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| Dispositions at dusk, day three After the third and final day of the campaign the French armies were forced back towards the Sambre and, realising the inevitability of defeat, Napoleon agreed to negotiations the following morning at a monastery near Fleurus - Soleilmont. This is post six in a series of seven; the others are: To make them more interesting, instead of making them trilateral negotiations for a ceasefire between the French, Prussians and British, we widened the scope to cover peace preliminaries and included representatives from Russia, Austria and the Netherlands - a sort of Congress of Vienna Mk2. For the negotiations to make sense, we'll need to put them in their proper context, which means going back a year or so to 1814. The Wider ContextThe core idea underpinning European diplomacy for this period was known as 'The Balance of Power' - the idea that the only way to guarantee peace was for states to be equally strong, and thus unable to attack one another without weakening themselves enough to leave them in turn open to attack. There were five Great Powers in Europe - Britain, France, Prussia, Austria and Russia. The remaining states were generally less of a problem as they could be kept in line by the bigger ones and on occasion provide useful support. The 1814 CampaignThe preceding two decades of warfare had seen a number of coalitions form and dissolve. The campaigns of 1813 and 1814, which finally defeated Napoleonic France, were undertaken by the Sixth Coalition - the other four Great Powers, plus assorted smaller states (hello, Mecklenburg-Schwerin!). This campaign led to a number of treaties, which set the diplomatic scene for our own negotiations, chronologically: The Treaty of ChaumontSigned in March 1814 between the four principal allies of the Sixth Coalition; it pledged to return France to its 1792 borders, and each power agreed to put 150,000 troops into the field to compel Napoleon’s surrender if necessary. The Treaty of ParisSigned in May 1814, after Napoleon’s abdication, between the principal allies of the Sixth Coalition and Louis XVIII (on behalf of Bourbon France). It ended the war of the Sixth Coalition, and mandated that the Great Powers would meet in Vienna soon after to reach a settlement that would restore the balance of powers in Europe. As France had been restored to a monarchy, no harsh conditions were imposed. The Congress of ViennaAt this point in our game, this is currently ongoing, having been interrupted by Napoleon’s return in early 1815. The aim of the Congress is to restore the balance of power in Europe, so that no power will have motive or opportunity to engage in wars of aggression. There are many complexities to be dealt with during this Congress, and at times the four other Great Powers have seemed closer to war with each other than with France. The three chief problems to solve are the French monarchy, the balance of power in Europe, and the restoration of borders to their pre-1793 status. Each of those three statements conceal dozens of minor issues for the individual participants; broader questions like the Polish-Saxon problem, and now military issues too. I think working from our knowledge of what happened in reality it's not immediately obvious to us just how fractured the Allies were in 1815 - the British and Austrians even signed a secret treaty with France promising to go to war with Prussia and Russia if the latter didn't back down over claims to Poland. The Hundred Days' CampaignIn reality, the Congress of Vienna was able to conclude at leisure with a defeated France. Here though, Napoleon remains at the head of an army and the participants are under pressure to agree something that can be worked on later. Napoleon may have been beaten in a couple of battles, but the previous year proved to all and sundry that he could continue to fight hard long after many would have thought possible. The state of the three armies involved directly in the campaign is as follows: French: Infantry: 41427 of 85447 (52% losses) Cavalry: 11357 of 21699 (48% losses) Artillery: 189 of 362 guns (48% losses) Total: 58411 of 116028 (50% losses) Prussians Infantry: 76530 of 108081 (29% losses) Cavalry: 13601 of 17390 (22% losses) Artillery: 232 of 286 guns (19% losses) Total: 94365 of 130626 (28% losses) Anglo-Dutch: Infantry: 50370 of 73490 (31% losses) Cavalry: 8514 of 15720 (46% losses) Artillery: 167 of 188 guns (11% losses) Total: 64386 of 96831 (34% losses) Note that French losses of 59617 compared to the combined Prussian (36261) and Anglo-Dutch (32445) losses (total 68706) are actually lower, even though the French have lost many more men captured than the Allies. The problem is that they started with roughly half as many men and couldn’t absorb the sort of attritional warfare that they engaged in at Fleurus and Binche. The French are also rumoured to have an additional 50,000 reinforcements under Marshal Davout en route. Austria and Russia, while not directly involved in the fighting, are mobilising armies numbering 210,000 and 150,000 respectively in preparation for a July campaign. All of this gives the British and Prussian representatives strong motivations to conclude the campaign here; any further fighting will weaken them and give Russia and Austria an advantage in negotiations. Key PlayersWe had six players attend the negotiations, plus myself as umpire/secretary, and two more involved remotely. Napoleon Bonaparte (Napoleonic France)Napoleon's objectives were fairly simple: to fracture the unity of the other four Great