Napoleonic Era (1)

8/2/2019 Napoleonic Era (1)

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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 On 9 November18 Brumaire by the French Republican

CalendarBonaparte was charged with the safety of thelegislative councils,

A rumour of a Jacobin rebellion was spread by the plotters. Bonaparte led troops to seize control and disperse them,

which left a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sieys,and Ducos as provisional Consuls to administer thegovernment.

Plotter

Emmanuel-Joseph Sieys, his brother Lucien; the speakerof the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos; anotherDirector, Joseph Fouch; and Talleyrand


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 French Consulate

Sieys was expecting to dominate the new regime, he wasout maneuvered by Bonaparte, who drafted the

Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own electionas First Consul, and he took up residence at the Tuileries.This made Bonaparte the most powerful person in France.

Reforms

Bonaparte instituted lasting reforms, includingcentralized administration of the departments, highereducation, a tax code, road and sewer systems, andestablished the Banque de France (central bank).


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Reforms Concordat of 1801with the Catholic Church. Legion of Honour in May 1802; a substitute for the old royalist

decorations and orders of chivalry, to encourage civilian and

military achievements; Constitution of the Year Xincreased his powers were.First

Consul for Life. After this he was generally referred to as Napoleonrather than Bonaparte.

Napoleon's set of civil laws, the Napoleonic code; prepared

by committees of legal experts under the supervision of JeanJacques Rgis de Cambacrs, the Second Consul. Napoleonparticipated actively in the sessions of the Council of State thatrevised the drafts. The development of the code was a fundamentalchange in the nature of the civil law legal system with its stress onclearly written and accessible law. Other codes were commissioned

by Napoleon to codify criminal and commerce law.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Napoleonic Wars War of the 2nd Coalition Battle of Marengo June 1800 At Hohenlinden general Moreau strikes Austria again. Treaty of

Lunville signed in February 1801; the French gains of the Treaty ofCampo Formio were reaffirmed and increased. By the Law of 20 May 1802 Bonaparte re-established slavery in

France's colonial possessions, where it had been banned followingthe Revolution. Following a slave revolt, he sent an army to reconquerSaint-Domingue and establish a base. The force was destroyed by

yellow fever and fierce resistance led by Haitian generals. Faced by imminent war against Britain and bankruptcy, Napoleon

recognized French possessions on the mainland of North Americawould be indefensible and sold them to the United States.

The Louisiana Purchase ; for less than three cents per acre ($7.40 per

km).


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 French Empire

In January 1804, assassination plot which involved Moreauand sponsored by the Bourbon former rulers of France.

Napoleon used the plot to justify the re-creation of ahereditary monarchy in France, with himself as emperor.

Napoleon crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I on 2December 1804 at Notre Dame de Paris and then crowned

Josphine Empress.At Milan Cathedral on 26 May 1805, Napoleon was

crowned King of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.He created eighteenMarshals of the Empire from amongst

his top generals, to secure the allegiance of the army.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815War of the Third Coalition By 1805, Britain had convinced Austria and Russia to join a Third Coalition

against France. Royal Navy defeated French navy at Battle of CapeFinisterre in July 1805.

Napoleon ordered the army stationed at Boulogne, to march to Germanysecretly in a the Ulm Campaign.

On 20 October 1805, the French captured 30,000 prisoners at Ulm. The next day Britain's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar meant the Royal

Navy gained control of the seas. Six weeks later Napoleon defeated Austria and Russia at Austerlitz. This

ended the Third Coalition, and he commissioned the Arc de Triomphe tocommemorate the victory. Austria had to concede territory; the Peace ofPressburg led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and creation ofthe Confederation of the Rhine with Napoleon named as its Protector.

"The battle of Austerlitz is the finest of all I have fought." Napoleon Frank McLynn suggests Napoleon was so successful at Austerlitz he lost

touch with reality, and what used to be French foreign policy became a"personal Napoleonic one".


