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By Root 2611 0

’29 To the very end Napoleon kept his options open. ‘Murat assured me in 1814,’ reminisced Lord Holland, ‘that he had no instructions . . . Not a syllable had been communicated to him of the object of his expedition.’30 Indeed, even at the famous conference that was soon to be held at Bayonne, there was a possibility of another outcome. According to Escoíquiz, who had come to Bayonne with Ferdinand and was the first person in the rival Spanish delegations to be told of Napoleon’s plans, the emperor told him ‘that he was not entirely resolved on the execution of his project’.31 That said, however, the end of the Bourbon dynasty was now looming: in late March Napoleon wrote to his brother, Louis, who was then King of Holland, and offered him the throne. ‘The King of Spain has abdicated . . . Since that moment the people have called out to me with loud voices. Being certain that I will not be able to achieve a solid peace with England without giving a great impulse to the Continent, I have resolved to place a French prince on the throne . . . The climate of Holland does not suit you, while Holland will never emerge from the ruin in which she finds herself . . . Given all of this, I thought of you . . . You will be the ruler of a generous nation which possesses 11,000 000, inhabitants and has important colonies. With economy and activity, Spain could have 60,000 men under arms along with fifty men o’war in her ports.’32

The mention of a battle fleet fifty vessels strong brings us to the issue of strategy. This was obviously of considerable importance in the decision to install a Bonaparte king in Spain, but not just because of the war against Britain. A regenerated Spain would obviously be of great assistance in the struggle against Britain, but in the winter of 1807-8 a more pressing issue had arisen. At this point we come to the question of Franco-Russian relations and, more particularly, the Ottoman Empire, whose pro-French foreign policy had been unaffected by the palace coup that had replaced the reformist Selim III with his younger and more malleable cousin, Mustafa IV. For the Porte, Tilsit had come as a blow as heavy as it was unexpected. Great things had been hoped for from a French victory over Russia - the French ambassador Sebastiani, indeed, had promised the restoration of the Crimea, the recognition of full Turkish sovereignty in the Danubian provinces and a guarantee of all the empire’s territories - and all these now evaporated. Still worse, now that France and Russia were allies, the Ottomans were in danger of a joint attack.

Yet as the months went by the threat failed to materialize. Having secured Alexander’s acquiescence at Tilsit by giving him to understand that substantial territorial gains were on offer in the Balkans, Napoleon started to backtrack. An attack on the Ottoman Empire might well lead to the conquest of the Balkans, but the sultan would be so weakened by such a blow that it was impossible to see how he could then keep control of the rest of the empire. But without good relations with Constantinople, how could Napoleon hope to seal off the coasts of Anatolia, Syria, Palestine and Arabia from British trade? And how, too, could the British be stopped from moving in and seizing whatever territories they might be interested in? As 1807 moved to its close, however, Alexander became more and more irritated. No difficulty was found, for example, in getting French troops to Cattaro and those of the Ionian islands that had been held by Russia. Still worse, Napoleon was now demanding Silesia as compensation for Russia keeping Moldavia and Wallachia, despite his promise at Tilsit to evacuate the region. With Alexander desperate to achieve a foreign policy success that would counterbalance the disastrous effects of his accession to the Continental Blockade (see below), the result was renewed Russian pressure in the Balkans. As we have seen, Alexander refused to ratify the armistice with Turkey, while at the same time ordering his troops in Moldavia, Wallachia and the island of Tenedos (where the Russians