Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [320]
It would be incorrect to say that we talked together, for he was almost exclusively the only one to speak. His eyes were moist, his hands worked nervously, and his forehead was covered with perspiration. He explained to me in detail the designs he had formed, and the efforts he had made since the day of our disasters to preserve peace, to maintain the alliance between Austria and France, and to reconcile the interests of his own country, and the legitimate independence of Germany, with the pride and the real interests of France. He called to mind the attacks to which he had been subjected, the reproaches he had endured, and the efforts he had made, making me, in a measure, a witness of the extremities to which he was now reduced. He then enumerated to me in full the whole military force which was arrayed against us . . . the preparations which had been made for the evacuation of Vienna, and the dispositions which had been taken to continue the struggle even though it were after another Austerlitz . . . It was the effusion of a soul, full of patriotic and personal anguish, which poured out its innermost feelings even to overflowing without being able to restrain them.73
For admirers of Napoleon, the peace terms offered him at Dresden have frequently been regarded as intolerable. Yet in reality they were by no means so bad. With nothing said about Switzerland, the Kingdom of Italy, Naples, Holland, Belgium and Spain, Napoleon would have continued at the head of a France that was only marginally less grande than before, and at least potentially backed by a number of clients and satellites. Inherent in the agreement too was a serious diplomatic defeat for London. Britain’s envoys were excluded from the negotiations at Reichenbach, and the peace terms left almost all her immediate war aims unresolved. All that the British could do was to go along with the proposals in the hope that Napoleon would reject them, or that Prussia and Russia - who were under no obligation to bring the war to a close even if the emperor accepted the deal - could be persuaded to keep fighting. There was no attempt to renege on the treaties that had been signed so recently with the eastern powers, but Britain’s partners were left in no doubt that Reichenbach was not acceptable to London. On 5 July, Lord Castlereagh wrote a long dispatch to Cathcart and Stewart in which he informed them that Spain and Sicily would never be abandoned, that Holland was to be given up by France, and, finally, or at least so it was implied, that the Kingdom of Italy should be restored to its old masters. As for the sort of Europe that Britain wanted the Allies to fight for, this was encapsulated by the plan that had been drawn up in 1805 by William Pitt and was now sent to Russia by Castlereagh: France was to be contained by a much reinforced Holland and a reconstituted Piedmont, backed by Prussia on the one hand and Austria on the other. In taking this stance, Castlereagh’s hand was strengthened by the arrival at allied headquarters of news of Wellington’s great victory at Vitoria, this allowing the British both to point out that the restoration of Ferdinand VII was no longer even potentially a matter of dispute and to hold out the hope of an invasion of France in Napoleon’s rear.
With British subsidies now pouring into the treasuries of the eastern powers, Britain’s influence was clearly on the increase. But even with this assistance there was no guarantee that they would be able to attain their objectives. Alexander, in particular, remained hostile to Britain. In September 1812 he had given ample proof of this by offering Russian mediation as a means of ending the conflict between Britain and the United States, and there was therefore little likelihood of him showing much verve in respect of stripping France of Holland and Belgium. And, if some