Regardless of the questions of whether the liberties given to the French people were provided by a despot, Napoleon considered himself to be an extension of the revolution, and intended to take it abroad through advantageously taking rapid military action with support from military conscription and a cohesive command system. Napoleon planned to invade England for several months after the renewal of war. Meanwhile, the British raised a Third Coalition against the French, consisting of Austria, Russia, Sweden and later Prussia. As Napoleon advanced into the German states, the Peace of Lunéville, signed on 9 February 1801, effectively ended the Holy Roman Empire, and resulted in Austria ceding significant territories, including all land west of the Rhine River, to France and led to the absorption of many smaller states into larger principalities and extinguished the existence of the former ecclesiastical states during the next two years. Napoleon then diverted his armies to face the Third Coalition, with the support of sixteen princes of the Rhenish Confederation who joined France in an agreement settled on 17 July 1805.
The French were able to defeat all of the nations of Europe in a series of victories at Austerlitz on 2 December 1805 against a combined Austrian-Russian army that led to Napoleon dictating a peace treaty with Austria, and effectively further led to the ongoing disintegration of the Holy Roman Empire, while the balance of power veered radically in Napoleon’s favour. The subsequent Peace of Pressburg on 26 December 1805 between the French emperor, Napoleon Bonaparte, and the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, which mandated substantial territorial concessions by the Austrian Empire. The French gains of the previous treaties of Campo Formio and Lunéville were reiterated, while recent Austrian acquisitions in Italy were ceded to France, and southern Germany to Bavaria. The scattered Austrian holdings in Swabia were passed to French allies – the King of Württemberg, and the Elector of Baden – while Bavaria received Tyrol and Vorarlberg. Austrian claims on those German states were renounced altogether. Venetia, Istria, and Dalmatia were incorporated into the Kingdom of Italy, of which Napoleon had become king earlier that year. The Principality of Lucca and Piombino was recognised as independent from the Holy Empire. Augsburg, previously an independent Free Imperial City, was ceded to Bavaria. As a minor compensation, the Austrian Empire annexed the Electorate of Salzburg, which had been under Habsburg rule since 1803. The elector, the Austrian Emperor’s brother, was compensated with the Grand Duchy of Würzburg.
Although Napoleon controlled the European continent, the British controlled the seas around it and maintained their naval blockade over the Napoleonic empire, which was reinforced when the British fleet led by Horatio Nelson destroyed the combined French and Spanish naval fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, establishing the permanent dominance of the British navy and effectively preventing a French invasion by rendering the French navy powerless. This crucial naval victory in history gave Britain absolute command of the seas, which left Napoleon without any other alternative than to continue waging a land war on the continent. Napoleon retaliated against Britain by imposing an economic blockade called the Continental System in the Berlin Decrees of 21 October, outlawing all commercial trade between Britain goods to Europe, in the hope of weakening the British economy, hoping to bring the “nation of shopkeepers” to terms by ruining British trade. This represented and extension of the economic war that France had waged against Britain, while also imposing control over the European economy to exploit its resources to supply the requirements of further French war efforts.
Napoleon also used his power to reorganise the state system central Europe in following the principle of divide and rule among the princes of Germany. This also contributed to ensuring administrative viability by eliminating the smaller states and incorporating them with larger ones, and reorganizing internal political life within those states on the Napoleonic model, including instituting bureaucratic centralisation, an active policing system, having complete control over financial life, and uniformity in organization and administration. This was characterised by reorganising the German states that had fractured the Holy Roman Empire into various independent divisions led by many independent rulers administering their territories outside of a formerly central authority.
The borders of France were enlarged, and satellite states were established outside its borders. The most lasting territorial changes were made in the German states, as Bonaparte recognised the value of having a power therein for permanent support, as well as following the earlier French policy of Richelieu, Mazarin and Louis XIV during contemporary circumstances that were planned for during negotiations for the separate phases of the Treaty of Lunéville during 1801 and 1802 between France and the Hapsburg empire. The German states would not be allowed to unite to gather sufficient strength to resist other states to defend their common interests from foreign influence, and fostering estrangement between Austria and Prussia. Self-serving German princes supported the creation of a new German Confederation with prejudice to their personal sovereign interests at the expense of the more minor German states, and thereby separated themselves from the empire on 12 June 1806 by recognising the French emperor as their protector who they would aid in war with a force of 63,000 troops. Napoleon thereby ended the earlier façade of what had been the Holy Roman Empire as a confederation of states that had been divided by decentralisation, religious conflict, internal and external disputes led to rapidly ceasing to exist, and leading to a reorganisation of the administration of the German states under French control.
