Napoleon's Wars_ An International History, 1803-1815 - Charles Esdaile [69]
In keeping with his image of the reluctant warrior, Napoleon was content to entertain these overtures. With the French garrison clearly doomed, a peace treaty was the only means of salvaging anything from the Egyptian fiasco. Napoleon had also recently suffered a severe blow in the diplomatic field. At the end of 1799, as we have seen, Russia had withdrawn her troops from operations against the French following differences with Britain and Austria, the First Consul being quick to take advantage of the breach in the hope of further disconcerting his remaining opponents. Paul I was therefore wooed with promises of the return of 7,000 prisoners then in French hands, and of the cession of Malta, which at this point was still held by the French. Much impressed with this generosity, Paul allowed himself to be persuaded that an alliance with France was in the Russian interest, and by the late autumn of 1800 he was mobilizing an army on the Austrian frontier. On top of this, he also organized an alliance of the Baltic states - Russia, Sweden, Prussia and Denmark - to put pressure on Britain through the so-called League of Armed Neutrality. The Baltic powers had grown increasingly irritated by Britain’s constant interference with their shipping, and the aim of this new alliance was to put pressure on London to grant them the freedom of the seas by threatening the use of armed force. For Napoleon these events were highly promising, for Russia and the Baltic states could boast considerable naval resources. But on 23 March 1801 Paul was murdered in a palace coup and replaced by his son, Alexander I, a ruler who, while friendly to Napoleon, wished in the first instance to shun foreign adventures in favour of a programme of domestic reform. And hard on the heels of this event, a British squadron under Sir Hyde Parker attacked and defeated the Danish fleet at Copenhagen. Although the Prussians remained in occupation of Hanover, which they had invaded in accordance with their treaty obligations under the League, all hope of really striking against the British was suddenly gone. In consequence, there was simply no point in the First Consul taking hostilities any further, especially as France remained as war-weary as ever, and the British seemed likely to accept whatever terms they were offered (to ensure that they did so, Napoleon made a great show of preparing an invasion fleet). At the same time, peace offered further advantages, for the French navy could be rebuilt and Germany brought further under France’s sway. In short, it was very much in France’s interests to offer terms, the result being, first, the Preliminaries of London 1 of October 1801, and then the Treaty of Amiens of
25 March 1802. As Turkey signed a separate peace on 9 October 1801, for the first time since April 1792 the whole of Europe was at peace.
To obtain peace Britain had to offer terms that were extremely generous. France’s natural frontiers were recognized, along with the various satellite republics, and her colonial losses restored, together with the Dutch possessions of the Cape, Surinam, Curaçao, Malacca and the Spice Islands, Britain retaining only Spanish Trinidad and Dutch Ceylon. At the same time, Menorca was returned to Spain and Malta to the Knights of St John, guarantees also being given that the British army would be called home from Egypt. As for France, all she had to do was agree to withdraw all her forces from her surviving