Prague Peace Congress

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The peace congress in Prague between July 12th and August 10th 1813 was supposed to end the war between Prussia and Russia on the one hand and France on the other with Austrian mediation. The congress ended without an agreement. Rather, Austria joined the anti-Napoleonic coalition immediately after the failure.

prehistory

In the spring campaign of the Wars of Liberation in 1813, Napoleon had achieved considerable success, but also suffered heavy losses. He was therefore ready for the Pläswitz armistice on June 6, 1813 in order to be able to strengthen his troops.

Austrian policy, which was largely determined by Metternich , kept open at this time both the option of continuing the alliance with Napoleon and joining the coalition. Metternich acted as a mediator between the Allies and Napoleon. On June 26th there was a meeting between Napoleon and Metternich in Dresden . Napoleon refused any concessions. On June 30, an agreement was reached between Austria and France, according to which Metternich was to act as mediator between France and the Allies. However, on June 27, the Reichenbacher Convention between Russia, Austria and Prussia had already been concluded , in which Austria agreed to join the coalition if France did not accept certain conditions. This included the end of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw , the evacuation of the French-occupied fortresses in Prussia, the return of the Illyrian provinces to Austria and the independence of the Hanseatic cities from France.

course

Preparations were made for a peace congress in Prague. Metternich for Austria, Johann Protasius von Anstett for Russia and Wilhelm von Humboldt for Prussia had been present in Prague since July 12, 1813. On the French side, Louis Marie de Narbonne-Lara was in Prague, but had no negotiating mandate. It was only after a deliberate delay that Armand de Caulaincourt arrived on July 28th as Napoleon's agent. Napoleon did not want to achieve a really substantial result, rather he wanted to gain time. He also hoped to come to an agreement with Alexander I. This hope was quickly dashed in Prague. Metternich suggested conducting negotiations in writing by exchanging grades. This was to prevent the negotiators from reaching an understanding behind his back. The French delegation did not respond to this. Thus, the congress had in fact already failed due to formal issues before the official opening.

Basically neither side wanted to come to an agreement. The Allies never expected Metternich to succeed in persuading Napoleon to give in. Metternich himself was meanwhile ready for Austria to enter the war. The French delaying tactics, the British successes in Spain, the creation of the Allied Trachenberg Plan and other factors played a role. Even Francis I was ready after the success of Armor recent efforts to war.

On August 7th, Metternich sent the French an ultimatum in the name of Emperor Franz I. After that, Napoleon was supposed to express himself on the terms of the Allies in the Reichenbacher Convention of June of that year by August 10th, the day on which the armistice ended In 1813. In addition, there was the dissolution of the Rhine Confederation and the restoration of Prussia within the borders of 1806 as well as the mutual guarantee of territorial status of all states. This meant that France would have lost all conquests except for Germany on the left bank of the Rhine and northern Italy if they had agreed. Napoleon did not respond to the ultimatum. That ended the congress.

Metternich sent Austria's declaration of war to the French embassy on August 12th. A few days later the autumn campaign began , which ended with Napoleon's defeat in the Battle of Leipzig .

literature

  • August Fournier: Napoleon I. Vienna a. a. 1923, pp. 188-196
  • Volker Ullrich: Napoleon. Reinbek 2006, p. 120
  • Gerhard Taddey (ed.): Lexicon of German history . People, events, institutions. From the turn of the times to the end of the 2nd World War. 2nd, revised edition. Kröner, Stuttgart 1983, ISBN 3-520-81302-5 .