The Winning of Wars, 1763–1815

四、赢得战争（1763—1815）

The “breathing space” of well over a decade which occurred before the next stage in the Anglo-French struggle gave only a few hints of the turnaround which would occur in British fortunes. The Seven Years War had so overstrained the taxable capacity and social fabric of the Great Powers that most leaders frowned upon a bold foreign policy; introspection and reform tended to be the order of the day. The cost of the war to Prussia (half a million dead, including 180,000 soldiers) had shocked Frederick, who now preferred a quieter life. Although it had lost 300,000 men, the Habsburg Empire’s army itself had not done too badly; but the overall governmental system was obviously in need of changes which would doubtless arouse local resentments (especially among the Hungarians) and consume the attentions of Maria Theresa’s ministers. In Russia, Catherine II had to grapple with legislative and administrative reforms and then suppress the Pugachev revolt (1773– 1775). This did not prevent further Russian expansion in the south or the maneuvers to reduce Poland’s independence; but those could still be classed as local issues, and quite distinct from the great European combinations which had preoccupied the powers during the Seven Years War. Links with the western monarchies were now less important.

在英法下一阶段的斗争到来之前，有一段十几年的“喘息时期”。这段时期对英国命运即将发生的翻天覆地的变化提供了点滴暗示。七年战争使列强可征税的财力和社会结构紧张到了极点，以致大多数的领导人都不敢推行咄咄逼人的外交政策。当时各国都在进行反省和改革。腓特烈被这场战争给普鲁士带来的损失（50万人死亡，包括18万士兵）所震惊，现在他宁肯过一种稍微平静些的生活。哈布斯堡帝国的军队虽然在战争中损失了30万人，但它本身在战场上的表现并不太坏，可是，整个政府系统明显需要变革，这些变革无疑会引起地方上的不满（特别是在匈牙利人中间），并要耗费玛丽亚·特利萨大臣的精力。在俄罗斯，叶卡捷琳娜二世要处理立法机构和行政机构的改革，还要镇压普加乔夫的起义（1773—1775年）。虽然这并没有阻止俄国继续向南扩张，也没有阻止它吞并波兰的种种阴谋活动，但这些仍然可以算做是地区性争端，不可与七年战争中各国疲于应付的全欧大联盟同日而语。东方君主们不再那么重视他们同西方各君主政体之间的联系了。

In Britain and France, too, domestic affairs held the center of the stage. The horrendous rise in the national debts of both countries led to a search for fresh sources of revenue and for administrative reform, producing controversies which fueled the already poor relations between George III and the opposition, and between the crown and parlements in France. These preoccupations inevitably made British foreign policy in Europe more haphazard and introspective than in Pitt’s day, a tendency increased by the rising quarrel with the American colonists over taxation and enforcement of the Acts of Trade and Navigation. On the French side, however, foreign-policy matters were not so fully eclipsed by domestic concerns. Indeed, Choiseul and his successors, smarting from the defeat of 1763, were taking measures to strengthen France’s position for the future. The French navy was steadily built up, despite the pressing need to economize; and the “family compact” with Spain was deepened. It is true that Louis XV frowned upon Choiseul’s strong encouragement of Spain against Britain in the 1770 clash over the Falkland Islands, since a Great Power war at that point would have been financially disastrous. Nonetheless, French policy remained distinctly anti-British and committed to extracting advantages from any problems which Britain might encounter overseas. 67

在英国和法国，国内事务也占据了中心地位。两国国债可怕地增长，使它们都努力寻求开辟新的财源，并进行行政机构改革。这些努力造成的争论为国王乔治三世同反对派之间已经紧张的关系火上加油，使法国国王同最高法院之间的矛盾更加恶化。英国政府忙于这些紧急事务，不可避免地对欧洲的外交政策比皮特时期更加没有计划性，更注意反省，英国同美国在税收和实施贸易法令和航海法令的问题上日渐尖锐的争执加强了这一趋势。但在法国一方，外交政策事务并没有完全被对国内事务的关注所压倒，实际上，舒瓦瑟尔及其继任者们对1763年法国的惨败痛定思痛，正在为加强法国未来的地位而采取措施。虽然国家急需开源节流，法国政府仍然逐步建立起一支海军，同西班牙的“家族联系”也进一步加强了。的确，路易十五对舒瓦瑟尔在1770年围绕福克兰群岛的冲突中大力支持西班牙同英国打仗不以为然，因为在该处一场大国之间的战争只会造成财政上的灾难。但是，法国仍然旗帜鲜明地反对英国并竭力从英国在海外所遇到的任何一点麻烦中获取好处。

All this meant that when London’s quarrel with the American colonists turned into open hostilities, Britain was in a much weaker position, in so many respects, than in 1739 or 1756. 68 A great deal of this was due to personalities. Neither North, nor Shelburne, nor any of the other politicians could offer national leadership and a coherent grand strategy. Political faction, heightened by George Ill’s own interventions and by a fierce debate on the merits of the American colonists’ case, divided the nation. In addition, the twin props of British power—the economy and the navy—were eroded in these years. Exports, which had stagnated following the boom period of the Seven Years War, actually declined throughout the 1770s, in part because of the colonists’ boycott and then because of the growing conflict with France, Spain, and the Netherlands. The Royal Navy had been systematically weakened during fifteen years of peace, and some of its flag officers were as unseasoned as the timbers which had gone into the building of the ships of the line. The decision to abandon the close blockade strategy when France entered the war in 1778 may have saved wear and tear on British vessels, but it was, in effect, surrendering command of the sea: relief expeditions to Gibraltar, the West Indies, and the North American coast were no real substitute for the effective control of the Western Approaches off the French coast, which would have prevented the dispatch of enemy fleets to those distant theaters in any case. By the time the Royal Navy’s strength had been rebuilt and its dominance reasserted, by Rodney’s victory at the Saints and Howe’s relief of Gibraltar in 1782, the war in America was virtually over.

所有这一切意味着，当伦敦同北美殖民者之间的争吵变为公开的武装冲突时，英国所处的地位在许多方面都比1739年或1756年虚弱。造成这种结果的很大一部分原因要归结为个人素质。不论诺斯、谢尔本，还是其他任何一位政治家，都不能提供全国性的领导，也提不出一项首尾一致的大战略。由于乔治三世的干预，由于围绕北美殖民者事件的激烈争辩，政治派别的纷争益发加剧，国家也因此而分裂了。此外，不列颠实力的两大支柱：经济和海军，这些年也遭削弱。在七年战争中蓬勃发展的对外出口，随着战争的结束而停滞了，在整个18世纪80年代，部分是由于殖民地的抵制，还由于同法国、西班牙和尼德兰的冲突日益加剧，英国的对外出口实际上下降了。在15年的和平时期，皇家海军全面削弱，它的某些海军将领同建造军舰的原木一样没有经过什么风雨。当法国于1778年参战时，英国决定放弃对法国的严密封锁战略。这虽然可能减少英军战舰的损失，但实际上英国却拱手交出了制海权，向直布罗陀、西印度群岛和北美沿岸派遣援军并不能代替有效地控制法国海岸的“西方出入通道”。控制这些通道可以在任何情况下阻止敌人派遣舰队到那些遥远的战场去。等到1782年罗得尼取得圣徒岛大捷以及解除直布罗陀之围以后，皇家海军便重振军威，再次确定了它的制海权。此时北美洲的战争基本上已接近尾声。

Yet even if the navy had been better equipped and the nation better led, the 1776–1783 conflict contained two strategical problems which simply did not exist in any of the other eighteenth-century wars fought by Britain. The first of these was that once the American rebellion spread, its suppression involved large-scale continental fighting by British forces at a distance of 3,000 miles from the home base. Contrary to London’s early hopes, maritime superiority alone could not bring the largely self-sufficient colonists to their knees (though obviously it might have reduced the flow of weapons and recruits from Europe). To conquer and hold the entire eastern territories of America would have been a difficult task for Napoleon’s Grand Army, let alone the British-led troops of the 1770s. The distances involved and the consequent delay in communications not only hampered the strategical direction of the war from London or even from New York, but also exacerbated the logistical problem: “every biscuit, man, and bullet required by the British forces in America had to be transported across 3,000 miles of ocean. ”69 Despite significant improvements by the British war ministry, the shortages of shipping and the difficulties of procurement were simply too much. Moreover, colonial society was so decentralized that the capture of a city or large town meant little. Only when regular troops were in occupation of the territory in question could British authority prevail; whenever they were withdrawn, the rebels reasserted themselves over the loyalists. If it had taken 50,000 British soldiers, with substantial colonial support, to conquer French Canada two decades earlier, how many were needed now to reimpose imperial rule—150,000, perhaps 250,000? “It is probable,” one historian has argued, “that to restore British authority in America was a problem beyond the power of military means to solve, however perfectly applied. ”70

但是，即使皇家海军装备精良，英国的政治家们运筹得当，1776—1783年的战争还是包含了不列颠在18世纪进行的任何一次战争所未曾遇到过的两个战略问题。第一个问题是，北美的起义一旦蔓延开来，英国军队要进行镇压，就得在离本土基地3 000英里以外的地方进行大规模的“陆上”作战。同伦敦早先的愿望相反，仅靠海上的优势并不能使基本上自给自足的殖民地人民屈膝投降（尽管它可以明显地阻碍殖民地从欧洲输入武装弹药和补充兵员）。征服并防守整个美国的东部疆域对拿破仑的大军来说也是一个困难的任务，更不用说18世纪70年代英国人率领的部队了。遥远的距离及其造成的交通上的迟缓，不仅阻碍了从伦敦甚至从纽约进行的战略指挥，也加重了后勤保障的困难：“英国部队在北美所需要的每一块饼干、每一个士兵、每一粒子弹，都要经过3 000英里的大洋运来。”虽然英国陆军部作了重大改进，运输船只的缺乏和物资征购的困难仍然十分严重。此外，殖民地是一个政治、军事分散的社会，因而占领一两座城镇并不能说明多大问题。只有当英国的正规军占领了出事的地区，英国政权才能胜利。而军队一旦撤出，起义者们就重新压制忠于英国的那些人。如果在20年前征服法属加拿大尚需5万英国士兵和殖民地的大规模支援的话，那么现在要重新恢复帝国的统治又需要多少英国士兵呢？15万？也许25万？一位历史学家曾争论说：“恢复英国在美国的权力，是用军事手段无法解决的问题，无论军事力量运用得多么得当。”

The second unprecedented difficulty in the realm of grand strategy was that Britain fought alone, unaided by European partners who would distract the French. To a large degree, of course, this was a diplomatic rather than a military problem. The British were now paying for their break with Prussia after 1762, their arrogance toward Spain, their heavy-handed treatment of the shipping of neutral states like Denmark and the United Provinces, and their failure to secure Russian support. Thus London found itself not only friendless in Europe but also, by 1780, facing a suspicious League of Armed Neutrality (Russia, Denmark, Portugal) and a hostile United Provinces, while it was already overstretched in dealing with American rebels and the Franco-Spanish fleets. But there is more to this story than British diplomatic ineptitude. As noted above, during the 1760s and 1770s the interests of the eastern monarchies had become somewhat detached from those in the West, and were concentrated upon the future of Poland, the Bavarian succession, and relations with the Turks. A France intent upon becoming “arbiter of Europe,” as in Louis XIV’s day, might have made such detachment impossible; but the relative decline of its army after the Seven Years War and its lack of political engagement in the east meant that London’s acute concern about French designs from 1779 onward was not shared by former allies. The Russians under Catherine II were probably the most sympathetic, but even they would not intervene unless there was a real prospect that Britain would be eliminated altogether.

英国大战略中第二个前所未有的困难是，这一次英国是孤军作战，没有一个愿意牵制法国的欧洲伙伴帮助它。当然，在很大程度上这与其说是一个军事上的问题，不如说是一个外交上的问题。英国在1762年后同普鲁士断绝关系，对西班牙盛气凌人，对像丹麦和联合省这样的中立国的航运业采取高压手段，此外，它还未能取得俄国的支持，现在，英国正为上述所作所为付出代价。这样，伦敦发现它自己不仅在欧洲是孤家寡人，而且到了1780年，还要面对一个可疑的武装中立联盟（俄国、丹麦、葡萄牙）以及一个充满敌意的联合省。而这时，英国在对付北美的暴动和法国-西班牙联合舰队方面已经是力不从心、疲于奔命了。然而，英国外交上的无能还远不止此。如上所述，在18世纪60年代和70年代，东部各君主国已同西方分道扬镳了。它们现在全神贯注于波兰的前途、巴伐利亚的王位继承问题以及同土耳其人的关系。如果有一个法国像在路易十四时代那样，一心要成为“欧洲仲裁者”的话，这种分道扬镳就不可能发生。但是法国的军队在“七年战争”之后已相对衰落，而且它在政治上也没有插手东欧的事务。这就使伦敦对1779年以后法国企图的密切关注在它以前的盟国那里找不到市场。叶卡捷琳娜二世统治下的俄国人对英国大概是最同情的了。但是如果大不列颠没有彻底被消灭的前景，即使他们也不会从中干涉。

Finally, there was the significant fact that for once France had adopted Choiseul’s former argument and now resisted the temptation to attack Hanover or to bully the Dutch. The war against Britain would be fought only overseas, thus dislocating the “continental” from the “maritime” arm of traditional British strategy. For the first time ever, the French would concentrate their resources upon a naval and colonial war.

最后，还有这样一个重要事实，那就是法国曾一度采纳舒瓦瑟尔过去的论点，它顶住了进攻汉诺威或恐吓荷兰人的诱惑。同不列颠的战争只能在海外进行。这样一来，就使英国传统战略的“海军”力量同“大陆”力量脱节了。法国人破天荒地头一次将它全部的力量集中到海战和殖民地战争上去了。

The results were remarkable, and quite confounded the argument of the British isolationists that such a conflict, unencumbered by continental allies and campaigns, was best for the island state. During the Seven Years War, the French navy had been allocated only 30 million livres a year, one-quarter of the French army’s allocation and only one-fifth of the monies provided to the Royal Navy each year. From the mid-1770s onward, the French naval budget steadily rose; by 1780 it totaled about 150 million livres, and by 1782 it had reached a staggering 200 million livres. 71 At the time France entered the war, it possessed fifty-two ships of the line, many of them being larger than their British equivalents, and the number was soon increased to sixty-six. To this could be added the Spanish fleet of fifty-eight ships of the line and, in 1780, a Dutch fleet of not more than twenty effectives. While the Royal Navy remained superior to any one maritime rival (in 1778 it had sixty-six ships of the line; in 1779, ninety), it now found itself repeatedly outnumbered. In 1779 it even lost control of the Channel, and a Franco-Spanish invasion looked possible; and in the 1781 encountered between Graves’s and de Grasse’s fleets off the Chesapeake, French numerical superiority kept the British force at bay and thus led to Cornwallis’s surrender at Yorktown and to the effective end of the American campaign. Even when the Royal Navy’s size increased and that of its foes fell away (in 1782 it had ninety-four ships of the line to France’s seventy-three, Spain’s fiftyfour, and the United Provinces’ nineteen), the margin was still too narrow to do all the tasks required: protect the North Atlantic convoys, periodically relieve Gibraltar, guard the exit from the Baltic, send squadrons to the Indian Ocean, and support the military operations in the Caribbean. British naval power was temporary and regional and not, as in previous wars, overwhelming. The fact that the French army was not fighting in Europe had a lot to do with the islanders’ unhappy condition.

