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border. Another was to work out peace terms on the basis of which Austria could mediate. Austria’s goal was a European system in which Russia and France balanced each other, with Austria and Prussia restored to their previous strength and able to guarantee the independence of Germany. The Austrians also deeply wanted and needed a long and stable peace.30 To have any chance of success in its mediation, Metternich realized that Austria would need to rebuild its army so that it could threaten decisive intervention in the war. The problem here was that military expenditure had been cut savagely after the defeat of 1809 and the state bankruptcy of 1811. Many infantry battalions were mere skeletons; horses and equipment were in very short supply; most of the arms works had been closed. The finance ministry conducted a stubborn rearguard action on military expenditure in 1813, with money being disbursed very slowly even after budgets had been agreed. In addition, arms and uniforms workshops could not be re-created overnight and no sane manufacturer would give the Austrian government credit. Metternich also miscalculated how much time he had at his disposal. In early February he was convinced that Napoleon could not possibly have a large army in the field before the end of June. On 30 May he confessed his astonishment at ‘the incredible speed with which Napoleon had re-created an army’. For all his great diplomatic skill, the speed and violence of Napoleonic warfare was alien to Metternich and could easily upset all his calculations. As with Prussia in 1805, Austria in 1813 dragged out negotiations with both warring camps before finally committing itself to the allies. Prussian policy had then been totally confounded by the disaster at Austerlitz. The same came near to happening to the Austrians in May 1813.31

Amidst all the tensions and uncertainties of Russo-Austrian relations in the spring and summer of 1813 it helped enormously that Nesselrode was in frequent and secret correspondence with Friedrich von Gentz, one of the leading intellectuals of the counter-revolution in Vienna and Metternich’s closest confidant. Gentz was exceptionally well informed about Metternich’s own thinking and about the opinions and conflicts within Austrian ruling circles. Nesselrode had known Gentz for years and rightly trusted his deep commitment to the allied cause. Gentz could put in a good word for the allies in Metternich’s ear. More importantly, he could explain to Nesselrode the severe constraints within which the foreign minister was operating, shackled as he was not just by the caution of Francis II and some of his advisers, but also by the deep and genuine difficulties facing Austrian rearmament.32

In comparison to the tortuous diplomacy conducted by Metternich in the first half of 1813, the movements of Schwarzenberg’s observation corps are relatively easy to follow. In January 1813 Schwarzenberg’s men stood directly in the path of a Russian advance through Warsaw and central Poland. As was the case with Yorck’s corps at the other end of Napoleon’s line, the 25,000 relatively fresh Austrian troops would have been a major obstacle to Kutuzov’s overstretched army had it chosen to bar his way. But the Austrians had no interest in defending the Duchy of Warsaw and actually welcomed the Russian advance towards central Europe as a means of weakening and balancing Napoleon’s power. They also had no wish to see their best troops sacrificed in battles with the Russian forces.

Ignoring French orders to cover Warsaw and retreat westwards, Schwarzenberg, on his government’s instructions, concluded a secret agreement with the Russians to retreat south-westwards towards Cracow and Austrian Galicia. An elaborate charade was maintained with the Russians so that Vienna could claim that its troops’ retreat had been necessitated by enemy outflanking movements. The only major force which now remained to cover central Poland was General Reynier’s Saxon corps. This was overtaken and heavily defeated by Kutuzov’s advance guard at Kalicz on 13 February 1813.