Friedland was in many ways the apotheosis of the Grande Armee.

For once the marshalate had come up

to Napoleon's expectations. General Victor won his baton as the nineteenth marshal after his brilliant
showing; Ney had his finest hour in the battle; Oudinot, the most obviously rising star in the Bonapartist
entourage, received an annual pension of 33,000 francs for his performance and was marked down by
the Emperor as 'one to note'. Yet for more thoughtful military observers there were some worrying
omens and not just the fact that the Emperor, a notoriously bad horseman, had fallen from his horse no
fewer than three times during the Friedland campaign. Napoleon, it was clear, habitually placed too
much emphasis on the offensive. Clausewitz, the great Prussian military theorist 376 who fought in this
campaign, would later warn that offensives were always weakened by the very fact of advancing. In 1
807 Napoleon had the numerical superiority to make his strategy work, but what would happen if ever
he had to fight a campaign where he was outnumbered? This was an especially potent consideration,
given that the Emperor evinced more and more impatience with the chessplaying aspect of his military
craft. His ignorance of terrain and failure to scout ahead adequately put him in a false position at Eylau,
and his disregard of climatic and geographical factors led him to cross the Oder without taking into
account the ice, snow and mud. Remembering similar debacles in Egypt and Santo Domingo which arose
through a fundamental ignorance of climate and geography, the Emperor's more circumspect followers
wondered how long it would be before he led them into a major disaster. Yet for the moment Napoleon
seemed invincible, not just in practice but in principle. Czar Alexander I, whose wildly fluctuating moods
oscillated between elation and depression, decided after Friedland that negotiation was the only way
forward. His peace feelers were received with secret relief by Napoleon, who was anxious to end the
war before an increasingly fractious Austria was tempted to join in. The Emperor had hoped Turkey
would be a trump card but a revolution on 27 May in Constantinople overthrew Selim III. And Napoleon
was also aware that he had been away from Paris for far too long. Josephine was very good at showing
the imperial eagle, but who would deal with the plots and conspiracies of the Pouches and the
Talleyrands? A truce between the French and Russians was soon agreed and it was decided that the two
Emperors would meet on a raft in the middle of the river Niemen near the town of Tilsit. The genesis of
this famous meeting is interesting. The Niemen marked the western frontier of Russia and, since
Alexander would not set foot on French-held territory nor Napoleon in Russia, an ingenious compromise
was worked out. Napoleon ordered a huge barge-like raft to be built, on which was constructed an
elegantly decorated apartment with a door on either side giving on to an antechamber; the two outer
doors were crested with the respective national eagles. The two sovereigns then appeared at the same
time on opposite banks of the river around noon on 25 June and got into their boats. Napoleon, with a
crew of expert oarsmen, easily beat Alexander to the raft, boarded alone, walked through the
apartment to the far antechamber and opened the door, waiting patiently while the Czar's less skilful
oarsmen laboriously rowed him to the rendezvous. Shortly after noon, one and a half hours of friendly
discussion began. The two men got off on the right foot when Alexander allegedly greeted 377 Napoleon
with the words: 'Sire, I hate the English as much as you do.' 'In that case,' replied Napoleon, 'peace is
established.' The initial ease between the thirty-eight-year-old Emperor and the thirty-year-old Czar had
deepened into something like friendship by the end of the interview. Quite apart from other
considerations, each man was physically drawn to the other. Alexander fell under the spell of a
charismatic Napoleon, exerting himself to exude all his well-known charm. Napoleon, as he later
acknowledged, was much affected by the physical beauty of the Czar and described him as an Apollo:
Alexander was tall and handsome, with blue eyes and blond curls. Both men later went on record that
they 'loved' each other. Napoleon also thought Alexander highly intelligent, but some nagging internal
voice gave him pause. As he said later: 'There is something missing. I have never been able to discover
what it is ... a decadent Byzantine ... a Talma of the north.' By referring to his favourite actor, Napoleon
was actually revealing more about himself than the Czar. Alexander's problem was not histrionic but
psychological. Debate has raged about his exact mental state. Some have thought him schizophrenic
while others opt for 'depressive mania'. His frequent mood swings have even led some to posit the
multiple personality model of 'dementia praecox'. At the very least, Alexander was disturbingly neurotic.
He liked to think of himself as a simple soldier, but this was bunk. He was actually a physical coward who
had stayed well clear of the fighting in the Austerlitz campaign and would do so again during the stirring
days of r8rz. Next day, 26 June, the two sovereigns met at 12.30 and spent the day together until 9 p.m.
