The Napoleonic Wars are the military campaigns against several European coalitions waged by France during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte (1799-1815). Italian campaign of Napoleon 1796-1797 and his Egyptian expedition of 1798-1799 is usually not included in the concept of the "Napoleonic Wars", since they took place even before Bonaparte came to power (the coup of 18 Brumaire, 1799). The Italian campaign is part of the Revolutionary Wars of 1792-1799. The Egyptian expedition in various sources either refers to them, or is recognized as a separate colonial campaign.
Napoleon at the Council of Five Hundred 18 Brumaire 1799
Napoleon's war with the Second Coalition
During the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9), 1799, and the transfer of power in France to the first consul, citizen Napoleon Bonaparte, the republic was at war with the new (Second) European coalition, in which the Russian Emperor Paul I took part, who sent an army to the West under the leadership of Suvorov. Things went badly for France, especially in Italy, where Suvorov, together with the Austrians, conquered the Cisalpine Republic, after which a monarchical restoration took place in Naples, abandoned by the French, accompanied by bloody terror against the friends of France, and then the fall of the republic in Rome took place. Dissatisfied, however, with his allies, mainly Austria, and partly with England, Paul I left the coalition and the war, and when the first consul Bonaparte let the Russian prisoners go home without ransom and re-equipped, the Russian emperor even began to draw closer to France, very pleased that in this country "anarchy was replaced by a consulate." Napoleon Bonaparte himself willingly went towards rapprochement with Russia: in fact, the expedition he undertook in 1798 to Egypt was directed against England in her Indian possessions, and in the imagination of the ambitious conqueror, a Franco-Russian campaign against India was now drawn, the same as later, when the memorable war of 1812 began. This combination, however, did not take place, since in the spring of 1801 Paul I fell victim to a conspiracy, and power in Russia passed to his son Alexander I.
Napoleon Bonaparte - First Consul. Painting by J. O. D. Ingres, 1803-1804
After Russia's withdrawal from the coalition, Napoleon's war against other European powers continued. The first consul turned to the sovereigns of England and Austria with an invitation to put an end to the struggle, but he was given in response unacceptable conditions for him - the restoration Bourbon and the return of France to its former borders. In the spring of 1800, Bonaparte personally led an army into Italy and in the summer, after battles of marengo, took possession of all Lombardy, while another French army occupied southern Germany and began to threaten Vienna itself. Peace of Luneville 1801 ended Napoleon's war with Emperor Francis II and confirmed the terms of the previous Austro-French treaty ( Campoformian 1797 G.). Lombardy turned into the Italian Republic, which made its president the first consul Bonaparte. Both in Italy and in Germany, a number of changes were made after this war: for example, the Duke of Tuscany (from the Habsburg family) received in Germany the principality of the Salzburg archbishop for renouncing his duchy, and Tuscany, under the name of the Kingdom of Etruria, was transferred to the Duke of Parma (from the Spanish line). Bourbons). Most of all territorial changes were made after this war of Napoleon in Germany, many sovereigns of which, for the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France, were to receive rewards at the expense of smaller princes, sovereign bishops and abbots, as well as free imperial cities. In Paris, a real bargaining for territorial increments was opened, and the Bonaparte government, with great success, took advantage of the rivalry of the German sovereigns in order to conclude separate treaties with them. This was the beginning of the destruction of the medieval Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, which, however, even earlier, as the wits said, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, but some kind of chaos from the same approximately number of states as there are days in a year. Now, at least, they have been greatly reduced, thanks to the secularization of spiritual principalities and the so-called mediatization - the transformation of direct (immediate) members of the empire into mediocre (mediated) - various state trifles, like small counties and imperial cities.
The war between France and England ended only in 1802, when a contract was concluded between the two states. Peace in Amiens. The first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, then also acquired the glory of a peacemaker after a ten-year war, which France had to wage: a lifetime consulate was, in fact, a reward for making peace. But the war with England soon resumed, and one of the reasons for this was that Napoleon, not content with the presidency of the Italian Republic, also established his protectorate over the Batavian Republic, that is, Holland, quite close to England. The resumption of the war took place in 1803, and the English King George III, who at the same time was the Elector of Hanover, lost his ancestral possession in Germany. After that, Bonaparte's war with England did not stop until 1814.
Napoleon's war with the Third Coalition
The war was a favorite deed of the emperor-commander, whose equal history knows little, and his unauthorized actions, which must be attributed to assassination of the Duke of Enghien, which caused general indignation in Europe, soon forced other powers to unite against the impudent "upstart Corsican". His acceptance of the imperial title, the transformation of the Italian Republic into a kingdom, of which Napoleon himself became sovereign, who was crowned in 1805 in Milan with the old iron crown of the Lombard kings, the preparation of the Batavian Republic for the transformation into a kingdom of one of his brothers, as well as various other actions of Napoleon in relation to other countries were the reasons for the formation of the Third Anti-French Coalition against him from England, Russia, Austria, Sweden and the Kingdom of Naples, and Napoleon, for his part, secured alliances with Spain and the South German princes (the sovereigns of Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria, Gessen, etc.), who, thanks to him, significantly increased their possessions through the secularization and mediatization of smaller possessions.
War of the Third Coalition. Map
In 1805, Napoleon was preparing to land in Boulogne in England, but in fact he moved his troops to Austria. However, the landing in England and the war on its very territory soon became impossible, due to the destruction of the French fleet by the English under the command of Admiral Nelson. at Trafalgar. But the land war of Bonaparte with the Third Coalition was a series of brilliant victories. In October 1805, on the eve of Trafalgar, surrendered to the surrender of the Austrian army in Ulm, Vienna was taken in November, December 2, 1805, on the first anniversary of the coronation of Napoleon, the famous “battle of the three emperors” took place at Austerlitz (see the article The Battle of Austerlitz), which ended in the complete victory of Napoleon Bonaparte over the Austro-Russian army, in which there were Franz II, and young Alexander I. Finished the war with the Third Coalition Peace of Pressburg deprived the Habsburg monarchy of all Upper Austria, Tyrol and Venice with its region and gave Napoleon the right to widely dispose of in Italy and Germany.
Triumph of Napoleon. Austerlitz. Artist Sergei Prisekin
Bonaparte's war with the Fourth Coalition
The following year, the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III joined the enemies of France - thereby forming the Fourth Coalition. But the Prussians also suffered, in October of this year, a terrible defeat at Jena, after which the German princes, who were in alliance with Prussia, were also defeated, and Napoleon occupied during this war first Berlin, then Warsaw, which belonged to Prussia after the third partition of Poland. The help provided to Friedrich Wilhelm III by Alexander I was not successful, and in the war of 1807 the Russians were defeated under Friedland, after which Napoleon occupied Koenigsberg. Then the famous Tilsit peace took place, which ended the war of the Fourth Coalition and was accompanied by a date between Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander I in a pavilion arranged in the middle of the Neman.
War of the Fourth Coalition. Map
In Tilsit, it was decided by both sovereigns to help each other, dividing the West and the East between them. Only the intercession of the Russian tsar before the formidable victor saved Prussia from disappearing after this war from the political map of Europe, but this state nevertheless lost half of its possessions, had to pay a large contribution and accepted the French garrisons to stay.
The reorganization of Europe after the wars with the Third and Fourth Coalitions
After the wars with the Third and Fourth Coalitions, the Peace of Pressburg and Tilsit, Napoleon Bonaparte was the complete master of the West. The Venetian region enlarged the Kingdom of Italy, where Napoleon's stepson Eugene Beauharnais was made Viceroy, and Tuscany was directly annexed to the French Empire itself. The very next day after the Treaty of Pressburg, Napoleon announced that "the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign in Naples," and sent his older brother Joseph (Joseph) to reign there. The Batavian Republic was turned into the Kingdom of Holland with Napoleon's brother Louis (Louis) on the throne. From the areas taken from Prussia west of the Elbe with neighboring parts of Hanover and other principalities, the Kingdom of Westphalia was created, which was received by another brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, Jerome (Jerome), from the former Polish lands of Prussia - Duchy of Warsaw given to the Sovereign of Saxony. Back in 1804, Franz II declared the imperial crown of Germany, the former electoral, hereditary property of his house, and in 1806 he removed Austria from Germany and began to be titled not as a Roman, but as an Austrian emperor. In Germany itself, after these wars of Napoleon, a complete reshuffling was carried out: again some principalities disappeared, others received an increase in their possessions, especially Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony, even elevated to the rank of kingdoms. The Holy Roman Empire no longer existed, and the Confederation of the Rhine was now organized in the western part of Germany - under the protectorate of the emperor of the French.
