the Gulf of Mexico, while another squadron, under Nelson and Parker, set sail for the Baltic (February, 1801). On April 2, after a heroic defense by the Danish Admiral Fischer, the British fleet won a crushing victory at Copenhagen. After offering terms tending to separate Denmark from Russia, which were loyally rejected, the victorious expeditions proceeded up the Baltic with the avowed intention of capturing Kronstad and St. Petersburg.

Thus, during the first days of his reign, the Emperor Alexander found himself faced with an international crisis of the first magnitude. Little time remained to weigh in the balance abstract problems concerning "the rights of neutral nations," which the "Powers of the North" had sworn to defend. The first duty was to find some immediate remedy which might safeguard Russia's national interests and his too accessible capital.

In considering the somewhat inglorious settlement to which Alexander now gave his consent, several factors must be taken into account. His desire was to obtain a respite during which he might devote himself to the task of securing essential internal reforms.1 He was constitutionally averse to war (though affected by what his courtiers called "paradomania") and was under the peaceful influence of Czartoryski's idealism.2

It was a cruel irony of fate which during the first weeks of his reign placed the Tsar in the dilemma of choosing between a forced abandonment of cherished principles of "international action" and an undignified flight from his royal residence! Yet the principle embodied in the "League of Neutrals" was one of the few results of the Empress Catherine's foreign policy which his idealistic conceptions could approve. He, therefore, caught eagerly at the suggestion of the British Government for a "conference." This was a form of negotiation which Alexander seems gen

1 Nevertheless, Alexander's first impulse was to defend "the rights of neutrals" from respect "for the opinions of his august father." It was Vorontzov, his Ambassador in London, who urged upon him the necessity of an Anglo-Russian alliance to meet the situation. See an article by F. de Martens, in the Revue d'Histoire Diplomatique, vol. VIII, 1894.

In considering Czartoryski's influence at this time it must be remembered that he was above all else a patriotic Pole, and that all his hopes of renewing the early, generous enthusiasm that Alexander had shown for that much wronged nation lay in stressing the duties of an unselfish international viewpoint. This powerful personal influence was to be exerted during the whole period of the Tsar's "liberal phase," the period covered by the later "Instructions to Novosiltzov." See Czartoryski, Mémoires, vol. I, p. 101.

erally to have found irresistible. All the powers interested were invited to send representatives in order to arrange the differences concerning the "rights of neutrals," and in response to this overture Admiral Hyde Parker was notified by the Russian authorities of the new Emperor's disposition for peace. To his own conception, Alexander's "ideals" were actually to offer a convenient solution to his difficulties! The Prussian King was desired to evacuate Hanover for reasons which were "a distinct advance upon the international morality of the day," and, while costing the Tsar nothing, enabled him to meet the views of Great Britain. Alexander wrote that he was not only "desirous of pacifying the North," but also of establishing a "continuing world peace." He ended with the pious hope that in view of the high object to be accomplished, Frederick William "would place no difficulties in the way.'

On June 17, 1801, a Congress of the "Powers of the North," viz., Russia, Denmark, Sweden and Prussia, assembled in St. Petersburg. The protocol agreed upon, with the exception of a clause forbidding paper blockades, was wholly favorable to the contentions of Great Britain. The parties agreed: (1) That a neutral flag should not cover enemy goods, and (2) that visit and search were permissible even when vessels were under the convoy of a vessel of war.

If the Scandinavian allies of Russia, one of whom had gloriously suffered the loss of her fleet in defending the rights of neutrals, could see in this arrangement little else than a base betrayal of the principles which the "Armed Neutrality" had sworn to defend, Czartoryski might at least console the Tsar with the thought that he had given an example of philosophic devotion to the cause of international peace and had saved his capital from invasion.

Soon after this rather inglorious settlement of Russia's difficulties, in 1803, Alexander appointed Czartoryski, whose influence becomes more and more traceable in ensuing events, as his Minister of Foreign Affairs. In spite of the clouds gathering on the horizon, notably an estrangement with France, the new Minister announced a program of peace and a foreign policy that eminently suited Alexander's ambitions. Said Czartoryski: 1 See Garden, op. cit., vol. vi, p. 376.

I firmly believed that it might be possible for me to reconcile the tendencies of the Russian nation with the generous ideas of its ruler, and to make use of the Russian craving for glory and supremacy for the general benefit of mankind. The object was a great but a remote one, to be pursued consistently and with perseverance, and to be executed with patience and skill. I thought it was worthy of the national pride of the Russian people. I would have wished Alexander to become a sort of arbiter of peace for the civilized world, to be the protector of the weak and the oppressed, and that his reign should inaugurate a new era of justice and right in European politics.1

Soon after Czartoryski's appointment, in 1804, the Duke of Enghien, grandson of the Great Condé, was treacherously seized by Napoleon's orders, within the territory of the Grand Duchy of Baden, and dragged across the French frontiers. After the mockery of a court martial, he was shot to death in the moat of the fortress of Vincennes. The disregard for international rights shown by this violation of neutral territory and its accompanying judicial murder aroused all Europe to a fury of protest.

