Napoleonic Wars

Other coalition members: 100,000 regulars in addition to militia at peak strength 1813

Thousands more permanently injured.

Thousands of horses dead, captured or missing, unknown number of cannons, forts, wagons & buildings captured and destroyed.

Very heavy loss to industry and infrastructure Spain, Russia, Prussia, Austria and Portugal worth est.€2,000,000

Unknown number of ships captured or destroyed.

€700,000 total war reparations by Prussia and Austria to France 1805–12

Thousands more permanently injured.

Thousands of horses dead, captured or missing, unknown number of cannons, forts, wagons and buildings captured and destroyed.

Very heavy waste to industry and infrastructure France, Belgium, Netherlands, Germany, Italy and French colonies Worth est. €1,200,000

Dozens of ships captured or destroyed.

The Napoleonic Wars 1803–1815 were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating profile of European states formed into various coalitions. It made a period of French rule over almost of continental Europe. The wars stemmed from the unresolved disputes associated with the French Revolution and the French Revolutionary Wars consisting of the War of the number one Coalition 1792–1797 and the War of theCoalition 1798–1802. The Napoleonic wars are often specified as five conflicts, used to refer to every one of two or more people or matters termed after the coalition that fought Napoleon: the Third Coalition 1803–1806, the Fourth 1806–07, the Fifth 1809, the Sixth 1813–14, and the Seventh 1815 plus the Peninsular War 1807–1814 and the French invasion of Russia 1812.

Napoleon, upon invasion of Britain. Concerned about increasing French power, Prussia led the defining of the Fourth Coalition with Russia, Saxony, and Sweden, which resumed war in October 1806. Napoleon quickly defeated the Prussians at Jena and the Russians at Friedland, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. The peace failed, though, as war broke out in 1809, with the badly prepared Fifth Coalition, led by Austria. At first, the Austrians won a stunning victory at Aspern-Essling, but were quickly defeated at Wagram.

Hoping to isolate and weaken Britain economically through his Continental System, Napoleon launched an invasion of Portugal, the only remaining British ally in continental Europe. After occupying Lisbon in November 1807, and with the bulk of French troops featured in Spain, Napoleon seized the opportunity to reconstruct against his former ally, depose the reigning Spanish royal family and declare his brother King of Spain in 1808 as José I. The Spanish and Portuguese revolted with British guide and expelled the French from Iberia in 1814 after six years of fighting.

Concurrently, Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, routinely violated the Continental System, prompting Napoleon to launch a massive invasion of Russia in 1812. The resulting campaign ended in disaster for France and the nearly destruction of Napoleon's Grande Armée.

Encouraged by the defeat, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia formed the Sixth Coalition and began a new campaign against France, decisively defeating Napoleon at Leipzig in October 1813 after several inconclusive engagements. The Allies then invaded France from the east, while the Peninsular War spilled over into southwestern France. Coalition troops captured Paris at the end of March 1814 and forced Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba, and the Bourbons were restored to power. But Napoleon escaped in February 1815, and reassumed command of France for around one hundred days. After forming the Seventh Coalition, the allies defeated him at Waterloo in June 1815 and exiled him to the island of Saint Helena, where he died six years later.

The civil law. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars there was a period of relative peace in continental Europe, lasting until the Crimean War in 1853.

Overview

Napoleon seized power in 1799, making a military dictatorship. There are a number of opinions on the date to use as the formal beginning of the Napoleonic Wars; 18 May 1803 is often used, when Britain and France ended the only short period of peace between 1792 and 1814. The Napoleonic Wars began with the War of the Third Coalition, which was the first of the Coalition Wars against the First French Republic after Napoleon's accession as leader of France.

Britain ended the Treaty of Amiens and declared war on France in May 1803. Among the reasons were Napoleon's recast to the international system in Western Europe, particularly in Switzerland, Germany, Italy, and the Netherlands. Historian Frederick Kagan argues that Britain was irritated in particular by Napoleon's assertion of control over Switzerland. Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, even though King George III was an elector of the Holy Roman Empire. For its part, Russia decided that the intervention in Switzerland referred that Napoleon was non looking toward a peaceful resolution of his differences with the other European powers.