Francis II formally abdicated as the last Holy Roman Emperor on 6 August 1806, and assumed the new title Francis I, emperor of Austria. With the cooperation of some of the larger German states, Napoleon suppressed several hundred of the small principalities, free cities and ecclesiastical states into which Germany had been divided into centuries. He also united the German states adjacent to France into a Confederation of the Rhine of sixteen states on 21 July 1806 that were compelled to separate themselves from the Holy Roman Empire and declared themselves to be subjects of Napoleon under his protection and independent of the Holy Roman Empire in a so-called military and political Eheinbund as a united collection of French satellite states. They maintained full sovereignty and independence in domestic affairs, while a Diet in Frankfurt-am-Main was to regulate their foreign affairs and settle problems among themselves, and discuss matters of common interest, but were also committed to take part in every war that France chose to engage in by supplying contingents for this purpose. Prussia and Austria were excluded, with twenty-three other minor German states later becoming members, which enabled Napoleon to establish firm control over them, in terms of giving him command over their foreign policies, their military forces, and exploiting their economic resources.
Vacillating military campaigns waged by Prussia under Frederick William III against France led to the decimation of the officer corps that had not been dedicated to serving the state, while the survivors required improved training, which exposed the weaknesses of the Prussian military that required greater reorganisation. Decisive defeats inflicted at Jena and Auerstedt against Prussia destroyed its armies on 14 October 1806 subjugated the kingdom of Prussia to the French empire, as the Prussian military could not defend against French rapid military manoeuverability and attacking in depth, and also exposed how ineffective Prussia’s military had become. Napoleon inflicted a series of defeats over demoralised remaining Prussian garrisons thereafter, and entered Berlin on 24 October, with hostilities formally ending on 27 October 1806.
The terms of the treaties of Tilsit between France, Russia and Prussia on 7-9 July 1807 later separated territory west of the Elbe River and all of its Polish possessions from Prussia, resulting in creating a new kingdom of Westphalia in northern Germany, and Poland was formed into a Grand Duchy of Warsaw under the control of the king of Saxony. Friedrich William III, the king of Prussia who fled to seek refuge in Russia in the court of Alexander I was forced to cede nearly half of his territories, which included incorporating the western districts of Prussia with the new French kingdom of Westphalia. The eastern territories of Poland that Prussia had received in the second and third partitions in 1793 and 1795 became re-established as the grand duchy of Warsaw, which was granted to the jurisdiction of the king of Saxony. The Prussian monarchy was given to understand that he owed the preservation of the remainder to the friendly intercession of Russia, since the tsar was anxious to create a buffer state between France and Russia.
The king of Sweden, Gustavus IV, had engaged in the war as an ally of Prussia prior to its subjugation, and was forced to relinquish the defence of Pomerania and withdraw Swedish troops in the face the superior power of the French. The Danish monarchy sought to augment its naval power to maintain its neutrality, which, aroused suspicion from Britain due its assent to the treaty of Tilsit, which would place the Danish fleet at the disposal of France. The Danish monarchy rebuffed the British request to moor Danish warships in British ports for the duration of the hostilities against France, which led to Britain sending naval and land forces to Denmark, ostensibly to defend Denmark against France. Copenhagen was besieged from 17 August 1807, and its fleet was surrendered to the British on 3 September to allay the destruction of the city.
Further control was exercised through applying pressure on Britain by imposing the Continental System to induce peace terms through stifling its trade with continental states. Imposing economic limitations inevitably led to sacrificing the interests and welfare of the populations in the occupied states, while considerable French influences were exercised in all of the occupied territories. Arbitrary territorial alterations offended the former aristocratic rulers, and further antagonism resulted from financial exploitation of the occupied territories, and imposing interference with trade and industry, in addition to drawing conscripts composing state contingents for ongoing warfare, which became further aggravated by sustaining offensives against Spain and Russia that bred resentment against French rule that outweighed the benefits of having obliterated the former feudal regimes that were characterised by inequalities with prejudice to local rulers maintaining social and economic privileges.
