Читать книгу Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century - Charles Morris - Страница 7

The Emperors at Tilsit and the Fate of Prussia

Victorious as Napoleon had been, he had found the Russians no contemptible foes. At Eylau he had come nearer defeat than ever before in his career. He was quite ready, therefore, to listen to overtures for peace, and early in July a notable interview took place between him and the Czar of Russia at Tilsit, on the Niemen, the two emperors meeting on a raft in the centre of the stream. What passed between them is not known. Some think that they arranged for a division of Europe between their respective empires, Alexander taking all the east and Napoleon all the west. However that was, the treaty of peace, signed July 8th, was a disastrous one for the defeated Prussian king, who was punished for his temerity in seeking to fight Napoleon alone by the loss of more than half his kingdom, while in addition a heavy war indemnity was laid upon his depleted realms.

He was forced to yield all the countries between the Rhine and the Elbe, to consent to the establishment of a dukedom of Warsaw, under the supremacy of the king of Saxony, and to the loss of Danzig and the surrounding territory, which were converted into a free State. A new kingdom, named Westphalia, was founded by Napoleon, made up of the territory taken from Prussia and the states of Hesse, Brunswick and South Hanover. His youngest brother, Jerome Bonaparte, was made its king. It was a further step in his policy of founding a western empire.

Louisa, the beautiful and charming queen of Frederick William, sought Tilsit, hoping by the seduction of her beauty and grace of address to induce Napoleon to mitigate his harsh terms. But in vain she brought to bear upon him all the resources of her intellect and her attractive charm of manner. He continued cold and obdurate, and she left Tilsit deeply mortified and humiliated.

Denmark and Sweden

In northern Europe only one enemy of Napoleon remained. Sweden retained its hostility to France, under the fanatical enmity of Gustavus IV., who believed himself the instrument appointed by Providence to reinstate the Bourbon monarchs upon their thrones. Denmark, which refused to ally itself with England, was visited by a British fleet, which bombarded Copenhagen and carried off all the Danish ships of war, an outrage which brought this kingdom into close alliance with France. The war in Sweden must have ended in the conquest of that country, had not the people revolted and dethroned their obstinate king. Charles XIII., his uncle, was placed on the throne, but was induced to adopt Napoleon’s marshal Bernadotte as his son. The latter, as crown prince, practically succeeded the incapable king in 1810.

The Pope a Captive at Fontainebleau

Events followed each other rapidly. Napoleon, in his desire to add kingdom after kingdom to his throne, invaded Portugal and interfered in the affairs of Spain, from whose throne he removed the last of the Bourbon kings, replacing him by his brother, Joseph Bonaparte. The result was a revolt of the Spanish people which all his efforts proved unable to quell, aided, as they were eventually, by the power of England. In Italy his intrigues continued. Marshal Murat succeeded Joseph Bonaparte on the throne of Naples. Eliza, Napoleon’s sister, was made queen of Tuscany. The temporal sovereignty of the Pope was seriously interfered with and finally, in 1809, the pontiff was forcibly removed from Rome and the states of the Church were added to the French territory, Pius VII., the pope, was eventually brought to France and obliged to reside at Fontainebleau, where he persistently refused to yield to Napoleon’s wishes or perform any act of ecclesiastical authority while held in captivity.

These various arbitrary acts had their natural result, that of active hostility. The Austrians beheld them with growing indignation, and at length grew so exasperated that, despite their many defeats, they decided again to dare the power and genius of the conqueror. In April, 1809, the Vienna Cabinet once more declared war against France and made all haste to put its armies in the field. Stimulated by this, a revolt broke out in the Tyrol, the simple-minded but brave and sturdy mountaineers gathering under the leadership of Andreas Hofer, a man of authority among them, and welcoming the Austrian troops sent to their aid.

Andreas Hofer and the War in the Tyrol

As regards this war in the Tyrol, there is no need here to go into details. It must suffice to say that the bold peasantry, aided by the natural advantages of their mountain land, for a time freed themselves from French dominion, to the astonishment and admiration of Europe. But their freedom was of brief duration, fresh troops were poured into the country, and though the mountaineers won more than one victory, they proved no match for the power of their foes. Their country was conquered, and Hofer, their brave leader, was taken by the French and remorselessly put to death by the order of Napoleon.

