Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna

On 13 June he wrote to her from Reichenbach venting his anger at the armistice. Not only was it entirely unnecessary, he felt, it was psychologically damaging to the German cause. The first wave of enthusiasm which had brought volunteers flocking to the Prussian colours had spent itself, partisan activity had fizzled out, and if the allied armies remained behind the Elbe for much longer, it would be impossible to breathe fresh life into the movement for the liberation of Germany. The behaviour of the Russian troops towards the German population was undermining the alliance, while the Russian command was growing increasingly war-weary. Humboldt bemoaned the lack of committed leadership, and feared that in these conditions Metternich, whom he distrusted and disliked, would be able to make an ‘Austrian peace’ that would leave Prussia in the lurch and cancel out all hope of a Germany free from foreign influence. ‘The future looks unbelievably dark and uncertain,’ he wrote to her on 22 June.

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King Frederick William also thought the future looked bleak, but for different reasons. He did not share his army’s spirit of belligerence, and could not make up his mind which threatened him more: the continuation of the war, with its perils and unforeseen consequences, or the conclusion of peace, which would probably take place at the expense of Prussia. His natural inclinations were for the latter course. He would whip himself up into a warlike mood in order to support Alexander, but talk of war raised the spectre of unrest and possible revolution in his mind. ‘His Majesty, therefore, cools down rapidly, and sinks back into the same amiable nonentity he has ever been,’ noted George Jackson, Stewart’s secrétaire d’ambassade.

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Stewart had come from London a few weeks earlier by a round-about route which had taken him by ship through the Baltic to Prussia, and on to allied headquarters at Reichenbach, where he finally delivered his letters of credence to Frederick William. To his intense disappointment, the atmosphere there was anything but warlike.

There were daily parades as Alexander and Frederick William reviewed newly arrived reinforcements, but there were also banquets, lunch parties and excursions to nearby beauty spots and places of interest. The presence of the sovereigns drew minor German princes eager to pay court to what they assumed would be the new powers in Germany, and ladies who had come to see the chivalrous liberator. ‘Female society of the most perfect description was within our reach; and its allurements and dissipations often divided the mind of soldier and politician from their more severe duties,’ recorded Stewart. Jackson contributed an English flavour. ‘We have enlivened our leisure hours by getting up some pony races, which have gone off wonderfully well,’ he wrote home. But the British diplomats were far from happy.

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Alexander had withdrawn into himself. In between meditations on the doctrines of the Moravian Brethren and his divine destiny, he was penning love notes to Princess Zinaida Volkonskaya, the wife of one of his aides-de-camp, with whom he had enjoyed a dalliance at Kalisch, and who had gone to Bohemia to await his projected arrival there. While pouring out his heart, he stressed the ‘purity’ of his feelings, and affirmed that he felt no scruples about making her unwitting husband carry the notes between them.

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While Alexander believed that the sufferings endured by his people over the previous twelve months entitled Russia to special consideration, Britain had, in the course of the past century, acquired a sense of embattled righteousness which translated effortlessly into an arrogant perception of her needs and her God-given right to them. This was the cause of some resentment, and not only among the Russians.

According to Jackson, Hardenberg seemed to regard Britain ‘rather as a thorn in his side, and an obstacle to a peaceful settlement of affairs amongst the three Powers, than as an ally making the greatest efforts and sacrifices to aid in restoring permanent tranquillity in Europe’.

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In his instructions to Stadion of 7 May, designed to give as much pleasure as possible to the Russians short of committing Austria to an alliance, Metternich insisted that Britain would have to give up some of her maritime rights, adding that ‘England’s dominion on [the seas] is no less monstrous than Napoleon’s on the continent.’

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Lord Cathcart, who had followed Alexander from St Petersburg, and the newly arrived Stewart, who thought highly of himself, felt they were not given enough respect at allied headquarters. But they were both relatively inferior in rank and personal reputation, and they were dealing with ministers and monarchs. Matters were not improved by the fact that they had taken an instant dislike to each other; as a result they did not always see eye to eye or coordinate their actions.

