Convention of Tauroggen

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The Tauroggen Convention was an armistice that was signed on December 30, 1812 in the Poscheruner Mühle , about three kilometers southwest of Tauroggen , on the then border between Prussia and Russia by the Prussian Lieutenant General Johann David von Yorck and the Russian Major General Hans Karl von Diebitsch has been completed. The former Prussian Major Carl von Clausewitz and the Governor General of Livonia had a share in the realization of this agreementand Courland in Riga , Lieutenant General Filippo Paulucci .

King Friedrich Wilhelm III. von Prussia initially disapproved of the convention and gave orders that Yorck be arrested and brought to court martial; After he was fully aware of Napoleon's defeat in Russia and the developments in Prussia confirmed his general, Yorck also received the recognition he deserved.
The diplomatic background was the commitment of Tsar Alexander in the rescript of December 6, 1812 to an alliance with Prussia .

background

Memorial stone near Tauroggen (below) by the former village of Poscherun. There was a mill there that negotiated the convention. The mill has long since disappeared, the stream still exists (above), about 50 m below the memorial stone

As a result of the lost battle near Jena and Auerstedt , Prussia suffered "an area reduction by half". The shock led to changes at all levels: "Reformed and at the same time predisposed to coming crises, Prussia [..] entered a new phase of martial trials."

Due to its alliance obligations to Napoleon in the Russian campaign of 1812 , Prussia provided a contingent of troops to secure the northern flank of the Grande Armée advancing towards Moscow as part of the 10th Corps of French Marshal Jacques MacDonald . MacDonald had penetrated as far as Riga and the Daugava in Courland during the campaign , but neither was the conquest of the city pursued in a sustainable manner, nor were initiatives taken to facilitate the withdrawal of Napoleon's troops. General Yorck had been in command of the Prussian corps since August 20, 1812.

On November 10, 1812, Alexander replaced the Governor General of Livonia and Courland, Magnus Gustav von Essen, with Paulucci, who was in his favor and whom he encouraged in his plan to get in touch with General Yorck. There was an exchange of letters between Alexander and Paulucci and between the governor and Yorck. "So the Russian governor-general of Livonia and Courland, Marquis Philipp Paulucci, [established] the connection with Yorck that resulted in the Tauroggen Convention ..."

Prehistory of the Convention

Before Alexander communicated the exact terms of the deal to his negotiator Paulucci and authorized him personally to negotiate with Yorck, some time passed. This was used by the governor for correspondence, which was accompanied by a clever information policy. Paulucci had signed on with the German publisher Garlieb Merkel, whose newspaper Der Viewer in Riga regularly printed situation reports and Russian bulletins on the events of the war. The Prussian General Yorck, who was not informed of the military situation by his French allies, was better informed about this contact than even Napoleon, who was cut off from a large part of his troops, or even King Friedrich Wilhelm III. in Berlin, who only received this information via Yorck forwarding it.

This regular information, for which Yorck expressly thanked, gave him a clear picture of the catastrophic situation of the French army and its allies.

Paulucci had already made suggestions to Yorck in a letter dated December 1st, but on December 7th - when he proposed a meeting to Prussia - he had no instructions from Alexander, although he had asked Alexander for a power of attorney on November 26th. With this still vague information, Yorck sent his adjutant, Major Seydlitz, to Berlin on December 5th to inform the king of the negotiations being offered and to receive instructions from him. Yorck Paulucci announced the dispatch from Seydlitz on December 8th.

After Paulucci 30 jul. / December 12th greg. had repeated his request for authority to Alexander, the tsar answered him on July 6th . / December 18, Greg. with the rescript. (April 10, 2014).

Rescript of the Emperor Alexander to the Marquis Paulucci

“I read your dispatch of November 30th, General, with interest, and I can only as completely approve of your considerations addressed to General Yorck as the course of action you have followed on this important matter. It might be possible that this general, after his courier returned from Berlin, would express the wish to know in detail my intentions with regard to the advantages to be offered to the King of Prussia in the event that he made common cause with me. In this case, answer him that I am ready to conclude a treaty with this prince in which I would contractually undertake not to lay down my arms as long as I have not succeeded in obtaining a territorial expansion for Prussia, which is considerable through its expansion is enough to restore it to its place among the European powers that it occupied before the war of 1806. I authorize you to make this statement to General Yorck, orally or in writing, at your discretion; But you must adhere to not expanding the scope of what has been said here. "

- St. Petersburg, December 6, 1812. Signed pm Alexander.