其结果是重大的。它还有力地驳斥了英国孤立主义分子的论点，他们认为不列颠岛国最适合于打一场没有大陆盟国和大陆战斗拖累的海上战争。在“七年战争”中，法国海军一年仅得到3 000万列佛尔的财政拨款，这是给法国陆军拨款的1/5。从18世纪70年代中期开始，法国海军的军费预算稳步上升，到1780年它的总额达到大约1.5亿列佛尔，到1782年则达到了2亿列佛尔。当法国参战时，它拥有52艘主力舰，其中许多比同级的英国军舰要大。这一数字很快就增加到66艘。此外还可以加上有58艘主力舰的西班牙舰队。到了1780年，又有一支由不到20艘可以作战的战舰组成的荷兰舰队。虽然英国皇家海军仍然比它任何一个单独的对手都要强大（1778年它有66艘主力舰，1779年90艘），但现在它发现自己常常是寡不敌众。1779年，英国皇家海军竟然失去了对英吉利海峡的控制权。一场法国、西班牙的入侵看来完全可能发生。1781年格雷夫斯率领的英国舰队同德格拉斯率领的法国舰队在切萨皮克外的一场遭遇战中，法国数量上的优势使英国舰队处于困境，从而导致了康华理在约克镇兵败投降，有效地结束了美国战役。即使在英国皇家海军的规模扩大、敌人的规模缩小的时候（1782年英军拥有95艘主力舰，法国是73艘，西班牙54艘，联合省19艘），英国海军所占的优势仍然太小，不足以完成以下任务：保护北大西洋上的商船队、定期地接济直布罗陀、守卫波罗的海出海口、向印度洋派遣分遣舰队以及为加勒比海的军事行动提供支援。英国的海军力量不再像以前战争中那样天下无敌了，它的制海权只是暂时的，局限于某些地区。岛国人的不幸处境在很大程度上同法国陆军不在欧洲作战这一事实有关。

By 1782, it is true, the financial strain of maintaining such a large navy was hitting the French economy and compelling some retrenchment. Naval stores were now more difficult to obtain, and the shortage of sailors was even more serious. In addition, some of the French ministers feared that the war was unduly diverting attention and resources to areas outside Europe, and thus making it impossible to play any role on the continent. This political calculation, and the parallel fear that the British and Americans might soon settle their differences, caused Paris to hope for an early end to hostilities. Economically, their Dutch and Spanish allies were in an equally bad plight. Nevertheless, Britain’s greater financial stamina, the marked rise in exports from 1782 onward, and the steady improvements in the Royal Navy could not now rescue victory from defeat, nor convince the political factions at home to support the war once America was clearly seen to be lost. Although Britain’s concessions at the 1783 Peace of Versailles (Minorca, Florida, Tobago) were hardly a reversal of the great imperial gains of 1763, the French could proclaim themselves well satisfied at the creation of an independent United States and at the blow dealt to Britain’s world position. From Paris’s perspective, the strategical balance which had been upset by the Seven Years War had now been sensibly restored, albeit at enormous cost.

事实上，到了1782年，为维持如此庞大的一支海军而造成的财政压力，已经损害了法国经济并迫使法国做某些收缩。现在难以弄到船用物资，更严重的是缺乏水手。此外，一些法国大臣担心这场战争使法国过度地将精力和资源分散到欧洲以外，因而使它不能在欧洲大陆发挥任何作用。政治上的这种考虑，加上同时害怕英国人和美国人很快会消除他们之间的分歧，促使巴黎希望及早结束战斗。经济上，法国人的荷兰和西班牙盟友也同样情况不妙。但是，虽然不列颠财政上的忍耐力要强一些，1782年以后出口显著上升，皇家海军的境况在逐渐改善，但这一切都不可能力挽狂澜，转败为胜，也不可能在眼见北美殖民地就要丢失的情况下，说服国内的各个政治派别支持这场战争。尽管在1783年凡尔赛和约中不列颠做出了让步（米诺卡岛、佛罗里达和多巴哥），这未必就是1763年英帝国取得的巨大利益的逆转，法国人是可以说他们对一个独立合众国的建立及英国在世界上的地位所遭受的打击应该感到心满意足了，从巴黎的角度来看，虽然代价很大，但是在七年战争中被打破的战略平衡如今已明显恢复。

In eastern Europe, by contrast, the strategical balances were not greatly distorted by the maneuvers of the three great monarchies during the decades after 1763. 72 This was chiefly due to the triangular nature of that relationship: neither Berlin nor Vienna in particular, nor even the more assertive St. Petersburg, wished to provoke the other two into a hostile alliance or to be involved in fighting of the dimensions of the Seven Years War. The brief and ultracautious campaigning in the War of Bavarian Succession (1778–1779), when Prussia opposed Austria’s attempt at expansion, merely confirmed this widespread wish to avoid the costs of a Great Power struggle. Further acquisitions of territory could therefore take place only as a result of diplomatic “deals” at the expense of weaker powers, most notably Poland, which was successively carved up in 1772–1773, 1793, and 1795. By the later stages, Poland’s fate was increasingly influenced by the French Revolution, that is, by Catherine ITs determination to crush the “Jacobins” of Warsaw, and Prussia and Austria’s desire to gain compensation in the east for their failures in the west against France; but even this new concern with the French Revolution did not fundamentally change the policies of mutual antagonism and reluctant compromise which the three eastern monarchies pursued toward one another in these years.

相比之下，1763年以后，几十年期间，三大君主国的策略计谋并未严重改变东欧地区的战略均势。这主要是因为它们之间关系的三足鼎立的性质，不论柏林、维也纳，还是更为踌躇满志的圣彼得堡，都不想挑动另外两个国家组成反对自己的联盟，也不想卷入一场像七年战争那种规模的大战。在巴伐利亚王位继承战争（1778—1779年）时，普鲁士对奥地利的扩张企图针锋相对地进行了抵抗。这场战争的短暂而极其谨慎的交锋，仅仅证实了它们普遍希望避免为一场大国争斗而付出高昂的代价。因此要进一步获取领土只能是各国进行外交“交易”的结果，这种交易是靠牺牲弱小国家，特别是波兰的利益来实现的。波兰在1772—1773年、1793年和1795年相继三次被瓜分。在以后的几个阶段，波兰的命运越来越受法国大革命的影响，即受叶卡捷琳娜二世镇压华沙“雅各宾党人”的决心以及普鲁士和奥地利为在西方反法战争失败而在东方获得补偿的企图的影响。然而，这三个国家对法国大革命的这种新的关注也没有从根本上改变三国相互对抗以及这些年间三个东欧国家彼此寻求勉强妥协的政策。

Given the geographical and diplomatic confines of this triangular relationship, it was not surprising that Russia’s position continued to improve, relative to both Austria and Prussia. Despite Russia’s backwardness, it was still far less vulnerable than its western neighbors, both of which strove to placate the formidable Catherine. This fact, and the traditional Russian claims to influence in Poland, ensured that by far the largest portion of that unfortunate state fell to St. Petersburg during the partition. Moreover, Russia possessed an open, “crumbling” frontier to the south, so that during the early 1770s great advances were made at Turkey’s expense; the Crimea was formally annexed in 1783, and a fresh round of gains was secured along the northern coast of the Black Sea in 1792. All this confirmed the decline of Ottoman fighting power, and secretly worried both Austria and Prussia almost as much as those states (Sweden in 1788, Britain under the younger Pitt in 1791) which more actively sought to blunt this Russian expansionism. But with Vienna and Berlin eager to keep St. Petersburg’s goodwill, and with the western Powers too distracted to play a lasting and effective role in eastern Europe, the growth of the Czarist Empire proceeded apace.

在这种三角关系的地理和外交范围内，俄国的地位与奥地利和普鲁士相比，继续得到改善，这是不足为奇的。俄国尽管落后，但受到攻击的威胁却比它的两个西方邻国小，普鲁士和奥地利两国都极力与令人畏惧的叶卡捷琳娜和解。瓜分波兰时，这种情况以及俄国历来加强在波兰身上的影响，保证了圣彼得堡取得了这个倒霉国家的最大一部分领土。此外，俄国在南方有一条开放的、支离破碎的边界，它借此在18世纪70年代初夺得了土耳其的大片领土。1783年，俄国正式吞并了克里米亚；1792年，又夺取了黑海北海岸的一系列领土。所有这一切都证实了奥斯曼帝国战斗力的衰弱，同时也使奥地利和普鲁士暗地里忧心忡忡。另外一些国家（1788年时的瑞典，1791年小皮特领导下的英国）对俄国也同样不放心。它们想尽办法来挫败俄国的扩张主义。但是，由于维也纳和柏林急于逢迎圣彼得堡，西方大国又心有旁骛，无法在东欧发挥持久有效的作用，使沙皇帝国的国运得以日益兴盛。

The structure of international relations in the decade or so prior to 1792 therefore gave little sign of the transformation bearing down upon it. For the main part, the occasional quarrels between the major powers had been unconnected regional affairs, and there seemed to exist no threat to the general balance of power. If the future of Poland and the Ottoman Empire preoccupied the great nations of the east, traditional maneuvering over the fate of the Low Countries and over “rival empires of trade” consumed the attention of the western Powers. An Anglo-Spanish clash over Nookta Sound (1790) brought both countries to the brink of war, until Spain reluctantly gave way. While relations between Britain and France were more subdued because of mutual exhaustion after 1783, their commercial rivalry continued apace. Their mutual suspicions also swiftly showed themselves during an internal crisis in the Netherlands in 1787–1788, when the pro-French “Patriot” party was forced out of power by Prussian troops, urged on by the assertive younger Pitt.

在这种局势下，1792年以前约10年中，国际关系的格局几乎没有显示出正在迫近的大变动迹象。这主要是因为大国间偶尔发生的争端仅仅是互无联系的地区性事务，似乎并不存在对总体均势的威胁。如果说东欧大国在忙于确定波兰和奥斯曼帝国的未来，那么历来围绕低地国家的命运和“竞争着的商业帝国”所进行的你争我夺，却占据了西欧列强的注意力。英国和西班牙围绕努科塔海峡的一场冲突（1790年）把两国推向了战争边缘，直到后来西班牙勉强屈服才算了结。英法两国1783年以后各自都精疲力竭，它们之间的关系有所缓和，但是两国的贸易竞争仍在继续。在1787—1788年尼德兰国内危机时期，武断专横的小皮特鼓动普鲁士趁机率军将尼德兰的亲法“爱国”派赶下台，这时，英法之间的相互疑忌便很快表露无疑。

Pitt’s much more active diplomacy reflected not merely his own personality, but also the significant general recovery which Britain had made in the ranks of the Powers since the setback of 1783. The loss of America had not damaged the country’s transatlantic trade; indeed, exports to the United States were booming, and both that market and India’s were much more substantial than those in which France had the lead. In the six years 1782–1788 British merchant shipping more than doubled. The Industrial Revolution was under way, fired by consumer demand at home and abroad and facilitated by a spate of new inventions; and the productivity of British agriculture was keeping pace with the food needs of an expanding population. Pitt’s fiscal reforms improved the state’s finances and restored its credit, yet considerable monies were always voted to the navy, which was numerically strong and well administered. On these firm foundations, the British government felt it could play a more active role abroad when national interests demanded it. On the whole, however, political leaders in Whitehall and Westminster did not envisage a Great Power war occurring in Europe in the foreseeable future. 73

皮特内阁十分活跃的外交活动不仅反映了皮特本人的个性，也体现了自1783年受挫后，不列颠在大国中的地位已得到很大的恢复。美国殖民地的丢失并没有影响英国在大西洋的贸易。实际上，对美国的出口还在日益增长。英国在北美和印度的市场比法国拥有的份额更大。在1782—1788年的6年中，英国的商船队在数量上增加了一倍还多。英国的工业革命正在发展，它受到本国和海外消费需求的刺激并得到大量新发明的推动。而且农业生产率与日益增长的人口对粮食的需求同步增加。皮特的财政改革改善了英国的财政状况，恢复了它的信誉。而且海军总是得到大量拨款。此时的皇家海军战舰如云，指挥有方。有了这些坚强的后盾，英国政府深信，一旦国家利益需要时，英国就可以在海外发挥更积极的作用。然而，总的来说，白厅和威斯敏斯特的政治领袖们却并未预料到欧洲即将发生一场大国间的战争。

But the clearest reason why Europe would not be convulsed by a general conflict seemed to lie in the worsening condition of France. For some years after the victory of 1783, its diplomatic position had appeared as strong as ever; the domestic economy, as well as foreign trade with the West Indies and the Levant, was growing rapidly. Nonetheless, the sheer costs of the 1778–1783 war—totaling more than France’s three previous wars together—and the failure to reform national finances interacted with the growing political discontents, economic distress, and social malaise to discredit the ancien régime. From 1787 onward, as the internal crisis worsened, France seemed ever less capable of playing a decisive role in foreign affairs. The diplomatic defeat in the Netherlands was caused primarily by the French government’s recognition that it simply could not afford to finance a war against Britain and Prussia, while the withdrawal of support for Spain in the Nookta Sound controversy was due to the French assembly’s challenge to Louis XVI’s right to declare war. All this hardly suggested that France would soon be seeking to overturn the entire “old order” of Europe.

但是，为什么欧洲没有被一场全面冲突所震撼呢？最明显的一个原因似乎在于法国日益恶化的处境。1783年胜利以后的几年中，法国的外交地位似乎空前巩固，国内经济，以及它同西印度群岛和利凡特的海外贸易也正迅速增长。然而，1778—1783年战争的绝对损失总额超过了法国在前三场战争中损失的总和，加之国家财政制度改革的失败，与日益严重的政治不满、经济萧条和社会混乱互相影响，使得法国旧制度信誉扫地。1787年以后，随着国内危机加深，法国愈加无法在国际事务中发挥决定性作用。法国在尼德兰的外交失败，主要是因为法国政府意识到，在财政上它承担不起对英国和普鲁士的大战，而法国议会对路易十六的宣战权提出异议，则是法国在努科塔海峡争议中撤回对西班牙支持的原因。总之，所有这一切都不能说明法国很快就会图谋推翻欧洲的整个“旧秩序”。

The conflict which was to absorb the energies of much of the continent for over two decades therefore began slowly and unevenly. The French were concerned only with domestic struggles in the period which followed the fall of the Bastille; and although the increasing radicalization of French politics worried some foreign governments, the resultant turmoil in Paris and the provinces suggested that France was of little account in European power politics. For that reason, Pitt was seeking reductions in British military expenditures as late as February 1792, while in the east the three great monarchies were much more interested in the carving up of Poland. Only with the growing rumors about émigré plots to restore the monarchy and the French revolutionaries’ own move toward a more aggressive policy on the borders did external and internal events produce an escalation into war. The slow and uncertain maneuvers of the allied armies as they moved across the French frontiers showed how ill prepared they were for this contest, which in turn allowed the revolutionaries to claim victory after the desultory encounter at Valmy (September 1792). It was only in the following year, when the successes of the French armies seemed to threaten the Rhineland, the Low Countries, and Italy and the execution of Louis XVI demonstrated the radical republicanism of the new regime in Paris, that the struggle assumed its full strategical and ideological dimensions. Prussia and the Habsburg Empire, the original combatants, were now joined by an enormous array of other states headed by Britain and Russia and including all of France’s neighbors.

