The Russians at length, on the 7th of August, had left Cattaro and the other strong places in Dalmatia to the French; their emperor, on the 9th, had ceded all his rights as protector of the republic of the seven united islands to Napoleon, and the latter was busy making preparations thence to extend his operations and his dominion further to the east. Marmont, who administered the province of Dalmatia, received orders to fortify Ragusa more strongly, and to make a report on the best plan to be adopted in case it should be desirable to send an army quickly from Corfu, through Albania, Macedonia, and Thrace. The Russians continued to be quiet observers of all this, and in the mean time made firm their footing in the provinces on the Danube. They made a pretence of the conduct of the Turks on the occupation of Galatz, and their ill-treatment of the inhabitants of Moldavia, for not fulfilling the agreement entered into at Slobozia. The Russian troops, who, according to the terms of the treaty, were already retiring, received contrary orders; and the Turks, again driven out of the two provinces, occupied Galatz anew.
The conduct of the negotiation respecting the division of the Turkish booty, was committed to the chief of Napoleon’s secret police, who had been actively engaged in the murder of the duke d’Enghien. He now held a princely rank as the duke of Rovigo, and was sent to St. Petersburg with this and similar commissions. In the Russian capital the emperor Alexander and the duke acted as rivals in the art of dissimulation; the emperor loaded him with civilities of all kinds, as some compensation for the coolness and contempt with which he was at first treated, to a surprising extent, by the empress-mother and the Russian nobility. He was, indeed, soon consoled, for the slaves of the czar were as zealous in showing respect in the presence of their master, as they were gross in their insolence when not under his observation. The accounts which Savary gives us of the political principles of the pious emperor and his chancellor, and their complete agreement with Napoleon’s morality and his own, would be quite incredible to us, did he not literally quote their words. Savary’s secret report to the emperor Napoleon, partly written in the form of a dialogue, is to be found among the fragments of Napoleon’s unprinted correspondence. A contempt for public agreements, and the plunder of Sweden, even before the declaration of war, astonish us less than Romanzov’s audacious contempt of the opinion of all Europe; he thought it not worth a moment’s consideration; and this was quite in accordance with the language held by his master in speaking on the subject of Turkey. Thibaudeau has given so correct an opinion of both the emperors—of the nature of their consultations—of Savary and Romanzov that we cannot do better than refer the reader to the words of that writer.
Turkey would at that time undoubtedly have been partitioned, had Austria been willing to follow the numerous gentle hints to join the alliance of the emperors, who imagined themselves able to make their will the right and law of all nations; or if Napoleon had not found it inconsistent with his plans to bring on at an unfavourable moment a new war with Austria, which he clearly foresaw in 1808. The Russians, in the mean time, remained, throughout the whole of the year 1808, in quiet possession of the provinces which had been previously evacuated by them, and ruled not only in them, but extended their dominion as far as Belgrade, for the new prince of Servia was likewise under Russian protection. The army under the command of the grand vizir, which lay at Adrianople during the winter of 1807-1808, dwindled, during the continuance of the truce of Slobozia, to a few thousand men, because, according to ancient custom, the janissaries returned to their homes in winter; it again increased, however, in the beginning of summer. Bairaktar’s army, which was organised on the new European principle, was computed at from twenty to thirty thousand men; it remained on the Danube till its leader, at length, resolved to put an end to the anarchy prevailing in Constantinople. He deposed Mustapha IV, who supported the faction of the janissaries, and placed his brother, Mahmud, on the throne. Bairaktar perished, however, in an insurrection (November 14th), and Mahmud, too, would have been murdered, had he not been the last scion of the imperial family. But he was compelled entirely to change his ministry, and to resign the government into the hands of those who enjoyed the favour of the ulemas and the janissaries.
During the disturbances in the internal affairs of the Turkish Empire, the foreign relations continued the same as they were in the year 1807, immediately after the truce of Slobozia. When Napoleon’s plan of removing the negotiations respecting a peace between the Russians and the Turks to Paris failed of success, he found it advisable, in consequence of an impending war with Austria, to give the Turks into the hands of the Russians. One of the chief causes of the war between France and Austria in 1809 was the close union between the latter power and England in reference to Turkish affairs, which appeared in the co-operation of Lord Paget and Baron von Stürmer, the English and Austrian ambassadors in Constantinople. It was the Austrians who mediated the peace between England and the Porte of the 5th of January, 1809, after the conclusion of which the Turks refused to cede Moldavia and Wallachia to the Russians, at the congress of Jassy, as they had formerly done at Bucharest. This led to a new war, of which we shall have to speak hereafter.
