I | INTRODUCTION |
Napoleonic
Wars, series of wars fought between France and a number of European
nations from 1799 to 1815. In 1799 France came under the domination of Napoleon
Bonaparte, who later became Napoleon I, emperor of France, in 1804. The
Napoleonic Wars were a continuation of the wars of the French Revolution
(1789-1799), in which the Habsburgs and other dynastic rulers of Europe combined
in an effort to overthrow the revolutionary government of France and restore the
rule of the French monarchy.
II | FIRST COALITION |
In the War of the First Coalition (1793-1797),
France fought against an alliance consisting of Austria, Prussia, Great Britain,
Spain, the Netherlands, and the Kingdom of Sardinia. In 1796 Napoleon was
entrusted by the government of France, the Directory, with conducting military
operations against Austrian forces in northern Italy. In less than a year,
Napoleon had led his troops to victory over the larger Austrian army. In 1798,
he was made the leader of an expedition to conquer Egypt as a base for future
attack against the British possession of India. The invasion was ultimately
unsuccessful, and Napoleon returned to France. Although the two campaigns took
place before Napoleon's government, the Consulate, was established, they are
generally regarded as the opening phases of the Napoleonic Wars. The campaigns
were the first in which Napoleon displayed on a large scale his genius as a
commander; early battles of the War of the Second Coalition are also included in
this category.
III | SECOND COALITION |
Napoleon's success against Austria in his
northern Italian campaign had put an end to the First Coalition. During his
absence in Egypt, however, a new alliance known as the Second Coalition was
formed on December 24, 1798. The alliance was composed of Russia, Great Britain,
Austria, the kingdom of Naples (see Sicily: History), Portugal,
and the Ottoman Empire. The principal fighting of the War of the Second
Coalition, which broke out at the end of 1798, took place during the following
year in northern Italy and in Switzerland. The Austrians and Russians, under the
leadership chiefly of the noted Russian general Count Aleksandr Suvorov, were
uniformly successful against the French in northern Italy. They defeated the
French in the battles of Magnano (April 5, 1799), Cassano (April 27), the
Trebbia (June 17-19), and Novi (August 15). The coalition also captured Milan;
put an end to the Cisalpine Republic, which had been formed under French
auspices in 1797; occupied Turin; and in general deprived the French of their
previous victories in Italy. In Switzerland, matters went better for the French.
After a defeat at Zürich (June 4-7) by Charles Louis John, archduke of Austria,
French forces under General André Masséna defeated a Russian army under General
Alexander Korsakov on September 26. The victorious Suvorov led his forces from
northern Italy across the Alps to join those of Korsakov in Switzerland. He
found Korsakov's forces already defeated and scattered; Suvorov was forced by
the French to take refuge in the mountains of the canton of Grisons, where,
during the early fall, his army was practically destroyed by cold and
starvation. On October 22, alleging lack of cooperation by the Austrians, the
Russians withdrew from the Second Coalition.
After Napoleon returned to France from Egypt
in October 1799, he became leader of the Consulate and offered to make peace
with the allies. The Coalition refused, and Napoleon planned a series of moves
against Austria, and various German states in alliance with Austria, for the
spring of 1800. Napoleon crossed the Alps into northern Italy with a newly
raised army of 40,000 men and on June 14 defeated the Austrians in the Battle of
Marengo. In the meantime French forces under General Jean Victor Moreau had
crossed the Rhine into southern Germany and taken Munich. Moreau had also
defeated the Austrians under Archduke John of Austria in the Battle of
Hohenlinden in Bavaria on December 3, and had advanced to the city of Linz,
Austria. These and other French successes caused Austria to capitulate. On
February 9, 1801, by the Treaty of Lunéville, Austria and its German allies
ceded the left bank of the Rhine River to France, recognized the Batavian,
Helvetian, Cisalpine, and Ligurian republics, and made other concessions. The
Treaty of Lunéville also marked the breakup of the Second Coalition. The only
allied nation that continued fighting was Great Britain. British troops had
unsuccessfully engaged the French on Dutch soil in 1799, but had made some
territorial gains at the expense of France in Asia and elsewhere. On March 27,
1802, Britain made peace with France through the Treaty of Amiens.