Imposing remodelling state institutions also had positive effects. Napoleon imposed the Napoleonic Code introducing judicial administration in the conquered satellite states, which provided legal equality, religious toleration and economic freedom. Reforms of government and society were carried through on the French model, roads and other public works were built, and a familiarity with the leading ideas of the French revolution was acquired by many segments of the population. Civil servants were organised in separate state administrations, careers were opened to talent, and taxes were equalised. Serfdom and compulsory labour services were abolished, as were other feudal privileges, and secular education was promoted. These reforms opened the way to greater social and economic development that displaced earlier oppressive absolutism and introduced efficient administration. Introducing personal freedoms and practical equality before the law were greatly welcomed, and commerce was freed from the earlier barriers and restrictions that had impeded development allowing for normal development of economic resources
Although the reforms were supported by the conquered peoples, the French empire nevertheless faced opposition. European statesmen in the east were impelled to imitate many things that the French had done in order to make themselves strong to resist further French aggression. Prussia and Austria began an extensive reorganisation of their governments and military establishments, such as supplementing long service professional troops with conscript armies like the French, which was designed to strengthen the state in readiness for the earliest opportunity to fight back. Meanwhile, Great Britain remained supreme on the sea, and fomented discontent.
Napoleon was at the peak of his power by 1807, and could concentrate on consolidation of his conquests and mobilisation of his full resources against Britain. These composed of two elements: the Continental System, which barred all countries under French control to trade with England forming an economic blockade. The Berlin Decree of November 1806 declared that the European coastline was closed to British trade. In October-November 1807, the Decrees of Fontainebleu and Milan that threatened to confiscate cargo and vessels of neutral countries that paid a duty to Britain to trade with the continent, while Britain exported up to 42 percent of its total exports to Europe in 1807.
The peace of Tilsit in 1807 enabled Napoleon to establish France as the strongest military power in Europe, and the next objective was to destroy the naval power of England that he could not attack by sea. Napoleon thus attempted to strike Britain through Spain, where the French military did not succeed in the traditional sense. Another consequence of maintaining the occupation was the new sense of nationalism that weakened Napoleon’s position there. Napoleon persuaded the Spanish king to abdicate in 1808, and turn over this throne to one of Napoleon’s brothers. This stirred the Spanish people to revolt, and a long and bitter guerrilla war, the Peninsular War of 1808-1814, ensued, when Napoleon was unable to strike at the British at sea, and the French forces were unable to succeed there through the usual conventional means. An expedition was sent from Britain to aid in the expulsion of the French from the peninsula with a landing in Portugal on 8 August 1808. After having obtained initial successes that expelled the French from Portugal and pursued them into Spain, the British lost these gains. The news of the successes obtained by the insurgents in Spain, and the British in Portugal, convinced Napoleon that his presence was necessary, and led an army that was quartered in Prussia to be dispatched to Spain, as well requiring seeking the goodwill of Russia to preclude resistance in the German states, and immediately commenced a series of operations, against which the unskillful Spaniards were unable to resist, since the generals of the patriots could never be induced to act in concert, and were consequently overpowered. The English had advanced to their assistance, before being forced to retreat toward Corunna. The greater part of Spain was thus again subjected to its new king, Joseph, who was in fact merely his brother’s deputy. The British and small bands of Spanish guerilla fighters were able to keep a running battle against the French occupation troops until Napoleon’s final downfall.
