 à
1814 (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1906), 3.
8. See Herbert Fisher, Studies in Napoleonic Statesmanship: Germany (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1903), 173–223, 312–32; Charles Schmidt, Le grand-duché de
Berg (1806–13); étude sur la domination française en Allemagne sous Napoléon 1er
(Paris: F. Alcan, 1905).
9. Allen Cronenberg, “Montgelas and the Reorganization of Napoleonic Bavaria,”
Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1989, 712–19; Daniel
Michael Klang, “Bavaria and the Age of Napoleon,” Ph.D. diss., Princeton
University, 1963; Chester Penn Higby, The Religious Policy of the Bavarian
Government During the Napoleonic Period (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1919).
notes to pages 287–290 | 735

10. See Dominique de Villepin, Les Cent-Jours, ou, L’esprit de sacrifice (Paris: Perrin,
2001); Michel Franceschi and Ben Weider, The Wars Against Napoleon:
Debunking the Myth of the Napoleonic Wars (New York: Savas Beatie, 2008),
80–81; Don Dombowsky, Nietzsche and Napoleon: The Dionysian Conspiracy
(Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2014), sec. 3.12.
11. Geoffrey Ellis, “The Continental System Revisited,” in Revisiting Napoleon’s
Continental System: Local, Regional and European Experiences, ed. Katherine B. Aalestad
and Johan Joor (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2015), 33.
12. In addition to the previously cited works on the Continental System, see Pierre
Branda, ed., L’economie selon Napoléon: monnaie, banque, crises et commerce sous le
Premier Empire (Paris: Éditions Vendémiaire, 2016).
13. In his insightful study of the Napoleonic empire, British historian Michael
Broers suggests distinguishing between the “inner empire,” which included
the lands acquired prior to 1807, an “outer empire” that was gained in
1808–12, and various “intermediate zones,” all of which had experienced var-
ied levels of efficacy of the Napoleonic regime. See Broers, Europe Under
Napoleon 1799–1815 (New York: Edward Arnold, 1996).
14. See Rafał Kowalczyk, Polityka gospodarcza i finansowa Księstwa Warszawskiego
w latach 1807–12 (Łódzʹ: Wydawn. Uniwersytet Łódzkiego, 2010); Henryk
Grossmann, Struktura społeczna i gospodarcza Księstwa Warszawskiego: na podstawie
spisów ludnos ́ci, 1808–10 (Warsaw: Nakł. Gł. Urzędu Statystycznego, 1925).
Also see Monika Senkowska-Gluck, “Les majorats français dans le duché de
Varsovie (1807–1813),” Annales historiques de la Révolution française 36 (1964):
373–86; Senkowska-Gluck, Donacje napoleońskie w Księstwie Warszawskim; studium
historycyno-prawne (Wrocław: Zakład Narodowy im. Ossolinʹskich, 1968).
15. See Elisabeth Fehrenbach, Traditionale Gesellschaft und revolutionäres Recht: die
Einführung des Code Napoléon in den Rheinbundstaaten (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 1974); Fehrenbach, Der Kampf um die Einführung des Code Napoléon
in den Rheinbundstaaten (Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1973); Helmut Berding,
Napoleonische Herrschafts- und Gesellschaftspolitik im Königreich Westfalen:
1807–13 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht, 1973). See Isabel Hull,
Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany, 1700–1815 (Ithaca, NY: Cornell
University Press, 1996).
16. Hull, Sexuality, State, and Civil Society in Germany.
17. Marshal Eduard Mortier’s Proclamation of November 1, 1806, Hessisches
Staatsarchiv Marburg, www.digam.net.
18. For an excellent overview, see Sam A. Mustafa, Napoleon’s Paper Kingdom: The
Life and Death of Westphalia, 1807–13 (New York: Rowman & Littlefield,
2017).
19. See Roger Darquenne, La conscription dans le département de Jemappes (1798–1813)
(Mons: Cercle archéologique de Mons, 1970).
20. Fisher, Studies in Napoleonic Statesmanship, 181, 214–215, 300–301. See also
Jean-Camille-Abel-Fleuri Sauzey, Les Allemands sous les aigles françaises; essai sur
736 | notes to pages 291–295

les troupes de la Confédération du Rhin, 1806–14. Tome I: Le régiment de Francfort


(Paris: R. Chapelot, 1902).
21. Alexander Grab, “Army, State, and Society: Conscription and Desertion in
Napoleonic Italy (1802–1814),” Journal of Modern History 67, no. 1 (1995): 28.
22. Cited in Grab, “Army, State, and Society,” 25.
23. On the impact of conscription on various parts of Europe, see Isser Woloch,
“Napoleonic Conscription: State Power and Civil Society,” Past and Present 111
(1986): 101–29; Grab, “Army, State, and Society”; Alan Forrest, Conscripts and
Deserters: The Army and the French Society During the Revolution and Empire (New
York, 1989); Darquenne, La conscription dans le département de Jemappes.
24. For an excellent discussion, see Woloch, “Napoleonic Conscription.” Also see
Woloch, The New Regime: Transformations of the French Civic Order, 1789–1820s
(New York: W. W. Norton, 1995), 380–426.
25. Alexander Grab, “State, Society and Tax Policy in Napoleonic Europe,” in
Napoleon and Europe, ed. Philip Dwyer (London: Pearson, 2001), 169.
26. For an excellent discussion, see Marcel Marion, Histoire financière de la France
depuis 1715. Tome IV: 1797–18. La fin de la Révolution, le Consulat et l’Empire. La
liberation du territoire (Paris: Librairie Arthur Rousseau, 1925).
27. Napoleon to Eugène de Beauharnais, August 23, 1810, in Correspondance de
Napoléon, XX:61.
28. Napoleon to Soult, July 14, 1810, in Napoléon raconté par l’écrit: Livres anciens,
manuscrits, documents imprimés et autographes, iconographie (Paris: Teissèdre, 2004),
56–57. Also see Bruno Colson, Napoleon on War (New York: Oxford University
Press, 2015), 245–46.
29. Marion, Histoire financière de la France depuis 1715, IV:318; Grab, “State, Society
and Tax Policy in Napoleonic Europe,” 185.
30. Mustafa, Napoleon’s Paper Kingdom, 79–106.
31. For details, see Pierre Branda, Le prix de la gloire. Napoléon et l’argent (Paris:
Fayard, 2007); Branda, “La guerre a-t-elle payée la guerre?” in Napoléon et
l’Europe, ed. Thierry Lenz (Paris: Fayard, 2005), 258–73.
32. Michel Bruguière, “Domaine extraordinaire,” in Dictionnaire Napoléon, ed. Jean
Tulard (Paris, 1989), 608.
33. Nicola Todorov, “Finances et fiscalité dans le royaume de Westphalie,” in La
revue de l’Institut Napoléon 189 (2004): 7–46. Also see Helmut Berding, “Le
Royaume de Westphalie, état-modèle,” Francia: Forschungen zur westeuropäischen
Geschichte 10 (1982): 345–58.
34. John A. Davis, “The Napoleonic Era in Southern Italy: An Ambiguous
Legacy?,” Proceedings of the British Academy 80 (1993): 133–48. Also see
Pasquale Villani, Mezzogiorno tra riforme e rivoluzione (Bari: Laterza, 1962).
35. Stuart Woolf, Napoleon’s Integration of Europe (London: Routledge, 1991), 184.
Also see Geoffrey Ellis, “The Nature of Napoleonic Imperialism,” in Napoleon
and Europe, ed. Philip Dwyer (London: Pearson, 2001), 97–117.
notes to pages 295–299 | 737

36. Napoleon continues, “They will esteem you only to the degree to which they
fear you, and they will fear you only to the degree to which they are aware that
their duplicity and treacherous character are known to you.” Napoleon to
Talleyrand, October 7, 1797, no. 2292; Napoleon to Eugène de Beauharnais,
July 27, 1805, in CN, no. 9028, III:369; XI:48.
37. Part of the Papal States, the region is located on the Adriatic coastline in the
central area of the peninsula, bordered by Emilia-Romagna to the north,
Tuscany to the west, Umbria to the southwest, and Abruzzo and Lazio.
38. For a good overview of French religious policy, see Michael Broers, The Politics
of Religion in Napoleonic Italy: The War Against God, 1801–14 (New York:
Routledge, 2002). For the French occupation of Rome, see Susan Vandiver
Nicassio, Imperial City: Rome Under Napoleon (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 2009); Louis Madelin, La Rome de Napoléon; la domination français à Rome
de 1809 à 1814 (Paris, Plon-Nourrit, 1906).
39. This discussion is based on Alexander Grab, “From the French Revolution to
Napoleon,” in Italy in the Nineteenth Century: 1796–1900, ed. John A. Davis
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 25–48; Nicassio, Imperial City: Rome
Under Napoleon, 151–94; Michael Broers, The Napoleonic Empire in Italy,
1796–14: Cultural Imperialism in a European Context? (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2005), 123–74; Desmond Gregory, Napoleon’s Italy (Madison:
Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, 2001), 119–32; Owen Connelly,
Napoleon’s Satellite Kingdoms (New York: Free Press, 1965), 19–126.
40. For a good discussion of the wars’ impact on Italy, see Frederick C. Schneid,
Soldiers of Napoleon’s Kingdom of Italy: Army, State, and Society, 1800–15 (Boulder,
CO: Westview Press, 1995); Paolo Coturri, Partire partirò, partir bisogna: Firenze
e la Toscana nelle campagne napoleoniche, 1793–15 (Florence: Sarnus, 2009);
Virgilio Ilari et. al. Il regno di Sardegna nelle guerre napoleoniche e le legioni
­anglo-italiane, 1799–1815 (Novara: Widerholdt Frères, 2008); Vittorio Scotti
Douglas, ed., Gli Italiani in Spagna nella guerra napoleonica, 1807–13: i fatti, i
testimoni, l’eredità: atti del IV Convegno internazionale di “Spagna contemporanea,”
Novi Ligure, 22–24 ottobre 2004 (Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2006).
41. Alexander Grab, “The Kingdom of Italy and Napoleon’s Continental Blockade,”
Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1988, 587–604.
42. Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 163–208.
43. Luigi de Rosa, “Property Rights, Institutional Change and Economic Growth
in Southern Italy in the XVIIIth and XIXth Centuries,” Journal of European
Economic History 8, no. 3(1979): 531–51.
44. Joseph Bonaparte introduced a conscription by lottery in 1807 but as the system
failed to provide sufficient recruits, it was replaced with quotas in 1808.
Oftentimes quotas were met by sending detained brigands and convicts to the
military depots. For details, see Nino Cortese, “L’esercito napoletano nelle guerre
napoleoniche,” Archivio storico per le province napoletane 51 (1926): 319–21.
738 | notes to pages 299–304

45. For an in-depth discussion, see Maria Christina Ermice, Le origini del Gran
Libro del debito pubblico e l’emergere di nuovi gruppi sociali (1806–15) (Naples:
Arte Tipografica Editrice, 2005).
46. Davis, Naples and Napoleon, 180.
47. Napoleon to Clarke, October 13, 1810, in Correspondance de Napoléon,
XXI:216–17; Albert Espitalier, Napoleon and King Murat (London: John Lane,
1912), 66–88.
48. For an interesting discussion, see Desmond Gregory, Sicily: The Insecure Base: A
History of the British Occupation of Sicily, 1806–15 (Rutherford, NJ: Fairleigh
Dickinson University Press, 1988), 15–57. For the most recent account of the
Franco-British struggle in the Mediterranean, see Gareth Glover, The Forgotten
War Against Napoleon: Conflict in the Mediterranean, 1793–15 (Barnsley: Pen &
Sword, 2017).
49. Under the Sicilian tradition, there were only four instances—an enemy inva-
sion, an insurrection, the captivity of the king, and a royal marriage—when
the power of the assembly could be dispensed with in raising new revenues.
50. Joseph Alexander von Helfert, Königin Karolina von Neapel und Sicilien im Kampfe
gegen die französische Weltherrschaft, 1790–1814: mit Benützung von Schriftstücken des
K.K. Haus-, Hof- und Staats-Archivs (Vienna: Braumüller, 1878), 432–34.
51. Oscar Browning, “Queen Caroline of Naples,” English Historical Review 2, no.
7 (July 1887): 488.
52. John Rosselli, Lord William Bentinck: The Making of a Liberal Imperialist,
1774–39 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 147. For more
details, see Browning, “Queen Caroline of Naples,” 490–91.
53. Browning, “Queen Caroline of Naples,” 492–97; Rosselli, Lord William
Bentinck, 152ff.
54. C. W. Crawley, “England and the Sicilian Constitution of 1812,” English
Historical Review 55, no. 218 (1940): 251–74; Rosselli, Lord William Bentinck,
157–60.
55. Edward Blaquiere, Letters from the Mediterranean . . . (London: Henry Colt,
1813), I:405.
56. Paolo Balsamo’s quote in Moses I. Finley, A History of Sicily (New York: Viking,
1987), 150.
57. Rosselli, Lord William Bentinck, 151.
58. Browning, “Queen Caroline of Naples,” 499–513.
59. For insights, see Eckart Kehr, Hanna Schissler, and Hans-Ulrich Wehler,
Preussische Finanzpolitik, 1806–1810: Quellen zur Verwaltung der Ministerien
Stein und Altenstein (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984).
60. Johann Fichte, Fichte: Addresses to the German Nation, ed. Gregory Moore
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
61. James J. Sheehan, German History, 1770–1866 (Oxford: Clarendon Press,
2008), 295–310; Marion Gray, “Bureaucratic Transition and Accommodation
notes to pages 305–310 | 739

of the Aristocracy in the Prussian Reform Year 1808,” Proceedings of the


Consortium on Revolutionary Europe (1981), 86–92.
62. For details, see Charles Edward White, The Enlightened Soldier: Scharnhorst and
the Militarische Gesellschaft in Berlin, 1801–05 (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1989);
Michael Schoy, “General Gerhard von Scharnhorst: Mentor of Clausewitz and
Father of the Prussian-German General Staff,” Canadian Defense Forces
Publication, https://www.cfc.forces.gc.ca/259/181/82_schoy.pdf.
63. See Peter Josephson, Thomas Karlsohn, and Johan Östling, The Humboldtian
Tradition: Origins and Legacies (Leiden: Brill, 2014).
64. The Order of Cabinet, June 30, 1808, cited in John R. Seeley, Life and Times of
Stein: Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age (Boston: Roberts Brothers,
1879), I:387.

Chapter 14
1. Cited in James J. Sheehan, German History, 1770–1866 (Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2008), 285.
2. Hruby to Stadion, July 31, 1808, in Adolf Beer, Zehn jahre österreichischer politik,
1801–1810 (Leipzig: F. A. Brockhaus, 1877), 352–53. Also see Stadion’s memo-
randa (December 1808) in Beer, Zehn jahre, 516–25; Metternich to Stadion,
September 24 and October 30, 1808, in Clemens Wenzel Lothar Fürst von
Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773–1815, ed. Richard Metternich,
trans. Robina Napier (London: Richard Bentley, 1880), II:283–88.
3. See Gunther E. Rothenberg, Napoleon’s Great Adversaries: The Archduke Charles
and the Austrian Army, 1792–1814 (Bloomington: Indiana University Press,
1982); Lee W. Eysturlid, The Formative Influences, Theories and Campaigns of the
Archduke Carl of Austria (Westport, CT: Greenwood, 2000).
4. Opposition primarily came from Archduke Charles and Gentz. See Enno
E. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University
Press, 1983), I:74–75.
5. Metternich to Stadion, April 3, 1809, in Metternich, Memoirs, II:347.
6. Canning’s reply to the Austrian government, December 24, 1808, cited in
John M. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with
France, 1793–1815 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 208–9.
7. Scherwig, Guineas, 208–9, 212–13.
8. Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807–1815 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1996), 89–90; Christopher Hall, British Strategy in the
Napoleonic Wars, 1803–1815 (Manchester: Manchester University Press,
1992), 177.
9. Cited in John H. Gill, 1809: Thunder on the Danube: Napoleon’s Defeat of the
Habsburgs (Barnsley, UK: Frontline Books, 2008), I:20.
10. Gill, 1809, I:379–80.
740 | notes to pages 310–311

11. Article X of the Convention d’Alliance signed at Erfurt on October 12, 1808,
in F. de Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie avec les puis-
sances étrangères (St. Petersburg: A. Böhnke, 1895).
12. Rumyantsev to Alexander, January 24, 1809, VPR, IV:465–66.
13. Kurakin to Alexander I, January 30, 1809, VPR, IV:468–69.
14. Rumyantsev to Alexander, February 11, 1809, VPR, IV:468–69. Napoleon’s
sentiments seem to have rubbed off on Alexander, who found “the blindness of
Austria inexplicable. Perhaps it is produced by England.” Alexander to
Napoleon, January 27, 1809, in Sergei Tatishev, Alexandre 1er et Napoléon:
d’après leur correspondence inédite, 1801–12 (Paris, 1891), 468–69. Russian min-
ister of war Alexei Arakcheyev was convinced that Austria was “driven by
England” toward war and that “Russia will be duty bound to honor its treaties
with France.” Arakcheyev to Prozorovskii, January 12, 1809, VPR, IV:461.
15. Schwarzenberg to Princess Schwarzenberg, March 21, 1809, in Karl Philipp
zu Schwarzenberg, Briefe des Feldmarschalls Fursten Schwarzenberg an seine Frau
1799–16 (Vienna, 1913), 165–67. “In all of Russia,” one court nobleman con-
fided to a police informant, “there are only five prominent people who are not
against the current alliance [with France] and we know quite well who they
are and whenever they enter the society, everyone whispers, ‘This is one of the
five.’ This expression is so well known that as soon as one of the five enters the
room, all conversations cease at once.” Fogel to Balashov, June 10, 1809, VPR,
V:69. Also see Nikolay Dubrovin, “Russkaya zhizn v nachale XIX veka,”
Russkaya starina 12 (1898): 508; Schwarzenberg to Stadion, March 2, 1809, in
Tatishev, Alexandre 1er et Napoléon, 465; Kazimierz Waliszewski, La Russie il y
a cent ans: Le regne d’Alexandre 1er (Paris, 1923), I:283.
16. Secret agent Fogel reported in the spring of 1809 that Bagration bluntly told
the French ambassador that he would never command an army against Austrian
Archduke Carl; VPR, IV:66. For contemporary views, see “Pisma A. Bulgakova
k ego bratu iz Peterburga v Venu 1808–1809,” Russkii arkhiv 9 (1899): 82.
17. Russian diplomat Alexander Butenev, who served under Rumyantsev, com-
mented in his memoirs that “in Rumyantsev’s opinion, only Napoleon was capa-
ble of restraining revolutionary movements in Europe, and when Napoleon fell
in 1815, [Rumyantsev] predicted the rise of such movements.” “Vospominania
russkogo diplomata A. P. Buteneva,” Russkii arkhiv 3 (1881): 58–59.
18. Vel. Kn. Nikolay Mikhailovich, Diplomaticheskie snoshenia Rossii i Frantsii po
doneseniyam poslov Imperatorov Aleksandra i Napoleona, 1808–1812 (St. Petersburg:
Ekspeditsia zagotovleniya gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1905), I:xxvi–xxviii.
19. Frederick William III to Alexander, Alexander to Frederick William III, May
2–19, in Correspondance inédite du roi Frédéric-Guillaume III et de la reine Louise
avec l’empereur Alexandre Ier d’après les originaux des archives de Berlin et de Saint
Petersbourg, ed. Paul Bailleu (Leipzig, 1900), 184–91.
20. Llewellyn D. Cook, “Prince Schwarzenberg’s Mission to St. Petersburg, 1809,”
Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1998, 399–410.
notes to pages 312-–317 | 741

21. See Stadion’s instructions to Lieutenant Wagner (January 28, 1809) and
Wessenberg (February 20, 1809), in Wladislaw Fedorowicz, 1809. Campagne
de Pologne, depuis le commencement jusqu’à l’occupation de Varsovie (Paris: Plon-
Nourrit, 1911), 67–73, 95. Also Hellmuth Rössler, Graf Johann Philipp
Stadion, Napoleons deutscher Gegenspieler (Vienna: Herold, 1966), I:318–19.
22. Alexander to Rumyantsev, February 14, 1809, VPR, IV:493–95.
23. Alexander to Rumyantsev, February 14, 1809, VPR, IV:494.
24. Schwarzenberg to Franz, April 21, 1809, in Gustav Just, Politik oder Strategie?
Kritische Studien über den Warschauer Feldzug Österreichs und die Haltung Russlands
1809 (Vienna, 1909), 69–70.
25. Moritz Edler v. Angeli, Erzherzog Karl von Osterreich als Feldherr und Heeresorganisator
(Vienna: K. u. K. Hof-universitäts-Buchhändler, 1896–1898), IV:33–55.
26. Schneid, Napoleon’s Italian Campaigns, 59–84; Gill, 1809, II:201–45.
27. Cited in Rothenberg, Napoleon’s Great Adversaries, 146.
28. Louis Francois Lejeune, Memoirs of Baron Lejeune, ed. A. Bell (London, 1897),
I:215–16.
29. For a definitive account, see Gill, 1809, vol. I. Also see Henri Bonnal, La
manœuvre de Landshut: étude sur la stratégie de Napoléon et sa psychologie militaire
depuis le milieu de l’anée 1808 jusqu’au 30 avril 1809 (Paris: R. Chapelot, 1905);
Charles Gaspard Louis Saski, Campagne de 1809 en Allemagne et en Autriche
(Paris Berger-Levrault, 1899), II:255–265, 276–99.
30. Gill, 1809, I:223–303; Angeli, Erzherzog Karl von Osterreich als Feldherr und
Heeresorganisator, IV:75–187; Saski, Campagne de 1809, II:332–75.
31. Sheehan, German History, 287; Oscar Criste, Erzherzog Carl von Österreich
(Vienna: W. Braumüller, 1912), III:79–80.
32. Angeli, Erzherzog Karl von Osterreich als Feldherr und Heeresorganisator, IV:315–28.
33. Gill, 1809, II:129–98; Robert M. Epstein, Napoleon’s Last Victory and the
Emergence of Modern War (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1994), 104–18.
Also see F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon and the Archduke Charles (London: John
Lane, 1909).
34. Angeli, Erzherzog Karl von Osterreich als Feldherr und Heeresorganisator, IV:335–51.
35. Gill, 1809, II:196.
36. Frederick C. Schneid, Napoleon’s Italian Campaigns: 1805–1815 (Westport, CT:
Praeger, 2002), 85–102; Gill, 1809, II:246–97; Petre, Napoleon and the
Archduke Charles, 314–16.
37. For the most recent English study of the revolts of Katte, Dörnberg, and
Schill, see Sam A. Mustafa, The Long Ride of Major von Schill: A Journey Through
German History and Memory (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008).
38. Ultimately, Brunswick understood that the French victory at Wagram had
turned the tide of the war, and he conceived a daring plan of escaping out of
Saxony to the estuary of the Wesser River, where he could be rescued by the
British navy. Starting on July 20, the duke’s “Black Brunswickers,” though
threatened on all sides, fought their way to the lower Weser, where they
742 | notes to pages 318–323

boarded the British ships at Elsfleth; the survivors were carried to Spain, where
they served with distinction under the Duke of Wellington. Fred Mentzel,
“Der Vertrag Herzog Friedrich Wilhelms von Braunschweig mit der britischen
Regierung über die Verwendung des Schwarzen Korps (1809),” Braunschweigisches
Jahrbuch 55 (1974): 230–39.
39. See Marcus Junkelman, Napoleon und Bayern den Anfängen des Königreiches
(Regensburg: F. Pustet, 1985); Karl Paulin, Andreas Hofer und der Tiroler
Freiheitskampf 1809 (Vienna: Tosa-Verl, 1996).
40. Alexander Grab, “State Power, Brigandage and Rural Resistance in Napoleonic
Italy,” European History Quarterly 25 (1995): 39–70; Mario Leonardi,
“L’insorgenza del 1809 nel regno d’Italia,” Annunario dell’Istituto per l’Età
Moderna e Contemporanea 31, no. 2 (1980): 435–37. For a broader discussion of
the heavy-handed nature of the French regime in Italy, see Michael Broers, The
Napoleonic Empire in Italy, 1796–1814: Cultural Imperialism in a European
Context? (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 123–59.
41. For definitive treatments of the Wagram campaign see Gill, 1809, vol. III;
Gunther E. Rothenberg, The Emperor’s Last Victory: Napoleon and the Battle of
Wagram (London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2004). For more concise discus-
sions, see Epstein, Napoleon’s Last Victory, 129–70; Ian Castle, Aspern and
Wagram 1809: Mighty Clash of Empires (London: Osprey, 1994); Sławomir
Lesʹniewski, Wagram 1809 (Warsaw: Bellona, 2003); Jean Thiry, Wagram
(Paris: Berger-Levrault, 1966).
42. This changing nature of the war constituted what one historian has described
as “the emergence of modern war.” Epstein, Napoleon’s Last Victory, 171.
43. For an in-depth discussion see Milton Finley, The Most Monstrous of Wars: The
Napoleonic Guerrilla War in Southern Italy, 1806–1811 (Columbia: University
of South Carolina Press, 1994), 114–25.
44. Beer, Zehn jahre österreichischer politik, 335–41; Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder,
208–13; Hellmuth Rössler, Graf Johann Philipp Stadion, Napoleons deutscher
(Vienna: Herold, 1966), 318–19.
45. Though one may argue that Foreign Secretary Canning was also keen to clear
his name in the wake of the British setbacks in Spain—that is, the Convention
of Cintra and the French escape from Portugal.
46. Castlereagh envisioned an expedition to Walcheren as early as 1797. See his
letter of December 25, 1797, in Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh,
Correspondence, Despatches and Other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh (London:
William Shoberl, 1851), VI:245–47.
47. John Bew, Castlereagh: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012), 250.
48. Gordon C. Bond, The Grand Expedition: The British Invasion of Holland in 1809
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1979), 10–12.
49. See memorandums by Castlereagh, Lieutenant Colonel Gordon, and Major
General Alexander Hope in Castlereagh, Correspondence, Despatches and Other
Papers, VI:247–65.
notes to pages 323–326 | 743

50. William Jerdan, Autobiography (London: Arthur Hall, 1852), I:115.


51. For details, see Victor Enthoven, Een haven te ver: de Britse expeditie naar de
Schelde van 1809 (Nijmegen: Vantilt, 2009); T. van Gent, De Engelse invasie van
Walcheren in 1809 (Amsterdam: De Bataafsche Leeuw, 2001); Théo Fleischman,
L’expedition anglaise sur le continent en 1809, conquéte de l’île de Walcheren et menace
sur Anvers (Brussels: La Renaissance du livre, 1973).
52. Bond, The Grand Expedition, 90–113. Also see Martin R. Howard, Walcheren
1809: The Scandalous Destruction of a British Army (Barnsley: Pen & Sword
Military, 2012).
53. See Gordon Bond, “Walcheren Fever: The Curse of the British Army,
1809–1814,” Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe, 1989,
579–85; T. H. McGuffie, “The Walcheren Expedition and the Walcheren
Fever,” English Historical Review 62, no. 243 (1947): 191–202. Napoleon was
aware of Walcheren’s insalubrious climate and certainly expected that the
British would suffer from it. Napoleon to Clarke, August 22, 1809,
Correspondence de Napoléon, no. 15,698, XIX:382–384.
54. Bond, The Grand Expedition, 126–32.
55. For Napoleon’s assessment, see Barry Edward O’Meara, A Voice from St. Helena
(London: Simpkin and Marshall, 1822), I:255–56.
56. Bond, The Grand Expedition, 142–43.
57. Giles Hunt, The Duel: Castlereagh, Canning and Deadly Cabinet Rivalry (London:
I. B. Tauris, 2008); George Canning, Memoirs of the Life of the Right Honourable
George Canning (London: Thomas Tegg, 1828), II:185–91; W. Alison Phillips,
George Canning (New York: E. P. Dutton, 1903), 77–79; Bew, Castlereagh,
257–67.
58. Albert Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre 1er: l’alliance russe sous le 1er Empire (Paris,
1894–97), II:72.
59. Alexander to Golitsyn, April 21, 1809, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3369, l. 3–4.
60. Champagny to Caulaincourt, 2 June, 1809, in Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre
1er, II:94.
61. Alexander to Golitsyn, 18 May, 1809, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3369, l. 11–13b.
62. Journal of Military Operations of the Russian Army in Galicia in 1809,
RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3365; Alexander Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, Opisanie voiny
protiv Avstrii v 1809 godu, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3360.
63. Ferdinand to Franz, June 6, 1809, in Bronislaw Pawlowski, Historja Wojny
Polsko–Austrajackiej 1809 Roku (Warsaw, 1935), 362–63.
64. Cited in Roman Soltyk, Relation des Opérations de l’Armée aux orders du Prince
Joseph Poniatowski (Paris, 1841), 278; Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, “Opisanie
voiny protiv Avstrii,” RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3360, l.119b. On one occasion when
a bridge was thrown over the river at Radomysl and it was time to launch a
joint Russo-Polish operation, the Russian commander “found various pretexts
to delay the operation. It was ‘Monday,’ which he alleged was an inauspicious
day and one on which the Russians abstained from combat. The following day
744 | notes to pages 326–329

he found he had lost his Cross of St. George, which he took as an ill omen.”
Soltyk, Relation des opérations, 282–83.
65. Archduke Ferdinand to Golitsyn, Golitsyn to Archduke Ferdinand, April
30–May 4, 1809, in Modest Bogdanovich, Istoriya tsarstvovaniya imperatora
Aleksandra I i Rossii v ego vremya (St. Petersburg, 1869), II:64; Just, Politik oder
Strategie?, 79–82.
66. Champagny to Caulaincourt, June 2, 1809, in Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre
1er, II:95.
67. Alexander to Golitsyn, May 29, 1809, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3369, l. 15–16b.
Documents related to Gorchakov’s court-martial were also printed in Zhurnal
imperatorskogo Russkago Voenno-Istoricheskogo Obshestva 2 (1911): 1–10.
68. For details, see Alexander Mikaberidze, “Non-Belligerent Belligerent Russia
and the Franco-Austrian War of 1809,” Napoleonica. La Revue 10 (2011): 15–18.
69. Napoleon to Frederick, April 2, 1811, in CN, no. 17553, XXII:17.
70. Mikhailovskii-Danilevskii, Opisanie voiny protiv Avstrii, RGVIA, f. VUA, d.
3360, l.118–118b.
71. Golitsyn to Alexander, July 5, August 23, 1809, VPR, V:89–90. Golitsyn’s
letter included his correspondence with Poniatowski.
72. For a Polish view of the events, see Poniatowski’s letter to Napoleon in Soltyk,
Relation des opérations, 319–20. Russian sources deny that Austrians intention-
ally surrendered the city to the Russians and point to two killed and several
wounded Russian soldiers as evidence that the Russians took the city by force.
See Bogdanovich, Istoria tsarstvovania imperatora Aleksandra I, II:449.
73. Golitsyn to Alexander, July 17, 1809, in Bogdanovich, Istoria tsarstvovania
imperatora Aleksandra I, II:447–48. Golitsyn’s letter to General Suvorov spoke
of Polish “tavern crowds [traktirnye skopisha] that incited meaningless quib-
bles.” Golitsyn to Suvorov, August 22, 1809, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3375, l.
6–7b. The Russians returned the favor in kind. General Adjutant Gagarin told
Alexander that in Krakow he observed “our officials engaged in a behavior that
was contrary to the spirit of reciprocity and acquiescence, making numerous
cavils in petty and unworthy affairs.” Arakcheyev to Golitsyn, August 15,
1809, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 3371, l. 18–18b.
74. Golitsyn to Poniatowski, August 2, 1809, in Bogdanovich, Istoria tsarstvovania
imperatora Aleksandra I, II:450; Golitsyn to Alexander, August 7, 1809, VPR,
V:122. “There is not a single Pole who does not dream about the restoration of
his fatherland, which is quite natural since who would not desire that the land
where he was born should be under a single authority that was recognized by
your ancestors.” Golitsyn to Alexander, June 16, 1809, VPR, V:76–77.
75. Emperor Francis was concerned that Russia sought “to take possession of the
greater part of Galicia without any effort whatsoever.” Franz to Ferdinand,
June 23, 1809, in Pawlowski, Historja Wojny Polsko–Austrajackiej 1809 Roku, 444.
76. Rumyantsev to Golitsyn, June 27, 1809, VPR, V:85–86. French version,
albeit an abridged one, is in Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre 1er, II:547–48.
notes to pages 329–334 | 745

77. Caulaincourt to Napoleon, August 3, 1809, in Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre


1er, II:112–13.
78. The letter, written by Rumyantsev, complained about “the forces of the Duchy
of Warsaw playing a duplicitous role in Galicia. They acted not just as troops
of the Saxon army, but also called themselves the Poles; they published procla-
mations in the name of their fatherland; they spoke about the restoration of
Poland; they recruited soldiers even [outside the Duchy of Warsaw], appealing
to them with patriotic petitions. Some subjects of [the Russian] emperor, who
have peacefully lived under his authority since the complete destruction of the
polish kingdom, were enticed by such appeals. . . . The coat of arms of the
­former Polish states has appeared once against on the borders of the [Russian]
empire. Is this done so that everyone can see whose territory it is? . . . The idea
of restoring the Polish kingdom is on the mind of the people residing in the
Duchy of Warsaw. This is not a secret intention, but rather an openly professed
hope.” Rumyantsev to Caulauincourt, July 27, 1809, VPR, V:116–17.
79. “Convention non ratifiée par l’Empereur Napoléon Ier,” in CN, XX:148–49.
80. Napoleon instructed Champagny on February 6, 1810, to draft his response
and counterproposal (see CN, no. 16178, XX:149–50), but Russians rejected
the French draft as well. Alexander instead sent a new draft (March 17) that
essentially demanded the same thing.
81. Napoleon to Caulaincourt, July 1, 1810, in CN, no. 16181, XX:158–59.
82. Rumyantsev to Bethmann, June 20, 1809, VPR, V:78–79.
83. Alexander to Rumyantsev, August 16, 1809, VPR, V:130–31.
84. Phillip Vigel, Vospominaniya F.F. Vigelya (Moscow: Katkov i K., 1864), III,
61–62; Caulaincourt to Napoleon, August 2 and August 19, 1809, in Nikolay
Mikhailovich, Diplomaticheskie snoshenia Rossii i Frantsii, IV:34, 52; Vandal,
Napoléon et Alexandre 1er, II:112–13.
85. Prozorovsky to Golitsyn, August 4, 1809, in Russkii arkhiv 2 (1876): 157–59. It
is worth noting that Prozorovsky derisively referred to the imperial dynasty as the
“House of Holstein” to underscore its German, and therefore alien, character.

Chapter 15
1. See Michael Roberts, The Swedish Imperial Experience, 1650–18 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1979). For a broad overview of the Baltic region,
see Michael North, The Baltic: A History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 2015), 117–82.
2. Hildor A. Barton, Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era (Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 1986), 181.
3. See Sten Carl Oscar Carlsson, Gustaf IV Adolf, en biografi (Stockholm:
Wahlström & Widstrand, 1946); Matti Klinge, Napoleonin varjo: Euroopan ja
Suomen murros 1795–15 (Helsinki: Otava, 2009).
4. On the importance of Pomerania to Sweden, see Jens E. Olesen, “Schwedisch-
Pommern in der schwedischen Politik nach 1806,” in Das Ende des Alten Reiches
746 | notes to pages 334–338

im Ostseeraum: Wahrnehmungen und Transformationen, ed. Michael North and


Robert Riemer (Köln: Böhlau, 2008), 274–92.
5. Prince Royal of Denmark to Prince Christian August, November 21, 1806, in
Meddelelser fra krigsarkiverne udgine af Generalstaben (Copenhagen: F. Hegel &
Son, 1885), II:347–48.
6. Gustaf Björlin, Sveriges krig i tyskland åren 1805–07 (Stockholm: Militärlitteratúr-
Föreningens förlag, 1882), 100, 144–54, 162–72, 174–87.
7. Christer Jorgensen, The Anglo-Swedish Alliance Against Napoleonic France (New
York: Palgrave, 2004), 75–80.
8. Christophe Guillaume de Koch and Frédéric Schoell, Histoire abrégée des Traités
de paix entre les puissances de l’Europe depuis la Paix de Westphalie (Brussels: Meline,
Cans, 1838), III:45–46.
9. Koch and Schoell, Histoire abrégée, 47–48. Yet, as with other coalition partners,
Sweden complained about British failure to send adequate military support
fast enough. Jorgensen points out that British “procrastination” resulted from
the fact that Britain only had 16,000 troops available for continental service
and was also hampered in terms of available tonnage to launch an expedition.
More important, “The British refused . . . to act before they knew exactly what
Gustavus IV’s plans were and how many troops they would be called upon to
subsidize.” Jorgensen, The Anglo-Swedish Alliance, 80–89.
10. Björlin, Sveriges krig i tyskland åren 1805–1807, 214–26. For the French side,
see Vigier de Saint-Junien, Brune’s 1807 Campaign in Swedish Pomerania, trans.
and ed. George Nafziger (West Chester, OH: Nafziger Collection, 2001).
11. Prince Royal of Denmark to Prince Christian August, November 21, 1806, in
Meddelelser fra krigsarkiverne udgine af Generalstaben (Copenhagen: F. Hegel &
Son, 1885), II:347–48.
12. For reports of the Danish officials and border commanders, see Meddelelser fra
krigsarkiverne udgine af Generalstaben, II:310ff. Murat’s response of November 8
is at II:325.
13. See Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, “Papers Relative to the Expedition to
Copenhagen,” X:765–67, 775–76. Also see Rasmus Glenthøj and Morten
Nordhagen Ottosen, Experiences of War and Nationality in Denmark and Norway,
1807–15 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2014), 30.
14. Canning to Lord Granville Leveson Gower, July 21 (postscript dated July 22),
in A. N. Ryan, “Documents Relating to the Copenhagen Operation, 1807,”
Publications of the Navy Record Society 125, no. 5 (1984): 307–8.
15. See Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates, X:13, 18, 30, 59, 68, 69, 72–73, 74–75,
86–87, 92, 94, 252–66. The debates of February 1–3, 1808, are partly availa-
ble online at http://hansard.millbanksystems.com/volumes/1/10.
16. Oscar Browning, “A British Agent at Tilsit,” English Historical Review 17, no.
65 (1902): 110; Thomas Munch-Petersen, “Colin Alexander Mackenzie: A
British Agent at Tilsit,” Northern Studies 37 (2003): 9–16; J. Holland Rose, “A
British Agent at Tilsit,” English Historical Review 16, no. 64 (1901): 712–18;
notes to pages 338–339 | 747

J. Holland Rose, “Canning and the Secret Intelligence from Tilsit (July 16–23,
1807),” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society (n.s.) 20 (1906): 61–77.
17. Thomas Munch-Petersen, “The Secret Intelligence from Tilsit: New Light on
the Events Surrounding the British Bombardment of Copenhagen in 1807,”
Historisk Tidsskrift 102, no. 1 (2002): 55–96.
18. For an excellent discussion, see Robert G. Albion, Forests and Sea Power: The
Timber Problem of the Royal Navy, 1652–1862 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press), esp. 20–32.
19. George Louis Beer, British Colonial Policy, 1754–1765 (New York: Macmillan,
1907), 215–17. Also see Remarks on the Probable Conduct of Russia and France
Towards This Country, Also on the Necessity of Great Britain Becoming Independent
of the Northern Powers for Her Maritime Supplies (London, 1805), 93–95; Joshua
Jepson Oddy, European Commerce: Shewing New and Secure Channels of Trade with
the Continent of Europe (London, 1805).
20. Data taken from Oddy, European Commerce, 398.
21. Writing to Admiral James Gambier in September 1807, Henry Phipps Lord
Mulgrave, the foreign secretary under William Pitt the Younger in
1805–1806, was particularly concerned about the French occupation of the
island of Zealand, which could allow Napoleon to close the Baltic. Mulgrave
considered the recapture of the island as “a consideration of the utmost mag-
nitude” since it would ensure British access to the Baltic and might drive a
wedge into the Franco-Russian alliance. Lord Mulgrave to Gambier, in
Memorials, Personal and Historical of Lord Gambier, ed. Georgiana Chatterton
(London: Hurst and Blackett, 1861), II:43.
22. In May 1807 Lord Pembroke, newly appointed British ambassador to Vienna,
was traveling on the frigate Astrea, commanded by Captain Dunbar, via
Copenhagen, where he claimed to have observed Danes hastily outfitting their
ships. Pembroke’s report was bolstered by Captain Dunbar’s more detailed
account of the alleged Danish preparations. “What Lord Pembroke actually
saw was and remains a mystery,” note modern-day Danish historians. “The
only ship that had been fitted out was a ship of the line being prepared to take
a Russian princess to St. Petersburg.” Glenthøj and Ottosen, Experiences of War
and Nationality in Denmark and Norway, 31. See also A. N. Ryan, “The Causes
of the British Attack upon Copenhagen in 1807,” English Historical Review 63,
no. 266 (1953): 43ff.
23. Carl J. Kulsrud, “The Seizure of the Danish Fleet in 1807,” American Journal of
International Law 32, no. 2 (1938): 280–311. For a more critical view, see Eric
Moller, “England og Danmark-Norge 1807,” Dansk Historisk Tidsskrift 8, no. 3
(1912): 310–21.
24. Glenthøj and Ottosen, Experiences of War and Nationality in Denmark and
Norway, 32.
25. Napoleon to Talleyrand, July 31, 1807, in CN, XV:459–60. He expressed the
same desire two days later, writing to his governor of the Hanseatic cities:
748 | notes to pages 340–343

“Either Denmark declares war on England, or I will declare war on Denmark.”


Napoleon to Bernadotte, August 2, 1807, in CN, XV:467.
26. Glenthøj and Ottosen, Experiences of War and Nationality in Denmark and Norway,
30–31. Also see H. Arnold Barton, Scandinavia in the Revolutionary Era,
1760–1815 (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), 277–78.
27. John D. Grainger, The British Navy in the Baltic (Woodbridge: Boydell Press,
2014), 167–71; Ryan, “The Causes of the British Attack upon Copenhagen in
1807,” 51–52.
28. Glenthøj and Ottosen, Experiences of War and Nationality in Denmark and Norway,
29–31.
29. J. Bernstorff to Prince Regent, August 3, 1807, in Historisk Tidsskrift 6, no. 1
(1887–88): 38.
30. See Glenthøj and Ottosen, Experiences of War and Nationality in Denmark and
Norway, 42–45.
31. Grainger, The British Navy in the Baltic, 173.
32. Sir Arthur Paget, The Paget Papers: Diplomatic and Other Correspondence of the
Right Hon. Sir Arthur Paget, G.C.B., 1794–1807, ed. Augustus Berkeley Paget
(London: W. Heinemann, 1896), II:376.
33. Avgustina Stanislavskaya, Russko-angliiskie otnosheniya i problemy Sredizemnomorya,
1798–07 (Moscow: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1962), 482.
34. Declaration on the Rupture of the Peace with England, November 5, 1807, in
PSZ, XXIX:1306–8.
35. Public memory of the British attack lasted for a long time, sustained by the
visible scars of the attacks that Copenhagen bore well into the 1830s.
36. The French military presence in northern Germany, of course, played a key role
in ensuring that the Danish government had no other viable option apart from
surrendering Holstein, Schleswig, or other parts of their realm.
37. In total, the Danes and Norwegians seized some 2,000 British merchant vessels
during the war, occasionally battling (with some success) British warships too.
38. T. K. Derry, History of Scandinavia (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 1979), 204–5.
39. Jón Rúnar Sveinsson, Society, Urbanity and Housing in Iceland (Gävle, Sweden:
Meyers, 2000), 43. The total population of Iceland was slightly over 47,000 peo-
ple. Richard Tomasson, Iceland: The First New Society (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1980), 58.
40. Anna Agnarsdottir, “Scottish Plans for the Annexation of Iceland,
1785–1813,” Northern Studies 29 (1992): 83–91.
41. For details, see Anna Agnarsdottir, “The Imperial Atlantic System: Iceland
and Britain During the Napoleonic Wars,” in Atlantic History: History of the
Atlantic System 1580–1830, ed. Horst Pietschmann (Gottingen: Vandenhoeck
& Ruprecht, 2002), 497–512; Agnarsdottir, “The Challenge of War on
Maritime Trade in the North Atlantic: The Case of the British Trade to Iceland
during the Napoleonic Wars,” in Merchant Organization and Maritime Trade in
notes to pages 344–348 | 749

the North Atlantic, 1660–1815, ed. Olaf Uwe Jansen (St. John’s, Newfoundland:
International Maritime Economic History Association, 1998), 221–58. On
Joseph Banks and Iceland, see Anna Agnarsdóttir, ed., Sir Joseph Banks, Iceland
and the North Atlantic 1772–1820: Journals, Letters and Documents (London:
Hakluyt Society, 2016).
42. Samuel Phelps, Observations on the Importance of Extending the British Fisheries Etc.
(London: W. Simpkin, 1817), 58.
43. Gunnar Karlsson, The History of Iceland (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2000), 195–96.
44. For a biographical study, see Sarah Bakewell, The English Dane: From King of
Iceland to Tasmanian Convict (New York: Random House, 2011).
45. Jørgen Jørgensen, The Convict King, Being the Life and Adventures of Jorgen
Jorgenson (London: Ward & Downey, 1891), 69–70.
46. Jørgensen spent two years in prison. After his release he led a peripatetic life,
traveling in Europe and Australia.
47. Anna Agnarsdóttir, “Iceland Under British Protection During the Napoleonic
Wars,” in Scandinavia in the Age of Revolution: Nordic Political Cultures,
1740–1820, ed. Pasi Ihalainen, Karin Sennefelt, Michael Bregnsbo, and Patrik
Winton (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2011), 255–66.
48. Jorgensen, The Anglo-Swedish Alliance, 100–125.
49. Russia received additional territories in Finland, including the cities of
Friedrichsham, Wilmanstrandt (Lappeenrantd), and Neschlodt (Savonlinna).
50. Sam Clason, Gustaf IV Adolf och den europeiska krisen under Napoleon: Historiska
uppsatser (Stockholm: Geber, 1913), 102–3. The diplomat in question was
Curt Bogislaus Ludvig Kristoffer von Stedingk, Sweden’s ambassador to
Russia, who had submitted a report on his conversation with the Russian
Chancellor Nikolai Rumyantsev. Stedingk to Gustavus IV, December 5, 1807,
in Mémoires posthumes du Feld-Maréchal Comte de Stedingk (Paris: Arthus-
Bertrand, 1845), II:398.
51. Clason, Gustaf IV Adolf, 104.
52. For Russo-Swedish negotiations, see Clason, Gustaf IV Adolf, 104–15; Carl
Henrik von Platen, Stedingk: Curt von Stedingk (1746–1837): kosmopolit, krigare
och diplomat hos Ludvig XVI, Gustavus III och Katarina den stora (Stockholm:
Atlantis, 1995), 241–44.
53. Henry Crabb Robinson, Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence, ed. Thomas
Sadler (Boston: Fields, Osgood, 1870), I:167.
54. “Declaration on Imposing Embargo on the English Vessels,” November 9,
1807, PSZ, XXIX:1316. On the eve of the declaration, the Russian govern-
ment sent out secret instructions to port authorities to detain British ships,
but the news soon spread, causing dozens of British ships to hastily depart
from the Russian ports. At Kronstadt and Riga alone, more than sixty British
vessels, fully laden with goods, weighed anchor and escaped. M. Zlotnikov,
Kontinentalnaya blokada i Rossiya (Moscow: Nauka, 1966), 136–37.
750 | notes to pages 348–349

55. The Russian diplomats provided a steady stream of intelligence reports on the
Swedish military installations and armed forced. See Clason, Gustaf IV Adolf,
124–29.
56. Alexander Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie Finlyandskoi Voiny v 1808 i 1809
godakh (St. Petersburg, 1841), 7–9; G. Zakharov, Russko-Shvedskaya Voina
1808–09 gg. (Moscow, 1940), 10; Narrative of the Conquest of Finland by the
Russians in the Years 1808–09: From an Unpublished Work by a Russian Officer of
Rank, ed. Gen. Monteith (London, 1854), 1–2. The latter source is an English
translation of a study by General Paul Suchtelen, who participated in the
campaign.
57. Narrative of the Conquest of Finland, 3–4. What was more, the Danish envoy to
St. Petersburg, Otto von Blome, had also told Stedingk that Russia intended
to attack Sweden soon and that Denmark would be obliged to support this war
effort. This information was ignored in Stockholm and the Swedish govern-
ment learned of Denmark’s commitments to Russia only on March 7, 1808,
two weeks after the Russian invasion of Finland had commenced, and even
then only after a Russian diplomatic courier was seized north of Stockholm
and his documents confiscated. I am grateful to Morten Nordhagen Ottosen
for bringing this information to my attention.
58. The Swedes were able to mobilize some 50,000 men, but of these only 19,000
(14,984 regular troops and 4,000 militia [vargering]) were under the command
of General Carl Nathanael Klercker in Finland. A strong garrison of 7,000
men protected the fortress of Sveaborg, known as the Gibraltar of the North,
on the coast of the Gulf of Finland. Erik Hornborg, När Riket Sprängdes:
Fälttågen i Finland och Västerbotten 1808–09 (Stockholm, 1955), 24; Johan
Gustaf Björlin, Finska Kriget 1808 och 1809 (Stockholm, 1905), 16.
59. Raymond Carr, “Gustavus IV and the British Government 1804–9,” English
Historical Review 60, no. 236 (January 1945): 58–61.
60. Gustavus to Klingspor, February 5, 1808, in Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie
Finlyandskoi voiny, 16.
61. Clason, Gustaf IV Adolf, 130–34. The Russians even withheld Ambassador
Stedingk’s passports for some time and then rerouted him repeatedly to make
sure that he would not arrive back in Sweden in time to warn of the impending
attack.
62. “Proclamation of February 28,” “Address to Local Population,” “Address to
Finnish Soldiers,” February 22–28, 1808, VPR, IV:170, 176.
63. Generalstabens krigshistoriska afdelning, Sveriges krig åren 1808 och 1809
(Stockholm: Kongl. boktryckeriet P. A. Norstedt & söner, 1890), II:101–76.
64. The Swedish War Council supported Field Marshal Mauritz Klingspor’s plan
to remain on the defensive and withdraw his forces to western Finland. See
Generalstabens krigshistoriska afdelning, Sveriges krig åren 1808 och 1809,
II:86–97; Hornborg, När Riket Sprängdes, 6, 13–14, 20–26, 31–36, 47–50;
Anders Persson, 1808: Gerillakriget i Finland (Stockholm, 1986), 19–20; Allan
notes to pages 350–352 | 751

Sandström, Sveriges sista krig: de dramatiska åren 1808–09 (Örebro: Bokförlaget


Libris, 1994), 16–17; Björlin, Finska Kriget 1808 och 1809, 18–24. Also see
Martin Hårdstedt, Finska kriget 1808–09 (Stockholm: Prisma, 2006).
65. Generalstabens krigshistoriska afdelning, Sveriges krig åren 1808 och 1809,
II:159–65; Hornborg, När Riket Sprängdes, 87–99; Zakharov, Russko-
Schvedskaya voina, 30–33; Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie Finlyandskoi
voiny, 80–91; Petrus Nordman, Krigsman och krigsminnen (Helsingfors:
Schildt, 1918), 120–22.
66. Alexander Bulgakov to Constantine Bulgakov, May 11, 1808, Russkii arkhiv
37, no. 3 (1899): 55; Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii, XXX, no. 22,881.
67. Jacob von Ræder, Danmarks Krigs- og Politiske Historie fra Krigens udbrud 1807
til freden til Jönkjöping den 10de december (Copenhagen: Reitzel, 1847),
II:98–102. The Danish declaration of war had been written on February 29,
but its proclamation was deliberately delayed for two weeks because the Danes
hoped the Russian invasion would force Sweden to seek a negotiated settle-
ment and that the Danes would not have to fight.
68. Denmark was forced to make major territorial concessions as the result of the
1645 Treaty of Brömsebro (Norwegian provinces of Jämtland, Härjedalen,
and Idre and Särna, as well as the Danish Baltic Sea islands of Gotland and Ösel)
and the 1658 Treaty of Roskilde (Danish provinces of Scania, Blegkinge,
Halland, and Bornholm and the Norwegian provinces of Bohuslän [Båhuslen]
and Trøndelag). For details, see Michael Roberts, The Swedish Imperial Experience,
1560–1718 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979), 7–8; Robert Frost,
The Northern Wars: War, State and Society in Northeastern Europe 1558–1721
(New York: Longman, 2000), 135–41, 180–82.
69. For Danish diplomatic and military efforts on the eve of the war, see Ræder,
Danmarks Krigs- og Politiske Historie, II:78–105, 158–66.
70. Ehrenheim to Wetterstedt, March 4, 1808, in Handlingar ur v. Brinkman’ska
archivet på Trolle-Ljungby, ed. Gustaf Andersson (Ürebro: N. M. Lindh, 1865),
II:211. Also see Carl Gustaf von Brinkman to Essen, March 9, 1808, in Hilma
Borelius, Carl Gustaf von Brinkman (Stockholm: A. Bonnier, 1918), II:230–31.
Carl Gustaf von Brinkman was deputy chancellor and Swedish ambassador to
London.
71. Wetterstedt to Adlerberg, March 17, 1808, cited in Christer Jorgensen, “The
Common Cause: The Life and Death of the Anglo-Swedish Alliance Against
France, 1805–1809,” Ph.D. diss., University College London, 1999, 144–45.
72. See Sven G. Trulsson, “Canning, den hemliga kanalen till förhandlingerna i Tilsit
och invasionsföretaget mot Köpenhamn 1807,” Scandia 29 (1963): 320–59.
73. Karen Larsen, History of Norway (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1950), 366.
74. Elof Tegnér, Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt (Stockholm: Beijer, 1887), III:145–52.
75. Carl Fredrik Meijer, Kriget emellan Sverige och Danmark, åren 1808 och 1809
(Stockholm: O. L. Lamm, 1867), 71–108; Ernst von Vegesack, Svenska arméens
752 | notes to pages 352–355

fälttåg uti Tyskland och Norrige åren 1805, 1806, 1807 och 1808 (Stockholm:
L. J. Hjerta, 1840), 102–10.
76. Hornborg, När Riket Sprängdes, 87–105; Björlin, Finska Kriget 1808 och 1809,
91–107, 248–60, 269–73.
77. For the Finnish guerrilla war, see Persson, 1808; Jussi T. Lappalainen, Lars
Ericson Wolke, and Ali Pylkkänen, Sota Suomesta: Suomen sota 1808–09
(Hämeenlinna: Suomalaisen Kirjallisuuden Seura, 2007).
78. See Persson, 1808, 125–43, 145–65.
79. Imperial Manifesto of June 17, 1808, and Imperial Decree of February 1,
1809, in D. G. Kirby, ed., Finland and Russia, 1808–20: From Autonomy to
Independence: A Selection of Documents (London: Macmillan, 1975), 12–14.
80. Eino Jutikkala and Kauko Pirinen, A History of Finland (New York: Praeger,
1962), 147–50, 159–71, 176–77; Fred Singleton (with A. F. Upton), A Short
History of Finland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 58–60.
81. See Andreas Kappeler, The Russian Empire: A Multiethnic History (London:
Longman, 2001), 60–212 (on Finland, 94–98). Also see Jyrki Paaskoski, “Venäjän
keisarikunta ja Suomen suuriruhtinaskunnan synty 1808–20,” in Venäjän keisari-
kunta ja Suomen suuriruhtinaskunnan synty 1808–20 (Helsinki: Kansallisarkisto,
2009), 42–46; Max Engman, Pitkät jäähyväiset: Suomi Ruotsin ja Venäjän välissä
vuoden 1809 jälkeen (Helsinki: Werner Söderström Osakeyhtiö, 2009).
82. Mulgrave to Saumarez, February 20, 1808, in James Saumarez, The Saumarez
Papers: Selections from the Baltic Correspondence of Vice-Admiral Sir James Saumarez,
1808–12, ed. A. N. Ryan (London: Navy Records Society, 1968), 7. The
squadron comprised Victory (100), Centaur, Superb, Implacable, Brunswick, Mars,
Orion, Goliath, Vanguard (74s), Dictator and Africa (64s), and five frigates. See
also Tom Voelcker, Admiral Saumarez Versus Napoleon: The Baltic, 1807–12
(Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2008), 34–38.
83. Admiralty to Saumarez, April 16–22, 1808, in The Saumarez Papers, 11–14.
Also see Castlereagh to the King, April 17, 1808, in George III, The Later
Correspondence of George III, ed. A. Aspinall (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1970), V:65–66; Christopher Hall, British Strategy in the Napoleonic
Wars, 1803–1815 (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1992), 163–64;
Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807–1815 (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1996), 26.
84. Voelcker, Admiral Saumarez Versus Napoleon, 38–41. This problem stemmed
from the Swedish minister in London who far exceeded in his instructions in
the assurances he gave the British government.
85. Cited in D. W. Davies, Sir John Moore’s Peninsular Campaign 1808–1809 (The
Hague: Martinus Nijhoff, 1974), 35.
86. See Jorgensen, The Anglo-Swedish Alliance, 145–52.
87. Voelcker, Admiral Saumarez versus Napoleon, 38–42; Hall, British Strategy, 165.
88. Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War (1902; rpt., Oxford: Clarendon
Press, 2004), I:369–70.
notes to pages 355–360 | 753

