MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND SCIENCE
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
FEDERAL AGENCY FOR EDUCATION
RUSSIAN FEDERATION
SEI HPE "BLAGOVESCHENSKY STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY"
Faculty of History and Philology
Department of World History
COURSE WORK
on the topic
Analysis of the era of the Napoleonic wars
Blagoveshchensk
Introduction
1. Personality of Napoleon Bonaparte
2.1 War of the Second Coalition (1798-1802)
2.2 War of the Third Coalition (1805)
2.3 War of the Fourth Coalition (1806-1807)
2.3 War of the Sixth Coalition (1813-1814)
2.4 Capture of Paris and end of campaign (March 1814)
3. Results and significance of the Napoleonic wars
Conclusion
List of used sources and literature
Appendix
INTRODUCTION
The relevance of the topic is due to the rapid development of public international law in connection with the cardinal changes in the international situation periodically occurring in recent decades. Modern world like Europe during the Napoleonic wars, it is shaken by a series of grandiose events: international conflicts, civil wars, natural, man-made and humanitarian disasters.
The Napoleonic Wars made the whole world shudder. And at the same time they contributed to the unification of many countries against Napoleonic rule.
A significant amount of work has been written on this topic.
The study of the era of Napoleon Bonaparte in Soviet historiography proceeded in two directions. One of the directions was the study of personality and political biography (E.V. Tarle, A.Z. Manfred). The work of E.V. Tarle "Napoleon", published in 1936. and then withstood more than 10 reprints. E. V. Tarle worked on it for almost 20 years. The main task of the author was “to give the most clear picture of the life and work of the French emperor, his characterization as a person, as a historical figure, with his properties, natural data and aspirations. Monograph E.V. Tarle influenced the formation of views on the history of Europe by many modernist historians, and was simply popular among non-specialists.
A.Z. worked in the same direction. Manfred. In 1971 published his monograph "Napoleon Bonaparte". In the preface to it, he writes that the work of E.V. Tarle had a huge influence on him. However, he considers it necessary to revisit this topic due to the fact that the source base has expanded. A.Z. Manfred for the first time in the history of the study of the life of Bonaparte drew on his literary heritage to study political views. He pays great attention to Napoleon's desire for self-education, his talent as a commander and a person who, in a difficult situation, can lead the masses behind him.
From the first direction gradually by the end of the 70s. the second one also stands out, where the study of the role in the formation of Bonapartism and the political regime of France during the period of the consulate and the empire (D. M. Tugan-Baranovsky) was carried out.
At present, the problem of the significance of the Napoleonic wars has been fully explored. But this does not prevent researchers from finding other approaches to the study of that era. Today's historians are more interested in Napoleon's diplomacy (V. G. Sirotkin), the military history of Napoleon's campaigns (Internet sites and forums dedicated to Bonaparte's army), his psychological state at different periods of his life. The range of methods used in conducting research has significantly expanded due to contacts between Russian and foreign researchers, after the fall of the Iron Curtain, the opportunity to work in European archives appeared.
The theme of the course covers the time of the Napoleonic wars, namely 1799 -1814. The upper limit is determined by the fact that in 1799. Napoleon came to power in France. In 1814, Napoleon abdicated, ending the era of the Napoleonic Wars.
The geographical scope of this work covers the whole of Europe.
The purpose of this work is to analyze the era of the Napoleonic wars
To study the personality of Napoleon as a commander
Describe the wars of the second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth coalitions
Reveal the significance of the Napoleonic Wars for France, and for Europe in general.
We can judge Napoleon's foreign policy by the normative documents of that time, as well as by the problematic works of historians. Thus, it is supposed to be possible to combine sources into groups. The first group includes Napoleon's personal works, namely, the essays "17 remarks" on a work called "Discourses on the Art of War" (Napoleon. Selected Works) reflects Napoleon's personal position on the successes and failures of his foreign policy.
To the second group we will include the international treaties of the Napoleonic era. According to the agreement on the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, Napoleon was proclaimed king of Italy ("protector"). The “Protectorate” consisted in the unquestioning fulfillment of the will of the autocratic ruler. As for the Peace of Amiens, it turned out to be only a brief truce. In general, this treaty did not infringe on the interests of France. The Treaty of Pressburg finally buried the Franco-Russian agreements, strengthened Napoleon's power over Austria and served as Napoleon's first step on the path to world domination. The creation of the Confederation of the Rhine made sixteen German states completely dependent on France, thus expanding Napoleon's sphere of influence over the German principalities.
With the signing of the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. Napoleon became the complete ruler of Germany, in addition, a continental blockade was created, which caused considerable damage to the economy of England. Those. in general, the treaty was pro-Napoleonic in nature. According to the Schönbrunn Peace Treaty of 1809. Austria actually became a state dependent on France. In addition, Prussia pledged to close its ports to England, which is a continuation of Napoleon's policy of continental blockade. All this undoubtedly strengthens the position of France.
The peace of Paris on May 30, 1814, brilliantly crowned the efforts of England. Napoleon fell, France was humiliated; all seas, all harbors and shores opened again. When writing term paper these works were used to the full.
1. The rapid rise of Napoleon is due to the "concentration" in one person of genius, ambition, a correct understanding of the situation around him.
2. As a result of continuous wars and conquests, a huge Napoleonic empire was formed, supplemented by a system of states directly or indirectly subject to France.
3. Despite a number of private victories won at the beginning of 1814 by the French army over the troops of the allies who entered the territory of France, it was eventually defeated.
1. PERSONALITY OF NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
Napoleon French statesman and commander, first consul of the French Republic (1799 - 1804), emperor of the French (1804 - 14 and March - June 1815). He was born on August 15, 1769 in the family of a poor Corsican nobleman lawyer Carlo Buonaparte. Napoleon's character from early childhood turned out to be impatient and restless. “Nothing appealed to me,” he later recalled, “I was prone to quarrels and fights, I was not afraid of anyone. I beat one, scratched another, and everyone was afraid of me. Most of all, my brother Joseph had to endure from me. I beat and bit him. And they scolded him for this, because it happened even before he came to his senses from fear, I would already complain to my mother. My cunning did me good, because otherwise Mother Letizia would have punished me for my pugnacity, she would never have tolerated my attacks! . Napoleon grew up as a gloomy and irritable child. His mother loved him, but she gave him and her other children a rather harsh upbringing. They lived economically, but the family did not feel the need. The father was a man, apparently, kind and weak-willed. The true head of the family was Letizia, a firm, strict, industrious woman, in whose hands was the upbringing of children. Napoleon inherited his love for work and strict order in business from his mother. The situation of this island, secluded from the whole world, with its rather wild population in the mountains and forest thickets, with endless inter-clan clashes, with tribal blood feuds, with carefully concealed, but stubborn hostility to the French aliens, was strongly reflected in the young impressions of little Napoleon. At the age of ten he was placed at the Autun College in France, and then in the same 1779 he was transferred to a state scholarship at the Brienne military school. In 1784 he successfully graduated from college and transferred to the Paris Military School (1784 - 85). In February 1785, his father, Carlo Bonaparte, died of the same disease from which Napoleon himself later died: stomach cancer. The family was left almost penniless. There was little hope for Napoleon's older brother, Joseph: he was both incapable and lazy, the 16-year-old junker took care of his mother, brothers and sisters. After a year's stay at the Paris Military School, on October 30, 1785, he entered the army with the rank of second lieutenant and went to the regiment stationed in the south, in the city of Valence. Life was hard for the young officer. (Appendix 1) He sent most of the salary to his mother, leaving himself only for the meager food, not allowing himself the slightest entertainment. In the same house where he rented a room, there was a second-hand book dealer, and Napoleon began to spend all his free time reading books that the second-hand book dealer gave him. He shunned society, and his clothes were so plain that he did not want and could not lead any secular life. He read voraciously, with unheard-of greed, filling his notebooks with notes and notes. Most of all he was interested in books on military history, mathematics, geography, travel descriptions. He also read philosophers.
Brought up on the advanced ideas of the French Enlightenment, a follower of J.J. Rousseau, G. Reynal, Bonaparte accepted the Great French Revolution with warm approval; in 1792 he joined the Jacobin Club. His activities took place mainly in Corsica. This gradually brought Bonaparte into conflict with the Corsican separatists led by Paoli, and in 1793 he was forced to flee Corsica. During a long and unsuccessful siege by the republican army of Toulon, captured by the monarchist rebels and the English interventionists, Bonaparte proposed his plan for capturing the city. December 17, 1793 Toulon was taken by storm. For the capture of Toulon, the 24-year-old captain was promoted to brigadier general. From this time begins the rapid ascent of Bonaparte. After a short-term disgrace and even arrest during the days of the Thermidorian reaction for being close to O. Robespierre, Napoleon again attracted attention - already in Paris - with energy and determination in suppressing the monarchist rebellion on 13 Vendemière (October 5), 1795. Following that, he was appointed commander Parisian garrison and in 1796 - commander in chief of the army created for operations in Italy. [ 1 p. 45].
In the subsequent military campaigns of Napoleon, the aggressive tendencies intensified more and more. The Peace of Campoformia of 1797 revealed Napoleon's diplomatic abilities. On November 9-10, 1799 (Brumaire 18-19 of the 8th year), he carried out a coup d'etat, which established the consulate regime and actually granted him, although not immediately, full power.
In 1802 Napoleon achieved his appointment as consul for life (Reader on modern history, ed., and on April 18, 1804, the Senate passed a resolution giving the first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, the title of hereditary emperor of the French (Appendix 2) [9 p. 130]. To strengthen the new , the bourgeois monarchy and give it an outward brilliance, Napoleon I created a new imperial nobility, a magnificent imperial court, annulled the marriage with his first wife Josephine and entered into marriage in 1810 with Maria Louise, the daughter of the Austrian emperor Franz I.
Victorious wars with coalitions of powers, a huge expansion of the territory of the empire and the transformation of Napoleon I into the actual ruler of all Western (except Great Britain) and Central Europe contributed to his extraordinary fame. The fate of Napoleon I, who reached unparalleled power in 10 years, forcing the monarchs of Europe to reckon with his will, seemed inexplicable to many of his contemporaries and gave rise to all sorts of "Napoleonic legends". A man of great personal talent, exceptional capacity for work, strong, sober mind and unbending will, merciless in achieving goals, Napoleon I was an outstanding representative of the bourgeoisie at a time when it was still a young, rising class; he most fully embodied all the strengths inherent in her then, as well as her vices and shortcomings - aggressiveness, self-interest, adventurism.
In the field of military art, Napoleon I developed and improved what was new that had previously been created by the armies of revolutionary France. The merit of Napoleon I was that he found the most expedient in the given historical conditions the tactical and strategic use of the colossal armed masses, the appearance of which was made possible thanks to the revolution.
Napoleon knew the map and knew how to handle the map like no one else, he surpassed in this his chief of staff and the learned cartographer Marshal Berthier, surpassed in this all the generals who had thundered in history before him, and at the same time the map never connected him, and when he broke away from her, riding out into the field, inspiring the troops with his appeals, issuing orders, tossing and turning in huge dense columns, then here too he found himself in his own, that is, in the first and inaccessible place. His orders, his letters to the marshals, and some of his sayings still have the value of, as it were, basic treatises on the question of fortresses, on artillery, on the organization of the rear, on flank movements, on detours, on the most diverse subjects of military affairs.
He proved to be a remarkable master of strategy and maneuvering tactics. Fighting against a numerically superior enemy, Napoleon I sought to separate his forces and destroy them piece by piece. His principle was: "compensate for numerical weakness with speed of movement." On the march, Napoleon I led the troops dispersed, but in such a way that they could be assembled at the right time at any point. This is how the principle of “going apart, fighting together” developed.
Napoleon I perfected the new maneuverable tactics of the columns, combined with the loose formation, based on the clear interaction of various branches of the troops. He made extensive use of rapid maneuver in order to create superiority in decisive directions, he knew how to deliver surprise strikes, carry out detours and envelopments, and build up efforts in decisive areas of the battle. Considering the defeat of the enemy forces as his main strategic task, Napoleon always sought to seize the strategic initiative. The main way to defeat the enemy for him was a general battle. Napoleon sought to develop the success achieved in the general battle by organizing a persistent pursuit of the enemy. Napoleon provided a wide opportunity for initiative to commanders of units and formations. He knew how to find and promote capable, talented people [8 p. 70].
But the rapid rise of Napoleonic France and the victory of French arms were explained not so much by the personal qualities of Napoleon and his marshals, but by the fact that in a collision with feudal-absolutist Europe, Napoleonic France represented a historically more progressive, bourgeois social system. This was also reflected in the military sphere, where the art of general Napoleon had an undoubted advantage over the backward, routine strategy and tactics of the armies of feudal Europe, and in the superiority of the system of bourgeois social relations, boldly introduced in the countries of Western Europe by Napoleonic legislation, over backward patriarchal-feudal relations. However, over time, the Napoleonic wars lost their earlier (despite their aggressive nature) progressive elements and turned into purely predatory ones. Under these conditions, no personal qualities and efforts of Napoleon could bring victory. The Patriotic War of 1812 not only destroyed Napoleon's "great army" but also gave a powerful impetus to the national liberation struggle against Napoleonic oppression in Europe. The inevitable defeat of Napoleon under these conditions, completed by the entry of the allied troops into Paris (March 1814), forced him to abdicate (April 6, 1814). The victorious allies retained the title of emperor to Napoleon and gave him possession of Fr. Elbe. The landing of Napoleon in France (March 1, 1815) and the "Hundred Days" (March 20 - June 22, 1815) of his second reign again showed not only his talent, but to an even greater extent the significance of the social forces behind him. The unprecedented "conquest" in 3 weeks without a single shot of France became possible only because the people considered Napoleon capable of expelling the Bourbons and aristocrats hated by the masses of France from France.
The tragedy of Napoleon was that he did not dare to rely fully on the people who supported him. This led to his defeat at Waterloo and his second abdication (June 22, 1815). Exiled to about. St. Helena, he died after 6 years as a prisoner of the British (May 5, 1821).
Thus, the era in which Napoleon Bonaparte lived contributed to his rapid rise, his brilliant career. Napoleon was definitely talented person. Having set himself a goal in his distant youth - to achieve power, he walked consistently and patiently towards it, using all his potential. The Great French Revolution, the Republican Wars allowed a number of talented, but not noble commanders to rise, including Bonaparte. The rapid rise of Napoleon was due to the “concentration” in one person of genius, ambition, and a correct understanding of the situation around him.
2. NAPOLEONIC WARS
2.1 War of the Second Coalition (1798-1802)
The conventional date for the start of the Napoleonic Wars is the establishment in France during the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9), 1799, of the military dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, who became the first consul. At this time, the country was already at war with the 2nd anti-French coalition, which was formed in 1798 - 1799 by England, Russia, Austria, Turkey and the Kingdom of Naples (the 1st anti-French coalition consisting of Austria, Prussia, England and a number of other European states fought against revolutionary France in 1792-1793). Having come to power, Bonaparte sent the English king and the Austrian emperor a proposal to start peace negotiations, which was rejected by them. Then Napoleon set himself the task of a war with England, which was to be fought not on the English coast, in the face of the mighty British fleet, but on the European continent , against the allies of England, primarily against the Austrian Empire. . France began to form a large army on the eastern borders under the command of General Moreau. At the same time, on the Swiss border, in secrecy, the formation of the so-called "reserve" army was going on, which dealt the first blow to the Austrian troops in Italy. Having made a difficult transition through the St. Bernard Pass in the Alps, on June 14, 1800, at the Battle of Marengo, Bonaparte defeated the Austrians operating under the command of Field Marshal Melas. In December 1800 Moreau's army of the Rhine defeated the Austrians at Hohenlinden (Bavaria). In February 1801, Austria was forced to conclude peace with France and recognize her seizures in Belgium and on the left bank of the Rhine. After that, the 2nd coalition actually broke up.
On March 27, 1802, the Treaty of Amiens was concluded between England, on the one hand, and France, Spain, and the Batavian Republic, on the other. Peace negotiations took place in Amiens, dragged on for a little less than six months, but already on October 1, 1801, all hostile actions between France and England ceased after the signing of the "preliminary peace" in London. In Amiens, Napoleon and Talleyrand succeeded in securing favorable peace terms. True, Napoleon agreed to the evacuation of French troops from Egypt and the return of Egypt to Turkey. But England abandoned almost all of its colonial conquests (except for Ceylon and the island of Trinidad in the Atlantic Ocean). But, most importantly, England took upon itself the obligation not to interfere in the affairs of Holland, Germany, Italy (the Apennine Peninsula), Switzerland (the "Helvetian Republic"). She even undertook to evacuate Malta over time. The peace of Amiens could not be very long, England did not yet feel so defeated. But at that moment, when in Paris and in the provinces they learned about the signing of a peace treaty with England, they were completely satisfied. The most formidable, the richest, the most stubborn and implacable enemy seemed to admit defeat, approved with his signature all the conquests of Bonaparte. The long, hard war with Europe ended, and ended in complete victory on all fronts.
Thus the second anti-French coalition fell apart. The fierce war between France and England became the center of all diplomatic combinations and intrigues of the near future.
