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Napoleonic Wars

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Pre 1900 Military

   Napoleonic Wars
   Top: Battle of Austerlitz
   Bottom: Battle of Waterloo

     Date   1803– 1815
   Location Europe, Egypt, Atlantic Ocean
    Result  Allied victory; Congress of Vienna
            Balance of power in Europe restored
   Combatants
   Allies:
   Great Britain (until 1801)/ United Kingdom(from 1801)
   Prussia
   Austria
   Sweden
   Russia
   Ottoman Empire
   Portugal
   Spain
   and others
   France
   Client States to France:
   Denmark-Norway
   Kingdom of Holland
   Kingdom of Italy
   Kingdom of Naples
   Duchy of Warsaw
   Confederation of the Rhine:
   Bavaria
   Saxony
   et. al.
   Commanders
   Alexander I of Russia, Emperor of Russia
   Mikhail Illarionovich Kutuzov
   Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly
   Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington
   Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
   Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher
   Karl Wilhelm, Duke of Brunswick
   Friedrich Ludwig, Prince of Hohenlohe
   Karl XIV Johan of Sweden
   Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen
   Karl Philipp, Prince of Schwarzenberg
   Joseph Alvinczy
   Karl Mack
   Pedro Velarde y Santillán Napoleon I
   Emperor of the French
   King of Italy
   Joseph Bonaparte, King of Spain
   Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland
   Joachim Murat, King of Naples
   Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte
   Louis Nicolas Davout, Duke of Auerstaedt
   Jean-Baptiste Jourdan
   Jean Lannes, Duke of Montebello
   André Masséna, Duke of Rivoli
   Jean Victor Moreau
   Michel Ney, Duke of Elchingen
   Nicolas Soult, Duke of Dalmatia
   Prince Józef Antoni Poniatowski
   Frederick Augustus I, King of Saxony
   Casualties
   Full list
                                 Napoleonic Wars
   Third Coalition – Fourth Coalition – Peninsular – Fifth Coalition –
   Invasion of Russia – Sixth Coalition – Seventh Coalition

   The Napoleonic Wars comprised a series of global conflicts fought
   during Napoleon Bonaparte's rule over France ( 1799– 1815). They formed
   to some extent an extension of the wars sparked by the French
   Revolution of 1789 and continued during the régime of the Second French
   Empire of 1852– 1870. These wars revolutionized European armies and
   artillery, as well as military systems, and took place on a scale never
   before seen, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription.
   French power rose quickly, conquering most of Europe; the fall also
   took place rapidly, beginning with the disastrous invasion of Russia (
   1812), and Napoleon's empire ultimately suffered complete military
   defeat, resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France
   in 1814 and 1815.

   No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and
   when the Napoleonic Wars began; one possible watershed-date occurred
   when Bonaparte seized power in France ( 9 November 1799). Other
   versions put the period of warfare between 1799 and 1802 in the context
   of the French Revolutionary Wars, and set the Napoleonic Wars'
   beginning at the outbreak of war between the United Kingdom and France
   in 1803, following the brief peace concluded at Amiens in 1802. The
   Napoleonic Wars ended on 20 November 1815, following Napoleon's final
   defeat at Waterloo and the Second Treaty of Paris. Collectively, the
   nearly continuous period of warfare from April 20, 1792, until November
   20, 1815, sometimes (though rarely these days) bears the name of the "
   Great French War".

Political effects of the wars

   Portrait of Napoléon Bonaparte
   Enlarge
   Portrait of Napoléon Bonaparte

   The Napoleonic Wars brought great changes to Europe. Though Napoleon
   brought most of Western Europe under his rule (a feat not seen since
   the days of the Roman Empire), a state of constant warfare between
   France and the combined other major powers of Europe for over two
   decades finally took its toll. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars,
   France no longer held the role of the dominant power in Europe, as it
   had since the times of Louis XIV.

   The United Kingdom emerged as one of the most powerful countries in the
   world. The British Royal Navy held unquestioned naval superiority
   throughout the world, and Britain's industrial economy made it the most
   powerful commercial country as well.

   In most European countries, the importation of the ideals of the French
   Revolution (democracy, due process in courts, abolition of privileges,
   etc.) left a mark. European monarchs found it difficult to restore
   pre-revolutionary absolutism, and had perforce to keep some of the
   reforms brought about during Napoleon's rule. Institutional legacies
   have remained to this day: many European countries have a Civil law
   legal system, with clearly redacted codes compiling their basic laws —
   an enduring legacy of the Napoleonic Code.

   A relatively new and increasingly powerful movement became significant.
   Nationalism would shape the course of much of future European history;
   its growth spelled the beginning of some nations and states and the end
   of others. The map of Europe changed dramatically in the hundred years
   following the Napoleonic Era, based not on fiefs and aristocracy, but
   on the perceived basis of human culture, national origins, and national
   ideology. Bonaparte's reign over Europe sowed the seeds for the
   founding of the nation-states of Germany and Italy by starting the
   process of consolidating city-states, kingdoms and principalities.

   Another concept emerged—-that of Europe. Napoleon mentioned on several
   occasions his intention to create a single European state, and although
   his defeat set the thought of a unified Europe back over one-and-a-half
   centuries, the idea re-emerged after the end of the Second World War.

