The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire 1793-1812, Vol II. Alfred Thayer Mahan
part of her shipping; there was the market for the colonial produce stored in her overflowing warehouses; there also were gathered three navies, whose united masses—manned by hardy seamen trained in a boisterous navigation and sheltered in an enclosed sea of perilous access—might overweight a force already strained to control the Mediterranean, to blockade the hostile arsenals, and to protect the merchant shipping which thronged over every ocean highway.
To close the north of Europe to British trade, and to combine the Baltic navies against that of Great Britain, became thenceforth the fixed ideas of Bonaparte's life. To conciliate Denmark he released a number of Danish ships, which had been arrested by the Directory for submitting to search by British cruisers. The extent of the czar's alienation from his former allies not being at first apparent, he next courted Prussia, the head of the North German neutrality, in whose power it was to arrest British trade both through her own territory and through Hamburg. Prussia was ambitious to play a leading part in Europe. The five years spent by Austria, France, and Great Britain in exhausting warfare, she had used to consolidate her power and husband her resources. She wished now to pose as a mediator, and looked for the time when the prostration of the combatants and her own restored strength would cause them to bend to her influence, and yield her points, through the simple exhibition of her force. The advances and flatteries of the first consul were graciously received, but the path Prussia had traced for herself was to involve no risks—only gains; she wished much, but would venture naught. It was a dangerous part to play, this waiting on opportunity, against such a man as swayed the destinies of the Continent during the next twelve years. From it arose a hesitating, selfish, and timid policy, fluctuating with every breath of danger or hope of advantage, dishonoring the national name, until it ended in Jena and the agonies of humiliation through which the country passed between that disaster and the overthrow of Napoleon. Such a spirit is prone to side with a strong combination and to yield to a masterful external impulse.
Under this Bonaparte next sought to bring her. "We shall make nothing out of Prussia," he writes to Talleyrand on the first of June, 1800, on his way to Marengo; and he adds, "If the news from Egypt [apparently the defeat of the Turks by Kleber] is confirmed, it will become important to have some one in Russia. The Ottoman Empire cannot exist much longer, and if Paul I. turns his looks in that direction our interests become common." 13 Bonaparte was at no pains to reconcile this view with an assurance made a month later to Turkey that "no anxiety need be felt about Egypt, which will be restored as soon as the Porte shall resume its former relations with France." 14 On the 4th of June he recommends general and flattering overtures to the czar, accompanied by special marks of consideration. The latter was fully prepared to be won by compliments from the man for whose military glory he had come to feel a profound enthusiasm. On the 4th of July Bonaparte's general advances took form in a definite proposal to surrender to Russian troops Malta, whose speedy loss by himself he saw to be inevitable; an offer calculated not only to charm the Czar, who delighted to fancy himself the head and protector of an ancient order of knights, but also to sow discord between him and Great Britain, if, as was probable, the latter declined to yield her prey to a friend who at a critical moment had forsaken her. The letter sketched by the first consul was carefully worded to quicken the ready vanity of its recipient. "Desiring to give a proof of personal consideration to the emperor of Russia and to distinguish him from the other enemies of the republic, who fight from a vile love of gain, the first consul wishes, if the garrison of Malta is constrained by famine to evacuate the place, to restore it to the hands of the czar as grand master of the order; and although the first consul is certain that Malta has provisions for several months, 15 he wishes his Majesty to inform him what conventions he would wish to make, and what measures to take, so that, if the case arise, his troops may enter that place." 16 This was shortly followed by the release of the Russian prisoners in France, in number between seven and eight thousand, whom Bonaparte clad and dismissed with their colors and their officers to return into Russia; suggesting that, if the czar thought proper, he "might demand of the English to release an equal number of French prisoners; but if not, the first consul hoped he would accept his troops as an especial mark of the esteem felt for the brave Russian armies." 17
Immediately after these transactions occurred the collision between British and Danish cruisers in the Channel, and the entrance of the Baltic by the British fleet, to support its ambassador in his negotiation with Denmark. Paul I. made of the latter a pretext for sequestrating all British property in Russia, to be held as a guarantee against the future action of Great Britain. This order, dated August 29, 1800, was followed by another of September 10, announcing that "several political circumstances induced the emperor to think that a rupture of friendship with England may ensue," and directing a concentration of Russian troops. The cloud blew over for a moment, the sequestration being removed on the 22d of September; but the fall of Malta, which had surrendered on the 5th of the same month, brought matters to an issue. The czar had gladly accepted Bonaparte's adroit advances and designated a general to go to Paris, take command of the released prisoners and with them repair to Malta. The capitulation became known to him early in November; before which he had formally published his intention to revive the Armed Neutrality of 1780 against the maritime claims of Great Britain. It being very doubtful whether the latter would deliver the island after his unfriendly measures, a sequestration of British property was again decreed. Some three hundred ships were seized, their crews marched into the interior, and seals placed on all warehouses containing British property; the czar declaring that the embargo should not be removed until the acknowledgment of his rights to Malta, as grand master of the Order. The sequestrated property was to be held by an imperial commission and applied to pay debts due to Russian subjects by private Englishmen.
Affairs had now reached a stage where Prussia felt encouraged to move. The breach between Great Britain and Russia had opened wide, while the relations of the czar and first consul had become so friendly as to assure their concert. The armistice between Austria and France still continued, pending the decision whether the latter would negotiate with the emperor and Great Britain conjointly; but Bonaparte was a close as well as a hard bargainer. He would not admit the joint negotiation, nor postpone the renewal of hostilities beyond the 11th of September, except on condition of a maritime truce as favorable to France as he considered the land armistice to be to Austria. He proposed entire freedom of navigation to merchant vessels, the raising of the blockades of Brest, Cadiz, Toulon, and Flushing, and that Malta and Alexandria should be freely open to receive provisions by French or neutral vessels. The effect would be to allow the French dockyards to obtain naval stores, of which they were utterly destitute, and Malta and Egypt to receive undefined quantities of supplies and so prolong their resistance indefinitely. Great Britain was only willing to adopt for Egypt and Malta the literal terms of the armistice applied to the three Austrian fortresses blockaded by French troops. These were to receive every fortnight provisions proportioned to their consumption, and the British ministry offered to allow the same to Malta and Egypt. They also conceded free navigation, except in the articles of military and naval stores. Bonaparte refused. Austria's advantage in the armistice, he said, was not the mere retention of the fortresses, but the use she was making of her respite. Between these two extreme views no middle term could be found. In fact, great as were the results of Marengo, and of Moreau's more methodical advance into Germany, the material advantage of Great Britain over France still far exceeded that of France over Austria. The French had gained great successes, but they were now forcing the enemy back upon the centre of his power and they had not possession of his communications; whereas Great Britain had shut off, not merely Egypt and Malta, but France herself from all fruitful intercourse with the outer world. The negotiation for a maritime truce was broken off on the 9th of October. Meanwhile Bonaparte, declining to await its issue, had given notice that hostilities would be resumed between the 5th and 10th of September; and Austria, not yet ready, was fain to purchase a further delay by surrendering the blockaded places, Ulm, Ingolstadt, and Philipsburg. A convention to this effect was concluded, and the renewal of the war postponed for forty-five days dating from September 21st.
In such conditions Prussia saw one of those opportunities which, under Bonaparte's manipulation, so often misled her. The prostration of her German rival would
Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 410.
Ibid., vol. vi. p. 497.
"Voyant bien," says M. Thiers, Bonaparte's panegyrist, "que Malta ne pouvait pas tenir longtemps." (Cons. et Emp., vol. ii. p. 92.)
Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 498.
Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 520.