r8os) was draconian. Austria ceded Venice, !stria, and Dalmatia to the
Kingdom of Italy; Swabia and the Tyrol were given to the Electors of
Wiirttemberg and Bavaria; Austria undertook to pay an indemnity of 32
million francs in bills of exchange and eight million in cash. Even more
momentous were the consequences in Germany. Napoleon rewarded his
marshals by giving the Grand Duchy of Berg to Murat and Neuchatel to
Berthier; the award to Murat was in recognition of his excellent
reconnaissance mission in August-September r8o5 when he scouted
suitable terrain under the nom-de-guerre of Colonel de Beaumont, not
for his failure to intercept Kutusov.
As ever, the useless and treacherous Bernadotte was rewarded.
Although Bernadotte had crossed the Danube a day late and had lacked
energy in the pursuit of the enemy on the evening of Austerlitz, leading
Davout to complain bitterly to the Emperor, Napoleon saw fit once more
to promote him to higher office, this time making him Governor of
Anspach and Prince of Pontecorvo, a tiny enclave within the Kingdom of
Two Sicilies, between Sicily and Gaeta, but technically a sovereign state.
Even though this donation brought Bernadotte a 2oo,ooo franc lump sum
and an annual income of 300, 000 francs, Napoleon capped this by buying
Moreau's house in the rue Anjou and giving it to Bernadotte as a present.
The Gascon, who had plotted with Moreau against Napoleon, had no
qualms about accepting the house of his erstwhile ally from the man he
had wanted to overthrow.
But the perks to the marshals were the least of the ways in which
Napoleon redrew the map of Germany. He promoted the Electors of
Bavaria and Wiirttemberg to crowns and fu sed the new kingdoms, Hesse
Darmstadt and all the principalities of south and west Germany into a
Confederation of the Rhine, expressly designed as a vassal state of
France. Based at Frankfurt, the Confederation left foreign and military
affairs to Napoleon; he thus fulfilled a traditional aim of French foreign
policy-building a buffer between France and central Europe. Naturally
the immediate consequence of this new alignment was to destroy the
Holy Roman Empire, since only Austria, Prussia and a few northern
states were left. On 6 August r8o6 the Holy Roman Empire officially
ceased to exist when Francis II renounced his title of Emperor of
Germany; as Francis I he retained the title Hereditary Emperor of
Austria which he had assumed in r8o4.
Elsewhere in Europe the consequences of Austerlitz were also
groundbreaking. The Bourbons of the Kingdom of Naples were punished
by expulsion for having backed the wrong horse. In their place Napoleon
appointed his brother Joseph as King by simple decree on 31 March
marcin
(Marcin)
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