Although the Tilsit Treaty and the subsequent Erfurt Congress had seemingly cemented a Franco-Russian partnership and alliance, the reality was that between 1808 and 1812, the two empires were at best half-hearted allies. Both the French and the Russian leadership had fundamentally different conceptions of what the Tilsit system entailed, and there was an underlying antagonism that pledges of amity between the two sovereigns could not erase completely.

Strains in the relationship first appeared with Napoleon's creation of the Duchy of Warsaw. Carved out largely from Prussian Poland, the existence of the Duchy was incredibly unpalatable for many within the Russian government because it promised to resurrect the Polish Kingdom as a French client state. Alexander I had made his displeasure of the Duchy known at Erfurt and hoped to get Napoleon to make a pledge not to resurrect Poland. For his part, while Napoleon's ardor for a resurrected Polish kingdom had cooled since 1808, but he saw the prospects of a resurrected Poland as a useful bargaining chip to cajole the Partitioner states (Austria, Prussia, and Russia) into cooperating with the French. This negotiating position backfired on Napoleon as it lent credence to anti-French circles within the Russian court that Napoleon was a dangerous adventurer who trammeled over the rights of sovereign states. Such sentiments found wide resonance within the imperial court. Both the Empress Dowager and the Tsar's sisters were decidedly anti-French and Napoleon's clumsy overture of marriage to one of Alexander I's sisters only deepened the enmity towards the French emperor in St. Petersburg society. But a number of the Tsar's servitors also saw Napoleon's ambitions as an existential threat to the imperial state. As early as 1808, one of Alexander I's principle advisers Adam Czartoryski advised his sovereign in a confidential note that:

Napoleon seeks only to establish his supremacy; Prussia served him, he destroyed it; Spain served him, he is going to invade it after dethroning the king, his ally.

Czartoryski noted that he feared that Austria would be partitioned next, and that would leave Russia in a strategically precarious position as the sole great power in the way of France. Nor were these fears of Napoleon remaking the map to benefit France completely unfounded. Annexations of the North Sea coast and in Italy directly to France in 1810 spoke of grander ambitions, as did denying Austria her outlet to the sea by the French annexation of the Illyrian Provinces after 1809. Much of the Russian elite would have been aware of these transformations on a personal level. Napoleon's creation of the Rheinbund in 1806, which involved expanding the middling German states at the expense of the lesser ones, had displaced a good many German noble families. The Russian aristocracy had intermarried heavily into Central Europe and this allowed many of these noble "refugees" flee into Russian service because of these family connections.

The result of these developments was that by 1809, there were three incredibly strong anti-French power blocs in operation inside the Russian state: the aristocracy, the imperial court, and the army. Alexander I balanced had to strike a fine balance between honoring his agreements with Napoleon and appeasing these factions. But appeasing France carried with it an increasing domestic cost for Alexander I. The army in particular began to increasingly grumble about the "German" dynasty on the throne, and although such sentiments did not erupt into open rebellion, it as a chilling reminder to Alexander I, whose own father had been murdered in a palace coup, that his autocracy rested on shaky ground. Thus Alexander I increasingly sought to appease these anti-French sentiments over Napoleon.

The fraying alliance was already apparent by 1809 with the war against Austria. Erfurt had made clear Russia's obligations to France in case Austria invaded, but Alexander I did not relish doing so. Russian mobilization for the war was tardy and belated. The Tsar instructed the commander of the Russian force in Galicia, Prince Sergei Golitsyn, to proceed cautiously against the Austrians. In this, Golitsyn exceeded his Emperor's instructions and Russian moves in Galicia were at a glacial pace. This caused no end of friction between the Russian corps and the Duchy of Warsaw troops. This was apparent in a number of squabbles between the two forces. Some were petty, such as Golitsyn never using the word Poland or Polish in his official proclamations or dispatches (and this order came from Alexander I). Other tensions were more serious, such as the Russian foot-dragging to relieve the fortress of Sandomierz and the fact that the Duchy's troops under Poniatowski did nearly all the heavy lifting in Galicia while Golitsyn dithered. When the Duchy's troops entered into Krakow after the Austrian army abandoned the city, they staged various celebrations signalling the rebirth of Poland and Poniatowski began referring to himself as the commander-in-chief of the Polish Army. These pretenses incensed the anti-Pole Golitsyn who wrote to Poniatowski:

I do not recognize either Poland, which has long outlived itself, nor the Polish army or troops. I only acknowledge the Duchy of Warsaw which was established by the Treaty of Tilsit, which, however, makes no mention of Poland.

