The compliments to the Prince John of Lichtenstein, were intended to propitiate the public in favour of the treaty of peace, negotiated by a man of such talents. Some of his countrymen, on the other hand, accused him of selfish precipitation in the treaty, for the purpose of removing the scene of war from the neighbourhood of his own family estates. But what could the wisdom of the ablest negotiator, or the firmness of the most stubborn patriot have availed, when France was to dictate terms, and Austria to receive them. The treaties of Campo Formio and Luneville, though granted to Austria by Napoleon in the hour of victory, were highly advantageous compared to that of Presburgh, which was signed on the 26th of December, 1805, about a fortnight after the battle of Austerlitz.[169] By this negotiation, Francis ceded to Bavaria the oldest possession of his house, the mountains of Tyrol and of the Vorarlberg, filled with the best, bravest, and most attached of his subjects, and which, by their geographical situation, had hitherto given Austria influence at once in Germany and Italy. Venice, Austria's most recent possession, and which had not been very honourably obtained, was also yielded up, and added to the kingdom of Italy.[170] She was again reduced to the solitary seaport of Trieste, in the Adriatic.
By the same treaty, the Germanic allies of Buonaparte were to be remunerated. Wirtemberg, as well as Bavaria,[171] received large additions at the expense of Austria and of the other princes of the empire, and Francis consented that both the electors should be promoted to the kingly dignity, in reward of their adherence to the French cause. Other provisions there were, equally inconsistent with the immunities of the Germanic body, for which scarcely a shadow of respect was retained, save by an illusory clause, or species of protest, by which Austria declared that all the stipulations to which she consented were under reservation of the rights of the empire. By the treaty of Presburgh, Austria is said to have lost upwards of 20,000 square miles of territory, two millions and a half of subjects, and a revenue to the amount of ten millions and a half of florins. And this momentous surrender was made in consequence of one unfortunate campaign, which lasted but six months, and was distinguished by only one general action.
There were two episodes in this war, of little consequence in themselves, but important considered with reference to the alterations they produced in two of the ancient kingdoms of Europe, which they proved the proximate cause of re-modelling according to the new form of government which had been introduced by Buonaparte, and sanctioned by the example of France.
The King of Sweden had been an ardent and enthusiastic member of the anti-Gallican league. He was brave, enterprising, and chivalrous, and ambitious to play the part of his namesake and progenitor, Gustavus Adolphus, or his predecessor, Charles XII.; without, however, considering, that since the time of those princes, and partly in consequence of their wars and extensive undertakings, Sweden had sunk into a secondary rank in the great European family; and without reflecting, that when great enterprises are attempted without adequate means to carry them through, valour becomes Quixotic, and generosity ludicrous. He had engaged to join in a combined effort for the purpose of freeing Hanover, and the northern parts of Germany, from the French, by means of an army of English, Russians, and Swedes. Had Prussia acceded to the confederacy, this might have been easily accomplished; especially as Saxony, Hesse, and Brunswick, would, under her encouragement, have willingly joined in the war. Nay, even without the accession of Prussia, a diversion in the north, ably conducted and strongly supported, might have at least found Bernadotte sufficient work in Hanover, and prevented him from materially contributing, by his march to the Danube, to the disasters of the Austrian army at Ulm. But, by some of those delays and misunderstandings, which are so apt to disappoint the objects of a coalition, and disconcert enterprises attempted by troops of different nations, the forces designed for the north of Europe did not assemble until the middle of November, and then only in strength sufficient to undertake the siege of the Hanoverian fortress of Hamelen, in which Bernadotte had left a strong garrison. The enterprise, too tardy in its commencement, was soon broken off by the news of the battle of Austerlitz and its consequences, and, being finally abandoned, the unfortunate King of Sweden returned to his own dominions, where his subjects received with unwillingness and terror a prince, who, on many accounts, had incurred the fatal and persevering resentment of Buonaparte. Machinations began presently to be agitated for removing him from the kingdom, as one with whom Napoleon could never be reconciled, and averting from Sweden, by such sacrifice, the punishment which must otherwise fall on the country, as well as on the King.[172]
NAPLES.
While the trifling attempt against Hamelen, joined to other circumstances, was thus preparing the downfall of the ancient dynasty of Sweden, a descent, made by the Russians and English on the Neapolitan territories, afforded a good apology to Buonaparte for depriving the King of the Two Sicilies of his dominions, so far as they lay open to the power of France. Governed entirely by the influence of the Queen, the policy of Naples had been of a fickle and insincere character. Repeatedly saved from the greatest hazard of dethronement, the King or his royal consort had never omitted an opportunity to resume arms against France, under the conviction, perhaps, that their ruin would no longer be deferred than whilst political considerations induced the French Emperor to permit their possession of their power. The last interference in their behalf had been at the instance of the Emperor Paul. After this period we have seen that their Italian dominions were occupied by French troops, who held Otranto, and other places in Calabria, as pledges (so they pretended) for the restoration of Malta.
But upon the breaking out of the war of 1805, it was agreed, by a convention entered into at Paris, 21st of September, and ratified by the King of Naples on the 8th of October, that the French should withdraw their forces from the places which they occupied in the Neapolitan territories, and the King should observe a strict neutrality. Neither of the contracting parties was quite sincere. The French troops, which were commanded by St. Cyr, were, as we have seen, withdrawn from Naples, for the purpose of reinforcing Massena, in the beginning of the campaign of Austerlitz. Their absence would probably have endured no longer than the necessity which called them away. But the court of Naples was equally insincere; for no sooner had St. Cyr left the Neapolitan territories to proceed northward, than the King, animated by the opportunity which his departure afforded, once more raised his forces to the war establishment, and received with open arms an army, consisting of 12,000 Russian troops from Corfu, and 8000 British from Malta, who disembarked in his dominions.[173]
Had this armament occupied Venice at the commencement of the war, they might have materially assisted in the campaign of the Archduke Charles against Massena. The sending them in November to the extremity of the Italian peninsula, only served to seal the fate of Ferdinand the Fourth. On receiving the news of the armistice at Austerlitz, the Russians and the British re-embarked, and not long after their departure a large French army, commanded by Joseph Buonaparte, approached, once more to enforce the doom passed against the royal family of Naples, that they should cease to reign.[174] The King and Queen fled from the storm which they had provoked. Their son, the prince royal, in whose favour they had abdicated, only made use of his temporary authority to surrender Gaeta, Pescara, and Naples itself, with its castles, to the French general. In Calabria, however, whose wild inhabitants were totally disinclined to the French yoke, Count Roger de Damas and the Duke of Calabria attempted to make a stand. But their hasty and undisciplined levies were easily defeated by the French under General Regnier, and, nominally at least, almost the whole Neapolitan kingdom was subjected to the power of Joseph Buonaparte.
SURRENDER OF GAETA.