Part 64 (1/2)
Without waiting for the attack of the allies, Napoleon flung his Grand Army, as it was called, across the Rhine, defeated the Austrians in the battle of Ulm, and marched in triumph through Vienna to the field of Austerlitz beyond, where he gained one of his most memorable victories over the combined armies of Austria and Russia, numbering more than 100,000 men (Dec. 2, 1805).
This battle completely changed the map of Europe. Austria was forced to give up Venetia and other provinces about the head of the Adriatic, this territory being now added to the kingdom of Italy. Sixteen of the German states, declaring themselves independent of the empire, were formed into a league, called the _Confederation of the Rhine_, with Napoleon as Protector. Furthermore, the Emperor Francis II. was obliged to surrender the crown of the _Holy Roman Empire_, and thereafter to content himself with the t.i.tle of _Emperor of Austria_.
Thus did the Holy Roman Empire come to an end (1806), after having maintained an existence, since its revival by Otto the Great, of more than eight hundred years. The _Kingdom of Germany_, which was created by the part.i.tion of the empire of Charlemagne (see p. 408), now also pa.s.sed out of existence, even in name.
TRAFALGAR (Oct. 21, 1805).--Napoleon's brilliant victories in Germany were clouded by an irretrievable disaster to his fleet, which occurred only two days after the engagement at Ulm. Lord Nelson having met, near Cape Trafalgar on the coast of Spain, the combined French and Spanish fleets,-- Spain had become the ally of Napoleon,--almost completely destroyed the combined armaments. The gallant English admiral fell at the moment of victory. ”Thank G.o.d, I have done my duty,” were his last words.
This decisive battle give England the control of the sea, and relieved her from all danger of a French invasion. Even the ”wet ditch,” as Napoleon was wont contemptuously to call the English Channel, was henceforth an impa.s.sable gulf to his ambition. He might rule the continent, but the sovereignty of the ocean and its islands was denied him.
JENA AND AUERSTADT (1806).--Prussia was the state next after Austria to feel the weight of Napoleon's power. Goaded by insult, the Prussian king, Frederick William III., very imprudently threw down the gauntlet to the French emperor. Moving with his usual swiftness, Napoleon overwhelmed the armies of Frederick in the battles of Jena and Auerstadt, which were both fought upon the same day (Oct. 14, 1806). Thus the great military power consolidated by the genius of Frederick the Great, was crushed and almost annihilated. What had proved too great an undertaking for the combined powers of Europe during the Seven Years' War, Napoleon had effected in less than a month.
EYLAU AND FRIEDLAND (1807).--The year following his victories over the Prussians, Napoleon led his Grand Army against the forces of the Czar, Alexander I., who had entered Prussia with aid for King Frederick. A fierce but indecisive battle at Eylau was followed, a little later in the same season, by the battle of Friedland, in which the Russians were completely overwhelmed (June 14, 1807). The Czar was forced to sue for peace.
By the terms of the Treaty of Tilsit Prussia was stripped of more than half of her former dominions, a part of which was made into a new state, called the Kingdom of Westphalia, with Napoleon's brother, Jerome, as its king, and added to the Confederation of the Rhine; while Prussian Poland, reorganized and clumsily christened the ”Grand Duchy of Warsaw,” was given to Saxony. What was left of Prussia became virtually a dependency of the French empire.
THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM: THE BERLIN AND MILAN DECREES.--While Napoleon was carrying on his campaigns against Prussia and Russia, he was all the time meditating vengeance upon England, his most uncompromising foe, and the leader or the instigator of the coalitions which were constantly being formed for the overthrow of his power. We have seen how the destruction of his fleet at Trafalgar dashed all his hopes of ever making a descent upon the British sh.o.r.es. Unable to reach his enemy directly with his arms, he resolved to strike her through her commerce. By two celebrated imperial edicts, called from the cities whence they were issued the Berlin and the Milan decree, he closed all the ports of the continent against English s.h.i.+ps, and forbade any of the European nations from holding any intercourse with Great Britain, all of whose ports he declared in a state of blockade.
So completely was Europe under the domination of Napoleon, that England's trade was by these measures very seriously crippled, and great loss and suffering were inflicted upon her industrial cla.s.ses. We shall have occasion a little later to speak of the disastrous effects of the system upon the French empire itself.
BEGINNING OF THE PENINSULAR WARS (1808).--One of the first consequences of Napoleon's ”continental policy” was to bring him into conflict with Portugal. The prince regent of that country presuming to open its ports to English s.h.i.+ps, Napoleon at once deposed him, and sent one of his marshals to take possession of the kingdom. The entire royal family, accompanied by many of the n.o.bility, fled to Brazil, and made that country the seat of an empire which has endured to the present day.
Having thus gained a foothold in the Peninsula, Napoleon now resolved to possess himself of the whole of it. Insolently interfering in the affairs of Spain, he forced the weak-minded Bourbon king to resign to him, as his ”dearly beloved friend and ally,” his crown, which he bestowed at once upon his brother, Joseph Bonaparte (1808). The throne of Naples, which Joseph had been occupying, [Footnote: Napoleon dethroned the Bourbons in Naples in 1805.] was transferred to Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law. Thus did this audacious man make and unmake kings, and give away thrones and kingdoms.
