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Notes for the Slides – GFPA 2043-W9

The Napoleonic Wars

Slide Notes
01
02 Illustration: Napoleon Crossing the Alps (aka Napoleon at the Saint-Bernard Pass) (c1801-1805)
by Jacques-Louis David depicting Napoleon and his 40,000 men-strong army (with 30% of their
heavy artillery) crossing the St Bernard Pass in May 1800 where they met with the Austrian
army at the Battle of Montebello and Battle of Marengo. On the bottom part of the painting,
on the rocks are his name, together with Hannibal and Charlemagne – great generals who led
their forces across the alps.
03 1. As France’s greatest national hero, he brought much of Europe under his rule and
introduced lasting political and legal reforms.
2. Born in Corsica 1769 to an Italian noble family on a French-ruled island of Corsica.
3. An Italian national, but became a French citizen.
4. Attended French military college and graduated as a lieutenant in 1785. Reached the rank
of Brigadier General by age 24 in 1793.
5. His role became prominent during the French Revolution.
6. 1795 – Helped end the reign of terror.
7. 1799 – Seized power, introduced the consul system with himself as the first consul in 1802
through a referendum. The first consul has the executive authority throughout the
republic, endowed with the power to appoint members of the legislative assembly, make
laws and declare war.
8. Became emperor in 1804.

Illustration: Napoleon Bonaparte, aged 23, as lieutenant-colonel of a battalion of Corsican

Republican volunteers. Portrait by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux
04 • Chronology of Notable Events
05 1. Although forgoing a set battle plan in favor of flexibility, Napoleon was guided by certain
general principles, which constituted his art of war. He stressed the advantage of “a rapid
and audacious attack” in preference to waging defensive war from a fixed position. “Make
war offensively; it is the sole means to become a great captain and to fathom the secrets
of the art.”
2. Warfare could not be left to chance but required mastering every detail and anticipating
every contingency. “I am accustomed to thinking out what I shall do three or four months
in advance, and I base my calculations on the worst of conceivable circumstances.” Every
master plan contained numerous alternatives to cover all contingencies.
3. Surprise and speed were essential ingredients of Napoleonic warfare. Relying heavily on
surprise, Napoleon employed various stratagems to confuse and deceive his opponents:
providing newspapers with misleading information and launching secondary offensives.
Determined to strike unexpectedly and consequently demoralize the enemy by arriving at
a battlefield ahead of schedule, he carefully selected the best routes to the chosen
destination, eliminated slow-moving supply convoys by living off the countryside, and
inspired his men to incredible feats of marching as they drew closer to the opposing army.
In the first Italian campaign, his men covered 50 miles in thirty-six hours; in 1805, against
Austria, they marched 275 miles in twenty-three days.
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4. His campaigns anticipated the blitzkrieg, or lightning warfare, of the twentieth century. By
rapid marches, Napoleon would concentrate a superior force against a segment of the
enemy’s strung-out forces. Here the hammer blow would fall. Employing some troops to
pin down the opposing force, he would move his main army to the enemy’s rear or flank,
cutting off the enemy supply line. Conducted with speed and deception, these moves
broke the spirit of the opposing troops. Heavy barrages by concentrated artillery opened a
hole in the enemy lines, which was penetrated first by infantry and then by shock waves of
cavalry. Unlike the typical eighteenth-century commander, who maneuverer for position
and was satisfied with his opponent’s retreat, Napoleon sought to annihilate the enemy’s
army, thereby destroying its source of power.
5. The emperor thoroughly understood the importance of morale in warfare. “Moral force
rather than numbers decides victory,” he once said. He deliberately sought to shatter his
opponent’s confidence by surprise moves and lightning thrusts. He also recognized that he
must maintain a high level of morale among his own troops. By sharing danger with his
men, he gained their affection and admiration. He inspired his men by appealing to their
honor, vanity, credulity, and love of France. “A man does not have himself killed for a few
halfpence a day or for a petty distinction,” he declared. “You must speak to the soul in
order to electrify the man.” This Napoleon could do. It was Napoleon’s charisma that led
the duke of Wellington to remark: “I used to say of him that his presence on the field made
a difference of 40,000 men.”
6. Eighteenth-century military planners had stressed the importance of massed artillery,
rapid movement, deception, living off the countryside, and the annihilation of the enemy
army. Napoleon alone had the will and ingenuity to convert these theories into battlefield
victories. Napoleon also harnessed the military energies generated during a decade of
revolutionary war. The Revolution had created a mass army, had instilled in the republican
soldier a love for la patrie, and had enabled promising young soldiers to gain promotions
on the basis of talent rather than birth. Napoleon took this inheritance and perfected it.
06 1. Since the French Revolution, France had been at war with Austria, Prussia, England, the
Netherlands and Spain in the war of the First Coalition, stemming from the Declaration of
Pillnitz and France’s Legislative Assembly’s decision (20th April 1792-17th October 1797).
2. War with Austria started in 1792 at Lodi, Arcola and Rivoli but Between 1796-1805,
Napoleon conquered and made treaties with several countries.
3. Again in 1800 after the battle of Marengo and in 1805 at Austerlitz, Austria was forced to
sign treaties.
4. In 1793, Napoleon prevented the English from controlling the French port of Toulon. He
was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General for his success in December 1793.
5. France also threatened England’s trade by controlling important ports of Antwerp,
Rotterdam and Amsterdam.
6. The war ended in 1797 through the signing of peace treaty at Campo Formio – which
ceded Austrian Netherlands to France, and turning Northern Italy into French sister
republics.
7. In November 1797, Napoleon was ordered to plan an invasion of England. Aware that the
French navy was weak, he recommended postponing the invasion. He urged instead that
an expedition be sent to the Near East to strike at British power in the Mediterranean and
British commerce with India, and perhaps to carve out a French empire in the Near East.
With more than thirty-five thousand troops, Napoleon set out for Egypt, then a part of the
Turkish empire and successfully captures Cairo.
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Illustration: The Siege of Toulon 1793, Napoleons first major victory.