The text of the rescript was presented in 2013 in the catalog of the exhibition "And peace brought all over the world - Russian-Prussian campaign 1813-1814" in the Russian Embassy in Berlin from a Russian source:

“... the rescript from Alexander I to the Governor General of Riga, FO Paulucci, in which he is ordered to inform General Yorck, the commander of the Prussian corps in Napoleon's army, that the Russian Empire in the event of the transition to Prussia on the Russian side will not lay down their arms until Prussia is restored within the borders of 1806. "

- Archives of the Foreign Office of the Russian Federation. Tchernodarov, Andrej: Russo-Prussian Campaign 1813–1814, p. 33

History of the signature

Paulucci attached Alexander's rescript to his letter of December 22nd to Yorck, which Yorck received from Count Dohna on December 25th at Kiaukalek. "Paulucci wrote this letter in Doblen near Mitau (which is only a few miles away from Kiaukalek)." [Brackets in the original] Julius Eckhardt writes that Yorck "made an appointment when he left Mitau [on December 20, 1812] and drafted convention took with him “and left town with his troops. Two days later the Prussians separated from MacDonald. They "crossed Kurland with the utmost slowness, [...] because beyond [the Prussian border] there would have been no reason to conclude the convention". In addition, Yorck wanted to await the return of his adjutant, Major von Seydlitz from Berlin with a message from King Friedrich.

This departure was preceded by a conflict with the French Commander-in-Chief MacDonald about supply issues in the Prussian Corps, which aroused great indignation at Yorck, who felt he was treated unfairly and disadvantaged, and which could not be resolved with the subsequent formal courtesy.

The retreat itself came under pressure from the Russian general Wittgenstein , who was approaching the region, and because of the news that parts of the French army and also Russian units were arriving in Prussia. Tauroggen was agreed on December 24th as the target of all separately marching Prussian and French corps.

All troop movements were extremely arduous under the prevailing winter conditions and the poor road conditions.

Paulucci and his troops occupied Mitau on December 21, 1812, at 2 a.m., and instructed his General Löwis to follow the two Yorck corps - he himself turned to Memel , where Yorck was expected to hand over the Prussian garrison there to force what he succeeded on December 28th. As a result, however, he lost direct contact with Yorck, whose second corps under General von Kleist had unexpectedly come into contact with von Diebitsch's troops. Von Kleist "used ... the willingness of the Russian general to parliament ..." There was now no unification with MacDonald's troops, since he had holed up behind the Memel and no longer came to Tauroggen, where Yorck and his corps were on Arrived December 28th. In possession of Alexander's rescript, which General Yorck received on December 25th in Kiauklek from Count Dohna (handed over to him on December 22nd by the Marquis Paulucci), Yorck was now able to negotiate with Diebitsch in Tauroggen.

Clausewitz, von Diebitsch's negotiator, negotiated on the night of December 28th to 29th with Yorck, who was important "that he should appear cut off ..." The Russian generals did him this favor - brought him on the afternoon of December 29th Clausewitz ...

“Letters from which it emerged that Wittgenstein's army had penetrated beyond Tilsit, that the Prussians had also been completely cut off to Novoje-Mesto, and that the conditions required for the conclusion of a convention had therefore been met. Now Yorck said his decisive 'You have me!' and it was agreed that the convention would end on the following day. "

- Julius Eckhardt, Yorck and Paulucci. P. 54.

It was now too late for Paulucci as Yorck's negotiating partner.

On the same day - December 29th - I also arrived in Tauroggen from Seydlitz, coming from Berlin.

Information from Major Seydlitz about the opinion of Friedrich Wilhelm III.

Seydlitz,

“Arrived in Berlin on the 13th, had only received his clearance for the return journey on the night of the 21st. At the time of his departure the complete dissolution of the French army in Berlin was not yet known and just as little was known with any degree of reliability the resolutions of the Vienna Cabinet, without which, however, no firm basis could be established for the negotiations to be initiated. General Yorck learned only this much that the King was resolved: to annul the alliance, which Napoleon had so often violated, as soon as the other political conditions of the state were only further clarified. General Yorck knew at least in general the sentiments of the king, his master. "

- v. Seydlitz, Diaries p. 243.

