famous meetings in history took place in the map room of the Mercolini
palace (Elsterwiese Castle) in Dresden on z6 June, where the French
Emperor made his base from 9 June to 10 July. But the Dresden
conclave, where Metternich confronted the 'ogre' he so detested, was
never a serious peace conference. Metternich went to the meeting in full
cynicism, determined to buy time while Austria mobilized and the
Prussians and Russians licked their wounds. Assured by his spies,
including Talleyrand, that the French notables would accept the natural
frontiers, and knowing that Austria was committed to enter the war on
the Allied side if French agreement to peace proposals was not received
by 10 August, Metternich was confident that he held all the trumps.
This most famous of meetings lasted from around noon to shortly after
8.30 p.m. There are two versions of the nine-hour Dresden conference,
one from Metternich, the other from Napoleon. Both show the meeting
as tempestuous and emotional. It was on this occasion that Napoleon
made his famous weary remark, that even if he defeated the Kings of
Austria and Prussia twenty times, they would still keep their thrones,
whereas he needed the momentum of constant victory to survive at all.
Metternich reported Napoleon's words thus: 'My reign will not outlast
the day when I have ceased to be strong and therefore to be feared ... I
know how to die ... But I shall never cede one inch of territory. Your
sovereigns, who were born on the throne, can ·allow themselves to be
beaten twenty times and will always return to their capitals. But I cannot
do that - I am a self-made soldier.'
He accused Austria of going over to his enemies under a guise of
neutrality and claimed that, but for Metternich's blundering intervention,
he could already have made peace with Prussia and Russia. The so-called
mediation was simply an excuse for all three Continental ancien regime
powers to gang up on him. He upbraided Austria for treachery, naturally
not revealing his own intended Machiavellianism, which was to buy
Austria off, defeat the other two powers, then turn round and force
Austria to disgorge the concession he had made. It was then a question of
price. He was prepared to sacrifice Illyria to Austria. Would that be
enough?
Metternich soon showed he was in no mood to compromise. Grimly he
laid out the peace terms: Austria wanted the return of all former
provinces in Italy, Russia required the dissolution of the Grand Duchy of
Warsaw and Prussia demanded an end of the Confederacy of the Rhine.
These were not so much negotiating overtures as a demand for France's
unconditional surrender; Napoleon was being asked to give up all his
conquests since 1796. As he gradually realized that Metternich had not
marcin
(Marcin)
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