07 1. In 1798, Napoleon conquered Egypt, then Syria. Although he captured Cairo the Egyptian
campaign was far from a success.
2. French military were beaten by the British admiral Nelson at the Battle of the Nile.
Deprived of reinforcements and supplies, with his manpower reduced by battle and
plague, Napoleon was compelled to abandon whatever dreams he might have had of
threatening India.
3. Meanwhile, political unrest, financial disorder, and military reversals produced an
atmosphere of crisis in France. Napoleon knew that in such times people seek out a savior.
A man of destiny must act. Without informing his men, he slipped out of Egypt, avoided
British cruisers, and landed in France in October 1799.
4. Although the Egyptian expedition was a failure, Napoleon, always seeking to improve his
image, sent home glowing bulletins about French victories. To people in France, he was the
conqueror of Egypt, as well as of Italy. He used the opportunity to consolidate his power
and trigger a coup in November 1799.
5. In 1800 he invaded Prussia and overthrew its government in 1806, forming the
Confederation of the Rhine.
6. Again in 1800 after the battle of Marengo and in 1805 at Austerlitz, Austria was forced to
sign treaties.

Illustration: Napoleon in Cairo (c.1863), by Jean-Léon Gérôme (b1824-d1904)

08 1. Britain was Napoleon’s most resolute opponent. It could not be otherwise, for any power
that dominated the Continent could organize sufficient naval might to threaten British
commerce, challenge its sea power, and invade the island kingdom. Britain would not
make peace with any state that sought European hegemony, and Napoleon’s ambition
would settle for nothing less. Because he could not make peace with Britain, Napoleon
resolved to crush it.
2. The Peace of Amiens (1802) between France and Great Britain was merely a truce.
Between 1803 and 1805, Napoleon assembled an invasion flotilla in the English Channel.
3. Napoleon’s unlimited ambitions shattered any hope that it might last. He sent an army to
restore the rebellious colony of Haiti to French rule.
4. This move aroused British fears that he was planning a new French empire in America,
because Spain had restored Louisiana to France in 1801.
5. More serious were his interventions in the Dutch Republic, Italy, and Switzerland and his
reorganization of Germany.
6. The Treaty of Campo Formio had required a redistribution of territories along the Rhine
River, and the petty princes of the region engaged in a scramble to enlarge their holdings.
Among the results were the reduction of Austrian influence and the emergence of fewer,
but larger, German states in the West, all dependent on Napoleon.
7. Napoleon became emperor for half of Europe. He appointed his brother Louis as King of
Holland (1806-1810), Joseph as King of Spain (1808-1813), brother-in-law (Joachim-
Napoleon) as King of Naples (1808-1815) and Jean Bernadotte a Marshal of the French
Empire as heir presumptive to the Swedish throne.
8. The people of these conquered countries wanted to free themselves from Napoleon’s rule
with strong feelings and sentiments of nationalism amongst them.
9. British Naval Supremacy alarmed by these developments; the British issued an ultimatum.
When Napoleon ignored it, Britain declared war in May 1803.
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10. William Pitt the Younger returned to office as prime minister in 1804 and began to
