Napoleon Bonaparte Was Not a Warmongering Conquerer

Merci for responding. "France emerged victorious from the War of the Fifth Coalition and impressed an incredibly harsh treaty upon Austria and Russia (Treaty of Schï¿½nbrunn and to Austria specifically the Treaty of Pressburg), ceding great portions of land to Napoleon and those whom were subversive to him." Wait a minute. The Treaty of Schï¿½nbrunn was signed between Austria and France at the end of the Fifth Coalition, not Russia and France, as you may be implying! The The Peace of Pressburg was signed on December 26, 1805 between France and Austria at the aftermath of Austerlitz, after the Third Coalition. I believe you got the treaties mixed up. Let us review the conditions of the Treaty of Schï¿½nbrunn: Austria was to cede Tyrol and Salzburg to the Kingdom of Bavaria, West Galicia to the Duchy of Warsaw, Tarnopol to Russia, and Trieste and Croatia south of the Sava River to France, creating the Illyrian provinces. The terms were necessarily harsh because Austria had declared war first! In order to remove the threat entirely he should have completely dismantled the Austrian Empire! And why would Napoleon give anything to Russia? Because he did not wish another war. He saw a Franco-Russian alliance vital to the security of Europe and would give him a free hand in dealing with Britain. "...caused Russia a great deal of worry. Napoleon now possessed an ideal launching point to invade Russia." Why, exactly, would this have caused "Russia" a great deal of worry? Tsar Alexander, despite the immense pressure of his Francophobe court and French emigres, and his very influential mother, still clung to the hope that he could maintain his friendship with Napoleon, established at the Treaty of Tilsit. Was Napoleon harsh there? To the Russians, no. Alexander was very surprised at Napoleon's conditions. Napoleon asked neither for money nor territory: indeed he had no objection to him annexing Finland. Prussia, the instigator of the war, received the harsh repercussions: the creation of the Duchy of Warsaw. Normally Napoleon was to make a bigger Duchy out of the Russian parts of Poland, but he chose not to do for the sole reason of trying to create an alliance with Russia and make peace. He was counting on his friendship with Alexander to give Europe a long period of peace. "Of course, Russia would feel threatened, so it took diplomatic measures to dissuade Napoleon from further action - it expressed its dissatisfaction, withdrew from the Continental Plan and developed a militaristic strategy, but it did not obviously declare war." Let me elaborate on the statement of "Russia would feel threatened". In 1811, after the Russian court refused a marriage with Napoleon (which would have cemented the alliance), and after the admittance of a large convoy (which I will discuss later), they viewed with alarm the introduction of the Civil Code to the Duchy of Warsaw. There, on the very threshold of Holy Russia, Jews were given political rights and serfs their freedom. If these egalitarian principles spread, their own serfs, the millions of ill-fed peasants tired in perpetuity to the soil, who changed hands, a thousand at a time, would soon be demanding freedom and land. The nobles urged Alexander to check these "hostile" principles by re-establishing Poland, with himself as King. At first Alexander resisted the idea. He still wanted a friendship with Napoleon, despite the fact he had admitted the British-protected convoy into his waters. But the nobles charged him with being pro-French and a traitor. As Nicolas Tolstoy put it: "Sire, if you don't change your principles, you will end like your father...strangled!" Thus Alexander gave in. He made overtures for a treaty to Britain and planned an attack on Warsaw. Napoleon countered by sending in French forces lead by Davout. Alexander then demanded Napoleon to give him a large chunk of the Duchy of Warsaw, with half a million subjects. Napoleon had already given him part of the Austrian province of Galicia in 1809, a generous reward for negligible help from Russia against Austria, and was furious at this new demand. As for the Continental Blockade, there was indeed another reason why the invasion of Russia happened. Napoleon was conscious of the negative effects of the blockade. He closed his eyes to certain discrepancies in the contract. He knew that the Russian economy, like that of all his allies, suffered by certain aspect by the commercial restrictions imposed. It was for this reason that he tried to alleviate matters. He was prepared to go farther, provided that the matter was carefully discussed. But the scheming aristocracy of Russia saw in the difficulties caused by the blockade the ideal pretext to break with France, which also threatened their antiquated social privileges, in particular serfdom, leading us back to the Napoleonic Code being introduced to the Duchy of Warsaw. In the fall of 1810, an enormous convoy of 1,200 ships, flying the Swedish, Portuguese, Spanish, or American flags had sailed in the North Sea under the escort f 20 British warships. Filled with British products, they had been denied port calls by all of France's allies, in conformance with their promises. Those these ships were now bound for Russian waters. On 23 October 1810 Napoleon asked the tsar not to admit these vessels: "If Your Majesty admits them, the war will continue. If you deny them and confiscate their cargoes, you will have struck a major blow against England. Your Majesty can thus determine whether we will have peace or continued war." Alexander not only admitted that convoy but effective 31 December 1810, he opened his ports to all neutrals and doubled his defiance by strongly taxing French goods. All illusions were gone. By breaking the blockade and violating the principal clause of his treaty of alliance with France, the tsar has openly tilted towards the British camp. Thus began an 11-month preparation period of conflict for both sides. "Did Napoleon ever declare war, first? Did he Precipitate the war/s? If he didn't, why was the rest of Europe conquered by him or manipulated by him? And then why was England so fearful of his power as to wage war for sixteen years if we was a peaceful man?" These are the questions that I will attempt to answer in the next round. I will also bring up the Invasion of Spain, which necessitates a long discussion to a complicated conflict.