Both from the place and circumstances, from the station and character of the persons negotiating, as well as from the nature of the results, the meeting at Tilsit is the most remarkable in the history of diplomacy. The motives which disposed Napoleon to an armistice were plain enough; those which determined his later conduct can only be divined. Prussia had seemed to the French liberals of the Revolution to belong by nature to their system: they were quite as angry with her persistent neutrality as was either Austria or England, both of whom thought she should adhere to them, if only for self-preservation. Napoleon's repeated but vain attempts to secure a Prussian alliance before Jena, or a separate negotiation afterward, rooted this traditional bitterness in his mind. To secure the prize for which he was fighting he had only two courses open: either to restore Poland as the frontier state between the civilization of his empire and the semi-barbarism and ambitions of Russia, or else to negotiate with Russia herself.
The former course meant an interminable warfare with Russia, Austria, and Prussia, at a distance of fifteen hundred miles from Paris; for Russia would fight to the death rather than lose the only possessions which put her into the heart of Europe, and thus be relegated to the character of an Asiatic power. The Emperor of the French had already seen after Eylau how untrustworthy the grand army was, even in Poland; if dejected and insubordinate there, as he may well have recalled was actually the case, what would it be on the banks of the Dnieper, in the plains of Lithuania? Such considerations probably determined not only the fact of peace, but its character. In order to secure what he had gained in western, southern, and central Europe, England must be brought to terms. Russia must therefore not only be an ally, but a hearty ally: as the price of her subscription to the Berlin Decree, and the consequent closing of her harbors to English shipping, she could gratify any reasonable ambition, and might virtually dictate her own terms. With an engine in his hands as formidable as Russia's adhesion to his commercial policy, he could act at the nick of time,—which, as he declared at this very season to Joseph, was the highest art of which man is capable,—could destroy England's commerce, and in a long peace could consolidate the empire he had already won. His empire thus consolidated, he would be virtual master of half the solid earth in the Eastern hemisphere. If ambition should still beckon him on, he would still be young; he could then consider the next step to universal empire.
It may safely be said that Great Britain was never more haughty than at this moment. Her king had turned the ministry of "All the Talents" out of doors; for after Fox's death the combination lost all dignity and power. The Duke of Portland was now prime minister. He was a blind but energetic conservative, his Toryism, unlike that of Pitt in his enlightened days, being of the sort which lay close to his sovereign's heart. England's monopoly of European commerce seemed assured: Sweden, Denmark, and the Hanse towns were the only important seafaring powers of Europe that retained a nominal neutrality, and it was only a question of time when they must accept terms either from France or from her. With every other European nation embroiled in the Napoleonic wars and deeply concerned for its own territorial integrity, the United States of America was her only real maritime rival, and she had bullied us into a temporary acquiescence in her interpretation of international law.[10]
When colonies were first recognized as essential to the prosperity of European nations, the rule was universally observed that only the mother country could trade with her own. In 1756 France endeavored to break this rule by permitting neutral ships to engage in traffic between herself and her West Indian possessions. England at once laid down the "rule of 1756," that neutrals should not exercise in time of war privileges of traffic which they were not permitted to enjoy in time of peace; and this principle she was able to maintain more or less completely until 1793, when France declared war on her, and again invited neutral commerce to French colonial harbors. England, having regained her supremacy of the seas, reasserted in 1793 the rule of 1756, but nevertheless so modified it the following year that she permitted neutral traders to break, in their own or in her harbors, their voyages from or to colonial ports. In 1796 France notified all neutrals that she would treat them just as they permitted Great Britain to treat them, and in 1798 shut all her harbors to any vessel which had even touched at a British port. This state of affairs continued until the peace of Amiens. When war was renewed in 1803 between England and France the former again asserted the rule of 1756 as binding, while indirect trade between neutral ports and the ports of an enemy was again allowed, but under the new proviso that the neutral ship did not on her outward voyage furnish the enemy with goods contraband of war. This privilege of indirect trade was invaluable to American ship-owners, and for two years the ocean commerce of all Europe was in their hands. The fortunes they thus accumulated were enormous, while Great Britain saw her own manufactures displaced by those of continental nations, and the colonies of her enemies prospering as never before. In 1805, therefore, she withdrew the privilege of indirect trade, and her flag being, after Trafalgar, the only belligerent one left on the ocean, proceeded both to enforce the new rule and to abuse the proviso concerning neutral vessels carrying contraband of war by ruthlessly exercising the right of search. Under the orders in council of September fifth, 1805, every neutral ship must be examined to see whether its lading was a cargo of neutral goods, or whether it contained anything contraband. This could only mean that every American ship laden with other than American goods was to be seized; and in May of the following year, by the still more notorious order of the sixteenth, Great Britain declared that every European harbor from Brest to the mouth of the Elbe was blockaded. This was a distance of eight hundred miles, and even she had not ships enough to enforce her decree. Trafalgar had turned the heads of English statesmen.