construct the Third Coalition.
11. By August 1805, he had persuaded Russia and Austria to move once more against France.
A great naval victory soon raised the fortunes of the allies.
12. On October 21, 1805, the British admiral Lord Nelson destroyed the combined French and
Spanish fleets at the Battle of Trafalgar off the Spanish coast. Nelson died in the battle, but
the British lost no ships. Trafalgar ended all French hope of invading Britain and guaranteed
British control of the seas for the rest of the war.

Illustration: Entry of Napoleon at the head of his troops through the Brandenburg Gate after
the victorious battles of Jena and Auerstedt. Berlin, October 27, 1806. by Charles Meynier
(b1763/1768-d1832). After capturing Berlin, Napoleon took/steal the quadriga (four-horsed
chariot) on top of the Brandenburg gate, and send it to Paris in twelve crates. Arriving slightly
damaged in Paris on 16th June 1807, it stays until 1814 when it was retaken by the Prussian
troops and returned to Berlin where it becomes a symbol of national identity, freedom and
victory.
09 1. As long as Britain ruled the waves, it was not subject to military attack. Napoleon hoped to
invade Britain, but he could not overcome the British navy’s decisive defeat of a combined
French-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar in 1805, so he turned to economic warfare.
2. He introduced the continental system in 1806 for the purpose of weakening Britain
economically and destroy its capacity to wage war
3. Through this system he forbids the importation of British goods, especially cotton goods to
any part of Europe allied to him. But the Continental system failed. Allied states resented
it; some began to cheat and others to resist. Britain escaped economic ruin by smuggling
goods onto the Continent and increasing trade with the New World.
4. The Continental System also punished European lands dependent on British imports;
hundreds of ships lay idle in European ports, and industries closed down. Though generally
supportive of Napoleon’s social and administrative reforms, the bourgeoisie turned against
him because of the economic distress caused by the Continental System.
5. By 1810, Napoleon dominated Continental Europe, except for the Balkan Peninsula.
6. The Grand Empire comprised lands annexed to France, vassal states, and cowed allies. The
French republic had already annexed Belgium and the German Left Bank of the Rhine.
7. Napoleon incorporated several other areas into France: German coastal regions as far as
the western Baltic and large areas of Italy, including Rome, Geneva and its environs,
Trieste, and the Dalmatian coast.
8. Vassal states in the Grand Empire included five kingdoms ruled by Napoleon’s relatives:
two kingdoms in Italy and the kingdoms of Holland, Westphalia, and Spain. Besides the five
satellite kingdoms, there were several other vassal states within the Grand Empire.
9. Napoleon formed the Confederation of the Rhine in 1806. Its members, a loose association
of sixteen (later eighteen) German states, were subservient to the emperor, as were the
nineteen cantons of the Swiss confederation.
10. Napoleon also encountered new sources of opposition. His conquests made the French
hated oppressors and aroused the patriotism of the conquered peoples. A Spanish uprising
against Napoleon’s rule, with British support, kept a French force of 200,000 pinned down
for years

