In Austria, the Empress, Stadion, and numbers of other soldiers and statesmen resented the French connection. The King was in constant dread lest he should lose the rest of his kingdom. In Prussia, the Chancellor, Hardenberg, was in his innermost soul fully sympathetic to them, but the dangerous position of his country made him for the moment seek safety in a policy of complete acquiescence, while Moreover, the treaty guaranteed the Ottoman Empire, so dangerously threatened by Russian troops, and thus Austria's interests were taken into consideration and received protection.īoth countries were, however, in secret full of men resolved to break the chains, whether iron or silken, which bound them to Napoleon's chariot. The treaty with Austria was, in theory, between two equal sovereign states, and the tide of the French armies was kept away from her territory, while her auxiliary corps was no larger than that of her weaker neighbour. Austria, on the contrary, affected independence, and her relations were ostensibly guided by the close harmony between the two Imperial Courts, now so intimately united by marriage. In her despair, fearing a last partition at Napoleon's hands, she had no alternative but to accept all his conditions, and agreed to facilitate the passage of his troops through her territory and provide the protection of his left wing. In 1811 she had by an appeal to the Tsar, which met with but little response, vainly attempted to escape from her humiliating and dangerous position. Prussia was far more completely under control. The situation of the two countries was, however, vastly different-they were only united by a common subterranean hatred of their master. They were, in fact, his vassals, constrained to support his attack on Russia and supply auxiliary corps to protect the flanks of his huge army. THROUGHOUT the year 1812 Napoleon dominated the two monarchies of central Europe. The Foreign Policy of Castlereagh, 1812-1815
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