by Tom Anderson
Unfortunately for the Berlin plotters, loyalists to Frederick William saw through this transparent ploy – it had been the plotters’ hope that the elector’s policies were demonstrably destructive enough that no-one would oppose their move, but that hope turned out to be vain. Though militarily a disaster, the elector’s moderately reformist policies had won him friends among the intelligentsia and certain parts of the Prussian nobility. The dead elector’s foreign minister Ludwig von Stülpnagel rallied his supporters, claimed the letter patent brandished by the plotters as a forgery, and demanded that Lützow surrender the child elector to his own regency. It was the first time in the young Henry Frederick’s life that he would be a bargaining chip between powerful interests. But it would be far from the last.
Chaos and civil war followed. The Berlin plotters had hoped for a smooth transition of power, and got anything but; the cursed luck of Prussia continued. Although the plotters had Lützow, Stülpnagel’s supporters managed to gain the loyalty of the local military forces and the conspirators were forced to flee. Lützow had initially hoped to go south and join up with his old army, which might support him, but in the event the plotters decided to go east and Lützow was forced to join them.
In March 1803, Prussia was on the brink of collapse. Stülpnagel’s regime ruled in Berlin, but Lützow and the other conspirators still had the child elector in their possession, and he ruled as Henry Frederick I from Königsberg. Although the Danes were in a position to threaten the city, they decided not to, reasoning that preserving the Prussian division and uncertainty was militarily more valuable than risking their external threat reuniting the Prussians against them. This was likely correctly judged – although most of the Prussian armed forces remained loyal to Stülpnagel, there was enough hesitancy and knowledge of the respected Lützow being on the other side to begin to break down Prussian military discipline and unity. The tables were turned as the Saxons and Danes continued with the kind of training and tactics they had learned from the Prussians. Meanwhile, the Poles under Pulaski and Blücher continued to tie down Prussian forces in Poland – and Stülpnagel possessed no greater strategic command than the late elector had.
Prussia fought on longer than anyone had expected, just as the country had fifty years before. But eventually peace was reached when a secret Saxon diplomatic mission secured the support of the Lützow regime in Königsberg. This was achieved without the knowledge of either the Danes or Poles, who would certainly have objected, for it guaranteed that Lützow and his child elector would continue to rule all the Prussian lands outside the border of the former Holy Roman Empire. This bought the neutrality of a large part of the Prussian army that had rallied to Lützow but was still fighting the Poles and their Swedish allies. The Danes were allowed to keep Danzig but they had hoped for much more.
This removal of a major front meant that the Poles were able to go on the offensive – not with any great degree of organisation but dividing what remained of the Prussian forces yet further. In April 1804, after seven years of war, Berlin fell and Stülpnagel surrendered. The world watched, wondering what peace would result.
The ensuing Treaty of Berlin was the most radical since the Treaty of Amsterdam that had wounded Prussia five decades ago, yet had not prevented the country making a comeback. This would make matters certain once and for all, it was felt. Prussia was dismembered, abolished. Well, Prussia remained, as in the territory east of the Holy Roman Empire – but the lands of the Prussian Hohenzollerns within that increasingly obsolete boundary were obliterated, divided, torn up in the kind of arbitrary mediatisation that, on a smaller scale, would so enrage Pascal Schmidt and go on to inspire his followers.
The division was chiefly defined by rivers. The lands east of the Elbe, including Magdeburg, were awarded to Saxony – John George V, recognising this was a large and important acquisition, made them an autonomous duchy and appointed a viceroy from the local population. The lands between the Elbe and the Oder, ruled from Berlin, were given to the Duke of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, Christian Ludwig III, who declared himself Elector of East Brandenburg (or Brandenburg-Berlin). The fact that the electoral titles were now practically meaningless and certainly not recognised by the Hapsburgs was irrelevant – it was still thought of as a title worth possessing. Finally, the lands east of the Oder, but inside the Imperial border, were given to the Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, Adolf Frederick V. The Danes, though they had failed to obtain much Prussian territory, were appeased by the acquisition of the entire former territories of those two Dukes, adding both Mecklenburgs to the emerging Danish empire and successfully counter-balancing the acquisition of Sweden with more German-speakers. This would go on to have interesting effects later on during the Popular Wars. Indeed it is small exaggeration to say the seeds for that confusing period were laid by the Treaty of Berlin.
Stülpnagel survived and eventually managed to work his way back into the ranks of the Brandenburg-Berlin ministers appointed by Christian Ludwig. The remnant Hohenzollern Prussia outside the Imperial border continued under the rule of Henry Frederick I and regency of Lützow. The remains of Hohenzollern Prussia were now tired, worn, and permanently shut out from having any say in German affairs. History changed, and this Prussia focused on using what Baltic ports it retained to become a commercial trading power – the Saxons’ treaty having shut out the angry Poles from possessing any coastline. The war ended, John George V became John IV of Poland, and the greatest German land exchange since the Peace of Westphalia had been accomplished.
