§ List of Papers.
§ No. 1.—Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Earl Bathurst, dated Basle, 22d Jan. 1814. Inclosure in No. 1. Treaty between Austria and Naples, signed at Naples, 8th January 1814.
§ 2.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord William Bentinck, dated Basle, 22d January 1814.
§ 3.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Chatillon, 4th February 1814.
§ 4.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Troyes, 15th February 1814.
§ 5.—Dispatch from Lord W. Bentinck to Earl Bathurst, dated Palermo, 15th Feb. 1814.
§ Inclosure referred to in No. 5.—Translation of Armistice between the British and Neapolitan Forces, done at Naples, 3d Feb. 1814.
§ 6.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Chatillon, 21st February 1814.
§ 7.—Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Dijon, 30th March 1814.
§ 8.—Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Dijon, 3d April 1814.
§ Inclosure in No. 8. Memoir of the Duke of Campo Chiaro.
§ 9.—Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Earl Bathurst, dated Vienna, 7th December 1814. Two Inclosures.
60§ First Inclosure in No. 9. Historical Memoir on the political Conduct of Murat, from the Battle of Leipzic to the Peace of Paris, of the 30th of May 1814.
§ Second Inclosure in No. 9. Observations thereupon by General Nugent.
§ 10.—Note from the Neapolitan Ministers to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Vienna, 29th December 1814.
§ 11.—Dispatch from Lord W. Bentinck to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Florence, 7th January 1815.
§ 12.—Letter from Mr. Vice Consul Walker to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Naples, 7th March 1815.
§ 13.—Extract of a Dspatch from Viscount Castlereagh to the Duke of Wellington, dated Foreign Office, 24th March 1815. With one Inclosure.
§ 14.—Extract. The Duke of Wellington to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Vienna, 25th February 1815.
§ One Inclosure. Note from the Duke of Campo Chiaro to Prince Metternich, dated Vienna, 25th January 1815.
§ 15.—Extract. The Duke of Wellington to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Vienna, 25th March 1815.
§ 16.—The Duke of Wellington to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Vienna, 28th March 1815. Five Inclosures.
§ 17.—The Earl of Clancarty to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Vienna, 15th April 1815. Eight Inclosures.
§ 18.—Extract. Comte de Blacas to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Paris, 4th March 1815.
§ Eight Inclosures.
§ Letter of Eliza Buonaparté to her brother Napoleon, dated Lucca, 14th February 1814.
§ Letter of Napoleon Buonaparté to his sister Eliza, dated Nangis, 17th February 1814.
§ Letter of Mons. Fouché to Napoleon Buonaparté, dated Lucca, 18th February 1814.
§ Letter of Eugene Beauharnois to Napoleon Buonaparté, dated Volta, 20th February, 1814.
§ Correspondence of French Consuls in Italy, dated 2d and 3d March 1814.
§ Letter of Napoleon Buonaparté to Marshal Murat; no date.
§ Letter from the Duke de Feltre to Napoleon Buonaparté, dated Paris, 3d March 1814.
§ Letter of Napoleon Buonaparté to Marshal Murat, dated 5th March.
§ 19.—Extract. Lord W. Bentinck to Marshal Bellegarde, dated Verona, 25th March 1814.
§ No. 1.—Viscount Castlereagh to Earl Bathurst, dated Basle, 22d Jan. 1814.
§ My Lord; Having received from prince Metternich an official communication, that the Emperor of Austria has concluded a Treaty with the person exercising the government of Naples, of which, your lordship will receive a copy inclosed, I have instructed lord William Bentinck 61 to the effect contained in my dispatch to him of this date, which I trust the Prince Regent will approve under the circumstances of the case, and the importance of accumulating every possible exertion at this great crisis against the common enemy. I have the honour to be, &c.
§ CASTLEREAGH.
§ (Inclosure in No. 1.)—Translation. Treaty between the Courts of Vienna and Naples.
§ In the name of the Most Holy and Undivided Trinity.
§ His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and his Majesty the King of Naples, desirous of cementing, by the most intimate union, the welfare of their respective States, and of concerting at the same time on the means the best adapted for securing to Europe, and in particular to the people of Italy, a durable state of peace, founded on the independence and the balance of the Powers, have resolved to conclude a Treaty of Alliance for the union of their efforts, with a view to obtain the end proposed.
§ They have therefore named: That is to say:—His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, the Sieur Adam Albert, count de Neipperg, Knight of the Order of Maria Theresa, Grand Cross of the Order of St. Anne of Russia, Knight of the Military Order of St. George, Commander of the Military Order of the Sword of Sweden, acting Chamberlain, and Lieutenant-general of his Armies; and the Sieur Felix Count de Mier, actual Chamberlain, and his Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of Naples. And his Majesty the King of Naples the Sieur Martin Mastrilli, Duke de Gallo, Great Dignitary of the Order of the Two Sicilies, and of that of the Iron Crown, Knight of the Order of the Golden Fleece, Councillor of State, and his Minister for Foreign Affairs.
§ Who, after having exchanged their full powers, have agreed upon the following Articles:—
§ Art. 1.—There shall, from the period of the signature of the present Treaty, be peace, alliance, and a sincere union between his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and his Majesty the King of Naples, their heirs and successors, their respective states and subjects, from thenceforth and for ever. 62 The high contracting parties shall contribute all in their power to the maintenance of a reciprocal friendship and correspondent feeling towards each other, avoiding whatever can weaken the union and good understanding so happily subsisting between them.
§ Art. 2.—The alliance between the two high contracting parties shall have for its object the prosecution of the present war, in order to concur, by their united efforts, towards the re-establishment of a just balance of power, and to secure a real state of peace to Europe, and in particular to Italy, where the two high contracting parties guarantee the defence of their states and interests.
§ Art. 3.—In consequence of the preceding article, the high contracting parties have agreed to assist each other with all the means which Providence has placed at their disposal, and not to lay down their arms but by mutual agreement.
§ Art. 4.—His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, guarantees to his Majesty the King of Naples, and to his heirs and successors, the free and peaceable enjoyment, and also the full and entire sovereignty of all the states of which his Majesty is actually in possession in Italy. His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty will use his good offices for the inducing his allies to accede to the present guarantee.
§ Art. 5.—In order to fix more precisely the assistance which the high contracting parties shall furnish to the common cause, his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, engages to keep constantly in the field 150,000 men, of which 60,000 at least shall be to act in Italy. His Majesty the King of Naples promises likewise to bring into the field a corps of 30,000 men. These troops, consisting of a proportionate number of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, shall be constantly kept up to the full quota, whilst the present war shall last.
§ Art. 6.—In case the forces stipulated in the preceding article should not be sufficient for the defence of each other's states, and the common interests, his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and his Majesty the King of Naples, reciprocally promise to augment their auxiliary forces according to the exigency of the case, preserving always the proportion settled in the preceding article.
§ Art. 7.—In case his Majesty the King 63 of Naples shall be at the head of his army, the corps of Austrian troops detached from the main army, and united with the corps of Neapolitan troops for the purpose of acting together, shall be under the immediate orders of this Sovereign.—In the contrary case, the grand Austrian army in Italy being commanded by a field-marshal, or a general in chief of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, the Neapolitan corps destined to act with it, shall he under the orders of the said general. In case his Majesty the King shall he present, the operations shall be reciprocally combined and concerted in the manner the most analogous to the common interests, and to the success of the armies of the two Allies. In case his Majesty the King shall not be present at the army, the general commanding the Neapolitan troops will have to follow the orders of the general in chief of the Austrian army, according to the plan concerted between the two armies.
§ Art. 8.—With this view there shall be concluded, immediately after the signature of the present Treaty, a military convention for regulating every thing relative to the operations of the two armies, to the lines which they will have to occupy, and also to the provisioning and to the subsistence of the respective troops.
§ Art. 9.—The trophies, booty, and prisoners which shall have been taken from the enemy, shall belong to the troops who take them.
§ Art. 10.—The high contracting parties reciprocally promise, that neither the one nor the other will conclude a truce, or a peace, without including therein his ally.
§ Art. 11.—Orders shall be given to the ambassadors and ministers of the high contracting parties, accredited to foreign courts, to afford, reciprocally, their good offices, and to act in perfect concert on every occurrence relating to the interest of their Sovereigns.
§ Art. 12.—His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, promises the restitution of all the Neapolitan prisoners in his power, and will use his good offices for the restitution of those detained by the Allied Powers.
§ Art. 13.—The present Treaty shall be ratified, and the ratifications shall be exchanged at Naples with the least possible delay.
§ In faith whereof the respective plenipotentiaries have signed it, and have affixed thereto the impression of their 64 arms.—Done at Naples, the 11th of January, 1814.
§ (L. S.) COUNT DE NIEPPERG,
§ (L. S.) COUNT DE MIER,
§ (L. S.) LE DOC DI GALLO.
§ Secret Articles to the Treaty concluded between the Courts of Vienna and Naples.
§ Article 1.—In order to prevent all pretext of dispute between their Majesties the King of Naples and the King of Sicily, his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, engages to employ every means to obtain, in favour of his Majesty King Joachim Napoleon and his descendants, a formal act of renunciation from his Majesty the King of Sicily, for himself and his successors, for ever, to all his pretensions to the kingdom of Naples; his renunciation shall be acknowledged and guaranteed by his Majesty the Emperor of Austria to his Majesty the King of Naples, and his Imperial Majesty will use his endeavours with the other Allied Powers for the purpose of obtaining from them, a like acknowledgment and guarantee.—On the other hand, his Majesty the King of Naples renounces for himself and successors, all pretensions to the kingdom of Sicily, and declares himself ready to guarantee the possession of it to the present reigning dynasty.—The Allied Powers not having it however in their power to accede to the guarantee of the kingdom of Naples, to King Joachim, except on condition of the engagement reciprocally entered into between them, to procure a suitable indemnity to his Majesty the King of Sicily; his Majesty the King of Naples engages, from this date, to admit the principle of this indemnity; and as the efforts of his Neapolitan Majesty are to be directed towards all the objects of the grand European alliance, he takes the especial engagement to extend those efforts, in order to procure the said indemnity for the King of Sicily.
§ Art. 2.—His Imperial and Royal Majesty also engages to make use of his good offices, to accelerate the conclusion of peace between his Majesty the King of Naples and his Majesty the King of Great Britain, on bases just, solid, and honourable to both parties, as well as for the re-establishment of friendship, and of a good understanding between his Majesty the King of Naples, and the other Power* allied to Austria.
65§ Art. 3.—The two high contracting parties, acknowledging that his Majesty the King of Naples cannot march his troops farther from his kingdom than they are at present, without the certainty of having nothing to fear from a landing upon his coasts, it is expressly understood, that his Neapolitan Majesty shall not be required to employ his troops in active service according to the plan of operations to be combined, until the cessation of hostilities on the part of Great Britain, with respect to his Neapolitan Majesty, shall be completely secured.
§ Art. 4.—His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, engages earnestly to endeavour, at the period of a general peace, to obtain for his Majesty the King of Naples an indemnity for the sacrifices and exertions which his said Majesty may have made in support of the common cause, by obtaining for him a good military frontier suitable to the political interests of the two Powers, and to the relations of friendship and union established between them by the present Treaty.
§ Art. 5.—The two high contracting parties reserve to themselves, at the period of a general peace, to concert more particularly, and with still greater confidence, the conclusion of a treaty of defensive alliance between them, with the view of reciprocally guaranteeing their states in Italy, and of mutually contributing to the common advantages of their subjects and their dominions.
§ These secret articles shall be ratified separately, and the ratifications thereof shall be exchanged at the same time with those of the Treaty of this day.—Done at Naples, the 11th of January 1814.
§ (L. S.) LE COMTE DE NEIPPERG,
§ (L. S.) LE COMTE DE MIER,
§ (L. S.) LE DUC DE GALLO.
§ Additional and Secret Article of the Treaty concluded between the Courts of Vienna and Naples.
§ His Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and his Majesty the King of Naples, desiring to come to an immediate arrangement respecting the stipulations of the 4th Article of the Secret Treaty signed at Naples the 11th January, have agreed as follows:—His Imperial and Apostolic Majesty engages to secure to his Neapolitan Majesty an acquisition, calculated upon the scale of 400,000 souls, to be taken from the 66 Roman states, and according to the mutual convenience of the two countries. His Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty will use his good offices with the holy Father and the high Allies, to induce them to sanction this concession. His Majesty the King of Naples, on his part, solemnly engages to consider this arrangement as satisfying all his expectations of territorial acquisition. The present additional article shall be ratified separately, and the ratifications thereof shall be exchanged at the same time as those of the Treaty patent and secret of this day. Done at Naples, the 11th January 1814.
§ (L. S.) LE COMTE DE NEIPPERG,
§ (L. S.) LE COMTE DE MIER,
§ (L. S.) LE DUC DE GALLO.
§ Second additional Article to the Treaty signed between his Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty, and his Majesty the King of Naples.
§ The Farnesian property at Rome, and the allodial property in the kingdom of Naples, are expressly comprehended in the guarantee promised by his Imperial, Royal and Apostolic Majesty, to his Majesty the King of Naples, by the fourth Article of the Treaty of the 11th of January. In witness whereof, the undersigned, furnished with the special full Powers of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary and Bohemia, and of his Majesty the King of Naples, have signed the present additional Article, and have affixed thereunto the seal of their arms.—Done at Chaumont, the 3d March 1814.
§ (L. S.) LE PRINCE DE METTERNICH.
§ (L. S.) LE DUC DE CAMPOCHIARO.
§ (L. S.) LE PRINCE DE CARIATI.
§ No. 2.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Basle, 22d January 1814.
§ The Emperor of Austria having entered into engagements with the person now exercising the government of Naples, by the tenour of which engagements it is agreed, that a corps of Neapolitan troops, not less than 30,000 men, shall immediately join the Austrian army of Italy, for the purpose of acting offensively against the common enemy, I am to signify to your lordship the Prince Regent's pleasure, that as soon as you receive from-his Imperial Majesty's minister at Naples, the Count Neipperg, a copy of this Treaty, your lordship do immediately, upon the 67 faith of that instrument, suspend hostilities against the Government of Naples, on the part of Great Britain; and I am also to direct, that you will take measures for prevailing upon his Sicilian Majesty to do the same.—The Treaty, actually signed, having been returned by prince Metternich to count Neipperg, to have some alterations made in its detail, I inclose a copy of the Treaty as it is proposed to be amended, in order that your lordship may see that the act, as executed, is substantially conformable to the intentions of the Austrian Government, as notified to me.—You will notify the Armistice, should it be concluded, to his Britannic Majesty's officers by sea and land, as far as circumstances will permit, for the direction of their conduct.
§ No. 3.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Chatillon, Feb. 4, 1814.
§ The subject of the negotiations with Murat, and the principles upon which the British Government has acted, are so fully known to your lordship, that you will be enabled to bring the whole under the consideration of the Court of Palermo, in the manner which will best serve to place the conduct observed by your Court, throughout these transactions, in the most correct point of view.
§ It would have afforded the Prince Regent the truest satisfaction, to have seen his Sicilian Majesty replaced on the throne of Naples by the exertions of the Allies; but there has been throughout, the obvious danger, that in aiming at too much, his Sicilian Majesty might lose all; and that the Allies, in endeavouring to assert too tenaciously the interests of the Sicilian family, might sacrifice the common cause. This consideration has been the governing principle of all their measures; and it is one, to the justice of which the hereditary Prince was himself, upon discussion with your lordship at a former period, not insensible.
§ Your lordship will be enabled to impress his Royal Highnesses mind, that if the necessity for the measure, in a defensive view, had become less pressing, from the late successes of the Allies, it was not the less important in the great scale of the war. Murat's army, united to the Viceroy's, must have neutralized the Austrian efforts in Italy; the deliverance of that important feature of Europe must have 68 been postponed, if not hazarded, and the use of marshal Bellegarde's force altogether lost to the prosecution of the war in France itself.
§ Under these circumstances, there was only one honourable and prudent line to pursue; to endeavour to combine his Sicilian Majesty's interests with those of the common cause, and to secure for him a suitable indemnity, rather than hazard all the interests concerned.
§ My note to prince Metternich, of the 27th ultimo, will put your lordship in possession of the steps I have already taken, on the part of my Court, to support his Sicilian Majesty's claims. I cannot hope that such a possession as Naples can be found for his Sicilian Majesty; but the British Government will support his interests cordially, and avail themselves of their relations with Murat to give weight to their intervention.
§ I shall be glad to receive from your lordship on this subject any information you conceive may assist the Prince Regent in furthering his Sicilian Majesty's claim to a suitable indemnity.
§ No. 4.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Troyes, 15th Feb. 1S14.
§ I trust, my letter to your lordship from Basle, will have enabled you to make such an arrangement with Murat, as may give to the Austrian operations in Italy the entire benefit of his military means. You will have observed by that dispatch, as well as by one which I addressed to your lordship from Chatillon-sur-Seine, that bis royal highness the Prince Regent takes the most cordial interest in the welfare of his Majesty the King of Sicily; and I have no doubt that your best exertions will not have been wanting, to impress upon Murat, that no accommodation can take place with him on the part of Great Britain, except upon the principle, of his uniting, so far as depends upon him, in procuring a suitable and just indemnity for his Sicilian Majesty, as well as of his co-operating in the common cause against France.
§ No. 5.—Lord William Bentinck to Earl Bathurst.
§ Palermo, February 15, 1814.
§ My Lord; I have the honour to transmit herewith a copy of an Armistice concluded between the Duke de Gallo and myself, 69 at Naples, on the 3d inst. I have the honour to be, &c.
§ W. C. BENTINCK, Lieut. Gen.
§ (Inclosure in No. 5.)—Translation.
§ CONVENTION.
§ The undersigned, in virtue of the full powers with which they are invested, have concluded the following Convention:—
§ Art. 2.—There shall be from this day forward an entire cessation of hostilities by land and sea, as well between the British and Neapolitan forces, as between the kingdom of Naples and the Islands of the Mediterranean and Adriatic, where British forces, or other troops under the orders of English commanders, may be stationed.
§ Art. 2.—During the Armistice, there shall be a free commerce in articles not prohibited between Great Britain, the kingdom of Naples, and the Islands mentioned in the first Article, subject, however to those regulations which are established, or may be established, by the respective Governments.
§ Art. 3.—If the Armistice should be put an end to, from whatever circumstances, hostilities shall not be recommenced, until three months after the rupture of the same shall have been announced by one of the parties.
§ Art. 4.—A Military Convention shall be concluded immediately between general or superior officers of the Austrian, English, and Neapolitan armies, in order to establish the plan of operations, according to which the respective troops, united in the same cause, are to act in Italy.—Done at Naples the 3rd day of February 1814. W. C. BENTINCK.
§ The DUKE DE GALLO.
§ No, 6.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated Chatillon, Feb. 21, 1814.
§ Your dispatches were delivered to me yesterday by captain Graham, who reported to me such information as he had been enabled to collect on his route. The point now of most importance, is to secure the effective co-operation of the Neapolitans, whose active assistance appears indispensable, to give to the Allies that rapid and commanding success, which may speedily decide the fate of Italy.
§ I am sorry to find that Murat had, under some pretext, delayed the signature of the Treaty in its amended form; and 70 that he still continues to show some ménagement towards the enemy. I should rather impute this to a desire still to push some personal views with the Allies, than to any understanding with France.
§ My letter by the messenger will have put your lordship fully in possession of the views on this subject of the Prince Regent's ministers. The British Government never liked the measure, but being taken, they are perfectly ready to act up to the spirit of the Austrian Treaty, and to acknowledge Murat upon a peace, on two conditions; 1st. That he exerts himself honourably in the war; and, 2dly, That a reasonable indemnity (it cannot be an equivalent) is found for the King of Sicily. I should hope, with this basis to work upon, you may not only quiet any alarms Murat may have felt, as to the nature of our armistice, but furnish him with two very powerful incentives to come forward effectually. In doing so, he will facilitate all his own views, and by assisting in the indemnities to the King of Sicily, he may secure his own title to Naples.
§ I have forwarded your lordship's military dispatch to London; the exertion you have made in assembling this corps is highly creditable, and its presence must largely contribute to the successful issue of the campaign.
§ I shall be anxious to receive reports of your lordship's progress; if sent to marshal Bellegarde's head-quarters, sir Robert Wilson will forward them to me. The Armistice, as now arranged by your lordship, is perfectly satisfactory.
§ No. 7.—Viscount Castlereagh to Lord W. Bentinck, dated March 30, 1814.
§ My Lord; This instruction will be delivered to your lordship by a courier of Prince Metternich's. I propose in a day or two to forward, by an English messenger, a military instruction, which I have received for your lordship from lord Bathurst; but as his lordship's dispatch is framed upon a supposition that the operations are much farther advanced in Italy than is the fact, the delay of this communication for a few days can be of no prejudice.
§ I cannot dissemble from your lordship my disappointment, that the great superiority of force which the Allies possess over marshal Beauharnois, has not before this produced the results which, for the honour of the arms of the respective 71 Powers, and the ulterior objects of the war, we were entitled to expect from such ample and extended means. In your lordship's intercourse with the marshals Bellegarde and Murat, you will not conceal from them, that such are the sentiments of the British Government; and that we conjure them, by union and exertion, no longer to suffer their great and commanding armies to be paralized by an enemy so much their inferior.
§ As the object is to promote union, and to put aside every minor consideration, I am to signify to you lordship the Prince Regent's pleasure, that you do make every effort to this effect, by lending yourself to whatever measure may best tend to combine the exertions of the allied armies for the early expulsion of the enemy from Italy.
