Prussia declares war on France (26 February)
Convention of Kalisch signed (28 February)
Prince Mikhail Kutusov dies in Bunzlau (25 March)
Treaty of Preslau signed (29 March)
General Jean Bessières dies (1 May)
Battle of Lützen fought (2 May)
General Gerhard Scharnhorst dies (8 June)
Battle of Bautzen fought (20–21 May)
Battle of Vittoria fought (21 June)
Treaty of Reichenbach signed (27 June)
Wellington becomes British field marshal (21 June)
Lord Byron’s The Giaour published (June)
Sprimg armistice ends and allies declare war on France (10 August)
Battle of Gross-Beeren fought (23 August)
Battle of Katzbach fought (26 August)
Battle of Dresden fought (26–27 August)
Poet Karl Körner killed in battle (26 August)
General Jean Moreau killed at Dresden (27 August)
Battle of Kulm fought (29–30 August)
Agreement of Trachenberg (August)
Prinz zu Schwarzburg becomes commander of combined allied armies (August)
Battle of Dennewitz fought (6 September)
Treaty of Reid signed (8 October)
Bavarian abandons Confederation of the Rhine (11 October)
Treaty of Gulistan signed (12 October)
Battle of Leipzig fought (16–19 October)
Prince Josef Poniatowski killed at battle of Leipzig (19 October)
Württemberg abandons Confederation of the Rhine (23 October)
Battle of Hanau fought (29–31 October)
Baden abandons the Confederation of Rhine (20 November)
Napoleon orders all foreign troops in Grande Armée disarmed (25 November)
Treaty of Valençay signed (11 December)
Allied armies invade Switzerland (21 December)
Prince of Orange returns to Amsterdam and becomes sovereign prince (December)
Antoine Arnault publishes his Fables
1814
Murat betrays and deserts Napoleon (11 January)
Battle of Brienne fought (29 January)
Battle of La Rothière fought (1 February)
Battle of Mincio fought (8 February)
Battle of Champaubert fought (10 February)
Battle of Montmirail fought (11 February)
Battle of Château-Thierry fought (12 February)
Battle of Vauchamps fought (14 February)
Battle of Montereau fought (17–18 February)
Treaty of Troyes signed (22 February)
Lord Byron’s The Corsair is published (February)
Battle of Craonne fought (7 March)
Treaty of Chaumont signed (9 March)
Battle of Laon fought (9–10 March)
Henri Clark becomes French minister of war (11–20 March)
Battle of Reims fought (12–13 March)
Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube fought (20–21 March)
Fernando VII of Spain ascends the throne (24 March)
Battle of Paris fought (30 March)
Henri Clark leaves office as French minister of war (3 April)
Napoleon’s First Abdication (6 April)
Napoleon is exiled to Elba (6 April)
Treaty of Fontainebleau signed (11 April)
Convention of Schiarino-Rizzino signed (17 April)
Ex-Empress Joséphine dies (24 May)
First Treaty of Paris signed by France and Allies (30 May)
Swedish General Gustaf Armfelt dies in Tsarskoe Selo, Russia (19 August)
Valais, Geneva and Neuchâtel join Swiss Confederation (12 September)
Congress of Vienna convened (September)
Second Treaty of Paris signed by France and Allies (20 November)
Marquis de Sade dies (2 December)
Treaty of Ghent signed (24 December)
Marshal Soult becomes French minister of war (3 December to 11 March 1815)
Guiseppe Pirna murdered
1815
Lord Byron marries Anne Isabella Milbanke (2 January)
Britain, Austria and France sign treaty against plans of Russia in Poland and Prussia in Saxony (3 January)
Friedrich Mesmer dies in Meersburg, Switzerland (5 March)
Seventh Coalition formed (25 March)
Napoleon escapes from Elba (March)
Battle of Tolentino fought (2 May)
Wellington becomes field marshal in Dutch service (23 May)
Battle of Ligny fought (16 June)
Battle of Quatre-Bras fought (16 June)
Battle of Waterloo fought (18 June)
Duke Friedrich Wilhelm of Braunschweig-Oels dies in battle of Quatre-Bras (16 June)
Battle of Waterloo fought (18 June)
Wilhelm Frederich, Duke of Braunschweig-Wolfenbüttel dies at battle of Waterloo (18 June)
Napoleon’s Second Abdication (22 June)
Louis XVIII returns to France (8 July)
Napoleon exiled to St. Helena (July)
Marshal Guillaume Brune murdered (2 August)
Willem I, crowned King of the Netherlands in Brussels (27 September)
Joachim Murat, former King of Naples, executed (13 October)
Quadruple Alliance formed (20 November)
Marshal Michael Ney executed (7 December)
Introduction
In a glittering ceremony in Notre Dame Cathedral on 18 May 1804, Napoleon, surrounded by the elite of France, stood before the altar as Pope Pius VII anointed him hereditary Emperor of France and raised the imperial crown to place it on Napoleon’s head just as his predecessor had crowned the last French emperor, Charlemagne. Knowing the history of that event and how the act of crowning Charlemagne had given that first pope a claim to be liege lord over Charlemagne leading to centuries of struggle for dominance between the Holy Roman emperors and the popes, Napoleon reached up, took the crown from the pope’s hands, and crowned himself emperor. Napoleon would not be indebted or subservient to anyone. France was his, and the rest of Europe stood trembling before his sword.
