Blood, Fire and Steel, 150 Years of European History , EVENTS IN THE EARLY 19th CENTURY CHAPTER 5

EVENTS IN THE EARLY 19^th CENTURY

The wars to unseat Napoleon as the Emperor of France and to free the states and kingdoms of Europe including Russia from the grip of Napoleon marked a watershed in the historical development of the European continent. The ascension of General Napoleon Bonaparte as the leader of France in 1799 following the French revolution that began in 1978 was a defining event not only for France but for Europe as a whole.

Napoleon’s overthrow of the autocratic rule of the Jacobins in France brought the violent part of the Revolution to an end. At the head of a military government, Napoleon quickly consolidated his hold on power and brought all the instruments of state power including the media and to a large extent the Church under his rule and control. France was quiet but under the autocratic rule of a self-styled Emperor who was bent on stretching to the maximum the boundaries of his dictatorship.

After suppressing opposition and dissent at home, Napoleon began a series of engagements that brought him military victories over Spain, Portugal, Belgium, Holland, Prussia, Austria, and Italy and for a season Russia. He became the new master of Europe and found that his only undefeated rival was Great Britain, with who he remained perpetually at war.

The Napoleonic wars were a time of great conflict, tension and turmoil in Europe as his conquests touched on virtually every aspect of Europe. He sought to impose a French hegemony that made him a lot of powerful enemies. His attempts at reform and reorganization of nations and national boundaries left him with conflicts that continued to grow and escalate as more nations allied with Great Britain in the struggle to destroy Napoleon’s hegemony.

Napoleon’s string of victories covered the defeat and expulsion of the British from Toulon in 1793, defeat of a royal rebellion in Paris, October, 1795, the defeat of the Austro-Hungarian armies in Italy 1796-1797 leading to the signing of the treaty of Campo Farmio extending French territory. His campaigns in Egypt and the Middle East threatened Britain’s position in the Mediterranean.

He however lost the battle of the Nile in 1798 when his fleet was destroyed by the Royal Navy in a classic contest involving Admiral Horatio Nelson as the British fleet commander. That defeat did not stop Napoleon Bonaparte from returning to France to proclaim himself as Emperor in 1804.

In 1805 he defeated an alliance of the European powers at Austria, repeating the same feat in Jena 1806 and Fried land in 1807. His dominion over the continent became complete after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.

His defeat however by the British in the naval battle of Trafalgar was a turning point when Viscount Horatio Nelson dashed the hopes of Napoleon in establishing France as the dominant power at sea by smashing the Franco-Spanish fleet in the famous battle of Trafalgar, October 21, 1805 where he also met his end at the hands of a French sniper while decked in full colors as Admiral of the Fleet and elegantly savoring the full measure of British victory over the French from his frigate HMS Victory.

Napoleon’s power base however began to erode with his defeat in the Peninsula wars, 1808-1814, where the British General Sir Arthur Wesley, checked Napoleon’s incursions into Portugal and Spain. Napoleon’s attempt to overcome the Russians in the war of 1812 was met by a stiff resistance led by the Russian General Mikhail I Kutuzov at a place called Borodino where Napoleon’s advance was halted outside of Moscow.

 His subsequent capture of Moscow was undermined by the tactical withdrawal of Russia’s marshal Borodino and his army from the city before its capture, the great fire set by the Russians that devastated the city and the early onset of winter that debilitated his ill-prepared army and demoralized his troops making them easy targets for the Russians guerrilla tactics that dealt fatal blows on his weakened forces occupying the Russian capital.

 His retreat in the midst of the Russian winter marked the end of the era of the French army as the dominant military power in Europe as Napoleon’s forces in the retreat dwindled from peak strength of 600,000 men to less than 10,000 fit and capable men when he entered into France.

The defeat galvanized opposition to his rule within the same nations he had subdued and occupied and lent fresh impetus to the anti-French coalition of forces opposed to Napoleon and determined to see his downfall. The coalition was led by Great Britain.

In 1813 Napoleon attempted to reassert his dominant role in Europe, but his army was defeated by a European alliance at the battle of Leipzig, October 16-19, 1813. Napoleon was forced into abdication of office in 1814 following an invasion of France by an alliance of European powers led by Great Britain

His attempt at the restoration of his rule, when he fled the island of Elba and returned to France was met by his final defeat in the battle of Waterloo in 1815 by the British, Austrian and Prussian  coalition under the  command of the Duke of Wellington, Sir Arthur Wesley. He was then exiled to the Island of St Helena where he lived until his death in 1821.