§ For this purpose, you will to the utmost I conform to the views of marshal Bellegarde, regulating, at the same time, your conduct towards marshal Murat upon principles of cordiality and confidence; and in order the better to effect this, and publicly to evince the desire felt by your Government zealously to unite their arms with his, your lordship will select an officer of suitable rank and military talents to reside at the Neapolitan head-quarters, whom you will direct to correspond with me and with your lordship, as sir Robert Wilson at present does.
§ Your lordship is already fully apprized of the earnest interest the Prince Regent takes in the restoration of the King of Sardinia and the Grand Duke of Tuscany to their ancient dominions; you will give every aid to both, but you will studiously abstain from encouraging any measure which might commit your Court, or the Allies, with respect to the ultimate disposition of any of the other territories in the north of Italy, the destination of which must remain to be discussed upon a peace.—I have, &c. CASTLEREAGH.
§ No. 8.—Viscount Castlereagh to Lord William Bentinck.
§ Dijon, April 13th, 1814.
§ My Lord; As several couriers have lately been intercepted, I send you my dispatch of the 30th ultimo in duplicate, also the instruction therein referred to from earl Bathurst.
§ Your lordship will perceive that the object of the former is to accelerate those results which may enable you to execute the important object to which the latter is 72 directed, namely, the concentration of the whole of the British disposable force, employed on the side of the Peninsula and Mediterranean, under the command of field-marshal the marquis of Wellington, in the heart of France.
§ In order to bring the Italian campaign to a speedy and successful result, it is essential that your lordship should consider your force merely as an auxiliary-corps, and that you should accommodate, as far as the safety of your army will permit, to the views and wishes of the Austrian commander-in-chief. It is from him your lordship will best learn what are the intentions of the Allies, including those of your own Government; and should your lordship find any difficulty in the execution of this service, arising from what may appear to your lordship to be a departure on the part of marshal Murat or any other member of the Confederacy, from the true principle of the alliance, your lordship will refer the matter for the opinion of the Austrian commander, avoiding as much as posssible any separate discussions which might interfere with the general union and necessary subordination, which ought to pervade the whole.
§ Whilst the Court of Naples was hostile, and the security of Sicily by no means assured, if my recollection is not incorrect, your lordship's military instructions restricted your operations to such parts of the coast of Italy as might facilitate the return of your force to Sicily, should its presence be required.
§ The subsequent change of circumstances, recognized clearly in the Dispatch I now send you from earl Bathurst, seems to assign no other limits to your lordship's movements than such as the military expediency of the moment may suggest, and, subject to the better judgment of your lordship and marshal Bellegarde, I have no hesitation in stating it as my opinion, that both with a view of giving complete developement to the active operations of the Allies against the Viceroy, as well as of securing to the Austrian commander that weight and preponderance which it is desirable he should possess, your lordship's corps can be in no manner so advantageously employed as by incorporating it at once with the Neapolitan army, and thus creating such a force, on the right bank of the Po, as may assume the offensive, without reference to distant and complicated combinations.
73§ This course of operations will also best and soonest approach your lordship to those passes into the south of France, which may enable you, either alone, or probably in conjunction with a part of marshal Bellegarde's army, to effectuate your junction with lord Wellington, in obedience to the order herewith sent.
§ I am sorry to observe that alarms and suspicions have latterly prevailed so as to obstruct all useful concert and co-operation; faults, perhaps, exist on both sides; but we should not despair of correcting them. Many of them may arise out of former combinations—many out of jealousies, not unnaturally resulting from the character and peculiar relations of the parties, and some no doubt from a spirit of encroachment and political speculation on the part of Murat; but the latter most be vigorously repressed, and, I should hope, are much exaggerated; for, were it otherwise, it is not for military concert, but for war amongst ourselves we should prepare, and unless the parties can place themselves towards each other in not only friendly, but confidential relations, they will create the evil which they desire to avoid.
§ On the question that has arisen between your lordship and marshal Murat, with respect to Tuscany, I am unable, in the absence of any report from yourself, to form a judgment; nor do I find that prince Metternich has any knowledge whatever of the Convention stated to have been signed by count Neipperg with your lordship.
§ I can easily conceive, without aiming at its ultimate appropriation to himself, that Murat will cling as long as he can to the enjoyment of the resources of so rich a country. There are sufficient indications, however, that he has not been exempt at times from larger views upon Tuscany, and indeed upon the whole of Italy south of the Po. He now, however, professes his readiness to deliver over the country to its former sovereign, and this seems the only effectual and just remedy for the existing evil; as its resources will then be administered by those most nearly interested in preserving them, and both the British and Neapolitan troops will have their respective lines of military operation secured to them by a friendly Sovereign, in whose territories they will find themselves equally received as Allies.
§ I trust, before this reaches your lordship, that measures will have been taken by 74 marshal Bellegarde, in consequence of orders sent him to this effect, for establishing the authority of the Grand Duke in Tuscany. But this is not the only evil, which it is essential should be made to cease, and to which your lordship's attention should be directed. It is in vain to hope for any useful concert from Murat whilst a system of menace prevails, (and as he may suppose, with the countenance of the British Government) with respect to his title to Naples. The inclosed Order of the Day, issued by the Hereditary Prince of Sicily, as it appears, to troops actually proceeding upon service under your lordship's orders, is in itself sufficient to blast all the prospects of advantage to the common cause, which the Allies proposed to themselves from forming a connexion with Murat; I request your lordship will immediately report to me, for the information of the Prince Regent and his Allies, the circumstances under which this document was issued, and whether your lordship has adopted any, and what steps, for disavowing it on the part of your Court.
§ Whether the King of Sicily will or will not relinquish his rights to the crown of Naples, it is altogether within his competence, as an independent sovereign, to decide; but it is impossible for his Majesty to pursue by his own means these rights, to the contradiction and prejudice of the views of the Allies, and to retain any claim upon them for support of any sort, either as to the recovery of his Neapolitan dominions, or a possession in lieu thereof. It is true his Britannic Majesty has not yet contracted any engagements with the existing Ruler of Naples, and that from delicacy and attention to the interest of anally, the King of Sicily, the British Government has, without any strict obligation to do so, declared their intention to be that their Treaty with Murat should marcher de front, with a suitable arrangement for the King of Sicily; but if his Sicilian Majesty shall think fit to counter act them in this their generous and friendly policy, having by their Armistice admitted the principle of the Austrian Treaty with Murat, they will feel themselves released from all further forbearance, and will find themselves compelled to enter into an immediate treaty with Murat, in order to protect the common cause against the disunion which the injudicious conduct of the Court of Palermo must inevitably produce.
75§ Your lordship will lose no time in making an official communication to the Sicilian Government to the above effect, and I am to signify to your lordship the Prince Regent's pleasure, should you find that the employment of his Sicilian Majesty's troops on the Continent necessarily leads to impressions incompatible with the existing system of the Allies in Italy, that your lordship do in that case take immediate measures for sending them back to Sicily; an extremity to which, however, under proper explanations with the Sicilian Government, and also with Murat, I flatter myself your lordship will not find it necessary to have recourse.
§ There is one subject further upon which I deem it necessary to say a few words—not that I entertain the smallest doubts as to your lordship's own conduct being regulated in strict conformity to the present system of your Government; but as your lordship, very properly, and under orders from home, gave great countenance at a former period to the only system which, previous to the revival of the Continent, could afford a prospect of shaking the power of France, it is the more necessary, now that a different and better order of things has arisen, to guard against any act or expression which might countenance an idea, that either your lordship or your Court were actuated by une arrière-pensée, inconsistent with the arrangements understood between the Great Powers of Europe. In your lordship's proclamation there may perhaps be found an expression or two, which, separately taken, might create an impression that your views of Italian liberation went to the form of the government, as well as to the expulsion of the French; but taking its whole scope, and especially its opening and concluding paragraghs together, I cannot assent to the interpretation the duke of Campochiaro, on the part of his Government, has attempted to give it; but this and the incident of the colours, prove how necessary it is, surrounded as your lordship must be by individuals who wish for another system to be established in Italy, not to afford any plausible occasion or pretext for umbrage to those with whom we are acting, but with whom our relations may not be such as at once to generate Confidence. This course of policy on your lordship's part will best enable us to put marshal Murat's intentions effectually to the test, which can by no means be suffered to remain equivocal, and to reduce 76 his conduct strictly within the circle of his obligations.
§ Should your lordship have brought any supply of arms with your expedition, I must particularly enjoin your lordship not to employ them in any loose or general armament of the people. It is not insurrection we now want in Italy, or elsewhere. We want disciplined force under Sovereigns we can trust; as far, therefore as you can aid the Archduke, or the King of Sardinia, in the levy of troops, you have full authority so to do; but under the extent of our pecuniary engagements to other Powers, I must request your lordship will not charge yourself with the pay or expenditure of any other force, than what you have actually brought with you from Sicily.
§ Notwithstanding the favourable state of operations on this side of the Alps, I do not attach the less importance to the success of the Allied arms in Italy. Union and energy can alone extricate the Allies from the pernicious inactivity, to which misconceptions amongst themselves appear to have given occasion; to obviate which in future, and in order that no misunderstanding may take place in any quarter as to the upright intentions of the British Government, I propose to communicate to the duke of Campochiaro here, the substance of the orders I now send tp your lordship, and to furnish Prince Metternich with a copy of this dispatch, for marshal Bellegarde's information and guidance in his intercourse with your lordship.—I have, &c. CASTLEREAGH.
§ P. S.—Although I have thought it proper to send your lordship, for your confidential information, a copy of the Due de Campochiaro's Mémoire, I wish your lordship to understand, that considering it in many respects unbecoming in its tone and language, and unfounded in point of fact, both Prince Metternich and myself have refused officially to receive it. Your lordship will not require any assurance from me, that the British Government never pretended to answer for the consent of the King of Sicily to any arrangement whatever to the prejudice of his resumption of the Crown of Naples; they never did more than answer for their own conduct upon a measure, which was felt to be necessary to the general interests of Europe.
§ CASTLEREAGH.
77§ (Memoir from the Duke of Campo Chiaro.)—Translation.
§ So early as the 8th of January of the present year, a Treaty of Alliance was concluded at Naples between his Majesty the King of Naples and his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, by which, amongst other stipulations, the accession of the other Allied Powers to the Treaty, and a mediation for the conclusion of peace with Great Britain, were promised to the King. This negociation met with no difficulty, and the King consented to it the more willingly, as his excellency Prince Metternich had, as early as the 28th of October 1813, assured the Neapolitan Court, through its minister Count Mier, that lord Aberdeen was furnished with full powers ad hoc, as well as of the formal renunciation of King Ferdinand of Sicily to the kingdom of Naples. Those assurances were confirmed by Count Neipperg, Austrian minister at Naples, stating at the moment of his departure from the headquarters on his mission, similar powers had been sent to lord William Bentinck in Sicily.
§ After the signature of the Treaty, the King, upon the faith of promises, put his army in motion, proclaiming that his ob-object was the defence of his dominions and of Italy. At the time when the King looked for the negociation for a Treaty of Peace with Great Britain, lord William Bentinck declared that he had not the necessary powers, and that he could only sign an armistice: and when the King expected that the ratification of the Treaty with Austria was arrived, the Austrian minister presented to him a new Treaty, Austria not being willing to ratify the first, notwithstanding that it had been drawn up in conformity to the full powers given to Count Neipperg, and with his full consent.
§ During these transactions the King did not stop the course of his military operations against France; and his Majesty signed the second Treaty, which had been drawn up according to the wishes of the Emperor of Austria without altering a single phrase, notwithstanding he had already changed the Imperial Government at Rome, blockaded the castles of St. Angelo and of Civita Vecchia, occupied the town and ports of Ancona, (except the citadel,) and marched his troops upon Tuscany and Bologna. This Treaty, which had for its object the common cause 78 of Europe, and was similar to others which the Allied Powers had recognised as an integral part of the common cause, should have likewise had the same results: but observations as to form, made on the part of England, and delays on the part of the other Powers, totally changed the King's position with respect to the guarantee he expected for his own dominions, and did away the before-mentioned full powers, and the renunciation of King Ferdinand; however, his Majesty, relying entirely on the personal sentiments of the Emperor of Austria, and on the good faith of the British Government, did not, for a single instant, swerve from the line of his political and military operations, according to the strict sense of his engagements: he was convinced that it was impossible to become a party to the coalition without a reciprocity in his favour.
§ If questions arose respecting the operations of the armies in Italy, they ought to have been looked upon merely as differences of opinion in a military point of view, which have since been justified by facts. The King, in the space of two months, made himself master of a fort at Terracina, fort St. Angelo, Civita Vecchia, all the forts of Ancona, and Leghorn; he defeated the enemy at Reggio, and by his manœuvres, made such a diversion, that if marshal Bellegarde would have passed the Mincio, the weakness of the Viceroy's army at that point never could have been greater than at that moment; added to this, a circumstance happened, which gave hopes to the King of the accomplishment of his wishes in the junction of his troops, with those under the command of lord William Bentinck. This circumstance of itself completed that concatenation of unhappy facts, which could only inspire the King with a confidence proportionate to his ability, and to the political system to which he had entirely given himself up.
Lord William Bentinckdispatched the chief of his staff, Count Catinelli, to marshal Bellegarde, in order to concert with him the operations of the two armies. The marshal wished that the British troops should act against the Genoese territories, whilst lord William Bentinck wished to take possession of Tuscany, and produced a Convention agreed to by Count Neipperg, by which he was to occupy that country. This Convention was unknown to the King; it was contrary to the 4th article of the armistice 79 signed by lord William Bentinck, wherein it is said that the operations of the armies should be agreed upon by common consent by the generals of the three Powers; and it became useless from the moment that Tuscany was completely conquered by the Neapolitan troops:—marshal Bellegarde did not, therefore, deviate from his opinion, and he urged, that the British army should act against Genoa.
Colonel Catinelli, who had failed to convince marshal Bellegarde, observed to the King at Bologna, on his return from his mission, that it would have been difficult and even impossible to have effected a landing at Spezia on account of the forts which defended the port, and the difficulties which the season opposed to the anchorage. The King proposed to attack the forts on the land-side with his troops; but as the difficulties with respect to the season still continued, he told colonel Catinelli that the army could disembark at Leghorn and direct itself against the Genoese territory, and offered a detachment of his troops to assist the expedition. It was then, for the first time, that Count Catinelli informed the King of the Convention respecting Tuscany which had been signed by Count Neipperg: the King was surprised at it, and declared it was unknown to him. However, his Majesty, not wishing on that account to arrest the progress of the allied armies, invited Count Catinelli to cause the British troops to land at Leghorn. He assured him that he wanted them, whilst his Majesty had no doubt that he should soon come to an agreement with lord William Bentinck.
All these amicable dispositions, which contributed towards realizing the object of the alliance, have unfortunately not answered the King's expectations. No sooner were the English troops landed, than Tuscany was inundated with proclamations. One, issued in the name of lord Bentinck, and of which a copy is annexed under letter A., was addressed to the Italians. The other, under letter B., came from the Vicar-general of Sicily, and was directed to the Sicilian troops, forming a part of the expedition. The former holds out the promise of union and regeneration, appealing to the example of the constitution of Sicily, by which that Island was rescued from slavery. If the Allied Powers promulgate such principles to the Italians, why should not the King follow the same course? With respect to the second, it is impossible that the King 80 should think his dominions guaranteed to him, when an army, commanded by the general of a friendly Power, is, at the same time, directed to conquer the kingdom which he possesses.
The King, who was desirous to be on a good understanding with lord William Bentinck, and who was happy to unite his arms with those of Great Britain, not only to carry on military operations with more vigour, but to form and establish his political relations with the Court of London, found himself in a state of hostility with lord William Bentinck, and notwithstanding all his efforts to avoid it, and all the expedients he had proposed to conciliate their respective views. All reasoning was useless; lord William Bentinck will have the administration of Tuscany—that Tuscany which was conquered by the Neapolitan arms, and in regard to which, as the King does not acknowledge the having acceded to any previous Convention, and did not himself establish the Government of the Grand Duke, he cannot accede to the pretension without compromising his dignity. The King offered lord William Bentinck the military command of Tuscany, and to place his troops under his orders: he offered to draw a military line of operations: finally, he offered to leave the question to lord Castlereagh's decision. All these propositions were refused, and lord William Bentinck threatened to drive the Neapolitans from Tuscany, as well as to renew the war between the two countries. His Majesty, confident in the justice of his cause, and in his own loyal conduct, will never accede to a transaction which shall stain the dignity of his character.
§ No. 9.—Viscount Castlereagh to Earl Bathurst, Vienna, December 7, 1814.
§ My lord;—I herewith inclose to your lordship the copy of a memoir which has been laid before me by the duke of Campo Chiaro, respecting the conduct of Murat, and likewise the copy of a paper of observations upon the same from an officer of high authority employed in the allied army of Italy. I propose referring copies of these papers to lord William Bentinck, for his observations thereupon. I have, &c.
§ CASTLEREAGH.
§ (First Inclosure in No. 8.)—Translation.
§ Historical Memoir on the Political and Military Conduct of his Majesty the King of Naples, from the Battle of 81 Leipzic to the Peace of Paris, of the 30th of May 1814.
§ 1. As soon as it was in the power of the King of Naples to appreciate the wise and moderate views of the Coalesced Powers against France, he did not hesitate an instant to sacrifice his sentiments and his personal affections to the welfare of his kingdom and of his beloved subjects.
§ 2. He marked the alteration of his policy towards France, by a decree dated the 11th of November 1813, which revoked the French decrees against the English commerce, which considerably reduced the duties on colonial productions, and which permitted the introduction into the kingdom of Naples of various articles which had been till then prohibited. It is necessary to remark, that these dispositions took place at a time when France still exercised all her preponderance in Italy, and had not entirely lost it in Europe.
§ 3. Upon the overtures made by the Austrian cabinet to Prince Cariati, the Neapolitan minister plenipotentiary at Vienna, to engage the King to take part in the war against France, his Majesty authorized that minister to enter into negociations with the Allied Powers respecting his accession to the coalition.
§ 4. He at the same time sent the marquis de St. Elie to Sicily, in order to make known to the Prince Regent of England, through lord William Bentinck, his desire to conclude peace with his Britannic Majesty; and although this proceeding had no effect, it does not the less prove the King's eagerness to unite himself with England. During those transactions the Austrian Cabinet proposed to the King to conclude a Treaty of Alliance with him conjointly with England. They assured his Majesty that lord Aberdeen, the English ambassador at the Court of Vienna, was authorized by his Government to sign it, and promised that all the Powers would accede to it.
§ 5. The King lost not a moment in sending to prince Cariati the necessary full powers to sign the Treaty of Alliance proposed by Austria: but during the progress of this negociation, count Niepperg, an Austrian general, arrived at Naples on the 30th of December, furnished with full powers, on the part of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, to sign a Treaty of Alliance between the Courts of Naples and Vienna. It was observed to that plenipotentiary, that the King's intention 82 was to treat with Austria and England conjointly;—upon which count Niepperg declared that the Treaty he was instructed to conclude with the Neapolitan Government, would be common both to England and the Allied Powers, because it was agreed between them that the ally of one should be the ally of all the others; and he added, that he was the bearer of order* from the British Government to lord William Bentinck to cause hostilities to cease on the part of Great Britain, against the kingdom of Naples.
§ 6. Inconsequence of the assurances and intreaties of the Austrian plenipotentiaries, which had for their object to hasten the co-operation of the Neapolitan troops against the French army in Italy, the King, on the 11th of January 1814, signed a Treaty of Alliance with Austria, by which that Power guaranteed to him the sovereignty of the kingdom' of Naples, and engaged to procure for him a similar guarantee on the part of all the Allied Powers, as well as a renunciation from King Ferdinand 4, of his rights upon that kingdom. One of the clauses of this Treaty, moreover, stipulated for an augmentation of territory, which should give to the kingdom of Naples a good military frontier.
§ 7. Count Niepperg communicated this Treaty to lord William Bentinck, and invited him to cause hostilities to cease against the Neapolitan Government: and, in effect, lord William Bentinck came himself to Naples, and on the 3d of February 1814, signed a Convention of armistice with the Due de Gallo, the King of Naples minister for foreign affairs.
§ 8. It was stipulated by the Convention that hostilities should cease between Great Britain and Naples; that the commercial relations between the respective states and subjects should be re-established, and that the generals commanding the Austrian, English, and Neapolitan armies, should agree upon a plan of operations, according to which the armies united in the same cause should act in Italy.
§ 10. The King, who left Naples the 23d of January, had already caused his army to advance into the territory of the French empire and the kingdom of Italy. The sieges of Fort St. Angelo and the towns of Ancona and Civita Vecchia were begun.
§ 11. On the 30th of January the King published a proclamation to his troops, in order to animate them to defend the cause of Europe:—the decided tone of that 83 proclamation made it clear that the coarse pursued by the King left him no means of reconciliation with Napoleon.
§ 11. A military Convention was signed on the 7th of February by the Austrian general Nugent and the Neapolitan general Livron. It was agreed by this Convention, that the two armies should be separated by the Po, and that after they should have approached that river to put themselves in direct communication with each other, they should push forward their operations in Lombardy and Piedmont.
§ 12. While affairs were in this state, the King was informed by the Austrian Cabinet that the Treaty signed at Naples had not keen ratified, because lord Castlereagh, in examining it, had made alterations in it, together with some observations, in order to make it such that Great Britain should have no difficulty in accepting it.
§ The alterations were principally, that the King should renounce all pretensions to Sicily, and that he should concur, as well in the guarantee of its possession in the reigning family, as in an engagement to procure for them a suitable indemnity for the kingdom of Naples. It was further fixed, that the promised augmentation of territory should be taken from the Roman states upon a scale of 400,000 souls.