Neither Cathcart nor Stewart was given any information as to what was going on, and their anxiety mounted as they watched couriers come and go. As far as they were concerned, Austria was still an ally of France, and they found the presence of Stadion and Lebzeltern at allied headquarters puzzling. They had no inkling of what Metternich might be up to, and suspected the worst. ‘I fear political treachery,’ Stewart wrote excitedly to Castlereagh on 6 June. They were taken aback when they were at last informed that an armistice had been signed with Napoleon.

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The one thing Cathcart and Stewart did have going for them was money. Russia and Prussia were both desperate to pay and feed their armies and raise the new divisions they would need in order to confront Napoleon. On 14 June Stewart concluded a treaty with Prussia which bound her to put an extra 80,000 men in the field in exchange for an immediate cash subsidy of £666,000. Prussia also agreed to respect British claims to the lands of the houses of Hanover and Brunswick, while in a secret article Britain pledged herself to support Prussia’s right to regain a position at least equivalent to that she had held in 1806. The following day Cathcart signed a twin treaty by which Russia was to receive twice as much money in return for an army of 150,000. Britain also agreed to spend £500,000 on refitting the Russian fleet. The two treaties provided for a further advance of £5 million in the form of ‘federal paper’, which could be issued by the allies to cover the expenses of war. It was backed by British credit and would be redeemed jointly by all three at the conclusion of the war.

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Possibly the most important article in the treaties was that which bound the signatories not to enter into any negotiations of any kind with any party without consulting each other. The suspension of hostilities had brought out mistrust between the allies, as each of them considered the possibility that the other might make a separate deal with Napoleon. ‘Conjecture was still very busy, and had a wide field of action,’ in Stewart’s words.

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The deepest suspicions were focused on Austria, and on Metternich in particular. On 10 June Hardenberg was sent to Gitschin to obtain firmer commitments from Austria. Amongst other things, he wanted to ensure that the bases for negotiation which were to be submitted to Napoleon should not be too acceptable to him; if Metternich were to offer him terms that he could stomach, Napoleon might seize on the opportunity to make a peace that would satisfy neither Russia nor Prussia, and certainly not their British ally.

The conditions proposed by Hardenberg as the starting-point for negotiations with Napoleon were: 1. The dissolution of the grand duchy of Warsaw and its partition between the three neighbouring powers; 2. The cession to Prussia of Danzig and other areas in northern Germany; 3. The return of Illyria to Austria; 4. The reinstatement of Hanseatic ports such as Hamburg and Lübeck; 5. The dissolution of the Rheinbund; and 6. The reconstruction of Prussia to its pre-1806 status.

When Hardenberg presented these conditions to him, Metternich balked at the inclusion of the last two. He knew they would be unacceptable to Napoleon, and that if they were put to him he would not agree to negotiate at all. This would entail the resumption of hostilities at a moment when Austria was not ready – which in turn would mean that she would have no option but to resume her role as Napoleon’s ally. He had also come to the conclusion that it would be politic to preserve the Rheinbund, as this would effectively scotch any plans Alexander and Stein might have for the rearrangement of Germany and any designs Prussia might be nursing with regard to German territory.

Over two days of often heated discussion Metternich managed to make his case that the most important thing was to get Napoleon to agree to negotiations. This would have the twin advantages of buying Austria the time necessary for mobilising her army, and making Napoleon look like the aggressor when the negotiations eventually broke down. That they would break down he had no doubt, because, he explained, the allies would, as soon as the negotiations started, introduce the other two conditions and then include British demands with regard to Spain and the Netherlands. But while he stood by his insistence that Napoleon must be lured into negotiations, he did agree to commit Austria to war when these failed, and a formal convention was to be prepared to that effect.

This went only a little way to dispel mistrust of Metternich at allied headquarters, and the suspicion lingered that he was setting a trap – the awareness of each of the three powers that they could at any moment strike a deal with Napoleon over the heads of the others made them extraordinarily sensitive to the possibility of the others doing so, hence the high degree of mistrust emanating from the notes and letters of those involved in these delicate and secretive talks.