CONGRESS OF ERFURT (1808 A.D.)
[1808 A.D.]
In consequence of the complete stoppage of trade which followed the declaration of war in 1807, Russia suffered much more severely than England, and the Russian magnates, supported by the aversion of the emperor’s mother to Napoleon, were very far from showing that good-will to the French which their emperor manifested for Napoleon and his representatives. This was soon experienced by Savary, duke of Rovigo, who, though overloaded with marks of politeness by the emperor, in reality proved unable to make any way at the court of St. Petersburg. Caulaincourt, duke of Vicenza, was afterwards deceived for some years by appearances, and by Alexander’s masterly art of dissimulation; but Napoleon soon came to experience in Spain that the personal proofs of friendship exhibited by the emperor were by no means always in accordance with the Russian policy. The emperor Alexander himself, for example, on the urgent request of Caulaincourt, acknowledged Joseph Bonaparte as king of Spain; whilst Strogonov, the Russian ambassador in Madrid, alleged that he had no instructions to that effect, and corresponded with the insurgents. In the same way, Admiral Siniavin, who, on the breaking out of war with England, had taken refuge in Lisbon with nine ships of the line and a frigate, not only refused to render any assistance to Marshal Junot, who was threatened in that city by the English, but even to make a demonstration as if he were prepared to assist him. The manner in which he afterwards capitulated, on the 3rd of September, 1808, to Admiral Cotton, who caused his ships to be taken to England, might indicate a very different disposition, especially as the ten ships were afterwards given back.
There was, indeed, no want of interchange of civilities between the two emperors. Whoever compares the attentions and marks of regard which have been recorded as shown by the one to the other with the secret intrigues which they were at the same moment weaving against each other in Turkey and Spain, and with the open enmity which was shown as early as 1811, will learn from such a comparison what is the real worth of diplomatic and princely friendships. The emperor of Russia made presents to his imperial brother of vessels and ornaments of malachite and other precious stones, which the latter exhibited in the Salon du Prix in the Tuileries, in order to be able to boast of the friendship of the emperor of Russia in presence of the circles of the faubourg St. Germain. Busts of Alexander were manufactured in the imperial porcelain manufactory at Sèvres, and were everywhere to be seen in the palace and rooms of the imperial family. All who had access to the court, or wished to make themselves agreeable to the emperor, found it necessary to purchase these ornaments, and place them conspicuously in their houses. The friendship was so intimate that one of the emperor of Russia’s adjutants accompanied the emperor of the French when he went to Bayonne to set aside the whole reigning family of Spain. This adjutant, however, was the same Tchernitchev who was engaged in constantly travelling backwards and forwards between St. Petersburg and Paris, who surrounded Napoleon, in spite of all his police, with a net of Russian espionage, and bribed all the employés who were venal in order to obtain papers. He intrigued with ladies to elicit secrets from them; and finally, in 1812, he even purchased a copy of the plan of operations for the war, when it was too late to change it.
Napoleon knew that Austria was thinking of taking advantage of the general discontent and the secret associations in Germany to frustrate the plans of France and Russia with respect to Poland and Turkey; he was, therefore, very desirous of assuring himself once more of the Russian emperor before his journey to Spain. This design was a cause of great anxiety to the very numerous partisans of the English and Prussian policy at the Russian court, when the question was raised of a conference between the two emperors in Erfurt. Von Schladen, the friend of the minister von Stein, therefore presented a memorial to the emperor of Russia, shortly before his departure to Erfurt on the 7th of September, 1808, in which Alexander was forewarned of all that would take place there. From this it may be seen that the emperor of Russia was continually receiving secret counsel and warning from the enemies of the French, and that he played his part in Erfurt more ably than Napoleon, from whom he separated, as even the French writers report, with all the outward signs of indescribable friendship and esteem, but inwardly full of distrust. Von Schladen says very freely to the emperor, that he had given him the advice laid down in his memorial, “in order that he might see through the sophisms, falsehoods, and deceptions which were prepared for him by Napoleon, and awaited him in Erfurt.”