Napoleon's Foreign Policy: A Criminal Enterprise Author(s): Paul W. Schroeder Source: The Journal of Military History, Vol.

54, No. 2 (Apr., 1990), pp. 147-162 Published by: Society for Military History Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1986040 . Accessed: 11/07/2011 22:32
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Napoleon's ForeignPolicy:
A Criminal Enterprise*
*

Paul W. Schroeder

leon's decision to invade Russia against the almost unanimous advice of his closest counsellors presents an intriguing and importantpuzzle to which Parkerprovidesa persuasive psychological explanation. Finding much in the essay to agree withand littleto criticize normally poses a problem for a commentator, but ProfessorParker has invitedme to range freely in mycomments. I willtake advantage of this freedom to propose not a different causal explanation of Napoleon's characterization and understandingof decision, but instead a different Napoleon's foreignpolicy in the context of the internationalsystem. My text, or pretext,comes fromone of G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown detective stories. In it, Father Brown,asked whetherhe did not accept the science of criminology,replies that he would gladly accept the science of criminologyifhis interlocutorwould accept the science of hagiology. I take Chesterton's point to be that hagiology and criminology concern themselveswithtwo poles in the range of human conduct, both of which require more in the way of explanation than does thatof the ordinarysinner. Both saintlyand criminal behavior can to a degree be explained, or at least dealt with,in a "scientific"or scholarly manner, i.e., regarded as phenomena on which empirical data can be gatheredand theoriesand generalizationsdeveloped and tested.Whether or not one attemptsso to explain criminality and saintliness,however,
*'Theoriginalversionof thisessay originatedas comments on the preceding paperby HaroldT. Parker presentedin a session ofthe BicentennialMeetingofthe Consortiumon Revolutionary Europe, 28-30 September 1989, and thatversion appeared in the BicentennialProceedingspublishedby theFloridaState University Press(1990).

I find ProfessorParker's essay very helpful and illuminating. Napo-

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one needs at least to recognize that theyexist, not ignore them where theyappear, and not tryto explain themaway or obscure theiressential differences. This is the context withinwhich I wish to place my discussion of Napoleon's foreignpolicy. I accept ProfessorParker's explanation of Napoleon's psychological make-up, suggesting only that Napoleon's psychology and politicaloutlook,howeverexplained, should be regarded or classified as criminal. I join Napoleon's admirers in recognizing his genius in various areas-military, administrative, organizational, political, even literary.I accept that he had an extraordinarycapacity for planning, decision making,memory,work,masteryof detail, and leadership.Mysole concern here is to argue thatthese remarkablequalities, amounting undeniably to genius, were turned in internationalpolitics to the service of an undertaking which can properly be labelled "criminal." This demands a definition of terms. A criminal in politics by my definitionis someone who understands the concept of law and recognizes that organized society is based upon it and cannot dispense with it. He/she knows further that ideas of law and lawfulconduct play a role, thougha more marginal and contested one, also in international politics.Governmentsconduct diplomacy,engage in negotiations,conclude treaties and conventions, and even wage wars withina broad context of law and an understanding of lawfuland unlawfulconduct. They generallyexpect and demand that treatiesbe observed, promises kept,and recognized rights respected, appealing forinternationalsanctions or resortingto self-helpagainst putativelawbreakers.A political criminal is one who, knowingthis,turnsthe devices, concepts, and uses of law in international politics to his own ends, not merely selectively and partially as statesmen normally do, but in a regular, principial fashion.Repudiatingthe claims and applicabilityof law forhimself and his own actions, he at the same time asserts and usurps its authority vis-a-visothers, demanding not only that other international actors meet theirputativelawfulobligations to him but that theyalso regard and obey him as the source of law. Thus a political criminal reverses Kant's Categorical Imperative, treating everythingin politics-other men, groups, states, institutions-never as ends in themselves,always as means to his ends. He equally reversesClausewitz by makingpolitics a continuation ofwarby othermeans. Mycontention is thatthisdefinition ofa criminal outlook in politics characterizes the essence of Napoleon's foreignpolicy. How to show this, or at least back it up, in a short essay? Two methods would seem available. One would be to compile a catalogue of
