The Life of Napoleon I Part 74

[Footnote 289: Metternich's "Memoirs," vol. i., p. 159; Luckwaldt, _op. cit._, ch. vi.]

[Footnote 290: See the whole note in Luckwaldt, Append. No. 4.]

[Footnote 291: Oncken, _op. cit._, vol. ii., p. 205. So too Metternich's letter to Nesselrode of April 21st ("Memoirs," vol. i., p. 405, Eng. ed.): "I beg of you to continue to confide in me. If Napoleon will be foolish enough to fight, let us endeavour not to meet with a reverse, which I feel to be only too possible. One battle lost for Napoleon, and all Germany will be under arms."]

[Footnote 292: "F.O.," Austria, No. 105. Doubtless, as Oncken has pointed out with much acerbity, Castlereagh's knowledge that Austria would suggest the modification of our maritime claims contributed to his refusal to consider her proposal for a general peace: but I am convinced, from the tone of our records, that his chief motive was his experience of Napoleon's intractability and a sense of loyalty to our Spanish allies: we were also pledged to help Sweden and Russia.]

[Footnote 293: Letters of April 24th.]

[Footnote 294: Napoleon's troops in Thorn surrendered on April 17th; those in Spandau on April 24th (Fain, "Ma.n.u.scrit de 1813," vol. ii., ch. i.).]

[Footnote 295: Oncken, vol. ii., p. 272.]

[Footnote 296: Cathcart's report in "F.O.," Russia, No. 85. m.u.f.fling ("Aus meinem Leben") regards the delay in the arrival of Miloradovitch, and the preparations for defence which the French had had time to make at Gross Gorschen, as the causes of the allies'

failure. The chief victim on the French side was Bessieres, commander of the Guard.]

[Footnote 297: "Corresp.," Nos. 20017-20031. For his interview with Bubna, see Luckwaldt, p. 257.]

[Footnote 298: Bernhardi's "Toll," vol. iii., pp. 490-492. Marmont gives the French 150,000; Thiers says 160,000.]

[Footnote 299: In his bulletin Napoleon admitted having lost 11,000 to 12,000 killed and wounded in the two days at Bautzen; his actual losses were probably over 20,000. He described the allies as having 150,000 to 160,000 men, nearly double their actual numbers.]

[Footnote 300: m.u.f.fling, "Aus meinem Leben."]

[Footnote 301: "Lettres inedites." So too his letters to Eugene of June 11th and July 1st; and of June 11th, 17th, July 6th and 29th, to Augereau, who was to threaten Austria from Bavaria.]

[Footnote 302: See his conversation with our envoy, Thornton, reported by the latter in the "Castlereagh Letters," 2nd series, vol. iv., p.

314.]

[Footnote 303: "Castlereagh Letters," 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 344.]

[Footnote 304: Garden, vol. xiv., p. 356. We also stipulated that Sweden should not import slaves into Guadeloupe, and should repress the slave trade. When, at the Congress of Vienna, that island was given back to France, we paid Bernadotte a money indemnity.]

[Footnote 305: "Lettres inedites de Napoleon," June 18th, 1813. See too that of July 16th, _ibid._]

[Footnote 306: Letters of F. Perthes.]

[Footnote 307: Joseph to Marmont, July 21st, 1812.]

[Footnote 308: "Mems. du Roi Joseph," vols. viii. and ix.; Napier, book xix., ch. v.]

[Footnote 309: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. ix., p. 195.]

[Footnote 310: Napier and Alison say March 18th, which is refuted by the "Mems. du Roi Joseph," vol. ix., p. 131.]

[Footnote 311: _Ibid._, vol. ix., p. 464.]

[Footnote 312: As a matter of fact he had 50,000 there for three months, and did not succeed. See Clarke's letter to Clausel, "Mems. du Roi Joseph," vol. ix., p. 251.]

[Footnote 313: Stanhope's "Conversations with Wellington," p. 20.]

[Footnote 314: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. ix., p. 60.]

[Footnote 315: Thiers, bk. xlix.; "Nap. Corresp.," No. 20019; Baumgarten vol i., p. 577.]

[Footnote 316: "Memoires du Roi Joseph," vol. ix., pp. 284, 294.

Joseph's first order to Clausel was sent under protection of _an escort of 1,500 men_.]

[Footnote 317: See Lord Melville's complaint as to Wellington's unreasonable charges on this head in the "Letters of Sir B. Martin"

("Navy Records," 1898).]

[Footnote 318: Miot de Melito, vol. ii., ch. xviii.]

