The Treaty of Tilsit, July 7, 1807, marked the apogee of the French Empire and for Napoleon "the happiest day of his life", as he declared to General Gourgaud in Saint Helena. The agreement between Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia was supposed to put an end to the "bloodshed contrary to humanity" that had devastated Europe since 1805. The meetings of the two emperors took place on a raft anchored in the middle of the Niemen and the apparent signs of the friendship which would then have arisen between the two men allowed the development of an entire legend (1). This eternal, but unbalanced, peace will last five years.
Napoleon was the big winner of the negotiation by extending his domination over Western Europe: Austria and the Confederation of the Rhine under his control, Prussia was crushed, his brother Joseph was confirmed king of Naples, and his brother Jérôme king of the new kingdom of Westphalia, creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, strengthening of the Ottoman Empire against Russia. The latter undertakes to respect the continental blockade and to declare war on Great Britain if the latter does not sign a peace with France within six months, which is very unlikely.
Defeated and duped by the agreement, Tsar Alexander nevertheless saw the possibility of seizing Finland by tearing it from Sweden, itself supported by Great Britain and its fleet. A situation of confrontation also remains in Swedish Pomerania where an English force occupies the island of Rugen and the stronghold of Stralsund, besieged for several months by the French. There is the germ of a new conflict, this time centered on the Baltic Sea. And, on the sea route to access it, Denmark occupies a strategic position.
The Danish situation
Controlling the Channel with the means of the Boulogne camp, Napoleon feared an attack by the Royal Navy on Hanover, possession of the British dynasty occupied by France since the breakdown of the Peace of Amiens in 1803, and on the Hanseatic cities ( Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen). To do this, after having circumvented the Jutland peninsula, English ships must cross Denmark via the Great Belt, between the islands of Zealand and Funen, or the Little Belt between Funen and Jutland, or even via the Sund. , between Zealand and Scania (Sweden). In all cases, Denmark is directly concerned. Its king Christian VII, who resides in Copenhagen, is very ill, the kingdom is ruled from Kiel, on the coast of Holstein, by his son the royal prince Frederick.
Par Königsberg et Dresde, Napoléon est revenu dès le 27 juillet à Paris, où son premier soin est de régler le conflit entre Murat et Junot (pour les beaux yeux, et plus, de Caroline Murat) avant de s’occuper du mariage de son frère Jérôme avec Catherine de Wurtemberg. Puis, conscient que le Danemark n’est pas en capacité de résister à une invasion anglaise, l’Empereur décide d’affecter à son soutien un corps d’armée rassemblé à Hambourg sous les ordres du maréchal Bernadotte, prince de Ponte-Corvo, corps dont « les Espagnols formeront le noyau » (2).
Des troupes espagnoles au Danemark
Le corps d’armée de Bernadotte doit être en fait constitué, outre quelques Français, de 15 000 Hollandais et de 15 000 Espagnols. Que viennent faire là des Espagnols ? Pour le comprendre, il faut se reporter en 1792 et au traité de Sainte-Ildefonse en 1796.
En 1792, Charles IV, arrière-arrière-petit-fils de Louis XIV, est sur le trône d’Espagne, et son frère Ferdinand, dont l’épouse est la sœur de la reine de France Marie-Antoinette, règne à Naples et en Sicile. Aussi vivent-ils fort mal la déposition puis l’exécution du roi de France. La guerre entre l’Espagne, alliée au Portugal et soutenue par la Grande-Bretagne, et la République française éclate en mars 1793. Les forces espagnoles envahissent le Roussillon jusqu’aux abords de Perpignan puis, repoussées par les généraux Dugommier et Pérignon, sont vaincues le 1er mai 1794 au Boulou. Elles sont également repoussées à l’autre extrémité des Pyrénées au Pays basque.