2.2 Third anti-French coalition
War of the Third Coalition (also known as the Russo-Austrian-French War of 1805) - a war between France, Spain, Bavaria and Italy, on the one hand, and the Third Anti-French Coalition, which included Austria, Russia, Great Britain, Sweden, the Kingdom of Naples and Portugal - with another. In 1805 Russia and Great Britain signed the Treaty of St. Petersburg, which laid the foundation for a third coalition. In the same year, Great Britain, Austria, Russia, the Kingdom of Naples and Sweden formed a third coalition against France and its allied Spain. While the fleet of the coalition fought successfully at sea, the armies were unsuccessful and were defeated, so the coalition fell apart rather quickly - in December. Napoleon had been planning an invasion of England since the Treaty of Amiens in 1802, signed by Cornwallis for England and Joseph Bonaparte for France. At this time (summer 1805), Napoleon's 180,000-strong army (the "Great Army") stood on the French coast of the English Channel, in Boulogne, preparing to land in England. These ground forces were quite enough, but Napoleon did not have enough navy to cover the landing, so it was necessary to pull the British fleet away from the English Channel. With regard to military operations at sea, an attempt to distract the British by threatening their dominance in the West Indies failed: the Franco-Spanish fleet under the command of the French admiral Villeneuve was defeated by the English squadron on their way back to Europe at Cape Finisterre, and retreated to Spain, to the port of Cadiz, where it was blocked. Admiral Villeneuve, despite the poor state of the fleet, to which he himself brought him, and having learned that they were going to replace him with Admiral Rossilli, went out, following the instructions of Napoleon, at the end of October to the sea. At Cape Trafalgar, the Franco-Spanish fleet took the battle with the English squadron of Admiral Nelson and was completely defeated, despite the fact that Nelson was mortally wounded in this battle. The French fleet never recovered from this defeat, losing control of the sea to the English fleet. As for military operations on land, in order to finally protect itself from the French invasion, England hastily put together another anti-French coalition, unlike the first and second, no longer anti-republican, but anti-Napoleonic. By joining the coalition, Austria, taking advantage of the fact that most of Napoleon's army was concentrated in northern France, planned to unleash hostilities in northern Italy and Bavaria. To help the Austrians, Russia moved two armies, under the command of generals Kutuzov and Buksgevden. Having received information about the actions of the coalition forces, Napoleon was forced to postpone the landing on the British Isles for an indefinite period and move troops to Germany. It was then that Napoleon said: “If I am not in London in 15 days, then I should be in Vienna in mid-November” [9 p.150]. Meanwhile, the 72,000-strong Austrian army under the command of Baron Karl Mack von Leiberich invaded Bavaria, without waiting for the Russian troops, who had not yet reached the theater of operations. Napoleon left the Boulogne camp and, having made a forced march to the south, reached Bavaria as soon as possible. The Austrian army capitulated at the Battle of Ulm. The corps of General Elachich managed to escape capture, however, he was subsequently overtaken by the French Marshal Augereau and capitulated. Left alone, Kutuzov was forced to retreat with rearguard battles (the Battle of Merzbach, the battle of Hollabrunn) to connect with the Buxgevden army that had not yet approached. Napoleon occupied Vienna without serious resistance. Of the entire Austrian army, only the formations of Archduke Karl and Archduke John, as well as a few units that managed to connect with Kutuzov's army, continued the war. Russian emperor Alexander I and the Austrian emperor Franz II arrived at the army. At the insistence of Alexander I, Kutuzov's army stopped its retreat and, without waiting for the approach of Buxgevden's troops, entered the battle with the French at Austerlitz, in which it suffered a heavy defeat and retreated in disorder. The French victory was complete.
Emperor Franz humbly asked Napoleon for a truce, to which the winner agreed, but under the condition of the removal of Russian troops from Austrian territory (December 4). On December 26, Austria concluded the Treaty of Pressburg with France, which deprived the Habsburg monarchy of possessions in southwestern Germany, Tyrol and the Venetian region (the first were divided between Baden and Württemberg, the second was annexed to Bavaria, the third to the Kingdom of Italy), finally abolishing the Holy Roman Empire and who granted the royal crowns of Naples and Holland to Napoleon's brothers.
Russia, despite heavy losses, continued military operations against Napoleon as part of the fourth anti-French coalition, also organized with the active participation of England. On July 12, 1806, between Napoleon and many German sovereigns (Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Darmstadt, Klöve-Berg, Nassau, etc.), an agreement was concluded, under the terms of which these sovereigns entered into an alliance, called the Rhine, under the protectorate of Napoleon and with the obligation to keep for him a sixty thousandth army [2 p.215]
The formation of the union was accompanied by a new mediatization, that is, the subordination of small direct holders of the supreme power of large sovereigns. The mediatization of 1806 had the same effect in Germany as it did in 1802-1803. - secularization: Paris again became the center of the distribution of all sorts of favors, where the German princes used all possible means, some to prevent their own mediatization, others to mediatize other people's possessions in their favor. The Ligurian Republic (Genoa) and the Kingdom of Etruria were annexed to France. The very next day after the conclusion of the Treaty of Pressburg, Napoleon announced by a simple decree that "the Bourbon dynasty in Naples has ceased to reign", because Naples, contrary to the previous agreement, joined the coalition and allowed the landing of the troops that arrived in the Anglo-Russian fleet. The movement of the French army to Naples forced the local court to flee to Sicily, and Napoleon granted the Kingdom of Naples to his brother Joseph. Benevent and Pontecorvo were given, as fief duchies, to Talleyrand and Bernadotte. In the former possessions of Venice, Napoleon also established a significant number of fiefs, which were connected with the ducal title, gave large incomes and complained to French dignitaries and marshals. Napoleon's sister Elisa (after Bacciocchi's husband) received Lucca even earlier, then Massa and Carrara, and after the destruction of the kingdom of Etruria, she was appointed ruler of Tuscany. To his other sister, Paulina Borghese, Napoleon also gave possession. In the kingdom of Italy, Lucca, Tuscany and Naples, many French orders were introduced. Napoleon's brother, Louis, reigned in Holland.
Thus, Napoleon's wars with England at sea were unsuccessful, but on land Bonaparte won a number of significant victories, as a result of which Austria withdrew from the anti-French coalition, Napoleon was declared Emperor of Italy.
2.3 War of the Fourth Coalition (1806-1807)
The war against Napoleon was continued by England and Russia, which were soon joined by Prussia and Sweden, concerned about the strengthening of French domination in Europe. In September 1806, the 4th anti-French coalition of European states was formed. A month later, during two battles, on the same day, October 14, 1806, the Prussian army was destroyed: near Jena, Napoleon defeated parts of Prince Hohenlohe, and at Auerstedt, Marshal Davout defeated the main Prussian forces of King Frederick William and the Duke of Brunswick. Napoleon solemnly entered Berlin. Prussia was occupied. The Russian army moving to help the allies met with the French first near Pultusk on December 26, 1806, then at Preussisch-Eylau on February 8, 1807. Despite the bloodshed, these battles did not give an advantage to either side, but in June 1807 Napoleon won the battle of Friedland over the Russian troops commanded by L.L. Benigsen.
On July 7, 1807, in the middle of the Neman River, a meeting of the French and Russian emperors took place on a raft, and the Treaty of Tilsit was concluded, under the terms of which Prussia lost half of its possessions.[3 p. 216] From the Polish lands that Prussia inherited under the first two sections of the Commonwealth, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was organized, which came under the rule of the Saxon king. All her possessions between the Rhine and the Elbe were taken away from Prussia, which, in conjunction with the electorate of Hesse, Braunschweig and southern Hanover, formed the kingdom of Westphalia, headed by Napoleon's brother, Jerome, who also joined the Rhine Union. In addition, Prussia had to pay a huge indemnity, maintain the French garrisons at its own expense until the final reckoning, and observe various restrictive conditions that are beneficial to France (about, for example, military roads). . Napoleon became the complete ruler of Germany. In many places, the French order was introduced, which was the fruit of the revolution and the organizational activity of Napoleon. The despotism of Napoleon and local rulers, constant recruitment into the army, high taxes resounded heavily on the German people, who felt their humiliation before a foreign ruler. After the Peace of Tilsit, Napoleon left the city of Erfurt behind him as a rallying point for the troops of the Rhine Union. By agreeing that France should dominate the West, Emperor Alexander I had in mind the same domination in the East. An alliance of two emperors was created against England, whose trade Napoleon sought to strike with the so-called continental system. Russia was supposed to close its ports to the British, to withdraw its ambassadors from London. [6 p.84] Both powers undertook to demand from Sweden, Denmark and Portugal, who until then had acted in agreement with England, to join the continental system. England responded to this by ordering her fleet to seize neutral ships leaving the ports of France or states allied with her.
Thus, the consistent, merciless observance of the rules of the "continental blockade" becomes the center of all the diplomatic and military activities of Napoleon.
Meanwhile, Austria decided to try her luck in a war of liberation. In April 1809, the Austrian emperor moved his military forces at once to Bavaria, Italy and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, but Napoleon, reinforced by the troops of the Rhine Union, repelled the attack and was already in Vienna in mid-May. The Habsburg monarchy, apparently, was about to collapse: the Hungarians were already invited to restore their former independence and elect a new king for themselves. Soon after, the French crossed the Danube and won a victory on July 5-6 at Wagram, followed by the Armistice of Znaim (July 12), which was the threshold of the Vienna or Schönbrun peace (October 14). Austria lost Salzburg and some neighboring lands - in favor of Bavaria, western Galicia and part of eastern Galicia with Krakow - in favor of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and Russia and, finally, lands in the southwest (part of Carinthia, Krainu, Trieste, Friul, etc. .), which, together with Dalmatia, Istria and Ragusa, constituted the possession of Illyria, under the supreme authority of Napoleon. At the same time, the Vienna government undertook to join the continental system. This war was marked by a popular uprising in Tyrol, which, at the conclusion of the Vienna Peace, was pacified and divided between Bavaria, Illyria and the Kingdom of Italy. On May 16, 1809, in Schönbrunn, Napoleon signed a decree that abolished the secular power of the pope: the Church area was annexed to France, Rome was declared the second city of the empire. Austria had to recognize this change as well. In July 1810, Napoleon, dissatisfied with his brother Louis, who did not respect the continental system, annexed Holland to France; Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck, the Duchy of Oldenburg and other lands between the Elbe and the Rhine, as well as the Swiss canton of Wallis, with a mountain road through Simplon, were also annexed.
The French Empire reached largest sizes, and, together with vassal and allied states, included almost all of Western Europe. In addition to present-day France, it included Belgium, Holland and a strip of northern Germany to the Baltic Sea, with the mouths of the Rhine, Ems, Weser and Elbe, so that the French border was only two hundred miles away from Berlin; further, the entire left bank of the Rhine from Wesel to Basel, some parts of present-day Switzerland, and finally Piedmont, Tuscany and the Papal States. Part of northern and central Italy was the Kingdom of Italy, where Napoleon was the sovereign, and further, on the other side of the Adriatic Sea, on the Balkan Peninsula, was Illyria, which belonged to Napoleon. As if with hands, in two long stripes both from the north and from the south, Napoleon's empire covered Switzerland and the Rhine Union, in the center of which the city of Erfurt belonged to the French emperor. Heavily curtailed Prussia and Austria, bordering on the Rhine Union and Illyria, had the first - on its eastern border, the second - on the north, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which was under the protectorate of Napoleon and put forward as a French outpost against Russia. Finally, Napoleon's son-in-law Joachim I (Murat) reigned in Naples, and his brother Joseph reigned in Spain. (Appendix 3) Since 1807, Denmark has been in alliance with Napoleon.
Thus, only England and Russia remained rivals of France, one at sea, the other on land, which determined Napoleon's further foreign policy.
2.5 War of the Sixth Coalition (1813-1814)
The formation of the sixth coalition was preceded by Napoleon's campaign in Russia, where the fate of his empire was decided. Napoleon counted on support from Turkey, which was at war with Russia, and from Sweden, which was ruled as crown prince by the former Napoleonic marshal Carl Bernadotte. With Turkey, Kutuzov, who turned out to be not only a wonderful strategist, but also a brilliant diplomat, managed to conclude just on the eve of the war - in May 1812 - a peace very beneficial for Russia, skillfully bringing the grand vizier to panic. Upon learning of this sudden reconciliation between Russia and Turkey, Napoleon exclaimed in a rage that he had not known until now what fools were ruling Turkey. With regard to Sweden, two proposals were made to Bernadotte. Napoleon offered Sweden Finland if Sweden opposes Russia, and Alexander offers Norway if Sweden opposes Napoleon. Bernadotte, weighing the benefits of both proposals, leaned on the side of Alexander, not only because Norway is richer than Finland, but also because the sea protected Sweden from Napoleon, and nothing from Russia. Napoleon later said that he should have abandoned the war with Russia already at the moment when he learned that neither Turkey nor Sweden would fight Russia. Immediately after the outbreak of the war, England concluded an alliance with Alexander. With such a balance of power, the war of 1812 began and ended. Diplomats from all over Europe followed with intense attention the behind-the-scenes struggle that went on, especially at the very end of the war, between Alexander and Field Marshal Kutuzov. It was, in fact, a struggle between two mutually exclusive diplomatic attitudes, with Kutuzov pursuing his views in a number of strategic actions, and the tsar triumphed over Kutuzov only in Vilna, in December 1812 and January 1813. Kutuzov’s point of view, expressed by him before the English agent General Wilson, and before General Konovnitsyn, and other members of his staff, was that the war began on the Neman, and must end there. As soon as there is no armed enemy left on Russian soil, the fight should be stopped and stopped. There is no need to shed any more blood to save Europe—let her save herself by her own means. There is no need in particular to strive to completely crush Napoleon - this will bring the most benefit not to Russia, but to England. If this "cursed island" (as Kutuzov called England) completely fell through the ground, it would be the best thing. So thought Kutuzov. Alexander, on the contrary, believed that the business of retribution with Napoleon was just beginning. England struggled to support the king in his aspirations.
During the war of 1812, the strategy of the Russian army, led by Field Marshal M. I. Kutuzov, the partisan movement contributed to the death of more than 400,000 “Great Army” [4 p. 90]. After the defeat of Napoleon in Russia, the Russian army crossed the Neman, then the Vistula. This caused a new upsurge in the national liberation struggle in Europe, in a number of states people's militia began to be created.
In 1813, the 6th anti-French coalition was formed, which included Russia, England, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, and a number of other states. In October 1813, a "battle of nations" took place near Leipzig - Napoleon fought a coalition consisting of Russians, Austrians, Prussians and Swedes [1 p. 702]. In his own army, in addition to the French, there were Poles, Saxons, Dutch, Italians, Belgians, Germans of the Confederation of the Rhine. (Annex 4)
As a result of the “battle of the peoples”, the territory of Germany was liberated from the French. Napoleon retreated from Leipzig to the borders of France, to the line that separated it from the German states before the start of the Napoleonic conquests, to the line of the Rhine. [9 p. 300]. For the first time, Napoleon must have realized that great empire collapsed that the motley conglomerate of countries and peoples, which he had tried for so many years to solder with fire and sword into a single empire, fell apart. On the way to the Rhine, even at Hanau (October 30), he had to make his way with weapons in his hands through the Bavarian-Austrian detachments, and when the emperor entered Mainz on November 2, 1813, he had only about 40 thousand combat-ready soldiers with him. The rest of the crowds of unarmed, exhausted, sick people, who were also still in the army, who entered Mainz, could safely be ignored. In mid-November, Napoleon was in Paris. The campaign of 1813 ended and the campaign of 1814 began.
Thus, from 1812, the decline of Napoleon's military power began, prepared by the failures of French weapons in Portugal and Spain (see the war in the Iberian Peninsula, etc.). The Patriotic War, followed by the direct war for the liberation of Germany and Europe, was "the beginning of the end."
2.6 The capture of Paris and the end of the campaign (March 1814)
The general situation by the end of February 1814 was difficult for Napoleon, but not hopeless. He set himself the task of making peace with the allies on the condition that the borders of France be preserved by the beginning of the era of the Napoleonic wars, that is, along the Rhine and the Alps.
On March 24, the Allies agreed on a plan for further action in the campaign, deciding after disputes to resume the attack on Paris. A 10,000-strong cavalry corps was sent against Napoleon under the command of the Russian general Winzingerode in order to mislead Napoleon about the intentions of the allies. The Wintzingerode Corps was defeated by Napoleon on March 26, but this did not affect the course of further events. On March 30, Russian and Prussian corps attacked and, after fierce fighting, captured the suburbs of Paris. Wanting to save the city of many thousands from bombardment and street fighting, the commander of the right flank of the French defense, Marshal Marmont, sent a truce to the Russian emperor by 5 o'clock in the afternoon. Alexander I gave the following answer: “He will order to stop the battle if Paris is surrendered: otherwise, by the evening they will not recognize the place where the capital was.” [9 p.331] The battle for Paris was in the campaign of 1814 one of the most bloody for the Allies, who lost more than 8 thousand soldiers in one day of fighting (of which more than 6 thousand were Russian). On March 31, at 2 o'clock in the morning, the surrender of Paris was signed. By 7 o'clock in the morning, according to the agreement, the French regular army was to leave Paris. At noon on March 31, the Russian and Prussian guards, led by Emperor Alexander I, triumphantly entered the capital of France. In early April, the French Senate issued a decree deposing Napoleon. Napoleon learned about the surrender of Paris on the same day at the entrance to the capital. He went to his palace at Fontainebleau, where he awaited the approach of his stray army. Napoleon pulled together all the available troops (up to 60 thousand) to continue the war. However, under pressure from his own marshals, who took into account the mood of the population and soberly assessed the balance of power, on April 4, Napoleon wrote a conditional abdication in favor of his son Napoleon II under the regency of his wife Marie-Louise. While the negotiations were going on, part of the French army went over to the side of the allies, which gave Tsar Alexander I a reason to tighten the conditions for renunciation. On April 6, Napoleon wrote an act of abdication for himself and his heirs from the throne of France. On the same day, the Senate proclaimed Louis XVIII king. On April 20, Napoleon himself went into honorable exile on the island of Elba in the Mediterranean. “The grandiose heroic epic of world history is over - he said goodbye to his guard,” as English newspapers later wrote about this day [9 p. 345].