§ The Austrian Cabinet added, that these alterations had been discussed with the ministers of Russia and Prussia, and that they all concurred in opinion that if his Majesty accepted the modifications made to the Treaty, all the Allies would accede to it by separate acts.
§ 13. This declaration was confirmed by a note from the Austrian plenipotentiary, dated the 10th of February, and by a dispatch from lord Castlereagh to lord William Bentinck, dated Basle, the 22d of January, by which he was directed, in consequence of the conclusion of the Treaty of Alliance between the Courts of Vienna and of Naples, with the concurrence of Great Britain, to suspend hostilities against the Government of Naples on the part of Great Britain, and to take the necessary steps to engage his Sicilian Majesty to act in the same manner.
§ 14. Although the King might be surprised at this conduct contrary to received usage, his Majesty nevertheless determined to abandon himself with the greatest confidence to the good faith of the Austrian 84 and English ministers. He accepted the modifications proposed by lord Castlereagh, and ratified the Treaty by an autographical letter which he addressed to his Majesty the Emperor of Austria. Still, however, the ratification of this Sovereign, which the Austrian plenipotentiaries had promised to deliver to the King three days after the signature of the new Treaty, did not arrive until the 4th of March, viz. after a month's delay.
§ 15. Scarcely had the King arrived at Bologna, when marshal Bellegarde, in unfolding to his Majesty in a letter, dated the 8th of February, his plan of campaign, acknowledged the advantages which the Austrian army had already received from the movement upon Bologna, or to speak plainer, the appearance of the two first divisions of the Neapolitan army in the department of the Reno. The field-marshal expresses himself on this subject in the following manner:—"The advance of your Majesty's troops, and particularly your own arrival at Bologna, immediately decided the Viceroy to retreat."—He goes on in the same letter to state—"I passed the Adige on the 3d; to-day (viz. the 8th of February) I shall pass the Mincio, between Vallagio and Goite; to-morrow the circumvallation of Mantua and Peschiera, &c. will be completed." The King was thus, from the beginning of February, assured that marshal Bellegarde was fully determined to force the passage of the Mincio, in order to march towards Placentia, where his army would come in communication with the Neapolitan army, and follow the operations on the Upper Po and in Piedmont.
§ 16. The sieges of Ancona and Civita Vecchia, that less important one of Fort St. Angelo, and the occupation of Tuscany, where the enemy, still in possession of the forts of Leghorn, had 3 or 4,000 men, left at the King's disposal, until the reduction of the aforesaid towns and forts should have taken place, only sixteen battalions of infantry, forming the divisions Carascosa and Ambrosio, and about 14 or 1500 cavalry.
§ 17. Notwithstanding the vast field of operations in which the Neapolitan army was occupied, or rather dispersed, which according to the terms of the 3d article of the Treaty signed with Austria the 11th Jan. was not to exceed 30,000 men effectives; the King, on the 9th of February, viz. the same day that he received marshal Bellegrade's letter, hastened to concur in 85 the success of the operations of the Austrian army, in directing the first division on Reggio, and placing the second en échelon on the great road from Rubbiera to Modena. The first division thus supported the movement of the division of Nugent, and the second by the occupation of Carpi and Novi observed Borgo Forte, where the enemy had constructed a bridge and a very strong tête-de-pont. On the 13th Feb. the head-quarters of the 1st division were at Reggio, and almost the whole of the troops which composed it, including the cavalry, were in position on the Enza. The head-quarters of the King were on the 8th at Modena. General Count Nugent with his division then occupied Parma, Borgo, and St. Domino, with his advanced posts at Firenznola. In the mean time the King, attentive to this officer's operations, and in order to avoid surprise, caused his left flank to be cleared through the valley of the Taro as far as Fornovo and Bevuto, and attentively watched Borgo-forte, from whence the enemy could at pleasure déboucher with considerable force to attack the right flank, and even occupy all the troops which were acting in the direction of Modena and Placentia. These dispositions of the King were effected with promptitude and energy, and according to the true principles of war. On the evening of the 17th his Majesty learnt by the chief of his staff, that marshal Bellegarde informed him the same day, not 'that he had forced the passage of the Mincio and completed the circumvallation of Mantua and Peschiera,' as he had announced in the most positive manner in his letter of the 8th of the same month to his Majesty; but, on the contrary, that the Viceroy still occupied, with almost the whole of his forces, the positions on the right of the Mincio, from whence he could at pleasure cause a part to déboucher upon Mantua, &c.
§ Let us examine for an instant the position in which the King found himself at the moment he learnt so great an alteration in the dispositions of marshal Bellegarde. The division Nugent, forming the head of the column, was not composed of 3,000 fighting men; it extended, as has been already shown, from Parma to Firenzuola, and covered all the country which is situated between the Taro and Nura; its advanced posts were but four miles from Placentia. The first division was placed en échelon between Parma and Reggio, occupying Fornovo and Bevuto upon the 86 left flank. The second division was posted between Reggio and Modena, occupying Brescilla, Gualtieri, Guastalla, and Novi, in order to observe, as much as possible, Borgo-forte, and secure the right flank of the operations. These two divisions, each composed of eight battalions, made together a force of 12,800 men; there were besides 1,300 cavalry, part of which was with the advanced guard of general Nugent, the remainder posted as advantageously as possible, viz. upon the Enza and Rubbiera, towards Brescilla, and in advance of Guastalla. This position, too extensive, particularly on account of Borgo-forte, could not be approved, except for two reasons;—first, that the King believing marshal Bellegarde on the right of the Mincio, or on the point of passing it, had no longer any thing to fear from the bridge at Borgo-forte, which the enemy would necessarily have destroyed in quitting his line of defence; secondly, that notwithstanding the small number of his troops, his Majesty wished to reach Placentia before the enemy, to prevent his passing the Po at that point, and of thereby shutting the entrance of the valley of Trebbia to him, through which, by passing along the Bobbio, he would have had a secure retreat upon Genoa, (even if it should have been decided, to avoid all pursuit, to abandon the great road from Castel St. Giovanni to Tortona.) The enemy would besides, by his passage of the Po at Placentia, have had the means of reinforcing himself with 3,000 or 4,000 men, which the Neapolitan troops were driving out of Tuscany, and who effected their retreat by Massa and Lazzana. The King having learnt by the above-mentioned letter from marshal Bellegarde to the Chief of the Staff of the Neapolitan army, that the Marshal had given up the idea of passing the Mincio, and which was confirmed to him the same day by the British colonel Catinelli, who had just arrived from the Austrian head-quarters at Villa-franca, his Majesty decided to acquaint general Nugent that the position which his division occupied between the Taro and the Nura was become hazardous, and that it would be prudent, and even necessary, for him to put himself behind the Enza, holding Parma only by a party of light cavalry.
§ In consequence of the reasons above stated, the King was obliged for the moment to renounce demonstrations against Placentia, which were then become use- 87 less, because the garrison of that place, after having been joined by all the new levied troops from Alexandria, the other places in Piedmont, and from the interior of France, amounted to 16,000 men; neither could the King change his demonstrations into a direct attack, which would have required the whole of his forces, because the Viceroy, by his position on the Mincio, had it in his power to pass whatever number of troops toe chose, by the bridge of Borgo-forte, before marshal Bellegarde could have suspected it, as all movements on the right of the Mincio Were admirably covered by Mantua.
§ However, the King not willing to give give up harassing the rear of the enemy's right, threw a bridge over the Po, at Sacca, (viz. at two miles above Casal Maggiore), and with the sappers of the army, and the marines of his guard, constructed a tête-de-pont upon the left bank, under the direction of general Nugent, who, in his letter of the 24th February to the King's Chief of the Staff, praises particularly the zeal, intelligence, and devotion displayed throughout these operations by the Neapolitan troops who were employed in them. The bridge finished, his Majesty caused Baron d'Aspre, an officer of general Nugent's staff, to pass it with a column of troops, half Austrians and half Neapolitans, surprised Casal Maggiore, where colonel Frangissani, attached to the Viceroy's staff, was made prisoner, with 40 gens d'armes. Baron d'Aspre, after having occupied Casal Maggiore, sent out patroles on the roads to Cremona, Piadene, and Mantua. This movement, pushed with activity, produced the best results, as it induced the enemy to consider it as a prelude to a serious passage of the river: and the Viceroy in consequence detached a considerable force towards the Po, and positive information was received that the division Zucchi was directing itself on Borgo-forte, and that a French division under general Grenier was destined to reinforce the garrison of Piacentia, which would thus amount to 22,000 men.
§ How was it possible for the King to co-operate more effectually than he had done to weaken the Viceroy on the Mincio? More than 12,000 men had been detached by the Viceroy from his line of operations, and still marshal Bellegarde did not dare to attempt the passage of the Mincio, although informed by the King of each movement of the enemy, who was informed by them himself by his advanced posts 88 near Borgo-forte, and by the Baron d'Aspre.
§ The chief of the French army, convinced of the inactivity of the Marshal, that he could with safety reduce his force on the line of the Mincio, without risking attempts on the part of the enemy, directed general Grenier to proceed with the greatest part of his force from Piacentia to Reggio, to drive general Nugent from the positions he persisted in keeping between the Taro and the Nura, against the wishes of the King; or, if he should determine to defend them, to crush him: at the same time general Zucchi received orders to pass the Po at Borgo-forte, and to move upon Guastalla: it was even asserted that the Viceroy had passed the Po, and personally directed this movement, which compromised all the left flank of our échelons. General Nugent felt too late that he was wrong in not having attended to the information which the King caused to be sent to him by the chief of his staff on the 17th February. The Austrian division under his orders was pushed back to Lecchia, and would have, been pushed further, had not the two first divisions of the Neapolitan army stopped the progress of the enemy.
§ The King perceiving that the greater part of the French and Italian troops under general Grenier appeared desirous, in the retreat which they had commenced upon Guastalla, to repass the Po at Borgo-forte, after being joined by the division Zucchi, thus reinforced by 20,000 men of the army of the Mincio, in order to make an attack which would have been fatal to the Austrian army, did not hesitate, notwithstanding the inferiority of his troops in point of numbers, briskly to attack general Grenier, to oblige him to give up his project by forcing him to fight under the walls of Reggio. The conduct of the Neapolitan troops this day, and the brilliant success which resulted from it, are sufficiently known to all the military of the army of Italy. The King might call for the testimony of the Austrian generals, and of the minister Count Mier, who did not quit his Majesty during the day. Marshal Bellegarde, in his letter of the 10th March, on this occasion, pays a just tribute of praise to the brilliant bravery of the Neapolitan troops. The enemy having been driven into Reggio, and consequently beaten from all his positions, the King, without losing a moment, occupied the roads of Brescilla, Guastalla, and Carpi. General Grenier, 89 with some thousands of men only, was able to retire to Borgo-forte, the remainder were obliged to effect their retreat by St. Ilavio and Parma, and to take up a position on the left of the Taro.
§ 18.–19. While these events were passing in the Modenese and Parmesan, a corps of Anglo-Sicilian troops, under the orders of lord William Bentinck, landed at Leghorn. The debarkation at this point, and the intention to act in Tuscany, intimated to the King and to count Miers, by colonel Catinelli, chief of the staff to lord William Bentinck, at the time of his late visit to head-quarters, did not coincide with the notice given by marshal Bellegarde to the King, in his letter of the 8th February, that the expedition from Sicily was destined against Genoa, where the utility of its co-operation appeared to have been acknowledged. In order to be regular, and in conformity to the 4th Article of the Convention of Armistice, which lord William Bentinck had just signed, it was necessary that the operations of his corps d'armée should be regulated beforehand, and in concert with the chiefs of the Austrian and Neapolitan armies: the debarkation in Tuscany was not the result of any plan agreed upon for this object between the generals of those armies. Moreover, when the English presented themselves before Leghorn, Tuscany had several days before submitted to the King's arms, the enemy having been entirely expelled after the engagement at Borgo Baggiano, which were the last Neapolitan troops in Tuscany.
§ 20. The direction given by lord William Bentinck to his corps d'armée must necessarily, from every motive, astonish the King, and might create doubts in his mind; but rejecting every idea of distrust, his Majesty hastened to send one of his general officers with a letter to lord William Bentinck, in which he offered to put under his orders a regiment of cavalry and a battery of artillery, in the supposition that the Anglo-Sicilian corps d'armée might want both the one and the other. The officer sent by the King was besides charged to demand of lord William Bentinck, in what manner, and upon what point he intended to act, and was to propose to him, in case he desisted for the moment from his expedition against Genoa, to unite his troops to the Neapolitan army, and to act frankly and in concert upon the right bank of the Po, without attending to the movements which the Viceroy might make on the left bank, 90 because the troops which would be assembled after the junction of the British corps d'armée with the Neapolitan troops and the division Nugent, would have been sufficient to penetrate to the Upper Po, to pass that river in the rear of the Viceroy, and by that means to force him to quit the line of the Mincio, which marshal Bellegarde persisted in regarding as impossible. In the case of his acceding to the King's project, lord William Bentinck was requested to indicate the route which he would take to place himself in line,—whether by Pontremoli, the valley of the Taro and Parine, or by Pistoia, and Modena, or by Florence and Bologna; and according to the direction lord William Bentinck should have preferred, the Neapolitan officer would, according to his instructions, have given the necessary orders to insure, along the route, the subsistence and lodging for the troops.
§ 21. Lord William Bentinck gave no answer to the King. Some days afterwards he came to the King's head-quarters at Reggio, and declared that he insisted that Tuscany should be given up to him, and that it should be instantly evacuated by the Neapolitan troops.
§ 22.–23. The King could not consent to these pretensions, for several reasons: first, that Tuscany had only been conquered and occupied by his troops to be given up to its ancient Sovereign, who was a prince of the Austrian family, his august and faithful ally. Secondly, That this occupation of Tuscany by the English, not having a military object in view, nor the least co-operation towards the success of the common cause, could not be exacted by lord William Bentinck but for motives offensive to the dignity and interests of his Majesty. Thirdly, That this cession, of a country conquered by the King's arms to the troops of a Power with whom he was as yet but in a state of armistice, would more properly have served as the condition of a definitive Treaty with Great Britain; and which the King did not cease to offer, and lord William Bentinck to refuse. Fourthly, That the Sicilian troops, on landing at Leghorn, had published a proclamation of the Court of Sicily, which had been distributed and stuck up in all parts of Tuscany with too much éclat and ostentation to be unknown to lord William Bentinck:—by this manifesto it was declared that the Sicilian troops were destined to support the rights of the ancient dynasty upon the kingdom of Naples.
91§ 24. Zealous to stifle in the beginning every germ of distrust, and resolved to exhaust every means of conciliation to wards the British general, the King went so far as to offer him the chief command of Tuscany, with the reserve, that the administration should continue to be carried on in his Majesty's name, and that the Neapolitan flag should continue to be hoisted on the forts. But shutting his ear to every proposition, and rejecting every offer, lord William Bentinck declared that he should consider the King's refusal to deliver Tuscany up to him as an act of hostility, and that he should act in consequence. He even talked of raising the population of Tuscany against the Neapolitan army, and of making a diversion into the kingdom of Naples.
§ 25. Struck with astonishment at such threats, the King had a right to fear, that under vain pretexts it was intended to declare war against him, and, forced to look to his own defence, instead of extending his line of operations, he concentrated his army, to assure himself, in case of need, a retreat.
§ 26. This measure of prudence, called for by the extraordinary conduct of lord William Bentinck, gave rise at the time to unjust aspersions and slanderous suspicions respecting the King's intentions: and the enemy did not fail to feed and strengthen them by false reports and insidious tales, which he adroitly caused to be circulated amongst the generals of the combined armies.
§ 27. During these discussions the Russian general Balascheff arrived at the King's head-quarters, charged to deliver an autographical letter from the Emperor of Russia to his Majesty, bearing date the 23d of February, by which that Sovereign declared to the King that he renewed with pleasure the relations of friendship and good intelligence which had subsisted between the two Powers, and that adopting the principles and basis of the Treaty concluded between Naples and Austria, he had furnished general Balascheff with the necessary full powers to sign a Treaty of Alliance with the King. But the unexpected events which took place in France prevented the conclusion of the negociation which had been begun between that plenipotentiary and the Cabinet of Naples.
§ 28. The King was also informed, by his minister accredited to the Allied Sovereigns, that lord Castlereagh had pro- 92 mised that the British Government should furnish him with 15,000 muskets for the equipment of his troops, and that that minister had declared, at Chaumont and Dijon, that England, having a Treaty with the King of Sicily, could not conclude a Treaty with the King of Naples until she had obtained an indemnity for King Ferdinand IV.; but that the King of Naples might rely on the good faith of England, who, having concurred in the engagements entered into by Austria with his Neapolitan Majesty, only delayed, from delicacy, the conclusion of a Treaty of Peace with him; that in case of King Ferdinand's not making a renunciation of his rights upon the kingdom of Naples, and accepting a compensation, England; would not continue the war for him, and that, in short, the British Government would be the mediator between the Courts of Naples and Sicily.
§ 29. Lord William Bentinck received orders to make the same declaration to the Neapolitan Government, and in consequence presented an official note, dated, the 1st of April, to the Due de Gallo, in which he declared, that the British Government approved the whole of the Treaty concluded between the Austrian and Neapolitan Governments on the 11th of January 1814; that he consented to the augmentation of territory, promised to the King of Naples from the Roman territory, and that if the British Government refused to sign a Treaty in limine, that arose solely from a sentiment of delicacy which obliged it to make that negociation go hand in hand with one for an indemnity for King Ferdinand IV.
§ 30. Lord Castlereagh also, on the 3d of April, addressed a dispatch to lord William Bentinck, by which he disapproved of the proclamation of the hereditary Prince of Sicily to the Sicilian troopa united to the British corps landed at Leghorn, and directed him to make known the measures he had taken to disavow this act in the name of the British Government. Lord Castlereagh further declared in this dispatch, that it depended on the King of Sicily to renounce, or not, the. kingdom of Naples; but that it was impossible for his Sicilian Majesty to sustain his rights by his own means, in opposition to, and to the prejudice of the views of the Allies, as well as to make good his pretensions, either to the re-occupation or his Neapolitan dominions, or to a concession as an indemnity. Lord Castlereagh added 93 that it was the intention of the British Government to make the Treaty with the King of Naples go hand in hand with an arrangement for an indemnity for King Ferdinand; that if the Sicilian Government was desirous of opposing these views, the British Government having admitted for its armistice the principles of the Austrian Treaty with the King of Naples, would consider itself absolved from all engagements, and would think itself even obliged immediately to sign a Treaty with King Joachim:—The case provided for by lord Castlereagh is in effect arrived, since the Court of Sicily has protested against every proposition of indemnity for the kingdom of Naples.
§ 31. These assurances calmed the just alarms of the King, especially as he was informed that at the conferences at Chatillon, when the French plenipotentiary brought forward propositions respecting Italy, and particularly the kingdom of Naples, the plenipotentiaries of the Allied Powers formally declared, that it did not belong to France to interfere in the affairs of Italy, since the Allied Powers had already decided its fate, and that, with respect to the kingdom of Naples, they had contracted engagements which guaranteed the possession of it to the reigning dynasty:—and this Declaration was inserted in the Protocol and signed by the plenipotentiaries of the four great Powers.
§ 32. The King found another proof of the concurrence of these Powers in the engagements contracted by Austria, in the determination taken by them to invite the Courts of Naples and Bavaria to accede to the Treaty of Alliance concluded at Chaumont the 1st of March, between Austria, Russia, England, and Prussia.
§ 33. However, it was not possible for the King to push forward his operations, until he should be assured of the co-operation of marshal Bellegarde; the necessity of an understanding was felt, and sir Robert Wilson arranged a meeting on the 7th of April for the King and marshal Bellegarde at Ravere on the Po. At this conference, at which the Austrian, English, and Russian ministers assisted, it was decided that lord William Bentinck should evacuate Tuscany, and march against Genoa; that the King of Naples should pass the Taro, take Placentia, and passing the Po, force the Viceroy to evacuate Lombardy, and to retire into Piedmont; that marshal Bellegarde should pass the 94 Mincio, and drive back the Viceroy, and concert his operations with those of the King; and that at last, when the three armies should be united on the frontiers of Piedmont, they should force the enemy to repass the Alps.
§ 34. The King immediately began his attack on the Taro. The Neapolitan army had several brilliant affairs with the enemy, in which it lost considerable numbers. The Austrian, English, and Russian ministers were present, and all of them saw with what ardour the King exposed his person for the common cause. The passage of the Taro was executed with the greatest bravery under the fire of the enemy; Norge St. Domino was taken by storm, and the King was two whole days righting under the walls of Placentia, although marshal Bellegarde, who ought to have passed the Mincio, had not executed that operation. Placentia was on the point of falling into the King's hands, when he received a letter from marshal Bellegarde, which informed him that he had just concluded an Armistice with the Viceroy, and requested the King to ratify it.
§ 35. After having ratified the armistice, the King quitted the army, and retired to Bologna.
§ 36. So soon as lord William Bentinck had quitted Tuscany, the King, who having conquered it from the enemy had a right to keep possession of it until a general peace, hastened to give it up to the Grand Duke on the 1st of May. On the 13th of the same month he gave up to the Austrian troops the three Legations, the duchy of Parma, and all the country which he had taken from the French army up to the right bank of the Po:—he gave up equally to the Pope all the states which his Holiness possessed previous to his exile: thereby multiplying the proofs of his disinterestedness and moderation.
§ 37. Finally, the Treaty of Paris having put an end to the war, and the King finding himself, as the ally of Austria, at peace with France and with all the Allied Powers, by their accession to the Treaty of the 11th of January, and by his co-operation in the common cause, thought only of cultivating the friendship of those Powers, and of making, in the interior administration of his kingdom, such reforms as should ameliorate the condition of his subjects.