By the Peace of Tilsit, Alexander I was granted, in agreement with Bonaparte, to increase his possessions at the expense of Sweden and Turkey, from which he took away, from the first in 1809, Finland, turned into an autonomous principality, from the second - after the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812 - Bessarabia included directly in Russia. In addition, Alexander I undertook to annex his empire to Napoleon's "continental system", as the cessation of all trade relations with England was called. The new allies also had to force Sweden, Denmark and Portugal, who continued to side with England, to do the same. At that time, a coup d'etat took place in Sweden: Gustav IV was replaced by his uncle Charles XIII, and the French marshal Bernadotte was declared his heir, after which Sweden went over to the side of France, as Denmark also went over after England attacked her for wanting to remain neutral. Since Portugal resisted, Napoleon, having entered into an alliance with Spain, announced that “the House of Braganza had ceased to reign”, and began the conquest of this country, which forced its king with his whole family to sail to Brazil.
Beginning of Napoleon Bonaparte's war in Spain
Soon it was the turn of Spain to turn into the kingdom of one of the Bonaparte brothers, the ruler of the European West. There were strife in the Spanish royal family. In fact, the government was governed by Minister Godoy, beloved of Queen Maria Louise, wife of the narrow-minded and weak-willed Charles IV, an ignorant, short-sighted and unscrupulous man, who since 1796 completely subordinated Spain to French politics. The royal couple had a son, Ferdinand, whom his mother and her favorite did not love, and now both sides began to complain one against the other to Napoleon. Bonaparte tied Spain even more closely with France when he promised Godoy to divide her possessions with Spain for help in the war with Portugal. In 1808, members of the royal family were invited to negotiate in Bayonne, and here the matter ended with the deprivation of Ferdinand of his hereditary rights and the abdication of Charles IV himself from the throne in favor of Napoleon, as "the only sovereign capable of giving prosperity to the state." The result of the "Bayonne catastrophe" was the transfer of the Neapolitan king Joseph Bonaparte to the Spanish throne, with the transfer of the Neapolitan crown to Napoleon's son-in-law, Joachim Murat, one of the heroes of the coup of 18 Brumaire. Somewhat earlier, in the same 1808, French soldiers occupied the Papal States, and the following year it was included in the French Empire with the deprivation of the pope of secular power. The fact is that Pope Pius VII, considering himself an independent sovereign, did not follow the instructions of Napoleon in everything. “Your Holiness,” Bonaparte once wrote to the pope, “enjoys supreme power in Rome, but I am the emperor of Rome.” Pius VII responded to the deprivation of power by excommunicating Napoleon from the church, for which he was forcibly transported to live in Savona, and the cardinals were resettled in Paris. Rome was then declared the second city of the empire.
Erfurt date 1808
In the interval between the wars, in the autumn of 1808, in Erfurt, which Napoleon Bonaparte left directly behind him as a possession of France in the very heart of Germany, a famous meeting took place between the Tilsit allies, accompanied by a congress of many kings, sovereign princes, crown princes, ministers, diplomats and commanders . It was a very impressive demonstration of both the power that Napoleon had in the West, and his friendship with the sovereign, to whom the East was placed at the disposal. England was asked to start negotiations on ending the war on the basis of retaining for the contracting parties what everyone would own at the time of the conclusion of peace, but England rejected this proposal. The sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine kept themselves on Erfurt Congress in front of Napoleon, just like servile courtiers in front of their master, and for the greater humiliation of Prussia, Bonaparte arranged a hunt for hares on the battlefield of Jena, inviting a Prussian prince who came to fuss about softening the difficult conditions of 1807. Meanwhile, an uprising broke out in Spain against the French, and in the winter from 1808 to 1809, Napoleon was forced to personally go to Madrid.
Napoleon's war with the Fifth Coalition and his conflict with Pope Pius VII
Counting on the difficulties that Napoleon met in Spain, the Austrian emperor in 1809 decided on a new war with Bonaparte ( War of the Fifth Coalition), but the war was again unsuccessful. Napoleon occupied Vienna and inflicted an irreparable defeat on the Austrians at Wagram. By ending this war Schönbrunn Peace Austria again lost several territories divided between Bavaria, the Kingdom of Italy and the Duchy of Warsaw (by the way, it acquired Krakow), and one area, the coast of the Adriatic Sea, under the name of Illyria, became the property of Napoleon Bonaparte himself. At the same time, Francis II had to give Napoleon his daughter Maria Louise in marriage. Even earlier, Bonaparte had become related through members of his family with some sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine, and now he himself decided to marry a real princess, especially since his first wife, Josephine Beauharnais, was barren, he also wanted to have an heir of his blood. (At first he wooed the Russian Grand Duchess, the sister of Alexander I, but their mother was strongly against this marriage). In order to marry the Austrian princess, Napoleon had to divorce Josephine, but then there was an obstacle from the pope, who did not agree to a divorce. Bonaparte neglected this and forced the French clergy subject to him to divorce him from his first wife. This further aggravated relations between him and Pius VII, who took revenge on him for depriving him of secular power and therefore, among other things, refused to consecrate bishops to persons whom the emperor appointed to vacant chairs. The quarrel between the emperor and the pope, among other things, led to the fact that in 1811 Napoleon organized a council of French and Italian bishops in Paris, which, under his pressure, issued a decree allowing archbishops to ordain bishops if the pope did not consecrate government candidates for six months. The members of the cathedral who protested against the captivity of the pope were imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes (just as earlier cardinals who did not attend the marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte to Marie Louise were stripped of their red cassocks, for which they were mockingly nicknamed black cardinals). When Napoleon had a son from a new marriage, he received the title of Roman king.
The period of the greatest power of Napoleon Bonaparte
This was the time of the greatest power of Napoleon Bonaparte, and after the war of the Fifth Coalition, he continued, as before, completely arbitrary to dispose of in Europe. In 1810 he stripped his brother Louis of the Dutch crown for failing to respect the continental system and annexed his kingdom directly to his empire; for the same thing, the entire coast of the German Sea was also taken away from its legitimate owners (by the way, from the Duke of Oldenburg, a relative of the Russian sovereign) and annexed to France. France now included the coast of the German Sea, all of western Germany as far as the Rhine, parts of Switzerland, all of northwest Italy, and the Adriatic coast; the north-east of Italy was a special kingdom of Napoleon, and his son-in-law and two brothers reigned in Naples, Spain and Westphalia. Switzerland, the Confederation of the Rhine, covered on three sides by the possessions of Bonaparte, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw were under his protectorate. Austria and Prussia, severely curtailed after the Napoleonic Wars, were thus squeezed between the possessions of either Napoleon himself or his vassals, Russia, from sharing with Napoleon, except for Finland, had only the Bialystok and Tarnopol districts, separated by Napoleon from Prussia and Austria in 1807 and 1809
Europe in 1807-1810. Map
Napoleon's despotism in Europe was unlimited. When, for example, the Nuremberg bookseller Palm refused to name the author of the pamphlet “Germany in its greatest humiliation” that he published, Bonaparte ordered him to be arrested on foreign territory and brought to a military court, which sentenced him to death (which was, as it were, a repetition of the episode with the Duke of Enghien).
On the Western European mainland after the Napoleonic Wars, everything was, so to speak, turned upside down: the borders were confused; some old states were destroyed and new ones created; even many geographical names have been changed, etc. The temporal power of the pope and the medieval Roman Empire no longer existed, as well as the spiritual principalities of Germany and its numerous imperial cities, these purely medieval city republics. In the territories inherited by France itself, in the states of Bonaparte's relatives and clientele, a whole series of reforms were carried out according to the French model - administrative, judicial, financial, military, school, church reforms, often with the abolition of class privileges of the nobility, limiting the power of the clergy, destroying many monasteries , the introduction of religious tolerance, etc., etc. One of the remarkable features of the era of the Napoleonic Wars was the abolition of the serfdom of peasants in many places, sometimes immediately after the wars by Bonaparte himself, as was the case in the Duchy of Warsaw at its very foundation. Finally, outside the French empire, the French civil code was put into effect, " Napoleonic code”, which continued to operate here and there after the collapse of the Napoleonic empire, as it was in the western parts of Germany, where it was in use until 1900, or as it still takes place in the Kingdom of Poland, formed from the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1815. It must also be added that during the period of the Napoleonic Wars in different countries, in general, French administrative centralization was very willingly adopted, distinguished by simplicity and harmony, strength and speed of action and therefore an excellent instrument of government influence on subjects. If the daughter republics at the end of the XVIII century. were organized in the image and likeness of the then France, their common mother, even now the states that Bonaparte gave to the control of his brothers, son-in-law and stepson, received representative institutions for the most part according to the French model, that is, with a purely illusory, decorative character. Such a device was introduced precisely in the kingdoms of Italy, Holland, Neapolitan, Westphalia, Spain, etc. In essence, the very sovereignty of all these political creations of Napoleon was illusory: one will reigned everywhere, and all these sovereigns, relatives of the emperor of the French and his vassals were obliged to deliver to their supreme overlord a lot of money and many soldiers for new wars - no matter how much he demanded.
