Revolutionary Europe, 1789-1815

by H. Morse Stephens

Augereau.

Wellington wins battle of Orthez. 27th February

In the south, Marshal Augereau, whom the Emperor had placed in command at Lyons, was, as he himself said, no longer the Augereau of Castiglione. He had been directed to make a diversion against the Austrian left as it entered France with some conscripts and troops drawn from the former Army of Spain, but he remained inactive, and his operations were of no assistance to the Emperor. In the south-west corner of France, Soult was unable to do more than make head against Wellington and the Anglo-Portuguese army. After the battles of the Nive or of Saint Pierre, Bayonne was completely invested, and Wellington, leaving the left of his army to carry on the siege, marched eastwards against Soult. That marshal had been weakened by the detachments he had been ordered to send to Augereau, and to Napoleon himself. Nevertheless, he made a gallant stand at Orthez on the 27th of February, but was defeated and forced to fall back further into France.

Italy.

In Italy the Viceroy, Eugène de Beauharnais, who in the retreat from Russia had given evidence that he was a general of the very first order, offered a gallant resistance to the Austrians under General Hiller. But the defection of the King of Bavaria, his father-in-law, opened the passes of the Tyrol to the Austrians, and Eugène de Beauharnais was then compelled to retreat. At the commencement of 1814, Metternich entered into negotiations with Murat, the King of Naples. Through the influence of his wife, Caroline Murat, sister of Napoleon, with whom Metternich had been in most intimate relations when he was ambassador at Paris, Murat, in the hope of preserving his kingdom, issued a violent proclamation against his benefactor, Napoleon, and advanced to the banks of the Po, at the head of a Neapolitan army of 80,000 men. This movement caused Eugène de Beauharnais, whose fidelity to his stepfather shines out in bright contrast to the treachery of Murat, to fall back still further. He defeated the Austrians under Marshal Bellegarde on the Mincio on the 8th of February, but was unable to follow up his success owing to the position of Murat. In his rear, Lord William Bentinck had landed at Genoa and issued a proclamation promising independence to that city, and the support of England in securing the independence and unity of Italy. Napoleon at one time thought of calling Eugène de Beauharnais to his side, but his rapid victories over the isolated corps d’armée of the allies in February caused him to abandon this wise project.

The Congress of Châtillon. 3d Feb.-19th March 1814.

It has been said that one effect of Napoleon’s victories was to break up the Congress of Châtillon. It had been suggested that a congress should meet at Mannheim at the time of the Proposals of Frankfort, but Napoleon’s delay prevented it from assembling until after the invasion of France was an accomplished fact. The success of this invasion altered the attitude of the allies towards France. They saw that the French nation was not going to arise in its might as it had done in 1793. They heard through sure hands that the people were almost in open rebellion against the Emperor. The Legislative Body had dared to oppose his wishes. Everywhere the conscription was evaded, and there was a muttered feeling throughout France that the country had had enough of war and that it was time that the blood-tax on the French youth should cease. Even the army itself was beginning to despair. The Emperor had lost his prestige in Russia and at Leipzig. His soldiers were not the veterans of his former wars; his generals and his marshals began to murmur and to fear that a war à outrance would end in their personal ruin. Under these circumstances the Congress of Châtillon met on the 3d of February 1814. The French plenipotentiary was Caulaincourt, the most upright of Napoleon’s statesmen. The other powers nominated, not their chief ministers, Metternich, Nesselrode, Hardenberg, and Castlereagh, although they were all at headquarters, but subordinate diplomatists, namely, Count Philip Stadion, the predecessor of Metternich, for Austria, William von Humboldt for Prussia, Razumovski for Russia, and Lord Cathcart, Lord Aberdeen, and Sir Charles Stewart for England.

At Châtillon very different conditions from the Proposals of Frankfort were offered. The main stipulation was that France should return to her limits before the Revolution. England haughtily declared that the naval question with regard to the rights of neutrals was not to be mentioned, and everything was made subject to the great question of the French limits. Caulaincourt disputed the proposals on the ground that it was unfair that France should be reduced to the limits she had held in 1789 while the other powers had been so vastly increased by the rearrangement of Germany and the partition of Poland. Nevertheless he was most anxious that Napoleon should accept these proposals. He granted that they were worse than the Proposals of Frankfort, but argued that if the war continued they were likely to be worse still. Napoleon, however, looked upon the Congress as an opportunity for gaining time. He believed that by his military successes he would avert the disasters which threatened him, and on the day of the battle of Montereau, the 18th of February, he wrote that he was only willing to agree to a peace on the basis of the Frankfort Proposals, and in his own handwriting he added to his despatch to Caulaincourt, ‘Sign nothing.’[13] It is worthy of note that in the Proposals of Châtillon nothing was said about Napoleon himself. The Emperor Francis assumed that his son-in-law would remain upon the throne of France, and Lord Castlereagh expressed no view to the contrary. But the English Minister was absolutely determined not to yield to Napoleon’s demand for the natural limits of France. England was the paymaster of the coalition, and Castlereagh having just promised £10,000,000 to pay the military expenses of 1814 felt that he had the right to insist on his demand. Napoleon in after years declared that his persistence in retaining Belgium was the reason for his refusal to accede to the Proposals of Châtillon. ‘Antwerp,’ he said to Las Cases, ‘was to me a province in itself; it was the principal cause of my exile to Saint Helena, for it was the required cession of that fortress which made me refuse the terms offered at Châtillon. If they would have left it to me peace would have been concluded.’[14] Metternich wrote to Caulaincourt pressing the acceptance of the Proposals of Châtillon, but Napoleon obstinately refused, and the Congress had practically failed by the beginning of March, though it did not actually break up until the 19th of that month.

Attitude of France towards Napoleon.

The fact that the French nation did not rise in arms against the invaders has been mentioned as the primary cause for the difference between the terms offered at Frankfort and at Châtillon. Nothing proves more completely how thoroughly Napoleon had extinguished the spirit of the Revolution than the lukewarmness with which his call to arms was received in 1814. In 1793 the invasion of France had caused a frenzy of patriotism. The people had submitted to the Reign of Terror, because it meant a strong government which could expel the English, Prussians, and Austrians. France was at that time hemmed in by difficulties infinitely greater than those which she had to face in 1814. Then she had no great general. In 1814 she possessed one of the greatest generals the world has ever seen. In 1793 she was torn by civil war in La Vendée and by brigands in every sparsely populated district. In 1814 she had enjoyed fifteen years of internal tranquillity. In 1793 her finances were utterly disordered, her industries were destroyed, and the whole country a prey to anarchy. In 1814 she had been for years the chief nation in Europe, and the wealth of other countries had been drained to enrich her. But the difference was that in 1793 and the succeeding years the French people felt that they were fighting to ward off the interference of foreign nations in their internal affairs, whereas in 1814 they were called on to defend the power of a single man who had infringed the rights and the freedom of other nations. By his bureaucratic system Napoleon had crushed out the power of popular initiative which had been the strength of the Republic; by his suppression of individual liberty he had made the majority of the French people disaffected to his Empire.