Russia Against Napoleon

unpalatable advice about negotiations with Napoleon. Nesselrode wrote that the allies had fulfilled their war aims. The possibility now existed of a peace which ‘will enable Your Majesty to labour in security for the good of his subjects and to heal the deep wounds caused by the war, while establishing the western borders of his empire to his advantage and being able to exert on other governments a benevolent and equitable influence, rooted in the memory of the services which You have rendered to them’. In comparison to this certainty, ‘it is impossible to calculate the chances offered by a prolonged war fought for unclear and excessive goals’.¹⁵

Nesselrode’s views weakened Alexander’s trust in him. Countess Nesselrode wrote to her husband that he was far too close to Metternich both personally and in his opinions for his own good. Nesselrode’s own private letters reveal a barely suppressed frustration with the emperor. This frustration was shared by many key figures in the allied leadership in early 1814. To them Alexander appeared not just overbearing but also at times driven by purely personal and petty motives. In one of his first reports to the British prime minister from allied headquarters, Lord Castlereagh wrote that ‘I think our greatest danger at present is from the chevalresque tone in which the Emperor Alexander is disposed to push the war. He has a personal feeling about Paris, distinct from all political or military combinations. He seems to seek for the occasion of entering with his magnificent guards the enemy’s capital, probably to display, in his clemency and forbearance, a contrast’ to the destruction of Moscow.¹⁶

Castlereagh’s comment showed insight. In 1814 Alexander did sometimes allow himself to be swayed by personal and even petty considerations which had little to do with Russian interests. He saw his role of victor and peace-giver as a personal apotheosis. He also remembered that in 1812 he had stood alone against a seemingly invincible enemy whose huge army had included strong Austrian and Prussian contingents. In the following year he had risked much and shown great skill and patience in dragging first Prussia and then Austria into his victorious coalition. By February 1814 he felt that the reward for his efforts was an undeserved level of distrust and criticism from not just his allies but also many of his advisers. A combination of exaltation and bruised feelings is never easy to deal with. To complicate matters, Alexander’s views on international relations were never rooted purely in realpolitik. His long-held idealism about international cooperation was now being influenced by his new-found Christian beliefs in ways which the down-to-earth pragmatists who ran the foreign policies of the other powers found disconcerting.¹⁷

The key point, however, is not just to understand Alexander’s emotions but also to recognize that the core of his policy was usually rational and also in many instances more correct than his critics allowed. Reconciling Polish aspirations with Russian security was a hugely important matter for his empire. Alexander’s attempt to do this was generous and imaginative. In the end it failed but so have all subsequent Russian efforts to square this circle. Moreover, though it caused uncertainty and suspicion, the emperor’s determination not to reveal his cards and to postpone discussion of Polish affairs until after the end of the war was wise. Any attempt to do otherwise would surely have broken up the coalition.

Of course Alexander understood the argument of some of his advisers that French power was essential to keep British ambitions in check. To some extent this had been part of the rationale underlying Russian policy at Tilsit and in the following years. Rumiantsev had wished to use Napoleon against Britain just as Metternich hoped to use him to balance Russia. But the basic point was that France was too powerful and Napoleon far too ambitious for either the Austrians or Russians to use safely. Attempts to do so merely condemned Europe to more years of conflict and instability. Alexander’s insight that Napoleon would never honour any settlement acceptable to the allies, and that lasting peace could only be made in Paris, was correct. More than any other individual, he was responsible for Napoleon’s overthrow. If leadership of the coalition had rested with Metternich and Schwarzenberg, there is every likelihood that the 1814 campaign would have ended with Napoleon on his throne, the allies behind the Rhine, and Europe condemned to unending conflict and chaos. On the day that Paris finally capitulated, Castlereagh’s half-brother, Sir Charles Stewart, wrote that ‘it would be injustice’ not to recognize Alexander’s achievement as the man who had led the allies to victory and thereby ‘richly deserved the appellation of the liberator of mankind’.¹⁸

