Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume IV.Scott, Walter
History
Life of Napoleon Bonaparte, Volume IV.
Scott, Walter
France -- History -- 1789-1815; Napoleon I, Emperor of the French, 1769-1821
The particular conditions of the peace with Austria were not adjusted
until the 14th October, 1809, although the armistice was signed nearly
three months before. We avail ourselves of the interval to notice other
remarkable events, which happened during this eventful summer; and
first, we must briefly revert to the conduct of Russia and England
during the war.
Notwithstanding the personal friendship betwixt the Emperors Alexander
and Napoleon--notwithstanding their engagements entered into at Tilsit,
and so lately revived at Erfurt, it seems to have been impossible to
engage Russia heartily as an ally of Napoleon, in a war which had the
destruction or absolute humiliation of Austria. The Court of St.
Petersburgh had, it is true, lost no time in securing the advantages
which had been stipulated for Russia in the conferences alluded to.
Finland had been conquered, torn from Sweden, to which the province had
so long belonged, and united with Russia, to whom it furnished a most
important frontier and barrier.[1] Russia was also, with connivance of
France, making war on the Porte, in order to enlarge her dominions by
the addition of Moldavia and Wallachia. But though the Court of St.
Petersburgh had gained one of these advantages, and was in a way of
obtaining the other, the Russian Ministers saw with anxiety the
impending fate of Austria, the rather that they themselves were bound by
treaty to lend their aid for her destruction. We have seen that Russia
had interposed to prevent the war. She was now unwillingly compelled to
take part in it; yet when Prince Galatzin marched into Galicia at the
head of 30,000 Russians, the manifesto which he published could be
hardly termed that of a hostile nation. The Emperor, it stated, had done
all in his power to prevent things from coming to this extremity; but
now, the war having actually broken out, he was bound by the faith of
treaties to send the stipulated number of auxiliaries.[2] The motions of
this body of Russians were slow, and their conduct in the Austrian
dominions rather that of allies than enemies. Some of the Russian
officers of rank avowed their politics to be in direct opposition to
those of the Emperor, and declared that three-fourths of the generals
commanding territorial divisions in Russia were of their opinion. These
expressions, with the unusual slowness and lenity just alluded to, were
for the present passed over without remark, but were recorded and
remembered as matter of high offence, when Napoleon thought that the
time was come to exact from Russia a severe account for every thing in
which she had disappointed his expectations.
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