But the high-spirited Spaniards were not the people to submit tamely to such an indignity. The entire nation, from the Pyrenees to the Straits of Gibraltar, flew to arms. Portugal also arose, and England sent to her aid a force under Sir Arthur Wellesley, afterwards Duke of Wellington, and the hero of Waterloo. The French were soon driven out of Portugal, and pushed beyond the Ebro in Spain. Joseph fled in dismay from his throne, and Napoleon found it necessary to take the field himself, in order to restore the prestige of the French arms. He entered the Peninsula at the head of an army of 80,000 men, and scattering the Spaniards wherever he met them, entered Madrid in triumph, and reseated his brother upon the Spanish throne.
Threatening tidings from another quarter of Europe now caused Napoleon to hasten back to Paris.
SECOND CAMPAIGN AGAINST AUSTRIA (1809).--Taking advantage of Napoleon's troubles in the Peninsula, Francis I. of Austria, who had been watching for an opportunity to retrieve the disaster of Austerlitz, gathered an army of half a million of men, and declared war against the French emperor. But Austria was fated to suffer even a deeper humiliation than she had already endured. Napoleon swept across the Danube, and at the end of a short campaign, the most noted battles of which were those of Eckmuhl and Wagram, Austria was again at his feet, and a second time he entered Vienna in triumph. Austria was now still farther dismembered, large tracts of her possessions being ceded directly to Napoleon or given to the various neighboring states (1809).
[Ill.u.s.tration: CENTRAL EUROPE, 1810]
THE PAPAL STATES AND HOLLAND JOINED TO THE FRENCH EMPIRE.--That Napoleon cared but little for the thunders of the Church is shown by his treatment of the Pope. Pius VII. opposing his continental system, the emperor incorporated the Papal States with the French empire (1809). The Pope thereupon excommunicated Napoleon, who straightway arrested the Pontiff, dragged him over the Alps into France, and held him in captivity for four years.
The year following the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire, Louis Bonaparte, king of Holland, who disapproved of his brother's continental system, which was ruining the trade of the Dutch, abdicated the crown. Thereupon Napoleon incorporated Holland with France, on the ground that it was simply ”the sediment of the French rivers.”
NAPOLEON'S SECOND MARRIAGE (1810).--The year following his triumph over Francis I. of Austria, Napoleon divorced his wife Josephine, in order to form a new alliance, with Maria Louisa, Archd.u.c.h.ess of Austria. The fond and faithful Josephine bowed meekly to the will of her lord, and went into sorrowful exile from his palace. Napoleon's object in this matter was to cover the reproach of his own plebeian birth, by an alliance with one of the ancient royal families of Europe, and to secure the perpetuity of his government by leaving an heir who might be the inheritor of his throne and fortunes. His hope seemed realized when, the year following his marriage with the Archd.u.c.h.ess, a son was born to them, who was given the t.i.tle of ”King of Rome.”
NAPOLEON AT THE SUMMIT OF HIS POWER (1811).--Napoleon was now at the height of his marvellous fortunes. Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, and Wagram were the successive steps by which he had mounted to the most dizzy heights of military power and glory. The empire which he had built up stretched from the Baltic to Southern Italy, embracing France proper, Belgium, Holland, Northwestern Germany, Italy west of the Apennines as far south as Naples, besides large possessions about the head of the Adriatic.
On all sides were allied, va.s.sal, or dependent states. Several of the ancient thrones of Europe were occupied by Napoleon's relatives or favorite marshals. He himself was head of the kingdom of Italy, and Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. Austria and Prussia were completely subject to his will. Russia and Denmark were his allies.
[Ill.u.s.tration: NAPOLEON BONAPARTE]
ELEMENTS OF WEAKNESS IN THE EMPIRE.--But splendid and imposing as at this moment appeared the external affairs of Napoleon, the sun of his fortunes, which had risen so brightly at Austerlitz, had already pa.s.sed its meridian. There were many things just now contributing to the weakness of the French empire and foreboding its speedy dissolution. Founded and upheld by the genius of Napoleon, it depended solely upon the life and fortunes of this single man. The diverse elements it embraced were as yet so loosely joined that there could be no hope or possibility of its surviving either the misfortune or the death of its founder.
Again, Napoleon's continental system, through the suffering and loss it inflicted upon all the maritime countries of Europe, had caused murmurs of discontent all around the circ.u.mference of the continent. This ruinous policy had also involved the French emperor in a terribly wasteful war with Spain, which country was destined--more truly than Italy, of which the expression was first used--to become ”the grave of the French.”
Napoleon after his downfall himself admitted that his pa.s.sage of the Pyrenees was the fatal misstep in his career.
Furthermore, the conscriptions of the emperor had drained France of men, and her armies were now recruited by mere boys, who were utterly unfit to bear the burden and fatigue of Napoleon's rapid campaigns. The heavy taxes, also, which were necessary to meet the expenses of Napoleon's wars, and to carry on the splendid public works upon which he was constantly engaged, produced great suffering and discontent throughout the empire.
And the crowd of deposed princes and dispossessed aristocrats in those states where Napoleon had promulgated his new code of equal rights (see p.
675), were naturally restless and resentful, and watchful for an opportunity to recover their ancient power and privileges. Even the large cla.s.s in the surrounding countries that at first welcomed Napoleon as the representative of the French ideas of equality and liberty, and applauded while he overturned ancient thrones and aristocracies, which, like the monarchy and the feudal n.o.bility in France swept away by the Revolution, had become unbearably proud, corrupt, and oppressive,--even these early adherents had been turned into bitter enemies through Napoleon's adoption of imperial manners, and especially by his setting aside his first wife, Josephine, in order that he might ally himself to one of the old royal houses of Europe, which act was looked upon as a betrayal of the cause of the people.