于是，在20多年中耗费大多数欧洲大陆国家精力的冲突，缓慢而又时起时伏地展开了。在巴士底狱陷落后的一段时期里，法国人还只是关注国内斗争。尽管法国政治变得愈来愈激进，使得某些外国政府非常担心。但是随之发生在巴黎和外省的动乱则表明，法国在欧洲强权政治体系中已变得无足轻重了。基于这个原因，直至1792年2月时，皮特还在谋求削减英国军事开支。而在东欧，三大君主国更热衷于瓜分波兰。仅仅因为关于亡命者阴谋恢复波旁王朝的谣言日益增多，以及法国革命党人在边境地区推行更富侵略性的政策，外部事变和内部事变才逐步升级为战争。反法联军在越过法国边境时行动迟缓，举棋不定。反映出它们对这场战争的准备是多么不充分。这种情况使革命党人在瓦尔密的意外遭遇战中（1792年9月）大获全胜。只是到了第二年，当法军的胜利威胁到莱茵兰、低地国家和意大利，以及处死路易十六充分显示了巴黎新制度的极端共和主义倾向时，战争才在战略和意识形态方面全面展开。除普鲁士和哈布斯堡帝国这两个最初的交战国外，现在，以不列颠和俄国为首的一系列国家，包括法国的所有邻国，都加入到反法战争中来了。

Although it is easy in retrospect to see why this First Coalition (1793–1795) against France failed so miserably, the outcome was a surprise and bitter disappointment at the time; after all, the odds were more uneven than in any preceding war. In the event, the sheer impetus of the French Revolution led to the adoption of desperate measures—the levée en masse and the mobilization of all seizable national resources to fight France’s many foes. Moreover, as many writers have pointed out, a very important period of reform had occurred in the French army—in matters of organization, staff planning, artillery, and battle tactics— during the two or three decades before 1789; and what the Revolution did was to sweep aside the aristocratic hindrances to these new ideas and to give the reformers the opportunity (and the weight of numbers) to put their concepts into practice when war broke out. The “total war” methods employed on the home front and the newer tactics on the battlefield seemed as much a reflection of the newly released demagogic energies of the French as the cautious, halfhearted maneuvers of the Coalition armies were symbolic of the habits of the old order. 74 With an army of about 650,000 (July 1793), fired by enthusiasm and willing to take the risks involved in lengthy marches and aggressive tactics, the French were soon overrunning neighboring territories—which meant that from this time onward, the costs of maintaining such an enormous force fell largely upon the populations outside France’s borders, which in its turn permitted a certain recovery of the French economy.

现在回过头来看第一次反法同盟（1793—1795年）惨败的原因是十分清楚的，但在当时，这一结果却是令人吃惊和沮丧的，这场战争中双方力量的悬殊毕竟比以往所有战争中都大。在这一事件中，法国革命本身的原动力导致采取孤注一掷的措施——全民皆兵，并动员一切可以动员的力量来同法国人数众多的敌人战斗。此外，还如许多作者指出的那样，1789年前的20年或30年间，是法国军队进行改革的非常重要的时期，诸如组织指挥、参谋计划、炮兵的运用以及作战战术等等都进行了改革。战争爆发后，法国大革命所做的，就是扫除贵族对新思想的阻碍，使改革家获得把自己的观念付诸实施的机会（和人员）。在国内采用“总体战”方法和在战场上应用新战术，是法国人新释放出来的能力的反应，正像反法联军军事行动的谨小慎微和犹豫不决是旧体制习惯的表征一样。法国人以受热情激励并冒长途跋涉和进攻策略风险的近65万法国大军，很快就占领了邻国领土，这意味着从此以后，维持这样一支庞大军队的大部分负担将落在法国边境以外人民的身上，这必然会使法国经济得到一定程度的缓解。

Any power seeking to blunt this heady expansionism would therefore have to devise the proper means for containing such a new and upsetting form of warfare. This was not an impossible task. The French army’s operations under its early leader Dumouriez, and even the much larger and more elaborate campaigns of Napoleon, revealed deficiencies in organization and training and weaknesses in supply and communications, of which a well-trained foe could take great advantage. But where was that well-trained opponent? It was not merely that the elderly generals and slow-moving, baggage-laden troops of the Coalition were tactically inadequate in the face of swarms of skirmishers and hard-hitting columns of the French. The real point was that the necessary political commitment and strategical clarity were also missing among France’s enemies. There was, obviously, no transcendent political ideology to fire the soldiers and citizens of the ancien régime; indeed, many of them were attracted to the intoxicating ideas of the Revolution, and only when, much later, Napoleon’s armies turned “liberation” into conquest and plunder could local patriotism be used to blunt the French hegemony.

因此，任何国家要想阻挡法国人猛烈的扩张主义，就必须找到一条可行的途径来对付这种打破常规的新作战形式。这并非是不可能完成的任务。法军在其早期将领杜穆里埃将军指挥下的作战行动，甚至在拿破仑指挥下的规模大得多、更加精心策划的战役，都暴露出在部队组织、训练以及后勤保障和交通联络方面的弱点。一支训练有素的敌军完全可以有效地利用这些弱点。但是这样训练有素的对手又在哪里呢？反法联军年迈的将领们以及行动迟缓、受辎重拖累的部队，在坚不可摧的法军阵势和蜂拥而上的士兵面前，战术上极不得当。然而，真正的问题还在于法国的对手们缺少必要的政治协调和明确的战略。很显然，旧制度不能以卓越的政治信念激励它们的士兵和民众。事实上，他们中的许多人都被令人陶醉的革命思想所吸引。只是在很久以后，当拿破仑的军队由“解放”转为征服和掠夺的时候，他们才得以靠爱国主义来挫败法国的霸权野心。

Furthermore, at this early stage few members of the Coalition took the French threat seriously. There was no overall agreement as to aims and strategy between the various members of the alliance, whose precarious unity manifested itself in their increasing demands for British subsidies but in not much else. Above all, the first years of the Revolutionary War overlapped with, and were overshadowed by, the demise of Poland. Despite her vitriolic denunciations of the French Revolution, Catherine II was more concerned with eliminating Polish independence than in sending troops to the Rhineland. This caused an anxious Prussian government, already disenchanted by the early campaigns in the west, to switch more and more of its troops from the Rhine to the Vistula, which in turn compelled Austria to keep 60,000 men on its northern frontier in case Russia and Prussia moved against the remaining Polish territories. When the third and final partition did occur, in 1795, it was all too evident that Poland had been a more effective ally to France in its death throes than as a living, functioning state. By that time, Prussia had already sued for peace and abandoned the left bank of the Rhine to the French, leaving Germany in a state of uneasy neutrality and thus permitting France to turn its attention elsewhere; most of the smaller German states had followed this Prussian lead; the Netherlands had been overrun, and converted into the Batavian Republic; and Spain, too, deserting the Coalition, had returned to its early anti-British alignment with France.

此外，在开始阶段，同盟中没有几个国家认真对待法国的威胁，同盟各成员之间对其作战目的和战略缺乏总的协调。各成员国在向英国要求日益增多的财政资助时，同盟合作上的不稳固状况便暴露无遗。首先，革命战争的前几年正好与波兰的灭亡巧合，并被其冲淡。叶卡捷琳娜二世虽然恶毒地咒骂法国大革命，但她更关心的是消灭波兰的独立，而不是出兵莱茵兰。这使得已从早期西部战役中清醒过来的焦急不安的普鲁士政府，把越来越多的军队从莱茵河调至维斯杜拉河。普鲁士的这一举动又迫使奥地利在其北部边境驻扎一支6万人的大军，以防俄国和普鲁士向仅存的波兰领土推进。1795年波兰第三次、也是最后一次被瓜分，可见，波兰作为法国的盟友在灭亡时所起的作用比它作为一个现实而能动的国家更大。此时，普鲁士已向法国求和，并将莱茵河左岸地区拱手交给了法国。这样，就使德国处于左右为难的中立地位，从而让法国能够将其注意力转移到其他地方。多数弱小的德意志国家都仿效普鲁士的这种做法。尼德兰被打败，变成巴达维亚共和国。西班牙脱离反法同盟，重新回到了以前同法国结成的反对英国的联盟中。

This left only Sardinia-Piedmont, which in early 1796 was crushed by Napoleon; the luckless Habsburg Empire, which was driven out of much of Italy and forced into the Peace of Campo Formio (October 1797); and Britain. Despite the younger Pitt’s wish to imitate his father in checking French expansionism, the British government also failed to pursue the war with the necessary determination and strategical clarity. 75 The expeditionary force sent to Flanders and Holland under the Duke of York in 1793–1795 had neither the strength nor the expertise to deal with the French army, and its remnants eventually came home via Bremen. Moreover, as so often happened before and since, ministers (such as Dundas and Pitt) preferred the “British way in warfare”—colonial operations, maritime blockade, and raids upon the enemy’s coast—to any large-scale continental operation. Given the overwhelming superiority of the Royal Navy and the disintegration of its French equivalent, this looked like an attractive and easy option. But the British troop losses caused by disease in the West Indies operations of 1793–1796 meant that London paid dearly for these strategical diversions: 40,000 men were killed, another 40,000 rendered unfit for service—more than all the casualties in the Spanish Peninsular War—and the campaigns cost at least ￡16 million. Yet it is doubtful whether Britain’s steadily augmented domination of the extra-European theaters or its peripheral operations against Dunkirk and Toulon compensated for France’s growing power within Europe. Finally, the subsidies demanded by Prussia and Austria to maintain their armies in the field soared alarmingly, and were impossible to provide. In other words, British strategy had been simultaneously inefficient and expensive, and in 1797 the foundations of the entire system were shaken—at least temporarily—by the Bank of England’s suspension of cash payments and by the naval mutinies at Spithead and the Nore. During that troubled period, the exhausted Austrians sued for peace and joined all the other states which admitted French primacy in western Europe.

现在就只剩下萨丁-皮德蒙特，它在1796年初被拿破仑打败；时运不济的哈布斯堡帝国在被赶出意大利大部以后，被迫签订《康坡福米奥和约》（1797年10月）；此外就是不列颠。尽管小皮特有心仿效其父亲阻止法国的扩张，但是英国政府也未能以必要的决心和明确的战略来进行这场战争。英国在1793—1795年间派往佛兰德和荷兰的远征军，在约克公爵的指挥下，既缺乏足够的力量，又没有高人一筹的作战艺术来对付法国的军队，最终只能是大败而归，其残部经不来梅撤回英国本土。此外就像在这前后经常发生的那样，英国的大臣们（如邓达斯和皮特）宁愿采取“英国的作战方式”——殖民战争、海上封锁、袭击敌人的海岸线，而不情愿在大陆上进行任何大规模的战斗。在英国皇家海军占有绝对优势，而其对手法国海军兵力分散的情况下，这看来是一种颇有吸引力的简单易行的选择。但英军在1793—1796年西印度群岛的战斗中由于疾病流行而大量减员。这说明伦敦为其兵分多路的战略付出了昂贵的代价：4万人死亡，4万人丧失战斗力，这一数字超过了英军在西班牙半岛战争中的伤亡总数，这些战役还至少耗费了1 600万英镑。英国对欧洲以外战区控制权的逐步加强或它对敦刻尔克和土伦采取的外围作战行动，能否抵偿法国势力在欧洲的日益增长，还颇值得怀疑。最后，普鲁士和奥地利为维持其战场上的军队，要求英国提供的援助数额惊人地增长，因此英国人不可能如数提供。换句话说，英国的战略既无效果，又颇费钱财。而在1797年，英格兰银行停止支付现金，英国海军在斯比特海德和诺尔两地发生哗变，这两个事件动摇了、至少暂时地动摇了英国整个战略体系的根基。在这个动荡不安的年代里，精疲力竭的奥地利人终于向法国求和，并同其他国家一道接受了法国在西欧的主宰地位。

If the British could not defeat France, the revolutionary government could not in its turn undermine the enemy’s naval mastery. Early attempts to invade Ireland and to raid the western coasts of England had come to little, although that was due as much to the weather as to local defenses. Despite the temporary fright over the 1797 suspension of cash payments, the British credit system held firm. The entry of Spain and the Netherlands into the war on France’s side led to the smashing of the Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent (February 1797) and to the heavy blows inflicted upon the Dutch at Camperdown (October 1797). France’s new allies also had to endure the progressive loss of their colonies overseas—in the East and West Indies, and at Colombo, Malacca, and the Cape of Good Hope, all of which provided new markets for British commerce and additional bases for its naval squadrons. Unwilling to pay the high price demanded by the French government for peace, Pitt and his fellow ministers resolved to fight on, introducing income tax as well as raising fresh loans to pay for what—with French troops assembling along the Channel coast—had become a struggle as much for national survival as for imperial security.

如果说英国无法在陆上打败法国，那么反过来法国的革命政府也不可能削弱英国的海上霸权。由于当地驻军守卫森严以及气候恶劣，法国早先几次入侵爱尔兰、袭击英格兰西海岸的企图都无功而返。尽管英格兰银行在1797年停止支付现金造成了一时的恐慌，但英国的信贷系统仍很坚挺。西班牙和荷兰加入法国一方作战以后，英国在圣文森特角海面摧毁了西班牙舰队（1797年2月），并在坎普顿给予荷兰军队沉重打击（1797年10月）。法国的新盟国还逐渐丧失了它们在东印度和西印度群岛、科伦坡、马六甲和好望角的殖民地。而这些殖民地现在又为英国的贸易提供了市场，为海军分遣舰队提供了新的基地。皮特及其大臣们不愿按照法国提出的苛刻条件议和，他们决心同法国继续决战下去。随着法国沿英吉利海峡集结部队，对英国人来说，这场战争既是为了帝国的安全，也是为了民族的生存。为了支付这场战争，英国政府开征了所得税，并筹借了新的贷款。

Here, then, was the fundamental strategical dilemma which faced both France and Britain for the next two decades of war. Like the whale and the elephant, each was by far the largest creature in its own domain. But British control of the sea routes could not by itself destroy the French hegemony in Europe, nor could Napoleon’s military mastery reduce the islanders to surrender. Furthermore, because France’s territorial acquisitions and political browbeating of its neighbors aroused considerable resentment, the government in Paris could never be certain that the other continental powers would permanently accept the French imperium so long as Britain—offering subsidies, munitions, and possibly even troops—remained independent. This, evidently, was also Napoleon’s view when he argued in 1797: “Let us concentrate our efforts on building up our fleet and on destroying England. Once that is done Europe is at our feet. ”76 Yet that French goal could be achieved only by waging a successful maritime and commercial strategy against Britain, since military gains on land were not enough; just as the British needed to challenge Napoleon’s continental domination—by direct intervention and securing allies— since the Royal Navy’s mastery at sea was also not enough. As long as the one combatant was supreme on land and the other at sea, each felt threatened and insecure; and each therefore cast around for fresh means, and allies, with which to tilt the balance.

