Age of Napoleon Bonaparte

The **Age of** ntire continent. Brilliant generalship brought him great success and an empire encompassing most of Continental Europe. However, after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812 and with all the major powers of Europe allied against him, he was forced to abdicate the throne and was exiled to the island of Elba. He briefly returned to power in his Hundred Days campaign, but was finally and decisively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo. He died at 51 on the remote island of Saint Helena, after one of the most extraordinary lives in history.

## History

### France under Napoleon

In the aftermath of the Coup of 18 Brumaire, the new constitution gave Napoleon Bonaparte the powers and the mandate to play the role of Enlightened Absolute Monarch for which he was well suited both in character and education. He set about a thorough reform of the French administrative systems, while carefully balancing despotism and enlightenment. Censorship of the press was introduced, but so were measures to improve secondary and university education. Police powers were strengthened and judges were now appointed rather than elected, yet judges gained an important new independence. On the divisive issue of religion, he set about mending fences with the Catholic Church; although Napoleon would appoint French bishops and Church lands would not be restored, the state would pay the salaries of the clergy. The most famous and lasting of Napoleon’s reforms was his code of civil law; the **Napoleonic Code** (1804). The Code, with its stress on clearly written and accessible law, covered individual and family rights, property rights, and contract law. The Napoleonic Code, which was inspired by Justinian’s 6th-century codification of Roman law, has been one of the most influential legal works in the world, not just in Europe but in the Middle East and Latin American.

Meanwhile in 1802, with both sides exhausted, the French Revolutionary War (1792-1802) was ended with the Peace of Amiens (1802). Napoleon’s negotiators did well for France; all overseas territories were returned to their original owners including several French islands in the West Indies, Spanish Minorca, Dutch Cape Town, and Ottoman Egypt. The British did keep their hands on Dutch Sri Lanka and Spanish Trinidad; also although Cape Town was returned in 1802, it would be seized again in 1806 during the Napoleonic Wars and this time it would not be returned. Napoleon’s achievement of peace was rewarded with a vote of confidence, making him First Consul for life and it was agreed that he could designate his heir. However, it would prove only a breathing space. Nothing had been resolved in the long rivalry between Britain and France, and each government soon found reason for complaint about the other. France refused to open her markets to free-trade with Britain. Meanwhile, Britain failed to return Malta to her former owner, undoubtedly in violation of the Treaty of Amiens. The Maltese assembly did pass a resolution inviting George III to assume sovereignty, but the wishes of local inhabitants carried little weight in 19th-century international diplomacy. It’s likely that Napoleon’s long-term intentions towards Britain were not peaceful, but it was the British government who declared war on France in May 1803, for no very good reason other than long-term self-interest; the **Napoleonic Wars** (1803–1815).

### Napoleonic Wars

The return of war was followed by renewed royalist plots in France, openly encouraged by the British. In May 1804, the French parliament was persuaded to pass a resolution to draw their sting, which would also allow Napoleon to take the next step upon his personal career ladder; he would become not king of France, but emperor. In a deliberate evocation of both Clovis and Charlemagne, Pope Pius VII conducted the coronation ceremony. In clear reference to the medieval power struggle between the papacy and Holy Roman Emperors, Napoleon preferred take the crown from the altar himself and place it on his own head. He then placed another crown on the head of the empress, his wife Josephine.

For two years, after the resumption of hostilities in Europe, Britain was the only nation at war with France, and Napoleon began planning an invasion across the Channel. He gathered a fleet of nearly two-thousand vessels in ports from Brest to Antwerp. To protect his flotilla, in December 1804 Napoleon persuaded Spain to join him in the war. During 1805, the French and Spanish fleet of warships played a game of maritime cat and mouse with the British squadrons criss-crossing the Atlantic, threatening the British West Indies. However, Admiral Lord Nelson finally tracked them down near Cadiz in southern Spain. The British victory at the **Battle of Trafalgar** (October 1805) spectacularly confirmed their naval supremacy; nineteen French and Spanish ships were destroyed or surrendered with no British losses. Nelson himself was shot and mortally wounded by a French sniper; numerous monuments, including Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square, London, have been created in his memory.

