Page:The Great problems of British statesmanship.djvu/52

32 Being carried away by his enthusiasm and simple trustfulness, Alexander the First, remembering and often repeating the words which Napoleon had uttered at Tilsit, believed that Constantinople was in his grasp. However, he and his advisers doubted that the joint expedition against India projected by Napoleon was easy to carry out. According to Caulaincourt's report of December 31, 1807, Alexander the First and his minister received with some reserve the French proposals relating to that expedition. They obviously estimated more correctly the difficulties which such an undertaking would encounter owing to the vast distances and the wildness of the route. They did not share the illusions of Paul the First.

The French Ambassador in Russia was in constant and intimate relations with Alexander the First, and he reported his conversations like an accomplished shorthand-writer. According to a conversation with the Czar, which he communicated to Napoleon on January 21, 1808, Napoleon himself had admitted at Tilsit the impossibility of striking at India by a march overland. The Ambassador reported:

Alexandre I: L'Empereur (Napoléon) m'en a parlé à Tilsit. Je suis entré là-dessus en détail avec lui. Il m'a paru convaincu comme moi que c'était impossible.

L'Ambassadeur: Les choses impossibles sont ordinairement celles qui réussissent le mieux, parce que ce sont celles auxquelles on s'attend le moins.

Alexandre I: Mais les distances, les subsistances, les déserts?

L'Ambassadeur: Les troupes de Votre Majesté qui sont venues d'Irkoutsk en Autriche ou en Pologne ont fait plus de chemin qu'il n'y en a des frontières de son empire dans l'Inde. Quant aux subsistances, le biscuit est si sain et si portatif qu'on pent en emporter beaucoup avec peu de transport. Tout n'est pas désert.

Alexandre I: Mais par où pensez-vous nos armées devraient passer?

L'Ambassadeur: Il faudrait préalablement des