在当时当地的条件下，法国和英国在以后20年的战争中，都面临着重大的战略抉择。法国和英国就像一头大象和一头鲸鱼，它们各自在自己的领域里都是庞然大物。但是英国靠扼制海上航路并不能独自打破法国在欧洲的霸权，而拿破仑虽然在军事上独霸欧洲，却也不能使英伦三岛的居民投降。此外，只要不列颠依旧傲然独立，只要它能向其他国家提供资助，供应军火，甚至可能派兵干涉，巴黎政府就没有把握让其他的大陆国家永远接受法国的统治，因为法国抢占邻国领土以及政治上对邻国的欺凌激起后者极大的不满。这显然也是拿破仑的看法，他在1797年说：“让我们集中全力建造一支自己的舰队并摧毁英格兰。一旦我们实现了这一点，整个欧洲就会匍匐在我们的脚下。”由于大陆上取得的军事胜利还不足以制服英国人，所以法国就只有通过同英国人打一场成功的海上战争和一场贸易战才能实现其目标。反过来也是这样，既然英国皇家海军的海上霸权也不足以使拿破仑低头，它就需要直接出兵干涉，争取同盟国，向拿破仑在陆上的统治地位发起挑战。只要交战一方控制着大陆，另一方霸占着海洋，双方就都会感到坐立不安。要想打破这个平衡，双方就都必须采用新的方法，寻求新的盟国。

Napoleon’s attempt to alter that balance was characteristically bold—and risky: taking advantage of Britain’s weak position in the Mediterranean in the summer of 1798, he invaded Egypt with 31,000 troops and thus placed himself in a position to dominate the Levant, the Ottoman Empire, and the route to India. At almost the same time, the British were distracted by yet another French expedition to Ireland. Each of those strokes, had they been fully successful, would have dealt a dreadful blow to Britain’s shaky position. But the Irish invasion was small-scale and belated, and was contained in early September, by which time all of Europe was learning of Nelson’s defeat of the French fleet at Aboukir and of Napoleon’s consequent “bondage” in Egypt. Just as Paris had suspected, such a setback encouraged all who resented French predominance to abandon their neutrality and to join in the war of the Second Coalition (1798–1800). Besides the smaller states of Portugal and Naples, Russia, Austria, and Turkey were now on the British side, assembling their armies and negotiating for subsidies. Losing Minorca and Malta, defeated in Switzerland and Italy by Austro-Russian forces, and with Napoleon himself unable to achieve victory in the Levant, France appeared to be in serious trouble.

拿破仑改变均势的企图非常大胆，也十分冒险：他利用1789年夏季英国在地中海的虚弱地位，统率3.1万人张帆渡海，入侵埃及。这样一来，他就把自己置于可以扼制利凡特、奥斯曼帝国和通往印度航路的位置。几乎与此同时，另一支远征爱尔兰的法国军队牵制了英国人。如果大获全胜的话，法国人的每一次行动都会给英国已经摇摇欲坠的地位以沉重的打击。但是入侵爱尔兰的战斗行动规模太小，而且为时已晚，因而在9月初法国人的入侵就被击退了。到此时整个欧洲都知道了纳尔逊在阿布基尔击溃法国舰队和拿破仑随后在埃及“被扣”的消息。法国当初的担心一点也没错，法国遭受的这一挫折立刻鼓舞了所有憎恨法国统治的国家放弃中立并加入第二次反法同盟（1798—1800年）。现在除了较小的葡萄牙和那不勒斯以外，俄国、奥地利和土耳其也站到英国一边。它们一边集结军队，一边为争取更多的援助而讨价还价。法国在丢失了米诺卡岛和马耳他岛以后，法军在瑞士和意大利为奥俄联军所败，拿破仑自己在地中海东部各国又一筹莫展，不能获胜，法国看上去已岌岌可危了。

Yet the second coalition, like the first, rested upon shaky political and strategical foundations. 77 Prussia was noticeably absent, so that no northern German front could be opened. A premature campaign by the king of Naples led to disaster, and an ill-prepared Anglo-Russian expedition to Holland failed to arouse the local population and eventually had to retire. Far from drawing the conclusion that continental operations needed to be more substantial, and acutely conscious of the financial and political difficulties of raising a large army, the British government fell back upon its traditional policy of “descents” upon the enemy’s coastline; but their small-scale attacks upon Belle-Isle, Ferrol, Cádiz, and elsewhere served no useful strategical purpose. Worse still, the Austrians and Russians failed to cooperate in their defense of Switzerland, and the Russians were driven eastward through the mountains; at that, the czar’s disenchantment with his allies intensified into a deep suspicion of British policy and a willingness to negotiate with Napoleon, who had slipped back into France from Egypt. The withdrawal of Russia left the Austrians to receive the full weight of the French fury, at Marengo and Hochstadt (both in June 1800), and six months later at Hohenlinden, compelling Vienna once again to sue for peace. With Prussia and Denmark taking advantage of this turn of events to overrun Hanover, and with Spain launching an invasion of Portugal, the British stood virtually alone in 1801, just as they had been three years earlier. In northern Europe, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and Prussia had come together in a new Armed Neutrality League.

然而，第二次反法同盟像第一次一样，是建立在不牢固的政治和战略基础之上的。引人注目的是普鲁士没有参加这次同盟。因而反法联军不可能在德意志北部开辟一条战线。那不勒斯国王过早发动的一次战役遭致惨败。准备不足的英俄联军对荷兰的远征因未能唤起当地居民反对法国统治，也不得不撤退。从这些失败中，英国政府非但没有得出在大陆上应扩大军事行动规模的结论，反而退回到对敌人海岸线实施“袭击”的传统政策上去了。英国政府采取这种做法，是由于它清醒地认识到，征集一支大军到大陆上作战将在财政上和政治上引起困难。但是，英国对贝勒岛、费罗尔、加的斯和其他地区的小规模进攻，对实现战略目的都没有多大益处。更糟糕的是，奥地利人和俄国人在保卫瑞士的时候缺乏精诚合作的精神，因而俄军被法军赶过了东部山区。在这种情况下，沙皇对同盟国不再抱幻想，这种情绪进而转化为对英国政策的怀疑。沙皇甚至情愿同刚刚从埃及溜回法国的拿破仑休战言和。俄军一撤退，法军的雷霆万钧之势就全部冲向奥地利人。法军在马伦哥和霍施塔特（两个战役都在1800年6月）以及6个月以后在霍亨林登大败奥军，再一次迫使维也纳求和。到1801年，由于普鲁士和荷兰浑水摸鱼，趁机征服了汉诺威，而西班牙则向葡萄牙发起进攻，英国人就像他们在3年前一样，几乎又是孤家寡人了。在北欧，俄国、丹麦、瑞典和普鲁士又聚到一起，组成一个新的武装中立联盟。

In the maritime and extra-European campaigning, on the other hand, the British had again done rather well. Malta had been captured from the French, providing the Royal Navy with a vital strategical base. The Danish fleet, the first line of the new Armed Neutrality League’s scheme to exclude British trade from the Baltic, was smashed off Copenhagen (although the assassination of Czar Paul a few days earlier spelled the end of the league in any case). In that same month of March 1801 a British expedition defeated the French army at Alexandria, which afterward led to a complete French withdrawal from Egypt. Farther afield, British forces in India overwhelmed the French-backed Tipu in Mysore and continued to make additional gains in the north. French, Dutch, Danish, and Swedish possessions in the West Indies also fell into British hands.

另一方面，在海战和欧洲以外地区的战役中，英国人又打得很不错。英军从法国人手里夺回了马耳他岛，为皇家海军提供了一个极其重要的战略基地。丹麦舰队，是新的武装中立联盟计划将英国人赶出波罗的海的主力舰队，它被皇家海军在哥本哈根外打垮（尽管沙皇保罗在此几天前遇刺身亡已经意味着武装中立联盟的末日顷刻就会来临）。在1801年3月这一个月里，英军取得了辉煌的战果：一支英国远征军在埃及的亚历山大打败法军，这使法军随后全部撤出；在东部，英军在印度消灭了由法国人支持的迈索尔的铁普王朝，并乘胜在印度北部继续扩大战果；法国、荷兰、丹麦和瑞典在西印度群岛的属地也全都落入英国人之手。

Yet the lack of a solid continental ally by 1801 and the inconclusive nature of the Anglo-French campaigning caused many politicians in England to think of peace; and those sentiments were reinforced by the urgings of mercantile circles whose commerce was suffering in the Mediterranean and, to a lesser extent, in the Baltic. Pitt’s resignation over Catholic emancipation hastened the move toward negotiations. In Napoleon’s calculation, there was little to be lost from a period of peace: the consolidation of French influence in the satellite states would continue, while the British would certainly not be allowed their former commercial and diplomatic privileges in those areas; the French navy, dispersed in various ports, could be concentrated and rebuilt; and the economy could be rested before the next round of the struggle. In consequence of this, British opinion—which did not offer much criticism of the government at the conclusion of the Peace of Amiens (March 1802)—steadily swung in the other direction when it was observed that France was continuing the struggle by other means. British trade was denied entry into much of Europe. London was firmly told to keep out of Dutch, Swiss, and Italian matters. And French intrigues and aggressions were reported from Muscat to the West Indies and from Turkey to Piedmont. These reports, and the evidence of a large-scale French warship-building program, caused the British government under Addington to refuse to hand back Malta and, in May 1803, to turn a cold war into a hot one. 78

但由于到1801年英国在大陆上没有一个坚定不移的盟国，同时它也看不到同法国的战争即刻会有什么结果，这使英国的许多政治家考虑同法国人握手言和的问题。英国国内厌战言和的情绪，得到了商业界的鼎力支持。因为英国商人在地中海损失巨大，在波罗的海也遭到损失，虽然损失的程度轻一些。皮特因解放天主教徒问题辞职，加速了英国走向和谈的步伐。根据拿破仑的盘算，一段时期的和平对法国不会有什么损失：法国对其卫星国的影响将进一步加强；而英国肯定将不再被允许在这些地区享有以前的贸易和外交特权；散布在各个港口的法国海军可以集中起来，进行重建；法国的经济可以在下一轮战争到来之前休养生息。有鉴于此，英国国内舆论对英国政府签订《亚眠和约》（1802年3月）并没有进行过多批评，但当舆论注意到法国仍在用其他方式同英国明争暗斗时，舆论的方向就逐渐转变了。英国商业被拒之于欧洲许多地区之外。伦敦得到法国毫不含糊的警告，叫它不要插手荷兰、瑞士和意大利的事务。从马斯喀特到西印度群岛，从土耳其到皮德蒙特，到处都传来法国人大搞阴谋诡计和法军入侵的消息。这些信息，加上法国计划大规模建造军舰的事实，导致阿丁顿领导下的英国政府拒绝将马耳他归还给法国，并终于在1803年5月，把一场同法国的冷战变为热战。

This final round of the seven major Anglo-French wars fought between 1689 and 1815 was to last twelve years, and was the most severely testing of them all. Just as before, each combatant had different strengths and weaknesses. Despite certain retrenchments in the fleet, the Royal Navy was in a very strong position when hostilities recommenced. While powerful squadrons blockaded the French coast, the overseas empires of France and its satellites were systematically recaptured. St. Pierre et Miquelon, St. Lucia, Tobago, and Dutch Guiana were taken before Trafalgar, and further advances were made in India; the Cape fell in 1806; Cura ao and the Danish West Indies in 1807; several of the Moluccas in 1808; Cayenne, French Guiana, San Domingo, Senegal, and Martinique in 1809; Guadeloupe, Mauritius, Amboina, and Banda in 1810; Java in 1811. Once again, this had no direct impact upon the European equilibrium, but it did buttress Britain’s dominance overseas and provide new “vents” for exports denied their traditional access into Antwerp and Leghorn; and, even in its early stages, it prompted Napoleon to contemplate the invasion of southern England more seriously than ever before. With the Grand Army assembling before Boulogne and a grimly determined Pitt returned to office in 1804, each side looked forward to one final, decisive clash.