Having scuppered Napoleon’s invasion across the Channel, the British persuaded Austria, Russia, and Sweden to join her in another coalition against the French. However, Napoleon also found allies amongst the numerous German states eager to see the power of Austria reduced. When **Austria** invaded French ally Bavaria, Napoleon and the Grande Armée moved east rapidly along the Danube, and got between the Austrians and her approaching Russian allies. At the Battle of Ulm (October 1805), he surrounded an entire Austrian army and forced fifty-thousand troops to surrender with minimal French losses. After occupying Vienna, the French quickly move on to confront a joint Russian and Austrian army. In what is widely regarded as Napoleon’s greatest victory, at the Battle of Austerlitz (December), despite being outnumbered, the day went decisively to the French. Austria soon agreed a truce, thus bringing peace to Continental Europe. The French also gaining further territory on the Adriatic, including Venice. Between formally annexed territory and vassal allied states, Napoleon now controlled almost the whole of Germany exception for Prussia. He now proceeded to reorder Germany’s feudal patchwork into the Confederation of the Rhine. It was carried through under duress and to France’s advantage; the members continued to regulate their own internal affairs, but acknowledge Napoleon as protector and must place troops at his disposal when required.

Meanwhile, until 1806 **Prussia** had maintained a nervous neutrality during the war, but the Confederation of the Rhine inevitably seemed to threaten her interests. In September, Frederick William III joins Russia against France, with disastrous results. Once again Napoleon moved quickly enough to destroy one of his opponents before the other could arrive in support. Two Prussian armies were confronted on the same day in October 1806, at Jena and thirteen miles away at Auerstadt, and in both battle the French were victorious. Within six weeks, Napoleon over overrun the whole of Prussia and turned his attention on Russia. The two-day Battle of Eylau (February 1807) brought heavy casualties but no advantage to either side. However at Friedland (June), Napoleon won a decisive victory over the Russian army.

The result was an extraordinary meeting in June 1807 between Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I on a raft in the middle of the River Neman near Tilsit (modern day Lithuania); neither would set foot on territory held by the other. France and Russia agreed an alliance, with Russia joining Napoleon’s new **Continental System**, closing her ports to trade with Britain. The Treaty of Tilsit, brought peace again to Continental Europe and Napoleon to the peak of his power. He now governed directly or through his close relations: France, the Netherlands ruled by his brother Louis; northwest Germany under his brother Jérôme; the rest of Germany including Prussia and Warsaw as a client state; most of Italy ruled by his stepson Eugène de Beauharnais and brother-in-law Joachim Murat; Spain an ally in 1807 would eventually come under his brother Joseph; and Switzerland as a client state.

The purpose of Napoleon’s Continental System was to ruin Britain’s economy by preventing her goods from reaching any market in Continental Europe, based on the 18th-century mercantile school of economics that nations thrived primarily through wealth earned abroad. A complete blockade of British exports would be extremely damaging if it could be made watertight. The immediate problem was to ensure that every European nation with a coastline joined his scheme which in a practical sense meant dealing with neutral Portugal and British ally Sweden. In February 1808, Russia invaded Sweden launching the Finnish War (1808-09) which saw the eastern third of Sweden established as the Russian client duchy of Finland. Meanwhile in October 1807, Napoleon agreed with the King Charles IV of Spain the occupation and partition of Portugal. Before the treaty was even signed, a French army had entered Spain on its way to Portugal, where it captured Lisbon virtually unopposed. The Portuguese royal family fled for safety to Brazil; it would be fourteen years before the return to Lisbon. However, the French forces moving through Spain, ostensibly to support their colleagues in Portugal, seemed alarmingly like an army of occupation, taking-up key positions in Barcelona and approaching Madrid; Spain was a reluctant French ally at best. In March 1808, Charles IV tried to follow the Portuguese example and flee to Latin America. But on the way south, an outraged patriotic mob cornered the royal party and forced Charles to abdicate in favour of his son Ferdinand. There followed a typical piece of power politics from Napoleon. Both Ferdinand and his father were invited to Bayonne on the France–Spain border, where they were persuaded through trickery and duress to abdicate the Spanish throne in favour of Napoleon’s brother Joseph. When the news was made public, Madrid immediately erupted in mob violence followed by brutal French reprisals. A spirit of passionate resistance spread rapidly through Spain. Napoleon would come to learn the difficulty of forcing his will in the rugged terrain of the Iberian Peninsula, where his army could not live-off-the-land. While the **Peninsular War** (1808-14) was little more than a sideshow in the Napoleonic Wars, it would tie-up French financial and military resources which Napoleon would dearly have like to use elsewhere; it became known as the Spanish Ulcer. British troops under the Duke of Wellington would join the Spanish in their popular uprising in the only significant involvement of British troops on land until the final campaign of 1815.