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Napoleon's ForeignPolicy variousalleged criminal acts by Napoleon in internationalpolitics. This to do. One could readilyshow that he repeatedly would not be difficult of small states; that he resorted and deliberatelyviolated the neutrality subjects; thathe ordered to judicial arrestsand murdersagainst foreign to controltheirdomains; terror hisgeneralsand satrapsto use preventive thathe not only conquered and suppressed otherstates in war,but also used tactics of bullying,manipulation, and extortionon them in times of peace, almost withoutregardto whethertheywere hostileor friendly; violated understandings,promises, and treatycomthat he frequently subordinated the interestsof mitments;that on principle he ruthlessly all the states and peoples he ruled to those of France and ultimatelyof himselfpersonally; that he declined to accept responsibilityor show regretforthe enormous human costs of his ventures,even, forexample, the destructionofthe Grand Armyin Russia; thathe blamed the French people and his allies for his downfall,accusing them of betrayal and and contempt support; that while displaying indifference insufficient forthe rights and honor of other men and states, he feltgenuine rage if by anyone else; that (in his perception) he was betrayed or frustrated this rage frequentlyfuelled in him a search for vengeance (e.g., his treatment of Pope Pius VII or of Venice, his execution of the Duc d'Enghien, the Nuremburgbookseller Palm, and others, his constant to humiliateand destroyEngland, his attemptto blow vows and efforts up the Kremlinon leaving Moscow in 1812, his cry in 1813 afterBavaria's defection, "Munich must burn! and burn it shall!"). Such acts, it could be argued, demonstrate a patternof lawless conduct in international affairs, show in Napoleon an outlook characteristicof the sociopath in civil society. A second method would be to choose one important chapter of Napoleon's foreignpolicy foranalysis as a sample or model of underlying criminalprinciplesand presuppositionsin the whole. A good choice mightbe Napoleon's dealings withPope Pius VII. Here one would note Napoleon's insistence that the Pope obey him not merely on political issues, but on vital mattersof church doctrine and polity(the Organic Articles,the Napoleonic Catechism, marriageand divorce, nomination and control of bishops); his insistence that Pius's refusalto do so had principles,or higherloyaltybut demnothingto do withreligiousfaith, and criminalobstinacy; Napoleon's genuine onstratedthe Pope's willful skepticand opportubelief,even while he himselfwas a thoroughgoing nist in mattersof religion,that the Catholic Church fromits head to its lowest members, like all other religions and churches, had an overriding moral and religiousobligation to serve him; his argument,on ordering the seizure and imprisonmentof the pope and the annexation ofhis
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lands, that he was carryingout the punishment of God on the papacy because the popes had chosen to rule as princes whileJesushad died on the cross. One mightsee in this evidence of the consummate egocenthe simultaneous rebellion against all law and usurpation of its tricity, authority, characteristicof the true criminal. Yet neitherof these is in my view a satisfactory way to establish the thesis,thoughboth have plenty of substance to them. The difficulty is that no matterhow many instances of supposed criminal conduct one induces fromNapoleon's career or any particularsection of it to argue forthecriminalcharacterofthewhole,criticswilloffer counter-examples to show that Napoleon also could and did oftenbehave in rational and generous fashion, that he showed affectiontoward his family,wives, associates, soldiers,fellowofficers, and others;or theywillargue thathis political behavior was not criminal, or no more so than necessary and usual in international politics, or that his allegedly criminal actions were forced upon him by circumstances and the higher law of raison d'etat. Most basic ofall, theymay claim thatsince internationalpolitics by definitionis not governed by law, according to the old Roman principle of nullum crimen sine lege ("no crime withouta law") there can by definitionbe no criminal action in internationalpolitics. Therefore neither method is likely to convince skeptics. More important,both tend to distortthe real point I wishto make and distractattention from it. The thrustof my argument is not that any decent person ought on moral grounds to condemn Napoleon as a criminal. Though I do not disguise myown estimate ofhis moral character,myopinion or anyone else's on thatscore is relatively unimportantforhistoricalanalysis. The historian is concerned not to reach the most satisfactory moral judgment of his character but to make the best historicaljudgment on his foreignpolicy, so as to increase our historical understandingof it. My thesisis simplythatno matterhow one may react to Napoleon's actions and personalityon moral grounds,in order properlyto understandhis foreignpolicy and its impact on the European systemone needs to see it as a criminal enterprise. This is required, I contend, in order to understand the origins of Napoleon's wars. Withall of them-beginning withBritainin 1803 and continuing throughAustriaand Russia in 1805, Prussia in 1806, Spain in 1808, Austria in 1809, and Russia in 1812-one is struckby a common feature:while it cannot be said thatNapoleon went out of his way to avoid any of them, neithercan it be said that he went out of his way deliberately to start them. Each of these wars, at least at the time it broke out, was in some respect unwelcome to him. This facthas helped lead many historians,especially the biographers and other historians