Very realistic, Manuel Godoy, head of the Spanish government, signed the Peace of Basel on July 22, 1795, and recognized the French Republic. The king awarded him the title of Prince of Peace (3). The situation was reinforced on August 19, 1796, by the Treaty of Sainte-Ildefonso establishing an “offensive and defensive alliance between the French Republic and H.M. C[atholic]” the King of Spain. In the event of an external attack by one of the parties, the latter may require the other to place land forces of 20,000 to 25,000 men or sea forces at its disposal. Until 1806, the treaty was only applied navally and led to the disaster of the Spanish navy at Trafalgar.
In January 1807, at the request of Napoleon, Talleyrand urged the Prince of Peace to place forces at the disposal of the French Empire. Godoy dragged things out but ultimately agreed to provide a contingent of 14,000 men, including 6,000 from a Spanish corps stationed in Tuscany. Indeed, Tuscany, conquered by Bonaparte in 1800, became the kingdom of Etruria, governed by a Bourbon-Parma and then, on his death, by his wife Queen Marie-Louise of Etruria, who is other than a daughter of the King of Spain Charles IV. She benefited from the support of Spanish troops sent by her father. As Napoleon wished to recover Etruria to make it the Grand Duchy of Tuscany entrusted to his sister Élisa, sending these Spanish troops to Denmark constituted a satisfactory solution for both parties.
The Spanish expeditionary force in Denmark will therefore be made up of two divisions: the 1st division, coming from Italy (two regiments and an infantry battalion and two cavalry regiments), i.e. 6,130 men under the orders of the field marshal Kindelan (4); the 2nd division, coming from Spain (two infantry regiments, one of cavalry and two of dragoons, an artillery detachment), i.e. 8,679 men under the orders of Lieutenant-General Don Pedro Caro y Sureda, Marquis of La Romana (1761-1811), the hero of our story.
The 1st division leaves Florence, Pisa, and Verona in May and, via Trieste, Innsbruck, and Augsburg, reaches Hanover around June 10; she was then assigned to Marshal Brune’s observation corps. It took part in the siege of the fortress of Stralsund which fell on August 18, 1807. The columns of the 2nd division set out in June and crossed France via Bayonne, Bordeaux (5), Lyon, and then via Mainz to reach Hamburg, accompanied by convoys of women, children, and luggage. Their fierce, tanned faces, their shimmering uniforms, their dance evenings accompanied by guitar, and their religious services strongly impress the populations they pass through.
The two divisions were grouped under the command of the Marquis de La Romana, with Kindelan as chief of staff, and integrated into the corps of the Prince of Ponte-Corvo, governor of the Hanseatic cities – also including French and Dutch troops – in support of the Danish army. The Palois (Bernadotte) and the Catalan (Romana) can only get along well.
In August 1807, the English occupied Copenhagen and Zealand and, on September 7, the Danish army signed a capitulation handing over the Danish fleet to Great Britain: sixteen ships and around twenty brigs and frigates. Then the English fleet retreats before winter and its ice.
After the winter lull, the imminent melting of the ice in the spring of 1808 once again raised fears of an English offensive and Napoleon decided to militarily occupy Denmark with the agreement of King Frederick VI (6). To support his ally Alexander I who invaded Finland, he set up a project to land Bernadotte's corps in Scania (Sweden) in which Spanish troops occupied an essential place (7). But, from the first days of April, this beautiful project was abandoned, Napoleon leaving Paris for Bayonne and another adventure.
The Bayonne affair
On October 27, 1807, Napoleon ordered Junot to invade Portugal, which, allied with Great Britain, did not respect the continental blockade. The passage of French troops into Spain caused such a crisis between King Charles IV and his son Ferdinand that the first, deposed by the second in Aranjuez, requested support from Napoleon. The latter sent Murat to occupy Madrid before going to Bayonne, on April 14, 1808, to settle the matter himself. Unable to be everywhere, he abandoned the plan to invade Sweden, only asking Bernadotte to leave two Spanish regiments in Zealand to ensure the defense of this island and of Copenhagen, and to distribute the others among the garrisons of Funen, the island of Langeland, and the main places of Jutland. La Romana establishes its headquarters in Nyborg, Funen.