Alexander decided to talk to Metternich himself, and a meeting was arranged for 17 June at Opotschno (Opočno). The two had not seen each other since 1805, and although they had been on cordial terms then, much had happened since to make the Tsar suspicious of the Austrian Foreign Minister. But in a long interview Metternich succeeded in allaying those suspicions by explaining his plan of action. He assured Alexander that if Napoleon agreed to talks, ‘the negotiations will demonstrate, beyond any doubt, that he has no intention of behaving wisely or justly’, and that war would inevitably follow. Alexander accepted the logic of the plan, and left the meeting in a brighter mood. But that only made the Prussians more suspicious.

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Two days later Metternich had a secret conference in the discreet venue of Wilhelmina de Sagan’s house at Ratiborzitz, with Hardenberg and Humboldt representing Prussia and Nesselrode Russia, which the latter described as ‘one of the most stormy I have ever attended’. In the end Metternich managed to placate them by declaring that while Austria would only bind herself to join Russia and Prussia in war against France if Napoleon did not accept to negotiate on the first four conditions, he nevertheless agreed that a durable peace could not be achieved without excluding France and French influence entirely from Italy, Germany, Spain and the Netherlands. The fruit of these meetings was the Convention of Reichenbach, signed a few days later, on 27 June.

This defined the conditions on which Napoleon was to be invited to negotiate, and stipulated that if he did not agree to them, or if the negotiations did not lead to peace, Austria would automatically become an ally of Russia and Prussia, and declare war on France.

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Mistrust nevertheless lingered like an unhealthy fog – with some justification, since the allies had accepted Metternich’s assurance that the peace proposals were only a ploy to wrong-foot Napoleon, while he himself was still in favour of making peace provided reasonable terms could be obtained. That seemed infinitely preferable to embarking on a new war as part of a coalition which, in Gentz’s words, was ‘a weak, rotten, poorly designed structure in which hardly two pieces fit together’. But a satisfactory peace could only be made with the participation of Britain, and Metternich was doing everything possible to make contact with the British cabinet through Wessenberg and various British agents.

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The British diplomats had been left out of the secret talks between their allies and Metternich, and seemed to be unaware of them. But Castlereagh was anxious. On 13 June he wrote to Cathcart instructing him to write to Metternich himself and pin him down as to Austria’s intentions, and enclosing a letter to the Austrian Foreign Minister in which he insisted on ‘without loss of time, be[ing] informed in the most authentic and confidential manner of the views and intentions of the Austrian cabinet’.

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Stewart, who regarded himself first and foremost as a soldier and longed to get to grips with the enemy, had gone off to Prussia in order to review the troops concentrating for the next stage of the campaign in northern Germany. It was only when he returned a couple of weeks later that he discovered, entirely by chance, that Russia and Prussia had signed a convention with Austria without consulting their British allies, in stark and insulting contradiction to the engagements made in the subsidy treaties signed with them only ten days before.

The British Prime Minister Lord Liverpool and his Foreign Secretary Lord Castlereagh had already been rattled by the news of their Russian and German allies’ signature of the armistice of Plesswitz on 4 June without consulting them. When they were informed of this second breach of faith there was mild panic in London. They had to consider the very real possibility that Austria might succeed in subverting their allies and broker a peace between them and Napoleon which would once again exclude Britain. Faced with this bleak prospect, Castlereagh readjusted his policy.

‘You must guard against a Continental peace being made to our exclusion,’ he warned Cathcart on 6 July, stressing the weakness of Britain’s position. He hated the prospect of having to take part in a settlement negotiated by Metternich, but there seemed to be no alternative. He had made up his mind to send an envoy to the Austrian court.