The Army of Napoleon Marches Upon Austria

The struggle in the Tyrol was merely a side issue in the new war with Austria, which was conducted on Napoleon’s side with his usual celerity of movement. The days when soldiers are whisked forward at locomotive speed had not yet dawned, yet the French troops made extraordinary progress on foot, and war was barely declared before the army of Napoleon covered Austria. This army was no longer made up solely of Frenchmen. The Confederation of the Rhine practically formed part of Napoleon’s empire, and Germans now fought side by side with Frenchmen; Marshal Lefebvre leading the Bavarians, Bernadotte the Saxons, Augereau the men of Baden, Wurtemberg, and Hesse. On the other hand, the Austrians were early in motion, and by the 10th of April the Archduke Charles had crossed the Inn with his army and the King of Bavaria, Napoleon’s ally, was in flight from his capital.

The quick advance of the Austrians had placed the French army in danger. Spread out over an extent of twenty-five leagues, it ran serious risk of being cut in two by the rapidly marching troops of the Archduke. Napoleon, who reached the front on the 17th, was not slow to perceive the peril and to take steps of prevention. A hasty concentration of his forces was ordered and vigorously begun.

“Never was there need for more rapidity of movement than now,” he wrote to Massena. “Activity, activity, speed!”

A Grave Peril Overcome

Speed was the order of the day. The French generals ably seconded the anxious activity of their chief. The soldiers fairly rushed together. A brief hesitation robbed the Austrians of the advantage which they had hoped to gain. The Archduke Charles, one of the ablest tacticians ever opposed to Napoleon, had the weakness of over-prudence, and caution robbed him of the opportunity given him by the wide dispersion of the French.

The Battle of Eckmühl and the Capture of Ratisbon

He was soon and severely punished for his slowness. On the 19th Davout defeated the Austrians at Fangen and made a junction with the Bavarians. On the 20th and 21st Napoleon met and defeated them in a series of engagements. Meanwhile the Archduke Charles fell on Ratisbon, held by a single French regiment, occupied that important place, and attacked Davout at Eckmühl. Here a furious battle took place. Davout, outnumbered, maintained his position for three days. Napoleon, warned of the peril of his marshal, bade him to hold on to the death, as he was hastening to his relief with 40,000 men. The day was well advanced when the emperor came up and fell with his fresh troops on the Austrians, who, still bravely fighting, were forced back upon Ratisbon. During the night the Archduke wisely withdrew and marched for Bohemia, where a large reinforcement awaited him. On the 23d Napoleon attacked the town, and carried it in spite of a vigorous defence. His proclamation to his soldiers perhaps overestimated the prizes of this brief but active campaign, which he declared to be a hundred cannon, forty flags, all the enemy’s artillery, 50,000 prisoners, a large number of wagons, etc. Half this loss would have fully justified the Archduke’s retreat.

The Campaign In Italy

In Italy affairs went differently. Prince Eugene Beauharnais, for the first time in command of a French army, found himself opposed by the Archduke John, and met with a defeat. On April 16th, seeking to retrieve his disaster, he attacked the Archduke, but the Austrians bravely held their positions, and the French were again obliged to retreat. General Macdonald, an officer of tried ability, now joined the prince, who took up a defensive position on the Adige, whither the Austrians marched. On the 1st of May Macdonald perceived among them indications of withdrawal from their position.

“Victory in Germany!” he shouted to the prince. “Now is our time for a forward march!”

He was correct, the Archduke John had been recalled in haste to aid his brother in the defence of Vienna, on which the French were advancing in force.

The campaign now became a race for the capital of Austria. During its progress several conflicts took place, in each of which the French won. The city was defended by the Archduke Maximilian with an army of over 15,000 men, but he found it expedient to withdraw, and on the 13th the troops of Napoleon occupied the place. Meanwhile Charles had concentrated his troops and was marching hastily towards the opposite side of the Danube, whither his brother John was advancing from Italy.