Illustration: The Continental System (1806-1801). Napoleon hoped to cut off all British trade
with the European continent, therefore limiting its ability to wage war.
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10 1. Deteriorating relations between Russia and France led Napoleon to his fatal decision to
attack the eastern giant. Unwilling to permit Russia to become a Mediterranean power, the
emperor resisted the tsar’s attempts to acquire Constantinople. Napoleon’s creation of the
Grand Duchy of Warsaw irritated the tsar, who feared a revival of Polish power and
resented French influence on Russia’s border. Another source of friction between the tsar
and Napoleon was Russia’s illicit trade with Britain in violation of the Continental System.
2. Napoleon reasoned that if he permitted the tsar to violate the trade regulations, other
lands would soon follow, and England would never be subdued. No doubt Napoleon’s
inexhaustible craving for power also compelled him to strike at Russia.
3. 1810 – Russia formally withdrew from the Continental System. Anglo-Russian trade
relations resumed.
4. Napoleon decided to crush the Tsar with 700,000 troops (some 614,000 men, 200,000
animals, and 20,000 vehicles) to invade Russia in June 1812 – the biggest ever assembled.
5. 1/3 of La Grande Armée de la Russie was French, 1/3 ware Germans and the remaining
from serving under compulsion from other conquered countries.
6. Wanting a quick victory, he mobilized with only 3 weeks of supplies.
7. The emperor intended to deal the Russians a crushing blow, forcing Tsar Alexander I to sue
for peace. But the Russians had other plans: to avoid pitched battles, retreat eastward, and
refuse to make peace with the invader. Napoleon would be drawn ever deeper into Russia
in pursuit of the enemy.
8. In June 1812, the Grand Army crossed the Neman River into Russia. Fighting only rear-
guard battles and retreating, the tsar’s forces lured the invaders into the vastness of
Russia, far from their lines of supply. In September, the Russians made a stand at Borodino,
some seventy miles west of Moscow. Although the French won, opening the road to
Moscow, they lost forty thousand men and failed to destroy the Russian army, which
withdrew in order. Napoleon still did not have the decisive victory with which he hoped to
compel the tsar to make peace. At midnight on September 14, the Grand Army, its
numbers greatly reduced by disease, hunger, exhaustion, desertion, and battle, entered
Moscow. Expecting to be greeted by a deputation of nobles, Napoleon found instead that
the Muscovites had virtually evacuated their city.
9. To show their contempt for the French conquerors and to deny the French shelter, the
Russians set fire to the city, which burned for five days. Taking up headquarters in Moscow,
Napoleon waited for Alexander I to admit defeat and come to terms. But the tsar remained
intransigent. Napoleon was in a dilemma: to penetrate deeper into Russia was certain
death; to stay in Moscow with winter approaching meant possible starvation.
10. Faced with these alternatives, Napoleon was forced to retreat westward to his sources of
supply. On October 19, 1812, ninety-five thousand troops and thousands of wagons loaded
with loot left Moscow for the long trek back. In early November came the first snow and
frost. Army stragglers were slaughtered by Russian Cossacks and peasant partisans. Hungry
soldiers pounced on fallen horses, carving them up alive. The wounded were left to lie
where they dropped. Some poor wretches, wrote a French officer, “dragged themselves
along, shivering . . . until the snow packed under the soles of their boots, a bit of debris, a
branch, or the body of a fallen comrade tripped them and threw them down. Then their
moans for help went unheeded. The snow soon covered them up and only low white
mounds showed where they lay. Our road was strewn with these hummocks, like a
cemetery.”
11. In the middle of December, with the Russians in pursuit, the remnants of La Grande Armée
de la Russie staggered across the Neman River into East Prussia. Napoleon had left his men
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earlier in the month and, traveling in disguise, reached Paris on December 18. Napoleon
had lost his army; he would soon lose his throne. Only 20,000 reached Paris.
12. The unsuccessful invasion of Russia in 1812 diminished Napoleon’s glory and hastened the
collapse of his empire.