Thus ended the era of the Napoleonic Wars. On April 6, Napoleon I signed his abdication and was expelled from France.
3. RESULTS AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS
It is hardly possible to give an unambiguous assessment of the significance of the Consulate and the Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte for European history. On the one hand, the Napoleonic wars brought enormous human losses to France and other European states. They were waged for the sake of conquering foreign territories and robbing other peoples. Taxing the defeated countries with huge indemnities, Napoleon weakened and ruined their economy. When he autocratically redrawn the map of Europe or when he tried to impose a new economic order on it in the form of a continental blockade, he thereby intervened in the natural course of historical development, violating the boundaries and traditions that had been formed for centuries. On the other hand, historical development always takes place as a result of the struggle between the old and the new, and from this point of view, the Napoleonic Empire personified the new bourgeois order in the face of the old feudal Europe. As in 1792-94. French revolutionaries tried to carry their ideas across Europe with bayonets, and Napoleon also tried to introduce bourgeois orders in the conquered countries on bayonets. Establishing French dominance in Italy and the German states, he simultaneously abolished the feudal rights of the nobility and the guild system there, carried out the secularization of church lands, extended their Civil Code to them. In other words, he destroyed the feudal system and acted in this respect, according to Stendhal, as "the son of the revolution." Thus, the Napoleonic era was one of the stages in European history and one of the manifestations of the transition from the old order to the new times.
The victories won by France over the armies of the feudal-absolutist states were explained, first of all, by the fact that bourgeois France, representing a more progressive social system, had an advanced military system created by the Great French Revolution. An outstanding commander, Napoleon I perfected the strategy and tactics developed during the revolutionary wars. The army also included troops of states subordinate to Napoleon I and foreign corps, exhibited by the allied countries. The Napoleonic army, especially before the defeat of its best forces in Russia in 1812, was characterized by high combat training and discipline. Napoleon I was surrounded by a galaxy of talented marshals and young generals (L. Davout, I. Murat, A. Massena, M. Ney, L. Berthier, J. Bernadotte, N. Soult, etc.), many of whom were soldiers or from the lower strata of society. However, the increasing transformation of the French army during the Napoleonic wars into an instrument for the implementation of the aggressive plans of Napoleon I, huge losses (according to approximate estimates, in 1800 - 1815, 3153 thousand people were called up for military service in France, of which only in 1804 - 1814 died 1750 thousand people) led to a significant decrease in its combat qualities.
As a result of continuous wars and conquests, a huge Napoleonic empire was formed, supplemented by a system of states directly or indirectly subject to France. Napoleon I subjected the conquered countries to robbery. The supply of the army in the campaign was carried out mainly with the help of requisitions or direct robbery (according to the principle "war must feed the war"). Great damage to countries that were dependent on the Napoleonic empire was caused by customs tariffs that were beneficial to France. The Napoleonic wars were a constant and important source of income for the Napoleonic government, the French bourgeoisie, and the elite of the military.
The wars of the French Revolution began as national wars. After the defeat of Napoleon, feudal reaction was established in many European countries. However, the main result of the fierce wars was not a temporary victory for the reaction, but the liberation of the countries of Europe from the domination of Napoleonic France, which ultimately contributed to the independent development of capitalism in a number of European states.
Thus, we can say that Napoleon's wars were not just a pan-European, but a global one. They are forever in history.
CONCLUSION
The era in which Napoleon Bonaparte lived contributed to his rapid rise, his brilliant career. Napoleon was certainly a talented man. Having set himself a goal in his distant youth - to achieve power, he walked consistently and patiently towards it, using all his potential. The Great French Revolution, the republican wars allowed a number of talented, but not noble commanders to rise, among whom was Bonaparte.
The rapid rise of Napoleon is due to the "concentration" in one person of genius, ambition, a correct understanding of the situation around him. In one of his interviews, the now famous Edvard Radzinsky said: "Napoleon is a man who lived, relating himself only to History." And indeed, he is right - the attention of the whole world to the life and death of Napoleon has been riveted for two centuries. For example, if you type "Napoleon Bonaparte" in any Internet search engine, you will get over 10 million links. These links will be different: from historical and literary portals and forums of historians involved in the study of the era of the Napoleonic Wars, to sites that are completely ordinary and not related to history in any way, intended for crossword puzzle lovers. Is this not a confirmation that the first emperor of France has become a kind of mega-figure in the history of mankind? Napoleon Bonaparte and his role in the development of European civilization will be the subject of close attention for many more generations of historians, and readers around the world will turn to his image in literature for many years to come, trying to understand what is the grandeur of this personality.
In general, the wars of Napoleon until 1812. were successful, in his hands was almost the whole of Europe. But the general situation by the end of February 1814 was difficult for Napoleon. As a result, “the most grandiose heroic epic of world history ended - he said goodbye to his guard,” as English newspapers later wrote about this day.
However, I would like to end with the words of E.V. Tarle on the significance of Napoleon in world history: “In the memory of mankind, an image has forever remained that in the psychology of some echoes the images of Attila, Tamerlane and Genghis Khan, in the soul of others - with the shadows of Alexander the Great and Caesar, but which, as historical research grows, more and more more is revealed in its unique originality and striking individual complexity.
LIST OF USED SOURCES AND LITERATURE
1. Sources
1. From the treaty on the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine under the protectorate of France // Reader on a new history, ed. A.A. Guber, A.V. Efimov. - M .: Education, 1963. T.1 1640-1815. - from. 768.
2. From the Tilsit Peace Treaty between France and Prussia // Reader on New History, ed. A.A. Guber, A.V. Efimov.
- M .: Education, 1963. T.1 1640-1815. - from. 768.
3. Napoleon. Selected works. – M.: Oborongiz, 1956. – p.788.
4. Expansion of the power of the first consul. From the senatus - consultation from 6 Thermidor of the X year // Reader on modern history 1640-1870. Comp. Sirotkin V.G. - M.: Enlightenment, 1990. - p. 286.
5. Tilsit peace treaty between France and Prussia // Reader on modern history 1640-1870. Comp. Sirotkin V.G. Enlightenment - M.: Enlightenment, 1990. - p. 286.
6. Tilsit Offensive and Defensive Allied Treaty between France and Russia // Reader on New History 1640-1870. Comp. Sirotkin V.G. - M.: Enlightenment, 1990. - p. 286.
7. Tolstoy L.N. on the role of partisans in the Patriotic War // Reader on the new history of 1640-1870. Comp. Sirotkin V.G. - M.: Enlightenment, 1990. - p. 286.
2. Literature
8. Zhilin P.A. The death of the Napoleonic army in Russia. – M.: Nauka, 1989. – p.451.
9. Manfred A.Z. Napoleon Bonaparte. - Sukhumi: Alashara, 1980. - p. 712.
10. New story countries of Europe and America: Proc. for universities / Krivoguz I.M. – M.: Bustard, 2003. – 912 p.
11. New history, 1640-1870. Proc. for students ist.fak. ped. in-tov / Narochnitsky A.L. - M .: Education, 1986. - 704 p.
12. Tarle E.V. Napoleon. M.: Nauka, 1991. - p. 461.
13. Tarle E.V. Essays on the history of the colonial policy of Western European states (the end of the 15th - the beginning of the 19th centuries) M .: Nauka, 1965. - p. 428.
APPS
Attachment 1
Napoleon in his youth
Annex 2
Emperor Napoleon
Source -Straubing/napoleonovskie voyny/ru.
Annex 3
napoleon war army commander
Napoleonic Empire, 1811. France shown in dark blue.
Source - Wikipedia/napoleon/en.
The Napoleonic Wars are the military campaigns against several European coalitions waged by France during the reign of Napoleon Bonaparte (1799-1815). Italian campaign of Napoleon 1796-1797 and his Egyptian expedition of 1798-1799 is usually not included in the concept of the "Napoleonic Wars", since they took place even before Bonaparte came to power (the coup of 18 Brumaire 1799). The Italian campaign is part of the Revolutionary Wars of 1792-1799. The Egyptian expedition in various sources either refers to them, or is recognized as a separate colonial campaign.
Napoleon at the Council of Five Hundred 18 Brumaire 1799
Napoleon's war with the Second Coalition
During the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9), 1799, and the transfer of power in France to the first consul, citizen Napoleon Bonaparte, the republic was at war with the new (Second) European coalition, in which the Russian emperor Paul I took part, who sent an army to the West under the leadership of Suvorov. The affairs of France went badly, especially in Italy, where Suvorov, together with the Austrians, conquered the Cisalpine Republic, after which a monarchical restoration took place in Naples, abandoned by the French, accompanied by bloody terror against the friends of France, and then the fall of the republic in Rome took place. Dissatisfied, however, with his allies, mainly Austria, and partly with England, Paul I left the coalition and the war, and when the first consul Bonaparte let Russian prisoners go home without ransom and re-equipped, the Russian emperor even began to draw closer to France, very pleased that in this country "anarchy was replaced by a consulate." Napoleon Bonaparte himself willingly went towards rapprochement with Russia: in fact, the expedition he undertook in 1798 to Egypt was directed against England in her Indian possessions, and in the imagination of the ambitious conqueror, a Franco-Russian campaign against India was now drawn, the same as later, when the memorable war of 1812 began. This combination, however, did not take place, since in the spring of 1801 Paul I fell victim to a conspiracy, and power in Russia passed to his son Alexander I.
Napoleon Bonaparte - First Consul. Painting by J. O. D. Ingres, 1803-1804
After Russia's withdrawal from the coalition, Napoleon's war against other European powers continued. The first consul turned to the sovereigns of England and Austria with an invitation to put an end to the struggle, but he was given in response unacceptable conditions for him - the restoration Bourbon and the return of France to its former borders. In the spring of 1800, Bonaparte personally led an army into Italy and in the summer, after battles of marengo, took possession of all Lombardy, while another French army occupied southern Germany and began to threaten Vienna itself. Peace of Luneville 1801 ended Napoleon's war with Emperor Francis II and confirmed the terms of the previous Austro-French treaty ( Campoformian 1797 G.). Lombardy turned into the Italian Republic, which made its president the first consul Bonaparte. Both in Italy and in Germany, a number of changes were made after this war: for example, the Duke of Tuscany (from the Habsburg family) received the principality of the Salzburg Archbishop in Germany for renouncing his duchy, and Tuscany, under the name of the Kingdom of Etruria, was transferred to the Duke of Parma (from the Spanish line). Bourbons). More than anything territorial changes was produced after this war of Napoleon in Germany, many sovereigns of which, for the cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France, were to receive rewards at the expense of smaller princes, sovereign bishops and abbots, as well as free imperial cities. In Paris, a real bargaining for territorial increments was opened, and the government of Bonaparte, with great success used the rivalry of the German sovereigns to conclude separate treaties with them. This was the beginning of the destruction of the medieval Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, which, however, even earlier, as the wits said, was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire, but some kind of chaos from the same approximately number of states as there are days in a year. Now, at least, they have been greatly reduced, thanks to the secularization of spiritual principalities and the so-called mediatization - the transformation of direct (immediate) members of the empire into mediocre (mediated) - various state trifles, like small counties and imperial cities.
The war between France and England ended only in 1802, when a contract was concluded between the two states. Peace in Amiens. The first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, then also acquired the glory of a peacemaker after a ten-year war, which France had to wage: a lifetime consulate was, in fact, a reward for making peace. But the war with England soon resumed, and one of the reasons for this was that Napoleon, not content with the presidency of the Italian Republic, also established his protectorate over the Batavian Republic, that is, Holland, quite close to England. The resumption of the war took place in 1803, and the English King George III, who at the same time was the Elector of Hanover, lost his ancestral possession in Germany. After that, Bonaparte's war with England did not stop until 1814.
Napoleon's war with the Third Coalition
The war was a favorite deed of the emperor-commander, whose equal history knows little, and his unauthorized actions, which must be attributed assassination of the Duke of Enghien, which caused general indignation in Europe, soon forced other powers to unite against the impudent "upstart Corsican". His acceptance of the imperial title, the transformation of the Italian Republic into a kingdom, of which Napoleon himself became sovereign, who was crowned in 1805 in Milan with the old iron crown of the Lombard kings, the preparation of the Batavian Republic for the transformation into a kingdom of one of his brothers, as well as various other actions of Napoleon in relation to other countries were the reasons for the formation of the Third Anti-French Coalition against him from England, Russia, Austria, Sweden and the Kingdom of Naples, and Napoleon, for his part, secured alliances with Spain and the South German princes (sovereigns of Baden, Württemberg, Bavaria, Gessen, etc.), who, thanks to him, significantly increased their possessions through the secularization and mediatization of smaller possessions.
War of the Third Coalition. Map
In 1805, Napoleon was preparing to land in Boulogne in England, but in fact he moved his troops to Austria. However, the landing in England and the war on its very territory soon became impossible, due to the destruction of the French fleet by the English under the command of Admiral Nelson. at Trafalgar. But the land war of Bonaparte with the Third Coalition was a series of brilliant victories. In October 1805, on the eve of Trafalgar, surrendered to the surrender of the Austrian army in Ulm, Vienna was taken in November, on December 2, 1805, on the first anniversary of the coronation of Napoleon, the famous “battle of the three emperors” took place at Austerlitz (see the article The Battle of Austerlitz), which ended in the complete victory of Napoleon Bonaparte over the Austro-Russian army, in which there were Franz II, and young Alexander I. Finished the war with the Third Coalition Peace of Pressburg deprived the Habsburg monarchy of all Upper Austria, Tyrol and Venice with its region and gave Napoleon the right to widely dispose of in Italy and Germany.
Triumph of Napoleon. Austerlitz. Artist Sergei Prisekin
Bonaparte's war with the Fourth Coalition
The following year, the Prussian king Friedrich Wilhelm III joined the enemies of France - thereby forming the Fourth Coalition. But the Prussians also suffered, in October of this year, a terrible defeat at Jena, after which the German princes, who were in alliance with Prussia, were also defeated, and Napoleon occupied during this war first Berlin, then Warsaw, which belonged to Prussia after the third partition of Poland. The help provided to Friedrich Wilhelm III by Alexander I was not successful, and in the war of 1807 the Russians were defeated under Friedland, after which Napoleon occupied Koenigsberg. Then the famous Tilsit peace took place, which ended the war of the Fourth Coalition and was accompanied by a date between Napoleon Bonaparte and Alexander I in a pavilion arranged in the middle of the Neman.
War of the Fourth Coalition. Map
In Tilsit, it was decided by both sovereigns to help each other, dividing the West and the East between them. Only the intercession of the Russian tsar before the formidable victor saved Prussia from disappearing after this war from the political map of Europe, but this state nevertheless lost half of its possessions, had to pay a large contribution and accepted the French garrisons to stay.
The reorganization of Europe after the wars with the Third and Fourth Coalitions
After the wars with the Third and Fourth Coalitions, the Peace of Pressburg and Tilsit, Napoleon Bonaparte was the complete master of the West. The Venetian region enlarged the Kingdom of Italy, where Napoleon's stepson Eugene Beauharnais was made Viceroy, and Tuscany was directly annexed to the French Empire itself. The very next day after the Treaty of Pressburg, Napoleon announced that "the Bourbon dynasty had ceased to reign in Naples," and sent his elder brother Joseph (Joseph) to reign there. The Batavian Republic was turned into the Kingdom of Holland with Napoleon's brother Louis (Louis) on the throne. From the areas taken from Prussia west of the Elbe with neighboring parts of Hanover and other principalities, the Kingdom of Westphalia was created, which was received by another brother of Napoleon Bonaparte, Jerome (Jerome), from the former Polish lands of Prussia - Duchy of Warsaw given to the Sovereign of Saxony. Back in 1804, Franz II declared the imperial crown of Germany, the former electoral, hereditary property of his house, and in 1806 he withdrew Austria from Germany and began to be titled not the Roman, but the Austrian emperor. In Germany itself, after these wars of Napoleon, a complete reshuffling was carried out: again some principalities disappeared, others received an increase in their possessions, especially Bavaria, Württemberg and Saxony, even elevated to the rank of kingdoms. The Holy Roman Empire no longer existed, and the Confederation of the Rhine was now organized in the western part of Germany - under the protectorate of the emperor of the French.
By the Treaty of Tilsit, Alexander I was granted, in agreement with Bonaparte, to increase his possessions at the expense of Sweden and Turkey, from which he took away, from the first in 1809 Finland, turned into an autonomous principality, from the second - after the Russian-Turkish war of 1806-1812 - Bessarabia included directly in Russia. In addition, Alexander I undertook to annex his empire to Napoleon's "continental system", as the cessation of all trade relations with England was called. The new allies also had to force Sweden, Denmark and Portugal, who continued to side with England, to do the same. At that time, a coup d'etat took place in Sweden: Gustav IV was replaced by his uncle Charles XIII, and the French marshal Bernadotte was declared his heir, after which Sweden went over to the side of France, as Denmark also went over after England attacked her for wanting to remain neutral. Since Portugal resisted, Napoleon, having entered into an alliance with Spain, announced that “the House of Braganza had ceased to reign”, and began the conquest of this country, which forced its king and his whole family to sail to Brazil.
