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By Root 2672 0

in the wake of Tilsit, this conflict is worth some consideration. At Tilsit Russia had agreed to put pressure on Sweden to join the Continental Blockade. But Sweden was also an old enemy whose territories in Finland had long been an object of Russian desire, and whose fleet, being specially designed for the shallow waters of the Baltic, was a serious threat to the Russian coast. It was soon clear, then, that a Russian attack was coming. In these straits Sweden had the full support of Britain: Canning was eager to keep her in the war and to do so was prepared to bribe her with the promise of both the captured Dutch colony of Surinam and the prospect of annexing Norway (a particular goal of Gustav IV). To obtain this latter goal it was suggested the Swedish army should occupy Zealand and with it Copenhagen, the intention being that the island could then be swapped for Norway come the peace settlement. And on offer, too, were 10,000 of the British troops who had been sent against the Danes. All this Gustav IV would have been glad to accept, but all chances of a deal were wrecked by elements in the regime who distrusted Britain in the wake of Copenhagen and the loss of Swedish Pomerania, and wanted to revive Sweden’s traditional alliance with France. Yet, hating Napoleon as he did, Gustav would not take the concomitant step of joining the Franco-Russian entente, the consequence being that his country soon found herself under attack: on 22 February 1808 a Russian army invaded Finland, while the end of the month saw Denmark declare war as well.

To return to the question of the Ottoman Empire, there was no particular reason for Alexander and Rumiantsev to make an issue of the conflict in their discussions with Caulaincourt: in the first instance, in fact, the Russians swept all before them. But the mere fact that they were currently fighting the Swedes strengthened their hand with Napoleon, and Caulaincourt therefore found that the bargaining was very fierce. The Russians demanded the Danubian provinces, Bulgaria, European Turkey and Constantinople, whereas the French wanted to restrict them to the first two alone, and to claim the whole of Albania, Greece and the islands of the eastern Mediterranean for themselves. About the only matter on which there was general agreement was that Austria should get little more than Bosnia (given the stiffening attitude in St Petersburg, Caulaincourt seems to have given up the earlier plan to give Vienna Bulgaria). There was, then, a complete impasse, the central issue being who should control Constantinople and the Dardanelles. To secure this area Alexander was on paper prepared to offer France almost anything. One plan had France getting not just Albania, the Aegean islands, Crete, Cyprus and most of Greece, but also Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt. But, taking his cue from the instructions he had received from Paris, Caulaincourt would not budge on the Dardanelles, although he was prepared in the end to surrender Constantinople. And so finally all that could be agreed was that the two emperors should hold another Tilsit-style conference in the hope of coming to a mutually acceptable solution.

If Alexander stood firm over Constantinople, it was in part because he was under pressure from England. At the last minute, when diplomatic relations between Britain and Russia were on the point of formally being broken off, the Russian ambassador in London, Alopeus, was suddenly told by Canning that Britain would enter peace talks with Napoleon without prior conditions. In acting thus, Canning was almost certainly convinced that the emperor would not accept the offer, generous though it was. Although Napoleon could not have prevented Britain from hanging on to her colonial conquests, there would have been nothing to stop him from retaining the Low Countries and Hanover, not to mention all France’s acquisitions in Italy. In effect, then, Canning was warning Alexander that Britain would disengage from Europe, withdraw into her maritime empire and leave Russia to enjoy her friendship with France and see how