Episode 62 – Vive L’Empereur!

Hello, and welcome to Relevant History! I’m Dan Toler. This is the last in a six-part episode arc on the French Revolution. We’ll be picking up near the end of the story, so if you want all the background and context, I’d recommend jumping back to Episode 57 – Bastille Day, and starting from there. Napoleon will still be here waiting for you at the end of the road. Also, Patreon memberships are still only $1 a month, which gets you access to the Discord server and all 25 episodes of my video series, Dan’s War College. But sign up soon, because at some point in the future, video access will go back up to $5 a month, although a $1 membership will still get you Discord access. And as always, the best way to support the show is to share it with your friends and on social media.

-Now, you may have noticed that this episode is unusually long not just by my standards but by anyone’s standards. I foolishly promised six episodes on the French Revolution, planned to cover the rise and fall of Napoleon in a single episode, and what had started as a very brief summary turned into a slightly longer summary. I figure all my episodes are too long to listen to in one sitting, and the major podcast players leave bookmarks for you anyway nowadays. And if we’re being honest, even at its current length, this episode is an exceedingly brief history of the Napoleonic era, and I hope it inspires you all to learn more. That said, because this episode is very long, I’ve inserted some chapters. These will probably only work on YouTube’s podcast service for now. And I know that only a few of you are on YouTube, but my guess is that with YouTube getting into the podcast business, Spotify and others will also start providing some kind of chapter feature. If you’re listening to this in the future, you’ll know better than I do. But at least these chapters should give you some audio markers for when we’re skipping from one big idea to the next and it’s a good stopping point. That way, it’s easier to treat this like an audiobook, which is basically what it is. Show notes over; let’s get started!

Where we left off last episode, the War of the First Coalition has just ended. Napoleon Bonaparte has risen from humble beginnings to conquer northern Italy and turn it into a pair of French client states: the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics. France remains at war with Great Britain, but the British have little appetite for putting boots on the ground on the European mainland, and are content to fight a naval war, attacking French colonies and merchant shipping, and maintaining a blockade off the French coast. Inside France, Paul Barras and his fellow Directors have expelled the royalists from the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of the Ancients, and are acting as dictators in all but name. With French civil society exhausted by eight years of revolution, there is no more National Guard, no more sans culottes mob, no more Vendee uprising. Control of France now lies in the hands of one organization: the army. And that army increasingly depends on our man of the hour, Napoleon.

Chapter One: The French Directory

I want to start this episode’s story not with Napoleon, but with another man, the former corrupt bishop and new, even more corrupt, foreign minister: Talleyrand. As foreign minister, Talleyrand is involved in all kinds of negotiations with all kinds of countries. One of those countries is the United States, which plays an interesting role in the French Revolution. Despite being an official ally of the French, George Washington’s United States had steered clear of the war on the basis that the alliance is defensive in nature. Since France declared war on her enemies first, the US is not bound to take any action. But during the War of the First Coalition, the US had remained one of the few countries willing to openly trade with the French. This in turn had angered the British, who had interdicted American ships bound for French ports, which had stoked tension between Britain and the US, particularly the Jeffersonian Democrats, who sympathized with the French to begin with. George Washington had responded with his usual even-handedness and negotiated a treaty with the British called the Jay Treaty, which was signed in 1794 and went into effect in 1796. Now, the Jay Treaty resolves a lot of outstanding issues left over from the American War for Independence, but for our purposes the most important thing it does is establish most favored nation trading status between the US and Great Britain. The two countries are to trade freely, with only a limited number of tariffs on goods in a handful of select industries. This is a better deal for American merchants than existing trade conditions with France, since it allows them to trade with Britain and not have to worry about their goods being seized by Royal Navy ships. Instead, they risk interdiction by French ships, which is less of a threat because of the British blockade on France, but a number of American ships have still been seized by French forces in the Caribbean.

        -In 1797, the new American President John Adams dispatches a special commission to France to negotiate a new trade deal with the Directory. This is meant to quell tensions between the US and France and hopefully make a profit for American merchants as well. The French would also like to get some concessions from the US delegation, and they’re in a good position to do so. While they’re still at war with Britain, French merchants are now able to trade freely with former enemies like Spain, Austria, the Netherlands, and Prussia, and American merchants are no longer their economic lifeline to the wider world. On the surface, Talleyrand also looks like the ideal man to run negotiations. If you’ll recall, he had lived in exile for a while in Philadelphia, and during his time in the US he had learned a little about the American economy and made friends with a number of leading merchants and politicians. What he hadn’t learned – or hadn’t fully internalized – was American culture. See, in these days, corruption isn’t just part of doing business like it will be in 20th- and 21st-century America. In politics and in trade, it’s seen as disqualifying.

        -Anyway, the three-man American delegation consists of US ambassador to France Charles Cotesworth Pinckney, former Massachusetts congressman and future Vice President Elbridge Gerry, and future Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall. These men arrive in France in October of 1797 to begin negotiations, and their instructions are clear: to work out a trade treaty at virtually any cost. They are not to assign any blame for deteriorating French-US relations, and are not to demand any sort of compensation for US ships seized by the French. The idea is to let bygones be bygones and focus solely on the future.

        -In his book The Age of Federalism, American historian Stanley M. Elkins describes what happens next:

        “The envoys had a fifteen-minute audience with Talleyrand on October 8, presented their credentials, and were told that the Directory had asked for a report on relations with the United States which he expected to have finished in two or three days, ‘after which its further intentions with respect to us would be known.’ Cards of hospitality were delivered to them the following day… Four days later they received a visit from a Jean Conrad Hottinger (later referred to as ‘X’ in the dispatches published in America), who said he had Talleyrand’s confidence and who proceeded to outline the conditions he believed would have to be met before the Directory would permit any negotiations to begin, or would even consider it… All unpaid debts contracted by France with American suppliers should be assumed by the United States government. Indemnities for spoliations committed on American commerce which any future claims commission might find France liable for should also be paid by the American government. The United States must make a ‘considerable loan’ to France, and finally, there must be ‘something for the pocket’; a large sum of money for the ‘private use’ of the Directory and Foreign Minister… that is, a substantial bribe.”

        -The American negotiators refuse to make a bribe, and in response Talleyrand refuses to recognize their credentials. Back-room negotiations continue between the Americans and Talleyrand’s subordinates, including “X” and two other men referred to in American communications as “Y” and “Z.” French demands escalate, and the French agents even threaten an invasion of the US if French terms are not met. John Adams tells Congress about the negotiations in general terms, but doesn’t tell them about Talleyrand’s refusal to acknowledge US diplomats, his demand for bribes, or his threats. The Jeffersonian Democrats, who are warmly-disposed towards the French Revolution, think that Adams, a member of the opposing Federalist Party, is trying to make the French look bad, and they demand the release of the diplomatic communications. Adams agrees on March 20th 1798, and lo and behold, it turns out that he had actually been trying to make the French look good in order to avoid escalating tensions. Members of both parties, the Federalists and the Democrats, are incredibly angry, and Federalists begin calling for war. Adams doesn’t give in or call for a declaration of war, but does sign a bill authorizing the purchase of 18 new warships and, on July 7th, the US officially ends its alliance with France. This affair, called the “XYZ Affair” because of the aliases of the French agents, also goes badly for Talleyrand. The Directory calls him in for a meeting where they ask him what he was thinking by demanding a bribe and angering the Americans, and Talleyrand denies all knowledge of the affair, saying that X, Y, and Z were acting independently without his orders. He even sets up a commission to investigate the affair, which predictably clears him of any wrongdoing.

        -Anyway, the XYZ Affair and breakdown in Franco-American relations leads to an event called the Quasi-War, where the US and France are officially at peace, but where both sides authorize privateers to raid each-others’ shipping in the Caribbean. Peace will eventually be negotiated in 1800-1801, when Napoleon has enough power to force cooler heads to prevail. But for now, Talleyrand has managed to alienate one of France’s only trading partners at a time when the French are still dealing with a lot of trouble.

        -This isn’t the only time the French government will shoot itself in the foot by demanding bribes, and Talleyrand isn’t the only one doing it. As I keep saying, corruption is everywhere. The Directory’s leader, Paul Barras, and his main ally, Jean-François Rewbell, are offered a peace deal by Great Britain in July of 1797, but they demand personal bribes of 500,000 livres, which the British refuse. They will succeed in extracting 400,000 livres from Portugal for an August peace treaty, but the failure to secure peace with Britain ranks among the worst mistakes ever made by French leaders.

See, while France is only officially at war with Great Britain, the Directory and the army are still busy all over Europe. In Belgium, which France has now annexed, citizens are now subject to the same levee en masse as their fellow-citizens in France. This leads to a rebellion not unlike the Vendee uprising, and the army has to go in and restore order. At the same time, the Army invades the Papal States, throws the Pope out of Rome, and establishes a new Roman Republic, which is ostensibly led by Roman locals but is in fact designed by French diplomats and northern-Italian revolutionaries from the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics.

        -The Revolutionary model works worse in Rome than almost anywhere else, and it has to do with the suppression of the Catholic Church. In other parts of Europe, the Church has been a major player and the provider of social welfare for the poor. But in Rome, the Church has literally been the state for over a thousand years. Seizure of Church property means seizure of virtually everything. The shutdown of Church functions means the shutdown of virtually everything. In the end, the Roman Republic will last for only a year before the Pope, backed by southern-Italian Neapolitan troops, makes a triumphant return to Rome, and the revolutionary government is overthrown. This will kick off the War of the Second Coalition, which we’ll get to in a minute. For now, I’ll just note that the fall of the short-lived Roman Republic demonstrates that the French strategy of setting up so-called “sister republics” has its limits.

        -Speaking of sister republics, the French Army also invades Switzerland in the spring of 1798. At the time, Switzerland is a hodgepodge of loosely-aligned semi-independent cantons, each with its own local army pledged to common defense. When some of the cantons side with the invading French, Switzerland is quickly overrun and French authorities work with Swiss Republicans to establish the so-called Helvetic Republic, which is organized along revolutionary lines. This republic will last for five years, with lots of local unrest and periodic revolts by local people. In 1803, Napoleon will allow the republic to collapse and revert to a federated state called the Swiss Confederation, which is the same Swiss state that exists today. The French-majority region of Switzerland will remain a French client state until 1810, when it too collapses and returns to local Swiss rule as part of the Swiss Confederation. But for the time being, France has established yet another sister republic on its borders, to act as a buffer between it and the monarchical Central European powers of Austria and Prussia.

        -If all of this isn’t giving you enough of a headache, France is still dealing with its ongoing financial crisis. Last episode, I made a mistake and said that the treasury minister had been replaced during the Coup of 18 Fructidor. Well, he hadn’t. Technically, there is no treasury minister, since the position is properly referred to as the “finance minister,” and it’s occupied by an apolitical technocrat named Dominique-Vincent Ramel. Ramel was appointed way back in February of 1796, and holds his post until July of 1799. During this time, he has to deal not just with inflation and soaring prices, but with scads of French war debt. So he does something not even the most radical revolutionaries had done: in September of 1797, he simply writes off two-thirds of the French national debt and declares that it’s not getting paid. This frees up a lot of government funds, but it also makes it harder for the French government to obtain loans in the future. For example, it helps explain why the American diplomats in the XYZ Affair are so hesitant to approve a loan to France from the US government.

        -At the same time, Ramel is forced to re-institute a number of unpopular taxes. By now, the Revolutionary government has squeezed all the juice it can from the former aristocrats, and the new elite under the Directory are enriching themselves via bribes and graft, so the treasury once again has to balance its books on the backs of the working class. Tax commissions are re-established in all French départements, and the old tariffs and toll taxes rear their ugly heads once more. You know, the taxes that had made the Third Estate so angry way back in 1789. There are now taxes on all government licenses; there’s a stamp tax for postage and newspapers, and there’s once again going to be a property tax, plus a new annual tax on doors and windows. Ramel even proposes re-establishing the old salt tax, but backs down in the face of public outrage.

So France is setting up sister republics with varying degrees of success, trying to balance its books, and is engaged in a war of piracy with the United States. All of this, particularly the setting up of sister republics, sows the seeds of future conflict. But for now, the French government is focused on defeating its only official enemy: Great Britain. The Directory has decided on an ambitious plan to invade Britain and force a peace, after which France will be able to grow fat on trade, secure in its colonial possessions, and dig its way out of the financial hole it’s found itself in. The Directory chooses Lazare Hoche to lead this expedition, but in September of 1797, he dies unexpectedly of tuberculosis at only 29 years old. So the Directory has to find someone else to lead their invasion, and Napoleon Bonaparte soon becomes the most obvious choice.

        -Napoleon himself is just returning from Italy as a hero, first in war and then in the peace negotiations. In their book The Age of Napoleon: The Story of Civilization Volume XI, American historians Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “When Napoleon reached Paris, December 5, 1797, he found a new Terror operating, aimed at all conservatives, and substituting Guiana for the guillotine. Nevertheless all classes seemed to unite in feting the invincible young general who had added half of Italy to France. He put aside for the present his look of stern command. He dressed modestly, and pleased variously: the conservatives by lauding order; the Jacobins by appearing to have raised Italy from vassalage to liberty; the intelligentsia by writing that ‘the true conquests, the only ones that leave no regrets, are those that are made over ignorance.’ On December 10 the dignitaries of the national government honored him with an official welcome. Mme. de Staël was there, and her Memoirs preserve the scene:

“The Directory gave General Bonaparte a solemn reception which in some respects marked an epoch in the history of the Revolution. They chose for this ceremony the court of the Luxembourg Palace; no hall would have been vast enough to contain the crowd that was attracted; there were spectators in every window and on the roof. The five Directors, in Roman costume, were placed on a stage in the court; near them were the deputies of the Council of the Ancients, the Council of Five Hundred, and the Institute….

“Bonaparte arrived very simply dressed, followed by his aides-de-camp or assistant officers; all of them taller than he, but bent with the respect they showed him. The elite of France, gathered there, covered the victorious general with applause. He was the hope of every man, republican or royalist; all saw the present and the future as held in his strong hands.

         “On that occasion he handed the Directors the completed Treaty of Campoformio. It was officially ratified, and Napoleon could for a time rest on his victories in diplomacy as well as war.”

        -Napoleon’s presence in Paris makes the Directors nervous. In Italy, he had acted not just as a general, but as a diplomat, negotiating the end of the war with Austria without any kind of authorization. Now he’s back in Paris hobnobbing with Talleyrand and the Abbé Sieyès and Jacques-Louis David, along with other politicians and scientists, a mix of France’s political and intellectual elite. With so many connections, an ambitious man like Napoleon could threaten the Directory itself. But he’s a military genius, so the Directors decide to kill two birds with one stone. They’ll get Napoleon out of Paris by giving him command of the invasion of England.

        -This English invasion looks like a good idea on paper, since it could knock Great Britain out of the war and secure peace for the new French government. But there are a couple of problems with that. First, the troops to be used for the invasion are not the same men who had served Napoleon in Italy. The invasion army has only seen combat in the Vendée, and had spent most of their time at peace or in garrison duty. Just getting them trained to go toe-to-toe with the British army is going to take time, at least several months and probably more than a year. It’s a solvable problem, but it’s going to take time.

        -The second issue is not solvable any time soon, and that’s the issue of naval strength. See, when the French war ministry first decided on a British invasion, it was in an unusual position – it actually commanded enough naval strength to fight the Royal Navy. While the British had still outnumbered the French fleet, France also had Spanish allies and their Dutch puppet state in the Batavian Republic, and both of these countries had strong fleets of their own. But then, on October 11th 1797, the main Dutch fleet under Admiral Jan De Winter had encountered a similarly-sized British fleet commanded by Admiral Adam Duncan. The British had the winds at their backs, and Duncan’s fleet was able to cut off De Winter’s rearguard, surrounding and capturing four ships before the rest of De Winter’s fleet was able to turn around and engage. The battle, known as the Battle of Camperdown, was one of the most lobsided fights in naval history. Nine of the sixteen Dutch ships of the line are captured, although they’re so badly damaged that the British can’t even use them. Regardless, the Dutch navy goes from first-tier to third-tier overnight, and the French alliance is once again outgunned on the high seas.

        -Napoleon explains the situation to the Directors in no uncertain terms. Even if he spends a year training his invasion army, the most likely outcome is failure. To begin with, the French navy would have to shuttle all the men across the English Channel, which would be difficult if not impossible unless the operation could be launched in total secrecy — which is unlikely, since British spies are everywhere. But even if the initial invasion were successful, the war itself would be a failure. Should the French army succeed in landing in England, the Royal Navy would close off the English Channel. It would be panic time, and they’d call home all their ships from the Caribbean and Indian Oceans, creating a large enough local force to totally stymie the French navy. Napoleon and his army would be isolated in England without any hope for resupply or reinforcement. Some people float the idea of invading via hot air balloon or early prototype submarines, but Napoleon shoots both those ideas down. No matter how you cut it, it’s a fool’s errand.

Chapter Two: The Invasion of Egypt

With Talleyrand’s support, Napoleon goes to the Directory with two alternatives: keep the French army in France and position them along the Rhine, or attack Egypt. There are good arguments for both. As to the Rhine, postwar negotiations with the Austrians aren’t going as well as had been hoped. The Treaty of Campo-Formio had required France to reimburse Austria for territory lost during the war and, if you’ll recall, Napoleon had invaded Venice and given it to the Austrians on a silver platter. This was meant to compensate for the loss of German territories west of the Rhine, but now the Austrians are saying that the seizure of German land is a new issue and that France owes them more compensation. A massive French army positioned along the Rhine would make a strong argument in French favor and deter any future war. But this proposal would leave Napoleon inside French borders, with a large army that he could threaten the Directory with should he so choose.

        -The Egyptian proposal is more interesting to Barras and his allies. At this time, Egypt is a province of the Ottoman Empire, but it also represents Britain’s fastest route to her Indian colonies. There’s no Suez Canal yet, but goods can be floated some way down the Nile, unloaded and transported over land, then re-loaded onto ships in the Red Sea. This is expensive, but it’s cheaper than transporting goods all the way around Africa, which is the other option. If the French army can capture Egypt, it will slow down British trade with the far east. And if the French can dig a canal through the Suez and build a new fleet, the French navy may even be able to threaten British India directly. Furthermore, while the British dominate most of the world’s oceans, control of the Mediterranean is still competitive. Unlike an invasion of the British Isles, an expeditionary army in Egypt isn’t automatically doomed to getting cut off and isolated. So the Directory agrees to let Napoleon try his grand Egyptian plan. This looks like a win-win. If he succeeds, France will gain a valuable new colony and be able to threaten British trade. If he fails, he’ll return home in disgrace and the Directory won’t have to worry about him anymore. Spoiler alert: neither of these things happens.

        -If the invasion sounds like a daunting prospect, Napoleon agrees. Prior to leaving, a senior officer asks him how long they will be gone, and Napoleon answers using the royal “we”:

        “A few months, or six years; all depends on circumstances. I will colonize the country. I will bring them artists and artisans of every description; women, actors, etc. We are but nine and twenty now, and we shall then be five-and-thirty. That is not an old age. Those six years will enable me, if all goes well, to get to India. Give out that you are going to Brest. Say so even to your family.”

        -What Napoleon means by that last bit is that the army is assembling in secret. Of course, it eventually becomes impossible to conceal huge concentrations of French troops at the Mediterranean port of Toulon, and the British figure out that Napoleon is going to be invading somewhere. But the destination of the invasion force is a closely-held secret. Even most of the transport ship captains won’t know where they’re going until the French fleet leaves port on May 19th 1798. It’s an impressive fleet, with 13 ships of the line, 42 frigates and other small ships, 16,000 sailors, 38,000 ground troops, and 280 transport ships. There’s also a group of 167 scientists, who Napoleon calls “Savants,” who are going to study Egyptian history, investigate archaeological sites, and – most importantly – conduct a survey for digging the proposed canal.

        -The French fleet does not sail unopposed. British Admiral Horatio Nelson is cruising the Mediterranean with his own fleet, and tries to tail them out of Toulon. The French fleet manages to elude him, and arrives at the tiny island of Malta on June 9th. At the time, Malta is still ruled by the Knights of Malta, an old crusading order that had defended the island from more than one invasion. When the Grand Master of the Knights of Malta refuses to allow more than two French ships into the harbor at once, Napoleon orders his fleet to shell the fortress of Valletta. Many of the Knights are Frenchmen, and lay down their weapons rather than fight a French attack. The rest of the Knights soon surrender, and Malta becomes a French possession. Meanwhile, Admiral Nelson’s fleet unwittingly passes the French fleet, stops at Alexandria, Egypt, finds no Frenchmen there, and moves on to the Aegean, where Nelson suspects that Napoleon may be attempting an invasion of Greece.

        -Napoleon, now following behind Nelson, lands at Alexandria in early July, quickly captures the port, and pursues the local Mameluke army south down the Nile towards Cairo. On July 21st, in sight of the pyramids of Giza, the French army defeats a superior, cavalry-heavy Mameluke force by forming up in squares and easily fighting off a massive mounted charge, then pushing the survivors all the way to the Nile, where many drown. This is the famous Battle of the Pyramids, and you can learn much more about it on my Patreon channel. Remember, Napoleon fights between 60 and 80 battles in his career, so time does not permit me to talk about them all, but we’ll go in depth on a few other major battles as we get to them.

        -The Mamelukes are a slave dynasty that has ruled Egypt in the name of the Ottomans for several centuries. And while Napoleon has successfully defeated them in just a few weeks, his invasion has now attracted the attention of a very angry Ottoman Sultan, who quickly forms an alliance with the British to help fight off the French invaders. Thankfully for the Sultan, Admiral Nelson’s fleet is already searching for the French invasion fleet, so even as the Ottomans and British are negotiating, the British are already in a position to help.

        -After initially missing Napoleon’s fleet, Admiral Nelson has sailed to Sicily and taken on supplies. There, he learns that Napoleon has invaded Egypt after all, and sails down to attack the French fleet. Nelson sends two of his fourteen ships of the line to investigate the port of Alexandria, while the rest of his fleet sails for Aboukir Bay, the most likely place for French ships to be anchored.

        -French Admiral Francois-Paul Brueys is indeed anchored at Aboukir Bay. Now, Napoleon understands that his supply fleet is critical to long-term success, and has ordered Brueys to avoid contact with the British at all costs. If the French fleet has to run away, they can always come back later; what they can’t afford is to lose a battle. But Brueys thinks he’s smarter than Napoleon, and rather than run away, he anchors his ships in what he believes to be an impenetrable defensive position, in a long line, with one end just against some shallow shoals that would be impossible to navigate. Any attacking British ships will have to sail along the entire line, enduring broadsides from all thirteen French ships.

        -When Nelson arrives on the evening of August 1st, Broueys’ lookouts see him coming, but Brueys believes it’s too late in the day for an attack, so he takes his time getting ready, expecting that the attack will come at dawn. Crucially, Broueys has a lot of sailors on land digging wells to replenish the fleet’s water, and he doesn’t hurry them back to the ships. This leaves the French fleet without enough gunners, so only the guns on the seaward side of the ships will be able to fire. But that shouldn’t be a problem, right? I mean, the ships are anchored such that the British can’t get around them without sailing onto shallow shoals and running aground. So even if the British do decide to attack immediately, the fleet should be safe

        -Unfortunately for the French, Nelson not only attacks right away, but one of his captains finds a narrow channel between the French line and the shoals, so Nelson is able to divide his fleet into two columns and sail down both sides of the French line. They surround the first six French ships, fire on them from all directions, and soon sink or capture them. Brueys’ fleet is already in trouble, but the battle’s not over. In his book 100 Decisive Battles From Ancient Times to the Present, American historian Paul K. Davis describes what happens next:

        “…the British ships proceeded along the line to engage the ships in the center. The last ship in the English line, Bellerophon, was just coming into play, and it made for the French flagship, the 120-gun L’Orient. Brueys’s crew now got into action. Bellerophon was badly damaged almost immediately, and it was soon forced to withdraw minus some masts. It had, however, landed a number of significant shots on L’Orient, and Brueys’s luck continued to be bad. While sitting in Aboukir Bay over the previous few weeks, Brueys ordered his ship re-painted, and cans of paint and thinner were carelessly stacked about the upper deck. English artillery fire set these alight, and the French flagship was soon burning. As Bellerophon limped away, Brueys detailed men to deal with the fire, and they were just beginning to contain it when the rest of the English fleet sailed into range.

        “The two ships that Nelson had sent to scout the Alexandria harbor had just arrived, and the Alexander and Swiftsure made for the burning L’Orient. Alexander sailed through the gap between L’Orient and Tonnant and began pounding on the flagship from the unstaffed landward side while Swiftsure anchored on the seaward side and did the same. Two more English ships were soon adding their fire. The L’Orient’s guns did significant damage to Swiftsure, but the flames were spreading and the flagship was doomed. Brueys was killed when his left leg was severed by a cannonball, and at 2115 [hours] the crew of L’Orient began abandoning ship. At 2130, flames reached the powder magazine and the ship blew up with a roar heard 50 miles away. Flying flaming debris set fire to nearby ships, and the explosion was so deafening and sudden that the guns on all ships fell silent.”

        -The battle is a complete disaster for the French. In addition to the L’Orient, a second ship of the line is also sunk, and nine more are captured, compared with zero ships lost for the British. The Battle of Aboukir Bay cripples the French navy, allowing the British to have free rein in the Mediterranean for the next several years. To add insult to injury, the British will even take Malta from the French in the year 1800, and will use it as a major naval base until after World War II.

        -With his supply fleet destroyed, Napoleon’s mission in Egypt is all but doomed, but the future emperor is not one to give up easily. In his book The French Revolution, From 1793 to 1799, French historian Georges Lefebvre writes:

        “Nevertheless Bonaparte organized his conquest as though it were to endure. He left the native administration in office, but controlled it; in other words, he established a protectorate. His aims became more specific. He created a council of notables, chosen by him, for it was thus that he conceived the constitutional regime and the social hierarchy. His religious policy asserted itself; he affected a profound respect for Islam and showered its leaders with favors. His enlightened despotism undertook to modernize the country through measures against the plague, repair of canals, creation of postal and transport systems, introduction of printing and windmills, and projects to substitute irrigation for flooding, and to join the Nile with the Red Sea. The scientific commission became the Institute of Egypt and prepared the celebrated Description of Egypt. But the defiance of the Moslems, whom Turkey summoned to a holy war, proved irremediable. They attacked isolated soldiers and outposts, and the nomads never stopped fighting. The population might have become resigned had the French army not had to live by taxes, requisitions, and confiscations. Bonaparte exacted a declaration of landed property, and imposed taxes on land transfers and notarized legal documents. The result was a terrible insurrection in Cairo on October 21, and its bloody repression.”

        -In February of 1799, Napoleon realizes he has to do something other than sit in Egypt and endure a series of rebellions. With the Mediterranean Sea now dominated by the British, he decides to march his army through the Levant, with the ultimate goal of striking Constantinople and overthrowing the Ottoman Empire. On March 20th, Napoleon stops to besiege the Syrian city of Acre, which is defended by a joint Ottoman-British garrison. He may even have succeeded, but he’s floating his heavy siege guns along the coast so as not to have to move them overland, and British ships capture the transport boats, bring them to Acre, and add them to the city’s defenses. With only infantry to press his attack and no heavy siege guns, Napoleon abandons the siege on May 20th. In July, he defeats a British expeditionary army at Aboukir Bay, but the situation is untenable. In August, Napoleon returns to France, leaving Egypt under the command of General Jean-Baptiste Kléber. He writes to his men:

        “The news from Europe has determined me to proceed to France. I leave the command of the army to General Kebler [this misspelling of Kléber’s name is in the original]. The army shall hear from me forthwith. At present I can say no more. It costs me much pain to quit troops to whom I am so strongly attached. But my absence will be but temporary, and the general I leave in command has the confidence of the government, as well as mine.”

-Napoleon’s confidence in this general whose name he misspells notwithstanding, Kléber will be assassinated in 1800, and the last French troops in Egypt will surrender to the British in 1801.

Napoleon is able to spin his Egyptian expedition as a victory because he himself has won several battles and only lost one (Acre). The ultimate failure is blamed on Admiral Brueys’ mismanagement of the fleet, which is fair, as well as on Kléber’s management of the army, which is unfair, but since Kléber is dead, he’s unable to defend himself, so Napoleon returns to France even more popular than before. That said, it would be inaccurate to say that Napoleon only leaves Egypt because things look bad for his army. As he writes in his message to the troops, events in Europe have taken a turn for the worse and France is involved in another war. But before we get to that, I want to turn back the clock to May of 1798 and talk about what’s going on with French internal politics in the meantime.

Chapter Three: The Second Directory

Near the end of the last episode, the elections of 1797 had put the royalists on the brink of power, and the Directory had brought troops into Paris and overturned a number regional elections to eliminate those royalists. In the aftermath of this bloodless coup, many royalists have been ruled ineligible for office or even stricken from voter rolls, and now there are going to be new elections in 1798. Remember, under the Constitution of 1795, there’s an election every year, and one third of the government is to be replaced. But since a bunch of elections were voided in 1797, there are actually 437 seats up for election out of the total of 750 in the Council of Five-Hundred and the Council of the Ancients. This year, because so many royalist candidates are ruled ineligible, the danger to the Directory isn’t coming from the right, it’s coming from the former left.

        -The Jacobin Club has once again been revived, and it’s running a large number of candidates. Following the White Terror, the Jacobins have been purged of their leftmost members, but they still represent a potent threat to the Directory’s supporters. Increasingly, French politics are breaking down not along left/right lines, but along pro- and anti-Directory lines, and for now, the neo-Jacobins are the closest thing the French voters have to an opposition party. If that’s not enough, no seat is safe. The two-thirds retention rule for sitting legislators has now sunsetted, which means that in theory, every single contested seat can go to a new delegate rather than to an incumbent. Needless to say, the government is terrified. In his book The Directory, Georges Lefebvre writes:

        “Once again, the Directory repeated the accusation, which, in Year II, had enabled the Committee of Public Safety to crush simultaneously the extremists of both Right and Left; it denounced both branches of the counter-revolutionary conspiracy, that of the White Cockade and that of the Red Cap. In point of fact, there was no danger that the electors would choose terrorists, but by confusing the democrats with them, the Directory was sure of creating an impression, for what the bourgeoisie dreaded was not only the Terror but also the social democracy of Year II. ‘Social fear’ was therefore a valuable help to the Directory.”

        -To ensure that no anti-Directory majority is elected, the Council of Five Hundred passes a couple of laws in early 1798, both of which are approved by the Council of the Ancients. The first is passed on January 31st, and tasks the sitting legislature with approving election results. In other words, the 236 members whose seats are up for re-election will be able to vote on whether or not to accept the results of those very elections. The second measure is passed on February 12th, and it calls for the replacement of the one outgoing Director on May 15th, before the new legislature is seated on May 20th. In other words, the replacement Director will be chosen by the current government, not by the new one.

        -The elections of 1798 see a reduction in voter turnout, with fewer than 20% of eligible voters actually casting a ballot. This reduction is almost certainly caused by the purge of the royalists, which causes many conservative voters to stay home. The voters deliver a gain of 107 so-called Directorials, or members of the Directory’s party. But the neo-Jacobins also gain 105 seats, which leaves the Directorials a few seats shy of an outright majority. For one thing, this raises the threat of an anti-Directorial alliance between the neo-Jacobins, the remaining royalists, and the independents. For another thing, it’s similar to the election of 1797 in that if the neo-Jacobins have similar results in 1799, they may control the government outright. And by the way, this idea of an anti-Directorial alliance between left, right, and center isn’t all that absurd. One way to explain the rapid shift of the French electorate from right to left is that voters are looking for somebody – anybody – to oust the sitting government.

        -The members of that government aren’t going to let that happen. In fact, prior to the elections, the Directory had dispatched so-called “tax inspectors” to each département, ostensibly to perform property tax assessments, but actually to vet electoral candidates and suggest suitable replacements for candidates who are deemed undesirable. On May 11th 1798, or 22 Floréal Year VI, Council delegates vote to vacate some or all of the elections in 53 départements, resulting in a purge of 106 newly-elected Council members, who are replaced by men hand-chosen by the Directory. The Directory also takes the opportunity to purge more than 60 judges and administrators and replace them with hand-chosen men.

        -This action, known as the “Law of 22 Floréal,” is Exhibit A for why historians call the post-1797 Directory the “Second Directory.” France is still a constitutional republic on paper, but in practice, the Directors and their allies in the Councils are going to stay in charge of the government no matter what – voters be damned. It’s also worth pointing out that a few well-connected neo-Jacobins are conveniently exempted from replacement and allowed to take their seats. The most notable is Lucien Bonaparte, Napoleon’s younger brother, who takes his seat alongside his older brother Joseph, and just like that there are two Bonapartes in the Council of Five Hundred.

        -A few days later, on May 15th, the Council of Five Hundred oversees the selection of a new Director. And just like last time, by pure coincidence, the guy in charge of the Navy, now a fellow named François de Neufchâteau, is “randomly” chosen for replacement. The new director is a former Girondin named Jean-Baptiste Treilhard. As neither a royalist nor a neo-Jacobin, Treilhard will fit in well with Paul Barras’ middle-of-the-road approach to politics, and can be counted on not to rock the boat too much.

        -The other big thing I want to talk about on the domestic front is the so-called “Jourdan Law,” passed on September 5th. This law is proposed by former Rhine frontier general and new Council of Five Hundred member Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, and it’s designed to keep the French army well-manned following the massive de-mobilization that had occurred at the end of the War of the First Coalition. With the country still at war with Britain and diplomatic trouble brewing with the Austrians, Jourdan proposes a permanent military draft for men aged 20 to 25. There are exceptions for priests, university students, and essential industrial workers. But for the most part, the old levée en masse has just been renewed by legislative decree, and conscription will remain the law of the land until Louis XVIII takes the throne in 1815.

The Jourdan Law is well-timed. Two months later, on November 29th 1798, the Kingdom of Naples invades the new Roman Republic. Naples, which controls the southern half of the boot of Italy, is led by King Ferdinand IV, whose wife, Maria Carolina, is one of Marie Antoinette’s sisters, and has a vendetta against revolutionary France for obvious reasons. Unfortunately for Naples, it’s a smaller, less well-equipped country than France, and the French army counterattacks and is able to quickly occupy Naples. Unfortunately for the French, the cause of restoring Rome to Papal rule is popular not just in Naples, but in the majority-Catholic regions of Europe in general. Moreover, French foreign policy, the seizure of Malta, and the invasion of Egypt have angered pretty much everyone in Europe and the Mediterranean. In other words, the Neapolitans are not alone. Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “Nearly all the monarchs of Europe watched for an opportunity to renew the attack upon France. They saw it when Napoleon took himself and 35,000 of France’s best troops to Egypt; they seized it when that army seemed safely imprisoned by Nelson’s victory at Abukir. Czar Paul I accepted election as grandmaster of the Knights of Malta, and pledged himself to drive the French from that pivotal isle. He offered his aid to Ferdinand IV in recapturing Naples. He dreamed of finding friendly ports for Russian ships in Naples, Malta, and Alexandria, and thereby making Russia a Mediterranean power. On December 29, 1798, he signed an alliance with England. When Emperor Francis II gave free passage through Austrian territory for a Russian army moving toward the Rhine, France declared war upon Austria (March 12, 1799). Austria thereupon joined Russia, Turkey, Naples, Portugal, and England in the Second Coalition against France.”

        -This marks the beginning of the War of the Second Coalition, and the spring of 1799 is nothing short of a disaster for the French. Led by a Russian general named Aleksandr Suvorov, coalition armies retake northern Italy, pushing the French out of Milan and back to Genoa on April 27th, and toppling not just the Roman Republic, but the Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics. Faced with the coalition’s superior numbers, none of the French generals have Napoleon’s skill and audacity, and in a few months, all of Napoleon’s gains in Northern Italy are undone. In June, Ferdinand IV institutes his own reign of terror in Naples, and executes hundreds of republicans.

        -Meanwhile, an Anglo-Russian force is invading the Batavian Republic and making slow but steady gains in the Netherlands. And an Austro-Russian army is moving through Switzerland, taking one city after another from French and Swiss Republican forces. There’s even a British-financed pro-royalist uprising in the south of France, which diverts much-needed men from the war front.

-The only silver lining for the French is that the Second Coalition is fundamentally flawed. Tsar Paul I is trying to establish Russia as a Mediterranean power by taking the French-held former Venetian islands, and especially by retaking Malta in his own name – which is at odds with the British, who also want Malta and are actually subsidizing the Russian war effort. The main British goal, though, is the liberation of Belgium and the Netherlands, something the Russians and Austrians care little about. Austrian Archduke Francis II, in turn, just wants his northern Italian territories back. And the Ottomans, who are rivals with both the Austrians and the Russians, have no interest in helping either of those powers; the Sultan just wants the French army evicted from Egypt. Past and present French aggression is the only thing holding this coalition together, and the coalition’s divided goals will ultimately be its undoing. But that’s later; for now, they’re winning, and by summer of 1799, it’s clear that the French Directory is not just losing the war, but losing it badly.

Chapter Four: Napoleon Takes Command

The Directory needs a scapegoat, and that man is Jean-François Rewbell, the member of the Directory who had pushed for the invasion of Switzerland and the creation of the Helvetic Republic. So once again, totally by coincidence, his name is “randomly” drawn for replacement on May 15th 1799, and in his place the Council of Five Hundred appoints the Abbe Sieyès, the guy who had written What is the Third Estate? at the beginning of the Revolution and turned down a Directory appointment back in 1795. Sieyès is opposed to the Directory on principle, viewing it as fundamentally corrupt and incompatible with good government or Republican ideals. He even tries to back a military coup, but the would-be leader, a general named Barthélemy Joubert, is killed in battle in Switzerland before the coup can take shape. Even so, Sieyès remains on the lookout for ways to overturn the Directory he has now joined. He’s not alone in his negative assessment of the French government. In his book Napoleon, A Political Life, Princeton University historian Steven Englund writes:

        “For the Directory to have succeeded in riding the tiger, the government would have had to be seen as other than hypocritical, nest-feathering parvenus and factional politicians. These lawyers decked out in ostentatious, military-style uniforms designed by David needed to sport more than ostrich plumes; they needed panache. The one principle they stubbornly clung to—an orthodox, if socially conservative, republicanism—inclined them in times of crisis to a policy of no-enemies-to-the-left. This entailed policies that elicited widespread ridicule and fury (e.g., travelers could be refused entry to Paris for not wearing a tricolor cockade; or a production of a play about the Roman general Hadrian was not permitted to have the central character named emperor, as the historically accurate script required it). What the Directory badly needed was to break with this factionalism and make a great act of trust in its own people, entailing sacrifice of some of its own policies and style, while showing magnanimity to its sworn enemies. And then it needed to sit tight. But no director had this degree of courage or imagination, moral reputation, political authority, or corporate unity with his colleagues to bring it off. None appears to have been even capable of such a plan, except perhaps Carnot who had been purged as a reactionary in Fructidor. The Republic and the Revolution still inspired myths and allegiance, but the directors were not widely seen as their avatars, rather as frightened, vengeful, arbitrary, intolerant, and weak men. The Revolution had had bloodier moments, but few or none where public spirit and morale were lower. Lafayette, from his exile abroad, spoke of the situation in France as ‘the national mess’.”

        -The French “national mess” gets messier in the middle of June. See, the May elections have once again resulted in a victory for the neo-Jacobins, and in the middle of war, the Directory has been unable to engineer another invalidation. For the last time during the Revolution, the people of France have spoken, and although voter turnout has reached another record low, they have once again chosen representatives who are opposed to the Directory. They have an unlikely ally in the Abbe Sieyès, as well as in General Joubert, who is still alive at this time and is in fact in Paris.

        -So the Council of Five Hundred demands the removal of not one but three Directors, and on June 18th 1799, or 30 Prairial Year VII, General Joubert supports them by occupying key parts of Paris to show the Directors who is in charge. Paul Barras, surprisingly, agrees with the Council, no doubt to save his own head. Louis-Marie de la Révellière is replaced on the Directory by a guy named Roger Ducos, one of Barras’ allies in the Council of Five Hundred. Philippe Antoine Merlin, who had replaced Lazare Carnot, is replaced by Jean-François Moulin, another ally of Barras. Jean-Baptiste Treilhard, the recently-appointed former Girondin, is also removed, and is replaced by a guy named Louis-Jérôme Gohier, a staunch republican and one of the few remaining French politicians who truly believes in the legitimacy of elected government. The so-called Coup of 30 Prairial Year VII isn’t really a coup – it’s perfectly legal. It also doesn’t have much immediate effect on policy, since Paul Barras maintains a majority of allies on the Directory. But it demonstrates that as much as the military is struggling on the frontiers, it still very much dictates the course of events inside France. After securing an orderly transition in government, General Joubert heads for the front, and like I said earlier, he is killed and the Abbe Sieyès looks around for someone else to get rid of the corrupt Directory.

It’s in this environment that Napoleon returns to France. Well, sort of. This is what Napoleon is hearing about when he gets his news in August of 1799. But he has to take a circuitous route through the Mediterranean to evade the British fleet, and he stops off in Corsica for the last time ever, before arriving on the coast of France on October 9th. Napoleon then spends a week touring the countryside on his way to Paris, where he’s greeted with cheers, spontaneous crowds, and even a hastily-staged play in the city of Lyon. By the time he reaches the capital on October 9th, things have gotten better on the war front.

-The French had retaken the Swiss city of Zurich from an Austro-Russian force on the 26th of September. The army was led by André Masséna, a young general who had served under Napoleon in Italy. And the French army doesn’t just take a bunch of Russians prisoner, they also capture the Russian artillery, the treasury chest, and a bunch of written communications. This French victory under one of Napoleon’s proteges forces the Russian army to withdraw from Switzerland all the way back to Austria.

-A few days later, on October 6th, another French army would defeat the joint British-Russian expeditionary force in the Netherlands, effectively ending the war on that front. This French army is commanded by General Guillaume Brune, who had served at the Battle of Fleurus and in Napoleon’s Italian campaign, so there’s another one of Napoleon’s proteges doing well for himself. And both of these guys, Brune and Masséna, will be appointed as Marshalls of the Empire under Napoleon, which is something I’ll talk about more in a bit, because Napoleon doesn’t just lead well, he promotes other excellent leaders. He’s like a Super Bowl-winning football coach whose assistants go on to win their own Super Bowls.