Friedrich Wilhelm's answer was an expression of his political responsibility for Prussia. During the period in which Yorck's adjutant Seydlitz was in Berlin - from December 13th until his return journey from December 21st, 1812 - Napoleon was on his way to Paris (he arrived there on December 18th, 1812) and had regained his ability to act. He had made demands of his allies for new troop additions. Given these prerequisites, it is likely that Friedrich Wilhelm could not dare to expressly agree to an agreement between Prussian and Russian troops: "... under the pressure of the circumstances, the king [could] not do anything else than publicly disapprove."

The conclusion of the convention

So on December 30, 1812, Yorck independently concluded an armistice between the Prussian auxiliary corps and the Russian army. The Prussian troops were immediately declared neutral until the king would issue further orders.

The wording of the important provisions:

  • Article 1. The Prussian Corps occupies the area within the royal territory along the border from Memel [...] to Tilsit; [...] the Curonian Lagoon closes on the other side of this territory, which was declared and considered completely neutral during the Prussian occupation.
  • Article 2. In this area referred to in the previous article, the Prussian corps remains until the incoming orders from Sr. Majesty the King of Prussia, but undertakes if the highest thought se. Your Majesty was to order the corps to march back to the French army, not to serve against the imperial Russian army for a period of two months, counted from today.
  • Article 3. Should Se. Majesty the King of Prussia or Se. If the Majesty the Emperor of Russia refuses to give the highest approval, the corps should be free to march unhindered by the shortest route to where His Majesty the King decides.
  • Article 4. [Regulations on Corps Property and Resupply]
  • Article 5. [Troops and administrations wishing to join the Convention are under Yorck's command]
  • Article 6. [Future Prussian prisoners are included in the Convention]
  • Article 7. [The Prussian Corps can
    arrange its own food] Poscherunsche Mühle. the 18./30. December 1812.
    Signed: von Yorck, von Diebitsch.
and display information about the image
The signatures of Yorck ( Königlich Preuss. General Lieutn. ) And Diebitsch ( Kaiserlich Russischer General Major ) under the Tauroggen Convention of December 30, 1812

Evaluation of the agreement

"The agreement was [...] a diplomatic success of Alexander I. " He had made Yorck a generous offer and could also assume that he would bring it to his king's attention. Alexander's promise, which had to remain in the background, prevented an escalation between Prussians and Russians caused by the alliance obligations with Napoleon and brought about a swift end to hostilities. Napoleon also suspected the consequences of the seemingly insignificant formal agreement, because he said to the Prussian deputy who brought the news to him: “'General Yorck's apostasy can change the politics of Europe' and [left] 350,000 recruits from his Senate on the spot demand."

Consequences of the agreement

Memorial stone near Tauroggen (below) by the former village of Poscherun. There was a mill there that negotiated the convention. The mill has long since disappeared, the stream still exists (above), about fifty meters below the memorial stone

At first, the Marquis Paulucci was annoyed that, because of the circumstances, he was missing the honor of concluding the convention he was preparing and to which he and not Diebitsch had been authorized by Alexander. Paulucci also saw that Yorck took the opportunity to get better conditions from Diebitsch, who unexpectedly came to this fame. Paulucci, however, was generously rewarded by Alexander.

Yorck exposed himself to the charge of high treason and risked the death penalty; he therefore wrote to his king: “Now or never is the moment to regain freedom, independence and greatness. I swear Ew. Your Majesty, that I will wait for the bullet on the pile of sand as calmly as on the field of battle where I turned gray. "

After Seydlitz, Yorck sent Major von Thile II from the General Staff to King Friedrich III. with the notification of the convention and concluded it:

"Ew. Majesty I willingly lay my head at my feet if I should have missed; I would die with the joyful reassurance that at least I had not been absent as a loyal subject and a true Prussian. Now or never is the time when Ew. Your Majesty could tear himself away from the arrogant demands of an ally, whose plans with Prussia were shrouded in a rightly worrying darkness, if luck had remained true to him. This view has guided me, may Heaven grant that it leads to the salvation of the fatherland. "

- v. Seydlitz: Diaries. P. 250f.