Military legacy of the wars

   The Napoleonic Wars also had a profound military impact. Until the time
   of Napoleon, European states had employed relatively small armies with
   a large proportion of mercenaries — who sometimes fought against their
   own native countries. However, military innovators in the middle of the
   18th century began to recognize the potential of an entire nation at
   war: a "nation in arms".

   Napoleon himself showed innovative tendencies in his use of mobility to
   offset numerical disadvantages, as brilliantly demonstrated in the rout
   of the Austro-Russian forces in 1805 in the Battle of Austerlitz. The
   French Army reorganized the role of artillery, forming independent,
   mobile units as opposed to the previous tradition of attaching
   artillery pieces in support of troops. Napoleon standardized cannonball
   sizes to ensure easier resupply and compatibility among his army's
   artillery pieces.

   France, with the fourth-largest population in the world by the end of
   the 18th century (27 million, as compared to the United Kingdom's 12
   million and Russia's 35 to 40 million), seemed well poised to take
   advantage of the ' levée en masse'. Because the French Revolution and
   Napoleon's reign witnessed the first application of the lessons of the
   18th century's wars on trade and dynastic disputes, commentators often
   falsely assume that such ideas arose from the revolution rather than
   found their implementation in it.

   Not all the credit for the innovations of this period should go to
   Napoleon, however. Lazare Carnot played a large part in the
   reorganization of the French army from 1793 to 1794-—a time which saw
   previous French misfortunes reversed, with Republican armies advancing
   on all fronts.

   The sizes of the armies involved give an obvious indication of the
   changes in warfare. During Europe's major pre-revolutionary war, the
   Seven Years' War of 1756-1763, few armies ever numbered more than
   200,000. By contrast, the French army peaked in size in the 1790s with
   1.5 million Frenchmen enlisted. In total, about 2.8 million Frenchmen
   fought on land, and about 150,000 at sea, bringing the total for France
   to almost 3 million combatants.

   The United Kingdom had 747,670 men under arms between 1792 and 1815. In
   addition, about a quarter of a million personnel served in the Royal
   Navy. In September 1812, Russia had about 904,000 enlisted men in its
   land forces and between 1799 and 1815 a total of 2.1 million men served
   in the Russian army, with perhaps 400,000 serving from 1792-1799. A
   further 200,000 or so served in the Russian Navy from 1792 to 1815. One
   cannot readily find consistent equivalent statistics for other major
   combatants. Austria's forces peaked at about 576,000 and had little or
   no naval component. Apart from the United Kingdom, Austria proved the
   most persistent enemy of France, and one can reasonably assume that
   more than a million Austrians served in total. Prussia never had more
   than 320,000 men under arms at any given point, only just ahead of the
   United Kingdom. Spain's armies also peaked in size at around 300,000,
   but to this one needs to add a considerable force of guerrillas.
   Otherwise only the United States (286,730 total combatants), the
   Maratha Confederation, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Naples and Poland
   ever had more than 100,000 men under arms. Even small nations now had
   armies rivalling the Great Powers of past wars in size. However one
   should bear in mind that the above numbers of soldiers come from
   military records and in practice the actual numbers of fighting men
   would fall below this level due to desertion, fraud by officers
   claiming non-existent soldiers' pay, death and, in some countries,
   deliberate exaggeration to ensure that forces met enlistment-targets.
   Despite this, the size of armed forces clearly expanded at this time.

   The initial stages of the Industrial Revolution had much to do with
   larger military forces — it became easy to mass-produce weapons and
   thus to equip significantly larger forces. The United Kingdom served as
   the largest single manufacturer of armaments in this period, supplying
   most of the weapons used by the Allied powers throughout the conflicts
   (although using relatively few themselves). France produced the
   second-largest total of armaments, equipping its own huge forces as
   well as those of the Confederation of the Rhine and other allies.

   Another advance affected warfare: the semaphore system had allowed the
   French War-Minister, Carnot, to communicate with French forces on the
   frontiers throughout the 1790s. The French continued to use this system
   throughout the Napoleonic wars. Additionally, aerial surveillance came
   into use for the first time, when the French used a hot-air balloon to
   survey Allied positions before the Battle of Fleurus, on June 26, 1794.
   Advances in ordnance and rocketry also occurred in the course of the
   conflict.

First Coalition 1792–1797

   Napoléon crossing the Alps (Jacques-Louis David). Bonaparte led the
   armies of France over the Alps to defeat the Austrians at the Battle of
   Marengo (1800).
   Enlarge
   Napoléon crossing the Alps (Jacques-Louis David). Bonaparte led the
   armies of France over the Alps to defeat the Austrians at the Battle of
   Marengo (1800).

   The first attempt to crush the First French Republic came between 1792
   and 1797 from the First Coalition, which consisted of:
     * Austria
     * Piedmont
     * the Kingdom of Naples
     * Prussia
     * Spain
     * the Kingdom of Great Britain.