Though his rise to power had been meteoric, the final great event that set Napoleon’s feet firmly on the path to his personal rule of France on 9 November 1799 occurred when he launched the coup d’État du 18 brumaire and overthrew the Directory. Napoleon then cemented his empire with his victory on the battlefield of Marengo on 14 June 1800.
The sun rose on the Napoleonic era in the midst of the crashing of cannon, rattle of musketry and the cries of men on the fields of northern Italy near the tiny village of Marengo on 14 June 1800. After losing the battle in the morning, Napoleon won a decisive victory in the afternoon and clinched for himself the throne of France.
Napoleon’s victory at Marengo gave him the power base to rise from being merely one of several consuls to the position of First Consul. By 18 May 1804 he had elevated himself to the imperial purple.
Two months before the coronation, Napoleon acted to clear the stage of potential rivals. In March he had the Duke d’Enghien kidnapped from his home in Baden and brought to France. A summary court-martial quickly convicted d’Enghien for his crimes against France, leading the Army of the Condé against the revolutionary government and attempting to overthrow it. D’Enghien’s execution shocked Europe and hardened the hearts of many of Europe’s monarchs against Napoleon.
Peace, however, soon vanished from the European continent. In April 1805 the Third Coalition had formed against France, and by October 1805, Austrian and Russian armies began marching west. Napoleon had spent the summer on the French side of the English Channel, facing England and training his army. When Austria and Russia mobilized against him, he swept eastward where he surrounded and destroyed General Karl Mack’s army of Austrians at Ulm, then marched to Austerlitz, where his armies crushed those of his enemies.
Prussia did not get involved in the 1805 campaign, but anger grew in Prussia against France. The violation of Prussian terri
tory by French forces marching against Austria was probably a pretext for war more than the cause, but war came in October 1806 as the Prussian army mobilized and marched against Napoleon.
In one of the most amazing campaigns in history, Napoleon found his army divided in two, facing two Prussian armies. Napoleon at Jena faced the smaller portion of the Prussian army with the major portion of his own, while at Auerstädt, Marshal Louis Davout faced the main body of the Prussians. Both battles were astounding French victories that irreparably shattered the Prussian army and sent its fragments fleeing in every direction. The French pursuit was aggressive and quickly overran most of Prussia, taking the major cities and fortresses.
The Russians had not surrendered after Austerlitz, but had pulled back and rebuilt their army, sending it west just as Prussia fell under Napoleon’s sword. The winter campaign of 1806–07 was a nasty, hard-fought campaign. The battle of Eylau occurred in early February 1807 and though the slaughter was great, the battle was not conclusive. It was followed on 14 June by the battle of Friedland, where the Russians were decisively defeated and brought to the negotiating table.