Opposition was also organised in Prussia in reaction to the French occupation that induced preparing taking action for resistance at a national level. Reforms from above were administered during this time in Prussia between 1807 and 1813 that would contribute to being in a position to challenge French rule. Baron Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein sought to reorganise Prussia by nullifying the earlier corporative privileges of the nobility by adapting the achievements of the French revolution in Prussia to reform the civil service, and thus eliminate inefficiency. Karl August Fürst von Hardenberg, the Chief Minister of Prussia, pressed for legal and economic reforms. Gerhard Johann David von Scharnhorst, the Chief of the Prussian General Staff dismantled the earlier military rituals, and replaced them with rejuvenated training and initiatives, and created a national reserve composing a nationalised body of citizen soldiers outside the standing army, led by a newly created general staff to plan, study and coordinate future strategic movements. Inefficient and incompetent officers who had been responsible for the surrenders of 1806 were dismissed, and commissioned ranks were opened to non-nobles, and national defence was to be introduced as the primary duty, as well as a privilege, of every citizen, which would create a national militia that would compose a political union among them. Although Napoleon fixed the strength of the Prussian army at 42,000, and forbade the organisation of a militia, Scharnhorst as the head of a Military Reorganisation Commission circumvented these impositions through a Cabinet Order issued on 6 August 1808 by passing as many trained troops as possible through the ranks, allowing them to serve temporarily to provide them with adequate military training, before dispatching them to furlough, thus allowing for new streams of recruits to build a reserve of trained troops who remained subject to drilling in secret.
State reforms were introduced to encourage the development of a liberalised state with civil and social reorganisation of Prussia. Censorship was temporarily mitigated, and finances were restored along with an improved distribution of taxes, and alleviating the burdens of the poor. Serfdom was abolished, beginning with the promulgation of the Emancipation Edict of 9 October 1807 to open the way for free trade in land, and abolish the earlier caste system to set up a state consisting of citizens that could identify with the state, and begin opening careers in different occupations to talent, rather than class privilege. Both the peasantry and town dwellers were granted the right to acquire and own land, and the nobility was granted the right to engage in commerce and industry, without losing their status. Towns received self-government with the expectation to take responsibility for managing municipal affairs through elected councillors. Many of the liberal principles of the French revolution were written into law to establish a satisfactory code of jurisprudence. There were improvements in nearly all fields of state enterprise, including improving the educational system. Most importantly, a new army was carefully trained, consisting of 200,000 troops who could be called on to serve, and a spirit of German nationalism was cultivated, and instigated a sense of national unity where a central German authority did not exist during the Napoleonic wars. The Austrians also reformed their military and revolted against the French, but were forced to make peace and surrender territory.
Tsar Alexander I began to oppose Napoleon due to his not being willing to give him a free hand to conquer the Ottoman empire, and also discovered that the blockade of British goods through the Continental System gravely damaged the Russian economy, and therefore found how Russian interests and prosperity were damaged by fulfilling Napoleon’s demands. These factors worked to undermine the supremacy that Napoleon had won. Perhaps the most significant weakness to Napoleon’s empire was the rise of nationalism that spread throughout Europe, which was indirectly influenced by the ideas of the French revolution. The belief that each nation should be based on the cultural identity of its people was inspired by a strong and united France as a model. The presence of French troops who lived off the country also helped to stimulate a hatred of the foreign conquerors not only among the ruling classes, but also among the common people. Thus, the resistance to Napoleon gradually transformed itself from an effort of governments to an effort of whose peoples united behind their governments. In such cases, the French revolutionary spirit was countered, and eventually surpassed by the patriotic enthusiasm of the opposition.
Tsar Alexander provided assurances to Napoleon in 1808 that Russia would not intervene in French interests in continental Europe, while expansion plans into Siberia were of greater importance. However, the Russians later refused to be part of the Continental System in 1811, which aggravated the rift between France and Russia that had grown as a result of territorial disagreements over the future of Turkey, Poland and Sweden. Napoleon invaded Russia in June 1812 with the Grand Army numbering 449,128 troops that was far larger than the Russian forces as a form of retaliation, regardless of the agreements between Russia and Napoleonic France that had maintained stability. Napoleon wagered on making what he claimed was a pre-emptive strike against Russia that he envisaged would threaten the French empire, and expected to launch a high speed campaign that would ultimately defeat Russia in a decisive battle. The army crossed the Memel River into Russia on 24 June and continued advancing unimpeded as Russian troops withdrew eastward over wide distances, following the practice of scorched earth to prevent Napoleon’s armies from sustaining themselves from local resources, which resulted in the French fighting strength becoming increasingly eroded without engaging in combat.