-Anyway, when Napoleon arrives in Paris on October 9th, the Russians are about to surrender, but the Austrian army has taken northern Italy while the British are wreaking havoc on French shipping in the Mediterranean. The neo-Jacobins have taken a massive forced loan from the upper classes to continue funding the government, and Paul Barras and his party of cockroaches continues in charge of the Directory. Worse, the neo-Jacobins have just passed something called the “Law of Hostages.” This law creates new surveillance lists for people who are connected to outlawed aristocrats, and allows surveilled people to be treated like hostages. For example, if a single government agent is assassinated, four hostages will have their names drawn from a hat and get deported to Guyana. All of this is reminiscent of the worst days of the Revolution.

-It’s on this basis that the Abbe Sieyès and Napoleon Bonaparte are able to launch their coup. On the morning of Saturday, November 9th 1799, or 18 Brumaire Year VIII, Parisians awaken to find their main streets occupied by troops loyal to Napoleon, with flyers posted to proclaim his military glories.

-The first step is to neutralize any potential popular uprising. This means not just posting troops, but moving the government out of Paris altogether. Early in the morning, the Council of Elders meets in a semi-secret session where there are enough members to form a quorum but several left-wing members have been conveniently not notified, so the members present have a temporary conservative majority. In this meeting, the Council uses its authority to move both chambers of the legislature out of Paris to the suburban palace of Saint-Cloud. They justify this move by claiming that there’s a security threat, and it’s not the thousands of armed troops in the streets. It’s a planned neo-Jacobin uprising that the Abbe Sieyès has been warning everybody about, and Napoleon’s troops are there to keep everyone safe.

-With the Councils moved outside of Paris and Napoleon’s takeover of the city legitimized by another act of the Council of Elders, the Abbe Sieyès and another Director, Roger Ducos, resign. Ducos had been one of Barras’ allies, but has been having second thoughts about the direction the Directory is taking. Paul Barras also resigns. Not voluntarily, though. Talleyrand, who knows which way the wind is blowing, gives Barras a bribe and also blackmails him to get him to resign. Now that three of the five Directors have resigned, the Directory no longer has a quorum and can do nothing to stop the ongoing coup, which for those of you still keeping track is called the Coup of 18 Brumaire.

-Napoleon arranges things so he’s with a group of soldiers outside of Barras’ house when he resigns, and when Barras leaves the building, Napoleon gives a little speech for everyone to hear. He says to Barras:

“What have you done with the France I left you so brilliant? I left you peace, I find war! I left you conquests, I find the enemy at our borders!… I left you the millions of Italy, I find misery and extortionate laws!… Where are the brave hundred thousand soldiers I left, covered with laurels, my companions in glory?”

-On the next day, November 10th, the conspirators move to complete their coup. Napoleon goes first to the Council of Elders, and he’s followed by thousands of spectators, some of whom are just coming to see what happens, and others of whom are in carriages loaded with their personal belongings, in case they have to flee. When Napoleon meets with the Council, he demands that they purge the neo-Jacobins from their ranks, which is an impossible ask at this point. When someone says he’s violating the Constitution, Napoleon shoots back:

“The Constitution? You yourselves have annihilated that. On 18 Fructidor, you violated it; on 22 Floréal, you violated it, and you violated it again on 30 Prairial. It has no further respect from anyone.”

-Then Napoleon says: “Don’t forget, I walk with the god of war and the god of victory,” and walks out. But not before ordering some of his men to stay behind and guard the Council of Elders, and to shoot anyone who tries to have him declared an outlaw.

-When Napoleon enters the Council of Five Hundred wearing full military garb, he’s greeted by boos and protests, and cries of “dictator!” Without being allowed to speak, he’s mobbed by a number of legislators. Some of his troops come in to surround him, and one of them gets into a scuffle with an angry neo-Jacobin. Napoleon is quickly removed from the chamber, and when he tries to get on his horse he falls off, which is emblematic of how this day is going. But then Lucien, who by the way is at this point the President of the Council of Five Hundred, comes out to Napoleon’s soldiers and tells them that a gang of knife-wielding neo-Jacobin delegates are holding the rest of the Council of Five Hundred hostage. Then he theatrically draws his sword, points it at Napoleon and says: “I swear to plunge this into my own brother’s chest if ever he threatens the liberty of the French!”

-With that, the troops follow Napoleon into the Council chamber and the neo-Jacobins are removed at bayonet-point. Many other legislators also leave in protest. The 100 remaining members of the Council of Five Hundred and the Council of the Ancients meet under Napoleon’s watchful eye well into the evening. By candlelight, they draw up an authorization for a new government. Instead of an assembly, France is to be governed by a three-man executive called the Consulate, hearkening back to ancient Rome. Along with Napoleon, the Abbe Sieyès and Roger Ducos are to run the new government, and are to be tasked with drawing up a new constitution.

-The so-called Constitution of the Year VIII is written by Sieyès, but heavily edited by Napoleon. There’s to be an element of democracy. All men 21 and older can select 10% of their number to be local notables, who form the pool of people from whom local officials can be chosen. The local notables, in turn, select 10% of their number to serve as district notables, who form the pool of people for district officials. 10% of district notables are chosen as national notables, and can choose from their number a 22-man council of state. Notables also elect a three-chambered legislature with a large, 300-man Legislative Corps, smaller 100-man Tribunate, and even smaller 80-man Senate. But Napoleon carves out a lot of room for executive power, including the power to issue laws by fiat, essentially bypassing the democratically-elected Senate, which is to be mostly administrative and ceremonial in nature. Napoleon is to be appointed to a new position called First Consul, and is to have a term of ten years.

-Sieyès and Ducos both retire, Sieyès to become President of the Senate. They’re replaced on December 12th by two men named Jean-Jacques Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun, who act as Second and Third Consuls respectively. I don’t want to spend too much time on these guys, but Will and Ariel Durant write:

“It would be a mistake to class these two men as mere obedient functionaries. Each was a man of tried ability. Cambacérès, who had been minister of justice under the Directory, served now as legal counselor to Napoleon. He presided over the Senate, and (in the absence of the First Consul) over the Council of State. He played a leading role in formulating the Code Napoléon. He was a bit vain, and proud of the Lucullan dinners that he served; but his calm and thoughtful temper often saved the First Consul from impetuous mistakes. He warned Napoleon not to antagonize Spain, and to avoid Russia as a mattress grave.

“Lebrun had been secretary to René de Maupeou in the effort to avert the bankruptcy of Bourbon France; he had shared in the financial legislation of the National Assembly and the Directory; now starting with an empty Treasury, he helped to organize the finances of the new government. Napoleon appreciated the quality of these men; when he became emperor he made Lebrun arch-treasurer and Cambacérès archchancellor, and they remained faithful to him to the end.”

-By the end of December 1799, Napoleon is well on his way to being the sole dictator of France. But he’s constantly talking about freedom; how does he justify this? If you ask me, it comes down to Napoleon’s understanding of nationalism. Steven Englund writes:

“Despite his distaste for ideology and his somewhat instrumentalist and sparing invocation of ideals, Napoleon yet adorned all this meat-and-potatoes of ‘interests’ with one sprig of theoretical parsley; and that was ‘national’ or ‘popular sovereignty,’ of which the State, of course, was the supreme avatar and guarantor. ‘[Sovereignty of the people],’ he wrote Talleyrand on September 19, 1797, ‘is the only thing I can see that we have truly defined in the last fifty years.’ ‘Defined’ is doubtless the wrong choice of words, for ‘national’ and ‘popular’ were among the most flexible and vague words in an already elastic lexicon of French revolutionary discourse. Nonetheless, the formality of democracy, with its sacred talisman of ‘sovereignty of the people,’ is what ‘republic’ had come to mean to Bonaparte. This was what the Revolution had ushered in, and there was no turning back from it, however great the acknowledged gap that now yawned between ideal and reality in the turbulent practice of democracy.

 “All the rest, however—the doctrine of the separation of powers, an independent judiciary, an active legislature, responsible ministries, universal suffrage, a bill of individual rights, a multiple executive, etc.—had become, to Bonaparte’s way of thinking, the hobbyhorses of factions, the stuff of la politique (politics). Safeguarding the generic republic, in short, was not the same thing as defending the First Republic.”

-Napoleon’s rise as First Consul marks the end of all but the most limited democratic governance in France. And once again we’ve arrived at one of those mileposts where many historians say “It’s the end of the Revolution!” That’s certainly a reasonable take, and in fact, the constitution written by Sieyes and Napoleon includes this in its description of the new government:

“It is founded on the true principles of representative government, on the sacred rights of property, equality, and liberty. The powers which it institutes will be strong and stable, as they must be in order to guarantee the rights of the citizens and the interests of the state. Citizens! The Revolution is made fast to the principles which began it; it is finished.”

-I only partially agree, because I see the whole history of the Revolution so far, with a few exceptions, as a series of destructive acts, tearing down the Ancien Regime and dealing with all the fallout. That’s over with. Napoleon is here to build something, and if you don’t understand what he builds you don’t understand the whole story of the French Revolution.

At this point I want to step away from war and high politics and talk about another revolutionary change that happens in 1799. It’s a change that will go on to affect everybody’s daily lives in France and throughout the world, and of course I’m talking about the Metric system. Because believe it or not, one thing every French government has agreed on since the falling of the Bastille is that the Ancien Regime’s system of weights and measures has got to go. See, under the Bourbon monarchs, there’s no strong central standard. There are literally hundreds of local units for size, weight, and so on. Now, there are some standard units that are used by scientists, but there’s no fixed commercial standard, and this non-standardization is a problem when you’re shipping goods across the country. So way back in 1790, the French Academy of the Sciences had established a commission to come up with some kind of standard.

        -The Academy agrees to a standard based on tens. The thinking goes that since people already use a base ten numbering system, it will be easy to do math with the new units simply by moving the decimal point. The cool thing about this effort is that the guys in charge decide to base their measurements on a reproducible standard.

        -Now, national standards of measurement are nothing new. The Egyptians had them. The Romans had them – the Romans actually had good enough measurements for a while that they could subcontract local replacement parts for siege equipment by giving blueprints to craftsmen near the war front. But the problem with older systems of measurement is that they’d been arbitrary. For example, there was an old medieval French system where they based their units of length on a metal rod that was kept embedded in a column on one of the public buildings, and when the column got damaged, the rod got bent. The king issued a new rod but it wasn’t exactly the same as the old one and so you had local measuring rods made to the old standard as well as ones measuring up to the new standard, and this is just one of the reasons the Ancien Regime systems of weights and measures are a mess.

        -To serve as their unit of measurement, the Academy measures an arc of the Earth’s surface from Dunkirk to Barcelona, then taking that measurement and extrapolating it to calculate the length of an arc from the North Pole to the South Pole, cutting through Paris, and dividing that number by ten million. That may sound a bit elaborate, but it’s a replicable scientific method that should, in theory, get you the same result every time. In 1799, a platinum rod is forged to the exact length, that length is defined as a meter, and the Metric system comes into being.

        -The thing about the Metric system is that everything – everything – is based on the meter. For example, one kilogram is defined as the mass of 1,000 cubic centimeters, or one liter, of distilled water in a vacuum. And just like that, in 1799, French merchants get a new system of weights and measures based on the new Metric standard.

-Except, not many people use it. French people are still attached to the old system of fathoms and feet, and in most localities they continue to use units from the old local systems, with the Metric system only used by scientists. This is a problem for merchants and traders, because when you’re buying or selling you need to know how much you’re buying or selling, and that’s a problem, for example, when you order grain from a merchant in Toulon and expect it to be sold in Toulon bushels, but it’s sold in Marseilles bushels instead.

-Skipping ahead a few years to 1812, Emperor Napoleon will devise a solution called the “customary measures,” which is a hybrid between the old and new systems. The new system will use feet, pounds, and other units the French are familiar with, but these units will be standardized and there will be stiff penalties for merchants who trade in local units. The new feet and pounds will be tied to the Metric system by an official conversion chart, so they’ll be replicable if needed, and Metric remains the system of choice for scientists while the customary measures become standard for trade.

-The customary measures will remain in place until 1839, when King Louis-Philippe, currently First Prince of the Blood, abolishes them and makes Metric the French standard for all weights and measures. And of all the changes wrought by the French Revolution, this may be the most universal. In the 21st century, the Metric system is the official system of weights and measures for all but three countries – Liberia, Myanmar, and the US – and even in those countries, the Metric system has long been the norm for science.

Chapter Five: The War of the Second Coalition

So much for the Metric system. The other big innovation I want to talk about is made by Austria’s premier general, Archduke Charles, who is brother to both Marie Antoinette and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II. At the end of 1799, he’s just gotten done beating an invading French army back across the Rhine, and wreaking havoc on everyone he faces. Charles is also working on a plan to modernize the Austrian army along the lines of the French army, but the Austrian army’s elderly general officers want nothing to do with the idea. So Charles, citing ill health, leaves the war front and goes to Bohemia, where he organizes a force of 25,000 men according to his new ideas. This force won’t get back to the war front in time to make a difference against Napoleon in 1800 or 1801, but Charles’ new system will bear fruit later when the Austrians finally let him have his way. In the meantime, the Austrians’ best military leader is not on the front, and the French have their own best commander on the battlefield.

        -In late winter of 1800, the Russians have withdrawn their armies and are negotiating peace with the French. But the Austrians now have more than 200,000 men mobilized, and they plan a spring campaign on two fronts. In the north, General Paul Kray and his 120,000 men are to fight a defensive war on the Rhine. In the south, Austrian soldiers are besieging Genoa with 95,000 men, and the city is also blockaded at sea by the British Royal Navy. When Genoa falls, Transylvanian-born General Michael von Melas plans to use it as a springboard to invade the southern French port of Toulon. Of course, the Austrians are expecting resistance, but they’re expecting it from the front.

        -Napoleon tells the commander of the 40,000-man Genoan garrison to hold out until June 4th, that help is on the way. But he doesn’t directly attack Von Melas’ army at Genoa. Instead, he marches 50,000 men over the Alps further north, by Milan. The city of Milan sits across the route from Austria to Genoa. If Napoleon can take it, Von Melas will be cut off at Genoa and will be forced to surrender.

-Napoleon begins his march on May 14th, which is very early for an Alpine crossing, and a lot of snow needs to be cleared, but Napoleon himself gets across the next night. This is the inspiration for Jacques-Louis David’s famous painting, Napoleon Crossing the Alps, although David’s work has an element of propaganda. While the painting depicts Napoleon on a rearing stallion, with his cape billowing around his shoulders, he actually rides a humble mule – more practical, but not nearly as heroic-looking.

        -Napoleon and his men soon find their way blocked by a small fort garrisoned by only 400 Austrians. The garrison may be small, but with the fort to protect them, they control the only road through the pass, and there’s no way for Napoleon to bypass it without hauling his vulnerable artillery right past the little fort, and without his artillery, Napoleon won’t be able to attack Milan. Instead, he sends his artillery and most of his men back over the Alps and then south again via two different passes. Then he leaves a small force to besiege the fort and links up with the rest of his army on the south side of the Alps. On June 2nd, Napoleon marches into Milan, isolating Von Melas’ army in Italy.

        -Napoleon expects Von Melas to retreat back east to his supply lines, but he’s overlooked one thing. If Von Melas can take Genoa quickly, his army won’t be isolated anymore. The port at Genoa will allow Austria to resupply them by sea, so Von Melas ignores Napoleon’s army sitting across his supply lines and continues the siege. On June 4th, the Genoan garrison has waited as long as Napoleon has ordered them to wait, so they hand over the city to the Austrians, and the 40,000-man army marches back to France, temporarily out of the fight. This gives the Austrians control of a crucial sea port where they can be resupplied by the British fleet.

        -Now, Napoleon makes a mistake that will almost cost him the campaign. So far, all the Austrian commanders he’s faced have been conservative and cautious. Communications through enemy territory are spotty and unreliable at best, and he has no idea that Genoa has surrendered. He’s convinced that Von Melas must be scampering back to his supply lines in Austria, and he spreads out his army along the Po River, with a few guys stationed at each crossing to bring word when Von Melas inevitably tries to cross back to Austria. But once again Von Melas is more aggressive than Napoleon predicts. Instead of retreating, he builds a bunch of pontoon boats and crosses the river directly adjacent to Napoleon’s main army, which has been reduced to 24,000 men because he’s been putting all those little French detachments at all the river crossings.

        -Von Melas’ Austrians attack at sunup on June 14th 1800, near the town of Marengo. Napoleon takes his time responding. He’s so convinced that his enemy is running that he thinks the Austrian attack is just a small diversion to cover the main army’s retreat. So he does what anyone would do in that situation and lets his scouts keep scouting and waits for the little diversionary attack to peter out.

        -By around 9:00 in the morning, Napoleon realizes his mistake. He hurriedly writes messages to all his scouts that they need to get back now. In a message to one of his junior generals, Louis Desaix, he writes: “I had thought to attack Melas. He has attacked me first. For God’s sake come up if you still can.”

        -In the meantime, Napoleon’s men stand up to attacks first on the right flank, then on their left flank. He uses all his reserves, even sending in his most elite unit, the Consular Guard, to shore up his collapsing right flank.

        -But then in late afternoon, Louis Desaix and another commander named Boudet answer the call for help. As they’re riding up, Von Melas has ordered his army to form into a column, march forward, and punch through the exhausted French line. He then gets overconfident and hands command over to a subordinate to finish Napoleon off. The Austrians march forward, but come under close-range artillery fire from the newly-arrived guns. Then Louis Desaix launches a bayonet charge with 5,500 men and is shot in the process. But his men carry the day, and the Austrian army starts running. They don’t stop running until they’ve retreated way east past Milan. In his book, Napoleon, British historian David Geoffrey Chandler writes:

        “‘Marengo was a lesson’, Bonaparte once admitted in an honest moment. Defeat had been very near, and but for Desaix’s timely arrival the outcome would have been grim. Over the years, Napoleon was continually taking pains to represent Marengo as a major success, its various phases being deliberately planned in advance. In successive rewritings of the official account, he fabricated the idea of a deliberate withdrawal by the French left, designed to draw the Austrians towards an approaching Desaix, who was carefully placed so as to outflank them at the moment at which they were farthest from their bridges. Such was the gist of his account in 1803…

“The outcome of 14 June 1800, however, was owing almost wholly to the First Consul’s subordinate commanders, and most especially the loyal Desaix, rather than to his own efforts. Nevertheless, he could still learn from his errors, though he already found them hard to admit. Thus Marengo became part of the legend.”

-With Italy once again mostly secure for the French, Napoleon returns to Paris. It’s technically illegal for him to command in the field to begin with, because he’s already the First Consul and under the new constitution, the consuls are forbidden from commanding armies. Napoleon has gotten around this by leaving his army under the nominal command of Louis-Alexandre Berthier, another man who will become a Marshall of the Empire. All the while, Napoleon has been acting as an “advisor,” but everyone has known who’s really in command.

-As it turns out, there’s no need for Napoleon to hurry back to the capital. Not only has he thoroughly smashed the Austrians in Italy, but another French general has been doing far better than expected up on the Rhine frontier. French General Jean Moreau began the campaign with a similar number of troops to his Austrian opponents, and Napoleon had expected him to launch a flanking attack through Switzerland, then send some of his men south to help Napoleon in Italy. Well, Moreau had decided to keep those men and launch a two-pronged attack across the Rhine instead. So not only had Napoleon been about 20,000 men short of where he wants to be in Italy, but he’s succeeded anyway, and so has Moreau, who uses one prong of his attack to distract the Austrian army while the other attacks its supply lines. This forces the Austrians to retreat. Moreau follows and does the same thing again, cutting into their supply lines and forcing them to retreat even further. So by the end of the year 1800, the Austrians are basically where they were at the end of the War of the First Coalition, losing territory in both the south and the north.

Napoleon doesn’t just lead the French army against the Austrians; he brings an alliance. In October of 1800, France and Spain sign the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso. This treaty is one of Talleyrand’s diplomatic master-strokes, and brings the Spanish into the War of the Second Coalition on the French side. Not only that, but Spain gives France six ships of the line to help replenish its navy, and the two countries agree to an exchange of territory.

        -See, France’s war goals in Italy include the conquest of Parma for one of their sister-republics. And Parma is an Italian city-state that happens to be ruled by a member of the Spanish royal family. So France agrees to conquer a larger and wealthier Italian territory – its exact location yet to be determined – and give that territory to the Spanish. In exchange for this valuable piece of Italian real estate, Spain agrees to give France the territory of Louisiana.

        -Louisiana is a massive territory that includes not just modern-day New Orleans, but the entire west bank of the Mississippi River, which extends as far north as modern-day Montana, including Kansas, Nebraska, most of the Dakotas, most of Wyoming and Colorado, and even parts of Texas and Arizona. The thing about these territorial claims is that they exist mostly on paper. With the exception of a few coastal and midwestern tribes, most of the land in Louisiana is still ruled by Native Americans who don’t recognize Spanish sovereignty, so the colonial right to Louisiana is in large part a right of conquest.

-Anyway, the Spanish had gotten Louisiana from the French at the end of the American War for Independence in exchange for land they’d lost elsewhere, and since then, the territory has been difficult to colonize. Life in Mexico is good, and the climate is just like Spain. Why would a bunch of employed, well-fed Spanish colonists want to leave sunny Mexico to fight Native Americans and claim North Dakota? They wouldn’t, and that’s why European settlement in Louisiana is largely centered on the Mississippi and New Orleans. The people who are going there, are going there to trade.

-Now, there’s a whole lot of activity going on in the French Caribbean colonies at this time that I haven’t even talked about. Some land has been seized by the British, other islands are under siege, and Haiti is busy having its own Revolution. So there are all kinds of refugees from French colonies looking for a friendly place to go, and they settle in New Orleans where the Spanish governor is more than happy just to have anyone moving to his city. So now you have this Spanish colony whose biggest most important settlement, the only one large enough to be properly called a city, is mostly French.

-These French settlers are called Creoles, to distinguish them from people born in European France. They run the gamut of all classes, from wealthy plantation owners to poor laborers. They’re also a racially diverse crowd, with a fair number of free black and mixed-race people, particularly from Haiti. And this is where you get that unique social blend that is Creole culture. Well, the Creoles are now going to be ruled by France once more, thanks to the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso.

-The Spanish gift of Louisiana to France will have major consequences later for the United States. But for now, the most important consequence of San Ildefonso is the fact that the British once again have to contend with the Spanish fleet. This is sort of the rule during the late 1700s and early 1800s. When the British have to face France one-on-one, their navy is dominant. When France and Spain get together, they can sort of even the odds, particularly in the Mediterranean.

And the British at this time aren’t just dealing with Spain joining France against them. During the year 1800, as the Austrians are getting pushed back, the British have seized the island of Malta from the French and are already making it into a Royal Navy base. If you’ll recall, Tsar Paul I had gotten himself declared Grandmaster of the Knights of Malta specifically so he could rule the island and establish Russia as a Mediterranean power. The Russian Mediterranean fleet has even taken over a bunch of those French islands that Napoleon had taken from Venice at the end of the last war. But Malta is their ultimate goal, and when the British decide they’re going to keep Malta, Paul I is furious.

        -Just as Russia is getting backstabbed by its allies, the Tsar receives a gift from none other than Napoleon Bonaparte. Following the campaign of 1799, the French had captured thousands of Russian prisoners, and haven’t had anything to do with them. These guys are expensive to feed and house, so Napoleon decides to buy them all new uniforms, give them all new guns, and order them to march back to Moscow. So he doesn’t just send his Russian prisoners home, but he clothes and arms them as well. This is the kind of power move an old-school Tsar just loves, and Paul I takes a liking to Napoleon. The Tsar agrees to make peace with the French, and although a treaty is not signed yet, he does not send any new armies to defend Austria, which leaves Austria alone and isolated.

        -Paul I also institutes the Second League of Armed Neutrality. Like the original League, which Russia had founded during the American War for Independence, the new League is a defensive alliance between otherwise-neutral countries that demand the right to trade with both sides in a war. These countries are Russia, Prussia, Sweden, and Denmark-Norway. In theory, if the British attack any of these countries’ shipping, forces from the other League members would respond. In practice, when the Royal Navy destroys the entire Danish fleet at harbor in April of 1801, no League members respond militarily and Denmark-Norway drops out of the League. But while the League may not have any real teeth, it does send a powerful message to the British; most of Europe wants peace and free trade.

        -All of this to say that by the end of 1800, the tide has already turned against the Austro-British alliance, and the Austrians are the first to recognize this because their homeland is under an imminent threat of invasion.

-On February 9th 1801, to protect their homeland, the Austrians sign a peace treaty with the French called the Treaty of Lunéville. The Treaty of Lunéville has most of the same terms as the last Austro-French peace treaty, the Treaty of Campo-Formio. In the north, the Austrians still cede lands west of the Rhine to France, including the Austrian Netherlands. However, the new treaty also requires them to destroy some defensive fortifications on the Rhine’s east bank. In Italy, the Austrians once again give up most claims, and the quasi-independent Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics are re-established. The Treaty of Lunéville adds the province of Tuscany to Austrian losses, although Austria does still get to keep the land it got from Venice in the last war.

-As for those German nobility who had lost land to the French and wanted compensation, the Treaty of Lunéville gives them a solution. They’re to be compensated with ecclesiastical land not from the French, but from inside the Holy Roman Empire, and the secularization process is to be overseen by French diplomats. So you’ll see all these little religious quasi-states like Trier, Augsburg, and Munster just kind of disappear over the following years, and that’s why. The land is being secularized for its new owners, and we’ll talk more about that process in a minute.

-By the end of February 1801, Austria is officially out of the war, Russia is working on peace negotiations, and Britain is once again alone at war with France and Spain. But Britain is having problems of its own. See, on January 1st 1801, the Acts of Union had become official. This was a law that combined the Kingdom of Great Britain and the Kingdom of Ireland, both held by George III, into a single country called the United Kingdom that we all know and love today. With the addition of Ireland, the UK now has a much larger Catholic minority, and Prime Minister William Pitt wants to grant full political rights to Catholics, who are still treated as second-class citizens. King George III refuses, saying that recognizing Catholics as full citizens would violate his oath as the head of the Church of England. So, on February 16th 1801, William Pitt resigns in protest, with his friend Henry Addington set up to take over as the new Prime Minister.

-But there’s a problem. A new Prime Minister needs to be approved by the King, and George III is going through what his ministers will call a “fit of madness.” See, King George has some type of illness, and modern doctors and medical historians are constantly writing papers arguing that he suffers from this or that specific condition. I’ve heard strong arguments for bipolar as well as for blood disease. It’s a shame George III isn’t still around to get a proper diagnosis, but his “fit of madness” will last until March 14th, with William Pitt continuing as de facto Prime Minister until the King is able to approve Henry Addington. So the British government is temporarily a mess and without continental allies.

-The only thing keeping the British in the war is the prospect of some reversal on the European continent – some event that could bring another country back into the war against France. This reversal seems to arrive in March. See, Tsar Paul I is not the cautious reformer his mother Catherine the Great had been. In his book Europe and the French Imperium, 1799-1814, Canadian historian Geoffrey Bruun writes of the Russian system:

“The lack of constitutional checks and guarantees left the autocrat free to indulge his whims, while the absence of any effective machinery of state foredoomed all far-reaching enterprises to failure. Catherine II, raised to the throne by a palace revolution in 1762, comprehended the situation and accepted it. Though she liked to pose as an enlightened despot, and courted the praise of Voltaire and Diderot, she did not venture to displease the nobles or the bureaucrats by drastic innovations. All the major evils of the imperial regime, the exploitation of the serfs, the lack of an efficient administrative structure, the disorder in juristic and state relationships, the arbitrary fiscal system, she left much as she found them. Paul I, her pathologically unbalanced son, who succeeded her in 1796, was more courageous and less fortunate. Eager to reverse his mother’s policies, he suspended the privileges which she had granted the nobles, reduced the compulsory labor of the serfs, and fortified the throne by fixing the imperial succession in the male line. Paul’s erratic experiments in executive reform opened a new period in Russian history, which Kluchevsky has called ‘a supremely bureaucratic period.’”

-On March 23rd, Paul I suffers the fate of many would-be Russian reformers. After an awkward dinner with several government officials, he retires to bed. Some of those officials go out, get drunk, and return to the palace in the middle of the night. They break into Tsar Paul’s bedroom, beat him severely, and strangle him with a scarf. Paul’s son Alexander is declared Tsar, and the old Tsar’s death is announced as a stroke. And by the way, Alexander seems to have been in on the plot against Paul I, but he was told that the plan was to force his father to abdicate, not to murder him. The guys who break into the palace actually have abdication papers with them, ready for Paul to sign, and it’s unclear whether they had actually intended a murder. Maybe the alcohol had something to do with it. Maybe the conspirators demanded that the old Tsar sign the abdication papers, he refused, tempers flared, and they strangled him in the heat of anger. We’ll never know for sure. Regardless, Paul I is dead, and Alexander takes his place.

-Tsar Alexander I is only twenty-three years old when he takes the Russian throne. Like his father, he has liberal sensibilities, but like his grandmother, he’s practical enough to implement his reforms slowly. Most likely, witnessing his father’s murder has something to do with that caution.

-What Alexander wants most of all is peace, and one of the first things he does is to get out of the Second League of Armed Neutrality, annulling the chance of any war with Britain and causing the league to collapse. But the British are fooling themselves if they think this new Tsar will get back into the war on their side. On October 8th 1801, France and Russia sign a treaty called the Treaty of Paris where they officially make peace. There are also secret clauses relating to the seizure of church properties in Germany. Basically, both France and Russia have an interest in insuring that the Germans who benefit most from the land transfers are loyal to the King of Prussia and not to the Holy Roman Emperor. This will keep Prussia strong and ensure a divided Germany that won’t cause too much trouble between the French and Russian Empires. And this will in no way backfire on anybody or sow the seeds for future war.

If you’re the British, you’re running out of ways to beat the French. Without Russian or Austrian armies, there aren’t many options. Unless, of course, you could manage to stir up some royalist or Catholic rebellion against Napoleon’s Consular Government. But then, on July 15th 1801, Napoleon signs an agreement with the Pope. This agreement, called the Concordat of 1801, is the result of more than a year of peace talks conducted between Napoleon and the Papal government, over the head of Talleyrand, who tries to stymie peace efforts, often ignoring letters from Papal officials and at one time ordering French envoys to leave Rome within 5 days if one of Napoleon’s demands are not met, imposing a harsh deadline the First Consul himself had never ordered.

        -Napoleon keeps appointing higher- and higher-ranking people to run the peace talks and outmaneuver Talleyrand, until he ends up with a three-man delegation led by his older brother Joseph Bonaparte. The Concordat of 1801 re-establishes traditional Roman Catholicism in France by recognizing it as the faith of the majority of the people as well as of the three Consuls. At the same time, religious freedom remains the law of the land, and the administration of the Catholic Church reverts to the Concordat of Bologna, a treaty signed between the Pope and the French monarchy in 1516. So the national government still has the right to nominate bishops, but the Pope will have the right to accept or veto those nominations. The Catholic Church officially renounces title to all Church land seized during the Revolution, so there will be no lawsuits. By way of compensation, Napoleon’s government agrees to continue paying parish priests. And while the French government will hold on to the Republican Calendar for a few more years, Sunday becomes a separate “festival,” re-establishing a seven-day rhythm on top of the ten-day calendar. Finally, the Consular Government agrees to drop all charges against non-juring priests and welcome them back into France.

        -This reconciliation with the Catholic Church damps down the fuel of many potential rebellions. So much of the counter-revolutionary activity we’ve encountered over the past few episodes has been fueled by religious outrage, and once that outrage is quelled, there’s simply no reason for most people to revolt against the Consular Government. So that’s one less thing the government has to worry about, and one less wedge the British can use to pry that government loose from Western Europe.

Chapter Six: The French Consulate

September 2nd 1801 marks the end of any real reason for the British to remain at war with France. That’s the day the last French garrisons surrender in Egypt, which is good for Britain. But now the Ottomans want out of the war. They’ve achieved their goal of retaining Egypt and there’s no French land they can reasonably take. At the same time, the British army now has nowhere at all to attack the French directly – not even an isolated French army in Egypt. So the negotiators get to work behind the scenes. Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “…economic setbacks in Britain, the swelling French army at Boulogne, and the collapse of Austria despite costly subsidies, inclined England to thoughts of peace. On October 1, 1801, her negotiators signed a preliminary agreement which pledged France to yield Egypt to Turkey, and Britain to turn over Malta, within three months, to the Knights of St. John; France, Holland, and Spain were to recover most of the colonies that had been taken from them; France would remove all her troops from central and southern Italy. After seven weeks of further debate Great Britain and France signed the long-awaited Peace of Amiens (March 27, 1802). When Napoleon’s representative reached London with the ratified documents, a happy crowd harnessed his horses and drew the carriage to the Foreign Office amid shouts of ‘Vive la République française! Vive Napoléon!’”

        -The Peace of Amiens doesn’t just mark the end of the War of the Second Coalition. It marks the end of a decade of war inside and outside of France. Now France – and all of Europe – are at peace. It’s a peace that will last only four years, but it will be the longest-lasting peace in what we call the Napoleonic Era. To many at the time, it seems like it should last for decades, and it’s this long-anticipated peace that the people are cheering for, and the credit goes to Napoleon.

        -It’s worth noting that not all the terms of the treaty are kept, even at the time. As we’ve discussed, the Knights of Malta never do get their little island back from the British, and it’s things like this that will set the stage for future war. But at least for the time being, Napoleon is free to build Revolutionary France into an empire.

        -And, just as I had to be fair to the Revolutionary Government, I also have to be fair when Napoleon missteps, and he does make some unpleasant concessions to get the French Empire back together. I’m talking about the so-called Law of May 20th 1802, which reverses the French ban on slavery in its colonial possessions. This measure is designed to encourage wealthy plantation owners to rally around the flag, so to speak, and it’s partially successful. But it does demonstrate that there are limits to how far Napoleon is willing to continue with the Revolutionary tradition of liberty. In fact, Napoleon will actually dispatch an expedition under the command of his brother-in-law to retake Haiti from its revolutionary government. The expedition will fail, but that’s a story for another episode.

In spring of 1802, Second Consul Cambacérès proposes to the French Senate that they should make Napoleon Consul for Life, with the authority to choose his own successor. The Senate responds by granting Napoleon another 10-year term in office, which would keep him in power until 1820. But Napoleon is un-deterred, and once again using Second Consul Cambacérès as a proxy, puts out a proposal for a popular vote. And while that’s being debated, there’s this wonderful bit of theater where one of Napoleon’s allies in the legislature shouts that the people should also vote on him getting to choose a successor. And in an orchestrated act of humility, Napoleon says no, that won’t be necessary, just a life consulship will be enough. Soon enough, the Senate agrees to a plebiscite, and the issue goes to a vote with hardly any opposition. The loudest opponents to a vote are the Marquis de Lafayette, who isn’t even in the government, and Lazare Carnot, who’s busy building his own base of power as a Tribune and doesn’t want to rock the boat too much.

        -The election of 1802 returns a result of 3,653,600 in favor and 8,272 against. If that sounds like a lobsided result, remember that these are public votes and that “no” voters are almost certainly getting put on a list. Of course this begs the question, is Napoleon any more popular than the republican governments he succeeds? The raw vote totals say yes, but these totals are subject to intimidation throughout the revolutionary period. Instead, we can look at the performance of France and how well it functions as a state. When Napoleon becomes leader, the counter-revolutions and mob actions just stop. The war machine and the mass conscription don’t provoke the same often-negative popular reactions they used to. So is Napoleon’s First Consulship For Life any more popular than previous revolutionary governments? I would argue that the evidence says yes, and not just a little more popular but a lot more popular.

        -Napoleon takes this popular mandate and runs with it, immediately deciding that in his first act as First Consul, he’s going to declare a new Constitution, one that codifies his new powers and makes a few other tweaks to the government. As First Consul for Life, Napoleon gains the powers to make peace treaties without legislative approval and to issue pardons. He also gets the right to choose his own successor, so it seems that a vote on the succession will not be necessary after all. As for the Senate, it gains the power to dissolve the Tribunate and the Legislative Corps. However, the Senators’ number is reduced from 80 to 50, and these 50 men are to debate in five separate 10-man sections, and their debates are to be private, not public. There’s going to be no more of this showboating we’ve seen by politicians throughout the revolutionary era – at least, not unless Napoleon is doing the showboating. Steven Englund writes:

        “The Council of State now found itself outflanked by a new, much smaller privy council, which advised the First Consul while arguing with him less. The wide-open debates were becoming a thing of the past, as the old council became mainly a venue for technicians and experts. The biggest status enhancement accorded by the new constitution was to the Senate-Guarantor, which, in view of its evolution under Bonaparte’s pressure and Cambacérès’s direction, should perhaps be re-dubbed the Senate-Assenter (or even the Senate-Kowtower). Its new powers to interpret and amend the constitution were ratified, and the body acquired the right to suspend trial by jury or impose martial law in specified departments. It would be truer to say, these powers were held by the Senate for the government, for they could be exercised only on specific request by the government. The government in turn rewarded its senators. Roughly a third of them were endowed with landed domains (called ‘senatoriates’) whose income amounted to the equivalent of their already outsized salary.”

        -Napoleon also overhauls the election system yet another time. Instead of the Abbe Sieyès’ program of having local notables voting for local councils who in turn vote for district councils and so on, there’s going to be a series of wealth limits for office. So, for example, pretty much anyone will qualify to vote for and/or run for mayor of a small village, but only the wealthiest taxpayers are eligible to run major government departments, and district governments fall somewhere in-between on the wealth scale. In other words, how democratic the new France is depends on how wealthy you are. Everyone has a voice at the local level, but only the most influential have a say in national affairs.

-While Napoleon is giving the government and election system a facelift, he decides that the new government needs a new set of laws. He’s going to do what no other revolutionary government has done and rewrite the civil code from scratch along revolutionary principles. Along the way, he’ll clear up the countless contradictions between various local civil codes. Or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that Second Consul Jean-Jacques Cambacérès will. He’s been trying to pass a unified civil code since way back in 1793, but until becoming Second Consul he’s never been influential enough to push the idea forward. Napoleon is more than happy to listen, and to put his seal of approval on Cambacérès’ ideas. The laws are written up, submitted to a number of sitting judges for their comments, re-written, submitted to the Tribunate for its comments, re-written again, and then finally, on March 21st 1804, all 2,281 articles of what will come to be known as the Napoleonic Code are passed into law. So it’s going to be a couple of years before France gets its first uniform legal code, but the ball is already rolling in 1802 and Jean-Jacques Cambacérès deserves much of the credit.

        -As with Napoleon’s other reforms, the Napoleonic Code is a blend of new and old ideas, an attempt to marry revolutionary ideology to a more conservative social order that’s rooted, as an Enlightenment man would see it, in the classical world. On the one hand, the core revolutionary principles are upheld. French citizens retain the rights to freedom of speech, worship, and property. They’re entitled to trial by jury, and all feudal fees and duties remain abolished. But the powers of heads of household are increased. A father can prevent the marriage of daughters up to twenty-one years of age and sons up to twenty-six. A married man also obtains full ownership of his wife’s property. This paternalistic, conservative legal bent extends to the workplace. In civil disputes, an employer’s word will count for more than that of an employee, and the ban on trade unions is upheld. Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “The Code represented the usual historical reaction from a permissive society toward tightened authority and control in the family and the state. The leading authors of the legislation were men of years, alarmed by the excesses of the Revolution—its reckless rejection of tradition, its easing of divorce, its loosening of family bonds, its allowance of moral laxity and political riot among women, its communal encouragement of proletarian dictatorships, its connivance at September Massacres and Tribunal terrors; they were resolved to halt what seemed to them the disruption of society and government; and in these matters Napoleon, anxious for a steady France under his hand, gave these feelings his resolute support.”

        -One last thing I want to talk about during this period is Napoleon’s restoration of the Académie Française, which is a pseudo-governmental organization that codifies the French language. The Académie was founded way back in 1635 by our old friend Cardinal Richelieu, before being suppressed by the Revolutionary Government in 1793. Well, Napoleon brings the Académie Française back from the dead in 1803, and the Académie resumes the formal codification of the French language with renewed vigor.

        -This is important because I can’t think of another national language that’s defined by government fiat. Living languages like English, Spanish, Russian, and Japanese evolve over time. Words change meaning based on popular usage, which is how we’ve gotten to a place where the word “literally” literally means “figuratively.” Languages even borrow from each-other, which is why the English words for “jalapeno” and “sashimi” are “jalapeno” and “sashimi,” as opposed to some reverse-engineered English versions of those words.

        -Not so in French. The Académie Française has French words for everything, and this is a core part of French identity going forward. From now on, everyone who wants to participate in government is going to speak French. Local languages like Galician and Walloon and Breton will begin to decline, although they will remain in common use well into the 20th century in some areas, especially around the home. But anyone who’s anyone is speaking French at work, and they’re speaking it the Académie Française way.

Now, I said that this period of peace, the Peace of Amiens, would last for four years. That’s mostly true. However, in May of 1803, a mere 14 months after the Treaty of Amiens that ended the War of the Second Coalition, a series of escalating crises leads the British to declare war on France once again. This is a case of neither side seeing eye-to-eye with the other. The French are still working to stabilize their colonies and their European sphere of influence. During the 14 months of general peace, Napoleon has sent military expeditions to the Swiss Helvetic Republic and the Italian Cisalpine Republic, launched his ill-fated counter-revolution/reconquest of Haiti, and stationed a handful of troops in Louisiana, hoping to use it as a staging ground for any future wars in the Caribbean. The British, as we’ve discussed, refuse to give up Malta, and also maintain an occupation force in Egypt after the French have left. To both sides, it looks as if the other side is refusing to abide by the peace treaty or draw down its military posture. Both sides have a point.

        -This all comes to a head on May 16th 1803, when Britain declares war on France literally overnight. British vessels are authorized to seize French and Dutch ships in British ports or waters, and millions of livres worth of commerce are captured before any French or Dutch merchants know there’s a war on. Napoleon responds by arresting all British men between 18 and 60 in French territory or the territory of the Italian sister republics. These arrests are universal, so they apply to civilians as well as British soldiers, and over a thousand British civilians are arrested, some of whom are held in prison all the way up until Napoleon’s abdication in 1814.

