napoleonic europe. rise to power born 1769 in corsica educated in france studied artillery tactics...
TRANSCRIPT
Napoleonic Europe
Rise to Power
•Born 1769 in Corsica
•Educated in France
•Studied artillery tactics in the French Army
Doors of opportunity really began to open for him after the Jacobin seizure of power in 1793. He aligned himself closely with the radical left wing government, and proved his loyalty to Robespierre by repelling invading British forces at Toulon.
Although he was later jailed as a Jacobin sympathizer after the fall of Robespierre the Directory asked him to suppress a Royalist revolt in the streets of Paris in 1795. Using large cannons he repelled the Royalists killing 1400 men. He was immediately thrust into the spotlight. He later commented on this as a ‘whiff of grapeshot’.
1796 Army command over Italy against Austrian influence
• Napoleon used mobile artillery to support his infantry. Deception and espionage helped him take advantage of weak positions in the Austrian defense.
• Significant victories lead to the signing of the Treaty of Campo Formio
• France’s borders expand east to the Rhine River, they gain Belgium and a control over most of Northern Italy
1798- Egyptian Expedition
• Napoleon was put in command of an army to invade England yet he decided that he was not prepared to confront the Royal Navy.
• Goes to the Egypt instead to try to undermine British trade routes to India.
Bonaparte Before the Sphinx
Battle of the Pyramids, 1798
August 1-3, 1798- Battle of the Nile
• The French Navy faced defeat against the British fleet lead by Horatio Nelson. This forces Napoleon to retreat.
Return to France- October, 1799
• Political turmoil in the Directory leads Napoleon back to France.
• Little is known of his military defeats in Egypt therefore his popularity remains in tact.
• Abbe Sieyes looks to Napoleon to provide military support for a coup d’etat to seize power.
November 9, 1799- Coup d’etat
•A provisional government is established with 3 consuls.
•Napoleon takes the title of ‘First Consul’. He undermines Sieyes and becomes the new leader of France.
•Agrees to restore order in France.
Consolidation of Power
Napoleon attempted to maintain his role as leader by establishing roots that would secure his position.
• A. Peace – Once Napoleon seized power in the coup, he
“surveyed” France and found a country exhausted from years of war and bloodshed. So his next move was to “bring peace to a tired France”. Although it would actually take war to get it, the Treaty of Luneville with Austria in 1801 and the Peace of Amiens in 1802 with hated England did just that: bring peace.
Napoleon Crossing the Alps, Jacques- Louis David, 1800
David represented Napoleon as an iconic figure as well as glorifying his military campaigns. In his masterpiece, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, the artist depicts the General as a larger than life figure. Like most of David’s portraits of Napoleon this was a propaganda piece. Note Napoleon in his regal military costume, pointing onward, and mounted on his grand white horse (an important Christian symbol) as it rears up triumphantly on its two hind legs. At the bottom left portion of the canvas we see his name, Bonaparte etched into the stones of the mountains.
Artist Paul Delaroche’s interpretation of Napoleon’s crossing. Completed 30 years after Napoleon’s death it is believed to be a much more accurate depiction of Napoleon’s crossing. In fact Napoleon actually crossed the Alps on a mule because mules have better balance and traction, are lower to the ground, and perform better than horses in extremely cold weather
The Peace of Amiens
Peace cont’d.
• Skepticism reigned supreme after the signing of the Amiens accord. Both countries suspected that it was a mere respite between volleys. The British Prime Minister said it best when he quipped, “peace for a month, war in a year.” However, Napoleon had what he wanted – peace, and his first root.
B. Napoleonic Code Napoleon recognized immediately that the outdated law codes in France were far too complex and inconsistent for an ”Enlightened” country like France. As a result of Napoleon’s work, France received the Napoleonic Code, which would streamline over 365 Roman and revolutionary laws that existed when he came to power. His civil code became one of the true “stones of granite” upon which he built his Empire. He enacted it in all countries he would conquer. Before his death on St. Helena, he listed the Napoleonic Code as his “greatest achievement”.
The first page of the Napoleonic Code
The Napoleonic Code divided law into law of:
• persons
• property
• acquisition of property
• civil procedure
C. The Church •Only a few years after the Jacobins had banned it, Napoleon brought back the Catholic Church in a formal agreement with Pope Pius VII in the Concordat of 1801. While he was no Catholic, he was a realist. He recognized that the French were quietly “voting with their feet” by having their children secretly baptized. •The Concordat still protected freedom of religion in France and Napoleon carefully acknowledged it as the ‘religion of the great majority of Frenchmen’.
The caption of the picture translates: "Signature of the Concordat between the French Government and His Holiness Pius VII for the re-establishment of the Catholic religion in France". On the left is Cardinal Ercole Consalvi, Papal Secretary of State. Next to him is the Pope and Napoleon is in the centre.
D. The State Napoleon made sure that there was a spy in every café, theatre and salon. His instrument of covert operations was well chosen: Joseph Fouche. This minister of the police kept his “diamond-like heart and reptilian eye” close to the pulse of Parisian society, and very little escaped his gaze. Every week he made reports to Napoleon on topics of “national defense” ranging from suicides, newspaper headlines, subversive talk and wiretapping (opening letters).
E. The Coronation •In a referendum vote in 1802 Napoleon became ‘First Consul for Life”•In December of 1804, and with the Pope present, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor in front of thousands at an invite-only gala in Notre Dame Cathedral. •Napoleon would proclaim,
"I am not a man like others and moral laws or the laws that govern conventional behavior do not apply to me. My mistresses do not in the least engage my feelings. Power is my mistress."