Frederick's official disapproval of the convention up to and including the order to dismiss Yorck and replace him with General von Kleist was also due to the very confusing situation. The formal communication was blocked by the Russians and von Kleist refused to take Yorck's place. The situation in East Prussia was confused for weeks because there were still strong French troops in the country [Danzig, Konigsberg and Pillau were still in French hands] and a Russian occupation was not desired.

But with his "surrender" of Tauroggen, Yorck had initiated a development that could no longer be stopped:

“The act of General Yorck, who neutralized the Prussian troops with some freedom of action, prepared the change of alliance; the East Prussian estates, supported by a broad patriotic movement, began to set up a Landwehr. The donation files preserved in thick bundles prove. that the rural population has also been gripped by the new political emotion on a broad front. "

- Wolfgang Neugebauer: History of Prussia. P. 96.

The movement against the French occupiers led to the Russian-Prussian alliance of Kalisch , which was signed on 23/24. February 1813 was signed and in consequence to the wars of freedom against Napoleonic France. Just three months after the conclusion of the Tauroggen Convention, on March 17, 1813, with his appeal to My People , the Prussian king sealed Prussia's defection from the forced military alliance with Napoleon.

After the defeat of Napoleon, Prussia received a considerable increase in territory at the Congress of Vienna .

Representations in the specialist literature

“But it was not until the Prussian General Yorck, against the will of his king, at the end of 1812, in the Tauroggen Convention, that the Russians opened the way to East Prussia ...” is a textbook illustration that is typical but incorrect. Yorck did not act “against the will of his king” - the official, diplomatically justified “disapproval” of the conclusion by Friedrich Wilhelm III. was a "maneuver" to deceive Napoleon. In addition, Yorck did not "give the Russians the way to East Prussia" - he averted fighting between Prussian and Russian troops and prepared joint action for the future allies. His often vaunted achievement was not to act “against the will of his king”, but to act “for the king”, who was not yet able to make a decision in his role.

Yorck's sentence that he would wait for the death ball just as calmly as on the battlefield on which he had turned gray had a tradition even in the school books of the young Federal Republic.

Depiction in novels

The Tauroggen Convention plays a role in the novel The Commodore by Cecil Scott Forester . Forester's hero Hornblower supports the Russians around Diebitsch and Clausewitz, who was then in Russian service, with his squadron and is significantly involved in the meeting of the Russian military with Yorck.

In Theodor Fontane's novel Before the storm is about Tauroggen: The news of the waste arrives at a soiree. Already internally trained for the idea of ​​the autocratic uprising, the old Prussian aristocrats then take the fight against French troops into their own hands - Tauroggen is a role model here - and fail in an attack on Frankfurt (Oder) .

literature

  • Julius Eckhardt: Yorck and Paulucci. History of the Tauroggen Convention. Verlag von Veit & Comp., Leipzig 1865. [2] (April 13, 2014)
  • General-Major von Seydlitz: Diary of the Royal Prussian Army Corps under the command of General-Lieutenant von Yorck in the campaign of 1812. Second volume. with Ernst Siegfried Mittler, Berlin and Posen 1823. [3] (April 13, 2014).
  • Johann Gustav Droysen : The life of Field Marshal Count Yorck von Wartenburg ., First volume, Verlag von Veit Comp., Leipzig 1863. [4] (April 13, 2014).
  • Walter Elze : The dispute over Tauroggen . Shepherd, Breslau 1926.
  • Hermann Schreiber: The people stand up. Europe's liberation struggle against Napoleon . Lübbe, Bergisch Gladbach 1982, ISBN 3-7857-0315-5 .
  • Wolfgang Neugebauer: History of Prussia. Scientific Book Society, Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 2004.

Web links

Commons : Convention of Tauroggen  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Remarks