Beginning of Napoleon Bonaparte's war in Spain
Soon it was the turn of Spain to turn into the kingdom of one of the Bonaparte brothers, the ruler of the European West. There were strife in the Spanish royal family. In fact, the government was governed by Minister Godoy, beloved of Queen Maria Louise, wife of the narrow-minded and weak-willed Charles IV, an ignorant, short-sighted and unscrupulous man, who since 1796 completely subordinated Spain to French politics. The royal couple had a son, Ferdinand, whom his mother and her favorite did not love, and now both sides began to complain one against the other to Napoleon. Bonaparte tied Spain even more closely with France when he promised Godoy to divide her possessions with Spain for help in the war with Portugal. In 1808, members of the royal family were invited to negotiate in Bayonne, and here the matter ended with the deprivation of Ferdinand of his hereditary rights and the abdication of Charles IV himself from the throne in favor of Napoleon, as "the only sovereign capable of giving prosperity to the state." The result of the "Bayonne catastrophe" was the transfer of the Neapolitan king Joseph Bonaparte to the Spanish throne, with the transfer of the Neapolitan crown to Napoleon's son-in-law, Joachim Murat, one of the heroes of the coup of 18 Brumaire. Somewhat earlier, in the same 1808, French soldiers occupied the Papal States, and the following year it was included in the French Empire with the deprivation of the pope of secular power. The fact is that Pope Pius VII, considering himself an independent sovereign, did not follow the instructions of Napoleon in everything. “Your Holiness,” Bonaparte once wrote to the pope, “enjoys supreme power in Rome, but I am the emperor of Rome.” Pius VII responded to the deprivation of power by excommunicating Napoleon from the church, for which he was forcibly transported to live in Savona, and the cardinals were resettled in Paris. Rome was then declared the second city of the empire.
Erfurt date 1808
In the interval between the wars, in the autumn of 1808, in Erfurt, which Napoleon Bonaparte left directly behind him as a possession of France in the very heart of Germany, a famous meeting took place between the Tilsit allies, accompanied by a congress of many kings, sovereign princes, crown princes, ministers, diplomats and commanders . It was a very impressive demonstration of both the power that Napoleon had in the West, and his friendship with the sovereign, to whom the East was placed at the disposal. England was asked to start negotiations on ending the war on the basis of retaining for the contracting parties what everyone would own at the time of the conclusion of peace, but England rejected this proposal. The sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine kept themselves on Erfurt Congress in front of Napoleon, just like servile courtiers in front of their master, and for the greater humiliation of Prussia, Bonaparte arranged a hunt for hares on the field of the Battle of Jena, inviting a Prussian prince who came to fuss about softening the difficult conditions of 1807. Meanwhile, an uprising broke out in Spain against the French, and in the winter from 1808 to 1809, Napoleon was forced to personally go to Madrid.
Napoleon's war with the Fifth Coalition and his conflict with Pope Pius VII
Counting on the difficulties that Napoleon met in Spain, the Austrian emperor in 1809 decided on a new war with Bonaparte ( War of the Fifth Coalition), but the war was again unsuccessful. Napoleon occupied Vienna and inflicted an irreparable defeat on the Austrians at Wagram. By ending this war Schönbrunn Peace Austria again lost several territories divided between Bavaria, the Kingdom of Italy and the Duchy of Warsaw (by the way, it acquired Krakow), and one area, the coast of the Adriatic Sea, under the name of Illyria, became the property of Napoleon Bonaparte himself. At the same time, Francis II had to give his daughter Maria Louise to Napoleon in marriage. Even earlier, Bonaparte had become related through members of his family with some sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine, and now he himself decided to marry a real princess, especially since his first wife, Josephine Beauharnais, was barren, he also wanted to have an heir of his blood. (At first he wooed the Russian Grand Duchess, the sister of Alexander I, but their mother was strongly against this marriage). In order to marry the Austrian princess, Napoleon had to divorce Josephine, but then there was an obstacle from the pope, who did not agree to a divorce. Bonaparte neglected this and forced the French clergy subject to him to divorce him from his first wife. This further aggravated relations between him and Pius VII, who took revenge on him for depriving him of secular power and therefore, among other things, refused to consecrate to bishops the persons whom the emperor appointed to vacant chairs. The quarrel between the emperor and the pope, among other things, led to the fact that in 1811 Napoleon organized a council of French and Italian bishops in Paris, which, under his pressure, issued a decree allowing archbishops to ordain bishops if the pope did not consecrate government candidates for six months. The members of the cathedral who protested against the captivity of the pope were imprisoned in the Château de Vincennes (just as earlier cardinals who did not attend the marriage of Napoleon Bonaparte to Marie Louise were stripped of their red cassocks, for which they were mockingly nicknamed black cardinals). When Napoleon had a son from a new marriage, he received the title of Roman king.
The period of the greatest power of Napoleon Bonaparte
This was the time of the greatest power of Napoleon Bonaparte, and after the war of the Fifth Coalition, he continued, as before, completely arbitrary to dispose of in Europe. In 1810 he stripped his brother Louis of the Dutch crown for failing to respect the continental system and annexed his kingdom directly to his empire; for the same thing, the entire coast of the German Sea was also taken from their rightful owners (by the way, from the Duke of Oldenburg, a relative of the Russian sovereign) and annexed to France. France now included the coast of the German Sea, all western Germany to the Rhine, parts of Switzerland, the whole northwest of Italy and the Adriatic coast; the north-east of Italy was a special kingdom of Napoleon, and his son-in-law and two brothers reigned in Naples, Spain and Westphalia. Switzerland, the Confederation of the Rhine, covered on three sides by the possessions of Bonaparte, and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw were under his protectorate. Austria and Prussia, severely curtailed after the Napoleonic Wars, were thus squeezed between the possessions of either Napoleon himself or his vassals, Russia, from sharing with Napoleon, except for Finland, had only the Bialystok and Tarnopol districts, separated by Napoleon from Prussia and Austria in 1807 and 1809
Europe in 1807-1810. Map
Napoleon's despotism in Europe was unlimited. When, for example, the Nuremberg bookseller Palm refused to name the author of the brochure “Germany in its greatest humiliation”, which he published, Bonaparte ordered him to be arrested on foreign territory and brought to a military court, which sentenced him to death (which was, as it were, a repetition of the episode with the Duke of Enghien).
On the Western European mainland after the Napoleonic Wars, everything was, so to speak, turned upside down: the borders were confused; some old states were destroyed and new ones created; even many geographical names have been changed, etc. The temporal power of the pope and the medieval Roman Empire no longer existed, as well as the spiritual principalities of Germany and its numerous imperial cities, these purely medieval city republics. In the territories inherited by France itself, in the states of Bonaparte's relatives and clientele, a whole series of reforms were carried out according to the French model - administrative, judicial, financial, military, school, church reforms, often with the abolition of the class privileges of the nobility, limiting the power of the clergy, destroying many monasteries , the introduction of religious tolerance, etc., etc. One of the remarkable features of the era of the Napoleonic Wars was the abolition of the serfdom of peasants in many places, sometimes immediately after the wars by Bonaparte himself, as was the case in the Duchy of Warsaw at its very foundation. Finally, outside the French empire, the French civil code was put into effect, " Napoleonic code”, which continued to operate here and there after the collapse of the Napoleonic empire, as it was in the western parts of Germany, where it was in use until 1900, or as it still takes place in the Kingdom of Poland, formed from the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in 1815. It must also be added that during the period of the Napoleonic Wars in different countries, in general, French administrative centralization was very willingly adopted, distinguished by simplicity and harmony, strength and speed of action and therefore an excellent tool for government influence on subjects. If the daughter republics at the end of the XVIII century. were arranged in the image and likeness of the then France, their common mother, even now the states that Bonaparte gave to the administration of his brothers, son-in-law and stepson, received representative institutions for the most part according to the French model, that is, with a purely illusory, decorative character. Such a device was introduced precisely in the kingdoms of Italy, Holland, Neapolitan, Westphalia, Spain, etc. In essence, the very sovereignty of all these political creations of Napoleon was illusory: one will reigned everywhere, and all these sovereigns, relatives of the emperor of the French and his vassals were obliged to deliver to their supreme overlord a lot of money and many soldiers for new wars - no matter how much he demanded.
Guerrilla warfare against Napoleon in Spain
It became painful for the conquered peoples to serve the goals of a foreign conqueror. As long as Napoleon dealt in wars only with sovereigns who relied on armies alone and were always ready to receive increments of their possessions from his hands, it was easy for him to cope with them; in particular, for example, the Austrian government preferred to lose province after province, as long as the subjects sat quietly, which the Prussian government was also very busy with before the Jena defeat. Real difficulties began to be created for Napoleon only when the peoples began to revolt and wage a petty guerrilla war against the French. The first example of this was given by the Spaniards in 1808, then by the Tyroleans during the Austrian War of 1809; in yet larger size the same took place in Russia in 1812. The events of 1808-1812. in general, they showed the governments in what only their strength could lie.
The Spaniards, who were the first to set an example of a people's war (and whose resistance was helped by England, who did not spare money at all to fight France), gave Napoleon a lot of worries and troubles: in Spain, he had to suppress the uprising, wage a real war, conquer the country and military force maintain the throne of Joseph Bonaparte. The Spaniards even created general organization for waging their little wars, these famous “guerillas” (guerillas), which, due to our unfamiliarity with the Spanish language, later turned into some kind of “guerillas”, in the sense of partisan detachments or participants in the war. The Guerillas were one; the other was represented by the Cortes, the popular representation of the Spanish nation, convened by a provisional government, or regency in Cadiz, under the protection of the English fleet. They were collected in 1810, and in 1812 they made up the famous Spanish constitution, very liberal and democratic for that time, using the model of the French constitution of 1791 and some features of the medieval Aragonese constitution.
Movement against Bonaparte in Germany. Prussian reformers Hardenberg, Stein and Scharnhorst
Significant fermentation also took place among the Germans, who were eager to get out of their humiliation by means of a new war. Napoleon knew about this, but he fully relied on the devotion to himself of the sovereigns of the Confederation of the Rhine and on the weakness of Prussia and Austria after 1807 and 1809, and the intimidation that cost the life of the ill-fated Palm should have served as a warning that will befall every German who dares to become enemy of France. During these years, the hopes of all German patriots hostile to Bonaparte were pinned on Prussia. This state, so exalted in the second half of the XVIII century. the victories of Frederick the Great, reduced by a whole half after the war of the Fourth Coalition, was in the greatest humiliation, the way out of which was only in internal reforms. Among the king's ministers Friedrich Wilhelm III there were people who just stood for the need for serious changes, and among them the most prominent were Hardenberg and Stein. The first of them was a big fan of new French ideas and practices. In 1804-1807. he served as minister of foreign affairs and in 1807 proposed to his sovereign a whole plan of reforms: the introduction in Prussia of popular representation with strictly, however, centralized administration according to the Napoleonic model, the abolition of noble privileges, the liberation of the peasants from serfdom, the destruction of the constraints that lay on industry and trade. Considering Hardenberg his enemy - which was in fact - Napoleon demanded from Friedrich Wilhelm III, after the end of the war with him in 1807, that this minister be resigned, and advised him to take Stein in his place, as a very efficient person, not knowing that he was also an enemy of France. Baron Stein had previously been a minister in Prussia, but he did not get along with the court spheres, and even with the king himself, and was resigned. In contrast to Hardenberg, he was an opponent of administrative centralization and stood for the development of self-government, as in England, with the preservation, within certain limits, of estates, workshops, etc., but he was a man of a greater mind than Hardenberg, and showed a greater ability to development in a progressive direction, as life itself pointed out to him the need to destroy antiquity, remaining, however, still an opponent of the Napoleonic system, since he wanted the initiative of society. Appointed minister on October 5, 1807, Stein already on the 9th of the same month published a royal edict abolishing serfdom in Prussia and allowing non-nobles to acquire noble lands. Further, in 1808, he began to put into effect his plan to replace the bureaucratic system of government with local self-government, but managed to give the latter only to cities, while the villages and regions remained under the old order. He also thought about state representation, but of a purely deliberative nature. Stein did not remain in power for long: in September 1808, the French official newspaper published his letter intercepted by the police, from which Napoleon Bonaparte learned that the Prussian minister strongly recommended that the Germans follow the example of the Spaniards. After this and another article hostile to him in a French government body, the reformer minister was forced to resign, and after a while Napoleon even directly declared him an enemy of France and the Confederation of the Rhine, his estates were confiscated and he himself was subject to arrest, so that Stein had to flee and hide in different cities of Austria, until in 1812 he was not called to Russia.
After one insignificant minister who replaced such a big man, Frederick William III again called Hardenberg to power, who, being a supporter of the Napoleonic system of centralization, began to transform the Prussian administration in this direction. In 1810, at his insistence, the king promised to give his subjects even national representation, and with the aim of both developing this issue and introducing other reforms in 1810-1812. meetings of notables were convened in Berlin, that is, representatives of estates at the choice of the government. More detailed legislation on the redemption of peasant duties in Prussia dates back to the same time. The military reform carried out by General Scharnhorst; according to one of the conditions of the Tilsit peace, Prussia could not have more than 42 thousand troops, and so the following system was invented: universal military service was introduced, but the terms of stay of soldiers in the army were greatly reduced in order to train them in military affairs, to take new ones in their place , and trained to enroll in the reserve, so that Prussia, if necessary, could have a very large army. Finally, in the same years, according to the plan of the enlightened and liberal Wilhelm von Humboldt, the university in Berlin was founded, and to the sounds of the drums of the French garrison, the famous philosopher Fichte read his patriotic Speeches to the German Nation. All these phenomena characterizing the internal life of Prussia after 1807 made this state the hope of the majority of German patriots hostile to Napoleon Bonaparte. Among the interesting manifestations of the then liberating mood in Prussia is the formation in 1808 of Prussia. Tugendbunda, or the League of Valor, a secret society, which included scientists, military officers, officials and whose goal was the revival of Germany, although in fact the union did not play a big role. The Napoleonic police followed the German patriots, and, for example, Stein's friend Arndt, the author of the Zeitgeist imbued with national patriotism, had to flee Napoleon's wrath to Sweden so as not to suffer the sad fate of Palm.
The national excitement of the Germans against the French began to intensify from 1809. Starting the war with Napoleon that year, the Austrian government directly set its goal as the liberation of Germany from the foreign yoke. In 1809, uprisings broke out against the French in Tyrol under the leadership of Andrei Hofer, in Stralsund, which was captured by the insanely brave Major Schill, in Westphalia, where the "black legion of revenge" of the Duke of Brunswick operated, etc., but Gofer was executed, Schill killed in a military battle, the Duke of Brunswick had to flee to England. At the same time, in Schönbrunn, an attempt was made on the life of Napoleon by a young German, Shtaps, who was later executed for this. “The fermentation has reached its highest degree,” his brother, the King of Westphalia, once wrote to Napoleon Bonaparte, “the most reckless hopes are accepted and supported; they set Spain as their model, and, believe me, when the war begins, the countries between the Rhine and the Oder will be the theater of a great uprising, for the extreme despair of peoples who have nothing to lose must be feared. This prediction was fulfilled after the failure of the campaign in Russia, undertaken by Napoleon in 1812 and the former, according to apt expression foreign minister Talleyrand, "the beginning of the end."
Relations between Napoleon Bonaparte and Tsar Alexander I
In Russia, after the death of Paul I, who was thinking about rapprochement with France, “the days of Alexandrov began a wonderful beginning.” The young monarch, a pupil of the republican La Harpe, who himself almost considered himself a republican, at least the only one in the whole empire, and in other respects recognized himself as a “happy exception” on the throne, from the very beginning of his reign made plans for internal reforms - right up to, in the end after all, before the introduction of a constitution in Russia. In 1805-07. he was at war with Napoleon, but in Tilsit they made an alliance with each other, and two years later in Erfurt they sealed their friendship in the face of the whole world, although Bonaparte immediately discerned in his friend-rival the “Byzantine Greek” (and he himself, however, being, according to the recall of Pope Pius VII, a comedian). And Russia in those years had its own reformer, who, like Hardenberg, bowed before Napoleonic France, but much more original. This reformer was the famous Speransky, the author of a whole plan for the state transformation of Russia on the basis of representation and separation of powers. Alexander I brought him closer to himself at the beginning of his reign, but Speransky began to use especially strong influence on his sovereign during the years of rapprochement between Russia and France after the Tilsit peace. By the way, when Alexander I, after the war of the Fourth Coalition, went to Erfurt to meet with Napoleon, he took Speransky with him among other close associates. But then this outstanding statesman suffered the royal disfavor, just at the very time that relations between Alexander I and Bonaparte deteriorated. It is known that in 1812 Speransky was not only removed from business, but also had to go into exile.
Relations between Napoleon and Alexander I deteriorated for many reasons, among which the main role was played by Russia's non-compliance with the continental system in all its severity, the encouragement of the Poles by Bonaparte regarding the restoration of their former fatherland, the seizure of possessions by France from the Duke of Oldenburg, who was related to the Russian royal family etc. In 1812, things came to a complete break and the war, which was the "beginning of the end."
