Napoleon I

NAPOLEON I

The Russian people first discovered Napoleon as the young and bright general who stood out during the military campaigns of Italy in 1796–1797 and of Egypt in 1798–1799. By that time, he was deeply admired in Russia for his military genius by both civilians and soldiers such as Alexander Suvorov, who saw in him a "new Hannibal." Later on, Napoleon's victories over European armies reinforced the myth of his military invincibility, until the retreat of Berezina in October–November 1812.

Politically, the coup d'état by which Napoleon came to power in October 1799 (Eighteenth Brumaire) at first reassured the tsar Paul and the conservative and liberal elites, who saw in this new authoritarian regime the end of disorders and excesses brought by the French Revolution. But this feeling did not last: Napoleon's proclamation of his First Consulate for life on August 4,1802, followed by the establishment of the Empire on May 18, 1804, triggered strong negative reactions. For liberals, including the young tsar Alexander I, who acceded to the throne in March 1801, Napoleon became a tyrant who betrayed the Enlightenment ideas through personal interest. For the conservatives, the self-crowned man lacked legitimacy, and his huge political ambitions were dangerous for the European balance.

Alexander first chose to ignore the Napoleonic threat. In 1801 the young tsar decided to maintain Russia outside the European conflict and adopted a pacifist diplomacy: On October 8, 1801, a peace treaty was officially signed with France. But this position became increasingly difficult to maintain when France started to pose a serious threat to Russian interests in the Mediterranean and in the Balkans. So in 1805, Alexander decided to join Austria and Britain in the Third Coalition. The tsar wanted to play a major role in the international theater, lead the fight against Napoleon, and, after the victory, promote a new European order, liberated from the tyrant. However, the military operations were a disaster for Russia, and on December 2, 1805, the battle of Austerlitz was a personal humiliation for Alexander, who, as commander of the Russian forces, ignored General Mikhail Kutuzov's advice not to enter battle before the arrival of more troops.

After the defeat of Friedland on June 14, 1806, judging that his forces were unable to continue fighting, the tsar decided to pursue peace with Napoleon. Napoleon was in favor of an agreement with Russia, as his focus had shifted to political control of Central Europe and the war against Britain. On July 7–9, 1807, several treaties were signed at Tilsit between the two emperors. The terms were difficult for Prussia, which was partitioned. The Polish provinces forming the Duchy of Warsaw under Saxony and the provinces west of the Elbe were combined to make the Kingdom of Westphalia, which had to pay an indemnity. Russia suffered no territorial losses but had to recognise Napoleon's dominant position in Europe and take part in the continental blockade of British trade. In compensation Russia obtained peace, freedom of action in Eastern

Europe, and the opportunity to gain Finland from Sweden militarily (1808–1809), Bessarabia from the Ottoman Empire (with the Bucharest treaty in 1812), and Georgia from Persia (by the Gulistan treaty in 1813).

Despite these large successes, Russia remained hostile toward Napoleon. In 1805 the Orthodox Church declared Napoleon the Antichrist. And for most of the Russian elite who had been raised with French language and culture, Napoleon was the archetypal expression of Barbary, not a Frenchman but a "damned Corsican."

Despite its renewal on September 27, 1808, at Erfurt, the Russian-French alliance was indeed fragile. The two countries had opposite views on the Polish question and were rivals in the Balkans and in the Mediterranean. The Continental blockade became more and more expensive for that Russian economy and was denounced by Alexander in December 1810.

These tensions led Napoleon to initiate a war that he expected to be short. He invaded the Russian territory on June 24, 1812, with an army of more than 400,000 men. On June 28, the French were already in Vilna, and on August 18 they entered Smolensk, forcing the Russians to retreat.

For the Russian people, the invasion was a national trauma, not only because of the brutality of the war—in one day, at the battle of Borodino, on September 7, 1812, the Russians lost 50,000 men and the French 40,000—but also because of its blasphemous dimension: Napoleon did not hesitate to use churches as stables. On September 14, when Napoleon entered the sacred capital, Moscow the Mother, he found the city empty and devastated by fires, which went on for five days. The burning of Moscow was a terrible shock, and it generated feelings of resentment from the Russian people toward Alexander. But soon it united all the Russians, whatever their social class, in a patriotic and mystic struggle against the invader. Napoleon's promise to liberate the Russian peasants from serfdom had no effect on the people, who, along with the tsar and his elite, sensed the urgency of a physical, moral, and spiritual danger.

For Napoleon, the situation was impossible: On the one hand the lack of supplies prevented him from going any farther; on the other hand, he was unable to force Alexander to negotiate. On October 16, the retreat of the Grand Army began in difficult conditions. Subject to cold, hunger, and typhus, attacked by the partisan movement and by peasants on their way back, less than 10 percent of the Grand Army was able to leave the Russian territory in December 1812.

The French defeat was a fatal blow to the Napoleonic adventure and made Alexander the conqueror of Napoleon and the "savior of Europe." In February 1815, Napoleon tried to regain his lost power, but the adventure did not last, and the Hundred Days did not harm Alexander's prestige. The tsar personally took part in the Congress of Vienna and engaged in the construction of a new political and geopolitical order in Europe. During the congress, Alexander's Russia took great advantage of the victory over Napoleon from both diplomatic and territorial points of view. But beyond this geopolitical concrete outcome, the collective and messianic triumph over the invader constituted in Russia a major step toward the birth of a modern national identity.

See also: alexander i; austerlitz, battle of; borodino, battle of; kutuzov, mikhail iliaronovich; france, relations with; french war of 1812; tilsit, treaty of; vienna, congress of; war of the third coalition

bibliography

Cate, Curtis. (1985). The War of the Two Emperors. New York: Random House.

Hartley, Janet. (1994). Alexander I. London: Longman.

Palmer, Alan. (1967). Napoleon in Russia. London: Simon and Schuster.

Tarle, Eugene. (1979). Napoleon's Invasion of Russia, 1812. New York: Octagon Books.

Wesling, Molly. (2001). Napoleon in Russian Cultural Mythology. New York: Peter Lang.

Marie-Pierre Rey