Napoleon's Russian Campaign of 1812. Edward A. Foord

surrender his independence: Napoleon required complete submission. Alexander sent his aide-de-camp, Colonel Chernishev, on a special mission to Paris, while at St. Petersburg the French Ambassador, Caulaincourt, was replaced by General Lauriston. Early in 1812 Napoleon induced the King of Prussia to send a special envoy to St. Petersburg, with the suggestion that Alexander might make fresh proposals. Alexander made a dignified reply: he had, he said, shown his strong desire for peace by keeping silent upon the subject of Napoleon's annexations: at the same time he was willing to hear what explanations France might have to offer. None were made, and French troops continued to flood across Germany. Napoleon believed that the Russian preparations were more advanced than they actually were—this is fairly apparent from his military correspondence—and was anxious to gain time. In April Alexander sent to Prince Kurakin, his ambassador at Paris, final instructions. He was to propose that Prussia be fully evacuated by the French, thus leaving a neutral space between the contending powers. Russia would then be ready to satisfy France—or Napoleon—on commercial questions. It can hardly be doubted that, come what might, Alexander did not intend entirely to return to the Continental system, and so far Napoleon was probably right in deeming the proposal a diplomatic move to gain time. He made no reply, but despatched Count Narbonne on a shadowy mission to Alexander at Vilna, and kept Kurakin, with studied insolence, waiting. The ambassador pressed repeatedly for a reply, but received none until nearly three weeks later. Then he was merely asked if he had full powers to treat! He rightly regarded such treatment as a gratuitous insult, and demanded his passports. Narbonne's mission naturally led to nothing, except that he obtained a better idea than Napoleon of the stern determination of the erstwhile soft and yielding Tzar.

      Alexander, on his side, was endeavouring to free his hands for the approaching struggle. The result of the Treaty of Tilsit had been the long and harassing war with Turkey; and Russia paid dearly for the blunder into which Napoleon's blandishments had led her. Negotiations for peace were very slow, and steadily opposed and hampered by the French ambassador at Constantinople. Peace was not signed at Bukharest until May, 1812, and even then French influence was still so powerful that there was fear that it would be broken by Turkey. It was not until August that the bulk of the Army of the Danube at last started from Bukharest under Admiral Chichagov, and by that time Napoleon was already on the line of the Düna and the Dnieper. As it happened the delay was fortunate for Russia, but it might easily have been fatal.

      Yet more important to Russia than peace with the Osmanli Empire was peace with Great Britain, but in order to keep the gate of conciliation open for Napoleon until the last moment formal negotiations were not commenced until April, 1812. In point of fact, though the two powers were nominally at war, and the British fleet was blockading the Russian ports, there was a very good feeling between them. Through the Spanish envoy Zea Bermudez, Lord Wellesley had in 1811 assured Alexander that Britain was not really hostile, and Alexander in turn had promised Bermudez that he would keep his troops on the Polish frontier, so as to ensure that the suspicious French Emperor would not move more troops from Germany into Spain. Admiral de Saumarez, the fine seaman and excellent diplomatist who commanded the British Baltic fleet, handled the situation with unerring tact and skill, and effectively ensured the doing of nothing which might destroy the comparatively friendly relations which subsisted between the two nominally hostile states. All this is doubly interesting, as proving the hopelessly fragile basis upon which Napoleon's European domination rested.

      Russia's first overtures were somewhat clumsy and exorbitant in their demands. They suggested that since Russia was obviously about to render vital services to the common cause Britain should take over a loan of nearly £4,000,000 just raised by her. The refusal of the British Government to accede to this demand, in itself not inexcusable, but failing to recognise Britain's own difficulties and the services which she was rendering, rather dashed the Russian Government, and the formal alliance was not concluded until July.

      Finally, it may be noted that Napoleon, before entering upon hostilities, went through the time-honoured farce of making overtures of peace to Britain. It was purely a diplomatic move, and certainly not seriously intended, nor did the British Government regard it as being so. Britain was more confident than she had been for a long time. The French offensive in the Peninsula had very definitely reached its limit, and Wellington, by his capture of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz, had taken the first steps in the great counter-attack which was eventually to roll the French back over the Pyrenees. Calm observers like Foy saw that the turn of the tide had come. It may be regarded as certain that terms of peace less unfavourable than those which Napoleon offered would hardly have been accepted.