   French measures, including general conscription ( levée en masse),
   military reform and total war, contributed to the defeat of the First
   Coalition. Napoleon Bonaparte's Italian campaign in 1796 and 1797
   knocked Piedmont out of the war (armistice of Cherasco, 26 April 1796).
   Piedmont, one of the original members of the Coalition, had
   persistently threatened the French on the Italian front for four years
   before Bonaparte assumed command of the French Army of Italy. It took
   Bonaparte only a month to defeat Piedmont and push its Austrian allies
   back.

   The French defeated Papal forces at Fort Urban (French: Urbin; Italian:
   Urbino) in 1796, forcing Pope Pius VI to sign an armistice ( 22 June
   1796) and a provisional peace treaty. Successive Austrian
   counter-offensives into Italy failed, leading to Bonaparte's entry into
   Friuli. The war ended when Bonaparte forced the Austrians to accept his
   terms in the Treaty of Campo Formio ( 17 October 1797). The United
   Kingdom remained the only anti-French power still in the field by 1797.

Second Coalition 1798–1801

   The Second Coalition ( 1798– 1801) consisted of the following nations
   or states:
     * Austria
     * Great Britain
     * Kingdom of Naples
     * Ottoman Empire
     * Papal States
     * Portugal
     * Russia

   The French government, corrupt and divided under the Directory,
   suffered from a severe shortage of funds. The Republic almost fell
   apart, and when Bonaparte assumed power in 1799 he found only 60,000
   francs in the national treasury.

   Russian involvement also marked a key change from the War of the First
   Coalition. Russian forces operated in Italy under the command of the
   notoriously ruthless and militarily successful Alexander Suvorov.

   The French Republic in this conflict also lacked the services of Lazare
   Carnot, the war-minister who had guided France to successive victories
   following massive reform during the 1790s. Furthermore, Bonaparte had
   involved himself in an Egyptian campaign with the objective of
   threatening British India. Stripped of two of its most important
   military figures from the previous conflict, the Republic suffered
   successive defeats against revitalized enemies, brought back into the
   conflict by British financial support.

   After the ill-conceived campaign in Egypt during which disease and
   attacks by the British and the Ottomans ultimately wore down 40,000
   French troops, Bonaparte managed to return to France on August 23,
   1799. He seized control of the French government on 9 November 1799
   (the coup of 18 Brumaire), toppling the Directory with the aid of
   ideologue Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès.

   The offensive of the Austrian forces on the Rhine and in Italy posed a
   pressing threat to France, but all Russian troops withdrew from the
   front after Napoleon persuaded the emperor Paul I of Russia to opt for
   armed neutrality (1801). Napoleon reorganised the French military and
   created a reserve army positioned to support campaigns either on the
   Rhine or in Italy. On all fronts, French advances caught the Austrians
   off-guard. At the time, the French army had 300,000 troops fighting the
   Coalition's forces. In Italy, however, increased Austrian pressure
   reversed the situation, and Napoleon had to mobilise the Reserve Army.
   He clashed with the Austrians at Marengo ( June 14, 1800) and would
   have lost had it not been for General Desaix's timely intervention to
   turn back the Austrian attacks and defeat them. Desaix died in the
   battle and Napoleon later commemorated his bravery by building
   monuments to him and including his name in the list of generals
   engraved on the face of the Arc de Triomphe. However, on the Rhine the
   decisive battle came when the French army of 130,000 faced the Austrian
   army of 120,000 at Hohenlinden ( December 3). The Austrians were
   defeated and temporarily left the conflict after the Treaty of
   Lunéville (February 1801).
   Napoleon leads troops over bridge at Arcole. Bonaparte had a reputation
   for leading from the front and inspiring spectacular morale.
   Enlarge
   Napoleon leads troops over bridge at Arcole. Bonaparte had a reputation
   for leading from the front and inspiring spectacular morale.

   The defeat of Austria left the United Kingdom as Napoleon's main
   problem. The United Kingdom remained an important influence on the
   Continental powers in encouraging their resistance to France. London
   had brought the Second Coalition together through subsidies, and
   Napoleon realised that without British defeat or a treaty with the UK
   he could not achieve a complete peace. The British army remained small
   and presented little or no danger to France itself, but the Royal Navy
   offered a continuing threat to French shipping and to the French
   colonies in the Caribbean. Additionally, the British had sufficient
   funds to unite the Great Powers on the Continent against France and,
   despite numerous defeats, the Austrian army remained a potent danger
   for Napoleonic France. Napoleon, however, could not invade Great
   Britain directly. As the British Admiral Jervis's famous phrase put it:
   "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they
   will not come by sea". Admiral Horatio Nelson defeated the French fleet
   in the Battle of the Nile ( August 1 1798) at Aboukir (Abu Qir), and
   the British also quickly contained a French expedition sent to Ireland
   in conjunction with the Irish Rebellion of 1798.

