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5 - The failure of neutrality: Prussian policy and politics, October 1804–September 1805

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 October 2009

Brendan Simms
Brendan Simms
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

We are sleeping over a volcano and shall not awake until the roof over our heads is burning.

Friedrich von Cölin, 1804

Nord und West und Süd zerplittern, Throne bersten, Reiche zittern.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, West-östlicher Divan

The Rumbold affair

Mr Jackson avait eu hier un petit diner …; l'événement lui faisait grand plaisir, il servirait à mêler les cartes, ou nous nous brouillerons avec la France ou avec la Russie et quoique le premier cas soit préférable le second amenerait d'autres événements pour transplanter le théâtre de la guerre sur le continent. Je crois que comme Anglais il a raison.

Schulenburg to Hardenberg, 29.10.1804, Berlin

Count Haugwitz seems to be using this opportunity in order to realise his plans. I admit that I can have no confidence in him after what has happened. What has happened and what is now happening teaches me what I can expect from him in the future. He can remain on his estates for as long as it pleases and commodes him, … and leave all the work to me, only to come here whenever he feels like it and enjoy broad scope for intrigue and interference, … while I remain completely responsible for the conduct of affairs, until it pleases him to push me out of office entirely.

Hardenberg to Beyme, 12.11.1804, Berlin

On 24 October 1804 French troops crossed the Elbe at Hamburg and seized the British envoy there, Sir George Rumbold, together with all his papers. Plainly, there was nothing the Hamburg senate could do for Rumbold and so all eyes turned to see how Prussia, the dominant power of northern Germany, would react.

Type
Chapter
Information
The Impact of Napoleon
Prussian High Politics, Foreign Policy and the Crisis of the Executive, 1797–1806
 , pp. 159 - 190
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 1997

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