In private, Golitsyn reported back to Alexander I that resurgent Polish nationalism was now a problem and the Russian state needed to do something about it.

Alexander I had already made his displeasure known about the Duchy at Erfurt, and in January 1810, he authorized his foreign minister Nikolai Petrovich Rumiantsev to enter into negotiations with the French envoy Caulaincourt over a four-power treaty over Poland, which Napoleon rebuffed. From his perspective, Russia had gained more from Erfurt, especially Finland, and in return delivered very little to the French. Napoleon's sense that Tilsit was dead underlay his blunder of annexing the Duchy of Oldenburg, a German state whose ruling house had direct ties with the Russian imperial family., and whose sovereignty had been explicitly guaranteed by Tilsit. Alexander I protested the annexation in a letter to European sovereigns, mobilized a show of force on the Duchy of Warsaw's borders, and most damaging to Franco-Russian relations, issued an ukase opening up Russia to neutral ports and prohibiting French commerce in Russia, save luxury items like silk and wines. This violation of the Continental System was too much for Napoleon to bear, and it was a clear signal that Alexander I was rethinking Franco-Russian partnership.

By 1811, it was clear there was a cold war of sorts between Russia and France. Alexander I toyed with the idea of an invasion of Central Europe, and the War Ministry likely drew up plans for an invasion, but he tended to hem and haw over making the first move. In theory, it was still possible for a Franco-Russian rapprochement, and a number of Napoleon's diplomatic corps advised the French Emperor that reconciliation was possible. But Napoleon by 1811 had made up his mind for war. He had told Davout, commander of the Elbe army of observation in early 1811 that although he did not want war, he would not be the one to cede initiative to Alexander I and fight defensively. The deteriorations in Franco-Russian relations led to Alexander I to further chip away at the Continental System and make diplomatic overtures both to Britain and Sweden. As the above indicates, Russia was not necessarily the most forthright partner in this relationship. Napoleon’s defenders, and the great man himself on St. Helena, would often cite Russian provocations, as well as those as Britain, Austria, and Prussia as evidence that Napoleon was not a warmonger and was often the victim of war being declared upon him. Such defenses often miss the point and ignore the ramifications of French hegemony for these powers. Simply put, the Tilsit/Erfurt system made France a hegemon on the continent and offered Russia paltry little in exchange. Napoleon offered assurances in aiding Russia against the Ottomans, but in practice, the French provided very little aid and did not want to see Alexander I enter Constantinople in triumph. There were some voices in both Vienna and St. Petersburg, most notably the pro-French Rumiantsev, that looked askance at British economic strength and would have welcomed a continental economic system, but the Continental System of Napoleon was not such an entity. The economic relationships Napoleon fostered with his outer non-French core was one of demi-colonialism. Russian trade with the Napoleon-dominated Europe was often a one-way street with French products substituting British ones, but with no real outlets for Russian agricultural produce or other items. The importance of the Duchy of Warsaw to Napoleon’s geostrategic calculations as a flanking state, meant that he would not be swayed by Alexander I’s fears of a resurgent Polish kingdom, which gave further license to anti-French voices within influential social circles. Alexander I himself would not brook a significant departure from the balance of power, but this was Napoleon’s modus operandi when it came to foreign relations. Many decision makers within the Russian state saw Tilsit as a temporary truce, and the cumulative effect of Napoleon’s policies did little to dissuade this opinion.

Sources

Dwyer, Philip G. Citizen Emperor: Napoleon in Power. New Haven : Yale University Press, 2013.

Hartley, Janet M., Paul Keenan, and D. C. B. Lieven. Russia and the Napoleonic Wars. New York: Palgrave, 2015.

Mikaberidze, Alexander. The Battle of Borodino: Napoleon against Kutuzov. Barnsley: Pen & Sword Military, 2007.

_. "Non-Belligerent Belligerent Russia and the Franco-Austrian War of 1809." Napoleonica. La Revue 1 (2011): 4-22.