The Peace of Amiens and the resumption of war between France and Britain

   The Treaty of Amiens ( 25 March 1802) resulted in peace between the UK
   and France, and marked the final collapse of the Second Coalition. But
   the Treaty always seemed unlikely to endure: it satisfied neither side,
   and both sides dishonoured parts of it. Military actions soon clouded
   the peace: the French intervened in the Swiss civil strife (
   Stecklikrieg) and occupied several coastal cities in Italy, while the
   United Kingdom occupied Malta. Napoleon attempted to exploit the brief
   peace at sea to restore the colonial rule in the rebellious Antilles.
   The expedition, though initially successful, would soon turn to a
   disaster, with the French commander and Bonaparte’s brother-in-law,
   Charles Leclerc, dying of yellow fever and almost his entire force
   destroyed by the disease combined with the fierce attacks by the
   rebels.

   Hostilities between Great Britain and France recommenced on May 18,
   1803. The Allied war-aims changed over the course of the conflict: a
   general desire to restore the French monarchy became an almost
   manichean struggle to stop Bonaparte.

   Bonaparte declared France an Empire on May 18, 1804 and crowned himself
   Emperor at Notre-Dame on December 2.

Third Coalition 1805

   Napoleon planned an invasion of the British Isles, and massed 180,000
   troops at Boulogne. However, in order to mount his invasion, he needed
   to achieve naval superiority — or at least to pull the British fleet
   away from the English Channel. A complex plan to distract the British
   by threatening their possessions in the West Indies failed when a
   Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve turned back after an
   inconclusive action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805. The Royal Navy
   blockaded Villeneuve in Cádiz until he left for Naples on October 19,
   but Lord Nelson caught and defeated his fleet at the Battle of
   Trafalgar on October 21. This battle cost Admiral Nelson his life at
   the hands of a French sharp-shooter, but Napoleon would never again
   have the opportunity to challenge the British at sea. Napoleon had sent
   nine different plans to Villeneuve and the indecisive French commander
   hesitated continually. By this time, however, Napoleon had already all
   but abandoned plans to invade the British Isles, and turned his
   attention to enemies on the Continent once again. The French army left
   Boulogne and moved towards Austria.

   The series of naval and colonial conflicts, including a large number of
   minor naval actions (such as the Action of 1805) that characterised the
   months leading up to Napoleon's decision to abort the invasion of Great
   Britain, gave perhaps a clear sign of the new nature of war. Conflicts
   in the Caribbean, and in particular the seizure of colonial bases and
   islands throughout the wars, would directly and immediately have an
   effect upon the European conflict, and battles thousands of miles apart
   could influence each other's outcomes. The Napoleonic conflict had
   reached the point at which subsequent historians could talk of a "
   world war". Only the Seven Years' War offered a precedent for
   widespread conflict on such a scale.

   In April 1805 the United Kingdom and Russia signed a treaty with the
   aim of removing the French from Holland and Switzerland. Austria joined
   the alliance after the annexation of Genoa and the proclamation of
   Napoleon as King of Italy on 17 March 1805.

   The Austrians began the war by invading Bavaria with an army of about
   70,000 under Karl Mack von Leiberich, and the French army marched out
   from Boulogne in late July, 1805 to confront them. At Ulm ( September
   25 - October 20) Napoleon managed to surround Mack's army in a
   brilliant envelopment, forcing its surrender without significant
   losses. With the main Austrian army north of the Alps defeated (another
   army under Archduke Charles maneuvered inconclusively against André
   Masséna's French army in Italy), Napoleon occupied Vienna. Far from his
   supply lines, he faced a superior Austro-Russian army under the command
   of Mikhail Kutuzov, with the Emperor Alexander of Russia personally
   present.

   On December 2 Napoleon crushed the joint Austro-Russian army in Moravia
   at Austerlitz (usually considered his greatest victory). He inflicted a
   total of 25,000 casualties on a numerically superior enemy army while
   sustaining fewer than 7,000 in his own force. After Austerlitz, Austria
   signed the Treaty of Pressburg ( 26 December 1805) and left the
   Coalition. The Treaty required the Austrians to give up Venetia to the
   French-dominated Kingdom of Italy and Tyrol to Bavaria.

   With the withdrawal of Austria from the war, stalemate ensued.
   Napoleon's army had a record of continuous unbroken victories on land,
   but the full force of the Russian army had not yet come into play.

Fourth Coalition 1806–1807

   French Army marches through Berlin in 1806.
   Enlarge
   French Army marches through Berlin in 1806.

   The Fourth Coalition (1806–1807) of Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden and
   the United Kingdom against France formed within months of the collapse
   of the previous coalition. In July 1806 Napoleon formed the
   Confederation of the Rhine out of the many tiny German states which
   constituted the Rhineland and most other parts of western Germany. He
   amalgamated many of the smaller states into larger electorates, duchies
   and kingdoms to make the governance of non-Prussian Germany smoother.
   Napoleon elevated the rulers of the two largest Confederation states,
   Saxony and Bavaria, to the status of kings.