§ 38. It appears from this hasty exposition of facts and circumstances:—1. That 95 the King broke with France at a time when that Power had still a preponderance in Italy:—2. That he did every thing which depended upon him to accede as early as possible to the coalition:—3. That he began to act against France before the Treaty signed with Austria was ratified by her, and without waiting for the accession of the other Powers:—4. That he conquered the whole of Italy as far as the Po from the French army:—5. That his army was several times engaged with the enemy, that he lost considerable numbers, and the King exposed his own person in support of the common cause:—6. That it was not in his power to obtain more decisive success, was to be attributed to—1. The unexpected delay in the ratification of his Treaty of Alliance with Austria—2. The extraordinary conduct of lord W. Bentinck—3. And finally, to the dilatory movements of marshal Bellegarde:—7. That the Treaty with Austria became common to the other Allied Powers, in virtue of the existing relations between them, which stipulated that the ally of one should be the ally of all the others:—8. That England, besides the general engagement arising out of that Convention, specially acceded to the Treaty concluded between the Courts of Vienna and Naples, by virtue of the official declaration of the 1st of April, made by lord W. Bentinck, in the name, and by order of the British Government.—9. That the British Government confirmed its accession to that Treaty by the communications from lord Castlereagh to lord William Bentinck, of the 22d of January and the 3d of April, by that minister's offer to furnish 15,000 muskets to the Neapolitan Government, and by several declarations which he made to the King's plenipotentiaries accredited near the Allied Sovereigns.—10. That Russia not only resumed the relations of friend ship which existed before the war between herself and Naples, but sent a plenipotentiary to the King, to conclude a Treaty of Alliance, which, however did not take place, owing to the changes which happened in France.—11. That the accession of the Allied Powers to the Treaty of the 11th of January is evidently and abundantly established, whether by the answer of their ministers to the French plenipotentiary at the conferences at Chatillon, or by the determination of the Powers to invite the King of Naples to accede to the Treaty of Alliance con- 96 cluded between themselves at Chaumont the 1st of March 1814.—12. That the King gave the most convincing proof of his moderation in giving up Tuscany to the grand duke, the Legations and the countries situated on the right bank of the Po to the Austrian troops, and the Roman states to the Pope, before the general peace.—13. And that in short the King, in quality of ally to Austria, and the terms of the Treaty of Paris, being at peace with France, and still further by by the declaration of Louis 18, setting forth that he considered himself at peace with all the Powers of Christendom, it is evident that the political existence of the King of Naples, which before the war had been acknowledged by all the Powers of the continent, was strengthened by his Treaty of Alliance with Austria, by the accession of the other Allied Powers to that Treaty, particularly England, by hit Majesty's effectual co-operation in the cause of the coalition, and, in a word, by the Treaty of Peace signed at Paris the 30th of May 1814.
§ It is not superfluous here to state, that besides the incontestable rights upon which the political existence of the King of Naples rests, be founds his strongest guarantee in the general homage of the Neapolitan nation, and in the devotedness and approved bravery of an army of 80,000 men, commanded by a great captain.
§ (Second Inclosure in No. 9.)—Translation.
§ Observations by General Count Nugent on the Paper entitled "Historical Memoir of the Political and Military Conduct of his Majesty the King of Naples, from the Battle of Leipzic to the Peace of Paris, of the 30th of March 1814."
§ Article 1 to 8.
§ The first eight Articles of the Memoir contain a statement of the circumstances and of the negotiations that produced the Treaty with Austria.
§ It is indifferent whether it was by the battle of Leipzic or by any other arguments that the Allies succeeded in convincing Murat of the wisdom and moderation of their views; and that the Court of Vienna has witnessed the effects of the overtures which she had long before made.
§ The Allies having once entered into engagements with the King, were bound to fulfil those engagements, provided he also fulfilled the stipulations agreed to by 97 him—but certainty, in case of failure on his part, such engagements entirely ceased.
§ The points for examination, therefore, are those whereby the Memoir attempts to prove that his military operations corresponded with his promises, and that he has acted in conformity with the stipulations entered into with Austria, and to the views of the other Powers.
§ Article 9.—The article treats of the first operations of Murat. It may be right to observe, that at this period almost the whole of the enemy's forces in Italy were concentrated on the Adige and the Mincio.
§ General count Nugent had disembarked in the Lower Ferrara, occupied Commachio, Ravenna, and the mouths of all the rivers, and carried on his operations in the rear of the enemy.
§ He had just taken Forli, and intended continuing his operations against Bologna, when accounts were received of the approach of the Neapolitan army; which advanced as allies of the enemy. It was received every where with rejoicing.
§ The whole of the enemy's force in this country consisted of 2,000 men at Ancona, and very weak garrisons at Civita Vecchia, the castle of St. Angelo, and Leghorn. One Neapolitan column marched by Rome and Florence, to Bologna; another by Ancona and Rimini. In all these places the Neapolitan troops and those of the enemy acted together, and at Ferrara a Neapolitan General even took the command of them.
§ They attempted to force general Nugent to evacuate Forli; but he maintained this post, in order to observe the Neapolitans, who continued to show a hostile appearance;—the alliance indeed was not at that time concluded.
§ This merely serves to show in what manner Murat conquered the country as far as the Po, which he occupied as a friend and without striking a blow. Had the Neapolitan army remained stationary, two Austrian battalions and a couple of squadrons would have been sufficient to have cleared the whole country, the disposition of Tuscany and of the Romagna being known. The approach of the Neapolitan army kept these countries from rising; they would have furnished considerable military resources. But the most prejudicial consequence of the doubtful conduct of the Neapolitan army was, that it affected the operations of the Austrian 98 army, which had just repulsed the Viceroy beyond the Adige, and compelled it to halt until it should be decided whether the Neapolitans were friends or foes. If Murat conquered, as he is pleased to assert, the country as far as the Po, it was from the Allies, and not from the enemy; and it is evident that the cause of the fall of these countries was their being destitute of troops, whom the enemy was employing elsewhere. It is therefore where the enemy's forces were posted—that is to say, in France and on the Mincio, &c. &c. that these provinces were conquered, and not by Murat's army, which came up in small detachments and by regular stations, till they reached the Po, without firing a single shot, and marching precisely as in times of profound peace.
§ Article 10.—The 10th Article cites a proclamation, as though words were proofs, and could stand instead of deeds.
§ Article 11.—In the 11th Article it is a mistake to speak of a Convention of the 7th of February between the generals Livron and Nugent—this Convention merely determined what districts should be administered by each army, according to a line drawn from the sea to the summit of the Apennines. General Nugent would not extend it farther lest he should cramp the operations of lord William Bentinck, who was to land on the coast of the Mediterranean, and whose line of operations was between that coast and the summit of the Apennines.
§ Articles 12, 13, 14.—These Articles contain the diplomatic transactions which brought about the Treaty with Austria, the modifications which this Power introduced into it, and the reasons which prevented England from acceding to it in form. Murat having accepted the modifications, the Treaty was in effect concluded, even without formal ratification, especially if, as he said, he relied most implicitly on the good faith of the Cabinets. Besides, the object of the alliance between Austria and him being to increase exertions in the decisive moment, it was agreed that he should act instantly, without waiting for any other ratification.
§ We come at length to the military operations.—Article 15.—The 15th Article quotes the passage in a letter from marshal Bellegarde, which states his intentions and the effect produced by the Neapolitan army; but nothing is mentioned of the plan proposed by the marshal, which was, that the Neapolitan 99 army should march, without halting, upon Plaisance with general Nugent's division, and afterwards upon Alexandria, whilst the Austrian array should carry on operations on the right bank of the Po, which Murat promised. We shall presently see how it was fulfilled.
§ Article 16.—If, according to article 16, Murat pushed forward only sixteen battalions, and 1,500 horse, it was his own fault, and a manifest infraction of the Treaty. The fortresses of Ancona, Rome, Civita Vecchia, and Leghorn, were the pretext for leaving behind 18,000 men, the third of whom would have been more than sufficient; the real object was to have the command of the country, to draw every possible resource from it, and at the same time to be able to say that he was too weak to act.
§ Art. 17.—Immediately after the Convention of the 7th February, general Nugent began his march from Bologna to co-operate in carrying the plan of the campaign into effect; he marched upon Modena and Reggio, but when his advanced guard wished to pass the Enza, the Neapolitan general, who commanded at Reggio, declared he had orders to prevent the passage. The declaration that force would be resorted to, did not remove the obstacle until after a considerable loss of time. This conduct could not but create suspicions as to the sincerity of the new Ally, since not only he did not himself act as he had promised the marshal, but he endeavoured to prevent general Nugent from acting. It was soon ascertained that Murat had promised not to commence hostilities without giving the enemy previous notice, who was consequently enabled to direct the whole of his force against the marshal.
§ In this manner did King Murat support the movements of Nugent's division, and hasten to contribute to the success of the Austrian army. The Viceroy, who knew either directly or by the numerous officers who were every day passing from one head-quarters to the other, that he had little to apprehend from Murat, stopped his retrograde movement, and opposed the marshal with all his forces. King Murat could not, therefore, be surprised at the contents of a letter which he received from the marshal, dated the 27th February. A single glance at the map will be sufficient to show that it is not in cantoning his army at Bologna, Modena, and Reggio, that he could fulfil his engagements; this, however, was the whole that he did.
100§ All that is said in the Memoir, of detachments to the right and left, is of no consequence. The detachments to Tornuovo and Berzetto were two marches in the rear of the Austrian posts: as to those on the right, we shall presently see that they only covered that flank where it was not attacked. General Nugent, perceiving the necessity of effecting a diversion, had left King Murat there, and had marched upon Plaisance with his single division. After a brilliant action the enemy was driven into the town and his communication cut off. He was on the point of being attacked there, when the King directed general Nugent to fall back, and sent count Mier to him for that purpose. He was obeyed with regret.
§ In the Memoir it is stated that general Nugent ought even to have retreated behind the Enza. Shortly after, Murat takes merit to himself for the passage of the Po. This is a contradiction, because Sacca, where the passage was effected, is in front of the Enza; and that by retiring behind that river the passage could not have takea place. The fact is, that general Nugeat fixed upon the point of Sacca; that Murat agreed to it, and sent him marines of his guard; that he effected the passage with celerity, and detached baron d'Aspre to the other bank, who pushed on with boldness and prudence.
§ There is a mistake in the Memoir, that the King directed baron d'Aspre to pass after the bridge was made. General Nugent sent over this detachment in boats previously in order to protect the construction of the bridge; the surprise of Casal Maggiore by baron d'Aspre, with a single Austrian company, was an affair of the moment, and wholly unpremeditated. These are circumstances which King Murat could not know, being at the time at too great a distance. The bridge was constructed by the marines of the Neapolitan guard; the tête-de-pont on the other bank by Austrian pioneers, under direction of captain Teyter of the engineers. Two Neapolitan companies passed the river with the Austrians. They behaved admirably, as well as the marines. The Neapolitan troops are free from reproach. At this period there was one Neapolitan battalion, and one squadron with Nugent's division; the rest of the army was far in the rear with the King. The distance from the head-quarters produced serious inconvenience. The movement of general Grenier upon Plaisance 101 was in consequence of the march of general Nugent against that city, as the date will prove. In calling to recollection that Murat sought to prevent that inarch, one is astonished that he should endeavour to attribute to himself the merit of the measure, and to have weakened the forces before the marshal. We see that up to the present moment (the difficulties he threw in the way excepted), the effect was the same as if Murat had not come up;—but the moment was come when he must; either act or betray his engagements. General Grenier had upon the right bank of the Po about 20,000 men. Nugent's division, with, the Neapolitan forces, amounted at least to the same number. Surely it was not requiring too much to expect that an equal force of the enemy should be kept constantly on the alert. King Murat, on the contrary, considered it quite sufficient to show, for some days, an appearance of engaging an equal force, and on its near approach to retreat in order that the marshal might once more have the whole of the enemy's force to contend with. For by falling back on the Secchia or on the Tanaro, as was the King's intention, the bridge of Borgo-forte became open, and general Grenier might rejoin the Viceroy. This conduct of King Murat was the more prejudicial on account of the position of the marshal, which was between four fortresses, and required twice the amount of their garrisons to blockade them. The least advance of the marshal would produce a change to his disadvantage, in their respective forces; and if after some days, whilst the Viceroy avoided an engagement, general Grenier should return, the situation of the marshal would become worse than ever. From the moment that general Grenier's movement was decided, there was no longer the smallest risk in sending a strong detachment by Borgo-forte. Murat might therefore join general Nugent, and beat Grenier. He could then pass the Po at Sacca; and the Viceroy, separated from Grenier, and attacked in his rear, would have been lost. By the retreat, all these advantages were lost; the bridge on the Po was lost; Borgo-forte was open to the enemy, who was relieved from all anxiety.
§ For these reasons general Nugent obstinately persisted in not retreating, and happy would it have been had King Murat possessed a little of his obstinacy. General Nugent only required the re-union of the division Caracosa to give battle; 102 Murat promised it; but afterwards forbade the division to march, notwithstanding the eagerness of the troops. In the mean time, the enemy advanced upon Parma. General Nugent resolved not to retire but in the last extremity, hoping that Murat would at last act, and would not put himself in the wrong, by losing a position which offered such various advantages. Besides he risked nothing, being able to retire by Guastalla. This line of retreat was pointed out by Murat himself, who had given orders in consequence to major d'Aspre, and to the detachments on the Lower Taro, directing them to stretch along the Po towards Guastalla. General Nugent resolved to march thither himself, when he learnt with surprise, that a couple of thousand men from Borgo-forte had occupied Guastalla, which was abandoned by the Neapolitans: in this manner it was that Murat covered the right flank of the Austrians; whilst general Nugent had to oppose 20,000 men, the King with all his army could not make head against 3,000.
§ It is easy to conceive the ideas which this conduct, to say the least of it, not honourable, necessarily created amongst the Austrians. The first consequence was, general Nugent was compelled to form his line of march upon Reggio, and to send orders to the detachments on the Po, to do the like, by marching on their left upon Parma, the only road which remained open. In order to give them time for this march, he was compelled to remain in the neighbourhood of Parma, which gave rise to a sanguinary engagement against a force more than quadruple, and which certainly does less honour to the prudence of King Murat than to the obstinacy of general Nugent. The former had at this moment all his forces at Reggio and Modena, within a march of Guastalla, so that the whole of this transaction cannot be explained in a military manner. General Nugent retreated upon Reggio, and the day after, partly upon Rubiera, and partly upon Modena. It is incorrect that the two first Neapolitan divisions stopped the enemy; they did not even come within sight of them, and the rear-guard of general Nugent remained in the presence of the enemy. Murat's intention was to get behind the Tanaro, if the enemy had advanced; but the latter did not push his main body beyond Reggio, whence two divisions marched by Guastalla and Borgo-forte, to join the army of the Viceroy, only one division, consisting of 8,000 103 men, under general Sevaroli, remaining at Reggio.
§ This was a favourable occasion for King Murat to have the appearance of doing something at very little expense. Nugent's division pushed forward on the 6th of March, on the three roads which led towards the enemy, and Stahremberg's brigade, of the same division, supported by a Neapolitan battalion, defeated the feeble advanced guard of the enemy. General Nugent made the dispositions for attacking the enemy at day-break; but during the night he received orders from Modena, where Murat had gone, not to attack, and that his Majesty would arrive at 12 o'clock on the 7th to reconnoitre the enemy, and give his orders. General Nugent, perceiving that the enemy would thereby have time to retire, or to take up better positions, did not think it right to obey. He ordered general Stahremberg and Gober, and colonel Garenda to put themselves immediately in motion, and began the attack at day-break. The Neapolitans seeing Nugent's division on the march, did the same, and supported them gallantly. The first position was carried by the regiment Benjofsky, the English, and the landwehr of the Archduke Charles: the second by general Pepe, with two Neapolitan battalions. King Murat arrived at mid-day, when the affair was over, and the enemy were surrounded in Reggio. Murat wished to make proposals to the enemy to retire unmolested, when the intelligence came that we occupied the Parma road, and that the enemy was entirely cut off. Notwithstanding, Murat allowed them to escape, and we could not follow them; so that they made their retreat without risk, although we were three times their strength. The troops were indignant to see the enemy escape, and attributed it to causes by no means honourable to the King. Without entering into these mysterious questions, it is evident by this recital that the impetuosity which the Memoir attributes to the King did not exist, and that the battle of Reggio, on which he so much prides himself, was fought by general Nugent, supported by the Neapolitan generals, during his absence, and against his express order. He had no other share in this action than in preventing the consequences which ought to have resulted from it, and he was suspected of having designedly spared the enemy.
§ There are numerous errors at the end of 104 this article; as for instance, that the enemy was stronger, and that general Grenier, with several thousand men, could alone act against Borgo-forte, the remainder of his corps being obliged to retire upon Parma. General Grenier was not in the affair, but was at the time at Mantua. There was only one division, and this division alone was employed during the rest of the campaign; that is to say, nearly one fourth of the united forces of the Neapolitans and of Nugent's division. The same effect would have been produced by Nugent's division alone. From this we may judge of the good effect of the self-declared co-operations of this Ally, and the degree of justice of the assertion at the commencement of the 17th article, that the dispositions of the King were carried into effect with promptitude, energy, and according to the true principles of war!!! One may also form an opinion upon the accusations against marshal Bellegarde, to whom it is wished to attribute the blame of the inactivity of which Murat was the cause. It was the duty of the latter to put himself sufficiently in advance to have drawn upon himself the attention of part at least of the enemy's forces; instead of which he remained at such a distance that he was of no use. The marshal had the whole of the enemy's force opposed to him, supported by the fortresses. There is yet another consideration: the conduct of Murat must be attributed either to want of skill, or to a cause which one would be sorry to name; his former military reputation leads to presume that it was the latter, and leads one to put one-self on our guard against so suspicious an ally.
§ Articles 18, 19, 20, and 21.—The 18th Article relates to the landing of lord W. Bentinck near Leghorn. The two following contain observations of little consequence as to his operations, and propositions of little importance. Lord Bentinck did not understand the conduct of Murat, and repaired in person to Reggio. It is necessary to observe that lord Bentinck had not transports for more than half of the troops which he afterwards landed at Leghorn; he sent his transports for the remainder, in order to march with his whole force upon Genoa; it would have been imprudent to have attacked this place with part of his forces, or to have landed a part too near the enemy before the arrival of the remainder. The conduct of Murat was not calculated to inspire confidence 105 in lord Bentinck, who wished, by occupying Tuscany, to secure to its lawful sovereign a part of the country.
§ Article 22.—Contains pretended reasons against this demand; amongst others, that the country was conquered by his arms. One has seen above how ridiculous this idea of conquest is. In fact, Murat wished to continue to enrich himself by Tuscany, as he had done by the other countries which he occupied, all the resources of which he had made use of. Lord Bentinck rejected the proposal of holding any thing as under the protection of Murat—whose presence in Tuscany was solely attributable to the successes of the Allies, and not to his own promises. Moreover, he would not sanction by such an act the revolting oppression that Murat exercised over the country. He considered that the conduct of Murat would have been less suspicious, had he directed his forces against the enemy, instead of oppressing the country. He likewise declared that he would not leave his own troops there, who were to act against the enemy; but that troops should be raised for the Grand Duke, who would maintain internal tranquillity. In general lord Bentinck was astonished that Murat should have the largest portion of his troops in his rear, and that the rest should be so far from the operations at Bologna, Modena and Reggio, protected by the Austrians, and employed, not in battles and sieges, but in parade and exercise.
§ Articles 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, and 32.—The Articles from 24 to 29, contain various diplomatic transactions, to endeavour to prove that the Allies are bound by promises. It is, however, easy to perceive, that the whole of this is conditional, and goes for nothing, if Murat has not fulfilled his engagements. One has seen what he has done for this object up to the present time. His conduct after the affair of Reggio was not more correct; the activity of general Nugent had hampered him till then. He found means to render it ineffectual by separating his division, partly at Parma, and partly at Guastalla. He appointed a Neapolitan brigade for general Nugent, but gave it orders not to act. An occasion presented itself for attacking the enemy on the Taro—the Neapolitan general refused to do it. The whole of the enemy's army was employed against marshal Bellegarde, with the exception of the single division opposed to general Nugent. The Neapolitan army 106 absolutely did nothing but consume provisions, attend parades, and make trifling movements without object. Murat, in consequence of the reiterated complaints of the Marshal, promised to cross the Po near Cassal Maggiore; but he made his preparations and his reconnoiterings with such marked publicity, that the enemy immediately perceived his intention, and made disposition for preventing him. He then directed general Nugent to effect it, and gave up the plan when the latter was desirous to carry it into effect. Thus was a month lost after the affair of Reggio.
§ Article 33.—There is a mistake in Article 33, in saying that it was agreed at Reveré, that lord Bentinck should evacuate Tuscany, and march upon Genoa. This general, seeing the conduct of Murat, resolved not to make his own operations depend upon those of the King. He directed the troops which he had at Leghorn upon Spezzia, which was carried whilst the 2d and 3d divisions sailed directly for Genoa. The first of April he continued his operations upon Genoa with striking success. The conference of Reverb took place on the 7th, and could not fix an operation already executed. Marshal Bellegarde insisted that Nugent's division should be re-united at Parma, and authorized that general to push forward, in concert with lord Bentinck, whatever might be the conduct of Murat. They no longer trusted in the promises of the latter, and then determined upon securing the means of acting without him.
