XI. 1813. he sacrificed fully as many more; and yet he began the CHAP. campaign on the Elbe, in August 1813, with 400,000 soldiers in the field, besides 190,000 deposited in the fortresses on that river, the Oder, and the Vistula. This armament was superior by 100,000 to the entire force which the Allies could bring against it, and yet of this enormous mass, resting on such an array of strong places, he brought back only 70,000 to the Rhine, of whom not more than 40,000 had their arms, or were in an efficient state. Twice, in little more than a year, he had lost half a million of men, yet he was able in the spring following to array such an army for the defence of France as rendered it a matter of doubt whether the mighty host of the Allies would not be defeated, and French preponderance maintained in Europe! Such was the power which England and her allies had to confront in the ensuing campaign and negotiations; and no one who does not consider these facts, and transport himself in imagination to those times, can form an adequate idea either of the difficulty of the task which awaited her diplomatists and warriors intrusted with it, or the magnitude of the debt which Europe owes them for the manner in which they performed it. 70. Sir R. Wil Austrian army in These considerations afford the real clue to an event which occurred at this time, and excited no slight sur- Removal of prise at the Allied headquarters; and that was the re-son to the moval of Sir Robert Wilson from the honourable post he had so long held there to a similar situation, in which he Italy. was to correspond directly with the Government, with the Austrian army in Italy. This decision was announced to him in instructions from Lord Castlereagh, received on 25th December 1813, at Frankfort.* Lord Castlereagh's * "In the evening I received instructions from England which appointed me military resident at the Italian army, to correspond direct with the British Government; and only to keep our ambassador informed, but not to be under his control. This is a clause of no consequence while Aberdeen remains, as we are on terms which require no such powers of independence. Lord Castlereagh notes that my income will be suitably augmented by a bat and forage allowance, to meet the exigency of extraordinary expenses. On the whole, CHAP. XI. 1813. letter was couched in courteous terms, and the situation to which he was transferred was one of honour and importance, with an increase of emolument. But Sir Robert Wilson felt it not unnaturally as a sort of honourable banishment, and his separation from his old companions in arms gave him great regret. To soften the separation to him, Sir Charles Stewart told him “that it was owing to a very old political engagement [Lord Burghersh's], almost coeval with Castlereagh's own appointment; and he is very angry with the measures which have been taken to show the inconvenience resulting to the service from its maintenance to my exclusion, as it 1 Wilson, ii. embarrasses his brother." But although the merit of the successor who immediately after came in his place (Lord Burghersh) was great, and his connections high, these were not the real reasons of the change, which was dictated by overpowering reasons of state necessity. 267. 71. son of this change. 1 The real reason was expressed tersely, but correctly, in a The real rea- letter of Lord Castlereagh's to Lord Aberdeen, in which he said, "If Sir Robert Wilson has the confidence of all other governments, he wants that of his own.” This was the simple fact, and it rendered his farther retention at the Allied headquarters at this juncture not only inexpedient, but dangerous. Sir Robert's military talents and heroic courage had won for him not only the high esteem but the warm regard of the Allied sovereigns; but that only rendered him the more dangerous in his situation at their headquarters, for he had become imbued with their ideas and moulded to their views. With all his chivalrous and heroic qualities, he had a secret vein of vanity in his character, which rendered him little qualified to withstand the flattery of emperors and kings. He had become thoroughly Austrian in his diplomatic ideas, though a true Briton in his heart: Metternich was the polar star of his neither the spirit nor the letter of the instructions is liable to objection; but I thought it right to record the feelings of regret which attend my removal from the Allied army. I hope I have done so with temper and success."WILSON'S Diary, ii. 279. XI. 1813. political worship. He entertained the most exaggerated CHAP. ideas of the resources of the French Emperor, and regarded the invasion of France as a senseless chimera which could terminate in nothing but disaster.