1810.

WAR IN PORTUGAL.

245

and founded in 1810. There now remained but to chase the British from Portugal. The enterprise appeared too trivial tc demand the presence of Napoleon. Massena was intrusted with the task, and, with a gallant army of 80,000 men, to execute it. Before such an army, lord Wellington and his 30,000 British necessarily retired.* The frontier fortresses were all educed. Massena, pressing too hard after the retreating Eng fish, brought about the affair of Busaco, which presents the usual aspect of all the early battles in Spain--the British on a height, the French attacking, repulsed, and routed. Still the French had no other thought than to behold their enemies take shipping at Lisbon; or perhaps, like Junot in more advantageous circumstances, escape by a capitulation. The retreat, however, stopped short at about twelve leagues from Lisbon; the army taking post along a ridge of hills extending from the ocean to the Tagus. It was a line strong by nature, and rendered stronger by art, inclosing Lisbon, and defending it by those fortifications which Providence seems to have traced. Against it all the efforts of Massena were vain. Impossible to turn, it was equally impracticable to assault; and the French general, after vainly hovering round it, trying, and contemplating it, was obliged to retreat himself, after having lost the greater part of his army by famine, malady, and fatigue. So bitter was his resentment, and that of his soldiers, that their retiring path resembled the advance of Attila -all ruin and destruction--the very walls uprooted and blackened, and the sod blighted beneath the devastator's hoof;—an unworthy consolation this, to the hero of the Alps and the vanquisher of Suwarrow. To lord Wellington the impregnable lines of Torres Vedras brought as much honor as his previous victories. He not only secured there the independence of Portugal, but has shown how it may always be defended by manhood and well-regulated force. In the same spring were fought the battles of Barossa, Albuera, and Fuentes d'Onoro, in which Graham, Beresford, and Wellington, each gained fresh laurels. But the French, from the soldier to the general, were fighting in a cause and field that they disliked. Even those in command often relaxed in their ac tivity; and their inferiors could not but imitate them. Marmont succeeded Massena; but not to repair his fortune or supply his talent. Soult, who loved war for war's sake, was the most formidable enemy; yet, in the sanguinary battle of

*There is little impartiality to be expected in enumerating the forces of an enemy; but the French certainly carry exaggeration to its utmost. Norvins states Massena's force at Busaco to be but 45,000, that of lord Wek lington 185.000!!!

Albuera, Beresford, with a very few thousand British, wrested victory from his hands.

We now approach the quarrel betwixt France and Russia; the last act-the grand dénouement of the drama. There is no lack of causes. Although the flexible mind of Alexander forgot, in his admiration for the conqueror of Friedland, those conditions of the treaty of Tilsit that were imposed upon Russia, his aristocracy, his people, who were far from sharing their monarch's personal esteem for the French emperor, could not fail to remind him of their sentiments. At Tilsit much had been promised and held forth on the part of NapoJeon, to dazzle Alexander, and to captivate his friendship. It was not only Finland that tempted the latter to submit to the inconveniences of the continental system, it was the prospect of being aided in dismembering the Turkish empire. In the excitement, the moral intoxication of success, and of the eastern emperor's friendship and society, Napoleon had passed the bounds of freedom, and given too rashly into a scheme much more advantageous to Russia than to him. No sooner, however, did he part from Alexander, than Bonaparte revised his thoughts, and altogether changed his views respecting Turkey. He would no longer listen to the prayer of Alexander's ambition on this head; and at Erfurth the Russian monarch was obliged to abandon the plan. This disappointed him, and proved the first cause of the rupture. It is also the cause most honorable to Napoleon, who dwells on it accordingly. At St. Helena, he asserts, that his resistance to Alexander's views upon Turkey was the origin of the quarrel; and Bignon affirms the same thing.

From the conference of 1807," says that historian, "sprung the germ that was to be fatal to Napoleon. To force England to peace conformably to the alliance of Tilsit, Russia was to act against Sweden, France against Portugal; or, to translate more largely than the ideas of the two emperors, Russia left Napoleon full liberty of action over the south of Europe, France abandoning to Alexander similar liberty in the north with respect to Sweden, moreover allowing him to have certain degree of tolerance on the side of Turkey. In con sequence of these recíprocal concessions, France found her self engaged in the horrible Spanish war; Russia in one of which the dangers were insignificant, the advantage being the acquisition of Finland. Napoleon then imagined that Fin land might content Alexander; no such thing. For a moment Napoleon had admitted the possibility of partitioning the Ottoman empire. This contingency Alexander assumed as a certainty. His constant demands were on the subject of the partition. But Napoleon ever refused, and for a doub'e

1810.

RUPTURE WITH RUSSIA.

247

motive: the first political, because the lot of France, magnificent as it had appeared, was but a source of peril and embarrassment, whilst that of Russia had proved all substantial and positive value; the second military, in that he looked on the Turkish empire as a marsh, which prevented Russia attacking him on his right. Hence the gradual coolness bewixt the two emperors.".

What is chiefly evident from this, is the complete machia velism of both parties; nothing like justice entering into the contemplation of either, except such justice as robbers may invoke in order to secure a fair division of the spoil. In these calculations of interest evaporated the imperial friendship, the solemn amity of Tilsit. Napoleon seemed to have trusted in this longer than Alexander, whose coldness he did not perceive until the campaign of Wagram commenced. He then exclaimed that Alexander had deceived him; that he was false, or, in his words, "handsome and deceitful" as a Greek. One part of Bonaparte's character-a trait we often meet with in the world-was, that he thought himself always in the right. Whilst encroaching and despoiling every neigh bor, and swallowing one portion of Europe after another, he deemed himself most ill-used when resisted. Passion and success had given this obliquity to his judgment. It is thus that we explain the absurdity of his arguments; he was wrong, not insincere. He the more easily fell into them, as there was in the origin and at bottom a certain foundation of truth in his constant assertion, that he was driven to conquest in order to exist.