Illustrations:
Fire of Moscow (15-18th September 1812) (c1813), Alexander Smirnov
Napoleon's withdrawal from Russia by Adolph Northen (b1828-d1876)
11 1. After the destruction of the La Grande Arméeby the Russians, the empire crumbled.
Although Napoleon raised a new army, he could not replace the equipment, cavalry
horses, and experienced soldiers squandered in Russia. Now he had to rely on schoolboys
and overage veterans.
2. Most of Europe joined in a final coalition against France. In October 1813, allied forces
from Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Sweden defeated Napoleon at Leipzig; in November,
Anglo-Spanish forces crossed the Pyrenees into France. Finally, in the spring of 1814, the
allies captured Paris.
3. Napoleon abdicated and was exiled to the tiny island of Elba, off the coast of Italy.
4. The Bourbon dynasty was restored to the throne of France in the person of Louis XVIII,
younger brother of the executed Louis XVI and the acknowledged leader of the émigrés.

Illustration: Retreat of the French after the Battle of Leipzig (19th October 1814) by Carle
Vernet. Napoleon's retreat continued smoothly until early afternoon when General Dulauloy,
tasked with destroying the only bridge over the Elster, delegated the task to Colonel Montfort
who then passed this responsibility to a corporal, who was unaware of the carefully planned
time schedule. The corporal ignited the fuses at 1:00 in the afternoon while the bridge was still
crowded with retreating French troops and Oudinot's rearguard was still in Leipzig. The
explosion and subsequent panic caused a rout that resulted in the deaths of thousands of
French troops and the capture of 30,000 others
12 1. Fear of Napoleon and hostility to his ambitions had held the victorious coalition together.
2. As soon as he was removed, the allies pursued their separate ambitions. The key person in
achieving eventual agreement among them was Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh
(1769–1822), the British foreign secretary. Even before the victorious armies had entered
Paris, he brought about the signing of the Treaty of Chaumont on March 9, 1814. It
provided for the restoration of the Bourbons to the French throne and the contraction of
France to its frontiers of 1792. Even more importantly, Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia
agreed to form a Quadruple Alliance for twenty years to preserve whatever settlement
they agreed on. Remaining problems -and there were many- and final details were left for
a conference to be held at Vienna
3. The Congress of Vienna assembled in September 1814, but did not conclude its work until
November 1815-Marking the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Although a glittering array of
heads of state attended the gathering, the four great powers conducted the important
work of the conference. The only full session of the congress met to ratify the
arrangements the big four made.
4. The easiest problem the great powers faced was France. All the victors agreed that no
single state should be allowed to dominate Europe, and all were determined to prevent
France from doing so again.
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5. The restoration of the French Bourbon monarchy, which was temporarily popular, and a
non-vindictive boundary settlement were designed to keep France calm and satisfied.
Elder brother of Louis XVI was made King Louis XVIII
6. The powers also strengthened the states around France’s borders to serve as barriers to
renewed French expansion.
7. They established the kingdom of the Netherlands, which included Belgium and
Luxembourg, in the north and added the important port of Genoa to strengthen Piedmont
in the south. Prussia was given important new territories along the Rhine River to deter
French aggression in the West. Austria gained full control of northern Italy to prevent a
repetition of Napoleon’s conquests there. As for the rest of Germany, most of Napoleon’s
territorial arrangements were left untouched. The venerable Holy Roman Empire, which
had been dissolved in 1806, was not revived.
8. In all these areas, the congress established the rule of legitimate monarchs and rejected
