This breach of friendship appears certainly to have been sought by Austria without any of those plausible reasons of complaint, on which nations generally are desirous to bottom their quarrels. She did not allege that, with respect to herself or her dominions, France had, by any recent aggression, given her cause of offence. The Abbé de Pradt remarks upon the occasion, with his usual shrewdness, that if Napoleon was no religious observer of the faith of treaties, it could not be maintained that other states acted much more scrupulously in reference to him. Buonaparte himself has alleged, what, in one sense of the word was true, that many of his wars were, in respect to the immediate causes of quarrel, merely defensive on his side. But this was a natural consequence of the style and structure of his government, which, aiming directly at universal empire, caused him to be looked upon by all nations as a common enemy, the legitimate object of attack whenever he could be attacked with advantage, because he himself neglected no opportunity to advance his pretensions against the independence of Europe.
The singular situation of Great Britain, unassailable by his arms, enabled her to avow this doctrine, and to refuse making peace with Napoleon, on terms how favourable soever for England, unless she were at the same time recognised as having authority to guarantee the security of such states as she had a chance of protecting, if she remained at war. Thus, she refused peace when offered, under the condition that France should have Sicily; and, at the period of which we treat, she had again recently declined the terms of pacification proposed by the overture from Erfurt, which inferred the abandonment of the Spanish cause.
This principle of constant war with Buonaparte, or rather with the progress of his ambition, guided and influenced every state in Europe, which had yet any claim for their independence. Their military disasters, indeed, often prevented their being able to keep the flag of defence flying; but the cessions which they were compelled to make at the moment of defeat, only exasperated their feelings of resentment, and made them watch more eagerly for the period, when their own increasing strength, or the weakness of the common enemy, might enable them to resume the struggle. Napoleon's idea of a peace was, as we have elsewhere seen, that the party with whom he treated should derive no more from the articles agreed upon, than the special provisions expressed in his favour. So long, for instance, as he himself observed all points of the treaty of Presburg, the last which he had dictated to Austria, that power, according to his view of the transaction, had no farther right either of remonstrance or intervention, and was bound to view with indifference whatever changes the French Emperor might please to work on the general state of Europe. This was no doubt a convenient interpretation for one who, aiming at universal monarchy, desired that there should be as little interference as possible with the various steps by which he was to achieve that great plan; but it is entirely contradictory of the interpretation put upon treaties by the jurists; and were the jurists of a contrary opinion, it is in diametrical opposition to the feelings of human nature, by which the policy of states, and the conduct of individuals, are alike dictated. Buonaparte being, as his conduct showed him, engaged in a constant train of innovation upon the liberties of Europe, it followed, that the states whom he had not been able entirely to deprive of independence, should, without farther, or more particularly national cause of war, be perpetually on the watch for opportunities to destroy or diminish his terrible authority. In this point of view, the question for Austria to consider was, not the justice of the war, but its expediency; not her right of resisting the common enemy of the freedom of Europe, but practically, whether she had the means of effectual opposition. The event served to show that Austria had over-estimated her own resources.