Guerrilla warfare against Napoleon in Spain
It became painful for the conquered peoples to serve the goals of a foreign conqueror. As long as Napoleon dealt in wars only with sovereigns who relied on armies alone and were always ready to receive increments of their possessions from his hands, it was easy for him to cope with them; in particular, for example, the Austrian government preferred to lose province after province, as long as the subjects sat quietly, which the Prussian government was also very busy with before the Jena defeat. Real difficulties began to be created for Napoleon only when the peoples began to revolt and wage a petty guerrilla war against the French. The first example of this was given by the Spaniards in 1808, then by the Tyroleans during the Austrian War of 1809; on an even larger scale, the same took place in Russia in 1812. The events of 1808-1812. in general, they showed the governments in what only their strength could lie.
The Spaniards, who were the first to set an example of a people's war (and whose resistance was helped by England, who did not spare money at all to fight France), gave Napoleon a lot of worries and troubles: in Spain he had to suppress the uprising, wage a real war, conquer the country and maintain the throne of Joseph by military force Bonaparte. The Spaniards even created a common organization for waging their little wars, these famous "guerillas" (guerillas), which, due to our unfamiliarity with the Spanish language, later turned into some kind of "guerillas", in the sense of partisan detachments or participants in the war. The Guerillas were one; the other was represented by the Cortes, the popular representation of the Spanish nation, convened by a provisional government, or regency in Cadiz, under the protection of the English fleet. They were collected in 1810, and in 1812 they made up the famous Spanish constitution, very liberal and democratic for that time, using the model of the French constitution of 1791 and some features of the medieval Aragonese constitution.
Movement against Bonaparte in Germany. Prussian reformers Hardenberg, Stein and Scharnhorst
Significant fermentation also took place among the Germans, who were eager to get out of their humiliation by means of a new war. Napoleon knew this, but he fully relied on the devotion to himself of the sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine and on the weakness of Prussia and Austria after 1807 and 1809, and the intimidation that cost the life of the ill-fated Palm should have served as a warning that would befall every German who dared to become enemy of France. During these years, the hopes of all German patriots hostile to Bonaparte were pinned on Prussia. This state, so exalted in the second half of the XVIII century. the victories of Frederick the Great, reduced by a whole half after the war of the Fourth Coalition, was in the greatest humiliation, the way out of which was only in internal reforms. Among the king's ministers Friedrich Wilhelm III there were people who just stood for the need for serious changes, and among them the most prominent were Hardenberg and Stein. The first of them was a big fan of new French ideas and practices. In 1804-1807. he served as minister of foreign affairs and in 1807 proposed to his sovereign a whole plan of reforms: the introduction in Prussia of popular representation with strictly, however, centralized administration according to the Napoleonic model, the abolition of noble privileges, the liberation of the peasants from serfdom, the destruction of the constraints that lay on industry and trade. Considering Hardenberg his enemy - which was in fact - Napoleon demanded from Friedrich Wilhelm III, after the end of the war with him in 1807, that this minister be resigned, and advised Stein to be taken in his place, as a very efficient person, not knowing that he was also an enemy of France. Baron Stein had previously been a minister in Prussia, but he did not get along with the court spheres, and even with the king himself, and was resigned. In contrast to Hardenberg, he was an opponent of administrative centralization and stood for the development of self-government, as in England, with the preservation, within certain limits, of estates, workshops, etc., but he was a man of a greater mind than Hardenberg, and showed a greater ability to development in a progressive direction, as life itself pointed out to him the need to destroy antiquity, remaining, however, still an opponent of the Napoleonic system, since he wanted the initiative of society. Appointed minister on October 5, 1807, Stein already on the 9th of the same month published a royal edict abolishing serfdom in Prussia and allowing non-nobles to acquire noble lands. Further, in 1808, he began to put into effect his plan to replace the bureaucratic system of government with local self-government, but managed to give the latter only to cities, while the villages and regions remained under the old order. He also thought about state representation, but of a purely deliberative nature. Stein did not remain in power for long: in September 1808, the French official newspaper published his letter, intercepted by the police, from which Napoleon Bonaparte learned that the Prussian minister strongly recommended that the Germans follow the example of the Spaniards. After this and another article hostile to him in the French government body, the reformer minister was forced to resign, and after a while Napoleon even directly declared him an enemy of France and the Confederation of the Rhine, his estates were confiscated and he himself was subject to arrest, so that Stein had to flee and hide in different cities of Austria, until in 1812 he was not called to Russia.
After one insignificant minister who replaced such a big man, Frederick William III again called Hardenberg to power, who, being a supporter of the Napoleonic system of centralization, began to transform the Prussian administration in this direction. In 1810, at his insistence, the king promised to give his subjects even national representation, and with the aim of both developing this issue and introducing other reforms in 1810-1812. meetings of notables were convened in Berlin, that is, representatives of estates at the choice of the government. More detailed legislation on the redemption of peasant duties in Prussia dates back to the same time. The military reform carried out by General Scharnhorst; according to one of the conditions of the Tilsit peace, Prussia could not have more than 42 thousand troops, and so the following system was invented: universal military service was introduced, but the terms of stay of soldiers in the army were greatly reduced in order to train them in military affairs, to take new ones in their place , and trained to enroll in the reserve, so that Prussia, if necessary, could have a very large army. Finally, in the same years, the university in Berlin was founded according to the plan of the enlightened and liberal Wilhelm von Humboldt, and the famous philosopher Fichte read his patriotic "Speeches to the German Nation" to the sounds of the drums of the French garrison. All these phenomena characterizing the internal life of Prussia after 1807 made this state the hope of the majority of German patriots hostile to Napoleon Bonaparte. Among the interesting manifestations of the then liberating mood in Prussia is the formation in 1808 of Prussia. Tugendbunda, or the League of Valor, a secret society, which included scientists, military officers, officials and whose goal was the revival of Germany, although in fact the union did not play a big role. The Napoleonic police followed the German patriots, and, for example, Stein's friend Arndt, the author of the Zeitgeist imbued with national patriotism, had to flee Napoleon's wrath to Sweden so as not to suffer the sad fate of Palm.
The national excitement of the Germans against the French began to intensify from 1809. Starting the war with Napoleon that year, the Austrian government directly set its goal as the liberation of Germany from the foreign yoke. In 1809, uprisings broke out against the French in Tyrol under the leadership of Andrei Hofer, in Stralsund, which was captured by the insanely brave Major Schill, in Westphalia, where the "black legion of revenge" of the Duke of Brunswick operated, etc., but Gofer was executed, Schill killed in a military battle, the Duke of Brunswick had to flee to England. At the same time, in Schönbrunn, an attempt was made on the life of Napoleon by a young German, Shtaps, who was later executed for this. “The fermentation has reached its highest degree,” his brother, the King of Westphalia, once wrote to Napoleon Bonaparte, “the most reckless hopes are accepted and supported; they set Spain as their model, and, believe me, when the war begins, the countries between the Rhine and the Oder will be the theater of a great uprising, for the extreme despair of peoples who have nothing to lose must be feared. This prediction was fulfilled after the failure of the campaign in Russia, undertaken by Napoleon in 1812 and the former, according to the apt expression of the Minister of Foreign Affairs Talleyrand, "the beginning of the end."
Relations between Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Alexander I
In Russia, after the death of Paul I, who was thinking about rapprochement with France, “the days of Alexandrov began a wonderful beginning.” The young monarch, a pupil of the republican La Harpe, who himself almost considered himself a republican, at least the only one in the whole empire, and in other respects recognized himself as a “happy exception” on the throne, from the very beginning of his reign made plans for internal reforms - right up to, at the end after all, before the introduction of a constitution in Russia. In 1805-07. he was at war with Napoleon, but in Tilsit they concluded an alliance with each other, and two years later in Erfurt they sealed their friendship in the face of the whole world, although Bonaparte immediately discerned in his friend-rival the “Byzantine Greek” (and he himself, however, being, according to the recall of Pope Pius VII, a comedian). And Russia in those years had its own reformer, who, like Hardenberg, bowed before Napoleonic France, but much more original. This reformer was the famous Speransky, the author of a whole plan for the state transformation of Russia on the basis of representation and separation of powers. Alexander I brought him closer to himself at the beginning of his reign, but Speransky began to use especially strong influence on his sovereign during the years of rapprochement between Russia and France after the Tilsit peace. By the way, when Alexander I, after the war of the Fourth Coalition, went to Erfurt to meet with Napoleon, he took Speransky with him among other close associates. But then this outstanding statesman suffered the royal disfavor, just at the very time that relations between Alexander I and Bonaparte deteriorated. It is known that in 1812 Speransky was not only removed from business, but also had to go into exile.
