The Diplomatists of Europe

by M. Capefigue

Count Pozzo requested permission to travel; and he was again at Vienna in 1808, when Austria, with her patient resignation, was preparing fresh armaments against Napoleon, and declaring the rupture that had taken place with him. I am not aware if history records a longer or more honourable struggle than that of Austria against the Revolution and the Empire. She submitted to every sacrifice, then prepared for battle; vanquished, she had recourse to negotiation; then again tried the fortune of war, until victory finally decided against her, and she was crushed under the weight of the French eagles. Patient and laborious German nation, never didst thou despair of thy cause!

Pozzo di Borgo remained at Vienna during the whole campaign of 1809, and when peace was again imposed, Buonaparte did not forget him. He had taken an active part in all the diplomatic proceedings of Austria and Russia, and Napoleon was a person who always retained the remembrance of his enemies; accordingly, after the peace of Vienna, his first step was to demand the banishment of Colonel Pozzo di Borgo from the Austrian dominions. Alexander, warmly attached to Napoleon, had the weakness to consent, and this gave occasion to the fine and energetic letter, in which Colonel Pozzo already prophesied the invasion of Russia, and said to the Czar, "Sire, it will not be long before your majesty again summons me to your presence." In order to escape the fate which awaited him if his enemy of Ajaccio should succeed in seizing his person, he took the precaution of retiring to Constantinople, the only spot which still afforded him the power of quitting continental Europe and seeking refuge in England.

He was now a proscribed man, travelling in Syria, visiting Smyrna and Malta, and from Malta proceeding to London, where he arrived in October 1810. He was already an agent of some importance, on account of the missions upon which he had been employed; and the limited intercourse between England and the Continent made her set a value upon the information to be obtained from a man of political talent and experience, who had just arrived from the principal capitals of Europe. In several conferences with Lord Castlereagh, Colonel Pozzo explained to him the hopes he still entertained of a continental rising against the colossal empire of France: in the midst of all his great qualities, Napoleon had still some vulnerable points, and nobody was better aware of them than Pozzo di Borgo, because he had studied them through the medium of his resentment. Who could be so well acquainted as he with that Buonaparte, whom he had had such opportunities of observing in the closest manner, with his infirmities, his fits of anger, his weaknesses, and his ambition?

At last the terrible war of 1812 broke out, and the French armies passed the Niemen. Russia was invaded; the battles of Moscowa and the Mojaisk drove back the armies of Alexander towards the sacred city of Moscow, and the ancient capital was reduced to ashes. During the whole of this campaign Pozzo di Borgo remained in London, and his influence was of service in promoting the union between Alexander and the English cabinet; he did not join the army of the Czar, because a revolution had taken place in the ideas of the cabinet of St. Petersburg. The fact was, that when Alexander found his finest provinces invaded, and the murderous war which was desolating his territory, he summoned to his assistance the old Russian spirit and the ancient traditions of the country; the banner of St. Nicholas was unfurled, the churches resounded with prayers and calls to arms against the invader, and the Czar placed himself at the head of the army: but this popular appeal had precisely the effect of rousing the national spirit against foreigners. Ever since the time of Peter the Great, the ideas of civilisation had favoured in Russia the influence of the Italians, the Germans, and the French, who filled many important military situations, and were raised to the first dignities of the state; and the old Russian families naturally entertained a jealous feeling regarding this influence. This colony of courtiers offended their pride, and interfered with their interests; therefore, when Alexander had occasion to invoke the shades of his country at the foot of the Kremlin, and to rouse the devotion of the Muscovite nobility, who lived among their serfs in the central provinces, he was obliged to sacrifice the strangers to their prejudices. Pozzo di Borgo was not recalled till the close of the campaign, when the impulse had ceased to be entirely Russian, but had become more eccentric and inclined towards Poland and Prussia, and he returned through Sweden just at the time when Bernadotte was becoming more nearly connected with England, and, without however openly committing himself, had begun to lend a favourable ear to the overtures of the court of London. The Russian councillor was commissioned to encourage the inclination of Bernadotte, and to strive to forward a decision which would afford his sovereign a new opportunity of taking vengeance for the invasion of his country by the Emperor of the French. This was the first beginning of his intimacy with the Crown Prince of Sweden.

