1812: Napoleon’s Fatal March on Moscow. Adam Zamoyski

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       The Soul of Europe

      That Alexander could be beginning to think of himself as a counterweight or even an alternative to Napoleon on the international stage is eloquent testimony to what a mess the Emperor of the French had made of his dealings with the other nations of Europe, and with the Germans in particular.

      France’s had long been the dominant intellectual and cultural influence on the Continent, and by the end of the eighteenth century progressives and liberals of every nation fed on the fruits of her Enlightenment. The fall of the Bastille on 14 July 1789, followed by the abolition of privilege, the declaration of the Rights of Man, the introduction of representative government and other such measures elicited wild enthusiasm among the educated classes in every corner of Europe. Even moderate liberals saw revolutionary France as the catalyst that would bring about the transformation of the old world into a more equitable, and therefore more civilised and peaceful one.

      The horrors of the revolution put many off, and others were offended by France’s high-handed behaviour with regard to areas, such as Holland and Switzerland, caught up in her military struggle against the coalitions lined up against her. But the French were convinced that they were engaged on a mission of progress, bringing happiness to other nations. So, in a more pragmatic way, was Napoleon, who used to say that ‘What is good for the French is good for everyone.’ Liberals everywhere clung to the view that a process of transformation and human regeneration was under way, and that casualties were only to be expected. Those suffering foreign or aristocratic oppression continued to look longingly at the example set by France. With some justification.

      The political boundaries criss-crossing much of Europe at the end of the eighteenth century and the constitutional arrangements within them were largely the legacy of medieval attempts at creating a pan-European empire. Germany was broken up into more than three hundred different political units, ruled over by electors, archbishops, abbots, dukes, landgraves, margraves, city councils, counts and imperial knights. What is now Belgium belonged to the Habsburgs and was ruled from Vienna; Italy was divided up into eleven states, most of them ruled by Austrian Habsburgs or French and Spanish Bourbons; the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation included Czechs, Magyars and half a dozen other nationalities; and Poland was cut up into three and ruled from Berlin, Vienna and St Petersburg.

      Every time a French army passed through one of these areas, it disturbed a venerable clutter of archaic law and regulation, of privilege and prerogative, of rights and duties, releasing or awakening a variety of pent-up or dormant aspirations in the process. And every time France annexed a territory she reorganised it along the lines of French Enlightenment thought. Rulers were dethroned, ecclesiastical institutions were abrogated, ghettos were opened, guild rights, caste privileges and other restrictions were abolished, and serfs and slaves were freed. Although this was often accompanied by cynical exploitation of the territory in the French cause and shameless looting, the net effect was nevertheless a positive one in the liberal view. As a result, significant sections, and in some cases the majority, of the politically aware populations of such countries as Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, Poland and even Spain ranged themselves in the camp of France against those seeking to restore the ancien régime, even if they resented French rule and decried the depredations of French troops. Nowhere more so than in Germany.

      The Holy Roman Empire, founded by Charlemagne a thousand years before, included almost all the lands inhabited by German-speaking people, but it did not bring them together or represent them. The absurd division of the territory into hundreds of political units inhibited cultural and economic, as well as political life. German eighteenth-century thought was cosmopolitan rather than nationalist, but most educated Germans nonetheless longed for a more coherent homeland.

      Between 1801 and 1806, following his victories over Austria and Prussia, Napoleon thoroughly transformed the political, social and economic climate throughout the German lands. He secularised ecclesiastical states and abolished the status of imperial cities, swept away anachronistic institutions and residues of gothic rights, in effect dismantling the Empire and emancipating large sections of the population in the process. In 1806, after his defeat of the Emperor Francis at Ulm and Austerlitz, he forced him to abdicate and to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire itself. In a process known as ‘mediatisation’, hundreds of tiny sovereignties were swept away as imperial counts and knights lost their lands, which were fused into thirty-six states of varying size, bound together in the Confederation of the Rhine. With them went all the nonsensical borders and petty restrictions that had made life so difficult. In their place came institutions moulded on the French pattern.

      The ending of feudal practices gave agriculture a boost, the abolition of guild and other restrictions encouraged industry and trade, the removal of tolls and frontiers liberated trade. The confiscation of Church property was followed by the building of schools and the development of universities. Not surprisingly, all this made Napoleon popular with the middle classes, with small traders, peasants, artisans and Jews, as well as with progressive intellectuals, students and writers. Johan Wilhelm Gleim, a poet more used to singing the glories of Frederick the Great, wrote an ode to Napoleon, Friedrich Hölderlin also immortalised him in verse, and Beethoven dedicated his ‘Eroica’ symphony to him.

      Although many were put off by his decision to take the imperial crown and some even felt betrayed by the act, German intellectuals continued to be fascinated by Napoleon, whom they saw as a figure in the mould of Alexander the Great. Some hoped he would revive the old German empire like a latter-day Charlemagne. To others, he appeared as some kind of avatar. The young Heinrich Heine imagined Christ riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday as he watched Napoleon making his entry into his native Düsseldorf. Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel famously identified him as ‘the world-spirit on horseback’.

      But that moment, just after the victories of Jena and Auerstädt, in which Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army and shook the Prussian state to its core, was to be something of a turning point. The Prussians were shocked and insulted by the French victories, but they also saw them as proof of the superiority of France and her political culture. When Napoleon rode into Berlin he was greeted by crowds which, according to one French officer, were as enthusiastic as those that had welcomed him in Paris on his triumphant return from Austerlitz the previous year. ‘An undefinable feeling, a mixture of pain, admiration and curiosity agitated the crowds which pressed forward as he passed,’ in the words of one eyewitness.¹ Napoleon won the hearts of the Berliners as well as their admiration over the next weeks.

      But he treated Prussia and her King worse than he had treated any conquered country before. At Tilsit he publicly humiliated Frederick William by refusing to negotiate with him, and by treating Queen Louise, who had come in person to plead her country’s cause, with insulting gallantry. He did not bother to negotiate, merely summoning the Prussian Minister Count Goltz to let him know his intentions. He told the Minister that he had thought of giving the throne of Prussia to his own brother Jérôme, but out of regard for Tsar Alexander, who had begged him to spare Frederick William, he had graciously decided to leave him in possession of it. But he diminished his realm by taking away most of the territory seized by Prussia from Poland, so that the number of his subjects, which had grown to 9,744,000, was reduced to 4,938,000. Napoleon would brook no discussion, and Frederick William had to submit.²

      Having