Relations between Napoleon and Alexander I deteriorated for many reasons, among which the main role was played by Russia's non-compliance with the continental system in all its severity, the encouragement of the Poles by Bonaparte regarding the restoration of their former fatherland, the seizure of possessions by France from the Duke of Oldenburg, who was related to the Russian royal family etc. In 1812, things came to a complete break and the war, which was the "beginning of the end."
Murmuring against Napoleon in France
Prudent people have long predicted that sooner or later there will be a catastrophe. Even at the time of the proclamation of the empire, Cambacérès, who was one of the consuls with Napoleon, said to another, Lebrun: “I have a premonition that what is being built now will not be durable. We have waged war on Europe in order to impose republics on her as daughters of the French Republic, and now we will wage war to give her monarchs, sons or brothers of ours, and the end will be that France, exhausted by wars, will fall under the weight of these crazy enterprises. ". - “You are satisfied,” the Minister of Marine Decres once said to Marshal Marmont, because now you have been made a marshal, and everything appears to you in a pink light. But don't you want me to tell you the truth and draw back the veil that hides the future? The emperor has gone crazy, completely crazy: he will make all of us, how many of us there are, fly head over heels, and all this will end in a terrible catastrophe. Before the Russian campaign of 1812, and in France itself, some opposition began to appear against the constant wars and despotism of Napoleon Bonaparte. It has already been mentioned above that Napoleon met with a protest against his treatment of the pope by some members of the church council convened by him in Paris in 1811, and in the same year a deputation from the Paris Chamber of Commerce came to him with an idea of ruin continental system for French industry and commerce. The population began to be weary of the endless wars of Bonaparte, the increase in military spending, the growth of the army, and already in 1811 the number of those who evaded military service reached almost 80 thousand people. In the spring of 1812, a muffled murmur in the Parisian population forced Napoleon to move especially early to Saint-Cloud, and only in such a mood of the people could a bold idea arise in the head of one general, named Male, to take advantage of Napoleon's war in Russia in order to carry out a coup d'état in Paris for the restoration of the republic. Suspected of unreliability, Male was arrested, but escaped from his imprisonment, appeared in some barracks and there announced to the soldiers about the death of the "tyrant" Bonaparte, who allegedly died in a distant military campaign. Part of the garrison went after Male, and he, having then made a false senatus-consultant, was already preparing to organize a provisional government, when he was captured and, together with his accomplices, was brought to a military court, which sentenced them all to death. Upon learning of this conspiracy, Napoleon was extremely annoyed that some even representatives of the authorities believed the attackers, and that the public reacted rather indifferently to all this.
Napoleon's campaign in Russia 1812
The Malé conspiracy dates back to the end of October 1812, when the failure of Napoleon's campaign against Russia was already sufficiently clear. Of course, the military events of this year are too well known to require a detailed presentation, and therefore it remains only to recall the main moments of the war with Bonaparte in 1812, which we called "Patriotic", that is, national and the invasion of "Gauls" and with them "twelve languages".
In the spring of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte concentrated large military forces in Prussia, which was forced, like Austria, to enter into an alliance with him, and in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and in mid-June, his troops, without declaring war, entered the then borders of Russia. Napoleon's "Great Army" of 600,000 men consisted only half of the French: the rest were various other "peoples": Austrians, Prussians, Bavarians, etc., that is, in general, subjects of the allies and vassals of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Russian army, which was three times smaller and, moreover, scattered, had to retreat at the beginning of the war. Napoleon quickly began to occupy one city after another, mainly on the road to Moscow. Only near Smolensk did the two Russian armies manage to unite, which, however, turned out to be unable to stop the enemy's advance. Kutuzov's attempt to detain Bonaparte at Borodino (see the articles The Battle of Borodino 1812 and the Battle of Borodino 1812 - briefly), made at the end of August, was also unsuccessful, and in early September Napoleon was already in Moscow, from where he thought to dictate peace terms to Alexander I. But just at that time the war with the French became popular. Already after the battle near Smolensk, the inhabitants of the areas through which the army of Napoleon Bonaparte was moving began to burn everything in its path, and with its arrival in Moscow, fires began in this ancient capital of Russia, from where most of the population had left. Little by little, almost the entire city burned down, the reserves that were in it were depleted, and the supply of new ones was hampered by Russian partisan detachments, which launched a war on all roads that led to Moscow. When Napoleon became convinced of the futility of his hope that he would be asked for peace, he himself wished to enter into negotiations, but on the Russian side he did not meet the slightest desire to make peace. On the contrary, Alexander I decided to wage war until the final expulsion of the French from Russia. While Bonaparte was inactive in Moscow, the Russians began to prepare to completely cut off Napoleon's exit from Russia. This plan did not materialize, but Napoleon realized the danger and hurried to leave the devastated and burned Moscow. First, the French made an attempt to break through to the south, but the Russians cut off the road in front of them at Maloyaroslavets, and the remnants of the great army of Bonaparte had to retreat along the former, devastated Smolensk road, during a very severe winter that began early this year. The Russians followed this disastrous retreat almost on the heels, inflicting one defeat after another on the lagging detachments. Napoleon himself, who happily escaped capture when his army crossed the Berezina, abandoned everything in the second half of November and left for Paris, only now deciding to officially notify France and Europe of the failure that had befallen him during the Russian war. The retreat of the remnants of the great army of Bonaparte was now a real flight amid the horrors of cold and hunger. On December 2, less than six full months after the start of the Russian war, Napoleon's last detachments crossed back into the Russian border. After that, the French had no choice but to abandon the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, whose capital the Russian army occupied in January 1813.
Napoleon's army crossing the Berezina. Painting by P. von Hess, 1844
Foreign campaign of the Russian army and the War of the Sixth Coalition
When Russia was completely cleared of enemy hordes, Kutuzov advised Alexander I to limit himself to this and stop further war. But in the soul of the Russian sovereign, a mood prevailed that forced him to transfer military operations against Napoleon beyond the borders of Russia. In this latter intention, the German patriot Stein strongly supported the emperor, who had found shelter against Napoleon's persecution in Russia and to a certain extent subordinated Alexander to his influence. The failure of the war of the great army in Russia made a great impression on the Germans, among whom national enthusiasm spread more and more, a monument of which remained the patriotic lyrics of Kerner and other poets of the era. At first, the German governments did not dare, however, to follow their subjects, who rose up against Napoleon Bonaparte. When, at the very end of 1812, the Prussian General York, at his own peril, concluded a convention with the Russian General Dibich in Taurogen and stopped fighting for the cause of France, Friedrich Wilhelm III was extremely dissatisfied with this, as he was also dissatisfied with the decision of the Zemstvo members of East and West Prussia to organize, according to Stein's thoughts, the provincial militia for the war with the enemy of the German nation. Only when the Russians entered Prussian territory did the king, forced to choose between an alliance with either Napoleon or Alexander I, bow to the side of the latter, and even then not without some hesitation. In February 1813, in Kalisz, Prussia concluded a military treaty with Russia, accompanied by an appeal by both sovereigns to the population of Prussia. Then Frederick William III declared war on Bonaparte, and a special royal appeal to the loyal subjects was published. In this and other proclamations, with which the new allies also addressed the population of other parts of Germany and in the drafting of which Stein played an active role, much was said about the independence of peoples, about their right to control their own destiny, about the strength of public opinion, before which sovereigns themselves must bow. , and so on.
From Prussia, where, next to the regular army, detachments of volunteers were formed from people of all ranks and conditions, often not being Prussian subjects, the national movement began to be transferred to other German states, whose governments, on the contrary, remained loyal to Napoleon Bonaparte and restrained manifestations in their possessions. German patriotism. Meanwhile, Sweden, England and Austria joined the Russian-Prussian military alliance, after which the members of the Confederation of the Rhine began to fall away from loyalty to Napoleon - under the condition of the inviolability of their territories or, at least, equivalent rewards in cases where any or changes in the boundaries of their possessions. This is how Sixth Coalition against Bonaparte. Three days (October 16-18) battle with Napoleon near Leipzig, which was unfavorable for the French and forced them to begin a retreat to the Rhine, resulted in the destruction of the Confederation of the Rhine, the return to their possessions of the dynasties expelled during the Napoleonic wars and the final transition to the side of the anti-French coalition of South German sovereigns.
By the end of 1813, the lands to the east of the Rhine were free from the French, and on the night of January 1, 1814, part of the Prussian army under the command of Blucher crossed this river, which then served as the eastern border of Bonaparte's empire. Even before the Battle of Leipzig, the allied sovereigns offered Napoleon to enter into peace negotiations, but he did not agree to any conditions. Before the transfer of the war to the territory of the empire itself, Napoleon was once again offered peace on the terms of maintaining the Rhine and Alpine borders for France, but only renouncing domination in Germany, Holland, Italy and Spain, but Bonaparte continued to persist, although in France itself public opinion considered these conditions quite acceptable. A new peace proposal in mid-February 1814, when the Allies were already on French territory, likewise came to nothing. The war went on with varying happiness, but one defeat of the French army (at Arcy-sur-Aube on March 20-21) opened the way for the Allies to Paris. On March 30, they took by storm the Montmartre heights that dominate this city, and on the 31st, their solemn entry into the city itself took place.