        -The British blame France for its aggressive posture in Europe and the colonies. The French blame the British for violating the Treaty of Amiens and continuing to occupy Malta. But once again, we’re in a familiar situation. Europe itself is at peace, but the Royal Navy is blockading France and  France is looking for some way to fight back at Britain. There are few shots fired so it’s less of a war than a heavily-armed standoff, but this period is important because of how much it frustrates Napoleon. He’s gotten everything he wants in Europe and at home, and yet here come those pesky British to rain on his parade.

        -Napoleon has sensed that war with Britain was brewing, and has made some adjustments to French overseas policy. To begin with, he’s heavily fortified his most valuable territories. The sugar-producing Caribbean island of Martinique has been garrisoned with enough men to withstand years of naval bombardment. On another Caribbean island, Guadeloupe, French troops have put down a slave rebellion, and repaired old defenses to prepare for British attack. As for Haiti, which has by now fully established its own independence, Napoleon only says: “Damn sugar, damn coffee, damn colonies!” And with the exceptions of Guadeloupe and Martinique, this is more or less his colonial policy. If France can’t hold her colonies against the British, then damn them.

        -In the case of Louisiana, so recently obtained from Spain, Napoleon opts simply to sell it off. It’s not an island, it’s a huge chunk of land, most of which the French don’t even hold. This makes it vulnerable to attack. So instead of spending a bunch of resources defending it, Napoleon sells the Louisiana Territory to the United States for the sum of $15 million, or about $0.35 per acre. Even at the inflation-adjusted rate of $8.52 per acre in 2024 dollars, that’s a great bargain for the young United States. For France, the Louisiana Purchase means hard currency, as well as a way to get rid of Louisiana without it falling into the hands of the British. The treaty is signed on April 30th 1803, seventeen days before the British declaration of war.

        -Napoleon has a geostrategic vision. With his invasion of Egypt, he showed that he understands that to truly defeat the British, you need to attack their economy, and the way to do that is to get at their colonies. Napoleon’s problem is that the French navy isn’t up to the task. France is fundamentally a land-based power. It has to be. It needs to maintain a large enough army to fight the Austrians, Prussians, and Spanish all at once, and those are just its largest, land-based potential enemies. There’s simply no room left in the budget for a lot of ships, and when the French do build ships, they don’t have money for extra maintenance and drills. So while Royal Navy crews spend most of their time at sea, French navy crews don’t get a ton of practice when they’re not on some specific mission. Meanwhile, the British maintain a relatively small army. It’s not a bad army – it’s very professional – but the bulk of British military spending goes into the navy, which forms a wooden wall to protect the home islands, and a sword with which to strike enemy colonies.

        -Earlier French regimes had tried and failed to fight Britain on the high seas. Napoleon himself had tried to challenge the Royal Navy in Egypt, even if only by relying on his own fleet to stay out of harm’s way. So he learns his lesson, sells Louisiana, and fortifies France’s most valuable Caribbean islands so they won’t be so reliant on naval transports. Then he puts all of his money into building an invasion army to attack Britain directly. Oh, and at the end of May 1803, less than two weeks after the English declaration of war, Napoleon also invades Hanover, George III’s domain east of the Rhine, and the tiny state surrenders to Napoleon in July of 1803. So there’s no opposition on the continent, not even from Prussia, which technically reserves the right to go to war with Napoleon should he invade Hanover.

        -Shortly after the British declaration of war, Napoleon establishes what becomes known as the Camp of Boulogne, an assembly of 200,000 troops near the city of Boulogne-sur-Mer on the French channel coast. This grand army is meant to invade England, with the idea being that the British have a lot of ocean to contend, so their ships are usually spread out. If the French can concentrate their entire navy at a single point along the narrow English Channel, they can force a crossing, land an army a few days’ march from London, fight a single battle, and force the British to make peace. This doesn’t come to anything just yet, but it will be important later. So as we work our way through the next couple of years, keep in mind that from mid-1803 onward the British are blockading the French again and Napoleon is building ships and amassing a huge army for an invasion of England.

Chapter Seven: A Changing Continent

While all this is going on, things are not quiet in the rest of Europe. If you’ll recall, the French have seized all Holy Roman Empire territory west of the Rhine, and have promised compensation to any nobles who lose land in the process. And this land will come from other parts of the Holy Roman Empire east of the Rhine. Now, the Holy Roman Empire at this time is incredibly anachronistic. There are still more than 300 tiny member statelets, each with its own unique history with the Imperial Throne. So the proposal by the French and the more powerful statelets is to do the Revolutionary thing and seize Church lands. If you’re one of these more powerful statelets, particularly if you’re an elector, which means you get to vote for Emperor, you may be able to use this situation to your advantage. You may lose a little bit of land west of the Rhine, but you can gobble up some mid-sized bishopric elsewhere in Germany and increase your overall wealth.

-The Austrians resist this idea at first, since so-called mediatization, or secularization, would eliminate bishoprics that are electors who have traditionally supported the Habsburgs. But when Austria loses the War of the Second Coalition, it becomes clear to Emperor Francis II that regaining the land west of the Rhine makes little sense, and that since Austria herself stands to lose some of that land, she also stands to gain from compensatory land closer to home in Central Europe. Not only that, but there’s a push for centralization in Austria for what we would call national security reasons. This loose federation of statelets made sense when you were fighting wars with medieval armies, or even 17th century wars with a few tens of thousands of professional soldiers. But the decentralized empire is cumbersome to manage and very difficult to turn to any grand national purpose, like raising the hundreds of thousands of troops needed to battle the French. So a little bit of secularization could be a big win for Austrian security.

-Of course, secularization does not go unopposed. In addition to the religious princes, who obviously want to keep their lands, a number of minor nobles also object. In his book Reich and Nation: The Holy Roman Empire as Idea and Reality, 1763-1806, Boston University professor John G. Gagliardo writes:

“The proposition that no compensation (and therefore, of course, also no secularization) was necessary was presented in two different kinds of approaches. The first, argued by Karl Moritz Fabritius, the author of one of the most extensive defenses of the ecclesiastical states and their governments to appear in this period, tried to argue that the Left Bank should not be abandoned to France at all, because it was too high a price to pay for a peace which the rapacious French Republic would not long respect in any case; the only course for Germany to follow was to continue the war until the French were defeated, at which point the whole issue of compensation would evaporate. Much the same line was taken by a certain Baron O’Cahill, court chamberlain to the Princes of Wied-Neuwied, who saw in the impending Rhineland losses not only the prelude to the collapse of the imperial constitution and the conquest of the rest of Germany, but also the possible creation of numerous republics on the Right Bank. Yet while he implied that another war would not be too high a price to pay to avoid the abdication of the Left Bank, he also suggested that it might not be necessary; with astonishing naivete, he argued that republics in general cannot maintain themselves if they dare too large, and that since the French Republic was already too large before occupying the Left Bank lands, it might well return [them] to Germany unasked – the more so because the Rhenish peoples were too unlike the French and too hostile to them to make their assimilation either possible or profitable.

“The other approach to preventing secularization as compensation was simply to deny that any legal or moral obligation existed on the part of the Empire or any of its princes to make up losses suffered by any member of the Empire in a legally declared Reichskrieg. Dalberg, for example, regarded the notion of compensation as contrary to the example of earlier peace treaties such as Rastatt (1714) and Ryswick (1697), and suggested uncharitably that in the case at hand ‘Each bear his own fate’ – a principle which, if adopted, would have shifted the burden of loss entirely to the Left Bank princes (and incidentally, have left his own expectancy to Mainz intact). Others insisted that neither the nature of the imperial association, nor any principles of either private, international, or public law imposed an absolute obligation on some or all of the Estates of the Empire to make good the losses of others; such an obligation could only be established by ‘treaties and voluntary agreement.’”

-So there’s a lot of debate inside the Holy Roman Empire, but in the end, the supporters of mediatization win. On February 25th 1803, representatives from Austria, Prussia, France, and several Imperial princes sign an agreement that comes to be known as the Final Recess of February 1803.

-The Final Recess calls for a whole slew of territorial changes, but the result is a massive centralization of power and the elimination of more than 100 states of the Holy Roman Empire. All ecclesiastical territories disappear except for three: the lands owned by the Teutonic Order and the Knights of St. John, and the seat belonging to the Empire’s ranking archbishop. There are also 50 free cities in the Holy Roman Empire prior to 1803. These are local governments that basically act like city states except for certain duties to the Emperor, and the free cities all vote in a “college” that has a vote in the imperial court. Four of the 50 free cities had gone to France with the loss of the Rhine’s west bank. These are Aachen, Cologne, Speyer, and Worms. Now, the Final Recess declares an end to 40 more of the free cities, which are all rolled into larger states. Only six retain their semi-independence: Augsburg, Bremen, Frankfurt, Hamburg, Lubeck, and Nuremberg.

-The Final Recess of February 1803 represents a tectonic shift in the Holy Roman Empire. The Empire has long relied on a balance of power between various types of states: the Imperial princes, the free cities, the bishoprics, and the Habsburg-owned lands. German mediatization wipes out the bishoprics and the free cities overnight, and it does so legally, converting the empire into a purely secular alliance between the powerful Austrians and their less powerful quasi-independent neighbors. It also benefits Prussia almost as much as it benefits Austria. Prussia gains nearly 900 square miles and more than 450,000 citizens. This is in part due to French influence, since Talleyrand is convinced that a strong Prussia can serve as a counterweight to Austria. The Holy Roman Empire – broadly-speaking, Germany – has been devolving into two separate Austrian and Prussian camps for a long time, and now the process of German nationalization has shifted into high gear. Not only that, but one of these German nations – Prussia – is directly benefiting from French imperialism.

So much for what’s going on outside of France. Inside France, the British declaration of war has cleared the way for the most explosive anti-Napoleon plot so far: the Pichegru Conspiracy. Remember General Jean-Charles Pichegru, who had turned over French war plans to the Austrians and gotten exiled for his trouble? Well, he’d ended up in England, where he’d made friends with a guy named Georges Cadoudal. Cadoudal is a Breton and former royalist rebel who had participated in the Vendee uprising, and is now working on a scheme to kidnap Napoleon and force him to submit to a royal counter-coup, or kill him if he refuses. And now that war has been declared, the British Secret Service has given Cadoudal a million Francs to launch his coup, although it’s questionable whether the British government knows that this royalist coup is likely to involve an assassination.

        -Anyway, over the course of late 1803-early 1804, several royalist agents, including Pichegru and Cadoudal, travel to Paris to get into position. Pichegru is a key part of the plot, because the plan is for him and another general, Jean Moreau, to hold power for a few days until King Louis XVIII can be brought into Paris and properly crowned. Moreau is a rival of Napoleon, and he doesn’t care at all about royalism or restoring the House of Bourbon to power. But he tells the coup plotters that if they want someone to replace Napoleon as the head of the French army, he is their man.

        -Well, he sort of is. Much like King George’s Secret Service, Moreau is unlikely aware of the plot’s full implication. In his book The History of France, Volume 3, 19th-century British historian Eyre Evans Crowe writes of General Moreau:

        “What the conspirators chiefly wanted was a name, a leader of eminence, to oppose that of Bonaparte. Moreau was precisely the personage; a great general, a rival of Bonaparte. The very project of enlisting such a man contradicts the idea of an assassination, which he certainly would not listen to, and which his countenance might render unnecessary. Moreau, though a valiant soldier, was a weak man; he had allowed himself to be duped in Brumaire; and since his victory of Hohenlinden he had been treated with studied neglect by Bonaparte. His wife, subsequent to that victory, had several times sought an interview with the first consul and Josephine, at the Tuilleries, had been kept in antechambers, and slighted. She had great influence over her husband, and she exerted it to induce him, already sufficiently willing, to hearken to propositions for overthrowing the tyranny of Bonaparte. The royalist agents, on the watch, took advantage of this disposition, and formed a reconciliation betwixt him and Pichegru; and he thus became, at least, cognizant of the intended plot.”

        -The plot to kidnap and/or murder Napoleon almost goes off, but on January 26th 1804, a captured royalist cuts a plea deal to get his execution commuted to exile, and in exchange he tells the police all about the conspiracy. This is remarkable, but it’s even more remarkable when you consider that the French police, as such, have been fired, and their duties subsumed by the Ministry of Justice. So why is a royalist cutting a deal with a bunch of off-duty police officers who have no real legal authority?

        -Enter Joseph Fouché, the guy who had been so radically revolutionary that he’d killed hundreds of civilians at Lyon with grapeshot, then changed his tune, helped evict Robespierre, and become a conservative. Well, Fouché had been minister of police before getting embarrassed by an earlier anti-Napoleon plot that had involved some members of his ministry. Not that he’d been involved – he’d just been blind to it, but that was enough to get him fired. Since then, Fouché has been running his own private police force with a few hand-picked guys he can afford to pay out of his salary as a senator, and he’s been determined to somehow get back in Napoleon’s good graces. This is his opportunity.

        -On Fouché’s evidence, General Moreau is arrested on February 15th 1804, followed by the other conspirators in March. General Pichegru hangs himself in his prison cell using his cravat, which is one of those fancy ruffled neckties. Cadoudal and eleven others are guillotined in June, with Cadoudal proclaiming before his death: “Now, it's time to show to the Parisians how Christians, Royalists and Bretons die.” General Moreau alone is spared. He is exiled instead, and lives briefly in New York before settling for several years in Morrisville, Pennsylvania in the Delaware Valley. When Napoleon is defeated in Russia in 1812, Moreau returns to Europe and briefly takes a commission in the Russian army, before having his legs blown off by a French cannon in Germany, after which he dies and is buried in St. Petersburg. As for Joseph Fouché, he will not go unrewarded for saving the Emperor’s skin. Within a year, the Ministry of Police will be re-established, and Fouché will be police minister until 1810, then govern a few territories, lose power with Napoleon, and return briefly as police minister during Napoleon’s 1815 comeback tour.

        -Unfortunately, the so-called “Pichegru Conspiracy” doesn’t end with a suicide, an exile, and a few executions. The police tear through the Paris neighborhoods, looking for Louis XVIII in the belief that he may also be in Paris. Instead, they find letters leading to the 31-year-old Duke of Enghien, who just so happens to be in line for the position of First Prince of the Blood. In other words, although Enghien’s claim to the throne is weak, it does exist, and the justice system decides that he’s the Bourbon who the royalists were really trying to put on the throne, and that he must have been involved in the conspiracy.

        -There’s just one problem. Enghien isn’t in Paris. He’s in Strasbourg, which is neutral territory. Napoleon decides to deal with the Duke of Enghien personally, sends a party of dragoons across the border to arrest him, and orders him to be shot. While there are stories Josephine and the children convincing him to send a messenger ordering a stay of execution, any message Napoleon does send is late and the messenger isn’t in a hurry, and Enghien is executed by firing squad at three in the morning on March 21st 1804.

        -Joseph Fouché says of Enghien’s apprehension and killing “It’s worse than a crime; it’s a mistake,” and that will prove to be true. Letters of protest pour in to Napoleon from nobles throughout Europe, objecting to what they consider a state-sponsored assassination of a member of the House of Bourbon. Steven Englund writes:

        “The echoes of the Enghien affair have rung down the corridors of two centuries, as historians have joined contemporaries and memoirists in construing the duke’s demise as, variously, a crime, a mistake, and a gangland-style execution organized by an angry Corsican bent on winning a vendetta with his social betters. It raises the question: Would there have been a similar outcry over flouted law and the amorality of raison d’Etat if it had been the First Consul who was assassinated by Cadoudal? One doubts it.

         “Enghien’s death was all of those things, and something else. As Bonaparte himself pointed out, both at the time and throughout his life, this was a political act, of a sort familiar in the era. At the Congress of Rastatt in 1799 (also in Baden), British operatives planned the massacre of the French plenipotentiaries by the Austrian soldiers. The First Consul’s top associates (Cambacérès, Talleyrand, Fouché), although they conveniently changed their minds during the Bourbon restoration, condoned the plan when Bonaparte assembled them at Malmaison for their advice. Some, like Murat, pressed hard for it, arguing that now was no time for clemency or legalisms, which would only be misread by the enemy.

         “The outburst against Bonaparte in the royal and aristocratic families of Europe would be hard to overestimate. Prince de Condé reviled Bonaparte as ‘the new Robespierre’ and ‘the booted Jacobin,’ but the epithets contain an important political truth: with this act, redolent of regicide, the First Consul branded his regime(s) for all time with the mark—the scar—of the Revolution.”

        -This is the paradox of Napoleon. On the one hand, he’s building an empire, which he plans to be hereditary. As institutions go, this is pretty old-school and conservative. At the same time, Napoleon’s empire is itself revolutionary. It does not recognize the same rules as the old world, and this is what makes it so dangerous to Old Europe.

Chapter Eight: Emperor Napoleon

One of the conservative things about Napoleon is that he likes to do things by the book. All of his moves for power, however bold, have been legal, ratified either by the elected government or by a public vote. Well, during 1804, he decides that being First Consul isn’t enough. He rules an empire, and come hell or high water, the other European leaders are going to respect that. All Napoleon has to do is become a legitimate emperor.

        -This isn’t a mere matter of personal pique. Will and Ariel Durant frame it as an issue of national security, as does Napoleon’s brother Joseph, who writes in a letter:

        “The conspiracy of Cadoudal and Moreau decided the declaration of a hereditary title. With Napoleon as consul for a period, a coup-de-main might overthrow him; as consul for life the blow of a murderer would have been required. He assumed hereditary rank as a shield; it would thus no longer suffice to kill him; the whole state would have to be overthrown. The truth is that the nature of things tended toward the hereditary principle; it was a matter of necessity.”

        -As is his nature, Napoleon himself doesn’t put the issue to a vote. He allows his allies in the Senate to pass a motion, which quickly passes on May 2nd 1804. It declares:

        “1. That Napoleon Bonaparte shall be appointed Emperor of the French Republic; 2. That the title of Emperor, and the Imperial power, shall be hereditary in his family. 3. That care shall be taken to safeguard Equality, Liberty, and the rights of the people in their entirety.”

        -This simple motion, appended to the existing French constitution, becomes known as the Constitution of the Year XII, and it marks the final constitution of the French Revolution. After all the bloodshed, all the intrigue, and all the calls for democracy, France is once again to be led by an absolute ruler, albeit one whose powers are circumscribed by a written constitution. In this sense, it’s like a return to the short-lived constitutional monarchy of 1791, but instead of a Bourbon on the throne, there’s a Bonaparte.

        -To understand how this imperial title is bestowed so quickly and so easily, we need only to look at the factions in French society. Landowners who have gotten rich off the seizure of Church land will support whatever government seems strongest – as long as it doesn’t result in a Bourbon king retaking the throne and maybe returning that Church property. From this perspective, a new Bonaparte dynasty that recognizes the changes wrought by the Revolution seems like a solid bet. Conversely, the clergy and the more religious citizens see Napoleon as an ally. Yes, the man views religion as little more than a political tool, and has shown that he would embrace Islam as easily as Catholicism if it would secure his power. But in France, Catholicism is the norm, and Napoleon has ensured the freedom of Catholic worship like no other Revolutionary government could or would. Many peasants and working people support Napoleon because they crave stability. After 15 years of political turmoil, an Emperor could set things right and allow France to prosper, and a prospering country is good for wages. Even many of the royalists vote for Napoleon. These men aren’t married to the idea of the Bourbon dynasty in particular. They just believe that a monarchy is the most effective form of government, and if a Bonaparte dynasty can rule more effectively than a Bourbon one, then so be it.

        -To be fair, some elements of society remain opposed to Napoleon. The hard left, the neo-Jacobins and their allies, believe in democracy on principle, and many fear that their lives could be in danger if the new Emperor decides to purge his political enemies. The hard right, the so-called Ultra Royalists, are also unconvinced, because they believe the Bourbon dynasty has a mandate from God to rule France, and you can’t overrule a divine mandate by a vote in the Senate. Despite this opposition by political minorities, Napoleon’s ascension as Emperor goes about as smoothly as could be hoped.

        -On May 22nd 1804, France holds its last plebiscite of the Revolution, asking the people to vote on whether or not Napoleon is to be Emperor. He wins by a vote of 3,572,329 in favor to 2,569 against. Even knowing that this is a public vote and voters are under pressure, this is an incredible margin, and indicative that in all of France, there are millions of Napoleon fans and only a few thousand people who oppose the man enough to say so in public.

        -Georges Cadoudal, Napoleon’s would-be kidnapper/assassin, hears the news in his prison cell while awaiting execution, and says: “We came here to give France a king; we have given her an emperor.”

        -Napoleon doesn’t just want to be a legal Emperor. He wants his government to feel regal, to have the trappings of the old European regimes, but more refined, with more classical references and throwbacks to the Caesars. He surrounds himself with military aides even at his palace in Paris, and the Consuls and government ministers are all given uniforms made of rich fabric with lush velvet trim. Napoleon hires an etiquette expert, a newly-minted count named Auguste de Rémusat, who is close friends with Talleyrand and institutes a whole bunch of elaborate social conventions for meeting with the Emperor and his court. Steven Englund writes:

        “The aristocracy, the Church, the army, and the diplomatic corps in Paris did not need it explained to them that the make-believe court of the Consulate was another matter from the imperial court, with its civil and military ‘maisons’ that numbered scores of aides, chamberlains, pages, equerries, grands officiers, almoners, chaplains, etc. Cambacérès now became ‘Arch-Chancellor of the Empire,’ more than compensating this popinjay for his loss of ‘Second Consul.’ Officially, he was to be addressed as ‘Your Grandeur,’ but he told his aides it was to be ‘Your Most Serene Highness’ in public (in private they could simply say ‘My Lord’).”

-Empress Josephine, for her part, gets a bunch of new clothes and four ladies-in-waiting, and finds herself living like a queen, taking luxurious carriages around Paris to see operas or attend high society parties.

Napoleon acts as Emperor beginning in May 1804, but he wants more than recognition from the French government or the French people. He wants the blessing of what we today would call the “international community.” And at the dawn of the 19th century, the best way to achieve international recognition as a leader is to get the Pope to bless your enterprise. This represents something of an upgrade from the old French kings, who have traditionally been crowned by the Archbishop of Reims. Napoleon is an Emperor, not a king, and he intends to be crowned by the Pope, just as most Holy Roman Emperors have been, although notably not the sitting Emperor, Francis II. So if Napoleon can get the Pope to crown him, he’ll not only gain an important seal of approval on his own emperorship, but he’ll also one-up his Austrian rival.

        -As it so happens, Napoleon has a good relationship with the sitting Pope, Pius VII. Pius VII had become Pope in the year 1800, with an election held not in Rome, but in Venice, since Rome was under French occupation and the former Pope, Pius VI, had been a French prisoner. Pius VII had adopted a policy of vigorous engagement with Napoleon, and the two had negotiated the Concordat of 1801 that mended ties between France and the Catholic Church a few years back. So when Napoleon asks Pius VII to crown him, the Pope happily agrees, and schedules a grand tour for himself that lasts for most of November 1804. During this time, Pius travels through northern Italy and into France, stopping in both the French sister republics and old Papal territories in eastern France along the way. In the wake of the French Revolution, the mere presence of the Pope inside French borders does much to heal national wounds.

        -When he arrives in Paris, Pius VII stays at the Tuileries with the Bonaparte family, and Josephine convinces Napoleon to agree to a religious wedding before the coronation. This isn’t some whim of religiosity on Josephine’s part. Word is already going around that she’s unable to bear more children, and that since Napoleon needs an heir, he should divorce her. Josephine sees a religious wedding as a strong barrier to divorce, and so she and Napoleon have a small, private religious ceremony officiated by the Pope. On December 2nd 1804, the coronation is held at Notre Dame cathedral. Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “Early on a cold December 2 a dozen processions left from different points to converge on Notre-Dame: deputations from the cities of France, from the Army and Navy, the legislative assemblies, the judiciary, and the administrative corps, the Legion of Honor, the Institute, the chambers of commerce… They found the cathedral nearly filled with invited civilians, but soldiers made way for them to their appointed places. At 9 A.M., from the Pavillon de Flore, the papal procession set forth: Pius VII and his servitors, the cardinals and the grand officers of the Curia, in gaily decorated coaches drawn by horses chosen for their spirit and beauty, all led by a bishop on a mule and bearing aloft the papal crucifix. At the cathedral they descended and walked in formal array up the steps, into the nave, and through lanes of stiff soldiers to their assigned stations—the Pope to his throne at the altar’s left. Meanwhile, from another point of the Tuileries, the imperial cavalcade proceeded: first, Marshal Murat, governor of Paris, and his staff; then some specially distinguished regiments of the Army; then, in six-horse carriages, the leading officers of the government; then a carriage for the Bonaparte brothers and sisters; then a royal coach marked with a blazoned N, drawn by eight horses, and bearing the Emperor in purple velvet embroidered with gems and gold, and the Empress, at the peak of her precarious splendor, robed in silk and sparkling with jewelry, ‘her face so well made up that,’ though forty-one, ‘she looked like four-and-twenty.’ Then eight more carriages, bearing the ladies and officers of the court. It took an hour for all these carriages to reach the cathedral. There Napoleon and Josephine changed to coronation robes, and took their places at the right of the altar; he on a throne, she on a smaller throne five steps below him.”

        -When it comes time to be crowned, Napoleon flips the script on Pius VII. In a reversal of old Emperor Charlemagne, who was crowned by the Pope, Napoleon places the crown on his own head. Well, he actually just kind of holds it over his own head. He’s wearing a laurel wreath like an old Roman Emperor, and he doesn’t want to mess that up. Point being, he’s demonstrating that his authority doesn’t come from the Pope or from God but because he has claimed it. Napoleon himself then crowns Josephine as Empress, neatly sidestepping the Pope altogether while at the same time garnering his official blessing. Napoleon has defeated old Europe, he has won the fidelity of the French people, and the Pope is not so much crowning him but conveying God’s blessing on what has already been accomplished.

        -Here, at long last, we reach the end of the French Revolution. There is no more Republic. There are no more political parties. There will be no more votes, no more mob actions, no more coups, no more new constitutions. For the next decade, Napoleon will rule France and much of Europe, and he will do so not as an elected ruler but as a sovereign Emperor. If the Revolution didn’t end with the Thermidorian Reaction or the installation of the Directory or the rise of the Consulate, it certainly comes to a close with Napoleon as Emperor. The Revolutionary Government is dead; long live the Empire. But the Empire is itself revolutionary, and no understanding of the Revolution is complete without at least a little understanding of the French Empire and what comes afterwards. So, what kind of Emperor will Napoleon be, and what kind of France will he shape?

Our first clue comes in Napoleon’s official imperial title. Since the fall of the Roman Empire, traditional European rulers have been the rulers of a place, which usually ties back to some rights of land ownership. The King of France is the King of France because France is his, and the Duke of Orleans is the Duke of Orleans because Orleans belongs to him, albeit with some duties towards his overlord the King. But Napoleon does not crown himself “Emperor of France”. His official title, granted by the Senate, is “Emperor of the French,” and that means something different entirely. It means that his sovereignty derives not from ancient rights of land-ownership, but from the consent of the French people – the French nation. And just who are the French people, you may ask? Well, nationalists are still debating that question today. But there’s some combination of language, culture, religion, history, and other factors that makes a person “French,” and for anyone who is sufficiently French – whatever that means – Napoleon is their Emperor.

        -As we’ve seen, Napoleon wants to bind the French nation into a more unified country by establishing a unified legal code, known as the Napoleonic Code. He also launches a slew of public works projects like roads and irrigation canals, intended not just to enrich France but to bind different regions together with stronger economic ties. It would be interesting to see what would have come of these efforts had his reign been a peaceful one. Unfortunately, Napoleon is almost always at war, so many of these public works programs go unfinished, with their funding constantly being diverted to the military.

        -I’ve also touched on a new Napoleonic institution, established almost immediately upon his coronation: the Marshals of France. The Marshals of France are to be her new top military leaders, and these are almost all men who have come up under Napoleon, although some have been his rivals. No matter. Napoleon is looking for competency and reliability, and if you check both of those boxes, you too can be a Marshal of France. The first round of Marshals includes 18 names, although eight more Marshals will be added over the coming years, increasing the total number to 26 by the time of Napoleon’s fall. Of the original 18 Marshals of France, four appointees are purely honorary. They’re men who had served France with distinction, but are too old or too busy with other things to actually command an army.

        -Of the other 14, we’ve met a few. Louis-Alexandre Berthier, André Masséna, and Guillaume Brune have already won major victories for Napoleon. Joachim Murat had been a second-lieutenant when he had fetched cannons for Napoleon to put down a royalist mob in Paris. He had gone on to become famous in Egypt, and married Napoleon’s sister Caroline. General Jean-Baptiste Jourdan is famous for proposing Jourdan’s Law and reforming France’s conscription system, and also for winning the Battle of Fleurus. Not to just throw a bunch of names at you, but the other Marshals of France are Bon-Adrien de Moncey, who had led the French army against Spain in the War of the First Coalition, Pierre Augereau, who had served in Italy, Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, a former Republican and Minister of War, Jean-de-Dieu Soult, another commander from Italy, Jean Lannes, who had become famous in Egypt and gone on to lead Napoleon’s Consular Guard, Édouard Mortier, who had won some major victories on the Rhine Frontier during the War of the Second Coalition, Michel Ney, perhaps the most famous Marshal of the Empire, who had served with distinction in the War of the First Coalition, Louis-Nicolas Davout, who had served in Egypt, and Jean-Baptiste Bessières, a competent cavalry commander who probably gets his position mostly because he’s a personal friend of Napoleon’s. These are the men who will lead French armies for the next decade. And by giving them this grand title, Marshal of the Empire, Napoleon has secured their loyalty.

The rest of this episode, we’ll be moving a little more quickly than we usually do on Relevant History. The Napoleonic Era has 11 years left, and you could do a whole podcast series on it. There are entire podcast series about Napoleon and his wars. I want to give a top-level view and hit some of the highlights, as well as investigate how some of the French Revolution’s major threads tie up during this period. So, with that in mind, let’s talk about Napoleon’s next big challenge, the War of the Third Coalition.

Chapter Nine: The War of the Third Coalition

The year 1804 has brought Napoleon to the apex of political power. But on May 10th of that year, another European ruler makes his return to power: British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger. His replacement Henry Addington has been unable to wrangle the various government factions during his short tenure, and Pitt is now back in command. Having overseen the last war against the French, he’s well-prepared to go for another round. In fact, the British are even better-prepared than they had been for the Wars of the First and Second Coalitions.

        -Prior to the French Revolution, the French Merchant Marine had numbered just over 2,000 ships. In 1804, that number has declined to less than 1,200, with the rest captured by the British. The overwhelming number of captured ships have been what we would call today large bulk carriers. These are ships with a capacity of more than 200 tons, and of a pre-Revolution total of nearly 1,000, just over 200 of these large ships remain. The rest of the French merchant marine consists of smaller vessels that can outrun British warships, but aren’t suited for long-range, high-volume trade, only for local coastal trade. Meanwhile, over the same period of time, the British merchant marine has risen from 15,000 to almost 18,000 ships, or about 15 times the number of trade ships available to the French.

        -The situation is just as bad when it comes to the navy. We’ve talked about the British ability to invest more heavily in their navy, particularly in training, and the fact that their crews and officers are more experienced than the French. Britain has twice the number of vessels the French have, and they have resources to build more and cheaper. Geoffrey Bruun writes:

        “With ample supplies of English oak and Scandinavian or American pine to draw upon, with a monopoly of the world’s colonial products available, not to mention a superior metallurgical industry to arm the men-of-war, Great Britain enjoyed an advantage in naval construction which France could not seriously challenge. The unequal competition helped to destroy the fiscal balance which Napoleon had achieved, and the three years which followed the renewal of war in 1803 saw the French naval expenditures leap from a projected total of 240,000,000 francs for the triennium to more than 440,000,000, an extravagant indulgence of hopes that were doomed to founder at Trafalgar.”

        -We’ll get to Trafalgar in a few minutes. For now, the Royal Navy is still in blockade mode, with their objective to strangle French shipping and prevent neutral ships from entering French ports. In fall of 1804, Pitt ups the ante by authorizing seizures of neutral ships, bound for neutral ports, should they be carrying goods bound for France.

        -Under the terms of the 1796 Second Treaty of San Ildefonso that had formed the alliance between France and Spain, Spain had agreed to pay an annual fee to the French in any year where the French are at war and the Spanish are not. Since France and Britain are now at war, Spain is preparing to send its 1804 indemnity payment – some 72,000,000 francs worth of silver and other valuables. This shipment departs Montevideo, in modern-day Uruguay, on August 9th, and is bound for the port of Cadiz. The treasure is then to be shipped overland to France to circumvent the British blockade. The Spanish treasure fleet – the last of its kind – consists of four frigates, and four British frigates intercept them off the coast of Portugal on October 5th. The British pull alongside the Spanish ships and messages are exchanged, with the British commander explaining that he’s ordered to divert the Spanish ships to a neutral port. When the Spanish refuse to be diverted, a British ship fires a warning shot, Spanish ships return fire, and both sides start hammering each-other with broadsides at knife-fighting range. Within minutes, a lucky British shot hits the magazine of one of the Spanish frigates, which explodes, killing 200 of its 240 sailors. The other three Spanish ships scatter, but the British force is able to pursue them, capture all three, and sail them to Gibraltar before taking them to England, along with their precious cargo.

        -Now, it doesn’t matter what historical era you’re talking about; this is an act of war. Manuel de Godoy, the Spanish Secretary of State who is Queen Maria Luisa’s lover and the de facto leader of Spain, officially declares war on Britain, and authorizes the merger of the French and Spanish fleets into a single allied force. This poses a quandary for William Pitt’s government, because it undercuts British naval supremacy. At least for the time being, Napoleon has access to a naval force that isn’t quite as powerful as the Royal Navy, but is powerful enough to give the British a run for their money.

As the simmering conflict slowly heats up and approaches a boil, Napoleon is looking for an off-ramp. He’s trying to govern the French Empire, not fight an endless series of wars with the British Empire, and he reaches out more than once to George III to try and make peace. The British king has never taken him seriously or even sent a response, but after his coronation, Napoleon tries again, this time calling him “brother,” which is how fellow monarchs often refer to each-other. In a letter dated January 2nd 1805, Napoleon writes:

        “Sir and Brother,

“Having been called by Providence, and by the voice of the Senate, the people, and the army, to the throne of France, my first feeling is a desire for peace. France and England are wasting their prosperity. They may contend for centuries, but are their Governments rightfully fulfilling their most sacred duty, and does not their conscience reproach them with so much blood shed in vain, for no definite end? I am not ashamed to take the initiative. I have, I think, sufficiently proved … that I do not fear the chances of war… Peace is my heartfelt wish, but war has never been adverse to my renown. I implore Your Majesty not to deprive yourself of the happiness of bestowing peace on the world. … Never was there a better occasion… for imposing silence on passion, and for listening to the voice of humanity and reason. If this opportunity be lost, what term can be assigned to a war which all my endeavors might fail to terminate?...

“What do you hope to attain by war? The coalition of some Continental Powers? … To snatch her colonies from France? Colonies are objects of but secondary importance to France; and does not Your Majesty already possess more than you can keep?…

“The world is large enough for our two nations to live in it, and the power of reason is sufficient to enable us to overcome all difficulties if on both sides there is the will to do so. In any case I have fulfilled a duty which I hold to be righteous, and which is dear to my heart. I trust Your Majesty will believe in the sincerity of the sentiments I have expressed, and in my earnest desire to give you proof of them.”

-The British government is unconvinced, and King George III does not send a personal reply. Instead, he orders his foreign secretary to send a letter to Talleyrand, which reads in part:

“His Majesty has no dearer wish than to embrace the first opportunity of once more procuring for his subjects the advantages of a peace which shall be founded on bases not incompatible with the permanent security and the essential interests of his States. His Majesty is convinced that this end can only be attained by an arrangement which will provide alike for the future security and tranquillity of Europe, and prevent a renewal of the dangers and misfortunes which have beset the Continent.

“His Majesty, therefore, feels it to be impossible to reply more decisively to the question which has been put to him, until he has had time to communicate with those Continental Powers with whom he is allied, and particularly with the Emperor of Russia, who has given the strongest proofs of his wisdom and good feeling, and of the deep interest which he takes in the security and independence of Europe.”

-This may sound like a moderate response, but what the British are really doing is buying time. They’re not simply “communicating” with continental European powers; they’re trying to put together yet another anti-French coalition to crush Napoleon.

Now, if you go to the Wikipedia page for “War of the Third Coalition,” it says the war begins on April 11th 1805, but that date is somewhat arbitrary. As with the First Coalition, the members of the Third Coalition will join – and leave – over time. In fact, the first member to join is Sweden, which allies with Britain in December of 1804. This is more a symbolic alliance than anything. Swedish king Gustav IV never commits his own troops, but does allow British troops to use Sweden as a base for a planned reconquest of Hanover. April 11th 1805, the date Wikipedia gives, is the day the Russians agree to join the British-led coalition. After some negotiating, Tsar Alexander I agrees to accept large British subsidies in exchange for committing Russian troops to a war against France. As in the last war, the Russians will be an uneasy British ally at best. Alexander wants Russia to become a Mediterranean power, and needs to stop Napoleon to do it. But the British have their own designs on the Mediterranean, and just like with Malta, they’re not likely to let the Russians see any real gains. Besides which, those Russian troops will need some way to march across Europe to get to France, and they have no way to do that until August 9th 1805, when Austria joins the war. For Austria, trapped between the old Russian Empire and the new French Empire, this is a war for survival, and the last straw appears to be continued French expansion in Italy. On May 26th, Napoleon accepts the crown of Lombardy, adding much of Northern Italy to his realm. And on June 6th, he accepts a request from the Ligurian Republic to become part of France, which means it’s not just French sister republics dominating northern Italy, but France itself, which has added the port of Genoa by annexing the Ligurian Republic. And it’s only after this annexation that the Austrians join the Third Coalition. Then the Kingdom of Naples joins the war. The Prussians will remain neutral, and the French will be joined by the Spanish, Dutch Batavian Republic, and a handful of small German states. All of this to say that while the War of the Third Coalition officially begins in April 1805, it doesn’t really get going until September.

        -At the start of the war, Napoleon has three main armies. The first is the Army of Italy, commanded by Marshal André Masséna. This is a blocking force, preventing the Austrians from invading Northern Italy while the other armies do their jobs. The second is the Army of the Rhine, led by Marshals Louis-Nicolas Davout, Joachim Murat, Michel Ney, and Jean-de-Dieu Soult. This army is to penetrate quickly into Austrian Germany, tie up the bulk of the Austrian army, and hopefully knock Austria out of the war before large numbers of Russian troops arrive. Napoleon himself leads the main army – the so-called Grande Armée, which is that force of a quarter million men on the English Channel. This army is held in place for the planned invasion of England, which should end the war once and for all, since the Third Coalition will collapse without British financial support.

        -As is often the case in war, things don’t go as either side had planned. As Napoleon had intended, André Masséna’s Italian army holds their ground and prevents any serious Austrian incursions into Northern Italy. But the Army of the Rhine is more successful than Napoleon had dreamed or the Austrians had feared.

        -Again, I don’t want to get into a blow-by-blow account, so here are the basics. Starting on September 25th, French armies move into Germany, striking for the main Austrian defensive force at the city of Ulm. Napoleon is still waiting for favorable conditions to invade Great Britain, so rather than letting his invasion force cool their heels on the channel coast, he orders his Grande Armée to march for the Rhine frontier and help out his marshals. Overwhelmed, the Austrians are forced to fall back again and again as they are defeated by French armies. They’re also affected by bungled communications with their Russian allies. See, the Austrians and most of Europe are using the modern Gregorian calendar, which we use today, but the Russians are still using the old Julian calendar, which at this point is 12 days behind the Gregorian calendar. So there comes a point where the Austrians are expecting the Russians to show up any minute now, but in reality the Russian army is still 12 days away, and on October 20th, the main Austrian army at Ulm is forced to surrender. This leaves the French within striking distance of Vienna, although Russian troops are now in the area and further advances will be more difficult.

        -The next day, October 21st, comes one of the great French defeats of the Napoleonic Wars: the Battle of Trafalgar, which I’ve discussed in detail on my Patreon channel. Briefly, the French and Spanish face a major naval issue. If they’re going to invade England, they need their Mediterranean and Atlantic fleets to link up and overwhelm the British at the channel. French Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, commander of the French fleet at the Mediterranean port of Toulon, is blockaded in port by a British fleet under the command of Admiral Horatio Nelson. When a storm blows Nelson’s blockading fleet off station, Villenueve sets sail, links up with some Spanish ships, and sails through the Strait of Gibraltar. Per Napoleon’s orders, he sails not for the English Channel, but for the Caribbean, as if he’s going to attack British colonies. As planned, Nelson pursues Villenueve and Villenueve manages to lose him in the Caribbean, then sails back for Europe. But this entire plan depends on speed, and rather than head immediately for the channel ports, Villenueve instead heads for the Spanish port of Cadiz to repair and refit. By the way, it’s this unplanned re-routing that convinces Napoleon to send his Grande Armée into Germany; without a large fleet in the English Channel, there’s no hope of invading England, and the army is needed on the European continent.

        -But rather than have his fleet sit around doing nothing until they can invade England, Napoleon orders Admiral Villenueve to sail his combined Franco-Spanish force for Naples, where British and Russian troops are massing for an invasion into Northern Italy. When Villenueve approaches the Strait of Gibraltar, Nelson’s fleet sights him, and Nelson’s 27 ships of the line defeat the 33 French and Spanish ships at a place called Trafalgar. 21 of these ships are captured and another one destroyed. And while Nelson himself will die in the battle, his victory once again turns the naval situation decisively in Britain’s favor. The Royal Navy indisputably rules the waves.

Chapter Ten: Austerlitz

The defeat at Trafalgar spoils Napoleon’s plans to invade Britain – which he famously calls “perfidious Albion.” But it also clarifies matters. If he can’t get at the British, the next best thing is to use his massive army to crush Britain’s continental allies and bring the war to a quick conclusion before the British and Russian troops in Naples launch their attack into Northern Italy and open up a second front. This brings us to one of Napoleon’s most iconic victories: the Battle of Austerlitz. But before we talk about the battle, I want to paint another portrait of Napoleon, sort of like I did last episode.

        -The Emperor is now 35 years old. His wiry frame has thickened out, although he’s by no means overweight, and he keeps his hair cut short instead of wearing it long like he used to. Never a talented rider, Napoleon nonetheless leads his men into battle on horseback, energetically riding around the battlefield as needed.