Two months later, Bonaparte notified the Powers, still aghast at this unnecessary tragedy, of his formal assumption of the Imperial title. The new Emperor of France could hardly have chosen a more unfavorable moment for entering the ranks of the sovereigns of Europe. Although in practical effect the abolition of the Consular title was a mere matter of form, Russia refused to recognize Napoleon's usurpation. Only Austria and the subservient Hohenzollern dynasty, both of whom had felt the weight of his displeasure, acquiesced in the monarchical pretensions of the ex-revolutionary general. The way was prepared for a fresh coalition of the Powers of Europe, in which the Tsar of Russia was to play the rôle of mediator which Czartoryski so ardently desired him to assume. Their ideals and dreams of international polity were, moreover, about to receive definite form through the medium of the "Instructions to Novosiltzov." 2

The instructions follow the policy of a carefully written opinion dated April 5, 1804, in which Czartoryski sought to define the Tsar's attitude towards a government which "tramples under foot the most generally accepted principles of international law." The duty of Russia and the Powers "to decry and avenge"

1Czartoryski, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 370.

2 These instructions are too well known through the studies of Sorel and Phillips to be quoted in extenso.

such action was discussed at length.1 In the opinion both of Czartoryski and the Emperor a preliminary understanding between Great Britain and Russia promised the surest guarantee for the success of their international program and the proposed alliance against the hegemony of France. In September, 1804, Alexander was prepared to lay before the British Cabinet a scheme not only for immediate military action, but also for an eventual rational settlement of the entire diplomatic situation. The understanding between these Powers was to form the basis of a wider coalition. Such, indeed, was the only means which might conceivably place a limit upon Napoleon's ambitions.

"Novosiltzov's Instructions" outline the plan which Alexander now proposed to the British Cabinet. Long buried in the archives of the Russian Foreign Office, these were first made public in their complete form through the publication of Czartoryski's Mémoires. They had previously been known only through a partial quotation by Tatistcheff and notably through Pitt's reply couched, doubtless from reasons of policy, in a language similar to the Emperor's own.2

The opening paragraph of Novosiltzov's Instructions contains an eloquent recognition of the growing force of public opinion in international affairs:

The most effectual weapon which France now wields-one with which the French continue to menace their neighbors-is their ability to persuade public opinion that their cause is that of the liberty and prosperity of all nations.

As a condition preceding the "moral union" he sought with Great Britain, he next asks the latter's adhesion to a "New Order," which must be brought about. The "New Order" was a highly practical program of "self-determination," the outlines of a reconstruction of Europe on "national" lines. The King of

1 Czartoryski, Mémoires, vol. II, p. 2.

2 The Instructions to Novosiltzov are given in full in Czartoryski, Mémoires, vol. II, p. 27, and Appendix. In reading them, the truth of Czartoryski's contention, that history has neglected both their importance and significance becomes apparent. Modern writers have in a measure repaired this error, recognizing that they laid the foundations upon which, ten years later, rested the program of intervention and reconstruction contained in the Treaties of Kalisch and Chaumont. "Compare this language," says Sorel, speaking of Novosiltzov's Instructions, "with that which Koutousov addressed to the Germans in 1813, and with that which Alexander addressed to the French liberals in 1814. It will be seen that all forms part of the same program. The same may even be said of the measures planned in 1804 and 1814 for the reconstruction of continental Europe." Sorel, L'Europe et la Révolution Française, part vi, p. 39.

Sardinia, who had been unjustly deprived by Napoleon of his throne, was to be reestablished, but not until he had promised to give his people the benefits of "a wise and free constitution." The importance of maintaining Swiss neutrality was also recognized "as an essential factor in the peace of Europe." In restoring Holland to national existence the modern theory of self-determination is recognized: "The character of the national desires must be considered before deciding upon the form of government to be established."

A paragraph respecting the attitude to be adopted by the Anglo-Russian Alliance towards France herself is equally significant at the present day:

I now come to the language which, in my opinion, it will be necessary to hold with respect to France herself. After having imposed our will upon her, and after, through just, benevolent and liberal principles, having manifested our intentions (giving her confidence that she can count upon the promises made by our Alliance), we should declare that it is not upon France that we make war, but only upon a government as tyrannical towards France as towards the rest of Europe.1

There is no suggestion in the Tsar's plan of a superstate (the favorite remedy of the eighteenth century philosophers for all international ills) nor any hint of the doctrine of intervention in the internal affairs of neighboring states (the policy which was later to render the pretensions of the Holy Alliance most hateful in the eyes of the "Constitutional Powers").2

Perhaps the most important paragraph of Novosiltzov's Instructions is the one in which the Tsar, after a brief historical notice of former proposals to organize humanity, finds the guarantee of future peace in a pact binding the nations of Europe by means of a general treaty or confederacy-a League of Nations-whose guiding principles would be those of international law and wherein mediation would be substituted for war:

'The Tsar's insistence that the Allies war only against Napoleon and not against the French people finds a parallel in President Wilson's declarations that "the real enemy is not the German people so much as the military masters who enchain them as well as the foreign territories they have conquered."

2"It seems evident that this great aim can only be considered as attained when we shall have succeeded in reconciling the nations with their governments, and in making the latter capable of action tending to the best interests of their people. We must also fix the relations of the states among themselves by means of well-defined rules, which it will be in the interest of all to respect. Profound examination of these matters and the lessons of history will prove that these two results can only be obtained when the interior order of all states is based upon free institutions, protected against the passions and ambitions of the individuals who may be placed at their head."