The deposition of Napoleon in 1814 and the restoration of the Bourbons
The next day after this, the Senate proclaimed the deposition of Napoleon Bonaparte from the throne with the formation of a provisional government, and two days later, that is, on April 4, he himself, in the castle of Fontainebleau, abdicated in favor of his son after he learned about the transition of Marshal Marmont to the side of the Allies. The latter were not satisfied with this, however, and a week later Napoleon was forced to sign an act of unconditional abdication. The title of emperor was reserved for him, but he had to live on the island of Elbe, given to him. During these events, the fallen Bonaparte was already the subject of extreme hatred of the population of France, as the culprit of devastating wars and enemy invasion.
The provisional government, formed after the end of the war and the deposition of Napoleon, drafted a new constitution, which was adopted by the Senate. Meanwhile, in agreement with the victors of France, the restoration of the Bourbons was already being prepared in the person of the brother of Louis XVI, who was executed during the Revolutionary Wars, who, after the death of his little nephew, who was recognized by the royalists as Louis XVII, became known as Louis XVIII. The Senate proclaimed him king, freely called to the throne by the nation, but Louis XVIII wanted to reign solely by his hereditary right. He did not accept the Senate constitution, and instead granted (octroyed) a constitutional charter with his power, and even then under strong pressure from Alexander I, who agreed to the restoration only under the condition of granting France a constitution. One of the main figures involved in the end of the Bourbon War was Talleyrand, who said that only the restoration of the dynasty would be the result of principle, everything else was mere intrigue. With Louis XVIII returned his younger brother and heir, the Comte d'Artois, with his family, other princes and numerous emigrants from the most irreconcilable representatives of pre-revolutionary France. The nation immediately felt that both the Bourbons and the emigrants in exile, in the words of Napoleon, "forgot nothing and learned nothing." An alarm began throughout the country, numerous reasons for which were given by the statements and behavior of the princes, the returned nobles and the clergy, who clearly sought to restore antiquity. The people even started talking about the restoration of feudal rights, etc. Bonaparte watched on his Elbe how irritation against the Bourbons grew in France, and at the congress that met in Vienna in the autumn of 1814 to arrange European affairs, bickering began that could wreck the allies. In the eyes of the fallen emperor, these were favorable circumstances for the restoration of power in France.
"Hundred Days" of Napoleon and the War of the Seventh Coalition
On March 1, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte secretly left Elba with a small detachment and unexpectedly landed near Cannes, from where he moved to Paris. The former ruler of France brought with him proclamations to the army, to the nation, and to the population of the coastal departments. “I,” it was said in the second of them, “was enthroned by your election, and everything that was done without you is illegal ... Let the sovereign, who was placed on my throne by the power of the armies that devastated our country, refer to the principles feudal law, but it can only secure the interests of a small handful of enemies of the people!.. The French! in my exile, I heard your complaints and desires: you demanded the return of the government chosen by you and therefore the only legal one, ”etc. On the way of Napoleon Bonaparte to Paris, his small detachment grew from soldiers who joined him everywhere, and his new military campaign received kind of triumphal procession. In addition to the soldiers who adored their "little corporal", the people also went over to the side of Napoleon, who now saw him as a savior from the hated emigrants. Marshal Ney, sent against Napoleon, boasted before leaving that he would bring him in a cage, but then, with his entire detachment, went over to his side. On March 19, Louis XVIII hastily fled from Paris, forgetting Talleyrand's reports from the Congress of Vienna and the secret treaty against Russia in the Tuileries Palace, and the next day, the crowd of people literally carried Napoleon into the palace, only the day before abandoned by the king.
The return of Napoleon Bonaparte to power was the result not only of a military revolt against the Bourbons, but also of a popular movement that could easily turn into a real revolution. In order to reconcile the educated classes and the bourgeoisie with him, Napoleon now agreed to a liberal reform of the constitution, calling to this cause one of the most prominent political writers of the era, Benjamin Constant who had previously spoken out sharply against his despotism. A new constitution was even drawn up, which, however, received the name of an "additional act" to the "constitutions of the empire" (that is, to laws of the VIII, X and XII years), and this act was submitted for approval by the people, who adopted it with one and a half million votes. . On June 3, 1815, new representative chambers were opened, before which a few days later Napoleon gave a speech announcing the introduction of a constitutional monarchy in France. The response addresses of representatives and peers, however, did not please the emperor, as they contained warnings and instructions, and he expressed his displeasure to them. However, he did not have a further continuation of the conflict, since Napoleon had to rush to the war.
The news of Napoleon's return to France forced the sovereigns and ministers, who gathered at the congress in Vienna, to stop the strife that had begun between them and unite again in a common alliance for a new war with Bonaparte ( Wars of the Seventh Coalition). On June 12, Napoleon left Paris to go to his army, and on the 18th at Waterloo, he was defeated by the Anglo-Prussian army under the command of Wellington and Blucher. In Paris, defeated in this new short war, Bonaparte faced a new defeat: the House of Representatives demanded that he abdicate in favor of his son, who was proclaimed emperor under the name of Napoleon II. The allies, who soon appeared under the walls of Paris, decided the matter differently, namely, they restored Louis XVIII. Napoleon himself, when the enemy approached Paris, thought to flee to America and for this purpose arrived in Rochefort, but was intercepted by the British, who installed him on the island of St. Helena. This second reign of Napoleon, accompanied by the War of the Seventh Coalition, lasted only about three months and was called in history " one hundred days". In his new conclusion, the second deposed Emperor Bonaparte lived for about six years, dying in May 1821.
The historical heritage of the Napoleonic era retained its significance for many decades, and the memory of it still lives on. The era of the French Revolution and the reign of Napoleon also coincided with a revolution in the cultural history of mankind, which gave rise to the most important areas of philosophical and social thought, literature and art.
Third Anti-French Coalition (1805)
At the beginning of 1805, a third anti-French coalition was formed, which included Great Britain, Russia, Austria and other states of Europe. In response, Napoleon proclaimed himself King of Italy, laying the foundation for a system of kingdoms and other monarchical possessions dependent on France, which took the place of the former "subsidiary republics".
In August 1805, the Austrian troops, without waiting for the approach of the Russian army, launched an offensive in southern Germany, but were defeated. The further course of the war was marked by two great battles that completely changed the balance of power in the international arena.
On October 21, 1805, the British squadron defeated the combined fleet of France and Spain in the famous battle at the Cape Trafalgar in the Mediterranean. Having suffered a catastrophic defeat at sea, Napoleon defeated his opponents on land. The French occupied Vienna, and on December 2, 1805, the Austrian and Russian troops were defeated near the Moravian town Austerlitz in a battle known as the "Battle of the Three Emperors". Russian troops returned to their homeland, and Austria signed a peace treaty, under the terms of which it recognized all the seizures and transformations made by Napoleon in Europe. Soon the emperor's brothers occupied the Neapolitan and Dutch thrones.
In the summer of 1806, Napoleon created Confederation of the Rhine, which included 16 German states. All of them left the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, so its existence was meaningless. On August 6, 1806, Franz II renounced the title that had lost its meaning, and the thousand-year-old empire ended its history. The radical transformation of Germany, undertaken by Napoleon, created a mortal threat to Prussia, which took the place of Austria in the anti-French coalition. But soon after the start of a new war, on October 14, 1806, the Prussian troops were utterly defeated.
Beginning of the continental blockade
After Trafalgar, the British fleet had no more rivals at sea, which allowed the British to establish a de facto blockade of Europe, regardless of the interests of other peoples and the norms of international law. In response, Napoleon decided to organize a blockade of the British Isles with the aim of "destroying Great Britain in its trade." The Berlin Decree, signed by the emperor in November 1806, marked the beginning of the so-called "continental system", in which states dependent on Napoleon or allied with him were involved one after another.
In April 1807, Russia and Prussia entered into an agreement to continue the war with Napoleon, calling on other states to support them. However, this call was not heeded. In June 1807, Russian troops were defeated in East Prussia. The results of this war forced both sides to completely reconsider the principles of their foreign policy.
S. M. Solovyov:"Napoleon did not want war with England: apart from losses, certain naval defeats, this war could not promise him anything."
Peace of Tilsit
Napoleon had long sought an agreement with Russia, believing that peace with the Austrian emperor was "nothing against an alliance with the tsar." Alexander I, for his part, became more and more convinced that the main enemy of Russia was not France, but Great Britain, which built its prosperity on suppressing the economic development of other countries. In the summer of 1807, during a meeting of the two emperors in the city of Tilsit, not only a peace treaty was signed, but also an agreement on an alliance. In Tilsit, the fate of Prussia was also decided, which was losing almost half of its territory. In the words of a French historian, "the Prussian eagle had both wings cut off." The peace agreements provided for the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in those territories that Prussia seized as a result of the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century.
