How Petersburg became a “figure” in the big game of London
210 years ago, 7 July 1807, was signed by Tilsit World. Russia and France signed a peace treaty that ended the 1806-1807 war, and a secret union treaty.
Napoleon believed that he had achieved the most important goal he had dreamed of since the reign of Russian Tsar Pavel Petrovich, a strategic alliance with Russia. However, Tsar Alexander looked differently at this union, he was supported by the Anglo and Germanophiles at court. As a result, this union was not long and fruitful, as the French emperor dreamed. Already in 1812, Russia and France once again clashed on the battlefield. The Russian-French conflict was beneficial to England, which saw Napoleon’s main rival in Western Europe, as well as Austria and Prussia, who wanted to regain their positions.
The French Revolution led to a series of wars, a number of European monarchies created military-political alliances against France. At first, France defended, but soon her revolutionary army gained new experience, was reorganized, led by young, talented generals, including Napoleon. France launched an offensive, showing the advantages of the new bourgeois-republican system over the old feudal monarchies. As a result, France has become a serious opponent of England within the western project. Napoleon planned: to crush the sea and colonial power of England, this traditional enemy of the French; oust the British from the Mediterranean, establishing the predominance of France in the Middle East (particularly in Egypt); conquer "natural boundaries" along the Rhine and the Alps, in Belgium and Holland; to establish the political and economic leadership of France in Western Europe (the “European Union” led by France).
Thus, France claimed leadership in Western Europe and in the Western project as a whole, which did not suit London at all. The British, focusing on the preservation of maritime rule and the struggle for the colonies, began to set the rest of the European powers against France by promises, intrigues and gold. The main opponents of France were Austria and Prussia, who did not want to cede leadership to the French in Western Europe. And Russia, although the Russians had neither common borders nor fundamental contradictions with the French.
Sovereign Pavel Petrovich, after the Italian and Swiss campaigns of A. Suvorov and F. Ushakov’s sea expedition in the Mediterranean, realized that Russia was fighting for the interests of England and Austria. He made peace with Napoleon, negotiations began on an alliance. Pavel set up an organization against the "Mistress of the Seas" of the New League of Armed Neutrality, which was supposed to include the strongest powers of Northern Europe - Denmark, Sweden, Prussia, who also suffered from the master's behavior of the British on the seas. There was a preparation of a campaign to India, the main colony of Britain. The anti-British union of Russia and France was deadly to London. Pavel is murdered by Russian Western masons, with the organizational and financial support of the British. The murder of the Russian sovereign was an excellent example of the British subversive, destructive policy. This monstrous action allowed the British to solve several important tasks at once: 1) the Russian Tsar was eliminated, who rose to an understanding of global politics (the need to fight the Anglo-Saxons, an alliance with France, a turn to the South Seas); 2) a young Alexander ascended to the throne, intimidated by the murder of his father and surrounded by young "friends" -masons, Westerners. Paul's murderers did not suffer any punishment. The new Russian Tsar as a whole pursued a policy in the strategic interests of England; 3) the Russian-French alliance was destroyed, the Russians were soon again turned into "cannon fodder" in the struggle of England against France. England was able to maintain leadership in the western globalization project for a century.
The tsarist government, instead of quietly watching the intra-European predators struggle, engaging in the development of the country (Siberia, the Far East, Russian America, the Caucasus), developing expansion to the East and the South, creating the project of Russian globalization, solving the millennial task of occupying Constantinople-Tsargrad and the straits, allowed himself to be drawn into a lengthy, bloody and very resource-intensive conflict with France.
The deep-seated controversy between France and England led 1803 to a new war. The tsarist government, considering the problems of Italy and Germany as a zone of national interests, eventually again began to pursue anti-French policy. In 1804, defensive alliances were concluded with Denmark, Prussia, Austria and Sweden. In the 1804, an English-Russian alliance was concluded. In 1805, Russia signed an allied port agreement with Russia. The 3-I anti-French coalition was formed. As a result, Napoleon was forced to abandon the idea of an amphibious operation in England, for which he prepared with great enthusiasm and made a roll to the east. Austria made a military-strategic mistake by launching an offensive before the approach of the Russian army. This allowed Napoleon, first in October 1805, to crush the Austrians near Ulm, in November to take the capital of the Austrian Empire, Vienna, and in December inflict a decisive defeat on the Russian-Austrian army near Austerlitz (Battle of the Three Emperors). This made the Austrians capitulate. The anti-French coalition was defeated and collapsed. but The British were able to solve the main problem for themselves - they destroyed the French fleet near Trafalgar and removed the threat of the French landing on the British Isles.
