7 July 1807
Treaty of Tilsit

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At 1pm on 25 June 1807, on a specially constructed raft anchored in the exact midstream of the river Niemen in East Prussia, Napoleon, the emperor of France, and Tsar Alexander I, emperor of all the Russias, meet for the first time. The apparent warmth of that meeting, with the two leaders embracing in full view of their armies on opposite banks, makes it a notable occasion. And on 7 July, the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit seems to offer a chance not just of lasting peace but of an alliance between France and Russia.

The treaty, which follows the Russian defeat at the battle of Friedland on 14 June, makes much of Napoleon and Alexander's new-found fraternal feelings and their desire to work together rather than in enmity. Alexander agrees to abandon his past commitment to 'liberating' Europe from the revolutionary French. He will leave most of Europe to France in return for being given a free hand at the expense of Finland, Sweden and the Ottoman empire, which is supposedly an ally of Napoleon.

Russia is also to join the Continental System against Britain. Alexander is said to have been infuriated by what he saw as the betrayal of the British in failing to provide troops to fight Napoleon. 'Why do you not send your militia?' he is reported to have demanded of the British ambassador, referring to the 300,000-strong force that had been assembled when the invasion of England threatened.

'The two emperors then withdrew into the privacy of the pavilion. "Why are we at war?" they asked each other (so Adolphe Thiers tells us), with Alexander following up: "I hate the English as much as you do!" To which Napoleon exclaims: "In that case. peace is made!" Alexander condemned the false promises with which the absent perfidious ones had lured Russia into a disastrous war on their behalf, then abandoned her to fight it single-handed. That first "summit talk" lasted an hour and a half; after it, Napoleon confided in a letter to his Empress Joséphine his delight with the former adversary: "He is a truly handsome, good and youthful emperor; he has a better mind than is commonly supposed..."' How Far from Austerlitz? by Alistair Horne (St Martin's Press, 1996)

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