Вальтер Скотт
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. Volume IV
Stettin surrendered on the 21st of November, after an eight months' blockade. Eight thousand French remained prisoners of war. Here the Prussians regained no less than 350 pieces of artillery.
On the 29th of November, the important city of Dantzic surrendered, after trenches had been open before it for forty days. As in the case of Dresden, the sovereigns refused to ratify the stipulation, which provided for the return of the garrison to France, but made the commandant, Rapp, the same proposal which had been offered to the Maréchal St. Cyr, which Rapp in like manner declined. About 9000 French were therefore sent prisoners into Russia. But the Bavarians, Westphalians, and Poles, belonging to the garrison, were permitted to return to their homes. Many of them took service with the allies. The detention of this garrison must also be recorded against the allies as a breach of faith, which the temptation of diminishing the enemy's forces cannot justify.
After the battle of Leipsic, Tauentzein had been detached to blockade Wittenberg, and besiege Torgau. The latter place was yielded on the 26th December, with a garrison of 10,000 wretches, amongst whom a pestilential fever was raging. Zamosc, in the duchy of Warsaw, capitulated on the 22d, and Modlin on the 25th of December.
At the conclusion of the year 1813, only the following places, situated in the rear of the allies, remained in the hands of the French; Hamburgh, Madgeburg, Wittenberg, Custrin, Glogau, with the citadels of Erfurt and of Wurtzburg, the French having in the last two instances evacuated the towns.
FRENCH GARRISONS IN GERMANY
Two circumstances are remarkable concerning the capture of the surrendered fortresses. The first is the dismal state of the garrisons. The men, who had survived the Russian campaign, and who had been distributed into these cities and fortresses by Murat, were almost all, from the hardships they had endured, and perhaps from their being too suddenly accommodated with more genial food, subject to diseases which speedily became infectious, and spread from the military to the inhabitants. When the severities of a blockade were added to this general tendency to illness, the deaths became numerous, and the case of the survivors made them envious of those who died. So virulent was the contagion at Torgau, that the Prussians, to whom the place was rendered on the 26th December, did not venture to take possession of it till a fortnight afterwards, when the ravage of the pestilence began to decline. Thus widely extended, and thus late prolonged, were the fatal effects of the Russian expedition.
The other point worth notice is, that the surrender of each fortress rendered disposable a blockading army of the allies, proportioned to the strength of the garrisons, which ought, according to the rules of war, to be at least two to one.295 Thus, while thousands after thousands of the French were marched to distant prisons in Austria and Russia, an addition was regularly made to the armies of the allies, equal at least to double the number of those that were withdrawn from the French army.
While these successes were in the act of being obtained in their rear, the allied sovereigns of Russia and Prussia advanced upon the Rhine, the left bank of which was almost entirely liberated from the enemy. It is a river upon which all the Germans look with a national pride, that sometimes takes almost the appearance of filial devotion. When the advanced guard of the army of the allies first came in sight of its broad majesty of flood, they hailed the Father River with such reiterated shouts, that those who were behind stood to their arms, and pressed forward, supposing that an action was about to take place. The proud and exulting feeling of recovered independence was not confined to those brave men who had achieved the liberation of their country, but extended every where, and animated the whole mass of the population of Germany.
The retreat of the French armies, or their relics, across the land which they had so long overrun, and where they had levelled and confounded all national distinctions, might be compared to the abatement of the great deluge, when land-marks which had been long hid from the eye began to be once more visible and distinguished. The reconstruction of the ancient sovereignties was the instant occupation of the allies.
From the very field of battle at Leipsic, the Electoral Prince of Hesse departed to assume, amid the acclamations of the inhabitants, the sovereignty of the territories of his fathers. The allies, on 2d November, took possession of Hanover and its dependencies in name of the King of England. The gallant Duke of Brunswick, whose courage, as well as his ardent animosity against Buonaparte, we have already had occasion to commemorate, returned at the same time into the possession of his hereditary estates; and the ephemeral kingdom of Westphalia, the appanage of Jerome Buonaparte, composed out of the spoils of these principalities, vanished into air, like the palace of Aladdin in the Arabian tale.