It is true, that an opportunity now presented itself, which seemed in the highest degree tempting. Buonaparte was absent in Spain, engaged in a distant conquest, in which, besides the general unpopularity of his cause, obstacles had arisen which were strangers to any previous part of his history, and resistance had been offered of a nature so serious, as to shake the opinion hitherto entertained of his invincibility. On the other hand, Austria had instituted in her states organic laws, by which she secured herself the power of being able to call out to arms her immense and military population; and her chief error seems to have been, in not postponing the fatal struggle until these new levies had acquired a better disciplined and more consolidated form. Of this the Emperor of Russia was fully sensible, and, as we have already noticed, he saw with great apprehension Austria's purpose of opposing herself singly to the arms of France; since, however close the intimacy which, for the present, subsisted betwixt Alexander and Napoleon, it was impossible for the former to be indifferent to the vast risk which Europe must incur, should France finally annihilate the independence of Austria. A series of intrigues, of a very singular nature, was accordingly undertaken at Paris, in the hope of preserving peace. Talleyrand, who, perhaps on Napoleon's own account as well as that of France, was unwilling that another great continental war should arise, was active in endeavouring to discover means by which peace might be preserved.[476] In the evening, it was his custom to meet the Counts Metternich and Romanzow at the assemblies of the Prince of Tour and Taxis, and there, totally unknown to Buonaparte, to agitate the means of preventing war;—so certain it is, that even the ablest and most absolute of sovereigns was liable, like an ordinary prince, to be deceived by the statesmen around him. But the ingenuity of these distinguished politicians could find no means of reconciliating the interests of Austria—seeing, as she thought, an opportunity of forcing from Napoleon, in his hour of weakness, what she had been compelled to surrender to him in his hour of strength—and those of Buonaparte, who knew that so soon as he should make a single sacrifice to compulsion, he would be held as having degraded that high military reputation which was the foundation of his power. It may reasonably be supposed, that, with the undecided war of Spain on his hands, he would willingly have adjourned the contest; but with him, the sound of the trumpet was a summons to be complied with, in the most complicated state of general embarrassment.
EXERTIONS OF AUSTRIA.
The exertions made by Austria on this important occasion were gigantic, and her forces were superior to those which she had been able to summon out at any former period of her history. Including the army of reserve, they were computed as high as five hundred and fifty thousand men, which the Archduke Charles once more commanded in the character of generalissimo.[477] It is said that this gallant prince did not heartily approve of the war, at least of the period chosen to commence it, but readily sacrificed his own opinion to the desire of contributing his utmost abilities to the service of his brother and of his country.
Six corps d'armée, each about thirty thousand strong, were destined, under the archduke's immediate command, to maintain the principal weight of the war in Germany; a seventh, under the Archduke Ferdinand, was stationed in Galicia, and judged sufficient to oppose themselves to what forces Russia, in compliance with her engagements to Napoleon, might find herself obliged to detach in that direction; and two divisions, under the Archduke John, were destined to awaken hostilities in the north of Italy, into which they were to penetrate by the passes of Carinthia and Carniola.
Buonaparte had not sufficient numbers to oppose these formidable masses; but he had recourse to his old policy, and trusted to make up for deficiency of general numerical force, by such rapidity of movement as should ensure a local superiority on the spot in which the contest might take place.[478] He summoned out the auxiliary forces of the Confederation of the Rhine, and of the King of Saxony. He remanded many troops who were on their march for Spain, and by doing so virtually adjourned, and, as it proved, for ever, the subjugation of that country. He had already in Germany the corps of Davoust, and of General Oudinot. The garrisons which France had established in Prussia, and in the northern parts of Germany, were drained for the purpose of reinforcing his ranks; but the total amount of his assembled forces was still greatly inferior to those of the Archduke Charles.[479]
On the 9th of April, 1809, the archduke crossed the Inn; and thus a second time Austria commenced her combat with France, by the invasion of Germany. Some confidence was placed in the general discontent which prevailed among the Germans, and especially those of the Confederation of the Rhine, and their hatred of a system which made them on every occasion the instruments of French policy. The archduke averred in his manifesto, that the cause of his brother was that of general independence, not individual aggrandisement; and he addressed himself particularly to those his brothers of Germany, who were now compelled by circumstances to serve in the opposite ranks. Whatever effects might have been produced by such an address, supposing it to have had time to operate, the result was disconcerted by the promptitude, which with Buonaparte was almost always the harbinger of success.
While the Austrian army moved slow, and with frequent halts, encumbered as they were with their baggage and supplies, Napoleon had no sooner learned by the telegraph the actual invasion of Bavaria, than he left Paris on the instant, [11th April,] and hurried to Frankfort; without guards, without equipage, almost without a companion, save the faithful Josephine, who accompanied him as far as Strasbourg, and there remained for some time watching the progress of the campaign, the event of which was destined to have such a melancholy influence on her own happiness.