1689—1815年进行的7场英法大战的最后一轮战争持续了12年。这是所有英法战争中对双方考验最严峻的一次。如同以往一样，交战双方各有长处与弱点。尽管英国舰队有所裁减，但当战争再度开始时，皇家海军的地位仍很牢固。英国强大的分遣舰队在封锁法国海岸的同时，皇家海军有计划地重新夺占法国海外帝国属地及其卫星国。在特拉法尔加海战以前，英军占领了法属圣皮埃尔岛和密克隆岛、圣卢西亚、多巴哥以及荷属几内亚，在印度取得了新的进展；1806年夺取好望角；1807年占领法属库拉索岛和丹麦的西印度群岛；1808年占领马鲁古群岛的几个岛屿；1809年占领法属圭亚那的卡宴、法属圭亚那、圣多明各、塞内加尔以及马提尼克岛；1810年攻占法属瓜德多普岛、毛里求斯、安波那和班达；1811年攻占爪哇。同以往一样，这些事件对欧洲均势并没有产生直接的影响，但它加强了不列颠对海外殖民地的统治，为过去一贯拒绝输入安特卫普和莱戈恩的英国出口产品提供了新的“销路”。在开战初期，它还促使拿破仑比以前任何时候都更认真地考虑入侵英格兰南部的问题。法国的布洛涅前面集结大军，果敢坚强的皮特于1804年重返内阁。此时，英法双方都准备着一场最后的决战。

In actual fact, the naval and military campaigns of 1805 to 1808, despite containing several famous battles, revealed yet again the strategical constraints of the war. The French army was at least three times larger and much more experienced than its British equivalent, but command of the sea was required before it could safely land in England. Numerically, the French navy was considerable (about seventy ships of the line), a testimony to the resources which Napoleon could command; and it was reinforced by the Spanish navy (over twenty ships of the line) when that country entered the war late in 1804. However, the Franco-Spanish fleets were dispersed in half a dozen harbors, and their juncture could not be effected without running the risk of encountering a Royal Navy of vastly greater battle experience. The smashing defeat of those fleets at Trafalgar in October 1805 illustrated the “quality gap” between the rival navies in the most devastating way. Yet if that dramatic victory secured the British Isles, it could not undermine Napoleon’s position on land. For this reason, Pitt had striven to tempt Russia and Austria into a third coalition, paying ￡1. 75 million for every 100,000 men they could put into the field against the French. Even before Trafalgar, however, Napoleon had rushed his army from Boulogne to the upper Danube, annihilating the Austrians at Ulm, and then proceeded eastward to crush an Austro-Russian force of 85,000 men at Austerlitz in December. With a dispirited Vienna suing for peace for the third time, the French could once again assert control in the Italian peninsula and compel a hasty withdrawal of the Anglo-Russian forces there. 79

事实上，1805—1808年间的海上战役和陆上战役虽然有几次有名的会战，但双方在这场战争中的战略局限性仍再一次显露出来。法军数量上至少比英国大2倍，而且作战经验也比英军丰富。但要想稳妥可靠地在英格兰登陆，法军还必须掌握制海权。从数量上讲，法国海军也有相当规模（大约70艘主力舰），这显示了拿破仑可以调动的力量。1804年末西班牙参战时，西班牙海军的加入（超过20艘主力舰）使法国海军得到加强。但是，法西联合舰队分散在多个港口，若要彼此连结起来，就要冒同具有更丰富作战经验的皇家海军遭遇的危险。1805年10月，法西联合舰队在特拉法尔加海战中惨败，这无情地证实了两个海上对手之间的“质量差别”。然而，这场辉煌的胜利虽说保证了英伦三岛的安全，但并未动摇拿破仑在欧洲的地位。正由于这个原因，皮特费尽心思要将俄国和奥地利拉入第三次反法同盟。为此，皮特答应向俄奥两国可投入对法战斗的人员提供每10万人175万英镑的资助。但是拿破仑还在特拉法尔加海战之前就已经把部队从布洛涅调至多瑙河上游，在乌尔姆全歼了奥地利人，然后继续挥师东进，于12月在奥斯特里茨击败了8.5万人的奥俄联军。在维也纳无心恋战，第三次请求讲和的情况下，法国人可以再一次确立他们在意大利半岛的控制权，并迫使奥俄联军从那里仓皇撤退。

Whether or not the news of these great blows caused Pitt’s death in early 1806, they revealed once more the difficulty of bringing down a military genius like Napoleon. Indeed, the following few years ushered in the zenith of French predominance in Europe. (See Map 7. ) Prussia, whose earlier abstention had weakened the coalition, rashly declared war upon France in October 1806 and was crushed within the month. The large and stubborn Russian armies were an altogether different matter, but after several battles they, too, were badly hurt at the battle of Friedland (June 1807). At the peace treaties of Tilsit, Prussia was turned into a virtual satellite and Russia, while escaping lightly, agreed to ban British trade and promised eventually to join a French alliance. With southern and much of western Germany merged into the Confederation of the Rhine, with western Poland turned into the grand duchy of Warsaw, with Spain, Italy, and the Low Countries subservient, with the Holy Roman Empire at an end, there was no independent state —and no ally for the British—between Portugal and Sweden. This, in its turn, gave Napoleon his opportunity to ruin the “nation of shopkeepers” in the most telling fashion: by banning their exports to Europe and hurting their economy, while accumulating for his own purposes the timber, masts, and other shipbuilding resources now denied to the Royal Navy. Indirectly, the British would be weakened before a further direct assault was mounted. Given Britain’s dependence upon European markets for its export industries and upon Baltic masts and Dalmatian oak for its fleet, the threat was immense. Finally, reduced earnings from exports would deny London the currency needed to pay subsidies to any allies and to purchase goods for its own expeditionary armies.

是否是这些失败给了皮特沉重的打击，使他在1806年初去世又当别论，但这些事实再一次证明，要打败像拿破仑那样的军事天才是多么困难。在随后的几年中，法国人在欧洲的统治的确达到了顶峰。前一次反法同盟由于普鲁士未参加而受到削弱。而这次，普鲁士在1806年10月冒冒失失地向法国宣战，在一个月内就被打败了。俄国顽强的庞大军队则是另外一回事。不过在数场血战后，俄军在弗里德兰（1807年6月）也遭到重创。根据该年签订的《提尔西特和约》的规定，普鲁士实际上沦为法国的卫星国，而侥幸逃脱这一命运的俄国则同意停止与英国通商，并保证最终加入法国联盟。随着德意志南部和西部的大部分已并入“莱茵联邦”，西部波兰成了华沙公国，西班牙、意大利和低地国家对法国俯首称臣，神圣罗马帝国土崩瓦解，于是，从葡萄牙到瑞典，欧洲大陆上再也没有独立的国家了，也没有英国的盟国了。这必然给拿破仑造成绝妙的机会以最有效的方法来摧毁这个“小店主的国家”：禁止英国向欧洲大陆的出口和打击英国的经济，禁止向英国皇家海军提供原木、桅杆以及其他造船材料，与此同时，法国为了自己的目的则聚集这些原材料。这样，在法国发动下一次直接进攻之前，英国就被间接地削弱了。由于不列颠的出口工业严重依赖欧洲市场，英国的舰队全都依赖波罗的海生产的桅杆和达尔马提亚的橡树，所以这种威胁是颇为严重的。最后一关，出口收入下降，会使伦敦没有足够的资金向盟国提供援助和为自己的远征军购买物资。

More than ever before, in this war, therefore, economic factors intermeshed with strategy. At this central stage in the Anglo-French duel for supremacy, between Napoleon’s Berlin/Milan decrees banning trade with Britain (1806–1807) and the French retreat from Moscow in 1812, the relative merits of the two opposing systems deserve further analysis. With each seeking to ruin the other economically, any significant weaknesses would sooner or later emerge—and have dire powerpolitical consequences.

因此，在这场战争中经济因素比以往任何时候都更紧密地与一国的战略联系在一起。自拿破仑在柏林/米兰颁布《大陆封锁令》（1806—1807年），到1812年法军从莫斯科溃退，英法对统治权的争夺处于白热化时期。在此期间，这两个对立系统的相对得失很值得进一步分析。在双方都想从经济上摧毁对方的情况下，任何重大弱点迟早都会显露出来，并带来强权政治的可怕后果。

There is no doubt that Britain’s unusually large dependence upon foreign commerce by this time made it very vulnerable to the trading ban imposed under Napoleon’s “Continental System. ”80 In 1808, and again in 1811–1812, the commercial warfare waged by the French and their more compliant satellites (e. g. , the Danes) was producing a crisis in British export trades. Vast stocks of manufactures were piled in warehouses, and the London docks were full to overflowing with colonial produce. Unemployment in the towns and unrest in the counties increased businessmen’s fears and caused many economists to call for peace; so, too, did the staggering rise in the national debt. When relations with the United States worsened and exports to that important market tumbled after 1811, the economic pressures seemed almost unbearable.

毫无疑问，由于不列颠在那时极度依赖海外贸易，因而它在拿破仑强制推行贸易禁令的“大陆体系”面前显得非常脆弱。在1808年和1811—1812年，由法国和顺应它的卫星国（如丹麦）发动的贸易战，给英国的出口贸易造成了危机，积压在仓库里的货物堆积如山，伦敦码头堆满了来自殖民地的产品。城市中存在的失业大军以及乡村的骚乱，增加了商人们的恐慌，促使许多经济学家大声疾呼和平。国家扶摇直上的债务更是雪上加霜。1811年后，英国同美国关系恶化，对这个重要市场的出口急剧下降。此时，英国看来已承受不住经济上的压力了。

And yet, in fact, those pressures were borne, chiefly because they were never applied long or consistently enough to take full effect. The revolution in Spain against French hegemony eased the 1808 economic crisis in Britain, just as Russia’s break with Napoleon brought relief to the 1811–1812 slump, allowing British goods to pour into the Baltic and northern Europe. Moreover, throughout the entire period large amounts of British manufactures and colonial re-exports were smuggled into the continent, at vast profits and usually with the connivance of bribed local officials; from Heligoland to Salonika, the banned produce traveled in circuitous ways to its eager customers—as it later traveled between Canada and New England during the Anglo-American War of 1812. Finally, the British export economy could also be sustained by the great rise in trade with regions untouched by the Continental System or the American “nonintercourse” policy: Asia, Africa, the West Indies, Latin America (despite all the efforts of local Spanish governors), and the Near East. For all these reasons, and despite serious disruption to British trade in some markets for some of the time, the overall trend was clear: total exports of British produce rose from ￡21. 7 million (1794–1796) to ￡37. 5 million (1804–1806) to ￡44. 4 million (1814–1816).

然而事实上，英国还是挺住了。这主要是因为这些经济压力没有长期和持久地发挥影响和作用。西班牙反对法国统治的革命缓解了英国1808年的经济危机，而俄国同拿破仑的破裂则使英国货物涌入波罗的海和北欧国家，减轻了1811—1812年的经济萧条。此外，在整个大陆封锁时期，大量英国制成品和殖民地的转口货物在被收买的当地官员的默许下，走私到大陆。大陆走私给英国商人带来巨额利润。从德国的黑尔戈兰岛至希腊的萨洛尼卡，违禁商品通过曲折途径被运送到急切的买主手中，就像后来在1812年英美战争期间这些货物在加拿大和新西兰之间往返运输一样。最后，英国的出口经济还可以靠英国同那些未受“大陆体系”或美国的“不来往”政策影响的地区大量增长的贸易来维持。这些地区包括亚洲、非洲、西印度群岛、拉丁美洲（尽管当地的西班牙总督极力禁止）以及近东。由于上述原因，尽管英国的贸易一个时期在某些市场被严重切断了，但总的趋势却很清楚：英国产品出口总额从2 170万英镑（1794—1799年），增长至3 750万英镑（1804—1806年）及4 440万英镑（1814—1816年）。

The other main reason that the British economy did not crumble in the face of external pressures was that, unfortunately for Napoleon, it was now well into the Industrial Revolution. That these two major historical events interacted with each other in many singular ways is clear: government orders for armaments stimulated the iron, steel, coal, and timber trades, the enormous state spending (estimated at 29 percent of gross national product) affected financial practices, and new export markets boosted production of some factories just as the French “counterblockade” depressed it. Exactly how the Revolutionary and Napoleonic wars affected the growth of the British economy as a whole is a complex and controversial topic, still being investigated by historians, many of whom now feel that the earlier notions of the swift pace of British industrialization in these decades are exaggerated. What is clear, however, is that the economy grew throughout this period. Pig-iron output, a mere 68,000 tons in 1788, had already soared to 244,000 tons in 1806 and rose further to 325,000 tons in 1811. Cotton, virtually a new industry before the war, expanded stupendously in the next two decades, absorbing ever more machinery, steam power, coal, and labor; by 1815, cotton goods had become Britain’s greatest export by far. A vast array of new docks and, inland, new canals, turnpikes, and iron rail tracks improved communications and stimulated further production. Regardless of whether this “boom” would have been even greater without the military and naval struggle against France, the fact remains that British productivity and wealth were still rising fast—and could help to bear the burdens which Pitt and his successors imposed in order to pay for the war. Customs and excise receipts, for example, jumped from ￡13. 5 million (1793) to ￡44. 8 million (1815), while the yield from the new income and property taxes rose from ￡1. 67 in 1799 to ￡14. 6 million in the final year of the war. In fact, between 1793 and 1815 the British government secured the staggering sum of ￡1. 217 billion from direct and indirect taxes, and proceeded to raise a further ￡440 million in loans from the money markets without exhausting its credit—to the amazement of the more fiscally conservative Napoleon. In the critical final few years of the war, the government was borrowing more than ￡25 million annually, giving itself that decisive extra margin. 81 To be sure, the British were taxed way beyond the limits conceived of by eighteenth-century bureaucrats, and the national debt almost trebled; but the new wealth made such burdens easier to bear—and permitted them, despite their smaller size and population, to endure the costs of war better than the imposing Napoleonic Empire.

英国经济在外界压力面前没有崩溃的另一个原因，是由于此时英国已经开始了工业革命，这对拿破仑来说是不幸的。很清楚，以上两个主要历史事件以许多特殊的方式相互作用：政府采购军火刺激了铁、钢、煤和木材行业，国家的巨额开支（估计占国民生产总值的29%）影响着金融业，而新出口市场的开辟则促进了某些工厂的生产，正像法国的“反封锁”使其发生萧条一样。法国革命和拿破仑战争究竟在多大程度上影响了整个英国经济的增长，这是一个复杂而又有争议的问题。历史学家至今仍在对此进行研究。其中许多历史学家认为，以前有关英国工业化在那几十年发展迅猛的概念是夸大其词的。当然，有些事实还是明摆着的，在那一时期英国的经济一直都在发展。生铁产量在1788年仅有6.8万吨，到1806年猛增到24.4万吨，而且在1811年进一步增至32.5万吨。战前还几乎是新行业的棉纺织工业，在以后20年中增长很快，越来越多地使用机器、蒸汽动力、煤和工人。至1815年，棉纺织产品成为不列颠最主要的出口货物。一系列新建的沿海和内陆码头、新开凿的运河、新修的道路和铁路改善了交通条件，进一步刺激了生产。如果不同法国打仗，这种经济的迅速增长是否会更快一些呢？不管怎样，事实仍然是，英国的生产率和财富依然在迅速增长，因而有助于承担皮特及其后继者为支付战费而造成的重负。例如，关税和消费税收入，从1 350万镑（1793年）猛增至4 480万镑（1815年），而新征收的所得税和财产税的收入，则从1799年的167万镑［8］增加到战争最后一年的1 460万镑。实际上，英国政府在1793—1815年间，从直接和间接税中获得了高达12.17亿英镑的收入，而且它还在保持其良好信誉的情况下，从金融市场继续筹集了4.4亿镑的贷款。这使财政上非常保守的拿破仑极为惊诧。在战争最后的关键几年里，英国政府每年借款超过2 500万英镑，使英国在资金上占有决定性的优势。诚然，英国人被课征的捐税超过了18世纪的官僚们可以想像的极限，而且国债几乎增长了一倍，然而，新创造的财富能够承担得起这些负担，尽管英国版图较小，人口较少，但比拿破仑帝国更能承受战争的消耗。

The story of France’s economy between 1789 and 1815, and of its capacity to sustain large-scale war, is an even more complicated one for historians to unravel. 82 The collapse of the ancien régime and the turmoil which followed undoubtedly caused a reduction in French economic activity for a while. On the other hand, the outpouring of public enthusiasm for the Revolution and the mobilization of national resources to meet foreign enemies led to a staggering increase in the output of cannon, small arms, and other military equipment, which in turn stimulated the iron and textile trades. In addition, some of the economic obstacles of the old order such as internal tariffs were swept away, and Napoleon’s own legal and administrative reforms aided the prospects for modernization. Even if the coming of the Consulate and the Empire led to the return of many of the features of the monarchical regime (e. g. , reliance upon private bankers), this did not check a steady economic growth fueled naturally by population increases, the stimulus of state spending, enhanced tariff protection, and the introduction of certain new technologies.

