The Treaty of Amiens
Origins of the War
of the Third Coalition
The Formation of the Third Coalition
by John Cook, UK
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So, after approximately one year’s peace, during which France had refused to normalise commercial relations and continued to act in a way that was bound to be interpreted as hostile by London, Britain found herself in the same position she had been after the Treaty of Luneville; at war with France without allies. To follow the gestation of the Third Coalition it is necessary to go back to September 1802 and the French annexation of Piedmont when, as a result, the British government instructed Sir John Borlase Warren, the consul in Saint Petersburg, to approach the Russian government with a view to an alliance to bring diplomatic pressure to bear, and proposed that Austria be invited to join. It has been suggested by Napoleon’s apologists that Piedmont was not Britain’s business, but the fact is that London did not see it that way in 1802. Comparison has also been made between the Act of Union between Britain and Ireland, and that London was hypocritical to criticise France. Notwithstanding any injustices of the 1801 Act of Union, which is beyond the scope of this article, there was, however, a difference and that was that Ireland was a British possession, and had been for centuries, whilst Piedmont was part of a foreign country. In any event. these initial British approaches to Russia met with little enthusiasm and the reply from Count Alexander Vorontzov, the Russian Foreign Minister, which was sent to London on 17 November 1802, was that neither Russia nor Austria were in a position to enter into such an arrangement. Austria, in particular, was virtually bankrupt after the close of the War of the Second Coalition. A second approach to the Russians was made in early 1803 and the reply, sent on 1 February 1803, was in similar vein to the first. In the absence of continental allies who were prepared to mount a diplomatic campaign to curb French military expansion, backed with a meaningful military threat, the Addington administration concluded that if the initiative was not to continue to pass, irretrievably, to France, war was a necessity and it was declared unilaterally the following month, as already described. The fact of the matter was that the continental powers, particularly the Russians, had no confidence in Addington’s administration, which according to George Rose, the British chargé in Berlin, was “held in universal contempt”. On the other hand, as Britain was seeking a diplomatic coalition, there was also no question of any money being made available and none was offered. The cynical might interpret the absence of subsidies as, at least, one factor in Russian ambivalence. In May 1803, the French invaded the Electorate of Hanover, which was linked dynastically to the British Crown and ruled in absence by a regent called the Staathalter. It was occupied by the following month and was used subsequently as bait to keep the Prussians neutral. Although Frederick William III resisted Napoleon’s advances initially, Prussia opened negotiations after Austerlitz in December 1805 and concluded an alliance with France on 15 February 1806 under the terms of which Hanover was to become became a Prussian possession and Prussia placed an embargo on British trade. This short-lived treaty resulted in the bizarre situation in which Britain found itself at war with both France and Prussia in 1806. On 12 July 1803, after Britain had declared war, London made a third attempt, via Sir John Warren, to persuade the Russians to enter into an alliance. This time it was not defensively oriented or with diplomatic intent. It was to be a military alliance pure and simple and, consequently, money was put on the table. Russia was offered, if she could persuade one of the major German states to join a coalition, subsidies on the same scale as during The Second Coalition. These advances were, again, rejected. At approximately the same time a similar approach was made to Berlin, through the British chargé, which was offered £250,000 as soon as war was declared, followed by a further £250,000 once Hanover had been recovered and the French ejected from territory east of the Rhine, but the British chargé saw the chance of acceptance as so slight that he didn’t even bother to present the terms. The mood in Vienna was such that Austrian involvement in a coalition was not even broached and the British government had to accept the hard fact that not one continental power of any significance was prepared to join her. Help, however, was at hand, in the form of Napoleon. In late 1803, evidence of clandestine French activity in the Ionian Islands, and on Corfu in particular, was discovered by the Russians. This was interpreted as further designs on the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire, which confirmed, in Russian minds, the implied threat of the Sebastiani report, and a dispute arose over the future of the islands, of which Corfu was the largest. These islands, known as the Septinsular Republic since March 1801, were Ottoman possessions, albeit with a largely Greek population, under Russian administration. The islands were of considerable strategic importance. For the Russians they were their only Mediterranean naval base, and for the Napoleon they were probably coveted as an alternative platform to Malta for expansion in the eastern Mediterranean. This time, on 20 November 1803, Count Alexander Vorontzov wrote to his brother Count Simon, who was the Russian consul in London, with instructions to approach London with a view to forming a coalition.
