Abstract
If 1806 was a year of failure and setbacks for the allies the following year was even worse. Having suffered months of neglect and been defeated by Napoleon Russia left the coalition. In the interests of self-preservation Sweden should probably have followed suit even though this would have been no guarantee — as we shall see — that Sweden could avoid the fate that befell Portugal: invaded and marked down for dismemberment by France and Spain. The British had shown the price of defying her when she attacked Copenhagen. The war, hitherto so distant from Sweden’s shores and borders, was rapidly closing in on her, leaving her with few choices: either to join Russia and France or to face a possible enemy invasion like Portugal. Would the alliance with Britain hold or not?
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Notes
PRO. WO 1/188. Cathcart to Castlereagh, 6, 13 Aug. 1807; PRO. FO 73/41. Pierrepoint to Canning, 20 July, 5 Aug. 1807; BLMC. GP. Mosheim to Gordon, 5, 19 Aug. 1807; RA. KUDHA. Wetterstedt to Ehrenheim, 4 Aug. 1807; RA. Muscovita. 505. Wetterstedt to Stedingk, 8 Aug. 1807; RA. Muscovita. 505. Ehrenheim to Stedingk, 18 Aug. 1807; Grade. 56–7; Longford. 88–9; N.L. Beamish, History of the King’s German Legion. Vol. I (London, 1834). 108.
RA. Muscovita. 505. Ehrenheim to Stedingk, 21 Aug., 12 Sept. 1807; KÖ. 387–8; Derry. 202–4; DsöH. 196–9; Barnes. 537; Hall. 169; Jörgen Teisen, Danmarks flåde fra bue og pil til missil (Copenhagen, 1984). 82–4; SRE. 277; PRO. WO 1/187. Taylor to Gambier, 2 Aug. 1807; WO 1/187. Gambier to Castlereagh, 8, 16, 20, 21 Aug., 1, 23 Sept. 1807.
H.V. Livermore, A New History of Portugal (Cambridge, 1969). 244–7; Chandler. 596–7; Emsley. 59;
Pedro Martinez, Historia diplomática de Portugal (Lisbon, 1985). 205–20.
See also Kenneth Maxwell’s Pombal (Cambridge, 1995)
and David Francis, Portugal 1715–1808. Joanine, Pombaline and Rococo Portugal as seen by British Diplomats and Traders (London, 1985) for a background to Portugal’s position both in Europe and overseas during the latter part of the eighteenth century.
On Brazil see Roderick J. Barman, Brazil: the Forging of a Nation, 1798–1852 (Stanford, 1988). Portugal’s position was analogous to that of Denmark: a small neutral state, having grown prosperous through trade in wartime Europe now faced a stark choice. Unlike the Danes — who in the long run lost out — the Portuguese chose to ally herself with Britain and ended up, at least nominally, as one the victors in the war by 1814.
Hilt. 22–122, 145–52, 156–8, 163–8, 170–6; Rudorff. 4–23; John Lynch, Bourbon Spain 1700–1808 (London, 1989). 157–95, 247–422.
PRO. FO 73/43. Bathurst to Canning, 7 Dec. 1807; Palmer, Alexander I. 140; Michel Josselson, The Commander. The Life and Times of Barclay de Tolly (Oxford, 1994). 46; Zlobin. 89–91; Bååth. 60.
Diary, Reminiscences and Correspondence of Henry Crabb Robinson. Edited by T. Sadler (London, 1869). 259.
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© 2004 Christer Jorgensen
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Jorgensen, C. (2004). The Beginning of the End: Tilsit, the Battle of Copenhagen, the Franco-Russian ‘Continental’ Coalition against Britain and Invasion Plans against Sweden, March 1807–March 1808. In: The Anglo-Swedish Alliance Against Napoleonic France. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287747_6
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230287747_6
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