Even before he departed for Bayonne, Napoleon understood that the events in Aranjuez could have consequences on the state of mind of “his Spanish soldiers”, divided between supporters of Charles IV and Ferdinand VII, or even supporters of Godoy. He asks Bernadotte to filter the information disseminated to the troop, and Lavalette to delay private correspondence (8).
As early as April 6, Bernadotte reported "having observed some agitation among the Spanish troops and learned that it was caused by private letters recently arrived from Spain" but he declared that he had complete confidence in La Romana, "of which he only had 'for hire', to maintain order and control the spread of news coming from Spain. However, the information on the way in which Murat suppressed the Madrid insurrection of May 2 and 3, known through gazettes landed and distributed by the Royal Navy, will cause even greater unrest among the Spanish troops.
La Romana map
The oath to José I
The matter becomes even more complicated when we learn of the deposition of Ferdinand VII and Charles IV and the appointment of Joseph Bonaparte – who asked for nothing and was very happy in Naples – as king of Spain. But the prince of Ponte-Corvo showed no concern about the loyalty of his Spanish troops, being responsible for transmitting to the Emperor a message from La Romana written as follows: “The Spanish division in Denmark, which I have the honor to command, hastens to testify to V.M., through my organ, the great satisfaction of knowing that a brother of the Great Napoleon, of the incomparable hero that France produced, has been recognized as King of Spain. His emotion was strong, etc. » At the same time, La Romana secretly receives a visit from Don Vicente Colo, representative of the Seville junta and bearer of letters appealing to his honor as a Spaniard, as well as that of a Scottish Catholic priest named James Robertson who, on behalf of Lord Canning, British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, assured him that Rear-Admiral Keats's fleet was ready to embark the Spanish troops to bring them back to Galicia.
On July 10, Napoleon, still in Bayonne, wrote to Berthier instructing him to ask Bernadotte “to have the Spanish troops swear an oath to the [new] king, choosing the favorable moment” (9). On July 22, the Prince of Ponte-Corvo transmitted the request to the Marquis of La Romana, without any concern. Didn't the latter assure him that he would join him in Hamburg on August 15 to celebrate the Emperor's Day together?
The Escape
First informed of the required oath, the regiments of Asturias and Guadalajara, stationed in Roskilde, the former capital of Denmark on the island of Zealand, under the command of French general Fririon, mutinied and assassinated a French state lieutenant on August 1 -major. The Danish army surrounds and begins to disarm the mutineers. La Romana, who had procrastinated by proposing circumvented oath formulas to her officers, then decided to cross the Rubicon, writing to the mutinous colonels: “The Juntas of Asturias and Galicia have sent us letters to request me, as general in chief, to hasten to return to our homeland to save and avenge it. All of Spain has taken up arms to repel its oppressors… who, even by threat, want to bind us with an oath, as if we were not the sons of the homeland that calls us.” La Romana makes contact with Rear Admiral Keats aboard the ship HMS Superb stationed in the Great Belt with his squadron. They decided to assemble the Spanish regiments on the island of Langeland, southeast of Funen, where embarkation facilities had been gathered for the expedition to Sweden. However, the Spanish regiments stationed in Jutland were commanded by General Kindelan, a very Francophile and favorable to the Emperor. Under the pretext of opposing an English landing, La Romana brings together the regiments stationed in Funen in Nyborg and orders the Jutland regiments to cross into Funen. Kindelan discovers the operation too late and cannot oppose it. On August 10, all these regiments embarked on the confiscated Danish gunboats, under the protection of English ships, and regrouped on the island of Langeland.
Bernadotte received the information in Travemünde where he spent the summer with his family on the shores of the Baltic and, completely stunned, made a proclamation denouncing "the wretch whose perfidy has not even an example among the Tartars". He mounts a Franco-Danish expedition to retake Funen but it arrives too late.
