Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: summer of 1803, or even of 1804, strike down Austria when she was still disarmed ? Why did he wait so long, until the Austrian armies were in position on the Adige and the Inn, until the Russians were on the march, until England had paid over her subsidies, until Sweden had already entered the Coalition, and Prussia could hardly be turned away from it ? He had threatened enough and had drawn to his side all the States that lay between. But this can be sufficiently explained through a purpose to inspire fear of his power, and to erect a bulwark against possible attacks in the rear. The only inexplicable policy would be one that might seem to have been specially devised to weld together once more a ring of the enemies of France. Such a theory indeed deserves the incisive phrase with which it is characterised by the Emperor's nephew, Prince Jerome Napoleon (who by the way was one of those best acquainted with the whole history of his uncle), and he says that it would have been " mere childishness." But it is easy to understand Napoleon's conduct at this time, if we consider it in relation to the course of European politics that we have outlined. England was Napoleon's greatest enemy, and in the spring of 1803, his only declared enemy. He must therefore keep her isolated, and strive with all his might to reduce her to a state of exhaustion before new enemies showed themselves. This alone was a policy befitting his genius and the traditions of his career. As a matter of fact, amongst those who are fitted to give an expert judgment on the point, there is no longer any dispute that at least up to the spring of 1804 he was seriously engaged in planning the attack. The difference of opinion only arises as to whether JEROME. From an engraving by J. G. Miiller, after a picture by M. d...