§ Article 34.—The article 34 is almost entirely false. The passage of the Taro the 13th of April was not effected by the Neapolitan array, however desirous it may have been of doing it, but by Nugent's division in three columns, under generals Glober, Stahremberg and Scnittzer. It was impossible to prevent three Neapolitan battalions, with their general at their head, to follow the Austrians, and they took part in the affair of Borgo San Domino; these and a squadron of cavalry were the only Neapolitan troops which saw the enemy, although the whole army desired it. Murat never exposed himself, for on the banks of the river there was no engagement; the actions were considerably in advance, and he was not present—neither for two days nor two hours. Marshal Bellegarde, in pursuance of the arrangements made, was not to pass the Mincio until the operations on the right bank of the Po should have produced their 107 effect, by attracting the attention of a part of the enemy, so that he should not have the whole of the enemy's army to engage in the strongest position possible. The fact is, that Murat stopped the three above mentioned battalions.—The following day, Nugent's division alone forced the Nura, after a very warm action, and on the 15th the same division alone forced the position of St. Lazaro, and drove the enemy into Plaisance, whilst its advanced guard, moving along the mountains, came into communication with the detachments of lord William Bentinck's corps by Tortona. The loss of the Austrians, was from 5 to 600 men, that of the Neapolitans wholly inconsiderable.
§ Article 35, 36, and 37.—In the 36th Article mention is again made of the rights of conquest upon Tuscany, and the generosity of the King is quoted for renouncing them: the absurdity of these pretensions has already been shown.
§ Article 38.—Recapitulation.
§ In order to reply to this recapitulation, it is sufficient briefly to state what has been remarked above—the result is:—first, that Murat, after long time wavering and hesitating, did at last appear to break with France—when she had the worst of it, and when her Italian army was driven back from the Saave to the farther side of the Adige and the Po. Secondly, that he delayed his accession as long as he had the smallest hope that Buonaparté would gain the ascendancy. Thirdly, that he greatly injured the operations of the Allies—1st, by coming up under a hostile appearance before the Treaty; 2dly, when the Treaty was made, not only by remaining wholly inactive until the arrival of the ratification, but by holding out false promises, by throwing obstacles in the way of the operations of the Emperor's troops, and by leaving to the enemy the important post of Guastalla in the rear of Nugent's division, when this division was attacked in front by a superior force. In fine, by retreating before an inferior force, instead of engaging it, as good faith required—and thus occupying the attention of part of the enemy's forces. Thirdly, in doing just as little after the ratification; the affair of Reggio having taken place against his positive orders—in preventing the conseqeunces of this affair, by allowing the enemy to escape, and not permitting him to be pressed in such a manner as to alarm him, or to draw his serious attention. The enemy showed in what light 108 he held him, by leaving on the right bank of the Po a force only proportionate to Nugent's division—thas counting King Murat for nothing—as he well might. Fourthly, that he profited by the total want of troops in Lower Italy, occasioned by the success of the Allies, to occupy that country, without firing a shot, or the loss of a man; this he called his conquest—loading these provinces with imposts and vexations of every description, and treating it as if it was to remain to him in perpetuity.
§ 5thly. That his army was well disposed to fight, and that it was with great difficulty he could prevent them. Four battalions did act at the affair of Reggio; but, as we have before seen, contrary to his wishes. There were three battalions at the affair of Taro, one of which was engaged, and a squadron of cavalry was with Nugent's division; with these exceptions, there was only some skirmishes in which his troops took part. Their loss was inconsiderable, and did not amount in the whole to 300 men killed and wounded. A couple of Austrian battalions and squadrons would have done as much as the Neapolitan army; but the mischief which this self-declared co-operation has occasioned is incalculable. This must not, however, be attributed to the troops, who were perfectly brave and well disposed, as well as their chiefs. Murat did not expose his person.
§ 6thly. That the reasons which he assigns for his inactivity are without foundation, and in contradiction to what he so often asserts of his blind confidence in the good faith of the Allies; for, first, if the delay of the ratifications was a reason, why did he not act when they arrived?—Secondly, why did he take the command in order to prevent the Austrian troops from acting, and to deceive them in the moment of danger?—Thirdly, there was nothing extraordinary in the conduct of lord William Bentinck, unless it be his not placing confidence where it was not deserved.—Fourthly, what is attributed to marshal Bellegarde recoils upon Murat, who was the cause of it.
§ 7thly. That for all the above-mentioned reasons King Murat has not fulfilled his engagements, and consequently that the Treaty with Austria is just as little binding upon her as upon the other Powers.
§ 8 and 9thly. All that is said respecting the adhesion of England is on this account without foundation.
109§ 10 and 11thly. The same may be said of the pretended adhesion of the other Powers.
§ 12 and 13thly. Do not require refutation.
§ No. 10. The Neapolitan Ministers to Viscount Castlereagh.—(Translation.)
§ Vienna, 29th December 1814.
§ While the plenipotentiaries of the European Powers, united at Vienna, in virtue of the Treaty of Paris of the 30th of May last, are occupied with the means of cementing the state of peace, happily reestablished in Europe, by the magnanimous efforts of the coalition, his Majesty the King of Naples, having become a party to it, would feel great concern at not finding confirmed, likewise, by a solemn act, the engagements and relations of amity and commerce, subsisting between the Crowns of England and of Naples, to the great benefit of the two kingdoms, and of their respective subjects.
§ Ever since his accession to the throne, his Majesty the King of Naples has been aware of the importance and the utility of an intimate union between his kingdom and Great Britain; accordingly, when the Austrian Cabinet, after the battle of Leipzic, proposed to him, in its own name, as well as on the part of the British Government, to unite himself to the Coalesced Powers, with a view of re-establishing in Europe a general peace, his Majesty the King of Naples hesitated not a moment to direct his minister plenipotentiary at the Court of Vienna, to enter into a negociation with all the Allies respecting his accession to the coalition; and he manifested, in the most unequivocal manner, his anxious desire of a connexion with England in revoking the French decrees and tariffs, hostile to the British commerce, by an ordinance of the 11th of November 1813, at which period France was still in possession of all her preponderance in Italy, and might easily have taken vengeance on the kingdom of Naples.
§ His Neapolitan Majesty, at the same time, sent the marquis de St. Elia to Sicily, to acquaint his royal highness the Prince Regent of England, through the medium of his excellency lord William Bentinck, of his desire to conclude a treaty with his Britannic Majesty. The marquis was authorized to go to England, and was furnished with the necessary full powers for opening a direct negociation 110 with the English ministry. But that mission produced no result, owing to the difficulties thrown in the way of it by lord Bentinck. Still, however, it evinced not the less the King's anxious wish of forming a connexion with England.
§ In the mean time, the Austrian Cabinet, sensible of the extreme importance of preventing the powerful diversion which his Majesty the King of Naples might make from the Alps, by uniting his forces with those of France, dispatched a messenger from Smalkalden to Naples, with the declaration, that both Austria and England were prepared to sign, conjointly with his Neapolitan Majesty, a Treaty of Alliance against France, to which all the Coalesced Powers would accede; and that lord Aberdeen, the English ambassador at the Court of Vienna, was accordingly furnished with the necessary full powers from his royal highness the Prince Regent, and had besides in his possession, King Ferdinand of Sicily's formal renunciation of his claims to the kingdom of Naples.
§ His Neapolitan Majesty, by the same courier, sent to his minister plenipotentiary at the Court of Vienna, full powers for signing the Treaty that originated with Austria, in conjunction with England. A few days after, on the 30th December 1813, there arrived at Naples the Austrian general count de Niepperg, with full powers for concluding and signing the Treaty of Alliance between the Courts of Naples and of Vienna. That plenipotentiary was told, that the King's intention was to conclude, at once the alliance with Austria and with England, agreeably to the proposal made to him. But count Niepperg declared, that the Treaty which he had it in charge to sign, would be obligatory on England and the other coalesced Powers, they having agreed among themselves, that the ally of one should be the ally of all the rest; and that, moreover, he was charged with orders from the English Government, for lord Bentinck to desist from hostilities on the part of Great Britain against the kingdom of Naples.
§ Tranquillized by this declaration, and willing to yield to the desire expressed by the coalesced Powers, of commencing, as soon as possible, military operations in Italy, his Majesty the King of Naples determined to sign, on the 11th of January 1814, a Treaty of Alliance with Austria, by which that Power, in guaranteeing to 111 him the sovereignty of the kingdom of Naples, engaged to procure for him the same guarantee from England and from all the Allied Powers, and to ensure to his Neapolitan Majesty an augmentation of territory, capable of giving his kingdom a good military frontier. The Treaty was communicated by count Niepperg to his excellency lord Bentinck, minister plenipotentiary and commander in chief of his Britannic Majesty's forces in the Mediterranean, who came himself to Naples, and on the 3d of February 1814 signed, with the minister for foreign affairs of his Majesty the King of Naples, a Convention for an armistice.
§ By that Convention was stipulated, not merely an armistice, but what was equivalent to a state of peace, since it was not only agreed that hostilities should entirely cease between the two Powers, but it was declared, that all their harbours should be open to the commerce and to the flag of the two nations, so that England positively recognized the Neapolitan Government and flag. It was also stipulated, that the generals of the Austrian, English, and Neapolitan armies, should agree upon some plan of operations, according to which the armies united for the same cause, should act in Italy, which condition established a real alliance between England and the kingdom of Naples. And this alliance has existed in point of fact, because the English troops, have fought along with those of Naples, under the orders of the King; the English generals have concerted their operations with his Neapolitan Majesty, to whom even lord Castlereagh, on the part of his Government, offered 150,000 muskets, upon a demand addressed to him by the Neapolitan plenipotentiary accredited to the Allied Powers.
§ His Majesty the King of Naples had already marched his army into the territory of the French empire, and of the kingdom of Italy; he had issued orders for besieging the Fort of St. Angelo, as well as Ancona and Civita Vecchia; and he had forced the Viceroy, by menacing his rear, to abandon the line of the Adige, and to retire behind the Mincio, when be was informed, by a dispatch from the Austrian Cabinet, that it had not been possible to ratify the Treaty of the 11th of January, in as much as his excellency lord Castlereagh, after examining it, had, with his own band, made some notes and alterations, with a view of giving it that 112 form in which England could find no difficulty of accepting it, so that if his Neapolitan Majesty accepted the Treaty with the modifications made in concurrence with England, the latter Power would likewise accept it.
§ The accession of England to the Treaty, thus altered, was confirmed by a note of the Austrian plenipotentiary of the 10th of February, and by a dispatch from his excellency lord Castlereagh to lord Bentinck, dated Basle, the 22d of January, by which the former desired him, in consideration of the Treaty of Alliance concluded between the Courts of Vienna and of Naples, and to which England had agreed, to cease hostilities against the kingdom of Naples, on the part of Great Britain, and to take proper measures for engaging the Court of Sicily to pursue the same course. Although the King of Naples could not fail being surprised at this unforeseen and unusual incident, he, nevertheless, accepted all the modifications proposed by his excellency lord Castlereagh, which chiefly respected England relatively to her engagements with the Court of Sicily; and he ratified the Treaty, in the confident expectation that England would accede to it afterwards; or his Neapolitan Majesty might have dispensed with accepting the modifications proposed by the English minister, in which Austria took no direct interest. The King, therefore, anticipating England's accession to his Treaty with Austria, pursued his military operations. His Neapolitan troops, united to those of Austria and England, displayed the most brilliant valour in several combats, the details of which are too well known to need being repeated here. It is sufficient to observe, that field-marshal count de Bellegarde and lord William Bentinck addressed, on that account, congratulations to the King, who on several occasions exposed his own person for the cause of the Coalition.
§ During the course of that campaign, which terminated in the armistice concluded between the Viceroy and the Allies in Italy, and at the very moment that the Neapolitan army was on the point of storming Placentia, after having reduced Modena, Reggio, Guastalla and Parma, his Majesty the King of Naples had received from his Majesty the Emperor of Austria a letter, written with his own hand, which ratified the Treaty of the 11th of January. But he had been informed, at 113 the same time, that the accession promised by England had not taken place, his excellency lord Castlereagh being desirous to defer the signature of a definitive treaty between Great Britain and the kingdom of Naples, to be enabled to lay it before the British Parliament along with some arrangement, made with the King of Sicily. His excellency, however, had the goodness to declare, verbally, to the Neapolitan plenipotentiary accredited to the Coalesced Powers, that, if the British Government could not, from sentiments of delicacy towards the Sicilian Court, proceed at present to the conclusion of a treaty with the King of Naples, his Neapolitan Majesty might repose sufficient confidence in the honour, of England, and in the word of an English minister, to entertain no doubt but that the British Government would be anxious to conclude the Treaty as soon as it should be able so to do, without prejudice to the engagements contracted with the Court of Sicily. His excellency lord Castlereagh added, that the British minister had not hestitated to conclude an armistice with the King of Naples, as he was furnished with powers to that effect; that the English Government had given its consent to the engagements contracted by Austria with his Neapolitan Majesty, and that it had even made strong representations to obtain from King Ferdinand of Sicily, the renunciation of his pretensions to the kingdom of Naples; but that if he declined either to renounce it, or to accept of any compensation, his Neapolitan Majesty did not, on that account, fear any thing from England,—that power contenting itself with having used its utmost exertions to procure for the Court of Sicily a compensation. Finally, his excellency observed, that the King of Naples might be assured, that, if the British Government had not consented to recognize the dynasty now reigning in Naples, it would have either opposed the engagements entered into by Austria with the King, or would at least have protested against them; but that, on the contrary, having been called upon by the Allies, to declare, whether it concurred in the alliance with his Neapolitan Majesty, the English Government had answered in the affirmative.
§ To give to these verbal declarations more force and authority, and not to leave the King of Naples without a formal security, as to the dispositions of the British Government with regard to him, his excel- 114 lency lord Castlereagh transmitted, through the medium of lord Bentinck, to his Neapolitan Majesty's minister for Foreign Affairs, an official note, dated the 1st of April 1814, in which he declared, that the British Government assured to the King of Naples, its adherence to the Treaty concluded between him and Austria; that it consented to the augmentation of territory promised him by way of indemnity; and that, if the British Government did not immediately sign a special treaty with his Neapolitan Majesty, it was to be attributed solely to the sentiments of delicacy which obliged it to conduct this negotiation simultaneously with that of an indemnity for King Ferdinand of Sicily.
§ His excellency lord Castlereagh, moreover, in a dispatch addressed to lord William Bentinck, and dated at Dijon the 3d of April, charged that minister to disavow, in the name of the British Government, a proclamation issued by the Court of Sicily, announcing its pretensions to the kingdom of Naples, and circulated by the Sicilian troops which had landed at Leghorn; and declared also, that it was the intention of the English Government to negociate at one and the same time, the Treaty with the King of Naples, and an arrangement of indemnity for King Ferdinand of Sicily; but that, if the Sicilian Government showed any disposition of opposing its views, the British Government, having framed its armistice upon the principles of the Treaty concluded between the Courts of Naples and of Vienna, would deem itself absolved from every regard to the interests of the Court of Sicily, and would even judge itself compelled immediately to form a Treaty with the King of Naples. That intimation, however, did not produce the effect which the British Government had reason to expect, because the Sicilian Court has constantly opposed its views, in the strongest manner, and has even formally protested against any proposal of indemnity; so that the supposition in lord Castlereagh's dispatch has been realised by the event.—His Majesty the King of Naples was also warranted in considering, as a proof of England's adherence to his Treaty of the 11th of January with Austria, the invitation which he received, through, the agency of the Cabinet of Vienna, of acceding to the alliance concluded the 1st of March at Chaumont, between the four principal Coalesced Powers.
115§ Besides, the 14th article of that Act, purporting that the Treaties concluded between the four contracting Powers, shall not affect the engagements into which they might have entered with other states, or prevent them from contracting fresh ones with other Powers, in order to the attainment of the same beneficial object, it is very clear that the Treaty of the 11th of January, existing between the Courts of Naples and of Vienna, which was well known on the 1st of March, having been stipulated with the consent of the three other Coalesced Powers, and particularly of England, comes within the guarantee contained in the article above mentioned.
§ In fact the Allied Powers have never called in question the validity of the engagements into which Austria entered with the King of Naples; and it is well known, that, when the French plenipotentiary, at the conferences at Chatillon, presented a contre-projet to the ultimatum of the Allies, by which France attempted to dispose of almost the whole of Italy, the plenipotentiaries of the Coalesced Powers replied to him, that France had no right to interfere in the affairs of Italy, whose fate was already fixed, according to the agreements and engagements entered into by the Coalesced Powers.
§ Considering these stipulations, and these solemn promises, it would be injurious to the noble and generous character of his royal highness the Prince Regent of England, and to the honour of his ministers and of the English nation, to suppose that the dispositions of the British Government towards the King of Naples could be altered, without any provocation on the part of the Neapolitan Government, and for the sole reason, that the object which made the alliance of the King of Naples desirable had been attained.
§ His Majesty the King of Naples has been very useful to the Coalition in general, in detaching himself from France at the moment when he might have united his troops with those of the French army in Italy, and might have acted upon the rear of the Allied army. He has been so by the direct operations which have insured all Italy to the Coalition. And he has proved still more useful to England, having enabled her, by his state of alliance towards her, to dispose of her troops in Sicily, and to employ them beneficially in the expedition to Genoa, and even in America; neither has that alliance cost her the smallest subsidy, his Neapolitan 116 Majesty having, with his own means, reduced all the countries of Southern Italy, which he afterwards restored to their former sovereigns, preserving only a small portion of territory conquered from the late kingdom of Italy, which portion was designed by the Allies themselves, to form the indemnity stipulated in favour of his Crown, by the Treaty of the 11th of last January.
§ On the other hand, what ally more safe, more useful, and more sincerely attached can England have, than King Joachim, whether from gratitude and his political system, or from the commercial advantages which he offers to the English nation?—It is very evident, that a sovereign of the family of the Bourbons on the throne of Naples, cannot suit England in any point of view. The British Government ought not to forget, that in 1762 it was obliged to send a squadron to Naples to prevent King Charles 3, from acceding to the Family Compact, which would be renewed, by the fact of the kingdom of Naples passing under the dominion of the' Bourbons. Never ought England to forget the recent conduct of the Court of Sicily towards the British Government and nation, when compared with the protection, the particular favour, and the marked attention which English commerce and English subjects enjoy in the kingdom of Naples, and the facilities of every kind which the troops of his Britannic Majesty, stationed in the Ionian Islands, daily receive from the friendship of the Neapolitan Government.
§ Thus the laws of honour and the true interests of Great Britain concur to demonstrate both the duty and the utility of an intimate union between her and his Neapolitan Majesty.
§ In reference to these considerations, the undersigned ministers plenipotentiaries of his Majesty the King of Naples request his excellency lord Castlereagh, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs of his Britannic Majesty, to be pleased to proceed to the speedy conclusion of a definitive Treaty of Peace between the two Crowns, capable of fixing for ever, their political relations and their commercial interests; so much the rather, as England has never, by any act, guaranteed the kingdom of Naples to King Ferdinand, while she has effectually done so with regard to King Joachim, by her adhesion to the Treaty of the 11th of January, subsisting between the Courts of Naples and of Vienna.
117§ His Neapolitan Majesty flatters himself also, that the British Government, animated with the noble and generous desire of extinguishing every spark of dissension in Europe, will be pleased, in its wisdom, to devise some plan for bringing about an accommodation between the Courts of Naples and Sicily, his Neapolitan Majesty being prepared to concur in any means that may be proposed for procuring to the Court of Sicily a suitable indemnity out of those states, which being provisionally occupied, and neither apportioned nor promised by any treaty, are at the disposal of the Congress, and applicable to the arrangements intended with a view to the completion of the pacification of Europe.
§ The undersigned have the the honour to inform his excellency lord Castlereagh, that they have addressed the duplicate of the present note to his highness the Prince of Metternich, Minister of State for Conferences and Foreign Affairs of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, to enable him to take such direct steps as are in conformity with the second secret article of the Treaty of the 11th of January 1814. They avail themselves, &c.
§ The Duke de CAMPOCHIARO.
§ The Prince de CARIATI.
§ No. 11.—Dispatch from Lord William Bentinck, to Viscount Castlereagh.
§ Florence, January 7, 1815.
§ My lord; I have the honour to acknowledge the receipt of your lordship's dispatch, dated December 10, 1814, inclosing a confidential paper of the duke of Campochiaro, with the remarks of a general officer thereupon, and requiring from me such comments as might assist the British Government in justly appreciating Murat's conduct through the period of the late campaign.—The messenger, owing to detention at Genoa, and foul winds, did not reach roe till the
§ It is very difficult for me to answer as I could wish to your lordship's commands, because all the papers relating to my negociations with Murat, and to the late campaign, are in England. The opportunities I had of closely observing the whole of Murat's conduct, from the period of his return from Leipsic to the end of the war, enabled me to form, as I think, a tolerably clear conception of his character, his policy, and his good faith. I can state at once, and without hesitation, that his views and principles were totally 118 at variance with those upon which he offered himself, and was accepted as the ally of the Coalesced Powers;—that he did not perform his engagements; and that, on the contrary, his conduct, although neutral and negative in its general character, was in its result much more beneficial to the enemy than to the common cause.
§ There can be no doubt, that all the advantages, contemplated in the alliance with Murat, by Austria and the Allies, would have been realized, if he had embarked honestly and cordially in the cause—but his policy was to save his crown, and to do this, he must always be on the side of the conqueror—his first agents were sent to me directly after his return from Leipsic. He then thought Napoleon's fortune desperate—his language was plain and sincere—he said, "Give me an armistice, and I will march with the whole of the army against the French—give me the friendship of England, and I care not for Austria or the rest of the world."