对于历史学家来说，1789—1815年间法国的经济状况，及其支撑一场大规模战争的能力，更是一个难以解释的问题。旧王朝的崩溃以及随之而来的动乱，无疑在一段时期内削弱了法国的经济活力。另一方面，法国人民倾注于大革命的热情以及为迎战国外敌人而对国民资源进行的动员，使大炮、轻武器和其他军事装备的产量惊人地上升。军火工业的增长反过来又刺激了钢铁和纺织工业的增长。此外，旧制度下阻碍经济发展的一些障碍，如国内的关卡税被扫除一空。而拿破仑的司法和行政改革为法国经济向现代化迈进又助了一臂之力。人口的增长、国家支出的刺激、关税保护的加强和某些新技术的应用，刺激了法国经济的稳步发展。即使督政府和帝国时期恢复了君主制度的许多特点（例如，对私人银行家的依赖），也没有阻止法国经济的增长势头。

Nevertheless, there seems no doubt that the rate of growth in the French economy was much slower than in Britain’s. The most profound reason for this was that the agricultural sector, the largest by far, changed very little: for the replacement of the seigneur by his peasants was not, of itself, an agricultural revolution; and such widely proclaimed policies as the development of sugar beets (in substitution for British colonial cane sugar) had limited results. Poor communications meant that farmers were still tied to local markets, and little stimulus existed for radical innovations. This conservative frame of mind could also be seen in the nascent industrial sector, where new machinery and large-scale enterprises in, say, iron production were the exception rather than the rule. Significant advances were made, of course, but many of them were under the distorting influence of the war and the British naval blockade. Thus, the cotton industry benefited from the Continental System to the extent that it was protected from superior British competition (not to mention the competition from neutral or satellite states, whose goods were excluded by the high French tariffs); and it also benefited from the enhanced domestic market, since Napoleon’s conquests of bordering lands increased the number of “Frenchmen” from 25 million in 1789 to 44 million in 1810. But this was offset by the shortage and high price of raw cotton, and by the slowdown in the introduction of new techniques from England. On the whole, French industry emerged from the war in a distinctly less competitive state because of this protection from foreign rivals.

但是，比起英国来，法国经济的发展速度毫无疑问要慢得多。其最根本的原因是，法国经济中最大的一个部门农业没有多少改进：封建领主被其农民所取代这件事本身并不是一场农业革命；而政府大肆宣扬的农业政策，如大力生产甜菜（用以取代英国殖民地的蔗糖），其效果极其有限。落后的交通意味着农民仍被束缚于地方市场，而且缺乏重大革新的刺激因素。这些思想上守旧的条条框框还存在于新兴工业部门。在那里，例如在制铁方面，机器的使用和大企业的建立还只是个别例外，而不是普遍现象。法国经济在某些方面固然取得了重大进展，但这些进展是畸形的，是在战争和英国海上封锁的影响下取得的。例如，棉纺织工业的发展，在很大程度上受惠于“大陆体系”，它保持法国免遭占有优势的英国棉纺织工业的竞争（更不用说那些被法国的高关税拒之门外的中立国和卫星国的竞争了）。同时，它还得益于国内市场的扩大，这是因为拿破仑对邻国的征服，将“法国人”的数量从1789年的2 500万人，增加到1810年的4 400万人。但是，这些因素被原棉的匮乏和高昂的价格，以及从英格兰引进新技术的步伐放慢等因素所抵消。总的来说，由于“大陆体系”的保护而避免了同国外的竞争，在战争结束时法国的工业明显地处于缺乏竞争力的状态。

The impact of the naval blockade increased this turning inward of the French economy. 83 Its Atlantic sector, the fastest-growing in the eighteenth century and (as had been the case in Britain) potentially a key catalyst for industrialization, was increasingly cut off by the Royal Navy. The loss of Santa Domingo in particular was a heavy blow to French Atlantic trade. Other overseas colonies and investments were also lost, and after 1806, even trade via neutral bottoms was halted. Bordeaux was dreadfully hurt. Nantes had its profitable French slave trade reduced to nothing. Even Marseilles, with alternative trading partners in the hinterland and northern Italy, saw its industrial output fall to one-quarter between 1789 and 1813. By contrast, regions in the north and east of France, such as Alsace, enjoyed the comparative security of land-based trade. Yet even if those areas, and people within them like winegrowers and cotton-spinners, profited in their protected environment, the overall impact upon the French economy was much less satisfactory. “Deindustrialized” in its Atlantic sector, cut off from much of the outside world, it turned inward to its peasants, its smalltown commerce, and its localized, uncompetitive, and relatively small-scale industries.

英国的海上封锁加剧了法国经济向内向型转变。法国经济中的大西洋贸易部分，是18世纪增长最快的部门（和英国的情况一样），也是法国工业化的关键催化剂，现在却越来越受限于皇家海军的封锁。特别是圣多明各的丢失，对法国大西洋贸易是一个沉重打击。法国的其他海外殖民地和海外投资也相继丧失。1806年后，就连通过中立国船只进行的贸易也被切断了。波尔多港受到沉重打击。南特港一本万利的奴隶贸易几乎完全停止。即使是在内地和意大利北部拥有替代贸易伙伴的马赛，也眼看着它的工业产量从1789年到1813年降到原来的1/4。相反，法国北部和东部的一些地区，如阿尔萨斯的陆上贸易却比较有保证。但是，即使这些地区以及该地区的居民，如种植葡萄的农民和棉纺工人，从受保护的环境中获利匪浅，但对因经济造成的总体影响还是不那么令人满意。大西洋上的贸易被“非工业化”了，同海外的联系大部分被切断，法国经济只好朝内面向农民，面向小城镇的贸易，转向地方化的、没有竞争力的、规模相对说来较小的工业。

Given this economic conservatism—and, in some cases, definite evidence of retardation—the ability of the French to finance decades of Great Power war seems all the more remarkable. 84 While the popular mobilization in the early to middle 1790s offers a ready reason, it cannot explain the Napoleonic era proper, when a long-service army of over 500,000 men (needing probably 150,000 new recruits each year) had to be paid for. Military expenditures, already costing at least 462 million francs in 1807, had soared to 817 million francs in 1813. Not surprisingly, the normal revenues could never manage to pay for such outlays. Direct taxes were unpopular at home and therefore could not be substantially raised—which chiefly explains Napoleon’s return to duties on tobacco, salt, and the other indirect taxes of the ancien régime; but neither they nor the various stamp duties and customs fees could prevent an annual deficit of hundreds of millions of francs. It is true that the creation of the Bank of France, together with a whole variety of other financial devices and institutions, allowed the state to conduct a disguised policy of paper money and thus to keep itself afloat on credit—despite the emperor’s proclaimed hostility to raising loans. Yet even that was not enough. The gap could only be filled elsewhere.

在经济保守、有时是明显停滞的状况下，法国的财力居然能支撑它打几十年的大国战争，这种能力更显得了不起了。虽然18世纪90年代初期到中期的全民动员是一个现成的原因，但这还无法对拿破仑时代的情况作恰当解释，当时法国需要供给一支超过50万人的长期服役的军队（每年可能需要招募15万新兵）。1807年军事开支至少达4.62亿法郎，1813年猛增至8.17亿法郎。毫不奇怪，正常的收入绝对无法对付如此庞大的支出。直接税在国内是不得人心的，因而不能大幅度征收，这是拿破仑恢复旧王朝对烟草、食盐和其他商品征收间接税的主要原因。但是，不论是直接税、间接税，还是各种印花税和关税，都无法消除每年数亿法郎的财政赤字。的确，法兰西银行的建立，连同一系列其他金融设施和机构使法国得以推行一项隐蔽的纸票政策，从而保住法国的财政信誉，尽管皇帝宣称他对借贷深恶痛绝。即使这样，财政仍不敷支出，其差额只能靠别的来源弥补。

To a large if incalculable degree, in fact, Napoleonic imperialism was paid for by plunder. This process had begun internally, with the confiscation and sale of the property of the proclaimed “enemies of the Revolution. ”85 When the military campaigns in defense of that revolution had carried the French armies into neighboring lands, it seemed altogether natural that the foreigner should pay for it. War, to put it bluntly, would support war. By confiscations of crown and feudal properties in defeated countries; by spoils taken directly from the enemy’s armies, garrisons, museums, and treasuries; by imposing war indemnities in money or in kind; and by quartering French regiments upon satellite states and requiring the latter to supply contingents, Napoleon not only covered his enormous military expenditures, he actually produced considerable profits for France—and himself. The sums acquired by the administrators of this domaine extraordinaire in the period of France’s zenith were quite remarkable and in some ways foreshadow Nazi Germany’s plunder of its satellites and conquered foes during the Second World War. Prussia, for example, had to pay a penalty of 311 million francs after Jena, which was equal to half of the French government’s ordinary revenue. At each defeat, the Habsburg Empire was forced to cede territories and to pay a large indemnity. In Italy between 1805 and 1812 about half of the taxes raised went to the French. All this had the twin advantage of keeping much of the colossal French army outside the homeland, and of protecting the French taxpayer from the full costs of the war. Provided that army under its brilliant leader remained successful, the system seemed invulnerable. It was not surprising, therefore, to hear the emperor frequently asserting:

实际上，拿破仑帝国在很大程度上是靠巧取豪夺来维持的，虽然掠夺的数额是无法计算的。在国内，开始没收并拍卖被宣布为“革命的敌人”的财产。当保卫革命的战斗将法国军队推进到邻国领土时，似乎外国人就自然应该出钱供养法国军队了。简言之，法国是靠以战养战。靠没收战败国王室和封建贵族的财产，靠直接掠夺敌人的军队、要塞、博物馆和资源宝藏，靠向敌人索取以金钱或实物支付的战争赔款，靠在卫星国领土上驻扎法国部队并要它们为其部队提供给养等等，拿破仑不仅满足了巨大的军事开支，而且实际上，他还为法国以及他自己取得了相当大的利润。在法国鼎盛时期，拿破仑在这些特殊领地的行政长官们聚敛的财富数额相当可观，在某些方面甚至超过了纳粹德国在第二次世界大战中对其卫星国和被征服国家的掠夺。例如，耶拿战役后，普鲁士不得不向法国支付3.11亿法郎的赔款。这个数额相当于法国政府常年收入的一半。每一次战败后，哈布斯堡帝国都被迫割让领土，并支付大笔战争赔款。1805年至1812年的意大利将约1/2的税收拱手送给了法国。所有这些给法国带来两方面好处：将大部分法国军队驻扎在本土以外；同时使法国本土的纳税人免于承担战争的全部费用。只要法国军队在其英明领袖的领导下攻无不克，战无不胜，这一体系似乎就坚不可摧。因此，毫不奇怪，皇帝经常自诩道：

My power depends on my glory and my glories on the victories I have won. My power will fail if I do not feed it on new glories and new victories. Conquest has made me what I am and only conquest can enable me to hold my position. 86

我的权力仰赖于我的荣耀，而我取得的胜利则给我带来了荣耀。一旦我不再以新的荣耀和新的胜利来滋养我的权力，我的权力就会丧失。征服造就了我本人，也只有征服才能使我保住自己的地位。

How, then, could Napoleon be brought down? Britain alone, lacking the military manpower, could not do it. And an attack upon France by any single continental opponent was always doomed to failure. Prussia’s ill-timed entry into the war in 1806 proved that point, although it did not stop the frustrated Austrians from renewing hostilities with France once again, early in 1809; yet while Austria fought with great spirit at the battles of Eckmühl and Aspern, its further losses at Wagram once more compelled Vienna to sue for peace and to cede additional lands to France and its allies. The French successes against Austria had, moreover, followed closely upon Napoleon’s drive into Spain to crush the revolt there. Thus it seemed that wherever opposition to the emperor’s will arose, it was swiftly dealt with. And although at sea the British showed a similar ruthlessness toward enemies, actual or potential, as in their Copenhagen attack (August 1807), they still tended to fritter away military resources in small-scale raids off southern Italy, in an inept attack upon Buenos Aires, and in the disastrous Walcheren operation in the summer of 1809. 87

那么，拿破仑是怎样被打垮的呢？不列颠陆军人员不足，完成不了这一大业。而法国在大陆上的任何一个对手，如果单独向法国发动进攻，都注定要失败。普鲁士1806年不合时宜地参战证明了这一点，虽然它没有能阻止气急败坏的奥地利于1809年初重启战端。尽管奥地利在埃克缪尔和阿斯平之役中顽强奋战，但它在瓦格拉姆一役中遭受了更大的损失，使维也纳被迫再次求和，给法国及其盟国割让更多的领土。法军在战胜了奥地利之后，旋即挥戈进入西班牙，镇压那里的叛乱。似乎哪里一出现对皇帝意志的反抗，很快就会被镇压下去。尽管不列颠在海上对其敌人也同样残酷无情（不论是眼前的敌人还是潜在的），例如哥本哈根之战（1807年8月）。但是英国人仍然倾向于在小规模的袭扰中白白浪费掉它宝贵的战争资源，如英国对意大利南部的进攻，对布宜诺斯艾利斯不合时宜的进攻，和1809年夏季使英军损失惨重的瓦尔克伦战役。

Yet it was precisely when Napoleon’s system seemed unbeatable that the first significant cracks in the imperial edifice began to appear. Despite the successive military victories, French casualties in these battles had been large—15,000 lost at Eylau and 12,000 at Friedland, 23,000 killed or surrendered at Bailen, a massive 44,000 casualties at Aspern, and another 30,000 at Wagram. Experienced troops were becoming rare, at least outside the exclusive Guard regiments; for example, of the 148,000 men of the Armée de l’Allemagne (exclusive of the Guard) in 1809,47,000 were underage conscripts. 88 Although Napoleon’s army, like Hitler’s included many from the conquered territories and the satellites, French manpower stocks were clearly being eroded; whereas the unpredictable czar still had enormous reserves and, even after Wagram, the stubborn and resentful Austrians possessed a very considerable “army in being. ” All this would have meaning in the near future.