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Napoleon's ForeignPolicy who relychieflyon Napoleon's correspondence and on French sources fortheirevidence, to blame his opponents forstartingat least some of the wars,especially 1803, 1806, and 1809. It also helps account forthe wide disagreement among historianson the general question of Napoleon's responsibilityforthem. A fewlargelyexonerate him and blame his enemies; othersexplain them mainlyas the resultofvarious "objective" forces beyond Napoleon's or anyone's control-France's commitmentto the securityof its "natural" frontiers as a goal it could not surrenderand Europe could not accept, the Continental System, the stalemated war withBritain,and so on. Still others,while recognizing the large role played by Napoleon's imperialistambitions, lustforglory, and despotic spirit,also findconsiderable greed and ambition in other powers and assign them part of the responsibility.ProfessorParker's explanation of Napoleon's decision to invade Russiabelongs apparently in this lattercategory. Like many of its kind, it is plausible, moderate, and fair,and rests on considerable evidence. Nonetheless, I think it misses something in failingto see and account foranother featureof these wars,oftenignored but equally striking. If it is true Napoleon did not exactly welcome his wars at the time theybegan, it is even more true that Napoleon's opponents, even on those occasions when they technically were the aggressors in starting the wars, were basically farmore reluctant than he to fight. The same European powerswho accepted, prepared for, and sometimes launched war with Napoleon, whether under apparently favorable or obviously unfavorable militaryand diplomatic circumstances, had all without exception earlier, sometimes just shortlybefore, pursued policies of making peace withNapoleonic France and seeking coexistence on the basis of French hegemony in Europe. A persistentlegend about the Napoleonic era holds that the main European response to Napoleon's conquest was one of stubborn resistance; that the conquered peoples and states of Europe continued to harbor hopes of liberationand independence despite theirdefeatand subjugation,thattheyresistedassimilation into the Napoleonic Empire, and that finally, when the back of Napoleon's military power was broken in Russia, theyrose to overthrow his yoke. This Resistance-War of Liberation mythis oftencombined withits twin,the legend of the liberatingand regeneratingideals of the French Revolution as spread abroad by the Revolutionaryand Napoleonic armies. European governmentsand peoples, we are told even by some great historianslike Georges Lefebvre,adapted the ideals of the French Revolution to the purpose of defeatingNapoleonic France. Both these ideas are about as wrongas broad historicalinterpretations can be. In

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fact,the normal, natural, and almost universal response in Europe to the experience of Napoleon's military power and conquest was submission, appeasement, and efforts at accommodation in various forms. Between 1801 and 1812 everymajor power which collided withNapoleon, to say nothing of the lesser ones, tried in this way to come to termswithNapoleon, oftentime and again-Britain in 1802 and again in 1806-7, Austria in 1801-4, 1806-8, and 1809-12, Prussia for the whole decade before 1806 and even more desperatelyafter1807, Russia in 1801-3 and again in 1807-10. One American historianhas seen a marked parallel between the Addington government'sappeasement of Napoleon in 1802-3 and Chamberlain's appeasement of Hitler in 1938-39.1 The problem withthis analogy is not merely that it breaks down at certain points, as historicalanalogies always do, but that it is too restricted. Between 1800 and 1812 almost everygovernmentin Europe, and most statesmen in Europe, went much further in tryingto appease Napoleon than Chamberlain did with Hitler.The apparent exceptions to this rule-the heroic resistance of Spain from1808, Russia in 1812, and Prussia in 1813-actually help prove the rule that the standard response to Napoleon's power was appeasement. Both Spain and Russia decided to resistonly afterenduringyears of exploitationand humiliation as Napoleon's allies; theirnational resistance occurred only after theywere actually invaded, and persistedbecause theywere never fully conquered. In Prussia, it was the provinces of East Prussia and Silesia, whichwere never fully occupied by the French before 1812, whichrose in 1813, and thisonly afterthe French had fled; Berlin and the Markof Brandenburg, occupied since 1806, did not. Everywherein Europe during the War of Liberation in 1813-14 governments and peoples, howevermuch theygroaned under Napoleonic tyranny, preferred not to rise at all or waited to rise until afterthey were liberated by allied armies, or the French had fled,or theirown governmentshad decided to switchsides. Holland, Switzerland,and most of Germany and Italy are all examples. The failureof Germany to rise in support of the Russians and Prussians in the spring of 1813, after Napoleon's defeat in Russia, again proves the point. As forthe defection of Napoleon's satellites, he did and other states into the enemy more to drive Bavaria, Wiirttemberg, camp than the allies did to lure them over. By continuing to demand more money and men fromstates he had already exhausted whileflatly refusingto protect them, he made defection theironly way to survive.
