I now come to an article of far greater importance, since it may be attended with the most serious consequences; for it appears, according to the letter of your Excellency, that you are decided on recommencing hostilities on your own authority, whilst the places, Stettin and Custrin, are also temporarily deprived, as well as Dantzic, of the provisions stipulated for in the armistice. I hope, however, that you will seriously consider what you are about to do, and I render you responsible for all the measures you may take, and which may prevent the belligerent powers from coming to an adjustment of their differences.
I send you an exact copy of the letter which I received from the Commander-in-chief of all the armies, Barclay de Tolly; you will see, that far from there being any thoughts of recommencing hostilities, I am expressly prohibited from doing so.
If, in spite of all my observations, which I have had formally certified by my Generals, commanders of corps, you do not think fit to wait patiently till the affair of the legion of Lutzow, which has caused the temporary cessation of the revictualling of Dantzic, (of which the arrears, by the way, are only suspended,) and of the other fortresses, is amicably settled, and you attack my forces, I will prove to you that my brave Russians do not stand in dread of the menaces of any one, and that they are moreover ready to shed their blood for the cause of all sovereigns and all nations.
(Signed,) Alexander, Duke of Wurtemberg.
Dantzic, July 16, 1813.
I received the letter which your Royal Highness did me the honour to write to me on the 15th of this month. I will not again touch on the different observations which you make on the non-execution of the conditions of the armistice; they have been constantly brought forward, and always victoriously refuted; and therefore present nothing new. General Heudelet, whom I sent to the conference that was demanded by General Borozdin, has made known on my part the only expedient for a provisional arrangement which could again take place between us.
In a letter of the 14th instant, I intreated your Royal Highness to appoint at what precise time the six days between the rupture and the commencement of hostilities were to begin; to this I have had no positive answer. I must, therefore, acquaint you, that as the letter of your Royal Highness, dated the 12th, only reached me on the 14th at noon, and I can consider your positive and official refusal to continue the supplies as nothing else than a rupture of the armistice, hostilities will recommence on the 20th; I owe this determination to the Emperor and to my corps d'armée. Six guns fired from the different forts of Dantzic, at noon, shall leave no doubt on this subject. I beg your Royal Highness not to consider as a threat the obligation which I am under to interpret the violation of one of the articles of the treaty as a formal declaration, annulling the armistice; I know the brave Russian troops, whom I have often fought with, and I know that they are worthy to be opposed to our own.
Here, my Lord, my letter would close, were I not compelled to make a remark to your Royal Highness on some expressions of your letter of the 15th, that I also am only accountable to my sovereign for my determinations; that, as for what your Highness calls the cause of all sovereigns and all nations, these are very extraordinary phrases in the letter of a prince, who knows better than any one that the Emperor Alexander, his sovereign, was engaged during five years, in our alliance against the despotism of a maritime power, which would make all the Continent tributary to it; and that his august brother, the King of Wurtemberg, has been for a long time past one of the most staunch supporters of this same cause.
(Signed,) Count Rapp.