Napoleon & Congress of Vienna (1799-1815) — Empire, Code, and the Conservative Order

1. France in 1799 — Why Napoleon Was Possible

By the end of 1799 the French Revolution had been running for ten years and France was exhausted. The Directory (1795-99) was widely seen as corrupt, weak, and incompetent. War with the Second Coalition (Britain, Austria, Russia, Naples, Portugal, Ottoman Empire) was going badly — Russian and Austrian armies had pushed the French out of Italy and back to the Rhine. The economy was in collapse, the assignat currency had crashed, brigandage was rife on the highways, royalist insurgencies smouldered in the Vendée and Brittany, and the Jacobins were threatening another insurrection from the left.

1.1 The Discredited Directory

• Constitution of Year III (22 Aug 1795) had created a five-man executive Directory and a bicameral legislature (Council of 500, Council of Ancients).
• Coup of 18 Fructidor (4 Sep 1797) — directors purged royalists from legislature.
• Coup of 22 Floréal (11 May 1798) — purged Jacobins.
• Coup of 30 Prairial (18 Jun 1799) — legislature purged the directors. By autumn 1799 the regime had survived by repeated illegal coups; nobody believed in it.

1.2 The Search for a "Sword"

• Abbé Sieyès — by 1799 a Director, concluded: "I need a sword" to give the regime stability while preserving the Revolution's gains for the bourgeoisie.
• First choice: General Joubert — killed at Battle of Novi (15 Aug 1799). Second choice: Moreau — refused.
• Then Napoleon Bonaparte returned suddenly from Egypt (9 Oct 1799) — wildly popular hero, untainted by Directory politics.

2. Napoleon's Early Career — Corsica to Egypt

2.1 Birth & Background

• Born 15 August 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica — one year after France purchased Corsica from Genoa (1768). Of minor Italian-Corsican nobility (Buonaparte).
• Father Carlo registered nobility status, secured royal scholarship for Napoleon at military school of Brienne (1779-84) and École Militaire Paris (1784-85).
• Commissioned second lieutenant of artillery, September 1785, aged 16.

2.2 Revolutionary Years (1789-95)

• Initially a Corsican nationalist (follower of Pasquale Paoli); broke with Paoli 1793, family fled to mainland France.
• Siege of Toulon (Sep-Dec 1793) — artillery commander; planned the assault that drove the British fleet out of Toulon harbour. Promoted brigadier-general at age 24.
• Briefly imprisoned after Thermidor as a Jacobin sympathiser.
• 13 Vendémiaire (5 Oct 1795) — defended the Convention against royalist insurrection in Paris with "a whiff of grapeshot" outside the Church of Saint-Roch; saved the regime, became darling of the Directory.
• 9 March 1796: married Joséphine de Beauharnais, widow of a guillotined general, mistress of Director Barras.

2.3 Italian Campaign (1796-97)

• Given command of the ill-equipped Army of Italy, March 1796.
• Sequence of brilliant victories: Montenotte, Lodi (10 May 1796), Arcole (Nov 1796), Rivoli (Jan 1797) — knocked Austria out of Italy.
• Created Cisalpine and Ligurian Republics — France's first satellite states.
• Treaty of Campo Formio (17 Oct 1797) — Austria ceded Belgium (Austrian Netherlands), recognised French satellites in Italy; Venice partitioned (Austria took Venetian terraferma — ended 1,100-year Venetian Republic).
• Napoleon negotiated personally — a general making foreign policy, unprecedented.

2.4 Egyptian Expedition (1798-99)

• Aim: cut Britain's route to India, establish French colony in the eastern Mediterranean, threaten the British East India Company.
• Sailed from Toulon 19 May 1798 with 38,000 troops and 167 savants (scientists/scholars — Monge, Berthollet, Fourier).
• Captured Malta from Knights of St John, June 1798.
• Battle of the Pyramids (21 Jul 1798) — defeated Mamluks at Embabeh outside Cairo. "Soldiers, forty centuries look down upon you."
• Battle of the Nile / Aboukir Bay (1 Aug 1798) — Admiral Horatio Nelson destroyed French fleet, stranded Napoleon's army in Egypt.
• Failed siege of Acre (Mar-May 1799) against Ottoman-British defence.
• Rosetta Stone discovered 15 July 1799 by French officer Pierre-François Bouchard at Fort Julien near Rosetta (Rashid) — later seized by British, deciphered by Champollion 1822.
• The expedition was a military failure but a cultural triumph — founded Egyptology with the multi-volume Description de l'Égypte (1809-29).
• Napoleon abandoned his army secretly on 23 Aug 1799, slipped through the British blockade, landed in Fréjus 9 Oct 1799.

