by Alan Schom
The self-damning speech contained not only blatant lies but also the admission that his Continental System, foisted on his allies, had destroyed their economies. The pall of despair was felt in every quarter, police official Blanc de Hauterive confiding to Talleyrand, “Commerce is finished here. Another two months like this and there will be more business to be found in a provincial American town than in Paris.” But when the leaders of the French business community beseeched Napoleon to lift his Continental System, he snapped, “For a mere cup of coffee, badly sweetened at that, they would stop the hand that wants to liberate mankind!”[758]
By 1813, 5 percent Consols, or bonds — so popular among the wealthy as safe investments — dropped from 80 to 50 on the Bourse, while the shares of Bonaparte’s prestigious Banque de France plunged from 1,480 to 690 francs a share, but Napoleon blindly refused to recognize the disaster he had brought on France and its allies.
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As noted, it was the occupied territories that had to keep paying France, year after year. Once-flourishing Holland was a good example of the realities of the situation.
For example, by 1809 Holland’s reduced budget of 70 million florins (or 32,258,000 francs) was not covered by its annual revenue of only 52 million florins (or 23,963,133 francs), and with another 55,128,332 florins (or 25,404,761 francs) in interest, the Dutch national debt had risen to 1,475,807,742 florins. It became much worse each successive year. What is more, Dutch troops were forced to fight for the hated French in lands with which they were not at war, such as Spain and Germany, their entire navy seized by the French and the entire Dutch naval officer corps forced at gunpoint to serve on French warships under the French tricolor! The French troops, officers, and officials who had governed that unfortunate land before the rise of King Louis Bonaparte were once again to take control when Napoleon forced Louis to abdicate in 1810, while the Continental System and war with the English completed the destruction of Holland by virtually annihilating its trade and leaving the port of Amsterdam as empty as those of Marseilles and Bordeaux. To this deliberate financial destruction must be added Napoleon’s irrational hatred of the Dutch, evident from the moment in 1803 when he began preparing his impressive invasion plans for England. Napoleon the Latin, the Corsican, had a downright loathing and scorn of northern Europeans and of any group that prized hard work and commercial enterprise above the martial attainment achieved on the field of battle. Napoleon would never understand or even attempt to sympathize with the people of Holland.
Nor was Jérôme Bonaparte’s growing kingdom spared his brother’s financial exactions. Westphalia stretched from the Lahn and Werra Rivers in the south to the North and Baltic Seas, bordering on the Confederation of the Rhine on the west, a stone’s throw from Holland, and on Prussia on the East.
It should have been a wealthy, contented kingdom, but it was not. The Duchy of Brunswick and the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel formed the heart of this new kingdom carved out of formerly independent German states. Napoleon had reshaped it employing French military governors, enforced by French law. In theory initial French rule should have been beneficent, with the abolition of serfdom and feudal rights and privileges, and a fairer system of taxation. It was even given a miniature parliament. But Jérôme Bonaparte, named that institution’s president, could prorogue or dismiss it at will, and after 1810 he simply ignored it altogether. Above this stood Jérôme’s powerful and influential Council of State. Jérôme enjoyed almost supreme control over the land, down to the naming of the country’s magistrates. And although the Napoleonic Code was introduced, so too was universal conscription. An unwanted French army of occupation initially 12,500 strong ultimately increased to more than 30,000, was entirely supported by the kingdom’s annual revenues and budget.
Jérôme and his lovely if somewhat hysterical young queen, Catherine, officially began their reign at Kassel on December 7, 1807. Jérôme — like Louis in Holland — swept away most of Napoleon’s administrative officials and replaced them with his own men, including his minister of police. His well-meaning officials protested Jérôme’s own growing financial irresponsibility and personal and state indebtedness. At the same time Jérôme resisted brother Napoleon’s decrees to enforce the Continental System, openly defying him by permitting the sale and transshipment of British industrial and colonial goods. Then there were his wild “flings” — the state of near perpetual festivity, lavish balls, theatricals, and entertainments accompanied by uncontrolled expenditure on gifts, clothing, jewelry, new court uniforms, and state decorations. (He even offered Beethoven the post of Kappelmeister, which the celebrated composer wisely declined.) To all this had to be added Jérôme’s generous expenditures on his long line of mistresses.