§ Subsequently, when Austria came to seek his alliance, he naturally discovered both his own importance and the uncertain issue of the contest. He then began to entertain views of aggrandizement, and by possessing himself of the whole of the South of Italy, be seemed to think he could render himself independent, whatever might be the event of the war.
§ It may be necessary here to say a word of the counsels by which he was surrounded. Your lordship already knows, that the courage of this officer in the field is no less remarkable than his indecision and uncertainty in the cabinet. This disposition, most unfortunately for him, was actively worked upon by two contending parties in his court and army, the one French and the other Neapolitan.—Murat's attachment was to France—in all his abuse of Buonaparté there was an evident feeling of fear and respect for him—He coveted above all the good opinion, of the French army. His French advisers played upon these feelings, always magnified the successes of the French arms, and endeavoured to keep him in his alliance to their country. He was besides most anxious not to lose his French officers, who, he knew, would not stay with him from the moment his conduct assumed a decided aspect. The Neapolitans, counsellors, army and nation, were all against France, and were extremely desirous that Murat should join heartily in the cause. 119 His most attached friends regretted his indecision. Living as much with them as I did—declaring always my sentiments with frankness—never concealing my regret at the necessity of the alliance, but being once made, professing, what I always felt, a sincere desire that it might be productive of all the advantages to both parties which it stipulated, they seemed to consider me as their friend. They excused their master as well as they could, on the score of his old attachments and connexions, from which it was difficult for him to separate. They expressed their hope that I might succeed in determining his conduct. Both of these parties agreed in one sentiment, in that of Italian independence, and in the aggrandizement of their chief.—I have sometimes thought, when willing to see his conduct in the most favourable point of view, that he himself never knew on which side he was.
§ One of the conditions of the armistice made by me at Naples, stipulated, that a plan of operations should be arranged between the three Allied corps. In pursuance of this object, count Niepperg presented to me a projet de campagne, by which it was proposed that the Anglo-Sicilian troops should land at Leghorn, and operate in the Rivière de Gênes, drawing its subsistence from Tuscany. The Neapolitans were to act on the right, and the Austrians on the left bank of the Po, each maintaining itself in the countries they respectively occupied. I immediately agreed to it, and dispatched lieutenant-colonel Catinelli, in company with count Niepperg, to arrange definitively the plan, in co-operation with marshal Bellegarde and Murat. I returned to Sicily, and, in order to avoid all loss of time, I ordered the troops to proceed directly to Leghorn, and I appointed lieutenant-colonel Catinelli to meet me at Naples, from whence, upon my return from Palermo, I proceeded by land to Leghorn.
§ The Neapolitan army had in the mean time occupied the Roman and Tuscan states. Having followed the steps of this army, my own observations entirely confirm all that has been said in the "Paper of Remarks" upon the subject of these first military operations of the Neapolitan army, and upon the misapplication of the term "Conquest," which has been so triumphantly used upon this occasion. The truth is, that every where there was an apparent concert between the French and Neapolitan authorities; there was no 120 act of hostility on either side. The French, garrisons were allowed quietly to evacuate all the fortresses, and to reinforce the Viceroy in the north of Italy. Nobody believed that Murat was at war with France. Murat could not do a better service to Napoleon, than by securing the quiet re-union of his scattered troops with the main army;—than by taking to himself, and from the Allied cause, the benefit of all the resources of the South of Italy;—than by weakening, by one half, the force he stipulated to bring into the field, upon the pretended necessity of occupying these conquered countries; nor is the occupation less worthy of remark. Here indeed the manner of a conqueror was assumed. The countries were occupied, as it were, in permanent possession. No allusion was made to the ancient sovereigns. The Neapolitan agents in the Roman states discouraged the idea of the Pope's return, and the principle of national union and independence was universally proclaimed. I will endeavour to collect all the papers and proclamations circulated by the Neapolitan authorities. I write from a recollection of the impression at the time, and I do not believe that I am wrong. I also concur in the correctness of the "Paper of Remarks," upon the subsequent operations of Murat, as detailed in his comments upon the 15th, 16th, and 17th Articles. I passed near ten days with the Austrian and Neapolitan corps, under the orders of Murat. All the officers agreed in the same statement. Nothing could be better than the spirit of the Neapolitan troops; I remember to hare heard, and I believe the fact, though I have no proof of it, that so strong was the feeling that the corps of general Nugent, in the affair of Parma, had been sacrificed, that a representation in writing, signed by several Neapolitan general officers, was made to Murat upon the subject of this stain upon their military characters. General Nugent, if at Vienna, can probably give positive information upon this point.
§ I now come to the 18th Article, which has immediate reference to my own conduct, and to the operations of the Anglo-Sicilian force; and I must take the liberty of going into some detail, to expose the pretexts which are assumed from it, to excuse Murat's inactivity.
§ I have already said, that count Niepperg proposed to me a plan of operations, to which I agreed, and which being the only one that was at all practicable, I imme- 121 diately proceeded to execute. I have also said, that count Niepperg, with lieutenant-colonel Catinelli, went to the head-quarters of marshal Bellegarde and Murat, to obtain their concurrence to it. They proceeded first to Bologna, the Neapolitan head-quarters—Murat was unwell. He saw count Niepperg, but would not see lieutenant-colonel Catinelli; this latter officer waited in vain for two days for this honour; and not liking to lose any more time, he proceeded to Verona, the headquarters of marshal Bellegarde, where he was soon after joined by count Niepperg. The Count stated that he had not shown the projet de campagne to Murat, and as well as I recollect, the reason he assigned, was, that finding Murat in an ill humour, he feared that the proposal to take from him any part of Tuscany would make him less actively disposed. Count Bellegarde's answer; as well as I recollect, approved the operation upon Genoa, but was altogether silent on the question of Tuscany.
§ Lieutenant-colonel Catinelli, upon his return from Verona, saw Murat at Bologna, and talked the whole plan over. He objected to giving up the whole of Tuscany, but he made no difficulty of giving up Leghorn with an arrondissement; and added, that when I arrived, and that we could treat together, he had no doubt we should be agreed.
§ I arrived at Leghorn two or three days before the first division of the expedition.
§ In the Article 19, it is a matter of complaint, that the expedition, instead of going to Genoa, was directed to Leghorn, contrary to the opinion of the chiefs of both armies (count Bellegarde and Murat):—elsewhere he recommended the disembarkation in the Gulph of Spezia, and makes a merit of the offer often pieces of cannon and a regiment of cavalry to act with the British army in the Riviera di Genoa.
§ These affected grounds of complaint were made with the perfect knowledge that there were only transports sufficient for the conveyance of one half the expedition; that at Spezia there was no place of safety, where the first division could have waited the arrival of the second; that there were no means there of either feeding or equipping the army; and that Leghorn was in every point of view the only point of disembarkation and assembly. In proportion as Murat was really backward, it was necessary for him to make every display of activity and co-operation. Of this nature 122 was the offer of a regiment of cavalry, and of a battery of cannon, to act in a country of mountains, where there is no carriage road, and the use of these arms is totally impracticable. Much better, I may remark, would it have been, if these troops had been with the main army, where his duty prescribed that every effort in his power should be made.
§ The same Article complains that no plan was agreed upon, as pointed out by the Armistice. I trust the preceding explanation has fully proved that the omission is in no respect imputable to me. With the same view of display, and the same disregard of fact, it is said that a Neapolitan general officer was sent to me with a proposal of conjoint operations, to which I returned no answer:—this officer did arrive, and the day following I proceeded in person to Murat's head-quarters to concert our future movements. When I represented to him (exclusively of the insuperable objection of leaving so entirely exposed our point of embarkation and our line of communication) the great inconvenience of uniting his and our Neapolitan troops, from whence nothing but discord and mutal complaint could arise, he at once admitted the validity of the remark. He complains also of the publication of a proclamation of the Court of Sicily, issued upon the disembarkation of the troops: the proclamation in question was an order of the day issued by the Hereditary Prince in Sicily to his own troops. The circulation of it in Leghorn was done without my knowledge. I admitted it at the time to be wrong, but the objection I had already made to the union of the troops of the same nation in each service, was a proof, that any project of seduction on my part was totally foreign to my intentions; and after this explanation I think the fact ought not to have been mentioned.
§ It is stated in the Duke of Campochiaro's Paper "que s'il (Murat) n'a pu "marcher à des succès plus décisifs, il "faut l'attribuer; I, au retard inattendu "qu'ont éprouvé les ratifications de son "Traité d'Alljance avec l'Autriche;—2, "à la conduite extraordinaire de Lord "Bentinck."
§ With the first I have nothing to do. As to the second, which refers particularly to my demand of the occupation of Tuscany, or a part of it (for I offered to leave the extent of it to be decided by the Austrian minister), I will make this general reflection, that had Murat been really 123 incere and downright, his knowledge that he could expect no mercy from Buonaparté, would have made him embrace, with eagerness, any offer of assistance, and would have led him to consider no sacrifice too great, to obtain the British co-operation. Upon my arrival at Reggio, however, he refuses even to agree to the cession of Leghorn, which he had offered to lieutenant-colonel Catinelli. But by way of display he proposes—First, to submit the question to your lordship's decision. The immediate security and supply of the army was the question, and did not admit of reference.—Secondly, to give me the military command of Tuscany, which he administered. What advantage could I possibly derive from the command of troops that acknowledged a superior authority, and what objection was there not, to my making myself a party to his civil administration? Innumerable were the complaints of the inhabitants.—Thirdly, to supply the British army with provisions. Could I, with prudence, intrust the supply of the army acting in the mountains of Genoa, and entirely depending upon this source for its subsistence, to the will of a person whose bad faith was so notorious? Would such an arrangement have been consistent with the dignity of the British Government, or according with the usage of all the Allied Armies, whose conquests were in common and allotted for the general good?
§ I certainly did hold to Murat the language that his conduct, so unjustifiable and faithless, called for. But I made count Bellegarde the arbiter of the difference; and in a renewed conference at Bologna, in which I begged Sir Robert Wilson to act upon my part, and at which the Russian general Balacheff assisted, Murat still continuing firm in his refusal, I consented, in compliance with general Bellegarde's wish, to give up the claim, and expressed my intention immediately to leave Tuscany, and to act wherever I could with the greatest advantage.
§ Marshal Bellegarde, in my conversations with him, expressed his strong and full conviction of Murat's bad faith:—he admitted the entire reasonableness of my demand—he said, that the best thing for the Allies would be the return of Murat to Naples, and this proposition was to have been made to him by count Mier. That the Austrian and British troops together could act with much more effect. But he feared above all things Murat's decla- 124 ration for France, and he preferred any alternative to that. I wholly disagreed with marshal Bellegarde. I believe Murat would have yielded to our jointly decided remonstrances;—but if he had not, I thought the sooner the question of his ill faith was settled the better. He did not serve us as a friend; if our fortune turned, he would cause our ruin as an enemy. It appeared to me, that the question could have been brought to an issue without any injury to the pending operations.
§ But whether I was right or wrong, the whole of this negociation occupied only about ten days, in which time there was no question of any moment; and it is clear that my extraordinary conduct could in no respect affect the efficacy or decisive results of the Neapolitan co-operation. My note to the Duke de Gallo, as referred to by the Duke of Campochiaro, was presented at Bologna upon my return from Verona, in consequence of its being represented by Sir Robert Wilson, that a written declaration of the verbal assurances given by your lordship, would be satisfactory to Murat, and might induce him to act. As well as I recollect, your lordship had directed this communication, which I before had not offered, because I had no reason to suppose that Murat required it. I accompanied these assurances with a review of the conduct he had pursued. I did so, from having seen that coaxing had no influence upon him—in the belief that if he was only wavering, a decided line of conduct and language was the most likely to determine him—and lastly, with the object of then establishing and officially according the reasons upon which the Allies might punish his infidelity. I hoped the fear of it might recall him to his duty.
§ Your lordship further asks, what was Murat's conduct subsequent to the presentation of this Note; as I immediately embarked for the Riviera di Genoa, I had less means of information; but as far as I have heard, I have no reason to believe it underwent any change. I have entirely omitted all mention of the continued communications, part of which I myself witnessed, between the Viceroy and Murat. I have, &c. W. C. BENTINCK.
§ No. 12.—Mr. Vice Consul Walker to Viscount Castlereagh.
§ Naples, 7th March, 1815.
§ My lord; On the departure of Mr. 125 Fagan from this city, the charge of the consulate devolved upon me as vice-consul, to which office I had the honour of being nominated provisionally by lord W. Bentinck, until the pleasure of his Majesty's ministers was known. I have therefore the honour of informing your lordship, that in consequence of the important and surprising intelligence of the escape of Buonaparté from the island of Elba on the 26th ult. with twelve or fourteen hundred men, in five or six transports and a corvette, with provisions for five or six days, as is reported here, an extraordinary cabinet council was held yesterday; and I received a note last night from the Duke of Gallo, requesting very particularly to see me this morning.
§ On my going there, he told me that be had it in special command from the King to inform me officially, as the only person in any public situation under the British Government here, that his Majesty had declared to the council, in the strongest terms possible, his firm and most decided resolution to cultivate and preserve the friendship of Great Britain both politically and commercially, and that whatever events may result from this unexpected occurrence, his determination to attach himself, by every means in his power, to the interests of Great Britain, was unalterable—his expression in French inébranlable. His grace requested me to transmit this information, which is the substance of the conference, to your lordship, by a cabinet courier, which he sends off to London this morning.
§ I have omitted to say, that I took the liberty of explaining to the Duke my being persuaded what would be the King's decision, but that I was happy in having it announced from such high authority. No particulars of the destination of Buonaparté seem to be known here; and even if they were, your lordship will naturally be in possession of them long before you could receive them from me. Being without any instructions, I have been under the necessity of acting according to the best of my own judgment; and if I have erred, it has not been from intention; but I should be extremely happy to be favoured with directions from your lordship for my better regulation, to which I shall implicitly conform. The courier waits for my letter; and I have only to assure your lordship, that whatever events may take place here, interesting to the British Government, I shall omit no op- 126 portunity of communicating as early as possible. With the utmost respect I am, &c. RICHARD WALKER.
§ No. 13.—Extract of a Dispatch from Viscount Castlereagh to the Duke Wellington, dated Foreign Office, March 24, 1815.
§ I inclose a communication received from Murat through the chevalier Tocco, who has been residing here, as Mr. Walker has been at Naples, without any accredited character. I am directed by the Prince Regent to acquaint your grace, that Mr. Tocco has been informed, that no answer can be given to this overture in London, and that the decision will be taken by your grace (to whom the proposition would be this night transmitted) in concert with the other Powers now assembled in Congress. I have the honour to forward to your grace a Dispatch from Mr. Tocco to the Duke de Campochiaro, by which he transfers, on the part of his court, the negociation on the subject of this Dispatch to the Duke.
§ No. 14.—Extract of a Dispatch from the Duke of Wellington to Viscount Castlereagh, dated Vienna, February 25th, 1815.
§ Accounts have been received from Italy that Murat is making great exertions to reinforce his army by forced levies in the Marche d'Ancona; and that he is encouraging the independent party in Italy, by conferring decorations and giving employments to those individuals belonging to it who have come into the Neapolitan dominions.
§ I inclose a note which the Due de Campochiaro presented two days ago to Prince Metternich. The Duc de Campochiaro at the same time informed him, that he was directed to ask for a passage for 80,000 men through the Austrian dominions in Italy, who should pay for all they consumed; and he communicated to the Prince the instructions he had received, to present a note to Prince Talleyrand, and in which he was ordered to demand from the Prince, whether France considered the King of Naples as an ally of Austria, and if she did, whether she intended to maintain the relations of peace established by the Treaty of Paris, and to acknowledge his Majesty as King of Naples.
§ The receipt of the inclosed note by Prince Metternich, and the demand for a 127 passage for 80,000 men, have induced the Austrian cabinet at length to take measures for the security of the tranquillity of Italy, and orders have been issued within these two days for the march of a body, of troops towards the Italian provinces, which will make the disposable force there amount to 150,000 men under arms.
§ Prince Metternich has likewise presented a note to Prince Talleyrand, and the Due de Carapochiaro, in which he has informed them, that his Imperial Majesty is determined to maintain the tranquillity of Italy; and to consider as an enemy any power that shall move troops into that country.
§ (Inclosure in No. 14.)—Translation.
§ Note from the Duke of Campochiaro to Prince Metternich.
§ Vienna, January 25, 1815.
§ By the first Article of the Treaty of Peace, concluded on the 30th May, 1814, at Paris, between the Courts of Vienna and of the Thuilleries, it was stipulated, that there should be, from the day of the signature of the Treaty, peace and amity between his Majesty the Emperor of Austria and his allies on the one part, and his Majesty the King of France on the other.
§ His Majesty the King of Naples belongs to the coalition that has given peace to France, and being the ally of Austria by virtue of the Treaty of Alliance of the 11th January 1814, it is very evident that he is included in the Peace of Paris, in the same manner as his Majesty the King of Bavaria, another ally of Austria, and those sovereigns allied to the other Powers that have signed the Treaty of the 30th May, are also included in it.
§ There might be produced in support of this fact, were it not sufficiently self-evident, the Declaration made on the 4th June, 1814, by his Majesty King Louis the 18th, to the Chamber of Deputies of the French parliament, stating that he had signed with the four principal coalesced Powers, a peace wherein their allies were included; that is to say, all the princes of Christendom, amongst whom a place cannot certainly be denied his Neapolitan Majesty.
§ Accordingly, the minister plenipotentiary of his Majesty the King of Naples accredited to the coalesced Powers, hastened to solicit the Court of France to recognise his august Sovereign, in conformity to diplomatic etiquette. But the 128 prince de Benevente, &c. &c. gave him to understand, that not having official, knowledge of the existing alliance between the Courts of Naples and Vienna, the cabinet of the Thuilleries could not bring itself to consider the King of Naples, as included in the Treaty of Paris of the 30th of May 1814. In consequence of this observation, and on the demand f the Neapolitan minister, his highness Prince Metternich, minister of state, of conferences, and for foreign affairs of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, obligingly made an official communication, for the object before stated, of the Treaty of the 11th of January, to the prince of Benevente. Thus the cabinet of the Thuilleries could not, without inconsistency, and without manifest bad faith, still delay formally to recognize his Neapolitan Majesty, after having been convinced, by the official communication from the Austrian cabinet, of the alliance existing between the Courts of Naples and Vienna.
§ Nevertheless, the French minister endeavoured to protract the affair; but at last, after many explanations, which took place between himself and the plenipotentiary of his Neapolitan Majesty, the prince de Benevente represented to him, that his Most Christian Majesty, closely united to the royal family of Sicily, could not decide to recognise the King of Naples, before the conclusion of the Congress; but he added, that in the mean time France would consider herself at peace with the King of Naples, and that, excepting diplomatic forms, there should be between the two Powers every relation of amity and commerce.
§ In fact, the Neapolitan plenipotentiary having addressed several notes to the French minister, he has always replied to him officially, treating him as minister of his Majesty the King of Naples. All the Neapolitan prisoners who were in France have been sent back; the Neapolitan consulships have always been in activity in the ports of France; ships of war and merchantmen have been reciprocally admitted in the ports of the two kingdoms; and the respective flags and subjects have enjoyed therein all the favour and protection of both Governments.
§ All these circumstances had confirmed the King of Naples in the opinion, that, if his Most Christian Majesty deferred to recognise him, this delay was not to be attributed to evil intentions, but only to reasons of family interests. Thus his 129 Neapolitan Majesty, while cultivating the good relations established between his states and France, awaited, from the regular course of negociation, his formal recognition on the part of his Most Christian Majesty. But the negotiations emanating from the union of the General Congress of the Powers of Europe at Vienna, have made known to the undersigned ministers plenipotentiary of his Majesty the King of Naples, that the dispositions of France are not such as the King had a right to expect from a friendly power, and from a sovereign whom he has contributed by all his means to place on his throne.
§ In this state of affairs, his Majesty the King of Naples addresses himself with confidence to his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, his august and powerful ally, in order that he may kindly exert all his influence to engage the Court of France, to respect the engagement it has made, by the 1st Article of the Treaty of Paris, to be at peace with all the allies of Austria, and consequently with the Court of Naples. His Majesty the King of Naples believes he may so much the more rely on the good offices of his Imperial Majesty, as the object for which he calls for them, is only a consequence of the 10th Article of the Treaty of the 11th of January, stipulating, that neither peace nor truce shall be concluded on either side, without reciprocally including in it both parties.
§ His Neapolitan Majesty flatters himself that his Majesty the Emperor of Austria will perform this part with so much the more solicitude, as it must be foreseen that if France be suffered to commit so revolting an infraction of the Treaty of Paris, by acting in a hostile manner against an ally of Austria, without the least provocation, she will not be more scrupulous in respecting the other stipulations of the Treaty.
§ The undersigned request his highness Prince Metternich will have the goodness to invite the attention of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, and of his august Allies, to the subject of this note, and then to acquaint the undersigned with the result of the steps which the Cabinet of Vienna may have taken towards the French Government, and the other Powers who have signed the Treaty of Paris, with respect to the object above mentioned.
§ DUKE OF CAMPOCHIARO.
§ PRINCE OF CARIATI.
130§ No. 15—Extract of a Dispatch from the Duke of Wellington to Viscount Castlereagh.
§ Vienna, March 25th, 1815.
§ The Duke de Campochiaro called upon me some days ago, in company with the Prince Cariati, and informed me, that as soon as Murat had heard, at Naples, on the 5th instant, of the departure of Buonaparté from the island of Elba, he had called together his council, and had informed them of his determination to adhere to his alliance with the Emperor of Austria; and had directed him (the Duke de Campochiaro) to inform the Austrian ministers, and the plenipotentiaries of the Allies collected at Vienna, of this determination. He made the same verbal communication to Prince Metternich, Prince Talleyrand, and all the other ministers.