3. Coup of 18 Brumaire (9 November 1799) & the Consulate

3.1 The Plot

• Plotters: Sieyès (Director, principal organiser), Talleyrand (former Foreign Minister), Fouché (Police Minister), Napoleon (the sword), Lucien Bonaparte (President of Council of 500).
• Plan: persuade the Council of Ancients that a Jacobin plot threatened Paris; relocate both councils to Saint-Cloud outside Paris; force them to vote a new constitution under military pressure.

3.2 18-19 Brumaire Year VIII (9-10 Nov 1799)

• 9 Nov 1799 (18 Brumaire): Council of Ancients voted to move both chambers to Château de Saint-Cloud, appointed Napoleon commander of Paris troops.
• 10 Nov 1799 (19 Brumaire): Napoleon entered the chamber of the Five Hundred at Saint-Cloud; Jacobin deputies shouted "outlaw him!" and tried to mob him. Lucien Bonaparte, as President, refused to put the motion of outlawry; called in grenadiers led by Murat, who cleared the chamber at bayonet-point.
• Rump of obedient deputies that evening voted to dissolve the Directory and create a provisional government of three Consuls: Napoleon, Sieyès, Roger Ducos.

3.3 Constitution of Year VIII (13 Dec 1799)

• Drafted by Sieyès but rewritten by Napoleon. "Citizens! The Revolution is established upon the principles which began it. It is over." — Napoleon's proclamation.
• Three Consuls — First Consul (Napoleon) held all real executive power; Second and Third (Cambacérès, Lebrun) were advisory.
• Legislature split into four bodies (Senate, Tribunate, Legislative Body, Council of State) — designed to look representative but unable to challenge the Consul.
• Universal manhood suffrage on paper, but elections were indirect through three filtering layers — voters chose "lists of notabilities" from which the Senate appointed legislators.
• No declaration of rights; no separation of powers in any meaningful sense.
• Approved by plebiscite Feb 1800 — 3 million yes, 1,562 no (results almost certainly manipulated by Lucien).

4. The Consulate (1799-1804) — Domestic Reforms

The Consulate's first five years are arguably Napoleon's most constructive achievement — when most of the institutions that still govern France were created.

4.1 Administrative Centralisation

• Law of 17 February 1800 (28 Pluviôse Year VIII) — created the modern administrative structure:
  • Each département (created 1789) headed by a Prefect appointed by the First Consul.
  • Each arrondissement headed by a Sub-Prefect.
  • Each commune headed by a Mayor appointed by the Prefect (in small towns) or by Napoleon (in large towns).
• Eliminated elected local government; replaced with chain of command running from Paris to every village.
• System survives in France with modifications to this day.

4.2 Financial Reform

• Bank of France (Banque de France) founded 18 January 1800 — private bank with the right to issue currency; modelled on the Bank of England; gave Napoleon a stable money supply.
• Direct tax collection brought under central control of state collectors (replacing tax farmers).
• Franc germinal (28 March 1803) — new gold/silver bimetallic franc; stable for 100 years.
• Cadastral land survey ordered 1807 — uniform property records.

4.3 Education

• Lycées (state secondary schools) — created by law of 1 May 1802; militarised, scholarship-based, fed the army officer corps and civil service. Curriculum centrally controlled.
• Imperial University (10 May 1806 / 17 March 1808) — single national educational corporation with monopoly on teaching; faculties of theology, law, medicine, science, letters.
• École Polytechnique (founded by Convention 1794) reorganised by Napoleon as a military engineering school — produced France's technocratic elite.
• Saint-Cyr military academy founded 1802.

4.4 Legion of Honour

• Created 19 May 1802 — civilian and military order of merit; deliberately replaced the abolished noble orders of the Ancien Régime; "careers open to talent" given visible reward.
• Open to all citizens regardless of birth — central to Bonapartist ideology of meritocracy.
• Survives as France's highest decoration.

