turned to debacle, though it was a protracted one, since the British did
not leave the island until 23 December, hoping the Austrians would
resume hostilities. Bad weather, inadequate planning and incompetent
leadership vitiated the expedition; the British took so long to take
Flushing that the French were able to rush reinforcements to the ultimate
target, Antwerp. Disease ('Walcheren fever') finished off the enterprise:
4,000 troops died and I9,ooo were hospitalized.
The British incursion at Walcheren enabled the dauntless Bernadotte
to make a temporary comeback. Put in command of the troops at
Antwerp, waiting for the British thrust that never came, Bernadotte
issued an order of the day boasting that his 'I s,ooo men' could hold the
city against all comers. When this order was brought to him, Napoleon
was enraged: he pointed out that there were 6o,ooo troops at Walcheren,
not I s,ooo and that, whatever the numbers, it was simple professional
incompetence for Bernadotte to reveal them to the enemy. He sent an
order relieving the contumacious Gascon of command: 'I intend no
longer to leave the command in the hands of the Prince of Ponte Corvo,
who now as before is in league with the Paris intriguers, and who is in
every respect a man in whom I can no longer place confidence ... This is
the first occasion on which a general has been known to betray his
position by an excess of vanity.'
Meanwhile the Austrians dragged out the peace negotiations, hoping
for a great British success or for intervention fr om the Czar, now widely
known no longer to see eye to eye with Napoleon; the Russians, however,
warned that they were not yet ready for a rupture with France. In Poland,
after an initial victory by Archduke Ferdinand, the brilliance of Prince
Poniatowski soon undid all the Austrian gains. The one possible bright
spot for Austria was the Tyrol, where heavy fighting had been in progress
since April: there had been two major campaigns and twice Napoleon's
Bavarian allies had been thrown out of the region by the Tyrolese
'liberators', most recently on I3 August.
Napoleon decided that he could not return to Paris until he had a
definite peace treaty with Austria, so in the summer of I 809 he ruled the
Empire from Schonbrunn in the Austrian countryside. Here he resumed
his affair with Marie Walewska, but it was no longer the grand passion of
two years earlier, as the tone of his letter of invitation to her partly
indicates: 'Marie: I have read your letter with the pleasure your memory
always inspires in me ... Yes, come to Vienna. I would like to give you
fu rther proof of the tender friendship I feel for you.' The imperial valet
Constant's diaries show Napoleon and Marie spending every afternoon
together, but Napoleon's attentions cannot have been fu lly engaged for,
marcin
(Marcin)
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