Those members of the Confederacy of the Rhine who had hitherto been contented to hold their crowns and coronets, under the condition of being liege vassals to Buonaparte, and who were as much tired of his constant exactions as ever a drudging fiend was of the authority of a necromancer, lost no time in renouncing his sway, after his talisman was broken. Bavaria and Wirtemberg had early joined the alliance – the latter power the more willingly, that the Crown Prince had, even during Napoleon's supremacy, refused to acknowledge his sway. The lesser princes, therefore, had no alternative but to declare, as fast as they could, their adherence to the same cause. Their ministers thronged to the headquarters of the allied sovereigns, where they were admitted to peace and fraternity on the same general terms; namely, that each state should contribute within a certain period, a year's income of their territories, with a contingent of soldiers double in numbers to that formerly exacted by Buonaparte, for maintaining the good cause of the alliance. They consented willingly; for though the demand might be heavy in the meantime, yet, with the downfall of the French Emperor, there was room to hope for that lasting peace which all men now believed to be inconsistent with a continuance of his power.
Waiting until their reinforcements should come from the interior of Germany, and until the subordinate princes should bring forward their respective contingents of troops, and desirous also to give Napoleon another opportunity of treating, the allied sovereigns halted on the banks of the Rhine, and cantoned their army along the banks of that river. This afforded a space to discover, whether the lofty mind of Napoleon could be yet induced to bend to such a peace as might consist with the material change in the circumstances of Europe, effected in the two last campaigns. Such a pacification was particularly the object of Austria; and the greater hope was entertained of its being practicable, that the same train of misfortunes which had driven Napoleon beyond the Rhine, had darkened his political horizon in other quarters.
ITALY – SPAIN
Italy, so long the scene of his triumphs, was now undergoing the same fate as his other conquests, and rapidly melting away from his grasp. At the beginning of the campaign, the Viceroy Eugene, with about 45,000 men, had defended the north of Italy, with great skill and valour, against the Austrian general, Hiller, who confronted him with superior forces. The frontiers of Illyria were the chief scene of their military operations. The French maintained themselves there until the defection of the Bavarians opened the passes of the Tyrol to the Austrian army, after which, Eugene was obliged to retire behind the Adige. The warlike Croatians declaring in favour of their ancient sovereigns of Austria, mutinied, and rose in arms on several points. The important seaport of Trieste was taken by the Austrians on the 21st of October. General Nugent had entered the mouth of the Po with an English squadron, with a force sufficient to occupy Ferrara and Ravenna, and organise a general insurrection against the French. It was known also, that Murat, who had begun to fear lest he should be involved in the approaching fall of Napoleon, and who remembered, with more feeling, the affronts which Napoleon had put upon him from time to time, than the greatness to which he had been elevated by him, was treating with the allies, and endeavouring to make a peace which should secure his own authority under their sanction. Thus, there was no point of view in which Italy could be regarded as a source of assistance to Buonaparte: on the contrary, that fair country, the subject of his pride and his favour, was in the greatest danger of being totally lost to him.
The Spanish Peninsula afforded a still more alarming prospect. The battle of Vittoria had entirely destroyed the usurped authority of Joseph Buonaparte, and Napoleon himself had become desirous to see the war ended, at the price of totally ceding the kingdom on which he had seized so unjustifiably, and which he had, in his fatal obstinacy, continued to grasp, like a furious madman holding a hot iron until it has scorched him to the bone.
After that decisive battle, there was no obstacle in front to prevent the Duke of Wellington from entering France, but he chose first to reduce the strong frontier fortresses of Saint Sebastian and Pampeluna. The first capitulated finally on the 9th September; and notwithstanding the skill and bravery of Soult, which were exerted to the uttermost, he could not relieve Pampeluna. The English army, at least its left wing, passed the Bidassoa upon the 7th October, and Pampeluna surrendered on the 31st of the same month. Thus was the most persevering and the most hated of Buonaparte's enemies placed in arms upon the French soil, under the command of a general who had been so uniformly successful, that he seemed to move hand in hand with victory. It was but a slender consolation, in this state of matters, that Suchet, the Duke of Albufera, still maintained himself in Catalonia, his headquarters being at Barcelona. In fact, it would have been of infinitely more importance to Buonaparte, had the maréchal and those troops, who had not yet been discouraged by defeat, been on the north side of the Pyrenees, and ready to co-operate in defence of the frontiers of France.