Battles were fought and lost by the Russians until they retreated into the heartland of Russia, in the interest of using the enormous distances of the empire in their defence as their decisive advantage. Recognising that Napoleon would need supplies for his army to continue, they intentionally retreated eastward and laid waste to their local resources they did to destroy the invading forces, rather than attempting to inflict a defeat in the early stages of the campaign, and only opposed progress to ensure defeat while minimising their own losses. Russian forces initially withdrew from the Niemen to the Dwina river, abandoning Poland and continuing retreating eastward, until eventually taking a stand at Smolensk on 7 August, while Napoleon’s lines of communication became dangerously extended. When the Russians were defeated at this entrenched defensive position on 16-17 August, Napoleon’s forces were diminished to only 160,000 remaining troops advancing toward Moscow, while they were also deprived of exploiting local resources as a result of the destruction of Smolensk and then Viasma as they advanced toward Moscow. The Russians finally engaged Napoleon again outside Moscow in the Battle of Borodino on 7 September 1812, before abandoning Moscow. By the time Napoleon reached Moscow with an estimated 130,000 troops on 14 September 1812, it was empty of goods and valuables, and the Russians set fires on the following day that destroyed four-fifths of the city within a week, leaving the French armies without provisions or shelter from the unprecedently harsh Russian winter. Napoleon’s attempts to negotiate peace terms with the Russians were repeatedly rebuffed in the face of being removed from resupplies, leaving his troops to be threatened by famine and disease. A retreat, beginning on 22 October, became imperative, and was harassed by counterattacking Russians from the south, was further greatly aggravated by the onset of winter on 6 November, and then the disastrous crossing of the frozen Beresina river. The retreating French, who were already starved and emaciated due to Napoleon’s errors in arranging provisions and supplies, were attacked in the flanks and rear by Russian cavalry, and were practically annihilated. Estimated casualties of this campaign amounted to approximately 125,000 killed in in battle, 132,000 who died of fatigue, famine, and cold, and 193,000 taken prisoner. Only 30,000 troops were able to return to Poland and Prussia.
As Napoleon’s gathered a new army, a new Sixth Coalition of the nations of Europe including Russia, Sweden, Austria and Prussia turned against France in 1813 to take advantage of its greatly weakened power, while British forces launched a successful campaign against the French occupation of Spain. After many battles, culminating in the Battle of Nations on 16 to 19 October 1813 near Leipzig. Napoleon’s former ally Saxony turned against him, and the confederation of the Rhine disintegrated, with Hanover, Brunswick, and Hesse returned under the authority of their hereditary rulers, and Holland revolted against French rule. Napoleon’s fronts were collapsing by the end of 1813, when Wellington combined British, Spanish and Portuguese army entered southwestern France, while Prussian, Russian and Austrian troops broke through into eastern France. Napoleon was driven back inside France from the east, and British forces invaded France from the south. Further resistance by Napoleon during 1814 became increasingly meaningless, as France did not have anything to gain from a military viewpoint in the face of overwhelming coalition forces. Nevertheless, Napoleon still refused to surrender largely due to personal pride and sheer obstinacy, with the underlying hope of driving a wedge between Austria and Prussia, and expecting that a monarchy could yet be restored in France by the reactionary elements in the coalition, which would allow him to remain power.
Representatives of the allied sovereigns appeared at the advance posts of Mortier and Marmont with a proclamation to the inhabitants of Paris, informing them that their only object was establishing an authority in France that was to “join in cementing the unions of all nations and governments,” and that Parisians would choose the nature of a new government that they could support. This proposal was rejected, with French forces losing a battle outside Paris that made it subject to bombardment, which culminated with the capitulation of Paris on 31 March 1814. The allies entered the city and issued three proclamations: 1. making peace with Napoleon, under all possible security considerations; 2. establishing a regency for France; 3. recalling the Bourbon dynasty under Louis XVIII. The French senate was assembled on 1 April to establish a provisional government was assembled to prepare a new constitution under the guise of the coalition allies. A provisional legislative assembly declared the throne forfeited by Napoleon, and the French military and nation released from their oath of fidelity to him.