With large numbers of French troops in Spain, in April 1809 a resurgent Austria re-entered the war after four years of peace. Three large armies took the field, pressing south into Italy, north-east towards Warsaw, and north-west into Germany. Napoleon quickly hurried back from Spain to meet this new threat. Battles at Abensberg and Eckmühl (April) left the Austrians in retreat, and by May, Napoleon was once again occupying Vienna. However, at the Battle of Aspern-Essling (May) for the first time in over a decade Napoleon was personally defeated by an Austrian army; more accurately neither side gained a clear advantage with heavy losses on both sides, but either way Napoleon’s invincible reputation was damaged. Six weeks later, the same commanders met each other again at the Battle of Wagram (July) to the north-east of Vienna. This time, it ended in a decisive victory for Napoleon and his allies. Austria immediately sued for peace and lost further territory to France and to Russia. It would be small consolation to the Austrian emperor that he was about to acquire a son-in-law. It had become profoundly irksome to Emperor Napoleon that Josephine had still not given birth to a child. If Napoleon was to divorce his wife, it seemed appropriate that his new bride should come from the narrow class of fellow emperors. When Tsar Alexander I refused the hand of his fifteen-year-old sister, Napoleon immediately delivered a virtual ultimatum to the Austrian emperor for his nineteen year daughter. Marie Louise was persuaded to “*do her duty*”, and by March 1811 she had both married him and given him a son.

By 1811, the peace settlement between France and Russia that had carved-up Europe between their spheres of influence was beginning to unravel. The introduction of French republican principles in the neighbouring grand duchy of Warsaw alarms Tsar Alexander I. The Continental System was hurting Russia’s economy, and it had secretly returned to trading with Britain. And by now Napoleon Bonaparte possibly believed in his own invincibility and simply could not tolerate an undefeated ally. With war inevitable, as so often in the past Napoleon took the initiative, launching a massive and rapid invasion of Russia; the French invasion of Russia (1812). Ignoring the repeated advice of his generals, from February 1812, Napoleon called on troops from throughout Napoleonic Europe to converge on the river Neman, the border already famous from the raft at Treaty of Tilsit. The assembled force was vastly impressive: 500,000 infantry, 100,000 cavalry and 80,000 in the baggage trains. Napoleon’s aim was to lure the Russian army into a decisive battle, and force Tsar Alexander I to the negotiation table. However the Russians instead withdrew, drawing the Grande Armée ever deeper into the Russian heartland, where its immense size and the Russian scorched-earth tactics would work against them. The Russians eventually did offer battle only seventy miles from Moscow at the Battle of Borodino (September 1812). The result was a narrow victory for Napoleon with heavy losses and the Russians once again retreated, leaving Moscow open. Napoleon entered the capital assuming its fall would end the war but Alexander had ordered much of it burned rather than capitulate.

Napoleon waited in Moscow for a month, vainly hoping that a Russian envoy would arrive to make terms, but nobody came. With winter approaching, in October Napoleon gave the order to withdraw. The Russian winter of 1812 was said to be one of the harshest in living memory. The retreat of the Grande Armée from Moscow has become one of the classic images of an invading force suffering disaster and devastation. Harried by Russian troops and hostile villagers, amid snow and plunging temperatures, often finding the bridges ahead of them destroyed, of the more than 600,000 who entered Russia that summer, only about 112,000 made it home.

The loss of an army of this calibre was devastating, but not as great as the damage to Napoleon’s reputation. All over Europe that winter, the news spreads amongst people chafing under French domination; while Napoleon introduced republican principles in the regions his occupied, they existed for the benefit of France. A new coalition eventually coalesce consisting of Britain, Austria, Prussia, Russia, Portugal, Sweden, Spain and a number of German states. The astonishing extent to which Napoleon was able to recover from an apparently hopeless position demonstrates vividly the resilience of the man and his energy. During the winter of 1812, he imposed on a weary France a new level of conscription and made strenuous efforts to rebuild his arsenal. When Napoleon moved east just four months after returning to Paris, he was once again in command of an army of more than 250,000 men, dragging with it nearly 500 cannon. During the early part of 1813, Napoleon achieved several partial successes in battles, but with the ranks of the allies steadily increasing, by the autumn he found himself dangerously outnumbered; his army of 185,000 was confronted by about 320,000 allied troops.