From August 17, the English ships Victory, Superb, Brunswick, Gorgone, Devastation, and Hound gathered in front of Langeland and, on the 20th, took on board or on Danish gunboats 8,600 men and 395 Spanish officers. not counting women and children. After gathering in Gothenburg (Sweden) and a stopover in England, an English squadron led the Spanish regiments to Santander and La Coruna on October 2. La Romana, who lingered in London, joined them to participate with them on November 11 in the Battle of Espinoza where the Army of Asturias suffered a heavy defeat, before Marshals Lefebvre and Victor.
We know Napoleon's reaction to the Spanish escape from a letter he sent on August 26 to Caulaincourt, his ambassador in Saint Petersburg, to give the official position to be transmitted to the Tsar: "The Spanish division which was in the Nord embarked for Spain, thanks to the extreme improvidence of the Prince of Ponte-Corvo, although I told him several times that he had to place these troops in such a way as to be sure of it. But La Romana and other Spanish generals had turned his head. You can speak of this affair as not wanting to disarm these troops: say that I prefer to defeat them in Spain to disarm soldiers who have been in my service, but that this betrayal has revolted me and that the traitors will be punished” (10) .
It was only on September 3, when Paris had been buzzing for ten days about the defection of the Spaniards to Denmark, that Le Moniteur related the events in its own way, quoting dispatches from Copenhagen: "The Danish nation will learn with the keenest astonishment and the most righteous indignation that the Spanish troops whom she had received with cordial hospitality had just belied the reputation of loyalty and fidelity which had preceded them, by betraying their duties towards their brothers in arms the French and to compromise the interests and security of Denmark… The Marquis de La Romana maintained intelligence with the English; he brought together in Funen four battalions and five Spanish squadrons forming approximately four thousand men. He spread the most lying rumors to seduce his troops and he went so far as to take orders from the Prince of Ponte-Corvo to take possession of the fortress of Nyborg and deliver this place to the English... Soon it appeared that the Spaniards intended to embark under the protection of the English warships which they had summoned, and to leave Denmark… The Spanish regiments in Jutland also set out unexpectedly on an order from the Marquis of La Romana… The other Spanish corps were stopped in time, disarmed, and taken prisoner. Thus, it was a third of the two Spanish divisions (11) that the betrayal of the Marquis de La Romana delivered to the enemies... At the very time when he was communicating with the English, he was still protesting his loyalty. »
Around 3,500 Spaniards, disarmed by the Danes and prisoners, remain in Zealand. From Erfurt on September 28, Napoleon ordered them to be transferred and dispersed in strongholds in France “because they deserve no consideration: they are traitors.”
Suites
Appointed by the central junta of Cadiz commander of the Northern Provinces, La Romana dissolved the junta of Galicia, took command of the province, and forced Soult and Ney to evacuate it. He demanded and obtained decorations and advancements for his officers and soldiers in Denmark. In September 1809, he was called to the Junta of Cadiz. Finding it too democratic, he tried to reorganize it and unsuccessfully declared himself in favor of strengthening the powers of the Supreme Council of Regency. In 1810, upon the announcement of Napoleon's marriage to an Austrian woman, he feared a rapprochement between the Emperor and the Bourbons of Sicily (the Queen of Sicily was Marie-Louise's grandmother!): we then found La Romana at the center of a political plot with the aim of sowing discord between Napoleon and the Habsburgs, by disseminating an apocryphal letter from Napoleon (12). He learned at the end of August that the marshal he had fooled had become crown prince of Sweden! Then he returned to service in the army in December 1810 and went to Portugal where he was called to Wellington, but died after a short illness on January 23, 1811.
The Spanish soldiers, who were unable to embark and were taken prisoner in Denmark, were dispersed and used for civil engineering work in places in the southeast of France. Napoleon was wary of them but, as they were good fighters, he wanted to use them by placing them under the command of General Kindelan, who remained loyal to the French Empire. Spanish prisoners were added who agreed to change sides. A foreign regiment of five battalions was therefore formed in Avignon, which took the name Joseph-Napoléon. Although King Joseph requested it, this regiment was not sent to Spain but to Germany, then four of its battalions participated in the Russian campaign, of which only two hundred men and ten officers returned. It was disbanded in 1813, like most foreign regiments.