89. In fact, as early as April 1808, George Canning expressed interest in helping
Romana’s division to escape from Denmark.
90. See James Robertson, Narrative of a Secret Mission to the Danish Islands in 1808
(London: Longman, Roberts, and Green, 1863), 1–83.
91. See Paul Louis Hippolyte Boppe, Les Espagnols à la Grande-Armée: le corps de la
Romana, 1807–08; le régiment Joseph-Napoléon, 1809–13 (Paris: C. Terana, 1986).
92. Nikolai Dubrovin, “Russkaya zhizn’ v nachale XIX veka,” Russkaya starina
107, no. 9 (1901): 449.
93. It is worth noting that during the Russo-Persian War of 1804–13, British
officers who accompanied Sir John Malcolm’s 1809 embassy provided training
to the reforming Persian army and accompanied it on an unsuccessful cam-
paign in Georgia; one of these officers, William Monteith, later commanded a
frontier force and the garrison of Erivan. See Chapter 16.
94. Among the first acts of the war, the British authorities detained Russian vesels
in British ports, including the 44-gun Russian frigate Speshnyy, carrying the
payroll for Vice Admiral Dmitry Senyavin’s squadron in the Mediterranean, in
Portsmouth, and the sloop Diana, sailing under command of Vasilii Golovin on
a scientific expedition to the Pacific Ocean, in Simon’s Town in South Africa.
95. For details, see Donald D. Howard, “Portugal and the Anglo-Russian Naval
Crisis (1808),” Naval War College Review 34 (1981): 48–74; N. Skritskii,
Admiral Senyavin (Moscow: Veche, 2013).
96. James Saumarez, Memoirs and Correspondence of Admiral Lord de Saumarez, ed.
James Ross (London: Richard Bentley, 1838), II:98–101.
97. Voelcker, Admiral Saumarez Versus Napoleon, 55–56.
98. Times, July 29, 1809; London Gazette, August 22, 1809, July 9, 1811, February
24, 1810.
99. See Treaty of Örebro, July 18, 1812, in British and Foreign State Papers, 1812–14
(London: James Rigway and Sons, 1841), I, pt. 1, 13–15.
100. Ehrenheim to Adlerberg, July 7, 1808, cited in Jorgensen, The Anglo-Swedish
Alliance.
101. Jorgensen, The Anglo-Swedish Alliance, 140–52.
102. Anthony Merry to Canning, February 24, 1809, FO 73/54.
103. Anders Grade, Sverige och Tilsitalliansen (1807–10) (Lund: Gleerupska univ.-
bokhandeln, 1913), 265–79.
104. Björlin, Finska Kriget 1808 och 1809, 216–31, 234–47; Alexander Mikaberidze,
“‘The Lion of the Russian Army’: Life and Military Career of General Prince
Peter Bagration 1765–1812,” Florida State University, Ph.D. diss., 2003,
458–60.
105. I. I. Kiaiviarianen, Mezhdunarodnie otnoshenia na severe Evropi v nachale XIX veka
i prisoedinenie Finlandii k Rossii v 1809 godu (Petrozavodsk: Karelskoe knizhnoe
izd-vo, 1965), 36–41, 146–53, 172–93, 211–25.
106. Singleton, A Short History of Finland, 63–66.
107. Meijer, Kriget emellan Sverige och Danmark, 124–55.
754 | notes to pages 361–362

108. Gustavus demoted three guard regiments and prosecuted more than a hundred
officers for cowardice and desertion during the failed September 1808 landings
in Finland.
109. For an in-depth discussion, see Sten Carl Oscar Carlsson, Gustaf IV Adolfs
fall: krisen i riksstyrelsen, konspirationerna och statsvälvningen (1807–09) (Lund:
C. Bloms boktryckeri, 1944).
110. See Merry to Canning, March 12, 1809, FO, 73/55.
111. The Swedes convened the Riksdag (national legislature) on May 1 to discuss
Sweden’s political future. The Riksdag drafted and approved a new constitution—
it survived until 1975—that limited the power of the Swedish monarchy by
delegating more power to the legislative body and to the Royal Council. Duke
Karl of Sudermania was then elected king as Karl XIII (Charles XIII,
1809–1818) on June 5. Franklin D. Scott, Sweden: The Nation’s History
(Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988), 295–96; H. Arnold
Barton, “The Swedish Succession Crises of 1809–1810 and the Question of
Scandinavian Union,” in Essays on Scandinavian History (Carbondale: Southern
Illinois University Press, 2009), 136–60; Allan Sandström, Sveriges Sista Krig:
De Dramatiska Åren 1808–09 (Örebro: Bokförlaget Libris, 1994), 127–59;
Walter Sandelius, “Dictatorship and Irresponsible Parliamentarism—A Study
in the Government of Sweden,” Political Science Quarterly 49, no. 3 (1934):
347–71. King Gustaf Adolf remained in detention for nine months before
being released. He left Sweden in December 1809, divorced his wife in 1812,
and spent almost thirty years living in great loneliness and indigence in
Switzerland, where he died in 1837.
112. For a historiographic overview, see Åke Sandström, “Sveriges 1809: föreställn-
ingar om finska kriget under 200 år,” in Fänrikens marknadsminne: Finska kriget
1808–09 och dess följder i eftervärldens ögon, ed. Max Engman (Jyväskylä: SLS
Atlantis, 2009), 28–54.
113. H. Arnold Barton, “Late Gustavian Autocracy in Sweden: Gustaf Iv Adolf and
His Opponents, 1792–1809,” in Essays on Scandinavian History (Carbondale:
Southern Illinois University Press, 2009), 118–20; Mikael Alm, “Dynasty in
the Making: A New King and His ‘Old’ Men in Royal Ceremonies 1810–44,”
in Scripts of Kingship: Essays on Bernadotte and Dynastic Formation in an Age of
Revolution, ed. Mikael Alm and Britt-Inger Johansson (Uppsala: Opuscula
Historica Upsaliensia, 2008), 23–48; Pasi Ihalainen and Anders Sundin,
“Continuity and Change in the Language of Politics at the Swedish Diet,
1769–10,” in Scandinavia in the Age of Revolution: Nordic Political Cultures,
1740–1820, ed. Pasi Ihalainen, Michael Bregnsbo, Karin Sennefelt, and Patrik
Winton (Farnham: Ashgate, 2011), 169–92.
114. Merry to Canning, March 14–19, 1809, FO 73/55.
115. Napoleon to Karl, April 12, 1809, in Peter A. Granberg, Historisk tafla af
F.D. Konung Gustaf IV Adolfs sednaste regerings-år (Stockholm: C. Delén, 1811),
II:151–52.
notes to pages 362–363 | 755

116. The British envoy had refused it, noting his government had no interest in
getting involved in Sweden’s internal affairs, especially when it involved
bringing the uncooperative Gustavus back into power. Merry to Canning,
April 21–25, 1809, FO 73/55.
117. Mikaberidze, “The Lion of the Russian Army,” 467–77; Mikhailovsky-
Danilevsky, Opisanie Finliandskoi Voini v 1808 i 1809 godakh, 396–408; K. Ordin,
Pokorenie Finlandii: opit opisanie po neizdannim istochnikam (St. Petersburg, 1889),
I:419–20; H. Algren, “Furst Barclay de Tollys tåg öfver Bottniska viken 1809.
(Ur ryska generalen von Bergs efterlämnade papper),” Svensk Militär Tidskrift,
1914, 195–99.
118. Algren, “Furst Barclay de Tollys tåg öfver Bottniska viken 1809,” 196–97.
Also see Ordin, Pokorenie Finlandii, 421.
119. Mikhail Borodkin, Istoriia Finliandii: vremia Imperatora Aleksandra I (St.
Petersburg, 1909), 198; Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie Finliandskoi Voini
v 1808 i 1809 godakh, 404–8.
120. Karl to Alexander I, March 18, 1809, in Granberg, Historisk tafla af F.D. Konung
Gustaf IV Adolfs sednaste regerings-år, II:145–46. Karl also wrote to the Danish
king and Napoleon (II:147–48).
121. Ordin, Pokorenie Finlandii, 426. One of the participants, General Paul Suchtelen,
observed, “Knorring was alarmed for the safety of his army: he was a talented
and experienced general, but he was rather wanting in an adventurous spirit,
without which success in war never can be complete. He tended to calculate
risks to such a degree that it made him afraid of trusting anything to chance.
Thus, he gave up on this glorious undertaking too easily, though not without
a very reasonable motive.” Narrative of the Conquest of Finland by the Russians in
the Years 1808–09: From an Unpublished Work by a Russian Officer of Rank, ed.
Gen. Monteith (London, 1854), 194. Hearing about Knorring’s decision to
withdraw to Finland, Swedish General Cronstedt remarked, “I cannot believe
Knorring would act so imprudently.” Borodkin, Istoriia Finliandii, 198.
122. Knorring to Barclay de Tolly, Knorring to Kulnev, Stroganov to Schultzenheim,
Armistice Treaty (between Barclay de Tolly and Cronsdedt), Armistice Treaty
(between Gripenberg and Shuvalov) 20–March 25, 1809, VPR, IV:539–41,
546–49, 693–94, 698–99. Alexey Arakcheyev, the Russian minister of war,
shares responsibility for this decision. With the Russian forces about to invade
the Swedish mainland, he realized the grave consequences any setbacks might
have for the army and, more important, for himself. Therefore, he ordered
a halt to the Russian offensive and requested additional instructions from
Emperor Alexander, even though the emperor had already given him “unlim-
ited authority throughout Finland.” Considering the distance and time neces-
sary to receive those instructions, Arakcheyev’s actions simply wasted precious
time that the Russians needed for invasion. Alexander to Arakcheyev, March
7/19, 1809, in Nikolai Shilder, Imperator Aleksandr Pervyi, ego zhizn’ i tsarst-
vovanie (St. Petersburg: A. S. Suvorin, 1897), II:238; Ordin, Pokorenie Finlandii,
756 | notes to pages 363–369

421; Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Opisanie Finliandskoi Voini v 1808 i 1809


godakh, 388–89; Borodkin, Istoriia Finliandii, 195, 199–200.
123. Voelcker, Admiral Saumarez Versus Napoleon, 90–92.
124. Ordin, Pokorenie Finlandii, 430–31; Borodkin, Istoriia Finliandii, 200.
125. For insights, see Lee Sather, The Prince of Scandinavia: Prince Christian August and
the Scandinavian Crisis of 1807–10 (Oslo: Forsvaretsmuseet, 2015). I am grateful
to Morten Nordhagen Ottosen for bringing this crucial work to my attention.
126. Meijer, Kriget emellan Sverige och Danmark, 189–98.
127. Erik Hamnström, Freden i Fredrikshamn (Uppsala: Wretmans tryckeri, 1902),
83–87, 91.
128. Hamnström, Freden i Fredrikshamn,104.
129. Originaltraktater med främmande makter (traktater), 17 September 1809,
Riksarkivet (Swedish National Archives), SE/RA/25.3/2/44/A (1809).
130. Although for some Swedes this was a moment of “national trauma,” overall
Swedish public response to the loss of the “proud Finnish nation” was in fact
rather muted. It was only in the second half of the nineteenth century that the
writings of nationalist Swedish historians began to describe the events of
1808–1809asa“nationalcatastrophe.”SeeHenrikEdgren,“Traumakonstruktionen:
Svensk historieskrivning om rikssprängningen 1809,” Scandia 76, no. 1 (2010):
9–39.
131. Petri Karonen, Pohjoinen suurvalta: Ruotsi ja Suomi 1521–1809 (Helsinki: WS
Bookwell, 2008), 434–36.
132. Oswald Kuylenstierna, Karl Johan och Napoleon 1797–1814 (Stockholm: Geber,
1914), 172–77.
133. Hans Klaeber, Marskalk Bernadotte: Kronprins af Sverige (Stockholm: Norstedt,
1913), 250–58.
134. Napoleon to Bernadotte, September 10, 1810, in CN, XXI:100.
135. Dunbar Plunket Barton, Bernadotte and Napoleon, 1763–1810 (London: John
Murray, 1921), 307.

Chapter 16
1. For a more in-depth treatment, see Suraiya N. Faroqhi, ed., The Cambridge
History of Turkey, vol. 3, The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 135–225.
2. For an interesting overview of the Ottoman Empire in the eighteenth century,
see Ali Yaycioglu, Partners of the Empire: The Crisis of the Ottoman Order in the Age
of Revolutions (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2016), 17–156. For a
more in-depth look at challenges the Ottomans faced even at their capital city,
see Betül Başaran, Selim III: Social Control and Policing in Constantinople at the End
of the Eighteenth Century: Between Crisis and Order (Boston: Brill, 2014), 13–105;
Betül Başaran and Cengiz Kirli, “Some Observations on Constantinople’s
Artisans During the Reign of Selim III (1789–1808),” in Bread from the Lion’s
notes to pages 369–371 | 757

Mouth: Artisans Struggling for a Livelihood in Ottoman Cities, ed. Suraiya Faroqhi
(New York: Berghahn Books, 2015), 259–77.
3. For a good overview of the Ottoman military ups and downs, see
Virginia H. Aksan, “War and Peace,” in The Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 3,
The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839, ed. Suraiya N. Faroqhi (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006), 81–118.
4. Virginia H. Aksan has shown that the influence of the French technical spe-
cialists, while important, has been exaggerated in the casting of artillery and
in the recruiting and training of new units of field artillery. See her “Breaking
the Spell of the Baron de Tott: Reframing the Question of Military Reform in
the Ottoman Empire, 1760–1830,” International History Review 24, no. 2
(2002): 258–63.
5. For an in-depth discussion of the Ottoman naval reforms, see Tuncay Zorlu,
Innovation and Empire in Turkey: Sultan Selim III and the Modernisation of the
Ottoman Navy (London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2008).
6. As Virginia Aksan has argued, Selim’s military reforms must be placed with the
context of “the climate and articulation of reform within Ottoman society.” For
Selim, the military changes were intricately involved with the reformulating of
dynastic and religious ideology, incorporation of new elites into the center of
power and the reforms of bureaucracy. See Virginia H. Aksan, Ottoman Wars,
1700–1870: An Empire Besieged (New York: Pearson, 2007), 180–81.
7. Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 192–97; Stanford J. Shaw, “The Origins of Ottoman
Military Reform: The Nizam-I Cedid Army of Sultan Selim III,” Journal of Modern
History 37 (1965): 291–305. Also see Niyazi Berkes, The Development of Secularism
in Turkey (Montreal: McGill University Press, 1964), 72–81; Gabor Agoston,
“Military Transformation in the Ottoman Empire and Russia, 1500–1800,”
Kritika: Explorations in Russian and Eurasian History 12 (2011): 281–319.
8. See Zorlu, Innovation and Empire in Turkey, 15–76.
9. Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III’ün hatt-i hümayunları: Nizam-i Cedit: 1789–1807
(Ankara: Türk Tarih Kurumu Basımevı, 1946), 81–93; Osman Özkul, Gelenek
ve modernite arasında Osmanlı ulemâsı (İstanbul: Birharf Yayınları, 2005), 316ff.
10. Karal, Selim III’ün hatt-i hümayunları, 43–81.
11. For discussion of the expanded role of the ulama in government and diplomacy
in the eighteenth century, see Madeline C. Zilfi, “The Ottoman Ulama,” in The
Cambridge History of Turkey, vol. 3, The Later Ottoman Empire, 1603–1839, ed.
Suraiya N. Faroqhi (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 223–25;
Uriel Heyd, “The Ottoman Ulama and Westernization at the Time of Selim
IIII and Mahmud II,” in Studies in Islamic History and Civilization (Jerusalem:
Magnes Press, Hebrew University, 1961), 63–96.
12. Virginia Aksan, “Locating the Ottomans in Napoleon’s World,” in Napoleon’s
Empire: European Politics in Global Perspective, ed. Ute Planert (London: Palgrave,
2015), 283.
758 | notes to pages 371–374

13. For an in-depth discussion, see Dušan Pantelicʹ, Beogradski pašaluk: posle
svištovskog mira, 1791–1794 (Belgrade: Grafički zavod “Makarije,” 1927).
14. Robert Zens, “Pasvanoglu Osman Pasa and the Pasalik of Belgrade,
1791–1807,” International Journal of Turkish Studies 8, nos. 1–2 (2002):
89–104. Also see the sultan’s orders and other documents in D. Ikhchiev, ed.,
Turski dŭrzhavni dokumenti za Osman pazvantoglu Vidinski (Sofia: Dŭrzhavna
pechatnitsa, 1908), XXIV:1–128.
15. Vera Mutafčieva, Kărdžalijsko vreme (Sofia: Bălgarskata Akademija na Naukite,
1993), 143–83.
16. Ikhchiev, Turski dŭrzhavni dokumenti, 122.
17. Zens, “Pasvanoglu Osman Pasa and the Pasalik of Belgrade,” 100–102.
18. See Sessions of the State Council, April 11–15 and August 8, 1801; Report of
A. Vorontsov and V. Kochubei, July 6, 1801, in Arkhiv Gosudarstvennogo Soveta,
III, part ii, 1189–90, 1191–4, 1197–8, 1200–1206.
19. Session of the State Council, August 8, 1801, Arkhiv Gosudarstvennogo Soveta,
III, part ii, 1196–7.
20. Alexander to Knorring, September 12, 1801, April 23, 1802, Akty sobrannye
kavkazskoiu arkheograficheskoiu kommissieiu, I:436, 689. Alexander instructed
Paul Tsitsianov to “ endeavor to gain for the Russian government the trust, not
only of Georgia but of various neighboring states where they are accustomed
to see only the cruelty of Persian power. They will regard every act of a strong
state founded on justice and strength as, so to speak, supernatural. [In doing
this you] ought to win their favor to it [Russian rule] quickly.” Alexander to
Tsitsianov, September 26, 1802, II:7–8.
21. The imperial manifesto was accompanied by instructions on the new system of
administration in eastern Georgia. The realm was divided into five districts
(uezds, three in Kartli and two in Kakheti) on the Russian model, with admin-
istrative centers at Tbilisi, Gori, Dusheti, Telavi, and Sighnaghi. With the
Georgian royal family removed from power, the commander in chief on
Russia’s Caucasian front assumed to the leadership of the central government
in Tbilisi and received the title of pravitel or administrator of Georgia. For
details, see Nikolas K. Gvosdev, Imperial Policies and Perspectives Towards
Georgia, 1760–1819 (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000); Laurens
H. Rhinelander, “The Incorporation of the Caucasus into the Russian Empire:
The Case of Georgia,” Ph.D. diss., Columbia University, 1972; Zurab Avalov
(Avalishvili), Prisoedinenie Gruzii k Rossii (St. Petersburg: Montvid, 1906);
Nikolay Dubrovin, Giorgii XII: Poslednii tsar Gruzii i prisoedinenie eia k Rossii
(St. Petersburg, 1897).
22. Meeting of the Secret Committee, March 31, 1802, in Grand Duke Nikolai
Mikhailovich, Graf Pavel Aleksandrovich Stroganov (St. Petersburg, 1903),
II:205.
23. The Austrian Habsburgs facilitated the migration of many Serbian families
from Ottoman Serbia into southern Hungary (under Austrian control since
notes to pages 374–376 | 759

1686), while the Habsburg occupation of Belgrade (1719–39) brought


Austrian authority to many Serbs south of the Danube. See Miroslav D̄ord̄evicʹ,
Politic ̌ka istorija Srbije XIX i XX veka, vol. I, 1804–1813 (Belgrade: Prosveta,
1956), 25–54; Dusan Pantelic, Beogradski Pašaluk posle svistovskog mira,
1791–1794 (Belgrade: Grafički zavod “Makarije,” 1927).
24. For details, see Harvey L. Dyck, “New Serbia and the Origins of the Eastern
Question, 1751–55: A Habsburg Perspective,” Russian Review 40 (1981):
1–19; Lawrence P. Meriage, “The First Serbian Uprising (1804–1813) and the
Nineteenth-Century Origins of the Eastern Question,” Slavic Review 37 (1978):
422–23; Stanford Shaw, “The Ottoman Empire and the Serbian Uprising
1804–1807,” in The First Serbian Uprising, 1804–1813, ed. W. S. Vucinich
(New York: Brooklyn College Press, 1982), 71–94.
25. See relevant Serbian and Austrian correspondence in Aleksa Ivicʹ, ed., Spisi
bec ̌kih arhiva o prvom srpskom ustanku (Belgrade: Srpska kraljevska akademija,
1935), I:34, 56, 69, 85–86, 154–60. For discussion of the Austrian response,
see Adolf Beer, Die orientalische Politik Österreichs seit 1774 (Prague: F. Tempsky,
1883), 183–85, 187–90, 196.
26. While rebuffing the Serbs, Russia strengthened ties with Montenegro, whose
territory it hoped to use as a base for the Russian Mediterranean squadron.
Norman E. Saul, Russia and the Mediterranean 1797–1807 (Chicago: University
of Chicago Press, 1970), 196–202.
27. For an interesting discussion, see Ercüment Kuran, Avrupa’da Osmanlı Ikâmet ̇
Elçiliklerinin Kuruluşu ve Ilk̇ Elçilerin Siyasî Faaliyetleri, 1793–1821 (Ankara:
Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü Yayımı, 1968), 15–22; Salnâme-i
Nezaret-i Hariciyye (Constantinople, 1884), 178–92; Carter V. Findley, “The
Legacy of Tradition to Reform: Origins of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry,”
International Journal of Middle East Studies 4 (1970): 334–57; Carter V. Findley,
“The Foundation of the Ottoman Foreign Ministry: The Beginnings of
Bureaucratic Reform under Selim III and Mahmud II,” International Journal of
Middle East Studies 3 (1972): 388–416; J. C. Hurewitz, “Ottoman Diplomacy
and the European State System,” Middle East Journal 15 (1961): 141–52.
28. For broad surveys of the topic, see J. A. R. Marriott, The Eastern Question: An
Historical Study in European Diplomacy (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1940);
M. S. Anderson, The Eastern Question, 1774–1923: A Study in International
Relations (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1966); A. L. Macfie, The Eastern
Question, 1774–1923 (London: Longman, 1996); Lucien Frary and Mara
Kozelsky, eds., Russian-Ottoman Borderlands: The Eastern Question Reconsidered
(Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014).
29. Baki Tezcan, The Second Ottoman Empire: Political and Social Transformation in the
Early Modern World (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 9–10;
Karen Barkey, The Empire of Difference: The Ottomans in Comparative Perspective
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 197–262; Donald Quataert,
The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
760 | notes to pages 377–379

2000), 37–53. On the Ottoman place in early modern history, see Palmira
Brummett, “Imagining the Early Modern Ottoman Space from World History
to Piri Reis,” in The Early Modern Ottomans: Remapping the Empire, ed.
Virginia H. Aksan and Daniel Goffman (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2007), 17–58.
30. Cited in S. Solovyev, “Vostochnyi vopros 50 let nazad,” Drevniaia i novaia
Rossiia 2 (1876): 129. Also see V. P. Grachev, “Plany sozdaniya slavyano-
serbskogo gosudarstva na Balkanakh v nachale XIX v. i otnoshenie k nim
pravitel’stva Rossii,” in Rossiia i Balkany: Iz istorii obschestvenno-politicheskikh i
kulturnykh svyazei (XVIII v.–1878 g.), ed. I. Dostyan (Moscow: Institut slavya-
novedeniya i balkanistiki RAN, 1995), 8–9.
31. Fatih Yeşil, “Looking at the French Revolution Through Ottoman Eyes:
Ebubekir Ratib Efendi’s Observations,” Bulletin of SOAS 70 (2007): 283–304.
32. Allan Cunningham, “The Ochakov Debate,” in Anglo-Ottoman Encounters in the
Age of Revolution, ed. Edward Ingram (London: F. Cass, 1993), 1–31; Nathaniel
Jarrett, “The Specter of Ochakov: Public Diplomacy in Britain, 1791–1792,”
in Selected Papers of the Consortium on the Revolutionary Era (2014), 55–77.
33. See Mehmet Alaaddin Yalçınkaya, The First Permanent Ottoman Embassy in
Europe: The Embassy of Yusuf Agah Efendi to London (1793–1797) (Constantinople:
Isis Press, 2010).
34. See Katherine E. Fleming, The Muslim Bonaparte: Diplomacy and Orientalism in
Ali Pasha’s Greece (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999).
35. For an interesting discussion, see Virginia H. Aksan, “Ottoman-French
Relations 1739–1768,” in Studies on Ottoman Diplomatic History, ed. Sinan
Kuneralp (Constantinople: Isis Press, 1987), 41–58.
36. The Ottoman government knew of the French preparations and was informed
by the Russians that the French expedition could target Ottoman territory.
Aware of the French involvement in Albania and the Ionian Islands, the
Ottomans initially expected the French expedition to sail there but sought to
clarify the situation with the French government. In July Ottoman ambassa-
dor Seyyid Mehmed Emin Vahid Efendi met French foreign minister
Talleyrand, who assured him that France cherished its longtime ally and had
̇
no hostile intentions toward it. For details, see İsmail Soysal, Fransız Ihtilali
ve Türk-Fransız Diplomasi Münasebetleri (1789–1802) (Ankara: Türk Tarih
Kurumu, 1999), 204–5; Ercüment Kuran, Avrupa’da Osmanlı Ikamet ̇
̇
Elçiliklerinin Kuruluşu ve Ilk Elçilerin Siyasi Faaliyetleri, 1793–1821 (Ankara:
Türk Kültürünü Araştırma Enstitüsü Yayınları, 1988), 30; Azmi Süslü,
“Ambassadeurs Turcs envoyés en France et Vahîd Pacha,” in Tarih Araştırmaları
Dergisi, no. 60 (2016):195–211.
37. See Ie. Metaxa, Zapiski flota kapitan-leitenanta Iegora Metaksy, zakliuchayushchiie
v sebe povestvovaniie o voiennykh podvigakh Rossiiskoi eskadry, pokorivshei pod
nachal’stvom admiral Fiodora Fiodorovicha Ushakova Ionicheskiie ostrova pri sodeist-
vii Porty Ottomanskoi v 1798 i 1799 godakh (Petrograd, 1915), 12–14; Henri
notes to pages 379–382 | 761

Dehérain, “La rupture du gouvernement Ottoman avec la France en l’an VI,”


Revue d’histoire diplomatique 39 (1925): 9–43.
38. P. Pisani, “L’expédition Russo-Turque aux îles ioniennes en 1789–1799,”
Revue d’Histoire diplomatique 2 (1888): 190–222; James L. McKnight, “Admiral
Ushakov and the Ionian Republic: The Genesis of Russia’s First Balkan
Satellite,” Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1965, 32–35; Saul, Russia and
the Mediterranean 1797–1807, 59–69, 73–74.
39. Hutchinson to Elgin, April 25, 1801, FO Turkey 32; Hutchinson to Dundas,
April 20, 1801; Hutchinson to Hobart, June 2 and 29, 1801, WO 1, 345.
40. James Philip Morier was private secretary to Thomas Bruce, Earl of Elgin,
Britain’s ambassador to the Ottoman Empire. He left an interesting account of
the British invasion: Memoir of a Campaign with the Ottoman Army in Egypt, from
February to July 1800 (London: J. Debrett, 1801).
41. Morier’s Memorandum, July 7, 1801, FO Turkey 32.
42. William Hamilton, Remarks on Several Parts of Turkey. Part I. Ægyptiaca, or,
Some Account of the Ancient and Modern State of Egypt, as Obtained in the Years
1801, 1802 (London: T. Payne, 1809), 6–8; Louis Pantaléon Jude Amédée
Noé, Mémoires relatifs à l’expédition anglaise: partie du Bengale en 1800 pour aller
combattre en Égypte l’armée d’orient (Paris: Imprimerie royale, 1826), 216–42.
43. Elgin to Hawkesbury, January 15, 1803, FO Turkey 38.
44. Napoleon to Talleyrand, August 29, 1802; Napoleon to Sebastiani, September
5, 1802, in Correspondance de Napoléon, VIII:9–10, 25–26.
45. Elgin to Hawkesbury, November 14, 1802, FO Turkey 36.
46. Hamilton, Remarks on Several Parts of Turkey, viii–ix.
47. Much of this discussion relies on AE “Turquie,” 204. For the Ottoman acces-
sion to the Treaty of Amiens, see Act of Accession of May 13, 1802, in Gabriel
Noradounghian, ed., Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire ottoman (Paris:
F. Pichon, 1900), II:50–52.
48. For the text of this treaty, see Definitive Treaty of Peace Between the French
Republic and the Sublime Ottoman Porte, http://www.napoleon-series.org/
research/government/diplomatic/c_ottoman.html. Article 6 of the treaty called
for “the restorations and indemnifications which are due to the agents of the
two powers, or to their citizens and subjects, whose effects have been confis-
cated or sequestrated during the war.” During negotiations Napoleon drove a
hard bargain, insisting on indemnifying only civilian losses. At the same time,
he refused to consider losses sustained by the Ottoman civilians in Egypt but
demanded Ottoman compensation for more than 1,800 French civilians who
had been arrested (and their property seized) during the war. Considering that
no Ottoman civilians had been detained in France, the Turks were clearly at a
disadvantage. Ultimately, after more than a year and a half of negotiations, the
sides had failed to reach a general settlement.
49. For details, see reports by E. Gandin (secretary at the French embassy in
Constantinople), A. Raubaud (French agent in Smyrna), and V. Fourçade
762 | notes to pages 382–386

(former vice consul at Crete), AE “Turquie,” 204; AE Mémoires et Documents,


“Turquie,” 14, 64.
50. Markov to Vorontsov, March 17, 1803, in SIRIO (1891), LXXVII:69. Also see
Emperor Alexander to Semen Vorontsov, January 20, 1803, in Arkhiv Vorontsova,
X:304–5.
51. Albert Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre 1er: l’alliance russe sous le 1er Empire (Paris:
Plon-Nourrit, 1894), I:4.
52. Hawkesbury to Warren, February 1, 1803; Russian note of March 12, 1803,
FO Russia 52.
53. Francis to Cobenzl, March 31, 1801, in Beer, Die orientalische politik Oesterreichs
seit 1774, 771–72. In Francis’s words, the Ottoman provinces that Austria was
likely to receive were all mountainous and populated by “fanatical and rabid”
populations that would resist any outside interferences.
54. AE “Turquie,” 205.
55. AE “Turquie,” 205. On Ali Pasha’s anti-French activities, see Frédéric François
Guillaume Vaudoncourt, Memoirs on the Ionian Islands (London: Baldwin,
Cradock, and Joy, 1816), 240–53; Auguste Boppe, L’Albanie et Napoléon,
1797–1814 (Paris: Hachette, 1914), 19–43.
56. Declaration of Neutrality, September 20, 1803, in Noradounghian, Recueil
d’actes internationaux de l’Empire ottoman, 69–70.
57. See Czartoryski’s memorandum, February 29, 1804, in SIRIO, 77:486–98.
58. Garlike to Warren, January 3, 1804; Warren to Hawkesbury, February 3,
1804, FO Russia 54; Vorontsov to Czartoryski, June 29, 1804, in Arkhiv
Vorontsova, XV:230–33.
59. The Constantinople Convention, April 2, in PSZ, no. 19336, XXVI:88–92.
60. Kahraman Sakul, “Ottoman Attempts to Control the Adriatic Frontier in the
Napoleonic Wars,” in Proceedings of the British Academy 156 (2009): 253–70.
61. In August 1797 General Bonaparte informed the Directory that the Ionian
Islands were of greater interest to France than the entire Italian Peninsula
because they would enable France to directly intervene in Ottoman affairs.
Correspondance de Napoléon, III:235.
62. For details, see A. M. Stanislavskaia, Rossiia i Gretsiia v kontse XVIII–nachale XIX
veka: Poltika Rossii v Ionicheskoi respublike, 1798–1807 g.g (Moscow: Nauka 1976);
J. L. McKnight, “Russia and the Ionian Islands, 1798–1807: The Conquest of
the Islands and Their Role in Russian Diplomacy,” MA thesis, University of
Wisconsin, 1962.
63. Alexander to V. S. Tomara, January 14 and February 27, 1802; Alexander to
G. D. Mocenigo. March 12, 1802, in VPR, I:167–68, 175–76, 182–83. For dis-
cussions of the French threat, see Russian diplomatic correspondence in SIRIO,
77:410–17; Arkhiv Vorontsova, XX:292–94; VPR, I:433, 513–17, 530–31, 557.
64. Czartoryski to G. D. Mocenigo, August 12, 1804, VPR, II:111.
65. “Article pour l’arrangement des affaires de l’Europe a la suite d’une guerre
heureuse (1804)” in Czartoryski, Mémoires, II:65–66. Czartoryski warned that
notes to pages 387–389 | 763

“when the Ottoman body becomes rotten and gangrene set in its vital ele-
ments, we will not suffer to see its fate decided in any way contrary to the
major interests of Russia.” Czartoryski to Semen Vorontsov, October 25, 1804,
in Arkhiv Vorontsova, XV:277–79. Also see “Imperial Instructions to
N. Novosiltsev,” September 23, 1804, in VPR, II:138–46.
66. Record of the Meeting of N. N. Novosiltsev with Prime Minister Pitt,
December 25, 1804, in VPR, II:226–27.
67. F. de Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie avec les puissances
étrangères (St. Petersburg: A. Böhnke, 1895), XI:98–99.
68. Instructions to Gower, October 10, 1804, FO Russia 56.
69. Declaration of Alliance, November 6, 1804, VPR, II:175–76.
70. Czartoryski to Alexander Vorontsov, December 2, 1804, in Czartoryski,
Mémoires, II:58. Signed in 1799, the treaty of alliance was supposed to last six
years, but in January 1803 the sultan requested its renewal with Britain’s acces-
sion to it. Russia initially refused to commit to the renewal. When the terms of
the treaty of alliance were communicated to the British government, Czartoryski
made sure to note that the Russian government “understands Eastern policies
infinitely better because we are closer to the region that the court of St. James.
We ask you, therefore, to listen to our advice, to follow our directions, not to
interfere we with our operation or do anything without prior agreement with
us.” Czartoryski to Semen Vorontsov, May 15, 1805, Arkhiv Vorontsova, XV:301.
71. Czartoryski to Vorontsov, August 30, 1804, in VPR, II:120.
72. Draft text of the treaty in VPR, II:677–78; Armand Goşu, La troisième coalition
antinapoléonienne et la Sublime Porte 1805 (Constantinople: Isis, 2003), 129–33.
73. See correspondence between Charles Arbuthnot, Britain’s ambassador in
Constantinople, and Henry Phipps, Lord Mulgrave, Secretary for Foreign
Affairs, in September 1805, FO Turkey 46.
74. Arbuthnot to Mulgrave, September 10, 1805, FO Turkey 46.
75. Goşu, La troisième coalition antinapoléonienne et la Sublime Porte, 25–42; E. Verbitskii,
“Peregovory Rossii i Osmanskoi imperii o vozobnovlienii soyuznogo dogovora
1798 (1799) g.,” in Rossiia i Iugo-Vostochnaia Evropa, ed. A. Narochnitskii
(Kishinev: Shtiintsa, 1984), 60–67.
76. See text of the treaty in Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire
ottoman, II:70–77.
77. AE “Turquie,” 207.
78. Napoleon to Brune, March 14, 1804, in Ignace de Testa, ed., Recueil des traités
de la Porte Ottomane, avec les puissances étrangères (Paris: Amyot, 1864), II:255.
79. AE “Turquie,” 208.
80. Brune to Napoleon, May 22, 1804; Selim III to Napoleon, May 18, 1804, in
Testa, Recueil des traités de la Porte Ottomane, II:256–69.
81. AE “Turquie,” 206.
82. For details, see Edouard Driault, Napoléon et l’Europe: Austerlitz, la fin du Saint-
empire (1804–1806) (Paris: F. Alcan, 1912), 80–90.
764 | notes to pages 389–391

83. See Russian and British notes in Testa, ed., Recueil des traités de la Porte Ottomane,
II:346–47.
84. See correspondence on this matter in Testa, ed., Recueil des traités de la Porte
Ottomane, II:339–52. Also see Enver Ziya Karal, Halet efendinin Paris Büyük
elçiliği (1802–1806) (İstanbul: Kanaat Basımevi, 1940), 68–74.
85. P. Coquelle, “L’ambassade du maréchal Brune à Constantinople (1803–1805),”
in Revue d’histoire diplomatique 18 (1904): 71; Italinskii to the Ottoman govern-
ment, October 8 and December 15, 1804, in VPR, II:156–58, 204–6.
86. Brune’s explanatory letter in Testa, ed., Recueil des traités de la Porte Ottomane,
II:349–50.
87. Napoleon to Selim III, January 30, 1805, in CN, no. 8298, X:130. Napoleon
also complained of the Ottoman failure to do something about continued
Russian military movements through the straits to the Ionian islands and
Corfu. Napoleon to Brune, July 27, 1807, in Testa, ed., Recueil des traités de la
Porte Ottomane, II:270–71. Determined to meet the perceived Ottoman menace
with menace, Napoleon also contemplated a possibility of partitioning the
Porte as the “best way to deliver a crushing blow to Russia and to Austria”; one
of the memorandums prepared by the French foreign ministry envisioned
inciting a Greek uprising and dispatching a French force to European Turkey
with a goal of restoring the “Eastern Greek Empire,” which would serve as an
“insurmountable barrier” for other powers. AE “Turquie,” 210.
88. Arbuthnot to Mulgrave, February 6, 1806, FO Turkey 49.
89. For Ruffin’s reports, see AE “Turquie,” 210, 211.
90. Enver Ziya Karal, Selim III. ün Hatt-i Humayunlari (Ankara: Türk Tarih
Kurumu basĭmevi, 1942), 91.
91. See Italiinskii’s note to the Porte in VPR, III:37–38. Also see Arbuthnot to
Mulgrave (with enclosed note of February 4), February 6, 1806, FO Turkey 49.
92. Nihat Karaer, “Abdürrahim Muhib Efendi’nin Paris Büyükelçiliği
(1806–1811) ve Döneminde Osmanlı Fransız Diplomasi Đlişkileri,” Osmanlı
Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi, no. 30 (2011): 4–5. Anticipating
a change, Talleyrand in fact sent his trusted secretary on a special mission to
Constantinople in order to assure the Ottomans of Napoleon’s good intentions
and to urge Kethüda Ibrahim Nesim Efendi, who was considered pro-French
and had good relations with the French chargé d’affaires Pierre Ruffin, to influ-
ence Ottoman policy in France’s favor. The office of kethüda was the second
most important in the Porte, granting its holder, who was a deputy to the
grand vizier, immense authority in home and military affairs.
93. Driault, Napoléon et l’Europe: Austerlitz, 404–5; Vernon J. Puryear, Napoleon and
the Dardanelles (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), 58–59. As part
of his efforts to woo the Ottomans, Napoleon had his famed bulletins and
other propaganda pieces translated into Turkish and sent to Constantinople.
Napoleon to Cambaceres, December 11, 1806, in CN, XIV:64.
94. Napoleon to Selim III, June 20, 1806, in CN, XII:474.
notes to pages 391–394 | 765

95. Italiinskii to Czartory, March 14, 1806, VPR, III:82–83; Selim’s letter to
Alexander is enclosed in Arbuthnot’s report of March 21, in FO Turkey 49.
96. Karadjordje to Emperor Francis I, January 24, 1806; Francis I to Selim III,
March 12, 1806; Selim III to Francis I, April 25, 1806, in Spisi bec ̌kih arhiva o
prvom srpskom ustanku, III:16–19, 69–71, 120–21; Beer, Die orientalische Politik
Österreichs seit 1774, 193–95.
97. Notes of the January 1806 Meeting of the State Council, in SIRIO (1892),
LXXXII:240.
98. For French consular reports see AE Correspondance consulaire et commerciale,
“Jassy,” 1; “Bucarest,” 2. Some of the Bucarest reports, especially post-1809,
have been printed in Documente privitoare la Istoria Românilor. Corespondentă dip-
lomatica şi rapoarte consulare franceze: (1603–1824) (Bucharest: Acad. Rom. şi
Ministerul Cultelor şi Instrucţiunii Publice, 1912), XVI:652ff.
99. Italiinskii to Czartoryski, April 12, 1806, VPR, III:110–14.
100. Gower to Mulgrave, March 2, 1806, FO Russia 62.
101. Memorandum of early January 1806, in VPR, III:11.
102. Memorandum of January 23, 1806 (no. 76), in SIRIO (1892), LXXXII:254.
See also Czartoryski’s other memorandums in SIRIO (1892), LXXXII:265–75,
315–16, 322–24.
103. Memorandum of January 23, 1806 (no. 77), in SIRIO, 82:265.
104. Paul Pisani, La Dalmatie de 1797 à 1815 (Paris: A. Picard et fils, 1893), 160–65.
105. Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, Graf Pavel Aleksandrovich Stroganov
(1774–1817) (St. Petersburg: Eksp. Zag. Gos. Bumag, 1903), III:1–3.
106. Czartoryski to Stroganov, February 6, 1806, in Nikolai Mikhailovich, Graf
Pavel Aleksandrovich Stroganov, III:9–12; Semen Vorontsov to Czartoryski,
March 31, 1806, in Arkhiv Vorontsova, XV:389–95.
107. Fox to Gower, April 29, 1806, FO Russia 62.
108. Arbuthnot to Mulgrave, January 20 and February 15, 1806, F.O. Turkey 49.
Also see Czartoryski’s memorandum of May 25, 1806, in Mikhailovich, Graf
Pavel Aleksandrovich Stroganov, III:18–22.
109. After the setback in Britain, the Russian government adopted a different
approach, considering making a deal with Napoleon whereby Russia would
tolerate the latter’s influence in Italy, on condition that France renounce any
intention of encroaching upon the Ottoman Empire or of acquiring a prepon-
derant influence there. Memorandum of March 7, 1806 (no. 85), in SIRIO
(1892), LXXXII:320–21.
110. Nihat Karaer, “Abdürrahim Muhib Efendi’nin Paris Büyükelçiliği
(1806–1811) ve Döneminde Osmanlı-Fransız Diplomasi Ilişkileri,” Osmanlı
Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi, no. 30 (2011): 4–6.
111. Ruffin to Talleyrand, March 27, 1806, Documente privitoare la Istoria Românilor
(Bucharest: I. V. Socecŭ, 1885), II:334–35. Also see Bekir Günay, Paris’te bir
Osmanlı: Seyyid Abdurrahim Muhib Efendi’nin Paris sefirliği ve Büyük Sefaretnamesi
(İstanbul: Kitabevi, 2009).
766 | notes to pages 395–397

112. For an interesting discussion of capitulations and the role of foreign trade, see
Mehmet Bulut, Ottoman-Dutch Economic Relations in the Early Modern Period
(Hilversum: Verloren, 2001), 54–59.
113. P. Coquelle, “Sébastiani, ambassadeur à Constantinople, 1806–1808,” Revue
d’histoire diplomatique, 18 (1904): 579–80, 594. Coquelle argues that the
French agreed to this in return for the deposition of the hospodars.
114. Czartoryski to Italiinskii, June 13, 1806, in VPR, III:189–91. Also see instruc-
tions to Pierre d’Oubril, Russia’s plenipotentiary to France, May 12, 1806, in
VPR, III:134–36. D’Oubril was specifically cautioned against accepting any
conditions that would limit or abrogate Russia’s rights in the Ottoman Empire.
115. See the treaty text in The Annual Register . . . for the Year 1806 (London, 1808),
796–97.
116. See relevant correspondence in VPR, III:42, 45, 58–61.
117. Full text of the declaration is available in VPR, III:231–33.
118. P. Coquelle, “Sébastiani, ambassadeur à Constantinople, 1806–1808,” Revue
d’histoire diplomatique, 18 (1904): 576–78; Nihat Karaer, “Abdürrahim Muhib
Efendi’nin Paris Büyükelçiliği (1806–1811) ve Döneminde Osmanlı-Fransız
Diplomasi Ilişkileri,” Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi,
no. 30 (2011): 7–8.
119. A hospodar was a local prince in Wallachia and Moldova. Hospodars usually
belonged to Phanariotes, a small caste of Greek and Hellenized Romanian and
Albanian families who took their collective name from the Phanar or Lighthouse
quarter of Constantinople. For a detailed discussion of local politics in Bessarabia,
Wallachia, and Moldavia, see George Jewsbury, “Russian Administrative Policies
Toward Bessarabia, 1806–1828,” Ph.D. diss., University of Washington, 1970.
For a comparative study, see Keith Hitchins, “Small Powers: Wallachia and
Georgia Confront the Eastern Question, 1768–1802,” in The Balkans and
Caucasus: Parallel Processes on the Opposite Sides of the Black Sea, ed. I. Biliarsky,
O. Cristea, and A. Oroveanu (Cambridge: Cambridge Scholars, 2012), 12–28.
120. Instructions to Italiinskii, May 28 and July 30, 1806, in VPR, III:180, 252–53.
Also see Italiinskii’s reports of August 23–30 in VPR, III:263–66, 284–87.
121. Although the Hatt-i Şerif of 1802 was in the form of a sultan’s decree, it was
regarded as a binding convention. The Ottomans tried to argue that because
the decree emanated from the Porte, it could be annulled by it as well, but the
Russians rejected such explanations. See the text of the decree in Noradounghian,
ed., Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire ottoman, II:55–67.
122. Alexander to Italiinskii, March 8, 1806; Budberg’s memorandum, c. December
1806, in SIRIO (1892), LXXXII:325–28, 488–94.
123. Czartoryski to Emperor Alexander, March 7, 1806, in SIRIO (1892),
LXXXII:315–19.
124. In a note presented on August 28, the Russian ambassador outlined a long list
of grievances that required redress: obstacles to Russian trade and suppression
of the berats; the non-observance of the tariff; the Porte’s failure to implement
notes to pages 397–400 | 767

the Convention of 1800 regarding the Septinsular Republic; the abuses of the
Ottoman notables on the Danube; the Porte’s stated desire to restrict the pas-
sage of Russian warships through the straits. VPR, III:273–76.
125. A detailed account of the Ottoman deliberations is available in Arbuthnot’s
dispatches (FO Turkey 51), which also contain reports from a British diplo-
mat, William Wellesley Pole, who was allowed to attend the Ottoman council
meetings on October 12–13.
126. Alexander to Michelson, October 27–28 and November 4, 1806, in A. Petrov,
Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 1806–1812 (St. Petersburg: Voenn. Tip., 1885),
I:375–81. The sultan declared war on Russia on January 3, 1807. See Circular
to Foreign Missions, in Noradounghian, Recueil d’actes internationaux de l’Empire
ottoman, II:79–80.
127. See Alexander I to Kamensky, December 27, 1806; Budberg to Italiinskii,
November 27, 1806, in VPR, III:381–84, 387–88, 439–41.
128. Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 54–121.
129. On December 23, 1806, the Ottoman General Council made the decision to
declare war, and two days later confirmed that decision. The war was formally
declared on December 27 and the news officially communicated on January 3,
1807. See Circular to Foreign Missions, in Noradounghian, ed., Recueil d’actes
internationaux de l’Empire ottoman, II:79–80.
130. Napoleon to Fouche, December 31, 1806, in New Letters of Napoleon I, ed. Mary
Lloyd (New York: D. Appleton, 1897), 35–36.
131. Napoleon to Selim III, January 1, 1807, in CN, XIV:128. See a similar letter
of January 20 in XIV:220.
132. Napoleon to Sebastiani, January 20, 1807; Napoleon to Marmont, January 29,
1807, in Testa ed., Recueil des traités de la Porte Ottomane, II:290–93. Also see
Nihat Karaer, “Abdürrahim Muhib Efendi’nin Paris Büyükelçiliği
(1806–1811) ve Döneminde OsmanlıFransız Diplomasi Đlişkileri,” Osmanlı
Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi, no. 30 (2011), 6.
133. Alexander Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, The Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812,
trans. and ed. Alexander Mikaberidze (West Chester, OH: Nafziger Collection,
2002), I:26–48.
134. Karal, Selim III’ün hatt-i hümayunları, 97–98.
135. William Clark Russell, The Life of Admiral Lord Collingwood (London: Methuen,
1901), 202–18; Max Adams, Trafalgar’s Lost Hero: Admiral Lord Collingwood
and the Defeat of Napoleon (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2005), 230–40.
136. Grenville to the Marquis of Buckingham, November 25, 1806, in Memoirs of
the Court and Cabinets of George III (London: Hurst and Blackett, 1855), IV:101.
137. Lord Collingwood to Duckworth, January 13, 1807, in Robert Stewart,
Correspondence, Despatches, and Other Papers . . . of Viscount Castlereagh (London:
William Shoberl, 1848–1853), VI:151–53.
138. Nicholas Tracy, ed., The Naval Chronicle: The Contemporary Record of the Royal
Navy at War (London: Stackpole Books, 1999), IV:12–35.
768 | notes to pages 400–404

139. Sebstiani’s report of January 27 and 30, cited in Talleyrand to Napoleon,


March 4, 1807, in Lettres inédites de Talleyrand à Napoléon, ed. Pierre Betrand
(Paris: Perrin, 1889), 321–23. On January 29, British ambassador Arbuthnot
invited the British residents for a dinner on board a British ship, which, amid
toasts and conversations, quietly raised sail and slipped out of Constantinople,
with all guests still aboard it.
140. Henry Richard Vassall Holland, Memoirs of the Whig Party During My Time
(London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longmans, 1854), II:106.
141. Henry Blackwood to Lord Castlereagh, March 6, 1807, in Memoirs and
Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, VI:165–66.
142. See French reports in AE “Turquie,” 213. Sebastiani’s reports show that the
Spanish envoy and his staff also participated in the preparation of the defenses.
143. Henry Blackwood to Lord Castlereagh, March 6, 1807, in Memoirs and
Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, VI:165–66; AE “Turquie,” 213.
144. David Blackmore, Warfare on the Mediterranean in the Age of Sail (Jefferson, NC:
McFarland, 2011), 258; John William Fortescue, A History of the British Army
(London: Macmillan, 1910), VI:6–7.
145. Lord Burghersh to his father, March 6, 1807, in Correspondence of Lord Burghersh,
Afterwards Eleventh Earl of Westmorland, 1808–1840 (London: J. Murray, 1912), 8.
146. For details, see Georges Douin, L’Angleterre et l’Égypte. La campagne de 1807
(Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 1928), i–xxi; Fatih
Yeşil, Trajik Zafer Büyük Güçlerin Doğu Akdeniz’deki Siyasi ve Askeri Mücadelesi
(1806–1807) (İstanbul: Türkiye İş Bankası Kültür yayınları, 2017).
147. See relevant correspondence in Georges Douin, L’Égypte de 1802 à 1804:
Correspondance des Consuls de France en Égypte (Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie
orientale du Caire, 1925), 40–54.
148. For an interesting discussion on the French and British agents in Egypt, see
Maya Jasanoff, Edge of Empire: Lives, Culture and Conquest in the East,
1750–1850 (New York: Vintage Books, 2005), 226–29.
149. See Gentleman’s Magazine, October 7, 1803; Morning Herald, October
8–November 1, 1803; London Times, October 10–December 17, 1803;
Morning Post, October 17–November 9, 1803.
150. Afaf Lutfi Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1984), 38–41.
151. Cited in Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali, 46.
152. Henry Dodwell, The Founder of Modern Egypt: A Study of Muhammad ʻAli
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1931), 17–19; Khaled Fahmy, Mehmet
Ali: From Ottoman Governor to Ruler of Egypt (Oxford: Oneworld, 2009), 22–26,
29–31.
153. Sayyid-Marsot, Egypt in the Reign of Muhammad Ali, 42–74; a good description
of Mehmet Ali’s character is at 24–35.
154. Selim III tried removing Mehmet Ali just a year later. In June 1806 the sultan
sent Musa Pasha, the wali of Salonika, with orders to trade places with the
notes to pages 404–410 | 769