But in the long run, it was Napoleon who called the tunc. Westphalian troops were employed by him largely outside Westphalia, in Germany, Austria, Spain, the Baltic fortresses, and finally Russia, while French troops continued to subdue Westphalia itself. Of all the states allied to France, Jérôme’s kingdom had the most professional, best-paid, best-equipped army, with the only officer corps in Europe comprising Catholics, Calvinists, Jews, and Lutherans. (This was in stark contrast to the situation in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, where, at the insistence of the Poles, to which Napoleon acceded, Jews were not allowed to serve as officers and were divested of all political and voting rights as well.) And like Louis, who in the Netherlands stressed the Dutch character of his people, Jérôme emphasized that of the Germans. With little formal education himself, he maintained education at a high — if aberrant — level (although sometimes threatening to destroy it). Jérôme was full of surprises. But he had suffered from uprisings during Napoleon’s second Danube campaign leading to Wagram, including armed attempts against the state by Katte, Dörnberg, Martin, Schill, Colonel Emmerich, and the duke of Brunswick-Ols with his Black Legion of Vengeance, ten thousand strong.
The real undoing of the Westphalian hodge-podge was, however, finances. Jérôme certainly added a generous strain of indebtedness, but it was Napoleon who clearly and decisively broke the proverbial camel’s back. On naming Jérôme as his latest puppet king, Napoleon immediately heaped enormous indebtedness on the population of 2 million, with a French debt of 34 million francs, while claiming another 26 million resulting from the indebtedness of the former ruling family. As usual in all the countries he conquered, Bonaparte put his own hand into the till, allocating for himself annually another 7 million francs from Jérôme’s personal royal domains. A hand here, a hand there. French troops of occupation added a further 20 million francs to the annual Westphalian budget, exclusive of the even higher annual costs for Jérôme’s own private Westphalian army. The invisible costs to quarter and maintain the French army over the next few years rose to 200 million francs, which Jérôme of course had to pay. To these had to be added the official outstanding domestic debt of 47 million francs — all this from a state with total annual revenues of just 34 million francs! To this was added the crippling effects of Napoleon’s Continental System, forcing Jérôme to sell many prime national properties and all of the kingdom’s royal domains — but still the state’s indebtedness grew. No one could begin to appease a bloodsucker like Napoleon. Jérôme and Napoleon then extorted “loans” from businessmen and financiers. Taxation, which had begun modestly, was forced sharply upward, taxes on family income (called “hearth taxes”), food, salt, stamps, licenses for various businesses, and indirect taxation reaching unbearable levels. To these burdens were added a “personal” tax on most males above the age of sixteen, while a separate land tax rose to 20 percent by the end of Jérôme’s regime. Although Napoleon handed over Hannover to Westphalia in January 1810, he soon burdened this acquisition with debt and military occupation as well, enforced by none other than the ruthless Marshal Davout, prince of Eckmühl, who was brought in to administer the region, facilitate tax collection, and sequester all supplies needed to support his Army of the North.
By October 30, 1810, twen
ty-six-year-old Jérôme was practically broken by the incessant ravages of Napoleon’s demands. Jérôme pleaded that “if he [Napoleon] leaves me here [as king in Westphalia]...then he cannot deny me the means by which to maintain myself with honor.” Napoleon’s reply echoed the unrelenting acquisitiveness and harshness earlier issued to both Joseph and Louis. “It seems unnecessary to repeat that you have made agreements with me, and they must be kept, but you have not done so.” The Godfather had spoken. When by the end of the year a weary Jérôme still could not begin to meet the arrears in pay to the French troops of occupation, Napoleon annexed half of Hannover, Osnabrück, and most of Minden, leaving Jérôme with the same debts but fewer means than ever of paying them.