In early November 1813, however, when the allies reached Frankfurt and encamped on the Rhine, Paris still seemed far away. In Frankfurt, the allied leaders agreed on a combined political and military strategy. They would offer Napoleon peace on very moderate terms. As even Metternich admitted to one of his Austrian subordinates, there was every probability that the emperor would reject these terms. But the offer of peace would clarify allied aims and allow them to expose Napoleon’s intransigence to the French people. Throughout the 1814 campaign a key allied tactic was to stress that they were fighting Napoleon’s insatiable ambitions, not France and her legitimate interests and pride. They were terrified that Napoleon might succeed in mobilizing ‘the nation in arms’ against their invasion of France, just as his republican predecessors had done in 1792–4. On the contrary, if they could split Napoleon from the French nation, this might either increase the pressure on him to make peace or encourage the emergence of an alternative French regime with which the allies could negotiate.¹⁹

The biggest source of allied leverage would be military. Having seen how Napoleon had used the winter of 1812–13 to recover from disaster in Russia and create a new army, the allies were determined not to give him a second such opportunity. They therefore committed themselves to a full-scale winter invasion of France. If any of the allied leaders had doubts about this commitment, they were quickly dispelled by news from Paris that on 15 November Napoleon had summoned a further 300,000 men to the colours, on top of the 280,000 conscripts whose recruitment had already been announced in the autumn of 1813. The allied response to this was a ringing manifesto aimed at the French people. It stated that

the French government has just ordered a new levy of 300,000 conscripts. The justifications set out in the new law are a provocation against the allied powers…The allied powers are not making war against France…but against the domination which the Emperor Napoleon has for too long exercised beyond the borders of his empire, to the misfortune of both Europe and France…The allied sovereigns desire that France should be strong, great and happy because a strong and great France is one of the fundamental bases of the whole order of the world (edifice sociale)…But the allied powers themselves want to live in freedom, happiness and tranquillity. They want a state of peace which through a wise re-distribution of power and a just equilibrium will preserve their peoples henceforth from the calamities beyond number which have weighed on Europe for twenty years.²⁰

The allied peace terms were conveyed to Napoleon by the Count de Saint-Aignan, a French diplomat and Caulaincourt’s brother-in-law, whom they had captured during the pursuit of the French army after the battle of Leipzig. On 29 October Metternich and Alexander had agreed these terms. Now on 10 November Saint-Aignan wrote them down in the presence of Metternich himself, Nesselrode and Lord Aberdeen. France was offered its ‘natural frontiers’, in other words the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees. This would have preserved its hold on Antwerp and the Belgian coast, in other words precisely the territory which Britain was most intent on denying her. She must renounce all her sovereign rights beyond these borders, though explicitly not the influence exercised by any great power on weaker neighbours. Although Napoleon must cease to be King of Italy, the allied offer did not totally exclude the possibility that the current viceroy, Eugene de Beauharnais, might replace him. It also, even more amazingly, included the promise that Britain would make great sacrifices for the sake of peace, which implied the return of many French colonies, and recognized the principle of ‘liberty of trade and navigation’. Though in itself vague, this suggested that the peace conference would discuss the whole issue of ‘maritime rights’, which was anathema to the British government.²¹

Even Metternich might have recoiled had Napoleon instantly agreed these terms, which put strong constraints on Austrian influence in Italy. Neither Russia nor Britain would actually have signed a peace treaty based on these conditions. Nevertheless, if Alexander had agreed to these terms being offered that was no doubt in part because, like Metternich, he expected that Napoleon would reject them. Ever since the summer of 1812 Alexander had believed deep in his heart that a stable peace could only be signed in Paris and, if possible, with a French ruler other than Napoleon. To put this forward as a war aim would have horrified his allies, however, and Alexander was very careful to keep his opinions to himself. Even in November 1813, to speak of marching on Paris and toppling Napoleon was premature and dangerous, and most of all when in earshot of Metternich. For Alexander, the key point was that military operations were to continue in full vigour. He had always believed that in the end it was the fortunes of war which both would and should determine the final peace settlement. As for Aberdeen, no doubt he feared to stand out alone against the allied consensus. He was also, however, a babe-in-arms when faced with diplomats of the power and subtlety of Metternich or Alexander.²²

The allies in fact quickly began to water down their offer. The manifesto issued to the French people on 1