It was important for Napoleon to strike a blow before this junction could be made. He resolved to cross the Danube in the suburbs of the capital itself, and attack the Austrians before they were reinforced. In the vicinity of Vienna the channel of the river is broken by many islets. At the island of Lobau, the point chosen for the attempt, the river is broad and deep, but Lobau is separated from the opposite bank by only a narrow branch, while two smaller islets offered themselves as aids in the construction of bridges, there being four channels, over each of which a bridge was thrown.

The Bridges over the Danube

The work was a difficult one. The Danube, swollen by the melting snows, imperilled the bridges, erected with difficulty and braced by insufficient cordage. But despite this peril the crossing began, and on May 20th Marshal Massena reached the other side and posted his troops in the two villages of Aspern and Essling, and along a deep ditch that connected them.

As yet only the vanguard of the Austrians had arrived. Other corps soon appeared, and by the afternoon of the 21st the entire army, from 70,000 to 80,000 strong, faced the French, still only half their number, and in a position of extreme peril, for the bridge over the main channel of the river had broken during the night, and the crossing was cut off in its midst.

Napoleon, however, was straining every nerve to repair the bridge, and Massena and Lannes, in command of the advance, fought like men fighting for their lives. The Archduke Charles, the ablest soldier Napoleon had yet encountered, hurled his troops in masses upon Aspern, which covered the bridge to Lobau. Several times it was taken and retaken, but the French held on with a death grip, all the strength of the Austrians seeming insufficient to break the hold of Lannes upon Essling. An advance in force, which nearly cut the communication between the two villages, was checked by an impetuous cavalry charge, and night fell, leaving the situation unchanged.

At dawn of the next day more than 70,000 French had crossed the stream; Marshal Davout’s corps, with part of the artillery and most of the ammunition, being still on the right bank. At this critical moment the large bridge, against which the Austrians had sent fireships, boats laden with stone and other floating missiles, broke for the third time, and the engineers of the French army were again forced to the most strenuous and hasty exertions for its repair.

The Great Struggle of Essling and Aspern

Napoleon Forced to his First Retreat

The struggle of the day that had just begun was one of extraordinary valor and obstinacy. Men went down in multitudes; now the Austrians, now the French, were repulsed; the Austrians, impetuously assailed, slowly fell back; and Lannes was preparing for a vigorous movement designed to pierce their centre, when word was brought Napoleon that the great bridge had again yielded to the floating débris, carrying with it a regiment of cuirassiers, and cutting off the supply of ammunition. Lannes was at once ordered to fall back upon the villages, and simultaneously the Austrians made a powerful assault on the French centre, which was checked with great difficulty. Five times the charge was renewed, and though the enemy was finally repelled, it became evident that Napoleon, for the first time in his career, had met with a decided check. Napoleon Forced to his First RetreatNight fell at length, and reluctantly he gave the order to retreat. He had lost more than a battle, he had lost the brilliant soldier Lannes, who fell with a mortal wound. Back to the island of Lobau marched the French; Massena, in charge of the rear-guard, bringing over the last regiments in safety. More than 40,000 men lay dead and wounded on that fatal field, which remained in Austrian hands. Napoleon, at last, was obliged to acknowledge a repulse, if not a defeat, and the nations of Europe held up their heads with renewed hope. It had been proved that the Corsican was not invincible.

Some of Napoleon’s generals, deeply disheartened, advised an immediate retreat, but the emperor had no thought of such a movement. It would have brought a thousand disasters in its train. On the contrary, he held the island of Lobau with a strong force, and brought all his resources to bear on the construction of a bridge that would defy the current of the stream. At the same time reinforcements were hurried forward, until by the 1st of July, he had around Vienna an army of 150,000 men. The Austrians had probably from 135,000 to 140,000. The archduke had, moreover, strongly fortified the positions of the recent battle, expecting the attack upon them to be resumed.

THE ORDER TO CHARGE AT FRIEDLAND

At the decisive battle of Friedland, the Russian army was incautiously drawn up within a loop of the river. Napoleon was quick to perceive their mistake, and in a terrible charge he carried the town, burned the bridges, and then used his whole army to drive the Russians into the stream.