This paper blockade was the challenge which called forth the Berlin Decree from Napoleon. American ships, like those of the French, were for a time seized, searched, and detained by the British on the slightest suspicion that they were either leaving or were destined for a hostile port, while their sailors were pitilessly impressed. The government at Washington authorized reprisals, but American ship-owners found it more profitable to compromise than to resist, and Monroe came to an understanding with the English ministry; the prosperity of American shipping was again revived, and the merchants of the United States continued to prosper by carrying English wares under the American flag into harbors where the union jack was forbidden. By this evasion Great Britain retained her commercial supremacy, and her prosperity was rather increased than diminished. She withheld a similar coöperation from Sweden and Russia until it was too late, her enterprise being chiefly concerned to open new channels for her commerce in Egypt and in South America.
How was this leviathan, which was drawing the wealth of all Europe to its stores, and eluding or repelling all attack on its chosen element—how was this tyrant of the ocean to be slain? Clearly the Americans must be so harassed and annoyed that in the end the public spirit of the United States would be aroused to resent English control, and bid defiance to Great Britain's assumption of maritime supremacy. To this end the rigid enforcement of the Berlin Decree would be well adapted in the long run, but in the interval much could be done: if its principle could be extended to the destruction of all smuggling, to the absolute exclusion of British commerce from the entire Continent—not only from the seaports, but from the markets—the end would be gained. With Russia's coöperation alone was this possible. Napoleon's present plan, therefore, was to secure France and the French Empire, as far as won, by compelling the world to a lasting peace through the immediate establishment of a counterpoise, the French and Russian empires against Great Britain, leaving time to do its perfect work of exasperating the rising naval power of the United States into open hostility against the parent land.
These, it seems, must have been the considerations which controlled the course of affairs at Tilsit. The deliberations were both formal, so called, and informal. At the former were present the three sovereigns with their ministers—Talleyrand for France, Kurakin and Labanoff for Russia, Kalkreuth and Goltz for Prussia; at the latter were sometimes all three of the monarchs, frequently only the two principals, for they found Frederick William a damper on their hilarity. The generals, the staff, and the men of the two great armies which had fought so bravely at Friedland harmonized in mutual respect; but the unwarlike King and his suite, both military and civil, were outsiders. Immediately after the formal and brilliant entry of Alexander into Tilsit, Napoleon began the exchange of prisoners, and despatched messengers commanding his forces in Germany to restore to their sovereign the territories of Mecklenburg, whose reigning house was kin to the Czar. For Frederick William there was scarcely a show of kindness—nothing, in fact, but a cold condemnation of Hardenberg, to whose influence, combined with that of the military party, the conqueror charged Prussia's declaration of war. This minister, banished at Napoleon's instance, was near by. The King pleaded in vain that he might still serve as mentor in the coming negotiation; the Emperor scornfully refused. There were no others available, rejoined the King. Napoleon named several: among them, and probably not by inadvertence, Stein. This great name is welded to the regeneration of Prussia, but its bearer was a liberal in the measures he enforced. Hardenberg, great and adroit as he was, stood for the passing conservatism, and while he was indefatigable to the end, he was after all a worker at twilight, unable to see the coming metamorphosis of old Europe into the new. It was a proposition outlined by him which brought forward the first vital question, the partition of Turkey. His sovereign's stateliest lands had been gained by the partition of Austria and of Poland; he now suggested that Russia and Austria should divide the Danubian principalities between them, that France should take Greece and her isles, and that Poland should be restored and given to the King of Saxony, who in turn should hand over his German domains to Prussia. The Czar accepted the paper, which was communicated to him as approved by the King, but kept silence.
A favorite amusement of the two emperors was playing with the French army. Napoleon delighted in the display of his condescension to the men, and in the exhibition of their enthusiastic affection for him. Their drill, their uniforms, the niceties of military ceremonial, the gorgeous drum-majors twirling their batons or marching in puffy state—every detail fascinated the Czar, whose house, said Czartoryski, was affected with the disease of paradomania.