‘The risk of treating with France is great, but the risk of losing our Continental Allies and the confidence of our own nation is greater,’ he argued, instructing Cathcart to inform the allies that Britain would join them in any negotiations they entered into with Napoleon. He listed ‘the points on which His Royal Highness can under no circumstances relax’, which were that Spain, Portugal and Naples must be returned to their rightful sovereigns, that Hanover be handed back, that an enlarged Holland be restored and that Prussia and Austria be strengthened. A further point concerned Britain’s maritime rights, which were not negotiable. To his intense annoyance Russia had recently renewed its offer to mediate in the Anglo-American conflict, which he saw as an attempt to bring these rights up in the international arena.

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On his return to Gitschin after his crucial conferences with Alexander and the allied ministers, Metternich had found a letter from the French Foreign Minister Maret asking whether Austria still considered herself to be bound by the treaty of 1812 with France, and if so, whether she would designate a plenipotentiary to renegotiate it so as to accommodate Austria’s new role as mediator. Metternich replied with a specious document explaining Austria’s behaviour towards France, and then set off for Dresden himself.

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He arrived in the Saxon capital on 25 June, and on the following day he presented himself at the Marcolini villa. On his arrival he was struck by the look of weariness and despondency on the faces of the senior officers in the Emperor’s ante-rooms. He found Napoleon standing in the middle of a long gallery, his sword at his side and his hat under his arm. The Emperor opened the conversation with cordial enquiries about Francis’s health, but his countenance soon grew sombre. Irritated by Austria’s tergiversation, and feeling he was being betrayed, Napoleon reacted with his usual truculence. ‘So it is war you want: very well, you shall have it,’ he challenged Metternich. ‘I annihilated the Prussian army at Lützen; I beat the Russians at Bautzen; and now you want to have your turn. I shall meet you at Vienna. Men are incorrigible; the lessons of experience are lost on them.’

When Metternich pressed him to make peace, stressing that this was his last opportunity to do so on favourable terms, Napoleon gave full vent to his irritation. ‘I might even consider giving Russia a piece of the duchy of Warsaw,’ he ranted, ‘but I will not give you anything, because you have not beaten me; and I will give nothing to Prussia, because she has betrayed me.’ He declared that he could not give up an inch of territory without dishonouring himself. ‘Your sovereigns, born on the throne, can afford to let themselves be beaten twenty times and still return to their capitals; I cannot, because I am a parvenu soldier,’ he said. ‘My authority will not survive the day when I will have ceased to be strong, and therefore, to be feared.’

He suspected that the four conditions for negotiation put forward by Metternich were some kind of trick, as they would not buy peace by themselves (if only because British demands would have to be added), so in agreeing to them Napoleon would be entering an open-ended negotiation. And he saw Metternich as the principal intriguer rather than the honest broker the Austrian minister thought himself.

Realising that he could not force Austria to fight at the side of France, Napoleon attempted to buy her neutrality by offering to return her Illyrian provinces. But Metternich stood firm by his insistence that the only role Austria was prepared to play was that of independent mediator. If Napoleon did not accept this, Francis would consider himself relieved of any obligation to stand by their alliance, and free to act as he saw fit. Napoleon tried to browbeat Metternich, by accusing him of treachery and of being in the pay of Britain, by ridiculing Austria’s military potential and by threatening to crush her. He lost his temper more than once, threw his hat into the corner in a rage, only then to resume the conversation on polite, even friendly terms. The meeting lasted more than nine hours, and it was dark outside when the exhausted Metternich left the room.

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That evening Metternich returned to the Marcolini villa at Napoleon’s invitation to see a play put on by the actors of the Comédie Française, who had been brought over from Paris. He was astonished to find himself watching the famous actress Mademoiselle Georges playing Racine’s Phèdre. ‘I thought I was at St Cloud,’ he wrote to his wife before going to bed, ‘all the same faces, the same court, the same people.’

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Over the next days he had a couple of meetings with Maret and another inconclusive one with Napoleon, who kept invoking Austria’s obligations under the treaty of 1812. Metternich did everything he could to persuade Napoleon that he wanted to help him make a satisfactory peace, while Napoleon alternated between bullying and trying to convince Metternich that Austria needed France more than France needed Austria.