Egyptian governor. Upon his arrival in Cairo, Musa Pasha realized that he
lacked sufficient military force to enforce the sultanic edict.
155. For details, see Douin, L’Angleterre et l’Égypte. La campagne de 1807, 1–115;
Fortescue, A History of the British Army, VI:8–28.
156. For French consul Drovetti’s involvement, see Édouard Driault, Mohamed Aly
et Napoléon (1807–1814): Correspondance des consuls de France en Égypte (Cairo:
Institut française d’archéologie orientale, 1925), 65–66.
157. For the role of the British agent Misset in these setbacks, see Muḥammad
Shafīq Ghurbal, The Beginnings of the Egyptian Question and the Rise of Mehemet
Ali (London: George Routledge & Sons, 1928), 248–51.
158. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, VI:28. Also see John Marlow, Perfidious
Albion: The Origins of Anglo-French Rivalry in the Levant (London: Elek Books,
1971), 121.
159. For an interesting discussion, see Kenneth M. Cuno, The Pasha’s Peasants:
Land, Society, and Economy in Lower Egypt, 1740–1858 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1991); Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha’s Men: Mehmet Ali, His
Army, and the Making of Modern Egypt (Cairo: American University in Cairo
Press, 2002); Edouard Driault, La formation de l’empire de Mohamed Aly de
l’Arabie au Soudan (1814–1823): correspondance des consuls de France en Égypte
(Cairo: Institut français d’archéologie orientale du Caire, 1927).
160. Aksan, Ottoman Wars, 246ff.; Yaycioglu, Partners of the Empire, 157ff. For the
Janissary rebel leader, see Ahmet Refik and Enfel Doğan, Kabakçı Mustafa
(İstanbul: Heyamola Yayınları, 2005).
161. Stanford J. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1977), II:1–2; Yaycioglu, Partners of the Empire,
189–90.
162. Yaycioglu, Partners of the Empire, 203–4, 219–22; Mehrdad Kia, The Ottoman
Empire (Westport CT: Greenwood, 2008), 104; Shaw, History of the Ottoman
Empire, II:2–3.
163. Shaw, History of the Ottoman Empire, II:4–5.
164. Savary to Napoleon, November 4, 1807, in SIRIO (1892), LXXXIII:184.
165. For the text of the Treaty of Tilsit, see www.napoleon-series.org/research/
government/diplomatic/c_tilsit.html.
166. Savary to Napoleon, September 23, October 9, and November 15, 1807;
Guilleminot to Savary, September 28, 1807; Alexander to Napoleon, November
15, 1807, in SIRIO (1892), LXXXIII:78–82, 85, 122–23, 192–94, 220–34,
294–95; Rumyantsev to Tolstoy, November 6, 1807, in SIRIO (1893),
LXXXIX:218–19. Also see Nihat Karaer, “Abdürrahim Muhib Efendi’nin Paris
Büyükelçiliği (1806–1811) ve Döneminde Osmanlı-Fransız Diplomasi Ilişkileri,”
Osmanlı Tarihi Araştırma ve Uygulama Merkezi Dergisi, no. 30 (2011): 11–12.
167. Savary to Napoleon, November 4, 1807, in SIRIO (1892), LXXXIII:180.
168. Instructions to Count Tolstoy, September 26, 1807, in SIRIO (1893),
LXXXIX:106–12.
770 | notes to pages 410–414

169. Napoleon to Savary, October 6, 1807, in Correspondance de Napoléon, XVI:74.


Also see Champagny to Caulaincourt, April 2, 1808, in SIRIO (1893),
LXXXVIII:594.
170. See transcripts of conversations between Emperor Alexander, Rumyantsev, and
French ambassador Caulaincourt in Serge Tatistcheff, Alexandre I et Napoléon:
d’après leur correspondance inédite 1801–1812 (Paris: Perrin, 1891), 303–78.
171. See Articles 8, 9, and 11 of the Erfurt Convention, http://www.napoleon-
series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_erfurt.html.
172. See correspondence in AE “Turquie,” 217. Also see Karaer, “Abdürrahim
Muhib Efendi’nin Paris Büyükelçiliği,” 15–16.
173. Herbert Randolph, Life of General Sir Robert Wilson . . . from Autobiographical
Memoirs, Journals, Narratives, Correspondence, Etc. (London: J. Murray, 1862),
II:436–37.
174. See text of the treaty in Noradounghian, ed., Recueil d’actes internationaux de
l’Empire ottoman, II:81–85. For details on negotiations, see Robert Adair, The
Negotiations for the Peace of the Dardanelles in 1808–9, with Dispatches and Official
Documents (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and Longman, 1845), 2 vols.
The text of the treaty is in I:118–23.
175. Adair to Canning, March 19, 1809, in Adair, The Negotiations for the Peace of the
Dardanelles in 1808–9, 151.
176. “Discours a l’ouverture de la session du Corps Législatif,” December 3, 1809,
in Correspondance de Napoléon, XX:50.
177. Metternich to Stadion, August 17, 1808, in Mémoires, documents et écrits divers
laissés par le prince de Metternich (Paris: Plon, 1881), II:197.
178. French writer Alphonse de Lamartine acquired al-Sayegh’s manuscript and
translated it into French in 1835. For an English translation, see Narrative of
the Residence of Fatalla Sayeghir: Among the Wandering Arabs of the Great Desert
(Philadelphia: Carey, Lea, and Blanchard, 1836). For a critical edition, see Le
desert et la gloire: les memoires d’un agent syrien de Napoleon, trans. and ed. Joseph
Chelhod (Paris: Gallimard, 1991).
179. For a critical review, see George M. Haddad, “Fathallah al-Sayegh and His
Account of a Napoleonic Mission Among the Arab Nomads: History or
Fiction?,” Studia Islamica 24 (1966): 107–23.
180. Napoleon to Champagny, October 13, 1810, Correspondance de Napoléon,
XXI:213–14. Napoleon repeated his order to the consuls on December 6,
1810, XXI:303.
181. Miroslav R. Đord̄evicʹ, Oslobodilac ̌ki rat srpskih ustanika, 1804–1806 (Belgrade:
Vojnoizdavački zavod, 1967), 372–75.
182. See correspondence in VPR, IV:367–68, 439–40, 456–58.
183. One Russian military historian aptly observed that Prozorovsky “still prac-
ticed the tactics of the 1769 campaign.” A. Petrov, Vlianie Turetskikh voin s
polovini proshlogo stoletia na razvitie Russkago voennago iskusstva (St. Petersburg,
1894), 227.
notes to pages 414–415 | 771

184. Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, II:218–28. For details, see Alexander Langeron,
“Zapiski Grafa Langerona. Voina s Turtsiei v 1806–1812 gg.,” in Russkaya
starina 132 (1907): 153–66; 133 (1908): 711–26; 134 (1908): 225–40. The
Russians lost 2,229 killed and 2,550 wounded; some Russian regiments suf-
fered almost 90 percent casualties—the 13th Jager Regiment lost 900 out of
1,100 men. A contemporary recalled that, seeing the assault gone wrong,
“Prince Prozorovsky was in despair; he cried, fell to his knees, and tore his hair.
Kutuzov was standing nearby, with his usual composure. To comfort the field
marshal, he told him, ‘Sometimes even worse happens; I lost the Battle of
Austerlitz that decided the fate of Europe, and still I did not cry.’” Concerned
about his position after this defeat, Prozorovsky perceived Kutuzov as a threat
to himself and blamed him and other senior Russian officers for the failure.
Kutuzov was recalled from the army and later served as a governor of Vilna.
185. It seems Prozorovsky’s age prevented him from understanding the situation
correctly. On July 1, he informed the Serbs that Russia had promised them
only diplomatic and material support, and so the Russian army would not
defend Serbia. Instead, Prozorovsky advised them “to wait for the advance of
the Russian army across the Danube.” Yet Isaev’s detachment had been already
cooperating with the Serbs for the past two years. In addition, Prozorovsky’s
suggestion to wait for the Russian advance was cynical considering the Turks
were advancing toward Belgrade. Prozorovsky to the Serbian State Council,
July 1, 1809, in Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, II:275.
186. Spisi beçkih archiva o Prvom sprskom ustanku (Belgrade, 1936–1973), VI:294,
301–5; Grgur Jaksic, Evropa i vaskrs Srbije, 1804–1834 (Belgrade: Narodna
misao, 1927), 129–33; Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, II:216, 274–75,
289–300; Dragoslav Jankovic, Fracuska štampa o prvom srpskom ustanku (Belgrade:
Naučno delo, 1959), 292–303. Both sides fought with a remarkable ferocity.
On one occasion, the Turkish commander decapitated several hundred Serbs
and embedded their skulls into a “Tower of Skulls” at Nis. The remains of this
tower could still be seen in the 1970s. Lawrence Meriage, “Russia and the First
Serbian Revolution,” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University, 1975, 193n.; Wayne
Vucinich, “The Serbian Insurgents and the Russo-Turkish War of
1809–1812,” in The First Serbian Uprising, 1804–1813, ed. Wayne Vucinich
(New York: Brooklyn College, 1982), 141.
187. Vigel, Vospominaniya F.F. Vigelya, III:90.
188. Karadjordje to Isaev, September 16, 1809, Voennyi sbornik 11 (1864): 267–68.
Bagration instructed Rodofinikin to respond to this letter. See Rodofinikin
to Karadjorje, October 5, 1809, VPR, V:238–39; Voennyi sbornik 11 (1864):
268–70.
189. Rodofinikin to Karadjordje, October 5, 1809, VPR, V:238–39; Lazar
Arsenijevic-Batalaka, Istorija Prvog Srpskog Ustanka (Belgrade, 1898–99),
702–3. Also see Karadjordje to Isaev, September 16, 1809, Voennyi sbornik 11
(1864): 266–72.
772 | notes to pages 415–418

190. Bagration to Rodofinikin, December 18, 1809, VPR, V:684; Nikolay


Dubrovin, “Materials for the History of Reign of Alexander,” Voennyi sbornik 2
(1865): 223–24.
191. Rodofinikin to Bagration, October 24, 1809, VPR, V:225. Dubrovin noted
that Karadjordje tended to exaggerate the threats, and he misunderstood
Russian actions in 1808–1809. During their negotiations with the French, the
Serbian delegates complained that Russia failed to fulfill its promises. Meriage
to Champagny, February 21, 1810, in Ogis Bop [Auguste Boppe], ed.,
“Karadjordje i Francuska. Dokumenti o dogadjajima Srbije sa Napoleonom I
(1809–1814),” Otadžbina, XIX (1888): 336–38.
192. Karadjordje to Ledoulx, August 16, 1809, in Bop, ed., “Karadjordje i
Francuska,” 118–20.
193. See relevant letters in Bop, ed., “Karadjordje i Francuska,” 122–24, 336–38.
194. For details on Metternich’s Eastern policies, see Vasilj Popovicʹ, Meternihova
politika na Bliskom Istoku (Belgrade: Srpska kraljevska akademija, 1931).
195. Metternich to Emperor Francis, July 9, 1810, in Mémoires, documents et écrits
divers laissés par le prince de Metternich, II:361; also see his report of July 28,
II:369–80.
196. Metternich to Emperor Francis, July 28, 1810, in Mémoires, documents et écrits
divers laissés par le prince de Metternich, II:369–71.
197. Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie, III:73–77.
198. Meriage, Russia and the First Serbian Revolution, 197–98; Vucinich, “The Serbian
Insurgents and the Russo-Turkish War of 1809–1812,” 146–51; Miroslav
Djordjevic, Politiçka istorija Srbije XIX i XX veka (Belgrade: Prosveta, 1956),
263–65.
199. Canning to Wellesley, October 4, 1810, in Čeda Mijatovicʹ, ed., “Prepisi iz
zvaničnih I poverljivih izveštaja engleske ambasade u Carigradu od
1804–1814,” Spomenik 52 (1922): 80.
200. Mijatovicʹ, ed., “Prepisi iz zvaničnih,” 81.
201. Grgur Jakšicʹ and Vojislav Vučkovicʹ, Francuski dokumenti o prvom i drugom
ustanku (1804–1830) (Belgrade: Naučno delo, 1957), 71–72.
202. Canning to Wellesley, October 4, 1810, in Mijatovicʹ, ed. “Prepisi iz zvaničnih,” 81.
203. Karadjordje to Stevan Jevticʹ, September 21, 1810, in Josef Freiherr von Simbschen
und die Stellung Österreichs zur serbischen Frage (1807–1810), ed. Franz Xaver
Krones (Vienna: In Commission bei F. Tempsky, 1890), 128–31.
204. Bagration to Rodofinikin, December 1, 1809; Rofodinikin to Bagration,
December 12, 1809, Bagration to Rumyantsev, December 25, 1809, January
10, 1810, VPR, V:313, 325–26, 343, 682; Arsenijevic-Batalaka, Istorija Prvog
Srpskog Ustanka, 786–87; Djordjevic, Politiçka istorija Srbije, 265–71.
205. Hurshid Pasha to Karadjordje, November 21, 1809, Voennyi sbornik 2 (1865):
261–62.
206. Arsenijevic-Batalaka, Istorija Prvog Srpskog Ustanka, 716–22; Djordjevic,
Politiçka istorija Srbije, 270–72.
notes to pages 418–425 | 773

207. Bagration to Rumyantsev, January 10, 1810, VPR, V:344. Also, Voennyi sbornik
2 (1865): 233. Archimandrite Melentje was presented with a diamond ring
worth 900 rubles, Milan Obrenovic and Petar Dobrnjac were given gold
swords with inscriptions for courage, and the secretaries and other members of
the delegation received substantial sums of money. Metropolitan Leontije, an
influential Serbian cleric, was appeased with embroidered vestments and a
golden cross. Dubrovin, “Materials for the History of Reign of Alexander,”
233–34; Bagration to Rumyantsev, January 10, 1810, VPR, V:344–45.
208. Bagration to Rodofinikin, January 5, 1810, VPR, V:335. There was also an ear-
lier instruction dated November 24, 1809, but it is not preserved at the archives.
However, Bagration repeated part of it in his next message to Rodofinikin.
209. Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, II:475–76.
210. Bagration to Rodofinikin, January 5, 1810, VPR, V:336.
211. Vigel, Vospominaniya F.F. Vigelya, III:91.
212. Mikhailovsky-Danilevsky, Russo-Turkish War of 1806–1812, II:9–59.
213. Otto to Maret, March 6, 1811, in Jakšicʹ and Vučkovicʹ, Francuski dokumenti o prvom
i drugom ustanku, 72–73; Beer, Die orientalische Politik Österreichs seit 1774, 253.
214. See details of General Radetzky’s memorandum in Beer, Die orientalische Politik
Österreichs seit 1774, 254.
215. Beer, Die orientalische Politik Österreichs seit 1774, 225–29.
216. P. Shuvalov to Rumyantsev, February 9, 1811, VPR, VI:44–48.
217. Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie, III:77.
218. Martens, Recueil de traités et conventions conclus par la Russie, III:78.
219. VPR, VI:48–50, 692–93.
220. Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, III:249–77.
221. Text of the treaty in Noradounghian, ed., Recueil d’actes internationaux de
l’Empire ottoman, II:86–92; VPR, VI:406–17.

Chapter 17
1. Jacob Coleman Hurewitz, Diplomacy in the Near and Middle East: A Documentary
Record (Princeton, NJ: Van Nostrand, 1956), I:68–70. Also see R. Greaves,
“Iranian Relations with Great Britain and British India,” Cambridge History of
Iran VII:375–79; M. Igamberdyev, Iran v mezhdunarodnykh otnosheniyakh pervoi
treti XIX veka (Samarkand: Izd-vo Samarkandskogo Gos. Univ., 1961).
2. Malcolm Yapp, Strategies of British India: Britain, Iran and Afghanistan,
1798–1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980), 36–38.
3. See Donald Rayfield, Edge of Empires: A History of Georgia (London: Reaktion,
2012), 250–64; Ronald Grigor Suny, The Making of the Georgian Nation
(Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994), 59–69; V. Togonidze, Kartlis
mtianetis glekhta ajanyeba (1804 ts.) (Tbilisi: Sakhelgami, 1951).
4. Alexander to Tsitsianov, September 20, 1802, in Akty, II:3–4. Alexander
believed that the Russian annexation of Georgia would allow for introduction
774 | notes to pages 425–427

of the principles of the Enlightenment and modernity to what he considered a


backward people. See Imperial Instructions to the Legal Commission, May 27,
1802, in Akty, VI, pt. 1, 78.
5. For a good overview, see Nikolas Gvosdev, Imperial Policies and Perspectives
Towards Georgia, 1760–1819 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2000), 99–116.
6. See Nikolai Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze (St.
Petersburg: Typ. I. N. Skorokhodov, 1886), IV:1–25, 339–60, 491–528;
Gvosdev, Imperial Policies and Perspectives Towards Georgia, 102–6; Vladimir
Lapin, Tsitsianov (Moscow: Molodaya gvardiya, 2011).
7. See documents in Akty, I:413–508.
8. “Since the time when the globe divided into four parts, [Georgia] was included
in the Iranian state,” noted Fath Ali Shah’s chief vizier, Hajji Ibrahim. “In the
time of previous Iranian shahs the inhabitants [of Georgia] always adhered by
service and obediences to their [shah’s] decrees but were never part of the
Russian realm.” Hajji Ibrahim to Kovalenskii, n.d. [1800] in Akty, I:97.
9. For example, Agha Muhammad Khan did not claim the title of shah until after
his campaign in Georgia in 1795, which had provided him with grounds to
claim that he had recovered formerly vassal territories of Georgia and neigh-
boring territories. He was formally declared a shah in March 1796. See
Gavin Humbly, “Agha Muhammad Khan and the Establishment of the
Qajar Dynasty,” in The Cambridge History of Iran: From Nadir Shah to the
Islamic Republic, ed. Peter Avery et al. (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991), VII:129, 146–47; J. R. Perry, “Āḡā Moḥammad Khan Qājār,”
Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed., 1982), available at www.iranicaonline.org/
articles/aga-mohammad-khan. For an interesting discussion on the political
reality of incorporating territories into the Qajar monarchy, see Firoozeh
Kashani-Sabet, Frontier Fictions: Shaping the Iranian Nation, 1804–46 (Princeton
NJ: Princeton University Press, 1999). On the evolving notion of the “Guarded
Domains of Iran” since the thirteenth century, see Ahmad Ashraf, “Iranian
Identity. III: Medieval Islamic Period,” in Encyclopaedia Iranica (online ed.,
1982), available at www.iranicaonline.org/articles/iranian-identity-iii-medieval
-islamic-period.
10. Edward Ingram, Britain’s Persia Connection, 1798–1828: Prelude to the Great
Game (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992), 80–82. “The British aversion to com-
mitments in peacetime,” notes Ingram, “may have been strengthened by their
resentment of the demands made on them by the Qajar regime in Persia in
the twenty-five years following the Napoleonic Wars. . . . Like many similar
arrangements between the British and foreigners, its legacy was bitterness and
disappointment. Expecting to be offered help, the British resented being
asked for it. They expected to fight Napoleon to the last Austrian and to
defend India to the last Persian” (2).
11. See Tsitsianov to Kochubei, October 12, 1804; Tsitsianov to Czartoryski, June
29 and August 25, 1805, in Akty, II:812–13, 831, 847.
notes to pages 427–429 | 775

12. Z. Grigoryan, Prisoedinenie Vostochnoi Armenii k Rossii v nachale XIX veka


(Moscow: Izd-vo sotsialno-ekonomicheskoi lt-ry, 1959), 66–76.
13. Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, IV:339–69, 392–400,
419–31, 466–77; Kh. Ibragimbeili, Rossiya i Azerbaijan v pervoi treti XIX veka
(Moscow: Nauka, 1969), 64–65; Günal Teymurova, “1806–1812 Osmanli-
Rusya Savaşi ve Azerbaycan,” Journal of Ottoman Civilization Studies, no. 2 (2016):
48–49. Also see A. Ionnisian, Prisoedinenie Zakavkaziya k Rossii i mezhdunarodnye
otnosheniya v nachale XlX stoletiya (Yerevan: Izd-vo AN Armyanskoi SSR, 1958);
Vasilii Potto, Kavkazskaia voina (St. Petersburg: Tip. E. Evdokimova, 1887), vol-
ume 1; Y. Mahmudov and K. Şükürov, Azerbaycan: Beynelhalq Münasibetler
VeDiplomatiya Tarihi. 1639–1828 (Baku: 2009), I:356–63.
14. Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, IV:489–90.
15. “He was also endowed with administrative ability of a high order, coupled
with an aggressive, over-bearing spirit, that served him admirably in his deal-
ings with the native rulers, Christian as well as Mussulman though probably
enough it contributed both to his own tragic fate and to that of one of his most
valued subordinates. . . . [His wit] made him powerful enemies, yet taken with
his soldierly qualities and care for those who served him well, secured him the
love, the adoration almost of the army.” J. Baddeley, The Russian Conquest of the
Caucasus (London: Longmans, Green, 1908), 61–62. For a good discussion, see
Muriel Atkin, Russia and Iran, 1780–1828 (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1980), 71–81; Gvosdev, Imperial Policies and Perspectives Towards
Georgia, 103–16.
16. Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, V:61–83.
17. Gudovich to Alexander, September 27, 1807; Gudovich to Rumiantsev,
September 27, 1807; Tormasov to Barclay de Tolly, January 28, 1811, in Akty,
III:100, 707, IV:187–89; N. Beliavskii and Vasilii Potto, Utverzhdenie Russkago
vladychestva na Kavkaze (Tiflis, 1901), I:197, II:270–71; Dubrovin, Istoriia
voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, IV:436–37, V:19, 228–29, 234. For
discussion of the quality of the Russian troops in the Caucasus, see Atkin,
Russia and Iran, 104–7.
18. See Tsitsianov to Admiral Pavel Chichagov; Tsitsianov to Pevtsov, February
10, 1805, in Akty, II:735–37.
19. Caulaincourt to Napoleon, August 12, 1808, in Vel. Kn. Nikolay Mikhailovich,
Diplomaticheskie snoshenia Rossii i Frantsii po doneseniyam poslov Imperatorov
Aleksandra i Napoleona, 1808–1812 (St. Petersburg: Ekspeditsia zagotovleniya
gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1905), II:280. Also see the Russian memorandum
on negotiations with Fath Ali Shah in VPR, III:726–27.
20. The Russian memorandum on negotiations with Fath Ali Shah (1806) is in
VPR, III:726–27.
21. Arbuthnot to Adair, August 16, 1806, cited in Ingram, Britain’s Persian
Connection, 82.
22. Alexander to Gudovich, October 16, 1806, in Akty, III:420–21.
776 | notes to pages 430–431

23. Akty, III:435.


24. Akty, III:437–38.
25. Alfred de Gardane, La mission du Général Gardane en Perse sous le premier Empire
(Paris: Librarie de Ad. Laine, 1865), 24. Gardanne incorrectly identifies the
Russian envoy as “Istifanow.” In reality his name was Stepanov and he was one
of Gudovich’s aides-de-camp. Delayed in Tabriz for twenty days, Stepanov met
Crown Prince Abbas Mirza only on January 4, 1807, just as the Iranian envoy
was negotiating with the French in Poland. After another three-week delay, he
was allowed to proceed to Tehran, where he was kept for almost six months
without ever meeting the shah.
26. See AE “Turquie,” 207; Napoleon to Talleyrand, September 28, 1803, in CN,
IX:4.
27. Henri Dehérain, La vie de Pierre Ruffin, Orientaliste et diplomate, 1742–1824
(Paris: P.Geuthner, 1930), II:25ff; Napoleon to Talleyrand, May 21, 1804,
March 20, 1805, in CN, IX:357, X:238.
28. Napoleon to Talleyrand, June 9, 1806, in CN, XII:449–50.
29. Napoleon to Talleyrand, March 19 and April 7, 1805, in CN, X:237, 292–93.
30. N. Gotteri, “Antoine-Alexandre Romieu (1764–1805), général et diplomate,”
Revue dromoise 88, no. 468 (1993): 411–56; 88, no. 469 (1993): 476–564; Iradj
Amini, Napoleon and Persia: Franco-Persian Relations Under the First Empire
(Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1999), 65–75; Ch. de Voogd, “Les Français en
Perse (1805–1809),” Studia Iranica 10, no. 2 (1981): 249.
31. Dehérain, La vie de Pierre Ruffin, II:30–31.
32. Alexander Stratton to Harford Jones, June 14, 1805, in Correspondence,
Despatches, and Other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh, Second Marquess of Londonderry,
ed. Charles William Vane (London: William Shoberl, 1851), V:420.
33. Napoleon to Fath Ali Shah, February 16, 1806, in CN, X:148–49.
34. B. Balayan, Diplomaticheskaya istoriya Russko-iranskikh voin i prisoedineniya
Vostochnoi Armenii k Rossii (Yerevan: Izd.-vo AN Armyanskoi SSR, 1988),
45–46; Vernon J. Puryear, Napoleon and the Dardanelles (Berkeley: University
of California Press, 1951), 57.
35. Romieu’s report is at AE Correspondance Politique, “Perse,” IX. A condensed
version of the report is cited in Amini, Napoleon and Persia, 72ff. Romieu’s
report was later incorporated in Jean Rousseau’s more influential Tableau gen-
eral de la Perse modern, a lengthy manuscript that provided Napoleon with
detailed information on Iranian history, geography, politics, traditions, etc.,
and thus helped shape French policies in Iran. For an in-depth discussion, see
Irene Natchkebia, “Unrealized Project: Rousseau’s Plan of Franco-Persian
Trade in the Context of the Indian Expedition (1807),” in Studies on Iran and
the Caucasus, ed. Uwe Bläsing et. al. (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 115–25.
36. Pierre-Amédée Jaubert, Voyage en Arménie et en Perse: fait dans les années 1805 et
1806 (Paris: Pelicier, 1821), 17–68; Puryear, Napoleon and the Dardanelles,
46–52, 55–56, 155–57. Armenian historian Balayan claims that the British
notes to pages 431–435 | 777

agents had convinced Mahmud Pasha of Bayazid to detain the French envoy.
Balayan, Diplomaticheskaya istoriya Russko-iranskikh voin, 47.
37. Fath Ali Shah to Napoleon, December 1806, AN AE/III/215; Amini, Napoleon
and Persia, 76–89.
38. Napoleon to Talleyrand, March 13, 1807, in CN, XIV:437.
39. For related documents, see Treaty of Defensive Alliance, May 4, 1807, AN
AE/III/54/a; Napoleon to Fath Ali Shah, January 17 and April 3, 1807;
Napoleon to Talleyrand, April 27, 1807, in CN, XIV:207, XV:15, 152.
40. Napoleon to Fath Ali Shah, January 17, 1807, in CN, XIV:207.
41. Treaty of Defensive Alliance, May 4, 1807, AN AE/III/54/b; Edouard Driault,
La politique orientale de Napoleon: Sébastiani et Gardane, 1806–1808 (Paris:
Alcan, 1904), 170ff.; Amini, Napoleon and Persia, 205–8.
42. Gardane was the grandson of Ange de Gardane, Louis XIV’s envoy to the
Safavid court at the start of the eighteenth century. Between Jaubert’s departure
and the arrival of Gardane, several other French envoys—Joseph-Marie
Jouannin, Auguste de Bontemps-Lefort, Jean-Baptiste-Louis-Jacques Rousseau,
and Xavier de La Blanche—visited Iran, reflecting the scope of Napoleon’s
interest in this realm.
43. Instructions pour le Général Gardane, May 10, 1807, CN, XV:210–14; Gardane,
La mission du Général Gardane en Perse, 27–29, 81–99. See also Napoleon to Fath
Ali Shah, April 20 and May 5, 1807, in CN, XV:119–20, 191.
44. The French legation comprised about three dozen people, including six inter-
preters, one physician, three missionaries, and thirteen military men (four
engineer captains, one infantry captain, one cavalry captain, two artillery lieu-
tenants, two engineer-geographer lieutenants, and three sergeants major).
Gardane, La mission du Général Gardane, 103–5; de Voogd, “Les Français en
Perse (1805–1809),” 253; Amini, Napoleon and Persia, 104–5.
45. Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, V:127–79. Also see
Nikoloz Kortua, Sakartvelo 1806–12 tslebis Ruset-Turketis omshi: rusi da kartveli
xalxebis sabrdzolo tanamegobrobis istoriidan (Tbilisi: Tsodna, 1964).
46. See Abbas Mirza’s letter in Akty, III:436–37.
47. See Gardane, La mission du Général Gardane en Perse, 106–9; Henri Dehérain,
“Lettres inédites de membres de la mission Gardane en Perse (1807–9),” Revue
de l’histoire des colonies françaises XVI (1923): 249–82.
48. AE “Perse,” IX. Also see Gardane, La mission du Général Gardane en Perse,
106–7.
49. Harford Jones, An Account of the Transactions of His Majesty’s Mission to the Court
of Persia in the Years 1807–11 (London: James Bohn, 1834), I:256. Also see
Steven R. Ward, Immortal: A Military History of Iran and Its Armed Forces
(Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press, 2009), 74–75.
50. Fath Ali Shah to Napoleon, n.d. [ca. 1806], cited in Atkin, Russia and Iran,
126. Also see Convention Between France and Iran Signed on January 21,
1808, on the Delivery of Muskets from France to Iran, AE/III/55.
778 | notes to pages 435–438

51. Amini, Napoleon et la Perse, 195f.


52. Article 4 of the treaty; Amini, Napoleon and Persia, 206.
53. AE, “Perse,” IX.
54. For details, see AE “Perse,” IX and X, containing Gardane’s report about audi-
ence with the shah and his reports to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Also see
Gardane, La mission du Général Gardane en Perse, 167–70, 275–77. For an in-depth
discussion, see Driault, La politique orientale de Napoleon, 126, 135, 142–48, 152.
55. Caulaincourt to Napoleon, August 12, 1808, in Grand Duke Nikolai
Mikhailovich, Diplomaticheskie snosheniya Rossii i Frantsii, II:280.
56. See Gudovich to Budberg, September 29, 1806 (with a letter from a senior Qajar
official); Alexander to Gudovich, October 16, 1806, in Akty, III:419–21.
57. See Gudovich’s correspondence with Emperor Alexander, Chancellor Rumyantsev,
and other senior officials in Akty, III:425–26, 429–30, 433–46, 449–51,
456–64, 485–86.
58. Lord Minto to Colonel Barry Close, October 11, 1807, in Gilbert Elliot-
Murray-Kynynmound, Earl of Minto, Lord Minto in India: Life and Letters of
G. Elliot from 1807 to 1814 (London: Longmans, Green, 1880), 51.
59. Minto, Lord Minto in India, 110–11. For Minto’s fears of the French invasion,
see 101–10.
60. John William Kaye, The Life and Correspondence of Major-General Sir John
Malcolm, Late Envoy to Persia and Governor of Bombay (London: Smith, Taylor,
1856), I:420–21.
61. Amini, Napoleon and Persia, 140–46.
62. AE “Perse,” X.
63. AE “Perse,” X.
64. AE “Perse,” X.
65. For a concise discussion of Lajard’s mission, see Amini, Napoleon and Persia,
153–56.
66. Journal of the Russian Operations, in RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 4265, ll. 41–102;
Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, V:200–227.
67. “O deistviyakh frantsuzskoi missii v Persii,” November 23, 1808; RGVIA, f.
VUA, d. 4265, ll. 41–43; Rumyantsev to Alexander I, December 1808,
RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 4265, ll. 44–54b.
68. Gudovich to Major-General Akhverdov, November 6, 1808; Gudovich to
Alexander, December 23, 1808 in Akty, III:241, 252–64; Nikolay Beliavskii
and Vasilii Potto, Utverzhdenie Russkago vladychestva na Kavkaze (Tiflis: Izd.
Voenno-istoricheskago otd. Pri Shtabe Kavkaz. Voen. Okruga, 1901),
I:251–57, 303–8. Also see Caulaincourt to Napoleon, February 22, 1809, in
Grand Duke Nikolai Mikhailovich, Les Relations diplomatiques de la Russie et de
la France d’apres les rapports des ambassadeurs d’Alexandre et de Napoleon, 1808–12
(St. Petersburg, 1905–1914), III:100–101.
69. See reports by Gardane, Felix Lajard (third secretary in Gardane’s mission), and
Joseph Jouannin (French consul in Iran) in AE “Perse,” X.
notes to pages 438–442 | 779

70. Gardane, La mission du Général Gardane en Perse, 234; Amini, Napoleon and
Persia, 157–59.
71. Gardane, La mission du Général Gardane en Perse, 235–36.
72. AE “Perse,” X.
73. Amini, Napoleon and Persia, 170–79.
74. AE “Perse,” XI.
75. Charles Umpherston Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties, Engagements, and
Sunnuds Relating to India and Neighbouring Countries (Calcutta: O. T. Cutter,
1865), VII:117–20. The preliminary treaty was formalized into the Treaty of
Friendship and Alliance in March 1812. See Aitchison, A Collection of Treaties,
VII:122–26. Also see Jones, An Account of the Transactions of His Majesty’s
Mission, I:185–200; R. M. Savory, “British and French Diplomacy in Persia,
1801–1810,” Iran 10 (1972): 34–40.
76. Jones, An Account of the Transactions of His Majesty’s Mission, I:200ff.
77. Tormasdov to A. Prozorovskii, April 17, 1809, in Akty, IV:631–32.
78. See Tormasov to Rumyantsev, June 10, 1809, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 6184, ll.
38–45; Tormasov to Arakcheyev, September 22, 1809, RGVIA, f. VUA, d.
4267, ll. 1–8b; Tormasov to Rumyantsev, September 22, 1809 in Akty,
IV:693-96. Also see Günal Teymurova, “1806–1812 Osmanli-Rusya
Savaşi ve Azerbaycan,” Journal of Ottoman Civilization Studies, no. 2 (2016):
51–54.
79. Tormasov to Arakcheyev, September 22, 1809, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 4267, ll.
1–8b; Tormasov to Rumyantsev, September 22, 1809 in Akty, IV:693-96.
Also see Nikoloz Kortua, Sakartvelo 1806–12 tslebis Ruset-Turketis omshi:
rusi da kartveli xalxebis sabrdzolo tanamegobrobis istoriidan (Tbilisi: Tsodna,
1964).
80. N. Berdzenishvili, Sakartvelos istoria (Tbilisi, 1958), I:407–8; G.V.
Khachapuridze, K istorii Gruzii pervoi poloviny XIX veka (Tbilisi, 1950), 98–99.
Also see Petr Butkov, Materially dlia novoi istorii Kavkaza s 1722 po 1803 god
(St. Petersburg: Tip. Imp. Akademii nauk, 1869), III:392–93; Nikolay
Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze (St. Petersburg: Tip.
Departamenta udelov, 1887), V, 252–318.
81. AE “Perse,” t. XIII, 1810, f. 322.
82. A. Villemain, Souvenirs contemporains d’histoire et de littérature (Paris: Didier, 1854),
I:175–80. For a broad view of Franco-Georgian diplomacy, see Ilia Tabagoua,
“La Géorgie dans les plans de Napoléon,” Bedi Kartlisa: Revue de Kartvélologie
XXIX (1972): 106–18; Ilia Tabagoua, Sakartvelo-safrangetis urtiertobis istoriidan
(XVIII s. mitsuruli–XIX s. dasatskisi) (Tbilisi: Metsniereba, 1974); Nebi
Gümüş, “Son Gürcü Krali II. Solomon’un Ruslara Karşi Mücadelesi ve Osmanli
̇
Devleti İle İlişkileri,” Necmettin Erbakan Üniversitesi Ilahiyat Fakültesi Dergisi,
no. 22 (2006): 105–18; Alexander Mikaberidze, “Franco-Georgian Diplomatic
Relations, 1810–1811,” The Napoleon Series, http://napoleon-series.com/
research/government/diplomatic/c_georgia1.html.
780 | notes to pages 442–446

83. Tormasov to Barclay de Tolly, May 26, 1810, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 6186, ll. 19–24.
84. Beliavskii and Potto, Utverzhdenie Russkago vladychestva, II:191–206, 243–68;
A. Petrov, Voina Rossii s Turtsiei, 1806–1812 (St. Petersburg: Voenn. Tip.,
1885), III:207–29; Günal Teymurova, “1806–1812 Osmanli-Rusya Savaşi ve
Azerbaycan,” Journal of Ottoman Civilization Studies, no. 2 (2016): 54–55.
85. Tormasov to Barclay de Tolly, September 12, 1811, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 6192,
ll. 96–102.
86. Beliavskii and Potto, Utverzhdenie Russkago vladychestva, II:269–86.
87. Paulucci to Barclay de Tolly, November 7, 1811, RGVIA, f. VUA, d. 6192, ll.
116–19; Paulucci to Alexander, April 8, 1812; Paulucci to Barclay de Tolly,
March 15, 1812 in Akty, V:177–80, 191–92; Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vlady-
chestva russkikh na Kavkaze, V:435–37; Beliavskii and Potto, Utverzhdenie
Russkago vladychestva, II:287–315.
88. Ingram, Britain’s Persian Connection, 164–67.
89. Russia offered to recognize Talysh Khanate as a neutral territory that would
serve as a buffer between the two empires. But this would still have required
Tehran to accept the loss of Georgia and much of eastern Caucasia. See relevant
correspondence in Akty, V:662–70.
90. See complaints from the residents of Gareji, Machkhaani, Kakabeti, Vejini,
Zegani, and other villages, March 1812, in Shota Khantadze, ed., Dokumentebi
kakhetis 1812 tslis ajankebis istoriisatvis (Tbilisi: Tbilisi University Press, 1999);
30, 41–42, 47, 54, 57–58, 67, 84, 89, 103–4. For a discussion of the problems
with the Russian civilian government, see V. Ivanenko, Grazhdanskoe upravlenie
Zakavkaziem ot prisoedineniya Gruzii do namestnichestva Velikago Kniazya Mikhaila
Nikolayevicha (Tiflis: Tip. Kantselyarii Glavnonachalstvuyuschego grazhdans-
koi chastyu na Kavkaze, 1901), 76ff.
91. See Akaki Gelashvili, Kakhetis 1812 tslis ajankeba (Tbilisis: Artanuji, 2010);
Durmishkhan Tsintsadze, Dokumentebi kakhetis 1812 tslis ajankebis istoriisatvis
(Tbilisi: Tbilisi State University Press, 1999).
92. Beliavskii and Potto, Utverzhdenie Russkago vladychestva, II:304–8.
93. Rtischev to Alexander, November 12, 1812, in Akty, V:684–86; Beliavskii and
Potto, Utverzhdenie Russkago vladychestva, II:459–70; V. Sollogub, Biografiya gen-
erala Kotlyarosvkogo (St. Petersburg: Tip. K. Kraya, 1836), 116–22; Baddeley,
The Russian Conquest of the Caucasus, 88–89.
94. Dubrovin, Istoriia voiny i vladychestva russkikh na Kavkaze, VI:39–100. Also see
Akty, V:697–700, 702–3, 710–11.
95. Ouseley to Castlereagh, July 10, 1813, cited in Atkin, Russia and Iran, 141.
96. Rtischev to Rumyantsev, December 1, 1813, in Akty, V:739–47.
97. See the treaty’s text in Hurewitz, The Middle East and North Africa in World
Politics, I:197–99.
98. Mansoureh Ettehadieh Nezam-Mafi, “Qajar Iran (1795–1921),” in The Oxford
Handbook of Iranian History, ed. Touraj Daryaee (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2012), 323.
notes to pages 447–452 | 781

99. In the this new bunichah system, Abbas Mirza put in place a form of conscrip-
tion under which each province was called upon to provide a specific number
of recruits, with a quota calculated on the basis of the amount of land under
cultivation, supplemented by voluntary enlistment and incorporation of small
tribal contingents.

Chapter 18
1. Based on tonnage of sailing vessels larger than 500 tons. See data in J. Glete,
Navies and Nations: Warships, Navies and State Building in Europe and America,
1500–1860 (Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell International, 1993), app. 2,
II:553–695.
2. Leonard Monteath Thompson, A History of South Africa (New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 1990), 35–36; Richard Elphick and Hermann Giliomee,
eds., The Shaping of South African Society, 1652–1840 (Middletown, CT:
Wesleyan University Press, 1979), 93–100, 136–38.
3. Ben Hughes, The British Invasion of the River Plate 1806–1807: How the Redcoats
Were Humbled and a Nation Was Born (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Military,
2013), 12–21.
4. Thompson, A History of South Africa, 54–56. Also see William M. Freund,
“The Cape Under the Transitional Governments, 1795–1814,” in The Shaping
of South African Society 1652–1840, ed. Richard Elphick and Hermann
Giliomee (Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 1979), 329–30.
5. See John Rydjord, Foreign Interest in the Independence of New Spain (New York:
Octagon Books, 1972), 154, 202–3. For an earlier period, see William
Kaufmann, British Policy and the Independence of Latin America, 1804–1828
(New Haven CT: Yale University Press, 1951), 1–17.
6. William Spence Robertson, The Life of Miranda (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1929), I:282–83.
7. Rydjord, Foreign Interest in the Independence of New Spain, 235.
8. Robertson, The Life of Miranda, I:293–327; Karen Racine, Francisco de Miranda:
A Transatlantic Life in the Age of Revolution (Wilmington, DE: Scholarly
Resources, 2003), ch. 5.
9. On Popham, see Hugh Popham, A Damned Cunning Fellow: The Eventful Life of
Sir Home Popham (Tywardreath, UK: Old Ferry, 1991).
10. Popham to Secretary of the Admiralty Marsden, April 30, 1806, in Theodore
Edward Hook, The Life of General, the Right Honourable, Sir David Baird
(London: Richard Bentley, 1832), II:142–43. Popham later recorded that in
1805 he “had a long conversation with [Prime Minister Pitt] on the original
project of the expedition to South America, in the course of which Mr. Pitt
informed me, that from the then state of Europe, and the confederation in part
formed, and forming against France, there was a great anxiety to endeavor, by
friendly negotiation, to detach Spain from its connection with that power, and,
until the result of such an attempt should be known, it was desirable to suspend
782 | notes to pages 452–454

all hostile operations in South America; but, in case of failure in this object, it
was his intention to enter on the original project.” Minutes of a Court Martial,
Holden on Board His Majesty’s Ship Gladiator in Portsmouth Harbor . . .(London:
Longman, 1807), 80.
11. Alexander Gillespie, Gleanings and Remarks Collected During Many Months of
Residence at Buenos Ayres and Within the Upper Country (Leeds: B. Dewhirst, 1818),
28–29. For a good overview of the expedition see Hughes, The British Invasion of
the River Plate 1806–1807, 24–25; James Davey, “The Atlantic Empire,
European War and the Naval Expeditions to South America, 1806–1807,” in
The Royal Navy and the British Atlantic World, 1750–1820, ed. John McAleer and
Christer Petley (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 147–72.
12. Popham to the Mayor and Corporation of Birmingham, July 1, 1806, in The
British Trident, or Register of Naval Actions, ed. Archibald Duncan (London:
James, Cundee, 1806), V:349; The Naval Chronicle for 1806 (London: Joyce
Gold, 1806), XVI:373–74. Also see Popham’s letter of July 20, 1806, to
Miranda in Robertson, The Life of Miranda, 323–24.
13. For an interesting discussion of economic conditions in Buenos Aires, see
Lyman L. Johnson, Workshop of Revolution: Plebeian Buenos Aires and the Atlantic
World, 1776–1810 (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011).
14. A la reconquista de la capital de Bueno Aires por las tropas de mar y tierra, á las
órdenes del capitan de Navio, Don Santiago Liniers, el 12 de agosto de 1806 (Buenos
Aires: Niños Expósitós, 1806). For English-language studies, see Hughes, The
British Invasion of the River Plate 1806–1807; Ian Fletcher, The Waters of
Oblivion: The British Invasion of the Rio de la Plata, 1806–07 (Staplehurst, UK:
Spellmount, 1991); John D. Grainger, British Campaigns in the South Atlantic
1805–1807 (Barnsley, UK: Pen & Sword Military, 2015); John D. Grainger,
The Royal Navy in the River Plate, 1806–1807 (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1996).
15. See Alberto Mario Salas, Diario de Bueno Aires, 1806–1807 (Buenos Aires:
Editorial Sudamericana, 1981), 476–510; Francisco Saguí, Los últimos cuatro
años de la dominación española en el antiguo vireinato del Rio de la Plata desde 26 de
junio de 1806 hasta 25 de mayo 1810: memoria histórica familiar (Buenos Aires:
Imprenta Americana, 1874), 65–88, 484–512; José Juan Biedma, Documentos
referents de la Guerra de la indepencia de América a emancipación politica de la
República Argentina y de otras secciones de América a qye cooperó desde 1810 a 1828,
tome 2, Antecedentes popoliticos, económicos y administrativos de la revolución de Mayo
de 1810 (Buenos Aires: Archivo General de la Nación Argentina, 1914),
611–23; Bernardo Lozier Almazán, Liniers y su tiempo (Buenos Aires: Emcé
Editores, 1990), 150–61.
16. See document 464 in 1806–1807 Invasiones Inglesas al Río de la Plata: aporte
documental (Buenos Aires: Inst. Histórico de la Ciudad de Buenos Aires, 2006),
50–51.
17. For details, see Carlos Pueyrredón, 1810. La revolución de Mayo segun amplica
documentación de la época (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Peusar, 1953), 35–36; Salas,
notes to pages 454–460 | 783

Diario de Bueno Aires, 371–72; Biedma, Documentos referents de la Guerra de la


indepencia, II, 440–50; Instituto de Estudios Historicos, La reconquista y defensa
de Buenos Aires, 1806–1807 (Buenos Aires: Editores Peuser, 1947), 476.
18. Johnson, Workshop of Revolution, 262–71.
19. The government approved “the judicious, able, and spirited conduct” of British
troops but disapproved of the attack itself because it had been undertaken
without the government’s approval. Minutes of a Court Martial, 54–56, 69–70.
20. Grenville to Lord Auckland, June 5, 1806, in Dropmore Papers, VIII:179.
21. Auckland to Grenville, September 1 and 14, November 25, 1806, Dropmore
Papers, VIII:302, 332, 441–42.
22. Howick to Morpeth, September 24, 1806, cited in George M. Trevelyan, Lord
Grey of the Reform Bill (London: Longmans, Green, 1920), 151.
23. Windham to Grenville, September 11, 1806, Dropmore Papers, VIII:321.
24. For details, see Grenville to Buckingham, October 3, 1806, Memoirs of the
Court and Cabinets of George III, IV:79–80; Arthur Wellesley’s Memoranda,
November 2–21, 1806, Dropmore Papers, IX:481–92. Also see Dropmore Papers,
VIII:386–87, 418–20; Supplementary Despatches and Memoranda of Field Marshal
Arthur, Duke of Wellington (London: John Murray, 1860), VI:35–39, 40–55.
25. Wellesley’s Memorandum, November 20, 1806, Supplementary Despatches and
Memoranda, VI:50.
26. My discussion of events in the West Indies and the Atlantic is mainly based on
Kenneth Johnson, “Napoleon’s War at Sea,” in Napoleon and the Operational Art
of War, ed. Michael V. Leggiere (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 387–475; William Laird
Clowes et al., The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to 1900 (London:
Chatham, 1997), vol. 5; Louis Ed́ouard Chevalier, Histoire de la marine française
sous le consulat et l’empire (Paris: L. Hachette, 1886); Robert Gardiner, The
Campaign of Trafalgar (London: Caxton Editions, 2001); Robert Gardiner, The
Victory of Seapower: Winning the Napoleonic War, 1806–1814 (London: Caxton
Editions, 1998); William James, The Naval History of Great Britain (London:
Conway Maritime Press, 2002), vols. 3–5.
27. WO 1/146 West Indies and South America, ix, Surinam, Volume I (Governor’s
dispatches, 1801–1802; dispatches on recapture in 1804). I am very grateful
to Martijn Wink for sharing details (and copies of documents) of his research
on the fall of Surinam in 1804.
28. Cited in Kevin D. McCranie, “Britain’s Royal Navy and the Defeat of
Napoleon,” in Napoleon and the Operational Art of War, ed. Leggiere, 476.
29. Eluding British efforts to intercept him, Allemand captured one British war-
ship, three smaller vessels, and more than forty merchant ships before trium-
phantly returning to Rochefort in November 1805. Chevalier, Histoire de la
marine française sous le consulat et l’empire, 240–41.
30. Chevalier, Histoire de la marine française sous le consulat et l’empire, 260–63.
31. Johnson, Napoleon’s War at Sea, 430.
32. Chevalier, Histoire de la marine française sous le consulat et l’empire, 264–66.
784 | notes to pages 460–465

33. James, The Naval History of Great Britain, IV:190–203; Chevalier, Histoire de la
marine française sous le consulat et l’empire, 251–55.
34. Napoleon to Berthier, March 31, 1806, in CN, XII:246–47.
35. Johnson, Napoleon’s War at Sea, 434. In total these cruises cost France seven
ships, six frigates, and seven brigs or corvettes, as well as 1,700 men killed or
wounded and 4,800 men captured.
36. Johnson, Napoleon’s War at Sea, 437.
37. Piers Mackesy, The War in the Mediterranean, 1803-1810 (London: Longmans,
Green, 1957), 249–54.
38. Robert Castlereagh, Correspondence, Despatches, and Other Papers of Viscount
Castlereagh, ed. Charles Vane (London: William Shorberl, 1851), VIII:87.
39. On Curaçao, see P. A. Euwens, “Een Engelsch gourveneur van Curaçao,” De
West-Indische Gids, 1924–1925, 461–64; P. A. Euwens, “De eerste dagen van
het Engelsche bewind op Curaçao in 1807,” De West-Indische Gids, 1924–1925,
575–81; B. De Gaay Fortman, “De Kolonie Curaçao Onder Engelsch Bestuur
Van 1807 Tot 1816,” De West-Indische Gids, 1944–1945, 229–46. For the
impact of the British invasion on St. Thomas, St. John, and St. Croix, see
N. A. T. Hall, Slave Society in the Danish West Indies: St. Thomas, St. John and St
Croix (Mona, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 1992).
40. James Lucas Yeo to the Admiralty, January 15, 1809, The Naval Chronicle,
XXI, 337–41; James, The Naval History of Great Britain, V:209–13.
41. Kenneth Gregory Johnson, “Louis-Thomas Villaret de Joyeuse: Admiral and
Colonial Administrator (1747–1812),” Ph.D. diss., Florida State University,
2006, 246–65. During the siege of Fort Desaix, the British had fired more
than 8,000 bombs, 2,000 shells, and 4,000 cannonballs, almost entirely
destroying the fort and its vicinity.
42. Alan Burns, History of the British West Indies (London: George Allen & Unwin,
1965), 586–87.
43. The French kept churning out vessels with such efficiency that one British
naval commander spoke of “another navy, as if by magic, [springing] forth
from the forests to the seashore.” Edward P. Brenton, The Naval History of
Great Britain from the Year 1783 to 1836 (London: H. Coburn, 1837), II:112.
44. The Monthly Magazine or British Register XXXII (1811), part II, 73. Also see
The Naval Chronicle, XXVI, 158; Richard Glover, “The French Fleet,
1807–1814: Britain’s Problem and Madison’s Opportunity,” Journal of Modern
History 39, no. 3 (1967): 233–52.
45. For an interesting discussion, see Janet Macdonald, The British Navy’s Victualling
Board, 1793–1815 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2010); James Davey, In Nelson’s
Wake: The Navy and the Napoleonic Wars (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press,
2015), 160–206.
46. See Robert G. Albion, Forests and Sea Power: The Timber Problem of the Royal
Navy, 1652–1852 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1926), 20–32;
James Davey, The Transformation of British Naval Strategy: Seapower and Supply
notes to pages 465–469 | 785

in Northern Europe, 1808–1812 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press, 2012), 55–73,


173–92; J. Ross Dancy, The Myth of the Press Gang: Volunteers, Impressment and
the Naval Manpower in the Late Eighteenth Century (Woodbridge: Boydell Press,
2015), 28–29; Clowes et al., The Royal Navy: A History, V:10. The number of
ships-of-the-line had risen from 111 in 1803 to 120 in 1806 and 127 in 1809
but then fell to 118 in 1814.
47. Most of these successes date from 1809, when a British attack with fireships at
the Basque Roads (also known as Aix Roads) destroyed three ships-of-the-line;
in the West Indies, the French ship-of-the-line d’Haupoult was captured in
April 1809, while in the Mediterranean, Admiral George Martin was able to
destroy two ships-of-the-line in October 1809. Three years later, the French
also lost the 74-gun Rivoli on its maiden voyage in the northern Adriatic in
February 1812.
48. Thomas Barnes Cochrane Dundonald and H. R. Fox Bourne, The Life of Thomas,
Lord Cochrane, Tenth Earl of Dundonald (London, R. Bentley, 1869), I:12.
49. David Cordingly, Cochrane: The Real Master and Commander (New York:
Bloomsbury, 2007).
50. Cochrane Dundonald and Fox Bourne, The Life of Thomas, Lord Cochrane, 16.
51. Cochrane urged Gambier to continue the attack but was instead instructed to
depart for Britain with dispatches detailing the action. In London, Cochrane
was hailed as a hero and knighted, but he publicly vented his frustration with
Gambier’s failure to annihilate the French. This all but ended his profes-
sional career, since he was no longer given a command and was prevented from
returning to sea.
52. Noel Mostert, The Line upon a Wind: The Great War at Sea, 1793–1815 (New
York: W. W. Norton, 207), 569.
53. For details, see Jahleel Brenton, Memoir of the Life and Services of Vice Admiral Sir
Jahleel Brenton, ed. Henry Raikes (London: Hatchard, 1846), 319–72.
54. Edward Osler, The Life of Admiral Viscount Exmouth (London: Geo. Routledge,
1854), 173.
55. “The highest estimate of the relative value of a three-decker [100 guns and
more] and a two-decker [80–64 guns] is that of [Admiral] Jervis, who wrote
after the battle of Cape Saint Vincent that he considered the two captured
Spanish first-rates to be worth more than six French two-deckers.” Mackesy,
The War in the Mediterranean, xiii.