Coming closely after the defeat of Napoleon, was the Congress of Vienna, September 1814-1815, where important decisions relating to the political future of Europe were taken. The assembly of European statesmen met at Vienna, Austria to ensure that the events of the Napoleonic years did not repeat themselves in Europe.

 The Congress’s decisions were dominated by the rulers of Austria, Metternich, Russia, Tsar Alexander I and Arthur Wesley, Duke of Wellington who led the military coalition. Also prominent were Castlereagh of Britain, Von Humboldt of Prussia and Talleyrand of France.

The Congress focused a lot on territorial adjustments among the European states leading to the establishment of the German Confederation and the kingdoms of the Netherlands and Poland which was placed under Russian rule. The Italian city states gained recognition alongside the kingdoms of Sardinia and Naples. Austrian territory was extended into parts of Italy which conceded some of its territory to Prussia.

The United Kingdom was confirmed in some of its overseas colonial conquests which were recognized by the Congress. The decisions taken at the meeting were often times not a reflection of the yearnings and aspirations of the people concerned as no consultations were made with the peoples mostly concerned.

The Congress of Vienna thus re-engineered the political map of Europe which was to remain that way for the next half century. The fact that no major war was fought in Europe for the next half century gave credence to the assiduous and tactful diplomacy that was involved in crafting some of the decisions taken.

No major peace conference on Europe’s future and political boundaries was to hold until another 100 years had passed. The Napoleonic wars had so drained Europe of its strength and energies that most of the major powers channeled their strengths into resolving many of the major disputes and conflicts diplomatically.

There was no doubt, that a number of skirmishes and local conflicts rocked the continent, but none on the scale and intensity that had rocked Europe during the Napoleonic years.

One unwritten law that had emerged during and after the wars of Napoleon was that no single power would be allowed to emerge and take a stranglehold on the affairs of Europe. That policy was to be severely tested and contributed to the breaking out of two major conflicts in the early 20^th century and is still a policy thrust in Europe today.

The defeat of the French Navy by a British fleet led by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the battle of Trafalgar in 1805 paved the way for the Royal Navy to dominate the high seas for the next 100 years. Britain’s position as an island, her dependence on maritime trade for the sustenance of her local economy and maintenance of her overseas Empire necessitated the formation of a large and formidable Navy that she depended on not only for the protection of the island, but also for the protection of her maritime trade and far flung colonies.

Napoleon Bonaparte challenged Great Britain’s naval power in the battle of the Nile 1797 and the battle of Trafalgar 1805. He lost both battles leaving Britain confirmed in her position as the greatest naval power in the world. Britain’s control of the high seas enabled her to secure her many colonies and ensured that ‘the empire, whose sun never sets’, never got disgraced abroad militarily.

Britain’s naval power complemented her military strength as her ability to move armies across the high seas to far flung distant battlefields put her in a vantage position among the leading colonial powers.

 Britain’s control of the sea meant that her military could simply not be easily beaten abroad where most of her colonial holdings lay. It was thus obvious why Britain was not interested in any territorial expansions in Europe except for some Island fortresses like Gibraltar, Malta, Crete that dotted the Mediterranean Sea.

Britain’s hegemony at sea also meant that she had an edge in the extent of her colonial holdings. The British had the largest overseas empire particularly her North American colonial holdings had that included the erstwhile American colonies and Canada; a good portion of which were won over from wars with the French and the Spanish in the 18^th century in the French and Indian Wars and wars of Spanish succession.

She also had a string of island possessions that dotted the Caribbean and Western Atlantic like Jamaica, Barbados and so many others. British interest however did not extend to South America where Spanish and Portuguese explorers held sway. Her only notable possession in the South Atlantic was the Falkland Islands and the Magellan straits.

British dominion and control of the high seas was very much a source of irritation and frustration for the major European powers that had to contend with the British policy of patrolling the high seas and enforcing international laws and conventions which oftentimes she single handedly set.

 This policy often times led to conflicts and wars such as the Anglo-American war of 1812-1814 which was mainly borne out of American frustration with the British policy of search and seizure of American vessels and impressing of American sailors into the services of the Royal Navy during the tortuous and protracted Napoleonic wars which concealed the basic problem, British non recognition of the sovereign rights of the United States of America.

Britain’s naval patrols and seizure of offending ships during the period of enforcement of the ban on slave trade beginning 1807 also produced a lot of irritation. The high point in British naval imperialism came with the attempt of Britain and France to open the straits of Dardanelles forcefully during the Crimean war with Russia in 1853 when Russia closed the straits to prevent Ottoman Turkey’s warships from gaining access to the Black Sea.