1. ErnestL. Presseisen, Amiensand Munich (The Hague, 1978).

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Napoleon's ForeignPolicy As forthe most importantally to defect, Austria,it did so only after Metternich'sdesperate efforts to mediate a negotiated peace favorable to France had founderedon Napoleon's flatrefusalto negotiate. There is no problem in explaining thisvirtually universal resortto appeasement. The experience of Napoleon's power was enough to make everyEuropean powertry some form or otherofaccommodation joining him ifpossible to get a share of the imperial spoils, buyinghim or making an arrangement to stay out of his way. Some states like off, Bavaria did this fairlyeagerly and trustingly, others like Austria only with reservations or in desperation. Only Britain, which Napoleon could not destroy, continued to fight doggedly,and thisonly because it concluded in 1803 thatan actual peace withNapoleon was humiliating and intolerable and in 1806-7 that any peace was impossible. What demands explanation is not Europe's repeated recourse to appeasement, but its consistent failure. The only satisfactoryanswer is the simple and obvious one: Napoleon could not be appeased. Each war was the outcome of the uniform experience of one European state after another thatit was impossible to do business withNapoleon, thatpeace withhim on his termswas more dangerous and humiliatingthan war. It is most striking of all that the appeasers themselves,the verymen who had advocated accommodation and coexistence withFrance, regularly abandon theirown policies, admitting,even thoughtheystilldread war and fear defeat, that accommodation will not restrainNapoleon. This was true of Austria's Count Cobenzl and Archduke Carl in 1805, of Emperor Francis and Carl again by 1809, of Prussia's Counts Lombard and Haugwitz,the Duke of Brunswick, and King FrederickWilliamIII by 1806, of Prussia's Baron vom Stein in 1807, of Prince Hardenberg in 1808-12, of Count Rumiantsevand Tsar Alexander by 1812, of Count Metternichin 1813. Thus to pose the question in its usual form,why European states, despiteearlierdefeats,continued to formnew coalitions against France, is to miss the point. (It is also historically inaccurate-Napoleon forged bigger and more effective coalitions between 1800 and 1813 than his to dwell on opponents did-but leave thataside.) It is equally irrelevant the immediate or proximate causes and occasions forthe various wars in explaining them. For ifone pays serious attention to documents and testimonyfromother states ratherthan France alone, one quicklysees that the central problem is not how wars broke out, but why peace constantly failed, why efforts at accommodating France broke down, why monarchs and statesmen who genuinely did not want to fight France came to the conclusion that theyhad to do so. I findit inexplicable that good historians can simply assert what is technically true,
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thatPrussia startedthe war of 1806 or Austriathatof 1809, and not ask themselveswhat could have induced so timorous and irresolutea king as FrederickWilliam III, eager only to enjoy further peace and neutrality,to gamble everything on war against the French? Or what could make so narrow-mindedand fearful a sovereign as Emperor Francis, whose highestambition was to hang onto his hereditary estates in peace and who had been thoroughlybeaten by France in three great wars, throw the iron dice again alone and unsupported in 1809? That demands explanation. While no explanation of individual cases can be attempted here, once again the heart of the matteris simple. European statesmen of all kindsbelieved-wanted and needed to believe-that Napoleon, though an extraordinarilypowerfuland effectiveleader, was nonetheless a normal statesman operating somewhere withinthe normal rules, with whom normal internationalpolitics was possible. He was not. He was a criminal leader of a criminal enterprise,with whom normal transactions and relations designed to achieve theirnormal aims of equality, security,and independence were not possible. They were accustomed to the unscrupulous, semipiratical politics of the late eighteenthcentury;in most instances theywanted to continue it to theirown benefit, in collaboration with France. But their previous experience, far from preparing them for dealing with Napoleon, misled them. Constantly they found themselves playing half a corsair to his corsair and a half, driveninto a corner where the only way out was a Flucht nach vorne, desperate resistance. The analogy with Europe's reaction to Hitler is obvious. To adapt Paul Reynaud's famous remark in June 1940, they thoughttheywere dealing withLouis XIV. But theylearned that Napoleon was not Louis XIV; he was Genghis Khan. This schema applies preciselyto the war in 1812. The central cause of Russo-Frenchalienation was the central issue for Russia's security, the fateof Poland. The real turningpoint fromalliance towardeventual war was Napoleon's rejection of the agreement reached in February 1810 between the Russianchancellor Rumiantsev and the Frenchambassador Caulaincourt guaranteeing Russia against a revivalof a Kingdom of Poland. Further,what emerges most clearly in the Russian documents and literatureis thatTsar Alexander and Rumiantsevreallytried in 1807-10, ifwithgrowingskepticismand pessimism, to lay the basis fora durable junior partnershipof Russia with France, so as to force Britainto peace and therebypacifyEurope. That the Russians had their own ambitions and interests(Finland, Sweden, the Balkans, Turkey, the Straits) was obvious; that they saw certain areas which they must not concede outright but somehow preserveas buffer zones or share with