4.5 Pacification

• Amnesty to émigré nobles (October 1800, full amnesty April 1802) — about 100,000 returned; many integrated into Napoleonic administration.
• Vendée royalist revolt ended by treaty January 1800.
• Bonaparte made Consul for Life by plebiscite — 2 August 1802 (3.6 million yes, 8,374 no).

5. Concordat with Pope (15 July 1801)

The Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) had broken the French Church and produced a decade of religious war. Napoleon, though personally indifferent to religion ("I do not see in religion the mystery of the Incarnation, but the mystery of the social order"), saw that re-establishing religious peace would consolidate his regime.

5.1 The Concordat — Terms

• Negotiated with Pope Pius VII; signed 15 July 1801, promulgated Easter 1802.
• Catholicism recognised as "the religion of the great majority of French citizens" (not as "state religion" — important distinction).
• Bishops to be nominated by the First Consul, then canonically instituted by the Pope.
• Clergy paid by the state; in return swore loyalty to the regime.
• Church accepted loss of nationalised lands sold during the Revolution (about 10% of French soil had changed hands) — vital concession that secured bourgeois and peasant landowners to the regime.
• Other faiths protected — Protestantism (1802) and Judaism (1808) given organised legal status as recognised religions.

5.2 The Organic Articles (1802)

• Napoleon unilaterally added 77 "Organic Articles" to the Concordat — subordinated the Church to the state (papal bulls needed government approval, religious processions could be banned, seminary curricula controlled).
• Pius VII protested but accepted in practice.

6. Code Napoléon — Code Civil (21 March 1804)

The Code Civil — usually called Code Napoléon — is arguably the most lasting and globally consequential of all Napoleon's achievements. Drafted by a commission of four jurists (Portalis, Tronchet, Bigot de Préameneu, Maleville) starting 12 August 1800; promulgated as a unified code 21 March 1804. Napoleon personally chaired 57 of 102 drafting sessions.

6.1 Core Principles

• Equality before the law — abolition of privileges based on birth.
• Secular state — civil marriage, civil divorce, civil registration; no religious courts.
• Right to private property — absolute and inviolable.
• Freedom of contract — buyer-seller relationships untouched by guild restrictions.
• Religious toleration — full civic equality regardless of religion (Jews emancipated).
• Codification itself — replaced 360+ separate customary law codes with one uniform national code, written in plain language, accessible to any citizen.

6.2 Conservative Elements

• Patriarchal authority — husband was head of household; wife required husband's permission to work, sign contracts, sue, or travel; "the husband owes protection to his wife, the wife obedience to her husband" (Art 213).
• Married women treated as legal minors; only divorce by mutual consent or extreme cause; adultery punished asymmetrically (severe for wives, leniently for husbands).
• Limited use of divorce — abolished entirely by Bourbon Restoration 1816, restored only in 1884.
• Father's authority over children almost absolute.
• Workers' combinations (trade unions) remained banned (Le Chapelier Law 1791 retained).
• Workers carried livret work-book — required for employment; lost meant lost job.

6.3 Companion Codes

• Code of Civil Procedure (1806); Commercial Code (1807); Code of Criminal Instruction (1808); Penal Code (1810).
• Together — the "Five Codes" — covered virtually all of private and criminal law.

6.4 Global Spread

• Adopted directly in Belgium, Luxembourg, parts of Germany (Rhineland to 1900), Italy (until 1865 then heavily influential), Spain, Portugal, Netherlands, Poland.
• Model for civil codes of Louisiana (1808), Quebec (1866), Egypt (1875, 1949), Japan (1898 — influenced via German pandectism), virtually all of Latin America.
• Today over 70 jurisdictions follow the Napoleonic civil-law tradition.

7. Empire Proclaimed — 2 December 1804

7.1 The Cadoudal-Pichegru-Moreau Plot (1804)

• Royalist plot to assassinate Napoleon discovered February 1804; Cadoudal executed, Pichegru found dead in cell, Moreau exiled.
• Napoleon used the plot to demand a hereditary regime — to make assassination pointless.
• Duc d'Enghien — Bourbon prince kidnapped from Baden 14-15 March 1804, tried by military commission overnight, shot in the moat of Château de Vincennes 21 March 1804, on flimsy evidence. Sensational illegal act that horrified Europe but signalled Napoleon's break with the Bourbon legitimist tradition.