Chapter 19
1. There is a vast literature on British imperialism in India. In my discussions I
rely primarily on P. J. Marshall, ed., The Oxford History of the British Empire, vol.
2, The Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998); H. V. Bowen,
The Business of Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756–1833
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006); Ian Watson, Foundation for
Empire: English Private Trade in India, 1659–1760 (New Delhi: Vikas, 1980);
786 | notes to pages 469–472

C. A. Bayly, Indian Society and the Making of the British Empire (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1988); K. N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of
Asia and the East India Company, 1660–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1978).
2. John Robert Seeley, The Expansion of England: Two Courses of Lectures (1883;
repr., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 8.
3. On the mainsprings of imperial expansion, see Bernard Porter, The Absent-
Minded Imperialists: Empire, Society, and Culture in Britain (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2004); Timothy H. Parsons, The Rule of Empires: Those Who
Built Them, Those Who Endured Them, and Why They Always Fall (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2010); Piers Brendon, The Decline and Fall of the
British Empire, 1781–1797 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2007).
4. For a general history of the BEIC, see Antony Wild, The East India Company:
Trade and Conquest from 1600 (New York: Lyons Press, 2000).
5. Parsons, The Rule of Empires, 173.
6. See Anthony Webster, The Twilight of the East India Company: The Evolution of
Anglo-Asian Commerce and Politics, 1790–1860 (Woodbridge: Boydell Press,
2009); Sudipta Sen, Empire of Free Trade: The East India Company and the Making
of the Colonial Marketplace (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998);
Philip Lawson, The East India Company: A History (London: Longman, 1993).
7. Peter A. Ward, British Naval Power in the East, 1794–1805: The Command of
Admiral Peter Rainier (Oxford: Boydell Press, 2013), 2.
8. See P. J. Marshall, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. II, part 2, Bengal: The
British Bridgehead (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987), 77–92;
Daniel Baugh, The Global Seven Years’ War, 1754–1763: Britain and France in a
Great Power Contest (London: Longman, 2011), 282–97; P. J. Marshall, East
Indian Fortunes: The British in Bengal in the Eighteenth Century (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1976).
9. Holden Furber, “The East India Directors in 1784,” Journal of Modern History
5, no. 4 (1933): 479–95; C. H. Philips, “The East India Company ‘Interest’
and the English Government, 1783–4,” Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society (Fourth Series) 20 (1937): 83–101.
10. The Parliamentary Register or History of the Proceedings and Debates of the House of
Commons (London: J. Debrett, 1788), XXIII:301; Cobbett’s Parliamentary History
of England (London: T. C. Hansard, 1815), XXIV:1094. The Board of Control
consisted of six members, including Britain’s secretary of state and the
Chancellor of the Exchequer. The Secret Committee consisted of just three
members. William Foster, “The India Board (1784–1858),” Transactions of the
Royal Historical Society (Third Series) 11 (1917): 61–85; C. H. Philips, “The
Secret Committee of the East India Company, 1784–1858,” in Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies 10, no. 3 (1940): 699–700.
11. See Nicholas B. Dirks, The Scandal of Empire: India and the Creation of Imperial
Britain (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2006); H. V. Bowen, The Business of
notes to pages 472–477 | 787

Empire: The East India Company and Imperial Britain, 1756–1833 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2006).
12. C. A. Bayly, The Birth of the Modern World, 1780–1914: Global Connections and
Comparisons (Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2004).
13. According to Geoffrey Parker, Indian efforts to catch up to the Western powers by
adopting their military tactics and weaponry were a case of too little too late.
R. G. S. Cooper argues that the Indian defeat was largely the result of their poor
command structure and the lack of an institutionalized officer corps. Geoffrey
Parker, The Military Revolution: Military Innovation and the Rise of the West,
1500–1800 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988), 136;
Randolf G. S. Cooper, “Wellington and the Marathas in 1803,” International
History Review 11 (1989): 38.
14. For details see Maistre de La Touche, The History of Hyder Shah, Alias Hyder Ali
Khan Bahadur (Calcutta: Sanders, Cones, 1848); Praxy Fernandes, The Tigers of
Mysore: A Biography of Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan (New Delhi: Viking, 1991).
15. K. G. Pitre, The Second Anglo-Maratha War, 1802–1805: A Study in Military
History (Poona: Dastane Ramchandra, 1990), 135. As British historian
P. J. Marshall observed, “The future Duke of Wellington’s victory at Assaye
in 1803 was no more an easy triumph for superior western technology and
organization than had been Francisco de Almeida’s at Diu in 1509.”
P. J. Marshall, “Western Arms in Maritime Asia in the Early Phases of
Expansion,” in Warfare, Expansion and Resistance, ed. Patrick Tick (London:
Routledge, 2001), V:133.
16. Jeremy Black, Britain as a Military Power, 1688–1815 (London: University
College London Press, 1999), 132. Also see Black, The British Seaborne Empire
(New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2004), 139–40; Black, European
Warfare 1660–1815 (London: University College London Press, 1994).
17. See chapters 1–3 in Nicholas B. Dirks, The Scandal of Empire: India and the
Creation of Imperial Britain (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2006).
18. For details, see Dharma Kumar and Meghnad Desai, The Cambridge Economic
History of India, vol. 2, c. 1757–c. 1970 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1983), 3–35, 242–352.
19. Wellesley “found the East India Company a trading body, but left it an impe-
rial power.” Encyclopedia Britannica, 11th ed. (1910–1911), XXVIII:506.
20. Only the formidable Ranjit Singh (r. 1801–1839) of the Sikh Empire (north-
west India) was capable of keeping the British at bay for another two genera-
tions. J. S. Grewal, The New Cambridge History of India, vol. II, part 3, The Sikhs
of the Punjab (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 99–127. Also
see Pradeep Barua, “Military Developments in India, 1750–1850,” Journal of
Military History, 58, no. 4 (1994): 610–13.
21. Michael Duffy, “World Wide War, 1793–1815,” in The Oxford History of the
British Empire: The Eighteenth Century, ed. P. J. Marshall (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1998), II:202.
788 | notes to pages 477–482

22. For an excellent discussion, see Peter A. Ward, British Naval Power in the East,
1794–1805: The Command of Admiral Peter Rainier (Oxford: Boydell Press, 2013).
23. Castlereagh to Wellesley, March 16, 1803, in The Despatches, Minutes, and
Correspondance, of the Marquess Wellesley During His Administration in India, ed.
Montgomery Martin (London: W. Allen, 1837), III:290.
24. Thomas George Percival Spear, The Oxford History of Modern India, 1790–1975
(Delhi: Oxford University Press, 1978), 114. The British regular army estab-
lishment in India doubled from 10,700 in 1796 to over 26,000 in 1801. John
William Fortescue, A History of the British Army (London: Macmillan, 1910),
IV:719–20, 938–39.
25. James W. Hoover, Men Without Hats: Dialogue, Discipline, and Discontent in the
Madras Army 1806–1807 (New Delhi: Manohar, 2007); P. Chinnian, The
Vellore Mutiny, 1806: The First Uprising Against the British (Madras: n.p., 1982);
Maya Gupta, Lord William Bentinck in Madras and the Vellore Mutiny, 1803–7
(New Delhi: Capital, 1986).
26. Mountstuart Elphinstone, An Account of the Kingdom of Caubul, and Its Dependencies
in Persia, Tartary, and India (London: Longman, 1815), 1. A similar sentiment
was reflected by Henry Dundas, who wanted to “exclude the French from all
such connections and possessions in Asia . . .as might facilitated to them the
means . . .of directing the efforts of any considerable body of troops against our
Indian territories.” Cited in Edward Ingram, In Defense of British India: Great
Britain in the Middle East, 1775–1842 (London: Frank Cass, 1984), 132.
27. For an excellent discussion of Minto’s foreign policy, see Amita Das, Defending
British India Against Napoleon: The Foreign Policy of Governor-General Lord Minto,
1807–1813, ed. Aditya Das (London: Boydell and Brewer, 2016).
28. Ingram, In Defense of British India, 130–49; T. E. Colebrook, Life of the
Honourable Mounstuart Elphinstone (London: John Murray, 1884), I:187–229;
Robert D. Crews, Afghan Modern: The History of a Global Nation (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 2015), 58–59.
29. For insights, see K. N. Chaudhuri, Trade and Civilisation in the Indian Ocean: An
Economic History from the Rise of Islam to 1750 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1985); Pedro Machado, Ocean of Trade: South Asian Merchants, Africa and the
Indian Ocean, c. 1750–1850 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2014).
30. See Yasuko Suzuki, Japan-Netherlands Trade 1600–1800: The Dutch East India
Company and Beyond (Kyoto: Kyoto University Press, 2012).
31. W. G. Beasley, “The Foreign Threat and the Opening of the Ports,” in The
Cambridge History of Japan, vol. 5, The Nineteenth Century, ed. Marius B. Jansen
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), 261.
32. For interesting details, see Hendrik Doeff, Herinneringen uit Japan (Haarlem:
Francois Bohn, 1833). Doeff was the chief Dutch resident in Japan from 1804
to 1817.
33. W. G. Aston, “H.M.S. ‘Phaeton’ at Nagasaki in 1808,” Transactions of the Asiatic
Society of Japan 7, no. 1 (February 1879): 329.
notes to pages 482–485 | 789

34. Doeff, Herinneringen uit Japan, 161–64; Aston, “H.M.S. ‘Phaeton’ at Nagasaki
in 1808,” 330–40; Noell Wilson, “Tokugawa Defense Redux: Organizational
Failure in the ‘Phaeton’ Incident of 1808,” Journal of Japanese Studies 36, no. 1
(2010): 15–16. Also see W. G. Beasley, Great Britain and the Opening of Japan,
1834–1858 (London: Luzac, 1951), 5–7.
35. Stamford Raffles, “Extract from the Secret Report of Mr. Henry Doeff Concerning
the Occurrences with the English Frigate the Phaeton in the Bay of Nangasacky . . . ,”
in Report on Japan to the Secret Committee of the English East India Company,
1812–1816, ed. Montague Paske-Smith (Kobe: Thompson, 1929), 142–43.
36. Wilson, “Tokugawa Defense Redux,” 1–32.
37. The first major test of this law was the Morrison incident (Morison-gō Jiken),
involving an American merchant ship, Morrison, that entered Japanese coastal
waters and was fired upon by Japanese coastal defenses in 1837.
38. Masayoshi Sugimoto and David L. Swain, Science and Culture in Traditional
Japan (Tokyo: Charles E. Tuttle, 1989), 332–33.
39. George Alexander Lensen, “Early Russo-Japanese Relations,” Far Eastern
Quarterly 10, no. 1 (1950): 3–9.
40. “A Memorandum from Count Alexander Vorontsov and Count Alexander
Bezborodko Concerning Russia’s Rights to the Islands and Coasts of North
America Which Were Discovered by Russian Seafarers,” in Basil Dmytryshyn,
Russian Penetration of the North Pacific Ocean, 1700–1797 (Portland: Oregon
Historical Society, 1988), II:321–24.
41. Gertrude Atherton, “Nicolai Petrovich Rezanov,” North American Review 189, no.
642 (1909): 651–57; William McOmie, “With All Due Respect: Reconsidering
the Rezanov Mission to Japan,” Proceedings of the Japan Society, 148 (2011): 71–154.
42. A. Sgibnev, “Popytki russkikh k zavedeniu torgovykh snoshenii s Iaponieiu (v
XVIII i nachale XIX stoletii),” Morskoi sbornik uchenago otdelenia morskogo tekh-
nicheskago komiteta, 1869, 58.
43. Glynn Barratt, Russia in Pacific Waters, 1715–1825 (Vancouver: University of
British Columbia Press, 1981), 143–46; George Alexander Lensen, The Russian
Push Toward Japan: Russo-Japanese Relations, 1697–1875 (Princeton, NJ:
Princeton University Press, 1959), 161–69; W. G. Aston, “Russian Descents
in Saghalin and Itorup in the Years 1806 and 1807,” Transactions of the Asiatic
Society of Japan 1 (1874): 86–95.
44. L. M. Cullen, A History of Japan, 1582–1941: Internal and External Worlds
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 147–48.
45. Wilson, “Tokugawa Defense Redux,” 27.
46. Supercargoes were merchants who held a commission from the BEIC to con-
duct trade with their Chinese counterparts.
47. Pei-kai Cheng and M. Lestz, with J. Spence, eds., The Search for Modern China:
A Documentary History (New York: W. W. Norton, 1999), 106.
48. Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company Trading to China,
1635–1834 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1926), II:68. For a discussion of
790 | notes to pages 485–487

the Portuguese in Macao see A. M. Martins do Vale, Os Portugueses em Macau


(1750–1800) (Lisbon: Instituto Português do Oriente, 1997); Shantha
Hariharan, “Macao and the English East India Company in the Early
Nineteenth Century: Resistance and Confrontation,” Portuguese Studies 23, no.
2 (2007): 135–52.
49. Shantha Hariharan, “Luso-British Cooperation in India: A Portuguese Frigate
in the Service of a British Expedition,” South Asia Research 26, no. 2 (2006):
133–43.
50. Shantha Hariharan, “Relations Between Macao and Britain During the
Napoleonic Wars: Attempt to Land British Troops in Macao, 1802,” South Asia
Research 30, 2 (2010): 193.
51. M. C. B. Maybon, “Les Anglais à Macao en 1802 et en 1808,” in Bulletin de
l’École française d’Extrême-Orient 6 (1906): 302; Wensheng Wang, White Lotus
Rebels and South China Pirates (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press,
2014), 235–36; Fei Chengkang, Macao 400 Years (Shanghai: Shanghai
Academy of Social Sciences, 1996), 179–80.
52. Wellesley to James Drummond, November 20, 1801, in The Despatches,
Minutes, and Correspondence, of the Marquess Wellesley, II:611–14; Wellesley to
the Viceroy of Goa, January 17, 1802, in Journal of the Bombay Branch of the
Royal Asiatic Society XIII (1877): 118–19; Shantha Hariharan, “Relations
Between Macao and Britain During the Napoleonic Wars: Attempt to Land
British Troops in Macao, 1802,” South Asia Research 30, no. 2 (2010): 185–96;
Austin Coates, Macao and the British, 1637–1842: Prelude to Hong Kong (Hong
Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2009), 92.
53. Maybon, “Les Anglais à Macao,” 305–6.
54. Maybon, “Les Anglais à Macao,” 307–9; Frederic Wakeman, “Drury’s
Occupation of Macau and China’s Response to Early Modern Imperialism,”
East Asian History, no. 28 (2004): 28–29.
55. Peter A. Ward, British Naval Power in the East, 1794–1805: The Command of
Admiral Peter Rainier (Oxford: Boydell Press, 2013), 82–83.
56. Hosea Ballou Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company, Trading to China
1635–1834 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1926), III:85–88; Wang, White Lotus
Rebels and South China Pirates, 237–40.
57. The gist of the British thinking can be seen in the title of collection preserved
at the India Office Records, British Library: “Papers regarding the combined
Naval and Military Expedition sent from India to Macao in September 1808
to forestall a possible French occupation,” IOR/F/4/307/7025.
58. Select Committee’s report to the Secret Committee, March 30, 1809, in Morse,
The Chronicles of the East India Company, III:96. The main function of the Select
Committee, whose membership consisted of supercargoes, was to facilitate the
arrival of ships from Britain and India at the start of the trade season, to sell
British merchandise, to buy return cargoes of Chinese goods, and to arrange
for the ships’ return at the end of the season.
notes to pages 487–489 | 791

59. Select Committee’s report to the Secret Committee, August 16, 1808, in
Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company, III:87.
60. Viceroy Francisco Antonio da Veiga Cabral left India in 1806 and was replaced
by Bernardo José Maria de Lorraine and Silveira, whose hands were tied by the
presence of a strong British force in Goa; the British occupation was imposed
upon Cabral by Wellesley under the pretext of protecting it from the French.
61. Cited in Cyril N. Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 1793–1815 (London:
G. Allen and Unwin, 1954), 321–22.
62. For details see “Papers regarding the combined Naval and Military Expedition
sent from India to Macao in September 1808 to forestall a possible French
occupation,” IOR/F/4/307/7025.
63. Christopher Goscha, Vietnam: A New History (New York: Basic Books, 2016),
41–46; David Joel Steinberg, ed., In Search of Southeast Asia (Honolulu:
University of Hawaii Press, 1987), 128; Maybon, “Les Anglais à Macao,”
313–15; Alastair Lamb, The Mandarin Road to Old Hué: Narratives of Anglo-
Vietnamese Diplomacy from the 17th Century to the Eve of the French Conquest (London:
Chatto & Windus, 1970), 175, 189–95. For an interesting comparative
approach, see Victor Lieberman, Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context,
c. 800– 1830 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), 25, 60, 352.
64. Maybon, “Les Anglais à Macao,” 313–15; Zeeman and Bletterman to Felix de
St. Croix, February 25, 1809, AE MD Asie XX (Indes Orintales, Chine,
Cochinchine); Antonio Da Silva Rego, O Ultramar português no século XVIII
(1700–1833) (Lisbon: Agência Geral do Ultramar, 1970), 336–37; Magalhäes,
“As tentativas de Recuperação Asiática,” 58; Coates, Macao and the British,
97–98; Also see Shantha Hariharan and P. S. Hariharan, “The Expedition to
Garrison Portuguese Macao with British Troops: Temporary Occupation and
Re-Embarkation, 1808,” International Journal of Maritime History 25, no. 2
(2013): 90–92.
65. Hariharan and Hariharan, “The Expedition to Garrison Portuguese Macao
with British Troops,” 91–92; Zeeman and Bletterman to Felix de St. Croix,
February 25, 1809, AE Mémoires et Documents, Asie XX (Indes Orintales,
Chine, Cochinchine). The Portuguese remained in charge of the Macao admin-
istration, and movement of British ships and troops required Portuguese
approval. The British presence had to be approved by the Portuguese crown
within two years or by the Portuguese viceroy within a year.
66. Henry Beveridge, A Comprehensive History of India, Civil, Military, Social, from the
First Landing of the English to the Suppression of the Sepoy Rebellion (London: Blackie
& Son, 1862), II:846. For the Portuguese view, see Joaquim Magalhäes, “As ten-
tativas de Recuperação Asiática,” in História da expansão portuguesa, ed. Francisco
Bethencourt and K. Chaudhuri (Lisbon: Círculo de Leitores, 1999), II:58.
67. Drury to Chinese governor general, October 14, 1808, cited in Hariharan
and Hariharan, “The Expedition to Garrison Portuguese Macao with British
Troops,” 95.
792 | notes to pages 489–492

68. Wang, White Lotus Rebels and South China Rebels, 242; Morse, The Chronicles of
the East India Company, III:87–88; Maybon, “Les Anglais à Macao,” 316.
69. Select Committee to Drury, October 23, 1808, cited in Hariharan and Hariharan,
“The Expedition to Garrison Portuguese Macao with British Troops,” 95.
70. Zeeman and Bletterman to Felix de St. Croix, February 25, 1809, AE MD Asie
XX (Indes Orintales, Chine, Cochinchine). Also see Parkinson, War in the
Eastern Seas, 328–30.
71. Morse, The Chronicles of the East India Company, III:89–90.
72. Lo-Shu Fu, ed., A Documentary Chronicle of Sino-Western Relations (1644–1820)
(Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1967), 369–70. Also see Wang, White
Lotus Rebels and South China Rebels, 243–44; Maybon, “Les Anglais à Macao,”
317; Morse, Chronicles of the East India Company, III:87–91.
73. Describing the events of September–December 1808, the Dutch merchants in
Macao spoke of “the ridiculous English expedition.” Zeeman and Bletterman
to Felix de St. Croix, February 25, 1809, AE MD Asie XX (Indes Orintales,
Chine, Cochinchine).
74. Cited in Hariharan and Hariharan, “The Expedition to Garrison Portuguese
Macao with British Troops,” 108–9.
75. Maybon, “Les Anglais à Macao,” 325.
76. For an interesting discussion, see K. N. Chaudhuri, The Trading World of Asia
and the English East India Company: 1660–1760 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1978), 1–40, 79–130.
77. See Javier Cuenca Esteban, “The British Balance of Payments, 1772–1820:
India Transfers and War Finance,” Economic History Review 54, no. 1 (2001):
58–86.
78. Henri Prentout, L’Île de France sous Decaen, 1803–1810 (Paris: Hachette, 1901),
61–267.
79. Beatrice Nicolini, Makran, Oman, and Zanzibar: Three-Terminal Cultural Corridor
in the Western Indian Ocean (1799–1856) (Leiden: Brill, 2004), 94; J. B. Kelly,
Britain and the Persian Gulf, 1795–1880 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1991), 75;
Prentout, L’Île de France sous Decaen, 332–34.
80. Jerome A. Saldanha, The Persian Gulf Précis: Précis of Correspondence Regarding the
Affairs of the Persian Gulf, 1801–1853 (Gerrards Cross: Archive Editions,
1986), 29.
81. André Auzoux, “La France et Mascate aux XVIIIe et XIXe siècles,” Revue d’histoire
diplomatique, 1910, 234–55; Prentout, L’Île de France sous Decaen, 335–40.
82. While dealing with Muscat, Decaen had also directed his attention to Yemen
after envoys from Mocha, one of the principal Yemeni ports, had visited him
in 1804. The French general used this opportunity to learn a great deal about
political and economic situation in the southwestern corner of Arabia. He was
informed, for example, of the problems British had faced during their brief
occupation of the island of Perrim. Prentout, L’Île de France sous Decaen,
342–43.
notes to pages 493–499 | 793

83. Kelly, Britain and the Persian Gulf, 77.


84. Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 221–35.
85. William Laird Clowes et al., The Royal Navy: A History from the Earliest Times to
1900 (London: Chatham, 1997), V:339.
86. Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 236–75.
87. Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 277.
88. Out of just six ships that Linois had at his disposal, one was ordered to return
to France in 1804, another was detached to the Dutch colonies, a third was was
wrecked in 1805, and a fourth was detached for service in the Pacific, leaving
the admiral with just two ships by late 1805.
89. Kenneth Johnson, “Napoleon’s War at Sea,” in Napoleon and the Operational Art
of War, ed. Michael V. Leggiere (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 459.
90. Cited in Ingram, In Defense of British India, 124.
91. Cited in Ingram, In Defense of British India, 125.
92. Minto to Pellew, May 4, 1808, cited in Ingram, In Defense of British India, 127.
93. For the 1807–1808 period, see Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 276–319.
94. Jean-Paul Faivre, Le contre-amiral Hamelin et la Marine française (Paris: Nouvelles
éditions latines, 1962), 80–86; Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 364–82;
Stephen Taylor, Storm and Conquest: The Clash of Empires in the Eastern Seas, 1809
(New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), 251–55.
95. Robert Gardiner, The Victory of Seapower: Winning the Napoleonic War, 1806–1814
(London: Caxton Editions, 1998), 92–96; William James, The Naval History of
Great Britain (London: Conway Maritime Press, 2002), V:197–98, 271–73.
96. Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 383–96; Prentout, L’Île de France sous Decaen,
558–79; Taylor, Storm and Conquest, 279–300.
97. Widely celebrated in France, it remains the only naval battle commemorated
on the Arc de Triomphe.
98. James, The Naval History of Great Britain, V:428.
99. Prentout, L’Île de France sous Decaen, 592–614; Parkinson, War in the Eastern
Seas, 397–410; Gardiner, The Victory of Seapower, 96–97; Clowes et al., The
Royal Navy, V:294–95; James, The Naval History of Great Britain, V:325–26.
100. For details on Napoleon’s efforts to support Decaen in 1810, see CN, XX:403,
439; XXI:4–5, 83–85, 244–46, 421–22.
101. Gardiner, The Victory of Seapower, 98–99.
102. Johnson, “Napoleon’s War at Sea,” 461.
103. Bernard Vlekke, Nusantara: A History of the East Indian Archipelago (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1943), 105–213.
104. For the charter’s text and related documents, see Pieter Mijer, ed., Verzameling
van instructien, ordonnancien en reglementen voor de regering van Nederlandsch Indië
(Batavia: Ter Lands-Drukkerij, 1848), 119–344.
105. Instructions in Mijer, Verzameling van instruction, 345–68.
106. Board of Control to Lord Minto, August 31, 1810, in Het Nederlandsch gezag
over Java en onderhoorigheden sedert 1811. Verzameling van onuitgegeven stukken uit
794 | notes to pages 499–503

de koloniale en andere arhieven, ed. Marinus Lodewijk van Deventer (S’Gravenhage:


M. Nijhoff, 1891), I:4 n.1.
107. Fortescue, A History of the British Army, VII:605–6.
108. The expedition was initially under the command of Vice Admiral William
O’Bryen Drury, but he died in March 1811.
109. Lord Minto in India: Life and Letters of Gilbert Elliot, First Earl of Minto, from
1807 to 1814 (London: Longmans, Green, 1880), 291.
110. For details on the campaign, see Janssens’s report in Johan Karel Jacob De
Jonge, ed., De opkomst van het Nederlandsch gezag in Oost-Indië (‘S Gravenhage:
M. Nijhoff, 1888), XIII:545–49; Parkinson, War in the Eastern Seas, 414–17;
Bernhard, Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, Précis de la campagne de Java en 1811
(La Haye: T. Lejeune, 1834); G. B. Hooijer, De krijgsgeschiedenis van Nederlandsch-
Indië van 1811 tot 1894 (Batavia: G. Kolff, 1895), I:9–31.
111. Minto to the Earl of Liverpool, September 2, 1811, in William Thorn, Memoir
of the Conquest of Java, with the Subsequent Operations of the British Forces in the
Oriental Archipelago (London: T. Egerton, 1815), 88–89.

Chapter 20
1. In the early eighteenth century Spanish kings, following a French example,
also introduced the system of intendants to Spain’s New World territories.
These royal officials possessed broad military, administrative, and financial
authority within their intendancies, smaller divisions within each viceroyalty,
and were responsible not to the viceroy but to the monarchy in Madrid. John
Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 1700–1808 (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1989), 169,
329–40; David R. Ringrose, Spain, Europe and the “Spanish Miracle,”
1700–1900 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997), 257–58;
Matthew Restall and Kris E. Lane, Latin America in Colonial Times (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2011), 129–232, 255–74. On the level of auton-
omy of the cabildos, see Jordana Dym, From Sovereign Villages to National States:
City, State and Federation in Central America, 1759–39 (Albuquerque: University
of New Mexico Press, 2006), 33–64.
2. Lynch, Bourbon Spain, 348–50.
3. On the Enlightenment in Latin America, see Brian Hamnett, The Enlightenment
in Iberia and Ibero-America (Cardiff: University of Wales Press, 2017);
Owen A. Aldridge, ed., The Ibero American Enlightenment (Urbana: University of
Illinois Press, 1971); Arthur P. Whitaker, ed., Latin America and the Enlightenment
(Ithaca, NY: Great Seal Books, 1958).
4. By comparison, the total population of British North America in 1770 was
2.3 million, of whom 1.8 were white and 467,000 black; although there are no
contemporary statistics for Native Americans, it is estimated the number of
those residing east of the Mississippi hovered around 150,000. John McCusker
and Russell Menard, The Economy of British America (Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 2014), 54.
notes to pages 504–506 | 795

5. For a concise discussion, see Mark A. Burkholder, Spaniards in the Colonial


Empire: Creoles vs. Peninsulars? (Malden, MA: John Wiley & Sons, 2013); John
Lynch, The Spanish-American Revolutions, 1808–1826 (New York: Norton,
1973), 18ff. For population data, see Richard Morse, “Urban Development of
Colonial Spanish America,” in The Cambridge History of Latin America, ed.
Leslie Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1984), II:89.
6. Michael Zeuske, “The French Revolution in Spanish America,” in The Routledge
Companion to the French Revolution in World History, ed. Alan Forrest and
Matthias Middell (London: Routledge, 2016), 77–96.
7. Brissot to Miranda, October 13, 1792, in Arístides Rojas, ed., Miranda dans la
révolution française. Recueil de documents authentiques relatifs à l’histoire du général
Francisco de Miranda, pendant son séjour en France de 1792 à 1798 (Caracas: Impr.
et lith. du Gouvernement national, 1889), 8.
8. Albert Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution française (Paris: Plon Nourrit, 1903),
II:422–423.
9. Dumouriez to Lebrun, November 30, 1792, in Sorel, L’Europe et la révolution
française, III:175. See the 1792 plan for revolution in Louisiana, and Gilbert
Imlay’s memorandum, in Annual Report of the American Historical Association,
1896, I:945–54. Also see “Documents on the Relations of France to Louisiana,
1792–1795,” American Historical Review 3 (1898): 491–10.
10. Records of the Meeting of the Committee of General Defense, January 25,
1793, in François-Alphonse Aulard, Recueil des actes du Comité de salut public
(Paris: Imprimerie nationale, 1889), II:10. The committee again discussed
this issue during its meeting on April 5. Aulard, Recueil, III:82.
11. Instructions of December 1792, in Annual Report of the American Historical
Association, 1896, I:957–63.
12. Clark to Genêt, February 5, 1793, in Annual Report of the American Historical
Association, 1896, I:967–71.
13. William Hayden English, Conquest of the Country Northwest of the River Ohio,
1778–1783, and Life of Gen. George Rogers Clark (Indianapolis: Bowen-Merrill,
1896), II:817–18.
14. For an interesting contemporary assessment, see French Minister to
Philadelphia P. A. Adet’s report of February 9, 1796, in Annual Report of the
American Historical Association (1903), II:826–31.
15. R. King to Secretary of State, March 29 and June 1, 1801, in The Life and
Correspondence of Rufus King, ed. Charles R. King (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1896), III:414–15; 469; American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive,
of the Congress of the United States, ed. Walter Lowrie and Matthew St. Clair Clarke
(Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1832), II:509–10. For an old but still highly
useful discussion, see Frederick J. Turner, “The Diplomatic Contest for the
Mississippi Valley,” Atlantic Monthly XCIII (1904): 676–91, 807–17.
16. J. Leitch Wright, William Augustus Bowles: Director General of the Creek Nation
(Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2010), 96–98; Thomas Perkins
796 | notes to pages 506–508

Abernethy, The South in the New Nation, 1789–1819 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana
State University Press, 1961), 169–91.
17. King to Secretary of State, April 2, 1803, in The Life and Correspondence of Rufus
King, IV:241.
18. King to Secretary of State, June 1, 1801, and April 2, 1803, in The Life and
Correspondence of Rufus King, III:469, IV:241.
19. Thornton to Hawkesbury, May 30, 1803, in James A. Robertson, ed., Louisiana
Under the Rule of Spain, France, and the United States, 1785–1807 (Cleveland:
Arthur H. Clark, 1911), II:20–21.
20. King to Secretary of State, April 2, 1803, in The Life and Correspondence of Rufus
King, IV:241.
21. Lord Hawkesbury to King, May 19, 1803, in The Life and Correspondence of
Rufus King, IV:26263.
22. For the conspiracy of Aaron Burr, see documents related to his trial in Thomas
Jefferson Papers at the Library of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/collections/
thomas-jefferson-papers; Walter Flavius McCaleb, The Aaron Burr Conspiracy
(New York: Wilson-Erickson, 1936); Thomas Perkins Abernethy, The Burr
Conspiracy (New York: Oxford University Press, 1954).
23. Wilkinson to Jefferson, March 12, 1807, cited in Isaac J. Cox, “The Pan-
American Policy of Jefferson and Wilkinson,” Mississippi Valley Historical
Review 1, no. 2 (1914): 215.
24. Cox, “The Pan-American Policy of Jefferson and Wilkinson,” 215.
25. Jefferson to Bowdoin, April 2, 1807, in The Works of Thomas Jefferson (New
York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1905), X:381–82. The entire set of Jefferson’s works
is available at http://oll.libertyfund.org/titles/jefferson-the-works-of-thomas
-jefferson-12-vols.
26. Politicheskii, statisticheskii i geograficheskii zhurnal, January 1808.
27. In 1808–1809 one of the leading merchants in St. Petersburg, Ivan Kremer,
submitted a project for an expedition to South America. Discussing political
and economic realities in Europe, Kremer noted that, given the Continental
Blockade, Britain could not supply Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America
with basic supplies and raw materials, which were usually acquired in Russia.
Therefore, Russia stood to derive considerable benefits from entering American
markets, where it could sell necessary raw materials and buy sorely needed colo-
nial produce. The Russian government approved this project and Kremer out-
fitted two vessels for the long journey to the Americas. The Russian merchants
were not alone in their hopes to establish direct trade in the New World. Their
Portuguese colleagues also hoped to exploit lucrative trade with the northern
power. In 1811–1812 Dionizio Pedro Lopes, one of the most successful
Portuguese merchants, undertook an arduous fourteen-month journey from
Russia to Brazil, where he promoted commercial ties and offered his services to
local merchants needing credit lines to trade with Russia. Russell H. Bartley,
notes to pages 509–511 | 797

Imperial Russia and the Struggle for Latin American Independence, 1808–28 (Austin:
University of Texas at Austin, 1978), 38–40.
28. Bartley, Imperial Russia and the Struggle for Latin American Independence, 42.
29. In September 1811 Rumyantsev submitted a new memorandum on relations
between Russia and Spanish America. “There can be no doubt,” he observed,
“about the extent to which our commerce would benefit from this extension of
direct relations to a region overflowing with all manner of products and even
the most precious of metals, yet wanting for our surpluses of goods.”
30. J. Holland Rose, The Life of Napoleon I (London: George Bell and Sons, 1907),
I:154.
31. José M. Portillo Valdés, Crisis atlántica: Autonomía e independencia en la crisis de
la monarquía Española (Madrid: Marcial pons, 2006), 56ff.; Antonio Moliner
Prada, “El movimiento juntero en la España de 1808,” in 1808: La eclosión
juntera en el mundo hispano, ed. Manuel Chust (Mexico City: Fondo de Cultura
Económica, 2007), 51–79.
32. See Champagny’s and Azanza’s letters to colonial officials (including Azanza’s
May 13 memorandum on “the New Government of Spain”) in Archives du
Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, Correspondance politique, “Espagne,” 674.
These documents are also discussed in William S. Robertson, France and Latin-
American Independence (New York: Octagon Books, 1967), 41–44.
33. Among these was Claude Henri Étienne Marquis de Sassenay, whom Napoleon
selected as his agent in South America. Claude Henri Étienne Sassenay,
Napoléon Ier et la fondation de la République Argentine; Jacques de Liniers, comte de
Buenos-Ayres, vice-roi de La Plata, et le marquis de Sassenay (1808–10) (Paris:
E. Plon, Nourrit, 1892), 128–84; for an example of Napoleon’s instructions to
his emissaries, see 131–34.
34. Champagny to Sassenay, May 29, 1808, in Sassenay, Napoléon Ier et la fondation
de la République Argentine, 132. Dispatches to specific colonial administrators,
including Viceroy Liniers of Río de La Plata, are preserved at Archives du
Ministère des Affaires Étrangères, “Espagne,” 674–75. For further details on
French outreach to the Spanish colonial officials, see Robertson, France and
Latin-American Independence, 49ff.
35. Rapport de M. de Sassenay, May 23, 1810, in Sassenay, Napoléon Ier et la fonda-
tion de la République Argentine, 251–52. For responses in various parts of Spanish
America, see Robertson, France and Latin-American Independence, 57–60.
36. “Manifesto Addressed to All Nations by the Supreme Director of Chile, on the
Motives Which Justify the Revolution of the Country, and the Declaration of Its
Independence,” in American State Papers: Documents, Legislative and Executive of the
Congress of the United States (Washington, DC: Gales and Seaton, 1834), IV:322.
37. Brian R. Hamnett, “Mexico’s Royalist Coalition: The Response to Revolution
1808–1821,” Journal of Latin American Studies 12, no. 1 (1980): 57–62. For
events in Venezuela, see documents in José Félix Blanco, ed., Documentos para
798 | notes to pages 511–512

la historia de la vida publica del Libertador de Colombia, Peru y Bolivia (Caracas:


Imprenta de “La Opinion Nacional," 1875), II:160–62.
38. Justa reclamacion: que los representantes de la casa Real de España doña Carlota
Juaquina de Bourbon Princesa de Portugal y Brazil, y Don Pedro Carlos de Bourbon
y Braganza, Infante de España, hacen á su alteza Real el Principe Regente de Portugal
(1808), https://archive.org/details/justareclamacion00carl; Respuesta de S.A.R.
el Principe Regente de Portugal, á la reclamacion hecha por SS. AA. RR. La Princesa
del Brazil, y el Infante de España don Pedro Carlos,: implorando su proteccion y aux-
ilios para sostener sus derechos, conservando los del Rey de España, y demas miembros de
la Real Familia, arrancada y conducida con violencia á lo interior del Imperio Frances
(1808), https://archive.org/details/respuestadesarel00port; Manifiesto dirigido á
los fieles vasallos de su Magestad Católica el Rey de las Españas é Indias (1808),
https://archive.org/details/manifiesto dirigi00carl.
39. Julián María Rubio, La infanta Carlota Joaquina y la política de España en
América (1808–12) (Madrid: Impr. de E. Maestre, 1920), 42–73; R. A.
Humphreys, Liberation in South America, 1806–27: The Career of James Paroissien
(London: Athlone Press, 1952), 21–36.
40. William Kaufmann, British Policy and the Independence of Latin America,
1804–1828 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1951), 58. Also see John
Street, “Lord Strangford and Rio de la Plata, 1808–1815,” in Hispanic American
Historical Review 33, no. 4 (1953): 477–86.
41. The name, coined by Thomas Carlyle in 1858, stems from the incident that
sparked the conflict. Robert Jenkins, a captain of a British merchant ship and
acknowledged smuggler, was caught by a Spanish warship while engaging in
contraband and had his ear cut off by Julio León Fandiño, Spanish commanding
officer. The severed ear was subsequently exhibited before the British Parliament,
which denounced Spanish “depredations upon the British subjects” and consid-
ered the incident as an insult and a casus belli. Harold W. V. Temperley, “The
Causes of the War of Jenkins’ Ear, 1739,” Transactions of the Royal Historical
Society 3 (1909): 197–36; Edward W. Lawson, “What Became of the Man Who
Cut off Jenkins’ Ear?,” Florida Historical Quarterly 37, no. 1 (1958): 33–41.
42. Kaufmann, British Policy and the Independence of Latin America, 18–37.
43. Castlereagh’s memorandum, May 1, 1807, in Robert Stewart, Viscount
Castlereagh, Correspondence, Despatches and Other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh
(London: William Shoberl, 1851), VII:321. His undated memorandum starts
with “the liberation of South America must be accomplished through the
wishes and exertions of the inhabitants,” but then proceeds to outline plans for
British intervention. Also see projects by the Duke of Orleans (“Memoir on
Spanish America and the Viceroyalty of Mexico in particular”), General
Dumouriez (“On the Establishment of Naval Stations and Survey of the States
of America”), and Miranda’s continued appeals for British intervention into
Spanish America, which Castlereagh considered and discussed in 1807.
Correspondence, Despatches and Other Papers of Castlereagh, VII:332–90.
notes to pages 512–516 | 799

44. Sheridan’s speech of June 15, 1808, in Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates,


XI:887–88; Morning Chronicle, June 9, 1808.
45. Castlereagh to the Duke of Manchester, June 4, 1808, in Correspondence,
Despatches and Other Papers of Castlereagh, VI:365.
46. Kaufmann, British Policy and the Independence of Latin America, 53.
47. Canning to Strangford, April 17, 1808, cited in Alan K. Manchester, British
Preeminence in Brazil, Its Rise and Decline: A Study in European Expansion (Chapel
Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1933), 78.
48. Le Moniteur Universal, December 14, 1809.
49. For details, see Robertson, France and Latin-American Independence, 62–104;
John Rydjord, Foreign Interest in the Independence of New Spain: An Introduction to
the War for Independence (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1935), 259–62,
290–308. Also see Caracciolo Parra-Perez, Bayona y la politica de Napoleon en
America (Caracas: Tipografía americana, 1939).
50. In contrast, the islands of Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as the regions of Santo
Domingo and Central America, remained firmly royalist due to several factors,
including the presence of strong garrisons and fear of slave uprisings.
51. For an interesting discussion of the meaning of royalism in the Spanish
America, see Marcela Echeverri, “Popular Royalists, Empire and Politics in
Southwestern New Granada,” Hispanic American Historical Review 91, no. 2
(2011): 237–69.
52. For a discussion of wars of Latin American independence as a transatlantic civil
war between Spaniards, see Jaime E. Rodríguez O., The Independence of Spanish
America (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998).
53. Rydjord, Foreign Interest in the Independence of New Spain, 272–85; Hugh M. Hamill,
“‘An ‘Absurd Insurrection’? Creole Insecurity, Pro-Spanish Propaganda, and the
Hidalgo Revolt,” in The Birth of Modern Mexico, 1780–1824, ed. Christon I. Archer
(Lanham MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003), 71–72; Brian R. Hamnett,
“Mexico’s Royalist Coalition: The Response to Revolution 1808–1821,” Journal
of Latin American Studies 12, no. 1 (1980): 57–62; Francisco A. Eissa-Barroso,
“The Illusion of Disloyalty: Rumours, Distrust, and Antagonism, and the
Charges Brought Against the Viceroy of New Spain in the Autumn of 1808,”
Hispanic Research Journal 11, no. 1 (2010): 25–36.
54. See Timothy E. Anna, The Fall of the Royal Government in Mexico City (Lincoln:
University of Nebraska Press, 1978), 35–54.
55. See Eric van Young, The Other Rebellion: Popular Violence, Ideology, and the
Mexican Struggle for Independence, 1810–21 (Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2001).
56. For details, see Timothy J. Henderson, The Mexican Wars of Independence (New
York: Hill and Wang, 2009), 90–92; Hugh M. Hamill, The Hidalgo Revolt:
Prelude to Mexican Independence (Gainesville: University of Florida Press, 1966).
57. See Wilbert H. Timmons, Morelos: Priest, Soldier, Statesman of Mexico (El Paso,
TX: Western College Press, 1963).
800 | notes to pages 516–522

58. Jaime E. Rodríguez, “We Are Now the True Spaniards”: Sovereignty, Revolution,
Independence, and the Emergence of the Federal Republic of Mexico, 1808–24
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2012), 221–31; Jaime Salazar
Adame and Smirna Romero Garibay, El Congreso de Chilpancingo: 200 anos
(Guerrero, Mexico: Consejo de la Crónica del Estado de Guerrero, 2015).
59. Anthony McFarlane, War and Independence in Spanish America (New York:
Routledge, 2014), 219–82.
60. Fabrício Prado, Edge of Empire: Atlantic Networks and Revolution in Bourbon Río
de la Plata (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2015), esp. 155.
61. For details, see Arturo Bentancur, El puerto colonial de Montevideo (Montevideo:
Universidade de la República; FHCE, 1997), II:15–17.
62. Documentos relativos a la Junta Montevideana de Gobierno de 1808 (Montevideo:
Museo Histórico Nacional A. Monteverde, 1958), I:210–18; Miguel Angel
Cárcano, La Politica Internacional en la Historia Argentina (Buenos Aires:
Editorial Universitaria de Buenos Aires, 1972), I:270; Alfredo Avila and Pedro
́ Herrero, Las experiencias de 1808 en iberoamérica (Mexico City: Universidad
Perez
Nacional Autónoma de Mex́ ico, Instituto de Investigaciones Históricas,
2008), 543.
63. For details, see documents in Ricardo Rodolfo Caillet-Bois, Mayo documental
(Buenos Aires: Universidad de Buenos Aires, 1961), IX:150–70.
64. See the excellent discussion in Bernardo Lozier Almazán, Martín de Alzaga:
historia de una trágica ambición (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Ciudad, 1998), esp.
194ff.; Jeremy Adelman, Sovereignty and Revolution in the Iberian Atlantic
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2009), 208–10; Carlos Alberto
Pueyrredón, 1810. La revolución de Mayo (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Peuser,
1953), 247–49, 278–80.
65. For an excellent overview, see McFarlane, War and Independence in Spanish
America, 145–80.
66. Luis Herreros de Tejada, El teniente general D. Jose Manuel de Goyeneche, primer
conde de Guaqui (Barcelona: Oliva de Vilanova, 1923), 263–84.
67. Prado, Edge of Empire, 159–62.
68. Kaufmann, British Policy and the Independence of Latin America, 59–60.
69. Pablo Camogli and Luciano de Privitellio, Batallas por la libertad: todos los com-
bates de la guerra de la independencia (Buenos Aires: Aguilar, 2005), 166–68.
70. McFarlane, War and Independence in Spanish America, 205–7.
71. John Hoyt Williams, The Rise and Fall of the Paraguayan Republic, 1800–70
(Austin: Institute of Latin American Studies, University of Texas at Austin,
1979), ch. 1.
72. Robert L. Gilmore, “The Imperial Crisis, Rebellion and the Viceroy: Nueva
Granada in 1809,” Hispanic American Historical Review 40, no. 1 (1960): 2–24.
73. David Bethell, “The Independence of Spanish South America,” in The
Cambridge History of Latin America, ed. Leslie Bethell (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1985), III:113.
notes to pages 522–527 | 801

74. This captaincy general was technically part of the Viceroyalty of New Granada
but was autonomously administered.
75. Kaufmann, British Policy and the Independence of Latin America, 49–52.
76. McFarlane, War and Independence in Spanish America, 111–44.

Chapter 21
1. Friedrich Meinecke, The Age of German Liberation, 1795–1815, ed. Peter Paret
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977), 102. Also see James Elstone
Dow, A Good German Conscience: The Life and Time of Ernst Moritz Arndt
(Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995); Jon Vanden Heuvel, A
German Life in the Age of Revolution: Joseph Görres, 1776–1848 (Washington,
DC: Catholic University of America Press, 2001), chs. 6–7.
2. Martin P. Schennach, “‘We Are Constituted as a Nation’: Austria in the Era of
Napoleon,” in Napoleon’s Empire: European Politics in Global Perspective, ed. Ute
Planert (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2016), 245–46.
3. Some may also cite the popular uprising in Spain as a particularly striking
example of nationalist reaction against Napoleon and the French, but in the
motivation triad of “God, king, and nation” the latter was frequently negated
by Spanish parochialism and tradition. See E. Goodman, “Spanish Nationalism
in the Struggle Against Napoleon,” Review of Politics 20, no. 3 (July 1958):
330–46; Charles J. Esdaile, Outpost of Empire: The Napoleonic Occupation of
Andalucia, 1810–12 (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2012).
4. For details on the Franco-Russian relations, see Albert Vandal, Napoléon et
Alexandre Ier, l’alliance russe sous le premier Empire (Paris: 1896), III:1–455;
Dominic Lieven, Russia Against Napoleon (London: Penguin, 2010), chs. 3–4;
Michael Adams, Napoleon and Russia (London: Hambledon Continuum, 2006),
chs. 12–14.
5. Eugene Tarle, Sochineniya, vol. 3, Kontinentalnaya blokada (Moscow, 1958),
342–43. In June 1807, just weeks before the Treaty of Tilsit, the English mer-
chants were responsible for almost half of the goods traded in St. Petersburg
and delivered goods for a total value of 2.1 billion rubles, far ahead of any other
European country and second only to the 2.6 billion rubles’ worth of goods
traded by Russian merchants. Just two months later, the share of goods traded
by the British merchants dramatically fell to only 0.5 million rubles in July
and none in September, while the total value of goods traded in the Russian
capital fell from 4.9 billion (June) to 2.7 billion (July) to 1.5 billion in
September. Based on data in St. Petersburgskie Vedomosti of August–November
1807. For an in-depth discussion, see Mikhail Zlotnikov, Kontinentalnaya
blokada i Rossiya (Moscow: Nauka, 1966). Zlotnikov’s study remains one of the
best analyses of the Continental Blockade’s effect on Russia. The author wrote
his manuscript before World War II and made extensive use of archival materi-
als, some of which were later destroyed during the war. So far there is no other
study that can approach this book in its level of detail or scope.
802 | notes to pages 527–529

6. See Caulaincourt to Napoleon, April 5, 1808, in SIRIO, 138:637; Zlotnikov,


Kontinentalnaya blokada i Rossiya. 142. For a broader discussion, see Saulius
Antanas Girnius, “Russia and the Continental Blockade,” PhD diss., University
of Chicago, 1981.
7. For an interesting discussion of the French effort to mitigate the Russian eco-
nomic crisis, see the French diplomatic correspondence in SIRIO, vol. 138.
8. A large component in this deficit increase was military expenditures, which
grew throughout the period 1805–1811. In 1808–1811, Russia, after ending
the war with France, waged simultaneous wars against Sweden and Ottoman
Empire, while being nominally at war with Britain (the Anglo-Russian con-
flict was limited to a few naval actions in the Baltic Sea).
9. The growing annual deficit was covered by new issues of paper currency. In
1801 the government had 214 million rubles’ worth of paper money in circu-
lation and gradually increased that number to offset economic problems. In
1807 the government issued 63 million new paper rubles; in 1808, 95 million
(the highest during the Napoleonic Wars); in 1809, 55.8 million; and in
1810, another 46.2 million. Ivan Bliokh, Finansy Rossii XIX stoletiya. (St.
Petersburg: M. M. Stasyulevich, 1882), I:84.
10. The Russian government did take measures to avoid the catastrophe. It
restricted the amount of money printed, and it pledged to consider paper
rubles as a state debt that would be redeemed at all cost. Taxes were raised,
superfluous spending cut, and import of luxury items restricted through pro-
hibitive tariffs. Finally Russia began to allow neutral ships to trade in Russian
ports, which effectively undermined the Continental System.
11. Napoleon to Champagny, Champagny to Kurakin, November 4–December 2,
1810, in CN, nos. 17,099 and 17,179, XXI:252–53, 297–98; for similar sen-
timents, see also nos. 17,041, 17,071, 17,099, 17,831, and 17,917. Also see
Caulaincourt to Champagny, July 16, 1808; Caulaincourt to Champagny,
April 18, 1810, Caulaincourt to Champagny, April 30, 1810, Vel. Kn. Nikolay
Mikhailovich, Diplomaticheskie snoshenia Rossii i Frantsii po doneseniyam poslov
Imperatorov Aleksandra i Napoleona, 1808–1812 (St. Petersburg: Ekspeditsia
zagotovleniya gosudarstvennykh bumag, 1905), II:231; IV:359–66.
12. Napoleon’s memorandum, in Vandal, Napoléon et Alexandre, III:222.
13. Nicola Todorov has recently argued that Napoleon’s territorial annexations in
1810–1812 were in fact part of a larger (and secret) plan to invade Britain. For
details see his La Grande Armée à la conquête de l’Angleterre: Le plan secret de
Napoléon (Paris: Éditions Vendémiaire, 2016).
14. This report, dated March 16, 1810, is reproduced in full (in French) in Nikolai
Shilder, Imperator Aleksandr Pervyi (St. Petersburg, 1898), III:471–83. A
month later, Napoleon approved Champagny’s proposal for the creation of an
alliance between France, Sweden, Denmark, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw,
which, however, did not materialize due to Swedish and Danish reluctance to
participate. CN, XX:305. Champagny wrote to the French envoy to Denmark,
notes to pages 529–531 | 803

Charles-François-Luce Didelot, that “Sweden already fears Russia. Does


Denmark feel the same fear? Common interests must force Sweden, Denmark,
and the Duchy of Warsaw to unite in a secret alliance, which can absolutely
and really be guaranteed by France.” Denmark eventually agreed to a treaty
with France. On March 7, 1812, Napoleon shored up his northern territories
by inducing the Danish king, Frederick VI, to mobilize 10,000 troops on the
Holstein and Schleswig frontier to deter a possible landing there by British,
Swedish, and/or Russian troops. The Military Convention between France and
Denmark of March 7, 1812 can be found in Jules de Clercq, ed., Recueil des
traités de la France (Paris, 1864), II:363–65.
15. Throughout 1810 and 1811, the Prussian court was haunted by the dread that
Napoleon might attempt to carry out his oft-repeated threat to dispossess the
Hohenzollern dynasty. Consequently, King Frederick William III pursued a
dual policy of appeasing France in public while secretly seeking help against
Napoleon. In this, he was influenced by his chancellor, Karl August von
Hardenberg, and the head of the Prussian General Staff, General Gerhard
Johann David Waitz von Scharnhorst. On October 18, 1811, Russian foreign
minister Nikolai Petrovich Rumyantsev and Scharnhorst actually signed a
treaty of mutual support in the event of a war with France. But the Prussian
king refused to ratify that deal unless Austria joined the effort as well—a step
that the Austrian emperor, Francis I, was not yet willing to make.
16. The Franco-Prussian Treaty of Paris of February 24, 1812, can be found in
Clercq, Recueil des traités de la France, II:356–63. Also see Llewellyn Cook,
“Prince Schwarzenberg’s Crisis in 1812: In The Service Of Two Emperors,”
CRE (1995), 351–58; Llewellyn Cook, “Prince Schwarzenberg’s Mission to St.
Petersburg, 1809,” CRE (1998), 399–410.
17. The Franco-Austrian treaty of March 14, 1812, can be found in Clercq, Recueil
des traités de la France, II:369–72. Also see Cook, “Prince Schwarzenberg’s
Crisis in 1812” and “Prince Schwarzenberg’s Mission to St. Petersburg.”
18. VPR, VI:318–28. The Treaty of St. Petersburg was augmented with additional
conventions signed in Vilna on June 3 and Åbo on August 30.
19. Russia received Bessarabia and most of western Georgia but surrendered
Moldavia and Wallachia, which its armies had occupied since 1807. For the
text of the treaty, see VPR, VI:406–17.
20. On December 19, 1811, Napoleon’s private secretary, Claude François de
Méneval, informed the emperor’s librarian, Antoine-Alexandre Barbier: “I
request that you send me for His Majesty a few good books, most suitable for
studying the nature of the soil of Russia, and especially of Lithuania, with
respect to its marshes, rivers, forests, and roads. His Majesty also desires to
obtain works that describe, in detail, the campaign of Charles XII in Poland
and Russia. In addition, send any books on military operations in this region
that might be useful.” CN, XXIII:95. A month later Méneval again asked for
books concerning the “history of Courland, as well as all that can be obtained
804 | notes to pages 531–533

regarding the history, geography, and topography of Riga, Livonia, etc.” CN,
XXIII:162.
21. CN, XXIII:143, 432.
22. Major French garrisons in North Germany included Hamburg (6,375 men),
Magdeburg (8,851), Danzig (20,464), and Stettin (8,491). For Napoleon’s
preparations see Correspondance de Napoléon, vols. 21–23; Louis Joseph
Margueron, ed., Campagne de Russie: préliminaires de la Campagne de Russie, ses
causes, sa préparation, organisation de l’armée du 1 Janvier 1810 au 31 Janvier
1812, 2 vols. (Paris: Lavauzelle 1899).
23. See Décret du 21 décembre 1811, in Margueron, Campagne de Russie,
III:427–30.
24. The army consisted of about 492,000 infantry, 96,000 cavalry, and some
20,000 auxiliary forces. On March 3, Napoleon settled the organization of the
Grand Armée, which consisted of eight army corps (four French and four for-
eign) and four cavalry corps. CN, no. 18544, XXIII:277–78.
25. The term “Vilna Maneuver” is rarely used in Anglophone studies, but it has a
long history in Russian and French historiography. See H. Bonnal, La manoevre
de Vilna (Paris: Chapelot, 1905); B. Kuznetsov, Kratkii ocherk podgotovki i raz-
vertyvanie storon v 1812 g. Vilenskaya operatsiya (Moscow, 1932); V. Kharkevich,
Voina 1812 g. ot Nemana do Smolenska (Vilna, 1901), 96–158.
26. Napoleon to Berthier, July 2, 1812, in CN, XXIV:7.
27. Berthier to Davout, 8:00 p.m., June 24, 1812, in Gabriel Fabry, Campagne de
Russie, 1812 (Paris: Lucien Gougy, 1900), I:4.
28. Napoleon to Berthier, 5:00 a.m., June 25, 1812, in Fabry, Campagne de Russie, I:9.
29. For the Anglo-Russian treaty’s text, see PSZ, XXXII:389–90; F. Martens,
Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie avec les puissances étrangères
(St. Petersburg: A. Böhnke, 1902), XI:162–65.
30. Treaty of Velikie Luki, July 20, 1812, VPR, VI:495–97.
31. For details, see V. Roginskii, Shvetsiya i Rossiya: Soyuz 1812 goda (Moscow:
Nauka, 1978), 118, 158–59.
32. The British merchants demanded 25 rubles for each musket and 29 rubles
per pud of gunpowder, a significant markup considering that muskets cost
less than 15 rubles before the war. See P. Schukin, ed., Bumagi otnosyaschiesya
do Otechestvennoi voiny 1812 goda (Moscow: Tip. A. Mamontova, 1903),
VII:181–82.
33. The British weapons were retrofitted at the Sestroretskii Arms Manufacturing
facility and placed at the St. Pegtersburg Arsenal. In December, some 30,000
British muskets were delivered to Nizhegorod Province to equip the newly
raised reserve units, while more than 7,700 muskets were sent to the 6th and
21st Divisions; the remaining 12,240 weapons were kept at the aarsenal and
were later distributed to the militias. For criticism of British arms supplies,
see the works of Soviet historians including Pavel Zhilin, Kontranastuplenie
Kutuzova v 1812 g. (Moscow: Voennoe izd-vo, 1950), 119–20; L. Zak, Angliya
notes to pages 533–536 | 805

i germanskaya problema. Iz Diplomaticheskoi istorii napoleonovskikh voin


(Moscow: Izd-vo Instituta Mezhd. Otnoshenii, 1963), 55–56. For most recent
(and judicious) discussion, see A. Orlov, Soyuz Peterburga i Londona: Rossiisko-
Britanskie otnosheniya v epokhu napoleonovskikh voina (Moscow: Progress-Traditsiya,
2005), 226–29.
34. Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie, XI:166. The British
envoy to St. Petersburg, William, Earl Cathcart, was given some £500,000 to
support Sweden and Russia, but the sum was clearly insufficient for Russia’s
military needs. John M. Sherwig, Guineas and Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid
in the Wars with France, 1793–1815 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University
Press, 1969), 277–81. For discussion of the British government’s position, see
Hansard’s Parliamentary Debates (London: T. C. Hansard, 1812), XXIV:50–66.
It is noteworthy that when the British Parliament debated providing £200,000
in specie and goods to help the inhabitants of devastated Moscow, senior
Russian officials wanted to decline the sum because it was perceived as rather
negligible—Moscow’s devastation was estimated at some £25 million—and
humiliating to accept and because they feared that “behind this offer might be
concealed [British] intention to instill new habits [onto the Russians] and to
spread among the common folk dependence on foreign indulgences that only
the English themselves can satisfy.” Emperor Alexander rejected these argu-
ments. Rumyantsev to Emperor Alexander; Alexander to Rumyantsev, January
15, 1813, in Russkaya Starina 1 (1870): 474–76. The British government also
declined to help Russia with regard to the foreign debt it owed to the Dutch
bankers.
35. See Adrian Randall, Riotous Assemblies: Popular Protest in Hanoverian England
(Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006), 271–331; John Stevenson, Popular
Disturbances in England, 1700–1870 (London: Longman, 1979), 155–61.
36. For details, see Stephan Talty’s The Illustrious Dead: The Terrifying Story of How
Typhus Killed Napoleon’s Greatest Army (New York: Random House, 2009),
although it tends to exaggerate the role of disease in shaping the outcome of
the campaign.
37. Heinrich von Roos, Avec Napoléon en Russie. Souvenirs d’un médecin de la Grande
Armée (Paris, 1913), 51–53.
38. Anton Gijsbert van Dedem de Gelder, Un général hollandais sous le premier
empire. Mémoires du général Bon de Dedem de Gelder (Paris: Plon Nourrit, 1900),
225–27.
39. For an in-depth discussion, see Alexander Mikaberidze, Napoleon Versus Kutuzov:
The Battle of Borodino (London: Pen & Sword, 2007); Christopher Duffy,
Borodino and the War of 1812 (New York: Scribner, 1972); A. Popov and
V. Zemtsov, Borodino: yuzhnyi flang (Moscow: Kniga, 2009); A. Popov, Borodino:
severnyi flang (Moscow: Kniga, 2008).
40. See Alexander M. Martin, Enlightened Metropolis: Constructing Imperial Moscow,
1762–1855 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013).
806 | notes to pages 536–539

