General History for Colleges and High Schools Part 64

Without waiting for the attack of the allies, Napoleon flung his Grand Army, as it was called, across the Rhine, defeated the Austrians in the battle of Ulm, and marched in triumph through Vienna to the field of Austerlitz beyond, where he gained one of his most memorable victories over the combined armies of Austria and Russia, numbering more than 100,000 men (Dec. 2, 1805).

This battle completely changed the map of Europe. Austria was forced to give up Venetia and other provinces about the head of the Adriatic, this territory being now added to the kingdom of Italy. Sixteen of the German states, declaring themselves independent of the empire, were formed into a league, called the _Confederation of the Rhine_, with Napoleon as Protector. Furthermore, the Emperor Francis II. was obliged to surrender the crown of the _Holy Roman Empire_, and thereafter to content himself with the t.i.tle of _Emperor of Austria_.

Thus did the Holy Roman Empire come to an end (1806), after having maintained an existence, since its revival by Otto the Great, of more than eight hundred years. The _Kingdom of Germany_, which was created by the part.i.tion of the empire of Charlemagne (see p. 408), now also pa.s.sed out of existence, even in name.

TRAFALGAR (Oct. 21, 1805).--Napoleon's brilliant victories in Germany were clouded by an irretrievable disaster to his fleet, which occurred only two days after the engagement at Ulm. Lord Nelson having met, near Cape Trafalgar on the coast of Spain, the combined French and Spanish fleets,-- Spain had become the ally of Napoleon,--almost completely destroyed the combined armaments. The gallant English admiral fell at the moment of victory. "Thank G.o.d, I have done my duty," were his last words.

This decisive battle give England the control of the sea, and relieved her from all danger of a French invasion. Even the "wet ditch," as Napoleon was wont contemptuously to call the English Channel, was henceforth an impa.s.sable gulf to his ambition. He might rule the continent, but the sovereignty of the ocean and its islands was denied him.

JENA AND AUERSTADT (1806).--Prussia was the state next after Austria to feel the weight of Napoleon's power. Goaded by insult, the Prussian king, Frederick William III., very imprudently threw down the gauntlet to the French emperor. Moving with his usual swiftness, Napoleon overwhelmed the armies of Frederick in the battles of Jena and Auerstadt, which were both fought upon the same day (Oct. 14, 1806). Thus the great military power consolidated by the genius of Frederick the Great, was crushed and almost annihilated. What had proved too great an undertaking for the combined powers of Europe during the Seven Years' War, Napoleon had effected in less than a month.

EYLAU AND FRIEDLAND (1807).--The year following his victories over the Prussians, Napoleon led his Grand Army against the forces of the Czar, Alexander I., who had entered Prussia with aid for King Frederick. A fierce but indecisive battle at Eylau was followed, a little later in the same season, by the battle of Friedland, in which the Russians were completely overwhelmed (June 14, 1807). The Czar was forced to sue for peace.

By the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit Prussia was stripped of more than half of her former dominions, a part of which was made into a new state, called the Kingdom of Westphalia, with Napoleon's brother, Jerome, as its king, and added to the Confederation of the Rhine; while Prussian Poland, reorganized and clumsily christened the "Grand Duchy of Warsaw," was given to Saxony. What was left of Prussia became virtually a dependency of the French empire.

THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM: THE BERLIN AND MILAN DECREES.--While Napoleon was carrying on his campaigns against Prussia and Russia, he was all the time meditating vengeance upon England, his most uncompromising foe, and the leader or the instigator of the coalitions which were constantly being formed for the overthrow of his power. We have seen how the destruction of his fleet at Trafalgar dashed all his hopes of ever making a descent upon the British sh.o.r.es. Unable to reach his enemy directly with his arms, he resolved to strike her through her commerce. By two celebrated imperial edicts, called from the cities whence they were issued the Berlin and the Milan decree, he closed all the ports of the continent against English s.h.i.+ps, and forbade any of the European nations from holding any intercourse with Great Britain, all of whose ports he declared in a state of blockade.

So completely was Europe under the domination of Napoleon, that England's trade was by these measures very seriously crippled, and great loss and suffering were inflicted upon her industrial cla.s.ses. We shall have occasion a little later to speak of the disastrous effects of the system upon the French empire itself.

BEGINNING OF THE PENINSULAR WARS (1808).--One of the first consequences of Napoleon's "continental policy" was to bring him into conflict with Portugal. The prince regent of that country presuming to open its ports to English s.h.i.+ps, Napoleon at once deposed him, and sent one of his marshals to take possession of the kingdom. The entire royal family, accompanied by many of the n.o.bility, fled to Brazil, and made that country the seat of an empire which has endured to the present day.