然而，恰恰在拿破仑的体系看来无懈可击的时候，法兰西帝国的大厦开始出现第一个严重的裂缝。虽然法军在战场上取得了接二连三的胜利，但法军在这些战役中的伤亡也是巨大的——在埃卢战役损失1.5万人，在弗里德兰战役损失1.2万人，在巴伊伦有2.3万人阵亡或投降，在阿斯平的伤亡人数高达4.4万，另外在瓦格拉姆还有3万人伤亡。久经沙场的部队越来越少，至少在法国近卫军以外的部队中是这样。例如，1809年拥有14.8万人的日耳曼军团（不包括近卫军）中有4.7万人是不够年龄的壮丁。虽然像希特勒的军队一样，拿破仑的军队中也有许多人来自被征服领土和卫星国，但是法国的人力资源自然在减少。而神秘莫测的沙皇仍然拥有巨大的人力储备。甚至顽固而心存怨恨的奥地利人在瓦格拉姆战败之后，仍然掌握着一支数量可观的“死里逃生的军队”。

Furthermore, Napoleon’s drive into Spain in late 1808 had not “decided” that campaign, as he fondly imagined. In dispersing the formal Spanish armies, he had inadvertently encouraged the local populace to resort to guerrilla warfare, which was altogether more difficult to suppress and which multiplied the logistical problems for the French forces. Denied foodstuffs by the local population, the French army was critically dependent upon its own precarious supply lines. Moreover, in making a battlefield of Spain and, still more, of Portugal, Napoleon had unintentionally chosen one of the few areas in which the still-cautious British could be induced to commit themselves, at first tentatively but then with growing confidence as they saw how Wellington exploited local sympathies, the geography of the peninsula, command of the sea, and—last but not least—his own increasingly professional regiments to contain and erode French élan. The 25,000 casualties suffered by Massena’s army in his fruitless march against Lisbon in 1810–1811 were an early sign that “the Spanish ulcer” could not be lanced, even when some 300,000 French troops had been dispatched south of the Pyrenees. 89

此外，1808年冬拿破仑率兵进入西班牙并没有像皇帝想像的那样就“解决”那场战役。当他击溃西班牙正规军的时候，无意间促使当地人民同法军展开游击战。这种打法更难于对付，并且还加重了法国后勤供应的困难。由于当地人民拒绝供应粮食，法军更严重地依赖它自己很不可靠的补给线。此外，在开辟西班牙战场、特别是葡萄牙战场的时候，拿破仑无意间选择了仍然谨小慎微的英国人可以直接同法军作战的少数几个地区之一。英国人在初期还只是试探性地派出少量军队同法军作战，但随后当他们看到威灵顿是如何有效地利用当地人民的同情，利用半岛的地形和英国的制海权，以及最后运用人数日益增加的职业军队遏制并削弱法军的势头时，他们的信心增强了。1810—1811年间，马塞纳的大军在向里斯本枉费心机的进军中，伤亡2.5万人，最先表明，这颗“西班牙毒瘤”是没法割除的，即使后来法国向比利牛斯山以南派出了30万人的军队，也无济于事。

Besides weakening France, the Spanish business simultaneously relieved the strain upon Britain, strategically as well as commercially. After all, during most of the preceding Anglo-French wars, Spain had fought on France’s side—which not only had posed a landward threat to Gibraltar and a seaward threat (in the form of the Franco-Spanish combined fleets) to British naval mastery, but had also affected export markets in the Peninsula, Latin America, and the Mediterranean generally. A friendly rather than a hostile Spain meant an end to all those pressures. The damage done to British trade by the Continental System was now greatly eased, as the products of Lancashire and the Midlands returned to old markets; by 1810, total British exports had soared to a record ￡48 million (from ￡37 million in 1808). Although this relief was but temporary, and was increasingly overshadowed by the closure of the Baltic and by the Anglo-American dispute over impressment and blockade, it was enough. It sustained Napoleon’s great extra-continental foe, and just at the time when the European continent itself was breaking into revolt.

除去削弱法国，西班牙事件同时还从商业上及战略上缓解了英国身上的负担。在英法战争前的大部分时间里，西班牙毕竟是站在法国一方作战，这不仅从陆上威胁着直布罗陀，从海上威胁着英国海军霸权地位（以法国-西班牙联合舰队的方式），而且还影响到英国在比利牛斯半岛、拉丁美洲以及整个地中海地区的出口市场。一个友好而不敌对的西班牙表明所有这些压力已一去不复返。现在，当兰开夏和米德兰的产品重新回到它们过去的市场的时候，大陆体系给英国贸易造成的损失就极大地减轻了。到1810年，英国出口总额猛增到创纪录的4 800万英镑（1808年是3 700万镑）。尽管这种缓解只是暂时的，而且日渐被法国封闭波罗的海以及英美两国关于英国强制美籍水手参加英国海军和封锁大陆的争端所造成的损失抵消，但它的作用已经足矣。在欧洲正要奋起反抗拿破仑的时候，西班牙支持了拿破仑大陆以外的大敌。

In effect, the Napoleonic system in Europe rested upon a contradiction. Whatever the merits or demerits of the Revolution within France itself, a nation proclaiming liberty, fraternity, and equality was now—at the direction of its emperor— conquering non-French populations, stationing armies upon them, sequestering their goods, distorting their trade, raising enormous indemnities and taxes, and conscripting their youth. 90 Resentment was also felt at the controls being increasingly imposed under the Continental System, since it was not only Nantes and Bordeaux but also Amsterdam, Hamburg, and Trieste which were being hurt by the economic warfare Napoleon was waging against Britain. Few would openly rise in arms, like the Spaniards, or decide to pull out of the ruinous Continental System, as the Russians did in December 1810. 91 However, once Napoleon’s Grand Army was devastated in the Moscow campaigns and the Armée de l’Espagne was being pushed back to the Pyrenees, the opportunity at last beckoned to throw off the French hegemony. What the Prussians, Russians, Swedes, Austrians, and others then needed was a ready supply of the rifles, boots, and clothing—not to mention the money—which the British were already providing to their Portuguese and Spanish allies. Thus, the security of the British Isles and its relative prosperity on the one hand, and the overstretched and increasingly grasping nature of French rule on the other, at last interacted to begin to bring down Napoleon’s empire.

实际上，拿破仑在欧洲的体系，是建立在一个矛盾体之上的。不论大革命在法国国内的是非曲直如何，一个宣称自由、博爱、平等的国家，现在正在其皇帝的领导下，征服非法兰西民族，在他们的领土上驻军，没收他们的货物，损害他们的贸易，向他们索取巨额赔款，征收重税，并且还征召他们的青年入伍。因为受害于拿破仑对英国展开的经济战的，不仅仅是波尔多和南特，而且还有阿姆斯特丹、汉堡和里亚斯特，所以各地的人民都对大陆体系下日益加强的控制怨声载道。虽然很少有人敢于像西班牙人那样拿起武器公开反抗，或者像俄国人在1810年10月那样断然退出给他们带来极大损害的大陆体系，但是一旦拿破仑的大军在莫斯科战役惨遭失败，一旦法国的西班牙军团被赶回比利牛斯山以北，挣脱法国霸权枷锁的机会终于就要到来了。到了这种时候，普鲁士人、俄国人、瑞典人、奥地利人和其他民族所需要的就是步枪、皮靴和制服，当然还有金钱，这些都是英国人已经在向他们的葡萄牙和西班牙盟友提供的东西。这样，一方面是不列颠群岛的安全和它的相对繁荣，另一方面是法国统治战线过长及其日益贪婪的性质，两个因素相互作用，终于开始推翻拿破仑帝国。

Such a sweeping analysis of economic and geopolitical factors tends, inevitably, to downplay the more personal aspects of this story, such as Napoleon’s own increasing lethargy and self-delusion. It also may underemphasize the very precarious nature of the military equilibrium until almost the final year of the war— for the French even then possessed the resources to build an enormous navy, had they persisted in that course. The British export economy was to receive its severest test only in 1812; and until the battle of Leipzig (October 1813) there appeared good prospects that Napoleon could smash one of his eastern enemies and thus dissolve the coalition against him.

这种对经济和地理因素的概略分析，不可避免地要低估历史人物在这段历史中发挥的作用，就拿破仑而言，他日益严重的怠倦心理、自欺欺人的幻觉就起了某种作用。直到战争的最后一年，军事平衡在本质上都是极不稳定的，上述分析可能对这一点强调得不够。因为只要法国坚持不懈，它到最后一年还拥有可以建造一支庞大海军的资源。英国的出口经济也只是到1812年才受到最严峻的考验。而且直到莱比锡战役（1813年10月），还出现过拿破仑粉碎东方敌国之一、从而拆散反对他的联盟的良好前景。

Nonetheless, the French “overstretch,” reflecting Napoleon’s own hubris, was by this time extreme, and any major setback was bound to affect other parts of the system—simply because these parts had to be drained of troops in order to repair the broken front. By 1811, there were some 353,000 French troops in Spain, and yet, as Wellington observed, they had no authority beyond the spot where they stood; defending their lines of communication consumed most of their efforts, and left them vulnerable to the Anglo-Portuguese-Spanish advance. When, in the year following, Napoleon decided to reduce Russia’s independence, a mere 27,000 men could be withdrawn from Spain to join the march upon Moscow. Of the more than 600,000 men in the Grand Army, only 270,000 of that total were Frenchmen, the same number as remained in the Peninsula. Furthermore, since “native” Frenchmen now included the Belgians, Dutch, and many Italians in the annexed territories, troops raised from within the pre-1789 French borders were in a decided minority during the Russian campaign. This may not have mattered in the early, successful stages, but it did become important during the retreat, when men were desperate to escape from the bitter weather and marauding Cossacks and to return to their own homes. 92

但是，法国人的战线太长，这也反映出拿破仑过于自信，到这时法国的力量已经到了极限，因而任何一次大的挫折都必然会影响到这一体系中的其他各地区——因为要修补崩溃的防线，其他地区的军队就要抽调一空。到1811年，法军在西班牙有大约35.3万人。但是，正如威灵顿所看到的那样，在他们自己所在的地方以外，法军没有权威，无法作为。法军为保卫其交通线耗掉了大部分的精力，使它在英—葡—西联军的进攻面前处于被动挨打的地位。因而次年当拿破仑决定消灭俄国时，法国只能从西班牙战线抽调2.7万人参加向莫斯科的进军。在入侵俄国的60万以上的大军中，只有27万人是法国人，这一数字等于滞留在伊比利亚半岛上的法军人数。此外，由于“地道的”法国人现在包括已合并领土的比利时人、荷兰人和许多意大利人，因此，在俄国战役期间，从1789年以前的法国疆界内召集的士兵只占绝对少数。这一点在战争初期，即胜利的年代里也许无足轻重，但是在大溃退的时候，当士兵们拼命逃离严酷的气候，从劫掠成性的哥萨克骑兵的马刀下逃生，逃回到他们家乡的时候，就变得非常重要了。

The Grand Army’s casualties in the Russian campaign were enormous: perhaps as many as 270,000 men were killed and 200,000 captured, and about 1,000 guns and 200,000 horses were lost. The eastern front, more than any other factor, weakened the morale of the French army. Nonetheless, it is important to understand how the eastern European and peninsular campaigns interacted from 1813 onward to produce the eventual downfall: for by then the Russian army had little capacity (and many of its generals little enthusiasm) for pursuing the French across Germany; the British were somewhat distracted by their American war; and Napoleon had raised a fresh force of 145,000 men in the early summer of 1813, which enabled him to hold the line in Saxony and to negotiate an armistice. Although Prussia had prudently switched to the Russian side and Metternich was threatening to intervene with an Austrian army of a quarter of a million men, the eastern powers were still divided and uncertain. Thus, the news that Wellington’s troops had smashed Joseph Bonaparte’s army at Vitoria (June 1813) and were driving it back to the Pyrenees was important in encouraging the Austrians to declare war and to combine with the Russian, Swedish, and Prussian forces in order to expel the French from Germany. The subsequent battle of Leipzig in October was fought on a scale unknown to the British army—195,000 Frenchmen were overwhelmed in four days of fighting by 365,000 allied troops; but the latter were being economically underpinned by vast British subsidies, as well as being provided with 125,000 muskets, 218 artillery pieces, and much other equipment from the island state. 93

法国大军在俄国战役中的伤亡是巨大的：大约27万人阵亡，20万人被俘，并损失了约1000门大炮和20万匹战马。与其他所有因素相比较，东方战线更严重地削弱了法军的实力。然而重要的是，还要理解东欧和伊比利亚半岛上的战役是如何从1813年起互相作用，最终造成了帝国的崩溃。因为到了那时，俄国军队几乎已经没有能力（它的许多将军也毫无热情）跨过德国追击法国人了。而英国人则在一定程度上受其在美国的战争的牵制。1813年初夏，拿破仑又重新征集了一支14.5万人的军队，这使拿破仑能够守住撒克逊的防线，并可以通过谈判签订一个停战协定。虽然普鲁士已经谨慎地倒向俄国一边，梅特涅又威胁要派一支25万人的奥地利军队进行干涉，但是东欧各国仍然处于分裂状态，并犹豫不决。因此，威灵顿在维多利亚打垮了约瑟夫·波拿巴的军队（1813年6月），并将其赶回比利牛斯山脉以北的消息起了重要作用。它鼓励奥地利人向法国宣战，并且为了将法国人赶出德意志而同俄国、瑞典和普鲁士的军队进行联合。紧接着，10月份在莱比锡爆发了一场英军前所未遇的大规模激战，在持续了4天的战斗中，19.5万人的法国军队被36.5万人的盟军部队击溃。在这场战斗中，反法同盟的军队在经济上得到了英国大量的金钱资助，英国向他们提供了12.5万支燧发枪、218门大炮以及从岛国来的其他大量军事装备。

In turn, the French defeat at Leipzig encouraged Wellington, now north of the Pyrenees, to advance upon Bayonne and Toulouse. As the armies of Prussia and Austria poured across the Rhine and the Cossacks invaded Holland, Napoleon conducted a brilliant tactical defense of northeastern France early in 1814; but his army was drained in strength and contained too many raw recruits. Moreover, the French populace, now that the fighting was on its soil, was (as Wellington had foretold) less than enthusiastic. Stiffened by British urgings to reduce France to its former size and by the pledge of a further ￡5 million in British subsidies at the Chaumont treaty of March 9, the allied governments kept up their pressure to the end. By March 30, 1814, even Napoleon’s marshals had had enough, and within another week the emperor had abdicated.