41. For details, see Alexander Mikaberidze, Napoleon’s Trial by Fire: The Burning of
Moscow (London: Pen & Sword, 2014) and Vladimir Zemtsov, 1812 god: Pozhar
Moskvy (Moscow: Kniga, 2010).
42. Mathieu Dumas, Souvenirs de lieutenant général comte Mathieu Dumas, de
1770–1836 (Paris: Gosselin, 1839), III:454–55.
43. Lieven, Russia Against Napoleon, 251.
44. Philippe-Paul Ségur, History of the Expedition to Russia Undertaken by the Emperor
Napoleon in the Year 1812 (London, 1825), 77.
45. Grand Duchess Catherine to Emperor Alexander, September 18, 1812, in
Correspondance de l’Empereur Alexandre Ier avec sa soeur la Grande-Duchess Catherine
(St. Petersburg: Manufacture des papiers de l’État, 1910), letter XXXIII.
46. Jean-Pierre Barrau, “Jean-Pierre Armand Barrau, Quartier-Maitre au IVe
Corps de la Grande Armée, sur la Campagne de Russie,” Rivista Italiana di
Studi Napoleonici 1 (1979): 91.
47. For details see Iv. Bezsonov, Bitva v Maloyaroslavtse, 12 oktyabrya 1812 goda
(Kaluga: Tip. Gubernskogo pravleniya, 1912); Aleksei Vasiliev, “Srazhenie
za Maloyaroslavets, 12 oktyabrya 1812 goda,” in Yubileinyj sbornik. K 190-letiyu
Maloyarslavetskogo srazheniya, http://www.museum.ru/1812/library/Mmnk/
2002_9.html.
48. Thierry Lentz, La conspiration du général Malet, 23 octobre 1812: premier ébranle-
ment du trône de Napoléon (Paris: Perrin, 2012).
49. For in-depth discussion see Alexander Mikaberidze, Napoleon’s Great Escape:
The Battle of the Berezina (London: Pen & Sword, 2010).
50. For an excellent discussion of French leadership at this period, see Frederick
C. Schneid, “The Dynamics of Defeat: French Army Leadership, December
1812–March 1813,” Journal of Military History 63, no. 1 (1999): 7–28. By late
December, the last remnants of the Grande Armée, including the corps of
Macdonald and Schwarzenberg, crossed the Niemen. Macdonald received his
orders to retreat on December 18 and started the next day in two columns. He
moved largely unimpeded by the Russians, who focused on Napoleon’s main
body. On reaching Tauroggen along the Russo-Prussian border, Prussian gen-
eral Hans David Ludwig von Yorck concluded the famous convention by
which the Prussians were declared neutral. On learning of the catastrophe of
the Grande Armée, Schwarzenberg retreated to Bielostok between December
14 and 18; General Jean Louis Ebénézer Reynier’s Saxon corps followed him
behind the Bug. The Austrian corps eventually reached its own territory, while
Reynier moved into Saxony. Poniatowski’s Polish corps was interned by the
Austrians until the summer armistice of 1813.
51. Robert Wilson, Narrative of Events During the Invasion of Russia by Napoleon
Bonaparte (London: John Murray, 1869), 368.
52. See Alexander Mikaberidze, “Napoleon’s Lost Legions: The Grande Armée
Prisoners of War in Russia,” Napoleonica: La Revue 3, no. 21 (2014): 35–44,
http://www.cairn.info/revue-napoleonica-la-revue-2014-3-page-35.htm.
notes to pages 541–544 | 807

53. Robert Wilson, Narrative of Events During the Invasion of Russia by Napoleon
Bonaparte (London: John Murray, 1860), 234. Arguing with Bennigsen over
strategy, Kutuzov repeatedly argued against unnecessary losses that might
weaken Russia’s positions in Europe. “We will never come to an agreement;
you are only thinking of the benefit for England while to me, even if that
island sinks to the bottom of the sea, I would not sigh.” A. Voyeikov, “General
Graf Leontii Leontievich Bennigsen,” Russkii Arkhiv 59 (1868): 1857.
54. Eugène of Württemberg, “Vospominania o kampanii 1812 g v Rossii,” Voennii
zhurnal 3 (1849): 131.
55. See Donald R. Hickey, The War of 1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Urbana: University
of Illinois Press, 2012), 1–3.
56. Turreau to Talleyrand, July 9, 1805, in Archives du Ministère des Affaires
Étrangères, Correspondance politique, “Etats-Unis,” 58.
57. See discussion of American causes in Troy Bickham, The Weight of Vengeance:
The United States, the British Empire and the War of 1812 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2012), ch. 1.
58. Confidential Message, June 1, 1812, in The Addresses and Messages of the
Presidents of the United States to Congress (New York: Charles Lohman, 1837),
120–24. For a more in-depth discussion, see J. C. A. Stagg, The War of 1812:
Conflict for a Continent (Cambridge: Cambrudge University Press, 2012), 1–47;
Reginald Horsman, The Causes of the War of 1812 (Philadelphia: University of
Pennsylvania Press, 1962); Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War England and the
United States, 1805–12 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961).
59. Thomas Jefferson to James Madison, June 6, 1812, in The Writings of Thomas
Jefferson (Washington, DC: Taylor & Maury, 1854), VI:58.
60. See Gregory Evans Dowd, A Spirited Resistance: The North American Indian
Struggle for Unity, 1745–1815 (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,
1992); Timothy D. Willig, Restoring the Chain of Friendship: British Policy and
the Indians of the Great Lakes, 1783–1815 (Lincoln: University of Nebraska
Press, 2008); Robert M. Owens, Mr. Jefferson’s Hammer: William Henry Harrison
and the Origins of American Indian Policy (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 2007).
61. Matthew S. Seligmann, Rum, Sodomy, Prayers and the Lash Revisited: Winston
Churchill and Social Reform in the Royal Navy, 1900–1915 (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2018), 1.
62. For a critical reassessment of press gangs and impressment in Britain, see
J. Ross Dancy, The Myth of the Press Gang: Volunteers, Impressment and the Naval
Manpower Problem in the Late Eighteenth Century (Rochester, NY: Boydell Press,
2015). This book is one of the first statistical studies of the Royal Navy man-
ning in the eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, based on exhaustive
analysis of muster books from over eighty warships. Also see Nicholas Rogers,
The Press Gang: Naval Impressment and its Opponents in Georgian Britain (London:
Continuum, 2007); Brian DeToy, “The Impressment of American Seamen
808 | notes to pages 544–548

d­ uring the Napoleonic Wars,” CRE (1998), 492–501; Keith Mercer, “Northern
Exposure: Resistance to Naval Impressment in British North America,
1775–1815,” Canadian Historical Review 91, no. 2 (June 2010): 199–232;
Hickey, The War of 1812, 11.
63. For a more critical view see Donald R. Adams Jr., “American Neutrality and
Prosperity, 1793–1808: A Reconsideration,” Journal of Economic History 40, no.
4 (1980): 713–37.
64. Spencer Tucker and Frank Reuter, Injured Honor: The Chesapeake-Leopard
Affairs, June 22, 1807 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1996).
65. John Lambert, Travels Through Lower Canada and the United States of North
America in the Years of 1806, 1807 and 1808 (London: Richard Phillips, 1810),
II:157.
66. Bradford Perkins, Prologue to War: England and the United States, 1805–12
(Berkeley: University of California Press, 1961), 210–20.
67. W. Freeman Galpin, “The American Grain Trade to the Spanish Peninsula,
1810–1814,” American Historical Review XXVIII (1923): 24–25. For an inter-
esting insight into the Anglo-American commerce as exemplified by W. G. &
J. Strutt Company, see R. S. Fitton, “Overseas Trade during the Napoleonic
Wars, as Illustrated by the Records of W. G. & J. Strutt,” Economica 20, no. 77
(1953): 58–69.
68. Henry Adams, History of the United States of America (New York: C. Scribner’s
Sons, 1921), V:252–58.
69. Adams, History of the United States of America, V:262–315. For a broad discus-
sion on non-importation see Herbert Heaton, “Non-Importation,
1806–1812,” Journal of Economic History 1, no. 2 (1941): 178–98.
70. David Milne’s report of April 9, 1812, Report on the Manuscripts of Colonel David
Milne Home (London: His Majesty’s Stationery Office, 1902), 155. For data on
American ships, see G. E. Watson, “The United States and the Peninsular
War, 1808–1812,” Historical Journal 19, no. 4 (1976): 870–71.
71. Wellington to Stuart, March 1, 1811, in The Dispatches of Field Marshal, the
Duke of Wellington, ed. John Gurwood (London: John Murray, 1838), VII:324.
72. See interesting discussion in Leland R. Johnson, “The Suspense Was Hell: The
Senate Vote for War in 1812,” Indiana Magazine of History 65 (December
1969): 247–67.
73. For discussion of supply routes, see Philip Lord Jr., “The Mohawk/Oneida
Corridor: The Geography of the Inland Navigation Across New York,” in The
Sixty Years’ War for the Great Lakes, 1754–1814, ed. David Curtis Skaggs and
Larry L. Nelson (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 2001), 275–90.
74. Cited in Bickham, The Weight of Vengeance.
75. John K. Mahon, “British Command Decisions in the Northern Campaigns of
the War of 1812,” Canadian Historical Review 46 (September 1965): 219–37.
76. For the discussion of war aims, see Reginald Horsman, “Western War Aims,
1811–1812,” Indiana Magazine of History 53 (March 1957): 1–18. For the role
notes to pages 548–550 | 809

of “war hawks,” a group of congressmen who led the nation into the war, see
Harry W. Fritz, “The War Hawks of 1812,” Capitol Studies 5 (Spring 1977):
25–42. On Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh, see R. David Edmunds, “Tecumseh,
the Shawnee Prophet, and American History: A Reassessment,” Western
Historical Quarterly 14 (July 1983): 261–76; Alfred A. Cave, “The Shawnee
Prophet, Tecumseh, and Tippecanoe: A Case Study of Historical Myth-
Making,” Journal of the Early Republic 22 (Winter 2002): 637–73.
77. Cited in Robert V. Remini, Henry Clay, Statesman for the Union (New York:
W. W. Norton, 1991), 60.
78. Jefferson to William Duane, August 4, 1812, in The Writings of Thomas
Jefferson, XIII:180–81. Also see Pierre Berton, The Invasion of Canada,
1812–13 (Toronto: Anchor Books, 1980), 15, 99–100; Donald R. Hickey, The
War of 1812: A Short History (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1995), 9–14.
79. Jeffrey Kimball, “The Fog and Friction of Frontier War: The Role of Logistics
in American Offensive Failure During the War of 1812,” Old Northwest 5
(Winter 1979): 323–43.
80. Robert B. McAfee, History of the Late War in the Western Country (Bowling
Green, OH: Historical Publications, 1919), 121.
81. Jon Latimer, 1812: War with America (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2007),
76–83; Theodore J. Crackel, “The Battle of Queenston Heights, 13 October,
1812,” in America’s First Battles, 1776–1965, ed. Charles E. Heller and William
A. Sofft (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986); 33–56.
82. John Robert Elting, Amateurs, to Arms! A Military History of the War of 1812
(Chapel Hill, NC: Algonquin Books of Chapel Hill, 1991), 50–51. In a sepa-
rate development, General William Henry Harrison, governor of the Indiana
Territory, was able to rebuild US forces in the area, and in November he
launched a major offensive against the Miami Indians who had attacked Fort
Wayne and Fort Harrison in the Indiana Territory. This campaign culminated
in the engagement at Mississinewa (present-day Alabama), where the US force
captured a couple of settlements and defeated a Native American counterat-
tack on December 18 before losses and cold weather forced them to withdraw.
Still, the expedition secured Harrison’s flank from further interference by the
Native American tribes.
83. On problems that plagued the British navy, see Barry J. Lohnes, “British Naval
Problems at Halifax during the War of 1812,” Mariner’s Mirror 59 (August
1973): 317–33.
84. For a detailed discussion, see Kevin D. McCranie, Utmost Gallantry:
The U.S. and Royal Navies at Sea in the War of 1812 (Annapolis, MD: Naval
Institute Press, 2011).
85. For an excellent discussion, see Brian Arthur, How Britain Won the War of 1812:
The Royal Navy’s Blockades of the United States, 1812–15 (Rochester, NY: Boydell
Press, 2011); Wade Dudley, Splintering the Wooden Wall: The British Blockade of
the United States, 1812–15 (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 2003).
810 | notes to page 550–552

86. In September, just as Napoleon was to occupy Moscow, the Russian govern-
ment asked John Quincy Adams, American minister at St. Petersburg, whether
the United States would be open to the offer of Russian mediation with
Britain. Adams quickly conveyed the news to President Madison, who accepted
it in early 1813 and appointed two commissioners (Albert Gallatin, secretary
of the treasury, and James Bayard, a senator from Delaware) to negotiate peace
with the help of Russian mediators. This mission produced no results because
the British government rejected Russian mediation on the grounds that its
disputes with the United States involved internal issues that were not subject
to foreign meddling. But the real cause for British apprehension lay in Russian
support for the American conception of maritime law, one that assumed a nar-
row view of belligerent rights and provided a broader interpretation of neutral
rights. Britain expected American negotiators to bring up these issues during
postwar negotiations, and Russian mediation could have provided them with
much-needed support. State Papers and Public Documents of the United States
(Boston: T. B. Wait and Sons, 1817), IX:358.
87. Wellington to Lt. Gen. Sir T. Graham, May 8, 1812, in The Dispatches of Field
Marshal, the Duke of Wellington, IX:129–30.
88. Wellington to Stuart, May 3, 1812, in The Dispatches of Field Marshal, the Duke
of Wellington, X:342–45. Wellington explored several other possible sources of
supplies, including Barbary States, “British settlements in North America,”
“Western Islands,” and Mexico, which “ought to be able to supply some.”
Writing to his brother Henry, he expressed his irritation at the Americans,
noting, “It would be capital to turn the tables upon these cunning Americans,
and not to allow them to have any intercourse with those ports [Cadiz and
Lisbon].” Wellington to Sir Henry Wellesley, May 10, 1812, in The Dispatches
of Field Marshal, the Duke of Wellington, IX:132–33.
89. For example, see documents, including a license from Admiral Herbert Sawyer,
in the Julia, Luce, Master case of 1814, in Report of Cases Argued and Decided in
the Supreme Court of the United States (Rochester, NY: Lawyers Cooperative
Publishing, 1910), 3:181.

Chapter 22
1. F. Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions conclus par la Russie avec les puissances
étrangères (St. Petersburg: A. Böhnke, 1902), VII:60–62. Napoleon’s heavy-
handed treatment only further drove the Prussians into the Russian embrace.
In one of the many mistakes he had committed in 1813, the emperor rejected
the Prussian king’s request for certain territorial restitutions and the payment
of debts France owed Berlin for war supplies as the price for Prussia’s contin-
ued allegiance to the alliance with France.
2. Jean D’Ussel, Études sur l’année 1813. La défection de la Prusse (décembre
1812–mars 1813) (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1907), 1–150; Martens, Recueil des
traités et conventions, VII:57–62. Another Prussian General, von Bülow, declined
notes to pages 554–558 | 811

to sign a convention with the Russians but allowed them to advance towards
the Oder River. See Michael V. Leggiere, “The Life, Letters and Campaigns of
Friedrich Wilhelm Graf Bülow von Dennewitz, 1755–1816,” PhD diss.,
Florida State University, 1997, 190–220.
3. Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions, VII:62–86; Philipp Anton Guido von
Meyer, Corpus iuris Confoederationis Germanicae oder Staatsacten für Geschichte und
öffentliches Recht des Deutschen Bundes (Frankfurt am Main: Brönner, 1858),
I:135–39.
4. Kutuzov to Wintzingerode, Kalisch, April 5, 1813, RGVIA, f. VUA, op. 16, d.
3921, ll.133b–134b. For discussion, see Michael V. Leggiere, Napoleon and the
Struggle for Germany: The Franco-Prussian War of 1813 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2015), I:127–32; Dominic Lieven, Russia Against Napoleon
(London: Penguin, 2010), 290–91.
5. Meyer, Corpus iuris Confoederationis Germanicae, I:139.
6. Ibid., I:146–47.
7. Thomas Nipperday aptly observes that Metternich knew that “Austria’s whole
existence rested on the sanctity of treaties.” Germany from Napoleon to Bismarck
1800–1866, trans. Daniel Nolan (Dublin: Gill & Macmillan, 1996), 70.
8. Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions, III:89–91.
9. For a full account of Lord Walpole’s mission to Vienna, see Charles Buckland,
Metternich and the British Government from 1809 to 1813 (London: Macmillan,
1932), 407–38. Also see Francis Peter Werry, Personal Memoirs and Letters of
Francis Peter Werry, Attaché to the British Embassies at St. Petersburgh and Vienna
in 1812–15 (London: Charles J. Skeet, 1861), 163–73.
10. For a detailed discussion see Jean D’Ussel, Études sur l’année 1813: L’intervention
de l’Autriche (décembre 1812–mai 1813) (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1912), 172–289,
329–59.
11. Correspondance de Napoléon, XXIV:342.
12. Napoleon to Frederick VI of Denmark and Norway, January 5, 1813, in
Correspondance de Napoléon, XXIV:369.
13. Napoleon to Eugene, January 29, 1813, in Correspondance de Napoléon, XXIV:468.
14. Michael V. Leggiere, “Prometheus Chained, 1813–1815,” in Napoleon and the
Operational Art of War, ed. Michael V. Leggiere (Leiden: Brill, 2016), 320–21.
15. Napoleon to King Frederick of Württemberg, April 24, 1813, in Correspondance
de Napoléon, XXV:226.
16. See Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany, I:70–119.
17. August von Gneisenau’s report cited in Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for
Germany, I:262.
18. For the role of Berlin in Napoleon’s strategy, see Michael V. Leggiere, Napoleon
and Berlin: The Franco-Prussian War in North Germany, 1813 (Norman:
University of Oklahoma Press, 2002).
19. Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany, I:298–377; on Ney’s action, see
I:347–49.
812 | notes to pages 559–561

20. Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany, I:382–422.


21. Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany, I:142.
22. London Gazette, March 30, 1813, in The Royal Military Chronicle or British Officers’
Monthly Register, 1813, VI:248–49. Russian officer Waldemar Lowernstern notes
in his memoirs that almost as soon as his detachment occupied the small town of
Blankenese on the outskirts of Hamburg, he was approached by a British consul,
Mitchell, who urged him to allow British commerce onto the continent. See
Mémoires du général-major russe baron de Löwenstern (1776–1858) (Paris: A.
Fontemoing, 1903), II:268–69.
23. See text of the armistice in Agathon Jean François Fain, Manuscrit de 1813,
contenant le précis des évènemens de cette année (Paris: Delaunay, 1825), I:484–89.
24. Napoleon to General Clarke, June 2, 1813, in Correspondance de Napoléon,
XXV:346–47.
25. Fain, Manuscrit de 1813, I:430.
26. Paul W. Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 1763–1848 (New
York: Oxford University Press, 1994), 461–63.
27. Britain’s diplomatic efforts in April–November 1813 had been hampered by
the fact that its representatives were not men of sufficient weight to gain a
commanding influence at the Allied headquarters. Viscount Cathcart and Sir
Charles Stewart (Castlereagh’s half brother), attached to the Russian and
Prussian headquarters, respectively, were good soldiers but could hardly com-
pete with the more experienced diplomats. The Earl of Aberdeen, who was
dispatched to Austria, was too young and inexperienced to contend with men
like Metternich; the Frankfurt Proposals of November 1813 had made this
abundantly clear. Throughout the 1813 campaign the treaties between the
Allied powers were drawn up and generally signed before the British represen-
tatives were fully informed; agreements with Britain tended to be confined to
subsidies and the conduct of the war rather than much more important issues
of postwar settlement.
28. Castlereagh to Cathcart, January 15, 1813, in Robert Stewart, Viscount
Castlereagh, Correspondence, Despatches and Other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh
(London: William Shoberl, 1851), VIII:304; John M. Sherwig, Guineas and
Gunpowder: British Foreign Aid in the Wars with France, 1793–1815 (Cambridge,
MA: Harvard University Press, 1969), 283–84.
29. Protocol of the Meeting of the Secret Financial Committee, December 21,
1812, and Alexander to Lieven, February 1, 1813, in VPR, VI:629;
VII:37–39, 709. Also see Charles Stewart to Castlereagh, May 18, 1813, in
Memoirs and Correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, IX:15–16.
30. Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions, XI:179. Russia and Britain ultimately
settled on arranging payments in both subsidies and the “federative paper,”
specially guaranteed paper money. In late March 1813 Britain agreed to pro-
vide £1,333,334 in silver and £3,333,334 in “federative papers”; £500,000 in
silver were set aside for the needs of Dmitri Senyavin’s squadron, which was
notes to pages 562–564 | 813

still detained in Britain. These arrangements were formalized in an Anglo-


Russian Convention at Reichenbach on June 15, 1813; a separate convention
on the “federative papers” was signed in London on September 30, 1813. Yet
little of this money found its way to Russia, which received only slightly more
than £1 million by the end of the 1813 campaign. See the March Agreement
in VPR, VII:136–37; the September Convention in Martens, Recueil des traités
et conventions, XI:189–95. For a general discussion, see Sherwig, Guineas and
Gunpowder, 289–92; A. Orlov, Soyuz Peterburga i Londona: rossiisko-britanskie
otnosheniya v epokhu napoleonovskikh voin (Moscow: Progress-Traditsia, 2005),
255–59, 263–65.
31. For details see Rory Muir, Britain and the Defeat of Napoleon, 1807–1815 (New
Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 243–61, 280–98; Muriel E. Chamberlain,
“Pax Britannica”? British Foreign Policy, 1789–1914 (London: Routledge,
1999), 41–59; R. W. Seton-Watson, Britain in Europe, 1789–1914 (New York:
Howard Fertig, 1968), 31–37; Adolphus W. Ward and George P. Gooch, The
Cambridge History of British Foreign Policy, 1783–1919, vol. 1, 1783–1815
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1922), 392–428.
32. For the text see Wilhelm Oncken, Oesterreich und Preussen im Befreiungskriege:
urkundliche Aufschlüsse über die politische Geschichte des Jahres 1813 (Berlin:
G. Grote, 1879), II:636–37.
33. “Une paix continentale bonne,” in Oncken, Oesterreich und Preussen im
Befreiungskriege, II:644.
34. “Le Minimum des pretentions” in Oncken, Oesterreich und Preussen im
Befreiungskriege, II:644.
35. Mémoires, documents and écrits divers . . . de Prince de Metternich, I:135–54; Enno E.
Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press,
1983), I:176–78; Schroeder, The Transformation of European Politics, 470–72;
Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions, III:92–100; VPR, VII:237–38,
259–63, 275–76, 733–37; Oncken, Oesterreich und Preussen im Befreiungskriege,
II:649–79.
36. Mémoires, documents and écrits divers . . . de Prince de Metternich, I:147; Fain,
Manuscrit de 1813, II:34–44.
37. The Reichenbach Protocol called for the end of French control over the Grand
Duchy of Warsaw and its partition; Prussia’s restoration and expansion east-
ward; the return of the Adriatic coast (Illyria) to Austria; and the independ-
ence of the Hanseatic cities in northern Germany. Should Napoleon refuse
these terms, Austria would join the Sixth Coalition with at least 150,000 men
and fight for the harsher, maximum program as formulated by Hardenberg
and Nesselrode.
38. The BEIC Secret Committee to the Governor General at Bengal, East India
House, June 18, 1798, cited in Mubarak Al-Otabi, “The Qawasim and British
Control of the Arabian Gulf,” PhD diss., University of Salford, 1989, 65.
39. Schroeder, Transformation of European Politics, 460, 472.
814 | notes to pages 565–566

40. Karl Nesselrode, “Zapiski grafa K.V. Nesselrode,” in Russkii vestnik 59 (1865),
559. Also see Napoleon to Ney, August 4, 1813, in Correspondance de Napoléon,
XXVI:2–3; Adam Zamoyski, Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress
of Vienna (London: Harper Perennial, 2007), 82; Albert Sorel, L’Europe et la
revolution Française (Paris: Plon-Nourrit, 1904), VIII:154. For more in-depth
discussion, see Martens, Recueil des traités et conventions, III:110–15; VPR,
VII:283–92, 299, 324–30, 343–45, 740–43, 746–47, 748, 754.
41. In his memoirs, Metternich portrays himself as luring Napoleon to destruction
by a subtle and farsighted diplomacy; according to this version, Austrian peace
negotiations were not genuine and only intended to gain time to complete the
Austrian mobilization and brand Napoleon as the warmonger. But the Austrian
diplomatic correspondence in the spring and summer of 1813 shows that
Metternich was genuinely trying to reach a negotiated peace that would have
perpetuated a Napoleonic regime in France, albeit within certain constraints.
42. One of the reasons Napoleon delayed responses to the Allied offers was his ten-
day (July 25–August 4) visit to Mainz to see Empress Marie-Louise. The pur-
pose of the visit was, as he explained to Caulaincourt, “give the Empress
another child.” Remarkable as it is to see Napoleon leaving crucial negotia-
tions to get intimate with his wife, there was an important political purpose
to this rendezvous. “A second male heir would have strengthened his diplo-
matic position. Napoleon’s real aim was at once to assert his independence
from the negotiations, and to pile the pressure on the other Powers for last-
minute concessions.” Munro Price, Napoleon: The End of Glory (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2014), 98.
43. Andrew Roberts, Napoleon: A Life (New York: Viking, 2014), 659.
44. For details, see Price, Napoleon, 93–94, 109–10.
45. The Duchy of Warsaw was to be dissolved and divided between Russia,
Austria, and Prussia, with Prussia receiving Danzig. Hamburg and Lübeck
would become independent cities, and the rest of France’s north German con-
quests would be returned at the conclusion of a general peace. France would
renounce the protectorate of the Rhine Confederation, Prussia would be
enlarged with a defensible frontier on the Elbe, Austria would regain Illyria,
and all the European states, large and small, would sign a guarantee of mutual
security. Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution française, VIII:171–72.
46. From Napoleon’s conversation with Caulaincourt as they traveled from
Smorgoni to Paris in December 1812. General Armand de Caulaincourt, With
Napoleon in Russia (New York: William Morrow, 1935), 298.
47. The armistice terms allowed for another week after the expiration of the truce
on the tenth for the armies to prepare for the war. Napoleon believed that the
Allies would be willing to consider his response during this timeframe.
Metternich was informed of the French response on August 10, but he con-
cealed it from the Allied representatives until Napoleon’s formal reply arrived
on the following day.
notes to pages 566–570 | 815

48. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, I:183–84.


49. Austrian Declaration of War, August 12, 1813, in British and Foreign State
Papers (London: James Ridgway and Sons, 1841) I, part 1, 810–22.
50. See Charles Oman, A History of the Peninsular War, vol. 6, September 1,
1812–August 5, 1813 (Oxford: Clarendon Press); Jose ́ Gregorio Cayuela
Fernań dez and Jose ́ Ángel Gallego Palomares, La Guerra de la independencia:
historia bélica, pueblo y nación en España (1808–1814) (Salamanca: Universidad
de Salamanca, 2008), 471–92; Rory Muir, Wellington: The Path to Victory,
1769–1814 (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2013): 517–32, 537–65.
51. The fourth Allied army, the Army of Poland (57,000 men) under General
Bennigsen, was still being formed but was expected to join the campaign in
September.
52. For the Trachenberg plan, see Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany,
II:23–60; Alan Sked, Radetzky: Imperial Victor and Military Genius (London:
I. B. Tauris, 2011), 40–43; F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon’s Last Campaign in
Germany, 1813 (London: John Lane, 1912), 181–84; E. Glaise von Horstenau,
La campagne de Dresde, Geschichte der Kämpfe Österreichs. Kriege unter der Regierung
des Kaisers Franz. Befreiungskrieg 1813 und 1814 (Vienna: L. W. Seidel und
Sohn, 1913), III:3–6.
53. Leggiere, Napoleon and Berlin, 160–76; Kyle O. Eidahl, “The Military Career
of Nicolas Charles Oudinot (1767–1847),” PhD diss., Florida State University,
1990, 349–56; Eidahl, “Napoleon’s Faulty Strategy: Oudinot’s Operations
against Berlin, 1813,” CRE (1995), 395–403.
54. Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany, II:235–86.
55. David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon (New York: Macmillan, 1966),
904–11.
56. Moreau to his wife, n.d., in A Selection from the Letters and Despatches of the First
Napoleon, ed. D. Bingham (London: Chapman and Hall, 1884), III:266.
57. Leggiere, Napoleon and Berlin, 189–211; Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon,
911–15; Modest Bogdanovich, Istoriya voiny 1813 goda za nezavisimost Germanii
(St. Petersburg: Tip. Shtaba voenno-uchebnykh zavedenii, 1863), II:195–279.
58. Leggiere, Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany, II:605–18.
59. Leggiere, Napoleon and Berlin, 275.
60. For an in-depth account of the battle, see Bruno Colson, Leipzig: La Bataille des
Nations, 16–19 Octobre 1813 (Paris: Perrin, 2013); Leggiere, Napoleon and the
Struggle for Germany, II:624–58. For a more concise look, see Stéphane Calvet,
Leipzig, 1813: La guerre des peuples (Paris: Vendémiaire, 2015); F. Maude, The
Leipzig Campaign (New York: Macmillan, 1908), 254–64; Peter Hofschröer,
Leipzig, 1813: The Battle of the Nations (Oxford: Osprey, 1993); Digby Smith,
1813, Leipzig: Napoleon and the Battle of the Nations (London: Greenhill, 2001).
Amid the commotion of retreat, French general Chateau noticed “a man of
peculiar dress and with only a small retinue; he was whistling the air of
Marlbrough s’en va-t-en guerre [a popular French folk song] but was deeply lost
816 | notes to pages 570–574

in thought. Chateau thought he was a bourgeois and was about to approach him
to ask a question. . . . But it was the Emperor himself, who, with his usual com-
posure seemed to be completely detached from the scenes of destruction that
surrounded him.” Henri de Jomini, Précis politique et militaire des campagnes de
1812 à 1814 (Lausanne: B. Benda, 1886), II:207n.
61. The agreement specified that one-half of the contingent was to consist of
troops of the line, and the other half of Landwehr, or militia. In addition to
this, corps of volunteers were allowed to be raised, and the Landsturm was
organized in all countries that seemed to require such extraordinary precau-
tions. For details, see VPR, VII:453–66; Martens, Recueil des traités et conven-
tions, VII:136–37, 140–52.
62. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, 219–49; Schroeder, Transformation of
European Politics, 478–84; VPR, VII:452–66, 483, 486–91; Martens, Recueil
des traités et conventions, VII:115–36.
63. “Bonaparte is a rascal; he has to be killed,” Bernadotte supposedly stated on
one occasion. “As long as he lives, he will be the curse of the world. There must
be no emperors, this is not a French title; France needs a king, but a soldier-
kind. The Bourbon dynasty is exhausted and will never return. Who could suit
the French more than me?” Sorel, L’Europe et la Révolution française, VIII:190.
Also see L. Pingaud, Bernadotte, Napoléon et les Bourbons, 1797, 1844 (Paris:
L. Plon, 1901), 220–303.
64. See Leggiere, Napoleon and Berlin, 293–94.
65. Agathon Jean François Fain, Memoirs of the Invasion of France by the Allied Armies
and of the Last Six Months of the Reign of Napoleon (London: H. Colburn, 1834), 7.
66. Anne-Jean-Marie-René Savary, duc de Rovigo, Mémoires du Duc de Rovigo: pour
servir à l’histoire de l’empereur Napoléon (Paris: A. Bossange, 1828), VI:239.
Napoleon tried a couple of diplomatic ruses of his own. In November 1813 he
unexpectedly announced the restoration of Ferdinand VII to the throne of
Spain but on condition that the Spanish Cortes, which controlled the country,
would stay out of the war. In December Napoleon also released Pope Pius VII,
hoping that his return to Italy would sow discord and complicate Austrian
plans for reclaiming the peninsula. Neither ploy worked, however.
67. See Official Communication to the Russian Ambassador at London, January
19, 1805, in Charles K. Webster, British Diplomacy, 1813–1815 (London:
G. Bell and Sons, 1921), 389–94.
68. Cabinet Memorandum, December 26, 1813, in W. Alison Phillips, The
Confederation of Europe: A Study of the European Alliance, 1813–1823 (London:
Longmans, Green, 1914), 65–66.
69. “I cannot omit again impressing upon your Lordship the importance of awaken-
ing the [Russian] Emperor’s mind to the necessity, for his own interests as well
as ours, of peremptorily excluding from the general negotiations every maritime
question. If he does not, he will risk a similar misunderstanding between those
Powers on whose union the safety of Europe now rests. Great Britain may be
notes to pages 574–578 | 817

driven out of a Congress, but not out of its maritime rights, and, if the Continental
Powers know their own interests, they will not hazard this.” Castlereagh to
Cathcart, July 14, 1813, in Webster, British Diplomacy, 1813–1815, 14.
70. For insights, see Castlereagh’s correspondence in Webster, British Diplomacy,
1813–1815, and analysis in Bew, Castlereagh, 319–51; Paul W. Schroeder,
“An Unnatural ‘Natural Alliance’: Castlereagh, Metternich and Aberdeen in
1813,” International History Review 10, no. 4 (1988): 522–40.
71. For a full quote, see Charles William Vane Marquis of Londonderry, Narrative
of the War in Germany and France in 1813 and 1814 (London: Henry Colburn
and Richard Bentley, 1830), 255–56.
72. Napoleon was naturally maddened by the news. “The conduct of the King of
Naples is infamous and there is no name for that of the Queen [Caroline].
I hope to live long enough to be able to revenge myself and France for such an
insult and for such fearful ingratitude,” Napoleon to Fouché, February 13,
1814, in Correspondance de Napoléon, XXVII:157.
73. Michael V. Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, vol. 1, The Allied Invasion of France,
1813–1814 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2017), 269–333;
Maurice Henri Weil, La Campagne de 1814 (Paris: Librairie Militaire de
L. Baudoin, 1891), I:33–341; Muir, Wellington: The Path to Victory, 552–65;
Alexandre Benckendorf, “The Liberation of the Netherlands (November–December
1813): From the Mémoires du comte Alexandre Benckendorf,” ed. and trans.
Alexander Mikaberidze, in The Napoleon Series, http://www.napoleon
-series.org/research/russianarchives/c_netherlands.html.
74. For an exalting view of marie-louises, see Henry Houssaye, Napoleon and the
Campaign of 1814 (London: Hugh Rees, 1914), 24. For a critical assessment of
Houssaye’s view, see Charles J. Esdaile, Napoleon, France and Waterloo: The Eagle
Rejected (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2016), 83–84.
75. Étienne-Denis Pasquier, Histoire de mon temps. Mémoires du chancelier Pasquier
(Paris: E. Plon, Nourrit, 1893), II:117–29.
76. Cited in Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, I:82. Parts of this speech also appear in
other sources—Christopher Herold, The Age of Napoleon (New York: Houghton
Mifflin, 2003), 375; Felix Markham, Napoleon (New York: Mentor, 1963),
209; Ralph Ashby, Napoleon Against Great Odds: The Emperor and the Defenders
of France, 1814 (Santa Barbara CA: Praeger, 2010), 30—but the specific word-
ing varies slightly in these renditions.
77. From Napoleon’s conversation with the German banker Bethmann, cited in
August Fournier, Napoleon I: A Biography (New York: H. Holt, 1911), 330.
78. Cited in Fournier, Napoleon I, 331.
79. Pasquier, Histoire de mon temps, II:99. A slightly different version is in Alphone
de Beauchamp, Histoire des campagnes de 1814 et de 1815 (Paris: Le Normant,
1816), I:43.
80. Michael V. Leggiere, Blücher: Scourge of Napoleon (Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press, 2014), 324–25; Weil, La campagne de 1814, I:342–425, 458–507.
818 | notes to pages 578–581

81. Webster, The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 206; Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon,
I:534–54.
82. See SIRIO 31 (1880): 369–71; Castlereagh to Liverpool, February 18, 1814
(enclosing Lieven’s letter to Nesselrode); Castlereagh to Clancarty, February
20, 1814, in Memoirs and correspondence of Viscount Castlereagh, IX:266–73,
284–85; “Extrait des Mémoires de la Princesse Lieven,” in Grand Duke
Nikolai Mikhailovich, ed., Correspondance de l’empereur Alexandre Ier avec sa soeur
la grande-duchesse Catherine, princesse d’Oldenbourg, puis reine de Wurtemberg,
1805–18 (St. Petersburg: Manufacture de Papiers de l’Etat, 1910), 225–27.
83. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, 288–94.
84. Leggiere, The Fall of Napoleon, 534–54.
85. Wilhelm Oncken, “Die Krisis der letzten Friedensverhandlung mit Napoleon I:
Februar 1814,” in Historisches Taschenbuch (Leipzig: F.A. Brockhaus, 1886),
VI:5–19.
86. Henry Houssaye, 1814 (Paris: Librairie Académique Didier, 1895), 59–86;
Modest Bogdanovich, Istoriya voiny 1814 goda fo Frantsii i nizlozheniya Napoleona
I (St. Petersburg, 1865), I:176–255; Weil, La campagne de 1814, II:139–221,
274–346.
87. Castlereagh to Liverpool, February 26, 1814, in Webster, British Diplomacy,
1813–1815, 160–61.
88. The treaty’s text is in the Napoleon Series, http://www.napoleon-series.org/
research/government/ diplomatic/c_chaumont.html. For discussion, see
August Fournier, Der Congress von Châtillon. Die Politik im Kriege von 1814. Eine
historische Studie (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1900), 105–25.
89. Castlereagh to Liverpool, March 10, 1814, cited in Webster, The Congress of
Vienna, 1814–1815, 32.
90. Henry Houssaye, “La Capitulation de Soissons en 1814, d’après les documents
originaux,” Revue des Deux Mondes 70 (1885): 553–88; Bogdanovich, Istoriya
voiny 1814 goda, I:289–308; Alexander Mikaberidze, ed., The Russian Eyewitness
Accounts of the Campaign of 1814 (London: Frontline Books, 2013), 128–44.
91. Napoleon to King Joseph, March 5, 1814, in Correspondance de Napoléon,
XXVII:288. Writing to his minister of war, the French emperor demanded,
“Let this wretch [the commandant of Soissons] be arrested, as well as all the
members of his war council; let him be impeached before a military commis-
sion composed of generals, and for God’s sake act so that they may be all shot
within twenty-four hours on the Place de Grève. It is time to make examples.
Let the cause of the sentence be fully explained, printed, and distributed in
every direction.” Moreau was fortunate that the war ended before he could be
court-martialed, and he was able to enjoy a peaceful retirement after the war.
Napoleon to Clarke, March 5, 1814, in A. Thiers, Histoire du Consulat et de
l’Empire (Bruxelles: Librairie de J. B. Tarride, 1860), X:35.
92. One French historian goes as far as to claim that next to the Battle of
Waterloo, the capitulation of Soissons was the most disastrous event of
notes to pages 581–585 | 819

French history! Thiers, Histoire du Consulat et de l’Empire, XVIII:42.


Clausewitz downplayed the event, arguing against “the exaggerated impor-
tance that is always attributed to the capture of this place [Soissons].” Carl
von Clausewitz, La Campagne de 1813 et la Campagne de 1814 (Paris: Librairie
Militaire R. Chapelot, 1900), 175.
93. Bogdanovich, Istoriya voiny 1814 goda, I:330–50; Houssaye, 1814, 167–232;
Weil, La Campagne de 1814, III:148–245; Mikaberidze, The Russian Eyewitness
Accounts, 145–60.
94. Muir, Wellington, I:566–76.
95. Bogdanovich, Istoriya voiny 1814 goda, I:351–64; Mikaberidze, The Russian
Eyewitness Accounts, 161–99; Weil, La Campagne de 1814, III:263–71.
96. Weil, La Campagne de 1814, III:424–47.
97. Wellington defeated the French at Toulouse on April 10, 1814. Muir,
Wellington, I:578–84; Francisco Vela Santiago, Toulouse 1814: la última batalla
de la Guerra de Independencia española (Madrid: Almena, 2014).
98. For an excellent discussion, see Thierry Lentz, Les vingt jours de Fontainebleau:
la première abdication de Napoléon, 31 mars–20 avril 1814 (Paris: Perrin, 2014).
In the often-repeated traditional account, the marshals, led by Ney, Lefebvre,
and Moncey, confronted Napoleon and in a stormy conversation rejected his
suggestion to continue fighting, telling him bluntly that “the army will
obey its chiefs.” Napoleon supposedly then grabbed a sheet of paper and
wrote a statement consenting to abdicate. Lentz has shown much of this to
be untrue.
99. Neil Campbell, Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba, Being a Journal of Occurrences
in 1814–15 (London: John Murray, 1869), 190–91; F. L. von Waldburg-
Truchsess, Nouvelle relation de l’itinéraire de Napoléon de Fontainebleau à l’Ile
d’Elbe (Paris: C.-L.-F. Panckoucke, 1815), 24–25.
100. Article 1, Constitutional Statute, May 30, 1814, in the Napoleon Series, http://
www.napoleon-series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_paris1.html.
101. Article 2, Constitutional Statute, May 30, 1814.
102. To strengthen France’s neighbors, Holland was enlarged through the annexa-
tion of Belgium, Luxembourg, and a strip of land along the left bank of the
Rhine. The Swiss confederate organization was recognized and Piedmont-
Sardinia was restored in its “ancient dominions” but forced to give Savoy to
France; as a compensation, the Sardinian king received Genoa.
103. Article 1, Separate and Secret Articles between France and Great Britain,
Austria, Prussia, and Russia, May 30, 1814.
104. Jon Latimer, 1812: War with America (Cambridge MA: Belknap Press of
Harvard University Press, 2007), 177–84; Donald R. Hickey, The War of
1812: A Forgotten Conflict (Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 2012),
128–31; Michael A. Palmer, “A Failure of Command, Control, and
Communications: Oliver Hazard Perry and the Battle of Lake Erie,” Journal of
Erie Studies 17 (Fall 1988): 7–26.
820 | notes to pages 585–588

105. Latimer, 1812: War with America, 184–92.


106. Frank L. Owsley, “The Role of the South in the British Grand Strategy in the
War of 1812,” Tennessee Historical Quarterly 31 (Spring 1972): 22–38.
107. For a recent discussion, see the introduction and essays by Robert G. Thrower,
Gregory E. Dowd, Robert P. Collins, Kathryn E. Holland Braund, and Gregory
Waselkov in Tohopeka: Rethinking the Creek War and the War of 1812, ed.
Kathryn E. Holland Braund (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2012).
108. For details, see Henry S. Halbert and T. H. Ball, The Creek War of 1813 and
1814 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1995); Frank L. Owsley,
Struggle for the Gulf Borderlands: The Creek War and the Battle of New Orleans
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2000); Tom Kanon, Tennesseans at
War, 1812–15: Andrew Jackson, the Creek War, and the Battle of New Orleans
(Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2014), 56–119.
109. Another 1.9 million acres were transferred to the Cherokee Nation, which was
allied with the Americans during the war.
110. Donald E. Graves, “The Redcoats Are Coming! British Troop Movements to
North America in 1814,” Journal of the War of 1812 6, no. 3 (2001): 12–18.
111. During the war the United States called up some 10,110 volunteers in federal
service, 3,049 rangers, and 458,463 militiamen, almost half of them (197,653)
in 1814 alone. See Graves, “The Redcoats Are Coming!,” 17–18; J. C. A. Stagg,
“Enlisted Men in the United States Army, 1812–1815: A Preliminary Survey,”
William and Mary Quarterly 43 (October 1986): 615–45.
112. Latimer, 1812: War with America, 282–86; Jeffrey Kimball, “The Battle of
Chippawa: Infantry Tactics in the War of 1812,” Military Affairs 31 (Winter
1967–68): 169–86.
113. See Donald E. Graves, “Where Right and Glory Lead!”: The Battle of Lundy’s
Lane, 1814 (Toronto: Robin Brass, 2014).
114. For details, see Donald E. Graves, “‘The Finest Army Britain Ever Sent to
North America’: The Composition, Strength, and Losses of British Land Forces
During the Plattsburgh Campaign, September 1814,” Journal of the War of
1812 7, no. 4 (Fall/Winter 2003): 6–12.
115. Latimer, 1812: War with America, 345–68; Walter R. Borneman, 1812: The
War That Forged a Nation (New York: Harper Collins, 2007), 199–215. Also
see Allan S. Everest, The War of 1812 in the Champlain Valley (Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press, 1981). Asked to comment about the North
American theater, Wellington argued that “The defence of Canada . . . depends
upon the navigation of the lakes. . . . Any offensive operation founded upon
Canada must be preceded by the establishment of naval superiority on the
lakes.” Wellington to Earl Bathurst, February 22, 1814, in Arthur Wellesley,
The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington, During His Various
Campaigns, ed. John Gurwood (London: John Murray, 1834), XI:525.
116. Borneman, 1812: The War That Forged a Nation, 216–48.
notes to pages 589–593 | 821

117. For details, see Donald R. Hickey, Glorious Victory: Andrew Jackson and the
Battle of New Orleans (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 2015);
Robert V. Remini, The Battle of New Orleans: Andrew Jackson and America’s First
Military Victory (London: Pimlico, 2001); Robin Reilly, The British at the Gates:
The New Orleans Campaign in the War of 1812 (New York: Putnam, 1974).
118. James A. Carr, “The Battle of New Orleans and the Treaty of Ghent,” Diplomatic
History 3 (Summer 1979): 273–82.
119. Contrary to popular perceptions, the Peace of Ghent did not end the war upon
its signing on December 24. Article I of the treaty stipulated that all hostili-
ties would be suspended only after the treaty had been ratified by both parties.
Britain ratified the treaty three days later, but it was not until February 16,
1815, or five weeks after the battle, that the Congress consented to it.
120. The United States did acquire Mobile and a stretch of West Florida that
extended from the Pearl to the Perdido River south of the 31st parallel, about
6,000 square miles in total.
121. The Report of the Loyal and Patriotic Society of Upper Canada (Montreal: William
Gray, 1817), 353.
122. London Times, December 28, 1812.
123. Leeds Mercury, August 8, 1812.