any hint of the republican and democratic policies that had flowed from the French
Revolution.
9. On these matters agreement was not difficult, but the settlement of eastern Europe
sharply divided the victors. Alexander I of Russia wanted all of Poland under his rule.
Prussia was willing to give it to him in return for all of Saxony, which had been allied with
Napoleon. Austria, however, was unwilling to surrender its share of Poland or to see
Prussian power grow or Russia penetrate deeper into central Europe. The Polish-Saxon
question almost caused a new war among the victors, but defeated France provided a way
out.
10. The Prince of Talleyrand, now representing France at Vienna, suggested the weight of
France added to that of Britain and Austria might bring Alexander to his senses. When
news of a secret treaty among the three leaked out, the tsar agreed to become ruler of a
smaller Poland, and Prussia settled for only part of Saxony. Thereafter, France was included
as a fifth great power in all deliberations.
11. The Treaty was meant to restore countries in Europe to the status-quo before Napoleon’s
conquest.
12. It acts as a precursor for the Concert of Europe (1815-1914) – which establishes a
European geopolitical status-quo, a balance of power through political boundaries and
sphere of influence resulting in relative peace and stability.
13 1. Napoleon was captured and exiled to the Italian island of Elba but he escaped and re-
appeared in France
2. On March 1, 1815, he landed on the French coast with a thousand soldiers. Louis XVIII
ordered his troops to stop Napoleon’s advance. When Napoleon’s small force approached
the king’s troops, Napoleon walked up to the soldiers who blocked the road. “If there is
one soldier among you who wishes to kill his Emperor, here I am.” It was a brilliant move
by a man who thoroughly understood the French soldier. The king’s troops shouted, “Long
live the Emperor!” and joined Napoleon.
3. On March 20, 1815, Napoleon entered Paris to a hero’s welcome. He had not lost his
charisma.
4. Raising a new army, Napoleon moved against the allied forces in Belgium. There the
British, led by the duke of Wellington, and the Prussians, led by Field Marshal Gebhard von
Blücher, defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. Napoleon’s desperate
gamble to regain power—the famous “hundred days”—had failed.
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5. This time the allies sent Napoleon to Saint Helena, a lonely island in the South Atlantic, a
thousand miles off the coast of southern Africa where Napoleon Bonaparte, emperor of
France and would-be conqueror of Europe, spent the last six years of his life.

Illustration:
1) Napoleon’s return from Elba (c1818) by Charles de Steuben (b1788-d1856)
2) The Battle of Waterloo by William Sadler II. It depicts the battle of Waterloo under the
command of Napoleon Bonaparte against British forces under the Duke of Wellington, the
Prussian troops under Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, and soldiers from the Netherlands
14 1. In 1801, Napoleon made an agreement with the Pope – the Concordat.
2. Through this the clergy becomes servant of the state but may take instructions from the
Pope on religious matters.
3. In 1804 he introduced the Napoleonic Code, a form of standardized laws for the whole
France.
4. These laws upheld basic rights of individuals (Everyone being equal under law, freedom of
religion, safety to property, rights of women etc.)
5. The Napoleonic Code was also introduced in countries under French rule – Italy, Germany,
Holland, Spain and others.
6. Centralization of the government took place as Napoleon divide the country into
administrative departments, each other a prefect and each township with its own mayor.
15 1. All appointments were made by Napoleon and answerable to him.
2. Government posts were no more confined to nobles but open to all citizens irrespective of
social status.
3. Ended feudal tax collected by the church, and limits the powers of the church.
4. Built schools called Lycées, Technical School and the University of Paris.
5. Encouraged business organization and built the Bank of France.
6. Gave France and other countries democratic and nationalist aspirations.