On the site of the Rhine possessions of Prussia, the Kingdom of Westphalia was created, the king of which was Napoleon's brother. According to the Tilsit agreements, Russia and Prussia joined the continental blockade of England.
Continental blockade in 1807-1809
In an effort to undermine the foreign trade of continental Europe, the British tightened their measures against neutral shipping, and in September 1807 they again struck at the capital of Denmark. With this attack, they showed "an example of an unheard of violation of international law", and their "mode of action was such a horrific combination of duplicity, shamelessness and violence that Europe was shocked." In response, Denmark allied itself with France and joined the continental blockade. Great Britain declared war on her, and Russia, outraged by the massacre of Denmark, declared war on Great Britain. In 1808, Russia also started a war against Sweden, which supported the British. The Russo-Swedish War ended in 1809 with the accession of Finland to Russia, and Sweden entered the continental system. The entire Baltic was henceforth closed to British trade. material from the site
Beginning of the Pyrenean Wars (1807-1808)
For his part, Napoleon attempted to close another gap in the continental system, striking in 1807 a blow to Portugal, which remained the largest trading partner of the British in Europe. Unable to resist the French army, the royal court of Portugal moved its residence across the ocean, to the capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. Brazil, the largest European colony in the Western Hemisphere, was open to British trade. Thus, while strengthening the continental system in Europe, Napoleon at the same time contributed to the fact that vast American markets began to open up for the British. British troops landed in Portugal itself, which, with the support of the local population, began the exhausting “war on the peninsula” for France.
The logic of the new war demanded the strengthening of French control over Spain, so in May 1808 Napoleon forced the Spanish Bourbons to renounce power in favor of his brother. The consequences of this step were even more dramatic. In Spain, a guerrilla war (guerrilla) began - the first people's war against Napoleonic domination, and numerous Spanish colonies in America rose to fight for
Na-po-leo-nov wars are commonly called wars, which were waged by France against European countries in the period of the reign of Na-po-leo-on Bo- on-par-ta, that is, in 1799-1815. European countries created anti-Napoleonic coalitions, but their forces were insufficient to break the power of the Napoleonic army. Napoleon won victory after victory. But the invasion of Russia in 1812 changed the situation. Napoleon was expelled from Russia, and the Russian army launched a foreign campaign against him, which ended with the Russian invasion of Paris and Napoleon's loss of the title of emperor.
Rice. 2. British Admiral Horatio Nelson ()
Rice. 3. Battle of Ulm ()
On December 2, 1805, Napoleon won a brilliant victory at Austerlitz.(Fig. 4). In addition to Napoleon, the emperor of Austria and the Russian emperor Alexander I personally participated in this battle. The defeat of the anti-Napoleonic coalition in central Europe allowed Napoleon to withdraw Austria from the war and focus on other regions of Europe. So, in 1806, he conducted an active campaign to capture the Kingdom of Naples, which was an ally of Russia and England against Napoleon. Napoleon wanted to put his brother on the throne of Naples Jerome(Fig. 5), and in 1806 he made another of his brothers King of the Netherlands, LouisIBonaparte(Fig. 6).
Rice. 4. Battle of Austerlitz ()
Rice. 5. Jerome Bonaparte ()
Rice. 6. Louis I Bonaparte ()
In 1806, Napoleon managed to radically solve the German problem. He liquidated a state that had existed for almost 1000 years - Holy Roman Empire. Of the 16 German states, an association was created, called Confederation of the Rhine. Napoleon himself became the protector (defender) of this Confederation of the Rhine. In fact, these territories were also placed under his control.
feature these wars, which in history have been called Napoleonic Wars, was that the composition of the opponents of France changed all the time. By the end of 1806, the anti-Napoleonic coalition included completely different states: Russia, England, Prussia and Sweden. Austria and the Kingdom of Naples were no longer in this coalition. In October 1806, the coalition was almost completely defeated. In just two battles, under Auerstedt and Jena, Napoleon managed to deal with the Allied troops and force them to sign a peace treaty. Near Auerstedt and Jena, Napoleon defeated the Prussian troops. Now nothing prevented him from moving further north. Napoleonic troops soon occupied Berlin. Thus, another important rival of Napoleon in Europe was taken out of the game.
November 21, 1806 Napoleon signed the most important for the history of France continental blockade decree(a ban on all countries subject to him to trade and in general to conduct any business with England). It was England that Napoleon considered his main enemy. In response, England blockaded French ports. However, France could not actively resist England's trade with other territories.
Russia was the rival. In early 1807, Napoleon managed to defeat the Russian troops in two battles on the territory of East Prussia.
July 8, 1807 Napoleon and AlexanderIsigned the Treaty of Tilsit(Fig. 7). This agreement, concluded on the border of Russia and French-controlled territories, proclaimed good neighborly relations between Russia and France. Russia pledged to join the continental blockade. However, this treaty meant only a temporary softening, but in no way overcoming the contradictions between France and Russia.
Rice. 7. Peace of Tilsit 1807 ()
Napoleon had a difficult relationship with Pope PiusVII(Fig. 8). Napoleon and the Pope had an agreement on the division of powers, but their relationship began to deteriorate. Napoleon considered church property to belong to France. The Pope did not tolerate this and after the coronation of Napoleon in 1805 he returned to Rome. In 1808, Napoleon brought his troops to Rome and deprived the pope of secular power. In 1809, Pius VII issued a special decree in which he cursed the robbers of church property. However, he did not mention Napoleon in this decree. This epic ended with the fact that the Pope was almost forcibly transported to France and forced to live in the Fontainebleau Palace.
Rice. 8. Pope Pius VII ()
As a result of these campaigns of conquest and the diplomatic efforts of Napoleon, by 1812, a huge part of Europe was under his control. Through relatives, military leaders or military conquests, Napoleon subjugated almost all the states of Europe. Only England, Russia, Sweden, Portugal and the Ottoman Empire, as well as Sicily and Sardinia, remained outside his zone of influence.
June 24, 1812 Napoleon's army invaded Russia. The beginning of this campaign for Napoleon was successful. He managed to pass a significant part of the territory of the Russian Empire and even capture Moscow. He could not hold the city. At the end of 1812, the Napoleonic army fled from Russia and again fell into the territory of Poland and the German states. The Russian command decided to continue the pursuit of Napoleon outside the territory of the Russian Empire. It went down in history as Foreign campaign of the Russian army. He was very successful. Even before the beginning of the spring of 1813, Russian troops managed to take Berlin.
From October 16 to October 19, 1813, the largest battle in the history of the Napoleonic Wars took place near Leipzig., known as "Battle of the Nations"(Fig. 9). The name of the battle was due to the fact that almost half a million people took part in it. Napoleon at the same time had 190 thousand soldiers. His rivals, led by the British and Russians, had about 300,000 soldiers. The numerical superiority was very important. In addition, Napoleon's troops did not have the readiness in which they were in 1805 or 1809. A significant part of the old guard was destroyed, and therefore Napoleon had to take into his army people who did not have serious military training. This battle ended unsuccessfully for Napoleon.
Rice. 9. Battle of Leipzig 1813 ()
The allies made Napoleon an advantageous offer: they offered him to keep his imperial throne if he agreed to cut France to the borders of 1792, that is, he had to give up all conquests. Napoleon indignantly refused this offer.
March 1, 1814 members of the anti-Napoleonic coalition - England, Russia, Austria and Prussia - signed Chaumont treatise. It prescribed the actions of the parties to eliminate the Napoleonic regime. The parties to the treaty pledged to field 150,000 soldiers in order to resolve the French question once and for all.
Although the Treaty of Chaumont was only one in a series of European treaties of the 19th century, it was given a special place in the history of mankind. The Chaumont treaty was one of the first treaties aimed not at joint campaigns of conquest (it did not have an aggressive orientation), but at joint defense. The signatories of the Treaty of Chaumont insisted that the wars that shook Europe for 15 years should finally end and the era of the Napoleonic wars should end.
Almost a month after the signing of this agreement, March 31, 1814, Russian troops entered Paris(Fig. 10). This ended the period of the Napoleonic wars. Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to the island of Elba, which was given to him for life. It seemed that his story was over, but Napoleon tried to return to power in France. You will learn about this in the next lesson.
