Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [312]
When it came to judging the situation, it did not help, perhaps, that Napoleon was in Paris. In France there was, despite everything, still a degree of support and even enthusiasm for the emperor. But it was not just France that had to be taken into consideration. In 1812 Napoleon had invaded Russia at the head of a force of which only half came from territories that were even notionally French. If the empire was to survive, what happened in Milan and Kassel was therefore just as important as what happened in Marseilles and Clermont Ferrand. And here all the evidence was that Napoleon was in severe trouble. All the satellite and allied states had suffered catastrophic losses in Russia, and they too now had to make strenuous efforts to gather in fresh troops. In the Kingdom of Italy, although Napoleon had sent back the two divisions from that state serving in Spain, the regular annual contingent of 15,000 men had to be supplemented by an additional levy of 9,000. Conscription had never achieved the same degree of acceptance in the domains of Eugène de Beauharnais as it had in France, and there was much resistance right from the start: draft-dodging grew more common; many villages saw the ballot disrupted by riots; and hundreds of men deserted and turned to brigandage. Nor was it just a matter of numbers. There was the same shortage of officers and non-commissioned officers as in France; there were only 1,500 horses for the artillery and cavalry; and there were insufficient muskets, uniforms, shakos and other necessaries. Elsewhere the situation was even worse. In the Kingdom of Italy, money was not lacking, the treasury having been exceptionally well managed by the Finance Minister Giuseppe Prina (although the efficiency of his fiscal machinery was hardly calculated to stimulate public enthusiasm). In Westphalia, however, by early 1813 the regime of Jerome Bonaparte was in a state of collapse. Of the 16,000 men who had fought in Russia only 2,000 had come back; the national debt now stood at some 200 million francs; the economy was in ruins; and the land tax was now pitched so high that in large parts of the country smallholdings and great estates alike were being taken out of cultivation. Active resistance was still rare - Westphalia was devoid of the mountain ranges that ringed the Kingdom of Italy - and a new army was somehow scraped together, but it was clear that popular support for the regime was almost non-existent. Indeed, Jerome lived in daily fear of insurrection, the story being that he constantly kept a coach and four ready to whisk him to safety at the first sign of trouble.
Of all this, Napoleon would take no account, while he also made little attempt to forestall the coming clash by diplomatic means. It was again hinted that he would accept a Bragança-ruled Portugal and a Bourbon-ruled Sicily, while a fresh Concordat, which on the surface included many concessions, was negotiated with the Pope in the hope that this would satisfy Catholic opinion at home and abroad. Yet the far more important question presented by Austria elicited far less flexibility. Despite growing evidence that Vienna was restive, such as the fact that the corps of General Schwarzenberg had been hastily pulled back from Galicia without making the slightest attempt to put up a fight, Napoleon remained convinced that Austria would fight alongside him. Still worse, through