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Napoleon's ForeignPolicy France (Silesia, Poland, Austria) was also plain; but that Russia ceded fullcontrol of most of Europe to France, recognizing all the French vassals and satrapies even in Spain, and that the tsar,genuinely antiBritish and eager to forceBritainto the peace table and exclude it from Europe, had declared war and cut off British trade to Russia at considereconomic to is able cost Russia, equally undeniable. What the Russians learned was that no compromise theysuggested ever was attainable, no securitypledge honored (the refusalto guarantee Russia against a revivedPolish Kingdom being the worstblow); that Napoleon treated not only old established Russian interestsin North Germany but also direct treatyprovisionslike that of Tilsitguaranteeing the territory ofthe Grand-Duke of Oldenburg as scraps ofpaper, not even worthconsulting Russia about; and thatNapoleon, whiledemanding that Russia close its ports to neutral goods as well as Britishand to open themwide to Frenchgoods, himself had launched trade openly on a massive scale withthe Britishforthe benefitof France. The issue in 1810-12 concerning the Continental System was not whetherRussia would fulfill its promises to help force Britainto peace; it had fulfilled those promises already by the end of 1807 and neverbroke them. It was whetherNapoleon, who had pervertedthe Continental System into a weapon forthe economic subjugation of his Continental empire rather than of Britain,could subjugate Russia in thisfashionalso. This lawless, criminal character of Napoleon's policy explains Russia's decision to accept war. No sane leader or nation goes to war against such odds as Russia faced unless it believes it has no choice. It also illuminatesNapoleon's decision. Professor like almost everyParker, one, concentrateson explainingwhatdroveNapoleon into thisventure what forcesworkingfrombehind pushed him into it, so to speak. Well and good; but one also needs to ask, as fewdo, what positivegoals led him into it, drew him on. Napoleon was a man characterized by constant,intense, purposivecalculation. This capacity more than anything else made him a great militaryleader. One must always ask about him even more than about most statesmen what end he had in mind, what exactly he hoped to accomplish. We are accustomed, with Georges Lefebvre,to deny thattherewas any finalaim or coherent overarching scheme ofempire behind his imperialism.I quite agree. He had no final goal, because he oftenpursued any and all goals and none in particular; because his imagination and ambition could be captured by anything and his loyaltysecured by nothing. But the lack of a finalpolitical goal surelyneed not have meant the absence of intermediateones. One would suppose that forso great a ventureas thishe must have had a set ofwar aims, a concept of how and where the fighting ought to
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end. One seeks it in vain in his correspondence. The Foreign Officeand its activityprovide no clue; by 1812 it was functioningas little more than an auxiliary commissariat for the Grand Army and a wing of French military intelligence.2Nor does the diplomacy by which Napoleon put together his great coalition reveal his aims. His vassals and satellites were simplycommanded into line, Prussia bludgeoned, Austriabullied and bribed, all withno notion or promises ofwhereitwould end. The one state in Europe that enjoyed a little room for choice, Sweden, escaped Napoleon preciselybecause he would not say where he was going or make payoffs to secure its help. Whyno set ofwar aims, no political program forthis massive venture on which the fate of the Empire and Europe would ride? Napoleon could not state his finalgoals to his allies or foesbecause he had none. Nothingis more revealingand than his efforts, afterreaching Moscow, to get Alexander to talk pitiful to him, to induce the tsarto admit defeatand make peace. Not only did Napoleon, the back of his own army broken, have no means to make Alexander admit defeat or even persuade him to talk; had the tsar against his interestsand at the riskofassassination agreed to negotiate, Napoleon would have had nothing to say to him. What terms did he have in mind? What could he possiblyhave proposed? But surely Napoleon's concrete war aims can be inferredfromthe to close the hole reasons whichdrove him into war? Was he not fighting in the Continental System which Alexander's ukaz of 31 December 1810 had opened up, and therebyto discourage Britainand forceit to the peace table? Verywell-how? How,by invadingand beating Russia, would he close the alleged hole in the Continental System? Would this mean that French customs agents would be stationed in Russian ports as they already had been all over Europe? Would they prove more effective therethan theyhad everywhere else? Would thismean French annexation of Reval and Tallinn and Petersburgas it had of Hamburg and Bremen and Liibeck? And how exactly would even this,ifeffected, bring Britain to its knees? Britain had been at war with the whole Continent including Russia since 1807. For most of that time it had given up any serious hope of regaining Russia as an ally. The Russian and Baltic market was not critical to the survivalof the Britisheconomy; the worstblow to Britishtrade in 1811 and 1812, the result of Napoleon's cunning, American ingenuousness, and Britishclumsiness and stubbornness,was Britain'sbreak and war withthe United States.
