Memoirs of Napoleon Bonaparte — Complete
enemy, to dislodge whom it was necessary to besiege the city two months
afterwards. St. Cyr had 3000 regular troops, and a considerable body of
men in the custom-house service. General Morand could have furnished him
with 5000 men from Mecklenburg. He might, therefore, not only have kept
possession of Hamburg two months longer, but even to the end of the war,
as General Lexnarrois retained possession of Magdeburg. Had not General
St. Cyr so hastily evacuated the Elbe he would have been promptly aided
by the corps which General Vandamme soon brought from the Wesel, and
afterwards by the very, corps with which Marshal Davoust recaptured
Hamburg.
The events just described occurred before Napoleon quitted Paris. In the
month of August all negotiation was broken off with Austria, though that
power, still adhering to her time-serving policy, continued to protest
fidelity to the cause of the Emperor Napoleon until the moment when her
preparations were completed and her resolution formed. But if there was
duplicity at Vienna was there not folly, nay, blindness, in the Cabinet
of the Tuileries? Could we reasonably rely upon Austria? She had seen
the Russian army pass the Vistula and advance as far as the Saale
without offering any remonstrance. At that moment a single movement of
her troops, a word of declaration, would have prevented everything. As,
therefore, she would not avert the evil when she might have done so with
certainty and safety, there must have been singular folly and blindness
in the Cabinet who saw this conduct and did not understand it.
I now proceed to mention the further misfortunes which occurred in the
north of Germany, and particularly at Hamburg. At fifteen leagues east
of Hamburg, but within its territory, is a village named Bergdorf. It
was in that village that the Cossacks were first seen. Twelve or fifteen
hundred of them arrived there under the command of Colonel Tettenborn.
But for the retreat of the French troops, amounting to 3000, exclusive
of men in the customhouse service, no attempt would have been made upon
Hamburg; but the very name of the Cossacks inspired a degree of terror
which must be fresh in the recollection of every one. Alarm spread in
Hamburg, which, being destitute of troops and artillery, and surrounded
with dilapidated fortifications, could offer no defence. The Senator
Bartch and Doctor Know took upon themselves to proceed to Bergdorf to
solicit Colonel Tettenborn to take possession of Hamburg, observing that
they felt sure of his sentiments of moderation, and that they trusted
they would grant protection to a city which had immense commercial
relations with Russia. Tettenborn did not place reliance on these
propositions because he could not suppose that there had been such a
precipitate evacuation; he thought they were merely a snare to entrap
him, and refused to accede to them. But a Doctor Von Hess, a Swede,
settled in Hamburg some years, and known to Tettenborn as a decided
partisan of England and Russia, persuaded the Russian Commander to
comply with the wishes of the citizens of Hamburg. However, Tettenborn
consented only on the following conditions:--That the old Government
should be instantly re-established; that a deputation of Senators in
their old costume should invite him to take possession of Hamburg, which
he would enter only as a free and Imperial Hanse Town; that if those
conditions were not complied with he would regard Hamburg as a French
town, and consequently hostile. Notwithstanding the real satisfaction
with which the Senators of Hamburg received those propositions they
were restrained by the fear of a reverse of fortune. They, however,
determined to accept them, thinking that whatever might happen they
could screen themselves by alleging that necessity had driven them to
the step they took. They therefore declared their compliance with
the conditions, and that night and the following day were occupied in
assembling the Senate, which had been so long dissolved, and in making
the preparations which Tettenborn required.
At four o'clock in the afternoon of the 17th of March a picket of
Cossacks, consisting of only forty men, took possession of a town
recently flourishing, and containing a population of 124,000, but ruined
and reduced to 80,000 inhabitants by the blessing of being united to
the French Empire. On the following day, the 18th, Colonel Tettenborn
entered Hamburg at the head of 1000 regular and 200 irregular Cossacks.
I have described the military situation of Hamburg when it was
evacuated on the 12th of March, and Napoleon's displeasure may be easily
conceived. Tettenborn was received with all the honours usually bestowed
upon a conqueror. Enthusiasm was almost universal. For several nights
the people devoted themselves to rejoicing. The Cossacks were gorged
with provisions and drink, and were not a little astonished at the
handsome reception they experienced.
It was not until the expiration of three or four days that the people
began to perceive the small number of the allied troops. Their amount
gradually diminished. On the day after the arrival of the Cossacks a
detachment was sent to Lübeck, where they were received with the same
honours as at Hamburg. Other detachments were sent upon different
places, and after four days' occupation there remained in Hamburg only
70 out of the 1200 Cossacks who had entered on the 18th March.
The first thing their commander did was to take possession of the
post-office and the treasuries of the different public offices. All the
movable effects of the French Government and its agents were seized and
sold. The officers evinced a true Cossack disregard of the rights of
private property. Counts Huhn, Buasenitz, and Venechtern, who had joined
Tettenborn's staff, rendered themselves conspicuous by plundering the
property of M. Pyonnier, the Director of the Customs, and M. Gonae,
the Postmaster, and not a bottle of wine was left in their cellars.