Having thus gained a foothold in the Peninsula, Napoleon now resolved to possess himself of the whole of it. Insolently interfering in the affairs of Spain, he forced the weak-minded Bourbon king to resign to him, as his "dearly beloved friend and ally," his crown, which he bestowed at once upon his brother, Joseph Bonaparte (1808). The throne of Naples, which Joseph had been occupying, [Footnote: Napoleon dethroned the Bourbons in Naples in 1805.] was transferred to Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law. Thus did this audacious man make and unmake kings, and give away thrones and kingdoms.

But the high-spirited Spaniards were not the people to submit tamely to such an indignity. The entire nation, from the Pyrenees to the Straits of Gibraltar, flew to arms. Portugal also arose, and England sent to her aid a force under Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, and the hero of Waterloo. The French were soon driven out of Portugal, and pushed beyond the Ebro in Spain. Joseph fled in dismay from his throne, and Napoleon found it necessary to take the field himself, in order to restore the prestige of the French arms. He entered the Peninsula at the head of an army of 80,000 men, and scattering the Spaniards wherever he met them, entered Madrid in triumph, and reseated his brother upon the Spanish throne.

Threatening tidings from another quarter of Europe now caused Napoleon to hasten back to Paris.

SECOND CAMPAIGN AGAINST AUSTRIA (1809).--Taking advantage of Napoleon's troubles in the Peninsula, Francis I. of Austria, who had been watching for an opportunity to retrieve the disaster of Austerlitz, gathered an army of half a million of men, and declared war against the French emperor. But Austria was fated to suffer even a deeper humiliation than she had already endured. Napoleon swept across the Danube, and at the end of a short campaign, the most noted battles of which were those of Eckmuhl and Wagram, Austria was again at his feet, and a second time he entered Vienna in triumph. Austria was now still farther dismembered, large tracts of her possessions being ceded directly to Napoleon or given to the various neighboring states (1809).

[Ill.u.s.tration: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1810]

THE PAPAL STATES AND HOLLAND JOINED TO THE FRENCH EMPIRE.--That Napoleon cared but little for the thunders of the Church is shown by his treatment of the Pope. Pius VII. opposing his continental system, the emperor incorporated the Papal States with the French empire (1809). The Pope thereupon excommunicated Napoleon, who straightway arrested the Pontiff, dragged him over the Alps into France, and held him in captivity for four years.

The year following the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire, Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland, who disapproved of his brother's continental system, which was ruining the trade of the Dutch, abdicated the crown. Thereupon Napoleon incorporated Holland with France, on the ground that it was simply "the sediment of the French rivers."

NAPOLEON'S SECOND MARRIAGE (1810).--The year following his triumph over Francis I. of Austria, Napoleon divorced his wife Josephine, in order to form a new alliance, with Maria Louisa, Archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria. The fond and faithful Josephine bowed meekly to the will of her lord, and went into sorrowful exile from his palace. Napoleon's object in this matter was to cover the reproach of his own plebeian birth, by an alliance with one of the ancient royal families of Europe, and to secure the perpetuity of his government by leaving an heir who might be the inheritor of his throne and fortunes. His hope seemed realized when, the year following his marriage with the Archd.u.c.h.ess, a son was born to them, who was given the t.i.tle of "King of Rome."

NAPOLEON AT THE SUMMIT OF HIS POWER (1811).--Napoleon was now at the height of his marvellous fortunes. Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Wagram were the successive steps by which he had mounted to the most dizzy heights of military power and glory. The empire which he had built up stretched from the Baltic to Southern Italy, embracing France proper, Belgium, Holland, Northwestern Germany, Italy west of the Apennines as far south as Naples, besides large possessions about the head of the Adriatic.

On all sides were allied, va.s.sal, or dependent states. Several of the ancient thrones of Europe were occupied by Napoleon's relatives or favorite marshals. He himself was head of the kingdom of Italy, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. Austria and Prussia were completely subject to his will. Russia and Denmark were his allies.

[Ill.u.s.tration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE]

ELEMENTS OF WEAKNESS IN THE EMPIRE.--But splendid and imposing as at this moment appeared the external affairs of Napoleon, the sun of his fortunes, which had risen so brightly at Austerlitz, had already pa.s.sed its meridian. There were many things just now contributing to the weakness of the French empire and foreboding its speedy dissolution. Founded and upheld by the genius of Napoleon, it depended solely upon the life and fortunes of this single man. The diverse elements it embraced were as yet so loosely joined that there could be no hope or possibility of its surviving either the misfortune or the death of its founder.

Again, Napoleon's continental system, through the suffering and loss it inflicted upon all the maritime countries of Europe, had caused murmurs of discontent all around the circ.u.mference of the continent. This ruinous policy had also involved the French emperor in a terribly wasteful war with Spain, which country was destined--more truly than Italy, of which the expression was first used--to become "the grave of the French."