Alexander might then argue, that Napoleon had not kept those promises at Tilsit, which had induced Russia to sacrifice her trade to the continental system. But she had no need of bringing forward a promise that would have revolted all Europe. There were other griefs. Napoleon, in the campaign of Wagram, had perceived the lukewarmness of Russia. He had mentally abandoned the hopes of close alliance with that country. Austria became his friend, his ally, by marriage; and Russia was menaced by this very act. The duchy of Warsaw, the nucleus apparently destined to agglomerate into an independent kingdom of Poland, was swelled with part of Gallicia, sufficient to make Russia tremble for Lithuania. Griefs continued to amass. The English and nti-Gallican party at St. Petersburgh,—that is, the majority of the aristocracy, the produce of whose estates, timber, pitch, and hemp, could find a market in England alone,stirred and took advantage of all. The occupation of the duchy of Oldenburgh, appertaining to a prince nearly allied to the Russian emperor, was another cause of complaint and

recrimination. Secretaries and envoys with hostile notes precluded to war.

Napoleon had determined on it: to humble Russia, and reduce it to that obsequiousness towards him, that Prussia and Austria displayed, was the requisite completion of his system. Without this, all the rest was insecure. To remain at peace allowing the two latter countries to recover strength, whils a huge and independent empire was at their back, would hav been impolitic and mad. The entire system of Napoleon' empire was, indeed, founded upon usurpation and injustice. but conquest" plucks on" conquest, and cannot be arrested till naught beyond its frontier menaces. To talk of Napoleon's injustice and ambition at this time was vain; his empire was built on the two words, and was to be completed by them. The choice of the moment was most imprudent. But the seeds of war had been long sown; were maturing during the course of 1810; and when, in 1811, the sudden energy of the English government, pouring troops into the Peninsula, resuscitated and revived the struggle, the altercation between Alexander and Napoleon had gone too far to allow of the stronger party shrinking from the consequence, without weakening that empire of arrogance and superiority that he held over Europe. Napoleon was in his conduct not so rash as is imagined. His policy was profound, well calculated; it was his task that was difficult. He played for the game of universal empire; he made a false move with respect to Spain. He was compelled to that of Russia, unavoidable in time; and that he would have willingly deferred, had it been possible without retracting.

The mighty preparations necessary for bringing two such huge powers into contact, required to be gradually made. Each potentate, therefore, began, upon the first symptom, to make them. This alone necessitated similar exertions from the other; and thus the great machinery of war was put in action on both sides, ere mutual explanation, or a free discussion of the question, could take place. It was thus the masses rushed together, obedient to the first impulse of their rulers, but not tarrying for their after-thoughts.

France showed a slight of Russia by her treatment of Oldenburgh. Alexander, who had already relaxed in his observance of the continental system, for which he might p.ead the example of Napoleon's own licenses to trade, abrogated it in part, towards the close of 1810. Lithuania, on one side, filled with troops; the duchy of Warsaw on the other. The preparations of Bonaparte were gigantic: he drew from the soil of France the last soldier that the conscription laws allowed him. From these were exempt merely the rich, whe

1811.

PREPARATIONS OF NAPOLEON.

249

could purchase a substitute; the peasant, who had already a brother under arms; the only son of the widow. Yet even these Napoleon errolled, in ban and rear-ban; forming them into a militia or national guard, to keep peace at home and defend the territory, whilst the rest of the levies marched to the banks of the Niemen. Italy, on one side, sent her legions; Holland on the other; the confederated states of the Rhine were summoned to get ready their contingents; Austria consented to contribute 40,000 men; Prussia, after vainly meditating to throw her remaining strength into the hands of Russia, an offer rejected by that country, as a source at once of weakness and obligation,-gave up the relics of her army, her fortresses, her very capital to the French forces. In front, Alexander saw all Europe armed against him,Poland the foremost, expecting her independence, and calling Lithuania, the spoil of Catharine, to join her. On each side were Sweden and Turkey: Russia, at war with the latter, had not long since robbed the former of a fine province. Yet both these precious allies France lost at this critical moment. The jealousy of Napoleon and Bernadotte alienated Sweden. The emperor, with his arrogant ideas, sought to reduce the sovereignty of his former lieutenant into vassalage. Bernadotte's language, as an independent monarch, was even more galling to the emperor than his acts. When he asked Norway as the price of his co-operation against Russsia, Napoleon fell into a paroxysm of rage at the insolence of such a demand. Personal feelings smothered the suggestions of policy; and he ordered Pomerania, the only possession of Sweden on the continent, to be invaded. He thus flung the actual ruler of Sweden into the arms of Russia. Bonaparte's conduct with respect to Turkey was not more happy. In the first heat of his friendship with Alexander, he had neglected that court and country; and although he subsequently defended, in private negotiation, the integrity of that empire against Russia, still he had neglected to cultivate a close connexion. British influence prevailed at Constantinople; and we shall see, that at the moment when Russia was most seriously pressed by a powerful antagonist, the sultan abandoned he tempting opportunity, to which Napoleon incited him, of Laking advantage of the moment; making peace, on the contrary, with its ancient and inveterate foe.

Napoleon, in truth, began to be egregiously ill served, especially in the civil and diplomatic line. He mistrusted men of all schools, the ancient noblesse and the Jacobins alike. He had got rid of Talleyrand and Fouché, and in vain endeavored to fill their places and supply their experience by statesmen of his own creation. In diplomacy, and in the