Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna - Adam Zamoyski

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duty to herself. She had gone on to accomplish Alexander’s self-imposed goal of liberating Europe. There could, as a result, be no point or indeed justification for pursuing the war further. Shishkov pointed out that with France pushed back to the Rhine and Germany restored to vigour, Napoleon would never be able to threaten Europe, let alone Russia, again, particularly as she herself would have acquired a new defensible frontier. He also warned that taking the war into France might have the effect of galvanising the French nation in support of their Emperor and their motherland, and inflict defeat on the invaders.13

      Alexander’s generals were of the same view, while his soldiers were keen to go home. The Russian army was down to some 50,000 men, and an anxious Aberdeen reported on 8 November that ‘The sentiments of the Russian army are more loudly expressed every day; from the highest to the lowest they are clamorous for peace.’ Stewart also warned that they wanted to ‘pull up’. The situation in the Prussian army was not much better. Gneisenau painted a dismal picture of its condition: the men were exhausted and short of arms. Most wanted to go into winter quarters at the very least.14

      But Alexander was supported by people such as Pozzo di Borgo, who would never rest until he saw his enemy Napoleon destroyed; Anstett, who nurtured a similar vendetta; Stein, who wished to see France reduced further; and a number of others in his entourage, mostly non-Russians. They were seconded by Hardenberg and particularly Blücher, who longed to avenge the shame of Jena and the humiliations his country had suffered at the hands of Napoleon. He strongly urged an immediate advance, believing that if they denied Napoleon the opportunity to reorganise his forces, they could defeat him and take Paris within two months. Frederick William was a good deal less bellicose, and frequently expressed the fear that Napoleon’s military talents might yet produce a reversal of the situation.15

      Francis was equally wary, while the Austrian military commanders were similarly respectful of Napoleon’s abilities. Metternich was opposed to further advance for other reasons. He did not wish to see France weakened further, as his view of a viable settlement in Europe included a strong France acting as a counterbalance to Russia. He therefore urged making peace proposals to Napoleon, pointing out, to appease Alexander, that they would probably not be accepted, and that this would only enhance the moral standing of the allies.

      Conveniently enough, Napoleon’s minister at the court of Weimar, the baron de Saint-Aignan, had been captured in the allied advance and brought to Frankfurt. Before sending him on his way back to Paris, on 9 November, Metternich invited him to a meeting with himself and Nesselrode. He told the Frenchman that the allies would be prepared to make peace now. All France would have to do was give up her conquests in Italy, Spain and Germany, returning to her natural frontiers on the Rhine, the Alps and the Pyrenees, thereby keeping Belgium and Savoy as well as the whole left bank of the Rhine. The status of the rest of the Netherlands was left unspecified, and there was talk of negotiation on the subject of colonies and maritime matters.

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       The ‘historic’ and ‘natural’ borders of France

      Metternich suggested that Saint-Aignan write this up in the form of an aide-mémoire, which he could present to Napoleon on his return to Paris, and led him into a neighbouring study for the purpose. While they were out of the room Aberdeen arrived, and when they emerged from the study Metternich asked Saint-Aignan to read the document out to the three of them, just to make sure he had listed the terms correctly.

      Aberdeen had recently received letters from Castlereagh saying that the British cabinet was not inclined to negotiate with Napoleon, as public opinion in Britain wished to see him destroyed. He also knew that Castlereagh deplored Metternich’s ‘spirit of catching at everything that can be twisted into even the hope of a negotiation’. He therefore listened to the reading with detached scepticism, and appears not to have protested at the inclusion of the frontier on the Rhine.16

      When Saint-Aignan came to the passage concerning Britain, Aberdeen asked him to repeat it, and then declared that the expression ‘freedom of the seas and of commerce’ was too vague. He stated that while Britain was prepared to return almost all the colonies she had taken in the cause of a durable peace, ‘she would never consent to anything that might impinge her maritime rights’. The next day he delivered a formal note to Nesselrode and Metternich reiterating that Britain would never take part in negotiations in which these conditions were to be discussed. Nevertheless, his very presence at the reading of the memorandum lent it a spurious authority.17

      Saint-Aignan reached Paris with the so-called ‘Frankfurt proposals’ on 14 November, and was received by Napoleon the following day. Napoleon noted at once that, as they did not specify any of Britain’s war aims, the proposals could not serve as the basis for a final settlement. But he also realised that they opened up possibilities. Through Caulaincourt, with whom he had replaced Maret as Foreign Minister, he wrote to Metternich accepting the proposals, suggesting Mannheim as the venue for the congress.

      He was by now prepared to make peace on the basis of France’s ‘natural frontiers’ and the return of most of her colonies. But this would only be possible if pressure were brought to bear on Britain to agree to France’s retention of Belgium, and the only way of bringing the allies to do this was by placing the entire onus for the continuation of the war on Britain. Thus the ‘Frankfurt proposals’ seemed to offer a chance of introducing a wedge with which to split the coalition.18

      ‘The Coalition is beginning to have the decrepitude of age,’ Aberdeen wrote to his father-in-law the Earl of Abercorn, ‘and the evils inherent in its very existence are felt daily.’ This is not surprising. Russia and Prussia were bound together by treaty, and each of them was bound by other treaties with Austria and with Britain. Austria had also concluded, on 3 October, the vaguest of preliminary treaties with Britain, alongside a treaty of subsidy. Austria had concluded unilateral agreements with Bavaria and a number of other minor powers, while Russia, Prussia and Britain had signed their own treaties with Sweden. All of these treaties were vague, many were contradictory or at least incompatible in spirit, and all of the contracting parties were mistrustful of all the others.19

      Given the differences of opinion on every question, from whether to continue the advance, to how to dispose of the Polish territories, reorganise Germany and settle a myriad minor matters, and given the deep-rooted antipathies and jealousies running through it at every level, the coalition was at risk of falling apart at any moment. Stewart complained of the continuous ‘political chicane, finesse and tracasserie of every kind’ that he was being subjected to. ‘In short, in proportion as we have success,’ he reported to Castlereagh on 23 November, ‘separate interests become every day more and more in play, and one cannot look satisfactorily at present to a happy termination, when there is at the head of all this a Machiavellian spirit of political intrigue.’20

      Castlereagh’s ‘grand design’, to bind all the allies together and commit them to a set of specific goals, had got nowhere. Cathcart had tried again and again to corner Alexander in order to present the project to him, but military matters had always intervened and the audiences had been cancelled. It was not until 26 October that he had managed to have a talk with the Tsar alone. According to Cathcart, Alexander ‘did not seem in any shape averse to what is proposed’, but he had asked which colonies Britain was prepared to put on the negotiating table, a subject he knew would raise British hackles. It was his way of brushing off Castlereagh’s proposal.21

      Aberdeen, who felt slighted by Castlereagh entrusting the project to Cathcart rather than to him, and who also felt that it had been a mistake not to make the proposal to Metternich first rather than to Alexander, criticised

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