The Age of Napoleon

From Robespierre to Bonaparte The Napoleonic Settlement in France Napoleonic Hegemony in Europe Resistance to Napoleon

Learning Objectives: Students will understand that the new ideas of liberty associated with the French Revolution and how they were carried by the French armies into central, southern and eastern Europe, causing political and social upheavals and ultimately inspiring a nationalist reaction.

The National Convention moved for the rst time since ancient Athens to institute a democratic republic The Convention responded to foreign military threats, internal rebellion, and intense factionalism by establishing a revolutionary dictatorship

Individual liberties disappeared, and terror against enemies of the people became the purpose of the movement General Napoleon Bonaparte replaced the Republic with a personal dictatorship A strong centralized state ruled from the top down in France and in imperial reorganization of Europe totally dominated by France

From Robespierre to Bonaparte

Most revolutionaries now attempted to establish a moderate or centrist position, but they proved unequal to the task An ambitious general and hero of the Republic to seize power

The Thermidorian Reaction (1794-95) Robespierre prepared to denounce yet another group of unspecied intriguers His enemies made a preemptive strike and denounced Robespierre to the Convention as a tyrant

Anti-Jacobinism

The sans-culottes pushed an anti-jacobin agenda leading to arrests, assassinations, and massacres The Jacobins insisted on public virtue which gave way to toleration of luxury and self-indulgence among the wealthy Many consumers suffered worse privations than those during earlier shortages

The Last Revolutionary Uprising

Thermidorians viewed the Jacobin Constitution of 1793 as far too democratic and looked for an excuse to scrap it altogether Government forces overwhelmed the insurgents This event proved to be the last mobilization of the parisian revolutionary crowd and egalitarian movement

The Directory (1795-1799)

By the end of 1795, the remaining members of the Convention considered the Revolution over The revolutionary government, which had replaced the fallen constitutional monarchy in 1793 and gave way to the constitutional republic known as the *Directory

The Republic should be governed by the best citizens, who are among the propertyowning class Five-man executive was meant to prevent the rise of a dictator Government troops led by an ofcer named Bonaparte easily crushed a royalist revolt against this power grab

The Political Spectrum

They repeatedly purged elected ofcials and periodically suppressed political clubs and newspapers The Neo-Jacobins adhered to the moderate Republic of 1795 They promoted grassroots activism through local political clubs, drives, newspapers, and electoral campaigns

The Babeuvists viewed the revolutionary government of the year II as promising stage that had to be follows by a nal revolution in the name of the masses The Republic sought a new form of oppression by the elites

The Elusive Center The Directory grew fearful of the revived left The elections (1798) Elections of the year VI (1798), Neo-Jacobins and moderates vied for political power

The Rise of Bonaparte

Bonaparte, a popular general, rose steadily through the military ranks He advocated a new strategy: opening a front in Italy to strike at Austrian forces from the south, while French armies on the Rhine pushed as usual from the west Bonaparte sought the defeat of the various members of the coalition

The Brumaire Coup

Further French expansion into Italy and the gathering of allies precipitated a new coalition against France Britain, Russia, and Austria Revisionists wanted to redesign the Republic along more oligarchic lines

A General Comes to Power

The revisionists wanted to establish a more centralized, oligarchic republic, and they needed a generals support Bonapartes return to France from Egypt thus seemed most timely Once the coup began, he proved to be far more ambitious and energetic than the other conspirators and thrust himself into the most prominent position

He demanded emergency powers for a new provisional government Bonaparte, along with others, was empowered to draft a new constitution The Brumaire coup had not been intended to install a dictatorship, but that was its eventual result

The Napoleonic Settlement in France

Most French people were so weary politically that they saw in Bonaparte what they wished to see He soothed a divided France

The Napoleonic Style

Authority, not ideology, was his great concern, and he justied his actions by their results Napoleon valued the Revolutions commitment to equality of opportunity and continued to espouse that liberal premise

Napoleon slowly drifted away from his own rational ideals He began to force domestic and foreign policies on France He concentrated his government on raising men and money for his armies and turned his back on revolutionary liberties

Political and Religious Settlements

Centralization Bonaparte gave France a constitution, approved in a plebiscite, that placed almost unchecked authority in the First Consul (himself) Two revisions: (1802) lifetime post; (1804) Napoleon proclaimed hereditary emperor

Bonaparte eliminated the local elections each department was administered by a *prefect France was depoliticized no organized opposition, reduced number of newspapers, prohibited political clubs, and silenced liberal intellectuals and former political activists

The Concordat
1801, Napoleon negotiated a *Concordat, or agreement, with Pope Pius VII Catholicism was the preferred religion of France by protected religious freedom for non-Catholics The clergy would be his moral prefects

The Era of the Notables

Napoleon intended to reassert the authority of the state and the elites He conferred status on prominent local individuals, or *notables It is with trinkets that mankind is governed

The Civil Code

It swept away feudal property relations and gave legal sanction to modern contractual notions of property e.g. the right to choose ones occupation, to receive equal treatment under the law, and to enjoy religious freedom What impact did the civil code have on family and women?