After Napoleon was decisively defeated at the Battle of Leipzig (October), the Allies offered France quite favourable peace terms, that would have allowed Napoleon to retain the throne, but he delayed too long or perhaps he couldn’t accept the loss of all his hard-won gains regardless of the circumstances. By December the allies had withdrawn the offer, and were poised to enter French territory. In October 1813, Wellington’s British army pushed north from Spain, and in January 1814 a Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies crossed the Rhine. For two months, Napoleon somehow found the energy to wage a vigorous campaign against the advancing forces, but in March the allies entered Paris. On 2 April 1814, Talleyrand, Napoleon’s long-serving and slippery foreign minister, persuaded parliament to depose Napoleon and invite Louis XVIII to return from exile, on his acceptance of a constitutional monarchy. Even in these circumstances, Napoleon instinct was to fight on, but his marshals gave him no choice but to abdicate. The terms of the Treaty of Fontainebleau (April 1814) were surprisingly lenient. France was merely confined to her borders of 1792, and Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean as governor rather than prisoner.

### Napoleon’s Hundred Days

Napoleon Bonaparte spent only three-hundred days on Elba, watching events in France with great interest. Louis XVIII quickly proved an unpopular monarch; lazy, obese, and unable to deal with returning royalists determined to seize back their former lands. The result was an exceptionally audacious plan that succeeded beyond all likelihood; the Hundred Days. On 26 February 1815, Napoleon and just a thousand men slipped away from Elba, while the British and French guard ships were briefly called elsewhere. Six-days after landing on French soil, with extraordinary panache Napoleon walks alone towards a French garrison at Grenoble, identified himself, and asked the men to join him. When he continued north from the city, his party was nine-thousand strong with thirty cannons. The same pattern continued throughout his march to Paris, and he entered the capital to ecstatic crowds; nobody had been killed on the way. Napoleon installed himself in the Tuileries, from which Louis XVIII had fled the day before, and began assembling a government.
Napoleon sent envoys to the coalition pleading for peace with the allies, but they were having none of it. The allies’ response was immediate, and by May great forces were assembling in Belgium; the Waterloo Campaign (June-July). Using his favourite tactic of dividing his enemies, Napoleon decided to strike northwards against the gathered British and Prussians before the Russians and Austrians could join them. He then plunged between the British and Prussians to prevent them from linking up, and turned to tackle the Prussian at Ligny while one of his marshals assaulted Wellington’s British forces a few miles away at Quatre Bras. Napoleon won convincingly at Ligny, causing the Prussians to retreat in disarray, but at Quatre Bras the result was indecisive. The crucial battle occurred two days later near the village of Waterloo. The extremely hard-fought battle looked almost certain to go Napoleon’s way, until the arrival in the afternoon of the Prussians, having regrouped after their defeat. By the early evening the French were in full retreat, and Napoleon was on his way back to Paris.

Napoleon abdicated again on 22 June 1815, and Louis XVIII was restored to the throne two weeks later. The Treaty of Paris (November 1815) was markedly less generous than the terms offered in 1814. It removed some territory on France’s eastern frontier, subjected the eastern provinces to a period of allied occupation, and imposed 700 million francs in war reparations. Napoleon was captured trying to flee to America by the British, and exiled to St Helena, a rocky island in the middle of the Atlantic, where he spent the remaining six bleak years of his life. He died in 1821 probably of a stomach cancer, although rumours persist that he was intentional poisoned with arsenic. In 1840, King Louis-Philippe of the French brought the emperor’s remains back to Paris, where they are still buried in the church of Les Invalides.

Napoleon’s achievements make his life one of the most extraordinary in history. Alexander the Great inherited from his father the most efficient army of his day. Julius Caesar rose to supreme power through well-established political and military channels. Genghis Khan is perhaps more comparable to Napoleon, conquering the world from the middle of nowhere, although his victims were all relatively primitive. Napoleon, by contrast, was a provincial boy in Europe’s largest and most sophisticated kingdom. He achieved first the apparently impossible task of rising to become head of state with almost limitless power, and then imposed his will on the rest of continental Europe through his military, administrative, and diplomatic skills, and by the sheer power of his personality. Historians still debate whether Napoleon was an enlightened despot who put an end the chaos in France, secured and exported the gains of the French Revolution, and laid the foundations of modern Europe or, instead, a megalomaniac who caused millions of military and civilian deaths. It could be argued that Napoleon was not responsible for starting almost all the wars in which he fought, but it’s still likely that his long-term intentions were not peaceful. Perhaps Lord Byron was closest to the truth when he described him as the epitome of a flawed genius.