        -Compared to other European monarchs of this time period, this is one of Napoleon’s defining features. He’s not like King Louis, or King George in England, sitting back in his capital and overseeing the war from afar. He’s with his men, often putting himself in danger to inspire them like Caesar or Richard the Lionheart. He’s one of the last old-school monarchs who really knows how to lead. And remember, Napoleon also has his Marshals of the Empire to help him out on the battlefield.

        -You can contrast this with the Austrian military leadership, which is a whole bunch of old guys who don’t fully understand modern artillery, rifles, and tactics. Some of these guys have been around since they fought for Maria Theresa in the Seven Years War. Archduke Charles, two years Napoleon’s junior, is a major exception. But he’s fighting in Northern Italy, which the Austrians had assumed would be the major theatre of the war and instead has turned into a sideshow. Besides which, his new military theories are not working out well on the battlefield, so Charles will ultimately have to tinker with his system until he gets it properly implemented in 1809.

        -It’s not just Napoleon the man who is energetic; it’s his entire army. The Napoleonic armies are famous for zipping around the map, as has been demonstrated by a series of French outflanking maneuvers during the Ulm campaign. Now, I’m fascinated with military logistics – getting people, weapons systems, and other supplies from point A to point B — and as it turns out, so is Napoleon. To improve his overall mobility, Napoleon develops something called the corps d’armée system. Instead of separate infantry, cavalry, artillery, and logistical command structures with a single centralized logistical corps, the soldiers are divided into multiple army corps. Each corps has a mixture of infantry, cavalry, and artillery, so it can perform a variety of tasks without having to wait for backup. Furthermore, each corps also has its own miniature supply train, so any given corps is free to operate independently without having to separate itself from a central supply train.

-On top of his organizational innovations, Napoleon also fosters new logistical technologies. As Napoleon says, “an army marches on its stomach,” and one of his most underrated talents as a general is his ability to keep his men well-supplied. In fact ten years ago, way back in 1795 when he was just starting to become famous, Napoleon had offered a financial prize to anyone who could come up with a better method of preserving food for the battlefield, and a guy named Nicolas Appert had come up with a method of putting food in jars and then boiling it – the process we now call canning. Appert has since used the prize money to build a factory and is now producing all kinds of canned food for the French Army. No longer does the army require a constant local supply of fresh meat and produce. Now it can rely on industrially-produced canned meals instead. This is a new technology, so it’s something only Napoleon’s armies have access to, and it gives them an edge when they need to operate on an extended campaign far from their own supply lines.

Such is the case at the end of November 1805. After the defeat in the Ulm Campaign, the surviving Austrian armies have pulled back far to the northeast in modern-day Czechoslovakia, putting distance between themselves and the French, and linking up with their Russian allies that much more quickly. Napoleon had pursued them, and now finds himself 700 miles from Paris at the beginning of winter. So he decides to set a trap by pretending that his army is about to run out of food and is itself going to retreat back to Western Europe.

        -Napoleon’s force has been weakened, not by battle, but by the need to install garrison forces along the way to protect his supply lines. From a high of 200,000 men, he now leads an army of only 73,000. At the same time, the nearby Austro-Russian army under the command of Mikhail Kutuzov numbers 87,000. Kutuzov digs in in late November, occupying a position near Olmutz and daring Napoleon to attack him. Napoleon, in turn, occupies a strong set of hills near the town of Austerlitz a few miles to the south, and the two armies square off. But time does not favor the French. Two more enemy armies are approaching from the north and south, and if these forces are allowed to converge, Napoleon will not only be trapped in a 3-way pincer, but he’ll be hopelessly outnumbered. So rather than attack Kutuzov’s entrenched men or wait to become surrounded, Napoleon decides to pretend he’s even weaker than he is and provoke Kutuzov into attacking him on ground of his own choosing.

        -To make himself appear weak, Napoleon cuts his 73,000-man army down even further, ordering the corps led by Marshals Bernadotte and Davout to march north and south respectively, but to remain close enough to reinforce him when the time is right. This leaves him with just 53,000 men that General Kutuzov is aware of: three corps led by Marshals Soult, Lannes, and Bessiéres, and a large cavalry reserve led by Marshal Murat.

        -Then, Napoleon makes it look like he’s pulling back. Marshal Soult has held a large, prominent, tactically-important set of hills called the Pratzen Heights, three miles to the west of Austerlitz, and on December 1st 1805, Napoleon orders him to withdraw closer to the other corps, as if everybody is about to march out in a hurry. Kutuzov quickly orders his men to march, and occupies the Pratzen Heights himself. Unbeknownst to him, this is exactly what Napoleon wants.

        -Napoleon himself has pulled his men back across a valley to another set of hills: Santon in the north, and Zuran a little further south and west. Between these hills and the now-Russian-held Pratzen Heights, there’s the aforementioned valley with a river flowing from north to south. Along this river are five villages. From north to south, they are: Jurscikowitz, Puntowitz, Kobelnitz, Sokolnitz, and Telnitz. At the south end of the valley is the Satschan Lake, with a set of marshes to its northeast near the base of the Pratzen Heights.

        -Napoleon puts the bulk of his army on Zuran and Santon hills, with only a few men assigned to protect the entire valley from Puntowitz all the way to Satschan Lake. Meanwhile, he has Davout deploy far to the south near Satschan Lake, and then, critically, orders Marshal Soult to hide his army in a low part of the valley near Kobelnitz, where the dense morning fog that’s common in the area at this time of year will conceal them from the enemy.

        - Napoleon is counting on his weakened right flank to hold out as long as possible and draw off more men from the Austro-Russian center on the heights. When the enemy center is fatally weakened, Napoleon intends to send his hidden men directly at it, re-occupy the Pratzen Heights, and roll up both Austro-Russian flanks like they teach you in the military academy. This is a gamble; if that French right flank collapses too soon, the Coalition army will themselves roll up the rest of the French army and win the day. The night before the battle, Napoleon sends an order saying:

        “Soldiers,

        “I shall in person direct all your battalions. I shall keep out of range if with your accustomed bravery, you carry disorder and confusion into the ranks of the enemy. But if the outcome is for a moment uncertain, you shall see your Emperor himself in the front rank.”

        -After sending this order, Napoleon tours his camp and speaks with men from along the line, making a point to visit the men on the far right flank first. He’s hoping that a personal visit from their Emperor will inspire them with much-needed courage for the fight ahead.

At 7 AM on December 2nd, General Kutuzov once again takes the bait, and orders his men to attack Napoleon’s weakened right flank in the southern valley. If he can push them back, he’ll have Napoleon’s main army on the hills caught in a pincer. To keep that main army from reinforcing the smaller French forces to the south, Kutuzov sends a small diversionary attack force at the French left flank to the north. Some of the old Austrian generals, along with Kutuzov himself, are opposed to the idea of an attack on Napoleon’s right flank, since it will require pulling men off their superior position on the Pratzen Heights. However, the battle plan has been drawn up by a more aggressive Austrian commander, General Franz von Weyrother, who pressures Kutuzov into authorizing the diversion. Kutuzov still takes due caution, and does not commit all his men, keeping a significant force on the heights in case of any French counterattack.

        -Kutuzov attacks Telnitz, the southernmost town in the valley, but the attack does not go smoothly. Hampered by the morning fog, some of the troops have trouble getting into formation. When Tsar Alexander mocks Kutuzov for fussing so much over deployment, the general marches his men out immediately and in poor order. In the end, it doesn’t matter that much that his men are disordered. With their superior numbers, the Coalition troops are able to push the overstretched French past their breaking point. Telnitz falls into Austrian control almost immediately as the French defenders are simply overwhelmed. Then some fog blows in, and a daring French raid pushes the Austrians out again. But the Austrians send in some hussars to attack the French infantry, and Telnitz falls into Coalition hands. As the Coalition army continues to advance, French troops to the north are then pushed out of Sokolnitz around 9 o’clock.

        -To the Russians and Austrians, it feels like they’re winning. Look! The French are running away! But as they continue to advance, Franz von Weyrother and Tsar Alexander get greedy back at their headquarters on the Pratzen Heights, and they do what they teach you to do in military school. When an enemy’s flank is collapsing, you send in reserves to exploit their weakness and get into their rear before they can recover. And here’s where Napoleon gets lucky.

        -See, the morning fog is beginning to lift, and his generals are actually worried that it may lift too soon, reveal Marshal Soult’s hidden men, and spoil the surprise counterattack. But Napoleon also needs the fog to lift soon enough to see the top of Pratzen Heights and get an idea of how many men are left in the Coalition army’s center. And as those Austrian and Russian soldiers charge into Telnitz and Sokolnitz, the fog clears just enough for Napoleon to look through his field glass and watch those Russian reinforcements marching off the Pratzen Heights and weakening the enemy army’s center.

        -In perhaps the most brilliant tactical move of his career, Napoleon waits until the Coalition’s reinforcements have completely left the top of the Heights. His advisors keep begging him to launch the attack before the right flank collapses completely, but he delays until the enemy center is as weak as it’s going to get. Then he orders Marshal Soult’s men, still completely hidden in the fog, to attack directly into the weakened Austro-Russian center. Soult’s 16,000 men march forward, and emerge from the fog just a few hundred yards from the leading Coalition troops, with their bayonets famously gleaming red in the morning sun. The Coalition troops are caught totally flat-footed, and the leading troops retreat, which causes the next formations to retreat, and soon Soult’s men are standing on top of the Pratzen Heights, with the Austrians and Russians now collapsed into two disordered and dispersed groups of troops on the French flanks.

        -Kutuzov orders some troops back to push the French off the heights, but by the time he does, it’s too late. In his book A Detailed Account of the Battle of Austerlitz, Austrian General Karl von Stutterheim, who is present at the battle, writes:

        “The action then became very hot, and it was attempted to regain the ground that had been lost by the advanced guard. The Russians made an attack, opening their fire at too great a distance and without much effect, while the French columns continued to advance without firing a shot; but when at the distance of about 100 paces they opened a fire of musketry which became general and very destructive. The enemy opened out his masses by degrees, formed in several lines, and marched rapidly towards the heights.”

        -Meanwhile, to the north of the battlefield, Coalition troops commanded by the Prince of Liechtenstein initially make headway. But after one of the French divisions is attacked by the Russian cavalry, Marshal Murat counterattacks with his own cavalry. These are Napoleon’s famous cuirassiers, so called because they wear plate breastplates, or cuirasses, into battle. The heavier-armed, heavier-armored French cavalry sweep the Russians from the field, and stabilize the French left flank.

        -Back in the center, Tsar Alexander sends in his last reserve troops, which are also his best cavalry, the Russian Imperial Guard. Much like on the French left, the cavalry initially make headway, until Napoleon sends in his own reserves, which are his own Guard Cavalry, and the heavy French troopers stymie the Russian advance. It’s worth noting that along with the Guard Cavalry come Egyptian Mamluk cavalry, men who have pledged themselves to Napoleon’s service and will be with him until the end. The Guard Cavalry also brings another Napoleonic innovation – small, horse-towed cannons that are designed to keep up with men on horseback. They aren’t as heavy as Napoleon’s big field guns, but having some artillery – even smaller guns – is better than having none at all where you need it. Being able to rain grapeshot down the throats of their enemies gives the French soldiers a big leg up in this fight, and General Kutozov himself is wounded in the exchange. With the Heights again secure, the French are then able to turn their artillery towards the Russian and Austrian troops on the flanks.

        -The final collapse of the Coalition force comes in the south and center, where Marshal Davout’s men launch a counterattack and push them out of Sokolnitz. The men here can already see that the French control the high ground on both sides of the valley, and now they see their friends running out of Sokolnitz. The Coalition troops begin to panic, and retreat in disorder, leaving 180 artillery pieces behind. As they flee, some of the men run across the frozen surface of Satschan Lake, and French artillery fires after them. As many as 2,000 men are killed in the fusillade, plunged into frigid water when cannonballs shatter the ice around them.

Chapter Eleven: The End of an Empire

The Battle of Austerlitz is a total disaster for the Coalition. They lose approximately 36,000 of their best men killed, wounded, or captured, compared to French casualties of around 9,000. Back in London, Prime Minister William Pitt supposedly points to a map of Europe on his desk and tells an aide to roll it up, because it won’t be needed for the next ten years. But as frustrated as the British must be, it’s the Austrians and the Russians who have suffered the losses, and now the Austrians are back where they were at the end of the War of the Second Coalition: on the run, with a victorious French army perched 80 miles from Vienna and no meaningful forces between that army and the Imperial capital. The British and the Russians are still willing and able to fight, but the threat to Vienna pushes Austria into peace negotiations.

        -Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “The Treaty of Pressburg with Austria (completed in Napoleon’s absence, December 26, 1805) was merciless. She had begun hostilities by invading Bavaria; she was now required to give up to Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg all her lands in the Tirol, Vorarlberg, and south Germany. So enlarged, Bavaria and Württemberg became kingdoms, and Baden became a grand duchy allied with France. To recompense France for her outlay of men, money, and matériel in the war, Austria transferred to a French protectorate all her possessions in Italy, including Venice and its hinterlands; and she agreed to pay France an indemnity of forty million francs— part of which, Napoleon was happy to learn, had recently arrived from England. In addition he ordered his art connoisseurs to send to Paris some choice pictures and statues from Austrian palaces and galleries. All this tribute of land and money and art the victor, in his Roman way, considered to be rightful spoils of war. Finally he ordered that a triumphal column be erected in the Place Vendôme in Paris, and be coated with metal taken from enemy cannon captured at Austerlitz.”

        -The Peace of Pressburg badly weakens Austria, and pushes her out of the War of the Third Coalition. Between Austrian and Prussian neutrality, Russian troops now have to attack France either via their allies in Sweden, or from the Mediterranean, with British help.

        -Now, a Russo-British force had already been helping defend the Kingdom of Naples, or roughly the bottom half of the boot of Italy, and this force had been preparing for an invasion of the French Empire south of the Alps. There’s actually a little story behind this. See, at the outbreak of the War of the Third Coalition, Neapolitan King Ferdinand IV had declared himself neutral. Then the British and Russians had moved their troops into Naples without Ferdinand’s permission, under the auspices of protecting Neapolitan neutrality. Only after that had Napoleon actually declared war on Naples, asserting that by violating his pledge of neutrality, King Ferdinand has renounced his throne.

        -With the defeat at Austerlitz and the removal of Austria from the war, Tsar Alexander decides that rather than attack France, it’s time to pull back, and he orders the withdrawal of Russian troops in Naples. Britain also withdraws, and falls back to a strategy of blockading France, and when they pull out their troops over the winter, the Kingdom of Naples finds itself fighting alone against the French Empire.

        -Naples actually does pretty well. With only 22,000 troops, the Neapolitan Army resists the French for months, including a guerilla resistance in Calabria, the mountainous toe of the Italian boot. While Neapolitan resistors will remain in the field until mid-July, most of the country has fallen to France by the beginning of spring, and on March 30th 1806, Napoleon crowns his older brother Joseph Bonaparte as the King of Naples. So the French Empire now includes not just France and the Netherlands, but also almost all of modern-day Italy.

The fall of Naples marks the end of the War of the Third Coalition only because nobody is actively fighting. The British continue their blockade of French ports, and the Russian army sits back in Eastern Europe, licking its wounds and waiting for the chance to strike again. Still, by mid-summer, Europe is at peace in the sense that there’s no active combat zone. So let’s take a quick breather, because this period of pseudo-peace won’t last long; the War of the Fourth Coalition is just around the corner.

        -There are a couple of events that aren’t as flashy as war, but that are still worth mentioning as we turn the calendar from 1805 to 1806. To begin with, that calendar itself, the Republican Calendar, is officially abolished on January 1st of the regular calendar. From here on out, there will be no references to the Republican Calendar, because it no longer exists. By the Emperor’s decree, France is once again using the Gregorian Calendar we all know and love.

        -On the periphery of the war, the British Empire captures Cape Colony on January 8th 1806, the earlier version of modern-day South Africa. This colony, which had been founded by the Dutch and has changed hands between the Dutch and the British a few times, will remain part of the British Empire well into the 20th century. But at the time, it’s a blip on the radar, because much bigger things are happening in the empire’s home islands.

        -On January 23rd, 15 days after the conquest of Cape Colony and before news could even arrive on the British Isles, Prime Minister William Pitt dies of a digestive ulcer at only 46 years old. A new Prime Minister takes over, a guy named William Grenville, to be followed by others whose names we’ll get to as they pop up, but they’ll all share Pitt’s view towards Napoleon: that he must be stopped by any means necessary.

The seeds for a Fourth Coalition aren’t sown merely by British prime ministers or even the implacable Tsar Alexander. They’re also sown between France and Prussia, which has so far remained neutral in two coalition wars and benefitted from continuing Austrian weakness in Germany. However, the French invasion of Hanover had angered Prussian King Frederick William III, who had dreamed of taking Hanover for himself one of these days. So French and Prussian negotiators work out a reshuffling of territory to satisfy both powers.

        -France receives several small German territories close to the French border, some of which are now given to Bavaria, which is one of France’s small German allies that gets a bit bigger. France takes some of the remaining lands for itself, and the rest go to a newly-constructed French puppet state: the Grand Duchy of Berg and Cleves, which is ruled by Napoleon’s Marshal and now brother-in-law Joachim Murat. In exchange, France cedes Hanover to Prussia, which enrages Great Britain and almost causes a war between Britain and Prussia before Napoleon marches across some Prussian territory without permission during his war with the Austrians. In response, Prussian King Frederick William III realizes Napoleon has no respect for Prussian territorial sovereignty and decides to refuse to accept Hanover, hoping to remain neutral.

        -Then, in July of 1806, Napoleon does something Frederick William will have to respond to. He forms an alliance, called the Confederation of the Rhine, made up of all the little western German statelets that France has occupied or supported. Places like Saxony and Bavaria and Württemberg. And while the Confederation of the Rhine is not going to be ruled by France, it’s going to be allied to France, which basically makes it an alliance of French puppet states. It’s the perfect little buffer zone to protect the new Napoleonic Empire, but it also puts a check on Prussian expansionism. Furthermore, the Confederation’s charter actually states that it’s expected to expand further into Germany, and it requires these small states to maintain a combined army of 63,000 men, with an “all for one and one for all” foreign policy that virtually guarantees war and expansion. In the face of this threat, Frederick William III will have no choice but to declare war on France, joining Britain and Russia to form a fourth anti-Napoleon coalition, and kicking off the appropriately-if-unimaginatively named War of the Fourth Coalition.

        -Before we talk about that war, I want to talk about another effect of Napoleon’s conquests, because we’re about to witness the demise of one of Europe’s most ancient institutions, one that’s been involved in all the Napoleonic Wars so far, and I’m talking about the Holy Roman Empire.

The HRE has always been a politically fragile entity, with a complex constitutional organization and specific rules of government. And part of the deal with the Habsburg monarchy is that the king rules in the name of – and is specifically beholden to – a subset of Imperial states called Electors. Hanover is an Elector, and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II has accepted – for now – its occupation by a foreign army. How is he acting as protector of the Empire? He had already accepted the necessity of mediatization, the abolition of those ecclesiastical lands and smaller statelets, which by the way was unconstitutional.

        -Now, Francis II is witnessing the mass revolt of a huge chunk of the northern Holy Roman Empire. The 39 small states in the Confederation of the Rhine have declared themselves outside of the Empire. Prussia had already controlled much of northern Germany, and this new Confederation has joined the French sphere. Northern Italy is also gone, including recently-acquired Venice.

        -Just as importantly, there’s constant diplomatic sparring with the French. France and Austria may technically be at peace, but Napoleon’s army, still in the field, is a dagger at Austria’s throat, and Napoleon knows it. And on July 31st 1806, one of the French ambassadors announces to his Austrian counterpart that Napoleon no longer acknowledges the legitimacy of the German constitution, and demands that Francis abdicate as emperor immediately.

        -A conventional mind would see two ways out of this situation. Francis can abdicate, and accept whatever humiliation Napoleon has in store for him, maybe even claiming the Imperial crown for himself. Or, he can go to war with Napoleon, almost certainly lose again, and the result will be the same.

        -Habsburg rulers have only sporadically been good military leaders, but almost all of them are great diplomats, and Francis II finds the third way out of his conundrum: abolish the Holy Roman Empire. On August 6th 1806, he does just that. John G. Gagliardo writes:

        “Francis was advised to proceed with an immediate abdication, but under circumstances which would practically guarantee the simultaneous dissolution of the imperial nexus and therefore of the Empire itself. In a carefully worded statement of August 6, 1806, the last head of the Holy Roman Empire renounced the Roman-German crown and expressly freed all Estates and imperial officials whatsoever from any and all constitutional responsibilities they bore to him as Emperor, while at the same time declaring the complete and formal withdrawal of his hereditary lands from imperial jurisdiction. A last glimmer of the long fading Habsburg sense of imperial obligation was provided in a separate document which generously promised to continue the payment of salaries of imperial functionaries – the members of the supreme courts, for example – from the Austrian treasury for the lifetime of those concerned. While it is true that Vienna recognized at least the possibility of the survival of the Empire beyond Francis’ abdication… there is little doubt that Francis and his advisors both intended and expected the Empire to collapse with his abdication.”

        -Francis II’s abdication and abolition of the empire is the diplomatic version of what the Russians are gonna do a few years later when they burn Moscow to the ground. No matter what, he’s not going to let Napoleon seize the imperial crown – he will burn the ancient empire to the ground first. In practical terms, this isn’t as earth-shattering as it seems. It mostly just confirms reality – that the still-existing Austrian Empire’s power base has shifted to the east. Remember, the Habsburgs now rule much of modern-day Poland, and have a border with Russia. But as of August 6th 1806, the Holy Roman Empire, this medieval pan-Germanic entity, is dead, never to return. Now, there are two German nations, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia, both developing their own versions of German nationalism.

Chapter Twelve: The War of the Fourth Coalition

On October 9th 1806, the tension between France and Prussia finally boils over and Prussia declares war on France, beginning the War of the Fourth Coalition. The sum total of Russian and Prussian troops will vastly outnumber Napoleon’s troops, but the Russian army is still in Russia, where they’ve been since the end of the last war. They need to march back into western Europe, and in the meantime, Frederick William III’s Prussian armies will have to stand alone against Napoleon, much as the Austrians had tried to do when waiting for Russian help a year earlier. Just like in the Ulm Campaign, Napoleon aims to strike quickly, defeating one enemy before the other can get an army into the field.

        -When he first hears that Prussia has declared war, Napoleon seems to suffer an anxiety attack. And who can blame the guy? Every time he defeats his enemies and establishes a secure France, somebody else declares war. Will and Ariel Durant write, quoting a witness to the scene:

        “The Emperor sent my husband to summon the Empress; he returned with her in a few moments. She was weeping. Agitated by her tears, the Emperor held her for a long time in his arms, and seemed almost unable to bid her farewell. He was strongly moved, and M. de Talleyrand was also much affected. The Emperor, still holding his wife to his heart, approached M. de Talleyrand with outstretched hand; then, throwing his arms around both at once, he said to M. de Rémusat, ‘It is very hard to leave the two persons one loves best.’ As he uttered these words he was overcome by a sort of nervous emotion, which increased to such a degree that he wept uncontrollably; and almost immediately an attack of convulsions ensued, which brought on vomiting. He was placed in a chair, and drank some orange-flower water, but continued to weep for fully a quarter of an hour. At length he mastered himself, and rising suddenly, shook M. de Talleyrand’s hand, gave a last embrace to his wife, and said to M. de Rémusat: ‘Are the carriages ready? Call the suite, and let us go.’”

        -In five days, Napoleon will deliver another master class on military tactics, schooling the Prussians on 19th-century warfare. Actually, Napoleon and Marshal Davout are going to teach the Prussians a pair of lessons, because October 14th 1806 sees two separate victories by two separate French armies.

        -With the French army already in the east, there’s no need for new mobilization. Napoleon already has an army right next door to the Prussians, and as soon as he hugs Joséphine and gets in his carriage, he heads for that army, which marches into Saxony. Using his corps d’armée system, Napoleon splits his army, commanding around 50,000 men himself, and placing 26,000 under the command of Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout. The two armies stay less than a day’s march from each-other so as to be able to provide mutual support if one or the other is attacked. But they march along parallel lines, which means they can be supplied along separate roads instead of all their supplies going along the same road, so the armies can move very quickly. The objective is to seek and destroy the Prussian army before the Russians can arrive.

        -The Prussian army is falling back from Saxony, in western Germany, planning to cross the River Elbe in good order and fight a defensive war in Prussia proper. But on the night of October 13th, Napoleon’s scouts locate the Prussian camp, still on the west side of the Elbe, near the town of Jena. Napoleon quickly deploys his men, preparing for a battle on the morning of October 14th. Both sides try to gain intelligence on the other. Napoleon overestimates his enemy’s strength, and thinks he’s attacking the entire Prussian army, when in fact he’s attacking the 55,000-man rearguard, commanded by Prince Frederick Hohenlohe. Hohenlohe, meanwhile, thinks he’s only fighting a single French division instead of the 50,000-man main army. Paul K. Davis describes what happens next:

        “In the morning fog, the French troops received their orders to march at 0600 [hours]. Within 3 hours, they had captured the villages that were their objectives, and Napoleon ordered his forces to stop and reassemble their units. The Prussian advanced force, under General Tauenzien, lost a large number of its men in the fighting, but regrouped to the rear of Hohenlohe’s force to act as a reserve. As Hohenlohe brought up more men to meet the French, both commanders were positioning their troops for the battle to come. It began much sooner than expected, however, because of the impetuousness of one of Napoleon’s marshals, Ney.

        “Fearing that the battle might be over too quickly for him and his men to gain their share of glory, Ney pressed his attack on the Prussians at the village of Vierzehnheiligen. Napoleon was forced to send in men to support this premature attack, but the supplemental French troops captured the village and immediately met the front of the Prussian army lined up in the open outside town. Retreating back into the protection of the village, the French began shooting at the exposed Prussians. The discipline imposed on the Prussians since the days of Frederick I did not fail; indeed, it was the major cause of the Prussian defeat that day. Under intense musket and artillery fire, the Prussian troops stood their ground for 2 hours and died in huge numbers. As that was taking place, Napoleon ordered attacks on both Prussian flanks. Shortly after noon, he ordered a general advance, and the decimated Prussians were pressed back all along the line.

        “Hohenlohe ordered a withdrawal northwestward, but the retreat soon degenerated. The only hope to save the Prussians from total rout was the arrival and defensive stand of reinforcements marching from Weimar. They, however, arrived too late and found themselves facing a victorious and exuberant French army that in a matter of minutes tore the reinforcements to shreds. By 1600 [hours], the French pursuit was in full swing, with the only serious resistance coming from the Saxon troops, which stood their ground and died.”

        -Now, you might be wondering: “If this is just part of the Prussian army at the Battle of Jena, where’s the rest of it?” Well, the morning of the same day, October 14th 1806, Marshal Louis-Nicolas Davout’s 26,000-man force is near the town of Auerstadt, marching through the morning fog when the vanguard encounters Prussian soldiers. This turns out to be the leading edge of a 50,000-man Prussian army, led by Karl Wilhelm, the Duke of Brunswick. Both armies are equally surprised by each-others’ presence, but Davout’s French attack faster. Despite being outnumbered nearly two-to-one, they’re able to use their superior mobility to concentrate their forces against successive waves of Prussian troops, and they knock out each wave of troops before the enemy can properly form up, and end up surrounding the Prussians and even bringing artillery around the flanks to hammer the remaining men. By early afternoon, the Duke of Brunswick has been killed, King Frederick William has taken personal command of the Prussian army, and he orders a retreat. This army eventually runs into the other retreating Prussian army from Jena, and the two armies join up and march back to Berlin to regroup and protect the Prussian capital.

        -It’s tough to overstate the impact of the twin battles of Jena and Auerstadt. When Frederick William III has his morning coffee on October 14th 1806, he leads the second-most-feared army in Europe, with the legacy of Frederick the Great. When he goes to bed, his entire army has been put into retreat, and Napoleon’s victorious French are marching on Berlin. French numbers are bolstered by new recruits, as well as reinforcements from the newly-created Kingdom of Holland. Yes, the Batavian Republic is gone, and there’s now a Kingdom of Holland. We’ll get to that in a second. Anyway, with over 160,000 men at his disposal and more on the way, Napoleon marches into Berlin on October 24th. Within 15 days of declaring war, Prussia has lost its capital.

        -The Prussian army will continue to fight on until July of 1807, bolstered by Russian armies. They even see some success on the battlefield, before Napoleon decisively defeats the Russians in the field in the Battle of Friedland in mid-June, capturing 80 Russian cannons and bringing Tsar Alexander to the negotiating table. Napoleon is friendly with Alexander. His vision is for a sort of dual European emperorship, with the Tsar dominating Eastern Europe and Napoleon dominating Western Europe, and Alexander seems to like this idea – for the time being. On July 7th, in the town of Tilsit in modern-day Russia, France and Russia sign a peace treaty in which Russia loses nothing. There is a little reshuffling of the deck, though. Russia hands the Mediterranean islands it had seized back to the French, but in return, the Tsar’s relatives get a bunch of land in Germany. The Russians also agree to join the French Continental System, which is a French-run European trade league I’ll talk about momentarily. In return for joining the Continental System, Tsar Alexander gets Napoleon’s support for any hypothetical war against the Turks over the Balkans, as well as for a little expedition against Sweden.

        -With Russia and France now being quasi-allies, there’s only one major continental power to put to bed, and that’s Prussia. Without Russian help, King Frederick William III is forced to sign his own treaty with Napoleon, also at the town of Tilsit, on July 9th, just after the other Treaty of Tilsit with the Russians. But this treaty with Prussia isn’t magnanimous at all. For daring to attack Napoleon’s empire, Frederick William III loses all land west of the River Elbe, which is basically the western half of Prussian territory. This land is carved up and given to various victorious members of the Confederation of the Rhine, who are the big winners in the War of the Fourth Coalition.

        -Napoleon also creates a couple of semi-independent client states out of Prussian territory. The Kingdom of Westphalia goes to his youngest brother Jerome Bonaparte, who now gets to call himself King of Westphalia. Oh, and Hanover? Prussia doesn’t get that anymore. Hanover also goes to Jerome, and gets rolled into the Kingdom of Westphalia.

        -If that’s not enough, Napoleon also cuts Prussia’s Eastern European holdings down to size. The Prussian portion of Poland is to be resurrected as the Duchy of Warsaw. This is a good-sized chunk of Polish land, and Napoleon’s creation of a new Polish state makes him popular with a lot of Poles, especially Poles living in France. But the new Duchy of Warsaw is to be governed as yet another puppet state – basically, to act as a buffer zone between the French and Russian empires, with a neutered Prussia firmly within the French sphere of influence.

        -Now, Frederick William III gets a lot of flak for his catastrophic losses in the War of the Fourth Coalition, but it’s worth remembering that he re-tools the military afterwards, or at least has enough insight to recognize that it needs re-tooling. The problem with most pre-modern armies is that any given army relies on one man for overall leadership. If you want to beat Napoleon, you need another great leader, someone like Frederick the Great, and right now in the early 1800s the Prussians don’t have anyone like that. So what do you do when you don’t have a single great leader? Maybe in that case, multiple heads are better than one. If you don’t have one guy who can outthink Napoleon, get a whole room full of your smartest guys and let them hammer out ideas and maybe they can collectively outthink Napoleon.

        -Led by a military reformer named Gerhard von Scharnhorst, the Prussian army will create a general staff. A general staff is a corps of soldiers who are dedicated to planning, logistics, intelligence, and communications. So instead of handling all those things personally, a field commander can rely on the general staff and focus on leading his army. In fact, Napoleon already has a general staff, and so do the Austrians, so the mere existence of a new Prussian general staff is not all that remarkable. What makes the Prussian system famous is just how much they commit to it.

        -Under Scharnhorst and his successor, August von Gneisenau, Prussia will create a staff training school within their military, and this school will select top cadets to train specifically for the general staff. The staff will oversee supply, training, and surveillance, and will even play war games to simulate various plans they’re working on. Understand also that this isn’t just some central staff back in Berlin. There will be staff officers and enlisted men marching with every Prussian army to provide support and allow the fighting men to fight. When Prussian armies are so respected in the 1815 Waterloo campaign, it will be thanks to these reforms. It will be this highly-professional staff that propels Prussia back into position as a major power and ultimately facilitates the creation of modern Germany. And by the way, every serious military in the world today has a general staff, because it just makes sense. But that’s later on. For now, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau’s system will take time to implement, and Prussia is going to play ball with France for the next few years while they get things figured out. And yes, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau are indeed the namesakes of the Kriegsmarine’s famous World War II capital ships.

Chapter Thirteen: The Continental System and the Peninsular War

A minute ago, I mentioned something called the Continental System, the trade system Napoleon tries to implement. The Continental System actually begins not in France but in the halls of the British government, which on May 16th 1806 declares an all-out blockade on all French- and French-allied ports on the European mainland. What makes this different from earlier blockades is that it authorizes the arrest of people traveling on neutral ships, which angers not just the French but any nation that wants to trade with the French, which right now means most of Europe because whether you like Napoleon or not, he’s winning, and it’s good policy to trade with people who are winning.

        -If you’re France, though, this British blockade is still a major problem. Remember, Napoleon’s navy, along with the allied Spanish navy, just suffered a huge loss at the Battle of Trafalgar, and the Royal Navy dominates all the waters. Napoleon declares a blockade on Great Britain, but everybody knows that’s just bluster, because there’s no way for the French fleet to enforce any blockade. Well, on November 21st 1806, Napoleon comes up with a solution. Steven Englund writes:

        “The French, bereft of colonies and trade, and with their navy destroyed at Trafalgar, now retaliated by taking a momentous step. Decrees issued from Berlin (November 1806) and Milan (November 1807) declared the British Isles to be ‘in a state of blockade,’ and transposed onto land the no-holds-barred maritime form of war lately pursued by both belligerents but more flagrantly by England (which had superior means). Land warfare traditionally did not condone or consistently practice the seizure of private persons and property, including those of neutrals, so the French decree — which was, in effect, a rationale for seizing the European coasts — anticipated an outcry; whence the statement of reluctance quoted earlier. Napoleon would continue to portray himself, not as the assaulter on the freedom of peoples, but as ‘the long-awaited leader of the revolt against England’s maritime domination.’ He periodically reiterated that the current state of affairs would endure only until Britain backed off from these practices and subscribed to a more humane law for sea warfare…

        “…In this scenario, ‘Perfidious Albion’ would drown in her surplus of manufactured goods, while simultaneously going broke from loss of specie, in paying for European (especially French) imports. Economically shut out and shut down, the British government would be driven by the nation’s all-powerful merchant-banking class to sue for peace.”

        -This Napoleonic blockade-on-land is called the Continental System, and it’s a system whereby France and all her European allies will boycott British trade and British goods, and yes, any goods or ships in harbor that are deemed to be British will be seized. All of Continental Europe will be internally at peace and nations will trade and get rich amongst themselves until Britain makes peace.

As you may imagine, there’s a problem with this plan; not everybody in Continental Europe is on board. The Russians are, and even the Ottoman Empire joins the anti-British blockade. But from the relative safety of the other side of the Baltic, the Swedes continue their British alliance. Portugal also continues trading with Britain, and by late 1807 it’s become a major source of smuggled goods that are then transported overland into Spain and from there into the rest of Europe. So Napoleon decides to invade Portugal.

        -Now, this invasion of Portugal is going to kick off a whole chain of events called the Peninsular War, and this is another one of those rabbit-holes we could do an entire episode on. Fighting on the Iberian peninsula will begin in October 1807 and won’t end until 1814, and it’s strategically important because it ties up French armies, and because it brings an end to the Franco-Spanish alliance. So, how does Napoleon go from fighting against Portugal, a Spanish rival, to being at war with both Spain and Portugal? Well, he attacks them.

        -See, the de facto Spanish leader, Secretary of State Manuel de Godoy, had issued an anti-French proclamation at the beginning of the War of the Fourth Coalition. Following Trafalgar, the Spanish are looking to shore up their colonial empire, which requires peace on the high seas, and their interests are beginning to diverge from Napoleon, who could care less about overseas colonies as long as his European empire can prosper. Anyway, Napoleon no longer trusts de Godoy, so he plans for a quick surprise invasion of not just Portugal but also Spain.

        -Portugal is the first to fall. A French army, marching with Spanish permission, passes through Spain and enters Lisbon on November 30th 1807. This army hits the Portuguese completely by surprise. The royal family barely has time to pack their belongings onto ships and sail off to Brazil, where they will continue to fight the French from their colonies. They leave Lisbon in such a hurry that several wagon-loads of valuables are supposedly left on the docks. Napoleon sets up a puppet regime to run Portugal, and while that regime isn’t necessarily beloved by all the people, it seems good enough, and Napoleon sets his sights on Spain.

        -On February 9th 1808, French troops begin crossing the Pyrenees all along the Spanish frontier and occupying the border forts. Because the two countries are supposed to be allies, there are several instances where Spanish fortresses just open their doors and let the French in, only to find out that their fortress has now been occupied and they are now prisoners of war. Spanish diplomatic protests receive non-answers or outright denials, and on February 20th, Napoleon puts Marshal Joachim Murat in charge of the Army in Spain, and only on February 24th does he declare that the alliance between France and Spain is over.

        -On March 19th, while travelling through a village, Manuel de Godoy’s carriage is captured by a bunch of armed peasants and army mutineers, who take him hostage and demand that King Charles IV fire him. Within days of the humiliating incident, the Spanish royal court forces the weak king to abdicate, passing the throne to his son, Ferdinand VII.

        -Madrid falls to Marshal Murat’s forces four days later, on March 23rd. Civil unrest is breaking out, not just between pro- and anti-French parties but also between supporters of Ferdinand VII and supporters of the old king Charles IV, who claim that his forced abdication was illegal. Rather than let Spain fall into civil war, the supporters of the two kings agree to settle their grievances by letting bygones be bygones and asking Napoleon to choose between them.

        -On June 6th 1808, Napoleon chooses… his brother, Joseph Bonaparte. So, Joseph becomes the new King of Spain, which we’ll talk about more in a little bit. But the consequences throughout Iberia are huge. The anti-French political parties soon turn into armed groups, including militias of former and even current Spanish soldiers.

        -The following war in Spain and Portugal is where we get the word “guerilla,” which in Spanish literally means “little war.” Whenever Napoleon is around, or even whenever Joseph or Murat is fighting with a French army against a Spanish army, the Spanish army loses. But despite the French holding most of the major cities through most of the war, the Spanish guerillas fight on in the countryside. They camp out near highways and capture French supply caravans, crippling the French armies in the cities. They hit small armed patrols and capture groups of new French recruits marching to relieve the exhausted men on the front lines. It becomes an unsolvable quagmire that ties up anywhere from 150,000 to 300,000 French troops for the next several years.

        -And meanwhile, the French haven’t even managed to get control of Portugal. See, the British have this general who thinks he can beat Napoleon if he’s given the chance, and the British government decides to give him that chance. This guy has fought in India and in the failed British invasion of the Netherlands. He’s the same age as Napoleon, and with 25,000 men, he liberates Lisbon without firing a shot on April 22nd 1809. This British commander’s name is Sir Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington.

        -The French commander at Lisbon, Marshal Soult, was taken by surprise, and has withdrawn his 23,000 men and is marching to link up with another French army of 46,000 men under a new Marshal of the Empire, Claude Victor, who had been promoted after helping to crush the Russians at the Battle of Friedland.

        -Wellington has studied Napoleon’s campaigns, and knows that if he’s going to defeat these two French armies, he needs to attack them separately before they can link up. With his 25,000 men and 15,000 Portuguese troops that have rallied to Lisbon, Wellington marches out, sneaks up on Marshal Soult’s army, attacks it in the rear, and takes all the artillery along with almost 6,000 prisoners, and the rest of that French army limps back to Spain. Wellington then meets Marshal Victor in battle on July 28th 1809, and for a minute it looks like the French are going to win. But something like half of Victor’s troops are Spanish, and they aren’t all that excited about fighting for French glory in Portugal, so most of the Spanish troops run away, and the rest of Victor’s men are unable to dislodge Wellington’s army. Victor retreats back to Spain, and Portugal is free from French occupation. Although the war will continue until 1814, most of the fighting will be in Spain, and Wellington will play a major role, even briefly occupying Madrid in 1812.

        -Again, I don’t want to get too bogged down in the nitty-gritty details of the Peninsular War. Just remember that throughout the rest of Napoleon’s reign, there’s this whole war going on in Spain and to a lesser extent Portugal, and at any given time that war might be tying up hundreds of thousands of French troops, who have to deal with what Napoleon will later call his “Spanish ulcer.” This on top of the loss of Spain as a major ally.

Chapter Fourteen: Re-Painting the Map of Europe

At this point, I want to highlight the way Napoleon advances not just his personal interests but the interests of his own family. Napoleon is building a dynasty here. Obviously there’s what we just talked about, the installation of Napoleon’s older brother Joseph as King of Spain on June 6th 1808. But if you look at a map of Europe at this time, you’ll notice a whole bunch of Bonapartes on European thrones.

        -One of the most important of these thrones is Holland, which as we established is now a kingdom. The Batavian Republic had resisted not just the Continental System but also Napoleon’s earlier embargoes on Britain. For example, British smugglers would often run up an American flag as they approach Dutch ports and do business under the veneer of being “neutral merchants from the United States.” This had fooled some French observers, but not all. Various Dutch governments tried to strike a balance between Dutch public opinion, which favors free trade, and the need to please Napoleon.

        -In March of 1806, Napoleon put an end to this charade. He abolished the Batavian Republic altogether and established the Kingdom of Holland in its place, to be ruled by his younger brother Louis Bonaparte. Unfortunately for Napoleon, Louis had decided to be more than a puppet, and is trying to advance the interests of the Dutch people. He’s started using his Dutch name, Lodewijk I, and is forcing all diplomats in his court to speak Dutch, and he even forces his wife to give up her French citizenship because in Louis’ mind the Queen of Holland cannot have dual loyalties. So Napoleon has tried to set up the perfect client state, run by his younger brother, and instead the Kingdom of Holland becomes increasingly independent. This will become important later.

        -Another Bonaparte sibling we’ve touched on is Napoleon’s sister Caroline. She had married Joachim Murat in the year 1800, and in the summer of 1808 Napoleon makes his sister and his marshal King and Queen of Naples, and they will rule southern Italy until the end of the Napoleonic Empire.