With the destruction of Austria in 1805, the Holy Roman Empire had fallen apart, with Napoleon catching the smaller German states in his nets like a fisherman scooping his prey out of the ocean. From them he formed the Confederation of the Rhine, turning them into the buffer that Louis XIV and Louis XV had sought to form against Austria. He gathered their armies into his and turned them against his enemies. When Prussia fell, Saxony came under Napoleon’s sway and fell into line. With the destruction of the Russian army at Friedland, Napoleon brought the vanquished Russian and Prussians to the treaty table, where he dictated the Treaty of Tilsit. By this treaty Napoleon formed kingdoms for his brother Jérôme and his brother-in-law Joachim Murat in Germany, as well as restoring the rump of the Kingdom of Poland in the form of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.
Peace returned to Europe for a year, but Napoleon was not content and invaded Portugal and Spain in order to secure their borders against English trade. Spain was a tar baby and once into it there was no escaping its horrors. Napoleon led his armies for the early part of the 1808 peninsular campaign, but in 1809 a rearmed and vengeful Austria invaded Germany and attacked the French armies stationed there. Napoleon’s spies had told him this was coming and he left Spain early enough to be in Paris when the blow fell.
Marshal Louis Berthier struggled to contain the Austrian onslaught and mishandled it badly. Never was a man so grateful to see Napoleon as Berthier when Napoleon took command of the Grande Armée in May 1809. The French armies, once again under the master’s hand, lunged forward and drove the Austrians back to Vienna and from there across the Danube, abandoning their capital to the French.
Not content, Napoleon overaggressively moved across the Danube and became embroiled in the battle of Aspern-Essling. With his back to a river, fire boats crashing into and destroying his bridges, his army hard pressed, Napoleon only barely escaped back across the Danube to prepare for the next battle in July, Wagram. During the battle Marshal Jean Bernadotte found himself confronted by an angry Napoleon. Bernadotte had loudly criticized Napoleon for the battle of Aspern-Essling and when Bernadotte’s corps broke and fled at Wagram, Napoleon banished him from the army. A furious Bernadotte returned to France, eventually to become King of Sweden and turn on Napoleon in the 1813 campaign.
Napoleon prevailed at Wagram and the Austrians were soon forced to sign yet another peace treaty. Included in this series of negotiations was a commitment that Napoleon would marry the Austrian emperor’s daughter.
Joséphine was quickly divorced and the new marriage celebrated on 1 April 1811, and by March 1812 a son was born to Napoleon. The needs of state, however, soon drove Napoleon back to his army and there followed the disastrous invasion of Russia. General Michael Barclay de Tolly’s Fabian tactics drew Napoleon deeper and deeper into Russia. His supply lines reached the breaking point and the indecisive battle at Borodino denied Napoleon the strategic victory he sought.
Meanwhile in Paris, concerns rose because of the lack of news of the people’s emperor. On 23 October General Claude Malet sought to take advantage of the concerns and launched a republican coup against Napoleon. It failed miserably, but clearly showed the cracks forming in Napoleon’s empire.
After a disastrous stay in Moscow, his army overextended, Napoleon withdrew to the west and the withdrawal soon became a near rout. His army of 600,000 had entered Russia and barely 90,000 escaped. With this feeble force, Napoleon left Murat in command and he then turned it over to Eugène, Napoleon’s stepson. Prussia, taking advantage of the situation, broke from Napoleon’s control and declared war.
The 1813 spring campaign started badly, but Napoleon, who had gone to Paris, had rebuilt his army and steadily fed Eugène a stream of reinforcements adding to the army once again. Napoleon came in late April and turned against the combined Russian and Prussian armies. He beat them badly at Lützen on 2 May and on 20 and 21 May again at Bautzen. A series of small engagements occurred as the allied armies rapidly withdrew and Napoleon attempted to pursue them.
Both sides were exhausted and an armistice was signed, each side hoping to take more advantage of it than the other. Napoleon rebuilt his army, but was unable to replace his shattered cavalry forces that had been destroyed in Russia. When Austria declared war along with the Russians and Prussians on 15 August, Napoleon faced a new dilemma. He had lost the gamble over the armistice.
Fighting on interior lines of communication, Napoleon should have had the advantage. However, the allied commanders had agreed not to engage the French if Napoleon was present. Surrounded by three armies as Napoleon rushed to attack one, it withdrew and the other two advanced. The day he won the battle of Dresden he learned that Macdonald had been defeated at Katzbach and Oudinot at Gross-Beeren. The war did not go well for Napoleon and came to a crisis in mid-October at Leipzig. Completely surrounded, after four days of battle, Napoleon cut his way out to the west and freedom, but large portions of his army were captured because of the premature destruction of a bridge over the Elster.