And so 1804 would be the year that the infighting German powers lay back, licked their wounds, and belatedly began to notice events in the west…
Chapter #64: Le Crabe ennemi géant
This royal throne of kings! This sceptered isle!
This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars,
This other Eden, demi-paradise,
This fortress built by Nature for herself
Against infection and the hand of war!
This happy breed of men, this little world,
This precious stone set in the silver sea,
Which serves it in the office of a wall,
Or as a moat defensive to a house,
Against the envy of less happier lands…
This blessed plot, this earth, this realm…this England!
- William Shakespeare, The Tragedy of King Richard II, 1597
(the version quoted is from The Definitive Shakespeare, Imperial Press Portland, 1881)
*
From: “The Latter Jacobin Wars” by James R.V. Donaghue (1962)—
August 16th 1805 would be a momentous day in European history, though this fact would remain unknown to the wider population for many years to come. Three months beforehand, Admiral Surcouf has returned to Bordeaux to public indifference – after all, as far as they knew, he had done nothing since the invention and testing of early steamships in the late 1790s. In private, however, Surcouf met with at least limited acclaim. At the end of the year 1800, the new Republican leader Jean de Lisieux had sent him to what was then still known chiefly as New Holland, taking a sizeable part of what was left of Republican France’s sail fleet to accompany La Pérouse back to the land he had discovered. La Pérouse, of course, promptly jumped ship from the expedition and fled to the Mauré of Autiaraux. But while this hampered the scientific missions that Lamarck had envisaged, it did little to alter the mission that Lisieux had entrusted to Surcouf. That would, in any case, require the establishment of new colonies in areas which even La Pérouse had not explored in detail.
Ever since Boulanger had saved the Revolution in 1796 by negotiating the neutrality of the then-Duchy of Flanders, Lisieux had known that eventually France would be in a stronger position and be able to take the country. Its French-speaking population demanded that on Linnaean ideological grounds, and his own vision for the stabilised, reforming Republic required buffer zones on all sides. The problem was the strong alliance between Flanders and the Dutch Republic. Fra
nce might be able to launch a Guerre d’éclair into Flanders easily enough, but Dutch support for the Flemings would result in such an assault bogging down rapidly. The Dutch were experts at using their homeland’s terrain – sometimes even flooding it themselves to create barriers – to form strongpoints and then holding them in the face of superior armies. Furthermore, the large and powerful Dutch Navy had been a near-match for the French Royal Navy even before the Revolution, never mind the much smaller force that the Republic could field. With the Dutch capable of raiding the French coast with impunity, the image Lisieux wished to project of a protected and secure France would be shattered.
This problem had been obvious for years. The solution Lisieux had attempted in 1800 used Surcouf’s fleet, based in La Pérouse’s Land, to raid the rich Dutch shipping from the Dutch East Indies to the Cape Colony and on to the Netherlands itself. This achieved several goals. Firstly, it helped boost the Republican economy, by funnelling in captured trade goods that had been lost to Republican France after most of the French colonies declared for the King. Secondly, it increased the number of ships available to the Republican sail navy by means of Dutch prizes. Most of these were of course East Indiamen, cargo ships, but there were also a few real escort warships taken by overwhelming force and Surcouf’s own tactical skill. Thirdly, it also allowed Surcouf to raid Royal French shipping from French India in the knowledge that the Royal French could not afford to object. The intention with regards to the Dutch was more complex. Surcouf’s ships were careful to sail under a pirate flag, but it was obvious to everyone whom they belonged to. Lisieux had hoped to intimidate the Dutch into doing one of two things: call him out and start a war, thus forcing the Flemings to choose between participation or abandoning their alliance, or else bully the Dutch into retreating from their alliance with the Flemings.
In the event neither of these outcomes occurred. The Dutch East India Company managed to hold against Surcouf’s attacks by increasing escorts on their convoys for several years. Eventually, however, falling profit margins forced the direct intervention of the States-General on the Heeren XVII’s policy. The Dutch Navy assembled a fleet at the Cape in late 1803 and then staged an indiscriminate attack on all pirate bases they could find. It was the same manner of idea as the international anti-piracy operations which had informally begun in the late 18th century, but with a more ambitious range; not merely Algiers or Tunis, but the far side of the world. The Dutch fleet, which was commanded by Admiral Willem van Heemskerk, staged attacks on other irritants to the VOC in the region – such as the Malay and Dayak pirate groups who had long since been paid by the Portuguese to raid their Dutch rivals. It was however clear who the primary target was.
Heemskerk attacked Saint-Malo in June 1804. This was the base which Surcouf had established in the western part of La Pérouse’s Land, to be a closer point to the Dutch trade routes; it lay near the modern city of New London.[49] The Dutch attempt was an arguable tactical victory. Surcouf himself was not present, and only a few of the French ships were stationed there at the time. Heemskerk destroyed those and burned the town. However, Surcouf soon returned and rebuilt the base from the ground up. The Dutch mission only achieved a short-term decrease in the pirate activity aimed at their trade fleets.