Napoleonic Hegemony in Europe

After helping to give France a new government, Bonaparte turned to do battle against the second anti-French coalition in northern Italy Unable to invade Britain, he resorted to economic warfare and blockades Through these, Bonaparte will have emerged as a glorious imperial conqueror

Military Supremacy and the Reorganization of Europe French victories in Lombardy and in Germany Austria wanted peace: Treaty of Luneville (1801)restored France to the positions Britain now stood alone The Treaty of Amiens (1802) ended hostilities and reshufed territorial holdings outside Europe

The Third Coalition

A third anti-French coalition sought to limit French inuence and restore the independence of the Netherlands and Italy The British, largely a sea power, won a signicant victory at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805) The Battle of Austerlintz was Napoleons greatest tactical achievement and forced the Habsburgs to the peace table

Through a series of battles, Napoleon conquered Southern and Northern Germany The end of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 He liquidated numerous small German states and merged them into two new regions: Kingdom of Westphalia and Grand Dutchy of Berg The restoration of Poland (divided by Prussia, Russia, and Austria)

Battle of Eylau The Battle of Friedland in June was a French victory that demoralized Russia and led to Treat of Tilsit (1807) They partitioned Europe in East and West The creation of new satellite kingdoms became the vehicle for Napoleons domination of Europe

Naval War with Britain

Britain alone stood between Napoleon and his dream of hegemony over Europe invulnerable to invasion, they waged an economic battle Blockade on British ports The plan was to create social unrest and bankruptcy

The Continental System

Napoleon launched the *Continental System to prohibit British trade with all French allies The British responded with the *Orders in Councila reversal on the blockade required all neutral ships to stop at British ports Total naval war between France and Britain enveloped all neutral nations

The Continental System did hurt British trade but the French satellite states, as economic vassals of France, suffered the most

The Napoleonic Conscription Machine

The National Conventions mass levy of 1793 drafted all able-bodied unmarried men between 18 and 25 Directory passed a conscription law that made successive classes of young men (those born in a particular year) subject to a military draft should the need arise

Resistance to Napoleon

Napoleon felt that nothing stood in his way His calculations proved utterly mistaken, and in both places he ultimately suffered disastrous defeats French expansion sparked new forms of nationalism in some quarters, but also liberalism and reaction

The Spanish Ulcer

Spain and France shared a common interest in weakening British power in Europe and the colonial world Napoleon concluded that he must reorganize Spain himself to bring it solidly into the Continental System Once the French army was well inside Spain, Napoleon intended to impose his own political solution to Spains instability

Popular Resistance
Faced with military occupation, the disappearance of their royal family, and the crowning of a Frenchman, the Spanish people rose in rebellion May 2, 1808 Goyas famous painting, The Third May, 1808 The Battle of Bailen, 1808: The French defeat broke the aura of Napoleonic invincibility

After ve years of ghting and many reversals, the Spanish pushed the French back across the Pyrenees in November 1813 About 30,00 Spanish guerrilla ghters helped wear down the French Europeans were inspired by their example of armed resistance to France

The Russian Debacle

Russia, resented the restrictions on its trade under the Continental System Prussia and other nations pressured the tsar to resist Napoleon His objective was to annihilate Russias army or, at the least, to conquer Moscow and chase the army to the point of disarray Grand Army600,000 soldiers

Napoleon forced marches across central Europe into Russia Russian nobles abandoned their estates and burned their crops to the ground Hunger, thirst, fatigue, and disease as they marched into an abandoned Moscow

The Destruction of the Grand Army

Moscow was mysteriously set ablaze; the extensive damage as to make it unt to be the Grand Armys winter quarters Napoleons army was picked apart, starved, and slowly destroyed the long march back to France

The Fall of Napoleon

British troops reinforced the coalition The French had lost condence in him, conscription had reached its limits, and no popular spirit of resistance to invasion developed Napoleon was captured and imprisoned on the isle of Elba