   In August 1806 the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III made the
   decision to go to war independently of any other great power, save the
   distant Russia. A more sensible course of action might have involved
   declaring war the previous year and joining Austria and Russia. This
   might have contained Napoleon and prevented the Allied disaster at
   Austerlitz. In any event, the Russian army, an ally of Prussia, still
   remained far away when Prussia declared war. In September Napoleon
   unleashed all French forces east of the Rhine. Napoleon himself
   defeated a Prussian army at Jena ( October 14, 1806), and Davout
   defeated another at Auerstädt on the same day. Some 160,000 French
   soldiers (increasing in number as the campaign went on) went against
   Prussia and moved with such speed that Napoleon was able to destroy as
   an effective military force the entire quarter of a million strong
   Prussian army — which sustained 25,000 casualties, lost a further
   150,000 prisoners and 4,000 artillery pieces, and over 100,000 muskets
   stockpiled in Berlin. In the former battle Napoleon only fought a
   detachment of the Prussian force. The latter battle involved a single
   French corps defeating the bulk of the Prussian army. Napoleon entered
   into Berlin on 27 October 1806 and visited the tomb of Frederick the
   Great, there instructing his marshals to remove their hats, saying, "If
   he was alive we wouldn't be here today." In total Napoleon had taken
   only 19 days from beginning his attack on Prussia until knocking it out
   of the war with the capture of Berlin and the destruction of its
   principal armies at Jena and Auerstadt. By contrast Prussia had fought
   for three years in the War of the First Coalition with little
   achievement.

   In Berlin, Napoleon issued a series of decrees which, on November 21,
   1806 brought into effect the Continental System. This policy aimed to
   eliminate the threat of the United Kingdom by closing French-controlled
   territory to its trade. The United Kingdom's army remained a minimal
   threat to France; the UK maintained a standing army of just 220,000 at
   the height of the Napoleonic Wars, whereas France's strength peaked at
   over 1,500,000 in addition to the armies of numerous allies and several
   hundred thousand national guards that Napoleon could draft into the
   military if necessary. The Royal Navy however was instrumental in
   disrupting France's extra-continental trade - both by seizing and
   threatening French shipping and by seizing French colonial possessions
   - but could do nothing about France's trade with the major continental
   economies and posed no threat to French territory in Europe. In
   addition France's population and agricultural capacity far outstripped
   that of the United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom's industrial
   capacity was the greatest in Europe and its mastery of the seas allowed
   it to build up considerable economic strength through trade. That was
   sufficient to ensure that France was never able to consolidate its
   control over Europe in peace. However, many in the French government
   believed that cutting the United Kingdom off from the Continent would
   end its economic influence over Europe and isolate it. This was what
   the Continental System was designed to achieve, although it never
   succeeded in this objective.

   The next stage of the war involved the French driving Russian forces
   out of Poland and creating a new Duchy of Warsaw. Napoleon then turned
   north to confront the remainder of the Russian army and to attempt to
   capture the temporary Prussian capital at Königsberg. A tactical draw
   at Eylau ( February 7– 8) forced the Russians to withdraw further
   north. Napoleon then routed the Russian army at Friedland ( June 14).
   Following this defeat, Alexander had to make peace with Napoleon at
   Tilsit ( July 7, 1807). By September, Marshal Brune completed the
   occupation of Swedish Pomerania, allowing the Swedish army, however, to
   withdraw with all its munitions of war.

   At the Congress of Erfurt (September–October 1808) Napoleon and
   Alexander agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the
   Continental System, which led to the Finnish War of 1808–1809 and to
   the division of Sweden into two parts separated by the Gulf of Bothnia.
   The eastern part became the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland.

Fifth Coalition 1809

   Surrender of Madrid, 1808. Napoleon enters Spain's capital during the
   Peninsular War.
   Enlarge
   Surrender of Madrid, 1808. Napoleon enters Spain's capital during the
   Peninsular War.

   The Fifth Coalition ( 1809) of the United Kingdom and Austria against
   France formed as the United Kingdom engaged in the Peninsular War
   against France.

   Once again, the United Kingdom stood alone. Owing much to the existence
   of the English Channel and to the fact that the UK's army had never
   completely engaged the French, the British placed emphasis on naval
   rather than on terrestrial military strength. British military activity
   was limited mostly to the sea. In addition, the navy was repeatedly the
   UK's only line of defense as Bonaparte threatened to invade. Because of
   this concentration of effort, the British Royal Navy developed into a
   powerful force that was just as elite, if not more so, than the
   well-trained and formidable French infantry. During the time of the
   Fifth Coalition, the Navy won a succession of victories in the French
   colonies and another major naval victory at the Battle of Copenhagen (
   September 2, 1807).

   On land, the Fifth Coalition attempted few extensive military
   endeavours. One, the Walcheren Expedition of 1809, involved a dual
   effort by the British Army and the Royal Navy to relieve Austrian
   forces under intense French pressure. It ended in disaster after the
   Army commander - John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham - failed to capture the
   objective, the naval base of French-controlled Antwerp. For the most
   part of the years of the Fifth Coalition, British military operations
   on land — outside of the Peninsular War — remained restricted to
   hit-and-run operations. These were executed by the Royal Navy, who
   dominated the sea after having beaten down almost all substantial naval
   opposition from France and her allies and blockading what remained of
   the latter's naval forces in heavily fortified French-controlled ports.
   These rapid-attack operations were a sort of exo-territorial guerrilla
   strikes: they were aimed mostly at destroying blockaded French naval
   and mercantile shipping, and disrupting French supplies,
   communications, and military units stationed near the coasts. Often,
   when British allies attempted military actions within several dozen
   miles or so of the sea, the Royal Navy would be present and would land
   troops and supplies and aid the allied land forces in a concerted
   operation. Royal Navy ships were even known to provide artillery
   support against French units should fighting stray near enough to the
   coastline. However, these operations were limited to the ability and
   quality of the land forces. For example, when operating with
   inexperienced guerrilla forces in Spain, the Royal Navy sometimes
   failed to achieve their objectives simply for lack of manpower that was
   supposed to have been supplied for the operation by the Navy's
   guerrilla allies.
   The French Empire in Europe in 1811, near its peak extent
   Enlarge
   The French Empire in Europe in 1811, near its peak extent

