The Treaties of Tilsit were two agreements made in July 1807 by French Emperor Napoleon in the town of Tilsit following his victory at Friedland. The first was signed on July 7, 1815, on a raft in the middle of the Neman River by Napoleon and Russian Emperor Alexander. On July 9, the second agreement was struck with Prussia. The treaties were established at the expense of King Frederick William III of Prussia, who had already consented to a truce on June 25 after the Grande Armée had conquered Berlin and chased him to his realm's easternmost border. He gave up around half of his pre-war territory in Tilsit.
Napoleon Bonaparte, Emperor of France, was on a high. He beat the forces of Austria, Prussia, and Russia in a sequence of magnificent victories from Austerlitz to Jena and Friedland. After annihilating the Russians at Friedland, the French cavalry took Tilsit (later Sovetsk) on the Nieman River, the border between Prussian and Russian territories in Poland, in June 1807.
Tsar Alexander I proposed peace talks between himself, Napoleon, and King Frederick William of Prussia because the Russian army was in no condition to continue fighting. Napoleon agreed, seeing a chance to consolidate his dominance in Western and Central Europe while isolating Britain.
Alexander directed his messenger to inform Napoleon that a French-Russian union would "ensure the happiness and tranquility of the world." To convene on neutral territory, the conference was held on a raft hurriedly built in the middle of the river by the French, complete with two large white tents.
The main tent was emblazoned with a giant green letter N facing the French side of the river and a large A facing the Russian side. The Prussians grumbled because there was no symbol for their king, and they had to suffer the consequences. On June 25th, the participants were transported across to the raft in boats for the first meeting.
The French boat moved to the raft first, allowing Napoleon to greet the Tsar as he arrived. 'Sire, I loathe the English no less than you do, and I am willing to assist you in any venture against them,' Alexander reportedly said. 'In that case, everything can be quickly settled between us, and peace is made,' Napoleon said.
The conversations lasted several days, interspersed by evening entertainments, with both Napoleon and Alexander quartered in Tilsit, dining together every day and often discussing late into the night. They bonded quickly, hugging one another when they met, walking hand in hand, and exchanging cravats and handkerchiefs.
Though Napoleon was not above the occasional painful allusion that Alexander owed his throne to patricide—the assassination of his father, Paul I, in 1801—Alexander urged the Russian Orthodox Church to remove its 1806 anathematization of Napoleon as the Antichrist. Napoleon wrote to Josephine that Queen Louise of Prussia was lovely and flirted with him, but he dismissed it as "water off a duck's back."
The treaties between France and Russia were signed on July 7th, and those between France and Prussia on July 9th. Russia and Prussia were to join the Continental System, a blockade aimed at destroying British business by blocking their ports to British and neutral ships involved in British trade. Prussia was obliged to give up territory for the construction of the new Grand Duchy of Warsaw, for Napoleon's ally, the King of Saxony, and for his youngest brother, Jerome Bonaparte, for the Kingdom of Westphalia.
Prussia was also forced to reduce its army to 40,000 troops and pay a massive indemnity to the French, while simultaneously surrendering to a French occupation army until the money was paid. The flirty Queen of Prussia was so disturbed that she knelt in front of Napoleon, begging for concessions, but he dismissed her.
The accords were viewed as embarrassing capitulations by many Russians and Prussians, and they did not last. Because of the economic harm caused by the blockade, Alexander opened Russian ports to neutral ships at the end of 1810. In June 1812, Napoleon attacked Russia.
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