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 War of the Fourth Coalition The Fourth Coalition was assembled in 1806, and Napoleon

defeated Prussia at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in October. He marched against advancing Russian armies through Poland

and was involved in the bloody stalemate of the Battle of Eylauon 6 February 1807.

After a decisive victory at Friedland, he signed the Treaties ofTilsit; one with Tsar Alexander I of Russia which divided thecontinent between the two powers; the other with Prussia which

stripped that country of half its territory. Napoleon placedpuppet rulers on the thrones of German states, including hisbrother Jrme as king of the new Kingdom of Westphalia. Inthe French-controlled part of Poland, he established the Duchyof Warsaw with King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony as ruler.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Continental System:

Napoleon attempted to enforce a Europe-wide

commercial boycott of Britain called the ContinentalSystem. This act of economic warfare did not succeed,as it encouraged British merchants to smuggle intocontinental Europe, and Napoleon's exclusively land-

based customs enforcers could not stop them.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Peninsular War Portugal did not comply with the Continental System. in 1807 Napoleon invaded with the support of Spain. Napoleon invaded Spain replaced Charles IV with his brother Joseph.

Following a French retreat Napoleon took command and defeated theSpanish Arm. He retook Madrid, then outmaneuvered a British army

Austria again threatened war, and Napoleon returned to France. In the second Siege of Saragossa most of the city was destroyed and over

50,000 people perished. Napoleon left 300,000 of his finest troops tobattle Spanish guerrillas.

Following several allied victories, French control over the peninsulaagain deteriorated, the war concluded after Napoleon's abdication in1814.

Napoleon later described the Peninsular War as central to his finaldefeat, writing in his memoirs "That unfortunate war destroyed me...

All... my disasters are bound up in that fatal knot."


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 War of the Fifth Coalition

Austria broke its alliance with France April 1809, Napoleon assume command of forces on the Danube and German fronts. French suffered a defeat in May at the Battle of Aspern-Essling near

Vienna. Napoleon regrouped forces and defeated the Austrians again atWagram, and the Treaty of Schnbrunn was signed between Austria andFrance.

Napoleon annexed the Papal States because of the Church's refusal tosupport the Continental System; Pope Pius VII responded byexcommunicating the emperor.

The pope was then abducted and pressurized by Napoleon for anagreement to a new concordat with France, which Pius refused. In 1810 Napoleon married the Austrian Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma,

thirteen cardinals were imprisoned for non-attendance at the marriageceremony.

The pope remained confined for 5 years and did not return to Rome until

May 1814.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Russian Expedition The Congress of Erfurt sought to preserve the Russo-French alliance,

and the leaders had a friendly personal relationship after their firstmeeting at Tilsit in 1807.

In 1811, tensions increased and Alexander was under pressure from theRussian nobility to break off the alliance.

Russian's abandonment of the Continental System led Napoleon tothreaten Alexander with serious consequences if he formed an alliance

with Britain. By 1812, advisers to Alexander suggested the possibility of an invasion

of the French Empire and the recapture of Poland. Napoleon expanded his Grand Army to more than 450,000 men. He

ignored repeated advice against an invasion of the Russian heartlandand prepared for an offensive campaign; on 23 June 1812 the invasioncommenced.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Russian Expedition For Polish nationalists and patriots, Napoleon termed the war the

SecondPolish Warthe First Polish War had been the BarConfederation uprising by Polish nobles against Russia in 1768.

Polish patriots wanted the Russian part of Poland to be joined with theDuchy of Warsaw and an independent Poland created.

The Russians avoided a decisive war and instead retreated deeper intoRussia.

The Russians were defeated in a series of battles, and Napoleon resumedhis advance.