   The struggle also continued in the sphere of economic warfare — the
   French Continental System vs. the British naval blockade of
   French-controlled territory. Due to military shortages and lack of
   organisation in French territory, numerous breaches of the Continental
   System occurred as French-dominated states engaged in illicit (though
   often tolerated) trade with British smugglers. Both sides entered
   additional conflicts in attempts to enforce their blockade; the British
   fought the United States in the War of 1812 (1812-1814), and the French
   engaged in the Peninsular War (1808-1814). The Iberian conflict began
   when Portugal continued trade with the United Kingdom despite French
   restrictions. When Spain failed to maintain the system the alliance
   with France came to an end and French troops gradually encroached on
   its territory until Madrid was occupied. British intervention soon
   followed.

   Austria, previously an ally of the French, took the opportunity to
   attempt to restore its imperial territories in Germany as held prior to
   Austerlitz. Austria achieved a number of initial victories against the
   thinly-spread army of Marshal Davout. Napoleon had left Davout with
   only 170,000 troops to defend France's entire eastern frontier. (In the
   1790s, 800,000 troops had carried out the same task, but holding a much
   shorter front.)

   Napoleon had enjoyed easy success in Spain, retaking Madrid, defeating
   the Spanish and consequently forcing a withdrawal of the heavily
   out-numbered British army from the Iberian Peninsula ( Battle of
   Corunna, 16 January 1809). Austria's attack prevented Napoleon from
   successfully wrapping up operations against British forces by
   necessitating his departure for Austria, and he never returned to the
   Peninsula theatre. In his absence and in the absence of his best
   marshals (Davout remained in the east throughout the war) the French
   situation deteriorated, especially when the prodigious British general,
   Sir Arthur Wellesley, arrived to command the British forces.

   The Austrians drove into the Duchy of Warsaw, but suffered defeat at
   the Battle of Radzyn April 19, 1809. The Polish army captured West
   Galicia following its earlier success.

   Napoleon assumed personal command in the east and bolstered the army
   there for his counter-attack on Austria. After a well-run campaign
   that, after a few small battles, forced the Austrians to withdraw from
   Bavaria, Napoleon advanced into Austria. His hurried attempted to cross
   the Danube resulted in the massive Battle of Aspern-Essling ( 22 May
   1809) — Napoleon's first significant tactical defeat. Failure by the
   Austrian commander, Archduke Karl, to follow up on his indecisive
   victory meant that Napoleon could prepare for a renewed attempt to
   seize Vienna, and in early July he did so. He defeated the Austrians at
   Wagram, on July 5 - 6. (During this battle Napoleon stripped Marshal
   Bernadotte of his title and ridiculed him in front of other senior
   officers. Shortly thereafter, Bernadotte took up the offer from Sweden
   to fill the vacant position of Crown Prince there. Later he would
   actively participate in wars against his former Emperor.)

   The War of the Fifth Coalition ended with the Treaty of Schönbrunn (
   October 14, 1809). In the east only the Tyrolese rebels led by Andreas
   Hofer continued to fight the French-Bavarian army until finally
   defeated in November 1809, while in the west the Peninsular War
   continued.

   In 1810 the French Empire reached its greatest extent. On the
   continent, the British and Portuguese remained restricted to the area
   around Lisbon behind their impregnable lines of Torres Vedras. Napoleon
   married Marie-Louise, an Austrian Archduchess, in order to ensure a
   more stable alliance with Austria and to provide the Emperor with an
   heir, something his first wife, Josephine, had failed to do. As well as
   the French empire, Napoleon controlled the Swiss Confederation, the
   Confederation of the Rhine, the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of
   Italy. Allied territories included: the Kingdom of Spain ( Joseph
   Bonaparte); Kingdom of Westphalia ( Jerome Bonaparte); the Kingdom of
   Naples ( Joachim Murat, brother-in-law); Principality of Lucca and
   Piombino ( Felix Bacciochi, brother-in-law); and his former enemies,
   Prussia and Austria.

Sixth Coalition 1812–1814

          .

