Napoleon and Europe

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Napoleon and Europe

• (Sources Merriman, John A History of Modern
  Europe
• and Cannistraro, The Western Perspective)

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It is said that I am an ambitious man but that
is not so or at least my ambition is so closely
bound to my being that they are both one and
the same.Napoleon Bonaparte
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Rise to Power

• 1769 born on Corsica
• Poor noble status
• Attended royal military school
• Picked on by other students
• But always fought back

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Rise to Power

• 5 feet 2 inches tall
• Average height for a Frenchmen
• (but regardless, the Napoleon complex lives on)

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Napoleons Rise to Power

• Favored French Rev when it broke out
• End abuses of Old Regime
• Provide himself with opportunity to advance

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Napoleons Rise to Power

• October 6, 1795 (during Thermidor) he crushed a
  royalist uprising
• While in Paris, he fell in love with Josephine

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Rise to Power

• 35,000 soldiers
• Scientists
• Defeated Egyptian forces at Battle of the
  Pyramids in July 1798
• BUT..French fleet destroyed on August 1, 1798

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Napoleons Rise to Power

• In Paris, Sieyes plotted to overthrow the
  Directory
• needed a general to do it
• Coup detat took place in November 1799
• Sieyes and Napoleon overthrew the Directory

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Rise to Power

• Napoleon
• Became first consul
• Controlled armed forces and internal affairs

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The Dictator

• Public support
• Used censorship to block circulation of opposing
  views
• Had a 2 legislative assembly with vague general
  powers
• All French adult males could vote
• So..is he Enlightened????

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Napoleon the Catholic Church

• Negotiated a concordat
• Catholicism was the preferred religion in France
• Church renounced its claims to any lands it had
  lost
• God is always on the side of those with the most
  cannon.

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The Code Napoleon

• Awarded husbands complete control over their
  wives
• Womens occupations were limited to the domestic
  sphere
• Women who worked must give wages to their husbands

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The Code Napoleon

• Other nations adopted this code
• University of France was founded
• Supervised educational institutions throughout
  the country
• Professional and technical academies
• Beneficiaries were middle classes and their
  families

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European Conquest

• 1802 proclaimed consul for life
• Security and stability in France
• Napoleon dreams of European conquest

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Emperor

• 1804 Cathedral of Notre Dame
• Crowned himself emperor with a laurel wreath
• Crowned Josephine as well
• Wanted to recreate the Roman Empire

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Conquest of Continental Europe

• Napoleon ruled central Europe
• Declared end of the Holy Roman Empire
• Divided up the territories to family members

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Italy and Spain

• Joseph (Napoleons brother) led French troops to
  Madrid
• Provoked a nationalist uprising
• May 1808 bloody riots
• Spanish troops and civilians fought bitterly
  until 1814 and drove France out of Spain

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Italy and Spain

• Nations elsewhere began to resist French tactics
• British helped Spanish
• guerilla tactics
• Hit and run
• Ambush
• Sabotage
• Surprise attack

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Occupation and Reform

• Old ranks abolished throughout Europe
• Gave jobs to talented and able people
• All equal under eyes of the law with Napoleonic
  Code (except women)

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Occupation and Reform

• Politics
• Not free to govern themselves
• Centralized government in Paris
• Europe paid taxes to maintain the French army

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Jewish life in Napoleonic Europe

• Civic status never undermined under his rule
• Freed Jews from ghettos in Eastern Europe
• But paid heavy taxes
• Intellectuals allowed into Academies

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Jewish life in Napoleonic Europe

• 1806 Jewish representatives summoned to Paris
• Local administrative councils in Jewish
  communities established
• When Napoleon was defeated, the Jews were crushed
  throughout Europe

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Jewish life in Napoleonic Europe

• Considered to have been set free by French
  conquerors
• Ghettos rebuilt
• Many would eventually migrate in the mid-19th
  century

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The Collapse of France

• Continental System
• 1806
• Prohibited importation of British goods into
  continental Europe
• Wanted to destroy the British
• Naval blockade
• Trade war caused high unemployment

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The Collapse of France

• Continental System
• Paralyzed ports and business centers
• Production declined
• Entire Continent suffered

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The Russian Campaign

• French demanded Baltic ports boycott British
  goods
• Caused crisis in Russia
• Alexander broke the embargo

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The Russian Campaign

• 600,000 troops
• Not very loyal
• Spring, 1812
• France advanced into Russia
• Destroyed their own crops
• Retreated into Moscow

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The Russian Campaign

• French supply lines difficult to maintain
• Battle at Borodino
• Heavy losses on both sides
• Tsar refused peace
• Fire broke out in Moscow

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The Russian Campaign

• French had no shelter
• Citys population fled with all supplies

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The Russian Campaign

• Winter set in before Napoleon retreated
• Blizzards
• Overflowing rivers
• Disease
• Hunger
• 100,000 men left

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The end of the Empire

• Europe plans a war of liberation
• Metternich of Austria
• 1813 Leipzig Napoleon defeated
• Allies invaded France
• March 1814 Paris taken
• Louis XVIs brother announced King of France

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The end of the Empire

• King Louis XVIII (1814-1824)
• Exiled Napoleon to Elba
• Ruler of the island in a villa

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The end of the Empire

• Napoleon escapes from exile
• Hundred days
• Created an army
• Tried to win back his power

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The end of the Empire

• Defeated at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815
  (Belgium)
• Exiled to St. Helena
• Died there 6 years later

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Congress of Vienna