Prussia, who was going to start a war with France, after Austerlitz immediately changed her position and entered into an alliance with Napoleon. In payment for this changeable position, Napoleon presented Berlin with Hannover (French ownership of the English crown). With the Habsburgs, Napoleon was no longer on guard. Peace was signed in Pressburg. The Austrians recognized all French takeovers in Western Europe and paid indemnities. In addition, Vienna was inferior to Napoleon, as the king of Italy, the Venetian region, Istria and Dalmatia. The French went to the western part of the Balkan Peninsula. Austria lost the German allies of France to Tyrol and a number of other possessions. The Habsburg Empire lost a sixth of its possessions. In addition, the Habsburgs lost their leadership in Germany. 6 August 1806, the emperor Franz resigned from the honorary and sacred title of the German emperor. The "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" thus collapsed under the blows of the victorious French weapons. Between the Rhine and the Elbe, the primacy of the French state was asserted. The ancient dream of Richelieu and Mazarin was embodied in reality. In July, the 1806 of the year 16 of the West German states formed the German Union, headed by the French emperor in the person of the “protector”. According to the allied treaties concluded with France, each member of the new union pledged to supply military contingents to the Great Army of Napoleon.
Thus, with the creation of the Italian kingdom and the Rhine Union, the foundation was laid for the existence of a new great European empire, reminiscent of the times of Charlemagne. That is, Napoleon, in fact, created the "European Union" led by the French. France became the economic core of the new bloc.France’s affiliated and vassal dependent states became sources of raw materials for the growing French industry and markets. At the same time, the "pan-European army" - the "Great Army" was created.where the core was the victorious French army and guards, led by a number of talented and determined French generals and marshals. Napoleon also created the prerequisites for the spread of French influence in the Middle East, and then in the Middle East. The capture of Dalmatia on the Adriatic coast allowed Napoleon to influence the Balkan regions of the Turkish Empire. So Napoleon largely anticipated and united Europe, led by Hitler's Third Reich and the current European Union.
It is clear that this did not suit the British, they remained outside the united Western Europe, their “new world order” project (the world British Empire) collapsed, led by the Anglo-Saxons, Britain could lose the position of “world workshop” and “sea ruler”. Napoleon, having at hand the main resources of Western Europe and a calm rear in the face of Russia (what he was constantly striving for), would sooner or later put Britain on our knees or the British would have a way to eliminate it. It also did not suit Austria and Prussia, who lost their dominant position in fragmented Germany and Central Europe, and the Austrians lost hegemony in divided Italy. therefore Berlin, Vienna and London actively sought to use the main strike force in the fight against Napoleon - the Russians.
Napoleon’s victory over Austria and Russia in 1805 and the consolidation of the French on the Adriatic coast dramatically changed Porta’s attitude to Paris. Ottoman Sultan Selim III immediately changed his former allies. He recognized Napoleon as the “padishah of France” and, in his person, welcomed “the oldest, most faithful and necessary ally” of Turkey. The French representative, General Sebastiani, arrived in Constantinople, who tried with all his might to incite Porto to Russia in order to divert the attention of the Russians from European affairs. Under his influence, the sultan replaced the friendly rulers of Russia in Moldavia and Wallachia with francopile boyars. As a result, Russia sent troops into the Danube principalities. In December, 1806, Turkey declared war on Russia.
Meanwhile, Russia, after the defeat of 1805 of the year, did not abandon the war with France. Alexander, not wanting to tie his hands and hoping for new allies against Napoleon, sent only a minor diplomat Ubri to Paris. In July, a peace agreement was signed on 1806. However, Alexander Pavlovich did not want to ratify this document. As he wished, by the fall of 1806, the military-political situation in Europe had changed markedly. Prussia was irritated by the policy of France in Germany, the creation of the Rhine Union. Berlin again went on rapprochement with England and Russia. 1 July 1806 was signed a secret declaration in Berlin. The Prussian king Frederick William III confirmed his loyalty to Russia and assured that he would never "join France." At the same time, England promised subsidies to Prussia. The fourth anti-French coalition was formed.
1 October 1806, the Prussian king presented an ultimatum to Paris in 10-day to withdraw the French troops over the Rhine. The war began. The Prussians, who confidently launched the war and believed that they would crush the French army, repeated the mistakes of Vienna in the 1805 model of the year. They launched an offensive without waiting for the approach of the Russian army. October 14 Prussian army suffered a crushing defeat in a double battle at Jena and Auerstedt (How Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army). On the shoulders of the completely demoralized Prussian troops, Napoleon’s army, in a short time, effortlessly occupied the main strategic fortresses of Prussia and October 27 entered Berlin. The military catastrophe of Prussia was an important step towards the creation of the world empire of Napoleon. Being in Berlin, the French emperor 21 of November signed a decree that forbade all dependent and dependent countries any relationship with England and its colonies. No longer able to crush England by landing on the islands, Napoleon decided to economically strangle Britain, closing its markets for European countries.
