This was a generous resolution on the part of Austria; but by no means politic at the period, when their armies were defeated, their national spirit depressed, and when the French armies had penetrated so far into Germany. Even Pitt himself, upon whose declining health the misfortune made a most unfavourable impression, had considered the defeat of Marengo as a conclusion to the hopes of success against France for a considerable period. "Fold up the map," he said, pointing to that of Europe; "it need not be again opened for these twenty years."
Yet, unwilling to resign the contest, even while a spark of hope remained, it was resolved upon in the British councils to encourage Austria to farther prosecution of the war. Perhaps, in recommending such a measure to her ally, at a period when she had sustained such great losses, and was in the state of dejection to which they gave rise, Great Britain too much resembled an eager and over-zealous second, who urges his principal to continue a combat after his strength is exhausted. Austria, a great and powerful nation, if left to repose, would have in time recruited her strength, and constituted once again a balance against the power of France on the continent; but if urged to farther exertions in the hour of her extremity, she was likely to sustain such additional losses, as might render her comparatively insignificant for a number of years. Such at least is the conclusion which we, who have the advantage of considering the measure with reference to its consequences, are now enabled to form. At the emergency, things were viewed in a different light. The victories of Suwarrow and of the Archduke Charles were remembered, as well as the recent defeats sustained by France in the year 1799, which had greatly tarnished the fame of her arms. The character of Buonaparte was not yet sufficiently estimated. His failure before Acre had made an impression in England, which was not erased by the victory of Marengo; the extreme prudence which usually tempered his most venturous undertakings was not yet generally known; and the belief and hope were received, that one who ventured on such new and daring manœuvres as Napoleon employed, was likely to behold them miscarry at length, and thus to fall as rapidly as he had risen.
Influenced by such motives, it was determined in the British cabinet to encourage the Emperor, by a loan of two millions, to place himself and his brother, the Archduke John, in command of the principal army, raise the whole national force of his mighty empire, and at the head of the numerous forces which he could summon into the field, either command a more equal peace, or try the fortunes of the most desperate war.
The money was paid, and the Emperor joined the army; but the negotiations for peace were not broken off. On the contrary, they were carried on much on the terms which Saint Julien had subscribed to, with this additional and discreditable circumstance, that the first consul, as a pledge of the Austrian sincerity, required that the three fortified towns of Ingoldstadt, Ulm, and Philipstadt, should be placed temporarily in the hands of the French; a condition to which the Austrians were compelled to submit. But the only advantage purchased by this surrender, which greatly exposed the hereditary dominions of Austria, was an armistice of forty-five days, at the end of which hostilities were again renewed.[571]
In the action of Haag, the Archduke John, whose credit in the army almost rivalled that of his brother Charles, obtained considerable advantages;[572] and, encouraged by them, he ventured on the 3d of December, 1800, two days afterwards, a great and decisive encounter with Moreau. This was the occasion on which that general gained over the Austrians the bloody and most important victory of Hohenlinden,—an achievement which did much to keep his reputation for military talents abreast with that of the first consul himself. Moreau pursued his victory, and obtained possession of Salzburg. At the same time Augereau, at the head of the Gallo-Batavian army, pressed forward into Bohemia; and Macdonald, passing from the country of the Grisons into the Valteline, forced a division of his army across the Mincio, and communicated with Massena and the French army in Italy. The Austrian affairs seemed utterly desperate. The Archduke Charles was again placed at the head of her forces, but they were so totally discouraged, that a retreat on all points was the only measure which could be executed.
ARMISTICE.
Another and a final cessation of arms was now the only resource of the Austrians; and, in order to obtain it, the Emperor was compelled to agree to make a peace separate from his allies. Britain, in consideration of the extremity to which her ally was reduced, voluntarily relieved him from the engagement by which he was restrained from doing so without her participation. An armistice shortly afterwards took place, and the Austrians being now sufficiently humbled, it was speedily followed by a peace. Joseph Buonaparte, for this purpose, met with the Austrian minister, Count Cobentzel, at Luneville, where the negotiations were carried on.
There were two conditions of the treaty, which were peculiarly galling to the Emperor. Buonaparte peremptorily exacted the cession of Tuscany, the hereditary dominions of the brother of Francis, which were to be given up to a prince of the House of Parma, while the archduke was to obtain an indemnity in Germany. The French Consul demanded, with no less pertinacity, that Francis (though not empowered to do so by the Germanic constitution) should confirm the peace, as well in his capacity of Emperor of Germany, as in that of sovereign of his own hereditary dominions. This demand, from which Buonaparte would on no account depart, involved a point of great difficulty and delicacy. One of the principal clauses of the treaty included the cession of the whole territories on the left bank of the Rhine to the French Republic; thereby depriving not only Austria, but Prussia, and various other princes of the German empire, of their possessions in the districts, which were now made over to France. It was provided that the princes who should suffer such deprivations, were to be remunerated by indemnities, as they were termed, to be allotted to them at the expense of the Germanic body in general. Now, the Emperor had no power to authorise the alienation of these fiefs of the empire, without consent of the Diet, and this was strongly urged by his envoy.
Buonaparte was, however, determined to make peace on no other terms than those of the Emperor's giving away what was not his to bestow. Francis was compelled to submit, and, as the necessity of the case pleaded its apology, the act of the Emperor was afterwards ratified by the Diet. Except in these mortifying claims, the submission to which plainly intimated the want of power to resist compulsion, the treaty of Luneville[573] was not much more advantageous to France than that of Campo Formio; and the moderation of the first consul indicated at once his desire of peace upon the continent, and considerable respect for the bravery and strength of Austria, though enfeebled by such losses as those of Marengo and Hohenlinden.
We have already noticed the disputes betwixt France and America, and the scandalous turn of the negotiations, by which the French Directory attempted to bully or wheedle the United States out of a sum of money, which, in part at least, was to be dedicated to their own private use. Since that time the aggressions committed by the French on the American navy had been so numerous, that the two republics seemed about to go to war, and the United States actually issued letters of marque for making reprisals on the French. New communications and negotiations, however, were opened, which Buonaparte studied to bring to maturity. His brother Joseph acted as negotiator, and on the 30th of September, 1800, a convention[574] was entered into, to subsist for the space of eight years, agreeing on certain modifications of the right of search, declaring that commerce should be free between the countries, and that the captures on either side, excepting such as were contraband, and destined for an enemy's harbour, should be mutually restored. Thus Buonaparte established peace between France and the United States, and prevented the latter, in all probability, from throwing themselves into a closer union with Britain, to which their common descent, with the similarity of manners, language, and laws, overcoming the recollection of recent hostilities, might have otherwise strongly inclined them.