NAPOLEON AND THE QUEEN OF PRUSSIA AT TILSIT

(FROM THE PAINTING BY GROS)

Tilsit is a city of about 25,000 inhabitants in Eastern Prussia. Here the Treaty of Peace between the French and Russian Emperors and also between France and Prussia was signed in July, 1807.

The Second Crossing of the Danube

Napoleon had no such intention. He had selected the heights ranging from Neusiedl to Wagram, strongly occupied by the Austrians, but not fortified, as his point of attack, and on the night of July 4th bridges were thrown from the island of Lobau to the mainland, and the army which had been gathering for several days on the island began its advance. It moved as a whole against the heights of Wagram, occupying Aspern and Essling in its advance.

The Victory at Wagram

The great battle began on the succeeding day. It was hotly contested at all points, but attention may be confined to the movement against the plateau of Wagram, which had been entrusted to Marshal Davout. The height was gained after a desperate struggle; the key of the battlefield was held by the French; the Austrians, impetuously assailed at every point, and driven from every point of vantage, began a retreat. The Archduke Charles had anxiously looked for the coming of his brother John, with the army under his command. He waited in vain, the laggard prince failed to appear, and retreat became inevitable. The battle had already lasted ten hours, and the French held all the strong points of the field; but the Austrians withdrew slowly and in battle array, presenting a front that discouraged any effort to pursue. There was nothing resembling a rout.

The Archduke Charles retreated to Bohemia. His forces were dispersed during the march, but he had 70,000 men with him when Napoleon reached his front at Znaim, on the road to Prague, on the 11th of July. Further hostilities were checked by a request for a truce, preliminary to a peace. The battle, already begun, was stopped, and during the night an armistice was signed. The vigor of the Austrian resistance and the doubtful attitude of the other powers made Napoleon willing enough to treat for terms.

The Peace of Vienna

The peace, which was finally signed at Vienna, October 14, 1809, took from Austria 50,000 square miles of territory and 3,000,000 inhabitants, together with a war contribution of $85,000,000, while her army was restricted to 150,000 men. The overthrow of the several outbreaks which had taken place in north Germany, the defeat of a British expedition against Antwerp, and the suppression of the revolt in the Tyrol, ended all organized opposition to Napoleon, who was once more master of the European situation.

Raised by this signal success to the summit of his power, lord paramount of Western Europe, only one thing remained to trouble the mind of the victorious emperor. His wife, Josephine, was childless; his throne threatened to be left without an heir. Much as he had seemed to love his wife, the companion of his early days, when he was an unknown and unconsidered subaltern, seeking humbly enough for military employment in Paris, yet ambition and the thirst for glory were always the ruling passions in his nature, and had now grown so dominant as to throw love and wifely devotion utterly into the shade. He resolved to set aside his wife and seek a new bride among the princesses of Europe, hoping in this way to leave an heir of his own blood as successor to his imperial throne.

Negotiations were entered into with the courts of Europe to obtain a daughter of one of the proud royal houses as the spouse of the plebeian emperor of France. No maiden of less exalted rank than a princess of the imperial families of Russia or Austria was high enough to meet the ambitious aims of this proud lord of battles, and negotiations were entered into with both, ending in the selection of Maria Louisa, daughter of the Emperor Francis of Austria, who did not venture to refuse a demand for his daughter’s hand from the master of half his dominions.

The Divorce of Josephine and Marriages of Maria Louisa

Napoleon was not long in finding a plea for setting aside the wife of his days of poverty and obscurity. A defect in the marriage was alleged, and the transparent farce went on. The divorce of Josephine has awakened the sympathy of a century. It was, indeed, a piteous example of state-craft, and there can be no doubt that Napoleon suffered in his heart while yielding to the dictates of his unbridled ambition. The marriage with Maria Louisa, on the 2d of April, 1810, was conducted with all possible pomp and display, no less than five queens carrying the train of the bride in the august ceremony. The purpose of the marriage did not fail; the next year a son was born to Napoleon. But this imperial youth, who was dignified with the title of King of Rome, was destined to an inglorious life, as an unconsidered tenant of the gilded halls of his imperial grandfather of Austria.