Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [289]
In the east, all was set for a fresh conflict. As yet, however, it was limited to Eastern Europe. Other than the informal promises she had made to Bernadotte, Britain had played no part in events, and still had almost no contact with St Petersburg. Indeed, right up until the outbreak of hostilities she was still formally at war with both Russia and Sweden. Keen to emphasize his liberationist credentials, meanwhile, Napoleon even called the struggle ‘the second Polish war’ (the first one was the campaign of 1807), and in this he was supported by the enthusiastic response of nationalistic elements in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. An officer of the Legion of the Vistula has left us this picture of the reception that Napoleon received when he passed through Posen, for example:
[The emperor] arrived at nine in the evening, escorted by a detachment of French and Polish Guards. He was met by a welcome as enthusiastic as the one in 1806. There were triumphal arches, illuminations and fireworks everywhere, marking the hopes of a people confident in the future . . . A huge crowd choked the streets, which were as light as in any daylight. The population of the surrounding countryside had gathered to take part in the celebrations and were camping in all of the town’s squares.75
Though Napoleon’s attempts to place a favourable gloss upon his actions should be viewed sceptically, the specifically eastern aspect of the conflict should not be forgotten. If Poland was ever to be restored, if the Ottoman Empire was ever to regain the territory she had lost to Russia in the course of the eighteenth century, if Sweden was to be restored to a position of predominance in the Baltic, if the steady expansion of Russian rule towards the west and south was ever to be checked, this was the moment at which it had to be achieved. Embedded in the war of 1812, in short, were several important themes in the history of European international relations that both predated and transcended the history of Napoleon Bonaparte.
Attempts to find a structural explanation for the war of 1812 should not be pushed too far, however. If the issues of Poland, Turkish control of the Ukraine and Swedish control of the Baltic had all been reopened, it was solely because of the influence of Napoleon, while the attack on Russia was intimately bound up with the war with Britain. To accept this, however, is not the same as accepting that Napoleon was somehow forced into war on account of Britain’s continued resistance. Alexander and his advisers remained deeply anti-British and even in 1812 were willing seconds of the French on that front. As for the idea of a march on India, if Napoleon ever took this seriously - and there is little real evidence that he did - then questions really must be asked about his sanity. Nor is self-defence any use as an explanation: whatever the emperor may have claimed, there was no evidence that Alexander was still planning an offensive war. One is left, then, with one explanation, and one explanation alone: frustrated by the long war in Spain and Portugal, and the failure of the Continental Blockade to bring the British to heel, Napoleon was simply bent on flexing his military muscle and winning fresh glory. Here is the verdict of one of the many soldiers about to experience the horrors of the Russian campaign:
The treaty of [Schönbrunn] . . . crowned the prosperity of the fortunate Napoleon . . . since it secured forever the dynasty of a man, who [had] risen from the humblest rank of society . . . That period ought to have been esteemed the happiest of Napoleon’s life. What more could the wildest