* He knew perfectly the fearful losses the Allies had sustained during the campaign; but he did not know, or would not believe, that those of the French had been still greater. With this idea he was a most acceptable guest with the Emperor of Russia, who, seeing Russia safe beyond the reach of attack, had little interest in engaging in a third hazardous campaign for the Low Countries and frontier of the Rhine; and with the Emperor of Austria, who desired to save the French throne for his daughter and her descendants. So far had these views proceeded, that in the first week of December the Allied sovereigns, without communi- Dec. 8. cating with Lord Aberdeen, had agreed to treat on the basis of securing to France the line of the Alps, the Rhine, and the Pyrenees. On the other hand, Lord Wilson, Castlereagh regarded such a basis as fatal to the interests of Great Britain, and leaving France possessed of a strength which would enable her again, at pleasure, to invade and subjugate the adjoining states. In these critical circumstances, when England, with decisive success almost within her reach, was on the point of losing all her advantages, nothing could be more perilous than to have the military correspondence from the Allied headquarters in the hands of an officer of great repute entirely imbued with the Austrian ideas on the subject, and constantly representing to the Cabinet the difficulties with which the carrying out * Sir R. Wilson's opinions on this subject were very strong, and repeatedly expressed. For example: "When I calculate all the political and military disadvantages of a coalition such as ours; the want of zeal to continue the war in the Russian army; the inability of Prussia to repair her losses, and the certainty of Buonaparte being able to acquire great strength before spring, I have no hesitation in giving my voice for peace on the terms which Buonaparte offers. If we are now too elated, and direct our views to encroachment on the natural boundaries of France, or to change of dynasty by compulsion, we may find that extravagant pretensions diminish our power of enforcing them. I wish to secure the future while the force of Europe is concentrated. Opinion in France will achieve there what remains to be done."-WILSON, ii. 179. ii. 265. CHAP. XI. the British views would be attended. At such a crisis, his high character, known confidence with the Allied 1813. sovereigns, and military reputation, only rendered him the more dangerous correspondent for the Cabinet of St James's, many of whom were also secretly inclined to the same views. And this was the real cause of the change in the duties of this gallant officer. 72. Powerful agency of family in ance of Europe. 1 Sallust. 1 No opinion is more general in the world, or more frequently expressed by writers on the subject, than that the Stewart Napoleon was crushed and Europe delivered by a genethe deliver- ral effort of insurgent humanity, which rose up like one man to shake off the load which had oppressed it. This is undoubtedly true in one sense, for unless those who took the lead in the struggle had been seconded by the general concurrence and heroic efforts of the people under their charge, all the efforts made for the deliverance of Europe would have proved ineffectual. But it is not less true that all these general exertions would have proved equally nugatory if it had not been for the strenuous agency and intrepid perseverance of a very few men :— "Paucorum civium egregiâm virtutem cuncta patravisse." Europe, it is true, rose up like one man to fight, but more than half rose up in support of, Napoleon. In the beginning of the campaigns of Salamanca, Moscow, and Leipsic, he was not only superior, but immensely superior, to all the forces the Allies could bring against him. In this memorable few, it is surprising how much is to be ascribed to one family. If Lord Castlereagh had not broken through the usual routine of military promotion to give Wellington the command in Portugal, and supported him and urged the continuance of the Peninsular war, when both were violently assailed by a powerful opposition, and Government had only a slender majority, if majority it could be called, in the House of Commons, the campaign of Torres Vedras would have never encouraged the Russians to resist the French invasion, and furnished a model on which their system of defence was to be framed. If he had not in the same year strenuously combated the recommendation of the Bullion Committee, all but forced upon Government by the House of Commons, to compel the bank to resume cash payments in two years, the monetary crisis of 1825 or 1857 would have occurred at the opening of the Moscow and the Salamanca campaign, and national bankruptcy would have prostrated Great Britain at the very crisis of the war. If he had not withstood the loud clamour against the Peninsular war, if he had failed in feeding Wellington with adequate supplies in 1813, the battle of Vitoria would never have caused Joseph's crown to drop from his head, or brought Austria at the decisive moment into the field, after the armistice of Pleswitz. But for the lavish and, as it seemed at the time, prodigal expenditure in aid of Prussia, Austria, and Russia, during the campaign of 1813, the forces of these powers could never have been arrayed in sufficient strength to combat the half million of armed men who were collected round the standards of Napoleon. But for the manly and intrepid conduct of Sir Charles Stewart in terminating the indecision, and compelling the advance, at the eleventh hour, of Bernadotte, the Army of the North would never have been brought into action at Leipsic, and a decisive victory would never have delivered 250,000 prisoners, in the field and in the fortresses, into the hands of the Allies, at the very moment when France was threatened with invasion.* But for the exertions of these two men in the Cabinet, aided as they were by those of Wellington and Blucher in the field, the convulsive efforts of Germany in 1813 would have been attended by no other result than that which followed those of Austria in 1809, *This is no exaggeration. Thiers states (xvi. 637) the garrisons Taken in retreat to Rhine, 190,000 men. 52,000 CHAP. XI. 1813. |