foreseeing the outcome if he had to fight all three great European powers,
but that he was overwhelmed by the sheer malice of his enemies, who
never had any intention of offering him reasonable terms. Others claim
that he was merely stalling for time, waiting until the harvest was in,
hoping the Allies would have second thoughts once they realized France
was not on its knees, but determined to fight to the end if that was
necessary. Ever the opportunist, Napoleon was clearly hoping for
something to turn up, but he refused to make the one concession that
might have split the Allies: relinquishing the Confederation of the Rhine.
This was the item that particularly exercised Prussia and Austria, who
were fearful long-term of a permanent Russian presence in western
Europe. Caulaincourt pleaded with him to bend on this point, but had to
endure irate outbursts and slammed doors for his pains.
At Prague Caulaincourt went well beyond his instructions in an
attempt to secure an accord with Metternich. Some French historians
have even accused him of treason, but his action was surely simply the
despair reasonable Frenchmen fe lt about the everlasting conflict with
which their Emperor had landed them. Metternich unhelpfully repeated
that Austria was committed to go to war on the side of the Allies if there
was no agreement by 10 August. When Caulaincourt reported this to
Napoleon, he once again stalled and disingenuously tried the ploy known
to every roguish solicitor: he asked fo r fu rther and better particulars.
Metternich, tired of French procrastination and convinced there could
never be an agreement, opted for a propaganda advantage by offering
surprisingly mild terms. Nothing was said about Italy, but Prussia would
have to be restored as far as the Elbe and the Duchy of Warsaw broken
up; although Hamburg, Trieste and Lubeck were declared non-negotia
ble, the return of the western portions of Prussia, lost to the kingdom of
Westphalia in 1806-7, were not demanded back. But Metternich was
adamant that the Confederation of the Rhine would have to be dissolved.
Caulaincourt begged Napoleon to accept these terms. But the Emperor
argued that the buffer states of the Confederation of the Rhine were
the only way France could safeguard its natural frontier on the Rhine.
Although the new conditions seemed more lenient than those offered at
Dresden on 26 June, when their implications were teased out, it seemed
that France was being asked to return, not just to 1796, but to 1792,
before the decree of the Convention laid down the natural frontiers as an
integral part of French sovereignty. Napoleon once again insinuated the
idea that he was a mere plaything of history, a slave of destiny, not the
purposive conqueror of the 'ogre' myth. In reply to Metternich's
ultimatum, he asked for compensation in the form of Austrian and
marcin
(Marcin)
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