Murmuring against Napoleon in France
Prudent people have long predicted that sooner or later there will be a catastrophe. Even at the time of the proclamation of the empire, Cambacérès, who was one of the consuls with Napoleon, said to another, Lebrun: “I have a premonition that what is being built now will not be durable. We have waged war on Europe in order to impose republics on her as daughters of the French Republic, and now we will wage war to give her monarchs, sons or brothers of ours, and the end will be that France, exhausted by wars, will fall under the weight of these crazy enterprises. ". - “You are satisfied,” the Minister of Marine Decres once said to Marshal Marmont, because now you have been made a marshal, and everything seems to you in a pink light. But don't you want me to tell you the truth and draw back the veil that hides the future? The emperor has gone crazy, completely crazy: he will make all of us, how many of us there are, fly head over heels, and all this will end in a terrible catastrophe. Before the Russian campaign of 1812, and in France itself, some opposition began to appear against the constant wars and despotism of Napoleon Bonaparte. It has already been mentioned above that Napoleon met with a protest against his treatment of the pope by some members of the church cathedral, convened by him in Paris in 1811, and in the same year a deputation from the Paris Chamber of Commerce came to him with an idea of the ruin of the continental system for French industry and trade. The population began to be weary of the endless wars of Bonaparte, the increase in military spending, the growth of the army, and already in 1811 the number of those who evaded military service reached almost 80 thousand people. In the spring of 1812, a muffled murmur in the Parisian population forced Napoleon to move especially early to Saint-Cloud, and only in such a mood of the people could a bold idea arise in the head of one general, named Male, to take advantage of Napoleon's war in Russia in order to carry out a coup d'état in Paris for the restoration of the republic. Suspected of unreliability, Male was arrested, but escaped from his imprisonment, appeared in some barracks and there announced to the soldiers about the death of the "tyrant" Bonaparte, who allegedly died in a distant military campaign. Part of the garrison went after Male, and he, having then made a false senatus-consultant, was already preparing to organize a provisional government, when he was captured and, together with his accomplices, was brought before a military court, which sentenced them all to death. Upon learning of this conspiracy, Napoleon was extremely annoyed that some even representatives of the authorities believed the attackers, and that the public reacted rather indifferently to all this.
Napoleon's campaign in Russia 1812
The Malé conspiracy dates back to the end of October 1812, when the failure of Napoleon's campaign against Russia was already sufficiently clear. Of course, the military events of this year are too well known to require a detailed account of them, and therefore it remains only to recall the main moments of the war with Bonaparte in 1812, which we called "Patriotic", that is, national and the invasion of "Gauls" and with them "twelve languages".
In the spring of 1812, Napoleon Bonaparte concentrated large military forces in Prussia, which was forced, like Austria, to enter into an alliance with him, and in the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and in mid-June, his troops, without declaring war, entered the then borders of Russia. Napoleon's "Great Army" of 600,000 men consisted only half of the French: the rest were various other "peoples": Austrians, Prussians, Bavarians, etc., that is, in general, subjects of the allies and vassals of Napoleon Bonaparte. The Russian army, which was three times smaller and, moreover, scattered, had to retreat at the beginning of the war. Napoleon quickly began to occupy one city after another, mainly on the road to Moscow. Only near Smolensk did the two Russian armies manage to unite, which, however, turned out to be unable to stop the enemy's advance. Kutuzov's attempt to detain Bonaparte at Borodino (see the articles The Battle of Borodino 1812 and the Battle of Borodino 1812 - briefly), made at the end of August, was also unsuccessful, and in early September Napoleon was already in Moscow, from where he thought to dictate peace terms to Alexander I. But just at that time the war with the French became popular. Already after the battle near Smolensk, the inhabitants of the areas through which the army of Napoleon Bonaparte was moving began to burn everything on its way, and with its arrival in Moscow, fires began in this ancient capital Russia, where most of the population has left. Little by little, almost the entire city burned down, the reserves that were in it were depleted, and the supply of new ones was hampered by Russian partisan detachments, which launched a war on all roads that led to Moscow. When Napoleon became convinced of the futility of his hope that he would be asked for peace, he himself wished to enter into negotiations, but on the Russian side he did not meet the slightest desire to make peace. On the contrary, Alexander I decided to wage war until the final expulsion of the French from Russia. While Bonaparte was inactive in Moscow, the Russians began to prepare to completely cut off Napoleon's exit from Russia. This plan did not materialize, but Napoleon realized the danger and hurried to leave the devastated and burned Moscow. First, the French made an attempt to break through to the south, but the Russians cut off the road in front of them at Maloyaroslavets, and the remnants of the great army of Bonaparte had to retreat along the former, devastated Smolensk road during a very severe winter that began early this year. The Russians followed this disastrous retreat almost on the heels, inflicting one defeat after another on the lagging detachments. Napoleon himself, who happily escaped capture when his army crossed the Berezina, abandoned everything in the second half of November and left for Paris, only now deciding to officially notify France and Europe of the failure that had befallen him during the Russian war. The retreat of the remnants of the great army of Bonaparte was now a real flight amid the horrors of cold and hunger. On December 2, less than six full months after the start of the Russian war, Napoleon's last detachments crossed back into the Russian border. After that, the French had no choice but to abandon the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, whose capital the Russian army occupied in January 1813.
Napoleon's army crossing the Berezina. Painting by P. von Hess, 1844
Foreign campaign of the Russian army and the War of the Sixth Coalition
When Russia was completely cleared of enemy hordes, Kutuzov advised Alexander I to limit himself to this and stop further war. But in the soul of the Russian sovereign, a mood prevailed that forced him to transfer military operations against Napoleon beyond the borders of Russia. In this latter intention, the German patriot Stein strongly supported the emperor, who had found shelter against Napoleon's persecution in Russia and to a certain extent subordinated Alexander to his influence. The failure of the war of the great army in Russia made a great impression on the Germans, among whom national enthusiasm spread more and more, a monument of which remained the patriotic lyrics of Kerner and other poets of the era. At first, the German governments did not dare, however, to follow their subjects, who rose up against Napoleon Bonaparte. When, at the very end of 1812, the Prussian General Yorck, at his own risk, concluded a convention with the Russian General Dibich in Taurogen and stopped fighting for the cause of France, Friedrich Wilhelm III was extremely dissatisfied with this, just as he was also dissatisfied with the decision of the Zemstvo members of the Eastern and West Prussia to organize, according to Stein, a provincial militia for the war against the enemy of the German nation. Only when the Russians entered Prussian territory did the king, forced to choose between an alliance with either Napoleon or Alexander I, bow to the side of the latter, and even then not without some hesitation. In February 1813, in Kalisz, Prussia concluded a military treaty with Russia, accompanied by an appeal by both sovereigns to the population of Prussia. Then Frederick William III declared war on Bonaparte, and a special royal appeal to the loyal subjects was published. In this and other proclamations, with which the new allies also addressed the population of other parts of Germany and in the drafting of which Stein played an active role, much was said about the independence of peoples, about their right to control their own destiny, about the strength of public opinion, before which sovereigns themselves must bow. , etc.
From Prussia, where, next to the regular army, detachments of volunteers were formed from people of all ranks and conditions, often not Prussian subjects, the national movement began to be transferred to other German states, whose governments, on the contrary, remained loyal to Napoleon Bonaparte and restrained manifestations in their possessions. German patriotism. Meanwhile, Sweden, England and Austria joined the Russian-Prussian military alliance, after which the members of the Confederation of the Rhine began to fall away from loyalty to Napoleon - under the condition of the inviolability of their territories or, at least, equivalent rewards in cases where any or changes in the boundaries of their possessions. This is how Sixth Coalition against Bonaparte. Three days (October 16-18) battle with Napoleon near Leipzig, which was unfavorable for the French and forced them to begin a retreat to the Rhine, resulted in the destruction of the Confederation of the Rhine, the return to their possessions of the dynasties expelled during the Napoleonic wars and the final transition to the side of the anti-French coalition of South German sovereigns.
By the end of 1813, the lands to the east of the Rhine were free from the French, and on the night of January 1, 1814, part of the Prussian army under the command of Blucher crossed this river, which then served as the eastern border of Bonaparte's empire. Even before the Battle of Leipzig, the allied sovereigns offered Napoleon to enter into peace negotiations, but he did not agree to any conditions. Before the transfer of the war to the territory of the empire itself, Napoleon was once again offered peace on the terms of maintaining the Rhine and Alpine borders for France, but only renouncing domination in Germany, Holland, Italy and Spain, but Bonaparte continued to persist, although in France itself public opinion considered these conditions quite acceptable. A new peace proposal in mid-February 1814, when the Allies were already on French territory, likewise came to nothing. The war went on with varying happiness, but one defeat of the French army (at Arcy-sur-Aube on March 20-21) opened the way for the Allies to Paris. On March 30 they took by storm the Montmartre heights that dominate this city, and on the 31st they solemnly entered the city itself.
The deposition of Napoleon in 1814 and the restoration of the Bourbons
The next day after this, the Senate proclaimed the deposition of Napoleon Bonaparte from the throne with the formation of a provisional government, and two days later, that is, on April 4, he himself, in the castle of Fontainebleau, abdicated in favor of his son after he learned about the transition of Marshal Marmont to the side of the allies. The latter were not satisfied with this, however, and a week later Napoleon was forced to sign an act of unconditional abdication. The title of emperor was reserved for him, but he had to live on the island of Elba, given to him. During these events, the fallen Bonaparte was already the object of extreme hatred of the population of France, as the culprit of devastating wars and enemy invasion.
The provisional government, formed after the end of the war and the deposition of Napoleon, drafted a new constitution, which was adopted by the Senate. Meanwhile, in agreement with the victors of France, the restoration of the Bourbons was already being prepared in the person of the brother of Louis XVI, who was executed during the Revolutionary Wars, who, after the death of his little nephew, who was recognized by the royalists as Louis XVII, became known as Louis XVIII. The Senate proclaimed him king, freely called to the throne by the nation, but Louis XVIII wanted to reign solely by his hereditary right. He did not accept the Senate constitution, and instead granted (octroyed) a constitutional charter with his power, and even then under strong pressure from Alexander I, who agreed to the restoration only under the condition of granting France a constitution. One of the main figures involved in the end of the Bourbon War was Talleyrand, who said that only the restoration of the dynasty would be the result of principle, everything else was mere intrigue. With Louis XVIII returned his younger brother and heir, the Comte d'Artois, with his family, other princes and numerous emigrants from the most irreconcilable representatives of pre-revolutionary France. The nation immediately felt that both the Bourbons and the emigrants in exile, in the words of Napoleon, "forgot nothing and learned nothing." Alarm began throughout the country, numerous reasons for which were given by the statements and behavior of the princes, the returned nobles and the clergy, who clearly sought to restore antiquity. The people even started talking about the restoration of feudal rights, etc. Bonaparte watched on his Elbe how irritation against the Bourbons grew in France, and at the congress that met in Vienna in the autumn of 1814 to arrange European affairs, bickering began that could wreck the allies. In the eyes of the fallen emperor, these were favorable circumstances for the restoration of power in France.
"Hundred Days" of Napoleon and the War of the Seventh Coalition
On March 1, 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte secretly left Elba with a small detachment and unexpectedly landed near Cannes, from where he moved to Paris. The former ruler of France brought with him proclamations to the army, to the nation, and to the population of the coastal departments. “I,” it was said in the second of them, “was enthroned by your election, and everything that was done without you is illegal ... Let the sovereign, who was placed on my throne by the power of the armies that devastated our country, refer to the principles feudal law, but it can secure the interests of only a small handful of enemies of the people!.. The French! in my exile, I heard your complaints and desires: you demanded the return of the government chosen by you and therefore the only legal one, ”etc. On the way of Napoleon Bonaparte to Paris, his small detachment grew from soldiers who joined him everywhere, and his new military campaign received kind of triumphal procession. In addition to the soldiers who adored their "little corporal", the people also went over to the side of Napoleon, who now saw him as a savior from the hated emigrants. Marshal Ney, sent against Napoleon, boasted before leaving that he would bring him in a cage, but then, with his entire detachment, went over to his side. On March 19, Louis XVIII hastily fled from Paris, forgetting Talleyrand's reports from the Congress of Vienna and the secret treaty against Russia in the Tuileries Palace, and the next day, the crowd of people literally carried Napoleon into the palace, only the day before abandoned by the king.
The return of Napoleon Bonaparte to power was the result not only of a military revolt against the Bourbons, but also of a popular movement that could easily turn into a real revolution. In order to reconcile the educated classes and the bourgeoisie with him, Napoleon now agreed to a liberal reform of the constitution, calling to this cause one of the most prominent political writers of the era, Benjamin Constant who had previously spoken out sharply against his despotism. A new constitution was even drawn up, which, however, received the name of an "additional act" to the "constitutions of the empire" (that is, to laws of the VIII, X and XII years), and this act was submitted for approval by the people, who adopted it with one and a half million votes. . On June 3, 1815, new representative chambers were opened, before which a few days later Napoleon gave a speech announcing the introduction of a constitutional monarchy in France. The response addresses of representatives and peers, however, did not please the emperor, as they contained warnings and instructions, and he expressed his displeasure to them. However, he did not have a further continuation of the conflict, since Napoleon had to rush to the war.
The news of Napoleon's return to France forced the sovereigns and ministers, who gathered at the congress in Vienna, to stop the strife that had begun between them and unite again in a common alliance for a new war with Bonaparte ( Wars of the Seventh Coalition). On June 12, Napoleon left Paris to go to his army, and on the 18th at Waterloo, he was defeated by the Anglo-Prussian army under the command of Wellington and Blucher. In Paris, defeated in this new short war, Bonaparte faced a new defeat: the House of Representatives demanded that he abdicate in favor of his son, who was proclaimed emperor under the name of Napoleon II. The allies, who soon appeared under the walls of Paris, decided the matter differently, namely, they restored Louis XVIII. Napoleon himself, when the enemy approached Paris, thought to flee to America and for this purpose arrived in Rochefort, but was intercepted by the British, who installed him on the island of St. Helena. This second reign of Napoleon, accompanied by the War of the Seventh Coalition, lasted only about three months and was called in history " one hundred days". In his new conclusion, the second deposed Emperor Bonaparte lived for about six years, dying in May 1821.
Introduction
Napoleonic anti-French coalition war
The Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) were fought by France during the years of the Consulate and Empire of Napoleon I against coalitions of European states.
Of course, one cannot explore the Napoleonic Wars without the personality of Napoleon himself. He wanted to do the same thing that the Romans wanted to do with the world - to civilize it, to erase the borders, turning Europe into one country, with a single money, weights, civil laws, local self-government, the flourishing of sciences and crafts ... He took the Great French Revolution with ardor approval. His activities in Corsica and the mastery of the city of Toulon was the beginning of the rapid ascent of Bonaparte in military service.
Bonaparte proved to be a remarkable master of strategy and maneuvering tactics. Fighting against a numerically superior enemy. Victorious wars with coalitions of powers, brilliant victories, a huge expansion of the territory of the empire contributed to the transformation of H. I into the actual ruler of all Western (except Great Britain) and Central Europe.
All the Napoleonic wars were fought in the interests of the French bourgeoisie, which sought to establish its military-political and commercial-industrial hegemony in Europe, annex new territories to France and win the fight against Great Britain for world trade and colonial superiority. The Napoleonic wars, which did not stop until the fall of the empire of Napoleon I, were on the whole wars of conquest. They were conducted in the interests of the French bourgeoisie, which sought to consolidate its military-political and commercial-industrial dominance on the continent, pushing the British bourgeoisie into the background. But they also contained progressive elements, tk. objectively contributed to the undermining of the foundations of the feudal system and cleared the way for the development of capitalist relations in a number of European states: (the abolition of dozens of small feudal states in Germany, the introduction of the Napoleonic civil code in some conquered countries, the confiscation and sale of part of the monastic lands, the elimination of a number of privileges of the nobility, etc.). The main opponents of France during the Napoleonic Wars were England, Austria and Russia.
1. Causes and nature of the Napoleonic wars
The Napoleonic era had not only a military-political aspect, in many respects the war acquired a universal character, turned into a war of economies and peoples, something that later became an axiom in the 20th century during the years of two world wars. If earlier the war had the character of military clashes of relatively small professional armies, then in the Napoleonic era, all spheres of public and state life of the participating countries were already permeated by war. The nature of the armed forces also changed; they began to turn into mass armies. This inevitably led to changes in the relationship between state and public institutions.
There are several opinions about the nature of the Napoleonic wars and the reasons that caused them. To name just a few of them: the continuation of the revolutionary wars of the French Republic, the fruit of the exorbitant ambition of one person (Napoleon), the desire of the feudal "old regime" states to destroy this person (Napoleon), the continuation of the centuries-old confrontation between France and England for dominance in the world, the struggle between the ideologies of the new and the old regimes (that is, the clash of young capitalism with feudalism).
2. First anti-French coalition 1793-1797
The revolution that took place in France in 1789 had a strong effect on the states adjacent to it and prompted their governments to resort to decisive measures against the menacing danger. Emperor Leopold II and King Friedrich Wilhelm II of Prussia, at a personal meeting in Pilnitz, agreed to stop the spread of revolutionary principles. They were also encouraged to do so by the insistence of the French emigrants, who made up a corps of troops in Koblenz under the command of the Prince of Condé. Military preparations were begun, but the monarchs for a long time did not dare to open hostilities. The initiative was taken by France, which on April 20, 1792 declared war on Austria for its hostile actions against France. Austria and Prussia entered into a defensive and offensive alliance, which was gradually joined by almost all other German states, as well as Spain, Piedmont and the Kingdom of Naples.