RESTORATION OF FERDINAND
To parry this pressing danger, Napoleon had recourse to a plan, which, had it been practised the year before, might have placed the affairs of Spain on a very different footing. He resolved, as we have hinted, to desist from the vain undertaking, which had cost himself so much blood and treasure; to undo his own favourite work; to resign the claims of his brother to the crown of Spain; and, by restoring the legitimate sovereign to the throne, endeavour to form such an alliance with him as might take Spain out of the list of his enemies, and perhaps add her to that of his friends. Had he had recourse to this expedient in the previous year, Ferdinand's appearance in Spain might have had a very important effect in embroiling the councils of the Cortes. It is well known that the unfortunate distinctions of Royalists and Liberalists, were already broken out among the Spaniards, and from the colours in which his present Majesty of Spain has since shown himself, there is great room to doubt whether he had either temper, wisdom, or virtue sufficient to act as a mediator betwixt the two classes of his subjects, of which both were inclined to carry their opposite opinions into extremes. It is more than probable that a civil war might even then have taken place, between the King, desirous of regaining the plenitude of authority conferred on him by the ancient constitution, and the Cortes, anxious to maintain the liberties which they had recently recovered, and carried, by their new constitution, to the extent of republican license. If such a war had arisen, King Ferdinand would probably have fallen into the snare prepared for him by Buonaparte, and called in his late jailor, in the capacity of his ally, against the Cortes, and perhaps also against the English, who, though not approving of the theoretical extravagances of the system of government, which had divided the patriots into two civil factions, must, nevertheless, have considered that assembly as the representatives of the Spanish people, and the allies with whom the British had formed their league. Talleyrand is said to have recommended the liberation of Ferdinand at a much earlier period. He called the measure an olla podrida for Spain.
But Napoleon's present concession came too late, and was too evidently wrung from him by the most pressing necessity, to permit Ferdinand, however desirous of his liberty, to accept of it on the terms offered. The reader may, indeed, be curious to know in what language Napoleon could address the prince whose person he had seized and imprisoned like a kidnapper, and on whose throne he had so long and so pertinaciously endeavoured to support a usurper. Perhaps, when writing the following letter, Buonaparte was himself sensible that his conduct admitted of no glossing over; he, therefore, came to the point, it will be observed, at once, trusting probably that the hope of being restored to his liberty and kingdom would be so agreeable in itself, that the captive monarch would not be disposed strictly to criticise the circumstances which had occasioned so pleasing an offer, or the expressions in which it was conveyed.
"My Cousin – The state of my empire and of my political situation, lead me to put a final adjustment to the affairs of Spain. The English are exciting anarchy and jacobinism; they endeavour to overthrow the crown and the nobility, in order to establish a republic. I cannot, without being deeply affected, think on the destruction of a nation which interests me, both by its neighbourhood, and its common interest concerning maritime commerce. I wish to re-establish the relations of friendship and good neighbourhood, which have so long been established betwixt France and Spain. You will therefore listen to what the Comte de la Forest will propose in my name," &c.
Considering the terms of this letter, and contrasting them with the manner in which the friendly relations alluded to had been broken off, and that in which the interest taken by Napoleon in the kingdom of Spain had been displayed, the hypocritical professions of the writer were too obviously dictated by necessity, to impose upon the meanest understanding. The answer of Ferdinand was not without dignity. He declined to treat without having an opportunity of consulting with the Regency of Spain, and required permission to hear a deputation of his subjects, who might at once inform him of the actual state of affairs in Spain, and point out a remedy for the evils under which the kingdom suffered.
"If," said the prince, in his reply to Napoleon's proposal, "this liberty is not permitted to me, I prefer remaining at Valençay, where I have now lived four years and a half, and where I am willing to die, if such is God's pleasure." Finding the prince firm upon this score, Napoleon, to whom his freedom might be possibly some advantage, and when his captivity could no longer in any shape benefit him, consented that Ferdinand should be liberated upon a treaty being drawn up between the Duke of St. Carlos, as the representative of Ferdinand, and the Comte de la Forest, as plenipotentiary of Napoleon; but which treaty should not be ratified until it had been approved of by the Regency. The heads were briefly these: – I. Napoleon recognised Ferdinand as King of Spain and the Indies. II. Ferdinand undertook that the English should evacuate Spain, and particularly Minorca and Ceuta. III. The two governments became engaged to each other, to place their relations on the footing prescribed by the treaty of Dunkirk, and which had been maintained until 1772. Lastly, The new king engaged to pay a suitable revenue to his father, and a jointure to his mother, in case of her survivance; and provision was made for re-establishing the commercial relations betwixt France and Spain.