The Emperor Alexander received Pozzo di Borgo at Kalisch, after a separation of five years. They had parted immediately after the interview of Tilsit, which had so greatly reconciled the Czar to the politics of Napoleon. Now, how different was the situation of affairs! Alexander had seen his empire invaded by his ancient ally, his cities in flames; and, according to the excited ideas of Alexander, it was the sainted spirits of the ancient Russians who had raised the stormy tempests, and engulfed the immense army of Napoleon in the icy floods of the Beresina. The language of Alexander to Pozzo di Borgo reminded him of his sagacious prophecies, and the colonel made great efforts to win him back to simple and positive plans against the power of Napoleon; for having been one of the patriots of 1789, Colonel Pozzo perfectly understood the importance of the conspiracy of Mallet, and of the discontent that was beginning to pervade France. He was opposed to all species of compromise, and his view of the case was to strive to effect a separation between the interests of France and her leader. Whilst Alexander, still prepossessed with the idea of the stupendous power of Napoleon, hesitated to plunge into the perils of a distant campaign, Pozzo di Borgo advised him to induce Prussia to take advantage of the secret societies, which proudly raised their heads at the cry of Germania or Teutonia, and to assemble all Buonaparte's rivals in glory under their banners, so as to occasion confusion and disorder in his preparations for war.

A threefold negotiation was now opened; the first with Moreau, whom they were desirous of drawing into France, to rouse the Republican party by the influence of his name; the second with Eugène and Murat, between whom they wanted to divide the kingdom of Italy; the third and last with Bernadotte, who was to join with the Swedish troops and effect a division in the French army. Pozzo di Borgo was charged with this last mission, furnished with full powers from the Emperor Alexander, while the Russians were advancing into Saxony. Without clearly explaining the views of the alliance with regard to France, or on the distinctive and positive results of the war, he was directed to suggest, in his conversations with the crown prince, all the possible events which might encourage the emulation of the old companions of the Emperor Napoleon; and he engaged, in the name of the Czar, to acknowledge Bernadotte as Crown Prince, and eventually, according to the order of succession, as King of Sweden: in the same manner he had promised to Moreau the presidency of a republic, if it should arise from the order of affairs, or from a popular anti-Buonapartist movement in Paris. One ought to have heard the ambassador himself recount all the trouble and anxiety he experienced during this negociation; the vacillations of the Crown Prince, his ill-humours and discontent. Still he hesitated. At last, when the Swedish army was embarking at Karlscrona and landing at Stralsund, the artillery of Lutzen and Bautzen were heard in thunders through the whole of Germany. These brilliant victories had astonished the Crown Prince, and the Russian army was in full retreat through Upper Silesia. Still, though his troops were already assembled, he did not dare to come to a final decision; he could not forget the star of his former master, the remembrance of his victorious eagles, the irresistible influence of his glory; the Swedes, therefore, halted at Stralsund, and awaited the course of events. Bernadotte was a powerful ally; not only did he bring into the field 20,000 brave Swedes, but also his name, like that of Moreau, might be the means of sowing dissension and uneasiness in the French army, if the invasion were to take place; when, therefore, in the interval afforded by the armistice of Neumark, Colonel Pozzo observed the hesitation he still exhibited, he hastened to Stralsund, by the desire of Alexander, to endeavour to persuade him to march at once. He had, however, the greatest difficulty in inducing him to join the military congress of Trachenburg, where the plans were laid for the campaign against Napoleon, and it was necessary he should exhibit, at the same time, firmness with Bernadotte and forbearance towards Sir Charles Stewart, afterwards Lord Londonderry, a young and rather presumptuous officer, who was commissioner from England, and was always ready to give offence to an old soldier like Bernadotte. His efforts were crowned with success; the Crown Prince had already had an interview with Moreau, and Pozzo di Borgo afterwards held a confidential conversation with both those personal enemies of Napoleon, in which they reciprocally exchanged their hopes, their present hatred, and old resentments, Pozzo against the adversary of Paoli, Moreau against the Consul, and Bernadotte against the Emperor. The plan adopted by the allied powers at the military congress of Trachenburg was very simple. Colonel Pozzo di Borgo maintained that they ought to march at once upon Paris, the central point of Napoleon's strength or weakness, where the question would speedily be settled; and this was the opinion entertained by all those military men who mingled any political ideas of the decline of Buonaparte's power and of his personal character with the question of war. Besides, in the opinion of the Russian envoy, Buonaparte and France were not synonymous terms; and it was to save France and her liberty that he so closely pursued the Emperor.