7.2 Constitution of Year XII (18 May 1804)

• Created hereditary Empire of the French — title "Emperor of the French" (not "Emperor of France" — a nod to popular sovereignty).
• Plebiscite November 1804 — 3.5 million yes, 2,500 no.

7.3 Coronation — 2 December 1804

• At Notre-Dame de Paris. Pope Pius VII attended (extracted from Rome by Napoleon).
• Napoleon famously crowned himself, then crowned Joséphine — a gesture asserting that imperial authority came from the French people (and from himself), not from the Pope.
• Used a new "crown of Charlemagne" replica (Napoleon had originally wanted the actual Holy Roman crown).
• Painted by Jacques-Louis David 1805-07 — the great visual document of Napoleonic legitimacy.
• Crowned King of Italy at Milan Cathedral 26 May 1805 with the Iron Crown of Lombardy ("God gives it to me, woe to him who touches it").

7.4 Imperial Nobility

• 1 March 1808 — Napoleon created a hereditary imperial nobility (princes, dukes, counts, barons, knights). Granted to marshals, ministers, scientists, artists — "service" nobility, not blood nobility.
• About 3,200 titles created. Many old aristocratic families also took titles.
• Established the Bonaparte family on European thrones: brother Joseph (Naples 1806, then Spain 1808); brother Louis (Holland 1806); brother Jérôme (Westphalia 1807); stepson Eugène (Viceroy of Italy); brother-in-law Murat (Naples 1808).

8. The Continental System — Berlin Decree (21 November 1806)

8.1 Strategy

After Trafalgar (1805) destroyed French naval power, Napoleon abandoned plans to invade Britain and instead tried to defeat it economically — close the entire European continent to British trade, force Britain into bankruptcy.

8.2 The Decrees

• Berlin Decree (21 Nov 1806) — declared Britain in a state of blockade; banned all trade with Britain from any port under French control.
• Milan Decree (17 Dec 1807) — any neutral ship that submitted to British inspection became British, liable to seizure.
• British counter-blockade: Orders in Council (Nov 1807) — required all neutral ships heading to continental ports to call at British ports first and pay duties.

8.3 Effects

• Hurt British exports temporarily 1808 and 1811 but did not break Britain — Britain found new markets in Latin America (after Spanish empire collapsed) and India.
• Caused severe hardship in continental ports (Hamburg, Amsterdam, Bordeaux) — smuggling became systemic.
• Forced Napoleon into ever more aggressive measures to plug the leaks — annexation of Holland (1810), of Hanseatic cities (1810-11), invasion of Portugal (1807), invasion of Russia (1812).
• Stimulated continental industry in shielded markets — French cotton industry (Mulhouse), Belgian iron, German sugar-beet (developed because Caribbean cane was blockaded). Long-term industrial side-effect.
• The strategic disaster — to enforce the system Napoleon was driven into the Peninsular War, the Russian Campaign, and ultimately his own destruction.

9. Napoleonic Wars — Phase 1 (1803-1807)

9.1 Background — End of Peace of Amiens

• Peace of Amiens (27 March 1802) — only break in 22 years of war; Britain returned colonial conquests except Trinidad and Ceylon.
• Broke down May 1803 — Britain refused to evacuate Malta; Napoleon continued expansion in Italy and Switzerland.
• Napoleon assembled the Army of England at Boulogne 1803-05 with 200,000 troops and invasion barges — needed naval superiority in the Channel for a few hours.

9.2 Third Coalition (1805)

• Britain, Austria, Russia, Sweden, Naples — formed April-August 1805.
• Napoleon turned the Grande Armée east in August 1805.
• Ulm Campaign (25 Sep - 20 Oct 1805) — outmanoeuvred and forced Austrian General Mack to surrender 60,000 troops without a major battle.
• Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805) — off Cape Trafalgar, southwest of Cádiz. Admiral Horatio Nelson, in HMS Victory, destroyed the combined Franco-Spanish fleet (33 ships of the line vs Britain's 27); 22 enemy ships captured or sunk, no British losses. Nelson killed by sniper. Britain's naval supremacy secured for over a century. Made invasion of Britain impossible and forced Napoleon into the Continental System.
• Battle of Austerlitz (2 December 1805) — "Battle of the Three Emperors" (Napoleon, Francis II of Austria, Alexander I of Russia). On the first anniversary of his coronation. Napoleon let Allies seize the Pratzen Heights, then attacked their weakened centre. Allied losses ~27,000, French ~9,000. Napoleon's tactical masterpiece.
• Treaty of Pressburg (26 December 1805) — Austria ceded Venetia, Istria, Dalmatia to Italy; Tyrol to Bavaria; recognised Bavaria and Württemberg as kingdoms.

