Russia Against Napoleon: The True Story of the Campaigns of War and Peace by Dominic Lieven

Author:Dominic Lieven
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Non-fiction, #genre, History
ISBN: 9780143118862
Publisher: Penguin
Published: 2009-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

if Napoleon wins a battle it will be useless for most certainly the Austrian armies will not permit him to pursue his success: if he loses his fate is decided…the emperor desires nevertheless that their Russian and Prussian majesties should have no doubt about the intervention of our Bohemian army which, I repeat, will stop any advance that the French armies might attempt against the allies in the case of victory; under no circumstances should this worry them.57

Stadion’s instructions were issued on 7 May. They stated that even the minimal conditions which Austria would offer to Napoleon included the return of most Austrian and Prussian lost territories, the extinction of the Duchy of Warsaw and of all French territory in Germany east of the Rhine, and the abolition or at least modification of the Confederation of the Rhine. Austria bound itself to discover before the end of May whether Napoleon would accept these terms and listen to the voice of compromise. Metternich argued that the Austrian demands had deliberately been kept moderate because she sought a lasting European peace which could only be built on the consent of all the great powers. Stadion must reassure the allied monarchs that Austria’s position would be changed neither by Napoleon’s victories nor by his defeats on the battlefield. He must discover allied terms for peace but also create the basis for military cooperation in the event that Austrian armed mediation failed to sway Napoleon.58

Philipp Stadion reached allied headquarters at nine in the morning on 13 May, eleven days after the battle of Lutzen and one week before the battle of Bautzen. He met Nesselrode twice that day. In a report to Alexander written on 13 May Nesselrode summarized the Austrian position as explained by Stadion. Vienna would insist on the restoration of the territories lost by it in 1805 and 1809. It would support whatever restoration of Prussian territory was stipulated in the Russo-Prussian treaty of alliance. It would demand the extinction of the Duchy of Warsaw, of all French territory east of the Rhine, and of the Confederation of the Rhine itself. If Napoleon did not accept these conditions by 1 June Austria would enter the war, regardless of what had happened on the battlefield between then and now. Stadion would agree with the allies the principles of a plan for joint military operations. Nesselrode commented correctly that ‘without doubt the conditions set out will never be accepted by France’. He added that ‘Count Stadion promises formally in the name of his court that no evasive or dilatory response by Napoleon will hold her back beyond the end of this period from executing the plan of operations which will have been agreed between her and the allied courts’.59

Nesselrode was a very calm and experienced diplomat. It is inconceivable that he misinterpreted Stadion, deliberately or otherwise, on so crucial a matter. Stadion himself was a former Austrian foreign minister. For all his hatred for Napoleon and the French Empire in Germany, he would never deliberately have misled the Russians.

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