Napoleon after his downfall himself admitted that his pa.s.sage of the Pyrenees was the fatal misstep in his career.

Furthermore, the conscriptions of the emperor had drained France of men, and her armies were now recruited by mere boys, who were utterly unfit to bear the burden and fatigue of Napoleon's rapid campaigns. The heavy taxes, also, which were necessary to meet the expenses of Napoleon's wars, and to carry on the splendid public works upon which he was constantly engaged, produced great suffering and discontent throughout the empire.

And the crowd of deposed princes and dispossessed aristocrats in those states where Napoleon had promulgated his new code of equal rights (see p.

675), were naturally restless and resentful, and watchful for an opportunity to recover their ancient power and privileges. Even the large cla.s.s in the surrounding countries that at first welcomed Napoleon as the representative of the French ideas of equality and liberty, and applauded while he overturned ancient thrones and aristocracies, which, like the monarchy and the feudal n.o.bility in France swept away by the Revolution, had become unbearably proud, corrupt, and oppressive,--even these early adherents had been turned into bitter enemies through Napoleon's adoption of imperial manners, and especially by his setting aside his first wife, Josephine, in order that he might ally himself to one of the old royal houses of Europe, which act was looked upon as a betrayal of the cause of the people.

Nothing save the prestige of Napoleon's name and the dread of his vengeance keeps his enemies at bay. Let the lion be wounded and a hundred enemies will spring upon him from every side.

THE INVASION OF RUSSIA (1812-1813).--The signal for the uprising of Europe was the terrible misfortune which befell Napoleon in his invasion of Russia. The Czar having cast aside the old ties of alliance and friends.h.i.+p, and entered a coalition against France, Napoleon crossed the frontiers of Russia, at the head of what was proudly called the Grand Army, numbering more than half a million of men.

The Russians threw themselves across the path of the invaders at Borodino, but their lines were swept back by the strong columns of the Grand Army, although the victory cost the French dear. Following closely the retreating enemy, the French pushed on towards the ancient Russian capital, Moscow. This city Napoleon had thought would supply food for his army, and shelter from the severity of the northern winter, which was now approaching. But to his astonishment he found the city deserted by its inhabitants; and scarcely had he established himself in the empty palace of the Czar (the Kremlin), before the city, probably fired by persons whom the Russians had left behind for this purpose, burst into flames. After, waiting about the ruins until the middle of October, in hopes that the Czar would accept proposals of peace, Napoleon was forced to give the command for the return of the army to France.

The retreat was attended with incredible sufferings and horrors. The Russian winter setting in earlier than usual and with terrible severity, thousands of the French soldiers were frozen to death, and falling upon the snow traced with a long black line the trail of the retreating army.

The spot of each bivouac was marked by the circles of dead around the watch-fires. Thousands more were slain by the wild Cossacks, who surrounded the retreating columns and hara.s.sed them day and night. The pa.s.sage of the river Beresina was attended with appalling losses.

Soon after the pa.s.sage of this stream, Napoleon, conscious that the fate of his empire depended upon his presence in Paris, left the remnant of the army in charge of his marshals, and hurried by post to his capital.

Marshal Ney, "the bravest of the brave," performed miracles in covering the retreat of the broken and dispirited columns. He was the last man, it is said, to cross the Niemen. His face was so haggard from care and so begrimed with powder, that no one recognized him. Being asked who he was, he replied, "I am the rear guard of the Grand Army."

The loss by death of the French and their allies in this disastrous campaign is reckoned at about 300,000 men, [Footnote: The Russians took 100,000 prisoners, and about 100,000 recrossed the Niemen.] while that of the Russians is estimated to have been almost as large.

"THE BATTLE OF THE NATIONS" (Leipsic, 1813).--Napoleon's fortunes were buried with his Grand Army in the snows of Russia. His woeful losses emboldened the surrounding powers to think that now they could crush him.

A sixth coalition was formed, embracing Russia, Prussia, England, and Sweden. Napoleon made gigantic efforts to prepare France for the struggle.

By the spring of 1813 he was at the head of a new army, numbering over 300,000 men.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MAP OF CENTRAL EUROPE, 1815]

Falling upon the allied armies of the Russians and Prussians, first at Lutzen and then at Bautzen, he gained a decisive victory upon both fields.

Austria now appeared in the lists, and at Leipsic the French were met by the leagued armies of Europe. So many were the powers represented upon the renowned field, that it is known in history as the "Battle of the Nations." The combat lasted three days. Napoleon was defeated, and forced to retreat into France.