  1. ↑ “The [Eckhardt] present collection consists of 38 files relating to the Convention, which the Marquis Paulucci put together from the letters exchanged with Yorck, his reports to the Emperor, Count Wittgenstein, and so on. Nineteen of these were available to Professor Droysen, only four he reproduced in detail. ”[Eckhardt, p. 3.] Eckhardt's all documents are printed in French and in German translation. [Droysen had published a work on the life of Field Marshal Yorck in 1863]. Eckhardt's collection comes from the publisher of the German-language Riga newspaper “Der Viewer”, Garlieb Merkel, who wrote “Der Geschichte der Yorck'schen Convention [...] through his close relationships with the Marquis Paulucci and his related plans, as well as through [ heard] that the present pieces of files and records were found in his estate. ”[Eckhardt, p. 4.].
  2. ↑ "The first of the numbers published by Merkel of the viewer is Yorck and his surroundings together with Paulucci's letter of July 19th . / December 1st greg. [No. 7 of the collection]. It contained, among other things, Kutuzov's report on the battle of Krasnoy and the battles near Smolensk ... ”[Eckhardt, p. 45.]. On December 8, Yorck was already informed about the Malet conspiracy in Paris, on December 12 about the victory of the Russians at Borissov and the evacuation of Smolensk by Napoleon. On December 16, he knew about the debacle on the Beresina and on December 20 - when he left Mitau - he was "informed of the complete dissolution of the great army [...]" [Eckhardt, p. 50.].
  3. ↑ "It should [...] be certain that like the idea of ​​a formal convention with the Prussians, the idea of ​​a declaration of neutrality by the Prussian corps essentially arose from Paulucci's own initiative [...]", whereby "he received imperial powers [ writes], which he in truth only expects! ”[Eckhardt, p. 49.] ,.
  4. ↑ From the sequence of dates it can be seen that this “drafted convention” could only have been a draft of Paulucci's military affairs, which did not refer to the political aspects in Alexander's rescript, since this was only afterwards with the Marquis could have been received.
  5. ↑ Seydlitz, p. 240. Footnote: "The Russian generals were already instructed when they encountered Prussia to separate them from the French as far as possible and then to parliament with them."
  6. ↑ von Seydlitz writes about himself in the third person.
  7. ↑ This refers to the heap of sand on which the convict is standing during the execution by shooting for high treason.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Wolfgang Neugebauer: History of Prussia. Scientific Book Society, Olms Verlag, Hildesheim 2004, p. 96.
  2. ^ Julius Eckhardt: Yorck and Paulucci. History of the Tauroggen Convention. Verlag von Veit & Comp., Leipzig 1865, pp. 2 and 33f.
  3. ^ Eckhardt: Yorck and Paulucci. P. 2
  4. ↑ Merkel stated that "the Marquis had appointed him to be able to send Yorck [...] army bulletins in German version." [Eckhardt, p. 49, footnote].
  5. ↑ [It was] "above all a matter of informing the Prussian leaders, who only received French reports from time to time [...] about the real situation ..." in [Eckhardt, p. 38.] .
  6. ^ Letter from Yorck to Paulucci [Dec 4th / 16th / No. 15] - Thanks for the "timely communicated news" [Eckhardt, p. 50.].
  7. ^ Johann Gustav Droysen: The life of Field Marshal Count Yorck von Wartenburg ., First volume, Verlag von Veit Comp., Leipzig 1863, p. 252.
  8. ↑ Eckhardt, p. 50.
  9. ↑ The rescript is printed in two languages: Eckhardt, Julius: Yorck und Paulucci.
  10. ↑ Eckhardt, p. 51.
  11. ^ Eckhardt: Yorck and Paulucci. P. 42.
  12. ↑ Presentation: von Seydlitz, Anton Friedrich Florian: Diary of the Royal Prussian Army Corps under the command of the Lieutenant General von York in the campaign of 1812. Second volume. with Ernst Siegfried Mittler, Berlin and Posen 1823, p. 213ff. [1]
  13. ↑ Seydlitz, p. 238.
  14. ↑ Seydlitz, pp. 273f.
  15. ↑ Seydlitz, p. 242.
  16. ↑ Eckhardt, p. 43.
  17. ^ Propylaea World History, Berlin 1943, Volume 5, p. 282.
  18. ^ Text based on: von Seydlitz, Tagebücher, pp. 247–249.
  19. ↑ Tchernodarov, Andrej: “And brought peace to all the world”. Russian-Prussian campaign 1813–1814, publication accompanying the exhibition in the Embassy of the Russian Federation in Berlin (ed.), KLAK-Verlag, Berlin 2013, in cooperation with MK-Verlag, p. 32.
  20. ↑ Seydlitz, p. 249.
  21. ↑ Correspondence after the signing of the convention in: Eckhardt, pp. 100–137.
  22. ↑ Eckhardt, p. 104.
  23. ^ Buchner's college history. Edition B, CC Buchners Verlag, Bamberg 1998, ISBN 3-7661-4646-7 , p. 276.