Hostilities began with the invasion of French troops into the possessions of the German states on the Rhine, followed by the invasion of coalition troops into France. Soon the enemies were repulsed and France itself began active military operations against the coalition - it invaded Spain, the Kingdom of Sardinia and the Western German states. Soon, in 1793, the battle of Toulon took place, where the young and talented commander Napoleon Bonaparte first showed himself. After a series of victories, the enemies were forced to recognize the French Republic and all its conquests (with the exception of the British), but then, after the deterioration of the situation in France, the war resumed.
3. Second anti-French coalition (1798-1801)
The conventional date for the start of the Napoleonic Wars is the establishment in France during the coup of 18 Brumaire (November 9), 1799, of the military dictatorship of Napoleon Bonaparte, who became the first consul. At this time, the country was already at war with the 2nd anti-French coalition, which was formed in 1798-99 by England, Russia, Austria, Turkey and the Kingdom of Naples.
Having come to power, Bonaparte sent the English king and the Austrian emperor a proposal to start peace negotiations, which was rejected by them. France began to form a large army on the eastern borders under the command of General Moreau. At the same time, on the Swiss border, in secrecy, the formation of the so-called "reserve" army was going on, which dealt the first blow to the Austrian troops in Italy. Having made a difficult transition through the St. Bernard Pass in the Alps, on June 14, 1800, at the Battle of Marengo, Bonaparte defeated the Austrians operating under the command of Field Marshal Melas. In December 1800 Moreau's army of the Rhine defeated the Austrians at Hohenlinden (Bavaria). In February 1801, Austria was forced to conclude peace with France and recognize her seizures in Belgium and on the left bank of the Rhine. After that, the 2nd coalition actually broke up, England agreed in October 1801 to sign the terms of the preliminary (i.e. preliminary) agreement, and on March 27, 1802, the Treaty of Amiens was concluded between England, on the one hand, and France, Spain and the Batavian Republic - with another.
4. Third anti-French coalition (1805)
However, already in 1803 the war between them resumed, and in 1805 the 3rd anti-French coalition was formed, consisting of England, Russia, Austria and the Kingdom of Naples. Unlike the previous ones, it proclaimed as its goal the struggle not against revolutionary France, but against the aggressive policy of Bonaparte. Becoming Emperor Napoleon I in 1804, he prepared the landing of a French expeditionary army in England. But on October 21, 1805, in the Battle of Trafalgar, the English fleet, led by Admiral Nelson, destroyed the combined Franco-Spanish fleet. However, on the continent, Napoleon's troops won one victory after another: in October 1805, the Austrian army of General Mack capitulated at Ulm without a fight; in November, Napoleon marched victoriously into Vienna; On December 2, 1805, Emperor Napoleon defeated the armies of the emperors of Austria, Franz I and Russia, Alexander I at the Battle of Austerlitz. Europe, and France became a powerful land power. Now the biggest opponent of France in the struggle for hegemony in Europe was Great Britain, which, after the Battle of Cape Trafalgar, held unconditional dominance over the seas.
As a result of the war, Austria was completely ousted from Germany and Italy, and France established its hegemony on the European continent. March 15, 1806 Napoleon gave the Grand Duchy of Cleve and Berg into the possession of his brother-in-law I. Murat. He expelled from Naples the local Bourbon dynasty, which fled to Sicily under the protection of the English fleet, and on March 30 he placed his brother Joseph on the Neapolitan throne. On May 24, he transformed the Batavian Republic into the Kingdom of Holland, placing his other brother Louis at the head of it. In Germany, on June 12, the Confederation of the Rhine was formed from 17 states under the protectorate of Napoleon; On August 6, the Austrian emperor Franz II renounced the German crown - the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist.
5. Fourth (1806-1807) and fifth (1808-1809) anti-French coalitions
The war against Napoleon was continued by England and Russia, which were soon joined by Prussia and Sweden, concerned about the strengthening of French domination in Europe. In September 1806, the 4th anti-French coalition of European states was formed. A month later, during two battles, on the same day, October 14, 1806, the Prussian army was destroyed: near Jena, Napoleon defeated parts of Prince Hohenlohe, and at Auerstedt, Marshal Davout defeated the main Prussian forces of King Frederick William and the Duke of Brunswick. Napoleon solemnly entered Berlin. Prussia was occupied. The Russian army moving to help the allies met with the French first near Pultusk on December 26, 1806, then at Preussisch-Eylau on February 8, 1807. Despite the bloodshed, these battles did not give an advantage to either side, but in June 1807 Napoleon won the battle of Friedland over the Russian troops commanded by L.L. Benigsen. On July 7, 1807, in the middle of the Neman River, a meeting of the French and Russian emperors took place on a raft, and the Peace of Tilsit was concluded. According to this peace, Russia recognized all the conquests of Napoleon in Europe, and joined the "Continental blockade" of the British Isles proclaimed by him in 1806. In the spring of 1809, England and Austria again united into the 5th anti-French coalition, but already in May 1809 the French entered Vienna, and on July 5-6, the Austrians were again defeated in the battle of Wagram. Austria agreed to pay an indemnity and joined the continental blockade. A significant part of Europe was under the rule of Napoleon.
6. End of the Napoleonic Wars
The national liberation movement, which was growing in Europe, acquired the greatest scope in Spain and Germany. However, the fate of Napoleon's empire was decided during his campaign in Russia. During the Patriotic War of 1812, the strategy of the Russian army, led by Field Marshal M.I. Kutuzov, the partisan movement contributed to the death of more than 400,000 "Great Army". This caused a new upsurge in the national liberation struggle in Europe, in a number of states people's militia began to be created. In 1813, the 6th anti-French coalition was formed, which included Russia, England, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, and a number of other states. In October 1813, as a result of the "battle of the peoples" near Leipzig, the territory of Germany was liberated from the French. The Napoleonic army withdrew to the borders of France, and then was defeated on its own land. On March 31, Allied troops entered Paris. On April 6, Napoleon I signed the abdication of the throne and was expelled from France to the island of Elba.
In 1815, during the famous "Hundred Days" (March 20 - June 22), Napoleon made his last attempt to regain his former power. The defeat in the Battle of Waterloo (Belgium) on June 18, 1815, inflicted on him by the troops of the 7th coalition under the command of the Duke of Wellington and Marshal Blucher, completed the history of the Napoleonic wars. The Congress of Vienna (November 1, 1814 - June 9, 1815) decided the fate of France, fixing the redistribution of the territories of European countries in the interests of the victorious states. The wars of liberation that were waged against Napoleon were inevitably associated with the partial restoration of the feudal-absolutist order in Europe (“ Holy Union» European monarchs, concluded with the aim of suppressing the national liberation and revolutionary movement in Europe).
Results
As a result of the Napoleonic Wars, France's military power was broken and she lost her dominant position in Europe. The main political force on the continent was the Holy Union of Monarchs, led by Russia; The UK has maintained its status as the world's leading maritime power.
The aggressive wars of Napoleonic France threatened the national independence of many European peoples; at the same time, they contributed to the destruction of the feudal-monarchist order on the continent - the French army brought on its bayonets the principles of a new civil society (Civil Code) and the abolition of feudal relations; Napoleon's liquidation of many small feudal states in Germany facilitated the process of its future unification.
Bibliography
1. Bezotosny V.M. Napoleonic Wars. - M.: Veche, 2010.
2. Zalessky K.A. Biographical encyclopedic dictionary. Napoleonic Wars, 1799-1815, M., 2003
3. Easdale C.J. Napoleonic Wars. Rostov-on-Don, 1997
4. Encyclopedic Dictionary of Brockhaus and Efron Napoleonic Wars. - St. Petersburg: Publishing Society "F.A. Brockhaus - I.A. Efron", 1907-1909
5. Chandler D. Napoleon's military campaigns. Triumph and tragedy of the conqueror. M., 2000
6. http://www.krugosvet.ru/
7. http://www.bezmani.ru/spravka/bse/base/3/014204.htm
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There is this observation:
Generals are always preparing for the last war
In the 19th century, there were two world wars: the Napoleonic War, which was completed by the Patriotic War of 1812 and the entry of the Russians into Paris in 1814, and the Crimean War of 1853-1856.
There were also two world wars in the 20th century: the First (1911-1914) and the Second (1938-1945).
Thus, in the current history we have four large-scale world wars, to which four parts of this material are devoted.
The Napoleonic Wars are one of the stages in the development of the Western project, during which the era of the “gold standard” was opened, Switzerland became eternally neutral and another attempt was made to resolve the “Russian question”. About this - in our material.
FRENCH AS A MEANS OF DESTRUCTION OF EMPIRES
Anti-French coalitions are temporary military-political alliances of European states that sought to restore the Bourbon monarchy in France, which fell during the French Revolution of 1789-1799. A total of 7 coalitions were created. In fact, the Napoleonic Wars are the First World War of the 19th century, which ended in Paris in 1814. Waterloo, on the other hand, is a more internal police operation of the West against Napoleon, who has already “won back his own”.
In scientific literature, the first two coalitions are called "anti-revolutionary", which were the reaction of European monarchies to the changes in global politics that were marked by the bourgeois revolution in France. However, in the course of the actions of these seemingly “anti-revolutionary” coalitions, they broke up in Europe and disappeared from the political map:
- Holy Roman Empire,
- Prussian kingdom,
- French Empire Of Napoleon,
- also happened palace coup in Russia, which abruptly changed its course (it came to the performance of the Decembrists in 1825).
And the stage of spreading the ideology of liberalism at the global level began. However, starting from the third - these coalitions were called "anti-Napoleonic". Why? Let's look further.
I anti-French coalition (1791-1797)
It consisted of: England, Prussia, Naples, Tuscany, Austria, Spain, Holland, Russia.
In 1789, a bourgeois revolution took place in France. On July 14, the rebels seized the Bastille with a roar. The bourgeois system was established in the country. In St. Petersburg, the revolution that had begun was considered at first an everyday rebellion caused by temporary financial difficulties and the personal qualities of King Louis XVI. With the growth of the revolution in St. Petersburg, they began to fear the spread of the revolution to all the feudal-absolutist countries of Europe. The fears of the Russian court were shared by the kings of Prussia and Austria.
In 1790, an alliance was concluded between Austria and Prussia with the aim of military intervention in the internal affairs of France, but they limited themselves to developing plans for intervention and providing material assistance to French emigration and the counter-revolutionary nobility inside the country (Catherine loaned 2 million rubles to create a mercenary army).
In March 1793, a convention was signed between Russia and England on a mutual obligation to assist each other in the fight against France: to close their ports to French ships and prevent France from trading with neutral countries (Catherine II sent Russian warships to England to blockade the French coast).
At the end of 1795, a counter-revolutionary tripartite alliance was concluded between Russia, England and Austria (in Russia, the preparation of a 60,000-strong expeditionary force for operations against France began).
Paul I did not send a corps equipped in August 1796 to help Austria, and declared to his allies (Austria, England and Prussia) that Russia was exhausted by previous wars. Russia left the coalition. Paul I at the diplomatic level tried to limit the military successes of France.
In 1797, Napoleon captured Malta, an island under the personal protection of Paul I, which prompted Paul to declare war. The history of the capture of Malta is very interesting in itself, so we advise you to read - https://www.proza.ru/2013/03/30/2371.
French landing in Malta
Napoleon himself later wrote in his memoirs that
“It was decisive for the fate of the Order that he surrendered himself under the protection of Emperor Paul, the enemy of France ... Russia sought to dominate this island, which is of such great importance because of its position, the convenience and security of its port and the power of the fortifications. Seeking patronage in the North, the Order did not take into account and jeopardized the interests of the powers of the South ... ".
The capture of Malta was fatal for Napoleon, because he thereby involved Paul in the Napoleonic wars and predetermined Russia's participation in anti-French coalitions. But these events were also fatal for Paul, because during the Napoleonic wars he began to draw closer to Napoleon, dooming himself to death.
II anti-French coalition (1798-1800)
It consisted of: Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Naples.
II anti-French coalition was created in 1798 as part of Austria, Ottoman Empire, England and the Kingdom of Naples. The military forces of Russia participated in military operations at sea (in alliance with the Ottoman fleet) and on land (together with Austria).
The Black Sea squadron under the command of F.F. Ushakova in the fall of 1798 through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles entered the Mediterranean Sea, and then into the Adriatic Sea, where, together with the Turkish fleet, she captured the Ionian Islands and stormed the fortress of Corfu.
The capture of the fortress of Corfu by a united Russian-Turkish squadron under the command of F.F. Ushakov
By the end of August 1799, as a result of Suvorov's Italian campaign of 1799 and Ushakov's Mediterranean campaign of 1799-1800, during which Russian troops liberated Naples in June 1799, and Rome in September, almost all of Italy was liberated from French troops. The remnants of the 35,000-strong French army of General Jean Moreau (about 18,000 people) defeated at Novi retreated to Genoa, which remained the last region of Italy under French control. The offensive of the Russian-Austrian army under the command of Suvorov (about 43 thousand people) against Genoa, followed by the complete expulsion of the French army from Italy, seemed like a natural next step. The command of the combined Russian-Austrian troops was entrusted to A. V. Suvorov.
On April 15-17, 1799, Suvorov defeated the French at the Adda River. After that, in 5 weeks it was possible to expel the French from Northern Italy. Milan and Turin were liberated without a fight.
The Austrians did not provide Suvorov troops with food, provided incorrect maps of the area and, without waiting for the troops to approach Switzerland, left Rimsky-Korsakov's corps alone in front of superior enemy forces.
Hurrying to the rescue, Suvorov chose the shortest and most dangerous path - through the Alps, the Saint Gotthard Pass (September 24, 1799 - the battle for the Devil's Bridge).
Suvorov crossing the Devil's Bridge. Artist A. E. Kotzebue
But help to Rimsky-Korsakov came too late - he was defeated.
Fifteen thousand grenadiers descend from the Alps and Pavel returns them to Russia.
England and Austria took advantage of Russian victories. Due to the fact that England, like Austria, did not show proper concern for the Russian auxiliary corps, located in Holland and operating against the French, and due to the fact that the British occupied after the release of Fr. Malta, and the Austrians occupied Northern Italy left by Suvorov, Paul I breaks off relations with them and concludes new alliances.
Peace is made with France and an alliance is signed with Prussia against Austria and simultaneously with Prussia, Sweden and Denmark against England.
On December 4-6, 1800, at the initiative of Paul I, a convention on armed neutrality was concluded between Russia, Prussia, Sweden and Denmark.
On January 12, 1801, Paul I gave an order according to which 22.5 thousand Cossacks with 24 guns under the command of Vasily Petrovich Orlov (1745-1801) - the military ataman of the Don Cossack army were to make the Indian campaign - to reach Khiva and Bukhara and capture the British India. The Cossacks set out on a campaign on February 28.
February 9 and March 11, 1801- decrees were issued prohibiting the release of Russian goods from British ports and along the entire western border, not only to England, but also to Prussia. An embargo was imposed on British merchant ships in Russian ports.
The conspirators wanted to time the denouement to March 15 - the "Ides of March", which brought death to the tyrant Caesar, but third-party events accelerated the decision, since the emperor came to the conclusion by the evening or night of March 8 that "they want to repeat 1762". The conspirators fussed.
Fonvizin in his notes describes the reaction of his subjects as follows:
“In the midst of the many assembled courtiers, the conspirators and murderers of Paul boldly paced. They, who did not sleep the night, half-drunk, disheveled, as if proud of their crime, dreamed that they would reign with Alexander. Decent people in Russia, disapproving of the means by which they got rid of Paul's tyranny, rejoiced at his fall. Historiographer Karamzin says that the news of this event was a message of redemption throughout the state: in houses, on the streets, people cried, hugged each other, as on the day of the Holy Resurrection. However, this enthusiasm was expressed by one nobility, other estates accepted this news rather indifferently.».
Alexander I came to the throne, as a result of which the general atmosphere in the country immediately changed. Nevertheless, Alexander himself was deeply traumatized by the assassination, which may have prompted his turn to mysticism late in life. Fonvizin describes his reaction to the news of the murder:
“When it was all over, and he learned the terrible truth, his grief was inexpressible and reached despair. The memory of this terrible night haunted him all his life and poisoned him with secret sadness.
On the eve of the death of Paul, Napoleon came close to concluding an alliance with Russia. The assassination of Paul I in March 1801 postponed this possibility for a long time - until the Peace of Tilsit in 1807. Relations with England, on the contrary, were renewed.
III anti-French coalition (1805)
Unlike the first two, it was exclusively defensive in nature. It consisted of: Russia, England, Austria, Sweden. Russian diplomacy took part in the formation of a coalition consisting of England, Austria, Sweden and Sicily.
The goal of restoring the Bourbons was not set. The coalition was created to stop the further spread of French expansion in Europe and protect the rights of Prussia, Switzerland, Holland and Italy. England was especially interested in creating a coalition, since 200,000 French soldiers stood on the English Channel, ready to land on Foggy Albion.
September 9, 1805 - The Austrian army invades Bavaria. However, already on September 25-26, she was defeated by the French army and began to retreat, having heavy losses. And on October 20, the Austrian army capitulated. And on November 13, Vienna was taken.
On November 10, 1805, Russian troops united with Austrian reinforcements and occupied the Olshansky positions.
On November 20, 1805, in the "Battle of the Three Emperors" - Napoleon, Alexander I and Franz II - near Austerlitz, the combined Russian-Austrian troops were defeated by the French.