In this treaty of Valençay, subscribed the 11th of December, 1813, the desire of Buonaparte to embroil Spain with her ally Great Britain, is visible not only in the second article, but in the third. For as Napoleon always contended that his opposition to the rights exercised on the sea by the English, had been grounded on the treaty of Utrecht, his reference to that treaty upon the present occasion, shows that he had not yet lost sight of his Continental System.
The Regency of Spain, when the treaty of Valençay was laid before them, refused to ratify it, both in virtue of a decree of the Cortes, which, as early as January, 1811, declared that there be neither truce nor negotiation with France, until the King should enjoy his entire liberty, and on account of their treaty with England, in which Spain engaged to contract no peace without England's concurrence. Thus obliged to renounce the hopes of fettering Spain, as a nation, with any conditions, Buonaparte at length released Ferdinand from his confinement, and permitted him to return to his kingdom, upon his personal subscription of the treaty, trusting that, in the political alterations which his arrival might occasion in Spain, something might turn up to serve his own views, which could never be advanced by Ferdinand's continuing in confinement. Nothing of the kind, however, took place, nor is it needful either to detain the reader farther with the Spanish affairs, or again to revert to them. Ferdinand is said, by the French, to have received Napoleon's proposals with much satisfaction, and to have written a letter of thanks to the Emperor for his freedom, obtained after nearly six years' most causeless imprisonment. If so, the circumstance must be received as evidence of Ferdinand's singularly grateful disposition, of which we believe there are few other examples to be quoted. The liberated monarch returned to his territories, at the conclusion of all this negotiation, in the end of March 1814. The event is here anticipated, that there may be no occasion to return to it.
Another state-prisoner of importance was liberated about the same time. Nearly at the commencement of the year 1814, proposals had been transmitted, by the agency of Cardinal Maury and the Bishops of Evreux and Plaisance, to Pius VII., still detained at Fontainbleau. His liberation was tendered to him; and, on condition of his ceding a part of the territories of the Church, he was to be restored to the remainder. "The dominions of Saint Peter are not my property," answered the Pontiff; "they belong to the Church, and I cannot consent to their cession." – "To prove the Emperor's good intentions," said the Bishop of Plaisance, "I have orders to announce your Holiness' return to Rome." – "It must, then, be with all my cardinals," said Pius VII. – "Under the present circumstances, that is impossible." – "Well, then, a carriage to transport me is all I desire – I wish to be at Rome, to acquit myself of my duties as Head of the Church."
An escort, termed a guard of honour, attended him, commanded by a colonel, who treated his Holiness with much respect, but seemed disposed to suffer no one to speak with him in private. Pius VII. convoked, however, the cardinals who were at Fontainbleau, to the number of seventeen, and took an affecting farewell. As the Pope was about to depart, he commanded them to wear no decoration received from the French Government; to accept no pension of their bestowing; and to assist at no festival to which they might be invited. On the 24th of January, Pius left Fontainbleau, and returned by slow journeys to Savona, where he remained from the 19th of February to the 19th of March. He reached Fiorenzuola on the 23d, where his French escort was relieved by an Austrian detachment, by whom the Pontiff was received with all the usual honours; and he arrived at Rome on the 18th of May, amid the acclamations of thousands, who thronged to receive his benediction.
With such results terminated an act of despotic authority, one of the most impolitic, as well as unpopular, practised by Buonaparte during his reign. He himself was so much ashamed of it, as to disown his having given any orders for the captivity of the Pontiff, though it was continued under his authority for five years and upwards. It was remarkable, that when the Pope was taken from Rome as a prisoner, Murat was in possession of his dominions, as the connexion and ally of Buonaparte; and now his Holiness found the same Murat and his army at Rome, and received from his hands, in the opposite character of ally of the Emperor of Austria, the re-delivery of the patrimony of Saint Peter's in its full integrity.