Napoleon withdrew to French territory, abandoning Germany as his former German allies abandoned him. He scraped together still more soldiers and fought what is probably his most brilliant campaign in 1814. His fate, however, was sealed. His armies were greatly outnumbered and though he scored several tremendous victories over small portions of the allied armies, he would never be strong enough to stop the main armies. The Allies had decided to ignore Napoleon and march on Paris. They abandoned a victory in the field over Napoleon for a political victory in Paris that forced Napoleon to abdicate.
On 4 and again on 6 April 1814 Napoleon signed an abdication. The Bourbon monarchy was restored and Napoleon’s Austrian bride and his son went to Austria. Napoleon was sent to Elba, a small island on the west cost of Italy, where he was to rule.
In less than a year, Napoleon was bored of Elba and slipped back into France where the Bourbons had quickly reminded everyone why they had been so hated in 1789 and 1792. The army fell in behind Napoleon and he was restored to his throne. The Bourbons quickly slipped out of town and headed north to Holland.
Europe rose in arms against Napoleon. The Allies had mobilized their armies, while the French had disbanded large parts of it. Napoleon was, however, able to recall many veterans and rebuild his army, but it was a fragile weapon that would break on the fields of Waterloo. As he had won his empire on the battlefields of Italy, it was suitable that he would lose it decisively and finally on another battlefield.
A crushed man, his wife and child taken from him, his empire lost, Napoleon wandered the halls of Malmaison, the home he’d given Joséphine upon their divorce, lost in his thoughts. He soon boarded a British ship and was taken to St. Helena, a tiny island thousands of miles away, deep in the south Atlantic. The dream of an empire had died in France, but the man lived on for a few more years, dying on 5 May 1821.
The Nap
oleonic era lasted almost 15 years, but the mark it made on the world’s history was indelible. There were many great men alive in that era and in their greatness they were all touched by Napoleon to one degree or another. The British poet Lord Byron never waivered from his admiration of Napoleon. Ludwig van Beethoven first admired then despised him, and so it went with many others. Some, however, like Nicolas Chauvan, would love Napoleon with a fervor that only death would extinguish and then immortalize in the word chauvinism.
A stable system of law and order prevailed in France under Napoleon’s firm, but paternal hand. As the Napoleonic empire began to spread across Europe, it brought with it many of the innovations of the French Revolution, notably impregnating Germany and Italy with the ideas of nationalism, but also spreading throughout Europe the seeds of the 1848 revolutions.
The worst of the social stresses of the French Revolution were gone, but European society would continue to feel the stress of the greatest war it would see before 1914. The social stresses of the period combined with the spreading of the ideas and innovations of the French Revolution and inspired such artists as Lord Byron and Beethoven to create some of their greatest works.
The Napoleonic era was a period of tremendous change, not so much of the changes that occurred during that period, but that it is the period in which the roots of modern Europe were planted. It led to the collapse of the old system of government, the monarchy, and its replacement by democratic forms of government. Though the French Revolution was the spark that ignited that fire, the Napoleonic era was the fulcrum around which European society was moved to that which we know today. Not only did Europe witness the birth of the modern nation–state, it saw the concept of nationalism expand from small ethic groups to masses of people numbering in the millions and spread across states formed of millions of square miles.
As the years passed, France looked back on its era of glory and put a new Bonaparte on the throne of France. Napoleon III, a politician and no general or military genius, met his Waterloo at Sedan, was taken prisoner by the Prussians, and his empire collapsed. Even in the 21st century there are still Bonapartists in France, but as a political force they are insignificant. However, Paris still rings with the sounds of Napoleon’s era. The names of his marshals and generals adorn street signs throughout the city, and the great Napoleon himself now lies buried in its center in the Invalides. The Emperor did come home eventually, leaving his rocky crag in the south Atlantic, to lie in the bosom of France as an immortal reminder of the greatness that was the Napoleonic era.
Historical Dictionary of the Napoleonic Era Page 2