Thus the once prosperous fairy-tale kingdom of Westphalia, like Holland before it, was brought to a state of ruin. As for the domestic debt, which Jérôme had found at 47 million francs on his accession to the throne in December 1807, that had risen to a staggering 220 million. Napoleon’s Continental System had been at work.
Nor was Spain spared Napoleon’s economic scythe. Napoleon found brother Joseph — like Louis and Jérôme — difficult, independent, and contrary. Like Louis and Jérôme, Joseph for his part found brother Napoleon avaricious, arrogant, thieving, outrageous, and meddlesome, with no interest whatsoever in the welfare of the people he had chosen to govern.
There were two principal causes for the collapse and shattering of the Spanish economy during the years of French military occupation: the enforcement of the Continental System, involving the closing of Spanish ports along the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to Anglo-Spanish commerce, and the costs of war and of the occupation itself. In no other single country did Napoleon insist on maintaining such an enormous full-time military force, ranging in size from 250,000 to 300,000 men.
The initial force, which had cost 142 million francs to maintain in the first year ending 1809-10, had by the following year already doubled to 284 million francs. The cost for maintaining and paying the French army, along with the expenses for administering the country that first year alone — 800 million francs — was almost equal to the entire French annual budget. In addition, as usual Napoleon had to lend the local Bonaparte king, brother Joseph in this case, some 228 million francs during the initial two years, for which the Spanish government was held responsible.
Meanwhile the new Spanish domestic debt increased from 9,600,000 francs in 1808 to 87,200,000 francs by 1813. National revenue on the other hand did not rise, remaining at about 32 million francs. Then of course there was the little matter of Spanish indebtedness to France, which, beginning at 28,533,333 francs in 1808 ultimately reached 165 million francs by 1813. As for the French army of occupation, that cost soared from 141,866,666 francs to 864,533,000 francs by 1813.
To meet these staggering sums, “rebel” property was seized and sold by the French (when buyers could be found), including royal domains, sprawling church properties, and large private estates, and of course taxes were increased, in a country where little enough specie was to be found even among the oldest aristocratic families, poverty rising along with inflation. Spanish government monopolies involving the sale of liquors and liqueurs, sealing wax, tobacco, and playing cards were ended, and royal manufactories (including china, crystal, and cloth) were privatized, as were the Bourbon gaming houses. The result was a disastrous loss of official income for the new French government under El Rey José, despite the enormous amount of private booty seized and the raising of taxes and internal tariffs.
Nevertheless taxes and sweeping confiscation of properties did not suffice, as war intensified in every corner of the land and commerce was squeezed to a trickle, thanks again to the Continental System. For Napoleon, of course, this was the ideal rationale for intervening, for taking direct control of parts of Spain, just as he had done in Holland and Westphalia. Even before his magnificent wedding ceremony with Marie-Louise in the spring of 1810, Napoleon had seized Aragon, Catalonia, Navarre, Biscay, Burgos, and Valladolid — in other words almost the entire northern part of the country. Joseph himself really directly administered only New Castile (and the southern part of Old Castile), Segovia, and Avila in the center, under the protection of French armies battling to pacify the peninsula.
But even with French military governors and commanders collecting revenue directly from the Spaniards, the military indebtedness of the French army ballooned beyond control, costing Paris between 24 and 34 million francs a month in direct subsidies to Spain and its armies. With the exception of the Egyptian campaign, never before had Napoleon determined to persist in a state of permanent active warfare with one particular country, month after month, year after year. In the Netherlands; in the various German states; in Prussia, Austria, and Italy there had been wars, but they were defined and limited to a few months and battles. In Iberia between 250,000 and 300,000 French troops (including units added by his allies) were in a state of permanent war. The casualties continued to mount, as did the price in gold. “The enormous costs of the war in Spain are too much for me,” Napoleon had warned Joseph by 1810. But instead of admitting defeat, reducing the growing debt and loss of manpower, Napoleon increased and extended his armies and his costs. “Your Majesty is imposing a burden on this country that it simply cannot bear,” Joseph riposted in vain.