        -Napoleon’s youngest sister, Elisa, will become Grand Duchess of Tuscany and rule most of northern Italy in her own right. She’s a patron of the arts and sciences, and will be the first of the Bonaparte siblings to die when she gets sick while visiting an archaeological dig site in 1820.

        -Napoleon’s closest sister, Pauline, marries a lesser northern Italian prince, and maintains a position of nobility even after her brother’s fall. She spends most of the rest of her life living in Rome under Papal protection.

        -We already talked about Jerome Bonaparte, who is the new King of Westphalia, an influential German state.

        -The only Bonaparte sibling who isn’t ruling some part of Europe is younger brother Lucien, who is the one who had helped Napoleon become First Consul and promised to stab him if he ever betrayed the Republic. As it turns out, Lucien Bonaparte is a true believer in the Revolution, and has gone into voluntary exile in Rome, where he lives in a modest villa at his own expense. When Napoleon temporarily annexes Rome in 1809 – we’re getting to that – Lucien tries to flee to the United States, but his ship is captured and boarded by the British, who happily return him to England with honors. The government sets him up in a nice house, and he lives there until his brother is removed from power, after which he goes to Rome and the Pope makes him an honorary Prince. But when Napoleon returns to power in 1815, Lucien Bonaparte has a change of heart and joins his older brother. When Napoleon falls for good, the restored Bourbon government will ban Lucien from all public employment, and he will once again go to Italy, where he lives for the rest of his life.

        -Lucien aside, Napoleon is setting up not just a French Empire but a multi-national dynasty. For centuries, the Habsburgs have dominated Europe through diplomacy and intermarriage. Napoleon has used his sword to build a dynasty of his own.

Now, before we can move forward with Napoleon’s story, I need to say a word about the Russians under Alexander I. Alexander has been Tsar for almost 7 years. Well aware that the men who had assassinated his father could do the same to him, he’d implemented his reforms slowly. But make no mistake, Alexander is a reform-minded monarch. Growing up, some of his tutors had been French Enlightenment thinkers who had exposed him to modern philosophers like Voltaire and Rousseau. Others had been powerful Russian Orthodox churchmen, and Alexander’s philosophy of government looks like a blend of Orthodox and Enlightenment thinking. Nowhere is this more evident than with his education policy, where he establishes Russia’s first public education system, but with schools operated by Orthodox churches at the parish level. Under his rule, Russian art and architecture would flourish, but nowhere would Alexander’s influence be felt more strongly than in the realm of literature. During his reign, numerous foreign-language books on philosophy, history, science, and mathematics are translated into Russian, printed, and distributed. These are books from guys like Rousseau and Adam Smith. Alexander also promotes the rise of Russian authors like Nikolai Karamzin, a poet and novelist whose work becomes popular throughout Europe, and who will go on to write the first comprehensive history of Russia, the 12-volume History of the Russian State. Without Alexander I, you probably never get the 19th century flowering of Russian literature that gives us authors like Tolstoy and Pushkin and Dostoyevsky.

        -In many ways, Alexander’s philosophy of government mirrors Napoleon’s, with its blend of cultural openness and imperial ambition. Because boy, oh boy, is Alexander I ambitious. Russia has been an expansionist power for centuries, led by fur traders and rugged frontiersmen who had trekked their way eastward across Siberia. But in the 1700s, that expansion had come to an end – stymied by the twin roadblocks of the Qing Chinese and the Pacific Ocean. Alexander has instead set his sights on three possible avenues for expansion. First is through the Balkans and into Istanbul, where he hopes to unseat the Ottoman Empire and dominate the Mediterranean. Like many others before him, Alexander will learn that expanding through the Balkans is tough, laborious work in the best of times. In the south, he has his eyes set on the vast expanses of Central Asia, and will eventually begin the slow Russian absorption of the areas we know today as Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Russian troops even spar with the Persians for land near the Caspian Sea. In the north, Alexander is eyeing land around the Baltic, which is dominated by a declining Sweden and a politically divided Denmark-Norway. At this time, Sweden also owns Finland, a wide stretch of delicious Baltic land that’s much closer to St. Petersburg than Istanbul or Central Asia.

        -Swedish military observers watch nervously across the border in January of 1808, as Russian troops begin concentrating near a number of towns. To make things worse, the Swedish Army has only about 17,000 men near the frontier, plus about 7,000 more in the coastal Finnish fortress cities of Sveaborg and Svartholm. Calls for reinforcements go unanswered because army command is keeping most Swedish troops near the border with Denmark-Norway. Sweden and Denmark have been mortal enemies for generations, and fear of the Danes is so high that the army is unwilling to lower their western defenses, even as their own people are warning of a Russian attack.

        -The Swedish high command plans to fight a defensive war, with the army slowly falling back out of Finland altogether, where it could be reinforced and then launch a counterattack. Meanwhile, the Russian army would be faced with extended supply lines and guerilla attacks, and would also have to deal with Swedish and Finnish troops in Sveaborg and Svartholm.

        -On February 21st 1808, the Russian army invades without warning, and a siege army arrives at Svartholm pretty much immediately. The Russian commander demands that the fortress surrender, and the 700 Swedish defenders refuse. But Svartholm’s defenses are in terrible condition, yet another result of Sweden’s miserly army budget. Most of the men don’t even have working muskets, and while the fortress does have some impressive artillery, the army hasn’t bothered to stock more than a handful of artillery shells. After a few days of staring each-other down, the Russians and Swedes bombard each-other, one Swede is killed, and the rest surrender on March 10th, having nearly run out of ammunition. Svartholm has held out for less than a month.

        -The Swedish army falls back in good order, and they even score a few early victories over the Russians. But they’re still falling back, and they’re not going to stop until they get those reinforcements from the west. Meanwhile, Swedish hopes are hanging on the fortress of Sveaborg.

        -Unlike Svartholm, Sveaborg is well-funded and in good repair, with over 6,000 troops and hundreds of artillery pieces. Sveaborg is also the headquarters of the Swedish Archipelago Fleet, an armada of over 100 shallow-drafted boats purpose-built for patrolling the island chain that stretches across the Baltic from Helsinki to Stockholm. This fleet is important not just for keeping the Russian fleet away from Swedish and Finnish population centers, but can also be used to help resupply Sveaborg once spring arrives.

        -The Swedish commander, Carl Olof Cronstedt, surrenders almost immediately, handing over the keys to the city on May 6th. In one fell swoop, Sweden loses its last major foothold in Finland, as well as the all-important Archipelago Fleet. For this, Cronstedt has gained a reputation in Sweden and Finland similar to Benedict Arnold’s reputation in US history. This isn’t entirely fair. Arnold betrayed the US out of personal ambition and wounded pride. Cronstedt’s surrender, while cowardly, was not a matter of his personal interests. See, thousands of civilians had fled to Sveaborg from Helsinki when Helsinki fell to the Russians on March 2nd. If Cronstedt had decided to make a stand, many of them would have been killed in the shelling.

        -Anyway, Sweden has lost both its big Finnish coastal forts, it’s lost its Archipelago Fleet, and while the war goes on for more than a year and there’s guerilla fighting and some valiant Swedish victories, the end result is never even in doubt. Russia wins. With much of their country overrun, Sweden surrenders to the Russians on September 17th 1809. For his trouble, Tsar Alexander I gets to keep Finland, and he does what Napoleon’s been doing with conquered territory. Instead of outright annexing Finland to Russia, he creates a new country called the Grand Duchy of Finland, appoints a Grand Duke, and makes this puppet state a nominally autonomous zone in the Russian Empire. Finland will remain a part of the Tsarist Empire until it wins its independence in the aftermath of World War I.

Meanwhile, Napoleon has also declared war on Sweden, angry at Swedish King Gustov IV Adolf for his continued trade with Britain in defiance of the Continental System. Denmark, Sweden’s eternal enemy and France’s new ally, gladly jumps on board, and Napoleon begins massing an army there under the command of Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. An invasion seems imminent until internal Swedish politics come into play. On March 29th 1809, in the middle of the war with the Russians, King Gustov IV Adolf abdicates under pressure from the army and the nobility, and his elderly uncle Charles XIII is declared king. After his humiliating surrender to the Russians, Charles XIII signs a Russian-brokered peace deal with Napoleon on January 6th 1810. In the treaty, Charles agrees to abide by the Continental System and impose a blockade on all British shipping. So Napoleon also gets something out of the Russian and Swedish war.

        -As it turns out, he gets more than he’d initially bargained for. In August of 1810, the Swedish parliament holds a vote to appoint an heir for the childless Charles XIII, and they choose none other than Marshal of the Empire Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, the guy who had been slated to lead Napoleon’s invasion. Bernadotte becomes the prince regent of Sweden and Norway, and effectively runs the country from Day One. There’s a little story that before he leaves for Sweden, he asks Napoleon for permission to leave French service, and Napoleon asks him to swear never to lead Sweden to war against France, and Bernadotte says no, he will have to do what’s right for the Swedish people. And Napoleon says “Go, and let our destinies be accomplished.” And whether or not this story is literally true, it’s true in the metaphorical sense, because from the moment he becomes the new Swedish leader and takes the name Karl XIV Johan, Bernadotte is going to be a thorn in Napoleon’s side. But for the moment at least, it looks as if Sweden is about to fall into the French sphere of influence, and the Baltic will be under total domination by the twin empires of France and Russia.

        -But like I said, Russia is always an expansionist power. And now that the French and Russian Empires are essentially touching each-other, Tsar Alexander I’s road to future glory runs through Napoleon’s backyard. Not only that, but he’s looking at the new, French-sponsored Duchy of Warsaw and wondering if Napoleon is starting to look eastward. The Duchy is a hotbed of Polish nationalism, and could easily be used as a launching pad for a French-led war of “liberation” in other formerly-Polish lands. With his goals in the north achieved and the threat of a Polish revival fresh on his doorstep, Alexander’s alliance with France starts to look more and more like a liability. He’s not going to break that alliance just yet. But from mid-1810 onwards, the Russian Tsar is looking for new friends in the realm of foreign policy.

Chapter Fifteen: The War of the Fifth Coalition

With all of the action in Scandinavia, I’ve gotten a bit ahead of myself. See, while the Russians have been conquering in the north, Napoleon has been fighting yet another coalition war that historians call… wait for it… the War of the Fifth Coalition. At first glance, this looks like a stupid war, because Britain is about to pay Austria to attack France. There will also be some German rebellions and another anti-Napoleon rebellion in northern Italy. But almost all of the fighting is going to be done by Austrian troops in Germany. The French trounced the Austrians in the Wars of the First, Second, and Third Coalitions, and each of those times the Austrians had been aided by strong continental allies. Yet there are good reasons for the British and Austrians to think that this time will be different.

Remember how France now has over 150,000 men bogged down in a guerilla war in Spain? The British are going to keep up their Iberian campaign and keep on funding Spanish rebels. And all the turmoil down in Spain and Portugal is going to keep tying up a significant chunk of the French army. The other major reason to think Austria can do better is the new and improved Austrian army. As we’ve discussed, the Austrian army has been outdated and sclerotic for a long time. I think it would be fair to say that so far in the Napoleonic wars, the Austrian Empire has been fighting with one hand tied behind its back. Well, in 1809, Archduke Charles’ military reforms have come to fruition. Austria’s staff system is being expanded on the Prussian model, and they have mass conscription like the French. So now, for the first time in history, a huge conscript army is going to face another huge conscript army in the field, beginning an era of huge conscript armies that will culminate in the World Wars.

        -On April 10th 1809, troops of this new Austrian army cross the border into Bavaria, a French client state. They do this because by attacking a French client state first, they have an excuse not to declare war on France and alert Napoleon of their plans. Not that he’s been unaware of a pending invasion; it’s kind of hard to hide hundreds of thousands of troops massing on the Austrian frontier. But Napoleon’s intelligence estimates that the Austrians plan to attack on April 15th, so French defensive troops are still getting into position when Austria attacks.

        -As always, Napoleon avoids the mistake of attacking his enemy’s main army directly. Instead, after some initial losses and withdrawals to the initial Austrian attack, Napoleon outmaneuvers the Austrian army and drives southeast for Vienna, once again threatening the Austrian capital. With only the wide Danube river between his army and the Austrian heartland, Napoleon quickly orders his engineers to construct a set of bridges across the river at a place called Lobau Island. But unbeknownst to Napoleon, Archduke Charles has massed another army of more than 100,000 men along the Danube. When Napoleon tries to force a crossing of the river on May 21st, he kicks off a two-day battle where he loses a quarter of his 80,000-man army, a loss of a little over 20,000 men. Despite killing a comparable number of Austrians, the French are unable to get across the river. This battle, called the Battle of Aspern-Essling, marks Napoleon’s first defeat since the Siege of Acre, and, since Acre was a siege and not a field battle, it’s technically Napoleon’s first loss in the field, and it comes at the hands of Archduke Charles’ reformed Austrian army.

        -Meanwhile, a smaller Austrian army has launched a successful invasion in the east against the French-allied Duchy of Warsaw. This turns out to be a mistake, since it draws Russia into the war on the French side. Alexander has no real desire to defend Napoleon’s empire with Russian blood, so his armies move slowly, and the Russian and Austrian commanders in Poland even exchange letters warning each-other of their respective movements, so the armies never come into contact outside of a few skirmishes. Still, the mere presence of Russian troops forces the Austrian army to keep some men back in the east, which means they don’t have enough men for an offensive in Germany, and Archduke Charles is forced to fight a defensive war on the Danube. The only thing the Austrians have going for them is that uprising in Germany, which never really gains a lot of steam, and the similarly ill-fated uprising in Italy.

        -David Geoffrey Chandler writes:

        “While the Austrians did nothing to exploit their success, the Emperor at once started on new plans. Six weeks of preparation followed. Lobau Island was converted into a fortress, mounting 129 guns. Two sturdy bridges – with up-stream break-waters and stockades to ward off floating missiles – linked Lobau with the south bank by late June; gunboat flotillas were also stationed on the river. The army’s artillery was built up to a total of 500 pieces, and massive reinforcements were summoned to the area, including Eugéne and Macdonald from the south, Marmont from Graz and Davout from Pressburg. By 1 July 160,000 troops were close to Vienna, and more were drawing near. As for the Austrians, Charles did little besides strengthening his fortifications facing Lobau; his hopes of a general German rising against the French proved illusory, and he was anxious about belated Russian manœuvres in Galicia.

“In early July Napoleon moved on to Lobau, and the Muhlau salient was reoccupied to distract Austrian attention. Napoleon’s plan called for a massive crossing to the east, rather than to the north, of Lobau Island across extemporised bridges, followed by a mighty wheel to take the line of villages in flank and rear. Charles meantime, aware that something was in the wind, consulted with his generals about the best measures to adopt. They eventually decided to man the villages only lightly, drawing up the main army along the northern edge of the Marchfield Plain with the centre near the village of Deutsch-Wagram and the left behind the Russbach stream. By this time, Austrian strength had grown to almost 155,000.

“During the stormy night of 4 July, the French plan was put into operation, just as the last formations were hurried on to Lobau Island. Eight pontoon bridges were suddenly swung from the east side of the island, and troops led by Massena’s IV Corps began to pour on to the north bank of the Danube. The crossing went like clockwork with minimal confusion. All bridges held, and the local enemy troops were overwhelmed, though the main Austrian forces were not encountered at first.

“The capture of Gross-Enzersdorf by mid-morning enabled a new bridge to be built, and provided the French army with a useful pivot for deploying for the main battle. By mid-afternoon the French, at Napoleon’s order, set about enlarging their bridgehead; Aspern and Essling were both captured. By 5 pm, Massena was in position on the far left facing the Bissamberg near Florisdorf, and the front line was completed by Bernadotte’s IX Corps, Eugéne’s ‘Army of Italy’, Oudinot’s II Corps and, on the extreme right, Davout’s III Corps, with the Guard and Cavalry Reserve in central support, not to forget a single division and 8,000 cavalry on the extreme right watching for any signs of the arrival of Archduke John’s 12,500 men from Pressburg. In all, Napoleon now had 136,000 in the field, and a further 17,000 were close to the bridges.”

-The French have gotten across the Danube, but Archduke Charles has them surrounded, and is now planning to close in from all sides and force the surrender of Napoleon’s entire army. The next two days, July 5th and 6th 1809, see some of the most brutal fighting, with upwards of 30,000 men lost on both sides. But Napoleon is able to form some of his elite infantry into a hollow square and use it to push past Austrian cavalry and right through the center of their army. This unusual tactic wins the day, allowing French troops on the flanks to defeat their now-divided foe, and the commander of the French attack, Étienne MacDonald, is made a Marshal of the Empire. Six days later, on July 12th 1809, Archduke Charles signs an armistice.

-The armistice lasts until October 14th 1809, when Austria and France sign the Treaty of Schönbrunn, a humiliating defeat for the Austrian Empire. Austria signs over huge swaths of land in modern-day Croatia and Slovenia, losing access to the Adriatic coast and thereby to valuable sea trade. Bavaria, France’s puppet state, gets some Austrian territory in central Germany. And in the east, Tsar Alexander is rewarded with a delicious slice of formerly-Austrian Poland. The only saving grace here is that almost none of this lost territory is part of the core Habsburg lands of Austria, Hungary, and Bohemia; this land belongs to Austrian vassals or, like Austrian Poland, is far-flung and recently acquired. So even while the Austrian Empire is losing land, it’s becoming more fundamentally Austrian. The old Holy Roman Empire had a bunch of checks and balances that kept the Emperor from being much more than the first among equals. That’s where you get that line from Voltaire, that the HRE is neither Holy nor Roman nor an Empire. Well, the HRE is gone now, and its successor state, the Austrian Empire, is starting to look a lot more like a centrally-run French- or Russian-style empire.

While the War of the Fifth Coalition is fought mostly in Central Europe, its effects are also felt elsewhere. To begin with, there are major changes in the Kingdom of Holland, which if you’ll recall is ruled by Napoleon’s brother Louis, who has gone native and is now calling himself Lodewijk I. Louis has enforced the Continental System with a very light hand, and British trade has been leaking through Dutch ports almost as freely as it did under the old Batavian Republic. Louis sees the British as natural friends of the Dutch, and views his brother’s French Empire as an oppressive overlord. So when British troops start landing on islands off the Dutch coast in July of 1809, Louis does nothing.

        -The British invasion force is landing at the mouth of the Scheldt River, once again sealing off the Belgian city of Antwerp from the sea. In all, the British have sent nearly 40,000 men, a significantly larger force than they’ve sent to the Iberian Peninsula, under the command of John Pitt, the Earl of Chatham, who is the brother of recently-deceased former Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and the son of not-so-recently-deceased former Prime Minister William Pitt the Elder. Napoleon dispatches Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, who has not yet been elected Crown Prince of Sweden, to repulse the British. This he does, with the help of local Dutch forces, and the British expedition is an utter failure.

        -As I hope I’ve demonstrated, Napoleon is nothing if not a pragmatist, and he believes strongly in the principle of meritocracy. Well, his brother Louis has been causing too much trouble as King of Holland, so, brother or no, Napoleon forces him to abdicate, absorbs the southern half of the Kingdom of Holland into France, and leaves the northern half under the rule of Louis’ five-year-old son, Napoleon Louis Bonaparte, with Empress Josephine’s daughter Hortense as regent. Less than two weeks later, Napoleon changes his mind again and annexes the rest of the Netherlands outright. And for the rest of his reign, the borders of France will reach as far north as the city of Groningen and the North Sea.

The other major event I want to talk about happens about as far from the North Sea as you can get and still be in Europe – the sunny plains of central Italy, where Napoleon has long been sparring with Pope Pius VII over the administration of Italian territory. The trouble begins in 1808, when Napoleon asks the Pope to join his alliance system and the Pope refuses, unwilling to take part in a secular war where there are Catholics on both sides. In response, Napoleon authorizes his brother Joseph, who is still King of Naples, to seize a bunch of Papal territory. The Pope protests, and Napoleon responds by specifically invoking the powers of Emperor Charlemagne, who had originally authorized the creation of the Papal States way back in the 700s. In a decree dated May 17th 1809, Napoleon says that the Popes have mismanaged their estates, and that by the power vested in him as Emperor, he reclaims the remaining lands of the Papal States and incorporates them into the French Empire – which really means giving most of the land to Naples.

        -By now, Joseph Bonaparte has been promoted to King of Spain, and Napoleon’s brother-in-law, Marshal of the Empire Joachim Murat, is now King of Naples. Murat wastes no time occupying Papal lands and even sets up cannons on the Castel Sant’Angelo, where the old Papal fortress provides a field of fire covering the Roman city center.

        -In response, Pius VII does the only thing he can do in response to this show of force. He wages a religious war and excommunicates Napoleon, going so far as to put up posters all over Rome announcing the excommunication. Napoleon then authorizes Murat to arrest several of the Pope’s closest advisors. Some of his people go even further. On the night of July 5th-July 6th 1809, a police commander named Radet storms the Vatican and arrests not just several of Pius VII’s advisors, but the Pope himself.

        -This puts Napoleon in an awkward position. If he keeps the Pope under arrest, he will anger many of his subjects, most of whom are faithful Catholics. If he orders the Pope’s release, he makes Joachim Murat, his protégé and brother-in-law, look like a fool. Instead, Napoleon will spend the rest of his reign making small demands of the Pope for minor concessions, after which he will promise the Pope’s release. Pius VII will then make some excuse for why he can’t make that minor concession for perfectly reasonable and legal reasons, but will absolutely consider it if Napoleon lets him go. Basically, Napoleon keeps the Pope in a gilded cage, and the Pope refuses to do anything to help the administration of the Catholic Church in the French Empire. Napoleon has to rely on a council of French bishops to appoint new bishops without Papal permission, which raises questions about their legitimacy and makes a lot of French Catholics very upset. When he gets divorced – we’re getting to that part of the story – Napoleon can’t even get the Pope to grant an annulment, and has to get one from some local Paris priests instead, which raises questions about the legitimacy of his second marriage, which we’ll also get to in a second.

        -By the end of his reign, Napoleon has almost reached a place of understanding with Pius VII. In 1813, French and Papal negotiators have agreed to a set of documents called the Concordat of Fontainebleau which would secure Pope Pius’ release, normalize French relations with the Church, and authorize a generous annual stipend for the Pope to compensate him for the loss of the Papal States. However, Napoleon’s empire will fall before he or the Pope ever signs the agreement, and Pope Pius will return to Rome instead thanks to the services of the Austrian Army. In the meantime, for the rest of Napoleon’s reign, his relationship with the Catholic Church is going to be complicated.

Chapter Sixteen: Life in Napoleonic France

The year 1810 finds Napoleon at the zenith of his power. All of Europe lies at his feet, with burgeoning trade throughout the French Empire and her allies. Everyone, including Russia, is blockading English trade, and outside of Spain, the French Empire is at peace. Either directly or indirectly, the French Emperor now rules more than 40% of Europe’s population. And Napoleon isn’t just a conqueror – he’s a builder. He oversees the renovation of the Louvre. In 1806, he inaugurates the construction of Paris’ famous Arc de Triomphe as a war monument to his soldiers, although he will not live to see its completion in 1836. He renovates the Paris Bourse, constructs the Odeon Theater, and builds a new post office for Paris, a grand building in the era’s neoclassical style.

        -Throughout France, Napoleon builds more than 33,000 miles of new roads. In Paris alone, he builds more than two miles of quays along the banks of the Seine, creating new cultural districts overnight. New canals connect Paris with Lyons and Lyons with Strasbourg, allowing trade and goods to flow quickly between Paris and the German frontier. Hundreds of miles of rivers are dredged and deepened to allow for heavier, deeper-drafted cargo barges.

        -Napoleon also believes in industrialization, and in 1801 and 1806 hosts two huge international industrial exhibitions in Paris – one at the Louvre, and another at the Place des Invalides. Under his rule, unemployment is all-but-nonexistent, with industrial employment skyrocketing and even tripling in the textile industry, which experiences a business bonanza thanks to the absence of British competition. The lack of British trade fuels still more small industries; factories process beets into sugar and distill halfway-decent brandy from potatoes.

        -Much of this – the canals, the domestically-manufactured textiles, the potato brandy – is a result of the Continental System. It wouldn’t be happening in a time of ordinary trade with Britain. Even an ordinary blockade wouldn’t have this kind of effect, since there would always be smuggling. But Napoleon has become so powerful that he’s suspended the normal rules of trade throughout an entire continent. Meanwhile, his empire and its puppet states rule from the toe of Italy to the shores of the Baltic, and from the Atlantic to Central Germany. Steven Englund writes:

“Might the system have evolved to become something closer to an economic union? No one can say for sure, though advisors to Napoleon like Coquebert de Montbret elaborated projects to create a tariff zone over all of French-dominated Europe. The system enjoyed no broad consensus among European elites. There were many interested, as well as many disgusted parties. Might the latter have been brought round, as they saw the success of industrial development in France, where the cotton industry laid the basis for the nineteenth-century industrialization of Europe? Then, too, how would a victorious issue from the war have affected opinion? As Crouzet notes, if Napoleon had returned victorious from Moscow, England’s situation would have been desperate…

“However, to conclude that the Continental System was inherently failure-prone in its economic dimension, due to the sheer fact of the French presence, is unpersuasive; one might as well argue that the British colonial empire was uneconomic because it was maintained (ultimately) by force. One may fault the Emperor for not making up his mind whether the system was finally economic or military, but in each domain it scored successes as well as failures. Early-nineteenth-century capitalism was an irrepressibly dynamic affair that proved profoundly adaptive and resilient, both under British and French hegemony. The latter has indeed been analyzed… as a form of capitalist domination unlike, say, twentieth-century communism, which simply overwhelmed and strangled nascent tsarist industrialism.

 “The Continental System did not fail for economic—or even political—reasons; it was overthrown militarily from outside. Thus, its economic (as its political) fate cannot be known.”

For the time being, Napoleon’s system is ticking along, and for pretty much any class of French person, life is better than it was under the Ancien Regime, never mind the dark days of the Revolution. However, the system revolves around one person – or more accurately, it revolves around the imperial throne. Napoleon is only 40 years old as the year 1809 comes to a close – not exactly old enough that you’re worried he’s going to keel over at any point. But he’s the target of constant assassination plots, and he’s never been afraid to put himself in mortal danger on the battlefield. What if he dies and doesn’t have an heir? Any of his brothers might claim the throne. So might Josephine’s son, Napoleon’s stepson and now adopted son Eugène de Beauharnais. Without an undisputed legal heir, Napoleon’s death could spark a multi-sided civil war in the French empire. And remember, the whole point of setting up a hereditary monarchy was ostensibly to avoid this kind of uncertainty.

        -Pretty much everybody is telling Napoleon this: his siblings, his friends and advisors, Talleyrand – all of them are saying he needs an heir, and since Josephine is not going to produce one, he needs to divorce her and get remarried. And for anyone who’s asking if maybe it’s Napoleon who can’t have children anymore, he just had an illegitimate child with a mistress in Germany. So in November of 1809, despite his continued love for Josephine, Napoleon asks for a divorce. Josephine herself describes the scene to a family friend, Louis Antoine Fauvelet de Bourrienne, as recounted in his memoir:

        “On the 30th of November, 1809, we were dining together as usual, I had not uttered a word during that sad dinner, and he had broken silence only to ask one of the servants what it was o'clock. As soon as Bonaparte had taken his coffee, he dismissed all the attendants, and I remained alone with him. I saw in the expression of his countenance what was passing in his mind; and I knew that my hour was come. He stepped up to me — he was trembling, and I shuddered: he took my hand, pressed it to his heart, and after gazing at me for a few moments in silence, he uttered these fatal words: ‘Josephine! my dear Josephine! You know how I have loved you!... To you, to you alone, I owe the only moments of happiness I have tasted in this world. But, Josephine, my destiny is not to be controlled by my will. My dearest affections must yield to the interests of France.' —

“‘Say no more,' I exclaimed, ‘I understand you: I expected this, but the blow is not the less mortal.’ I could not say another word, continued Josephine; ‘I know not what happened after. I seemed to lose my reason; I became insensible, and when I recovered I found myself in my chamber. Your friend Corvisart, and my poor daughter were with me. Bonaparte came to see me in the evening; and oh! Bourrienne, how can I describe to you what I felt at the sight of him; even the interest he evinced for me seemed an additional cruelty, Alas! I had good reason to fear ever becoming an empress!’"

-The divorce is finalized on January 10th 1810, in a formal ceremony and Josephine moves to a nice castle near Paris, where she will live at public expense for the rest of her days. Napoleon will continue to visit her whenever possible, and the two will often exchange letters. It’s fair to say that he never falls out of love with her.

-He does, however, get remarried. Quickly. He tries to negotiate a marriage with one of Tsar Alexander’s two sisters, Catherine or Anna, but Alexander is having serious doubts about the Franco-Russian alliance. He hems and haws, then marries off Catherine, the older of the two sisters, to a Russian nobleman, and tells Napoleon that the other sister, Anna, is too young to marry.

-Not to be put off, Napoleon instead negotiates a marriage with Marie Louise of Austria, one of the daughters of Emperor Francis, and the two are married in April of 1810. Marie Louise is only 19 years old at the time, and never has much influence over Napoleon, although she will provide him with that all-important heir, Napoleon II, in March of 1811.

Chapter Seventeen: Spies and Diplomats

What’s just happened is the beginning of another reversal in European diplomacy. Instead of being France’s implacable enemy, the Austrian Empire is now going to try getting along and marrying into Napoleon’s dynasty. This makes sense, if you think about Austria’s position. They keep fighting the French and they keep losing. Russia, one of their traditional rivals, is getting stronger. Both the Russian and the Ottoman Empires are gearing up for war in the Balkans. If Austria’s going to deal with that, it needs to be at peace, and that’s what the Austrians are trying to achieve. And by “the Austrians,” I really mean one guy, one of the greatest diplomats in history, Prince Klemens von Metternich.

        -Metternich was born in 1773, the son of Rhineland nobility and heir to the House of Metternich, an old and distinguished noble family in the Holy Roman Empire. Given the family’s proximity to France, the young Metternich was tutored in French and grew up bilingual, speaking both French and German. As a law student, he would act as ceremonial marshal both for Emperor Leopold II’s 1790 coronation and Francis II’s 1792 coronation. This wouldn’t make him famous, but it would at least make his face a familiar one in the imperial court.

-In 1795, Metternich would marry a young Countess named Eleonore von Kaunitz-Rietberg. The Countess was politically well-connected, but the marriage came with a condition; despite having spent the last several years preparing for a diplomatic career, Metternich had to promise not to serve as a diplomat until the death of Eleonore’s grandfather, who was himself a famous diplomat. This would not take long. The grandfather, Prince Wenzel Anton von Kaunitz-Rietberg, would die in 1797, and Klemens von Metternich would be free to pursue his diplomatic career.

-Metternich serves first as a secretary for his father and then as a minor local government delegate before getting appointed as the Austrian envoy to Saxony in 1801. He doesn’t do anything really notable there, but while he’s in Saxony, there’s that whole secularization of Church land. As it happens, the Metternich family is one of those Imperial noble houses that loses land to the French west of the Rhine. In compensation, the family is awarded new territory within the Empire – territory that comes with a seat in the Imperial Diet, basically the Imperial version of a Senate. With his family’s upgrade, Metternich is promoted from Saxony to Prussia, where he also does nothing remarkable. But he’s still relatively young, and while in Saxony and Prussia he makes a number of important friends and diplomatic contacts not just in Germany, but also in Russia.

-Anyway, thanks to his family’s connections, Metternich is appointed as ambassador to France in June of 1806. There, he would get to know both Talleyrand and Napoleon, as he would travel with the Emperor’s party during the French army’s campaign against Prussia during the War of the Fourth Coalition. Metternich himself is tasked with hammering out the territorial changes that resulted from the War of the Third Coalition and while he is only partially successful, he once again makes a number of useful contacts. Metternich is an advocate for peace and diplomacy, and constantly urges the Austrian government to leave Napoleon alone. In his view, fighting against the French Army is futile, but the French Empire itself will collapse on its own when Napoleon dies without an heir.

-Metternich’s advice goes unheeded, and both France and Austria prepare for the War of the Fifth Coalition. As both armies are massing near the frontier and war is obviously about to break out, Napoleon is celebrating his 39th birthday. At the party, he and Metternich get into an argument, with both declaring that their side only wants peace and it’s the other side that’s pushing this rush to war. When war does break out, Metternich is recalled to Austria, and participates in the postwar conference for the further divvying up of Austrian territory.

-After the war, Metternich finally gets his way. The Austrian government decides to go along with his idea to play nicely with France, and even moves forward with his idea of marrying Marie Louise to Napoleon and tying the two empires together. In March of 1812, Metternich will make perhaps his greatest achievement, solidifying a formal alliance between the French and Austrian Empires. While this alliance will turn out to be short-lived, it will buy valuable time for the Austrian Empire to stabilize its finances after a series of disastrous coalition wars.

Even as France and Austria have their little détente, there’s trouble brewing in the French capital. As early as December of 1808, in the aftermath of the invasion of Spain, Police Minister Fouché would conspire with Talleyrand to begin grooming Joachim Murat for the French throne. Both are concerned that Napoleon’s imperialist behavior will inevitably drive away the Russians and that Napoleon will eventually be killed in battle or captured. When he gets wind of this plan, Napoleon unloads on Talleyrand in front of his other top ministers, blaming his Foreign Minister for advising him to do the things that have pushed away Tsar Alexander:

        “You have dared to maintain, sir, that you knew nothing about Enghien’s death; you have dared to maintain that you knew nothing about the Spanish war! Have you forgotten that you advised me in writing to have Enghien executed? Have you forgotten that in your letters you advised me to revive the policy of Louis XIV?”

        -By this, Napoleon means putting his brother on the Spanish throne. He continues:

        “Understand this: if a revolution should break out, no matter what part you had played in it, you would be the first to be crushed. I could break you like a glass, but it’s not worth the trouble. You are shit in a silk stocking!”

        -Napoleon then storms off, leaving an embarrassed Talleyrand to continue his conversation with the other ministers.

        -Much of the pressure on Napoleon is relieved when he takes his new Austrian bride and produces an heir. But this episode only goes to show that even Napoleon’s top lieutenants are willing and able to turn against him if they feel it’s the right thing to do for France… or for themselves.

        -All of this brings us to the year 1810. That year, a financial crisis hits the French markets. It’s a minor crisis in the grand scope of things, more like what we today would call a few months of recession. But for the first time under Napoleon’s rule, the economy is not doing well.

        -The next two years, in 1811 and 1812, we see a repeat of something we saw a few times at the beginning of the French Revolution: poor harvests. Until now, Napoleonic France has experienced bountiful harvests and food surpluses. The blockade on British goods may have driven up prices on some luxury products, but for everyday people, day-to-day expenses have been low. Now, for the first time in years, the poor and working class are starting to struggle. Nobody’s hankering for another revolution; not yet; at least not anybody serious. But Napoleon’s rule is no longer as popular as it once had been.

        -The Emperor uses a carrot and stick approach to the problem. The carrot is state expenditure. Betting on future prosperity, Napoleon continues his public works programs to keep people employed, subsidizes free grain for the poor to keep them fed, and places a number of large government orders with major French industries to keep them afloat. The stick is state surveillance. Napoleon spends heavily on Fouché’s police, who round up draft dodgers and political dissidents alike. The police have eyes everywhere, ensuring that no anti-government resistance is able to materialize.

        -Despite this heavy surveillance, smuggling is rampant. Those with money still have access to coffee, tea, sugar, spices, and other luxury goods supplied by the British Empire. Napoleon recognizes this, and at one point calls the Continental System “…the battle of one man against a huge, British-led coalition of the greedy and the treasonous and their accomplices.” At the same time, smuggling has gotten so out of hand that in 1809, Napoleon himself had started to issue licenses, nearly five-hundred in all, to individual merchants to import specific luxury goods from the British – at the cost of a hefty tariff fee, of course.

The French system is in a battle with the British system to see which one can outlast the other. Both are suffering. I’ve talked a lot about France, but without European customers for their goods, the British Empire’s industries are having a very rough decade. Meanwhile, demand for European imports remains high. So much so that the British government has issued tens of thousands of individual import licenses for specific French goods. Like the French, the British are spending lavishly to keep their system afloat, betting that Napoleon will soon fall and trade and prosperity will soon return. For the French side in this race, it’s absolutely critical to maintain support for the Continental System from the entire European continent. Any power that defects will provide a lifeline to British industry, undoing any damage achieved by countries abiding by the blockade. With the Austrian alliance, Napoleon has locked down literally all of Europe outside Portugal and some parts of Spain.

-But the longer the blockade goes on, the more people start to get upset. Perhaps no major power is as upset as the Russian Empire. Russia lies at the extremity of European land-based supply lines, which makes it very expensive to transport goods there via a wagon or ox cart. British sea-based trade has traditionally been a lynch-pin of the Russian economy, and Russian merchants are beginning to suffer without it. And while France and Britain can float loans and use other financial mechanisms to fund the ongoing stalemate, the Russian state is relatively poor. Still, Napoleon has been nothing but friendly with Alexander. Why would the Tsar want to rock the boat?

-The answer lies in a betrayal that had happened way back in 1808, when Napoleon and Alexander had been meeting to try and hammer out a formal alliance. The two had been meeting in the Central European city of Erfurt to discuss the specifics of territorial changes after the War of the Fourth Coalition, where France and Russia had both benefitted. They had also planned to discuss Napoleon’s potential marriage to Tsar Alexander’s sister. At the beginning of the two-week conference, Alexander had been willing to agree to all of Napoleon’s requests, including the marriage with his sister. If this had happened, France and Russia might have ruled all Europe as uneasy allies, just like Napoleon wanted.

-Instead, Talleyrand had gone quietly to visit Tsar Alexander, and had advised him that Napoleon’s ambition knew no bounds, and that the Emperor was destined to destroy the French Empire through greed and overreach. This is why Alexander played coy about a marriage to his sister and ultimately decided against it. This is why he’s been at best a halfhearted friend to Napoleon; because Napoleon’s own Foreign Minister had stabbed him in the back.

-At the time, nobody but Talleyrand and Alexander knew about the secret meeting, and it wouldn’t come out until years later. When it did, Talleyrand would defend himself by saying that he was acting in the best interest of France, not Napoleon. So in his telling, he’s like Varys, the bald eunuch from Game of Thrones, always keeping an eye on the kingdom while the rulers play their game. On the other hand, shortly after the meeting at Erfurt, the Tsar arranges a marriage between Talleyrand’s nephew and a wealthy Russian heiress, so there’s definitely some self-interest at play. Anyway, this helps to explain why Tsar Alexander has never fully committed to what looks on paper like a mutually-beneficial Napoleonic alliance.

Chapter Eighteen: The Grande Armée

In 1810, the same year the French financial crisis begins, Alexander announces that Russia will no longer abide by the Continental System. Among other objections, the Tsar points out that the Russian economy is more dependent on British trade than the French, and that while Napoleon is issuing licenses for British imports into France, he’s continuing to demand that Russia maintain a complete blockade. Alexander is also nervous about Napoleon’s ambitions. The French détente with Austria is troubling, as is French support for the Duchy of Warsaw, which is becoming a hotbed of Polish nationalist activity. With all of this going on, Alexander says he’s had enough, and he’s going to start trading with the British no matter what Napoleon says.

        -Now, the Treaty of Tilsit requires Russia to participate in the Continental System, and Napoleon responds to their violation of the treaty with saber-rattling. When Alexander gives the German statelet of Oldenburg to his brother-in-law – the guy who had married the Tsar’s sister Catherine instead of Napoleon – Napoleon violates the Treaty of Tilsit in his own right and takes Oldenburg for himself. He then sends men east along the Baltic Coast, through the Confederation of the Rhine to a bit of coastline in the north of modern-day Germany that’s under the control of Sweden. Napoleon kicks the Swedes out of this area – called Swedish Pomerania – and uses it as a staging ground for troops to threaten an invasion of Russia.

-In March of 1812, Napoleon also signs a treaty with the Prussians that requires King Frederick William III’s government to feed any passing French troops, and to commit 20,000 Prussian troops to the Russian invasion. The cost of all this is to be subtracted from the war indemnities that Prussia is still paying to France.

        -At one point, Tsar Alexander tells the French ambassador to Russia, Armand-Augustin de Caulaincourt, that he expects to lose a major field battle, but that it won’t matter. Alexander has been watching the Peninsular War in Spain and how the massive French army – now 300,000 strong – is failing to suppress a bunch of rebellious peasants assisted by a British and Portuguese army less than half the French in number, and the Tsar is already planning to use Russian geography against Napoleon’s army. He tells Caulaincourt: “I have space and time on my side…. [Napoleon] will have to sign the peace on the Bering Strait.”

        -As Napoleon masses troops along the Russian frontier, he plans to fight the Russians the way he’s fought almost everyone else in his career: aggressively attack and defeat the enemy field army, then threaten his heartland and force him to surrender. During these crucial months, almost everybody in his inner circle is begging him to reconsider. Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “Caulaincourt, though always loyal to him, and serving him till 1814 as his grand equerry, or master of the horse, warned him that war with Russia would be disastrous, and even dared to tell him that he had gone to all this trouble ‘to satisfy his fondest passion,’ war. Fouché, supposedly banished from the imperial presence because of his incurable plotting, but recalled to keep him in sight or on leash, told Napoleon (if Fouché can ever be believed) that it was climatically impossible to defeat Russia, and that he was being misled by the dream of universal dominion. Napoleon explained that his dream was only to found a United States of Europe, to give the Continent one modern legal code, one coinage, one system of weights and measures, one court of appeals—all under one three-cornered hat. And this immense, unprecedented army, which he had so toiled to assemble and equip — how could he send it home now, and walk through the rest of his life with his tail between his legs?”

        -If you agree with most historians that the old Greek accounts of million-man Persian armies are exaggerations, then Napoleon’s invasion army, called the Grande Armée, is the largest ever assembled to this point outside China. Something like 680,000 men are assembled along the Russian frontier, with troops not just from France but from all of Napoleon’s allies and puppet states. There are Swiss and Dutch and Saxons and Poles and Lithuanians and Italians and Spaniards and Danes and more smaller allies from the Confederation of the Rhine. And of course there are men from Napoleon’s bigger allies, Austria and Prussia.

