The Treaty of Amiens
Origins of the War
of the Third Coalition
Breaches of the Treaty
by John Cook, UK
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Breaches of the TreatyIn the meantime, on 26 January 1802, whilst negotiations were in progress, Napoleon consolidated territories in Italy by proclaiming himself President of the Italian Republic, formerly the Cisalpine Republic, upon which a new constitution was imposed. In August 1802, with remarkable foresight, he annexed the French occupied Neapolitan island of Elba, which although ceded to France by earlier treaty with Naples, was viewed in London as a contravention of the spirit of the treaty which required a French evacuation of Neapolitan territory. On 11 September 1802 Napoleon then proceeded to annex Piedmont which became part of greater France, without compensating the House of Savoy. These territorial acquisitions and consolidations, particularly those beyond the ‘natural frontiers’ of France declared in 1792, were interpreted by London as ‘acts of hostility’ and in contravention of the spirit and letter of Article 1 of the treaty.
There shall be peace, friendship, and good understanding between the French republic, his majesty the king of Spain, his heirs and successors, and the Batavian republic, on the one part, and his majesty the king of the united kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, his heirs and successors, on the other part. The contracting parties shall use their utmost efforts to preserve a perfect harmony between their respective countries, without permitting any act of hostility whatever by sea or by land, for any cause, or under any pretext. They shall carefully avoid every thing which might for the future disturb the happy union now re-established between them, and shall not give any succour or protection, directly or indirectly, to those who wish to injure any of them. In December 1802, the French delivered an ultimatum to the Helvetic Republic, whose independence France had guaranteed under the terms of the Treaty of Lunneville. Napoleon’s interpretation of the guarantee was, “so far as France is concerned, Switzerland must be French, like all other countries contiguous to France.”. A force under Ney was organised to enforce the ultimatum and the Swiss conceded. Perhaps even more worrying to the British government was the publication in Le Moniteur on 30 January 1803 of extracts from Colonel Sébastiani’s report which indicated that Egypt was ripe for another French invasion. If, as is sometimes suggested, Napoleon allowed this to be published merely as a warning to London it was a misjudgement of monumental proportions for not only was it viewed by London as a clear French intention to partition the Ottoman Empire, and a direct threat to British interests, but it was viewed with similarly in Saint Petersburg. Whatever the truth of Napoleon’s intent, it was the final factor which convinced the British government that Malta had to be retained. The British Government was not yet prepared to go to war, but it is probably correct to say that it was viewed as inevitable. In February 1803 French control over Switzerland was completed by the Act of Mediation and Napoleon was named Mediator; the country became, to all intents and purposes, part of France. France now occupied all the passes into Italy, vital military and commercial routes, and was able control trade thus subordinating Italian and Swiss commerce, with disastrous results for both economies, to French interests. In the same month reports were received in London of troop movements on Channel coast. Whether they were a prelude to invasion or not is unclear, but this is not relevant because that is how they were perceived in London. Perhaps Napoleon was attempting to send another veiled message to London but, on 13 March, Napoleon wrote to his Minister of Marine, “I want a memorandum on how we can inflict the greatest damage on British commerce in the event of a new naval war.”. The formation of the Channel camps were ordered on 14 March 1803 and the French navy mobilised on the following day. On 12 April 1803 Napoleon ordered Berthier to have the whole Channel coast from the Somme estuary to the mouth of the Scheldt, put in a state of readiness. The undoubted French view was that Britain had failed to meet her treaty obligations in the context of Malta, and it is perfectly true that this was the case. It is also true that Napoleon viewed the continued presence of French Emigrés in Britain, and their vociferous press in exile, as a breach of Article I. The view through British eyes was that the French had demonstrated that they were not to be trusted and it not hard to understand why. Continued French continental expansion, even whilst negotiations were in progress, and, more importantly, the refusal to accept British trade was seen as continuation of the commercial war and an ‘act of hostility’. The first ultimatum from the Addington administration came on 23 April 1803. Britain demanded that she be allowed to retain Malta for ten years and reiterated the demand that French troops be withdrawn from Holland. In return, Britain offered to recognise French Italian vassal states provided that France compensate Sardinia for the loss of Piedmont. Napoleon was taken by surprise by this ultimatum as he had calculated that war would not break out until the Autumn of 1804 at the earliest and he hoped that it would not happen until 1805. Neither his army nor, especially, his navy were ready. In the brief talks which followed the first British ultimatum, the French made an offer allowing Britain to retain Malta in exchange for a French re-occupation of the Neapolitan port of Taranto. This was unacceptable to London and a second ultimatum followed on 10 May 1803. The outcome was unsatisfactory and sanctions were immediately imposed on France which included the order to impound French shipping in British ports, which was given on 16 May. The declaration of war was delivered by George III in Parliament two days later. Britain’s failure to meet her treaty obligations in the context of Malta was a reaction to French actions and there was a growing perception that resumption of war with France was probably inevitable. In that event, particularly against a background of apparently renewed French aspirations in the context of Egypt, there was simply no possibility that London was going to surrender the initiative and make a vitally strategic Malta available for the French to use it again. Malta would be, as it always has been, a vital commercial and military key to the Mediterranean and without major continental allies, any war that Britain fought alone would be a maritime and commercial one.
Right: Charles-Maurice Talleyrand-Perigord. A Duplicitous but consummate diplomat with a taste for the better things in life and addicted to coffee, which he liked “hot as hell, and black as the devil.”. This team proved too much for Cornwallis. Furthermore, although the French had indicated that they would recognise the independence of Holland, implied by the inclusion of the Batavian Republic as a states party to the Treaty of Amiens, they had refused to include this in the text of the treaty, for the probable reason that they had no intention of doing so, and it remained occupied by French troops and closed to British commerce. Holland had always been of vital commercial importance to Britain because it was the conduit to one of the great commercial continental European river arteries, the Rhine, and the key to that route was Antwerp. The other route of vital national importance to Britain was via the Baltic, the Elbe and the Hanseatic ports in the Baltic over which, at this time, the French had no control. The escalation of diplomatic pressure leading to the declaration of war was a normal procedure. It resulted from perceived French breaches of the treaty and a failure by Napoleon to even discuss the issue of commerce and his evident intention to continue with territorial expansion. The view of the British government was that Napoleon was using the treaty as a licence for a free hand in continental Europe and merely an interlude in which to gather his military strength. So, the central causes of the War of the Third Coalition for Britain were the issue of commerce and the British fear that to do nothing to curtail continued French expansion would increasingly surrender the initiative to France, and thus her national security, to the point where the position would have been irretrievable. The irony of the breakdown of the Treaty of Amiens is that it was the same Addington administration that had embraced the prospect of peace in 1801 and forced through an unpopular treaty in the teeth of considerable opposition which, exasperated beyond toleration, declared war on 18 May 1803. More Treaty of Amiens and 3rd Coalition
The Treaty of Amiens Breaches of the Treaty The Formation of the Third Coalition Conclusions Back to Table of Contents -- First Empire #61 Back to First Empire List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2001 by First Empire. This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com |
Left: Joseph Bonaparte (King of Naples 1806-1808 and King of Spain 1808-1813) was, together with Tallyrand, the senior French representative at the negotiations for the Treat of Amiens.