The pressures on a baffled Joseph continued, and it seemed that — as with Louis in the Netherlands and Jérôme in Westphalia — Napoleon was deliberately attempting to squeeze his brother out by rendering his life impossible and humiliating, while the opportunist Soult was openly hinting at his desire to receive an independent Portuguese crown for himself. Meanwhile, the principal French commanders, including Ney, Masséna, and Marmont, ignored Joseph’s orders for the most part, only Marshal Jourdan supporting him. In addition guerrilla warfare everywhere undermined Joseph and the French military, resulting in attacks even on well-armed troop columns, seizing supply convoys and grain.
Throughout this period the position of King Joseph had never been satisfactory from either Napoleon’s viewpoint or his own. Spanish hatred of the French would disappear, Joseph had predicted at the beginning, once they saw that France was bringing “wiser, more liberal laws, better adapted to the times we live in than those of the Inquisition.” Joseph’s opinion had changed, however, as soon as he reached Madrid, where he experienced firsthand the hatred of the people so brutally put down by Marshal Murat’s sabers following their famous Dos de Mayo uprising. And as Joseph also quickly discovered, there was no room for liberal ideas in wartime, and Spain was by now literally one enormous battlefield. Not a region of the country went unscathed, and despite Joseph’s sincere wish to alleviate the woes then afflicting the Spaniards, he could not do so as long as the country was at war with France. Joseph pleaded time and again with Napoleon to end the war and instead win over the people by love and trust. Napoleon grew so irritated with Joseph’s pathetic “naiveté” that he gradually reduced his brother’s effective power, even removing Joseph’s personal commander in chief, Marshal Jourdan, replacing him with his own men, including Soult and Masséna, who remained directly under his orders and openly refused to obey Joseph’s. Soon there was scarcely a French general or marshal in Iberia who would take orders from Joseph.
Joseph in return dissociated himself more and more from the French officers and officials at his court, replacing them with Spaniards, again following the example of Louis in Holland and Jérôme in Westphalia. The court of “the puppet El Rey José” soon became an opposing camp for Paris. “The emperor was the personal butt of the hatred and sarcasms of most of the King’s court,” General Sébastiani reported to Napoleon. A frustrated Joseph made little attempt to conceal his anger as he protested his rights as the legal head of state as well as of the family. “Joseph still believes himself to be my elder, he still has pretensions to head the family. Is there anything more absurd!” Napoleon exclaimed behind his back. The almost continuous check met by Napoleon’s forces in Iberia merely
embittered both Bonaparte brothers all the more, each feeling himself the victim. “[Spanish] public opinion is entirely turned against us today,” Joseph confided to Queen Julie, who remained in Paris and refused to join him. Napoleon had to start following his advice. “Tell this to the emperor and remind him that he has more at stake, his greater glory and responsibility, so far as posterity is concerned, than do I.” “The profession I practice here is, under the circumstances, quite impossible today,” Joseph confided in another letter to his wife:
If his...purpose is to make me feel disgusted with Spain, he has achieved his ends...The vexing position in which he wishes to leave me as ruler of a great country is quite unacceptable. I want to know what precisely he wants of me, and if that position includes humiliating me, then I wish to retire from here. I do not want to be under the tutelage of those beneath me [French officers and officials]. I do not want to see my provinces administered by men I do not trust. I do not want to be merely a crowned child-king, because I do not need a crown to prove myself a man, and I feel myself quite great enough on my own merits without having to put up with such charades.
“He [Napoleon] repeated to me that you had only two possibilities open to you,” Julie replied on January 13, 1811. “To remain in Spain and quietly accept his wishes, or to return to France as a French prince, and, he added, ‘if he has any sense, he will remain in Spain and follow my orders, unless of course he rejects both possibilities and decides to follow Lucien’s example, by going over to the English.’” While making up his mind, Joseph took the precaution of sending over several hundred thousand francs in gold for investment in English banks.[759]