        -Now, Russia is not completely helpless. In addition to her massive armies, she’ll also be getting help from her new friends in Sweden. Swedish King Karl XIV Johan, formerly Marshal of the Empire Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, had gotten angry when Napoleon summarily occupied Swedish Pomerania, and ditched his French alliance for a Russian one. Meanwhile, the Ottoman Sultan has rejected French efforts to form an alliance against the Russians. The Sultan remembers the invasion of Egypt, and instead signs a temporary non-aggression pact with the Russians, freeing up Russian troops from the Turkish frontier to come and fight the French. Although Napoleon has the biggest army ever – for now – the Russians can at least draw on all their available resources, while the French Army has to leave more than a quarter million men in Spain.

        -Finally, before we talk about the famous invasion of Russia, I want to dispute a couple of myths. To begin with, Napoleon does not invade Russia in winter. Tsar Alexander demands the withdrawal of French troops from Prussia and Warsaw in spring of 1812, and Napoleon refuses and declares war on June 22nd. The French offensive begins on June 24th, at the beginning of summer. And as we’ll see, the Grande Armée even manages to march more than a thousand miles to Moscow before cold weather sets in. Things just don’t go as Napoleon had expected along the way.

        -French logistics in this war are actually very good. The army has been stocking warehouses in Poland full of supplies, and the Prussian logistical system also bears a good part of the load. Again, the problem will come when the armies get deeper into Russia and away from their supply lines. Napoleon is planning to take Moscow and use the surrounding region to resupply his army if necessary. Again, that’s not going to go as he had planned.

Opposing Napoleon’s Grande Armée is Russian Field Marshal Mikhail Kutuzov. Kutuzov had served at Austerlitz, where he had urged Tsar Alexander to wait for reinforcements before attacking Napoleon. And if you’ll recall, he had been opposed to weakening the Austro-Russian center. Alexander had ignored his advice on both counts, and we all know what happened next. This time around, Alexander has given Kutuzov complete command of defending the Russian homeland. Beginning the war with less than half as many troops as Napoleon, Kutuzov would be at a distinct disadvantage in a field battle. That’s just fine with him, because he doesn’t intend to fight one. Instead, he slowly withdraws through Russia and fights a scorched-earth campaign. Crops are burned, livestock are slaughtered, defensive positions destroyed, and anything of value either hauled out of the towns, hidden, or destroyed. As the Grande Armée advances through Russia, it will find not a quick and decisive battle but a wasteland.

        -The army marches east through Poland and Lithuania and modern-day Belarus. Past Minsk and across the Dnipro River and deeper, deeper into Russia. On July 16th they camp in Vitebsk, in northern Belarus, and Napoleon’s advisors urge him to set up a fortified camp and wait for the Russians to come to them. Napoleon decides to keep marching. Vitebsk is on open ground and all the agriculture in the area has been destroyed for the year. Besides which, Russian armies are marching from their now-peaceful Swedish and Turkish frontiers to meet Kutuzov’s army, and if they link up, they’ll have the numbers to rival the French. Best to force Kutuzov into an immediate fight before he can get proper reinforcements. It’s the Napoleonic way.

        -On August 16th and 17th, the Grande Armée attacks the city of Smolensk, drives the Russian army out, and at the loss of nearly 10,000 men has won its first major battle of the war. Again, Napoleon’s advisors urge him to make camp. But almost all of Smolensk has been burned down in the fires caused by the French artillery bombardment, and the nearby countryside is once again devastated. Besides which, the Russians are on the run and there’s only 220 more miles to go until Moscow. So the Grande Armée marches on.

        -But the further it marches, the less grand the army actually looks. Supply and communication lines need to be secured; this means stationing a garrison in every city, town, and village along the route. And while the Russians famously give credit to “General Winter” for the ultimate French defeat, “General Summer” at least deserves some acknowledgement. The weather swings wildly back and forth between dry heat that scorches Napoleon’s army and torrential rain that bogs them down in mud and sometimes forces the troops to hunker down for days at a time. These conditions bring disease, most notably typhus, which kills or incapacitates tens of thousands of the French and their allies. And if that’s not enough, there’s also widespread desertion. One downside of conscript armies is that a lot of the soldiers don’t want to be there, but that number isn’t constant. The number of deserters when you’re defending your homeland will be low compared to how many men desert when you’re, say, invading Russia. And if we’re being honest, the multinational nature of the force doesn’t help morale either. The Austrians and Prussians don’t get along. Neither of them really gets along well with the French. The German and Italian states all have their own little disputes. The Russians – whatever their flaws – have the great advantages of falling back onto their own territory, and the morale boost that always seems to hit Russian armies when they’re defending the motherland. All of this to say that the further it marches into Russia, the smaller the Grande Armée gets and the larger its Russian foe gets.

        -Napoleon is betting on the Russian aristocracy to force Tsar Alexander to force Field Marshal Kutuzov to stand and fight. After all, as the Russian army is retreating and engaging in this scorched-earth strategy, it’s burning down their tenants’ crops, which means their annual rents are literally going up in smoke. A Tsar who does not defend his nobles’ interests will not remain Tsar for long. And as the Grande Armée comes within 75 miles of Moscow, Kutuzov finally has to turn his army around and fight the French to show the nobility that the Russian army is doing something. To make his stand, Kutuzov chooses a village called Borodino.

Borodino sits on a small rise overlooking a wide plain, where two roads – an old road and its newer replacement – trace a roughly parallel line to Moscow. The plain is cross-crossed by a number of small streams, which will slow any attacker and make them vulnerable to artillery fire. The route to Moscow runs from northwest to southeast, and to the southeast of town, Kutuzov orders a large wooden bulwark to be constructed. This wall, known today as the Great Redoubt, is to serve as a second line of defense should Borodino fall to the French. The Russian left flank stretches to the south, and is anchored along one of the Moscow roads facing a patch of woods. The Russian right flank extends east of Borodino across the other Moscow road, and is defended by a stream in front with a wooded area to their rear. Now, estimates on the French and Russian troop numbers are all over the map, but it’s likely that both armies at this point have about 120,000 men that they can actually put in the field, with the Russians, if anything, having a slight numerical edge.

        -The French army arrives in the area on September 5th, and some advanced elements clash with a Russian defensive force that Kutuzov has put in place to delay the French advance. The next day, September 6th, Napoleon scouts the battlefield. The delay is just as necessary for his men as for their general. After months on the road, the Grande Armée could use a day of rest. Napoleon himself is suffering from a bladder infection that makes it difficult and painful for him to ride around. Perhaps in a sour mood, he rejects Marshal Davout’s plan to lead a 40,000-man cavalry force around the Russian left flank. He thinks the horses are tired, and that taking away such a large force will fatally weaken the French center. Instead, Napoleon decides on a direct frontal assault on the village of Borodino, which French troops will then use as a staging ground to push the Russians out from behind the Great Redoubt, occupy the high ground, and roll up both flanks. Many historians have criticized this decision as wasteful, since the French are bound to lose many men in a frontal assault. But I would argue that this approach – taking the center and then rolling up the flanks – is Napoleon’s textbook approach to combat, and that he’s not really doing anything different.

        -Anyway, the French open the morning of September 7th with an artillery barrage. The intent is to erode Russian morale and damage their physical defenses, then send in cavalry which will force the infantry out of their lines and into squares. Napoleon’s infantry can then move in and hammer the exposed Russian troops with close-range musket volleys, which should provoke them to retreat, after which the French cavalry can charge back in and finish the job. But the Russians are tougher than Napoleon had expected, and don’t easily get flushed out of their defenses. Since he’s not attacking the Russian flanks anyway, he pulls men from his flanks to get more firepower in the center and scatter the Russians. Unfortunately for Napoleon, Kutuzov notices Grande Armée troops redeploying from the flanks to the center, and pulls men from his own flanks to reinforce the defenses.

        -Paul K. Davis writes:

        “All along the front, the French made progress, but it was slow and costly. The Russians stubbornly defended their smaller redoubts in the center, and the arrival of Russians from the right to the left flank forced the French to withdraw temporarily… At several points during the day, a commitment of reserves at a particular point would have carried the day, but oddly Napoleon refused to commit the Old Guard, the core of veterans upon whom he had always depended for the killing blow in the past. That refusal probably cost him the major victory he desired. By midday, the Russians were slowly being pushed back, but Kutusov threw his Cossacks and 5,000 other cavalry at Borodino, now only lightly held. That move stopped a French offensive, but, after the town was regained, the storming of the Great Redoubt recommenced. The pressure of the infantry on the front so occupied the Russians that they failed to see until too late the flanking cavalry attack that entered the rear of the Redoubt and killed all the defenders.

        “Napoleon committed his cavalry reserves, hoping the loss of the Redoubt would break Russian morale, but a well-timed Russian spoiling attack with their own cavalry covered the measured Russian withdrawal. Napoleon now held the lines that the Russians had defended all day, and the enemy was retreating from before him, but he was amazed when they stopped at a ridgeline immediately to the rear and prepared themselves for more fighting.”

        -With dusk setting in, Napoleon decides not to pursue. For whatever reason, he does not have the same aggressive spirit that has won him so many battles in the past, and the bulk of the Russian army slips away, and lives to fight another day. Napoleon will later write in his memoirs:

        “The most terrible of all my battles was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves worthy of victory, but the Russians showed themselves worthy of being invincible.”

Chapter Nineteen: The Arson of Moscow

Borodino is the deadliest battle so far in the 19th Century, although it will not remain so. A year from now, in 1813, the Battle of Leipzig will be even deadlier. Over 30,000 French and their allies lie dead or wounded, along with over 44,000 Russians. But this deep inside Russian land, the French cannot make up their losses, while the Russian army can continue to retreat, and that’s exactly what Kutuzov does; he retreats all the way past Moscow, taking with him almost all of Moscow’s 270,000 civilians. On his way out of town, the Moscow military governor, Count Fyodor Rostopchin, opens the doors to all the prisons and pays a number of saboteurs to light fires all over the city.

        -Napoleon marches into Moscow in the afternoon of September 14th 1812, and the first fires break out in the evening. Over the next few days, the Great Moscow Fire of 1812 will destroy more than three-quarters of the city, and it’s worth noting that this isn’t all the fault of arsonists. Everyday people would have kept fires in their homes, and most of those fires suddenly aren’t being tended. There’s no fire department because they’ve evacuated along with the rest of the civilians. So when a house fire does break out it doesn’t get extinguished, it spreads to neighboring buildings and the fire gets bigger and bigger, spurred on by the dry late summer heat.

        -Napoleon famously watches the fire from the walls of the Kremlin, at one point saying to an associate:

“What a terrible sight! And they did this themselves! So many palaces! What an incredible solution! What kind of people! These are Scythians!”

-Napoleon is comparing the Russians to the ancient nomadic horse peoples from the Black Sea area, who used to spar with the Greeks and give them all kinds of trouble. An Enlightenment man like Napoleon simply can’t comprehend a people destroying their own cultural treasures rather than negotiate with their enemy. The French Emperor is a meticulous planner and forward-thinker, but vandalizing their own country’s spiritual capital wasn’t on his mental list of “things the Russians might do.”

-Napoleon sends a letter to Tsar Alexander basically saying “Look, I’ve taken Moscow. You’ve given me a good fight; you’ve upheld Russian honor, but now it’s time to make peace.” Alexander, safe near the Baltic coast in the Russian political capital of St. Petersburg, doesn’t bother to respond. So Napoleon and his Grande Armée find themselves stranded in Moscow, surrounded by burned-out farmland, sick, tired, with winter approaching, and hundreds of miles from the nearest winter clothes, blankets, or reliable food supply. Oh, yeah, and what supply lines they do have are constantly being raided by Marshal Kutuzov’s cavalry, while the bulk of the Russian army sits to the east of Moscow daring Napoleon to come chase them again. Under growing pressure from the nobility, Tsar Alexander demands that Kutuzov attack Napoleon, but Kutuzov refuses, telling the Tsar that he is the top commander of the army, and if the Tsar wants the army to do something differently, he’s going to have to fire him. Alexander does not fire Kutuzov, and the Russian army continues to sit and gather reinforcements.

-Napoleon has no choice. This late in the year, with his weakened army and poor supply situation, he doesn’t dare pursue the Russians. He can’t stay where he is, in the smoldering ruins of an enemy city. His only choice is to go back, and on October 19th 1812, Napoleon orders what’s left of the Grande Armée to turn around and march back to Poland.

-As soon as he does, the war completely reverses course. Kutuzov marches after him, sending out cavalry every day to harass French and allied stragglers. And once again, I have to dispel a myth; the Russian winter of 1812 is not unusually cold. There’s an unusually early cold spell, followed by a period of Indian summer, and it’s that unusual warmth that once again works against the French army. Historically, Russia is easy to cross in the winter. The many rivers are frozen, and while the roads are also frozen, at least they’re not several inches deep with mud. As it stands, Napoleon’s men have to cross the Berezina River in warm weather when it’s usually frozen over.

-On November 25th, Napoleon’s engineers begin building a pair of pontoon bridges, and the first, smaller bridge is completed by early afternoon on the 26th, allowing small French units to begin crossing while the larger bridge is completed. Crossing on that bridge begins on the 27th, and the bulk of the army begins to cross as the Russians move in, attempting to capture as many French as they can while Napoleon’s army is divided. A span of the larger bridge collapses early in the afternoon, killing hundreds of men, and the repairs delay the rest of the army by a few more hours. On the 28th, Cossacks attack the remaining French troops on the east bank, and capture around 8,000 soldiers and 2,000 camp followers.  To prevent Kutuzov’s main army from crossing behind him, Napoleon orders the bridges destroyed, stranding hundreds of men who are still trying to get across. Other Russian troops also attack Napoleon’s army on the west bank, but the French are able to force their way through. Then the real cold sets in, with temperatures in early December plunging as low as 25 degrees below zero. But by the time General Winter arrives in earnest, the Grande Armée is already beaten, defeated by a combination of disease, desertion, poor supplies, and Russian steel. Of the 680,000 or so men who began the march into Russia, only a little over 30,000 make it back home. For the first time in his career, it looks like Napoleon may have lost a war.

-Now, many people’s historical memory skips over a lot of history here. We tend to think of Napoleon’s defeat in Russia as the nail in the coffin for the French Emperor. But in a broad sense, his position after Russia is still pretty good. He still has his massive French Empire. He still has his satellite states in Germany and the Netherlands and Switzerland and Italy. He still has his allies in Austria and Prussia, who are both major powers in their own right. And he still has a massive manpower reserve to recruit new troops. Anyway, that’s the situation when Napoleon returns to Paris on December 18th 1812. He goes first to his wife Marie Louise, then sends a message to Josephine to tell her that her son and his stepson, Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, has returned unharmed. The failed Russian invasion seems like a setback, but nothing more. At best, the Russians might be able to fight him to a draw. Of course, that’s not how it actually works out. As we know, Napoleon’s days as Emperor of the French are numbered.

Chapter Twenty: The War of 1812

Before we talk about Napoleon’s fall, I want to briefly touch on something that’s happening at the same time – the War of 1812. Now, I’m not going to get into a ton of detail on this because strictly speaking, I’m of the opinion that the War of 1812 is not part of the Napoleonic Wars. It’s a separate war between the United States and the United Kingdom, with various Native American allies on both sides. The United States never allies with Napoleonic France, nor does the US ever go to war on the other European powers. So the little spat between the US and UK is nothing more than a sideshow.

        -The war is fought over the high-stakes issues of sovereignty and the rights of citizenship. Basically, the British Royal Navy relies on conscription to provide sailors, and the bulk of conscripts come from British merchant ships. With the navy undergoing a huge wartime expansion, a lot of civilian sailors are getting pressed into military service. So, many of these sailors do what people often do to avoid the draft and flee to another country. The US is friendly and has a rapidly-growing civilian shipping industry, so it’s a logical destination for someone who’s a sailor by trade and wants to relocate. The Royal Navy, in turn, asserts the right to detain neutral merchant ships and search for British draft dodgers. Any men who are found are then pressed into service on the spot, a practice called “impressment.” The US objects to both the detentions of ships and the accidental drafting of American citizens via impressment.

        -Both sides have some valid points. From the British point of view, American merchant ships are acting as a haven for draft dodgers, and something has to be done about it. From the American point of view, the Royal Navy has no jurisdiction over US merchant ships, and in the days before government-issued photo IDs, it’s all too easy for an ambitious British commander to round up a few Americans along with any draft dodgers. There are other issues, too, such as territorial disputes between the US and British Canada. But it’s probable that those issues would have been solved peaceably without the issue of impressment.

        -Anyway, after several failed attempts at negotiation, US President James Madison goes to Congress on June 1st 1812 and asks them to declare war on the United Kingdom. Congress debates for a few days before agreeing, and the US officially declares war on June 18th.

        -Madison’s plan is for American state militias to quickly seize an unprepared British Canada, then use Canada as a bargaining chip to get the British to agree to stop searching American ships. This does not go as planned. The war is immediately unpopular in the American northeast, which is the very region where an invasion force will need to be raised. The region is heavily reliant on British export markets, and a war with Britain will cripple the economy and bankrupt local businesses. Two attempted invasions of Canada fail, although American naval forces under Captain Oliver Hazard Perry do push the British fleet out of Lake Erie and American land forces defeat an anti-colonialist Native American coalition led by a Shawnee chief named Tecumseh. In retaliation for the American attacks on Canada and pillaging of civilian infrastructure, a British task force sails up the Chesapeake Bay in August of 1814, disembarks 2,500 troops, and raids Washington, D.C., setting fire to the White House, the US Capitol, and other government buildings. Important documents like treasury receipts and historical artifacts like the US Constitution have already been evacuated by the time the raid occurs.

        -Both sides attack each-others’ shipping, and while the young US Navy wouldn’t even be powerful enough to serve as a small task force in the Royal Navy, American privateers do significant damage to British trade. All the while, British ships keep attacking and seizing US merchantmen, devastating American trade. On December 27th 1814, the British sign the Treaty of Ghent, ending the war. The American government signs on February 17th 1815, officially ending the war without any changes to the pre-war status quo. Impressment technically remains British policy, but with the fall of Napoleon it will cease to be necessary, so it will be a non-issue for the US and the UK going forward.

        -The most iconic battle of the War of 1812, the Battle of New Orleans, is fought on January 8th 1815, when everyone has already agreed on peace terms and the Treaty of Ghent is only awaiting the American signatures because it takes weeks to send paperwork across the Atlantic in the age of sail. Way down in the Gulf of Mexico, nobody has gotten the news yet, and British General Sir Edward Pakenham makes the baffling decision to march 8,000 men across a swamp to attack a fixed enemy position, and American General Andrew Jackson’s entrenched force of 5,700 pirates and militiamen fights them off.

        -So ends the War of 1812, and that’s all I’m going to say about it, because like I said it’s not properly-speaking a part of the Napoleonic Wars. But that’s how it fits in. It’s also noteworthy because it’s the last time the US and the UK or Canada ever go to war with each-other. What follows is an era of growing trade where mutual interest turns into mutual trust and eventually leads to the long-lasting alliances we know today.

Chapter Twenty-One: The War of the Sixth Coalition

When Napoleon returns to Paris from Russia, he immediately sets about building a new army. In and of itself, this is not a novel crisis for France. Early in the Revolution, French armies had to rebuild again and again, and Napoleonic rule has turned the draft system into a well-oiled machine. But things have changed in the last few years, and France is starting to look less and less like an unstoppable juggernaut and more like the rickety French state of old – a decrepit edifice ready to fall over at the first stiff breeze. French finances remain in a precarious condition; to raise his new army, Napoleon is forced to dig deep into a hoard of gold he’s been stashing in the basement of the Tuileries Palace. Money from this private fund also goes to new welfare programs to keep the people fed and housed.

        -Beyond the financial crisis is the real issue of replacing so many men. Not counting allied troops, France has still lost something in the neighborhood of 300,000 troops. Most of these men had been conscripts, but a fair number were veterans with years of military experience. Putting warm bodies into uniforms is one thing. Getting them trained and drilled into a proper army takes time and effort, and it’s that much harder when you don’t have a hard core of veterans around whom to build your new army. Back in the Revolutionary days, Lazare Carnot had rebuilt the French army by dividing the army into mixed units with some veterans and some raw recruits, but Napoleon doesn’t have that option. Not many men survived Russia, and of those that did, many are so mentally or physically broken that they’re no longer fit for combat.

        -As for putting men in uniform, it turns out to be harder this time around because of the sheer scale of the Army’s losses in Russia. Many French families are getting two letters in the mail at the same time; one telling them their oldest son is dead, and another telling them their second son has been drafted. Fouché’s police force is working overtime rounding up draft dodgers and dragging them to recruitment camps. By the middle of April 1813, Napoleon has raised, equipped, and trained an army of 225,000 men, with tens of thousands more entering the training camps and preparing to join the fight soon.

        -This force will be badly needed. Following Napoleon’s retreat from Russia, the dominos had begun to fall, and now there’s a new coalition forming against the French Empire, and the Franco-Russian War of 1812 has now morphed into the War of the Sixth Coalition, the second-to-last of the major Napoleonic Wars.

        -The Continental System is collapsing, and it begins with the loss of the Duchy of Warsaw. Almost as soon as Napoleon leaves Russian soil, Tsar Alexander takes personal command of his army and marches into Poland. He’s been working behind the scenes with Polish nobility for years, promising them varying degrees of autonomy in exchange for swearing fealty to him. After losing tens of thousands of their sons in the failed Russian invasion, many Poles are more than happy to join the Russian Empire if only to stop the bleeding. The Duchy of Warsaw will continue to exist on paper until 1815, but it may as well be part of Russia from late 1812 onwards.

        -Not long after, on December 30th 1812, the first Prussian troops defect from French service and demand that their king join the Russians in a war of Western European liberation. Then, on March 11th 1813, Prussian and Russian troops march together into Berlin, officially freeing Prussia from French servitude. Seeing that much of his army is about to go fight the French with or without him, King Frederick William III calls on all the army and the people to join the battle. On March 17th, he publishes an open letter saying:

        “To my people,

        “Brandenburgers, Prussians, Silesians, Pomeranians, Lithuanians! You know what you have borne for the past seven years; you know the sad fate that awaits you if we do not bring this war to an honorable end. Think of the times gone by—of the great Elector, the great Frederick! Remember the blessings for which your forefathers fought under their leadership, and which they paid for with their blood—freedom of conscience, national honor, independence, commerce, industry, learning. Look at the great example of our powerful allies, the Russians; look at the Spaniards, the Portuguese. Witness the heroic Swiss, and the people of the Netherlands…

        “This is the final, the decisive struggle; upon it depends our independence, our prosperity, our existence. There are no other alternatives but an honorable peace or a heroic end….

“We may confidently await the outcome. God and our own firm purpose will bring victory to our cause, and with it an assured and glorious peace, and the return of happier times.”

-As of March 1813, France has now lost one of her most powerful allies, but Napoleon confidently does what he always does: marches vigorously into the field to defeat his enemies before they can link up their forces. The Russian army in particular is overextended much as Napoleon was when he was deep inside of Russia. If he can hit them hard and fast, he can force them out before they can establish a large supply base.

-Napoleon wins a pair of early battles, defeating a large Russo-Prussian force at Lützen on May 2nd, then defeating a smaller force at Bautzen on May 21st. Both battles are costly, with tens of thousands of losses on both sides. Unfortunately for Napoleon, on top of everything else, he’s also dealing with a shortage of horses, and doesn’t have enough fresh cavalry to pursue the fleeing Prussians and Russians, so while he pushes their armies back, he isn’t able to inflict a decisive defeat. This isn’t good for France. But if you look at things from the other side, the Prussian and Russian armies are going in the wrong direction, which doesn’t look good for either of those powers. So on June 4th 1813, both sides agree to an armistice, and diplomats meet to work out peace terms. It looks like the War of the Sixth Coalition, while bloody, will also be short and unimpactful.

-The war isn’t over, though. Everyone’s waiting for Europe’s other great empire – Austria – to weigh in. Officially an ally of Napoleonic France, Austria has remained effectively neutral since the return of her armies from Russia, while the Russian and Prussian monarchs have wisely kept their armies pointed squarely at Napoleon’s, not at Austria’s. Because Austria is the closest thing there is to a neutral major power, everybody else agrees that the Austrians should mediate the peace talks.

-At this point, Austrian Emperor Francis I, formerly Holy Roman Emperor Francis II, makes his play. He instructs Metternich to demand that the French authorize a new congress of empires. Instead of Continental Europe being dominated by France and Russia, it should now be divided between France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia. Prussia is to get all her lost land back, and the Confederation of the Rhine is going to be independent from France, and France will have to return Swedish Pomerania to Sweden, Hanover to the British, and restore Austria’s land on the Adriatic coast, but Napoleon can keep Italy, his throne, and his dynasty. Tsar Alexander is amenable to this new balance of power, but Napoleon is not. He can’t see himself working with the Austrian Emperor and Prussian King as equals – only as an overlord, and he constantly delays making any kind of commitment. Napoleon finally agrees to preliminary terms on August 10th, but his messenger arrives after a midnight deadline, and as of 12:01 AM on August 11th 1813, the Austrian Empire declares war on France and joins the Sixth Coalition.

-At this time, the allies agree to a plan presented by former French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, now Swedish King Karl XIV Johan, which is merged with a near-identical plan from Austrian high commanders to become something called the Trachenberg Plan. The Trachenberg Plan is based on the premise that Napoleon is a military genius who will always win a fair fight. Instead, the allies aim to attack Napoleon’s generals and marshals independently, destroying the smaller field armies one by one until they’ve achieved enough of a numerical advantage to crush Napoleon’s main army by overwhelming force. For example, Swedish troops are going to attack Norway. Because Norway is claimed by Denmark, who is a French ally, the Swedish can advance their own interests while simultaneously drawing away Danish troops who would otherwise fight at Napoleon’s side.

The Trachenberg Plan is a remarkable success. I don’t want to get too wrapped up in the next several weeks of combat, but basically Napoleon’s marshals keep getting attacked by larger allied armies, and Napoleon has to keep marching his main army around to put out fires, but any time he gets near a coalition army, that army retreats rather than engage him in battle. Twice he dispatches an army to take Berlin and knock the Prussians out of the war, and twice that army is driven back – once under the command of Marshal Nicolas Oudinot, and again under the command of Marshal Ney. All the while, French troops keep getting killed, wounded, and captured, outpacing the rate at which the French state can raise new recruits. Finally, Napoleon decides to take a defensive position around the city of Leipzig in central Germany. The position lies at a convergence of roads where his army can easily be supplied. The coalition armies don’t dare bypass him and march into France or the Netherlands. If they do, Napoleon can march north to Berlin unopposed, push south into Austria, or even march East towards St. Petersburg. He’s forcing the Coalition to attack him, which they do on October 15th.

        -That day, Napoleon’s 160,000 men are approached from the north by an army of around 57,000 Prussians, commanded by General Gebhard von Blücher. In and of itself, this army is no serious threat to the French, but another army, a combined Austrian and Russian force of 160,000 men, is also approaching from the south, commanded by Prince Karl von Schwarzenberg of Austria. Napoleon forms his army into a rough eastward-facing arc, with the city of Leipzig in the center. The northern and southern ends of the arc are anchored on the Elster River, which prevents coalition troops from launching any kind of flanking maneuver, and there’s a small blocking force west of the river to protect the army’s supply line across a bridge. The Coalition armies form up on October 15th, but Napoleon is patient. He has chosen his ground and will let them come to him and not get baited out of position.

        -On the morning of October 16th 1813, a dense fog blankets the low-lying land around Leipzig. Both sides open with a massive artillery barrage, and Austro-Russian troops cross a dense patch of woods, creeks, and marshland to attack the French army. Near the southern end of the French semicircle is a village called Wachau, and that village is taken by an Austro-Russian force, recaptured by the French, then recaptured again by the Austro-Russian army around noon. Coalition reinforces pour into the area, preparing to break through the French line. But Napoleon has been drawing them closer the entire time, and he’s massed most of his artillery in this part of the line, and he unleashes a barrage that stalls the Austro-Russian advance, then sends in a 10,000-man cavalry force under Marshal Murat. This force pushes back the first waves of Austrian and Russian infantry, but Tsar Alexander deploys his own cavalry to counter them. The French are once again hampered by a lack of fresh horses; the ones they do have are exhausted, and Murat’s men are forced to fall back under the attack by energetic Russian cavalry.

        -Napoleon’s strategy had been to defeat the Austro-Russian army first, since it’s the larger of the two armies he faces. As a result, he had put as many men against that army as possible, and left only a minimal defensive force in the north to face General Blücher’s Prussians. French Marshal Auguste de Marmont leads a daylong defense of the town of Mockern against a relentless Prussian assault. Despite being heavily outnumbered, his men hold Mockern until late afternoon, until a Prussian cannon scores a lucky shot on a French ammunition wagon. The wagon explodes, seriously injuring Marshal Marmont, and when the men see him being evacuated from the field, they fall back, leaving the Prussians in control of Mockern and collapsing the French lines into a much smaller semicircle and bringing Coalition lines uncomfortably close to Leipzig.

        -Night falls, and on the next day, October 17th, both armies sit in an uneasy standoff. Both sides tend their wounded and receive badly-needed ammunition and reinforcements, but the Coalition side comes out the better. That day, the 17th, Swedish King Karl XIV Johan arrives with the Coalition’s Army of the North, a 65,000-man Russo-Swedish force that swells the total Coalition Army’s numbers to nearly 300,000 men, almost twice the size of Napoleon’s defensive force. The presence of this massive, multi-national force gives the Battle of Leipzig its historical nickname: the Battle of the Nations.

        -On October 18th, Napoleon first attempts to hold his position, still confident that he can use the excellent defensive ground around Leipzig to turn the battle to his advantage. Then, as Karl XIV Johan’s Swedes maneuver near French lines, 5,400 French-allied Saxon troops walk away from their positions, towards the enemy, and defect to the Swedish side. For one thing, many are just tired of the constant fighting under Napoleon. But many others had served under Karl XIV Johan when he was Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte and had commanded the Saxon army for a while.

        -Anyway, this defection by the Saxon troops causes a fatal weakness in Napoleon’s line, and when the Coalition troops attack, he’s forced to withdraw. With both Blücher’s Prussians and the Swedes now perilously close to Leipzig, Napoleon’s entire army is in danger of getting cut off from the only bridge across the Elster River and getting stranded on the wrong side, surrounded by a massive enemy army. That would be “game over” for the Napoleonic Empire.

        -On the night of October 19th, Napoleon orders his Marshals to organize a fighting retreat across the river. Marshals Oudinot and MacDonald are to lead a 30,000-man rearguard that will screen the rest of the army as it crosses the only stone bridge in the area, near the town of Lindenau. Napoleon and his Marshals work up a timetable for how long it should take the army to get across, and order the bridge to be demolished after the rearguard is safely across. But this very important order keeps getting delegated down the chain of command until the guy in charge of setting off the demolition charges is an inexperienced corporal with no understanding of the plan of battle. He sets the explosives off way early, while French troops are still crossing the bridge, the rearguard is still on the other side, and Coalition troops are nowhere in the area. Thanks to a simple screw-up, Napoleon loses the 30,000-man rearguard along with several thousand other men.

        -In total, the Battle of Leipzig costs the French Empire 60,000 men, but Napoleon still has a 100,000-man force with which to reform a larger army. But he’s lost more than 60,000 men because an additional 120,000 French troops had been garrisoning German cities, and with his defeat at Leipzig, those men will be forced to surrender. Worse, the Coalition armies are still building strength, while France is now dipping into future years’ conscription pools to fill its ranks – meaning they’re drafting younger and younger recruits. Worse, an additional 40,000 men desert or are lost to enemy raids during the retreat back to France, so Napoleon’s main army is left with only 60,000 men.

Now, most of those 40,000 deserters aren’t actually French. They’re soldiers from French client states who leave Napoleon’s army when their client states declare independence from France. Following the Russian invasion, Napoleon had lost his big military allies, Prussia and Austria. Now, after Leipzig, he’s losing his client state network. The first French client to defect, Bavaria, actually does so on October 18th, during the Battle of Leipzig. The second, the Kingdom of Westphalia, defects not long afterwards because it has no choice – it’s been conquered by the Russians. The King of Westphalia, Jérôme Bonaparte, had actually lost his little kingdom in September and fought the Russians all the way back to the border before his army utterly collapses after Leipzig. Without big brother Napoleon around to protect him, there’s nothing between him and the unstoppable Russian army.

        -Bavaria and Westphalia are two of the largest small powers that make up the Confederation of the Rhine. With their defection and fall, the Confederation itself breaks up on November 4th 1813. So instead of this little puppet alliance on the French frontier, everything east of the Rhine is now in political and military chaos.

        -The hardest blow falls in the northwest, where the Netherlands has declared a new provisional government led by a three-man triumvirate. This triumvirate calls on the old House of Orange to come back and run the country. The House of Orange is now led by William Frederick, son of the old Stadtholder William V who had been kicked out 18 years earlier. But William Frederick does not become Stadtholder William VI. Instead, on December 6th 1813, he declares himself King William I of the new Kingdom of the Netherlands – a claim that will ultimately be upheld by the victorious Coalition powers. With William I’s rise, French control has effectively been pushed back to modern-day France, Belgium, Switzerland, and Northern Italy.

        -Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “France itself seemed to be falling to pieces. The loss of Spain, the interruption of trade with Germany and Italy, had brought an economic crisis with factories closing and banks failing. In October the closing of the banking house of Jabach set off a series of bankruptcies. The stock market fell from 80 in January, 1813, to 47 in December. Thousands of unemployed roamed the streets, or concealed their poverty in their homes, or joined the Army to eat. The common people rebelled against further conscription; the middle class protested against higher taxes; the royalists called for Louis XVIII; all classes demanded peace.

“Napoleon reached Paris on November 9, and was welcomed by his unhappy Queen and his rejoicing son. He set about raising a new army of 300,000 men as the first necessity for either war or peace. He sent engineers to repair roads to new fronts, to restore town walls, to build fortresses, to prepare to cut dikes or demolish bridges if necessary to slow an invader’s advance. He conscripted horses for the cavalry, ordered cannon from the foundries, arms and munitions for the infantry; and as public revenues fell because of poverty and resistance to taxation, he delved more and more deeply into his cellar hoard. The nation looked on in wonder and fear, admiring his resilience and resourcefulness, dreading another year of war.”

-While all this is going on, an unlikely figure is trying to save the French Empire – the Austrian Foreign Minister Klemens von Metternich. Metternich is thinking forward to the postwar world, and Austria’s position as a central power, positioned between France, Prussia, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire. Austrian security relies on maintaining a balance between these other powers, so that no power individually becomes strong enough to dictate Austrian affairs. That’s what this war is about, after all – throwing off Napoleon’s domination. But if the war ends with France humiliated and divided into smaller countries, as some of the Coalition members have suggested, Russia will be the undisputed heavyweight power of continental Europe. Metternich wants a reasonably strong, stable postwar France that’s both willing and able to act as a counterweight.

-So as leader of the Sixth Coalition’s diplomatic mission, Metternich makes a series of proposals to Napoleon called the Frankfurt Proposals. On November 9th, he sends a message to Napoleon offering France a return to the old “natural frontiers” the French Revolutionaries had fought for. France will maintain rule over everything between the Rhine, the North Sea, the English Channel, the Pyrenees, and the Alps. Everything else will return to its pre-war status. Napoleon hems and haws, then agrees to the arrangement on December 2nd. By that point, the Netherlands has already brought back the House of Orange, so the Coalition diplomats respond with a new deal: France gets everything it would have gotten under the original deal, except for the Netherlands, which will be independent.

-This is unacceptable to Napoleon, who refuses to give up land he considers part of France’s natural borders, and redoubles his recruitment efforts. Here we come to one of the big “What ifs” of history. What if Napoleon agrees and makes peace? Does this larger French nation live amicably alongside its neighbors, or are there more wars? Is there still a Napoleonic dynasty on the French throne in the 21st century? It’s tough to say.

-It’s also tough to say what’s on Napoleon’s mind when he turns down Metternich’s generous offer. The Coalition’s numbers are overwhelming and they surround France on all sides. Even the usually-compliant legislature asks him to make peace, and he dismisses them. The Senate calls Napoleon to explain himself, and he gives the Senators a rare show of humility:

“I do not fear to acknowledge that I have made war too long. I had conceived vast projects; I wished to secure to France the empire of the world. I was mistaken; those projects were not proportioned to the numerical force of our population. I should have been obliged to put them all under arms; and I now perceive that the advancement of society, and the moral and social well-being of a state, are not compatible with converting an entire people into a nation of soldiers.

“I ought to expiate the fault I have committed in reckoning too much on my good fortune; and I will expiate it. I will make peace. I will make it in such terms as circumstances demand, and this peace shall be mortifying to me alone. It is I who have deceived myself; it is I who ought to suffer, it is not France. She has not committed any error; she has poured forth her blood for me; she has not refused me any sacrifice….

“Go, then, gentlemen, announce to your departments that I am about to conclude a peace, that I shall no longer require the blood of Frenchmen for my enterprises, for myself,… but for France, and to maintain the integrity of her frontiers. Tell them that I ask only the means of repelling a foreign foe from our native land. Tell them that Alsace, Franche-Comté, Navarre, Béarn are being invaded. Tell them that I call upon Frenchmen to come to the aid of Freedom.”

        -Over the following weeks and months the Coalition’s diplomatic mission will offer more terms to Napoleon, but each time their armies have advanced just a little bit more, and the terms they offer are slightly less generous. In the end, Metternich’s attempts to end the war via diplomacy are doomed to failure, but that doesn’t mean he’s done trying to salvage France. Throughout the postwar negotiations, he will be both reasonable and generous, and his efforts are one of the main reasons France is able to remain a world power after the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. We’ll talk more about that in a minute.

        -For now, Napoleon decides he’s going to defend France by doing just what he’d said would prevent the advancement of society and bring about moral decay; he conscripts the entire country. Specifically, he orders the conscription of 900,000 men, although nowhere near that many will actually be pressed into service. And I’m using the term “men” here loosely, because France is now officially conscripting all men aged 19 to 31, and some boys as young as 14. Height restrictions are lowered to 5 feet, which is quite short for a man even for the standards of the time. And these short, teenaged soldiers are called Marie-Louises, a reference to France’s young new empress. So as we talk about some of Napoleon’s final battles, remember that some of these military units have kids who today would be high school freshmen serving on the front lines.

Chapter Twenty-Two: The Fall of an Emperor

The beginning of 1814 brings more bad news for Napoleon. On January 24th, he learns that his old Marshal Joachim Murat, the King of Naples, has made an agreement with the allies to save his own throne. Instead of helping the French, he’s marching an 80,000-man army up to Northern Italy to attack Napoleon’s stepson Prince Eugène de Beauharnais, who has rallied 36,000 men to the Emperor’s cause. Murat won’t be the first or the last man to betray Napoleon; we’ve already seen Talleyrand and Fouché do that. But it’s safe to say that Murat’s betrayal cuts deepest at a time when Napoleon needs all his friends by his side.

        -Despite the odds, Napoleon fights an astounding defensive campaign, vigorously marching his army back and forth across northern France to attack one Coalition army after another. From February 10th to 15th 1814, in the Six Days’ Campaign, he defeats multiple elements of Gebhard von Blücher’s 55,000-strong Prussian and Russian army advancing from the northeast, and nearly half of the enemy are rendered casualties.

        -But Napoleon’s tactical genius can’t save him this time, and there are a couple of reasons. To begin with, a lot of people will say he has an advantage in this campaign because for once he’s fighting on friendly territory. This misses the point. Napoleon’s previous campaigns have relied on fast flanking maneuvers to get into the enemy’s rear, disrupt their supply lines, and keep their armies on the strategic retreat. He can’t do that here. The enemy is too close to Paris. Napoleon has to more or less keep his army between the Prussians and the French capital. He can’t afford to go marching around the countryside deep into the Prussian rear to capture some key supply hub.

        -Napoleon’s bigger problem is that the enemy is just too strong, and Blücher’s army is the weakest of the three major threats facing France. The first is the Austro-Russian Grand Army, over 200,000 men who have marched through neutral Switzerland to attack France from the East. The second is Wellington’s British, Spanish, and Portuguese army, which is breaking through the Pyrenees and invading France from the south. More than half of the 200,000-man French army is down there in the south under Marshals Jean-de-Dieu Soult and Louis-Gabriel Suchet, fighting fiercely and sometimes winning victories, but slowly getting pushed back by superior numbers. Another 20,000 men are stationed in the Alpine passes, garrisoning mountain fortresses to forestall any potential invasion from Italy.

        -Anyway, even though Napoleon has beaten back Blücher’s army in less than a week, he now has to turn around and fight the 200,000-man Austro-Russian Grand Army, and he has only around 80,000 men to do that with. He still wins a few victories by engaging and defeating smaller chunks of that army, and manages to surround the Coalition forces. Austrian General Karl von Schwarzenberg then asks for a cease-fire, but Napoleon says he will only agree if the Coalition agrees to the Frankfurt Proposals, but that would mean withdrawing behind the Rhine, and the Russian, Austrian, and Prussian monarchs all refuse. Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “Francis II stayed behind at Dijon, not willing to share in the humiliation of his daughter. Frederick William III, usually so mild, felt that he might justly take revenge for the destruction of his army, the dismemberment of his country, and his years of exile from his capital. Alexander, proud and tense, taking no pleasure in the daily slaughter, saw himself as fulfilling the vow he had made at Vilna to cleanse Russia of Moscow’s defilement, and to free Europe from the power madness of the Corsican.”

        -For the Coalition, peace now requires Napoleon’s demotion to King of France, and this he will not accept. Instead, Napoleon comes up with a plan. Marshals Auguste de Marmont and Édouard Mortier are to lead a defensive force to protect the Paris region, while Napoleon himself takes a smaller army, marches around the allied rear, and relieves the garrisons of all the French forts along the Rhine. There are a lot of veteran troops in those forts, surrounded by small Coalition siege forces, and if Napoleon can spring them all free, he can form a formidable army with which to attack the Coalition from the rear. Meanwhile, their supply lines to Germany will be effectively cut.

        -It’s a desperate gamble, because it relies on Marmont and Mortier to hold back an overwhelmingly superior enemy force. Along with Joseph Bonaparte, they lead 30,000 men in a defense of Paris against 150,000 attackers, but on March 29th through 30th, they’re pushed back from the outskirts of the city into the French capital itself.