The war with Russia and Prussia, meanwhile, continued. In December 1806, the fighting was transferred to the territory of Poland (Prussia-owned Polish regions) and East Prussia. The campaign was stubborn and bloody, the Russian and French troops fiercely fought, no one wanted to concede. It was a battle of the titans, equal in power opponents. However, in the spring of 1807, the French army was able to push the Allies back. 14 June, near Friedland, the Russian army was defeated in a decisive battle (Friedland Battle) and the French went to the Neman, the Russian border. Alexander had to ask for a truce. Napoleon, who also desired peace, immediately agreed. June 13 (25) 1807 occurred historical meeting of two emperors. Alexander and Napoleon met on a raft set in the middle of the Neman.
7 July was signed a peace treaty and an agreement on the union of two continental empires, directed against England. 9 July was an additional agreement on possession of Russia in the Mediterranean. Russia ceded ally Cattaro Bay in Dalmatia and the Ionian Islands. Napoleon went to meet Alexander in the Prussian question. Napoleon wanted to destroy the “vile dynasty” of the Hohenzollerns and the Prussian kingdom. At the insistence of Alexander Prussia as a state was saved. However, almost all of the Polish lands of Prussia (they departed to Berlin following the divisions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) rejected it, and from them created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, dependent on Napoleon’s empire and inherently hostile to the Russians. Napoleon offered the amicable division of these lands along the Vistula, but Alexander, not wanting to get a new enemy in the person of Prussia, refused the lands of his former ally. But nevertheless he agreed to receive the Prussian kingdom belonging to the Belostok okrug. It is clear that the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw was a dangerous process for St. Petersburg. The Polish elite traditionally hated Russia and dreamed of restoring the Commonwealth from the Baltic to the Black Sea, of course, mainly due to the Russian lands. It did not help that many representatives of the Polish elite flourished in the Russian Empire. The Duchy of Warsaw became the bridgehead of the French empire in Eastern Europe, threatening Prussia and Russia with their existence.
Russia recognized all the changes that Napoleon Bonaparte made in Europe. Petersburg withdrew troops from Cattaro Bay and the "Republic of the Seven Islands", which came "to the full ownership and possession of Emperor Napoleon." The signed treaty of alliance provided for: 1) joint action by both powers against any third European power hostile to them; 2) Russia's mediation in the conclusion of the Anglo-French peace treaty and the obligation, in the event of England's refusal to conclude peace on the terms proposed to her, to break with her by December 1, 1807, Russia's accession to the continental blockade was envisaged; 3) French mediation in the Russian-Turkish war and in the event of a joint war against the Ottoman Empire - the division of its European provinces among the allies, except for Rumelia and Constantinople. Thus, in Tilsit, Napoleon easily framed his Turkish "partner" Sultan Selim III, although he was promised the inviolability of his possessions. Napoleon wanted to restore plans for the division of the Turkish Empire and further movement to the East, to India, which he planned under Paul I.
Two days after the signing of the main Franco-Russian agreements, on July 9, a Franco-Prussian peace treaty was signed in Tilsit. Prussia was deprived of the Salba, Western, and also Eastern Polish possessions. The Prussian kingdom was almost halved in territory and population. Berlin pledged to join the continental blockade and pay a huge indemnity. Prussia, in fact, though preserved as a state, became a vassal state, especially before the withdrawal of the French occupation forces.
In the Russian aristocratic elite, where the positions of the Anglo and Germanophiles were strong, the news of an alliance with France was negative. Napoleon was considered a "usurper", a "Corsican monster" who illegally seized power in France and rapes Europe. In addition, England was the leading economic partner of Russia, Russian raw materials were brought there and received industrial and colonial goods. The dependence of part of the Russian nobility and merchants on trade with England forced the high society to look with disgust at the Tilsit union. Alexander himself also did not want lasting peace and alliance with Napoleon. Therefore, the Tilsit peace, perceived with great enthusiasm by the French emperor, did not last long. Soon the Russian and French valiant troops would converge again on the battlefields, shedding blood in the interests of Britain, Austria and Prussia. And France, after a collision with the Russian Empire, will no longer be able to compete on equal terms with Britain within the Western project.
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