Powers, leveraging his popularity with the French people (at least compared to the Bourbons), military reputation and potential for further fighting to retain his throne. This would obviously be a very hard sell, but I suggested that Napoleon keep the option of once again abdicating in favour of his son as a backup. Lord Wellington (Britain)The British objectives, as so often, were primarily to play off the other Powers against each other. With little skin in the game territorially, the British were motivated primarily by preserving their already small army and keeping the continental powers in check. Marshall Blucher (Prussia)Prussia's objectives - to restore the balance of power, but naturally in a way that favoured Prussia (gaining Saxony) - clashed slightly with the aims of their representative here, Gebhard Blucher. His antipathy to France was well known, and balanced Prussia's need to not spend any more blood campaigning while Austria and Russia sat idly by. Count von Stackelberg (Russia)Unlike the preceding three, Stackelberg was a diplomat rather than a soldier. For the purposes of our game he had been seconded from the proceedings at Vienna on the outbreak of war to the Prussian army, to represent Russian interests at just this sort of event. The Russians, with a large and as yet uncommitted army, could afford to take a hard line in negotiations, tempered only by the knowledge that their designs on Poland were unpopular with the other Allies. Baron von Wessenberg-Ampringen (Austria)Wessenberg, like Stackelberg, was a diplomat and deputy at the Congress of Vienna. For our game, he was attached to the Anglo-Dutch army to represent Austrian interests in any negotiations. The Austrians had yet to commit their large army so, like the Russians, could afford to sit back and let the fighting continue. This was balanced to a greater extent than Russia by the fact that two of the countries involved in the fighting had signed their treaty to oppose Russia's annexation of Poland. Also unusually amongst the Great Powers Austria had a good reason for wanting Napoleon (or his son) to remain on the French throne instead of the Bourbons - Napoleon's wife, Maria Theresa, was Austrian. The Prince of Orange (Netherlands)Captured by the French the day before, the Prince of Orange was present partly as a bargaining chip for the French, and partly to try and secure a good deal for the Netherlands. Being an ally (especially of the British) his wishes couldn't be ignored outright, but he didn't have the clout of a representative of a real Great Power. The French MarshalateThe year before, the Marshals had compelled Napoleon to abdicate in favour of his son. This time, Marshals Grouchy and Ney met in the morning of the talks and decided to send a note to trusted members of the French delegation, stating that if an impasse was reached because Napoleon refused to yield the throne, they would depose him once again in favour of his son. This was only to be shown to the other parties if no agreement could be reached, in order to not weaken the French hand. The Soleilmont NegotiationsWe played through the talks on a rainy Thursday evening in a packed out pub. No doubt the other punters were baffled, but the hubbub gave us plenty of opportunity for breaking into smaller groups and plotting. From pretty early on it became apparent that all sides were keen to resolve matters that night, instead of continuing the campaign. Frankly, that was a relief to me also. Also apparent quickly was that none of my players particularly cared about bringing the Bourbons back - there was an almost immediate consensus that Napoleon had to go, but the idea of a regency was floated just as fast, and the outline agreed on. The sticking point for the rest of the evening was who was to lead it. It's difficult to provide a real narrative of the next couple of hours, because there was rarely only one strand of conversation going, and often three or more. The players considered a number of proposals; some were quickly accepted ( independence for the Netherlands), some were fraught (what exactly to do in Poland) and some were barely credible (Napoleon to lead a campaign against the Turks; when this was proposed to him Napoleon sarcastically offered the services of Marshal Ney instead). One by one we debated points, reaching a tentative agreement on the basis of various quid pro quos, until all the substantive issues had been solved. The Russians eventually accepted an independent Poland on condition that it be ruled by a Romanov; Austria accepted in return for a free hand in Italy, and the regency issue was decided in favour of a council led by Maria Theresa. Everyone agreed to independence for the small states, and that France was to return to its 1792 borders. The Treaty of SoleilmontAfter an evening's drinking, wrangling and bargaining we arrived at the following outline:
I think the interesting thing about this agreement is that - setting aside the lack of a Bourbon restoration - how similar it was in its aims to the Congress of Vienna which really happened. It's fun to speculate what history might have looked like after this - whether it might have stopped or accelerated the wave of revolutions which swept Europe a few decades later, what the consequences for the Franco-Prussian war might have been, and so on. All in all I felt that my players did a good job representing their chosen nations' interests, and from what I could see had fun too. Next time, we'll wrap this whole saga up with a few conclusions and a look at how you might run this sort of thing better (and in fewer than 18 months!). |