At this time the congress of Prague was assembled, which was in reality nothing more than an armistice required by all the forces. Metternich had assumed for Austria a position of armed mediation, being the commencement of a new political system, a wary and provident plan, which, in her state of relative weakness and isolation, gave her a predominant influence over cabinets far more powerful than her own. All the negotiations of this congress tended to one point only; the endeavour to detach Austria from this mediatorial system, and to induce her to decide in favour of one side or the other,—either for the coalition, or for France. In the army of Napoleon, as well as among the allies, a strong desire for peace existed, with this difference, that the victorious soldiers of the Emperor were thoroughly weary of war; for them the illusions of conquest had no longer any charms, and their generals, in the midst of the wonderful success that had crowned their arms, regretted the life of luxury and enjoyment they had been accustomed to lead in Paris. The sons of Germany, ardent in their desire for liberty, flocked to the ranks of the allied armies, under the command of old Blucher, whose mind was also full of enthusiasm for the German unity; while the general officers of the French army indulged in dreams of their hotels, in the Chaussée d'Antin, or the Rue de Bourbon, or their delightful retreats at Malmaison and Grosbois, while their brothers-in-arms were falling under the enemy's fire,—that fire which no longer respected the marshals. An unanimous cry of bitter accusation was heard among the staff, "That man will make an end of us all!" Exaggerated accounts of disaffection were brought to the Emperor. At one time some thousands of conscripts were said to have mutilated their fingers, in order that they might be sent back to their homes; at another they reported the desertion of the brave fellows who had cried "Vive l'Empereur!" under the grape-shot of Lutzen and Bautzen. The allies were well aware of this decline of military ardour in the French camp, and they knew a feeling of weakness and a disposition to discord were connected with it. The proposals for peace at Prague never were sincere on the part of Russia and Prussia, and the Emperor was thoroughly deceived in imagining them to be so.

The main object was to prevail upon Austria to declare herself openly; and here Napoleon was guilty of many faults. In the situation assumed by the cabinet of Vienna, a good deal was naturally exacted, and with perfect justice, for upon them depended the strength, and we may almost say the success, of the coalition. In offering herself as a mediator, Austria was desirous of regaining the position she had lost during the struggle with Napoleon, and the law was now in her own hands, for she could throw the weight of 300,000 men into either scale. Napoleon committed the great oversight of not acceding to the offers of the cabinet of Vienna: he went farther still; he deeply offended the minister who directed the fates of that cabinet—Prince Metternich, a man of extraordinary ability and consideration, and whose inclinations had previously tended towards France. I have elsewhere related the stormy and imprudent scene which broke up the conference between Buonaparte and the Austrian minister.[19]

The allied sovereigns awaited the decision of the cabinet of Vienna with indescribable anxiety. It was eleven o'clock at night, and they were all assembled in a barn; the ministers, Count Nesselrode, Pozzo di Borgo, and Hardenburg, in the lower apartment; the Emperor Alexander and the King of Prussia on the first floor: the rain descended in torrents, and it was one of those stormy nights which add even to the horrors of war, when all at once a courier arrived, bearing a letter for Count Nesselrode, which contained merely these words,—"Austria has decided, and four armies will be at the disposal of the Alliance." Imagination may picture the shouts of joy, the transports of the coalition, on thus receiving the support of 300,000 men, who were to join the rest of the army by the mountains of Bohemia. The chances of war were now clearly against Napoleon; and General Pozzo di Borgo, for he had lately been raised to the rank of major-general, was again despatched, in the character of commissioner, from the Emperor Alexander to the Crown Prince of Sweden, who at this time covered Berlin at the head of an army, composed of 40,000 Prussians, 30,000 Russians, and 20,000 Swedes.

The most glorious events recorded in the military history of France have nothing that can bear a comparison with the admirable defence of Dresden by Napoleon, when all the armies of the coalition went successively to try their strength under its walls. They were repulsed with considerable loss, and Moreau was mortally wounded on the field of battle; but this admirable manœuvre of concentration was followed by a very great fault—the division of the main body of his army, one portion being intrusted to General Vandamme, the other to some marshals upon whose deeds the star of Napoleon's fortune did not shine. At Gross Beeren, Bernadotte broke the brilliant line of the French, at the same time that the corps of Vandamme was cut to pieces or taken prisoner by the coalesced enemy, and the Emperor was obliged to retreat beyond the Elbe. I cast a veil over the mournful catastrophe of Leipsic, where so many faults were committed, and so much want of foresight exhibited, both on the part of Napoleon, and also of those who were charged with the execution of his orders; the sad disorder, the horrible confusion that prevailed, when the soldiers were decimated at once by sickness in the hospital, the steel of the enemy, and the hordes of peasants raised by Blucher along his path, and which swallowed up the French army, already perishing with hunger, without guns, and barefooted, in the midst of the cold rains of October.