Chapter 23
1. On the festivities and social setting, see David King, Vienna, 1814: How the
Conquerors of Napoleon Made Love, War, and Peace at the Congress of Vienna (New
York: Harmony Books, 2008); Adam Zamoyski, Rites of Peace: The Fall of
Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna (New York: HarperCollins Publishers,
2007); Gregor Dallas, 1815: The Roads to Waterloo (London: Richard Cohen,
1996); Charles-Otto Zieseniss, Le Congrès de Vienne et l’Europe des princes (Paris:
Belfond, 1984); Wolf D. Gruner, Der Wiener Kongress, 1814/15 (Stuttgart:
Philipp Reclam, 2014); Harold Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna: A Study in
Allied Unity: 1812–1822 (New York: HBJ Books, 1974), 159–60. For origi-
nal police reports and other documents, see Maurice-Henri Weil, Les dessous du
Congrés de Vienne: d’après les documents originaux des archives du Ministère impérial
et royal de l’intérieur à Vienne (Paris: Librairie Payot, 1917), vol. 1; August
Fournier, ed., Die Geheimpolizei auf dem Wiener Kongress. Eine Auswahl aus ihren
Papieren (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1913).
2. Castlereagh to Liverpool, March 10, 1814, in Charles Webster, The Congress of
Vienna, 1814–1815 (London: Oxford University Press, 1919), 51.
3. Treaty of Paris, May 30, 1814, in The Napoleon Series, http://www.napoleon-
series.org/research/government/diplomatic/c_paris1.html.
4. Cited in Duff Cooper, Talleyrand (New York: Grove Press, 2001), 28.
5. For most recent and judicious discussion of the diplomat, see Emmanuel de
Waresquiel, Talleyrand: le prince immobile (Paris: Fayard, 2003); For a more
822 | notes to pages 593–598

i­ n-depth treatment, see Georges Lacour-Gayet’s four-volume study Talleyrand,


1754–1838 (Paris: Payot, 1930).
6. For Gentz’s biography, see Paul R. Sweet, Friedrich von Gentz: Defender of the Old
Order (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1970).
7. Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna, 38.
8. For a historical assessment of Metternich, see Alan Sked, Metternich and Austria:
An Evaluation (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008).
9. It is noteworthy that almost none of Alexander’s senior advisors were Russian,
but rather Germans (Stein, Stakelberg, and Nesselrode), Poles (Czartoryski),
Swiss (Laharpe), and natives of Corfu (Capo d’Istria) and Corsica (Pozzo di
Borgo).
10. See John Bew, Castlereagh: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2012),
558ff. After Castlereagh committed suicide in 1822, Lord Byron wrote a dis-
paraging epigram about him: “Posterity will ne’er survey / A nobler grave
than this: / Here lie the bones of Castlereagh: / Stop, traveler, and piss.” The
Works of Lord Byron, ed. Rowland E. Prothero (London: John Murray, 1904),
IV:394.
11. Unless otherwise noted, my discussion of the congress is based on Nicolson, The
Congress of Vienna; Brian E. Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics After
Napoleon (Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2014); Enno E. Kraehe,
Metternich’s German Policy, vol. 2, The Congress of Vienna (Princeton, NJ: Princeton
University Press, 1983); Thierry Lentz, Le Congrès de Vienne: Une refondation de
l’Europe 1814–1815 (Paris: Perrin, 2013); Mark Jarrett, The Congress of Vienna
and Its Legacy: War and Great Power Diplomacy After Napoleon (London: I. B. Tauris,
2013); Jacques-Alain de Sédouy, Le Congrès de Vienne: L’Europe contre la France
1812–1815 (Paris: Perrin, 2003); Henry Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich,
Castlereagh and the Problem of Peace 1812–1822 (London: Phoenix, 2000 [1957]).
12. Castlereagh to Liverpool, September 24, 1814, in Webster, The Congress of
Vienna, 1814–1815, Appendix I, 150.
13. Protocols of the Conference of Plenipotentiaries, September 22, 1814, in
British and Foreign State Papers (London: James Ridgway and Sons, 1839),
II:554–57.
14. For details, see memorandums in Webster, The Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815,
appendices II–V, 151–64.
15. Nicolson, The Congress of Vienna, 141.
16. Talleyrand to King Louis XVIII, October 4, 1814, in Correspondance inédite du
prince de Talleyrand et du roi Louis XVIII pendant le Congrès de Vienne, ed. Georges
Pallain (Paris: E. Plon, 1881), 10–24; Talleyrand’s memo of October 1, 1814,
in British and Foreign State Papers, II:559–60.
17. Alexander to Czartoryski, January 13, 1813, in Mémoires du prince Adam
Czartoryski et correspondance avec l’Empereur Alexandre Ier, ed. Charles de Mazade
(Paris: Plon, 1887), II:302–3.
18. VPR, VIII:103–5.
notes to pages 598–601 | 823

19. On the Polish-Saxon crisis see Vick, The Congress of Vienna, 278–320; Jarrett,
The Congress of Vienna and Its Legacy, 98–119; C. K. Webster, “England and the
Polish-Saxon Problem at the Congress of Vienna,” Transactions of the Royal
Historical Society 7 (1913): 49–101.
20. The Russo-Prussian alliance treaties, signed in early 1813, were based on the
plan of exchanging Prussia’s Polish territories (seized in 1792–1795) for all of
Saxony.
21. Cathcart to Castlereagh, January 16, 1814, in Robert Stewart, Viscount
Castlereagh, Correspondence, Despatches and Other Papers of Viscount Castlereagh
(London: William Shoberl, 1851), IX:171; Münster to the Prince Regent,
February 23–25, in August Fournier, Der Congress von Châtillon Die politik im
kriege von 1814. Eine historische studie (Vienna: F. Tempsky, 1900), 302–3. Also
see “Zur Vorgeschichte des Wiener Kongresses,” in August Fournier, Historische
Studien und Skizzen (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1908), II:295–98.
22. Memorandum of December 20, 1814, in Leonard Chodzko Angeberg, Le
Congrès de Vienne et les Traités de 1815 (Paris: Amyot, 1864), I:553.
23. Enno E. Kraehe, Metternich’s Germany Policy, vol. II, The Congress of Vienna,
1814–1815 (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1983), 241–63.
24. Talleyrand to Metternich, December 19, 1814, in Angeberg, Le Congrès de
Vienne, I:540–44.
25. Castlereagh to Liverpool, December 25, 1814, in Supplementary Despatches and
Memoranda of Field Marshal Arthur, Duke of Wellington (London: John Murray,
1860), IX:511; Talleyrand to King Louis XVIII, December 28, 1814, in
Correspondance inédite du prince de Talleyrand et du roi Louis XVIII, 198.
26. Liverpool to Wellington, December 23, 1814, in Supplementary Despatches,
Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal Duke of Wellington, IX:494.
27. Castlereagh to Liverpool, January 1, 1815, in Webster, “England and the
Polish-Saxon Problem at the Congress of Vienna,” 88–89.
28. Niels Rosenkrantz, Journal du Congrès de Vienne, 1814–1815, ed. Georg
Nørregård (Copenhagen: G. E. C. Gad, 1953), 114; Wilhelm von Humboldt,
Wilhelm und Caroline von Humboldt in ihren Briefen (Berlin, 1910), IV:441.
29. Talleyrand to King, September 25, 1814, in Correspondance inédite du prince de
Talleyrand et du roi Louis XVIII, 3; Rosenkrantz, Journal du Congrès de Vienne,
125–26.
30. Lord Apsley to Earl Bathurst, January 5, 1815 in Report on the Manuscripts of
Earl Bathurst Preserved at Cirencester Park (London: Her Majesty’s Stationery
Office, 1923), 320.
31. Castlereagh to Liverpool, January 2, 1815, in Supplementary Despatches,
Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal Duke of Wellington, IX:523.
32. Talleyrand to Louis XVIII, January 4, 1814, in Correspondance inédite du prince
de Talleyrand et du roi Louis XVIII, 209.
33. Liverpool to Castlereagh, December 23, 1814, in Supplementary Despatches,
Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal Duke of Wellington, IX:498.
824 | notes to pages 601–605

34. Vick, The Congress of Vienna, 278–320; Jarrett, The Congress of Vienna and Its
Legacy, 94–130; Zamoyski, Rites of Peace, 385–419. Also see Cooke to Liverpool,
January 2, 1815, in Supplementary Despatches and Memoranda of Field Marshal
Arthur Duke of Wellington, IX:521.
35. Cited in Michael V. Leggiere, Blücher: Scourge of Napoleon (Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press, 2014), 372.
36. “Le Charte de 1814,” in Léon Cahen and Albert Mathiez, Les lois française de
1815 à nos jours: accompagnées des documents politiques les plus importants (Paris:
Alcan, 1919), 11–19.
37. Article 57, in “Le Charte de 1814,” 18.
38. For an interesting discussion of the Bourbon missteps, see André Jardin and
André Jean Tudesq, La France des notables. L’évolution générale: 1815–1848
(Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1973), 24–26.
39. A recent study is Mark Braude, The Invisible Emperor: Napoleon on Elba from
Exile to Escape (New York: Penguin, 2018).
40. Guillaume Joseph Roux Peyrusse, Mémorial et archives de m. le baron Peyrusse,
trésorier général de la couronne pendant les centjours, Vienne—Moscou—Île d’Elbe
(Carcassonne: P. Labau 1869), 277–78.
41. “À l’Armée,” March 1, 1815, in CN, XXVIII:4. Also see proclamations to the
French people and to the Imperial Guard in CN, XXVIII:1–3, 5–7. For
details, see Norman MacKenzie, The Escape from Elba: The Fall and Flight of
Napoleon, 1814–1815 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1982), 71–216;
Henri Houssay, 1815. Le Retour de l’Ile d’Elbe (Paris: Perrin, 1901), 200–269.
42. See for example, Nicolas Charles Oudinot, Memoirs of Marshal Oudinot, duc de
Reggio, ed. Gaston Stiegler (London: H. Henry, 1896), 295–96; Etienne-
Jacques-Joseph-Alexandre Macdonald, Recollections of Marshal Macdonald, Duke
of Tarentum, ed. Camille Rousset (London: R. Bentley and Son, 1892),
II:232–85.
43. Accounts differ as to Napoleon’s exact words; the present citation is enshrined
on the local commemorative plaque in Laffray. Napoleon knew that he had
little to fear from the soldiers of the 5th Line Regiment, who had already been
engaged in discussions to switch sides and revealed sympathies to the imperial
cause. For details, see Paul Britten Austin, 1815: The Return of Napoleon
(London: Greenhill Books, 2002), 135–60; Houssay, 1815. Le Retour de l’Ile
d’Elbe, 239–46.
44. Order of the Day, March 13, 1815, in Trial of Marshal Ney, Prince of Moskwa,
for High Treason . . . (London: E. Cox and Son, 1816), 45.
45. Honoré de Balzac, “Le Medecin de Campagne,” in Œuvres complètes de M. de
Balzac, ed. Jean A. Ducourneau (Paris: Furne, 1845), XIII:446.
46. François Nicolas Mollien, Mémoires d’un ministre du trésor public 1780–1815
(Paris: Guillaumin, 1898), III:419.
47. Louis-Mathieu Molé, Le comte Molé, 1781–1855: sa vie, ses mémoires, ed. Helie
Guillaume Hubert Noailles (Paris: E. Champion, 1922), I:208–9.
notes to pages 605–610 | 825

48. In fact, one of Napoleon’s first proclamations, to the inhabitants of the Alpine
departments on March 6, already talks about his intention to redress “all
inequalities,” restore equality of “all classes,” and guarantee all property pos-
sessions. See CN, XXVIII:7.
49. Jean Rapp, Mémoires . . . (Paris: Didot, 1823), 282.
50. Napoleon’s Speech at the Council of State, March 26, 1815, in CN, XXVIII:36;
Acte additionnel aux constitutions du Premier Empire, AN AE/II/1577.
51. See the excellent discussion in R. S. Alexander, Bonapartism and Revolutionary
Tradition in France: The Fédérés of 1815 (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1991).
52. Gaspard Gourgaud, Talks of Napoleon at St. Helena. . . (Chicago: A. C. McClurg,
1904), 192.
53. Napoleon’s Speech to the Chambers, June 11, 1815, in CN, XXVIII:312–13.
54. On popular Bonapartism in 1815, see Frédéric Bluche, Le Bonapartisme: aux
origines de la droite autoritaire (1800–1850) (Paris: Nouvelles éditions Latines,
1980), 95–122.
55. Memoirs of Prince Metternich, ed. Richard Metternich, trans. Robina Napier
(New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1880), I:255.
56. Murat rashly marched northward and was routed by the Austrians at Tolentino
on May 3; when he arrived in the south of France as a refugee, Napoleon
refused to see or employ him.
57. Ordre du Jour, June 13, 1815, in CN, no. 22049, XXVIII:320–22.
58. Napoleon to Ney, June 16, 1815, in CN, no. 22058, XXVIII:335.
59. Captain Bowles to Lord Fitzharris, June 19, 1815, in A Series of Letters: Of the
First Earl of Malmesbury, His Family and Friends from 1745 to 1820, ed. James
Harris (London: Richard Bentley, 1870), II:445–46.
60. Leggiere, Blucher, 388–404; Peter Hofschröer, Waterloo, 1815: Quatre Bras and
Ligny (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2005), 73–91; Andrew Uffindell, The Eagle’s
Last Triumph: Napoleon’s Victory at Ligny, June 1815 (London: Greenhill Books,
1994).
61. For an excellent discussion based on British and Dutch sources, see Erwin
Muilwijk, Quatre Bras, Perponcher’s Gamble: 16th June 1815 (Bleiswijk, Netherlands:
Sovereign House Books, 2013). For the French side, see Paul L. Dawson, Marshal
Ney at Quatre Bras (Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2017).
62. Archibald Frank Becke, Napoleon and Waterloo: The Emperor’s Campaign with the
Armée du Nord, 1815 (London: Greenhill Books, 1995), 134.
63. More has been written on Waterloo than any other battle of the Napoleonic
war. I found the following studies useful: Charles J. Esdaile, The Eagle Rejected:
Napoleon, France and Waterloo (Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2016); Paul L. Dawson,
Waterloo: The Truth at Last: Why Napoleon Lost the Great Battle (Barnsley:
Frontline Books, 2018); Andrew Field, Waterloo: The French Perspective
(Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2017); Alan Forrest, Waterloo (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 2015), Mark Adkin, The Waterloo Companion (London: Aurum
826 | notes to pages 610–616

Press, 2001); Jac Weller, Wellington at Waterloo (London: Greenhill, 1992);


Henry Houssaye, 1815 (Paris: Perrin, 1909). For a micro-study of the battle,
see Brendan Simms, The Longest Afternoon: The 400 Men Who Decided the Battle
of Waterloo (New York: Basic Books, 2015). For eyewitness accounts, Gareth
Glover’s multi-volume The Waterloo Archive (London: Frontline Books,
2010–2014) is indispensable. Equally useful is Glover’s concise but insightful
Waterloo: Myth and Reality (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2014). For the usually over-
looked Dutch and Belgian contributions, see Erwin Muilwijk, Standing Firm at
Waterloo: 17 & 18 June (Bleiswijk, Netherlands: Sovereign House Books, 2014).
For how the battle was remembered, see Timothy Fitzpatrick, The Long Shadow
of Waterloo: Myths, Memories and Debates (Oxford: Casemate, 2019).
64. Cited in Rory Muir, Wellington: Waterloo and the Fortunes of Peace (New Haven,
CT: Yale University Press, 2015), 63.
65. For a recent discussion, see Paul L. Dawson, Napoleon and Grouchy: The Last
Great Waterloo Mystery Unravelled (Barnsley: Frontline Books, 2017).
66. For the most recent discussion of General Pierre Jacques Étienne Cambronne
and the famous story of the last stand of the Imperial Guard, see Stéphane
Calvet’s revisionist study, Cambronne: La Légende de Waterloo (Paris: Vendémiaire,
2015).
67. Memoirs of Prince Metternich, II:602.
68. Benjamin Robert Haydon, Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, Historical Painter,
from His Autobiography and Journals, ed. Tom Taylor (London: Longman, Brown,
Green, and Longmans, 1853), I:239.
69. Napoleon to Joseph, June 19, 1815, in Lettres Inédites de Napoléon Ier (An VIII,
1815) (Paris: Plon, 1897), II:357–58.
70. Armand Augustin Louis de Caulaincourt, Napoleon and His Times (Philadelphia:
E. L. Carey & A. Hart, 1838), II:173.
71. Napoleon to the Prince Recent of Britain, July 14, 1815, in CN, XXVIII:348.
See Charles-Éloi Vial, Le dernier voyage de l’empereur: Paris–Île d’Aix, 1815
(Paris: Éditions Vendémiaire, 2015); J. David Markham, The Road to St. Helena:
Napoleon After Waterloo (Barnsley: Pen & Sword, 2008), 101–23.
72. See Michal J. Thornton, Napoleon After Waterloo: England and the St. Helena Decision
(Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 1968), esp. 124–60; Paul Brunyee,
Napoleon’s Britons and the St. Helena Decision (Stroud: History Press, 2009).

Chapter 24
1. For the text of the Final Act, see The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803
to the Present Time (London: T. C. Hansard, 1816), XXXII:71ff.
2. Dominique de Pradt, L’Europe après le Congrès d’Aix-la-Chapelle (Paris: Béchet
Ainé, 1819), 236.
3. Enno Kraehe, “A Bipolar Balance of Power,” American Historical Review 97
(1992): 707–15. In addition to his magnum opus, The Transformation of
notes to pages 616–620 | 827

European Politics, 1763–1848 (Oxford: Oxford Clarendon Press, 1994), see


Schroeder’s articles “Did the Vienna Settlement Rest on a Balance of Power?,”
American Historical Review 97 (1992): 683–706, and “Alliances, 1815–1945:
Weapons of Power and Tools of Management,”\ in Historical Dimensions of
National Security Problems, ed. Klaus Knorr (Lawrence: University Press of
Kansas, 1975), 218–28. For the most recent reassessment of the Congress
System, see Beatrice de Graaf, Ido de Haan, and Brian E. Vick, eds., Securing
Europe After Napoleon: 1815 and the New European Security Culture (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2019).
4. Wolf Gruner has done much work highlighting the role of the German middle
states in the post-Napoleonic international relations. See his Der Deutsche Bund
1815–1866 (Munich: Beck, 2012) and Der Wiener Kongress 1814/1815
(Stuttgart: Reclam Verlag, 2014). Also see his revisionist approach to the
Congress of Vienna in “Was There a Reformed Balance of Power System or
Cooperative Great Power Hegemony,” American Historical Review 97 (1992):
725–32.
5. For details, see Joseph L. Black, Nicholas Karamzin and Russian Society in the
Nineteenth Century (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1975).
6. On the Polish settlement, see Articles 1 to 12, and on the Saxon/Prussian com-
promise, see Articles 15–25 of the Final Act.
7. Cited in Walter Alison Phillips, The Confederation of Europe: A Study of the
European Alliance, 1813–1823 (London: Longmans, Green, 1920), 138–39.
8. Article 1, Definitive Treaty Between Great Britain, Austria, Prussia and
Russia, and France, November 20, 1815, in Britain and Foreign State Papers
(London: James Ridgway and Sons, 1839), III:284–87.
9. See Article 4 of the Treaty of Paris, and Convention between Britain, Austria,
Prussia and Russia, and France, Relative to the Pecuniary Indemnity to be
Paid by France to the Allied Powers, November 20, 1815, in Britain and
Foreign State Papers, III:293–98; Convention Between Britain, Austria, Prussia
and Russia, and France, Relative to the Occupation of a Military Line in France
by an Allied Army, November 20, 1815, in Britain and Foreign State Papers,
III:298–305. For in-depth discussion of the Allied occupation of France, see
Christine Haynes, Our Friends the Enemies: The Occupation of France After Napoleon
(Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2018).
10. On the Bonapartes after Napoleon, see Pierre Branda, La Saga des Bonaparte
(Paris: Perrin, 2018); David Stackton, The Bonapartes (London: Hodder and
Soughton, 1967).
11. See Rafe Blaufarb, Bonapartists in the Borderlands: French Exiles and Refugees on
the Gulf Coast, 1815–1835 (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2005);
Eric Saugera, Reborn in America: French Exiles and Refugees in the United States
and the Vine and Olive Adventure, 1815–1865 (Tuscaloosa: University of
Alabama Press, 2011).
828 | notes to pages 620–623

12. Eugene N. White, “Making the French Pay: The Costs and Consequences of the
Napoleonic Reparations,” European Review of Economic History 5, no. 3 (2001): 339.
13. One British historian pointed out that after the Napoleonic Wars Britain “found
herself, the victor, in the curious position of being far more heavily burdened with
debt that France, who had lost.” J. H. Clapham, “The Economic Condition of
Europe After the Napoleonic War,” Scientific Monthly 11, no. 4 (1920): 321;
Clapham, The Economic Development of France and Germany, 1815–1914 (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 1968), 121–22. For comparison of British and
French finances (and debt), see Michael D. Bordo and Eugene N. White. “A Tale
of Two Currencies: British and French Finance During the Napoleonic Wars,”
Journal of Economic History 51, no. 2 (1991): 303–16.
14. Thomas Dwight Veve, The Duke of Wellington and the British Army of Occupation
in France, 1815–1818 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992), 138–40;
Haynes, Our Friends the Enemies, 219–24.
15. Act 10, “Treaty between the King of the Netherlands, Prussia, England,
Austria and Russia,” May 31, 1815, in The Parliamentary Debates from the Year
1803 to the Present Time, XXXII: 175–80. Also see Articles 65–73 of the Final
Act of the Congress of Vienna.
16. Act 11, Declaration of the Powers on the Affairs of the Helvetic Confederacy,
March 20, 1815; Act of Accession of the Swiss Diet, May 27, 1815, in The
Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, XXXII:182–88.
Also see Articles 74–84 of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna.
17. Acts 12, 13 and 14, in The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the
Present Time, XXXII:188–200. Also see Articles 85–91 of the Final Act of the
Congress of Vienna.
18. Articles 65–73 of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna.
19. Act 9, Article 2, “Federative Constitution of Germany,” June 8, 1815, The
Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, XXXII:168. Also
see Article 63, The Final Act of the Congress of Vienna: “The Act was initially
signed by 38 plenipotentiaries from 34 principalities and four free cities; the
39th state, Hesse-Homburg, was added in 1817.”
20. Act 9, Article 11, “Federative Constitution of Germany,” June 8, 1815, The
Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, XXXII:170.
21. See Articles 53–64 of the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna.
22. See Wolf Gruner, Der Deutsche Bund 1815–1866 (Munich: Beck, 2012);
David G. Williamson, Germany Since 1815: A Nation Forged and Renewed (New
York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 17–39; Frank B. Tipton, A History of Modern
Germany Since 1815 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 1–58.
23. T. K. Derry, History of Scandinavia: Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, and
Iceland (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1979), 211–15.
24. Act 15, “Declaration of the Powers on the Abolition of the Slave Trade,”
February 8, 1815, in The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present
Time, XXXII:200–201.
notes to pages 623–627 | 829

25. Act 16, “Regulations for the Free Navigation of Rivers,” in The Parliamentary
Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time, XXXII:202–14.
26. Act 17, “Regulations Concerning the Precedence of Diplomatic Agents,”
in The Parliamentary Debates from the Year 1803 to the Present Time,
XXXII:214–15.
27. Viscount Castlereagh to Lord Liverpool, September 28, 1815, in The Life and
Administration of Robert Banks, Second Earl of Liverpool, ed. Charles Yonge
(London: Macmillan, 1868), II:229; Clemens Wenzel Lothar Fürst von
Metternich, Memoirs of Prince Metternich, 1773–1815, ed. Richard Metternich,
trans. Robina Napier (London: Richard Bentley, 1880), I:165.
28. The Treaty of the Holy Alliance, September 26, 1815, in Britain and Foreign
State Papers, III:211.
29. See the excellent discussion in de Graaf, de Haan, and Vick, Securing Europe
After Napoleon; Beatrice de Graaf, Tegen de terreur. Hoe Europa veilig werd na
Napoleon (Amsterdam: Prometheus, 2018); Adam Zamoyski, Phantom Terror:
Political Paranoia and the Creation of the Modern State, 1789–1848 (New York:
Basic Books, 2015).
30. The most recent discussion of the aftermath and costs of war is Alan Forrest,
Karen Hagemann, and Michael Rowe, eds., War, Demobilization and Memory:
The Legacy of War in the Era of Atlantic Revolutions (New York: Palgrave
Macmillan, 2016).
31. For an in-depth discussion of historiography and data, see Jacques Houdaille,
“Pertes de l’armée de terre sous le premier Empire, d’après les registres matri-
cules,” in Population 27, no. 1 (1972): 27–50. For a concise discussion, see
David Rouanet, “Bilan humain des guerres de l’Empire,” in Napoléon et l’Europe,
ed. Émile Robbe and François Lagrange (Paris: Musée de l’Armée, 2013),
56–59.
32. Haydon, Life of Benjamin Robert Haydon, I, 238–39; William Dorset Fellowes,
Paris: During the Interesting Month of July, 1815. A Series of Letters Addressed to a
Friend in London (London: Gales and Fenner, 1815), 22.
33. This number includes both British and foreign casualties. See J. W. Fortescue,
The County Lieutenancies and the Army, 1803–1814 (London: Macmillan, 1909),
291; William B. Hodge, “On the Mortality Arising from Military Operations,”
Journal of the Statistical Society of London XIX (1856): 264–65.
34. Martin Robson, A History of the Royal Navy: The Napoleonic Wars (London:
I. B. Tauris, 2014), 156.
35. John William Fortescue, A History of the British Army (London: Macmillan,
1910), IV, part 1, 565; Michael Duffy, Soldiers, Sugar and Seapower: The British
Expeditions to the West Indies and the War against Revolutionary France (Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1987).
36. Robert Burnham and Ron McGuigan, The British Army Against Napoleon:
Facts, Lists and Trivia, 1805–1815 (Havertown, MD: Frontline Books, 2010),
213–14; Andrew Bamford, Sickness, Suffering, and the Sword: The British
830 | notes to pages 628–633

Regiment on Campaign (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 2014),


220–22, 303–4.
37. M. R. Smallman-Raynor and A. D. Cliff, War Epidemics: An Historical Geography
of Infectious Diseases in Military Conflict and Civil Strife, 1850–2000 (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2004), 107–9.
38. Bagration to the Noble Estate of Wallachia, February 8, 1810, in Bagration v
Dunaiskikh kniazhestvakh: Sbornik Dokumentov (Chișinău, 1949), 76.
39. Anthony McFarlane, War and Independence in Spanish America (New York:
Routledge, 2014), 293.
40. Robert Harvey, Liberators: South America’s Savage Wars of Freedom, 1810–1830
(London: Robinson, 2002), 192.
41. Pavel Pushin, Diaries of the 1812–1814 Campaigns, trans. and ed. A. Mikaberidze
(Tbilisi: NSG, 2011), 151, 154.
42. The other major eruptions included the 1808–1809 eruption in the south-
western Pacific Ocean, 1812 eruptions by La Soufrière on St. Vincent in the
Caribbean and Awu in the Sangihe Islands (Dutch East Indies), the 1813 erup-
tion in Suwanosejima in the Ryukyu Islands, (Japan), and the 1814 one in
Mayon in the Philippines. For a detailed discussion of the Tambora eruption,
see Gillen D’Arcy Wood, Tambora: The Eruption That Changed the World
(Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015).
43. See John Dexter Post, The Last Great Subsistence Crisis in the Western World
(Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press, 1977), 77.
44. Kresimir Kuzic, “The Impact of Two Volcano Eruptions on the Croatian Lands
at the Beginning of the 19th Century,” Croatian Meteorological Journal 42
(2007): 17–18.
45. Glenn Hueckel, “War and the British Economy, 1793–1815: A General
Equilibrium Analysis,” Explorations in Economic History 10 (1973): 369. Also
see A. Gayer, W. Rostow and A. Schwartz, The Growth and Fluctuations of the
British Economy, 1790–1850 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1953).
46. Angus Maddison, The World Economy: A Millennial Perspective (Paris: OECD,
2001), 95.
47. Patrick O’Brien, “The Impact of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars,
1793–1815, on the Long-Run Growth of the British Economy,” Review (Fernand
Braudel Center) XII (1989): 383.
48. See Victor Bulmer-Thomas, The Economic History of Latin America Since Independence
(Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003); Ralph Davis, The Industrial
Revolution and British Overseas Trade (Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1979).
49. See D. Bulbeck et al., Southeast Asian Exports since the 14th Century: Cloves,
Pepper, Coffee and Sugar (Leiden: KITLV Press, 1998).
50. A. Webster, “The Political Economy of Trade Liberalization: The East India
Company Charter of 1813,” Economic History Review (n.s.) 43 (1990): 404–19.
51. See D. Eltis and J. Walvin, eds., The Abolition of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Origins
and Effects in Europe, Africa and the Americas (Madison: University of Wisconsin
Press, 1981).
notes to pages 635–641 | 831

52. For example, in 1830, Britain experienced the Swing Riots, a widespread rural
uprising that opposed the process of enclosure and mechanized agriculture and
sought to reverse progressive impoverishment and dispossession of the English
agricultural workforce; in its scale, this rural uprising very nearly matched
France’s “Great Fear” rioting of 1789. For details, see John E. Archer, Social
Unrest and Popular Protest in England, 1780–1840 (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2000), ch. 2.
53. See Haynes, Our Friends the Enemies.
54. Matthew Anderson, “Russia and the Eastern Question, 1821–1941,” in
Europe’s Balance of Power 1815–1848, ed. Alan Sked (London: Macmillan,
1979), 82; Artur Attman, “The Russian Market in World Trade,
1500–1860,” Scandinavian Economic History Review XXIX, no. 3 (1981):
196–97; Peter Hopkirk, The Great Game: On Secret Service in High Asia (Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 1990), 102.
55. See David Brewer, The Flame of Freedom: The Greek War of Independence,
1821–1833 (London: John Murray, 2001); Nikiforos Diamandouros, ed.,
Hellenism and the First Greek War of Liberation (1821–1830): Continuity and
Change (Thessaloniki, Greece: Institute for Balkan Studies, 1976); George
Finlay, History of the Greek Revolution (London: Zeno, 1971).
56. José Fernando de Abascal, Viceroy of Peru, to Miguel de Lardizabal, Secretary
of Indies in Madrid, October 12, 1815, Archivo General de Indias, Lima, Peru,
749, N. 76, p. 678.
57. For details, see B. R. Hamnett, La politica contrarevolucionaria del Virrey Abascal:
Peru, 1806–1816 (Lima: IEP, 2000); V. Peralta Ruiz, En defense de la autoridad:
politica y cultura bajo el gobierno del virrey Abascal: Perú 1806–1816 (Madrid:
Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas, 2002).
58. Harold Temperley, The Foreign Policy of Canning, 1822–1827: England, the Neo-
Holy Alliance and the New World (New York: Frank Cass, 1966), 584.
59. Jackson to Monroe, January 6, 1818, in The Papers of Andrew Jackson, ed.
Harold D. Moser, David R. Hoth and George H. Hoemann (Knoxville:
University of Tennessee Press, 1994), IV:167.
60. Treaty of Amity, Settlement, and Limits Between the United States of America
and His Catholic Majesty, 1819, available at the Avalon Project, Yale Law
School, http://avalon.law.yale.edu/19th_century/sp1819.asp.
61. See Jay Sexton, The Monroe Doctrine: Empire and Nation in Nineteenth-Century
America (New York: Hill and Wang, 2011); Dexter Perkins, A History of the
Monroe Doctrine (Boston: Little, Brown, 1963).
62. See Sudhir Hazareesingh, The Legend of Napoleon (London: Granta Books,
2004); Hazareesingh, The Saint-Napoleon: Celebrating Sovereignty in Nineteenth-
Century France (Cambridge: MA: Harvard University Press, 2004).
select bibliography

Abbreviations
AE Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, France.
AN Archives Nationales, Paris.
BL British Library.
CN Napoleon Bonaparte, Correspondance de Napoleon Ier, publ. par
ordre de l’Empereur Napoléon III, 32 vols (Paris: Imprimerie
Impériale, 1858–69).
CRE Proceedings of the Consortium on Revolutionary Europe. Dropmore
Papers: The Manuscripts of J. B. Fortescue, Esq., Preserved at Dropmore
(London: Historical Manuscripts Commission, 1908).
FO Foreign Office, National Archives (formerly Public Records
Office), Kew, Great Britain.
NLS National Library of Scotland.
PSZ Polnoe sobranie zakonov Rossiiskoi imperii.
RGVIA Russian State Military Historical Archive.
Riksarkivet Swedish National Archives, Stockholm.
SHD Service historique de la Défense
SIRIO Sbornik Imperatorskago Russkago Istoricheskago Obschestva.
VPR Vneshnaya politika Rossii XIX i nachala XX veka: dokumenti
Rossiiskogo Ministerstva Inostrannikh del (Moscow, 1961).
WO War Office, The National Archives (formerly The Public
Records Office), Kew, Great Britain.
834 | select bibliography

Archives
Archives du Ministère des Affaires Etrangères, Paris, FranceArchives Nationale,
Paris, France
Archivo Histórico Nacional, Madrid, Spain
Archivo General de Indias, Sevilla, Spain
Archivo de la Real Chancillería de Valladolid, Spain
Biblioteca Histórica Municipal, Madrid, Spain
Central Historical Archive of Moscow
Centre des Archives diplomatiques de La Courneuve, Paris, France
India Office Records and Private Papers, British Library, London, Great Britain
Kriegsarchiv, Vienna, Austria
National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, Scotland
Riksarkivet, Swedish National Archives, Stockholm, Sweden.
Russian State Military Historical Archive, Moscow, Russia
Service Historique de l’Armée de Terre, Paris France
The National Archives (formerly The Public Records Office), Kew, Great Britain

Periodicals
American Historical Review
Cobbett’s Annual Register
The English Historical Review
Gazette Nationale, ou Le Moniteur Universel
Gentleman’s Magazine
The International History Review
Istoricheskii Vestnik
Le patriote français
London Gazette
The Monthly Visitor
Morning Chronicle
The New Annual Register
Revue d’histoire diplomatique
Revue de l’Institut Napoléon
Revue des études napoléoniennes
Revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine
Revue du souvenir napoléonien
Revue historique
Royal Military Chronicle
Russkaya starina
Russkii arkhiv
Sankt Petersburgskie vedomosti
Sbornik Imperatorskago russkago istoricheskago obshchestva
Slavic Review
select bibliography | 835

The Times (London)


Voennyi sbornik

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index

Abarca de Bolea, Pedro Pablo, conde de administrative reforms, 613


Aranda, 250 “Admirable Campaign,” 636–637
Abascal, José Fernando de, 637–638 Adriatic Sea, 125–126, 375, 378–379,
Abascal y Sousa, José Fernando de, 638 381–382, 390–393, 395–397,
Abbas Mirza, 427–428, 433–434, 438, 399–400, 416, 419
442, 444–445, 447 Aegean Sea, 401–402
Abdications of Bayonne, 255–256 Afghanis, 474
Abdulhamid I, Sultan, 29–31, 368 Afghanistan, 87, 94–97, 495
Abercromby, John, 497–498 Africa, 61–62
Abercromby, Ralph, 60, 94, 379–380 Af šar, Askar Khan, 437
Abkhazia, 398–399, 440 Age of Reason, 25–26
Abu’l-Hasan Khan, 444 Agha Muhammad Khan, Shah of Iran,
Act of Confederation, 35 90–91, 95, 97–99, 423, 434
Act of Mediation, 141 agricultural practices, 633
Act of Union, 110 agricultural protectionism, 287–288
Act to Provide a Naval Armament, 119 Ahmad Shah Durrani, 115–116, 474
Adams, John, 64, 66–67 Ahmed bin Abdul Karim, Sultan of
Adams, John Quincy, 639–640 Lahej, 92
Adams–Onís Treaty, 640–641 Ahmed Pasha, 420–421
Addington, Henry, 124, 126–128, Ahmet Cezzar Pasha, 77, 371
152–153, 156, 159–161, 164, Aksan, Virginia, 371
172, 192–193, 506–507 al-Alfi, Muhammad Bey, 402–404
Additional Act to the Imperial Åland Islands, 364–365
Constitution, 605–606 Alaska Peninsula, 38–39
“Addresses to the German Nation” Albania, 262–263, 371, 383–385,
(Ficht), 303–304 403–404, 410
Adlerkreutz, Karl Johan, 352 al-Bardissi, Osman Bey, 402–404
Adlersparre, Georg, 361–362, 364–365 HMS Albion, 494–495
index | 885

Aleutian Islands, 38 and the War of the Third Coalition,


Alexander I, Emperor of Russia 184–185, 203–207, 219–220,
and the aftermath of the Great War, 222–226
620–625, 635 Alexandria, Egypt, 73, 153
and British imperial interests in Asia, Algiers, 118–120
483 Ali Bey, 76
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, Alien Act, 169–170
154–164 Ali Pasha of Janina, 73, 371, 383, 399,
and conflicts in Caucasus region, 407–408
423–426, 429, 433–438 Allemand, Zacharie, 459, 462,
and conflicts in Spanish America, 465–466
508–509 Allied Council, 619–620
and the Congress of Vienna, 592, Alopeus, Maximilian von, 341–342
595, 598–599, 601 Alps, 53–54, 68, 607–608
and the d’Enghien affair, 191–193 Alsace, 572, 598–599
and 18th century international Alvarez, Mariano, 273
order, 25 Alzaga, Martín de, 452–453
and the Erfurt Congress, 262–265 Amar y Borbón, Viceroy Antonio José,
and the fall of the French Empire, 521–522
552, 554–555, 557–559, 561, Amazonia, 36
570–575, 578–580, 582–584 American Declaration of Independence,
and French invasion of Russia, 136
533–538, 541 americanos, 280
and French occupation of Hanover, American Revolution, 6–7, 12, 24,
176–177 30–31, 36–37, 41–42, 56–59,
and the Holy Alliance, 624–625 61–62, 85, 119, 174–175,
and the League of Armed Neutrality, 280, 472
118 Amherst, Jeffery, 300
and Napoleon’s coronation, 194–195 amphibious warfare, 27–28, 71, 79–81,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 144 185, 497–498, 588
and Ottoman relations with anarchy, 64–65
European powers, 372–375, Anatolia, 371
382–383, 387, 390–394, Andalusia, 267–268
396–398, 409–411, 415–416, Anderson, Matthew, 635–636
418–421 Anglo-American Accords of 1818,
and the Scandinavian theater, 639–640
337–338, 341–342, 344, 347–349, Anglo-Dutch Wars, 26–27, 31–32,
353, 360–363 333, 342, 358, 632
and sources of Franco-Russia tension, Anglo-French Free Trade Treaty of
527–530 1785, 150–151
and the War of 1812, 587–588 Anglo-Iranian Treaty, 439–440
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, Anglo-Maratha Wars, 85, 87–89, 93,
311–312, 325–331 472–473, 476–478, 493
886 | index

Anglo-Mysore Wars, 87, 93, 472, Army of Portugal, 274, 277–279


477–478 Army of Silesia, 567, 569, 577–578
Anglo-Omani Agreement (1798), 492 Army of the Center, 278–279
Anglo-Ottoman Treaty, 411–412 Army of the Danube, 414, 530, 535
Anglo-Russian War, 358 Army of the North, 277, 519, 567,
Anjala League (Anjalaförbundet), 353 608–609
Antilles, 130 Army of the Northwest, 585
anti-revolutionary sentiment, 15 Army of the South, 277–279
Antraigues, Emmanuel-Henri-Louis Arpaçay (Akhurian) River, 433–434, 443
Alexandre de Launay, comte d’, Articles of Capitulation (Battle of
191, 337–338 Blaauwberg), 450
Antwerp, 46–47, 183–184, 322–324, Artigas Arnal, José Gervasio, 519–521
467, 573–574 Artois, Charles, comte d’, 603
Apodaca, Juan Jose Ruiz de, 517 assassinations and assassination plots,
Arabia, 29–30, 72, 86–87, 91–92, 117–118, 157–158, 169–170,
94–95, 388–389, 408, 443, 188–194, 427–431
491–493, 525, 628–629 Assembly of Notables, 12–13
Arabian Sea, 86–87, 372 “Atlantic model,” 4
Arakcheyev, Aleksey, 360 Atlantic Ocean, 4–5, 22–23, 28–29,
Araujo e Azevedo, Antonio d’, 246–247 209–210, 325, 448–449, 456–462,
Arbuthnot, Charles, 399–400, 429 464–465, 467–468
Archipelago expedition, 357 Atlantic slave trade, 4–5, 632–633
Argentina, 501–502, 511–512, attritional strategy, 540, 567
520–521, 637–639. See also Río de Auchmuty, Samuel, 453, 499–500
la Plata Auckland, George Eden, Earl of, 128,
Argentine War of Independence, 454–455
518–519 audiencias, 453–454, 501–502
Argüelles, José Canga, 255–256 Auffenberg, Franz, 202
USS Argus, 549–550 Augereau, Pierre, 222, 607–608
Armée de Naples, 211 Australia, 130
Armée d’Espagne, 256–257, 277 Austria
Armée d’Italie, 210–211 and the aftermath of the Great War,
Armée d’Orient, 74, 76 615–619, 621–625, 635
Armfelt, Gustaf Mauritz, 350–352 alliances with France, 22, 81–82,
Armistice of Schlatkow, 335–336 191–195
arms sales, 533–534 and classification of European states, 21
Armstrong, John, 587 and coalitions of European powers,
Army of Andalusia, 259 18–20
Army of Aragon, 278–279 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
Army of Bohemia, 567–568, 579, 582 151–152, 158, 160–162,
Army of Galicia, 261–262 165–167, 172
Army of Italy, 53–54, 318 and competition between European
Army of North Germany, 567 powers, 29–36
index | 887

and the Congress of Vienna, and resistance to French expansion,


591–601 79–81
and continental balance of power, 20 and scope of Napoleonic Wars,
and costs of the Great War, 627, xiii–xiv
633–634 and sources of Franco-Russia tension,
and the d’Enghien affair, 191 529–530
and 18th century international order, and the War of 1812, 585, 590
20–22 and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
and the Erfurt Congress, 264–265 307–323, 325–331, 362
extent and impact of Napoleon’s and the War of the First Coalition,
Grand Empire, 284–286, 48–49, 51, 53–54, 57,
290–291, 295, 299–300, 304 196–197
and the fall of the French Empire, and the War of the Third Coalition,
554–556, 559–580, 584–585 186–187, 192–208, 210–211,
and final defeat of Napoleon, 213–215, 221–222, 227
611–612 Austrian Netherlands, 23–24, 33–36,
and France’s geopolitical position, 44–46, 48–49, 284, 584–585,
27–28 621–622
and French invasion of Russia, 531, Austro-Ottoman War, 22
540 Austro-Russo-Ottoman War, 29–31,
and French occupation of Hanover, 371–372
176–177 Azanza, Miguel José de, 510
and impact of French Revolutionary Azara, José Nicolás de, marqués de
Wars, 14–16 Nibbiano, 182
and Napoleon’s Continental System, Azerbaijan, 440
231–232 Azores, 248
and Napoleon’s offers to negotiate,
194–195 Baden, 111, 145–147, 191–192, 199,
and Napoleon’s rise to power, 213–214, 287, 570–571
104–105, 110–111, 114–115 Bagration, Alexander, 444–446
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 123, Bagration, David, 425–426
143–147 Bagration, Peter, 202–203, 205,
and Ottoman relations with 223–224, 310–311, 360,
European powers, 371–372, 362, 415–419, 531–532,
374–378, 382–383, 385–387, 534
390–393, 396, 409–412, Bagration dynasty, 372–374, 425–426,
415–422 440–441
and the Partitions of Poland, 23–24, Baillie, William, 472–473
32–36 Baird, David, 94, 261–262, 265–266,
and the Peninsular War, 266 449–450
and Piedmont issue, 178–179 Baji Rao II, 87–88
and reordering of continental power, Baku, 427–428, 443
101 Balcarce, Antonio González, 519
888 | index

Balkans Barham, Charles Middleton, Baron,


and the aftermath of the Great War, 457–460
627–628 Baring, Louis, 620–621
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, Barlow, George, 478, 480
167 Barney, Joshua, 588
and competition between European Basques, 182
powers, 29, 31–32 Bastille, storming of, 13
and 18th century international order, Batavia/Batavian Republic, 52, 54,
22 62–63, 80, 110–111, 125–126,
and global impact of Napoleonic 129–130, 139–140, 148–149,
Wars, xv–xvi 152, 167–168, 173–174, 213,
and the League of Armed Neutrality, 218, 450, 498–500
113–114 “battalion square” formation, 186
and Ottoman relations with Battle at Tamatave, 498
European powers, 368–372, Battle of Abensberg, 314–315
374–377, 381–383, 385–386, Battle of Aboukir, 379
388–389, 391–393, 395–396, Battle of Akhaltsikhe, 442–443
406, 410, 414, 416–420 Battle of Alba de Tormes, 273–274
political and social situation faced by Battle of Albuera, 276–277
Selim III, 372 Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube, 582
Ball, Alexander, 402–403 Battle of Aspern-Essling, 315–321,
Baltic Fleet (Russia), 353–359, 459–460 323, 326, 329–330
Baltic Sea, 116–117, 159–160, 235, Battle of Auaure, 637–638
251, 332–334, 338–340, 342, Battle of Austerlitz, xv, 205–206,
346–348, 351–358, 364–366, 209–211, 213, 215, 222, 228,
398–399 245–246, 278, 282, 315,
Baltimore, Maryland, 588 320–321, 334–335, 390,
Balzac, Honoré de, 604 477–478, 535–536, 570, 610
Banda Islands, 499–500 Battle of Bailén, 259–261, 307, 510
Banda Oriental province, 517, 519–521 Battle of the Basque Roads, 465–466
Bandar Abbas, 494–495 Battle of Bautzen, 557–559, 563–566,
banking, 109, 138, 235–236, 252–253, 627–628
550, 630–631 Battle of Blaauwberg, 450
Bank of England, 7, 233 Battle of Bladensburg, 588
Bank of France, 109, 173–174, Battle of Borodino, 535–536, 538, 610,
199–200, 234 627–628
Banks, Joseph, 343 Battle of Boyacá, 637–638
Barbados, 58 Battle of Brienne-le-Château,
Barbary States, 118–120, 550–551 577–578
Barbé-Marbois, François, 138 Battle of the Bruch, 258–259
Barclay de Tolly, Michael Andreas, Battle of Busaco (Buçaco), 274–275
362–363, 443, 531, 534–536, Battle of Buxar, 473
557–559, 607 Battle of Calderon Bridge, 515–516
index | 889

Battle of Camperdown, 56, 73–74 Battle of Leipzig, xv, 557, 560,


Battle of Campichuelo, 521 565–566, 569–571, 573–574,
Battle of Cape St. Vincent, 55–56, 627–628
73–74, 249–250 Battle of Ligny, 608–609, 611–612
Battle of Carabobo, 637–638 Battle of Lundy’s Lane, 587
Battle of Cassano, 80 Battle of Lützen, 557–558, 627–628
Battle of Castlebar, 71–72 Battle of Maciejowice, 56–57
Battle of Chacabuco, 638 Battle of Magnano, 80
Battle of Chippawa, 587 Battle of Maida, 212–213
Battle of Corunna, 265–267 Battle of Maloyaroslavets, 538
Battle of Cotagaita, 519 Battle of Marengo, 81–82, 142
Battle of Craonne, 580–582 Battle of Mobekk, 352
Battle of Cuddalore, 85 Battle of Monte de las Cruces,
Battle of Dennewitz, 568–569 515–516
Battle of Dubienka, 35 Battle of Mosquiteros, 637–638
Battle of Eggmühl, 314–315 Battle of Mount Tabor, 379
Battle of Eylau, 223–224, 260 Battle of the Nations, 565–566, 570,
Battle of Frenchman’s Creek, 549 627–628
Battle of Friedland, 224–225, 433–434 Battle of Neerwinden, 48–49
Battle of Fuentes de Oñoro, 276–277 Battle of New Orleans, 588–589
Battle of Ganja, 426 Battle of the Nile, 76–77
Battle of the Glorious First of June, Battle of Novi, 80
50–51 Battle of Ocaña, 273–274
Battle of Golymin, 223 Battle of Oravais, 360
Battle of Grand Port, 496–497 Battle of Pamplona, 567
Battle of Grossbeeren, 568 Battle of Paraguari, 521
Battle of Heilsberg, 224 Battle of Patna, 473
Battle of Heliopolis, 379 Battle of Perambakam, 85
Battle of Hohenlinden, 142 Battle of Pichincha, 637–638
Battle of Horseshoe Bend, 586 Battle of Plassey, 471
Battle of Huaqui, 519 Battle of Pollilur, 472–473
Battle of Jemappes, 35–36, 46–47 Battle of Pulo Aura, 493–494
Battle of Jena–Auerstedt, 220–221, Battle of Pultusk, 223
228, 245–246, 251, 282, 315, Battle of Quatre Bras, 608–610
320–321, 337, 398, 570 Battle of Rancagua, 638
Battle of Jerpset, 352 Battle of Rassevat, 415
Battle of Karstula, 360 Battle of Ratan, 363–364
Battle of Laon, 581 Battle of Rheims, 581–582
Battle of Lappfjärd, 360 Battle of Roliça, 261
Battle of La Puerta, 637–638 Battle of Ruona, 360
Battle of La Rothière, 577–578 Battle of Ruse, 418–421, 531
Battle of Las Piedras, 519–520 Battle of Saalfeld, 220
Battle of Laswari, 473 Battle of the Saints, 41–42
890 | index

Battle of Salamanca, 277–279, 566–567 Bay of Bengal, 61–62, 86–87, 495–496


Battle of Salmi, 360 Bayonne Assembly, 510
Battle of San Marcial, 567 Bayraktar Mustafa Pasha, 407–408
Battle of San Mateo, 522, 635–636 Beauharnais, Eugène de, 185–186, 196,
Battle of San Sebastien, 567 284–285, 295, 312–314, 316–318,
Battle of Sävar, 363–364 556–557, 575–576
Battle of Soissons, 580–581 Beaulieu, Johann Peter, 53–54
Battle of Soltanbud, 445 Bedik, Petrus, 95
Battle of Sorauren, 567 Bedout, Jacques, 181–182
Battle of Suipacha, 519 Behaine, Pierre Pigneau de, 487–488
Battle of Tacuari, 521 Belgium
Battle of Talavera, 271–272 and art expropriated by French
Battle of Tataritsa, 415 victors, 102–103
Battle of the Thames, 585–586 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
Battle of Tippecanoe, 543 149–150
Battle of Trafalgar, xv, 28–29, 207–210, and 18th century international order,
213, 229–230, 245–246, 249–250, 33–34
322–323, 339, 449, 457–460, extent and impact of Napoleon’s
477–478, 497 Grand Empire, 288–289
Battle of Trangen, 352 and the fall of the French Empire,
Battle of Trebbia, 80 575, 584–585
Battle of Tucumán, 519 and impact of French Revolutionary
Battle of Ulm, 201–204, 207, Wars, 14–15
209–211, 213 and Napoleon’s Continental System,
Battle of Valladolid, 517 233–234
Battle of Valmy, 35–36, 46–47 and the Partitions of Poland, 34–35
Battle of Vertières, 135–136 and resistance to French expansion,
Battle of Vilcapugio, 519 79–80
Battle of Vitoria, 566–567 and the War of the First Coalition,
Battle of the Wabash, 543 44–46, 52, 54
Battle of Wagram, 267, 294–295, Belgrade, 413–414, 419–420
319–321, 323–324, 328, Belgrano, Manuel, 519, 521
330–331, 536 HMS Bellerophon, 612–613
Battle of Waterloo, xiii–xv, 21, Benevento, 284–285
421–422, 609–612, 615, 630 Bengal presidency, 83–85
Battle of Wattignies, 50 beni nazionali, 298
Battle of Wischau, 204–205 Bennigsen, Levin, 222–225
Baudin, Nicholas, 130 Bentinck, William. See Portland,
Bavaria, 22, 35–36, 111, 114, 144–147, William Henry Cavendish-
197–199, 213–214, 287, 313, Bentinck, Duke of
362, 531, 554, 593, 600, 621–622, Berar, 88–89
636–637 berats, 395
Bayly, C. A., 472 Berchtesgaden, 320
index | 891

Beresford, William Carr, 270, 272, Blantyre, Robert, Lord, 381


276–277, 452–454 blockades. See also Continental System
Berezina River, 538–539 and the aftermath of the Great War,
Berg, 214, 284–285, 287 630–632
Bergeron, Louis, 282 and the Battle of Ruse, 418–419
Berg Isel, 321 and British expeditionary warfare,
Bering, Vitus Jonassen, 38 453, 456–460, 463–465
Berkeley, George, 272–273 and British imperial interests in Asia,
Berlin Decree, 230 481–482, 494–497
Berlin Kriegsakademie (War College), and conflicts in Caucasus
304–305 region, 428
Bernadotte, Jean-Baptiste, 188, 223, and conflicts in Spanish America, 510
284–285, 318–319, 324, 334–335, and confrontations with Ottoman
350–352, 355, 366–367, 530, Empire, 401–402
559–560, 567–569, 571, 575–576, and 18th century international order,
622–623 24–25, 28–29, 41
Bernstorff, Joachim, 340 extent and impact of Napoleon’s
Berthier, Alexander, 184–185, 284–285, Grand Empire, 287–288,
294–295, 313–314, 532, 607–608 291–292, 299
Berthollet, Claude, 74 and extent and impact of Napoleon’s
Bertie, Albermarle, 490–491, 497–498 Grand Empire, 293
Bessarabia, 375, 392–393, 397–399, and the fall of the French Empire,
530. See also Danubian 582
Principalities and final defeat of Napoleon,
Bessières, Jean-Baptiste, 258–259, 612–613
294–295, 313–314, 319 and French occupation of Hanover,
Bethmann, Baron, 329–330 178
Beurnonville, Pierre Riel de, 181 and the “Great Game” in Central
Bew, John, 467 Asia and India, 86–87
Bhonsle, 88–89 and the League of Armed Neutrality,
Bickham, Troy, 541 114, 117
Billings, Joseph, 38–39 and Napoleon’s belief in commerce,
Binder, Freiherr von, 593 150–151
Black, Jeremy, 473 and Napoleon’s Continental System,
“Black Brunswickers,” 317 228–241
Black Famine, 630 and Napoleon’s offers to negotiate,
Black Sea, 29–31, 91, 162, 376–378, 195
381–383, 388–389, 392–395, and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 123,
398–399, 406, 411–412, 419, 135, 140–141
635–636 and Ottoman relations with
Blake y Joyes, Joaquín, 258–259, European powers, 398–399
261–262 and the Peninsular War, 244–245,
Blankett, John, 62–63 247, 249–250
892 | index

blockades (continued) Bonaparte, Lucien, 106–108, 253–254


and rebellions in Río de La Plata, Bonaparte, Pauline, 284–285, 295
520–521 Borberek, Joseph Alvinci von, 53–54
and the Scandinavian theater, 335, Borsporus strait, 376–377, 388–389,
339–340, 342–343, 350–352, 391, 399–400, 406, 411–412
358, 366 Bosnia, 415–416, 418
and Spanish commerce, 180 Boudet, Jean, 319
and the Tripolitan War, Bourbon monarchy
118–120 and the aftermath of the Great War,
and the War of 1812, 544–546, 619–621, 623, 635, 639
549–550 and British expeditionary warfare,
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, 325 463
and the War of the First Coalition, and conflicts in Spanish America,
49, 52, 55–56 510–511, 513–515
and the War of the Third Coalition, and the Congress of Vienna, 593, 596
173–174, 182, 187, 207–208, and the Cortes of Cadiz, 280
210–211, 215, 226 and costs of the Great War, 633
Blount, William, 506–507 and 18th century international order,
Blücher von Wahlstatt, Gebhard 23–24, 27
Lebrecht, 221, 303–304, 567–569, extent and impact of Napoleon’s
575–582, 595, 601, 607–613 Grand Empire, 298–302
Board of Control, 27–28, 87, 91, 93, and final defeat of Napoleon,
471–472, 478. See also British East 612–613
India Company and fiscal crises, 12–13
Board of Trade, 454–455 and the “Great Game” in Central
Bógota, 501–502, 504, 521–523 Asia and India, 103
Bohemia, 419, 561 and impact of French Revolutionary
Boigne, Charles Benoit de, 87–88 Wars, 6–7, 15
Bolívar, Simón, 522–523, 637–638 and Napoleon’s return from Elba,
Bombay presidency, 83–85, 92 602–605
Bonaparte, Hortense Eugénie Cécile, and the Peninsular War, 249–251,
168–169 253–254, 256–257, 269, 279–280
Bonaparte, Jérôme, 225–226, 293–294, and political dynamics of Spanish
317, 455–456, 460–462, 504, America, 502–503, 505
531–532 and resistance to French expansion, 80
Bonaparte, Joseph, 125–126, 139, and royalist plots, 188, 190–191,
211–213, 225–226, 257–259, 193–194
267, 269–270, 278–279, 284–285, and the War of the First Coalition,
295, 298–299, 509–510, 517–518, 61–62
566–567 and the War of the Third Coalition,
Bonaparte, Josephine, 168–170, 236 181–182
Bonaparte, Louis, 225–226, 232–233, bourgeoisie, 9–10, 14
236, 238–241, 284–285, 525 Boves, José Tomás, 637–638
index | 893

Bragança monarchy, 242, 244–248, extent and impact of Napoleon’s


260, 269 Grand Empire, 282–285,
Branda, Pierre, 292–293 287–288, 291–292, 298–303
Brandt, Otto, 157–158 and the fall of the French Empire,
Brazil, 22–23, 36, 148–149, 235–236, 555, 559–567, 573–585
242–244, 247–249, 254, 341, and final defeat of Napoleon,
508–513, 519–520, 550–551, 611–612
593, 631, 639 and fragility of Napoleonic Empire,
Bremen, 145, 240–241 525
Brickwood & Co. (bank), 235–236 and France’s geopolitical position,
Brindisi, 175–176 27–28
Brissot, Jacques-Pierre, 15–16, 504 and French Egyptian campaign,
Britain. See also Royal Navy 72–78
Act of Union, 110 and French Expédition d’Irlande,
and the aftermath of the Great War, 70–72
615–617, 620–626, 634–641 and French invasion of Russia,
alliance with Austria, 81–82 533–534
and classification of European states, and French occupation of Hanover,
21 175–178
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, and global impact of Napoleonic
148–172 Wars, xv–xvi
and colonial conflicts in Western and the “Great Game” in Central
Hemisphere, 36–43 Asia and India, 83–97, 99–101
colonial expansion in Southeast Asia, and mercantilism, 27
89–90 and Napoleon’s Continental System,
commercial rivalry with France, 104 228–241
and competition between European and Napoleon’s offers to negotiate,
powers, 30–34, 36 195
and conflicts in Caucasus region, and the Nootka Sound Crisis,
423–427, 429–437, 439–447 37–40
and conflicts in Spanish America, and onset of Napoleonic Wars,
508–513, 517, 519–522 142–143, 146
and the Congress of Vienna, 592, and Ottoman relations with
595–601 European powers, 376–405,
and context of Napoleonic Wars, 409–413, 417, 421–422
and continental balance of power, and the Peninsular War, 242–250,
110 252–254, 260–267, 269–280
and costs of the Great War, 627, and political dynamics of Spanish
630–634 America, 504–508
economic isolation from continent, and resistance to French expansion,
116 (see also Continental System) 79–81
and 18th century international order, and the Scandinavian theater,
20–25 334–364, 367
894 | index