   The Sixth Coalition ( 1812– 1814) consisted of the United Kingdom and
   Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria and a number of German States.
   Europe in 1812
   Enlarge
   Europe in 1812
   Battle of Somosierra (30 November 1808) in Spain
   Enlarge
   Battle of Somosierra ( 30 November 1808) in Spain

   In 1812 Napoleon invaded Russia. He aimed to compel Emperor Alexander I
   to remain in the Continental System and to remove the imminent threat
   of a Russian invasion of Poland. The French-led Grande Armée,
   consisting of 650,000 men (270,000 Frenchmen and many soldiers of
   allies or subject areas), crossed the Niemen River on June 23, 1812.
   Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War, while Napoleon proclaimed a Second
   Polish war, but against the expectations of the Poles (who supplied
   almost 100,000 troops for the invasion-force) he avoided any
   concessions to Poland, having in mind further negotiations with Russia.
   Russia maintained a scorched-earth policy of retreat, broken only by
   the Borodino on September 7. This bloody confrontation ended in a
   tactical draw, but Napoleon eventually forced the Russians to back
   down, thus opening the road to Moscow. By September 14 1812 the Grande
   Armée had captured Moscow; although by this point the Russians had
   largely abandoned the city, even releasing prisoners from Moscow's
   prisons to inconvenience the French. Alexander I refused to capitulate,
   and with no sign of clear victory in sight Napoleon had to withdraw
   from Moscow after the governor, Count Fyodor Vasilievich Rostopchin,
   allegedly ordered the city burnt to the ground. So the disastrous Great
   Retreat began, with 370,000 casualties largely as a result of
   starvation and the freezing weather conditions, and 200,000 captured.
   By November, when the remnants of the Grande Armée crossed the Berezina
   River, only 27,000 fit soldiers remained. Napoleon then left his army
   and returned to Paris to prepare the defence of Poland from the
   advancing Russians. The situation was not as dire as it might at first
   have seemed — the Russians had lost around 400,000 men and their army
   was similarly depleted. However they had the advantage of shorter
   supply lines and were able to replenish their armies with greater speed
   than the French.

   Meanwhile, in the Peninsular War, at Vitoria ( June 21, 1813), Arthur
   Wellesley's victory over Joseph Bonaparte finally broke the French
   power in Spain. The French had to retreat out of Spain, over the
   Pyrenees.

   Seeing an opportunity in Napoleon's historic defeat, Prussia re-entered
   the war. Napoleon vowed that he would create a new army as large as
   that he had sent into Russia, and quickly built up his forces in the
   east from 30,000 to 130,000 and eventually to 400,000. Napoleon
   inflicted 40,000 casualties on the Allies at Lützen ( May 2) and
   Bautzen ( May 20 - 21 1813). Both battles involved total forces of over
   250,000 — making them some of the largest conflicts of the wars so far.

   The belligerents declared an armistice from June 4 1813 (continuing
   until August 13) during which time both sides attempted to recover from
   approximately quarter of a million losses since April. During this time
   Allied negotiations finally brought Austria out in open opposition to
   France. Two principal Austrian armies took the field, adding an
   additional 300,000 troops to the Allied armies in Germany. In total the
   Allies now had around 800,000 front-line troops in the German theatre,
   with a strategic reserve of 350,000 formed to support the frontline
   operations.

   Napoleon succeeded in bringing the total imperial forces in the region
   up to around 650,000 — although only 250,000 came under his direct
   command, with another 120,000 under Nicolas Charles Oudinot and 30,000
   under Davout. The Confederation of the Rhine furnished Napoleon with
   the bulk of the remainder of his forces, with Saxony and Bavaria as the
   principal contributors. In addition, to the south, Murat's Kingdom of
   Naples and Eugène de Beauharnais's Kingdom of Italy had a combined
   total of 100,000 men under arms. In Spain an additional 150,000 to
   200,000 French troops steadily retreated before Spanish and British
   forces numbering around 150,000. Thus in total around 900,000 French
   troops in all theatres faced somewhere around a million Allied troops
   (not including the strategic reserve under formation in Germany). The
   gross figures may however mislead slightly, as most of the German
   troops fighting on the side of the French were unreliable at best and
   on the verge of defecting to the Allies. It is reasonable to say that
   Napoleon could count on no more than 450,000 troops in Germany — which
   left him outnumbered about two to one.

   Following the end of the armistice, Napoleon seemed to have regained
   the initiative at Dresden (August 1813), where he defeated a
   numerically-superior allied army and inflicted enormous casualties,
   while the French army sustained relatively few. However the failures of
   his marshals and a slow resumption of the offensive on his part cost
   him any advantage that this victory might have secured him. At the
   Battle of Leipzig in Saxony ( October 16 - 19, 1813), also called the
   "Battle of the Nations", 191,000 French fought more than 300,000
   Allies, and the defeated French had to retreat into France. Napoleon
   then fought a series of battles, including the Battle of
   Arcis-sur-Aube, in France itself, but the overwhelming numbers of the
   Allies steadily forced him back.

   During this time Napoleon fought his Six Days Campaign, in which he won
   multiple battles against the enemy forces advancing towards Paris.
   However, during this entire campaign he never managed to field more
   than 70,000 troops against more than half a million Allied troops. At
   the Treaty of Chaumont ( March 9 1814) the Allies agreed to preserve
   the Coalition until Napoleon's total defeat.
   The Russian army enters Paris in 1814.
   Enlarge
   The Russian army enters Paris in 1814.