Rice. 10. Russian troops enter Paris ()
Bibliography
1. Jomini. Political and military life of Napoleon. A book covering Napoleon's military campaigns up to 1812
2. Manfred A.Z. Napoleon Bonaparte. - M.: Thought, 1989.
3. Noskov V.V., Andreevskaya T.P. General history. 8th grade. - M., 2013.
4. Tarle E.V. "Napoleon". - 1994.
5. Tolstoy L.N. "War and Peace"
6. Chandler D. Napoleon's military campaigns. - M., 1997.
7. Yudovskaya A.Ya. General history. History of the New Age, 1800-1900, Grade 8. - M., 2012.
Homework
1. Name the main opponents of Napoleon during 1805-1814.
2. Which battles from the series of Napoleonic wars left the greatest mark on history? Why are they interesting?
3. Tell us about Russia's participation in the Napoleonic Wars.
4. What was the significance of the Treaty of Chaumont for European states?
We know that in the history of the world, there were various great commanders and conquerors of all times and peoples. They changed the entire course of history, and also influenced the political map of the world.
One of these great generals that we wanted to write about was Napoleon Bonaparte. He was a talented general of the French artillery and ruler of France with the monarchical title of emperor under the name of Napoleon the First.
His activities were based on strengthening the power and greatness of France. He changed the territory of France, expanding its borders and adding other European lands to the possessions of the country. It was a kind of territorial claim of the French Empire during the reign of Napoleon.
This famous short man in a gray frock coat influenced all the countries of Europe. The expansionist policy of Bonaparte helped the French bourgeoisie to have colossal benefits from the results of victorious military campaigns.
General Bonaparte received his high military rank, as you know, if you have studied history, my dear readers, after he defeated the royalist supporters of the Bourbon monarchy in 1793 with cannon shots. These were the so-called cannonballs. Cannons were also used on masted sailing ships of the time.
Conquest of territories by the French army
In 1796, after his previous military merits, Napoleon Bonaparte led a military expedition and went on an Italian campaign. As a result of this campaign, the entire territory of Italy was under the rule of France. The Kingdom of Naples was created on this territory, where Napoleon sent his marshal Marat as king of Naples.
In 1798, Napoleon prepared and equipped a new military expedition to Egypt. This military campaign was a success until the commander himself left his army. French troops crossed the entire Mediterranean Sea on ships and went to Egypt, captured the capital there - Alexandria. Unfortunately, Napoleon's army was not able to fully fulfill its military mission in Egypt, as the British destroyed the French ships. Because of this, Napoleon had to hastily leave and abandon his army. The French troops were finally defeated in Egypt by 1801, also having been defeated in Aboukir.
In 1799, as a result of the coup on 9 Thermidor, Napoleon became the first consul of the French Republic, although formally two more consuls were in power after him. His rule was called a military-bureaucratic dictatorship.
In 1800 he won the Battle of Marengo. For a time in 1801 Napoleon made a truce with England.
In 1804, Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of France. And the following year, 1805, he won a brilliant victory at the Battle of Austerlitz against the Austrian and Russian allied armies.
In 1806-1807, he captured the territory of Germany, which at that time, in turn, consisted of small states (principalities). One of the most influential German states of that time was the Kingdom of Prussia. Napoleon with his troops entered the city of Jena, and also reached Berlin and defeated the Prussian army in a matter of minutes. Then he advanced into Poland, which he turned into the Duchy of Warsaw.
In 1807, Napoleon concluded the Treaty of Tilsit with the Emperor of Russia Alexander the First.
Consistently studying the chronology of the Napoleonic wars, we see that already in 1808 Napoleon captured Spain, subjugating the Spanish capital - Madrid. He overthrew the power of the Bourbons there and installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as the new king of Spain.
Napoleon Bonaparte's military campaign against Russia (the map of the campaign can be enlarged)
However, the collapse of Napoleon's empire began in 1812, when he suffered a crushing military defeat in a campaign against Russia. The emperor had to abdicate twice, that is, to give up his power both in 1814 and in 1815 after the first exile on the island of Elba.
Napoleon Bonaparte - the conqueror of all Europe
On August 15, 1769, in the city of Ajaccio on the island of Corsica, which belonged to the French kingdom, a man was born whose name has gone down in history forever: if someone is called Napoleon or they talk about Napoleonic plans, then they mean both grandiose plans and personalities of great scope, endowed with outstanding talents.
The boy received a rare name for that time - Napoleone. He also had a difficult surname - Buonaparte. As an adult, he "redrawn" his first and last name in a French way and began to be called Napoleon Bonaparte.
The life of Bonaparte belongs to a number of those strange cases when the posthumous historical fate of the hero not only crossed out, but even made people forget the real deeds in which this hero distinguished himself in real history ...
So what was the real role of Napoleon for France and Europe, and what were the results of the era that is commonly called Napoleonic?
Napoleon did not differ in noble origin, as he was only the second son of a petty nobleman. Therefore, he could not count on any great career. But the Great French Revolution intervened, breaking down all class barriers, and in the new conditions Bonaparte was easily able to show his natural abilities. Of course, he was not without luck: at first he successfully chose the specialty of an artilleryman, then several times he successfully chose the right time and the right place (for example, under the rebellious Toulon in 1793, then at the head of the troops that suppressed the royalist revolt in Paris in 1795, and at the head of the Italian army in the campaign of 1797).
The circumstances of post-revolutionary development inexorably pushed France towards dictatorship. There were many applicants for the role of dictator, but due to circumstances and, again, personal luck, the candidacy of Bonaparte in 1799 had no alternative. His reputation was not damaged even by a failed expedition to Egypt - leaving the French army on the banks of the Nile, Bonaparte returned home not as a deserter, but as the savior of the Fatherland! And immediately seized power without meeting any resistance. He achieved the position of First Consul and immediately secured his dictatorial status by amending the Constitution, formally approving them by popular vote.
France expected that Bonaparte would quickly put things in order, and he, in principle, fulfilled this task: he created a centralized system of bureaucratic administration, and turned the legislative authorities into purely decorative ones. And, of course, he put into effect his first brainchild - the famous Napoleonic Code, which legally formalized the foundations of the bourgeois way of life.
In the course of subsequent revolutionary wars, Napoleon annexed to France the rich and strategically significant territories of present-day Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine, whose inhabitants, who had long been under the strong influence of French culture, reacted completely loyally to the conquerors who abolished the feudal system. In the future, one could also count on the complete assimilation of the population of the conquered lands (as in Alsace, originally German, but by the end of the 17th century completely “Frenchized”).
The territorial expansion has significantly increased the resource potential of France, and in the future it could become the most powerful and wealthy state in Europe. But first, it was necessary to consolidate the gains and diplomatically formalize the new borders of the state.
In 1800, Bonaparte won another victory at Marengo, which opened the way for France to an honorable peace with Austria, concluded in February 1801. In March 1802, a peace treaty with England was signed in Amiens. The dictator who seized power by force proved that he could use this power more effectively for the benefit of the French than rulers elected by the people. Having become a real idol of the nation, Napoleon Bonaparte proclaimed himself Emperor of France, but did not refuse new wars and conquests. Thus, peace with England collapsed a year after its signing, another war with continental monarchies began in 1805.
In fact, all the Napoleonic campaigns of 1805-1811 were completely useless for France and its people. Napoleon captured and forced European countries into obedience, creating a huge patchwork empire, comparable in scale to the possessions of Charlemagne. As conceived by the creator, this empire was to dominate the whole world. But it collapsed after the campaign against Russia.
Created from the blood and mud of the wars of conquest, Napoleonic Europe resembled the barbarian empires of the early Middle Ages: around France were the remnants of conquered, humiliated and plundered states, united only by the power of French arms. And everything was controlled by the puppets of the French dictator - either his appointees, hated by his subjects, or representatives of the old dynasties, who secretly hated the conqueror.
The most obvious example of Napoleonic arbitrariness was his policy in Spain. At first, the Spaniards sympathized with France, and King Carlos was a reliable ally of Napoleon, at Trafalgar, the French and Spaniards fought together against the British. However, the complacent emperor did not need allies - he only needed vassals. Napoleon decided to transfer the Spanish throne to his brother Joseph (by the way, not marked by any talents and merits). Carlos, along with his heir Ferdinand, was meanly lured by the emperor to French territory and taken into custody.
But the proud Spaniards did not submit to the dominion imposed on them. Napoleon occupied Spain, captured Madrid, but was never able to completely break the resistance of the Spanish people, which was supported by the English troops that landed on the Iberian Peninsula.
In 1799, the Italian victories of the Russian commander Alexander Suvorov discredited some popular generals of the French Republic and caused panic in the ruling circles of Paris, which, by the way, helped Bonaparte to seize power. Having become the first consul of France, he seized on the idea of an alliance with Emperor Paul, with the help of which he was going to organize a campaign in India subject to the British.
After that, for many years Napoleon considered Russia as a hostile state, thinking and acting accordingly, even in 1807-1811, when he was in a formal alliance with Emperor Alexander I. Planning a campaign in Russia in 1812, Napoleon gathered a united army from all the countries of Europe subject to him - and she, according to all the canons of European military art, was to achieve a complete victory! However, the European strategy of Napoleon gave way to the wise strategy of the Russian field marshal Kutuzov, which, moreover, was backed up by a people's war in the specific conditions of Russia with its dense forests, rare cities and a population that did not want to submit to the conquerors.
