Amid all these gaieties politics were not neglected, and Buonaparte found his great ally as tractable as at Tilsit. Alexander not only ratified the transactions of Spain, but also the subsequent act, by which Napoleon appropriated to himself the kingdom of Etruria, which, according to the first draught of the Spanish scheme exhibited at Tilsit, was to have been assigned to the disinherited Ferdinand. The Czar stipulated, however, on his own part, that Buonaparte should not in any shape interfere to prevent Russia from aggrandizing herself at the expense of Turkey. He promised, also, to take an ally's share with Buonaparte, if the quarrel with Austria should come to arms. To this indeed he was bound by treaties; nor was there any way of ridding himself from their obligation. The conferences of Erfurt ended on the 17th of October, and, as they had begun, amid the most splendid did festivities. Among these was an entertainment given to the Emperor on the battle-ground of Jena, where Prussia, the hapless ally of Alexander, received such a dreadful blow.
It is probable, however, notwithstanding all the show of cordiality betwixt the Emperors, that Alexander did not require the recollections which this battle-field was sure to inspire, to infuse into his mind some tacit jealousy of his powerful ally. He even already saw the possibility of a quarrel merging between them, and was deeply desirous that Austria should not waste her national strength, by rushing into a contest, in which he would be under the reluctant necessity of acting against her. Neither did Napoleon return from Erfurt with the same undoubting confidence in his imperial ally. The subject of a match between the Emperor of France and one of the Russian Archduchesses had been resumed, and had been evaded, on account, as it was alleged, of the difference in their religions. The objections of the Empress Mother, as well as of the reigning Empress, were said to be the real reasons—objections founded on the character of Napoleon, and the nature of his right to the greatness which he enjoyed.[446] Such a proposal could not be brought forward and rejected or evaded, with how much delicacy soever, without injury to the personal feelings of Napoleon; and as he must have been conscious, that more than the alleged reason of religion entered into the cause of declining his proposal, he must have felt in proportion offended, if not affronted. Still, however, if their cordiality was in any degree diminished, the ties of mutual interest, which bound together these two great autocrats, were as yet sufficient to assure Napoleon of the present assistance of Russia. To confirm this union still farther, and to make their present friendship manifest to the world, the two Emperors joined in a letter to the King of Great Britain, proposing a general peace; and it was intimated that they would admit the basis of uti possidetis, which would leave all the contracting powers in possession of what they had gained during the war. The proposal, as must have been foreseen, went off, on Britain demanding that the Spanish government and the King of Sweden should be admitted as parties to the treaty.[447]
But the letter of the Emperors had served its turn, when it showed that the ties between France and Russia were of the most intimate nature; and, confident in this, Napoleon felt himself at liberty to employ the gigantic force which he had already put in preparation, to the subjugation of Spain, and to chasing away the "hideous leopards,"[448] as he was pleased to term the English banners, from the Peninsula.
SPAIN.
In the meantime, the Spaniards had not been unfaithful to the cause they had undertaken. They had vested the supreme management of the affairs of their distracted kingdom in a Central or Supreme Junta, which, composed of delegates from all the principal Juntas, fixed their residence at the recovered capital of Madrid, and endeavoured, to the best of their power, to provide for resistance against the invaders. But their efforts, though neither in themselves unwise nor mistimed, were seriously impeded by two great causes, arising both from the same source.
The division of Spain, as already observed, into several disunited and almost unconnected provinces and kingdoms, though it had contributed much to the original success of the insurrection, while each province, regardless of the fate of others, or of the capital itself, provided the means of individual resistance, rendered them, when the war assumed a more general character, unapt to obey the dictates which emanated from the Supreme Junta. General Cuesta, whose devoted and sincere patriotism was frustrated by the haughtiness, self-importance, and insubordination of his character, was the first to set an unhappy example of disobedience to what had been chosen as the residence of the supreme authority. He imprisoned two members of the Supreme Junta, because he thought the choice which had been made of them was derogatory to his own authority, as Captain-General of Castile and Leon, and thus set a perilous example of disunion among the patriots, for which his real energy and love of his country were scarce afterwards sufficient to atone.[449]
But besides this and other instances of personal disregard to the injunctions of the Junta, there was another deep and widely-operating error which flowed from the same source. Each province, according to the high sense which the inhabitants entertained of their individual importance, deemed itself adequate to the protection of its own peculiar territory, and did not, or would not, see the necessity of contributing an adequate proportion of the provincial force to the defence of the nation in general. Those who had shown themselves manfully eager, and often successful, in the defence of their own houses and altars, were more deaf than prudence warranted to the summons which called them to the frontier, to act in defence of the kingdom as a whole. They had accustomed themselves, unhappily, too much to undervalue the immense power by which they were about to be invaded, and did not sufficiently see, that to secure the more distant districts, it was necessary that the war should be maintained by the united force of the realm. What added to this miscalculation, was a point in the national character of which William III. of England, when commanding an allied army to which Spain furnished a contingent, had a century before bitterly complained. "The Spanish generals were so proud of the reputation of their troops and their country," said that experienced warrior, "that they would never allow that they were in want of men, ammunition, guns, or the other necessaries of war, until the moment of emergency came, when they were too apt to be found unprovided in all with which they had represented themselves as being well supplied."
The same unhappy spirit of over-confidence and miscalculation now greatly injured the patriotic cause. Levies and supplies, which it had been determined to raise, were too often considered as completed, when the vote which granted them had been passed, and it was deemed unworthy and unpatriotic to doubt the existence of what the national or provincial council had represented as indispensable. In this manner the Spaniards misled both themselves, and their allies, the British, upon the actual state of their resources; and it followed of course, that British officers, once deceived by their representations in such instances, were disposed to doubt of the reality of their zeal, and to hesitate trusting such representations in future.
Notwithstanding these unhappy errors, the Spanish force, assembled for the defence of the kingdom, was perhaps not inadequate to the task, had they been commanded by a general whose superior energies could have gained him undisputed authority, and who could have conducted the campaign with due attention to the species of warfare which the time and the character of the invading army demanded. But unhappily, no Robert Bruce, no Washington, arose in Spain at this period; and the national defence was committed to men whose military knowledge was of a bounded character, though their courage and zeal admitted of no dispute. Yet favourable incidents occurred to balance these great inconveniences, and for a time the want of unity amongst themselves, and of military talent in the generals, seemed to a certain extent compensated by the courage of the Spanish leaders, and the energy of their followers.
The warlike population of Catalonia are, like the Tyrolese, natural marksmen, who take the field in irregular bodies, called Somatenes, or Miquelets.[450] The inhabitants of this country arose in arms almost universally; and, supported by a small body of four thousand men from Andalusia, contrived, without magazines, military chest, or any of the usual materials necessary to military manœuvres, to raise the siege of Gerona,[451] which had been formed by General Duhesme, and to gain so many advantages over the enemy, that probably, an auxiliary force of English, under such a general as the Earl of Peterborough, adventurous at once and skilful, might, like that gallant leader, have wrested Barcelona, with Monjouy, from the hands of the French, and left the invaders no footing in that important district. The troops might have been supplied from Sicily, where a great British force was stationed, and there was no want of good and experienced officers, competent to the ordinary duties of a general. But that genius, which, freeing itself from the pedantry of professional education, can judge exactly how far insurrectionary allies are to be trusted; that inventive talent, which finds resources where the ordinary aids and appliances are scarce, or altogether wanting, is a gift of very rare occurrence; and unfortunately, there are no means of distinguishing the officers by whom it is possessed, unless chance puts them into a situation to display their qualifications.