2. This is veryapparent fromNapoleon's publishedcorrespondence,but for more evidence of the deterioration, see E. A. Whitcomb, Napoleon's Diplomatic Service (Durham,N.C., 1979).

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Napoleon's ForeignPolicy The Britishhad given wayjust too late in 1812 to preventthis war; in real desperation, theycould always come to termswithAmerica, more than makinggood any economic losses the defeatof Russia would have caused them. And anyway,suppose the Britishhad decided in 1812 or wheneverto sue forpeace, whatcould Napoleon have replied to them? What peace terms could or would he have offered?What peace terms and agreed on, would he had not been tried?Whatpeace terms,offered or subverted? not soon have found intolerable and overthrown This emptiness, this lack of any real political goal in Napoleon's ventures,is by no means special to his invasion of Russia. It characterizes his foreignpolicy as a whole. In reading Napoleon's correspondence 1806-9 to determinejust whathe wanted ofAustria,whatrole he expected Austria to fillin his system,I noted that his main complaint about Austria from1806 on was that everywhere-in Germany, in the Near East, with Poland and Russia-Austria was in his way. His most common and persistentdemand was not thatAustriastop arming and menacing him-that became dominant only in 1808-but thatAustria cease to obstructhis purposes, thatAustrialeave him alone. Ponder for a moment the concept of a European states systemwhich this implies: an ancient Great Power located in the heart of Europe, withroots and ties everywhere to North,West,East, and South, is assigned the duty,on pain ofdestructionifit failsto obey, of leaving Napoleon alone, getting out of his way whereverhis way mighttake him. Everyone knows how much the problem of what to do withAustria preoccupied Talleyrand,how hard and oftenhe triedto persuade Napoleon, especially in 1805, to findsome permanent place forAustria in his system.All too often schemes like Talleyrand's StrasbourgMemorandum have been judged on whetheror not theywere practical solutions to France's problems, which misses the main point. What the StrasbourgMemorandum and similar proposals illustrateis the fundamental differencebetween Talleyrand and Napoleon. Talleyrand, a normal venal, unscrupulous,opportunisticEuropean statesman,took it for granted that one had to find a permanent place and role for a countrylike Austriawithinthe internationalsystem,and triedto devise one thatNapoleon would accept. Napoleon, a criminal in international politics, took it forgranted that he need not assign Austriaany role at all ifhe chose not to. This Napoleonic concept of internationalpolitics did not apply uniquely or specially to Austria. The whole of his policy toward Prussia or Poland is exactly the same-a prolonged cat-andmouse game in which he put off the decision as to what,ifanything,he would choose to do with these states. Above all, it applies to 1812. France and all of Europe were mobilized to invade Russia-hundreds of 157

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thousands of men killed,endless suffering caused-in the last analysis forno better reason than that Russia and Britain were in Napoleon's way, would not leave him alone, obstructed what he wanted to do, whateverthatwas. This is why I say that one cannot understand Napoleon's foreign policy withoutreckoning withits essential criminality, recognizing the darkvoid at itscenter. It is not truethatNapoleon merelycontinued or somewhat extended the normal amoral lawlessness of eighteenthcenturyinternational politics. Certainlythere was a great deal of that lawlessness, especially toward the end of the century,and outstanding exemplars of aggressiveand piratical politics, perhaps the best or worst being FrederickII of Prussia and Catherine II of Russia. No eighteenthcenturyleader over his or her whole career, however,consistently broke all the rules in the Napoleonic style. There were plenty of semicriminals, demicorsairs, but none on the Napoleonic scale. And to repeat, the scale of the crimes is not the correct or decisive criterion.All the international crimes, including the partitions of eighteenth-century Poland, had some system of rules, some notion of European order, howeverbrutaland defective,in mind. Napoleon did not; thatis whyhe could lie so freely about it on St. Helena. One can say what FrederickII wanted-equality with Austria now, the potential for superiorityand domination in Germany later; what Catherine wanted-superiority visa-vis the German powers,arbitershipin Europe, control of Poland, the lion's share of the Ottoman Empire. One can make these goals, however dangerous and aggressive,compatible withsome notion ofa European system,an internationalorder. One cannot do so withNapoleon. The only thingthatone can confidently say he wanted was more. Nor withoutthis understandingof Napoleon's nonconception of a European and world order (a void that it mighttake a Joseph Conrad adequately to portray)can one understand the impact of Napoleon on Europe and the European states system.The main task forthe international historianin thisperiod is to relate and to explain how the characterofEuropean politicscame to be transformed between the eighteenth and the nineteenth centuries. This transformation can neitherbe described nor explained withoutbringing into the picture the criminal character of Napoleon's policy and the effectsof having it beaten into Europe by fifteen years of French conquest, domination, and exploitation, any more than one can account forthe changed nature of European and world politics since 1945 withoutreferenceto the policies of Hitler's Germany and their effects.This is not to claim an essential likeness in the phenomena; it is to assert that they are both essential ingredientsin the transformation. UntilNapoleon, despite the Eastern