This time it was Britain which played the part of the reluctant virgin and, in Hawkesbury’s reply to Count Simon Vorontzov on 26 February 1804, London insisted that Saint Petersburg take the lead for choreographing a coalition of continental powers. There were further conditions. Any coalition had to include Austria and Prussia, and the powers would have to agree common objectives and a territorial settlement prior to the war, the objective of which was to be to return France to her ‘natural frontiers’. The question of subsidies was postponed until agreement had been reached. Shortly afterwards Count Alexander Vorontzov was replaced as Russian Foreign Minister by Prince Adam Czartoryski who was much better disposed to an alliance with Britain than his predecessor had been. Czartoryski was a Pole by extraction who, in addition to being particularly concerned about French encroachment eastwards, hoped to see Poland absorbed into the Russian Empire. But, on 20 March 1804 he wrote to Count Simon Vorontzov to say that the British conditions were not acceptable. In the first place Prussia was unlikely to be interested and in the second, Austria was virtually penniless and would need significant British financial assistance. Most importantly, however, was the condition requiring a territorial settlement prior to the war for the simple reason that Russia had her own agenda in this context. This reply was reiterated in a subsequent letter on 30 April 1804. Events, however, were moving at a faster pace than diplomatic mails and in March 1804, Napoleon again ‘interceded’ on behalf of the British. On the night of 14/15 March, French troops violated Baden territory and abducted the Duc d’Enghien from Ettenheim, where he had settled following his marriage to Charlotte de Rohan-Rochefort. This apparently insignificant incident had far reaching repercussions. Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon-Condé Duc d’Enghien was the only son of Louis Henri Joseph Duc de Bourbon, and Louise Marie-Thérèse Bathilde d’Orléans, the last of the male Condé line and distantly related to the French Royal Family. He emigrated with his father at the outbreak of the French Revolution and served in his grandfather’s émigré army from 1792 until its dissolution after the Treaty of Lunéville in 1801. The public motive for his abduction was supposed implication in the Cadoudal and Pichegru conspiracies but there was no evidence of any substance to support this, and that which did exist was ‘massaged’ by Fouché, Savary and Tallyrand who had the objective of showing Napoleon how efficient they were and knew that they would be presenting their master with something he would want believe. Although Enghien was almost certainly involved with British agents, there is no evidence that he was involved in the conspiracies for which he was charged. He was a convenient émigré of minor status, within reach, who was made an example of. He was brought to Vincennes where he was tried, by a hastily convened commission which had no jurisdiction, without the benefit of a defence, no presentation of evidence to support the charges against him, and shot on 21 March. As an aside, the members of the commission were less than happy with the procedure and were briefly imprisoned at Vincennes, to prevent their representations and misgivings being transmitted to Napoleon or, indeed, beyond the confines of Vincennes generally, until the murder had been carried out This apparently insignificant act was incredibly stupid, a fact that Napoleon himself admitted to later, and had a threefold reaction. Rather than deterring émigrés, as intended, it provided them with a martyr and hardened the attitude of many who were considering accepting Napoleon’s overtures to return. The issue was less Enghien’s conviction but the way in which it was illegally obtained, being without even the due process of somewhat arbitrary Chatham Publishing Advert.French law in the context of émigres. However, the issue elsewhere was less Enghien’s execution and more the violation Baden’s territory. It caused an international incident which outraged opinion everywhere but, more importantly still, the Tsar, who was related by marriage to the Baden royal family, took personal exception and immediately broke off relations with Paris. It may be described as a straw which finally broke the Russian camel’s back. More or less coinciding with this was the fall of Addington’s moribund administration and Pitt was restored to power in May 1804. Pitt was much more disposed towards war than Addington had been but other affairs of state precluded a reply to Czartoryski’s April correspondence, and Russian appeals for an alliance generally, until 26 June 1804. Pitt’s reply to the Russians was to the effect that although Austrian and Prussian involvement was more than welcome, an agreement with Saint Petersburg was no longer dependent upon this point. Pitt also proposed subsidies of £5 million, of which £2.5 million would go to Austria because of her poor financial position, with £1 million each to Russia and Prussia and the remainder to minor German states. Pitt, however, confirmed the requirement of the Addington administration that the organisation of a coalition of continental powers must be the responsibility of Russia to arrange. Russia’s response was that £5 million was not enough but approached Vienna none the less. The Austrians refused to consider joining the coalition unless they were given £6 million alone. On Russian promises to persuade London to produce the money, which were not theirs to make, the Austrians signed a treaty with the Russians in late 1804. Britain was not party to this bipartite treaty and the British consul in Vienna was excluded from the discussions. Tsar Alexander I produced his ‘Grand Design’ in September 1804 in which the Allies objectives were defined. It was in part a turgid ideological plan but included the establishment of a German Confederation independent of Austria and Prussia, an international maritime law which would safeguard the rights of neutrals, the extensive redrawing of occupied French territory based on ‘natural’ boundaries, and a code of international law intended to force nations to negotiate and only use war as a last resort. The Tsar’s plans were delivered to London by his personal envoy, Nikolai Novosiltov, but the ‘Grand Design’ was simply too grandiose for British acceptance and Pitt’s rather less ambitious counter proposals were made in January 1805. No agreement on allied war aims was ever reached. On 21 January 1805, Pitt wrote to Warren in St Petersburg that in the event the continental powers went to war with France, Britain would subsidise Russia and Austria to the tune of £2.5 million per annum for every 100,000 men they mobilised, to be paid monthly. Because of Austria’s special position financially, she would be advanced £1 million on the outbreak of war. The interesting thing about this is that the subsidy on offer was considerably less than had been made before and, furthermore, this time it was linked specifically to the number of troops the two powers put into the field and would not be paid in one lump sum. This was because previous monies had not been used for the purpose they were intended. This was not acceptable to either power who continued to negotiate for more money and could not agree about the ultimatum to be delivered to France or the post-bellum arrangements. The alliance remained unratified by either contracting party and in June 1805, Vienna withdrew from her 1804 alliance with Russia and The Third Coalition seemed still born. In the meantime, however, Napoleon had once again come to Britain’s rescue. On 25 May 1805 he siezed the Crown of Lombardy and created the Kingdom of Italy, followed by annexation of the Ligurian Republic (Genoa) on 5 June 1805. This alarmed Russia sufficiently that in July 1805 the Tsar ratified the Anglo-Russian alliance without Austria. Austria, even more alarmed than Russia about French designs on Italy, and now feeling isolated, quickly followed on 9 August 1805. In the event neither Russia nor Austria received the money they wanted and this was further limited by the short duration of the campaign of 1805. Austria received her £1 million advance and Russia a comparatively paltry £300,000. Austria received a further £500,000 in 1806, Russia a mere £50,000 followed by £600,000 in 1807. These sums were large by the standards of the day but can be put into perspective by the £10 million later spent by Britain, per year, to prosecute the war in the Peninsula. More Treaty of Amiens and 3rd Coalition
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Louis Antoine Henri de Bourbon-Condé Duc d’Enghien, whose murder was one of the catalysts that made the 3rd Coalition possible.