CONQUESTS OF NAPOLEON IN BAVARIA.
Certified of the nature and extent of the coalition formed against him, Napoleon hastened to secure Bavaria to himself, by the promise of a large aggrandizement of territory. In consequence of this, Austria advanced her troops, peremptorily requiring the elector to join the imperial standard. This he refused to do, and then the Austrian army was ordered to occupy Munich. On his return from Italy, Napoleon had spoken of the invasion of England as an enterprise fully determined upon; but on the 28th of August he announced that “the army of England” was to become “the army of Germany.” Forthwith, the 150,000 men collected at Boulogne, and along that coast, struck their tents, and forming into five separate corps, marched for the Rhine. He affected great disappointment in abandoning his scheme of invasion; but it is doubtful whether he ever really intended to take such a step. The readiness, indeed, with which he dictated his masterly plan for a continental campaign, proves that it had been the subject of a long and mature reflection, and would indicate that this was in reality his grand design. At the same time, such was his mortal hatred to England, that, if he had discerned the remotest chance of success, there is little doubt but that he would have engaged in the desperate enterprise. But England was freed from all fears, and the armies destined to act against her took another route. The five great columns which marched from Boulogne were led by Marshals Soult, Davoust, Ney, Lannes, and Murat; but in the month of September Napoleon took the command of the whole in person. He prefaced his departure for the “Grand Army” by going in state to the senate, and there delivering a speech on the causes of the present war. He remarked: “The wishes of the eternal enemies of the continent are at-last fulfilled; war is begun in the middle of Germany. Austria and Russia have joined England; and our generation is again plunged into the calamities of war. The Austrian army has crossed the Inn; the elector of Bavaria has been driven away from his capital: all my hopes of the preservation of peace have vanished. In this instance, the wickedness of the enemies of the continent has fully revealed itself. They feared the manifestations of my deep love for peace—they feared that Austria, at the sight of the abyss they have dug under her feet, might return to sentiments of justice and moderation, and they have hurried her into war. I sigh in thinking of the blood that this will cost Europe; but the French name shall derive a lustre from it. Senators, when, at your request, at the voice of the whole French people, I assumed the imperial crown, I received of you, and of all citizens, a solemn engagement to preserve it pure and without stain. My people will rush to the standard of their emperor and of his army, which in a few days will have crossed the frontiers. Magistrates, soldiers, citizens, are all determined to keep our country free from the influence of England, who, if she should prevail, would grant us none but an ignominious peace, the principal conditions of which would be, the burning of our fleets, the filling up of our harbours, and the annihilation of our industry.” At the time Napoleon joined his “Grand Army” at Mayence, and when the Austrians commenced operations, the Russians had scarcely arrived in Gallicia. The Austrian army was commanded by Field-marshal Mack, who, notwithstanding his shameful discomfiture in the south of Italy, in the year 1799, still passed with the Aulic Council as a great military genius. Under him were 80,000 men, with which army he took post at Ulm, thinking that Napoleon must of necessity take the same route which Moreau had formerly taken. The French emperor, however, finally divided his immense army into seven corps; and before Mack was aware, an overwhelming force was in his rear. Retreat was impossible; Mack was defeated on every hand, and he shut himself up in Ulm, where he was soon compelled to capitulate. An imperial bulletin announced the capture of 60,000 prisoners, two hundred pieces of cannon, and eighty stand of colours, in a campaign of fifteen days. Nothing now arrested the onward march of the French. Although the Russians, commanded by Kutosow, had finally arrived on the banks of the Ister, they were unable to arrest the enemy’s progress. The French, attended by continual victory, arrived at Vienna on the 13th of November; and on the same day they crossed the Danube, on the left bank of which the Russians were marching to Moravia. Napoleon concentrated his forces at Bruma; and on the 27th of November the forces of Austria and Russia, under the command of their respective emperors, who had united at Olmutz, marched against him. The battle of Austerlitz was now fought and lost. On the 1st of December Francis and Alexander saw the destruction of thirty thousand of their soldiers, the capture of fifteen thousand more, and the wild flight of those who escaped the slaughter; one hundred cannon and a rich booty fell likewise into the hands of the French. In the meantime the Austrian army in Italy, under Archduke Charles, and another in the Tyrol, under the Archduke John, had been compelled by the French to retreat; and having united, they marched towards Vienna. But the Emperor of Austria had now lost all heart. Prussia had recently made peace with France; and two days after the battle of Austerlitz Francis repaired in person to the camp of Napoleon, near Saroschuez, and entered into a preliminary convention relative to an armistice and peace. Finally, a treaty was signed at Presburg, on December the 26th, which broke the power of Austria, and gave the continent into the hands of France. By this treaty, all the countries usurped by Napoleon before the war were ratified to him, and Austria likewise ceded the Venetian territory on both sides of the sea to his “Kingdom of Italy;” to Bavaria, Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Eichstaedt, and a part of Passau; and to Bavaria, Wurtemburg, Baden, the Suabian territories, and the Breisgau. In return, Austria received Salzburg, and Berchtesgaden; and the dignity of Grand Master of the Teutonic order was to be assigned, hereditarily, to an Austrian prince. By this treaty, likewise, the electors of Bavaria and Wurtemburg were acknowledged as kings, and the elector of Baden as independent. The Emperor of Russia was invited to become a party in this treaty, but he disdained it, and led his forces into his own dominions. It was not merely the loss of territory that made the peace of Presburg, humiliating to Austria: the moral effects of a fall of such unexampled rapidity, and the complete change of all relations in Germany, made it still more depressing. South Germany, hitherto the vassal realm of Austria, now acknowledged the rule of France. The German imperial dignity no longer possessed importance; and the whole system of the European states was overthrown. The smaller German States of the Rhine, were formed by the conqueror into what was called “the Confederation of the Rhine;” the old Germanic empire was therefore dissolved, and the influence of the French fully established over a great part of Germany. Very soon after this treaty, indeed, the Emperor Francis formally renounced his title of Elective Emperor of Germany, and assumed that of Hereditary Emperor of Austria. The conquests of Napoleon were followed by the aggrandizement of his house. Less than three weeks after signing the treaty of Presburg, Eugene Beauharnois married the daughter of the King of Bavaria, and shortly after, Princess Stephanie Beauharnois, Eugene’s cousin, was given in marriage to the son and heir of the Grand Duke of Baden. Another matrimonial alliance was also contemplated with the family of the King of Wurtemburg.
GEORGE III. 1804—1807