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Napoleon's ForeignPolicy War and the wars of the French Revolutionfrom1787 to 1801, Europe rules ofinterhad continued to followthe prevailingeighteenth-century national politics-a whollycompetitivebalance of power game, operating through compensations, indemnities, and beggar-my-neighbor rivalries.Destructiveand unstable thoughthissystemhad proved to be, nothingelse was believed to be possible; somehow, the reigningassumption ran in the early years ofthe French Revolutionand ensuing wars,if France could only be curbed and its revolutioncrushed, the old system could stillbe made to work. That belief was a major reason Europe at firstgreeted Napoleon's accession to power mainly with relief and anticipation. He looked like a normal, calculable statesman,a monarch withoutas yet a crown, someone who would play the usual game by the and successfullythan most. known rules, ifmore ruthlessly Then came the rude awakening. Napoleon's great service to Euroscourge of God. He pean internationalpolitics was to be a veryefficient convinced European princes and statesmen that an alternative to politics had to be found because playing the old eighteenth-century game with him was intolerable. They were used to high-stakespoker among heavilyarmed playersready at intervalsto tip the table over and shoot it out; but now they discovered that the game was run by someone who always cheated, held the biggestguns as well as the highcards, And so theyhad to made his own rules,always won, and never paid off. end this game of poker and invent a new post-1815 game of contract bridge. Napoleon contributednothingpositive to thisoutcome. Nevertheless, lawless to the end, a law unto himself,he drove Europe into a new systemof internationalpolitics bounded by law. to the charge, I recognize thatin advancing thisthesisI open myself dreaded by historians,ofbeing a moralizer,a prosecutingattorney.But the charge, forone thing,strikesme as shouting"Fire, fire!"in time of flood. For everyhistorianwho distortsthe record by moralizing,ten do so by excessive coyness, calling thingsby any other name-mistakes, stupidity, errors,blunders, miscalculations, aberrations, irrationality, sickness-so as to avoid the word "crime." Not to see the criminal side of Napoleon, to deny his demonic dimension, is to deny something quintessential to him personally and vital to our historic understandthan he was. How many ing, to make him less great and less interesting explanations have not been attempted to show just where Napoleon went wrong, who or what corrupted him and was responsible for his final defeat and downfall? Is any of them convincing? Is it not more clear withNapoleon than almost anyone else in historythatcharacter was destiny?Who can reallybelieve thatNapoleon somewherechanged, or Tilsit,or (least the trackat Amiens, or Austerlitz, went wrong,got off 159

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convincing of all) with the Austrian connection and in the arms of Marie Louise? This diminishes Napoleon. Let him be Lucifer,not Samson. We do him more historic justice by recognizingin him the soul ofa corsair,a condottiere,a capo mafioso,but arguablythe greatestcorsair, condottiere,and capo mafioso in history. Besides, as I have argued, this verdict is not a moral judgment on Napoleon, though certainly it implies one. It is instead the key, the prerequisite, to an understanding of his policy and its impact upon European international politics. And anyway,what I am saying is not new, but old and conventional. Most historianshave not to my knowledge called Napoleon a criminal in so many words (though contemporaries did, and worse); but they have said the same thing in more subtle ways.Albert-LeonGuerard called him a truescoundrel ("un vrai scelerat"). Tocqueville's verdict was that he was as great as any man could be without virtue; Marshal Foch's, that he forgotthat a man cannot be God; Madame de Stael's, that forhim no man existed but himself. Perhaps Professor Parker agrees in calling him an imperial madman. I sense myself that I have here contributed truisms and cliches to the debate, rediscoveringAmerica. By way of excuse, sometimes the obvious needs stating; repeatedly, in reading even newer workson Napoleon, I feelthatsomeone needs to say again thatmorally thisemperor had no clothes. My conclusion, however,is a modest one: on Napoleon's foreignpolicy, including the invasion of Russia in 1812, the famous verdicton hisjudicial murderof the Duc d'Enghien should be reversedto read: "It was worse than a blunder, it was a crime."

