For Rumiantsev, Napoleon was in one sense a sideshow, in another an opportunity. What really concerned him was growing British domination of the global economy. The foreign minister welcomed Napoleon’s economic blockade of Britain: ‘It would be better that the whole commerce of the world should cease to exist for ten years, than to abandon it for ever to the control of England.’ As he told Adams, Russia would not go the way of India. As minister of trade, he had introduced new laws to ensure that foreigners did not take over Russian domestic trade or production. Meanwhile British control of Russian overseas trade threatened ‘a dominion, something like they had in India’ and this ‘could not be endured’. Rumiantsev cultivated the United States both as an alternative carrier of Russian trade and as a potential check on British domination of the global economy. He was constantly on the search for new markets for Russian goods in the Americas and China.17
Rumiantsev faced an uphill task, however. Granted that Napoleon’s throttling of European trade offered involuntary protection to a number of nascent Russian industries such as sugar production, was Russian society or the Russian economy yet in a position to take advantage of this? Of course Caulaincourt welcomed Rumiantsev’s ideas, but even he believed that the absence of a middle class and of large numbers of skilled artisans would heavily constrain Russian economic potential. To a great extent, too, the Industrial Revolution depended on the marriage of coal and iron, but in Russia only the coming of the railways could span the distance between the country’s huge deposits. In more immediate and policy-related terms, Rumiantsev came to despair of Napoleon’s Continental System, the Pan-European blockade of British trade by which the emperor hoped to bring his arch-enemy to its knees. In Rumiantsev’s opinion it was actually harming Britain’s competitors and handing global trade to the British on a plate.18
In political terms too the success of Rumiantsev’s strategy lay in Napoleon’s hands. Isolationism was only a viable strategy if Napoleon refrained from threatening Russian security. Above all, in Rumiantsev’s view, that meant no encouragement to the Poles. Any restored Polish state would be bound to want back its pre-partition frontiers, thereby depriving Russia of much of Ukraine and Belorussia. As he told Caulaincourt, though all his own political capital had been invested in the French alliance, ‘I will myself be the first person to tell the Emperor to sacrifice everything rather than consent to Poland’s re-establishment or to agree to any arrangements which even indirectly lead to its restoration or convey any idea about it’.19
If Alexander himself did leave Tilsit with any illusions about the French alliance they were soon dissipated. The first dispute revolved around Moldavia and Wallachia, Ottoman provinces occupied by the Russian army during the ongoing war. The Russians wished to annex them to compensate for the costs of the war started by the Ottomans in 1806. Very possibly the arrival of Nikolai Rumiantsev as Foreign Minister increased their appetite for expansion at Turkey’s expense. Since this acquisition was not written into the Treaty of Tilsit the French claimed compensation for themselves to balance Russia’s gain. Alexander believed that Napoleon had encouraged him to annex these provinces in conversations at Tilsit, so he was taken aback by this demand. What truly appalled him, however, was the French claim for Silesia as compensation. Not only was Silesia far more valuable than the two Turkish provinces, it was also the richest remaining province of Prussia. To remove it would both dishonour Alexander before Frederick William and reduce Prussia to the status of a petty principality, totally incapable of shielding Russia’s western borders. In addition, Silesia was situated between Saxony and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, whose sovereign was the Saxon king. The Saxon-Polish monarchy was Napoleon’s leading outpost and client-state in eastern Europe. If (as was likely) Napoleon added Silesia with its large Polish population to the Saxon-Polish monarchy then Russian fears of a reborn Polish threat would increase enormously.