Tettenborn laid hands upon a sum of money, consisting of upwards of
4000 Louis in gold, belonging to M. Gonse, which had been lodged with
M. Schwartz, a respectable banker in Hamburg, who filled the office of
Prussian Consul. M. Schwartz, with whom this money had been deposited
for the sake of security, had also the care of some valuable jewels
belonging to Mesdames Carry St. Cyr and Daubignoac; Tettenborn carried
off these as well as the money. M. Schwartz remonstrated in his
character of Prussian Consul, Prussia being the ally of Russia, but
he was considered merely as a banker, and could obtain no redress.
Tettenborn, like most of the Cossack chiefs, was nothing but a man for
blows and pillage, but the agent of Russia was M. Steuve, whose name I
have already mentioned.
Orders were speedily given for a levy of troops, both in infantry and
cavalry, to be called Hanseatic volunteers. A man named Hanft, who had
formerly been a butcher, raised at his own expense a company of foot and
one of lancers, of which he took the command. This undertaking, which
cost him 130,000 francs, may afford some idea of the attachment of the
people of Hamburg to the French Government! But money, as well as men,
was wanting, and a heavy contribution was imposed to defray the expense
of enrolling a number of workmen out of employment and idlers, of
various kinds. Voluntary donations were solicited, and enthusiasm was
so general that even servant-maids gave their rings. The sums thus
collected were paid into the chest of Tettenborn's staff, and became
a prey to dishonest appropriation. With respect to this money a Sieur
Oswald was accused of not having acted with the scrupulous delicacy
which Madame de Stael attributes to his namesake in her romance of
Corinne.
Between 8000 and 10,000 men were levied in the Hanse Towns and their
environs, the population of which had been so greatly reduced within two
years. These undisciplined troops, who had been for the most part levied
from the lowest classes of society, committed so many outrages that they
soon obtained the surname of the Cossacks of the Elbe; and certainly
they well deserved it.
Such was the hatred which the French Government had inspired in Hamburg
that the occupation of Tettenborn was looked upon as a deliverance. On
the colonel's departure the Senate, anxious to give high a testimonial
of gratitude, presented him with the freedom of the city, accompanied by
5000 gold fredericks (105,000 francs), with which he was doubtless much
more gratified than with the honour of the citizenship.
The restored Senate of Hamburg did not long survive. The people of the
Hanse Towns learned, with no small alarm, that the Emperor was making
immense preparations to fall upon Germany, where his lieutenants could
not fail to take cruel revenge on those who had disavowed his authority.
Before he quitted Paris on the 15th of April Napoleon had recalled under
the banners of the army 180,000 men, exclusive of the guards of honour,
and it was evident that with such a force he might venture on a great
game, and probably win it. Yet the month of April passed away
without the occurrence of any event important to the Hanse Towns, the
inhabitants of which vacillated between hope and fear. Attacks daily
took place between parties of Russian and French troops on the territory
between Lüneburg and Bremen. In one of these encounters General Morand
was mortally wounded, and was conveyed to Lüneburg. His brother having
been taken prisoner in the same engagement, Tettenborn, into whose hands
he had fallen, gave him leave on parole to visit the General; but he
arrived in Lüneburg only in time to see him die.
The French having advanced as far as Haarburg took up their position on
the plateau of Schwartzenberg, which commands that little town and the
considerable islands situated in that part of the river between Haarburg
and Hamburg. Being masters of this elevated point they began to threaten
Hamburg and to attack Haarburg. These attacks were directed by Vandamme,
of all our generals the most redoubtable in conquered countries. He was
a native of Cassel, in Flanders, and had acquired a high reputation for
severity. At the very time when he was attacking Hamburg Napoleon said
of him at Dresden, "If I were to lose Vandamme I know not what I would
give to have him back again; but if I had two such generals I should be
obliged to shoot one of them." It must be confessed that one was quite
enough.
As soon as he arrived Vandamme sent to inform Tettenborn that if he did
not immediately liberate the brother and brother-in-law of Morand, both
of whom were his prisoners, he would burn Hamburg. Tettenborn replied
that if he resorted to that extremity he would hang them both on the
top of St. Michael's Tower, where he might have a view of them. This
energetic answer obliged Vandamme to restrain his fury, or at least to
direct it to other objects.
Meanwhile the French forces daily augmented at Haarburg. Vandamme,
profiting by the negligence of the new Hanseatic troops, who had the
defence of the great islands of the Elbe, attacked them one night in
the month of May. This happened to be the very night after the battle
of Lutzsn, where both sides claimed the victory; and Te Deum was sung in
the two hostile camps. The advance of the French turned the balance of
opinion in favour of Napoleon, who was in fact really the conqueror on
a field of battle celebrated nearly two centuries before by the victory
and death of Gustavus Adolphus. The Cossacks of the Elbe could not
sustain the shock of the French; Vandamme repulsed the troops who
defended Wilhelmsburg, the largest of the two islands, and easily took
possession of the smaller one, Fidden, of which the point nearest the
right bank of the Elbe is not half a gunshot distant from Hamburg. The