Bibliographic Note
The origins of this essay, as a commentary on Harold T. Parker's paper, and its nature as a broad interpretationof Napoleon's foreign policy, preclude the citation of detailed footnotes. I merely want to indicate some of the principal documentary sources I have relied on and give a veryfewreferencesto the massive secondary literature.For Napoleon himselfthe most importantsource is the officialCorresponIII, ed. A. du Casse, 32 vols. (Paris, 1858-70). In the voluminous memoir literature,the most important work for 1812 and after is Armand Augustin Louis Caulaincourt, Memoires du General de Caulaincourt, 3 vols. (Paris, 1933). For Talleyrand's role, the best source is

dance de Napoleon Ier; publiee par ordre de l'Empereur Napoleon

his Lettresde Talleyrandit Napoleon, d'apres les originaux conservesaux Archives des Affaires Etrangeres (Paris,1967).
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On the origins of thewarof 1812, the twofundamental works are snoGrand PrinceNikolaiMikhailovich Romanov, Diplomaticheskie sheniia Rossii v Frantsii po donesian poslov Aleksandra i Napoleona 1808-1812, 7 vols.(St. Petersburg, 1905-14) and Albert Vandal, Napoleon et AlexandreIer,3 vols. (Paris,1891-96). For Russianforeign policy in general in thisperiod,the fundamental source is the collection Vneshnaia PolitikaRossii xix i nachala xx documentary veka, lst series, 1801-1815, 8 vols. (Moscow, 1960-67). However, manyvolumesin the SbornikImperatorskogo RusskogoIstorichestkogo Obshchestvo, 148 vols.(St. Petersburg, 1867-1917) also contain vitalmaterial. For Prussia, Paul Bailleu,ed., Preussenund Frankreich von 1795 bis 1807, 2 vols.(Leipzig,1881-87) is essential. Thereis a greatdeal of published correspondence from Austrian archives for theearlier periodinAlfred Vivenot and Heinrich Zeissberg, eds., Quellenzur Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserpolitik Osterreichs wahrend der franz6sischen Revolutionskriege 1790-1801, 5 vols. (Vienna, 1873-90) and various collectionseditedby HermannHiuffer. For 1812-14 Wilhelm Oncken, Oesterreich und Preussenim Befrei2 vols.(Berlin,1876) remains ungskriege, fundamental. For Britainin the earlier period the Grenvillepapers (William The ManuscriptsofJ. B. ForBaron Grenville, Wyndham Grenville, . at Dropmore. ., 10 vols.[London,1892-19271) tescue, esq.,Preserved thepapersofCastlereagh For 1812 and after are indispensable. (Memoirs and Correspondence ofViscountCastlereagh, 12 vols.[London, especiallyhis The 1850-531) and the worksof CharlesK. Webster, ForeignPolicyofCastlereagh1812-1815 (London, 1931) are equally so. The best biography of Napoleon remainsthatofJ. M. Thompson, Napoleon Bonaparte (London, 1952; reprinted Oxford,1988); the best survey ofthe periodthatof GeorgesLefebvre, Napoleon, English 2 vols.(New York, translation, 1969).

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