[Footnote 319: Clausel afterwards complained that if he had received any order to that effect he could have pushed on so as to be at Vittoria ("Mems. du Roi Joseph," vol. ix., p. 454). The muster-rolls of the French were lost at Vittoria. Napier puts their force at 70,000; Thiers at 54,000; Jourdan at 50,000.]

[Footnote 320: Wellington's official account of the fight states that the French got away only two of their cannon; and Simmons, "A British Rifleman," a.s.serts that the last of these was taken near Pamplona on the 24th. Wellington generously a.s.signed much credit to the Spanish troops--far more than Napier will allow.]

[Footnote 321: Duca.s.se, "Les rois, freres de Napoleon."]

[Footnote 322: "Lettres inedites de Napoleon," July 1st, 3rd, 15th, and 20th.]

[Footnote 323: Stadion to Metternich, May 30th, June 2nd and 8th; in Luckwaldt, p. 382.]

[Footnote 324: Cathcart's "most secret" despatch of June 4/16* from Reichenbach. Just a month earlier he reported that the Czar's proposals to Austria included all these terms in an absolute form, and also the separation of Holland from France, the restoration of the Bourbons to Spain, and "L'Italie libre dans toutes ses parties du Gouvernement et de l'influence de la France." Such were also Metternich's _private_ wishes, with the frontier of the Oglio on the S.W. for Austria. See Oncken, vol. ii., p. 644. The official terms were in part due to the direct influence of the Emperor Francis.]

[Footnote 325: In a secret article of the Treaty we promised to advance to Austria a subsidy of 500,000 as soon as she should join the allies.]

[Footnote 326: Martens, vol. ix., pp. 568-575. Our suspicion of Prussia reappears (as was almost inevitable after her seizure of Hanover), not only in the smallness of the sum accorded to her--for we granted 2,000,000 in all to the Swedish, Hanseatic, and Hanoverian contingents--but also in the stipulation that she should a.s.sent to the eventual annexation of the formerly Prussian districts of East Frisia and Hildesheim to Hanover. We also refused to sign the Treaty of Reichenbach until she, most unwillingly, a.s.sented to this prospective cession. This has always been thought in Germany a mean transaction; but, as Castlereagh pointed out, those districts were greatly in the way of the development of Hanover. Prussia was to have an indemnity for the sacrifice; and we bore the chief burden in the issue of "federative paper notes," which enabled the allies to prepare for the campaign ("Castlereagh Papers," 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 355; 3rd series, vol. i., pp. 7-17; and "Bath Archives," vol. ii., p. 86).

Moreover, we were then sending 30,000 muskets to Stralsund and Colberg for the use of Prussian troops (Despatch from "F.O.," July 28th, to Thornton, "Sweden," No. 79). On July 6th we agreed to pay the cost of a German Legion of 10,000 men under the Czar's orders. Its Commissary was Colonel Lowe.]

[Footnote 327: For the official reports see Garden, vol. xiv., pp.

486-499; also Bausset's account, "Cour de Napoleon."]

[Footnote 328: Any account of a private interview between two astute schemers must be accepted with caution; and we may well doubt whether Metternich really was as firm, not to say provocative, as he afterwards represented in his "Memoirs." But, on the whole, his account is more trustworthy than that of Fain, Napoleon's secretary, in his "Ma.n.u.scrit de 1813," vol. ii., ch. ii. Fain places the interview on June 28th; in "Napoleon's Corresp." it is reprinted, but a.s.signed to June 23rd. The correct date is shown by Oncken to have been June 26th. Bignon's account of it (vol. xii., ch. iv.) is marked by his usual bias.]

[Footnote 329: Cathcart reported, on July 8th, that Schwarzenberg had urged an extension of the armistice, so that Austria might meet the "vast and unexpected" preparations of France ("Russia," No. 86).]

[Footnote 330: "Russia," No. 86.]

[Footnote 331: Thornton's despatch of July 12th ("Castlereagh Papers,"

2nd Series, vol. iv., _ad fin._).]

[Footnote 332: _Ibid._, pp. 383 and 405.]

[Footnote 333: For details see Oncken, Luckwaldt, Thiers, Fain, and the "Mems." of the Duc de Broglie; also Gentz, "Briefe an Pilat," of July 16th-22nd, 1813. Humboldt, the Prussian amba.s.sador, reported on July 13th to Berlin that Metternich looked on war as quite unavoidable, and on the Congress merely as a means of convincing the Emperor Francis of the impossibility of gaining a lasting peace.]

[Footnote 334: Thiers; Ernouf's "Maret, Duc de Ba.s.sano," p. 571.]

[Footnote 335: Bignon "Hist. de France," vol. xii., p. 199; Lefebvre, "Cabinets de l'Europe," vol. v., p. 555.]