However, the Dutch government had held firm, refusing to take Lisieux’s bait. They sent no direct complaint to Paris and equally they did not retreat from their pact with the Flemings. Indeed, now that the Dutch and Flemish were heavily involved with the complex mediatisations going on in Germany, shared interests continued to drive them closer together. This meant that, although Surcouf had successfully boosted the Republican economy and sail fleet by his actions, Lisieux’s wider strategic plan had failed. An alternative option must be sought.
It was on August 18th 1805 that Lisieux chose to reveal his new strategy to the Boulangerie, his cabal of advisors who had met less and less often since he had seized power as Administrateur. Few dared openly contradict Lisieux anymore. Now, though, he needed all their talents for his plan.
At this time, France’s position in Europe looked uncertain. The successes of a few years back had dissolved into reverses and chaos. Hoche’s Italian Latin Republic had collapsed, reduced to a rump Piedmontese state nominally led by Boulanger, while Hoche himself had returned to Lisieux’s banner with his tail between his legs. Ney had enjoyed moderate success in Swabia, but the dream of all of Germany being converted into Germanic Republican puppet states of France, which had seemed so plausible when Leroux had stood before the gates of Vienna, now seemed a distant fantasy. French pressure on the small states of Germany had only resulted in them rallying around banners of resistance, whether those be of large powers like Saxony, alliances among themselves such as the Mittelbund, or partisan Kleinkrieg operations like those of Michael Hiedler.
Ney had been forced to concede a situation where, though Germany was beset by chaos, France was shut out of most of the spoils. This also made Lisieux’s other anti-Dutch plan unworkable: L’Administrateur had hoped to control central Germany and use it as a base to attack the Netherlands from the east, a direction against which the traditional Dutch defensive lines were of little use.
Finally, the Iberian situation continued to deteriorate. The architect of this failure was unmistakably Lisieux himself; L’Administrateur had always seen the war in the Peninsula as a sideshow, and had ruthlessly withdrawn troops from the theatre even before the fall of Madrid. Now, the French grip on Spain continued to slip, while the Portuguese successfully beat back attacks by reluctant Spanish armies marching behind an ever-dwindling number of French bayonets metaphorically pressed into their backs.
It would, perhaps, then be expected that Lisieux would shelve any plans for getting into future wars while current fronts simmered with stagnation and reverses. But to suggest this is to ignore Lisieux’s mindset and his view of what constituted a victory for the Republic and the Revolution. Unlike Robespierre, he did not want to spread the Revolution. It was his opinion that attempting to establish revolutionary states elsewhere would be doomed to failure; first the ideological principles must be perfected in France, which would take years. The country must be transformed beyond all recognition, with every last trace of the ancien régime wiped away and expunged from the memory of the people.
Only then would a second round of expansion begin. Only then would he realise his vision of Europe, and then the world, divided not into ethnic republics but wider ethnic Democracies: the Latin Democracy, consisting of France, Spain and Italy; the Germanic Democracy, consisting of Germany, Scandinavia, the Netherlands and Britain; and so forth. First France must have peace, and that meant secured borders. Control of any lands outside those borders was required only for militarised buffer zones. Thus, reversals far east and south of what constituted France were of greatly lesser priority than ensuring the security and stability of that France. And first and foremost, some French-speaking areas were not even under the Republic’s control – Flanders and, of course, Royal France.
For that reason, Lisieux outlined a plan of attack. This would require a large fleet, a fleet capable of going toe-to-toe with the Dutch – although this was made easier by the fact that the Dutch had sent a large part of their navy to the far east in an attempt to subdue Surcouf, and had not yet realised that Surcouf had returned to Europe with much of his own forces. Lisieux further added that this fleet would be composed primarily of steamcraft, trusting in the fact that the Dutch had never faced them and would be uncertain of what tactics to use. Although Nelson had burned most of Surcouf’s original steamships (much to the latter’s annoyance when he learned of this), the new programme of building that Admiral Lepelley had established meant that France was now equipped with technologically superior Surcouf-class steamcraft (Admiral Surcouf was rather more pleased to learn of that). These both incorporated lessons learned from the earlier models, such as propeller design, and also had new innovations. A modular design allowed for easily swappable main w
eapons or other items. The Surcouf-class was also capable of navigation of inland rivers by virtue of their shallow draught and narrow bows.
Lisieux explained the basics of his plan: the steamfleet would launch a surprise attack on the Netherlands by sea, destroy the local Dutch fleet, and attempt to take Den Haag by an amphibious descent and Amsterdam via the Zuiderzee, along with other key Dutch coastal cities.[50] They would be backed up by troops in sail transports, including many of the Dutch East Indiamen that Surcouf had captured, for a delicious irony. At the same time, the main French Republican Army would attack Flanders by conventional means, surging over the border. Forcing the alliance to divide their forces should guarantee victory.