Thereafter the protocol-conscious courtiers on either side devised an elaborately 'egalitarian'
programme. On the 27th Napoleon visited the Czar for a review and dinner and next day the Emperor
played host to Alexander. This was the day Napoleon chose for his elaborate 'Ottoman' charade. An
obvious barrier to an accord between France and Russia was Napoleon's incitement of Turkey. The
opportune removal of Selim III in the coup of z8 May gave Napoleon the excuse he needed: he could
now pretend that his entente with Selim had been purely personal and that it lapsed with a change of
Sultan. Although he already knew the news from Constantinople - as did Alexander - Napoleon
pretended that his intelligence service was lackadaisical and had only just got word of the coup. As he
sat with the Czar around four in the afternoon of z8 June, a courier arrived with an 'urgent' dispatch.
Napoleon opened it, read it and jumped up with feigned astonishment. To Alexander he said excitedly
that he no longer had debts of honour to 378 Turkey as Selim had been deposed. 'This is an act of
Providence; it tells me that the Ottoman empire can no longer exist.' By all accounts Alexander
swallowed this and hung on every word. While the diplomats got down to the small print of the draft
treaty, the tiring and stressful round of dinners and meetings between the two rulers went on daily until
5 July. Then Queen Louise of Prussia arrived. Using all her charm and cajolery, she made strenuous
efforts to get the draconian terms of the draft peace treaty amended, but Napoleon could not forgive
her for her obduracy after Jena, that had cost him so much blood and treasure. To Josephine he wrote:
'The Queen of Prussia is really charming, she is full of coquetry for me, but don't be jealous. It's water off
a duck's back to me. It's too much effort for me to play the gallant.' Finally, the Tilsit agreement was
ready for signature on 7 July. It was ratified two days later so that, at last, on 9 July, Napoleon bade
farewell to the intriguing and enigmatic Alexander. A quite separate treaty with Prussia was signed on 9
July and ratified on the r zth. The Treaty of Tilsit gave the Czar a free hand against European Turkey and
Finland; Russia would join Napoleon's blockade of Britain (the 'Continental System'); the Russian navy
would help France capture Gibraltar. In a secret protocol the Czar promised to raise no objections to
Napoleonic interventions in Spain and Portugal, though this did not justify, as was later alleged,
Bonapartist assertions that Alexander had formally connived at the expulsion of the Bourbons in the
Iberian peninsula and their replacement by Napoleon's brothers. Alexander also agreed informally - this
did not form part of the final protocol - that he would collaborate in a joint Franco-Russian project
aimed at British power in India, initially by sending a so,ooo-strong army into Persia. Napoleon's
extreme duplicity here must be stressed, for before Friedland he had been encouraging the Persians to
ally themselves with him and thus regain from Russia the lost province of Georgia. Napoleon was to
mediate in the Russo-Turkish conflict and, if the new Sultan refused his mediation, the Ottoman
provinces in eastern Europe were to be shared between the signatories. In return, Alexander was to
mediate in the Franco-British war: if Britain refused, Alexander would bring pressure on the courts of
Copenhagen, Stockholm and Lisbon to force them to close their ports to English produce. The treaty
with Prussia represented a humiliation for the Hohenzollerns. Prussia was restricted to her 1 772
frontiers and the French held on to the fortress of Magdeburg. All Prussian possessions west of the Elbe
and a part of Hanover were incorporated in the new kingdom of Westphalia, with Napoleon's brother
Jerome as king. All Prussian 379 provinces in Poland were to be merged in a Grand Duchy of Warsaw, to
be ruled by the King of Saxony. The Grand Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Westphalia in turn
would form part of the Confederation of the Rhine, which became a colossus that swallowed up all
Germany except Prussia and Austria. Danzig would be a free city but occupied by a French garrison.
There would be a huge war indemnity, and French troops would remain on Prussian soil until it was
paid. Finally, Prussia agreed to join the Continental System and to recognize the kingdoms of
Westphalia, Holland, Naples and the Confederation of the Rhine. The Treaty of Tilsit brought Napoleon
close to total triumph in Europe. It was a particular blow to Britain because the Baltic was the primary
source of supplies for the Royal Navy: the best timber for masts came from Russia; the best firs for ships'
decks came from Russia; 90% of Britain's hemp came from Russia; and the best underwater planking
was provided by Baltic oak. Russia also supplied most of Britain's tallow, half her linseed, half her pitch,
tar and iron. The rest came from Sweden, which was now firmly in the Russian sphere of influence. It
was not surprising that in 1 8o7-o8 the British were preoccupied with the Baltic and entertained
particular fears about the Russian and Danish navies: the Royal Navy maintained a large fleet there in
the ice-free summer months and after 1 8o8 had twenty battleships and thirty-eight frigates on
permanent station. Even though the Royal Navy gained a striking success in 1 807 with the capture of
the 69-strong Danish navy (including sixteen battleships and ten frigates), that year also saw Britain
blundering to disaster in Buenos Aires, Egypt and the Dardanelles. Not surprisingly, after Tilsit both
George III and Canning were in favour of an accommodation with Napoleon. For a long time he dithered,
then turned down the offer in 1 8o8 just before he launched into his Spanish adventure.