Britain (continued) bubonic plague, 77, 627–628


and the War of 1812, 541–551, Buenos Aires, 235, 405, 452–456,
585–590 501–502, 504, 510–514,
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, 517–519, 521, 523
308–309, 312–313, 320–325, Bukovina, 419
328–330 Bulgaria, 114–115, 415–416
and the War of the First Coalition, bureaucratic reform, xii–xiii, 107–108,
47–66 284–285, 287, 294–295, 298–299,
and the War of the Third Coalition, 513–514, 556–557, 625–626,
173–175, 178–187 634–635
British East India Company Burke, Edmund, 128–129, 617
and the Anglo-Maratha Wars, 85, Burrard, Harry, 261
87–89, 93, 472–473, 476–478 Burschenschaften (German Students
and British Asia policy, 92 Associations), 306
and British imperial interests Buxhöwden, Fedor, 348–349
in Asia, 469–471, 481–482, Buxhöwden, Friedrich Wilhelm,
484–497, 499 197–198, 222
and conflicts in Caucasus region, Byron, George Gordon, Lord, 635–636
423–427, 429, 436–437,
439–440, 444 cabildos, 279–280, 452–454, 501–502,
and 18th century international 511, 517–518
order, 27 Cadiz, Spain, 117
and the “Great Game” in Central Cadoudal, Georges, 108–109, 188–190,
Asia and India, 83–94, 96–97 193–194
and impact of French Revolutionary café culture, 11–12
Wars, 5–6 Cairo, Egypt, 72–73, 76–78
internal divisions, 91 Calabria, 80, 212–213, 298–299,
British Foreign Office, 91, 161, 171, 321–322
402–403 Calder, Robert, 207–208
British Parliament, 123 Callimachi, Scarlat, 396–397
British War Office, 354–355, 402–403 Cambacérès, Jean-Jacques Régis de,
British West Indies, 66 190–191
Brittany royalist revolt, 104–105, 606 Canada, 6–7, 23–24, 41, 137, 541,
Brock, Isaac, 548–549 543, 547–549, 585–587, 590
Broughton, William Robert, Canadian Maritime Provinces, 50–51
499–500 Canning, George, 246–247, 260–261,
Brown, Jacob, 587 322, 324–325, 337–339, 346,
Brown, William, 519–520 351, 358–360, 417, 545–546,
Brueys, François-Paul de, 74 639–641
Bruguière, Jean Guillaume, 90–91 Canteleu, Jean-Barthélemy Le Couteulx
Brune, Guillaume, 80–81, 162, 336, de, 190–191
383, 388–389 Canton (Guangzhou), 89–90, 484–487,
Brunswick Manifesto, 44–46 489–490
index | 895

Canton System (China), 484–485 Carrera, José Miguel, 638–639


Cape Colony, 62–63, 126–127, Carrera, Juan José, 638
450–452, 460–461, 499, Carrera, Luis, 638
623–624 Caspian Sea, 97, 99, 398–399, 426,
Cape Horn, 456, 500 428, 446
Cape of Good Hope, 62–63, 86, 89–90, Castaños, Francisco, 259
129–130, 148–149, 152, 456, casta system, 503
460–461, 483, 490–491, 494, Castelli, Juan José, 519
496, 498, 500 Castlereagh, Robert Stewart, Viscount,
Cape Station, 491 322–325, 463–464, 477–478,
Cape Town, 62–63, 450, 497 512, 533–534, 561, 573–575,
Capo d’Istria, Giovanni Antonio, 595 578–580, 593, 595–596, 598–601,
HMS Captain, 55 619, 624–625
Captaincy General of Chile, 638 Castro, Ramón de, 60
Carelia, 33–34 Catalonia, 267–268
Caribbean Cathcart, Charles, 484–485
and British expeditionary warfare, 458 Cathcart, William Schaw Cathcart,
and British expeditions in West Earl, 336, 340
Indies, 462–465, 467 Catherine II, Empress of Russia
and colonial conflicts in Western and British imperial interests in Asia,
Hemisphere, 40–43 483
and fragility of Napoleonic Empire, and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
525 162–163
and impact of French Revolutionary and conflicts in Caucasus region, 423
Wars, 6–7 and 18th century international order,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 134, 20, 25, 30–31
136 and the “Great Game” in Central
and the Scandinavian theater, 342 Asia and India, 97–99
and war between Britain and France, and the “Greek Project,” 377
173 and impact of French Revolutionary
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, 325 Wars, 14–15
and the War of the Third Coalition, and the Nootka Sound Crisis, 38–39
187, 207–208 and the Partitions of Poland, 35–36
Carlota Joaquina, consort of João VI, and the Polish Partitions, 32–33,
King of Portugal, 511, 519–520 35–36
Carnatic region, 472–473, 476 and the War of the First Coalition,
Carnot, Lazare, 605–606 56–57
Caroline Bonaparte, consort of Joachim Catherine Pavlovna, Queen, consort of
Murat, King of Naples, 284–285, William I, King of Württemberg,
299–303, 575–576 537
Caro y Sureda, Pedro, marqués de la Catholics and Catholicism, 8, 70, 112,
Romana, 261–262, 271 145, 157, 258, 295–296, 525–526.
Carpathians, 419 See also Papal States
896 | index

Cattaro, 393 Charles X, King of France, 635


Caucasia, 398, 410 Charles XIV John of Sweden, 367.
Caucasian khanates, 446 See also Bernadotte, Jean-Baptiste
Caucasus, xv–xvi, 29, 97–98, 113–114, Charlottenburg Declaration, 396
372–374, 398–399, 406, 410, Charter of 1814, 602–603
531, 628–629 Chateaubriand, François-René de, 641
Caulaincourt, Armand de, 326–327, Chatham, John Pitt, Earl of, 323–324
564–565, 577–578, 583–584, Châtillon-sur-Seine conference,
605 578–579
Cavaignac, M. de, 491–492 Chauncey, Isaac, 587
Cavendish-Bentinck, William Henry. chemical warfare, 135–136
See Portland, William Henry Cherokee Indians, 543
Cavendish-Bentinck, Duke of Chesapeake-Leopard affair, 230–231,
Ceballos, José, 521–522 544–546
Cederström, Rudolf, 357–358 Chichagov, Pavel Vasilievich, 535, 539
Cefalonia, 385–386 Chiclana, Feliciano, 519
Çeles Bey (Shervashidze), 440 Chile, 513–514, 523–524, 637–638
HMS Centaur, 357–358 China, xv–xvi, 89–90, 481, 484–490
center-periphery tensions, 368–369 Chisholm, John, 506–507
Central Asia, 83 cholos, 503
Central Governing Junta, 514–515 Christian, Hugh, 60, 445
Ceylon (Sri Lanka), 62, 125–126, Christian August I, Duke of
623–624, 631 Augustenburg, 351–352,
Champagny, Jean-Baptiste de Nompère 363–366
de, 507, 510 Christian Expulsion Act, 481
Championnet, Jean Étienne Vachier, 80 Christian Frederick, Prince of Denmark
Chandler, David, 186 (Later Christian VIII), 366,
Channel Fleet (British), 56 622–623
Charlemagne, 194–197, 227, 287–288, Christian VII, King of Denmark, 337,
572–573 350
Charles, Archduke of Austria, 53, Christie, Charles, 445
197–198, 202–203, 210–211, Churchill, Winston, xi, 543–544
307–309, 313–320, 328 Cisalpine Republic, 110–111,
Charles Emmanuel, King of Sardinia, 125–126, 142–143
143 Cisneros y Latorre, Baltasar Hidalgo de,
Charles III, King of Spain, 249–250, 518
258 Civil Code, 109–110
Charles IV, King of Spain, 124, Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 14
181–182, 191, 249–255, 355, Clancarty, Richard Le Poer Trench, Earl
509–510 of, 595–596
Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Clark, George Rogers, 505
Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel, 32, Clarke-d’Oubril Treaty, 395–396
44–46, 219–221, 304–305, 317 classification of European states, 21
index | 897

Clausel, Bertrand, 278–279 Congress of Laibach, 635


Clausewitz, Karl von, 17, 168, 186, Congress of Troppau, 635
228–229 Congress of United Provinces of New
Clay, Henry, 548 Granada, 636–637
climate change, 10 Congress of Verona, 635
Clive, Robert, 471, 474–475 Congress of Vienna, 591–601,
Cloots, Anacharsis, 15–16 615–619, 621–626, 635–637
coalitions of European powers, 18–20 Congress Poland, 617–618
Cobbett, William, 137 conscription, 50, 80–81, 102, 111,
Cobenzl, Johann Ludwig, 178–179 270, 284, 291, 307–308,
Cochin, 126–127, 478–480 369–370, 414–415, 525–526,
Cochrane, Alexander, 342, 460–461, 530, 571
588–589 Constant, Benjamin, 605
Cochrane, Thomas, Lord, 465–466 Constantinople, 30–31, 91, 369–370,
Code civil des Français, 109–110 374–375, 377–381, 383, 386,
Code of Civil Procedure (1806), 389–394, 396–401, 403–404,
109–110 406–412, 414, 417
Code of Criminal Procedure (1810), USS Constellation, 119–120
109–110 USS Constitution, 119–120, 549–550
Cole, Christopher, 499–500 Constitution of 1807, 293–294
Collingwood, Cuthbert, 399–400, Constitution of 1812, 281
457–459 Constitution of Bayonne, 257–259
Colombia, 637–639 Constitution of the Year VIII, 132
colonialism, 19, 22–25, 79, 248–249. the Consulate, 51–52, 81–82,
See also specific colonial powers 106–110, 130, 133, 188–190
Comino, 151–152 Conte, Jacques, 74
commerce. See trade and commerce Continental System
Commission for Military and the aftermath of the Great War,
Reorganization, 304–305 630–631, 633–634
Committee of Public Safety (CPS), and British expeditionary warfare,
49–50, 103 454–455
Committee on International Rivers, and British imperial interests in Asia,
623 478–482
communications, 184–185, 187 and conflicts in Caucasus region, 428
Concert of Europe, 615–616 and conflicts in Spanish America,
Concordat, 112–113 508
Condorcanqui, José Gabriel, 504. extent and impact of Napoleon’s
See also Túpac Amaru II Grand Empire, 287–288,
Confederation of Targowica, 35 291–293, 295–299
Confederation of the Rhine, 214–215, and the fall of the French Empire,
225–226, 232, 240–241, 284–285, 577
289–291, 313, 329–330, 556–557, and fragility of Napoleonic Empire,
565–566, 568–570, 577 525–529
898 | index

Continental System (continued) coronation of Napoleon, 104, 194–195,


and French invasion of Russia, 197
533–534, 540–541 corporate society, 8
and the League of Armed Neutrality, corps system, 184–186
117 corruption, 236–237
and the Peninsular War, 242, Corsica, 50–51, 54–55
245–246, 251, 253, 274 Cortes of Cadiz, 279–281
purpose and implementation of, corvée (labor service), 10
228–241 Corvetto, Louis Emmanuel, 620–621
and the Scandinavian theater, Cossacks, 115, 118, 223
345–346, 358, 364 Costa Rica, 637–638
and the War of 1812, 544–546 cotton trade, 139, 238, 287–288, 490,
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, 639–640
320, 322–323 Council of Ministers, 597
contraband trade, 490 Council of State, 190–191, 199–200
Convention of 1800, 379 counterrevolutionary insurrections, 49
Convention of Andujar, 259 coups, 103, 583
Convention of Bartenstein, 335–337 Coutinho, Rodrigo de Souza, 242–244,
Convention of Cintra, 261 246–247, 511
Convention of El Arish, 27–28 Craig, James, 62–63, 93
Convention of Helsingfors, 196 Craig, James Henry, 210–211
Convention of Madrid, 124 Creek Indians, 543, 585–586
Convention of Mortefontaine, 66–67 Crimea, 25, 30–31, 398–399, 531
Convention of Neutrality and Subsidy, Crimean War, 411–412
182 criminal justice, 5–6
Convention of Potsdam, 203 criollos, 503–504, 513–515, 517–518,
Convention of Reichenbach, 521–524, 637–638
34–35, 562 Cronstedt, Karl Olof, 350
Convention of St. Petersburg, 196 Crouzet, François, 238–239
Convention of Suhlingen, 176–177 Cuba, 136, 507–508
Convention of Tauroggen, 552 Cuesta, Gregorio García de la,
Cook, James, 38–39, 483 258–259, 271–272
Coote, Eyre, 324 Cuoco, Vincenzo, 291
Copenhagen, Denmark, 117, 167, Curaçao, 463–464
209–210, 322–323, 336–347, Curzola, 393
351–352, 401, 459–460 Custine, Adam, 46–47, 49
Corancez, Louis Alexandre de, 430 Cuyo Province, 639
Córdoba y Ramos, José de, 55 Czartoryski, Adam, 163, 195–196,
Córdoba y Rojas, José de, 519 204, 382–383, 386–387,
Corfu, 54, 385–386 392–393, 396–397
Corn Law, 630–631
Cornwallis, Charles, 71–72, 86, Daendels, Herman Willem, 498–499
125–126, 474, 476, 478 Daghestan, 440, 446
index | 899

Dalberg, Karl Theodor von, 214 Dejima, 481–482


d’Alembert, Jean, 10–11 Delabord, Henri François, 261
Dalmatia, 213, 294–295, 308–309, Delgrès, Louis, 134
312–313, 316–317, 390–393, Delhi, 85, 88–91
398–399, 525 Demerara, 623–624
Dalrymple, Hew, 261 Democratic-Republicans, 66
Damas, Roger de, 211 Denmark
Dance, Nathaniel, 493–494 and the aftermath of the Great War,
Dano-Norwegian-Swedish War, 621–622
363–364 and classification of European states,
Danubian Principalities, 29–30, 21
262–264, 353–354, 375, 387–389, and coalitions of European powers,
397–401, 409–412, 414–417, 18–20
420–421, 429, 433, 441, 530, and colonial conflicts in Western
535, 537–539 Hemisphere, 40–41
Danzig, 224–226, 530, 565–566, and 18th century international order,
621–622 26–27
D’Arcy, Major, 445 and the fall of the French Empire,
Dardanelles, 376–377, 379, 383–386, 561–562, 571
388–389, 391, 395–396, 399–402, and the League of Armed Neutrality,
405, 411–412, 529 114–118
Davout, Louis Nicolas, 205–206, and Napoleon’s Continental System,
220–221, 294–295, 313–314, 231–232
318–319, 559–560, 605, 607–608 and the Scandinavian theater,
Dearborn, Henry, 549 332–347, 350–352, 354–366
Decaen, Charles Mathieu Isidore, Denmark-Norway, 284–285
129–130, 153–154, 491–498 Deos, João de, 242–244
Decatur, Stephen, 120–121 d’Eril, Francesco Melzi, 142, 297
Decazes, Eli-Louis, duc de, 635 Desaix, Louis, 70, 76
Decembrist Revolt, 635 Désirade, 463–464
Declaration of Alliance (Austria and Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 134–136
Russia), 387 Deutsch, Harold C., 154
Declaration of Independence (U.S.), 12, Deutsche Gesellschaften (German
138–139 Patriotic Societies), 306
Declaration of the Rights of Man and of Devaynes, Noble and Co. (bank),
the Citizen, 13, 42, 102 235–236
Declaratory Act (1788), 472 Diderot, Denis, 10–11
Decree of Trianon, 237 Diet of Porvoo (Borgå Landtdag), 353,
Decrès, Denis, 149, 462, 464 360
Deed of Agreement (Sened-i Ittifak), diseases and epidemics, 41, 59–60,
407–408 108–109, 135–136, 182, 250,
Definitive Treaty of Friendship and 290–291, 324–325, 456, 534–535,
Alliance, 444–447, 619–620 539–540, 626–628, 630
900 | index

Division del Norte, 355–356 Duroc, Michel, 157–158, 162–163


Dnieper River, 534, 538–539 Dutch East India Company, 449–450,
Dolgorukov, Peter, 204–205 481–482, 498–499, 632
Dolomieu, Déodat Gratet de, 74 Dutch East Indies, 325, 498–500
domaine extraordinaire, 294–295 Dutch Republic
Dominica, 41–42, 457 and the aftermath of the Great War,
Dom João. See João VI, King of 631
Portugal and British colonial expansion in
donataires, 294–295 Southeast Asia, 89–90
Dörnberg, Wilhelm von, 317 and British imperial interests in Asia,
Dos de Mayo Uprising, 257 474, 477, 481–482, 486, 494–495,
Downie, George, 587 498–500
Doyle, William, 9–10 and the Cape Colony, 148–150
Dresden Proposals, 563–565 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
Drury, William O’Bryen, 487 150
Dublin, Ireland, 71 and competition between European
Duchy of Berg, 570–571 powers, 30
Duchy of Brunswick, 611–612 and 18th century international order,
Duchy of Guastalla, 284–285, 623 26–27, 31–32
Duchy of Nassau, 611–612 and formation of Third Coalition,
Duchy of Oldenburg, 240–241, 197
506–507 and onset of Napoleonic Wars,
Duchy of Parma, 210, 284–285, 623 126–127, 129–130
Duchy of Piacenza, 623 and the War of the First Coalition,
Duchy of Saxe-Lauenbourg, 622–623 56, 62
Duchy of Warsaw, 225–226, 264, and the War of the Third Coalition,
288–291, 294–295, 312–314, 175–176, 183–184
320, 326–327, 529, 531, 562–566, Dutch Spice Islands, 477, 499–500
568–569, 598
Duckworth, John Thomas, 117, “Eastern Question,” 20, 29–30,
400–402, 460 114–115, 376–377, 382–384,
Duhesme, Guillaume Philibert, 392–394, 411
258–259 East India Company Act (1784), 471
Dumouriez, Charles, 46–47, 49, 504 East Indiamen (ships), 61–62, 460–461,
Duncan, Adam, 56 490–491, 493, 495–496
Duncan, Jonathan, 91–92 East Indies, 58, 62, 126–127
Dundas, David, 323 East Prussia, 32–33
Dundas, Henry, 59, 87, 91–93, 123, Eden, William, 128
167, 174–175, 451 Eden Treaty, 228–229
Duperré, Guy-Victor, 496–497 Edict of Fraternity, 47–48
Dupont, Pierre, 202, 259–261 Egypt
Dupont de L’Etang, Pierre Antoine, and the aftermath of the Great War,
comte, 256–257 628–629
index | 901

and British interests in Asia, 91 English Channel, 183–185, 187


and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, Englund, Steven, 165–166
148–149, 151–155 Enlightenment, 10–13, 21, 31–32,
French camapign in, 72–79, 86–87 250–251, 280, 374–375, 502–503
and French influence, 23 Era of Good Feelings, 589–590
and global impact of Napoleonic Erekle II, King of Katli-Kakheti,
Wars, xv–xvi 97–98, 444–445,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 123, Erfurt Congress, 262–265, 310, 360
125–126 Erlon, Jean-Baptiste Drouët, comte d’,
and Ottoman relations with 609
European powers, 371–372, Ernouf, Manuel, 466–467
376–381, 383, 385, 387–389, Erskine, D. M., 545–546
393–395, 399, 401–405, 407–408, Erskine Agreement, 545–546
410, 412–413 Escorial affair, 251–252
and the Peninsular War, 262–263 Esdaile, Charles J., xiv, 269
and the War of 1812, 550–551 espionage, 591
Ehrenheim, Baron von, 347–348, Essen, Hans Henric von, 335
350–351, 358–359 Estates General, 7–8, 12–13
Eighteenth of Brumaire coup, 106–109 Estates of East Prussia, 552
El Arish, Egypt, 77 Etruria, 111–112, 137, 142–143, 149,
Elba, 54–55, 111–112, 148–149 156, 247, 295–296
Elbe River, 229–230 HMS Europa, 58
Electorate of Bavaria, 8, 22 European Union, 232, 287–288
Elgin, Thomas Bruce, Earl of, 162 Executive Directory (the Directory),
Elío, Francisco Javier de, 517–520 51–52, 54, 70, 73–74, 78,
Elizabeth Petrovna, Empress of Russia, 103–106, 165–166, 188–190,
20 244–245
Ellis, Joseph, 66 and the Expédition d’Irlande, 70
Elphinstone, George, 62–63 Extraordinary and General Cortes of the
Elphinstone, Mountstuart, 480 Spanish Nation, 514–515
El Salvador, 637–638 Extremadura, 267–268, 629
Emancipation Edict, 304 Eylau, 431–432
Emancipation Proclamation, 632–633
Embargo Act, 240, 544–545 Fain, Agathon Jean François, 560
embargoes, 113–114, 116–118, famine, 628–630
127–128, 240, 298–299, 359, Faria, Bernardo Aleixo de Lemos,
361, 544–546, 550–551 487–488
Emin Pasha, 443 Fath Ali Shah, Shah of Iran, 96–97,
Encyclopédie, 10–11 99, 423, 426–427, 429–432,
Enghien, Louis Antoine Henri de 434–440, 442–443, 445–447,
Bourbon-Condé, duc d’, 188–191, 480, 494
194–197, 335–336, 388 Fay de La Tour-Maubourg, Florimond
English Bill of Rights, 12 de, 410–411
902 | index

Federalists, 64, 66 Flushing, 322–324, 464, 467


Federal League, 520–521 “fog of war,” 186, 532
Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, Ford, John, 58–59
197–198, 203, 325–326, 328 Forster, Georg, 47–48
Ferdinand, Duke of Parma, 111–112, Fort Cornelis, 500
210–211 Fort Detroit, 37
Ferdinand III, Grand Duke of Tuscany, Fort Erie, 587
111–112 Fort Louis du Sénégal, 325
Ferdinand IV, King of Naples, 120–121, Fort Mackinac, 548–549
210–211, 300–301, 303 Fort McHenry, 588
Ferdinand VII, King of Spain, 251–257, Fort Mims, 586
267, 281, 509–511, 513–516, Fouché, Joseph, 188–190, 605, 612
523, 621, 637–638 Fourth Anglo-Dutch War, 26–27
Ferrier, John, 494–495 Fourth Mysore War, 87
FetnyÉdouard, 201 Four Years’ Parliament (Sejm
feudalism, 264–265 Czteroletni), 34
Fichte, Johann, 303–305 Fox, Charles, 300, 393–394, 454–455
Fieandt, Otto von, 360 Foy, Maximilien-Sebastien, 278
Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, France. See also French Revolution;
615, 619, 623–624 specific wars and campaigns
financial crises, 149, 195, 199–200, and the aftermath of the Great War,
528–529, 603 615–621, 625, 635, 637–638,
Finland, 33–34, 264, 332, 346–355, 641
357–365, 367, 530–531, 538–539 and the American Revolution, 41–42
Finnish War, 354–355 and Anglophobia, 165–166
First Anglo-Maratha War, 476 and British imperial interests in Asia,
First Coalition, 27 471–474, 476–482, 485–500
First Consul, 81–82 and classification of European states,
First Estate, 8, 14 21
First Mexican Empire, 637–638 and coalitions of European powers,
First Mexican Revolution, 517 18–20
First Mysore War, 85 and colonial conflicts in Western
First Partition of Poland, 32–33, Hemisphere, 36–43
552–554 and competition between European
First Serbian Uprising, 421 powers, 30–36
First Venezuelan Republic, 522 and conflicts in Caucasus region,
First Western Army, 531–532 423–447
Fitzgerald, Robert, 245 and conflicts in Spanish America,
Flight to Varennes, 14–15 508–514, 516–518, 520–521,
Florida, 39–40, 139, 506–508, 524
548–549, 588–589, 640–641 and the Congress of Vienna, 591–601
Floridablanca, José Moñino y Redondo, and costs of the Great War, 626–628,
conde de, 250 630–634
index | 903

and 18th century international order, Frankfurt, 284–285, 287, 290–291


20–25 Frankfurt Proposals, 572–574, 578–579
and the fall of the French Empire, Franklin, Benjamin, 12
553 Frederick, King of Württemberg,
and the “Great Game” in Central 556–557
Asia and India, 83–103 Frederick Augustus I, King of Saxony,
invasion of Russia, 526–541, 225–226, 601
627–628 Frederick Christian, Duke of
and Napoleon’s Continental System, Augustenburg, 366
228–241 Frederick II, King of Prussia (Frederick
and the Partitions of Poland, 33–36 the Great), 20–22, 33, 46–47,
and political dynamics of Spanish 219–221, 288–289, 382–383
America, 504–508 Frederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-
and significance of naval power, Ingelfingen, 220–221
28–29 Frederick VI, King of Denmark, 337,
and Treaty of the Hague, 89–90 345–346, 350, 622–623
and the War of 1812, 541, 543–548, Frederick William, Duke of Brunswick-
590 Wolfenbüttel, 317
and the War of the First Coalition, Frederick William II, King of Prussia,
57, 62–63, 66 15, 32–35, 56–57, 304, 624–625
Francia, José Gaspar Rodríguez de, 521 Frederick William III, King of Prussia
Francis and Baring and Company of and the aftermath of the Great War,
London, 138 624–625
Francis I, Emperor of Austria, 214, and the Congress of Vienna, 595,
529–530, 554–555, 565, 591, 598–599, 601
593, 606, 624–625. See also and the d’Enghien affair, 192–193
Francis II, Holy Roman extent and impact of Napoleon’s
Emperor Grand Empire, 304–306
and the Holy Alliance, 624–625 and extent and impact of Napoleon’s
Francis II, Holy Roman Emperor, 16, Grand Empire, 304–305
35–36, 143–144, 194–197, and the fall of the French Empire,
203–204, 206, 213–214, 391–392, 552, 554–555, 557–560, 572
417–418, 420 and final defeat of Napoleon, 606
Franco-American Treaty of Alliance, and French occupation of Hanover,
63–64 176–178
Franco-Austrian War (1809), 411 and the League of Armed Neutrality,
Franco-Iranian Treaty, 431–432 118
Franco-Russian accords (1801) and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 309–312
146–147 and the War of the Third Coalition,
Franco-Russian Treaty, 433–434 196–197, 203, 215, 218–219,
Franco-Russian War, 509 221–222, 224–226
Franco-Swedish War, 334–335 Frederiksnagore (Serampore), 89–90
904 | index

freethinking, 11–12 and the Congress of Vienna,


Freiherr von Wessenberg, Johann 598–599, 601
Philipp, 593 and the fall of the French Empire,
French Constitution, 280–281 555, 572
French East India Company, 5–7, 27 and the Peninsular War, 260–262,
French East Indies, 491 270–271, 273–274
French Guiana, 42–43, 463–464 and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
French National Assembly, 42–43 312, 320, 325, 327–329
French Revolution Gambier, James, 340–341, 465–466
British response to, 24–25 Ganteaume, Honoré, 459, 462–463, 465
and conflicts in Spanish America, Gardane, Claude Mathieu, 429–430,
516 432–440, 480
and the Cortes of Cadiz, 280 Gardner, Alan, 58–59
and Egypt, 72–73 Garibay, Pedro de, 515–516
and 18th century international order, Gaudin, Martin-Michel-Charles, 605
35–36 General Farm, 5–6
and the Expédition d’Irlande, 70 Genêt, Edmond-Charles-Edouard,
and French fiscal crises, 12–14 64–65, 505
impact in the Caribbean, 42 Gentz, Friedrich von, 124, 593
impact on Ottoman Empire, 368, George III, King of England, 122–123,
374–375, 378 154–155, 195, 444, 484–485, 507
international implications, 14–17 Georgia
key causes of, 3–12 and the aftermath of the Great War,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 640
125–126 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
and political dynamics of Spanish 167
America, 504 and French Egyptian campaign, 76
and reordering of continental power, and French invasion of Russia, 534
102 and the “Great Game” in Central
scope of effects, 3 Asia and India, 87–88, 90, 97–100
and scope of Napoleonic Wars, and Ottoman relations with
xiv, 11 European powers, 372–374,
and the War of the First Coalition, 391–392, 394–395, 398–399,
44–52, 54, 59, 61–63 410, 421
French Revolutionary Legion, 505 and Russian expansion in Caucasus
Frere, John Hookham, 181–182 region, 423–426, 429–430,
Frimont, Johann, 607 432–433, 435–436, 440–446
Furet, François, 103 and the Treaty of Bucharest, 421, 530
fur trade, 38, 483, 548–549 and the Treaty of Finckenstein, 432
and the Treaty of Georgievsk,
Galicia 423–427
and the aftermath of the Great War, and the Treaty of Tilsit, 410,
617–618, 621–622 435–436
index | 905

Georgia (US state), 548–549, 586 and the League of Armed Neutrality,
German Committee, 621–622 113–115, 118
German Confederation, 621–622 and Napoleon’s Continental System,
German Enlightenment, 526 233–234, 238–241
German Legion, 277 and Napoleon’s coronation, 194–195
Germany and nationalist sentiment, 526
and the aftermath of the Great War, and onset of Napoleonic Wars,
616–617, 621–624, 634–635 128–129, 141–147
and art expropriated by French and Ottoman relations with
victors, 102–103 European powers, 382–383
and classification of European states, and the Peace of Lunéville, 110–111
21 and the Peninsular War, 251–252,
and coalitions of European powers, 256–257, 262, 272–273, 277
18–20 and resistance to French expansion,
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, 79–82
156–161, 165–166 and the Scandinavian theater,
and the Congress of Vienna, 591–595, 338–339, 342, 347–348,
597–598 353–356
and continental balance of power, 110 and the Serbian revolt, 374–375
and costs of the Great War, 627–631 and sources of Franco-Russia tension,
and the d’Enghien affair, 191–192 529
and diplomatic negotiations, and the War of 1812, 585
192–193 and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
and 18th century international order, 307–309, 311–314, 317–318,
21–22, 26, 34–35 329
and the Erfurt Congress, 263 and the War of the First Coalition,
extent and impact of Napoleon’s 47–48, 52–54
Grand Empire, 282–293, and the War of the Third Coalition,
303–304, 306 197–199, 206–207, 213–222,
and the fall of the French Empire, 224–227
552–557, 560–564, 566–573, Geyl, Pieter, 251–252
575–576, 578–580, 584–585 Gheria, 473
and final defeat of Napoleon, Gia Long, King of Vietnam, 487–488
608–611 Gibraltar, 54–55, 148–149, 253–254,
and French Egyptian campaign, 75 300
and French invasion of Russia, Gill, John H., 316
530–531, 534 Giorgi XII, King of Georgia, 99–100
and French occupation of Hanover, Gligorijevic, Prodan, 421–422
176–178 global impact of Napoleonic Wars, xi,
and the “Great Game” in Central 15
Asia and India, 101 Glorious Revolution, xiii–xiv
and impact of French Revolutionary Gneisenau, August Wilhelm Antonius
Wars, 8 Neidhardt von, 303–304, 595, 608
906 | index

Godechot, Jacques, 4 Greenland, 459–460


Godoy y Álvarez de Faria , Manuel de, Grégoire, Henri, 132–133
124, 181–182, 191, 246–247, Grenada, 41–42
250–255, 355, 515 Grenville, George, 24, 63–64, 230–231,
Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 263 276, 399–400
Golitsyn, Dmitry, 222, 326–328 Grenville, William Wyndham, 91,
Golitsyn, Sergei, 310–311 122–124, 127, 171–172,
Gorchakov, Andrei, 326–327 454–456
Gorée, 174–175 Grey, Charles Grey, Earl of Howick, 59,
Gothenburg, 350, 354–355, 357, 359 454–456
Goya, Francisco, 268–269 Gribeauval, Jean-Baptiste Vaquette de,
Goyeneche, José Manuel de, 519 16–17
Gozo, 151–152 Grinfield, William, 173–174, 456
Grab, Alexander, 282–284, 291–292 “Grito do Ipiranga” (Cry of Ipiranga),
Graf von Zieten, Wieprecht, 608 639
Grand Alliance, xiii Grouchy, Emmanuel, 607–612
Grand Duchy of Berg, 214 grupo fernandino, 251–252
Grand Duchy of Finland, 364–365 Guadeloupe, 41–43, 59–61, 134–135,
Grand Duchy of Frankfurt, 290–291 325, 466–467
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, 312–314 Guarded Domains of Iran (Mamalek-e
Grande Armée, 185–186, 189, Mahrusa-ye Iran), 426
198–201, 203, 220, 222, 256–257, Guatemala, 637–638
290–291, 320–321, 443, 530–536, Gudovich, Ivan, 428–430, 433–434,
538–540, 557, 619–620, 627–629. 436–438, 440
See also specific commanders and “Guerra a Muerte” (War to the Death)
engagements decree, 636–637
“Grand Empire,” 226–227, 283 Guerrero, Vicente, 637–638
Gravina, Federico, 207–208 HMS Guerrière, 549–550
Great Belt, 340 guerrilla warfare, 265, 268–271,
Great Coastal Hurricane (1806), 273–274, 277, 279, 307, 353,
461–462 494, 533, 637–638
Great Divergence, 641–642 Guiana, 108–109, 463–464
Great Fear, 9–10, 13 Guibert, Jacques-Antoine-Hippolyte,
Great Game, 83–103 comte de, 16–17, 46–47
Great Lakes, 37, 64, 547–549, 585, Guilland, Anton, 142
639–640 Gulf of Bothnia, 358–365
Great Northern War, 97, 332, 346 Gulf of Finland, 347, 349, 459–460
“great power” status, 20–21, 555, 596 Gulf of Mexico, 179–180, 589
Greece, 392–393, 395, 415–416 Gulf of Tonkin, 487–488
Greek Orthodox church, 29–30 “gunboat war,” 342, 358
“Greek Project,” 377 Gustav IV Adolphus, King of Sweden,
Greek Revolution, 635–637 332, 334–336, 345–351, 354–355,
Green, Charles, 173–174 358–362
index | 907

Gustav of Vasa, Prince, 365–366 Hardenberg, Karl August Fürst von,


Gustavus III, King of Sweden, 33–34, 303–305, 552–554, 557–558,
361–362 595–597, 599–600
Harper, Robert Goodloe, 66–67
habeas corpus, 280–281 Harrison, William H., 585
Habsburg monarchy and empire Harvey, Henry, 60
and the aftermath of the Great War, Haugwitz, Christian August Heinrich
617–618, 621–623 Graf von, 176–177, 215
diplomatic isolation of, 178–179 Hawkesbury, Robert Banks Jenkinson,
and 18th century international order, Lord, 127, 152–153, 156–157,
21–22 159–161, 163, 506–507
and the Erfurt Congress, 264–265 Hejaz, 91
and the fall of the French Empire, Heligoland, 236–237, 340–341, 624
554–555, 559–560, 562, 565, Helvetian Republic, 110–111,
570–571 140–141
and nationalist sentiment, 526 Hely-Hutchinson, John, 94, 379–380
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, Herat, 91
144–145 Herder, Johann Gottfried, 374–375
and Ottoman relations with Herzegovina, 392–393, 415–416
European powers, 377–378, Hesse, 219–220
382–383, 417 Hesse-Cassel, 52, 144–145
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, Hesse-Darmstadt, 214, 287, 570–571,
308–309, 314–315, 320 621–622
and the War of the Third Coalition, Hesse-Kassel, 570–571
179, 213 Hidalgo y Costilla, Miguel de, 515–518
Haidar Ali of Mysore, 472–473, Hill, Rowland, 566–567
476–477 Hiller, Johann, 314
Haiti, 195, 525, 637–638. See also Hoche, Louis Lazare, 60
Saint-Domingue Hoffman, Johann Gottfried, 595
Haitian Revolution, xv–xvi, 61, 136 Hohenzollerns, 21–22, 34–35,
Hamburg, 116–117, 145, 240–241, 177–178
355, 508, 530–531, 559 Holland
Hamelin, Jacques Félix Emmanuel, and classification of European states,
495–497 21
Hamilton, Alexander, 39–40, 64–65, and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
550 156, 159, 170–172
Hamilton, Charles, 174–175 and the fall of the French Empire,
Hammond, George, 40, 64 562–563, 573–574, 584–585
Hanover, 116–118, 175–178, 197, and Napoleon’s Continental System,
215, 563, 593, 600–601, 231–233, 236, 238–240
611–612 and nationalist sentiment, 526
Hanseatic League, 145, 221, 231–232, and the War of the First Coalition,
236, 292–293, 355, 508, 563–564 54–55
908 | index

Holstein, Pedro de Sousa, 593 Hundred Days, 606, 625


Holy Alliance, 624–625 Hungary, 21–22, 29, 33–35, 621–622
Holy Roman Empire Hurid Pasha, 417–418
and the aftermath of the Great War, Hüseyn, Küçük, 381
621–622 Huseyn Kuli (Hüseynkulu) Khan,
collapse of, 227 442–444
and the d’Enghien affair, 191–192 Hyderabad, 85, 476
and 18th century international order, Hyder Ali Khan, Nawab of Mysore, 85
20–22, 25–26
extent and impact of Napoleon’s Iberian Peninsula, 309, 545–547
Grand Empire, 282 Ibn Ahmad of Muscat, 91–92, 491–492
and French Egyptian campaign, 72 Ibn Saud, 372
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, Ibrahim Bey, 72–73, 76–77, 371, 402
143–147 Ibrahim Hilmi Pasha, 399
and Ottoman relations with Iceland, 332, 342–345, 459–460
European powers, 377–378 Île de France (Mauritius), 584–585
and reordering of continental power, Île de la Passe, 496–497
101 Illyrian Provinces, 231–232, 284, 286,
and the War of the First Coalition, 562–566, 621–622
52, 54 Imperial Diet, 26
and the War of the Third Coalition, Imperial Electoral College, 145
206, 214 Imperial Estates, 191–192
Holy See, 295–296 Imperial Guard, 319, 557, 608, 611
Hompesch zu Bolheim, Ferdinand von, Imperial Naval Arsenal (Tersane), 369
75–76 Imperial Recess, 143–146, 214, 216,
Honduras, 637–638 335–336
Hood, Alexander, Lord Bridgeport, 53 Imperial Reichstag, 214
Hood, Samuel, 49, 173–174, 456 Impétueux (French naval vessel),
Hope and Company, 138 461–462
Hopfer, Andreas, 317–318 HMS Implacable, 357–358
Hopkirk, Peter, 635–636 impressment, 543–544, 547–548,
hospodars, 396–398 589–590
Houchard, Jean Nicolas, 50 Inconfidência Mineira, 242–244
House of Commons, 110 indemnity payments, 124–125, 144,
House of Holstein-Gottorp, 365 156, 158–159, 177–178, 213,
House of Orange, 32, 575, 621 221–222, 226, 244–245, 292–294,
House of Savoy, 142–143 303, 320, 359, 584, 619–620, 635
Hull, William, 548–549 India
Humbert, Jean Joseph, 71–72 and British colonial expansion, 91
Humboldt, Wilhelm von, 305, and British imperial interests in Asia,
595–597 469–480
Humboldtisches Bildungsideal and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
(Humboldtian education ideal), 305 172
index | 909

and French Egyptian campaign, 78 Indian Ocean commerce, 4–5


and the “Great Game” in Central indirect rule, 380
Asia and India, 83–97, 99 indirect taxes, 5–6
and impact of French Revolutionary Indonesia, xv–xvi
Wars, 5–7 industrialization, 533–534, 633
importance of Causasus region to Industrial Revolution, 24, 474
British interests, 423–427, Inquisition, 264–265
429–434, 436–437, 439–442, 444 Inspection générale de la flottille
and Ottoman relations with nationale, 183–184
European powers, 372–373, Intendancy of Paraguay, 521, 523
376–377, 393–394 interventionism principle, 617
Russia expedition to, 115–116 “Invisible Squadron,” 459
Indian Ocean Ionian Islands, 125–126, 375, 378–379,
and the aftermath of the Great War, 381–382, 385–386, 388–389,
624 394–395, 409
and British expeditionary warfare, Ionian Republic, 386
459–461, 467–468 Ipsilanti, Constantine, 396–397
and British imperial interests in Irad-ı cedid hazinesi (Treasury of New
Asia, 470, 478–481, 490–492, Revenues), 370–371
494–498, 500 Iran, xv–xvi, 91, 95–100, 115–116,
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, 423–447. See also Qajar dynasty
153–154 Iraq, 91, 371
and 18th century international order, Ireland, 55, 70–72, 110, 157, 167
23 Islam, 29, 79, 435
and the fall of the French Empire, Isle de France, 61–62, 153–154
584–585 Ismael Bey, 72–73
and French Egyptian campaign, 78 Italian Campaign, 68–70
and French imperial designs, 413 Italian Republic, 125–126, 142–143,
and the “Great Game” in Central 156, 167–168, 196, 295, 297
Asia and India, 86–87, 91, 93 Italy. See also Italian Republic;
and impact of French Revolutionary Kingdom of Italy
Wars, 4–5, 9 and the aftermath of the Great War,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 616–617, 621–623
129–130, 132 and art expropriated by French
and scope of Napoleonic Wars, victors, 102–103
xiii–xv and classification of European states,
and the War of 1812, 585 21
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
325 151, 160–161, 171
and the War of the First Coalition, and the Congress of Vienna,
61–62 591–593, 601
and the War of the Third Coalition, and costs of the Great War, 627–628,
209–210 630
910 | index

Italy (continued) Jaswant Rao Holkar, Maharaja of


and 18th century international order, Indore, 87–89, 477–478
20–21, 26, 53 Jaubert, Pierre Amédée, 431–432
and extent and impact of Napoleon’s Java, 481, 486–487, 498–500, 525
Grand Empire, 284–298, Jay, John, 64, 66
300, 303 Jefferson, Thomas, 12, 39–40,
and the fall of the French Empire, 64–65, 120, 137–139,
573, 584–585 179–180, 240, 506–508,
and French conquests, 68–70 543–545, 548, 550
and French expansion, 79–80 Jenkinson, Robert Banks.
and French invasion of Russia, 531 See Hawkesbury, Robert Banks
and the League of Armed Neutrality, Jenkinson, Lord
113–114 Jervis, John, 55, 59
and Napoleon’s Continental System, Jesuits, 481
233–234, 238–239 Jews and Judaism, 102, 289
and nationalist sentiment, 526 Jianqing Emperor, 485–486
and the Peace of Amiens, João VI, King of Portugal, 22–23,
142–143 244–249, 511, 639
and Piedmont issue, 178–179 John, Archduke of Austria, 81–82,
and resistance to French expansion, 197–198, 308–309, 312–313,
79–81 316–317, 319–320, 554–555
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, John Leigh and Co. (bank), 235–236
308–309 John VI, King of Portugal, 22–23
and the War of the Third Coalition, Jomini, Henri, 223
175–176, 179–180, 195–199, Jones, Alexander, 344
203–204, 206–208, 210–213 Jones, Harford, 439–441, 480
Ithaca, 385–386 Jørgensen, Jørgen, 343–344
Iturbide, Agustín de, 637–638 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor,
Iturrigaray, José de, 515 21–22, 34–35
Ivan IV, Tsar of Russia, 97 Joseph Napoleon Regiment, 356
Josias of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, 49
Jackson, Andrew, 586, 589, 640–641 Jourdan, Jean-Baptiste, 50, 53
Jacobins and Jacobinism, 49–52, 61, Jourdan Law, 80–81
106, 112, 123, 190–191, 293, Jóvenes de la Reconquista, 453–454
634–635 judicial reforms, 613
Jamaica, 42–43, 58 Jujuy Exodus, 519
James II, King of England, xiii–xiv Junot, Andoche, 210, 245–248,
Janissaries, 369–372, 374–375, 406, 253–254, 261
408 Junta de Gobierno, 257
Janssens, Jan Willem, 149–150, Junta General, 453–454
499–500 juntas, 257–261, 269, 273–274,
Japan, xv–xvi, 481–483 509–510, 512–515, 517–518,
Järta, Hans, 361–362 521–523
index | 911

Kakhetian rebellion, 425–426, Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, 26, 303,


444–445 611–612, 623
Kalkreuth, Friedrich Adolf Graf von, Kingdom of Westphalia, 225–226,
221 284–285
Kalmar Union, 332 King Erekle (Heraclius) of Kartli-
Kamenski, Nikolay, 360, 418–421 Kakheti, 97–98
Kamensky, Mikhail, 223 Kingsford, William, 541
Karadjordje, 374–375, 391–392, Kléber, Jean- Baptiste, 27–28, 77–78
413–418, 421–422, 508 Klenau, Johann Graf, 318–319
Karamzin, Nikolai, 617 Klingspor, Mauritz, 348–349
Karl Philipp, Fürst zu Schwarzenberg, Knesebeck, Karl Friedrich von dem,
529–530 595
Karl XIII, King of Sweden, 361–365, Knights Hospitaller, 75
367 Knights of St. John, 125–126
Katte, Friedrich von, 317 Knorring, Bogdan von, 361–363
Kaunitz-Rietberg, Wenzel Anton, Knorring, Karl, 425–426, 508–509
Prince of, 646n29 Kochubei, Victor, 372–373
Keating, Henry, 496–497 Königsberg, 221–223, 305, 552
Keats, Richard Goodwin, 355–356 Korea, 481
Keith, George E. (George Elphinstone), Kościuszko, Tadeusz, 56–57
27–28, 89–90, 128 Koselleck, Reinhart, 227
Kelesh Ahmed Bey, 398–399 Kotlyarovskii, Peter, 442, 445
Kellermann, François, 46 Kovalenskii, Peter, 99–100
Kerversau, François-Marie de, 132–133 kowtow, 484–485
Khan, Khalil, 96–97 Kraehe, Enno, 565–566, 615–616
Khanykov, Peter, 357–358 Kraków, 56, 320, 328, 601,
Khurasan, 96 617–618
Khusrav Pasha, 403–404 Krümpersystem (shrinking system),
King, Rufus, 506–507 304–305
Kingdom of Holland, 218, 236, Kurakin, Alexander, 310
284–285 Kurds, 443
Kingdom of Imereti, 426 Kurile Islands, 38–39, 483
Kingdom of Italy, 233–234, 284–285, Kutusov, Mikhail, 199, 202–205,
287–288, 290–293, 295–298 420–421, 535–536, 539–541,
Kingdom of Kartli-Kakheti, 25, 552–554, 557
98–100, 372–373, 423–426
Kingdom of Naples, 80, 238–239, Labrador, Pedro Gómez de, 593,
284–285, 296–297 596–597
Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, 26 Labrousse, Ernest, 21
Kingdom of Poland, 23–24, 26–27, Lacy, Maurice, 210–211
32–33, 328–329, 598 Laforey, John, 58–59
Kingdom of the Netherlands, 498–499, laissez-faire economics, 616
575, 621 Lake, Gerard, 88–89, 473
912 | index

Lake Champlain, 548, 587–588 Lemnos, 401–402


Lake Erie, 548–549, 585 Le Moniteur, 153, 168–169, 335–336
Lake Ontario, 548, 587 Lenkoran, storming of, 445
Lake Pontchartrain, 589 HMS Leopard, 544–546
Lambert, John, 544–545 Leopold II, Holy Roman Emperor,
Lamellerie, Louis-Charles-Auguste 15–16, 34–36
Delamarre de, 459–460 Le patriote français, 15–16
Lampedusa, 170–171 Lesseps, Mathieu de, 402–403
land grants, 548 Lestocq, Anton William, 221, 223–224
land privateering, 268–269 Levant, 23, 72, 78, 90–91, 150–154,
Landwehr, 304–305, 307–308, 273–274, 378–379, 412–413.
561, 570 See also specific countries
Langara, Juan de, 49 levée en masse, 50, 102, 307–308, 571
Langlois, Claude, 107–108 Leveson-Gower, Granville, 224–225
langues, 152 Lhermitte, Jean-Marthe-Adrien,
Lannes, Jean, 202–203, 220, 222, 459–460
244–245, 284–285, 313–316 liberum veto, 34
Lapérouse, Jean Francois de Galaup, licensing systems, 237–238
comte de, 38 Lieven, Christoph Heinrich von, 561
Lascaris de Ventimille, Theodore, Ligurian Republic, 110–111, 142–143,
412–413 156, 196–197, 284, 621
Latin America, xv–xvi, 136, 235–236, Lindsay, Henry, 445
270, 281 Lines of Torres Vedras, 243, 272–277,
Lauriston, Jacques, 127–128 545–546
Lawrence, William, 589 Liniers, Jacques de, 452–454
League of Armed Neutrality, 113–118, Linois, Charles-Alexandre, 459,
124, 127–128, 159–160, 181, 461–462, 493–494
335–337, 347 Lisanevich (Colonel), 442–443
Lebrun-Tondu, Pierre-Henri-Hélène- Lisbon, Portugal, 124–125, 209–210,
Marie, 504 244–249, 265–267, 270–272,
Leclerc, Charles Victor Emmanuel, 274–276, 357, 459–460, 639
133–136 Lissa, 393
Leduc, Amand, 459–460 literacy rates, 11
Leeds Mercury, 590 Little Turtle (Miami chief), 543
Leeward Islands, 460–461 Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson,
Lefebvre, Armand, 226–227, 313–314, Earl of, 547–548, 555, 589,
321, 583 599–601
Légion d’Honneur, 193 Lofer, 321
Legislative Assembly, 15–16, 18 Lombardy, 26, 172, 621–623
Legislative Corps (France), 106–107, Los desastres de la guerra (The Disasters of
226–227, 412, 513 War) (Goya), 268–269
legitimacy principle, 616–617 Louise of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, 219
Leissègues, Corentin-Urbain, 460 Louis Ferdinand of Prussia, 220
index | 913

Louisiana, 36, 39–40, 113, 130, Macon’s Bill No. 2, 545–546


136–137, 154–155, 179–180, Madalinski, Antoni, 56
506–507, 631 Madeira, 248
Louisiana Purchase, xv–xvi, 138–139, Madelin, Louis, 286
149, 179–180, 195, 507–508, Madison, James, 541–543, 545–546,
525 589–590
Louisiana Territory, 525, 639–640 Madras, 62, 83–85, 301, 475, 497
Louis I of Etruria, 111–112 Madras Native Cavalry, 88, 96
Louis XIV, King of France, xiii, 6–7, Madras Native Infantry, 88
104, 252, 487–488 Madras presidency, 83–85
Louis XVI, King of France, 6–7, Magallon, Charles, 73, 90–91
12–15, 47, 114, 244, 368 Mahan, Alfred Thayer, 544–545
described, 12–13 Maistre, Joseph de, 206
Louis XVIII, King of France, 114, Maitland, Frederick Lewis, 612–613
600–604, 607–608, 612–613, Malacca Straits, 499–500
619–620, 635 Malcolm, John, 96–97, 436–437,
Louverture, Toussaint Bréda, 61, 439–440, 480, 495
130–136 Malet, Claude François, 538
Low Countries, 80, 111, 128–129, Malta
165–166, 172, 293, 322–323, and the aftermath of the Great War,
573–575, 598–601, 616–617 624
Lower Canada, 37, 586 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
Lozère, Joseph Pelet de la, 168–169 148–157, 159–160, 162–164,
Lübeck, 116–117, 145, 211, 240–241, 168, 170–171
334–335, 337 extent and impact of Napoleon’s
Lucca, 284–285 Grand Empire, 300
Luddites, 533–534 and French Egyptian campaign,
Lutheranism, 367 75–76
Luxembourg, 52, 54 and the League of Armed Neutrality,
lycées, 109 114, 118
Lyon Chamber of Commerce, 528 and Napoleon’s Continental System,
236–237
Macao, 86–87, 484–490 and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 123,
Macartney, George, 484–485 125–127
Macdonald, Jacques Étienne, 294–295, and resistance to French expansion, 81
319, 552, 568, 607–608 and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
Macdonough, Thomas, 587 309
Mack, Colin Alexander, 337–338 and the War of the Third Coalition,
Mack, Karl Leiberich, 197–199, 210–211
201–202 MalusÉtienne-Louis, 74
MacKenzie-Fraser, Alexander, 404–405 Mamluks, 29–30, 72–73, 76–79, 90,
Macomb, Alexander, 587 118–119, 153, 371, 379–381,
Macon, Nathaniel, 545–546 385, 402–405
914 | index

Manchester, Alan, 246–247 Maybon, M. C. B., 490


Manchester Constitutional Society, 47 McCracken, Henry, 71
Manchu dynasty, 89–90 Medeira, 125
Manhès, Charles Antoine, 321–322 Mediterranean Sea
Manifest Destiny, 138–139 and the aftermath of the Great War,
Maniots (Peloponnesian Greeks), 73 624, 635–636
Mao Zedong, 182 and British expeditionary warfare,
Marathas Confederation, 85, 87–89, 93, 449, 463–465, 467–468
472–473, 476–478, 493 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
Maria Carolina, Queen, 196, 299–301 148–154, 156, 168–171
Maria I, Queen of Portugal, 22–23 and French Egyptian campaign,
Maria Theresa, Empress, consort of 72–75, 78
Francis I, Emperor of Austria, and the “Great Game” in Central
382–383 Asia and India, 94
Marie Antoinette, Queen, consort of and onset of Napoleonic Wars,
Louis XVI, King of France, 11–12 125–126
Marie-Galante, 463–464 and the Tripolitan War, 118–119
Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma, Mehmet Ali of Egypt, xv–xvi, 78–79,
529–530, 565, 582, 623 403–408, 550–551
marielouises, 576 Mélito, André François Miot de, 193,
Mariño, Santiago, 637–638 199–200
Markov, Arkadii, 191 Menou, Jacques-François, 27–28
Marmont, August, 275–278, 316–317, mercantilism, 27, 150–151, 228–229,
319, 398–399, 580, 582–584 252–253, 297–298, 508, 630–632.
Marques, Manoel, 463–464 See also British East India
Martínez, Esteban José, 39 Company; Dutch East India
Martinique, 41–43, 50–51, 59–61, Company; French East India
126–127, 132, 135, 325 Company
Mascarene Islands, 209–210, 325, merchant shipping, 27, 118–121,
490–491, 496, 498, 525. 543–544
See also Mauritius mestizos, 280–281, 503–504
Masonic movement, 11–12 Metcalfe, Charles, 480
Masséna, André, 80–81, 202–203, Metternich, Klemens Wenzel von,
236–237, 267, 274–276, 294–295, xii–xiii, 20–21, 412, 416–417,
299–300, 313–315, 318–319, 419–420, 529–530, 554–555,
545–546, 607–608 561–565, 571–575, 578, 593–596,
Masséna, Marshal André, 210–211 598–601, 606, 611–612
Mathiez, Albert, 47–48 Mexico, 39, 180, 252–253, 456,
Mauritius, 61–62, 87, 129–130, 501–503, 507–508, 510–511,
490–492, 495–499, 584–585, 513, 515–517, 589, 628–629,
624. See also Mascarene Islands 631–632, 637–639
Maximilian Joseph, Duke of Bavaria, Mexico City, 501–502, 510–511,
144–145, 197–198 515–516
index | 915