Napoleon agreed to abdicate on 6 April, and then an unconditional surrender in the Treaty of Fontainebleau on 11 April 1814 to the representatives of Austria, Russia and Prussia by the plenipotentiaries, which Napoleon ratified on 13 April, after even the French marshals supporting him refused to obey his orders to relieve the capital. The allies thus ended Napoleon’s rule as emperor of the French and sent him into exile to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean Sea off the Italian coast, where he would have sovereignty over for life with an annual income of two million francs, and administered by four hundred volunteers. Polish troops were allowed to return to their homeland with their pensions, titles and decorations. All of the members of the imperial family were to retain their titles for life with ample pensions. Napoleon left France on 20 April, and arrived on Elba on 3 May.
. The victorious coalition restored the Bourbon monarchy, and Louis XVIII, the brother of Louis XVI, returned to France on 24 April and was appointed to become the French monarch on 3 May. A convention signed at St. Cloud on 4 July placed Paris under allied occupation, and Louis XVIII re-entered Paris on 8 July, while the city was governed by a local provisional government. Any further resistance from French troops opposing the allies eventually ended in Alsace on 24 July.
The coalition powers signed a convention that stipulated their armies would be withdrawn from France in fourteen days, and their fleets would remain in their present stations, while blockades were to be raised. All prisoners—of-war were to be released. Louis XVIII signed a definitive peace treaty between France and the allied coalition on 30 May. One of the first developments at this congress was appointing Louis XVIII as the king of France, with whom the coalition allies concluded peace on 30 May, and restoring the January 1791 borders of France, with some minor territorial additions, along with restoring colonies that were seized by England from 1792, apart from Tobago, St. Lucia, Mauritius and its dependencies. The port of St. Domingo was reverted to Spain. Guadeloupe was restored to France. Thirty-nine independent German states were united into a confederation on 15 June. Which was essentially a revamped Confederation of Rhine that Napoleon had created, in addition to Prussia and with Austria maintaining its permanent presidency over a federal parliament in Frankfurt-am-Main. This representative body would provide legislation for the member states, with two chambers – a permanent assembly in Frankfurt-am-Main consisting of seventeen members, and a general assembly of sixty-nine members to be summoned intermittently for certain matters of discussion, with each of the member states managing its own domestic affairs, with the recommendation that each should promulgate separate constitutions, while maintaining its form as a loose alliance of independent states.
The Swiss republic was to be restored, and Austria was to have its earlier territories outside the reconstituted Italian states restored. Malta and its dependencies were to remain as possessions of England. Holland would be subject to the House of Orange. The first preparatory steps were taken toward readjusting the boundaries of Europe in mid-September, when a diplomatic congress was assembled at Vienna to settle the future of Europe. This Congress of Vienna opened on 1 October 1814 to restore order to Europe following the Napoleonic wars, prior to the congress formally opening on 1 November, and representing the interests of the former aristocratic rulers without conceding to the interests of regional population, and concluded with the Second Treaty of Paris on 20 November that imposed peace terms on France, while conservative reaction was hereafter established throughout the restored European states where absolutist rule was restored.
Napoleon later left Elba with nine hundred troops on six small vessels on 26 February 1815, and slipped back in France on 6 March. French troops in Grenoble welcomed him as their emperor and joined him on his march to Paris, leading the Congress of Vienna to reassemble on 13 March, when it published a declaration that Napoleon invading France was a violation of this agreement with the coalition powers, had forfeited the protection of the law, and demonstrated that not any truce with him could be maintained, and thus pledged to make a common cause of enforcing observing the treaty of Paris, and maintain peace. Napoleon entered Paris on 20 March 1815, declared himself as the re-established monarch of France. He later created a new legislature on 7 June, which appointed a new provisional government who were stated to the responsible to the nation, and proclaimed him as Napoleon II as the emperor of France.
Faced with combined opposition, Napoleon raised an army to attack the nearest allied forces in Belgium. Although he had a wide degree of support from the French population, he had miscalculated the reaction of the European powers that united against this renewed danger. French troops who chose to remain loyal to Napoleon engaged a combined force of British and Prussians under the Duke of Wellington at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Napoleon was defeated in this battle, which was effectively meaningless in view of the high numbers of Austrian and Russian troops remained crossing over the Rhine River. He then abdicated four days later in this conclusively decisive and unconditional defeat, from which Napoleon could never recover power. This time, the European nations sent Napoleon into exile to the island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean on 5 August, where he lived from his arrival there on 18 October 1815 until he died from cyanide poisoning on 5 May 1821.
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