9.3 End of the Holy Roman Empire (6 August 1806)

• Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine 12 July 1806 — 16 (later 39) German states under French protection.
• Francis II, faced with these defections, abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor 6 August 1806 — ending an institution that had existed since Charlemagne's coronation 800 AD (1,006 years).
• Continued as Francis I, Emperor of Austria (a title he had assumed 1804 in anticipation).

9.4 Fourth Coalition (1806-07)

• Prussia, Russia, Britain, Sweden, Saxony — Prussia mobilised August 1806.
• Twin Battles of Jena-Auerstedt (14 October 1806) — Napoleon at Jena, Davout at Auerstedt; Prussian army of Frederick the Great's reputation crushed in a single day; King Frederick William III fled. Napoleon entered Berlin 27 Oct 1806.
• Battle of Eylau (7-8 February 1807) — bloody draw against Russians in snow, eastern Prussia. ~40,000 casualties.
• Battle of Friedland (14 June 1807) — decisive French victory over Russia.
• Treaties of Tilsit (7 & 9 July 1807) — Napoleon met Tsar Alexander I on a raft on the Niemen river. Russia joined the Continental System, recognised French satellites. Prussia lost half its territory: western lands became Kingdom of Westphalia (Jérôme Bonaparte); Polish lands became Duchy of Warsaw. Prussia reduced to a second-rate power.

10. Napoleonic Wars — Phase 2 (1808-1812): Peninsular War & Wagram

10.1 Peninsular War (1808-14)

• To enforce Continental System against Portugal (which traded with Britain), Napoleon sent French troops through Spain (Treaty of Fontainebleau 27 Oct 1807); Junot took Lisbon Nov 1807; royal family fled to Brazil.
• French troops then seized Spanish fortresses; Napoleon engineered a family crisis (Bayonne, 5 May 1808) — forced both Charles IV and Crown Prince Ferdinand to abdicate; placed brother Joseph Bonaparte on Spanish throne.
• Dos de Mayo Uprising (2 May 1808) — Madrid revolt against French; brutally suppressed by Murat; immortalised by Goya's paintings The Second of May and The Third of May 1808.
• Spanish-wide guerrilla war erupted — first time the word "guerrilla" ("little war") entered general use.
• Battle of Bailén (16-19 July 1808) — Spanish forces under Castaños forced 18,000 French troops to surrender; first major defeat of a Napoleonic army in the field. Shattered the myth of French invincibility.
• British expeditionary force under Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington) landed in Portugal August 1808; defeated French at Vimeiro (21 Aug 1808).
• Napoleon himself led 200,000 troops into Spain November 1808, retook Madrid, but withdrew January 1809 when Austria mobilised; left subordinates to fight a brutal guerrilla war.
• Wellington's slow grinding campaign 1809-13: Talavera (1809), lines of Torres Vedras (1810-11 — sealed Portugal), Salamanca (22 Jul 1812), Vitoria (21 Jun 1813), crossed Pyrenees Oct 1813.
• Cost France ~300,000 casualties over six years — Napoleon called it "the Spanish ulcer".

10.2 Fifth Coalition (1809)

• Austria, encouraged by French difficulties in Spain, mobilised and invaded Bavaria April 1809.
• Battle of Aspern-Essling (21-22 May 1809) — first major battlefield defeat for Napoleon in person, by Archduke Charles of Austria; Marshal Lannes mortally wounded.
• Battle of Wagram (5-6 July 1809) — Napoleon's costly victory; over 70,000 combined casualties; ended the Fifth Coalition.
• Treaty of Schönbrunn (14 October 1809) — Austria ceded territory; Andreas Hofer's Tyrolean revolt crushed (Hofer shot Feb 1810).