§ In three days afterwards, on the 23d, Prince Metternich received from Naples reports that the whole of the Neapolitan army was in movement towards the frontier; that Murat's horses and field equipages had been sent to Ancona, and that he was himself to follow immediately, and to establish his head-quarters at that place. He had not moved, however, as late as the 12th.
§ It appears, that for some days after the 5th, he had manifested a good deal of interest in what was passing in France, and was much agitated. He had had frequent interviews with certain French, officers established at Naples, and had dispatched several of them into France; and he had given very unsatisfactory answers to the Austrian minister, Count Mier, both in regard to the line he intended to pursue in the contest likely to take place in France, and in regard to the object of the movement of his troops to the frontiers.
§ By the same occasion, accounts were received from Rome, from which it appeared that he had given notice to Lucien Buonaparté of his intention to enter the Papal states, and to move, one column upon Rome; and that Lucien, thinking the measure was in the progress of execution, had informed the Pope of it.
§ It is imagined that the failure of Buonaparté at Antibes, of which accounts had, been received at Naples, had induced Murat to stop the march of his troops, and to delay his own departure from Naples; but that the plan will have been 131 resumed, and carried into execution, as soon as the accounts will have been received of the first successes of Buonaparté.
§ These accounts of the conduct of Murat, coupled with the proofs transmitted to me by your lordship in your dispatch of the 12th inst. of Murat's treachery in the last war, appear to have convinced the Powers assembled here of the absolute necessity of attacking him forthwith.
§ According to the latest accounts the whole of Italy was quiet, and apparently the expedition of Buonaparté into France had occasioned a good deal of disgust and terror. I entertain no doubt that Murat will move forward as soon as he shall hear of Buonaparté's success; and if he should find that the Austrians do not tamely submit to his encroachments, he will probably proclaim himself King of Italy, and will endeavour to revolutionize the country.
§ No. 16.—The Duke of Wellington to Viscount Castlereagh.
§ Vienna, 28th March, 1815.
§ My lord; I inclose the copy of a Note from Prince Metternich, in which he has inclosed a letter from marshal Bellegarde of the 20th of March; and one from lord William Bentinck to marshal Bellegarde of the 21st, containing the opinion of his lordship, that any attack by marshal Murat would put an end to the armistice existing between him and his Majesty's troops.
§ I likewise inclose the copy of the answer which I have written to Prince Metternich, inclosing the copy of a letter which I have written to lord William, upon the situation in which he will find himself, and the measures it will be desirable to adopt forthwith, in case Murat should attack the Austrians.
§ As the time approaches at which the Austrians will commence their operations against Murat, I beg leave to submit to your lordship the expediency of giving to lord William Bentinck instructions to co-operate with them, to the same purport as what I have suggested in case they should be attacked by Murat. I have, &c. WELLINGTON.
§ (First Inclosure in No. 16.)—Translation.
§ The Prince Metternich to the Duke of Wellington.
§ Vienna, 28th March, 1815.
§ The minister of state for foreign, affairs 132 of his Imperial, Royal, and Apostolic Majesty, has just received from the marshal Comte de Bellegarde a report from Milan, dated the 21st of March; to which is annexed a letter addressed to him by lord Bentinck; and he hastens to transmit copies of both to his excellency the Duke of Wellington.
§ The manner in which lord Bentinck views the consequences of the movements of King Joachim, exactly agrees with the conduct which the Court of Vienna intends to pursue in regard to the Neapolitan Government. The undersigned, therefore, does not hesitate to request his excellency the Duke of Wellington to sancsion the measures which lord Bentinck proposes to adopt, and his intention of acting in perfect concert with marshal Comte de Bellegarde. The undersigned desires also to add his hope, that his excellency the Duke of Wellington will give similar directions to the commanders of his Britannic Majesty's forces in the Mediterranean and Adriatic seas, that they may counteract the operations of the Neapolitan Government, which can only be considered as hostile to both nations. For his own part, the minister of state for foreign affairs does not withhold his approbation of the measures of the Comte de Bellegarde. He has the honour, &c.
§ METERNICH.
§ (Second Inclosure in No. 16.)—Translation.
§ Extract of a Report from Marshal Comte de Bellegarde.
§ Milan, 21st March, 1815.
§ I have the honour to transmit to you the copy of a Dispatch which I have this instant received from lord Bentinck, and which has been brought to me by a courier, whom he is sending to London. I will answer his questions to-morrow; I shall attend particularly to the second, for it cannot but be advantageous to us if the King finds himself under the necessity of explaining himself personally with lord Bentinck on the question which he wishes to put to him. I shall, above all, be particular to assure myself of the disposition of lord Bentinck, in case the king of Naples should commence hostilities against us. The passage of a part of the Neapolitan fleet from the Straits of Messina to the Adriatic is an object worthy of our attention, and which clearly indicates that all the means of the King are directed against us.
133§ (Third Inclosure in No. 16.)—Translation.
§ Lord William Bentinck to Marshal Comte de Bellegarde.
§ Genoa, March 20, 1815.
§ I have received from lord Burghersh, his Britannic Majesty's minister at Florence, the intelligence communicated to his lordship by Mr. Lebzeltern, and which your excellency has also most probably been partly made acquainted with, that marshal Murat was on the point of putting all his army in motion. I should wish to know from your excellency, supposing this event to have taken place, to what extent you would consider such a step as an infraction of the Treaty actually existing between Austria and the Neapolitan Government, and how far it ought to be considered as an act of positive hostility.
§ I propose this question to your excellency for the following reasons: 1st. As the armistice concluded by me with the Government of Naples was an immediate consequence of the Treaty made by Austria, it became then part of the same transaction; and it appears natural, that if this Treaty is violated, the armistice ought also to be virtually broken. 2dly. If the conduct of marshal Murat is only suspected, it would perhaps be proper on my part, (and I should wish to know your sentiments on the subject) to demand an explanation with regard to a conduct, which, if it is hostile to the ally of his Britannic Majesty, must therefore be so to his Majesty himself. 3dly. That if marshal Murat is really at war with Austria, it would appear to be the duty of the commanders of the British forces, as well by sea as by land, in the Mediterranean, to oppose his operations as much as lay in their power. Information was received yesterday from Sicily, that a division of the Neapolitan fleet had passed the Straits of Messina, and was directing its course towards the Adriatic. I have, &c.
§ W. BENTINCK.
§ (Fourth Inclosure in No. 16.)
§ The Duke of Wellington to Prince Metternich.
§ Vienna, March 23, 1815.
§ My Prince; I have had the honour of receiving your highness's note, in which you have inclosed me the copy of a letter of the 21st of March from marshal Bellegarde, and one of the 20th March from lord William Bentinck, in consequence of 134 which I have written a letter to lord William Bentinck, of which I inclose your highness a copy. I have the honour, &c.
§ WELLINGTON.
§ (Fifth Inclosure in No. 16.)
§ The Duke of Wellington to Lord William Bentinck.
§ Vienna, 28th March, 1815.
§ My lord; Prince Metternich has communicated to me a copy of your lordship's letter to marshal Bellegarde of the 20th of March, in which your lordship states your opinion that, in case Murat should make a movement with his troops, which is considered an act of hostility and breach of treaty with the Emperor of Austria, your lordship will consider the armistice existing between his Majesty and Murat as at an end. I beg to inform you that I entirely concur with you in that opinion, which I have reason to believe to be in conformity with that of his Majesty's Government.
§ In case marshal Murat should attack the Austrians in Italy, it is desirable that your lordship should do every thing in your power to support the latter, and that your lordship should inform the officers commanding his Majesty's ships in the Mediterranean, that this armistice is at an end, when the case shall occur, in order that he may co-operate with the Austrian troops, and particularly protect and aid the passage of the Austrian troops from Dalmatia to the opposite coast.
§ It would be desirable that, in the same case, the officer commanding his Majesty's troops in the Seven Islands should be instructed to assist the Austrian corps in Dalmatia, either by transports, or by detaching troops as far as may be in his power, consistently with the safety of the possessions entrusted to his charge, in order to co-operate with the Austrians. In the same case, and in the probable event of the Austrians being able to take the offensive against Murat, I need not point out to your lordship how desirable it would be to co-operate with the Austrians from Sicily. I have the honour to be, &c.
§ WELLINGTON.
§ No. 17.—Dispatch from the Earl of Clancarty to Viscount Castlereagh.
§ Vienna, the 5th April, 1815.
§ My lord; The accompanying copies of official notes from the Due de Campochiaro and the Prince Cariati, and of the answer of Prince Metternich to one of 135 them, will put your lordship in possession of the state of affairs between this country and that of Naples, and that the latter of them will acquaint you, that the Austrian Government has considered Murat's late attack upon the advanced posts of the army, as a declaration of war, that the same has been accepted, and that the two countries are now in a state of open and avowed hostility. To these, I have the honour to add translations of the Austrian Declaration, which was published here on the 10th instant.
§ I am happy to be able to inform your lordship, that the outset of this war has been favourable to the Imperial arms. Their head quarters have, been and still, by the last accounts, were at Bogelo on this side the Po; the advanced guard, under general Bianchi, had been between Bologna and Ferrara. It seems to have been the intention, that this last should retire upon Murat's advance, for the purpose of defending the line of the Po, till the strong reinforcements in march should have time to come up, and that general Nugent, dispatched with a force for that purpose through the defiles of Tuscany, should be able to operate on the enemy's rear. Prince Metternich has read to me the official report received from their head-quarters, stating, that the advanced guard of the Austrian army had had rather a sharp affair with that of Murat, in which the latter was repulsed with the loss of several hundred in killed, wounded, and presoners. This affair took place on the Pinaro. General Bianchi, with his force, retired without further obstruction to Borgo-forte.
§ I have the honour herewith to inclose the copy of a Dispatch, which, at the request of Prince Metternich, I have thought it my duty to write to lord Wm. Bentinck, and in which copies of the Papers A, B, and C, herewith transmitted, were inclosed for his lordship's information. I have the honour, &c. CLANCARTY.
§ (First Inclosure in No. 17.)—Translation.
§ The Neapolitan Plenipotentiaries to the Earl of Clancarty.
§ Vienna, April 8th, 1815.
§ The undersigned Plenipotentiaries of his Majesty the King of Naples at the Congress of Vienna, hasten, according to the orders of their Court, to communicate to his Excellency Lord Clancarty, First Plenipotentiary of his Britannic Majesty at the said Congress, a Note which they 136 have this day addressed to the Cabinet of Vienna.
§ They entreat his Excellency to lay this Note before his Government, who will find in it the fullest explanation both as to the imperious motives which have determined his Neapolitan Majesty to march his troops to the Po, and as to the sincere desire which he entertains for the continuation of peace.
§ It is only to secure the continuance of it in his states and to his people; it is only to place himself on a footing with the extraordinary warlike preparations which are making in Italy, and to prepare himself against the re-action of the events which have taken place in France, that the King of Naples has found himself forced to return to those positions upon the Po, which he occupied at the end of the last war.
§ But he has, and has had no other object in view than to obtain at last that security and guaranty, which he has in vain solicited during the continuance of the Congress, and which are due to him in virtue of his Treaty of Alliance with the Court of Vienna, to which England gave her concurrence and consent.
§ The King of Naples has no doubt that the British Government, informed of his real intentions, will concur, and employ her powerful influence with the other Powers, in satisfying the just wishes of his Neapolitan Majesty, who, on his part, will be desirous of doing every thing which depends upon him, to prove to the whole world his sincere desire of peace, and to cement the relations of friendship and of commerce, which so happily exist between the Crowns of England and of Naples. The Undersigned, &c.
§ Duke of CAMPOCHIARO.
§ Prince CARIATI.
§ (Second Inclosure in No. 17.—Translation.)
§ The Neapolitan Plenipotentiaries to Prince Metternich.
§ Vienna, April 8, 1815.
§ The undersigned Ministers Plenipotentiary of his Majesty the King of Naples, at the Congress of Vienna, have received the orders of their Court to make the following answer to the Note and to the official Letter of his Highness Prince Metternich, Minister of State and of Foreign Affairs of his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, dated the 26th of February last.
§ Always animated by the most sincere 137 and ardent desire to preserve those very intimate relations of friendship and union which existed with his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, his august ally, and to be at peace with every state, the King never ceased, during the continuance of the Congress, to use every effort, and all the means in his power, to cement his alliance with the Court of Vienna, and to place himself in direct relation with the other Courts of Europe.
§ For this purpose the King has, at different times, solicited the Cabinet of Vienna to conclude a new Treaty of Alliance, conformably to the fifth secret Article of that of the 11th of January 1814. He has offered to his Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty the co-operation of the whole of his forces for the maintenance of tranquillity in Italy; and he has even put a portion of his troops at the disposal of the Austrian commanding officer in Italy, in case he should require them for the re-establishment or maintenance of good order in the Italian provinces belonging to the House of Austria. He, in fine, omitted no opportunity of giving to his Imperial and Royal Apostolic Majesty the most convincing proofs of his constant and entire devotion.
§ His Neapolitan Majesty flattered himself, that a conduct so frank and loyal would have merited a perfect reciprocity on the part of the Court of Vienna; and that that Court would have at length acted with all the energy and efficiency of a good and faithful ally, in the accomplishment of the Treaty of the 11th of January, 1814.
§ It is impossible to explain otherwise, than by an excess of confidence, the facility with which the Court of Naples abandoned itself to the Cabinet of Vienna, during the negociations of Congress; whilst that Cabinet uniformly declined all the solicitations addressed to it by the undersigned, in order to obtain the execution of the engagements which it had contracted by its alliance with their Court, and whilst the notes which the undersigned addressed to it, and even an autographical letter of the King to his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, containing the most friendly protestations and offers, were left unanswered.
§ And when, for the first time, the Cabinet of Vienna broke this fatal silence, it was to intimate to the King in menacing language, by the note of the 26th February last, that he should quietly wait 138 until 150,000 Austrians, with 200 pieces of artillery, had marched into Italy, until three bridges had been thrown over the Po, and until eight thousand workmen had completely finished the fortifications traced upon the line of that river; in order to impose upon him afterwards whatever laws it might be wished he should submit to.
§ The Cabinet of Vienna tries to justify the necessity of these measures by the Neapolitan armaments. It well knew, however, and the King never ceased to repeat it on all occasions, that he only waited for the moment when he should see established, by solemn acts, the safety and repose of his states and of his people, to reduce his forces, and to assume an attitude perfectly pacific.
§ Why then did not Austria, instead of taking those measures in Italy which must necessarily increase the alarm of the King, prefer doing away that alarm, by the execution of that Treaty of the 11th January? Such a mode of proceeding was much more simple, and would have been more successful. But the Cabinet of Vienna, far from declaring itself the faithful ally of the King, and acting in consequence, did, in the note addressed on the 25th February to the Cabinet of the Thuilleries, avoid, even with an appearance of affectation, the insertion of one word which could give to France the most distant idea, that Austria was disposed to defend the kingdom of Naples, in case it should be attacked; and yet the guarantee and defence of the states of the King formed the basis of his alliance with Austria; who having likewise stipulated, by the first Article of the Treaty of Paris, that her Allies should be at peace with France, was bound by an additional obligation to defend and sustain the King against that Power.
§ It is worthy of remark that the King received the notes of the Cabinet of Vienna, of the 25th and 26th February, and the accounts of the extraordinary war measures taken by Austria in Italy, on the 7th of March, that is, two days after: notwithstanding the little prospect of safety which the negociations of Vienna had yet offered to him, the King had solemnly declared, that, whatever events might take place in France, he would remain always faithful to his engagements.
§ Such was and such is still the wish of the King. Nevertheless, after the unexpected steps taken by the Court of 139 Vienna, and which have thrown a light by no means satisfactory upon the whole course of her proceedings towards the Court of Naples, during the negociations of the Congress, and after the events which have arisen in France, which may again light up the flame of war upon the continent, the King has been obliged to turn his attention to the securing by his own means his own preservation, and the safety and tranquillity of his states and of his people.
§ It is under the influence of these motives, which are as weighty as they are imperious, and of the example set by other Powers, and even by Austria, which have advanced and concentrated their forces, that his Majesty has judged it necessary to direct his army to take up again that position which it occupied upon the Po at the end of last war, in consequence of a Convention signed on the 7th February between the Austrian and Neapolitan generals.
§ The march of the Neapolitan army to the Po, can therefore be considered only as a measure of precaution and of foresight, dictated by the renewal of that state of things which had given rise to the above-mentioned Convention, and by the consideration that the King being able to rely only on his own forces, the line of the Po is the only one which can enable him to defend himself against all attack which may be meditated against his states.
§ This explanation, which was given to the Commander-in-Chief of the Austrian army in Italy in time to prevent every act of hostility, until the two Courts should have come to an understanding, has not produced the effect which was expected from it; for the King has been informed, that a Neapolitan gun-boat has been detained and disarmed in the port of Cerria. Another gun-boat, which carried dispatches to the Neapolitan Consul at Venice, has been also detained at the Point of Goro, at the mouth of the Po: she was fired upon, and when the Commander declared that he was charged with dispatches for the said agent, he was answered, that, in consequence of orders from Field-Marshal Bellegarde, no Neapolitan vessel could be received on the whole Austrian coast.
§ Lastly, a Neapolitan officer who had been sent to the bridge of Lagosciuro, to receive some cases of muskets, the exportation of which had been agreed to by 140 the Austrian Government, has been sent back without being able to obtain these arms.
§ His Neapolitan Majesty extremely regrets, that his Holiness, and his Imperial and Royal Highness the Grand Duke of Tuscany should, notwithstanding the most friendly assurances given to them by him, have taken the precipitate determination of withdrawing from their Capitals. The King saw with pain in this transaction, that the Austrian Minister at the Court of Rome, instead of calming the unfounded apprehensions of the Holy Father, had contributed with the greatest warmth in engaging him to leave his residence, even when his Majesty had caused it to be declared to him that the passage of his troops through the Roman states, would not have caused the least change in the state of government, that they would not even have traversed the City of Rome, and that whatever was furnished to them during their passage, should have been exactly paid for.
§ Why then be thus alarmed at the simple passage of friendly troops, under such tranquillizing restriction? Certainly, the King would have much preferred abstaining from marching his troops through the Roman states; but circumstances were so urgent, and the roads of Abbruzzo were so impracticable, in consequence of the melting of the snow, that he could not delay that measure. The Allies, in circumstances less pressing, did the same with respect to Switzerland in the last war, and nobody could blame them for it.
§ The King however declares, as he has ever declared in the face of the whole world, that he has no wish but for peace, no pretensions but the immediate fulfilment of the Treaty of the 11th January. He flatters himself, that his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, animated by the same disposition, and by that spirit of conciliation and of justice which characterizes him, and convinced of the real motives which have reduced the King to the unpleasant necessity of taking extraordinary measures to watch over his own preservation and the safety of his states, will crush these seeds of misunderstanding, so contrary to the policy and interest of the two Courts, and of the two Nations, by re-establishing, in the prompt execution of the Treaty above mentioned, that perfect accord, and those intimate relations which have so happily united them.
§ For this purpose, the undersigned re- 141 quest his highness Prince Metternich to have the goodness to lay this Note before his Majesty the Emperor of Austria, and to transmit to them, as soon as possible, a categorical answer upon these propositions, in order that they may forward it without delay to their Court.
§ The undersigned, in the mean time, acquaint his highness the Prince Metternich, that, in consequence of orders from their Court, they will communicate this Note to the Ministers Plenipotentiary of the Courts of Russia, England, and of Prussia, who have either taken part or concurred in the above-mentioned Treaty. They seize this opportunity, &c.
§ The Duke of CAMPOCHIARO.
§ The Prince CARIATI.
§ (Third Inclosure in No. 17—Translation.
§ The Prince Metternich to the Neapolitan Plenipotentiaries.
§ Vienna, April 10, 1815.
§ The undersigned, Minister of State and for Foreign Affairs of the Emperor of Austria, has submitted to his Imperial Majesty the Declaration which the Neapolitan Plenipotentiaries have done him the honour to address him the 8th instant. He is commanded to make them the following reply:
§ The Treaty of Alliance between Austria and the Court of Naples was hardly concluded before it became manifest, both by the prolonged inactivity of the Neapolitan army, and by a multitude of material proofs, which fell into the hands of the Allied armies, that, in the course of the negociations, the King, far from striving for the common object for which the Powers acted in the war of 1813 and 1814, had principally calculated his measures upon the issue of events.
§ The Emperor nevertheless continued faithful to the Treaty of Alliance of January 11th, 1814. Without adverting to the motives which led to its negociation, or to the circumstances which induced the King's accession to it, his Imperial Majesty regulated his determinations solely upon the nature of the engagements of that alliance. He employed his good offices without delay in establishing relations between his Allies and the Court of Naples.
§ The reasons which have prevented these relations from being converted into formal alliances are too well known to the Cabinet of Naples, to make it necessary for the undersigned here to repeat them.
142§ The more the conduct adopted by the King since the first moment of the alliance has been opposite to that of Austria, the less right has he to impute to the Cabinet of Vienna the inconveniences which may have resulted therefrom to the Court of Naples.
§ The Emperor has never ceased representing to the King the consequences in which he must be involved by his prolonged occupation of the Marches, at a time when sound policy prescribed to the King to limit his pretensions to the preservation of his kingdom, and to abstain from all schemes of conquest; and when the same policy called him to the honourable task of assisting the Governments of Italy in securing the tranquillity of the Peninsula, instead of fomenting the agitation of men's minds, by continually augmenting his armies, disproportioned to the resources of his state. And what is still more, these armies were assembled upon points which by the geographical situation of the Austrian possessions, being secure from an attack on the part of the Powers opposed to the Court of Naples, were to be from that moment considered only as positions taken up in hostility to Austria, and to the other Princes of Italy.