This peace, however, turned out to be a mere
truce. In 1803 a dispute arose between the two nations because of the treaty
provision that Britain return the island of Malta to its original possessors,
the Knights of Saint John of Jerusalem. The people of Malta preferred the
British crown, and the British did not surrender the island, so war again broke
out between Britain and France. An important consequence of this war was
Napoleon's abandonment, because of the need to concentrate his resources in
Europe, of his plan to establish a great French colonial empire in the region
known as Louisiana in North America. Instead, he sold Louisiana to the United
States. In 1805 Britain was joined in its new war by Austria, Russia, and
Sweden, and Spain allied itself to France. The ensuing war is known as the War
of the Third Coalition.
IV | THIRD COALITION |
Napoleon quickly moved against the new
alliance. Since 1798 he had exerted pressure on Britain by keeping an army
concentrated at Boulogne on the English Channel, ostensibly preparing to invade
England. During the dissensions leading to the outbreak of war in 1803, Napoleon
had greatly increased the French forces at Boulogne. After the formation of the
Third Coalition against France, he moved his troops from Boulogne to meet the
Austrians, who, under Ferdinand III, grand duke of Tuscany (Toscana), and
General Karl Mack von Leiberich, had invaded Bavaria. A number of German states,
including Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden, allied themselves with France.
Napoleon defeated the Austrians at Ulm, taking 23,000 prisoners, and then
marched his troops along the Danube River and captured Vienna. Russian armies
under General Mikhail Ilarionovich Kutuzov and Alexander I, emperor of Russia,
reinforced the Austrians, but Napoleon crushed the combined Austro-Russian
forces in the Battle of Austerlitz, sometimes known as the Battle of the Three
Emperors. Austria again capitulated, signing the Treaty of Pressburg on December
26, 1805. Among the terms of this treaty was the concession by Austria to France
of territory in northern Italy and to Bavaria of territory in Austria itself; in
addition, Austria recognized the duchies of Württemberg and Baden as
kingdoms.
V | CONFEDERATION OF THE RHINE |
In Italy, where French forces under Masséna had
defeated the Austrians under Charles Louis John, Napoleon made his elder
brother, Joseph Bonaparte, king of Naples in 1806. Elsewhere in Europe, he made
his third brother, Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland (the former Batavian
Republic); and on July 12 he established the Confederation of the Rhine, which
eventually consisted of all the states of Germany except Austria, Prussia,
Brunswick, and Hessen. The formation of the Confederation put an end to the Holy
Roman Empire and brought most of Germany under Napoleon's control. His
continental successes, however, were largely offset by the victory on October
21, 1805, off Cape Trafalgar, of the British under Admiral Horatio Nelson over
the combined fleets of France and Spain. This victory gave Britain mastery of
the sea throughout the remainder of the Napoleonic era. In 1806 economic warfare
between Britain and France was initiated. Napoleon formulated his so-called
Continental System, issuing decrees, in 1806 and later, forbidding British trade
with all European nations. Britain retaliated with the Orders of Council, which
in effect prohibited neutrals from trading between the ports of any nations
obeying Napoleon's decrees. British mastery of the sea made it difficult for
Napoleon to enforce the Continental System and resulted eventually in the
failure of his economic policy for Europe.
VI | FOURTH COALITION |
Before the effect of British sea power could
be manifest, however, Napoleon increased his power over the Continent. In 1806
Prussia, aroused by Napoleon's growing strength in Germany, joined in a Fourth
Coalition with Britain, Russia, and Sweden. Napoleon badly defeated the
Prussians in the Battle of Jena on October 14, 1806, and captured Berlin. He
then defeated the Russians in the Battle of Friedland and forced Alexander I to
make peace. By the principal terms of the Treaty of Tilsit, Russia gave up its
Polish possessions and became an ally of France, and Prussia was reduced to the
status of a third-rate power, deprived of almost half its territory and crippled
by heavy indemnity payments and severe restrictions on the size of its standing
army. Through military action against Sweden on the part of Russia and Denmark,
Gustav IV Adolph of Sweden was forced to abdicate in favor of his uncle, Charles
XIII, on the condition that the latter name as his heir General Jean Baptiste
Jules Bernadotte, one of Napoleon's marshals. Bernadotte became king in 1818, as
Charles XIV John, founding the present royal line.