        -Paris is panicking. Throughout all the war and revolutions and terror, no enemy army has ever threatened the seat of French culture. And now the Coalition stands on the brink of invading the city. Paris has no walls to speak of, only the remnants of some old medieval walls that can’t stand up to artillery fire. The French soldiers are digging trenches and erecting hasty wooden defenses, but there aren’t enough of them to stop any serious assault by the Coalition army. While the Coalition has held back on intentionally bombarding Paris so far, stray shells are already landing in the city. Civilians with the money to pack a carriage and leave, do so. Others grab whatever they can carry and flee on foot. No sane person wants to be in Paris when the Coalition takes its revenge, and those blessed with less sanity take advantage of their neighbors’ absence to loot whatever they can. Many wear the white cockade of the Bourbons, and await Paris’ fate with a mixture of hope and fear.

        -The government has already been evacuated deeper into France. Talleyrand is already meeting with Coalition diplomats to discuss terms. And with hundreds of thousands of civilians facing a massacre, Marmont and Mortier agree to surrender at 2 in the morning on March 31st. The next morning, Tsar Alexander rides into Paris at the head of his victorious army. He meets with Talleyrand almost immediately, and the two of them decide to call the French Senate back into session to establish some kind of legitimate French government that isn’t Napoleon. The Senate meets the next day, April 1st, and promulgates a boilerplate Constitution and declaration of rights. As its first President, it chooses none other than Talleyrand. Then, on April 2nd, the Senate votes to depose Napoleon as Emperor and revoke the hereditary Emperorship.

        -At his headquarters in Fontainebleau, 35 miles south of the capital, Napoleon is feeling very much the French Emperor and still controls most of modern-day metropolitan France. He calls together his Marshals to plan an assault on Paris. Instead, they urge him to abdicate for the good of France. Napoleon still insists on a counterattack. Marshal Étienne MacDonald says: “Not a sword would be unsheathed to second you in such an enterprise.” Napoleon says he will lead the troops himself, that the men will march with him. Marshal Michel Ney says bluntly: “The army marches with its generals.”

        -Napoleon Bonaparte has finally lost. He can no longer fight because the people have turned against him and his Marshals of the Empire – the elite leaders of his army – are refusing to lead. Tsar Alexander has offered him exile and either rulership over the small Mediterranean island of Elba or a generous lordship in the Russian Empire. It’s a generous offer, and Napoleon decides to take it. On April 4th, he writes:

        “The allied powers having decided that the Emperor Napoleon is the only obstacle to the re-establishment of peace in Europe, the Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he is ready to descend from the throne, to leave France, and even to lay down his life for the welfare of the country, which is inseparable from the rights of his son, those of the regency of the empress, and the maintenance of the laws of the empire.”

        -The Austrians are eager to accept this abdication. It would remove Napoleon from France and leave Marie Louise, Emperor Francis I’s daughter, as regent of France until the three-year-old Napoleon II comes of age. That’s a very good deal for Austria. But Tsar Alexander says something that at the time seems like a way to keep Austria down but in retrospect is probably true. He says that if Napoleon II is King of France under some kind of regency, Napoleon I will inevitably figure out some way to become regent and start conquering Europe again in the name of his son. So the Coalition demands a complete abdication of the entire Bonaparte bloodline, as the Senate had decreed, and Napoleon agrees on April 6th 1814. That day, he issues a new proclamation that’s mostly the same, except it says that he renounces “for himself and his heirs the throne of France and Italy.” Talleyrand becomes the French head of state, but only very briefly. Five days after Napoleon’s abdication, on April 11th, he signs the Treaty of Fontainebleau, restoring the Bourbon monarchy.

-The Treaty of Fontainebleau is not a formal peace treaty between France and the Coalition, although in practice the shooting stops pretty much immediately. This is just an agreement for the removal of Napoleon, with the rest of the details of the surrender left to be determined. He is to be removed from power, although he and Marie Louise will keep their imperial titles and be declared Emperor and Empress of Elba, where are they to be exiled immediately. So, Napoleon immediately gets shipped off to a tiny island in the Mediterranean, where he will disappear from European affairs for a few months.

-The War of the Sixth Coalition comes to an end on May 30th, when the Coalition troops withdraw from France – which is left as more or less modern-day France plus Belgium. There’s still a lot of negotiating to do as far as all the other European territories that have been shuffled and reshuffled for all these years, and we’ll get to that in a minute.

Chapter Twenty-Three: Elba

I want to stick with Napoleon for a moment and follow him to a place called Elba. Elba is an island a few miles off the coast of western Italy, between the mainland and the island of Corsica. It’s the largest island in the Tuscan Archipelago, but that isn’t saying much. Elba is only 18 miles long, and just 11 miles wide at its thickest point. It’s fat on one end and skinny along the rest of its length, so most of the island is more like four to seven miles wide, with the narrowest stretch in the center being only about two-and-a-half miles wide. The total land area of 86 square miles is less than four times the area of Manhattan. So we’re talking about one of those little postage-stamp sized countries like Monaco or Liechtenstein.

        -Nonetheless, when Napoleon becomes “Emperor” of Elba, it is a country, and he takes his job as chief executive seriously. He’s not alone. Before he left France, on April 20th 1814, he had given a final farewell speech to his guard:

        “Soldiers, I bid you farewell. For twenty years that we have been together your conduct has left me nothing to desire. I have always found you on the road to glory…. With you and the brave men who still are faithful, I might have carried on a civil war, but France would be unhappy. Be faithful, then, to your new king, be obedient to your new commanders, and desert not our beloved country.

“Do not lament my lot. I will be happy when I know that you are so. I might have died;… if I consent to live it is still to promote your glory. I will write the great things that we have achieved.

“I cannot embrace you all, but I embrace your general… Adieu, my children; the best wishes of my heart shall be always with you. Do not forget me!”

        -Four-hundred of those guards ask and are granted permission to accompany Napoleon to Elba, where they form the bulk of the small island’s new army. Elba has never had its own army before, but now it’s an Empire and an Empire needs an army. Along the same lines, Napoleon builds his new country a navy. It’s only five small ships, but he calls it the Elban Imperial Navy. He surrounds himself with an Imperial court with its own formal regalia, and assembles a ministry to help run the government.

        -Napoleon isn’t merely playing Emperor; he’s bringing real benefits to the Elban people. For instance, Elba’s farmland is mostly located across the narrow, low-lying central flatlands, with a mountain on the west end of the island and hills to the east. Napoleon maximizes that farmland by having a bunch of swamps drained, improving Elban crop yields and making the island more self-sufficient.

        -Long a rural backwater of various Italian states and empires, Elba has few roads to speak of, mostly just cart paths. Well, Napoleon orders proper roads built, and lays plans to use those roads to make Elba wealthy. As it turns out, the island has large iron deposits, and Napoleon brings in investors to form a mining company that will create jobs and badly-needed tax revenue. As part of his civil administration and modernization program, he funds a post office to provide up-to-date communications. On an island known for its summer droughts and dry rivers, he builds a network of reservoirs to ensure a ready supply of fresh water. For the first time in Elban history, Napoleon opens schools that are free to the public. To top it all off, he implements a lightly-edited version of the Napoleonic Code, ensuring that Elba has a modern legal system that includes basic rights for all citizens.

        -This presents us with another one of those “what if?” scenarios. What if Napoleon decides to stay and remain Emperor of Elba? Is Elba still ruled by the Bonaparte dynasty today? It could be one of those little monarchical micro-states like Monaco or Andorra, a tax haven for the super-wealthy with one of the top-10 per capita GDPs in the world. Or maybe it just gets absorbed during Italian unification. We’ll never know for sure, because Napoleon will only remain on Elba for 300 days before returning to France.

        -There are a number of reasons he goes back. As we’re about to see, Louis XVIII will turn out to be an unpopular king, and the French people will be open to yet another change in leadership. As we’ll also see, Elba is about to become financially insolvent, for reasons that are only partially under Napoleon’s control and entirely under the control of the French government. And, of course, there’s the ever-present allure of power, something Napoleon has never been able to resist.

        -All of that being said, I’d wager that Napoleon feels trapped. There’s that whole saying about a gilded cage still being a cage, and despite all the Imperial window dressing, Elba is very much a cage. It’s surrounded by other, smaller islands that are part of the re-established Grand Duchy of Tuscany, ruled once again by Ferdinand III, who is the younger brother of Austrian Emperor Francis I. The waters around Elba are patrolled by British fleets, just to let Napoleon know that, irrespective of the Elban Navy, it’s the Royal Navy that now rules the Mediterranean.

        -As a leader, Napoleon may be able to ignore this and busy himself with his island’s administration. The Emperor of Elba is a notorious micro-manager, detailing everything from the fringe on the palace drapery to the ingredients in the food for his hunting dogs, right down to providing explicit orders for which exact budget lines those expenses are to be drawn from. But no amount of civic activity can replace what Napoleon wants most: his ex-wife and his family.

        -Joséphine de Beauharnais, the former Empress, had met with Tsar Alexander and the other Coalition leaders shortly after the fall of Paris, and some sources say that she had begged the Tsar to let her join Napoleon in exile and that he’s considering it. We’ll never know, because not long after Napoleon’s departure from France, Joséphine catches a bad cold that devolves into Pneumonia, and she dies on May 26th 1814 at just 50 years old. When Napoleon finds out a few days later, he locks himself in his bedroom for two days and refuses to see anybody.

        -Meanwhile, Marie Louise has gone back to Vienna with her father the Emperor. She has to walk a delicate tightrope, and may have the most challenging part to play in this whole drama. On the one hand, she’s the Empress of Elba, and should be by her husband’s side helping to govern his little island. Some people in the Austrian court make snide remarks to this effect. On the other hand, Napoleon Bonaparte is persona non grata in most of Europe, and Marie Louise stands to be Duchess of Parma, a wealthy Italian territory that she could pass down to her son Napoleon II. Negotiations for the disposition of Italian territory are still ongoing, though. If Marie Louise seems like she’s too close to Napoleon, she could end up losing Parma in the final treaty. For now, she has to distance herself from him for the good of their son. Besides which, Marie Louise is well aware that Napoleon is upset about Joséphine’s death and is a constant philanderer.

        -Yes, Napoleon still has an active love life. His Polish mistress, Maria Walewska, does come to Elba, and if that’s not enough he has a brief fling with a local Elban girl. As for family, while none of Napoleons’ brothers come to Elba, his mother and his sister Pauline do come with. This is a time of loss for Napoleon, but it’s not as if he’s totally isolated.

Chapter Twenty-Four: The Bourbon Restoration

While Napoleon is settling into his new home, the victorious powers of the Sixth Coalition are busy figuring out how to put Europe back together again. Like fixing Humpty Dumpty, it’s no easy task. Starting in September 1814, representatives from just about every country in Europe will meet in Vienna, Austria, and will spend the next nine months working out solutions to a whole slew of territorial questions.

        -The Congress of Vienna, as it comes to be called, is often compared to the Versailles treaty, the treaty that ends World War I. This is certainly true in terms of historical importance – both are arguably the most important treaties of their respective centuries. But the 20th century’s Versailles treaty will be designed to dismantle Germany and ensure that no major military power exists between France and Russia; Napoleon would have been a fan. The Congress of Vienna, on the other hand, is meant to ensure a balance between multiple powers.

        -Surprisingly, these powers include France. Klemens von Metternich, who chairs the Congress of Vienna, is still determined to preserve a stable France capable of defending its own borders. So instead of the allies all getting together and dictating terms to the defeated French, France is included as one of the major powers at the Congress, meaning it’s a full participant. This is, of course, not Napoleonic France. It’s the newly-restored Bourbon Kingdom of France, led by Louis XVIII and represented by none other than Talleyrand. Louis doesn’t trust the squirrely ex-bishop, but he needs him.

        -Alongside France, the major powers at the Congress of Vienna include the four primary members of the Sixth Coalition: Russia, Austria, Prussia, and the United Kingdom. Other participants include Spain, Sweden, Portugal, the Netherlands, Denmark, the German states of Bavaria, Hanover, Mecklenburg, and Württemberg, the Italian states of Sicily, Sardinia, Tuscany, Genoa, and the Papal States, as well as the Knights of Malta and individual representatives for every Swiss canton. With this large, eclectic group of representatives, it’s remarkable that the Congress of Vienna gets anything done at all. In fact, the Congress is incredibly productive, and works out a solution that balances the interests of all players while recognizing the new political realities that have arisen during the last 26 years.

        -To begin with, France’s interests are well-represented. Talleyrand may be one of the most corrupt politicians ever, but he gets away with it because he’s so good at his job. France has to give up some land, which we’ll get to in a second, but it also gets to keep a fair bit of land it had taken during the Revolution. See, the land France had conquered on its side of the Alps, including the Papal enclave of Avignon, had been annexed while Louis XVI was still officially head of state. Those lands weren’t taken by Napoleon or some Revolutionary government; they were taken by the Bourbons, and now the Bourbons will get to keep them, and France’s southeastern border reaches more or less the extent it’s at today.

        -France does have to give up Belgium, though. The former Austrian Netherlands is to be unified with the Netherlands proper under King William I of Orange. This new country, called the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, will also form a personal union with Luxembourg, meaning that they will be separate countries but will both be ruled by the reigning monarch from the House of Orange. Luxembourg, however, will also be part of a new German Confederation.

        -The new German Confederation includes 39 states, including the former members of the Confederation of the Rhine and most of the old Holy Roman Empire. In fact, the German Confederation even includes some land belonging to both Austria and Prussia, and covers most of the same territory as the HRE. The idea of a pan-Germanic empire has been revived, in fact if not in name.

        -There’s also been some shuffling of land within Germany. Most of the territorial changes made during mediatization are upheld, so the old Church territories are no more. Some states lose land while others gain. The biggest winner is Hanover, which gains enough land to upgrade itself from Elector to Kingdom.

        -Prussia makes solid gains. While it has to give up some land to Hanover, it more than makes up for this with the addition of the port city of Gdańsk along with most of Saxony and most of the land it had lost to France. Prussia gets Swedish Pomerania, although it has to pay Denmark for the land, which Denmark in turn has just gotten from Sweden in exchange for the loss of Norway.

        -Austria gets back most of the land it had lost in Central Europe, along with modern-day Croatia, and it gains additional land in Northern Italy, where it absorbs the old lands of Venice and Lombardy. As is often the case, many of Austria’s gains come via proxy. Emperor Francis’ brother Ferdinand III regains rulership of Tuscany, while a handful of other Italian states go to the Habsburg-allied House of Este. And, of course, Marie Louise gets her bit of territory around Parma.

        -The King of Sardinia gets his land back, as does the Pope, who sees the Papal States’ Italian territories fully restored. To the north of Italy, the Swiss cantons win a guarantee of neutrality for their federation, and Switzerland has since spent more than two centuries at peace.

        -To the east, Russia is richly compensated for her role in the war. Tsar Alexander gets to keep Finland, as well as take almost all of the Duchy of Warsaw. A sliver of land goes to Prussia and a small area remains independent as the Free City of Krakow, but the rest of the Polish land becomes what’s known as the Congress Kingdom of Poland, which will be ruled by the Tsar in a union with Russia for the next 100 years.

        -The United Kingdom, as is fitting, gains land not in Europe but overseas. The British get to keep Cape Colony, which will become modern South Africa. They also gain other territories, most notably the Dutch colony on the island of Ceylon, which will become modern-day Sri Lanka.

        -In addition to territorial changes, the Congress of Vienna also includes a series of navigation agreements for major rivers. These allow all parties the right to utilize European waterways for commerce, which enriches many inland areas that now have access to the sea. Without the navigation agreements, a number of the other agreements wouldn’t work out, so this all gets bundled together.

        -Remember, negotiations take nine months, and the Congress of Vienna’s final agreement won’t be signed until June 9th 1815. Ironically, this will happen while Napoleon is back in France, marching a new army towards a little Belgian town called Waterloo.

Let’s rewind the clock once again to the spring of 1814 and Napoleon’s abdication. Louis XVI’s younger brother, the morbidly obese, 58-year-old Comte de Provence, becomes King Louis XVIII on May 3rd. Like Louis XVI, Louis XVIII isn’t a bad man. He’s not even a bad king – just a mediocre one that has the misfortune of coming along when a great king is needed.

        -At the urging of the victorious members of the Sixth Coalition, Louis XVIII does not take the throne as an absolutist but as a constitutional monarch. If you look at his constitution, you’ll see that it actually doesn’t look all that different from Napoleon’s. The King has mostly dictatorial powers, but still has to defer on some matters to the bicameral legislature. Voting eligibility is based on how much you pay in taxes, and unlike under Napoleon, some members of the aristocracy will receive life tenure in the upper chamber of the legislature. There is to be freedom of speech, limited freedom of the press, and freedom of religion, although Catholicism will remain France’s official religion. The Napoleonic Code will even be retained, ensuring that France has a single set of laws that can be applied consistently across the country.

        -The real problem with Louis XVIII isn’t policy; it’s style. As always, people support or reject leaders more based on gut feeling than on any particular point of actual policy. And as much as Louis XVIII’s policies show that he understands things have changed since the Revolution, his public demeanor doesn’t support that. For example, instead of taking the nationalist title “King of the French,” Louis takes the old-school title “King of France and Navarre.” Instead of appealing to the French people or the French nation as the source of his sovereignty, Louis frequently references his “esteemed Ancestors.” He even dates his reign beginning with his brother’s execution, officially casting both the Revolutionary and Napoleonic governments as illegal insurgent organizations that had led France in defiance of her rightful King.

        -One thing Louis XVIII does need to do policy-wise is balance the books. Prior to his coronation, he promises the provisional government that he will reduce taxes on tobacco and other luxury imports, but quickly reneges on that promise when he realizes how much money the French state is spending. Not that he tries to balance the budget by taxing everyone to death. Louis also cuts expenses, reducing the size of the French Army by more than half. Despite calls from the Catholic Church to return land seized during the Revolution, Louis refuses for budgetary reasons; there’s simply no way the French government can afford to buy back all that land and restore it to Church ownership. And among various other cut costs, Louis withholds a payment of 2 million Francs he’s supposed to send to support Napoleon’s government on Elba.

        -For the French government, this is little more than a line item. For Napoleon, this 2 million Francs is his lifeline to fiscal solvency. He also hears news of discontent in the French army, of thousands of unemployed veterans. There are even credible rumors that the allied powers think Elba is too close to France, and are going to relocate Napoleon further away.

        -His rule in Elba is threatened, and there are thousands of men – perhaps a majority of the army – who are angry at their new government for rendering them unemployed. In mid-February 1815, Napoleon decides that these men may want their Emperor back. And if they do, then he should throw the dice and try for a return to power. He goes to his mother and asks her advice and, knowing she may never see him again, she asks him to let her be a mother for a while before she answers. But when she does, she says: “Go, my son, and fulfill your destiny.”

        -Napoleon gathers a handful of small ships in Elba’s harbor, and on February 26th 1815, he orders his 1,100-man Elban army to board the little fleet and prepare to sail. They skirt the Italian coast, avoiding other ships when possible and at one point running up a set of British flags to fool a Royal Navy patrol. As they pass, Napoleon prepares a proclamation, which is copied hundreds of times and prepared for distribution throughout France:

        “Frenchmen,

“I have heard, in my exile, your lamentations and your prayers: you long for the government that you chose, and which alone is lawful. I have crossed the sea, and am coming to reclaim my rights, which are yours. To the Army: your possessions, your rank, your glory, the property, rank, and glory of your children, have no greater enemies than those princes whom foreigners have imposed upon you…. Victory will march at full speed; the eagle, with the national colors, will fly from steeple to steeple, even to the towers of Notre Dame. You will be the liberators of your country.”

-Napoleon is returning to France to retake his Empire. And as they sit in their negotiations in Vienna, the allies have no idea what’s about to hit them.

Chapter Twenty-Five: The March to Paris

I want to paint a final portrait of our Emperor. The Napoleon who returns to France in 1815 is 45 years old, and looks older than that. While he seems as mentally nimble as ever, years of eating at palace banquets and drinking his favorite Chambertin wine have caused the Emperor to thicken out. Like many middle aged men, Napoleon has developed a substantial paunch. His once-angular face is swollen, and some observers even refer to his skin as being yellow or sallow. The years have also not been kind to the top of Napoleon’s head. Where once he wore long hair, he’s now developed male-pattern baldness, which he attempts to conceal by growing out what little hair remains on top and combing it forwards.

        -Over the years, Napoleon has collected a handful of injuries, some of which continue to plague him. As far back as December of 1793, he had been stabbed in the left thigh by a British pike at the Siege of Toulon. This wound never fully heals, leaving a blood-filled cavity in Napoleon’s thigh that he’s able to re-open and show his doctor during his final exile. Napoleon has also been kicked by a horse in Egypt, and took shrapnel wounds in both his toe and his ankle in 1809. None of these injuries is life-threatening, but they slow him down a bit physically.

        -Furthermore, Napoleon suffers from a handful of physical ailments. Napoleon’s father and grandfather had both died of stomach cancer, as would several other close relatives. Modern physicians now speculate that the Bonaparte family shared a particular gut bacteria that’s known to cause this kind of cancer. Anyway, Napoleon’s stomach never seems to treat him right, and he frequently suffers from severe bouts of indigestion. He’s predisposed to bladder infections, and has a chronic case of hemorrhoids that he manages with leeches.

        -In some sense, these health conditions look like normal aging. Napoleon is getting older, and like all of us, his body is starting to break down. But let’s not kid ourselves; the 45-year-old Emperor has the body of a sixty- or seventy-year-old man, and it would be foolish to rule out lifestyle as one of the causes, or should I say “lifestyles” in the plural. When not living an indulgent court life, Napoleon has lived the rough life of a soldier on campaign. Neither of these lifestyles is conducive to good health or a long life.

        -It’s this older, slower, but wiser Napoleon who returns to retake his throne, landing at the coastal city of Antibes on March 1st 1815. Antibes is just a few miles from the Italian border, in the old territory of Provence, and this whole region in the French southeast had been hit particularly hard by the wars. When Napoleon and his tiny army visit the mayor of Antibes, he tells them not to expect any help from the local populace. The mayor says: “We were beginning to be happy and tranquil; you will trouble everything.” Clearly, the Emperor will need to look elsewhere for support.

If you look at France on a topographical map, the most logical route from Antibes to Paris isn’t to go as the crow flies. It’s to travel west along the Mediterranean coast until the Alpine foothills give way to the broad plains of central France, then march north across the broad, easy flatland all the way to the capital. But this route would take Napoleon through all of that old Provencal territory where he’s not very popular. Instead, he decides to march north across the Alps to the city of Lyon, which is a hotbed of Bonapartist support. Napoleon is also popular in the area between Lyon and Paris, so he can gain support during his march.

        -The first leg of the journey runs 11 miles west along the Mediterranean coast to Cannes. Then the army is to turn north and march across the Alps through a handful of smaller cities before reaching Lyon. The trip to Cannes is uneventful, but the army’s handful of cannons slows them down on the Alpine roads going north. A few miles into the mountains, Napoleon decides to abandon his artillery to quicken his pace. It makes sense; he’s trying to build a real army here. If he were foolish enough to attempt a major battle with his 1,100 men, a few artillery pieces wouldn’t save them from getting overrun. By March 5th, Napoleon’s men have marched 150 miles – that’s a pace of 37 miles a day across mountainous terrain. Pretty impressive! But on the 6th, they face their first real challenge.

        -See, word of Napoleon’s arrival has gotten back to Paris, and Louis XVIII has ordered him to be arrested. These orders, in turn, get to the commander of the French military garrison at the Alpine city of Grenoble. That commander knows Napoleon is in the area, and dispatches 500 veteran troops to intercept him.

        -Napoleon’s men and the King’s men run into each other about 20 miles south of Grenoble. The royalists hesitate; their orders are to arrest Napoleon, not to fight his men. Napoleon’s men, in turn, begin to ready their weapons for a fight, but nobody acts without seeing what Napoleon will do first. Then, he does one of those things that great leaders do. He orders his men to lower their muskets, and walks toward the men who were sent to arrest him. He says: “Soldiers of the Fifth, I am your Emperor; do you recognize me?” Then Napoleon flings his coat open and gestures to his heart and continues: “If there is among you a soldier who would like to kill his Emperor, here I am.” One by one, the men lower their guns, and someone shouts out “Vive l’Empereur!” – “Long live the Emperor.” Other men take up the cry, and Napoleon goes back to his men and tells them that the danger is over. Soon they’ll march into Paris without firing a shot. By the end of the day, this prophecy has been fulfilled in miniature. Napoleon’s little army, now 500 men stronger, marches into Grenoble without firing a shot, and is joined by the rest of the Grenoble garrison.

        -On March 7th, Louis XVIII declares Napoleon an outlaw who can be killed on sight. He proscribes death for anyone who supports Napoleon, and urges all citizens to help put down this little insurrection. Then Louis calls on the former Marshal of the Empire Michel Ney to lead a larger, 6,000-man army to crush Napoleon’s much smaller army by force.

        -On March 10th, Napoleon marches into Lyon. Lyon had been a hotbed of support both for the Revolution and for Napoleon, and the city holds a parade to welcome their Emperor. The Lyon army garrison defects to Napoleon’s side, swelling the ranks of an army that’s now 12,000 men strong. But Napoleon does not lead this army out to fight Marshal Ney. Instead, he writes letters to his old friend asking him to switch sides, and promising to restore all the old honors he had won as a Marshal of the Empire. On March 14th, Ney assembles his troops and proclaims: “The cause of the Bourbons is lost forever. The legitimate dynasty that France has adopted is about to reascend the throne. It is the Emperor Napoleon, our sovereign, who is henceforth to reign over our glorious country.” This pronouncement is greeted with a cheer that is now becoming familiar throughout France: “Vive l’Empereur!”

        -By March 19th, Napoleon and Ney have linked up and are in Fontainebleau, and Louis XVIII flees the capital. The next day, Napoleon marches into Paris and sleeps in his old bedroom at the Tuileries. In just 20 days, he has invaded France with 1,100 men and taken the throne without firing a shot. He even has a foreign ally. On March 15th, Joachim Murat, former Marshal of the Empire and current King of Naples, declares war on Austria. Murat is trying to save his own throne, which Metternich is about to hand to a Bourbon at the Congress of Vienna, but at least for a little while, Murat and Napoleon will be fighting on the same side again.

        -As for Louis XVIII, he and his government are already begging the old coalition partners to get back together and crush Napoleon again. This will ultimately kick off the final Napoleonic war, the War of the Seventh Coalition, although most people simply refer to this period as the Hundred Days, a reference to how long Napoleon will remain back in power.

        -I’m not spoiling anything here, because we all know how this ends; the Coalition is about to defeat Napoleon and exile him for good. But what’s remarkable to me is that Louis XVIII has to rely on foreign armies at all. Here’s a guy who has kept most of Napoleon’s popular policies and brought peace to the country for the first time in over 20 years, and the French people are calling for his ouster.

        -It gets back to what I was talking about a minute ago. Style sometimes matters more than substance, and Louis XVIII doesn’t speak the language of this new nationalist era. Napoleon does. Steven Englund captures this perfectly when he writes:

        “…four of the greatest political actors of the era—all inveterate nationaux: Carnot, Fouché, Constant, and de Staël—each earnestly pressed Louis XVIII to adapt himself and his monarchy to the new idiom. It was not simply a matter of being patriotic—the royal government made its share of patrie-inspired statements—but of being national, as Napoleon had been national (although more so in the early years than in the later). Constant and Carnot pressed the king ‘to rally to the nation,’ by which they meant nothing ethnocultural: the king, after all, was French, spoke French, and lived like a French aristocrat. Nor did they mean substantive political reform, for the royal charter offered what was, for the era, liberal constitutional government. They meant, as everyone in France intuitively understood, a style of governance using the language of nation-talk, with its constant references to: sovereignty of the nation’s people, flouted national independence, reduced national borders, abused national pride, the glorious nation-in-arms, and the ‘sacred’ cause of national revanche…

        “Louis’s stammering attempt at nation-talk came at a quarter to midnight— Napoleon was approaching Auxerre, to be embraced by Ney—and can only strike us as pathetic. He put on his Legion of Honor medal for the first time, and he addressed the united chambers of the parliament. In the speech, which he himself had written and which he gave from memory, ‘national’ appears precisely once, submerged in a sea of ‘my realm,’ ‘the State,’ ‘my patrie,’ ‘my people,’ ‘good Frenchmen,’ and ‘the constitutional Charter that I have given you.’ Meanwhile, his supporters had long been castigating Napoleon as a ‘foreigner’ (the ‘Corsican ogre,’), which was a national way of doing political business, but a poor reply to the charge that the Bourbons were puppets of the foreigner (the Coalition). Ultimately, it was not merely a case of too little, too late, it was a case of not being able to serve two masters: the fundamental references and symbols of the restored Bourbon monarchy were dynastic, religious, and royal, not national. It is harder to be national than it is to be French or to love France.”

Chapter Twenty-Six: The Hundred Days

Napoleon has retaken Paris; now he needs to act quickly. The first thing he has to worry about is reuniting France. As we’ve seen, not everyone in the country is happy to see Napoleon back. People in many areas, like the far southeast, have seen their share of devastation and are leery of further war. There are still plenty of royalists throughout the country, too. As I mentioned a few episodes ago, the Vendee rebels launch another insurrection, and Napoleon has to send 10,000 to 20,000 men to fight them. In the cities, Napoleon earns broad support from former Jacobins and the urban poor. However, he struggles to regain the support of the middle class. Will and Ariel Durant write:

        “He admired the middle class as the foundation of that social-moral order which, since the September Massacres, had become the center of his political philosophy; but it did not offer him its support or its sons. It valued freedom of enterprise and trade and the press, but not of the ballot or of public speech; it feared the radicals, and wished to limit the franchise to property owners. It had elected the Chamber of Deputies, and was resolved to protect the rights of that body to check the power and policies of the king or emperor. And that rising section of the bourgeoisie—the intelligentsia of journalists, authors, scientists, philosophers—was making it quite clear that it would fight with all its weapons against any attempt of Napoleon to reestablish imperial power.”

-What the middle class really wants is some guarantee of their freedoms, and Napoleon gives them that by drafting yet another new French constitution. This constitution establishes a hereditary Emperor with strong executive powers, who appoints a council of peers from people of his choosing. This council serves as the upper chamber of the legislature, while the lower chamber is democratically elected by taxpaying citizens. The idea is to balance three types of government – monarchy via the hereditary Emperor, aristocracy via the council of peers, and democracy via the legislature. This constitution wins overwhelming support in a hastily-organized referendum, and it’s interesting to think about how it might have worked, but since Napoleon’s new government barely even gets off the ground, we’ll never know.

-Napoleon tries desperately to avoid a war with Austria and the other powers. He sends letters to the various European monarchs declaring that he wants peace. He writes multiple letters to his father-in-law, Emperor Francis I, and even a letter to Marie Louise asking her to speak with her father. Apparently, this last one never arrives.

-It doesn’t matter, because on March 27th 1815, before Francis or any other monarchs have time to receive his letters, the assembled powers at the Congress of Vienna declare war not on France, but on Napoleon personally. The members of the Sixth Coalition have officially gotten the band back together to form the Seventh Coalition.

-The members of the Coalition still have hundreds of thousands of men in the field, and all of those men are about to turn around and head back for France. If Napoleon is going to defend the nation, he needs to organize an army as fast as possible. So he does what the French have been doing for over 20 years now when they need soldiers, and he organizes a draft. Unfortunately for Napoleon, it’s going to take six months to round up all the draftees, get them to a central location, and train them. The Coalition will attack before then. So whatever armies they’re able to throw at France in 1815, Napoleon is going to have to fight off with what he’s already got.

        -To begin with, he has the standing French Army, which is loyal to him, but which Louis XVIII had reduced to 160,000 men as part of his budget cuts. Napoleon then calls for veteran volunteers, and even former members of the French National Guard. In total, he’s able to muster around 300,000 men. With this, he will have to counter over 700,000 Coalition troops. Of these, Prussia and the United Kingdom have each promised 150,000, and Austria and Russia have pledged a combined 400,000.

        -Both sides will take some time to bring their armies to the front. In the meantime, Napoleon frantically organizes an administration. Joseph Fouché is back as Minister of Police, and former Marshal Davout becomes Minister of War. The Emperor wants to hold off on elections until after the Coalition is defeated, but a group of statesmen led by the Marquis de Lafayette calls for immediate elections. Now 58 years old, Lafayette has come out of retirement to shape French fortunes again, and thanks to his efforts, the legislature is elected and convenes for the first time on June 3rd. That day, it appoints one of the Emperor’s opponents as its president.

-On June 7th, Napoleon goes before the legislature to receive their oath of fealty. There’s no big parade, just a single carriage, and there’s no grand costumery; Napoleon wears everyday clothes to the ceremony. The Pope isn’t there to give his blessing. The Emperor may be back, but it’s different this time around. A few days later, on June 12th, Napoleon marches to war.

-As in past wars against the French, the members of the Seventh Coalition don’t all have their armies in place right from the get go. The Russian Army, for instance, is way off in Eastern Europe, and will take a few months yet to get all the way back to France. The Austrians are a bit closer, but their main army is way down in Italy. They’ve just defeated Joachim Murat’s Neapolitan Army, and they’re marching north where they’re going to have to fight their way across the Alps. Additional troops are coming from further off in Austria, but again, they’ll take some time to arrive. David Geoffrey Chandler writes:

        “Napoleon could choose between two strategies. Either he could wait with his forces near Paris and refight a campaign based on the rivers as in 1814, or he could launch a blow against the only enemies already in the field – namely Wellington and Blücher with their joint 209,000 men in the Netherlands region. He chose the latter course, not wishing to subject the French population to a repetition of 1814, and hopeful that a quick victory would break the Allied resolve.”

        -This is pure Napoleonic strategy – striking his enemies quickly, before they can amass their forces and overwhelm him. The goal in Belgium is to attack the 60,000-man Prussian army commanded by General Blücher, then wheel around and attack Wellington. With a quick one-two punch, Napoleon can not only defend France but knock the Coalition out of Belgium. Who knows? Maybe the other European powers will agree to peace?

        -At first, the plan goes well, Napoleon takes a few small border towns and successfully maneuvers his army between Wellington’s and Blücher’s. As usual, he marches with his army separated into corps, with General Emmanuel de Grouchy commanding a corps to the east to seek out Blücher’s main army. Marshal Ney’s corps marches in parallel to Napoleon’s west, to act as a screening force and provide warning if Wellington’s army should approach. For his part, Wellington believes Napoleon is going to try and outflank the allies and drive straight for Brussels, so instead of marching to help Blücher, he pulls most of his men further back to protect his supply lines through the city. Then, Marshal Ney makes a mistake.

        -To secure Napoleon’s western flank, Ney needs to take the village of Quatre-Bras, which controls a key crossroads between two highways. When scouts tell him the village is clear of enemies, he takes 3,000 men ahead of his main army to occupy it. But someone had spotted the scouts, and when Ney arrives with his 3,000 men, he finds Quatre-Bras occupied by a superior enemy force with artillery. Then, instead of just attacking the objective with his main army, he sends Napoleon a message asking for instructions. Napoleon orders him to proceed, which he does.

        -It’s now June 15th 1815, and the Duke of Wellington is attending a high society ball in Brussels. He expects an attack in the next day or two, and is surprised when a messenger arrives around midnight to tell him that the French are attacking Quatre-Bras. Realizing that Napoleon is attacking the Prussians and not the Belgian capital, Wellington quietly orders his officers to assemble their men. Then, to avoid causing a panic, he stays until the ball ends at 3 AM and leaves quietly to join his men.

        -That day, June 16th, Ney’s French and Wellington’s British battle over the town of Quatre-Bras. At nightfall, Wellington controls the town. But his men have spent all day marching and fighting, and the battle over Quatre-Bras has kept them from linking up with the Prussian army at the nearby village of Ligny. There, Napoleon and Blücher fight all afternoon, but in the late afternoon, Napoleon sends in his most elite troops, the Old Guard, to break the wavering Prussian line. Blücher’s men break and retreat.

        -Then, Napoleon makes a mistake. He fails to surveil the retreating Prussians, and assumes they’re marching eastward toward their line of supply. In fact, they’re marching north, staying close enough to Wellington’s army to remain in communication. Believing that the Prussians are in full retreat, Napoleon dispatches General Grouchy and his corps to pursue them, then wheels his main army around to link up with Marshal Ney and attack Wellington’s British.

        -On June 17th, with Ney reporting that Wellington’s main army is still at Quatre-Bras, Napoleon marches directly there to attack. But Wellington, like Blücher, has fallen back to the north, and taken up a defensive position near a town called Waterloo. Upon hearing that Wellington has left, Napoleon cries: “We have lost France!” After collecting himself, he orders all his men to march north in pursuit. They are too late. Napoleon’s march from Ligny has taken him across country, where heavy rain has bogged down his cannons and slowed down the whole operation. Wellington’s army has withdrawn along a main road where rain is less of an issue. By the time the French army arrives near Waterloo, the British have occupied a strong defensive position, and it’s too late in the day to attack. The fate of France, and of Europe, will hang in the balance for one last night.

Chapter Twenty-Seven: Waterloo

Napoleon only gets and hour’s sleep. He supervises the deployment of his men, hoping for the rain to clear so he can launch an early attack. And for those of you who aren’t geeks for this period of warfare, I should clarify that fighting in the rain is incredibly difficult in the Napoleonic era. As in any time period, mud can severely hamper the army’s ability to maneuver. But soldiers of this time also rely on a weapon – the flintlock musket – that’s very finnicky in the rain. Wet muskets tend to misfire or not fire at all. Supplies of gunpowder have to be kept dry. Results on the battlefield become a little bit more random, so most generals of the era, including Napoleon, will avoid fighting in the rain if at all possible. So Napoleon waits past dawn, and the rain continues until around 9 in the morning. Wellington, for his part, is happy to keep defending the ridgeline and waiting for Blücher’s army to arrive. Napoleon’s aim is the opposite – to defeat the British army before the Prussians can join them and outnumber the French. However, his artillery commanders advise him that the ground still needs to dry out if their cannons are going to be effective, so he continues to wait, and fighting will not commence until somewhere between 10 and 11:30 in the morning, depending on who you ask.

        -In the meantime, Napoleon takes the opportunity to survey the battlefield. And here’s where one of those health issues comes into play, because normally the Emperor would ride around from one regiment to the next personally encouraging them, all the while observing the terrain in that area. Unfortunately for Napoleon, a number of his personal items have gotten lost in his rush from Paris to Belgium, and among these items are the leeches the doctors use to treat his hemorrhoids. He’s in a lot of discomfort, and may have taken laudanum because he reportedly dozes off after breakfast and his officers have to wake him up. Needless to say, not only is he feeling sluggish, but he really, really doesn’t want to do much riding, so he surveys the battlefield through a spyglass instead, causing him to miss a few key details.

        -As I said, Wellington has taken a very strong position, occupying a ridge that runs roughly east to west. Just to the north of the ridge is a crossroads, with an east-west road meeting the main highway to Brussels, which runs from north to south through the center of the ridge. Wellington uses a tactic known as the reverse slope defense, with his main line deployed not along the front of the ridge, but along the back. The ridge acts as a shield to protect them from French artillery fire, and to hide their movements from enemy observation. Any French soldiers who attack over the crest of the ridge can expect to face devastating close-range musket fire from relatively fresh troops.

        -Wellington does have artillery along the top of the ridge, so he can fire on any approaching French. And to protect the artillery, he deploys more soldiers to three defensible positions along the front of the ridge. Near the right end of their line, the British occupy Hougoumont, a large estate with a sturdy stone manor house that’s connected to the main east-west road by a sunken lane that runs back over the ridge, allowing for easy resupply and reinforcement. In the center, alongside the Brussels highway, is another, more modest orchard called La Haye Sainte, with its own little cluster of buildings. At the extreme left of the British line is Papelotte, a village surrounded by hedgerows and low ground that’s too wet from rain for the French cavalry to operate.

        -Still, Napoleon likes his chances. He and Wellington both have about 50,000 infantry, but the French have more cavalry and have brought 246 artillery pieces to face the 156 British cannons. With this advantage, a well-led army should be able to carry the field.

        -Napoleon’s plan is similar to what he’s done several other times. Punch through the British center, isolate the two flanks from each-other, and roll them up. To do that, he needs to first weaken the British center, and he’s going to do this the way he did it at Austerlitz: by getting them to commit men to one of their flanks. So to commence the battle, Napoleon orders his brother Jerome to attack the British position at Hougoumont.

-This diversion turns into an all-day back-and-forth boxing match, with both sides continually pouring men into the orchards and fields around the stone manor house. Jerome’s attack achieves its goal of drawing in British reinforcements, but it also ties up the entire French left flank, so all in all the fight at Hougoumont is a draw.

-Around 1:30 in the afternoon, Napoleon orders an artillery barrage to soften up the British center. It causes a few casualties and even forces one of Wellington’s regiments to adjust its position on the battlefield. But because of his reverse slope defense, Wellington’s men take far less of a pounding than they otherwise would have.

-As the half-hour bombardment is going on, French scouts spot a large mass of men moving in the distance. Napoleon hopes it’s General Grouchy’s army, but fears that it may be Blücher. As it turns out, what the French are seeing are in fact the leading elements of Blücher’s Prussian army. General Grouchy was a victim of the same bad intelligence as everyone else and thought the Prussians had run east. When ordered to pursue them, he had gone in that direction, and by the time he realized his mistake and turned north, he was well behind the Prussians. Now he’s pursuing them from the southeast, and if anything is actually chasing them towards Waterloo.

-Running out of time, Napoleon decides to launch his attack on the British center. Paul K. Davis writes about the next few hours:

        “Convinced that he could drive Wellington from the field before the Prussians arrived, Napoleon sent in his infantry at 1400. Slowed by the muddy ground, they were thrown back by spirited British counterattacks. A follow-up cavalry assault failed to break the British, whose infantry formed into squares and beat back repeated attacks. Across the open ground before the ridgeline, the battle raged for 3 hours with neither side gaining the upper hand. At 1630 [hours], the Prussians struck the French right flank, and Napoleon was forced to weaken his attack in the center to deal with the new threat.”

        -It’s up to Marshal Ney to continue the central assault with the limited resources he has. He launches a massive cavalry charge that almost fails when the British infantry forms up into squares, but eventually French infantry shows up to drive off the remaining British. Ney has four horses shot from under him during the fighting. The man who had been so timid outside Quatre-Bras fights like a lion at Waterloo. After an hour or more of intense fighting, Ney finally holds La Haye Sainte. However, he still has to get over the ridge and punch through the center of the British line, and he doesn’t have enough men left to do it.