      Sweden, under the direction of Napoleon's old enemy and restive servant, Bernadotte, also allied herself with Russia in April—an act immediately brought about by Napoleon's arrogant seizure of Swedish Pomerania, but perhaps in the end inevitable. Sweden, however, partly owing to poverty, partly because of Britain's unwillingness to abet Bernadotte's designs on Norway, took no active share in the Continental war until 1813; but Russia was enabled to withdraw most of her troops from Finland for service against Napoleon.

      Meanwhile the French and Russian preparations for war were actively pursued, though more rapidly and effectively by Napoleon than by his antagonist, who had to contend with far greater difficulties. On February 8th Napoleon ordered Prince Eugène with the Army of Italy and the Bavarians to advance upon Glogau, where they would arrive about April 1st. Davout's six divisions were advanced stage by stage from the Elbe to the Vistula, while the 2nd Corps (Oudinot) and the 3rd (Ney) followed in support. The Poles (5th Corps) were concentrated on the Vistula about Warsaw, Modlin and Plock; and the Saxons (7th Corps) and Westphalians (8th Corps) directed also upon Warsaw. Two corps of cavalry reserves—22,000 lances and sabres—and gunners of horse artillery were in the north; a third, 10,000 strong, with Eugène; and a fourth, not yet completely formed, was to accompany the 5th, 7th and 8th Corps. The Prussian contingent was assembling at Königsberg, the Austrian at Lemberg. Finally the Imperial Guard, horse and foot, was advancing from Paris to form the general reserve. Over and above all these formations, which composed the actual army of invasion, various reserve divisions, French, Polish and German, were being organised, some of which were later combined into a 9th Army Corps under Marshal Victor. The refractory conscripts, who were being trained in their island prison-camps, were formed into fresh regiments of infantry. The conscripts of the year, who were collecting at the depôts, were organised as soon as sufficiently trained into Regiments de Marche which were pushed forward into and through Germany to feed the fighting line. Out of these an 11th Corps was formed, the composition of which was constantly changing as the advanced troops were pushed across the Russian frontier, to be replaced by others at the rearward stages, while these were in their turn relieved by new conscripts from France. A division of King Joachim's Neapolitans was marching from Italy to form part of this great reserve corps. The King of Denmark also, at Napoleon's request, concentrated a division of 10,000 troops in Holstein. Napoleon did not believe that Britain could seriously molest his rear owing to her preoccupation with the Peninsular War, but he took no risks. In March, 1812, a Senatus-Consultum formed the entire male population of the empire into three bans, and of the first ban, comprising men from twenty to twenty-six years of age, a hundred battalions or "cohorts" were immediately called out for home defence. They actually produced a force of about 80,000 men, who by June had received a fair amount of training. Apart from them there were left for the defence of the empire 2 regiments of the Young Guard, 24 line battalions in 8 regiments of infantry, 8 foreign battalions, 8 squadrons of cavalry and 48 batteries of artillery. There were also 156 3rd, 4th and 5th battalions of regiments already on foreign service, the seamen, marines, coast-guards and veterans, and finally the depôts of the whole army.

      At the beginning of 1812, when Napoleon was preparing to concentrate on the Oder, the Russian forces, exclusive of the isolated armies of Turkey and Finland, lay dispersed in cantonments from Courland to Podolia, over a line of some six hundred miles. During March and April, as the French offensive on the Vistula became pronounced, Alexander drew in his scattered forces and organised them in two armies, calling up reinforcements from the Turkish frontier. The first army, under the War-Minister Barclay de Tolly, had its head-quarters at Vilna. The second, commanded by the fiery Georgian Prince Peter Bagration, was cantoned about Lutsk. Napoleon interpreted this to mean that Russia intended to invade the Grand Duchy of Warsaw with Bagration's army, while Barclay covered the road to St. Petersburg.