Cuadro de François Gérard, 1810, neoclasicismo. Batalla de Austerlitz
On December 26, 1805, Austria signed a peace treaty with France in Pressburg, leaving the war with major territorial and political losses. The Holy Roman Empire of the German nation ceased to exist.
IV anti-French coalition (1806-1807)
It consisted of: Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Saxony, Sweden.
On June 19 and July 12, secret allied declarations were signed between Russia and Prussia. In the autumn of 1806, a coalition was formed consisting of England, Sweden, Prussia, Saxony and Russia.
October 14, 1806 - the battle of Jena and Auerstedt, in which the Prussian army was completely defeated by the French. The army as an organized force of Prussia ceased to exist in one day. Following this the collapse of the Prussian kingdom, which was conquered by the French army within three weeks.
November 21, 1806 in Berlin, Napoleon signed a decree on the "blockade of the British Isles". In 1807, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands joined the continental blockade, after Tilsit - Russia and Prussia, in 1809 - Austria.
On January 26 - 27, 1807, a battle took place near Preussisch-Eylau, where the army of Russian and Prussian soldiers repulsed all the attacks of the French.
On June 9 (21), 1807, a truce was signed and 2 days later it was ratified by Alexander I. On June 13 (25), a meeting of two emperors took place on a raft in the middle of the Neman River opposite the city of Tilsit.
Meeting on the Neman Alexander I and Napoleon. Engraving by Lamo and Miesbach. 1st thurs. 19th century
V Anti-French Coalition (1809)
The anti-French coalition formed after the destruction of Napoleon's Great Army in Russia during the Russian campaign of 1812.
The coalition included: Russia, Sweden, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia (the last two were allies of France until the beginning of 1813).
April 5, 1812 The Treaty of St. Petersburg was signed between Russia and Sweden. After the start of Napoleon's invasion of Russia, on July 6 (18), 1812, the Treaty of Örebrus was signed between Russia and Great Britain, which eliminated the state of war between the two powers that had existed since 1807. On December 18 (30), 1812, in Taurogen, the Prussian General York signed a convention of neutrality with the Russians and withdrew troops to Prussia.
FIRST PATRIOTIC WAR
Russia's participation in the continental blockade, established by Napoleon by a special decree of November 21, 1806, and directed against England, had a detrimental effect on the Russian economy. In particular, the volume of Russia's foreign trade for 1808-1812 decreased by 43%. And France, Russia's new ally under the Tilsit peace treaty, could not compensate for this damage, since Russia's economic ties with France were insignificant.
The continental blockade completely upset Russian finances. Already in 1809, the budget deficit increased by 12.9 times compared to 1801 (from 12.2 million to 157.5 million rubles).
Therefore, the reasons for the Patriotic War of 1812 were Russia's refusal to actively support the continental blockade, in which Napoleon saw the main weapon against Great Britain, as well as Napoleon's policy towards European states, which was carried out without taking into account the interests of Russia, or rather, how they were seen by Alexander, ascended to the throne. I.
Whatever some historians say about Napoleon's aggression in 1812, on the eve of the war, Russia itself was preparing for an attack. And Alexander I, back in the autumn of 1811, offered Prussia to “slay the monster” with a preemptive strike. The Russian army even began to prepare for the next campaign against Napoleon, and only the treachery of Prussia prevented Alexander from starting the war first - Napoleon was ahead of him.
The Russian monarch did not favor Napoleon. For Alexander, the war with him was
“... an act of struggle of his personal pride, regardless of the political reasons that caused it,” writes historian M.V. Dovnar-Zapolsky. - Despite the appearance of friendly relations, the "Byzantine Greek", as Napoleon characterized his Tilsit friend, could never endure the humiliation he experienced. Alexander never forgot anything and never forgave anything, although he was remarkably able to hide his true feelings. Moreover, Alexander, like his opponent, liked to indulge in dreams of such activities that would pursue world interests. It is not surprising that the war took on a double meaning in Alexander's eyes: firstly, a sense of pride prompted him to take revenge on his rival, and ambitious dreams led Alexander far beyond the borders of Russia, and the good of Europe occupied the first place in them. Despite the setbacks - and even more so, as the setbacks grew, Alexander grew firmer to continue the war until the enemy was completely destroyed. The very first significant failures exacerbated the feeling of revenge in Alexander.
Paul I, in our opinion, would have pursued a different policy and, most likely, would have supported the blockade of Great Britain, and then, most likely, there would have been no Patriotic War of 1812, and Great Britain could have replenished the number of empires that disappeared during the Napoleonic Wars. It is clear that this development of events did not suit some groups in the West (it is clear that most of them were in Great Britain), so the English ambassador was an accomplice in a conspiracy against Paul I.
Far-sighted, I must say, acted British intelligence. Postponed the fall of colonial Britain by almost a hundred years! The story eventually went along the event branch, on which Napoleon invades Russia.
June 22 - 24, 1812. Troops of the Great Army of Napoleon cross the Neman, invading the territory of Russia
According to the calculations of the military historian Clausewitz, the army of the invasion of Russia, together with reinforcements during the war, consisted of 610 thousand soldiers, including 50 thousand soldiers of Austria and Prussia. That is, we can talk about a united European army. With the support or at least non-intervention of the rest of Europe, until March 1813.
On January 18 (30), 1813, an agreement similar to the Taurogen one was signed by the commander of the Austrian corps, General Schwarzenberg (Truce of Zeichen), after which he surrendered Warsaw without a fight and left for Austria.
The official act that secured the formation of the 6th coalition was the Kalisz Union Treaty between Russia and Prussia, signed on February 15 (27), 1813 in Breslau and on February 16 (28), 1813 in Kalisz.
At the beginning of 1813, only Russia waged war against Napoleon in central Europe.. Prussia entered into a coalition with Russia in March 1813, then England, Austria and Sweden joined in the summer of the same year, and after the defeat of Napoleon in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig in October 1813, the German states of Württemberg and Bavaria joined the coalition. Doesn't remind you of anything, does it?
Spain, Portugal and England fought independently with Napoleon in the Iberian Peninsula. Active fighting were fought for a year from May 1813 to April 1814 with a 2-month truce in the summer of 1813.
In 1813, the war against Napoleon was waged with varying success in Germany, mainly in Prussia and Saxony. In 1814, the fighting moved to the territory of France and ended by April 1814 with the capture of Paris and the abdication of Napoleon from power.
Treaty of Paris 1814- a peace treaty between the participants of the sixth anti-French coalition (Russia, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia), on the one hand, and Louis XVIII, on the other. Signed in Paris on May 30 (May 18, old style). Later, Sweden, Spain and Portugal joined the treaty. The treaty provided for France to retain the borders that existed on January 1, 1792, with the addition of only part of the Duchy of Savoy, the former papal possessions of Avignon and Venessin and small strips of land on the northern and eastern borders that previously belonged to the Austrian Netherlands and various German states (including purely the German town of Saarbrücken with rich coal mines), only about 5 thousand km² and more than one million inhabitants.
Most of the colonial possessions lost during the Napoleonic Wars were returned to France. Sweden and Portugal returned to France all the colonies taken from it; England retained only Tobago and Saint Lucia in the West Indies and the island of St. Mauritius in Africa, but returned Spain Haiti. France was allowed to keep all the objects of art it seized, with the exception of the trophies taken from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the abductions made in the Vienna library. She was not obligated to pay a contribution.
The Netherlands regained its independence and were returned to the House of Orange. Switzerland was declared independent. Italy, with the exception of the Austrian provinces, was to consist of independent states. The German principalities were united in an alliance. Freedom of navigation on the Rhine and Scheldt was declared. France, by special agreement with England, undertook to abolish the slave trade in her colonies. Finally, it was decided that representatives of all the powers that had taken part in the war would convene, within two months, for a congress in Vienna to resolve the still outstanding questions.
As for the war with Russia, which became inevitable, then, having lost it, Napoleon spoke as follows:
“I did not want this famous war, this bold enterprise, I had no desire to fight. Alexander did not have such a desire, but the prevailing circumstances pushed us towards each other: fate did the rest.
But did "rock" do it?
THE ROLE OF FREEMASONRY IN THE Rise And Fall Of Napoleon
Once upon a time, the arbitrariness of would-be revolutionaries brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power. Why? Yes, because the Freemasons, who saw that the revolution did not go at all where they wanted, needed a strong hand to suppress the raging revolutionary fanatics and extremists. The famous Austrian statesman and diplomat Prince Clemens von Metternich remarked on this:
“Napoleon, who himself was a Freemason when he was a young officer, was admitted and even supported by this secret power in order to protect himself from a great evil, namely, from the return of the Bourbons.”
In addition, Masons considered Napoleon an effective tool for the destruction of European monarchies and after such a gigantic purge, they hoped that it would be easier for them to carry out their plan to build a world republic.
“Masonry decided to follow Napoleon on its own, and therefore on the 18th day of Brumaire it was helped by the most influential revolutionaries,” the author of the book “The Secret Power of Freemasonry” A.A. Selyaninov explains: “They thought that Napoleon would govern France by their proxy.”
Napoleon with Masonic Hidden Hand
But Napoleon, nominated by the Freemasons, gradually began to crush Freemasonry for himself. First he became consul, then first consul, then consul for life, and then emperor. Finally, the moment came when it became clear to everyone that the interests of Napoleon, who used the Masons for his exaltation, and the Masons, who had high hopes for him, diverged.
The revolutionary dictator turned into an autocratic despot, and the Freemasons changed their attitude towards him.
"Secret societies turned sharply against him when he discovered a desire to restore a staunch, conservative autocracy to his own interests,"
Montaigne de Ponsin testified. By the winter of 1812, it became quite clear that Napoleon had completely lost the campaign.
On October 23, 1812, a rather strange coup attempt took place in Paris, organized by General Male. Of course, the conspirators were arrested and shot, but the behavior of the city authorities that day turned out to be extremely passive. Moreover, one gets the impression that the news inspired by the conspirators that Napoleon died in Russia made many very happy.
In 1813, a series of defeats that began in Russia followed, and in January 1814, the allied armies crossed the Rhine and entered French territory. Louis d'Estamp and Claudio Jeannet, in their book Freemasonry and Revolution, write on this subject:
“Since February 1814, realizing that it was impossible to resist the royalist tendencies, the strength of which was growing every day, Freemasonry decided that it was necessary to abandon Napoleon and begin to curry favor with the new regime in order to save at least what was left of the revolution.”
On March 31, 1814, Paris capitulated. When the allied troops entered France, the Parisian Freemasons decided to open the doors to their brothers - Masonic officers of hostile armies.
And already on May 4, 1814, they held a banquet dedicated to the restoration of the Bourbons. The further events of Napoleon's "hundred days" and the Battle of Waterloo are in fact a police operation of the West, and not a continuation of the Napoleonic Wars, which by that time had solved some European problems, without solving, however, the "Russian question".
THE APPEARANCE OF SWITZERLAND AS A GLOBAL MANAGEMENT "POLYGON"
The cantons located in the valleys of Schwyz (whence the name of the country), Uri and Unterwalden, dissatisfied with the policy of the Habsburgs to abolish the privileges of the communities, began to fight. Having managed to negotiate with the Holy Roman Empire, first Uri in 1231, and then Schwyz in 1240, they received the rights of imperial territories and freed themselves from the claims of petty feudal lords.
The founding year of Switzerland is considered to be 1291, when the inhabitants of the three Alpine valleys entered into an agreement on mutual support in the event of an attack.
A decade and a half later, the Reformation began in Switzerland. There is a spread of Protestant ideas in Zurich and Geneva and a split in Switzerland into two hostile religious camps. Two sectarian wars end with the defeat of the Protestant cantons. Strengthening the regime of domination of the urban nobility (patricians). For the next three centuries, the confrontation between Catholics and Protestants continued, repeatedly turning into bloody wars.
Although, at the same time, the time from 1415 to 1513 is called the "heroic age" of Swiss history. The confederation waged successful wars against the Habsburgs, France, the Holy Roman Empire, the Dukes of Milan, Savoy and Burgundy. Thanks to these victories, the Swiss gained a reputation for excellent warriors, and the confederation expanded to 13 cantons.
In 1648, the signing of the Peace of Westphalia takes place, in which there is a separate "Swiss Article", which means the completion of a long process that began in 1499 (when, during the "Swabian War" with the Great Roman Empire of the German nation, the actual independence of Switzerland from the empire is established), in as a result of which Switzerland becomes independent not only in fact, but also formally legally.
All-Union Diets were periodically convened to manage the confederation, while in Switzerland there was no common army, government and finance. This system of government lasted until the French Revolution (1798).
From 1798 until Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, Switzerland was under French rule. Having occupied Switzerland, France imposed a constitution based on the French one. But she encroached on traditional federalism, and many Swiss did not support her. Having come to power, Napoleon in 1802 gave the country a new Constitution, restoring many of the rights of the cantons and expanding their number from 13 to 19. After the defeat of Napoleon, the cantons renounced his constitution and attempted to recreate the former confederation, but the country had already lived for some time under the federal government, which affected the future history of Switzerland.
It was in 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon, that the Treaty of Union was signed in Switzerland, proclaiming the union of 22 cantons. It was then that the great powers recognized eternal neutrality of Switzerland, which was enshrined in the Congress of Vienna and the Paris Peace Treaty.
In subsequent years, there was a struggle between the patrician authorities of individual cantons and supporters of the transformation of Switzerland into an integral state on a democratic basis, which ended in 1848 with the victory of the latter (just 5 years before the Crimean War!). A constitution was adopted and a federal parliament established, and since then there has been a period of calm development of the Swiss Confederation.
The territorial structure of Switzerland as a federal republic currently includes 26 cantons (20 cantons and 6 semi-cantons). Cantons (German: Kantone, French: cantons, Italian: cantoni, Romansh: chantuns) are the largest state-territorial units of the Swiss Confederation. The lowest level of territorial-administrative division is communities (German: Gemeinde), of which there were 2495 as of January 2012 (in 2011 - 2495 communities)
Each canton has its own constitution and laws, the legislative body is the cantonal council (kantonsrat), or grand council, the executive body is the ruling council (regierungsrat), or state council, consisting of the governor (landammann), or chairman of the state council, and government advisers ( regierungsrat), or government advisers. The canton is completely independent in solving internal problems. The central government is in charge of international affairs, the federal budget and the issue of money. Nevertheless, Switzerland is a single state. Country motto: One for all and all for one!"(lat. Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno).
gold standard
The beginning of the era of the "gold standard" (legislative formalization of guaranteed gold backing of state credit notes) is considered to be the period after the Napoleonic wars: 1816 - 1821 ("Gold", A.V. Anikin, ed. 1988).
gold standard- a system of currency relations in which each country expressed the value of its currency in a certain amount of gold, and central banks or governments were obliged to buy and sell gold at a fixed price.
England has been applying this principle since 1816, the USA since 1837, Germany since 1875, but the first country to legislate the gold standard was Napoleonic France, which in 1803 elected bimetallic system gold-silver. The gold standard of the Napoleon coin (issued from 1803 to 1914) was introduced by Napoleon I, who abolished the old louis-based coin unit and set the standard for the gold content of the franc at 0.2903 g (the so-called "germinal franc"). The coin was named after the profile of Napoleon Bonaparte originally depicted on it.
But still, the main development of the world system of the gold standard took place in England.
England gold standard
The history of gold money in England from the discovery of America to the end of the 17th century will not take up much space. This was the era of quasi-bimetallism, when both gold and silver coins were constantly minted, having equal legal rights as money. In general, during these two centuries, the exchange rate was favorable for silver. Therefore, silver money prevailed in circulation.
In the first three quarters of the 18th century the monetary ratio was favorable to gold and unfavorable to silver, thereby facilitating the entry of the yellow metal into England and the displacement of the white metal.
In 1797, English paper money consisted of notes issued by the Bank of England and circulated mainly in London and its environs, and notes of "provincial" banks, which circulated mainly near the place of issue. Banknotes were subject to exchange for specie on demand, but were not a legal means of payment.
There were no restrictions on the receipt by English banks of deposits and their circulation in the form of bank cheques; in the second half of the XVIII century. - early 19th century the use of such a deposit currency has steadily expanded.
From 1797 to 1821, England had a de facto paper money standard, although a law was passed in 1816 that switched it to a pure gold standard 5 years later.
In early 1819, secret committees were appointed by both Houses of Parliament to consider resuming the exchange. Both committees eventually adopted a recommendation that the Bank of England be obliged to resume the exchange of banknotes for gold from February 1, 1820, in accordance with a specially designed scale for reducing the price of gold, with the resumption of full cash payments no later than May 1, 1823. This system of gradual return to the free exchange of banknotes for gold through a gradual change in the exchange rate has not been put into practice. Even before February 1820, the gold premium disappeared, and on May 1, 1821, payments in specie at parity were fully resumed.
Thus, after a paper-money standard that lasted for about a quarter of a century, England returned to the metal standard, but now it was the gold standard, and not the bimetallic standard that was abolished in 1797.
On the basis of the laws of 1816 and 1817, the English gold standard, after returning to payments in specie in 1821, functioned until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.
The official system of the gold standard received at a conference in Paris in 1821. The basis is gold, which was legally assigned the role of the main form of money. The rate of national currencies was rigidly tied to gold and, through the gold content of the currency, related to each other at a fixed rate.