The Marquis of La Romana died at the age of forty-nine while a bright future opened up before him in the new Anglo-Spanish offensive which would drive the invader from his country. In 1814, crowned with the prestige of his escape from Denmark, he would certainly have shared the popularity of King Ferdinand VII who returned to his states and, through his military and political talents, and his great culture, he could have been an influential advisor, or minister, of the sovereign, avoiding the errors that would plunge Spain into disorder throughout the 19th century, and again in the next.
(1) Scene recreated on the Saint-Cucufa pond during the Imperial Jubilee of Rueil-Malmaison in 2018.
(2) General correspondence of Napoléon Bonaparte, Fayard / Fondation Napoléon, t. vii, letter no. 16046, July 22, 1807.
(3) While being the queen’s lover.
(4) Juan Kindelan (1759-1822), Spanish of Irish origin, a former student of the Sorèze College (Tarn).
(5) General correspondence, letter 15,929, June 26, 1807.
(6) Who had succeeded his father Christian VII, who died on March 13, 1808.
(7) General correspondence, t. viii, letter 17,456, March 25, 1808.
(8) General correspondence, letters 17,512 and 17,521, March 29, 1808.
(9) General correspondence, letter 18,519, July 10, 1808.
(10) General correspondence, letter 18,760, August 26, 1808.
(11) Two-thirds.
(12) Jacques Macé, “A political machination on the occasion of the marriage of Napoleon and Marie-Louise”, Revue du Souvenir napoléonien, n° 448, August-October 2003, pp. 25-33.
The Marquis of La Romana
Don Pedro Caro y Sureda, 3rd Marquis of La Romana, son of a general officer, was born in Palma de Mallorca on October 3, 1761. He began his studies in Lyon, with the Oratorians, and continued at the University of Salamanca. He became a naval officer and participated in the conflicts between Spain and Great Britain, notably at the siege of Gibraltar from 1779 to 1783. He then left the navy to travel across Europe and acquire a vast culture in areas as varied as painting, sculpture, Greek poetry, and foreign languages. A convinced monarchist, he joined the army in 1793 and, both in Bidasoa and Catalonia, actively participated in the fight against the French Republic. He was appointed field marshal, captain-general of Catalonia in 1802, then head of the corps of military engineers in 1805. In 1807, he was preferred to O'Farill, who was too pro-French, and to Castanos, the future winner of Bailén. , to command the division sent to Germany, then to Denmark.
Spanish troops in Denmark
1st division, coming from Italy:
• Asturias regiment, 3 battalions, 2,176 men, colonel Dellevielleuze;
• Princess Regiment, 3 battalions, 2,016 men, Colonel de Saint-Roman;
• Barcelona Light Battalion, 1,313 men, Commander Borrellas;
• King's regiment, cavalry, 5 squadrons, 671 men, 551 horses, Colonel Gamba;
• Infanta regiment, cavalry, 5 squadrons, 682 men, 593 horses, colonel
Marianno.
2nd division, coming from Spain:
• Zamora regiment, 3 battalions, 1,973 men, Colonel de Salcedo;
• Guadalazara regiment, 3 battalions, 2,021 men, Colonel Martorell;
• light battalion of Catalonia, 1,170 men, commander Viver;
• Algarve regiment, cavalry, 5 squadrons, 646 men, 539 horses, Colonel Yebra;
• Almanza regiment, dragoons, 5 squadrons, 633 men, 575 horses, Colonel Caballero;
• Villaviciosa regiment, dragoons, 5 squadrons, 659 men, 558 horses, colonel of Armandariz;
• foot artillery, 3 companies, 233 men, Captain Lamor;
• horse artillery, 1 company, 93 men, 72 horses, Captain Lopez;
• artillery/sapper train, 176 men, 292 horses (staff present on November 15, 1807).
Comments