The Russian army's scorched earth tactics, the French found itincreasingly difficult to forage food. The Russians offered battle outside Moscow on 7 September: the Battle

of Borodino resulted in approximately 44,000 Russian and 35,000 Frenchdead, wounded or captured, and may have been the bloodiest day ofbattle in history up to that point in time. Although the French had won,

the Russian army had accepted.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Russian Expedition Napoleon's own account was: "The most terrible of all my battles

was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves to beworthy of victory, but the Russians showed themselves worthy of

being invincible." The Russian army withdrew and retreated past Moscow. Napoleon

entered the city, assuming its fall would end the war andAlexander would negotiate peace. But on orders of the city'sgovernor Moscow was burned. After a month, Napoleon and hisarmy left for France.

The French suffered greatly in the course of a ruinous retreat,including from the harshness of the Russian Winter. The Armyhad begun as over 400,000 frontline troops, but in the end fewerthan 40,000 crossed the Berezina River in November 1812. TheRussians had lost 150,000 in battle and hundreds of thousands of

civilians.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 War of the Sixth Coalition Heartened by France's loss in Russia, Prussia joined with Austria, Sweden,

Russia, Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal in a new coalition. Napoleon assumed command in Germany and inflicted a series of defeats

on the Coalition culminating in the Battle of Dresden in August 1813. Despite these successes, the numbers continued to mount against

Napoleon, and the French army was pinned down by a force twice its sizeand lost at the Battle of Leipzig. This was by far the largest battle of theNapoleonic Wars and cost more than 90,000 casualties in total.

Napoleon withdrew back into France, his army reduced to 70,000 soldiers

and 40,000 stragglers, against more than three times as many Alliedtroops. The French were surrounded: British armies pressed from thesouth, and other Coalition forces positioned to attack from the Germanstates. Napoleon won a series of victories in the Six Days Campaign,though these were not significant enough to turn the tide; Paris wascaptured by the Coalition in March 1814.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 War of the Sixth Coalition Mutiny by the Marshal on 4 April, led by Ney, Napoleon asserted

the army would follow him, and Ney replied the army wouldfollow its generals.

Napoleon abdicate. He did so in favor of his son; The Allies refused to accept this, and Napoleon was forced to

abdicate unconditionally on 11 April. In the Treaty ofFontainebleau, the victors exiled him to Elba, an island of 12,000inhabitants in the Mediterranean, 20 km off the Tuscan coast.

They gave him sovereignty over the island and allowed him toretain his title of emperor. Napoleon survived to be exiled whilehis wife and son took refuge in Austria. In the first few monthson Elba he created a small navy and army, developed the ironmines, and issued decrees on modern agricultural methods.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Hundred Days

Napoleon escaped from Elba on 26 February 1815.

The 5th Regiment was sent to intercept him. On 7th March

1815. Napoleon approached the regiment alone,dismounted his horse and, when he was within gunshotrange, shouted, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish."The soldiers responded with, "Vive L'Empereur!" andmarched with Napoleon to Paris; Louis XVIII fled. On 13

March, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declaredNapoleon an outlaw and four days later Great Britain,Russia, Austria and Prussia bound themselves to each put150,000 men into the field to end his rule.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815 Exile on Saint HelenaNapoleon was imprisoned and then exiled to the island ofSaint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, 2,000 km from anymajor landmass. Napoleon moved to Longwood House in

December 1815. Death

In February 1821, his health began to fail rapidly, and on 5May he died. Napoleon's physician, led the autopsy whichfound the cause of death to be stomach cancer .

In 1840, Louis Philippe I obtained permission from theBritish to return Napoleon's remains to France, on 15December, a state funeral was held.

In 1861, Napoleon's remains were entombed under the domeat Les Invalides.


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NAPOLEONIC ERA

1799-1815An Estimate The expedition to San Domingo reduced the republican

army to a nullity. Constant war helped demoralize and

scatter the military's leaders, who were jealous of their"comrade" Bonaparte.

The last major challenge to Napoleon's authority came fromMoreau, who was compromised in a royalist plot; he too wassent into exile.

In contradistinction to the opposition of senators andrepublican generals, the majority of the French populaceremained uncritical of Bonaparte's authority. No suggestionof the possibility of his death was tolerated.

Napoleonic Era (1)

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