Miami Indians, 543 modernity and modernization, 242,


Michelena, Juan Ángel de, 517–518 264–265, 293, 369–371, 388–389,
Michelson, Ivan, 397–398, 409 405–408, 421–422, 434–435,
Middle East, 84, 163, 424 641–642
Milan Decrees, 230–231 Mohawk Indians, 549
military conflict, changing nature of, Moldavia, 114–115, 262–263, 375,
16–17, 27–29 383, 386, 388–389, 392–393,
military expenditures, 6–7, 17, 27–28 396–398, 409–414, 421, 531.
military formations, 186, 307–308 See also Danubian Principalities
military recruitment, 284–285. Môle-Saint-Nicolas, 59
See also conscription Mollien, François Nicolas, 199–200
military training and reforms, 184–186, Moncey, Bon Adrien Jeannot de,
199–200, 261–262, 304–305, 256–259, 583
369–371, 434–435, 439–440, monetary unions, 287–288
443, 447 Monge, Gaspard, 74
militias, 272–273 Monro, Henry, 71
millet system, 368–369 Monroe, James, 137–138, 640–641
Mimaran-i Hassa Ocag˘i (State Monroe Doctrine, 40, 641
Architecture Corps), 369–370 Montenegro, 385, 392–393, 413–416
Mims, Samuel, 586 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de
Ministère de la Marine, 175 Secondat, baron de La Brède et de,
Ministry of All the Talents, 454–455, 10–11
605 Monteverde, Domingo de, 522
Minorca, 126–127, 148–149 Montevideo, 452–453, 517–521
Minto, Gilbert Elliot, Earl of, 436–437, Montgelas, Maximilian von, 287
440, 478–480, 487, 494–495, Moore, John, 261–262, 265–266, 270,
499–500 353–356, 358–359
Miquelon, 50–51 Moravia, 419
Mirabeau, Honoré, 42, 593 Morea, 262–263, 385, 387
Miranda y Rodríguez de Espinoza, Moreau, Jean, 53, 81–82, 129, 188–190,
Sebastián Francisco de, 451–452, 568–569, 580
454–455, 504, 511–512, 522 Morelos y Pavón, José María, 516–517
Mir Jafar, 474–475 Mörner, Karl Otto, 366
Mirza Issa Farahani, Qaim Maqam, Morocco, 118–119
438 Morris, Gouverneur, 63–64
Missett, Ernest, 402–405 MortierÉdouard, 176–177, 335, 580,
MissiessyÉdouard de, 457 582–583
mission civilisatrice, 289–290 Moscow, 534–538, 540
Mississippi River, 40, 64, 138–139, Mount Tambora, 630
505–507 Mughal Empire, 85, 469–472,
Mississippi Valley, 137 474–477
Mist, Jacob Abraham de, 149 Muhammad ibn ‘Abd al-Wahhab, 372
Modena, 623 Muhammad Khan, 427–428
916 | index

Muhendishane-i Bahri-i Humayun and the fall of the French Empire,


(Imperial School of Naval 563
Engineering), 369–370 and formation of Third Coalition,
Muhendishane-i Berri-i Humayun 196
(Imperial Military Engineering and French expansion, 79–80
School), 369–370 and the League of Armed Neutrality,
Muhendishane-i Cedide (New 114, 116–117
Engineering School), 369–370 and Napoleon’s Continental System,
Muhib Efendi, Abdurrahim, 236–239
394–395 and Napoleon’s offers to negotiate,
mulattos, 42–43, 61, 169, 242–244, 503 195
Mulgrave, Henry Phipps, Lord, and the Peace of Lunéville,
465–466 111–112
Mulovskii, G., 38–39 and resistance to French expansion,
Muninenuchikowashi-rei, 482 79–80
Murad Bey, 72–73, 76–77, 371, 402 and the War of the First Coalition,
Murat, Joachim, 202–203, 214, 48–49
221–222, 224–225, 236, 238–239, and the War of the Third Coalition,
254–255, 257, 284–285, 295, 175–176, 210–212
298–300, 337, 539, 575–576, Napoleon I, Emperor of the French
593, 607 abdication, 583, 612–613
Murray, George, 453 and the aftermath of the Great War,
Murray, John, 92 616–621, 623, 625, 634–635,
Muruzi, Alexander, 396–397 641
Muscat (Oman), 23, 91–92, 491–492 and Anglophobia, 165–166
Mustafa, Sam, 214, 292–293, 317 birth of, xi–xii
Mustafa III, Sultan, 368 and British expeditionary warfare,
Mustafa IV, Sultan, 368, 406–408, 414, 449–450, 454–457, 459–460,
420–422 462–465, 467–468
Mutiny of Aranjuz, 254–255 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
mutual compensation, 617–618 151
Mysore, 77, 85–88, 93, 472–473, and conflicts in Caucasus region,
476–477 426–439, 441–447
and conflicts in Spanish America,
Nadir Shah Afshar, Shah of Iran, 95, 97, 507–510, 513, 517–518
115–116, 474 and the Congress of Vienna,
Nagasaki Bay affair, 481–482 591–599, 601
Naples Continental System, 228–241
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, coronation as emperor, xii–xiii,
157, 170–171 193–195
and the Congress of Vienna, 593 and costs of the Great War, 627–629,
and extent and impact of Napoleon’s 633–634
Grand Empire, 284–285 and the d’Enghien affair, 191–193
index | 917

early military career, xii, 50, and the War of the Third Coalition,
53–54 179–180, 184–187, 197–211,
and the Erfurt Congress, 262–265 213–227
exile on St. Helena, 287, 605–606, Napoleonic Code, xii, 109–110,
613, 619–620, 641 284–286, 289, 294–295
extent and impact of Grand Empire, Napoleon’s Wars: An International History
282–300, 303–306 (Esdaile), xiv
and the fall of the French Empire, Nariño, Antonio, 521–522
552–584 Narodna Skupština (People’s Assembly),
final defeat of, 607–613 375
First Consul of the Republic Nassau, 287, 570–571
title, xii National Assembly, 13–16
fragility of Napoleonic Empire, National Congress of Chile, 638
525–526 National Constituent Congress of
and French Egyptian campaign, Chilpancingo, 516–517
73–78 National Convention (France), 44–47,
and French Revolutionary conquests, 50–51, 61, 102
70 National Guard, 133, 612–613
global impact of, xi, xiii–xvi nationalist sentiment, 526, 544, 606,
and impact of Russian invasion in 618
Caucasus, 444–445 Native Americans, 139, 543, 547–549,
invasion of Russia, 526–541 585–586, 588, 640
Italian Campaign, 68–70 Near East, 90–91. See also specific
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, countries
122–147 Nelson, Horatio, 55, 75–76, 91–92,
and Ottoman relations with 117, 207–210, 401, 457
European powers, 378–386, Nemours, Pierre S. du Pont de,
388–392, 394–399, 402–403, 137–138
409–413, 415–416, 420–422 Neobyzantinism, 374–375
and the Peninsular War, 242, Nesselrode, Karl Robert von, 557–558,
244–248, 251–271, 273–280 565, 595–596
and radicalization of French political Netherlands, 27–28, 79–80, 102–103,
discourse, 103 116, 561–562, 621–622
return from Elba, 602–606 and final defeat of Napoleon,
and the Scandinavian theater, 332, 611–612
334–346, 348, 350, 355, 358–362, Neuchâtel, 284–285
365–367 neutral trade, 229–231, 334, 357, 541,
and the War of 1812, 541, 544–548, 546–547
586, 590 New Brunswick, 37
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, New France, 23–24
307–327, 329–331 New Granada, 501–502, 513–514,
and the War of the First Coalition, 521–523, 628–629, 637–638
51–55, 66–67 New Orleans, 66, 137–138, 506–507
918 | index

New Spain, 281, 501–502, 510–511, Norwegian Government Commission


515–517, 523, 628–629, 637–638. (Regjeringskommisjon),
See also Mexico; New Granada; 351–352
Peru; Río de la Plata Norwich Revolutionary Society, 47
New York City, 544–545 Nova Scotia, 37, 544–545
Ney, Michel, 140–141, 202, 223–224, Nyborg, 356
267, 270–271, 538–539, 558,
568–569, 583, 604, 607–612 Obrenoviç, Milos, 421–422
Nguyen Anh, 487–488 Ocampo, Francisco Ortiz de, 519
Niagara campaign, 547, 549, 587 ocean trade, 4–5
Nicaragua, 637–638 ochlocracy (mob rule), 64–65
Nice, 621 Odessa, 635–636
Nicholas I, Tsar of Russia, 635 O’Higgins, Bernardo, 638–639
Nicolls, Edward, 588–589 Old Northwest Territory, 37, 66
Nieman River, 409, 531–532, 539–541, Old Regime, 101, 103
556, 560 Olivier, Guillaume Antoine, 90–91
Nieto, Vicente, 519 Oman. See Muscat (Oman)
Nizam Ali-Khan, 87 opium trade, 484, 490
Nizam-i Cedid (New Order) forces, Opyt (Russian cutter), 357–358
369–371, 403, 406–408, 447 order-in-council, 65
Noble Guard, 219, 221–222 Order of Hospitallers (Maltese
Noguès, Jean François Xavier, 456 Knights), 114, 151–152, 163
Non-Importation Act, 235–236 Order of St. Andrew, 191
Non-Intercourse Act, 545–546 Order of St. John of Jerusalem, 75–76,
Nootka Sound Convention, 40 114
Nootka Sound Crisis, 37–40 Oregon Country, 40
Nordmann, Armand von, 318 Oregon Territory, 639–640
Norfolk Chronicle, 630 Orientalism, 79, 431
Normande, Pedro, 39 Orlov, Vasilii, 115
Normandy, 188 Orthodox Christians, 419, 440–441
North Africa, 72, 78, 118–119 Orthodox Patriarchate of
North America, 179–180, 235 Constantinople, 374–375
North Caucasus, 440 Otranto, 175–176
Northern Circars, 83–85 Otto, Louis Guillaume, 123
Northern Question, 20 Ottoman Empire, 384
North Holland Peninsula, 80 and the aftermath of the Great War,
North Sea, 48, 56, 175–176, 284, 334, 618, 624–625, 635–637
339, 342, 525, 624 alliance with Britain, 27–28
Norway, 26–27, 238–239, 332, and British colonial expansion, 90
335–337, 342–343, 345–346, and British imperial interests in Asia,
350–352, 354–355, 358, 478–480
360–361, 363–365, 367, 530, and British power in the
591–592, 600 Mediterranean, 399–405
index | 919

Christian subjects of Ottoman rule, and relations with European powers,


373–375, 377–379, 385, 387, 375–399
389, 391–393, 409, 412–413, and reordering of continental power,
418–419 101
and classification of European states, and resistance to French expansion,
21 79–80
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, and Serbian conflicts, 374–375,
150, 153, 156–157, 160–164 413–418
and continental balance of power, and sources of Franco-Russia tension,
110 529–530
and costs of the Great War, 628–629 and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
and domestic challenges, 406–408 311–312
and 18th century international order, and the War of the Third Coalition,
20, 29–35, 39 209–210
and European politics, 409–413 Oudinot, Nicolas, 318–319, 535,
and fragility of Napoleonic Empire, 568, 583
525–526 Ouseley, Gore, 444–446
and Franco-Russian relations, Ouvrard, Gabriel Julian, 252–253
418–422
and French Egyptian campaign, Pacific Northwest, 23–24
72–73, 75–79 Pacific Ocean, 130, 467–468
and French influence, 23 Paget, Arthur, 141
and French invasion of Russia, 533, Paget, Edward, 266
540 Palafox, José, 267–268
and the “Georgian Question,” Palafox y Melzi, José Rebolledo de,
372–374 258–259
and global impact of Napoleonic Palm, Johann Philip, 218
Wars, xv–xvi Palmer, Robert R., 4
and the “Great Game” in Central pamphleteering, 11–12
Asia and India, 97–98 Panama, 456
and the Greek Revolution, 635–637 Panin, Nikita, 114, 159–160
and impact of French Revolutionary Papal States, 68–70, 111–112, 196,
Wars, 14–15 210, 231–232, 240–241, 284,
and the League of Armed Neutrality, 295–296, 562–563, 593,
114–115 607, 623
and Napoleon’s coronation, Parafante, 321–322
194–195 Paraguay, 125, 138–139, 141, 519,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 637–638
125–126 Pareja, Antonio, 638
and the Partitions of Poland, 34–35 Paret, Peter, 16–17
and the Peninsular War, 262–263 Parker, Hyde, 117, 351–352
political and social situation faced by parlements, 7–8, 12–13
Selim III, 368–373 Parsons, Timothy H., 469–471
920 | index

Parthenopean Republic, 80 Pellew, Edward, 467, 490–491,


partidas, 269 494–495
Partitions of Poland, 21, 23–25, 27, Pellew, Fleetwood, 481–482
32–36, 51, 56–57, 320, 327, Penal Code (1810), 109–110
382–383, 552–554, 598–599 Peninsular Army, 587
Pasha Yusuf Karamanli of Tripoli, peninsulares, 503–504, 514–517
120–121 Peninsular War, xv–xvi, 209–210, 212,
Paso, Juan José, 519 265, 268–271, 273–274, 277,
Pasvanoglu Osman Pasha, 371–372 279, 514–515, 533–534, 545–547,
Patriarch of Constantinople, 508 567, 627
Patriots, 31–32, 510–511, 514, 517, Pensacola Bay, 589
519–521, 523–524 Percy, William H., 589
Paul I, Emperor of Russia Péron, François, 130
assassination, 191–192 Perron, Pierre, 87–88
break with Austria, 81 Perry, Oliver Hazard, 585
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, Persia, 95–99, 163, 478–480.
157–159 See also Iran
and conflicts in Caucasus region, Persian Gulf, 61–62, 90–91, 474, 480,
423–425 494–495
and the d’Enghien affair, 191–192 Peru, 281, 452, 456, 501–502,
and 18th century international 507–508, 513–514, 518–519,
order, 25 523–524, 637–638
and French Egyptian campaign, Peter I, Emperor of Russia, 97, 206,
75–76 346
and the “Great Game” in Central Peterloo Massacre, 634–635
Asia and India, 99–100 Pétion, Alexandre, 637–638
and the League of Armed Neutrality, Petroplavsk, Russia, 38
117–118 Petrovic, Djordje, 508
and Napoleon’s “peace offensive,” HMS Phaeton, 481–483
112–116 Phanariots, 374–375
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 143 Phelps, Samuel, 343–344
political and social situation faced by USS Philadelphia, 120–121
Selim III, 372–373 Pichegru, Jean Charles, 188–190
and resistance to French expansion, 81 Piedmont, 26, 53–54, 142–143, 161,
Paulucci, Philip, 443–445 166–168, 170, 178–179, 196–197,
Peace Congress in Prague, 563–565 284, 288–289, 295–296, 611–612,
Peace of Kala-i Sultaniye, 411–412 621, 623, 635
Peace of Paris, 41–42 Piedmont-Sardinia, 623
Peace of Wereloe, 346–347 Pillnitz Declaration, 15–16
Peace of Westphalia, 140–141 Pinckney, Thomas, 66
Peacock Throne, 471 Pinto, Jose Manuel, 485–486
Pedro I, Emperor of Brazil, 639 Piombino, Elisa Bonaparte Baciocchi,
Pelet, Jean Jacques, 275–276 principessa di, 284–285, 295
index | 921

piracy, 118–121. See also privateers Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, 20,


Pitt, William, 3, 33–34, 48, 60, 63–64, 32–33, 35, 56–57, 325, 327.
110, 123–124, 127–128, 182, See also Poland
192–193, 213, 387, 393, 454–455, Pombal, Sebastião José de Carvalho e
511–512 Melo, marqués de, 242–244
Pius VII, Pope, 194, 210, 231–232, Pomerania, 21, 196, 214, 220–221,
295–296, 525–526, 623–625 332, 334–337, 345–346, 530,
plebiscitary democracy, 107–108, 617–618, 622–623
193–194 Pondicherry, 61–62, 129–130
Pleischwitz Armistice, 560, 566 Poniatowski, Jozef, 313–314, 325–328,
Poland 569–570
and the aftermath of the Great War, Poniatowski, Stanislaw August, 32–33
617–618, 621–622, 625 Pontecorvo, 284–285
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, Popham, Home Riggs, 449–455
159, 167 popular sovereignty, 106–108.
and competition between European See also plebiscitary democracy
powers, 21–24, 32–36 populism, 633
and the Congress of Vienna, 591–595, Po River clearing project, 297
598–599, 601 Port-au-Prince, 59–60
and continental balance of power, Portland, William Henry Cavendish-
110 Bentinck, Duke of, 230–231,
and costs of the Great War, 627 301–303, 322–325, 337–339,
and 18th century international 456, 512
order, 21 Portugal
extent and impact of Napoleon’s and the aftermath of the Great War,
Grand Empire, 289 627, 629, 631–633, 639
and the fall of the French Empire, and British expeditionary warfare,
552–554, 556–557, 562–563, 459–460, 463–466
571–572, 574–575 and British imperial interests in Asia,
and French invasion of Russia, 474, 481, 485–489
530–532 and casualties of Napoleonic Wars,
and reordering of continental power, 627
101 and classification of European states,
and sources of Franco-Russia tension, 21
529 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, 148–151
308–309, 311–312, 320, 325–331 and conflicts in Spanish America,
and the War of the First Coalition, 508–513, 517, 519–521
51, 56–58 and the Congress of Vienna, 593
and the War of the Third Coalition, and 18th century international order,
195–196, 201, 206, 222–227 22–23, 36
police forces, 525–526 and the fall of the French Empire,
Polignac, Jules de, 636–637 561, 563, 573–574
922 | index

Portugal (continued) Prozorovsky, Alexander, 310–311,


and final defeat of Napoleon, 414–415
611–612 Prussia
and the League of Armed Neutrality, and the aftermath of the Great War,
124–125 615–619, 621–625, 635
and Napoleon’s Continental System, and Austrian diplomacy, 178–179
231–232, 235–236, 238–240 and classification of European states,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 21
125–126 and coalitions of European powers,
and origins of the Peninsular War, 18–20
240–241 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
and the Peninsular War, 242–249, 152–153, 158, 160–161,
253–254, 260–262, 267, 270–279 165–167, 172
and political dynamics of Spanish and competition between European
America, 503 powers, 30, 32–36
and resistance to French expansion, and conflicts in Caucasus region, 432
79–80 and the Congress of Vienna, 591–601
and the Scandinavian theater, 341 and continental balance of power, 110
and the War of 1812, 546–547, and costs of the Great War, 627,
550–551 633–634
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, 309 and the d’Enghien affair, 191
Posen, 621–622 and 18th century international order,
Pozzo di Borgo, Charles André (Carlo 20–24, 26–27
Andreo), 595 and the Erfurt Congress, 264
Pradt, Dominique de, 615–616 extent and impact of Napoleon’s
Preble, Edward, 120–121 Grand Empire, 284–285,
Presbyterians, 70 292–293, 303–306
USS President, 549–550 and the fall of the French Empire,
Prévost, George, 547–548, 587–588 552–575, 577–582, 584
Primera Junta of Buenos Aires, and final defeat of Napoleon, 611–612
518–519, 521 and France’s geopolitical position,
Principality of Piombino, 111–112, 27–28
196–197, 284–285 and French fiscal crises, 12–13
privateers, 66–67, 86–87, 174–175, and French invasion of Russia, 531,
182, 236–237, 478–480, 535, 540
491–492, 495 and French occupation of Hanover,
property rights, 109–110, 280–281, 175–178
284–285, 613 and impact of French Revolutionary
protectionism, 150–151, 239. See also Wars, 14–15
Continental System; trade and and the League of Armed Neutrality,
commerce 116–118
Protestants and Protestantism, 102, and Napoleon’s Continental System,
145 228–229, 231–232, 234
index | 923

and nationalist sentiment, 526 radicalization of French political


and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 128, discourse, 103
143–147 Rahbek, Knud, 334
and Ottoman relations with Rainier, Peter, 61–62, 89–90, 477
European powers, 382–383, Rambouillet Decree, 545–546
396–398, 409–410 Ranjit Singh of Punjab, 472–473
and the Partitions of Poland, 23–24, rationalism, xii, 10–11
32–36 Raymond-Latour, Jean Michel, 234
and reordering of continental power, realistas, 280
101 recruitment, 447. See also conscription
and the Scandinavian theater, 332, Reding, Theodor von, 259
334–337, 339, 341–342 Red Sea, 90–94, 477
and scope of Napoleonic Wars, “Red Stick” Creeks, 585–586
xiii–xiv Reflections on the Revolution in France
and sources of Franco-Russia tension, (Burke), 617
529 Regulating Act (1773), 471
and the War of the First Coalition, Reign of Terror, 51, 103
46–49, 51–53, 56–57, 60 religious freedom, 112, 284–285, 287,
and the War of the Third Coalition, 368–369, 613
186, 192–193, 196–201, repartimiento system, 504
203–204, 214–227 “Report on Continental Affairs”
Puerto Cabello, 636–637 (Champagny), 529
Puerto Real, 629 representative governance, 12
Puerto Rico, 60 republicanism, 605–606, 616
Pueyrredón, Juan Martín de, 639 Republicans, 64
Pym, Samuel, 496–497 Republic of Gran Colombia, 637–638
Pyrenees, 68 Republic of Ragusa, 295, 395–396
Republic of Venice, 196
Qajar dynasty, 90–91, 95, 423, restoration sentiment, 615–617
426–428, 430–447. See also Iran; Restoration War, 244
specific individuals Réunion, 61–62, 135, 490–491,
Qazvini, Mirza Mohammed-Reza, 496–498
431–432 revolutionary ideology and sentiment,
Qianlong Emperor, 484–485 27, 100–103, 606
Qing dynasty, 490 Revolutionary Tribunal, 49
Quadruple Alliance, 596–597, 625 Reynier, Jean, 212–213
Quasi-War, 66–67, 120 Rezanov, Nicholas, 483
Quebec, 37 Rhine Commission, 623
Rhineland
Rademaker-Herrera Treaty, and the aftermath of the Great War,
519–520 619, 633–634
Radetz, Johann Graf Radetzky and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
von, 593 151, 165–167, 171
924 | index

Rhineland (continued) Roquebert, François, 498


and the Congress of Vienna, 598–599 Rosenberg-Orsini, Franz Fürst von, 319
extent and impact of Napoleon’s Rosenheim, Marshal von, 211
Grand Empire, 284, 288–289 Rosily, François, 258–259
and the fall of the French Empire, Ross, Robert, 588
584–585 Rostopchin, Fedor, 114–115, 167,
and final defeat of Napoleon, 611–612 410, 536
and French expansion, 79–80 Rousseau, Jean, 430
and French Revolutionary conquests, Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 11
68 Rowley, Josias, 496–497
and Napoleon’s Continental System, Royal Appeal Courts, 7–8
239–240 royalist plots, 169–170, 188–191,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 193–197, 335–336
104–105, 123, 126, 129, 143–144 Royal Navy. See also specific ships,
and Ottoman relations with commanders, and engagements
European powers, 376–377 and the aftermath of the Great War,
and resistance to French expansion, 627, 632–633
80 British China Fleet, 460–461, 493
and the War of the First Coalition, and British expeditionary warfare,
47–50, 52–54, 56 449, 453, 457–459, 463–468
Riall, Phineas, 587 and British imperial interests in Asia,
Richelieu, Armand-Emmanuel de 481–482, 490, 494, 496–497, 500
Vignerot du Plessis, duc de, and British imperial interests India,
620–621, 635 469, 473, 477
Richepanse, Antoine, 134 and colonial conflicts in Western
Rigaud, André, 61, 132–133 Hemisphere, 41
Riksdag (Sweden), 347–349, 365–367 and conflicts in Spanish America,
Rio de Janeiro, 36, 511–513, 639 510, 513
Río de la Plata, 60, 182, 451–454, and confrontations with Ottoman
456, 501–502, 511, 513–514, Empire, 399–401
517–521, 523 and 18th century international order,
Rochambeau, Donatien, 59, 135–136 20, 27–29
Rodgers, John, 549–550 and fragility of Napoleonic Empire,
Rodrigues Island, 397–398, 584–585, 525
624 and French Expédition d’Irlande, 71
Romana, Pedro Caro y Sureda, marqués and Napoleon’s Continental System,
de la, 355–356, 358–359 235
Roman Catholics, 14, 110, 377–378, and Napoleon’s exile on St. Helena,
383 613
Roman Empire, 296–297 and Ottoman relations with
Romania, 114–115 European powers, 394
Rome, 68–70 and the Peninsular War, 245–246,
Romieu, Alexandre, 383, 431 261–262, 266, 272–273, 277
index | 925

and rebellions in Río de La Plata, and costs of the Great War, 627–629,
520–521 631, 633–634
and the Scandinavian theater, Decembrist Revolt, 635
337–340, 342, 348–349, 351–352, and the d’Enghien affair, 191–193
355, 357–358, 362 and 18th century international order,
and the Tripolitan War, 118–119 20–24
and the War of 1812, 543–544, extent and impact of Napoleon’s
549–551, 588–589 Grand Empire, 303
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, and the fall of the French Empire,
324 552–566, 569–575, 577–584,
and the War of the First Coalition, 587–588
49–51, 54–56, 58, 62–63 and final defeat of Napoleon,
and the War of the Third Coalition, 611–612
174–175, 181–183, 187, and France’s geopolitical position,
207–210, 215 27–28
Rtischev Nikolay, 443–444 and French Egyptian campaign, 78
Ruffin, Pierre, 390, 431 French invasion of, 526–541,
Ruffo, Fabrizio, 80 627–628
Rumyantsev, Nikolai, 310–311, and French occupation of Hanover,
328–329, 410, 508–509 176–178
Rush-Bagot Agreement, 639–640 and the “Great Game” in Central
Russia Asia and India, 83, 93, 95,
and the aftermath of the Great War, 97–101
615–618, 620–625, 635–637, and impact of French Revolutionary
641 Wars, 14–15, 25
break with Austria, 81 and the League of Armed Neutrality,
and British imperial interests in Asia, 113–118, 124, 127–128, 159–160,
97–98, 478–480, 482–483, 500 181, 335–337, 347
and classification of European states, and Napoleon’s Continental System,
21 231–232, 234–235, 240–241
and coalitions of European powers, and Napoleon’s coronation,
18–20 194–195
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, and Napoleon’s offers to negotiate,
149, 151–167, 170–172 195–196
colonial ambitions, xv–xvi and Napoleon’s “peace offensive,”
and competition between European 113
powers, 29–30, 32 and the Nootka Sound Crisis,
and conflicts in Caucasus region, 38–39
423–447 and onset of Napoleonic Wars,
and conflicts in Spanish America, 125–126, 128, 140–147
508–509, 513 and Ottoman relations with
and the Congress of Vienna, 591–601 European powers, 368–369,
and continental balance of power, 110 371–402, 406, 409–422
926 | index

Russia (continued) Saint-HilaireÉtienne Geoffroy, 74


and the Partitions of Poland, 23–24, Saint-Pierre, Martinique, 42–43
32–36 Saint-Priest, Emmanuel, 581–582
and the Peace of Lunéville, 110–112 Sakhalin Islands, 483
and the Peninsular War, 277, 279 HMS Salsette, 357–358
and Piedmont issue, 178–179 Salzburg, 145, 320, 621–622
and reordering of continental power, San Martín, José de, 524, 638
101 Santa Cruz, 342
and resistance to French expansion, Santander, Francisco de Paula,
79–81 637–638
and the Scandinavian theater, 3, Santo Domingo, 58–59, 61, 130–132,
332–339, 341–342, 344–367 463–464
and scope of Napoleonic Wars, Sanz, Francisco de Paula, 519
xiii–xiv sarbaz units, 435, 443, 445
sphere of influence, 38–39 Sardinia, 26, 81, 114, 156, 164,
and the War of 1812, 550–551, 590 167–168, 170–171, 197, 309,
and the War of the Fifth Coalition, 597, 611–612, 621, 623
310–312, 320–321, 325–331 Sarratea, Manuel de, 519–520
and the War of the First Coalition, Sassenay, Claude Henri Étienne Marquis
51, 56 de, 517–518
and the War of the Third Coalition, satellite states, 68–70, 80, 284–285,
181, 186–187, 197–199, 201–208, 287–288, 290–292, 484
219–220 Sattelzeit, 227
Russo-Austrian Treaty, 57 Saumarez, James, 353–354, 357–358,
Russo-Austrian War, 428 363–364
Russo-British Convention (1801), 118 Savary, Anne Jean Marie René, 188,
Russo-Iranian War, 426–427, 447 255–256
Russo-Ottoman War, 25, 29–32, 72, Saxony
369, 375, 377–378, 398–400, and the aftermath of the Great War,
410–414, 416–419, 421, 621–622
428, 441 and the Congress of Vienna, 592–595,
Russo-Swedish War, 32–33, 353, 428, 598–601, 617–618, 621–622, 625
527–528 and extent and impact of Napoleon’s
Russo-Turkish War, 527–528 Grand Empire, 287–288, 292–293
and the fall of the French Empire,
Safavid dynasty, 95–96 552–554, 557, 562, 568–572
Said, Edward, 79 and French invasion of Russia, 531
Said ibn Sultan, 492 and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 144
Saint-Cloud Decrees, 237 and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
Saint-Cyr, Laurent, 210–211, 273, 535 317, 320
Saint-Domingue, 41–43, 50–51, and the War of the Third Coalition,
58–61, 130–138, 173–174, 195, 219–220, 222
325, 504, 525, 631, 637–638 Sayeg, Fathallah al-, 412–413
index | 927

Scandinavia, 26–27, 332, 342, 364–366, Segban-i Cedid forces, 408


463–464, 592. See also Denmark; Select Committee, 485–487
Finland; Sweden Selim III, Sultan, 31, 162, 368–376,
Scharnhorst, Gerhard von, 304–305 378, 381, 383–385, 388–391,
the Scheldt, 149–150 396–399, 401, 403–404,
Schill, Ferdinand von, 317 406–409, 413–414
Schroeder, Paul, xiv, 164–165, Seminoles, 588, 640
218–219, 615–616 Senate (France), 106–107
Schulmeister, Charles (Karl) Louis, 201 Sentimientos de la Nación (Sentiments
Schwarzenberg, Karl zu, 311–312, 535, of the Nation), 516
568–569, 579 Senyavin, Dmitri, 357–359, 393,
Schwarzenburg-Sonderhausen, 570–571 401–402, 413–414
scientific advances, 78 Senyavin affair, 358
scientific expeditions, 105–106 September Manifesto, 373–374
scorched-earth tactics, 519, 531–532, Septinsular Republic, 125–126,
540 178–179, 375, 379, 385–386
Scotland, 110, 157 Serampore, 342
Sea of Marmara, 401 Serbia, 371–372, 374–375, 386, 388,
Sebastiani, Horace, 153–154, 156, 391–393, 396–398, 409–411,
163–164, 380–381, 390–391, 413–422, 562
396–399, 401 Serbian Revolt, 374–375, 388, 391,
Sebastopol, 411–412 627–628
Second Anglo-Maratha War, 473 Seringapatam, 87
secondary education, 109 Seton, David, 492
Second Battle of Oporto, 271 Seventh Coalition, 607–608, 611–612
Second Battle of Pollilur and Seven Years’ War, xi, xiii–xiv, 3–7,
Sholingarh, 85 16–17, 20, 23–24, 27–28, 30–31,
Second Coalition, 79–81, 83–103, 36–37, 41, 44, 58, 72, 83–85, 90,
113–114 136–137, 159–160, 471
Second Estate, 8–9 Seychelles, 584–585
Second Hundred Years’ War, xiii–xiv Shah Shuja, 480
Second Maratha War, 88–89 Shah ʿAlam, 477
Second Mysore War, 85 Shah ʿAlam II, 88–89
Second Partition of Poland, 35–36, 56 Shawnee Indians, 543
Second Serbian Revolution, 421–422 Sherif Pasha, 442–443
Second Treaty of San Ildefonso, Shiite Islam, 426
179–180 shipbuilding, 173, 175, 338–339,
Second Venezuelan Republic, 636–637 464, 467
Second Western Army, 531–532 Shozaemon, Motoki, 482
secret societies, 305–306 Shuvalov, Pavel, 362–364
secularism, 109–110, 284–285 Siberia, 25
Seditious Meetings Acts, 169 Sicily, 54–55, 80, 284–285, 299–303,
Seeley, J. R., 469–471 309
928 | index

Siege of Acre, 77, 92–93, 379 South Africa, 631. See also Cape Colony
Siege of Badajoz, 276–277 South America, 235, 637–639.
Siege of Ciudad Rodrigo, 274–278 See also Latin America
Siege of Saragossa, 267–268 South Carolina, 139
Siege of Vidin, 372, 398 South China Sea, 487–488
Siewierz, 284–285 Southeast Asia, 481
Sieyès, Emmanuel, 105–107 Souza, Diego de, 519–520
Silesia, 21–22, 204–205, 262–263, sovereignty, 626
410, 419, 552–554, 558–560, Spain
567–569, 575–581, 633–634 and the aftermath of the Great War,
silk industry, 150–151, 234, 238–239, 621, 635, 637–641
297–298, 484, 528 and the Battle of Trafalgar, 207–210
silver supplies, 5, 252–253, 501–503, and British expeditionary warfare,
511–512, 631–632 449, 451–455, 457, 459–460,
Simcoe, John Graves, 37 462–466
Sindhia, Madhava Rao, Raja of Gwalior, and British imperial interests in Asia,
87–89, 92 485–486
Singh, Ranjit, 480 and classification of European states,
Siraj-ud-Daula, 471 21
Sixth Coalition, 533, 554, 564, and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
622–623 148–149, 151–153, 159–160
Själland, 345–346 and colonial conflicts in Western
Slaughter of the Knezes, 508 Hemisphere, 36–43
slavery and slave rebellions, 42–43, and conflicts in Caucasus region, 436
58–59, 61, 132–136, 139, and conflicts in Spanish America, 517
148–149, 174–175, 242–244, and the Congress of Vienna, 592–593,
450–451, 456, 623–624, 596–597
632–633 and the Constitution of 1812, 281
Slave Trade Committee, 623 and continental balance of power,
Slavs, 386, 391–393, 419 18–20
Smith, Sidney, 77, 247, 511 and the Cortes of Cadiz, 279–281
Smolensk, 531–532, 534–536, and costs of the Great War, 627–629,
538–540 631–632
smuggling, 232–240, 253, 357, 484, and the d’Enghien affair, 191
529, 544–546 and economic pressures of
The Social Contract (Rousseau), 11 Napoleonic Wars, 528–529
Société des amis des Noirs, 130–132 and 18th century international order,
Society of Friends of the Blacks, 42 22–24
Society of United Irishmen, 70–71 extent and impact of the Grand
Solomon I, King of Imeretʻi, 440–442 Empire, 284–286, 289, 299
Soult, Nicolas, 205–206, 265–267, and the fall of the French Empire,
270–272, 277–279, 294–295, 553–558, 561–564, 566–567,
581–582, 607–609 572–576, 580
index | 929

and final defeat of Napoleon, and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
611–612 307, 309, 312–314, 320,
and fragility of Napoleon’s Empire, 323, 325
525–526 and the War of the First Coalition,
and French invasion of Russia, 531, 48–56, 58–61, 63–64, 66
533 and the War of the Third Coalition,
and global impact of Napoleonic 187, 207–210, 213
Wars, xv–xvi Spanish Banco Nacional, 5
and the “Great Game” in Central Spanish Civil War, 627
Asia and India, 86–87, 93, 95 Spanish Cortes, 533
and impact of French Revolutionary Spanish Council of Regency, 512–515,
Wars, 5, 15 518–519
and the League of Armed Neutrality, “special laws,” 132
114–115, 117, 124–126 Speckbacher, Joseph, 317–318
map of Spanish America, 502 Spirit of the Laws (Montesquieu), 10–11
and Napoleon’s Continental System, Sprengtporten, Göran Magnus, 353, 360
231–232, 234–236, 238–239 Staël, Anne-Louise-Germaine de
and Napoleon’s offers to negotiate, (Madame de Staël), 188
195 Stanislaw II Augustus, King of Poland,
and Napoleon’s “peace offensive,” 113 33–35
and the Nootka Sound Crisis, 37–40 State Council (France), 106–107,
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, 168–169
129–133, 136–139, 142 State Council (Russia), 372–373,
and Ottoman relations with 391–392, 508–509
European powers, 388 St. Croix, 463–464
and the Peace of Lunéville, 111–112 Stedingk, Curt von, 348–349
and the Peninsular War, 243–279 Stein, Heinrich Freiherr vom und zum,
and political dynamics of Spanish 303–305, 595
America, 501–513 Sterzing, 321
revolutionary movements Spanish St. Eustatius, 41–42
America, 517–524 Stewart, Charles, 575, 595–596
and the Scandinavian theater, 334, St. Helena, 613, 619–620, 641
336, 350–353, 355–356, Stirling, Charles, 453
358–360 St. John, 463–464
and significance of naval power, St. Kitts, 41–42
28–29 St. Lawrence River, 548
and social divisions in Spanish St. Lucia, 59–60, 135, 173–174, 456,
America, 513–517 584–585
and the Tripolitan War, 118–119 Stoichevich, Andreas von, 316–317
and war between Britain and France, St. Pierre, 50–51, 59
179–184 Strachan, Richard, 323, 461
and the War of 1812, 546–551, Strait of Messina, 299–300
585–586, 588, 590 Straits of Bab al-Mandab, 92
930 | index

Straits of Malacca, 89–90 and the fall of the French Empire,


Strangford, Percy Clinton Sydney 561, 571
Smythe, Viscount, 247, 511–512, and final defeat of Napoleon,
519–520 611–612
Stroganov, P. A., 393 and French invasion of Russia,
St. Thomas, 342, 461, 463–464 533–534
Stuart, Charles, 260–261 and the League of Armed Neutrality,
Stuart, James, 62 114–118
Stuart, John, 153, 212, 381 and Napoleon’s coronation, 194–195
St. Vincent, 41–42 and the Partitions of Poland, 34–35
Suárez, Francisco, 257 and the Peninsular War, 248
subsidiary alliances, 474–475 regional influence, 26–27
Subsidy Treaty, 252 and the Scandinavian theater,
Suchet, Louis-Gabriel, 273, 277, 567, 332–338, 341–343, 345–355,
569, 607–608 357–367
suffrage, 106–108, 280 and sources of Franco-Russia tension,
Suffren, Pierre Andre de, 61–62 529–530
sugar production, 41 and the War of the Fifth Coalition,
Suleyman Pasha, 371 311–312
Sultanate of Oman, 491–492 and the War of the Third Coalition,
Sumbawa, 630 197–198
supercargoes, 484–485, 488 Swedish-Norwegian War, 622–623
superfrigates, 549–550 Switzerland and Swiss Confederation
Supreme Central Governing Junta of and the aftermath of the Great War,
the Kingdom, 260–262, 268–269, 621, 630
273–274, 279–280, 518 and classification of European states,
Surinam, 346 21
Suvorov, Alexander, 56–57, 80 and collapse of the Peace of Amiens,
Suzzo, Alexander, 396–397 151, 156, 160–161, 165–168,
Svartholm fortress, 348–350 170–171
Sveaborg fortress, 348–350, 357 and 18th century international order,
Swabia, 198–199 26
Sweden extent and impact of Napoleon’s
and classification of European states, Grand Empire, 284
21 and extent and impact of Napoleon’s
and coalitions of European powers, Grand Empire, 284–285,
18–20 290–291
and colonial conflicts in Western and the fall of the French Empire,
Hemisphere, 40–41 584–585
and the Congress of Vienna, 591–593, and final defeat of Napoleon,
597, 600 611–612
and 18th century international order, and formation of Third Coalition,
32–34 196–197
index | 931

and French expansion, 79–80 and the War of 1812, 548


and French occupation of Hanover, Tay Son Rebellion, 487–488
175–176 Tecumseh, 543, 547–548, 585–586
and French Revolutionary conquests, Temple of Reason, 72–73
68–70 Tenedos, 383–385, 400–402
and onset of Napoleonic Wars, Tenskwatawa, 547–548
140–141, 143–144 the Terror, 11–12
and the Peace of Lunéville, 111 Tettenborn, Friedrich Karl von,
and resistance to French expansion, 559
79–80 Texel fleet (Dutch), 50
Syria, 91, 152–153, 371 textiles, 234, 238, 297–298
Thessaloniki, 236–237
Tahir Pasha, 403 Third Estate, 9–10, 13
HMS Talbot, 344 Third Mysore War, 86
Talleyrand, Charles Maurice de, 73, Third Partition of Poland, 34–35, 57,
118, 144, 156–157, 171–172, 552–554
181–182, 190–191, 263–264, Third Western Army, 535
284–285, 339–340, 430, 583 Thirty Years’ War, 26, 332
and the Congress of Vienna, 593, Thornton, Edward, 357, 506–507
596–597, 599–601 Thugut, Amadeus Franz de Paula,
Taranto, 175–176 111
tariffs, 232–233, 238–239 Thugut, Johann Amadeus von, 101
taxation Thuringia, 570–571
and the aftermath of the Great War, Tierney, George, 123
634–635 Tiflis (Tbilisi), 98–100, 373–374, 398,
burden on French peasantry, 10 425–426, 441–443
and conflicts in Caucasus region, 446 Times (London), 267, 324–325, 543
extent and impact of Napoleon’s Tippu Sultan of Mysore, 86–87, 91–93,
Grand Empire, 284–285, 287, 95–96, 472–473, 476–477
289–293, 297–298, 300–301, Tobago, 41–42, 50–51, 58–59, 135,
303–305 173–174, 584–585
and fragility of Napoleonic Empire, Tommasi, Donato, 301
525–526 Tone, Wolfe, 70–71
and French fiscal crises, 12–13 Tormasov, Alexander, 440–444, 535
and Iceland, 344 Torres Vedras campaign. See Lines of
and impact of French Revolutionary Torres Vedras
Wars, 7–10 total war, 268–269
and Ottoman empire, 368–371, 395, Totenkopf (death’s head), 317
403, 407–408 Trachenberg plan, 567–569
and the Peninsular War, 242–244, trade and commerce. See also blockades;
248–249, 280–281 Continental System
and tensions within Napoleonic and the aftermath of the Great War,
Empire, 528–529 623–624, 630–636, 639–641
932 | index

trade and commerce (continued) Trampe, Frederik Christopher, 343–344


and British expeditionary warfare, Tranquebar (Tharangambadi), 89–90,
449–457, 459–465 342
and British imperial interests in Asia, transcontinental commerce, 4–5
484–490 The Transformation of European Politics
and collapse of the Peace of Amiens, (Schroeder), xiv
149–153, 162–163, 168, 170–172 Travancore, 478–480
and conflicts in Caucasus region, Treasonable Practices Act, 169
428, 446 Treaty of Adrianople, 636–637
contraband trade, 490 Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, 620–621
and cotton industry, 139, 238, Treaty of Alliance, 64–65
287–288, 490, 639–640 Treaty of Amiens
and 18th century international order, and British expeditionary warfare, 450
27 and British imperial interests in Asia,
extent and impact of Napoleon’s 485–486, 492
Grand Empire, 287–288, 291–293, and Cape Town, 62–63
297–300, 304 causes for failure of, 148–154,
and French occupation of Hanover, 157–160, 163–171
175–176, 178 and the d’Enghien affair, 191
fur trade, 38, 483, 548–549 and French naval power, 173
and Napoleon’s Continental System, and Gorée, 174–175
228–241 and Napoleon’s Continental System,
neutral trade, 229–231, 334, 357, 231–232
541, 546–547 and onset of Napoleonic Wars,
and Ottoman relations with 104–105, 125–130, 134–135,
European powers, 368–373, 137, 139–140, 142–143
377–378, 380–383, 391, 393, and Ottoman relations with
401–403, 405, 416–417 European powers, 380–385
and the Peninsular War, 242–244, and the Peninsular War, 244–245, 252
249–250 signing of, 122
and the Scandinavian theater, 334, and sources of Franco-Russia tension,
336–339, 342–348, 357–359 527
and silk industry, 150–151, 234, and war between Britain and France,
238–239, 297–298, 484, 528 179–180
and smuggling, 232–240, 253, 357, Treaty of Amity, Commerce, and
484, 529, 544–546 Navigation (Jay Treaty), 66
and tensions with Napoleonic Treaty of Amity and Commerce, 63–64
Empire, 527–529 Treaty of Amritsar, 480
and the War of 1812, 541–551 Treaty of Aranjuez, 111–113, 142
and the War of the First Coalition, Treaty of Badajoz, 124–125
66–67 Treaty of Basle, 52, 244, 505
and the War of the Third Coalition, Treaty of Breslau, 552–554
173–175, 180 Treaty of Bucharest, 421, 530
index | 933

Treaty of Campo Formio, 54, 69, Treaty of San Ildefonso, 52, 54–55,
81–82, 110–111, 213 130, 137
Treaty of Chaumont, 580, 591–592, Treaty of San Lorenzo (Pinckney’s
625 Treaty), 66, 136–137, 505
Treaty of Deogaon, 88–89 Treaty of Schönbrunn, 215, 218–219,
Treaty of Finckenstein, 432–434, 300, 320, 396, 415–417
436–437 Treaty of Seringapatam, 86
Treaty of Florence, 111–112, 210–211 Treaty of St. Petersburg, 530
Treaty of Fontainebleau, 247–248, Treaty of Surji-Arjungaon, 88–89
345–346, 350, 583–584 Treaty of Teschen, 144
Treaty of Fort Jackson, 586 Treaty of the Dardanelles, 411–412
Treaty of Fredrikshamn, 364–365 Treaty of Tilsit, 225–227, 240–241,
Treaty of Ganja, 441 262, 336, 409, 414, 435–437,
Treaty of Ganjeh, 97 439–440, 480, 527–529, 537
Treaty of Georgievsk, 25, 98–99, Treaty of Toeplitz, 568–569
425–426 Treaty of Velikie Luki, 533
Treaty of Ghent, 588–589 Treaty of Westphalia, 48, 140–141
Treaty of Gulistan, 446–447 trial rights, 280–281
Treaty of Gumri, 441 the Tribunate, 106–107
Treaty of Hünkar Iskelesi, 636–637 Trinidad, 60, 125–126, 249–250
Treaty of Jassy, 31 Tripartite Alliance, 476
Treaty of Jönköping, 363–365 Triple Alliance, 33–34
Treaty of Kalisch, 552–554 Tripolitan War, 118–121
Treaty of Kiel, 622–623 Tristán, Juan Pío de, 519
Treaty of Küçük Kaynarca, 29–31, 375, Triumvirate, 519
377–378 Troubridge, Thomas, 490–491
Treaty of Lircay, 523–524 Trujillo, Torcuato, 515–516, 636–637
Treaty of Lunéville, 110–113, 126–128, HMS Trusty, 58
140–141, 143–144, 167–168, Tsitsianov, Paul, 425–430, 440–441
178–179, 196–197, 213, 391–392, Tsitsishvili family, 425–426
562–563 Tucker, Edward, 499–500
Treaty of Methuen, 242 Tugendbund (League of Virtue),
Treaty of Örebro, 358, 533 305–306, 317
Treaty of Paris, 37, 41, 63–64, 85, Tunis, 118–120
158–159, 214, 529–530, 584, Túpac Amaru II, 452, 504
592, 596–597, 607, 619, 625, Turkey. See Ottoman Empire
632–633 Turkish Straits, 29–30
Treaty of Posen, 222 Turngesellschaft (Fitness Society), 306
Treaty of Prague, 562 Turreau, Louis Marie, 541
Treaty of Pressburg, 213, 307–308, Tuscany, 52, 81, 110–112, 284–285,
317–318, 390–393 295–296, 611–612, 623
Treaty of Rasht, 97 Tyrol, 308–309, 317–318, 321,
Treaty of Reichenbach, 34–35, 562–564 621–622
934 | index

Ukraine, 30–31 and the War of 1812, xv–xvi, 121,


Ultras, 602–603 541–551, 600–601, 631,
Unión de los Pueblos Libres (Union of 639–640
the Free Peoples), 520–521 and the War of the First Coalition,
United East India Company (VOC), 63–67
89–90 USS United States, 119–120
United Irishmen, 70–71 Upper Austria, 320
United Kingdom of Great Britain and Upper Canada, 37, 547, 587, 590
Ireland, 110 Upper Egypt, 76–77, 380–381
United Provinces of Central America, Upper Peru, 452, 513–514, 518–519,
637–638 523–524
United Provinces of New Granada, Uruguay, 519–520
521–522, 636–637 US Army of the North, 587
United Provinces of the Río de la Plata, US Congress, 64, 66–67, 119, 240,
518, 520–521, 524, 637–638 541, 545–546, 550–551
United States US Constitution, 12
and the aftermath of the Great War, US Department of the Navy,
619–620, 637–641 66–67
and British expeditionary warfare, Ushakov, Fedor, 379
456 US House of Representatives, 548
and colonial conflicts in Western US Navy, 119–121, 589–590
Hemisphere, 36–37, 40 US Senate, 546–547
and conflicts in Spanish America, US War Department, 585
508–509, 512–513, 517, Uzun-Kilissa Armistice, 429–430
520–521
and costs of the Great War, 628, Valette, Jean Parisot de La, 114
631–633 Vancouver Island, 37–38
expansionism, 543, 640 Vandal, Albert, 162–163, 382–383
and global impact of Napoleonic Vandamme, Dominique, 568–569
Wars, xv–xvi Vane, Charles William, 575
and impact of French Revolutionary Van Renssalaer, Stephen, 549
Wars, 6–7 Vansittart, Nicholas, 451–452
and Napoleon’s Continental System, Vasconcelos, Guevara, 451
235–238, 240 Vellore Mutiny, 478–480
and the Nootka Sound Crisis, 39–40 Vendée royalist revolt, 50, 104–105,
and the Peninsular War, 249–250, 112, 289, 606
274 Venetia, 621–623
and political dynamics of Spanish Venetian Republic, 26, 321–322
America, 502–503, 505–508 Venezuela, 451–452, 454–455,
Revolutionary War, 24, 30–31, 509–513, 521–523, 628–629,
36–37, 41–42, 56–59, 61–62, 85, 637–638
119, 174–175, 280, 472 Venice, 54
and slavery, 632–633 Vénus (ship), 497
index | 935

Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie War of the Bavarian Succession,


(VOC), 89–90, 449–450 22, 144
Vergennes, Charles Gravier, comte de, War of 1812, xv–xvi, 121, 541–551,
33–34 631, 639–640
Vétéran (French naval vessel), 461–462 War of the Fifth Coalition, 307–331,
Victor, Claude Perrin, 267, 271–272, 362
607–608 War of the First Coalition, xi–xii,
Victor Amadeus III, King of Sardinia, 44–67, 70, 79–80, 101, 165–166,
179 375–376, 411–412, 505
Victoria, Guadalupe, 637–638 War of the Fourth Coalition, 209–210,
HMS Victory, 208–209 332, 334–337, 428, 493
Vienna, 81–82, 110–111 War of the Grand Alliance, 228
Vienna Decree, 545–546 War of Independence, 63–64
Vietnam, 487–488 War of Jenkins’ Ear, 511–512
Villaret-Joyeuse, Louis Thomas, 134 War of the League of Augsburg, 41
Villeneuve, Jérôme Pétion de, 504 War of Oranges, 117, 125, 179–180,
Villeneuve, Pierre de, 207–209, 244–245
457–459 War of the Second Coalition, 78–81,
Vilna Maneuver, 531–532, 535, 540 83–105, 113–114, 120,
Virgin of Guadalupe, 515–516 385–386
Vitebsk, 540 War of the Sixth Coalition, 367, 533,
Voinovich, Marko, 97–98 554, 563–564, 584, 622–623
vol d’aigle (flight of the eagle), 604 War of the South, 61
Voltaire, 25–26 War of the Spanish Succession,
Vorontsov, Alexander, 163, 167, 170, 6–7, 41
372–373 War of Sticks (Stecklikrieg),
Vorontsov, Mikhail, 310–311, 581 140–141
Vsevolod (Russian warship), 357–358 War of the Third Coalition, 173–187,
295, 298, 334–337, 387–390,
Wahhabism, 372, 443, 492 392
Walcheren expedition, 322–325, Warren, John Borlase, 461–462
362, 467 Warsaw, 56–57, 284–285, 289–291,
Wallachia, 114–115, 262–263, 375, 294–295. See also Duchy of
383, 386, 388–389, 392–393, Warsaw
396–398, 406, 409–412, 415, Washington, D.C., 588
421, 628–629. See also Danubian Washington, George, 37, 39–40,
Principalities 63–66, 505
Walpole, Horace, 57–58 “weak neighbor” policy, 377
War in Defense of the Constitution, 35 weather patterns, 630
War in the Pyrenees, 244 Wellesley, Arthur. See Wellington,
War of Austrian Succession, 20 Arthur Wellesley, Duke of
War of the Austrian Succession, Wellesley, Richard Colley, 86–89, 96,
xiii–xiv, 41 476–478, 485–486
936 | index

Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke Winter, Jan de, 56


of, 87–89, 261, 267, 270–279, winter conditions, 71, 73–74, 205, 279,
456, 476–477, 545–547, 348–349, 358, 535, 537–538,
550–551, 566–567, 573–576, 540, 555–556, 630
581–582, 586–587, 595–596, Wittgenstein, Peter, 535, 539, 557–559
607–613 Woolf, Stuart, 294–295
Wenzel Anton, Prince of Kaunitz- Wordsworth, William, 134
Rietberg, 14–15 World War I, xi, 18–20, 57–58
Weser River, 229–230 Wrede, Prince, 600
West Africa Squadron (Royal Navy), Württemberg, 114, 145–147, 199,
632–633 213–214, 287–289, 534–535,
Western Army, 361 569–571, 593, 621–622
Western Asia, 83 Wu Xiongguang, 488–489
Western Hemisphere, 36
“Western Question,” 501 xenophobia, 122–123
West Florida, 179–180 Xhosa people, 148–150
West Indies, 58–61, 63–65, 126–127, XYZ Affair, 66–67
151, 195, 207–208, 340–341,
456–468, 584–585, 631. yellow fever, 135–136, 250
See also specific islands Yemen, 91
Westphalia, 284–285, 289–290, Yerevan, 427–428, 437–438
292–295, 317–318, 617–618 Yorck, Johann von, 552
West Prussia, 32–33 Yussuf Pasha, 399, 433
Weyrother, Franz, 204 Yusuf Ziya Pasha, 381
White, Eugene N., 620
Whitelocke, John, 453–454 Zaman Shah Durrani, 87, 93–97
Whitworth, Charles, 154–157, zambos, 503
163–164, 171–172, 188 Zamoyski, Adam, 625–626
Willaumez, Jean-Baptiste Philibert, Zante, 385–386
460–462, 465–466 Zealand, 346
William V, Prince of Orange, 31–32, Zenta, 385–386
62–63 Zentralverwaltungsrat, 554
Wilson, Robert, 411 Zollverein, 287–288
Windward Islands, 173–174, 456 Zubov, Valerian, 98–99, 115–116

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