EMANCIPATION OF HOLLAND
Thus was restored to its ancient allegiance that celebrated city, which had for a time borne the title of SECOND in the French dominions. The revolution in Holland came also to augment the embarrassments of Napoleon, and dislocate what remained of the immense additions which he had attempted to unite with his empire. That country had been first impoverished by the total destruction of its commerce, under pretence of enforcing the continental system. It was from his inability to succeed in his attempt to avert this pest from the peaceful and industrious Dutchmen, that Louis Buonaparte had relinquished in disgust a sceptre, the authority of which was not permitted to protect the people over whom it was swayed.
The distress which followed, upon the introduction of these unnatural restrictions into a country, the existence of which depended on the freedom of its commerce, was almost incredible. At Amsterdam, the population was reduced from 220,000 to 190,000 souls. In the Hague, Delft, and elsewhere, many houses were pulled down, or suffered to fall to ruin by the proprietors, from inability to pay the taxes. At Haarlem, whole streets were in desolation, and about five hundred houses were entirely dismantled. The preservation of the dikes was greatly neglected for want of funds, and the sea breaking in at the Polders and elsewhere, threatened to resume what human industry had withdrawn from her reign.
The discontent of the people arose to the highest pitch, and their thoughts naturally reverted to the paternal government of the House of Orange, and the blessings which they had enjoyed under it. But with the prudence, which is the distinguishing mark of the national character, the Dutch knew, that until the power of France should be broken, any attempt at insurrection in Holland must be hopeless; they therefore contented themselves with forming secret confederations among the higher order of citizens in the principal towns, who made it their business to prevent all premature disturbances on the part of the lower classes, insinuating themselves, at the same time, so much into their favour, that they were sure of having them at their disposal, when a propitious moment for action should arise. Those intrusted with the secret of the intended insurrection, acted with equal prudence and firmness; and the sagacious, temperate, and reasonable character of the nation was never seen to greater advantage than upon this occasion. The national guards were warmly disposed to act in the cause. The rumours of Buonaparte's retreat from Leipsic —
"for such an host
Fled not in silence through the affrighted deep,"
united to prepare the public mind for resistance to the foreign yoke; and the approach of General Bulow towards the banks of the Yssel, became the signal for general insurrection.
On the 14th November, the Orange flag was hoisted at the Hague and at Amsterdam, amid the ancient acclamations of "Orange-boven" (Up with the Orange.) At Rotterdam, a small party of the Dutch patriots, of the better class, waited on the prefect, Le Brun, Duke of Placentia, and, showing the orange cockade which they wore, addressed the French general in these words: – "You may guess from these colours the purpose which has brought us hither, and the events which are about to take place. You, who are now the weakest, know that we are strongest – and we the strongest, know that you are the weakest. You will act wisely to depart from this place in quiet; and the sooner you do so, you are the less likely to expose yourself to insult, and it may be to danger."
A revolution of so important a nature had never certainly been announced to the sinking party, with so little tumult, or in such courteous terms. The reply of General Le Brun was that of a Frenchman, seldom willing to be outdone in politeness: – "I have expected this summons for some time, and am very willing to accede to your proposal, and take my departure immediately." He mounted into his carriage accordingly, and drove through an immense multitude now assembled, without meeting any other insult than being required to join in the universal cry of Orange-boven.
The Dutch were altogether without arms when they took the daring resolution to re-construct their ancient government, and were for some time in great danger. But they were secured by the advance of the Russians to their support, while forces from England were sent over, to the number of 6000 men, under General Graham, now Lord Lynedoch; so that the French troops, who had thrown themselves into two or three forts, were instantly blockaded, and prevented from disturbing the country by excursions.
No event during the war made a more general and deep impression on the mind of the British nation, than the liberation of Holland, which is well entitled by a recent author, "one of the most fortunate events which could at that moment have taken place. The rapidity with which the Dutch, from being obstacles to the invasion of France, became the instruments by which that undertaking was most facilitated, could only have been brought about through the detestable system of government which Buonaparte had pursued with them."296
Thus victory, having changed her course, like some powerful spring-tide, had now, in the end of the year 1813, receded at every point from the dominions which its strong and rapid onward course had so totally overwhelmed.