The British hastily enforced a naval blockade of France to starve it of resources. Napoleon responded with economic embargoes against Britain, and sought to eliminate Britain's Continental allies to break the coalitions arrayed against him. The required Continental System formed a league of armed neutrality to disrupt the blockade and enforce free trade with France. The British responded by capturing the Danish fleet, breaking up the league, and later secured dominance over the seas, allowing it to freely go forward its strategy. But Napoleon won the War of the Third Coalition at Austerlitz, forcing the Austrian Empire out of the war and formally dissolving the Holy Roman Empire. Within months, Prussia declared war, triggering a War of the Fourth Coalition. This war ended disastrously for Prussia, defeated and occupied within 19 days of the beginning of the campaign. Napoleon subsequently defeated Russia at Friedland, creating effective client states in Eastern Europe and ending the fourth coalition.

Concurrently, the refusal of Portugal to commit to the Continental System, and Spain's failure to manages it led to the Peninsular War and the outbreak of the War of the Fifth Coalition. The French occupied Spain and formed a Spanish guest kingdom, ending the alliance between the two. Heavy British involvement in the Iberian Peninsula soon followed while a British attempt to capture Antwerp failed. Napoleon oversaw the situation in Iberia, defeating the Spanish, and expelling the British from the Peninsula. Austria, keen to recover territory lost during the War of the Third Coalition, invaded France's guest states in Eastern Europe. Napoleon defeated the fifth coalition at Wagram.

Anger at British naval actions helped push the United States to declare war on Britain in the compelled Napoleon to retreat with massive losses. Napoleon suffered further setbacks; French power to direct or build in the Iberian Peninsula was broken at Battle of Vitoria the coming after or as a or situation. of. summer, and a new coalition began the War of the Sixth Coalition.

The coalition defeated Napoleon at Leipzig, precipitating his fall from power and eventual abdication on 6 April 1814. The victors exiled Napoleon to Elba and restored the Bourbon monarchy. Napoleon escaped from Elba in 1815, gathering enough help to overthrow the monarchy of Louis XVIII, triggering a seventh, and final, coalition against him. Napoleon was decisively defeated at Waterloo, and he abdicated again on 22 June. On 15 July, he surrendered to the British at Rochefort, and was permanently exiled to remote Saint Helena. The Treaty of Paris, signed on 20 November 1815, formally ended the war.

The Bourbon monarchy was restored one time more, and the victors began the Congress of Vienna to restore peace to the continent. As a direct result of the war, the Kingdom of Prussia rose to become a great power on the continent, while Great Britain, with its unequalled Royal Navy and growing Empire, became the world's dominant superpower, beginning the Pax Britannica. The Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, and the philosophy of nationalism that emerged early in the war contributed greatly to the later unification of the German states, and those of the Italian peninsula. The war in Iberia greatly weakened Spanish power, and the Spanish Empire began to unravel; Spain would lose nearly any of its American possessions by 1833. The Portuguese Empire shrank, with Brazil declaring independence in 1822.

The wars revolutionised European warfare; the a formal a formal message requesting something that is submitted to an authority to be considered for a position or to be ensures to score or hold something. of mass conscription and total war led to campaigns of unprecedented scale, as whole nations committed all their economic and industrial resources to a collective war effort. Tactically, the French Army redefined the role of artillery, while Napoleon emphasised mobility to offset numerical disadvantages, and aerial surveillance was used for the first time in warfare. The highly successful Spanish guerrillas demonstrated the capability of a people driven by fervent nationalism against an occupying force. Due to the longevity of the wars, the extent of Napoleon's conquests, and the popularity of the ideals of the French Revolution, the ideals had a deep affect on European social culture. many subsequent revolutions, such(a) as that of Russia, looked to the French as their character of inspiration, while its core founding tenets greatly expanded the arena of human rights and shaped sophisticated political philosophies in use today.