Pushkin's interest
Of course, the coincidence of this period with the time of the creation of Ruslan and Lyudmila can be considered an accident. But accidents that reflect certain patterns are, in essence, statistical predestinations. If we take into account that the Napoleonic wars were financed by the Rothschild clan, then it remains to be recognized that Pushkin, in his twenties, saw and understood the general course of things better than the Russian Decembrist Freemasons, brought up on the economic thought of the West. A.V. Anikin (real name - Jewish), the author of the monograph mentioned above on the role of gold in the financial and credit system, was so concerned about Pushkin's knowledge of the beard of Chernomor that he published a special book “Muse and Mammon. Socio-economic motives in Pushkin, ed. 1989. From it we learn that what the Jewish warrior Anika was most concerned about was Pushkin's early interest in the behind-the-scenes activities of the Rothschild banking house. On the other hand, thanks to the information of Anikin, an authoritative specialist in Jewish financial circles, the reader had the opportunity to get acquainted with the rationale for the historical pattern of the birth of the poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila".
THE ROTHSCHILDS AND THE NAPOLEONIC WARS
Rothschild brothers
The Frankfurt banker Mayer-Amschel, who became the founder of this dynasty, died on September 19, 1812. Five of his sons continued the business - Amschel Mayer (1773-1855), Solomon Mayer (1774-1855), Nathan Mayer (1777-1836), Kalmann Mayer (1788-1855) and James Mayer (1792-1868).
They began to be called "Five fingers of one hand." Amschel handled all business in Frankfurt. Nathan, who emigrated to Manchester, as already mentioned, became the founder of a British bank. Solomon founded an Austrian bank, Kalmann a Neapolitan bank, and James a French bank. And that is how the gigantic fortune of the Rothschild family arose, which had the most direct relation to the union of “free masons”. James Rothschild very soon became one of the richest men in France, and his brother Nathan Rothschild was hugely successful in trading gold bullion and became the most sought-after pawnbroker in London.
Even when Napoleon was victoriously marching across Europe, and the Rothschilds were cashing in on military orders, he suddenly refused the Rothschild clan to join their financial empire to his own. Moreover, in February 1800 he created the Bank of France, independent of the Rothschilds. And in April 1803, he carried out a monetary reform, introducing silver and gold francs, and the Bank of France received the exclusive right to issue money.
The Rothschilds were outraged, Napoleon said:
“The hand that gives is always higher than the hand that takes. The financiers have no patriotism and honesty - their only goal is the cleansing."
If the government depends on the bankers, then the country is not run by the government, but by the bankers.
But Napoleon needed the money, and therefore, in the same 1803, he sold French territories in North America to the United States. Their size then amounted to approximately 2.1 million square meters. km, and the transaction price - 15 million dollars, or 80 million French francs. In carrying out this transaction, Napoleon used the banks of the direct competitors of the Rothschilds - the Baring banking house in London and Hope's bank in Amsterdam. With the help of the money he received, he quickly equipped an army and began to spread his influence throughout Europe, capturing everything in his path.
Operation Gold
The Rothschild clan could not forgive Napoleon, who soon became emperor, such arbitrariness. And they declared war on the impostor, that is, they began to provide loans to almost any country that was in the camp of his opponents. In fact, the Rothschild clan decided to topple Napoleon, for which he began to actively finance the British and Russians, that is, his main opponents. Napoleon did not want to fight with Russia, but he was forced to do so, and the Rothschilds were not without help.
When in 1812 the main backbone of the Napoleonic army was already in Russia, Nathan Rothschild came up with an ingenious plan to finance the "second front", that is, the actions of the army of the Duke of Wellington in the Iberian Peninsula. To do this, Nathan Rothschild bought gold from the East India Company for the amount of 800 thousand pounds (those pounds!) And then sold this gold, so necessary for Wellington to conduct military operations, to the government of England. Naturally, he did this with huge profits. However, the British did not know how to transfer this gold to Wellington through French territory. And then the Rothschilds themselves took up this risky business.
The essence of the operation they carried out is as follows: first, James Rothschild unexpectedly appeared in Paris, and then his brothers wrote letters to him, which contained feigned complaints that they were going to take the gold from England to Spain, but the British government allegedly flatly denied them this. At the same time, the Rothschilds made sure that their messages to their brother would definitely fall into the hands of the French secret police. And the French Ministry of Finance took the bait. If the British enemies are against the gold sailing away from England, they decided in the French ministry, it is necessary to help these same Rothschilds so that they can still take out this gold of theirs ...
Thus the letter trick succeeded, and the Rothschild government helped the Rothschilds to make sure that the gold ended up in Spain, where it went to Wellington's army against the French.
Later, at one of the business dinners in London, Nathan Rothschild boasted that it was the best deal in his life.
It is worth noting that the Rothschilds profited well from the continental blockade of England. At that time, Europe could only get British colonial goods (spices, cotton, tobacco, coffee, etc.) through smuggling. So, Nathan Rothschild created a reliable network of smugglers who passed through any Napoleonic cordons. And, of course, the prices for these items were fantastic.
Nathan Rothschild
It is also believed that Nathan Rothschild personally orchestrated the collapse of the London Stock Exchange after Wellington's victory at Waterloo. And it's called his "best deal". However, this is only very far from what actually happened. Although the Rothschilds themselves at some point believed in this myth, which indicates the reliability of the moral and psychological qualities of Nathan from the myth and Nathan in life.
The myth of the "best deal"
It told about the Battle of Waterloo, allegedly witnessed by Nathan Rothschild. By the evening of June 18, 1815, the founder of the London branch of the Rothschild banking empire realized that the French had lost the battle. On fast horses, he reached the Belgian coast with great speed for those times. Nathan needed to urgently cross to the British Isles, but due to a storm at sea, all the ships were in ports.
The sea storm did not stop the enterprising financier. He paid one of the fishermen such a fare that he decided to take a chance and went to sea.
Nathan Rothschild's idea was simple and effective. He was in a hurry to take advantage of something that was highly valued in the financial world even then, two centuries ago - important information. Taking advantage of the fact that no one on the London Stock Exchange knew about Wellington's victory, he bought up a huge number of shares, and then sold them at a higher price, earning 20 million francs in a matter of hours.
This story has been included in numerous biographies of the House of Rothschild. It was written by Georges Darnavell, who adhered to leftist political views. He also made no secret of his hatred of Jews in general and especially of the Rothschilds, who by 1846 were already among the richest and most famous people in Europe.
Supporters of Georges Darnawell's version argued for it with an article in the London Courier, June 20, 1815. In a note published two days after the battle and the day before the official announcement of victory, it was said that Rothschild bought up a lot of shares.
At first glance, the article proves the enrichment version and confirms the legend, but it turned out that there was none. A check of the archives in which the numbers of the London Courier for June 15, 1815 have been preserved, shows that there is no article about the purchase of a large number of shares by Rothschild. It was even possible to establish the source of the origin of this misinformation. It appeared in 1848 in the writings of the Scottish historian Archibald Alison. In addition, supporters of the story of the “greedy villain” Rothschild cite the diary of a young American, James Gallatin, who visited London in 1815, but in 1957 it turned out that he was a fake.
The first to refute the fiction composed by Georges Darnavell, already in the eighties of the last century, was one of the Rothschilds. Baron Victor Rothschild, who wrote a book about Nathan's ancestor, established that Darnawell's "Satan" was at the heart of the whole story, and exposed many of the tales contained in it.
On the other hand, Victor Rothschild found in the archive a letter from an employee of one of the Paris banks, written a month after Waterloo. It contained this phrase:
"Commissioner White informed me that you made excellent use of the information you received about the victory at Waterloo."
However, three decades later, new information appeared, refuting this evidence of Nathan Rothschild's "guilt". It has now been proven that it was not Nathan who first heard the news of the victory at Waterloo, but a certain "Mr. S. of Dover." He learned about the defeat of the French in Ghent and immediately rushed to London with the news. Mr. S. spoke of the victory in the City on the morning of June 21, 1815, i.e. at least 12 hours before the official announcement of the news. At least three London newspapers wrote about it that day.
It is also known that in the evening Nathan Rothschild received a letter from Ghent announcing the victory at Waterloo, and that he hurried to convey the news to the authorities.
Although Rothschild was not the only one who was the first to know about the defeat of Napoleon, he had enough time to buy shares. However, the amount of profit is clearly very much overestimated. However, in general, this story shows the attitude of the Rothschilds to the opportunities to cash in on the war (read the details and details of this story here - http://expert.ru/2015/05/4/kapital-rotshildov/).
A century later, the name of Nathan Rothschild was inscribed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most brilliant financier of all time and the representative of a family that became the richest in the world by the middle of the 19th century. It is not for nothing that the remainder of the 19th century is called the “age of the Rothschilds”.
Naturally, they were closely associated with the Freemasons. Moreover, it can be argued that the Masonic lodges, receiving the funding they needed, were complicit with the Rothschilds, but it cannot be said that these were all Masonic lodges.
It is even believed that Robespierre himself was a blind instrument in the hands of Mayer-Amschel Rothschild. No wonder the Incorruptible said:
“It seems to me that we are constantly pushed against our will by a “hidden hand”. Every day our Committee of Public Safety does what it decided yesterday not to do.”
Robespierre was deprived of his life, among other things, because he dared to express indignation: foreigners, represented by Adam Weishaupt and other agents of the Rothschilds, turned into real rulers!
Did not want to serve the secret lodges and foreign billionaires and Napoleon. For this he paid. He died on May 5, 1821 in exile, on a distant island, lost in the Atlantic Ocean. And his fall, which began in 1812 in Russia, without a doubt, was a real triumph for the Rothschild clan, which is only one of the strands of Chernomor's huge beard.
BEARD OF CHERNOMOR
The poem "Ruslan and Lyudmila" was written by Pushkin from 1818 to 1820, when the gold standard had already appeared in Europe.
Chernomor's beard is the first integral allegorical representation of the financial and credit system in literature. I.V. Goethe, a contemporary of Pushkin, will touch on this topic ten years later, in the second part of Faust. An eighty-year-old man, coming from a wealthy merchant family, he was concerned about the decline in public confidence in the new means of payment for that time - paper money. Therefore, his Mephistopheles, explaining to the "little believers" the benefits for society as a whole new form money, at the same time he worked for the worldwide international of the Rothschilds.
“You are always light with tickets,
They are more convenient than money in a wallet,
They take you out of the mess
When buying valuables and selling them.
You need gold, metal
Available in stock at the changers,
But they don’t have it - we pick the ground
And we cover the entire paper issue,
We sell the find at the auction
And pay off the loan in full.
Again we shame the unfaithful,
All in unison glorify our measure,
And with gold coinage on a par
Paper is getting stronger in the country.”
However, spells alone, even in a highly artistic form, were apparently not enough to restore confidence in the means of payment, and in 1867 the Gesheftmachers of the world, by special agreements in Paris (at the international exhibition) on the introduction of the "gold standard", make the first attempt to stop the growth of the "beard" of the world spider.
With the beginning of the First World War (if the account is kept from the Napoleonic Wars, then the third, since the battles of the "Crimean War" took place in the Baltic, in the White Sea and in Kamchatka, which means it can be considered the second), these agreements became invalid, and until 1944 Chernomor's beard, one might say, grew uncontrollably.
In 1944, the United States at Bretton Woods made a second attempt to introduce a "gold standard". The Soviet Union also took part in the development of the Bretton Woods agreements as part of the delegations of 44 countries. Stalin, who by the end of the war had risen to the level of conceptual confrontation with the Western bosses of global politics, understood that the charter of the International Monetary Fund, developed within the framework of these agreements, was just an attempt to control the growth of Chernomor's beard, thanks to which it would be possible to strangle all the beauties of the world. Not wanting to replenish the gallows gallery with the peoples of the USSR, Stalin refused to ratify the Bretton Woods agreements in 1945 and for some time closed the way for the humpbacked Karla to expand into the USSR generalized weapons of the fourth priority (world money).
RESULTS OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS
We consider it important to note that the Napoleonic Wars solved many problems at the level of global politics:
- The ideological monopoly of the Holy Roman Empire, like itself, was finally crushed, which opened up opportunities for the Reformation and the spread of liberalism throughout Europe.
- The Kingdom of Prussia was destroyed and the conditions were formed for the "smoldering" of Germany's hot spot in Europe (in fact, the foundations were laid in the form of German territorial claims for the First World War of the 20th century, although before that the situation should have matured).
- Switzerland finally took shape as an "incubator" and "testing ground" for testing various management technologies, which status it retains to this day, given the peculiarity that each canton has its own constitution, laws, legislature and government.
- The West could not solve the “Russian question”, sending the Napoleon he created to the east, which Victory in the Patriotic War caused the Russian spirit to rise.
Tarle E.V. In his book Napoleon's Invasion, 1959, p. 737. expressed "without the twelfth year there would be no Pushkin." All Russian culture, national identity received a powerful impetus in the year of the Napoleonic invasion. And according to A.I. Herzen, from the point of view of the creative activity of wide sections of society, “only 1812 opens the true history of Russia; everything that happened before is just a preface. - But the year 1812 is also associated with the “desire for freethinking”, which ultimately led to the Decembrist uprising in 1825, of which more than half that were involved in this case were members of Masonic lodges and worked under the guidance of foreign higher Masonic hierarchs for implementation in Russia "ideals" of the Western project. Infection with their "fashionable disease" could well have occurred during a campaign against Paris (although it happened earlier - for Europeans, Russia was "opened" by Peter I). The unjustifiably bloody experience of the French Revolution and the counter-revolutionary action in the Vendée, which devoured both their own and other people's children, taught them nothing. A.A. Bestuzhev enthusiastically wrote to Nicholas I from the Peter and Paul Fortress: “... Napoleon invaded Russia, and then the Russian people for the first time felt their strength; then a feeling of independence awakened in all hearts, first political, and later popular. This is the beginning of freethinking in Russia.”
We have been disentangling the results of the spread of this “free thinking”, which is not free from Masonic rituals and vows, for more than two centuries.
One of the next attempts to resolve the “Russian question” on a local scale was the Crimean War, which we will talk about in the second part of this material.
It prompted anti-feudal, anti-absolutist, national liberation movements in European countries. A huge role in this belongs to the Napoleonic wars.
The French bourgeoisie, striving for a dominant position in the government of the country, was dissatisfied with the regime of the Directory and sought to establish a military dictatorship.
The young Corsican general Napoleon Bonaparte was the best fit for the role of military dictator. A talented and courageous military man from an impoverished noble family, he was an ardent supporter of the revolution, participated in the suppression of the counter-revolutionary actions of the royalists, and therefore the bourgeois leaders trusted him. Under the command of Napoleon, the French army in northern Italy defeated the Austrian invaders.
Having made a coup on November 9, 1799, the big bourgeoisie was supposed to have firm power, which it entrusted to the first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte. He begins to implement domestic and foreign policy with the help of authoritarian methods. Gradually, all the power is concentrated in his hands.
In 1804, Napoleon was proclaimed Emperor of France under the name. The dictatorship of imperial power strengthened the position of the bourgeoisie and opposed the return of the feudal order.
Foreign policy Napoleon I is the world domination of France in the military-political and commercial-industrial field. The main rival and opponent of Napoleon was England, which did not want to disturb the balance of power in Europe, and it was necessary for it to maintain its colonial possessions. The task of England in the fight against Napoleon was to overthrow him and return the Bourbons.
The peace treaty concluded in Amiens in 1802 was a temporary respite and already in 1803 hostilities resumed. If in land battles the advantage was on the side of Napoleon, then the English fleet dominated the sea, which in 1805 dealt a crushing blow to the Franco-Spanish fleet at Cape Trafalgar.
In fact, the French fleet ceased to exist, after which France declared a continental blockade of England. This decision prompted the creation of an anti-French coalition, which included England, Russia, Austria and the Kingdom of Naples.
The first battle between France and the coalition troops took place at Austerlitz on November 20, 1805, called the Battle of the Three Emperors. Napoleon won, and the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist, and France received Italy at its disposal.
In 1806, Napoleon invades Prussia, which contributed to the emergence of the fourth anti-French coalition from England, Russia, Prussia and Sweden. But Prussia is defeated at Jena and Auerstedt in 1806, and Napoleon occupies Berlin and occupies most of Prussia. On the occupied territory, he creates the Confederation of the Rhine from 16 German states under his auspices.
Russia continued to conduct military operations in East Prussia, which did not bring her success. On July 7, 1807, she was forced to sign the Peace of Tilsit, thereby recognizing all the conquests of France.
From the conquered Polish lands on the territory of Prussia, Napoleon creates the Duchy of Warsaw. At the end of 1807, Napoleon occupied Portugal and launched an invasion of Spain. The Spanish people opposed the French invaders. The residents of Zaragoza were especially distinguished, who withstood the blockade of Napoleon's fifty-thousandth army.
The Austrians tried to take revenge and in 1809 began hostilities, but in the battle of Wagram they were defeated and were forced to conclude a humiliating Schönbrun peace.
By 1810, Napoleon reaches the zenith of his dominance in Europe and begins to prepare for war with Russia, which remains the only power beyond his control.
In June 1812, he crosses the border of Russia, moves to Moscow and occupies it. But already in early October, he realizes that he lost the decisive battle, flees from Russia, leaving his army to the mercy of fate.
The European powers unite in the sixth coalition and inflict a crushing blow on the French near Leipzig. This battle, which threw Napoleon back into France, was called the Battle of the Nations.
Allied troops captured, and Napoleon I was exiled to about. Elbe. A peace treaty was signed on May 30, 1814, and France was deprived of all the occupied territories.
Napoleon managed to escape, raise an army and capture Paris. His revenge lasted 100 days and ended in full.