§ Although, during this interval, the general interests of Europe, and of the Austrian monarchy, claimed the entire attention of his Imperial Majesty, he nevertheless neglected no means by which the King might be brought back to more moderate views. His Majesty tried every method of conciliation and persuasion, until the period when the armaments of that Prince assumed the character of more direct aggression. His Majesty was finally obliged to decide upon a step provoked by the overtures of the Neapolitan Cabinet, which revealed too plainly the views, with respect to which there remains no longer any doubt, since the overtures made by the King to the Court of Rome.
§ The undersigned was commanded to transmit simultaneously to the Plenipotiaries of Naples and of France, Declarations which could leave no doubt that the Emperor would never grant to any foreign troops a passage through his territories.
§ The Declaration, addressed to France the 25th of February, was the next day communicated to the Neapolitan Plenipotentiaries. If there be any difference 143 in the wording of these simultaneous Declarations, the reason is plain. It was by the Court of Naples that the question was brought forward; it was that Court which had assumed an hostile attitude.
§ The Emperor owed it to the security of his dominions, and to his general relations with the rest of Europe, to make those Declarations. He owes it to his dignity to maintain them. His Imperial Majesty would have rejected every demand on the part of France to send an army into Italy. After the Declaration of the 27th of February, he would have considered any step in furtherance of such a demand, as a declaration of war. The Emperor, in like manner, looks upon the advance of the Neapolitan troops beyond the frontiers of the kingdom, and from their cantonments in the Marches, as a rupture of the alliance, and as a measure directed against himself. In the same manner also does his Majesty now consider the entrance of the Neapolitan army into the Legations, and the acts of hostility committed by it upon the Imperial troops, as a positive declaration of war, whatever be the pretexts under which the Cabinet of Naples presents these facts.
§ The undersigned is, consequently, commanded immediately to recall the Imperial mission from Naples, at the same time that he places the inclosed passports at the disposal of the Neapolitan mission at Vienna. METTERNICH.
§ (Fourth Inclosure in No. 17.—Translation.)
§ Austrian Declaration of War against the King of Naples.
§ Vienna, April 12, 1815.
§ After the campaign of 1812, the King of Naples left the French, army, in which he had commanded a corps. He had scarcely arrived in his capital, when he caused overtures to be made to the Austrian Court, announcing his intention of combining his future political proceedings with those of the Austrian Cabinet. Shortly after the campaign of 1813 commenced: dazzled by some illusive appearances of events favourable to Napoleon, King Joachim left Naples, and again took a command in the French army. At the same time he secretly proposed to the Austrian Cabinet his mediation between the Allies and the French Emperor. The glorious 18th of October decided the fate of Napoleon; the King of Naples returned to his dominions, and immediately renewed the negociations respecting his 144 accession to the European alliance. He caused his army to advance, and proposed to Austria the partition of Italy. The Po was to be the limit of the two states. Some months elapsed in continued negociations with the Allies, and no less frequent correspondence on the part of the King, with the commander in chief of the French Italian army. The Neapolitan army did not side with either party. Neither could reckon upon it; neither had to combat it. This state of things was, however, least unfavourable to Austria, to whom it furnished the means of turning its principal force against the common enemy, without attending to Italy.
§ On the 11th of January 1814, the Treaty between Naples and Austria was at length signed; yet the Neapolitan army remained long inactive, under the pretext that the ratifications were not yet exchanged. Material proofs, which fell into the hands of the Allies, left no doubt that the King's secret connexions with the enemy still continued. They betrayed chiefly his intentions of making the French Emperor believe that the accession of the King to the alliance of the Powers had not actually taken place. The victories obtained in France itself, put an end to the vacillations of the King. Paris had opened its gates to the Allies, and the Neapolitan army began its campaign.
§ The Convention of the 11th of April 1814, had ended the war against Napoleon; the negociations at Paris fixed the reciprocal relations between France and its late enemies; all the armies quitted France; the Neapolitans retired to the Papal Marches, to which the King, in virtue of the Treaty of January 11, had formed pretensions.
§ The relations between all the Powers were to be fixed at the Congress of Vienna. The branches of the House of Bourbon declared against the recognition of King Joachim. The situation of the latter was evidently much changed by the return of the ancient Royal Family to the thrones of France and Spain. A wise policy would have prescribed to him to limit his future views to the preservation of one of the finest kingdoms of the world, and to renounce every idea of conquest, and particularly of such conquest as could only be made at the expense of a neighbour, who in a military point of view was wholly inoffensive, and in every other point of view of the highest importance. 145 But moderation and good without meaning for the new French dynasty.
§ King Joachim, however, instead of thinking of maintaining himself, formed, in secret, extensive projects for the future. He prepared the execution of them by bringing together all the elements of a political and military revolution: none of his plans, none of his movements escaped the Austrian Cabinet. This was not the way to bring over to his side, the opinion of the Courts who opposed the admission of the King of Naples to a place among the Sovereigns of Europe.
§ The burthen of such military exertions becoming at last too great for the kingdom to bear, the King resolved to take more decisive steps. In February last he announced to the Court of Vienna his intention of sending an army into France, for which end he required nothing less than the passage through Italy. A proposition so extravagant was treated as it deserved.
§ On the 25th and 26th of February 1815, his Imperial Majesty sent Declarations to the French and Neapolitan Governments, announcing his irrevocable determination never to allow the tranquillity of Middle and Upper Italy to be endangered by the marching in or passage of foreign troops. His Imperial Majesty at the same time gave orders for the march of a large reinforcement of the troops to his Italian provinces, in support of this Declaration; on the part of France it was announced that the King had no such intention. King Joachim kept his answer back; the moment for revealing his real designs was not yet come.
§ On the 5th of March, the news of Buonaparté's escape arrived at Naples. The King immediately sent for his Imperial Majesty's ambassador; and declared to him that he was and would still remain faithful to the system of the alliance; he renewed the same declarations to the Cabinets of Austria and England; but at the same time he sent one of his aides-de-camp, count de Beaufremont, to France, with the commission to go to Buonaparté, and to assure him of his support. Scarcely was the news of Napoleon's entry into Lyons received at Naples, when the King made it positively known—"That he considered the cause of Napoleon as his own, and would now prove to him that it had never been foreign to him." He required at the same time from his Holiness, a passage through, the Roman states 146 for two of his divisions, adding, that far from acting in an hostile manner, they should not disturb the Holy Father in his capital; the Pope protested against this violation of his territory, and when it took place, he left Rome, and repaired to Florence.
§ On the 8th of April the Neapolitan plenipotentiaries at Vienna delivered a Note to the Cabinet, which, with assurances of the most friendly sentiments of their master, and of his unalterable wish never to separate from Austria, announced that his Majesty, in consequence of the changes that had taken place, and of the military measures which all the Powers thought it necessary to take, had deemed it right also, for his own security, to give to his military forces a more extended position, and that for this reason they would occupy the line of demarkation which was fixed for the Neapolitan army by the armistice of 1813. Meanwhile the Neapolitan army, without any further declaration, began on the 30th of March hostilities against the Austrian posts in the Legations.
§ His Majesty the Emperor and King; strong in the justice of his cause, in the valour of his army, in the tried loyalty of his people, and in his intimate connexion with all the Powers of Europe, has caused it to be signified to the Neapolitan Government, by a Note, dated the 10th instant, that his Imperial Majesty considers war between the two states as begun, and leaves all farther decision to the force of his arms.
§ No. 18.—Extract of a Letter from the Comte de Blacas to Lord Viscount Castlereagh, dated Paris, 4th March, 1815.
§ Herewith you will find, my lord, the copies of the letters, the originals of which you have seen in my hands. Since that time I have found in another bundle, three minutes of letters written by Napoleon, one of which has no date. I have the honour likewise to address to you copies thereof, and they are not the least interesting of the documents which have been discovered in the immense quantity of papers amongst which it has been necessary to make search.
§ BLACAS D'AULPS.
§ (First Inclosure in No. 18.)—Translation.
§ Lucca, Feb. 14, 1814.
§ Sire; I have had the honour of inform- 147 ing your Majesty by my reports of the 5th and 8th of this month, of the concentrating movement made by the Prince of Lucca upon Pisa, in consequence of the circumstances which induced me to quit Florence, to order the evacuation of that city, and to assemble all the troops of the division upon a point of greater security. The Prince has maintained himself at Pisa till now; but having received advice of an English expedition, amounting, by all accounts, to at least 6,000 men, and which appears to be undoubtedly directed from Sicily against Leghorn, Spezia, or Genoa, I have determined to order the Prince to continue his movement upon Genoa, in order that his retreat may not be cut off by the only road which still remains open.
§ I have been confirmed in this plan by having ascertained that some Neapolitan troops, superior in numbers, are already at Pistoya, and have forced our advanced posts to abandon the passage of Serravalle.
§ I also know that the enemy intends to cut off our communications, by seizing the road which conducts from Pontremoli to Spezia and the Riviera di Genoa.
§ I have thought proper to give him notice to keep some troops upon which the Viceroy must have reckoned, and which cannot render any very decisive services elsewhere.
§ The projects of the English and Austrians do away all the doubts which the personal conduct of the King of Naples might create. I ought not to conceal from your Majesty, that I have received from him several letters much at variance with the operations of his troops.
§ The King is in a state of great agitation. He is astonished that the Viceroy should have retired from the Adige, and that I have quitted Tuscany upon the notion that he could be the enemy of your Majesty and of France. He loudly expresses his devotion and his gratitude for your person; and he even said to the Tuscan deputies, that he would prefer receiving the first blow to drawing his sword against a Frenchman.
§ I know not how to reconcile this language, of which I do not suspect the sincerity, with all the arbitrary measures which have endangered my authority, and those which oblige me even now to provide for the safety of the French troops assembled at Pisa.
§ Your Majesty will appreciate these 148 contradictions, which seem to me to proceed from a resolution deemed by the King conformable to his interests, but in which he has been dragged contrary to his own affections. I am assured that the language and conduct of the King are similar in his communications with the Viceroy.
§ It is nevertheless certain, that a Proclamation of general Bellegarde's, which recalls the nations of Italy to their former state, has been re-printed at Bologna, under the eyes of the King.
§ This Proclamation, drawn up with much, art, has produced the greatest effect in Tuscany, where it is extensively circulated.—I am, with profound respect, Sire, of your Imperial and Royal Majesty, the most devoted and obedient sister and subject, ELIZA.
§ A correct copy.
§ (signed) BLACAS D'AULPS.
§ (Second Inclosure in No. 18.)—Translation.
§ To the Queen of Naples.
§ Nangis, 17th February.
§ Your husband is a very brave man in the field of battle, but he is more cowardly than a woman or a monk when not in presence of the enemy. He has no moral courage. He has been frightened, and he has not hazarded losing for a moment that which he can only hold by me and with me. Make him fully sensible, of his absurdity. When he quitted the army without my order, I foresaw all the evil counsels which would be given him. I am, however, better satisfied with the message he has sent me through you. If he be sincerely sorry, let him watch the moment for proving to me that he has not been so ungrateful as he is pusillanimous. I may yet pardon him the injury which he has done me.
§ A correct copy.
§ (Signed) BLACAS D'ACLPS.
§ (Third Inclosure in No. 18.)—Translation.
§ Lucca, February 18, 1814.
§ Sire; I have received the letter from the Minister of War, transmitting to me your Majesty's instructions, concerning the evacuation of the Roman states and of Tuscany. Immediately after the receipt of that letter, I set out for Bologna, where the King of Naples was. I experienced no difficulty as far as Florence, but upon my arrival in that town, the new authorities signified to me that I could neither continue my route nor remain at Flo- 149 rence; and that I must go back as far as Praio, there to await the answer of the King. I dispatched a courier to that Prince, and am returned to Lucca, where I am in greater safety than at Prato, which is in a state of insurrection. I know not what the King will be allowed to answer. The Austrian and English ministers reproach him with being French, and particularly with being too much attached to your Majesty. The revolutionists, who now govern Florence, assert loudly that the King of Naples has an understanding with the French, and that he deceives the Italians. They attribute to my counsels the inaction of the Neapolitan troops, which the Allies wished should march against the Viceroy at the moment when he was about to be attacked by general Bellegarde. The King is in the greatest distress; he now thoroughly feels in what a situation he is placed: it is difficult for me to send him advice. If there were as much firmness in his character, as there are good qualities in his heart, he would be stronger in Italy than the Coalition.
§ The Duke of OTRANTO.
§ A correct copy.
§ (Signed) BLACAS D'AULPS.
§ (Fourth Inclosure in No. 18.)—Translation.
§ Volta, February 20, 1814.
§ Sire; I have the honour to address to your Majesty a return of your army of Italy, up to the 18th of this month. The King of Naples, who appeared inclined to march against us, and to yield to the solicitations or the Austrians, arrested his progress, as soon as he became acquainted with your Majesty's late victories of the 10th, 11th, and 12th. He had not yet received the ratification of his Treaty the evening before last; I therefore hope that he will not add to the wrongs of which he has been guilty towards your Majesty, by firing upon your troops. I am, &c.
§ EUGENE NAPOLEON.
§ A correct copy.
§ (Signed) BLACAS D'AULPS.
§ (Fifth Inclosure in No. 18)—Translation.
§ Extract of the Consular Correspondence.
§ Kingdom of Italy.
§ Milan, March 2, 1814.
§ Eight Hungarians and one officer arrived on the 26th of February at Bellinzona, with the intention of establishing their communications with field-marshal Bellegarde, whom they supposed at Milan. This little detachment has re-entered 150 Switzerland. A letter is mentioned as having been written by the Emperor Napoleon, to the Landaman of Switzerland, to induce him to oppose the retreat of the allied troops through the Helvetic territory. The troops stationed at Iselle, at the foot of the Simplon, have been reinforced by order of the Prince Viceroy. The fort of Ancona surrendered on the 15th February. The garrison of that place is expected at Placentia on the 3rd of this month. Information has been received, that the garrison of Venice made a sally, by which they obtained a great number of cattle. The army which marches from Placentia on Parma, met with some resistance on the Taro: it cannot have entered that town before the 1st of March. According to letters from Switzerland, an epidemic disorder prevails amongst the allied troops. In that country, great requisitions are made for the service of the enemy's armies.
§ 3rd March. The re-entrance of our troops into Parma is announced, after taking from the enemy 1,500 prisoners, and 8 pieces of cannon. It is stated positively that general Bellegarde countermarches his artillery from Verona on Vicenza, and that two regiments belonging to his army are marching towards the confines of the Illyrian provinces, to form part of a cordon of health to be there established—an epidemic disorder having lately broken out in the upper countries.
§ Letter from the Consul of Ancona, without date, and supposed to be written from Lucca.
§ The Consul quitted Ancona the 4th February; the citadel, defended by general Barbou, was during two days attacked by the Neapolitans. The enemy's batteries fired from the forts of the Capuchins of Montgardet which they occupied. General Barbou capitulated the 15th.
§ The Consul had occasion to see the King of Naples, respecting his passports. The following is the substance of the conversation he had with him. Necessity alone, said the King, has obliged me to unite with the Allies; the great extent of the coasts of my kingdom, exposed them, to the invasions of the English. Their maritime strength, and their force in Sicily, are well known:—who would have defended my kingdom, had I carried my army beyond the Po? Besides, it would have been impossible for me to make it leave the kingdom. On the other hand, 151 my people were discontented in consequence of the stagnation of commerce, which prevented them from realizing the rich produce of the soil; it would have been easy for the enemy to have seduced them, to the sole detriment of myself and of France. On the other hand, my nation would have been dissatisfied, had I not acceded to the proposals which the Allies made me, of indemnifying myself for Sicily by the countries on this side the Po, which his Majesty the Emperor of the French was obliged to renounce by the force of circumstances. He added that his intentions were so much the purer on this, head, as it was agreed that his army was never to fight against the French; he would recollect constantly£that he was himself a Frenchman, and that he would not forget all he owed to his illustrious brother-in-law. He desired the Consul to remain at Ancona, and to continue his functions, assuring him that his correspondence should be free, since he was not at war with France. The Consul did not think that it was for him to make any objection.
§ The colonel of the 9th Neapolitan regiment, Mr. Marriotti, and all his officers, were the first to demand their dismissal. The other officers employed in the different corps of the army followed this example; but the greater part have been sent to Naples with the promise never to be obliged to serve against France. They are to be employed in the formation of other corps. The garrison of Cattaro, composed almost entirely of Italians, was left without resources after its arrival at Ancona, in order to oblige it to enter the kingdom of Naples.
§ On their arrival at Ancona, the Neapolitan authorities removed all the Italian escutcheons. The arms of France, placed on the Consul's house, were respected.
§ (Sixth Inclosure in No. 18.—Translation.
§ To the King of Naples.
§ I say nothing to you of my displeasure at your conduct, which has been diametrically opposite to your duty. That, however, belongs to the weakness of your nature. You are a good soldier on the field of battle; but excepting there, you have no vigour and no character. Take advantage, however, of an act of treachery, which I only attribute to fear, in order to serve me by useful information. I rely upon you, upon your contrition, upon 152 your promises. If it were otherwise, recollect that you would have to repent of it. I suppose that you are not one of those that imagine the lion is dead. If such are your calculations, they are false. I defeated the Austrians yesterday, and I am in pursuit of the remains of their columns. Another such victory, and you will see that my affairs are not so desperate as you have been led to believe. You have done me all the harm that you could since your departure from Wilna, but we shall say no more about it. The title of King has turned your head. If you wish, to preserve the former, behave well, and; keep your word.
§ A correct Copy.
§ (Signed) BLACAS D'AULPS.
§ (Seventh Inclosure in No. 18.,)—Translation.
§ Paris, March 3, 1814.
§ Sire; For several days I have daily written to Prince Borghese to send to Chambery a division of 8 or 10,000 men, and this under pain of disobedience, as your Majesty had prescribed: I am about to dispatch an officer to his Imperial highness, and to repeat the orders by telegraph. Your Majesty thinks that the King of Naples will not move; yet the attack and bombardment of the citadel of Ancona, are rather bad omens.
§ I have given orders that negociations should be entered into for the garrisons of Rome and of Tuscany. I have written successively to that effect, first to the Duke of Otranto, and afterwards to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany. I have desired that these garrisons should be sent in the direction of Chambery.
§ What makes me anxious is, that general Donzelot, at Corfu, is nearly unprovided, and his communications with Venice are uncertain. It is unfortunate that the old troops under his command could not be conveyed to France or to Upper Italy. I think that it would have been well also, as the fleet could not oppose the re-victualling of Santona, on account of the expence, that its garrison had been brought back to France, or that it had retained the means of capitulating on condition of returning home. I am, &c.
§ the Minister of War,
§ DUKE DE FELTRE.
§ A correct Copy.
§ (Signed) BLACAS D'AULPS.
153§ (Eighth Inclosure in No. 18.)—Translation.
§ To the King of Naples.
§ March 5.
§ Sir, my Brother; I have already communicated to you my opinion of your conduct. Your situation had turned your head. My reverses have finished you. You have surrounded yourself with men who hate France, and who wish to ruin you. I formerly gave you useful warnings. What you write to me is at variance with your actions. I shall, however, see by your manner of acting at Ancona, if your heart be still French, and if you yield to necessity alone.
§ I write to the Minister at War, in order to tranquillize him with respect to your conduct. Recollect that your kingdom, which has cost so much blood and trouble to France, is yours only for the benefit of those who gave it you. It is needless to send me an answer, unless you have something important to communicate. Remember that I made you a King solely for the interest of my system. Don't deceive yourself; if you should cease to be a Frenchman, you would be nothing for me. Continue to correspond with the Viceroy, taking care that your letters be not intercepted.
§ A correct Copy.
§ (Signed) BLACAS P'AULPS.
§ No. 19. Extract of a Letter from Lord William Bentinck to Marshal Bellegarde, dated Verona, March 25, 1814; transmitted officially by lord William Bentinck to Viscount Castlereagh.
§ It is now necessary to consider what has been the conduct of Murat.
§ 1. Has he fulfilled his Treaty with Austria, the object and sole object of which was his immediate co-operation?
§ 2. Was not this immediate co-operation, if he were sincere, as necessary to his own safety, as to the success of the common cause?
§ 3. But has he not rather acted, as if his apprehensions were not of Buonaparté, but of the Allies?
§ 4. Was it not the natural feeling and policy of a deserter from the cause of Buonaparté, to throw himself with all his weight into the scale, and be the most forward in the contest?—He would have no hope of escaping the effects of the vengeance of Buonaparté, if successful.
§ 5. In what manner has he occupied the different parts of Italy evacuated by the 154 French? Has not his occupation had more the air of permanent than temporary possession?
§ 6. Is it not the language of all his officers, and of himself, that all Italy should be united, and that he should be the chief of Italian independence?
§ 7. Is not this sentiment in exact accord with that of Buonaparté?
§ 8. What mean his great endeavours to retain in his service the French officers, who, he knows, will never serve against his countrymen?
§ 9. What means either his continual friendly intercourse with all the French authorities—with Fouché—with the advanced posts—and latterly, with peculiar activity, direct with the head-quarters of the Viceroy, without the knowledge and participation of the Austrian Minister?
§ 10. Finally, is there any man in Italy—is there any man or officer in the Austrian army south of the Po—has your Excellency, or have I myself, any confidence whatever in his sincerity? Do not all believe, that his sole object is to gain time; that he is making and will make use of every pretext to do nothing until the issue of the present struggle shall have been decided, when he will throw him self into the strongest side?