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By Root 2665 0

Constantinople, and still less to partition the Ottoman Empire. But Selim III did not know this, while Napoleon was all too clearly on the move in the Balkans. In reality, his target was pro-Russian Montenegro, but there was a growing fear that plans were afoot to secure Bosnia, Serbia, Moldavia and Wallachia for Austria as compensation for her losses in the west: after all, such a move would not only embroil Vienna with St Petersburg and check any further Russian expansion in the Balkans, but give Napoleon an ideal pretext to seize, say, the Peloponnese. With Selim already very worried by Russian activities in the Mediterranean - not only had a large part of the Baltic fleet been sent to the Ionian islands, but the Russian presence there was provoking unrest in mainland Greece - no sooner had news of Austerlitz arrived than Constantinople gave in to all Napoleon’s demands: the Bosporus and Dardanelles were closed to Russian shipping and the French ruler recognized as padishah.

With Turkish intransigence at an end, Napoleon’s real interests in the Balkans were now revealed. Turkey was not just to be a helpful neutral, but an active partner in France’s war with Russia. To achieve this result, the efforts of French diplomacy were redoubled. Far from supporting the Serbian revolt, then, the French denounced it and accused the Russians of both stirring it up and fomenting further revolts in Greece. In addition General Sebastiani, one of France’s leading experts on eastern affairs, was appointed to Constantinople in place of Brune, and the Turks encouraged to think that full sovereignty might be recovered in the Danubian principalities and even that the Crimea - lost to Russia in 1783 - would be returned to them. The Russians, Constantinople was told, were in no state to put up much of a fight, while every effort was made to calm the understandable fears caused by France’s advances in the Adriatic. Indeed, Napoleon promised to leave well alone: ‘I have no desire whatsoever to partition the empire of Constantinople: if someone was to offer me three quarters of it, I still would not take anything. I want to reaffirm and consolidate this great empire, and make use of it as a counterpoint to Russia.’52

Despite serious Russian fears to the contrary, Napoleon was not aiming at fresh conquests in the Balkans in 1806, but rather a fresh sphere of influence that would exclude Russia from the region and distract her from fighting France in central Europe and the Adriatic. In pursuing this policy the French ruler was encouraged by developments which had taken place with regard to distant Persia. In 1801, as we have seen, she had become embroiled in a war with Russia over Georgia. Even in the face of fierce Persian resistance - in April 1804 a Russian army was defeated at Yerevan with the loss of 4,000 men - more and more of Georgia fell into Russian hands. Also lost were large parts of what is today Azerbaijan. Left without help by his chief allies, the British - with fears growing in respect of Russian intentions towards India a British mission had negotiated a military alliance with Persia in 1801- Fath Ali sent an envoy to France asking for support. Receiving this communication early in 1805, Napoleon dispatched a mission to Persia. The business of establishing diplomatic relations was not without its problems - one of the diplomats concerned died within days of reaching Tehran, while another was seized in the wilds of Turkish Armenia by a local pasha who probably hoped to hold him for ransom. However, by the middle of 1806 the French had secured their objective. Fath Ali’s heir, Abbas Mirza, a fiercesome warrior who was given to making pyramids of the skulls of the men killed by his forces in battle, professed himself to be a warm admirer of Napoleon, and an ambassador, Mirza Muhamed Riza Qazvini, was soon on his way to Paris. It was not until May 1807 that a military alliance was finally concluded, but in the circumstances this was just a formality, as the Persians were already attacking the Russians in Georgia, Azerbaijan and Daghestan.