   The Allies entered Paris on March 30, 1814 Napoleon determined to fight
   on, even now, incapable of fathoming his massive fall from power.
   During the campaign he had issued a decree for 900,000 fresh
   conscripts, but only a fraction of these ever materialised, and
   Napoleon's increasingly unrealistic schemes for victory eventually gave
   way to the reality of the hopeless situation. Napoleon abdicated on
   April 6. However, occasional military actions continued in Italy, Spain
   and Holland throughout the spring of 1814.

   The victors exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba, and restored the
   French Bourbon monarchy in the person of Louis XVIII. They signed the
   Treaty of Fontainebleau ( 11 April 1814) and initiated the Congress of
   Vienna to redraw the map of Europe.

Gunboat War 1807–1814

          (1807–1814)

   Denmark-Norway originally declared itself neutral in the Napoleonic
   Wars, but engaged in trade that profited from the war and established a
   navy. After a show of intimidation in the first Battle of Copenhagen (
   2 April 1801), the British captured large portions of the entire Danish
   fleet in the Second Battle of Copenhagen (August–September 1807). This
   ended the Danish neutrality, and the Danish engaged in a naval guerilla
   war in which small gunboats would attack larger British ships in Danish
   and Norwegian waters. The Gunboat War effectively ended with a British
   victory at the Battle of Lyngør in 1812, involving the destruction of
   the last large Danish ship — a frigate.

Seventh Coalition 1815

          .

   The Seventh Coalition (1815) pitted the United Kingdom, Russia,
   Prussia, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and a number of German states
   against France. The period known as the Hundred Days began after
   Napoleon left Elba and landed at Cannes ( March 1, 1815). Travelling to
   Paris, picking up support as he went, he eventually overthrew the
   restored Louis XVIII. The allies immediately gathered their armies to
   meet him again. Napoleon raised 280,000 men, whom he distributed
   amongst several armies. To add to the 90,000 troops in the standing
   army he recalled well over a quarter of a million veterans from past
   campaigns and issued a decree for the eventual draft of around 2.5
   million new men into the French army. This faced an initial Allied
   force of about 700,000 — although Allied campaign plans provided for
   one million frontline troops supported by around 200,000 garrison,
   logistics and other auxiliary personnel. This force was intended to be
   overwhelming against the numerically inferior imperial French army
   which never came close to reaching Napoleon's goal of more than 2.5
   million under arms.
   Map of the Waterloo campaign
   Enlarge
   Map of the Waterloo campaign

   Napoleon took about 124,000 men of the Army of the North on a
   pre-emptive strike against the Allies in Belgium. He intended to attack
   the Allied armies before they combined, in the hope of driving the
   British into the sea and the Prussians out of the war. His march to the
   frontier achieved the surprise he had planned. He forced Prussia to
   fight at Ligny on June 16 1815, and the defeated Prussians retreated in
   some disorder. On the same day the left wing of the Army of the North,
   under the command of Marshal Michel Ney, succeeded in stopping any of
   Wellington's forces going to the aid of Blücher's Prussians by fighting
   a blocking action at Quatre Bras. But Ney failed to clear the
   cross-roads and Wellington re-inforced the position. With the Prussian
   retreat, Wellington was forced to retreat as well, however. He fell
   back to a previously reconnoitered position on an escarpment at Mont St
   Jean, a few miles south of the village of Waterloo. Napoleon took the
   reserve of the Army of the North, and reunited his forces with those of
   Ney to pursue Wellington's army, but not before he ordered Marshal
   Grouchy to take the right wing of the Army of the North and stop the
   Prussians reorganising. Grouchy failed and although he engaged and
   defeated the Prussian rearguard under the command of Lt-Gen. von
   Thielmann in the Battle of Wavre (18–19 June), the rest of the Prussian
   army "marched towards the sound of the guns" at Waterloo. The start of
   the Battle of Waterloo on the morning of June 18 1815 was delayed for
   several hours as Napoleon waited until the ground had dried from the
   previous night's rain. By late afternoon the French army had not
   succeeded in driving Wellington's Allied forces from the escarpment on
   which they stood. When the Prussians arrived and attacked the French
   right flank in ever increasing numbers, Napoleon's strategy of keeping
   the Allied armies divided had failed and his army was driven from the
   field in confusion by a combined Allied general advance.

   Grouchy partially redeemed himself by organizing a successful and
   well-ordered retreat towards Paris, where Marshal Davout had 117,000
   men at the ready to turn back the 116,000 men of Blücher and
   Wellington. Militarily it appeared quite possible (indeed probable)
   that the French could defeat Wellington and Blücher, but politics
   proved the source of the Emperor's downfall and, furthermore, even had
   Davout succeeded in defeating the two northern Coalition armies, around
   400,000 Russian and Austrian troops were still advancing from the east.

   On arriving at Paris three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to
   the hope of a concerted national resistance; but the temper of the
   chambers, and of the public generally, did not favour his view. The
   politicians forced Napoleon to abdicate again on June 22, 1815. Despite
   the Emperor’s abdication, irregular warfare continued along the eastern
   borders and on the outskirts of Paris until the signing of a cease-fire
   on July 4. On 15 July Napoleon surrendered himself to the British
   squadron at Rochefort. The Allies exiled him to the remote
   South-Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died on 5 May 1821.
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