VII | ANTI-NAPOLEONIC NATIONALISM |
In 1808 Napoleon was master of all Europe
except Russia and Britain, but from this time on his power began to decline. The
chief reasons for this decline were the rise of a nationalistic spirit in the
various defeated nations of Europe and the persistent opposition of Britain,
which, safe from invasion because of its superior navy, never ceased to organize
and subsidize new coalitions against Napoleon.
In Spain, Napoleon first encountered the
nationalistic spirit that led to his downfall. In 1808, after dethroning King
Charles IV of Spain, Napoleon made his brother Joseph Bonaparte king of the
country. The Spanish revolted and drove Joseph out of Madrid. A violent struggle
known as the Peninsular War (1808-1814) then took place between the French,
intent on restoring Joseph as king, and the Spaniards, aided by British forces
under Arthur Wellesley, 1st duke of Wellington. The French were eventually
defeated, suffering losses in manpower that severely handicapped Napoleon when
he was later forced to meet new enemies in the east and north of Europe. The
first of these new enemies was Austria, which, inflamed by patriotic feeling,
entered the Fifth Coalition, with Britain, in 1809. Napoleon defeated the
Austrians at Wagram (July 1809), and inflicted on them the Treaty of Schönbrunn,
by which Austria lost Salzburg, part of Galicia, and a large part of its
southern European territory. He also divorced his first wife and married Marie
Louise, the daughter of Francis II, of Austria in the vain hope of keeping
Austria out of further coalitions against him.
VIII | DEFEAT OF NAPOLEON |
The turning point of Napoleon's career came
in 1812, when war again broke out between France and Russia because of
Alexander's refusal to enforce the Continental System. With one large army
already tied down by the “Spanish ulcer,” Napoleon invaded Russia with an army
of 500,000. He defeated the Russians at Borodino and took Moscow on September
14, 1812. The Russians burned the city, making it impossible for Napoleon's
troops to establish winter quarters there. The French retreated across Russia
into Germany, suffering the loss of most of their men through cold, starvation,
and Russian guerrilla attacks. Russia then joined the Fifth Coalition, which
also included Prussia, Britain, and Sweden. In 1813, in a burst of patriotic
fervor caused by the political and economic reforms that had taken place since
its defeat at Jena, Prussia opened the War of Liberation against Napoleon. He
defeated the Prussians at Lützen and Bautzen and achieved his last important
victory at the Battle of Dresden, where on August 27, 1813, a French force of
about 100,000 defeated a combined Austrian, Prussian, and Russian force of about
150,000. The following October, however, Napoleon was forced by the Battle of
Leipzig to retreat across the Rhine, thus freeing Germany. The following year
the Russians, Austrians, and Prussians invaded France from the north. In March
1814 they took Paris, whereupon Napoleon abdicated and was sent into exile on
the island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea.
The members of the Fifth Coalition
assembled at the Congress of Vienna to restore in Europe the monarchies Napoleon
had overthrown. During their deliberations Napoleon escaped from Elba to France,
quickly raised an army, and marched into Belgium to meet the forces of Britain,
Prussia, Russia, and Austria. He defeated his enemies at Ligny, but was defeated
by them at Quatre-Bras. Napoleon met final defeat on June 18, 1815, at the
Battle of Waterloo, which marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars.
IX | CONCLUSION |
Initially the Napoleonic Wars perpetuated the
ideological conflict between revolutionary France and monarchical Europe. At
some point, however, the elusive ambitions of Napoleon himself became their
principal and consistent cause. The wars, moreover, bore Napoleon's personal
stamp because he personally determined strategy and commanded the French armies.
His ever-broadening diplomatic ambitions were matched by his military strategy,
a bold style of taking calculated risks. This style in turn reflected the
strength of the French army; its tactics, organization, equipment, and morale
had all improved during the French Revolution, and it was led by talented field
generals who had risen from the ranks. Napoleon's genius as a commander was his
ability to move rapidly, thus gaining an important element of surprise over his
opponents. His major failings were matters of attitude rather than technique. In
general he underestimated his enemies, perhaps because of his early one-sided
victories. In Spain and Russia he was further hampered by his insensitivity to
national spirit and by his belief that seizure of a capital city such as Madrid
or Moscow would lead his opponent to capitulate. Most important in its impact on
the nature and frequency of these wars was Napoleon's utter disregard for the
cost of his campaigns in bloodshed and lives.
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