But at first fate was favorable to the French. Anxiety seized the tops of the Russian nobility after the occupation of Moscow by Napoleon, and Alexander was even informed that not only among the peasants there were rumors about freedom, but also among the soldiers they say that the tsar himself secretly asked Napoleon to enter Russia and free the peasants, because he himself was afraid of the landowners. And in St. Petersburg there were rumors that Napoleon was the son of Catherine II and was going to take away his rightful Russian crown from Alexander, after which he would also free the peasants.
In 1812, many peasant unrest against the landowners took place in Russia. Napoleon then suddenly ordered to search the Moscow archive for information about the Russian rebel Emelyan Pugachev, then those around the emperor made sketches of a manifesto to the peasantry, then he switched to questions about the Tatars and Cossacks.
While in Russia, Napoleon could, of course, try to abolish serfdom and win over the people of Russia (without such measures, the recruiting potential of France might not have been enough to achieve the goals set by Bonaparte).
Thoughts about using Pugachev's experience show that the French emperor had a realistic idea of the possible consequences of his decisive action as a liberator of the peasants. Therefore, the Russian nobles, if they were afraid of anything, it was not so much a continental blockade as the abolition of serfdom in the event of a French victory.
However, Napoleon did not want to try to implement this plan. For himself, as the emperor of the new bourgeois Europe, he considered the "peasant revolution" unacceptable even at a time when this revolution was for him the only chance of a possible victory. Just as fleetingly, sitting in the Kremlin, he thought about the uprising in Ukraine, about the possible use of the Tatars ... And all these ideas were also rejected by him. Everyone knows what happened next: the collapse of the French army and the shameful flight of its remnants from the burned Moscow and from Russia.
Meanwhile, as the liberation march of the Russian army advanced to the west, the anti-Napoleonic coalition also grew. In the "Battle of the Nations" on October 16-19, 1813, Russian, Austrian, Prussian and Swedish troops opposed the hastily assembled French military forces.
Having suffered a complete defeat in this battle, Napoleon, after the Allies entered Paris, was forced to abdicate and in 1814 go into exile on the small island of Elba in the Mediterranean. But, having returned in a convoy of foreign troops, the Bourbons and emigrants began to demand the return of their property and privileges, which caused discontent and fear both in French society and among the military. Taking advantage of this, the disgraced ex-emperor fled from Elba to Paris, who met him as the savior of the nation. The war resumed, but long-suffering France no longer had the strength to wage it. The "hundred days" of Napoleon's re-emperorship ended with the final defeat of the Napoleonic troops in the famous battle with the British near Waterloo on June 18, 1815.
Napoleon himself, having become a prisoner of the British, was sent to Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean. There, in the village of Longwood, he spent the last six years of his life.
Napoleon Bonaparte died on May 5, 1821, and was buried near Longwood, in an area with the beautiful name of the Valley of the Geraniums. After 19 years, Louis-Philippe, yielding to the Bonapartists, sent a delegation to Saint Helena to fulfill Napoleon's last will - to be buried in his homeland. The remains of the great dictator found their final resting place in the Les Invalides in Paris.
In his memoirs, written on the island of Saint Helena, Napoleon tried to justify his fateful 1812 campaign in Russia with considerations of the highest good. The former plans of the deposed French emperor portrayed as a project of uniting Europe into a certain community of states, within which the rights of peoples would be respected, and all controversial issues would be resolved at international congresses. Then the wars would stop, and the armies would be reduced to the size of guard units, entertaining well-behaved monarchs with parades. That is, from the point of view of modernity, Napoleon, as it were, anticipated the construction of the current European Union.
The famous French writer Stendhal once admitted that he fell in love with Napoleon again, hating those who came to replace him. Indeed, the colorless despotism of the last Bourbons created rich ground for nostalgic memories of the former greatness of the French Empire. From this nostalgia, Bonapartism was born as a special ideology and corresponding political current.
In a simplified form, the foundations of the Bonapartist worldview can be stated something like this: the French nation is the greatest European nation, therefore France must dominate Europe, and in order to achieve this, the nation must be led by a great leader. Authoritarian methods of governing the state and the priority use of military force to solve external problems - these are the main methods of manifestation of Bonapartism.
A glimpse of the glory of Napoleon I fell on his nephew Louis Napoleon, a rather tenacious adventurer who cleared the way to power by the revolution of 1848. So, the drama of the Napoleonic Empire was played again - in the style of tragicomedy, but with hints of farce. Napoleon III played the role of the protagonist (as Louis was titled, recognizing as Napoleon II the son of the first emperor who never reigned).
Louis Napoleon was elected president of the Second Republic, and then, as usual, carried out a coup d'etat and in December 1852 ascended the imperial throne. He could, in principle, be considered a good ruler: he pacified the country, promoted the development of industry, encouraged art, rebuilt Paris, giving it a modern look. The French economy prospered, the elite bathed in gold, something fell to the common people. By the way, at the end of his reign, Napoleon III even somewhat weakened the dictatorial regime.
But the mythology of Bonapartism demanded "the splendor of bloodshed." And Napoleon III did not have a penchant for military affairs and on the battlefields looked more pathetic than heroic. However, he often fought: together with England against Russia, together with Piedmont against Austria, together with Austria and Spain against the Mexican Republicans. The French army under his leadership occupied Rome, landed in Lebanon.
The wars created a deceptive appearance of the power of the Second Empire, but did not bring special territorial benefits to France. Trying at least a little to move the borders to the cherished shores of the Rhine, Napoleon III got into a difficult diplomatic bind, where his opponent was the fanatical Prussian patriot Bismarck, who united Germany with truly Napoleonic means - "iron and blood." The result of their dangerous game was the defeat of the Second Empire in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871. Thus Bonapartism for the second time (and finally) failed in realpolitik. But his political techniques and ideological messages entered the practice of many subsequent contenders for world domination.
Meaning:
It is difficult to give an unambiguous assessment of the significance of the Consulate and the Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte for European history. On the one hand, the Napoleonic wars, which were waged for the sake of conquering foreign territories and robbing other peoples, led in France and other European states to enormous human losses. Taxing the defeated countries with huge indemnities, Napoleon weakened and ruined them. When he autocratically redrawn the map of Europe or tried to impose a new economic order on it in the form of a continental blockade, he interfered in the natural course of historical development, violating age-old boundaries and traditions.
But, on the other hand, history always develops as a result of the struggle between the old and the new. And from this point of view, the Napoleonic Empire personified the new bourgeois order in the face of the old feudal Europe. Just as in the years 1792-1794 the French revolutionaries tried to carry their ideas around Europe with the help of weapons, so Napoleon introduced the bourgeois order in the conquered countries with bayonets. Establishing French domination in European states, he simultaneously abolished the feudal rights of the nobility and the guild system there, carried out the secularization of church lands, extending the effect of his Civil Code to them. In other words, he was destroying the feudal system and acted in this respect, as Stendhal said, like a "son of the revolution." So, the Napoleonic era in European history was one of its brightest stages of manifestations of the transition from the old order to the new time.
Napoleon went down in history as an outstanding, ambiguous personality, possessing brilliant military leadership, diplomatic, intellectual abilities, amazing performance and a phenomenal memory.
Thanks to victorious wars, he significantly expanded the territory of the empire, made most of the states of Western and Central Europe dependent on France.
In March 1804, the code signed by Napoleon became the fundamental law and the basis of French jurisprudence.
In France, departments and district prefects appeared. That is, the administrative division of the French lands has changed significantly. In cities and even villages since that time, managers appeared - mayors.
The French State Bank was created, which was intended to balance the financial situation in the country and securely store its gold reserves.
Lyceums, the Polytechnic School and the Normal School appeared, that is, the education system was updated. Until now, these educational structures are the most prestigious throughout France.
What they said about him:
“The poet Goethe rightly said about Napoleon: for Napoleon, power was the same as a musical instrument for a great artist. He immediately put this tool into action, as soon as he managed to take possession of it ... "(Eugene Tarle)
“The story of Napoleon is reminiscent of the myth of Sisyphus. He courageously rolled up his stone block - Arcole, Austerlitz, Jena; then each time the stone fell down, and in order to raise it again, more courage, more and more effort was required.(André Maurois).
What did he say:
“People of genius are meteors, destined to burn out in order to illuminate their age.”
"There are two levers that can move people - fear and self-interest."
"Public opinion always has the last word."
“The battle was won not by the one who gave good advice, but by the one who took responsibility for its implementation and ordered it to be carried out.”
“With courage, everything can be done, but not everything can be done.”
“Custom leads us to many foolish things; the biggest of them is to become his slave.”
"One bad commander-in-chief is better than two good ones."
"An army of rams led by a lion will always triumph over an army of lions led by a ram."
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