Jacques-Louis David, The Coronation of Napoleon
Once again David propagandized Napoleon in The Coronation of Napoleon in Notre Dame. The painting is on a massive canvas (6 x 10 meters) and took two years to complete. Napoleon closely oversaw David’s work, ensuring the view of himself projected to the world honoured him as a crowned Emperor with the full blessing of the Pope and Catholic clergy. And once again the artist did not let the truth stand in the way of the image of grandeur and approval he wanted to portray. Napoleon's parents never approved of his coronation as Emperor of France, so they never attended the coronation ceremony. However David believed the work’s influence would be enhanced if it showed Napoleon’s parents approving of him as emperor, so they were added to the picture. (just left of Napoleon in the back). Upon completion Napoleon came to see the artist, stared at the canvas for an hour and finally uttered, "David, I salute you".
Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1806
Napoleonic Wars
• The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars declared against Napoleon's French Empire by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815.
• Napoleon envisioned a European empire with France at its helm. His main adversary was Britain which wanted to keep the existing state system.
• Britain had superiority on the seas while Napoleon owned the soil.
• By the turn of the century France had effectively lost it’s colonial possessions with revolts in Haiti and the sale of Louisiana.
Toussaint Louverture
Louisiana Purchase
The Third Coalition & Continental System
•By 1805 Britain had convinced Austria and Russia to join a coalition against France.
•Napoleon responded by creating the Continental System. This forced France’s subjects to boycott English goods. He hoped it would ruin English industry and allow France to take over as the leading trade partner in Europe.
•Napoleon had planned an invasion of Britain and amassed a force of 165,000 soldiers. In a failed attempt to distract the British Navy off of the coast of Spain, the French fleet was destroyed at the Battle of Trafalgar. This ended any realistic hope of an invasion for Napoleon and cemented Britain’s control of the seas.
Turner, The Battle of Trafalgar
Battle of Austerlitz
•Six weeks after Trafalgar Napoleon won a decisive victory at Austerlitz by crushing the joint Austro-Russian army. He inflicted 25,000 casualties while sustaining only 7,000.
In order to continue to extend the continental system, Napoleon had to continue to expand the French empire. This forced him to fight a series of battles against European coalitions. He was largely successful in these battles, yet enforcing the continental system proved difficult. Regardless of this by 1812 the French empire had extended to the point that only Britain, Russia and the Ottoman Empire were fully independent of French influence.
First French Empire at its greatest extent in 1811.
French Empire
French satellite states
Allied states
The Fall of Napoleon
• When Portugal did not comply with the continental system, Napoleon invaded in 1807 with the support of Spain.
• Spain soon turned on Napoleon when he deposed the King and placed his brother Joseph on the throne.
• In Madrid, citizens rebelled on May 2, 1808. Napoleon responded with a massacre of citizens on May 3.
The Third of May 1808, Francisco Goya
• This began the Peninsula War which would last until 1814.
• With British support, Spanish guerillas and the leadership of the Duke of Wellington France would eventually lose this War.
Invasion of Russia• Napoleon’s decline began with his
attempted invasion of Russia in 1812.
• He amassed 600,000 men in his Grand Army and moved in to Russia in the summer months.
• Russia employed scorched earth tactics rather than direct engagement with Napoleon’s forces.
The Battle of Borodino, September 7, 1812
•44,000 Russian dead
•35,000 French dead
•Possibly the bloodiest day of war in history to that point
After the battle Napoleon attempted to negotiate a surrender. Alexander I refused and ordered Moscow to be burned to the ground. Napoleon, despite winning key positions could not win over the Russian army. In October he began the disastrous ‘Great Retreat’. Of 600,000 only 50,000 would return to France.
•As the situation deteriorated in Spain a coalition force combined to challenge France.
•In 1813 at the Battle of Nations 191,000 French soldiers were defeated by a coalition army of more than 300,000.
•Napoleon retreated to Paris.
The Russian Army Enters Paris, March 1814
The Battle of the Nations, 1813
April 6, 1814 Napoleon Abdicates the Throne
The End…Kind of.
• The victors exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba, and restored the French Bourbon monarchy in the person of Louis XVIII. They signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau (11 April 1814) and initiated the Congress of Vienna to redraw the map of Europe.
The Hundred Days
• In March of 1815 Napoleon escaped Elba and returned to Paris. Louis XVIII, the appointed leader fled. He recruited an army and resumed his leadership.
• The Congress of Vienna created an allied army led by the Duke of Wellington to end his rule.
Napoleon’s Return from Elba
June 18, 1815- Battle of Waterloo
• Napoleon’s army repeatedly attacked Wellington under muddy conditions. He held on.
• Overwhelmed by the arrival of the Prussian army Napoleon was defeated.
Battle of Waterloo
Exile to St. Helena
• Napoleon was sent to the remote island of St. Helena.
• He would write his memoirs here and die in 1821.
Napoleon at St. Helena
"France, army, head of the army, Joséphine.“ Napoleon’s last words.
Congress of Vienna, 1815
• Establishes a system of nation-states in Europe. Each nation would have a ‘legitimate’ leader.
• Re-draws the map of Europe.• Results in a period of relative peace.• Big winners- Britain, Russia, Prussia and
Austria• Losers- France, Spain, Portugal,
Netherlands