THE ABDICATION OF NAPOLEON (1814).--The armies of the allies now poured over all the French frontiers. Napoleon's tremendous efforts to roll back the tide of invasion were all in vain. As the struggle became manifestly hopeless, his most trusted officers deserted and betrayed him. Paris surrendered to the allies. Napoleon was forced to abdicate, and the ancient House of the Bourbons was reestablished in the person of a brother of Louis XVI., who took the t.i.tle of Louis XVIII. Napoleon was banished to the little island of Elba in the Mediterranean, being permitted to retain his t.i.tle of Emperor, and to keep about him a few hundred of his old guards. But Elba was a very diminutive empire for one to whom the half of Europe seemed too small, and we shall not be surprised to learn that Napoleon was not content with it.

THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA (Sept., 1814-June, 1815).--After the overthrow of Napoleon, commissioners of the different European states met at Vienna to readjust the map of Europe. It was a great task to harmonize the conflicting claims that came before the convention, and to effect a settlement of the continent that should satisfy all parties. But after nearly a year of negotiations and debate, an agreement respecting the boundaries and relations of the various states was reached. As we shall hereafter, in connection with the history of the separate countries, have occasion to say something respecting the relations of each to the Congress, we shall here say but a word regarding the temper of the a.s.sembly and the general character of its work.

The Vienna commissioners seemed to have had but one thought and aim--to put everything back as near as possible in the shape that it was in before the Revolution. They had no care for the people; the princes were their only concern. The crowd of thrones that Napoleon had overturned were righted, and the old despots were invited to remount them. Italy and Germany were divided among a horde of petty tyrants. In Spain and Naples the old Bourbon families were re-instated, and the former despotisms renewed. In short, the clock was set back to the hour when the Bastile was attacked. Everything that had happened since was utterly ignored.

But the Revolution had destroyed privilege as expressed in the effete feudal aristocracies of Europe, and impaired beyond restoration the monstrous doctrine of the divine right of kings. An attempt to bring these things back again was an attempt to restore life to the dead,--to set up again the fallen Dagon in his place.

Notwithstanding, the commissioners at Vienna, blind to the spirit and tendencies of the times, did set up once more the broken idol,--only, however, to see it flung down again by the memorable social upheavals of the next half century. The kings had had their Congress: the people were to have theirs,--in 1820 and '30 and '48.

THE HUNDRED DAYS (March 20-June 29, 1815).--The allies who placed Louis XVIII. upon the French throne set back the boundaries of France as nearly as possible to the lines they occupied in 1792. In like manner the king himself, seemingly utterly oblivious to the spirit and tendencies of the times, as soon as he was in possession of the ancient inheritance of his family, began to put back everything just as it was before the reforms of the Revolution. He always alluded to the year he began to rule as the nineteenth of his reign, thus affecting to ignore entirely the government of the republic and of the empire.

The result of this reactionary policy was widespread dissatisfaction throughout France. Many began to desire the return of Napoleon, and the wish was perhaps what gave rise to the report which was spread about that he would come back with the spring violets.

In the month of March, 1815, as the commissioners of the various powers were sitting at Vienna rearranging the landmarks and boundaries obliterated by the French inundation, news was brought to them that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and was in France. At first the members of the Congress were incredulous, regarding the thing as a jest, and were with difficulty convinced of the truth of the report.

Taking advantage of the general dissatisfaction with the rule of the restored Bourbons, Napoleon had resolved upon a bold push for the recovery of his crown. Landing with a few followers at one of the southern ports of France, he aroused all the country with one of his stirring addresses, and then immediately pushed on towards Paris. Never was the changeable, impulsive character of the French people better ill.u.s.trated than now; and never was better exhibited the wonderful personal magnetism of Napoleon.

His journey to the capital was one continuous ovation. One regiment after another, forgetting their recent oath of loyalty to the Bourbons, hastened to join his train. His old generals and soldiers embraced him with transports of joy. Louis XVIII., deserted by his army, was left helpless, and, as Napoleon approached the gates of Paris, fled from his throne.

Napoleon desired peace with the sovereigns of Europe; but they did not think the peace of the continent could be maintained so long as he sat upon the French throne. For the seventh and last time the allies leagued their armies to crush the man of destiny. A million of men poured over the frontiers of France.

Hoping to overwhelm the armies of the allies by striking them one after another before they had time to unite, Napoleon moved swiftly into Belgium with an army of 130,000, in order to crush there the English and Prussians. He first fell in with and defeated the Prussian army under Bluecher, and then faced the English at Waterloo (June 18, 1815).

The story of Waterloo need not be told,--how all day the French broke their columns in vain on the English squares; how, at the critical moment at the close of the day, Bluecher with a fresh force of 30,000 Prussians turned the tide of battle; and how the famous Old Guard, that knew how to die but not how to surrender, made its last charge, and left its. .h.i.therto invincible squares upon the lost field.