        -Ney sends a message to Napoleon asking him to commit the Old Guard – the elite French troops who had won the day in many battles, who had broken the Prussians just two days earlier. But Napoleon hesitates, concerned about the steadily-growing Prussian attack on his right flank.

        -Wellington does not hesitate. He orders a charge by his own heavy cavalry, who he’s been holding back behind the ridge. These include several elite regiments, including the Royal Scots Greys, who are immortalized in one of the most famous paintings of the battle. Joined by thousands of infantry who Wellington had also held in reserve, the cavalry charge down the ridge and drive Ney’s men back. Napoleon finally commits the Old Guard to turn the tide again, but by now it’s too late. The British have concentrated too many men in their center, and the main body of Blücher’s army is now getting into the fight. Eventually, elements of the Old Guard retreat under withering fire, and other men start to run away as well. By sunset, it’s all over.

On June 18th 1815, the French Army loses 25,000 men to around 23,000 allied casualties. But more than that, it’s thrown into a panicked retreat. Men start deserting. Napoleon tries to rally them from the moment the retreat begins, giving orders for an organized withdrawal. But harassed by British and Prussian pursuers, most of the troops simply run for their lives, and the French public and the rest of the government once again lose faith in their Emperor. David Geoffrey Chandler writes:

        “Napoleon still spoke of retrieving the situation as the Allies became increasingly strung out in their new advance on Paris, but his credibility was gone. Not even his ministers would support him, and on 22 June Napoleon was persuaded to abdicate for the second, and final time. There was still some fighting outside Paris, where Davout acquitted himself well at the head of 117,000 troops, but Napoleon’s meteoric career was over.”

-Prussian King Frederick William III has had enough of Napoleon and orders him to be shot on sight. The other allied countries aren’t much better disposed, and the former Emperor realizes that his life will be in danger if he remains in Paris. He heads for the port of Rochefort on July 3rd, planning to board a small, fast ship and sail to the United States, where he can live a normal life far from European politics. Unfortunately, when he arrives in Rochefort, the port is under a Royal Navy blockade. On July 15th, Napoleon boards a little rowboat, and is paddled out to the HMS Bellerophon, where he asks for sanctuary in the United Kingdom. The Bellerophon’s deck is a fitting place for Napoleon’s final surrender. The ship is a symbol of British power, a sturdy third-rate ship of the line that had seen action at the Glorious First of June, the Battle of the Nile, and the Battle of Trafalgar.

-Napoleon is taken to England, but never actually goes ashore. The British government spends a couple weeks debating what to do with him, and on August 4th, Napoleon is transferred to another ship, which transports him to his new, permanent home: the distant island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic. There is no honor guard or retinue to go with him. Just a handful of friends and his personal physician, Barry O’Meara.

-Meanwhile, back in Paris, Louis XVIII has returned to the throne. He pardons most of Napoleon’s friends – with the exception of Marshal Ney – and tries to resume governing more or less as if nothing has happened. Royalists in several cities aren’t as forgiving, and there is one last bout of “White Terror,” with a few hundred Bonapartists and former Jacobins killed across a few French cities during the summer of 1815. Then things settle down, and France returns to normalcy… At least until the July Revolution of 1830, but that’s beyond the scope of this episode.

-The Second Bourbon Restoration is painful at first. With 800,000 allied troops in France, the French government and population bear the full cost of supporting those armies. At one point, that cost exceeds 1,750,000 Francs a day – or more than $500 million a day in 2024 dollars. Louis XVIII threatens the other European monarchs that if they don’t start paying at least some of the cost, he’ll go into exile in Spain and let the French people run the country again. The Allies quickly agree to waive these daily payments in exchange for a long-term war indemnity: 50 million Francs, roughly $15.75 billion in today’s money, to be paid in installments. All in all, the French nation doesn’t do too badly. Talleyrand and Metternich stand united in calling for the rest of the European powers to sign the existing peace agreement at the Congress of Vienna, and France gets out of the last Napoleonic war without suffering any further penalties. Basically, Napoleon’s return during the Hundred Days is treated like a natural disaster, which did a lot of damage that the rightful king is now paying for, and everything can go back to normal.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Death of a Legend

After a two-month journey, Napoleon arrives on St. Helena on October 15th 1815. During the voyage, he dines with the ship’s officers, and he begins dictating his memoirs. When he arrives, he finds himself on a tropical island barely half the size of Elba. The terrain is volcanic, allowing for some cultivation, really not all that different from many islands in the Pacific. But Pacific islands tend to be part of large island chains, and what sets St. Helena apart is its remoteness. More than 1,200 miles from the nearest land mass, St. Helena is about as far as you can get from human civilization and still be standing on dry land. A few rugged farmers scratch out a living on the island’s flatter areas, but most of the 5,000 inhabitants live in the port of Jamestown, and most of them live along a single street. St. Helena’s largest employer – its reason for existing as a colony – is the supply depot in the small port. The depot services ships traveling between the UK and the East Indies, as well as a handful of independent whaling vessels.

        -Napoleon himself is granted a small estate called Longwood, basically a big house with some fields about six miles outside of Jamestown. Here’s how Will and Ariel Durant describe the estate where Napoleon and his handful of friends are going to live:

        “According to the excellent ground plan drawn by Las Cases, Jr., Napoleon was given six rooms: a large ‘antechamber and waiting room for visitors,’ a parlor, a bedroom, a study, a library, and a large dining room. The inner walls were inelegantly covered with tarred canvas, but there were many windows. Napoleon accepted his suite without initial complaint; he even rejoiced in the bathroom, which he described as ‘an unheard-of luxury in this unhappy island.’ ‘The Emperor,’ Las Cases reported, ‘was satisfied with everything.’ In another wing of the building rooms were arranged for Las Cases and son, for the Comte and Comtesse de Montholon, General Gourgaud, and Dr. O’Meara, Napoleon’s physician. Large common rooms were provided for Napoleon’s servants, and for the servants of his staff. General Bertrand, his wife, and their servants occupied a separate cottage on the road to Jamestown. Servants served for hardly more than their keep.”

        -Napoleon continues to maintain the illusion of court life. His friends refer to him as “Your Majesty” or “the Emperor.” He hosts fancy dinners – at least, fancy by St. Helena’s standards – and invites local dignitaries like the island’s governor, Hudson Lowe. It’s all a charade, of course. The “Emperor’s” domain has a radius of five miles, centered on Longwood House; outside of that area, he must have a British Army escort at all times.

        -So, Napoleon spends the rest of his life hosting parties, walking the grounds, and regaling anyone who will listen with stories of the good old days. And this is part of how we know so many details about Napoleon, as well as why there’s so much debate about him as a person. We hear his version of the story from several sources all of whom tell it just a little bit differently because they heard it from him in a different telling.

        -It’s during this time that we get one of my favorite Napoleon quotes, and there are several versions, but I like William Warden’s the best. He’s the ship’s surgeon on the vessel that takes Napoleon to St. Helena, and he says that one night while the officers are having dinner, everyone is peppering Napoleon with questions. This happens all the time in his final years, because he’s this titanic figure that shaped the world for over a decade, and he’s spending his time with normal people, and everybody gets a little starstruck. Anyway, one of the officers references the time Napoleon usurped the crown of France, and Napoleon responds with a long diatribe where he says “I have dethroned no one. I found the crown of France in a kennel; I picked it up with my sword and cleaned it of its filth, and the people put it on my head.” For some reason the most popular version of this quote says that he found the crown of France in the gutter, but I like kennel better. Because what better description of the French Directory than a bunch of dogs fighting over power they can’t even conceive of?

        -Napoleon gets by on a meagre stipend from the British government, but his health quickly goes into decline, no doubt hastened by St. Helena’s tropical climate. Dr. O’Meara tries to get Napoleon moved to a different climate for health reasons. The word comes down from the allies in 1818 – Napoleon is to remain a prisoner on St. Helena for life. There is to be no reprieve, and at that news, most of the former Emperor’s remaining entourage leave the island. Governor Lowe fires Dr. O’Meara, and hires a new physician, Dr. François Carlo Antommarchi, who prescribes regular enemas as well as a chemical purgative that we now know would have depleted Napoleon’s electrolytes. His old ailments worsen, particularly his digestive issues, and he becomes bedridden in March of 1821.

        -On April 15th, Napoleon issues his last will and testament. He leaves his considerable bank accounts to a collection of 34 individuals, including his son, but mostly to his surviving generals and the children of those who have not survived. His real estate, also a large portfolio, is to be divided, with half going directly to French regions that had suffered during his wars, and the other half going to French military veterans and their families.

        -Always a pragmatist in religious matters, Napoleon seems to have had some sort of coming to terms with his own personal faith. He makes this clear in his will, in which he also makes some personal remarks. The introduction begins:

        “I die in the Apostolical Roman religion, in the bosom of which I was born more than fifty years since.

“It is my wish that my ashes may repose on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people, whom I have loved so well.

“I have always had reason to be pleased with my dearest wife, Maria Louisa. I retain for her, to my last moment, the most tender sentiments—I beseech her to watch, in order to preserve my son from the snares which yet environ his infancy.

“I recommend to my son never to forget that he was born a French prince, and never to allow himself to become an instrument in the hands of the triumvirs who oppress the nations of Europe: he ought never to fight against France, or to injure her in any manner; he ought to adopt my motto: ‘Everything for the French people.’

“I die prematurely, assassinated by the English oligarchy and its assassin. The English nation will not be slow in avenging me.

“The two unfortunate results of the invasions of France, when she had still so many resources, are to be attributed to the treason of Marmont, Augereau, Talleyrand, and La Fayette. I forgive them–May the posterity of France forgive them as I do.

“I thank my good and most excellent mother, the Cardinal, my brothers, Joseph, Lucien, Jerome, Pauline, Caroline, Julie, Hortense, Catarine, Eugene, for the interest they have continued to feel for me. I pardon Louis for the libel he published in 1820: it is replete with false assertions and falsified documents.”

-On May 5th, 1821, Napoleon dies at the age of 51, from stomach cancer, the same disease that killed his father at a young age. For all his impact on world history, he may as well have lived for a thousand years. His last words are “France, the army, the head of the army, Joséphine.”

-As for myself, I can think of no better sendoff for him than what Will and Ariel Durant write:

“He remains the outstanding figure of his time, with something noble about him that survives despite his selfishness in power and his occasional descents from grandeur in defeat. He thought we should not see his like again for five hundred years. We hope not; and yet it is good – and enough – to behold and suffer, once in a millennium, the power and limits of the human mind.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The World After Napoleon

With Napoleon’s death ends the Napoleonic Era, and with it, our story. But there are still a few loose ends to tie up, starting with all the other players in this drama. I also want to take a quick survey of the world Napoleon leaves behind.

        -Joachim Murat, Napoleon’s brother-in-law, the former Marshal of the Empire and King of Naples, is in a bit of a bind. Having lost his kingdom to the Austrians, he had returned to France to beg Napoleon’s forgiveness for switching sides back in 1814. Napoleon had refused to see him, so he had remained in Paris. But with Napoleon’s downfall, France is no longer safe for Murat. He flees to Corsica with a few followers, then tries a Napoleon-style return to power back in Naples, which fails miserably. When Napoleon hears about this on St. Helena, he says: “Murat attempted to reconquer with 200 men that territory which he failed to hold when he had 80,000 at his disposal.” This is giving Murat too much credit. In fact, he lands in Naples with 28 soldiers, they’re promptly arrested by local police, Murat himself is tried for insurrection against Ferdinand IV, the rightful King of Naples, and he is executed by firing squad on October 13th 1815. He speaks his last words to the men who are about to carry out the execution: “My friends, if you wish to spare me, aim at my heart.”

        -Marshal Ney, who had fought so heroically at Waterloo, is arrested by French authorities a few weeks later on August 3rd. As I said, Louis XVIII had pardoned most of Napoleon’s supporters, but he does not pardon Ney. Ney is a member of the Chamber of Peers and had sworn a personal oath to support Louis XVIII prior to Napoleon’s return. This would be like some US Senator not just supporting a rebellion but leaving the government, putting on his old Army uniform, and personally leading a rebel army in battle. A court-martial is convened under Marshal Bon-Adrien de Moncey, but Moncey has so much respect for Ney as a former fellow Marshal that he refuses to hold a trial, so Louis XVIII locks him in prison for a while and appoints another Marshal, Jean-Baptiste Jourdan, to run the court martial instead. The court martial then convenes and rules that it lacks jurisdiction over Ney’s case because Ney is a member of the Chamber of Peers. Louis XVIII agrees and has Ney tried by the Chamber of Peers instead. The primary charge is treason, and Ney’s lawyer tries to get him off on a technicality. As it turns out, the town Ney had been born in had been transferred to Prussia during the last few years. Therefore, one could argue that Ney is Prussian, not French, and therefore cannot be found guilty of treason against the French throne. Hearing this, Ney shouts: “I am French and I will remain French!” It’s a proud display of patriotism, but it also torpedoes his own defense. The Chamber of Peers condemns him to death on December 6th 1815, and he’s executed by firing squad the next day. As a sign of respect, Ney is not required to wear a blindfold, and is even allowed to give the order to fire. Like Murat, Ney’s last words are to his executioners: “Soldiers, when I give the command to fire, fire straight at my heart. Wait for the order. It will be my last to you. I protest against my condemnation. I have fought a hundred battles for France, and not one against her... Soldiers, fire!”

        -Klemens von Metternich will remain a key player in European politics for decades. Not only does he retain his position as Austrian Foreign Minister until his retirement in 1848, but he also becomes Chancellor starting in 1821. In terms of foreign policy, Austria during this time may as well be ruled by Metternich, not the Emperor. Metternich will spend his entire career playing one European power against the other, but always with two primary goals: to maintain the old monarchical social order and a balance of power in Europe. He is more or less successful in both goals, and spends enough time in office to meet with a young Otto von Bismarck in his later years. Then a revolution breaks out in Vienna in 1848, and the conservative government decides they need a sacrificial lamb. Metternich is forced to step down, lives in voluntary exile in England for a little while, but returns to Vienna when the Revolution is put down. He remains influential in Austrian politics until his death in 1859.

        -Archduke Charles of Austria, the man who reformed the Austrian Army and became the first to defeat Napoleon in a major battle, would live the rest of his life in relative obscurity. Following his victory at Aspern-Essling, he had later lost to Napoleon at Wagram, and became the scapegoat for Austria’s humiliation in the War of the Fifth Coalition. Other than a brief stint as the commandant of the Mainz garrison during the Hundred Days, he will never again hold a military command. He dies in Vienna in 1847, and it’s not until around the 1860s that the effects of the old war propaganda finally fade and Archduke Charles begins to be taken seriously as a historical figure.

        -Talleyrand retires almost as soon as Napoleon is sent into his final exile. He was 35 years old when the French Revolution kicked off, and is now 61. He spends the next 15 years hosting parties and occasionally playing the role of elder statesman, advising members of the government. In 1830, at the age of 76, he reluctantly accepts an appointment as ambassador to Great Britain. In that role, he helps negotiate the breakup of the Kingdom of the Netherlands and the creation of modern-day Belgium. Upon his second retirement in 1834, the 80-year-old Talleyrand’s health takes a turn for the worse, and he’s confined to a wheelchair. He writes his memoirs, although he’s mindful that future historians may be more objective than historians of his time, so he orders that the memoirs not be published until 30 years after his death. He also seems to be concerned for his spiritual state, and pens a letter to Pope Gregory XVI apologizing for spending most of his life as a rogue bishop and begging his forgiveness. Talleyrand dies the following day, May 17th 1838.

-The Abbe Sieyès, author of What is the Third Estate?, Directory member, and one-time Second Consul, has always been more interested in the burgeoning social sciences than he has in politics. He has served since 1795 as a founding member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of the Institute of France, and had become a member of the Académie Française when Napoleon restored it in 1803. Sieyès would continue in this role under Napoleon and Louis XVIII alike, but would accept a position in Napoleon’s Chamber of Peers during the Hundred Days. This last return to politics would turn out to be a mistake. Upon his return to the throne, Louis XVIII would expel Sieyès from the Institute of France, ostensibly for the Abbe’s vote for executing Louis XVI. Sieyès goes into voluntary exile in Brussels, where he lives for the next 15 years and continues publishing works on political science and the science we now call “sociology.” He returns to Paris in 1830 following the July Revolution, and lives there until his death in 1836, at the age of 88.

-Paul Barras, the king of the political cockroaches who dominated the Directory for its entire existence, spends most of Napoleon’s reign under a sort of luxurious house arrest. Following the Bourbon Restoration, he would be released by Louis XVIII, and would become a fervent supporter of the Bourbons. The Bourbons, for their part, do their best to distance themselves from France’s favorite bisexual party guy, whose antics they find embarrassing. Paul Barras will never again play a role in politics, and dies in Paris in 1829 at the age of 73.

Louis XVIII will remain King of France and Navarre for the rest of his life. He rules as a political moderate, refusing calls from the right to punish more Bonapartists and calls from the left for more democracy. Most decisions are made by the newly-appointed Privy Council, with the King acting as more and more of a figurehead. France does recover some much-needed prestige under his rule, though, and even increases the size of the army to help put down a revolution in Spain in 1823. Louis XVIII never has any children, although it’s not clear what medical issue prevents him from doing so. He’s notorious for inhaling snuff off his mistress’ breasts, so I won’t even speculate on what’s going on in the royal bedchamber. But the obese, gout-ridden, gangrenous Louis XVIII dies in September of 1824, aged 68.

        -Since Louis XVIII has left no children, the throne will go to yet another one of Louis XVI’s younger brothers, the Comte d’Artois, who becomes King Charles X. Charles is far less lenient than Louis had been, and leads a strong conservative government. Under Charles X, former landowners whose property had been seized under the Revolution are reimbursed at public expense. He reinstates the capital punishment for sacrilege, a charge used to keep Protestants and Jews in line. He even revives the bizarre medieval practice of the “royal touch,” where kings lay their hands on sick people and supposedly cure them with their royal power. When the 1830 legislative election doesn’t go his way, Charles X disbands the Chamber of Deputies and eliminates freedom of the press. The people of Paris riot in what comes to be known as the July Revolution. Charles goes into exile in Great Britain, where the current Prime Minister, the Duke of Wellington, welcomes him as a private citizen. Shortly thereafter, Charles and his family move to Austria. They live in a chilly, mountainous estate and Charles eventually moves to the Mediterranean coast on the advice of his doctors. Shortly after arriving at his new home in Northeastern Italy, he catches cholera and dies on November 6th 1836, at the age of 79.

        -The new King, Louis-Philippe I, is the son of the former Duc d’Orleans, the First Prince of the Blood. Louis-Philippe is an Enlightenment liberal on many issues, but when it comes to the economy, he’s France’s first truly capitalist leader in the modern sense. Louis-Philippe encourages free markets and strongly supports both industry and finance. For most of his reign, he’s a popular king, and he carries himself like a more modern monarch. For example, he wears a formal business suit instead of archaic royal robes. Unfortunately for Louis-Philippe, an economic depression will hit France in 1846, setting back his capitalist experiment and causing widespread riots. In 1848, like Charles X before him, Louis-Philippe I abdicates and goes into exile in England. Henceforth, there will be not one but three families who can stake a legitimate claim to the French throne: the House of Bourbon, the House of Orleans, and the House of Bonaparte.

        -The House of Bonaparte does still have a major role to play. Following Napoleon’s exile, Marie Louise is given the title of Duchess of Parma, but only for her own lifetime. The victorious Coalition powers don’t want another Bonaparte coming to power, even in a small Italian statelet, so Marie Louise and Napoleon’s son, Napoleon II, will have no claim to Parma or any other territory. Following Napoleon’s death in 1821, Marie Louise marries Count Adam Albert von Neipperg, a famous soldier from a lower-ranking noble house. He dies unexpectedly in 1829, and the twice-widowed Marie Louise remarries again in 1834, this time to a French emigree. She will not outlive him, and will spend the rest of her life in relative wealth and comfort until her death from a lung infection in 1847 at only 56 years old.

        -The young Napoleon II is raised in the Austrian court, where the Emperor and others try to inculcate him into German culture, even calling him by the name “Franz” as a child. But he finds himself constantly on the sidelines, ostracized by Austrian nobility who see in him nothing but a potential usurper of the French throne. He rebels as a teenager, and begins going by the name Napoleon II and surrounding himself with French courtiers. We’ll never know what he might have done with his influence, since he dies of tuberculosis in 1832 at only 21 years old.

        -The new heir to the House of Bonaparte, Napoleon III, is not directly descended from Napoleon. He’s the son of Louis Bonaparte, who had been King of Holland for most of the Napoleonic Era. He spends much of his childhood in exile in Italy, where he becomes an art afficionado and a fan of romantic literature. As a young adult, he moves to Switzerland and joins the army, then tries to launch a coup in France. When the coup fails, King Louis-Philippe demands that the Swiss turn Napoleon over to him for judgement. The Swiss refuse on the basis that Napoleon III is both a Swiss citizen and a soldier in the Swiss army. Louis-Philippe threatens war, and Napoleon flees first to London, then to Brazil, and then to New York City before launching another attempted coup in 1840. Like Murat’s attempted coup in Naples, it does not go well. Napoleon III shows up at Boulogne in a ship with a handful of men, and they’re arrested by the local authorities. He’s sentenced to life imprisonment, but manages to escape in 1846 and return to England. In 1848, following Louis-Philippe’s abdication, Napoleon III is elected as the leader of the Second French Republic, becoming the first President of France. In November of 1851, he’s term-limited and can no longer run for office. So he launches a coup and declares himself Emperor, thereby also becoming France’s last reigning monarch. His reign is a mixture of success and failure. Domestically, he invests in a number of major infrastructure projects that help turn France into a European industrial powerhouse. Internationally, he’s known mostly for his ill-conceived invasion of Mexico and his embarrassing defeat in the Franco-Prussian war in 1870. After being forced to abdicate, Napoleon III will live only three more years before his death in 1873.

        -Napoleon III may be the last Bonaparte to sit on a throne, but the House of Bonaparte is alive and well in the 21st century. In fact, there’s controversy over who is Napoleon’s current heir, with some saying Charles Bonaparte, born in 1950, is the legitimate head of the family, while others saying that he has been excluded from the line of succession and the current head of the family is his son, Jean-Christophe, born in 1986. Both men claim the title “Napoleon VII.”

France is only one country, and the fallout from the Revolution and the Napoleonic Era extends far beyond her borders. Take Sweden, for example. There, former Marshal of the Empire Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte, now King Karl XIV Johan, will reign until 1844. His rule will be a time of peace and prosperity for Sweden, which maintains a tradition of armed neutrality from the early 1800s until joining NATO on March 7th 2024. The Bernadotte Dynasty will rule Norway until its independence from Sweden in 1905, and remains the Swedish royal family until this day, represented by King Carl XVI Gustaf and his heir, Crown Princess Victoria.

        -Spain will go through a particularly tumultuous period that lasts for most of the 1800s. After adopting a liberal constitution in 1812, the Spanish people get a taste of freedom that ends when Ferdinand VII restores the old monarchy in 1814. But the Napoleonic Wars leave Spain fatally weakened, which allows for successful revolutions in almost all of her New World colonies. By the end of the 1820s, Spain’s only New World colonies will be Cuba and Puerto Rico. So the French Revolution inadvertently spawns a bunch of smaller New World republics. Inside of Spain, there will be revolutions in 1820 and 1868, with a reactionary period in-between and again afterwards. The entire 19th century in Spain is a nonstop series of political headaches caused by imperial overextension, overspending, war, the lack of any industrial policy, a culture that treats business as a lower-class pursuit, and a whole series of changes in government. France will also have to deal with the changes in government part. But thanks to modern industrial and business policies, the French Empire will exit the 19th Century even stronger than it went in, while the Spanish Empire will be a decrepit joke that can’t even beat a third-rate US military in the Spanish-American war.
        -Tsar Alexander I spends the rest of his life working with Metternich to preserve the balance of power in Europe. This seems to be something he really believes in; he didn’t fight those wars against Napoleon merely to increase Russia’s power. He does not go to war in Europe again, and instead spends much of his later reign attending diplomatic conferences. In fact, when the Greeks revolt against the Ottoman Empire in 1821, Tsar Alexander I deprioritizes his role as the defender of Orthodox Christians and remains neutral in the conflict, agreeing with Metternich that a war will only cause instability. Alexander may not be a Republican, but he’s every bit as modern a ruler as the French Revolutionaries, but in different ways, valuing trade and stability over maintaining old religious or ethnic alliances. He dies of Typhus on December 1st 1825, or November 19th if you still use the old Russian calendar. His younger brother, the militaristic Nicholas I, will get together with the British and the French and force the Ottomans to recognize Greek independence in 1829. Nicholas is also an autocrat, and will continue to rule Russia with an iron fist and in a conservative fashion, an attitude common among Tsars which will eventually lead to the Russian Revolution.

        -No country comes out stronger in 1815 than the United Kingdom. With the already-declining Spanish Empire now in total collapse and the French as always forced to put the bulk of their military spending into their army, the British Royal Navy embarks on more than a century of undisputed dominance as the supreme world naval hegemon, an era that will last until World War II.

        -Emperor Francis I will rule the Austrian Empire for another 20 years before dying of a fever in March of 1835, at the age of 67. He spends most of the rest of his reign sparring with the Prussians for control over the newly-created German Confederation. For the rest of his life, Francis will serve as the head of the presiding power, or Präsidialmacht, in the Confederation, and Frederick William III will spend the rest of his life trying to push the Austrians out of power, right up until he dies a few years later in 1840. His son, Frederick William IV, will briefly be elected to a new position, Emperor of the Germans, in 1849, but will never serve, instead briefly acting as the President of something called the Erfurt Union which is way outside the scope of this episode. Austria will then regain control of the German Confederation in 1850, before the presidency finally goes to Prussian monarch Wilhelm I in 1867, and the Confederation is absorbed into his newly-created German Empire in 1871. We’ll talk about a lot of this stuff in detail in some upcoming episodes.

Epilogue: What Did the French Revolution Achieve?

It’s been a long time since we talked about Marie Antoinette and the Affair of the Diamond Necklace. For the people who lived it, it’s been even longer. As of Napoleon’s second and final exile in 1815, it’s been 26 years since the storming of the Bastille. Many of the most important actors at the beginning of the play have died or retired by the end. Soldiers who started the Revolution as junior officers or enlisted have advanced through the ranks – or died in one of the era’s many wars. People who were babies during the Women’s March on Versailles have grown up, started households, and have babies of their own. What has changed during that time?

        -For the French Revolutionaries themselves, this painful 26-year process has led to little change. They started with a semi-feudal monarchy and have come out with a constitutional one. They already had a constitutional monarchy in 1791. The Reign of Terror, the years of political chaos, the multiple wars, the literally millions of dead… All of this has happened between the execution of Louis XVI and the coronation of his little brother. It’s got to be disappointing.

        -It must be particularly frustrating for the working classes. While farmers and laborers had suffered the most under the Ancien Regime, their lot has not improved much over the last generation. To repeat something I said a few times in earlier episodes, the French Revolution is a Revolution of, by, and for the bourgeoisie. And as I discussed earlier, while Napoleon often appeals to the French people, he aspires most of all to win the support of the upper-middle classes, because that’s where the power is.

        -In his book Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution, British historian Simon Schama makes some comparisons between the pre-Revolutionary France of 1789 and the post-Revolutionary France of 1799. He writes:

        “In particular regions of France where there had been heavy emigration and repression, rural life had indeed been emptied of noble dominance. But this obvious rupture disguises a continuity of some importance. It was exactly those sections of the population who had been gaining economically under the old regime that profited most from the sale of noble and church lands. Those sales were declared irreversible, so there was indeed a substantial transfer of wealth. But much of that transfer was within the landed classes – extending from well-to-do farmers up to ‘patriot’ nobles who had managed to stay put and actually benefitted from the confiscations. Fat cats got fatter. In Puiseux-Pontoise in the Seine-et-Oise, the Marquis de Girardin’s biggest tenant and neighbor, Charles-Antoine Thomassin, was well positioned to snap up available lots and did so well that he competed with his former landlord for any remaining parcels. There were, to be sure, many regions of France where the nobility as a group lost a considerable part of their fortune. But there were also others – in the west, the center and the south – where… lands that remained unsold could be recovered by families who returned in substantial numbers after 1796. Thus, while many of the leading figures in this history ended their lives on the guillotine, many others stayed put and reemerged as the leading notables of their department. The callow young maître de ceremonies who wilted before Mirabeau’s wrath on June 23, 1789, the Marquis de Dreux-Brezé, was still the fourth richest man in the department of the Sarthe during the Consulate and Empire. Barral de Montferrat, the ex-president of the Parlement of the Dauphiné who became mayor of Grenoble during the Revolution, remained one of the great powers of the Isère well into the nineteenth century. In the Eure-et-Loir the Noailles family remained the great landed dynasty; in the Oise, the Rochefoucauld-Liancourts were still among the greatest proprietors, notwithstanding the disasters that had befallen the citizen-nobles of the clan.

        “By contrast, the rural poor gained very little at all from the Revolution. Saint-Just’s Ventose laws remained a dead letter and it became harder than ever to pasture animals on common land or gather fuel from the open woods. In all these respects the Revolution was just an interlude in the inexorable modernization of property rights that had been well underway before 1789. No government – that of the Jacobins any more than that of the King – had really answered the cries for help that echoed through the rural cahiers de doléances in 1789.”

        -Little, if anything, has changed for the average French person, and many in France will come to view the French Revolution not as a series of events but as an idea. In 1848, witnessing the fall of King Louis-Philippe’s government and the rise of Napoleon III’s short-lived Second French Republic, Alexis de Tocqueville writes:

        “I began to review in my mind the story of our last sixty years, and I smiled bitterly in observing the illusions we gave ourselves at the end of each period of this long Revolution ... The constitutional monarchy had followed on the ancien régime; the Republic on the monarchy; on the Republic, the Empire; on the Empire, the Restoration. Then came the July Monarchy. After each of these successive mutations we said that the French Revolution, having completed what we presumptuously called its task, was over. We said it, and we believed it. Alas! I had hoped it myself under the Restoration, and again ever since the government of the Restoration fell; and here is the French Revolution which is starting again, for it is always the same.”

        -The idea of Revolution as an idea or an ongoing process becomes intertwined with another idea: militarism. In his book The French Revolution: From Enlightenment to Tyranny, British historian Ian Davidson writes:

        “…as Robespierre seems to have predicted, the military kept intervening in the political process. Napoléon Bonaparte, of course, brought the Revolution formally to an end with the coup d’état of 1799. Napoléon III was overthrown in 1870 after his defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, and his Empire was followed, after a brief resurgence of the Parisian Revolutionaries in the bloody Commune of 1870, by another Republic, the Third. With the 1940 defeat of France in World War II, the Vichy regime of Philippe Pétain, a military hero of World War I, replaced this Third Republic, quite unconstitutionally. Finally, the Fourth Republic, which governed France after World War II, was replaced in 1958, just as unconstitutionally, by the Fifth Republic of Charles de Gaulle, another military hero, of both World War I and World War II.

“Neither Napoléon I nor Pétain nor de Gaulle could conceivably have come to power as the head of state of a new regime in France if they had not been national war heroes.”

-This idea of militaristic Revolutionary politics does not remain confined to France. It spreads all throughout Europe, spread by every French soldier Napoleon leads through every town and village. If you don’t have Revolution in France, the idea itself never gets off the ground. If you don’t have Napoleon, the idea never gets spread. In some alternate universe, Robespierre is never executed, the French Revolution devolves further into dictatorship, and France probably just becomes a pariah state for a generation. Nobody wants to imitate them, and the idea of Revolution dies out. It’s this one-two punch – a Revolution succeeded by a militaristic empire – that first creates and then delivers the Revolutionary pathogen, if you want to call it that, to the rest of Europe.

        -A good example of that is the Greek War of Independence, which lasts from 1821 to 1829. The Greek people have been inspired by French ideals, and launch a war to liberate themselves from their long-time Ottoman overlords. Many of the officers in the young Greek Revolutionary Army aren’t actually Greek; they’re French volunteers, veterans of Napoleon’s campaigns who go to Greece and help another nation win its freedom.

        -As we’ve seen, Revolutionary- and Napoleonic-style militarism requires huge armies, so states have started relying on mass conscription to fill their ranks. For the last few hundred years, smaller, professional armies have dominated the European landscape. Starting with the French Revolution, most major countries began using large conscript armies, and some countries still do.

        -Along with these huge armies comes modern, industrial-scale warfare. Prior to the Napoleonic Era, multi-day battles are very unusual. I’m not talking about sieges, which can last months or years. I’m talking about battles in the field. Now we’re starting to see battles like the four-day Battle of Leipzig. In the American Civil War, the Battle of Gettysburg will last for three days and that’s not all that unusual.

-Industrial-scale warfare also means that a country’s industrial capacity is really starting to become important when you go to war. It used to be that production capacity was more about keeping the economy healthy, the people happy, and your small professional army well-paid. Now, you need industry to make ammunition for your artillery, to make more artillery pieces, to feed those massive armies, to manufacture and deliver enough uniforms and guns and meal kits and all the other gear a soldier needs. And before too long, you’ll need better railroads than your enemy to get all those troops and all that gear where its needed before the enemy can. Warfare under Napoleon isn’t truly modern yet. But like everything else in society, it’s starting to resemble something we would call modern.

Whether the French Revolution was a net positive or a net negative for humanity or the French people is a matter of opinion. But we can at least look at some of the costs and benefits.

        -Let’s start with the costs. Leaving aside those killed in the Reign of Terror, somewhere between 600,000 and 1.3 million French soldiers die during the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. The reason there’s so much wiggle room is that it’s hard to account for deserters. So we know for sure that 600,000 French soldiers have died, and 700,000 either deserted or died, and we may never get any more precise figures. Similarly, between 400,000 and 1.2 million soldiers from other European nations are killed, and civilian deaths total around one million. This includes not just those killed in the Reign of Terror, but rebels killed in the Vendée and other uprisings, people who starve because of devastation caused by the armies, and so on.

        -But necessity is the mother of invention, and war and chaos often spur people to come up with new and innovative solutions to urgent problems. French industry begins to thrive like never before, eventually growing to challenge British industry. Napoleon would establish an ambulance corps for his armies to bring wounded men to medical tents located a safe distance from the front lines. His surgeons would tend to friendly and enemy troops alike, and their innovations in battlefield medicine would save many lives going forward. We’ve already talked about Napoleon’s physical infrastructure projects. But he would also expand a national communications project developed during the Revolution.

        -Starting in 1793, the Revolutionaries would build a series of towers between Paris and Brest on the Channel Coast, Calais further north on the coast, and Strasbourg in the east. Men on these towers would use semaphore signals – flag signals – to send messages that could cross France in about two hours. Napoleon would add a spur of this signal to Venice via Lyon, with additional spurs to Mainz, and to Amsterdam via Brussels, Antwerp, and Rotterdam. The system proves so effective that the restored Bourbon monarchy maintains it, and even expands it. The French semaphore telegraph will continue to operate until it’s replaced by a more modern electrical telegraph in 1854. None of these advances or technological marvels would have existed if not for the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

        -The costs and benefits of the Revolution extend beyond the material and into the cultural, personal, and even spiritual aspects of people’s lives. Quoting them for the last time, Will and Ariel Durant write about the cultural aspect of the French Revolution:

        “It proclaimed freedom of speech, press, and assembly; it severely reduced this, and Napoleon ended it, under stress of war, but the principle survived and fought repeated battles through the nineteenth century, to become an accepted practice or pretense in twentieth-century democracies. The Revolution planned and began a national system of schools. It encouraged science as a world-view alternative to theology. In 1791 the Revolutionary government appointed a commission, headed by Lagrange, to devise, for a newly unified France, a new system of weights and measures; the resultant metric system was officially adopted in 1792, and was made law in 1799; it had to fight its way through the provinces, and its victory was not complete till 1840; it is painfully displacing the duodecimal system in Great Britain today.

“The Revolution began the separation of Church and state, but this proved difficult in a France overwhelmingly Catholic and traditionally dependent upon the Church for the moral instruction of its people. The separation was not completed till 1905, and today it is weakening again under the pressure of a life-sustaining myth. Having attempted the divorce, the Revolution struggled to spread a natural ethic; we have seen that this failed. In one aspect the history of France in the nineteenth century was a long and periodically convulsive attempt to recover from the ethical collapse of the Revolution. The twentieth century approaches its end without having yet found a natural substitute for religion in persuading the human animal to morality.

“The Revolution left some lessons for political philosophy. It led a widening minority to realize that the nature of man is the same in all classes; that revolutionists, raised to power, behave like their predecessors, and in some cases more ruthlessly; compare Robespierre with Louis XVI. Feeling in themselves the strong roots of savagery perpetually pressing against the controls of civilization, men came skeptical of revolutionary claims, ceased to expect incorruptible policemen and saintly senators, and learned that a revolution can achieve only so much as evolution has prepared and as human nature will permit.”

Perhaps the most foundational change wrought by the French Revolution is the growth of nationalism. There’s a switch from personal sovereignty to the idea of popular sovereignty – the belief that the people of a nation should steer their own ship of state. The idea of nations has existed for a while. A group of people with shared cultural touchstones, a common language, and a historical narrative that binds them together. But never before have the word “nation” and the word “state” been synonymous. This change doesn’t just affect the French, although it certainly does; remember how Louis XVIII suffers for failing to speak the language of nationalism. The idea of nationalism is part and parcel of the Revolutionary package that Napoleon delivers to the other European states.

        -I’d be remiss if I didn’t point out that leaders of all ideologies will successfully deploy the language of nationalism in years to come. For example, when Tsar Alexander gives a speech to the Polish people justifying his conquest of their state, he speaks about liberty. He establishes this entity called Congress Poland, which is a new country made up from all the Polish land that had been taken by the Russian Empire during the Partitions of Poland and he rolls in the Duchy of Warsaw and he says that Congress Poland is going to be a new Polish kingdom for the Polish people. And it’s going to stay that way and it’s going to be safe because Alexander I is going to be the new King of Poland. And people, particularly people in the middle class, just eat that up.

        -Nationalism also means nationalization. France goes into 1789 with a system that’s closer to an old feudal kingdom than to a modern nation-state. When it comes out, all those local legal codes and special exceptions and privileges and rights and duties and payments are all erased, and people across the nation share a common legal and administrative framework. French Marxist historian Georges Lefebvre puts it well when he writes:

        “At the end of the Old Regime the state, embodied in a divine-right monarch, still retained a personal character. Since the seventeenth century, however, a centralized administration had been tending to make its bureaucratic regulations prevail, and it was making the state bourgeois by rationalizing it. This trend ran afoul of provincial and urban concern with autonomy and the chaotic diversity of an expanded kingdom, governed empirically as historical circumstances permitted, but far more often according to the wishes of the corporate hierarchy. The class which dominates a society always regards the state, created to ensure respect for the positive law and to maintain order, as the bulwark of its prerogatives. The rivalry between royal power and the interests of the aristocracy engendered the Revolution, and the bourgeoisie put an end to the contradiction by seizing the state themselves.

        “They abolished the privileges of the provinces and towns, as well as those of the aristocracy, and proclaimed the equality of all Frenchmen before the law. The intermediate bodies, which Montesquieu had regarded as the only means of curbing the absolutism of the state, disappeared. Traditional institutions were swept away, and national unity was achieved through administrative uniformity. It seemed henceforth that the will of the state would encounter no obstacles other than distance and the technical difficulties of communication. In this sense Tocqueville was able to say that the members of the Constituent Assembly crowned the work carried on over the centuries by the Capetian dynasty.

        “But this was only part of their work. In proclaiming the rights of man, with liberty foremost, the bourgeoisie intended to protect them against the state; so they transformed the latter. Substituting popular sovereignty for that of the prince, they destroyed personal power. From an attribute of a proprietary monarchy, the state was transformed into an agent of the governed, and its authority was subordinated to the rules of a constitution. Monarchy was not abolished, but Louis XVI became the first of the ‘functionaries,’ that is, of the representatives for the nation. Heretofore his commands had been carried out through the administrative machinery. Hence the wishes of his subjects were voiced not on behalf of liberty but equally against centralization. They desired to make themselves masters of local administration even more than of the central authority. The popular revolution drove out the royal agents, whose place was taken by elected councils established by the Constituent Assembly. This autonomy responded to a human inclination naturally antagonistic to centralization, even when the latter works to the advantage of the representatives of the people. Undoubtedly this is because bureaucracy occasionally abuses centralization or brings it into disrepute through stupid and routine sluggishness, or even negligence; also because uniformity irritates individual independence, and runs counter to the infinite variety of interests and peculiar habits of each of the small communities that comprise the nation.

        “…This tendency toward libertarian anarchy appeared as much among the counter-revolutionaries and moderates as it did among the sans-culottes. Its conflict with the indispensable predominance of a central authority thus reveals one of the eternal contradictions of every society – that of freedom and authority, the individual and the state.”

        -Alexis de Tocqueville would probably agree with much of this analysis, but he puts even more emphasis on the idea that nationalization had been going on for a long time under the old regime, only nobody noticed it. He writes:

        “…simultaneously with its extension, the local franchises of the rural districts were fading away, all symptoms of independent vigor were vanishing, provincial characteristics were being effaced, the last flicker of the old national life was dying out. Not that the nation was growing sluggish ; on the contrary, it never knew a more active time; but the only mainspring of movement was at Paris. One illustration, chosen out of a thousand, may make this plainer. I find reports to the minister on the book business, in which it is stated that, during the sixteenth and at the beginning of the seventeenth century, there were large printing-offices in many provincial cities, but that now there are no printers to be found, and no work to be done. Yet it is not to be questioned but there were far more books printed at the close of the eighteenth century than during the sixteenth. The secret is, simply, that mind had ceased to radiate from any point but the centre; Paris had swallowed up the provinces.

        “This preliminary revolution was fully accomplished before the French Revolution broke out.”

        -Just as nationalism is central to the Revolutionary ideological package, nationalization is central to nationalism, and nationalization means centralization. This isn’t guaranteed to bring about freedom or human happiness or anything else people care about in their day to day lives. What it will do – what it always does – is allow one person or a group of people to accrue obscene amounts of power. This ideological package is a double-edged sword, but anyone who wields that sword can only fail by cutting themselves. It’s no surprise, then, that leaders, first in Europe and then the world, begin to rally their followers around the banner of nationalism. This never would have happened if not for the French Revolution. And that’s why it’s relevant.

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