反过来，法军在莱比锡的失败也促使在伊比利亚半岛北部的威灵顿向巴约讷和图卢兹挺进。1814年初，当普鲁士和奥地利的军队涌过莱茵河、哥萨克骑兵侵入荷兰的时候，拿破仑运用成功的战略战术，出色地保卫了法国东北部。但是他的军队精疲力竭，而且新兵太多。此外，当战争推进到法国本土时，法国的平民百姓（正如威灵顿预言的那样）对战争已毫无热情可言了。英国极力说服各同盟国政府，一定要让法国回到它原来的疆界，并在3月9日的《肖蒙条约》中向各国政府保证再提供500万英镑的援助。在这种情况下，同盟国各国一鼓作气，紧追拿破仑不舍。到1814年3月30日，甚至连拿破仑的元帅们也不愿再打下去了。一星期以后，法兰西皇帝宣告退位。

Compared with these epic events, the Anglo-American war of 1812–1814 was a strategical sideshow. 94 Economically, it might have been far more serious to British interests had it not coincided with the collapse of the Continental System, and had not the New England states, largely dependent upon Anglo-American trade, remained lukewarm (and often neutral) in the conflict. The proclaimed “march on Canada” by American forces soon petered out, and both on land and at sea—despite the raids upon York (Toronto) and Washington, and some impressive single-ship frigate actions—each side demonstrated that it could hurt but not defeat the other. To the British in particular, it showed the importance of the American trades and it revealed the difficulties of maintaining large military and naval establishments overseas at the same time as the armed services were desperately required in the European theater. As was the case in India, transoceanic possessions and commerce were simultaneously a strengthening of Britain’s power position and a strategical distraction. 95

英美1812～1814年的战争，同这些划时代的事件相比，不过是战略上的一种陪衬而已。但是如果这场战争不是与法国大陆体系崩溃的时间相吻合，如果不是在很大程度上依赖英美贸易的新英格兰各州在战争中仍然表现冷淡的话（经常持中立态度），这场战争本来会给英国的经济造成更严重的损失。美国军队宣称的“向加拿大进军”很快就烟消云散了。不论是在海上还是在陆上，虽然有对约克城（多伦多）和华盛顿的袭击，有一些单枪匹马的护卫舰进行过令人瞩目的战斗，但双方都显露出，它们只能给对方造成损失，而不能打败对方。特别是对英国人来说，这场战争证明英国与美国的贸易是十分重要的。这场战争还暴露出，当欧洲战场急需军队的时候，英国要在海外维持一支庞大的陆军和海军，是非常困难的。如同印度的情况一样，英国在大洋彼岸的殖民地和贸易既加强了英国的实力和地位，同时又对它造成了一种战略上的牵制。

Napoleon’s final campaign of March to June 1815, while certainly not a sideshow, was a strategical footnote to the great war in Europe. 96 His sudden return to France from exile interrupted the quarrels of the victors over the future of Poland, Saxony, and other lands, but it did not shake the alliance. Even if the hastily assembled French force had not been defeated by Wellington and Blücher at Waterloo, it is difficult to see how it could have resisted the other armies which were being diverted toward Belgium, and still more difficult to see how France could have economically sustained a long war thereafter. Nevertheless, Napoleon’s last escapade was important politically. It reinforced Britain’s position in Europe and strengthened the argument that France needed to be surrounded by an array of strong “buffer states” in the future. It demonstrated Prussia’s military recovery after Jena, and thus partly readjusted the balances in eastern Europe. And it compelled all the powers at Vienna to bury their remaining differences in order to achieve a peace which would enshrine the principles of the balance of power. 97 After two decades of near-constant war and well over a century of Great Power tensions and conflict, the European states system was at last being fashioned along lines which ensured a rough equilibrium.

虽然对这场欧洲大战来说，拿破仑在1815年3月至6月进行的最后一次战役不能说是一个可以忽略的插曲，但充其量也不过是战略上的回光返照而已。拿破仑从流放中突然重返法国，打断了胜利者们围绕波兰、撒克逊及其他领土的前途问题进行的争吵。但是拿破仑并没有能够动摇反法同盟。即使匆忙集结起来的法国军队没有在滑铁卢被威灵顿和布吕歇尔打败，人们也很难看出它如何能抵挡住已经在向比利时推进的其他同盟国军队，更难看出法国的经济如何能够维持这以后的一场长期大战。但拿破仑最后一次潜逃的政治意义却十分重大，它加强了英国在欧洲的地位，并加强了英国人这样一种论点，即法国在未来需要用一系列强大的“缓冲国家”把它四面围困起来。它还显示出，耶拿战役之后，普鲁士军队已经恢复元气，这就使东欧的均势部分地作了重新调整。而且它还迫使所有大国在维也纳把剩下来的所有分歧埋葬掉，以便取得一种奉行大国均势原则的和平。经过了20年烽火连天的战争，和一个多世纪大国之间的紧张关系与冲突，欧洲各国的格局终于按照基本保持均势的原则确定下来。

The final Vienna settlement of 1815 did not, as the Prussians had once suggested, partition France. It did, however, surround Louis XVIII’s domain with substantial territorial units—the Kingdom of the Netherlands to the north, an enlarged Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) to the southeast, and Prussia in the Rhineland; while Spain, returned to the Bourbons, was guaranteed in its integrity by the powers. Farther east, the idea of a balance of power was also implemented, after heated quarrels between the victors. Because of Austrian objections, Prussia was not permitted to swallow Saxony and instead accepted compensation in Posen and the Rhineland, just as Austria was compensated in Italy and in parts of southeastern Germany for the fact that it retained only the Galician region of Poland. Even Russia, whose claims to the lion’s share of Polish territories had finally to be conceded, was considerably shaken at the beginning of 1815 by the threat of an Anglo-French- Austrian alliance to resist dictation over the future of Saxony, and quickly backed down from a confrontation. No power, it appeared, would not be permitted to impose its wishes upon the rest of Europe in the way Napoleon had done. The egoism of the leading states had in no way been evaporated by the events of 1793– 1815, but the twin principles of “containment and reciprocal compensation”98 meant that a unilateral grasp for domination of Europe was now unlikely; and that even small-scale territorial changes would need the approval of a majority of the members of the Concert.

1815年维也纳的最后解决办法，并没有像普鲁士一度建议过的那样，瓜分法国。但是和约确实用许多国家把路易十八的法国包围起来：北面是荷兰王国，东南方是扩大了的萨丁王国（皮德蒙特），还有在莱茵兰的普鲁士。西班牙虽然重新回到了波旁王朝的统治之下，但是它的领土完整得到大国的保证。胜利者们经过激烈的争吵达成妥协，均势思想在法国的东方也得到贯彻。由于奥地利的反对，普鲁士吞并萨克森的企图未能如愿，作为代替办法，它接受了在波森和莱茵兰等地的补偿。由于奥地利在战争结束时仅保存了波兰的加里西亚地区，它在意大利和德意志的东南部得到补偿。俄国占据大部分波兰领土的要求虽然最终取得了列强的让步，但是它主宰萨克森未来命运的野心却遭到了列强有力的抵制。1815年初，英、法、奥三国为了反对俄国吞并萨克森，险些结成三国同盟，这使俄国大为震动，很快就从对抗中退缩回去。看来，现在任何一个国家都不会被允许再像拿破仑那样把其意志强加到欧洲其余部分的头上了。虽然1793—1815年间的事件并没有消除欧洲各国自私自利的观念，但是“遏制与相互补偿”的双重原则意味着任何国家想单方面独霸欧洲都不大可能。即使是小范围的领土调整，也要得到欧洲协调体多数成员国的赞同。

For all the talk about a European “Pentarchy,” however, it is important to recall that the five Great Powers were not in the same relationship to one another as they had been in 1750 or even in 1789. Despite Russia’s growth, it was fair to say that a rough balance of power existed on land after Napoleon’s fall. On the other hand, there was no equivalent at sea, where the British enjoyed a near-monopoly of naval power, which simultaneously reinforced and was underpinned by the economic lead which they had gained over all their rivals. In some cases, like India, this was the result of steady military expansionism and plunder, so that war and profit-seeking had interacted to draw the subcontinent into a purely British orbit by the end of the eighteenth century. 99 Similarly, the seizure of Santo Domingo—which had been responsible for a remarkable three-quarters of France’s colonial trade before the Revolution—was by the late 1790s a valuable market for British goods and a great source of British re-exports. In addition, not only were these overseas markets in North America, the West Indies, Latin America, India, and the Orient growing faster than those in Europe, but such long-haul trades were also usually more profitable and a greater stimulus to the shipping, commodity-dealing, marine insurance, billclearing, and banking activities which so enhanced London’s position as the new financial center of the world. 100 Despite recent writings which have questioned the rate of growth of the British economy in the eighteenth century and the role of foreign trade in that growth,101 the fact remains that overseas expansion had given the country unchallenged access to vast new wealth which its rivals did not enjoy. Controlling most of Europe’s colonies by 1815, dominating the maritime routes and the profitable re-export trades, and well ahead of other societies in the process of industrialization, the British were now the richest nation in per capita terms. During the next half-century—as will be seen in the following chapter—they would become even richer, as Britain grew to be the “superdominant economy” in the world’s trading structure. 102 The principle of equilibrium which Pitt and Castlereagh held so high was one which applied to European territorial arrangements, not to the colonial and commercial spheres.

然而，在谈到欧洲“五角政治”的时候，应该牢记这五大国之间的关系已经不同于1750年甚至1789年时的关系了。虽然俄国迅速崛起，但可以说拿破仑垮台后欧洲大陆仍然存在着基本上的均势。另一方面，在海洋上却无均势可言，英国近乎享有海军实力的垄断权。与此同时，英国取得的超越其所有竞争对手的领先地位，又加强并巩固了它的海上霸权。在许多地方，如印度，英国经济的领先地位是它逐步进行军事扩张和掠夺的结果。到18世纪末，英国的战争政策和牟取暴利的活动互相推动，终于把印度次大陆纳入了纯英国轨道。与此相似，法国大革命前，圣多明各在法国殖民地贸易中占3/4，英国对圣多明各的占领到18世纪90年代为英国的货物提供了一个重要市场，并为英国的转口贸易提供了重要来源。此外，北美、西印度群岛、拉丁美洲、印度和东方的海外市场不仅比欧洲的贸易市场增长迅速，而且同这些地区的长途贸易，还给航运、商品交易、海事保险、票据结算和银行活动带来了丰厚的利润，并刺激了这些行业的发展。伦敦也因此而提高了自己的地位，成为世界上新的金融中心。虽然近来有些文章对18世纪英国经济的增长速度和对外贸易在英国经济增长中的作用问题提出了疑问，但事实仍然是，海外扩张的确为英国攫取巨额新财富打开了可靠的通路，这是其他竞争者所享受不到的。到1815年，英国人控制了欧洲绝大部分的海外殖民地，控制着海上航路和利润丰厚的转口贸易，在工业化进程中远远领先于其他国家。在人均收入方面，英国人现在是欧洲最富裕的民族了。读者在下一章中将会看到，在下半个世纪里，当不列颠在世界贸易格局中发展成为“超级优势经济”时，英国人将变得更加富有。虽然皮特和卡斯尔雷大肆鼓吹均势原则，但他们只在欧洲大陆领土的安排上运用这一原则，而不把这一原则用于殖民地和贸易领域。

Little of this can have surprised intelligent early-nineteenth-century observers. Despite his own assumptions of grandeur, Napoleon seems to have become obsessed with Britain at times—with its invulnerability, its maritime dominance, its banks and credit system—and to have yearned to see it all tumble in the dust. Such feelings of envy and dislike doubtless existed, if in a less extreme form, among the Spaniards, Dutch, and others who saw the British monopolizing the outside world. The Russian general Kutusov, wishing to halt his army’s westward advance in 1812, once the Grand Army had been driven from the homeland, may have spoken for more than himself when he doubted the wisdom of totally destroying Napoleon, since the “succession would not fall to Russia or to any other continental power, but to the power which already commands the sea, and whose domination would be intolerable. ”103 At the end of the day, however, that result was unavoidable: Napoleon’s hubris and refusal to compromise ensured not only his downfall, but his greatest enemy’s supreme victory. As Gneisenau, another general with a sense of the larger issues, wryly concluded:

这一点并没有使19世纪早期聪明的观察家们吃惊。尽管拿破仑自视甚高，但有些时候也被不列颠搅得心神不宁，被它坚不可摧的地位、海上霸权、银行和信贷系统所困扰，并渴望亲眼看到大英帝国土崩瓦解。毫无疑问，西班牙人、荷兰人和其他目睹英国独霸外部世界的人们，对英国都普遍怀有这种又妒忌又憎恨的感情。法国大军在1812年刚刚被赶出俄国，库图佐夫将军就想让他的大军停止西进。他曾说过，“取拿破仑而代之的不会是俄国或任何一个大陆国家，而将是已经控制了海洋的大国。这个大国的支配地位将令人不能容忍。”库图佐夫的这番话，不仅仅是说给他自己听的，因为他怀疑彻底打垮拿破仑的做法是否明智。但是，战争的结束不可避免地带来了这一结果：拿破仑的自高自大、拒绝妥协，不仅注定了他的垮台，也注定了他的头号敌人将从中取得最大的胜利。正如另一位具有远见卓识的格纳森诺将军在他得出的苦涩结论中所说的那样：

Great Britain has no greater obligation than to this ruffian [Napoleon]. For through the events which he has brought about, England’s greatness, prosperity, and wealth have risen high. She is mistress of the sea and neither in this dominion nor in world trade has she now a single rival to fear. 104

大不列颠从这个暴徒（拿破仑）那里得到的好处要比它从其他地方得到的多得多。因为正是拿破仑的所作所为，使英国变得更强大，更繁荣，更富有。英国是海洋的主人。不论在这一领域还是在世界贸易领域里，现在都无人敢望其项背。

【注】

* For example, in the way in which the coming of steam-driven warships after 1860 benefited Britain (which had plenty of coal) over France (which had little).

［1］例如，1860年后蒸汽机驱动战舰的出现，使英国（英国有大量的煤）占了法国（法国只有少许的煤）的上风。

* By the time of the War of Austrian Succession (1739–1747), the government was able to borrow large sums at 3 or 4 percent, half the rate of interest which had prevailed in Marlborough’s time.

［2］到奥地利王位继承战（1739—1749年）时，英国政府能够以3%或4%的利率，也就是马尔巴勒时期通行利率的一半，借到大批贷款。

* In the early years of Louis XIV, by contrast, France had been able to borrow at cheaper rates of interest than the Stuarts, or even William HI.

［3］对比之下，在路易十四当政的早期，法国能以比斯图亚特王朝、甚至威廉三世还低的利率借到贷款。

* During the 1689–1697 and 1702–1714 conflicts, for example, France allocated less than 10 percent of total expenditure to its navy, and between 57 percent and 65 percent to its army. (The corresponding British figures were 35 percent to the navy and 40 percent to the army. ) In 1760 the French navy received only one-quarter of the sums allocated to the army. Even when monies were forthcoming, France’s geographical position meant that it was often extremely difficult to get naval stores from the Baltic in wartime, to keep the fleet in good order.

［4］例如，在1689—1697年和1702—1714年战争期间，法国用于海军的拨款还不足其总支出的10%，而用于陆军的拨款则占57%—65%（英国的相应数字是35%用于海军，40%用于陆军）。1760年，法国海军得到的钱只及陆军经费的1/4。即使有了钱，法国的地理位置意味着它在战争时期常常难以从波罗的海搞到维持其舰队作战能力的军需品。

* Not to mention the strategic importance of Baltic naval stores, upon which both the Royal Navy and the mercantile marine relied—a dependency reflected in the frequent dispatch of a British fleet into the Baltic to preserve the balance of power and the free flow of timber and masts.

［5］这里原文是“1779”，但北美独立战争应为1776—1783年。——审校者注