Napoleon was putting into practice the theory he had propounded in 1804 when he said “there will be no rest in Europe until it is under a single chief—an Emperor who shall have Kings for officers, who shall distribute kingdoms to his lieutenants, and shall make this one King of Italy, that one of Bavaria, this one ruler of Switzerland, that one Governor of Holland, each having an office of honour in the Imperial household.”
CHAPTER XVIII
The Prussian Campaign (1806)
Pitt breathed his last soon after the defeat of the allies at Austerlitz, and three months after the death of Nelson. Lord Chatham’s son, no less a martyr to his country than the hero of Trafalgar, had been bent “on putting Europe to rights.” Scarcely had 1806 been ushered in before the Emperor of the French gave fresh evidence to the world that he, too, had a similar ambition. Austria, still smarting from the wounds inflicted by the lash Napoleon had so unsparingly used, an invalid not yet convalescent, and unable to offer any resistance, was again the victim.
For many centuries the ruling King of Austria had been Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, although many of the German States had become practically independent in all but name. It was here that the ruler of France did not hesitate to wound. To strengthen his position he formed the Confederation of the Rhine, whereby sixteen states of various sizes, including Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt severed themselves from the Germanic Empire and entered into an offensive and defensive alliance with him as Protector. The new arrangement added 63,000 soldiers to Napoleon’s reserves, and provided additional barriers against his enemies. On his part he agreed in case of war to put 200,000 men in the field on behalf of the Confederation. Well might the Prussian minister at Paris assert that his master “saw around his territories none but French soldiers or vassals of France, ready to march at her beck.” Prussia was almost hemmed in by the new Confederation; moreover the Grand Army continued to remain in Germany.
For a month or two there was a faint glimmer of hope that the continued war between France and England might cease. Charles James Fox, Foreign Secretary and leading figure in the Grenville administration, was not without admiration for Napoleon, and more or less informal negotiations for peace were opened. There was an exchange of courtesies, Fox sending particulars of a plot to assassinate the Emperor to Talleyrand, Napoleon releasing a few British prisoners from French fortresses. When Napoleon really showed his hand he disclosed a suspicious eagerness to obtain Sicily, the possession of which would be of great importance in his cherished scheme of establishing the supremacy of France in the Mediterranean. The Emperor hungered and thirsted after sea-power; it was the one world left for him to conquer.
Hanover was held out as bait to Great Britain, quite regardless of anything Prussia might have to say in the matter. It was this unscrupulous juggling with other folk’s possessions on the part of Napoleon that kept the Continent in so unsettled a state. None knew who next might be bartered or overrun by French troops, irrespective of previous agreements. When Napoleon played cards he cheated; in political matters his morality was no more conspicuous. His sense of right and wrong had long since given way to an egotism which recognised no law, and placed himself above all codes of ordinary conduct. De Tocqueville said of him: “He was as great as a man can be without virtue.”
The peace overtures came to nought. The King of Prussia entered into an alliance with Russia, and began to mobilise his army. His soldiers were for up and doing regardless of the consequences, and effected a foolish disdain of their antagonists which is well shown by Varnhagen von Ense, then a student at Halle, in his “Memoirs.”
“During the whole summer,” he relates, “we had heard of warlike movements interrupted by hopes of peace; but after Napoleon had obtained a firm footing in Germany by means of the Rhenish Confederation, all idea of peace was at an end, and every one in Prussia called loudly for war. Prussian troops were to be seen in and near Halle on their way to the south and west, and the desire for war grew stronger every day. Some hot-headed fellows were furious if peace was hinted at, or if the superiority of the Prussians over the French was not at once acknowledged. I distinctly remember meeting an officer who asserted that the war was as good as ended—that nothing could now save Bonaparte from certain destruction. When I attempted to talk of French generals, he interrupted me by saying, ‘Generals! whence should they spring? We Prussians, if you like it, have generals who understand the art of war; who have served from their youth up: such men will drive the tinkers and tailors, who date only from the Revolution, before them like sheep....’ This put me out of temper, and I answered bluntly, that a man became a general not by accident of birth, but by actual service; that a man’s former condition was nothing; a tinker or a tailor might make as good a general as a drill sergeant.”