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By Root 2748 0

(4 June-13 August 1813). This was the turning point of the campaign. For obvious reasons the key player was Austria. In fighting the campaign of Lützen and Bautzen, Napoleon had hoped to produce a change in Vienna’s attitude. ‘He thought’, as Caulaincourt said, ‘that a victory would range Austria on his side.’67 Despite having broken with Napoleon, the Austrian chancellor, Metternich, was desperate to maintain a balance between France and Russia, believing that outright victory for either would spell disaster for the Habsburgs. For war, meanwhile, he had no enthusiasm at all, greatly fearing the nationalistic effervescence Stein and his adherents were attempting to provoke across the whole of central Europe: in March, indeed, he had ordered the arrest of a group of conspirators who had been attempting to organize a fresh insurrection in the Tyrol. To achieve his aims, Metternich would have liked to have arranged a general peace conference, but in the event he was forced to settle for face-to-face discussions with first Alexander and then Napoleon.

Ratified in the convention of Reichenbach of 27 June, the result of his discussions with the Allies was a scheme that would have satisfied most of his objectives. In brief, unless Napoleon agreed to surrender the Illyrian provinces to Austria, recognize the independence of the states of the Confederation of the Rhine, evacuate Germany and Italy, give up the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and leave the Allies to organize the post-war settlement as they chose, Austria would enter the war. As for the future, it was specified that the Papal States, Piedmont and the German possessions of the house of Orange were all to be given back to their previous owners; Hesse-Kassel, Hanover, Hamburg and Lübeck restored as independent states; and Prussia returned to its 1806 frontiers. Confronted with this scheme at Dresden, Napoleon brushed aside Metternich’s attempts to present it in a favourable light and swore that he would fight on. Their conversations make up one of the most famous tableaux in the entire history of the Napoleonic Wars. ‘Peace and war,’ said Metternich, ‘lie in Your Majesty’s hands . . . Today you can yet conclude peace. Tomorrow it may be too late.’68 This challenge was met by a torrent of abuse which concluded with the emperor flinging his hat into a corner of the room:

So you, too, want war; well, you shall have it. I have annihilated the Prussian army at Lützen; I have beaten the Russians at Bautzen; now you wish your turn to come. Be it so: the rendezvous shall be in Vienna. Men are incorrigible: experience is lost upon them. Three times have I replaced the Emperor Francis on his throne . . . At the time I said to myself, ‘You are perpetrating a folly.’ But it was done, and today I repent of it . . . Do they want me to degrade myself? Never! I shall know how to die, but I shall not yield one handsbreadth of soil. Your sovereigns born to the throne may be beaten twenty times and still go back to their palaces; that cannot I - the child of fortune: my reign will not outlast the day when I have ceased to be strong, and therefore to be feared . . . You think to conquer me by a coalition . . . But how many of you Allies are there - four, five, six, twenty? The more you are, so much the better for me. I take up the challenge. I can assure you that . . . next October we shall meet in Vienna; then will it be seen what has become of your good friends, the Russians and the Prussians. Do you count on Germany? See what it did in 1809! To hold the people there in check, my soldiers are sufficient, and, for the faith of the princes, my security is the fear they have of you.69

To all this was added a string of observations reminiscent of those that had been lavished on Caulaincourt during the long journey home he had shared with Napoleon in December. The invasion of Russia had only been defeated by ‘General Winter’; Francis I would never make war on his own daughter and grandson; the French people were entirely loyal to his rule; the Austrians could not get more than 75,000 men into