10.3 Marriage to Marie Louise (1810)

• Napoleon divorced childless Joséphine December 1809.
• Married Marie Louise of Austria (daughter of Francis I, grand-niece of Marie Antoinette) 1-2 April 1810 by proxy and in person — to ally with the Habsburgs and produce an heir.
• Son Napoleon François Charles Joseph ("Napoleon II", "King of Rome", "L'Aiglon") born 20 March 1811.

10.4 Expansion of the Empire (1810-11)

• Annexed Holland (after deposing brother Louis) 9 July 1810.
• Annexed Hanseatic cities (Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck) and parts of Hanover 13 December 1810.
• Annexed Papal States 17 May 1809; Pope Pius VII imprisoned at Savona (1809-12) then Fontainebleau (1812-14); Napoleon excommunicated June 1809.
• The French Empire reached its greatest extent — 130 départements, 44 million subjects.

11. Russian Campaign 1812 — The Disaster

11.1 Causes of War

• Tsar Alexander I had stopped enforcing the Continental System against Britain — Russian aristocrats needed British exports (timber, grain).
• Russia refused to accept Napoleon's annexation of the Duchy of Oldenburg (cousin of Tsar's brother-in-law).
• Russian tariff of December 1810 hit French luxury exports.
• Napoleon's recreation of the Duchy of Warsaw raised the spectre of a Polish revival on Russia's border.
• Both sides spent 1811 preparing for war.

11.2 The Invasion

• Grande Armée crossed the Niemen 24 June 1812 with about 615,000 men — largest army Europe had ever seen; only ~200,000 were French; rest were Germans, Poles, Italians, Dutch, Swiss, Croats, Spaniards.
• Russian armies under Barclay de Tolly and Bagration retreated steadily — denied Napoleon the decisive battle he needed before supply lines stretched too far.
• Scorched-earth tactics — burning villages, destroying crops; Russian summer heat, dysentery, and starvation began destroying the army before any battle was fought.
• Battle of Smolensk (16-17 August 1812) — French took the burning city but Russians escaped.
• Tsar replaced Barclay with the popular old Mikhail Kutuzov.
• Battle of Borodino (7 September 1812) — 70 miles west of Moscow; bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars; ~70,000-80,000 combined casualties. Tactically a French victory, strategically indecisive — Russian army withdrew but intact.
• Napoleon entered Moscow on 14 September 1812; that night Governor Rostopchin had the city deliberately set ablaze — 75% of Moscow destroyed in five days. No food, no shelter, no negotiated peace.
• Napoleon waited five weeks for a peace offer that never came; then ordered retreat 19 October 1812.

11.3 The Retreat

• Forced back along the devastated route they had advanced on (Battle of Maloyaroslavets 24 Oct blocked the alternative route).
• Winter set in early — temperatures fell below -30°C by mid-November.
• Continuous Cossack attacks; horses died in tens of thousands; cavalry disintegrated.
• Crossing of the Berezina (26-29 November 1812) — engineers built two bridges under fire; about 25,000 troops escaped, ~10,000 stragglers died at the crossing or were captured.
• Napoleon abandoned the army at Smorgon 5 Dec 1812, raced to Paris (arrived 18 Dec 1812) to head off news of disaster and the failed Malet conspiracy (23 Oct 1812).
• Final reckoning: of the 615,000 who crossed the Niemen, perhaps 110,000 survived; ~400,000 died, ~100,000 captured. The Grande Armée was destroyed.

12. War of Liberation 1813 & First Abdication 1814

12.1 Sixth Coalition (1813)

• Convention of Tauroggen (30 December 1812) — Prussian General Yorck switched sides without orders; pulled Prussia out of French alliance.
• Treaty of Kalisch (28 February 1813) — Russia and Prussia allied.
• Frederick William III's "An Mein Volk" appeal 17 March 1813 — proclamation calling Germans to a "war of liberation" (Befreiungskrieg) against Napoleon — beginning of modern German nationalism as a popular force.
• Napoleon raised 200,000 raw conscripts and counter-attacked in Saxony — victories at Lützen (2 May 1813) and Bautzen (20-21 May 1813), but no decisive blow.
• Armistice of Pläswitz (4 June - 16 August 1813) — disastrous for Napoleon; gave Allies time to bring Austria and Sweden into the coalition.
• Austria declared war 12 August 1813; Sweden under Bernadotte (former French marshal, now Crown Prince) had joined June 1813.

12.2 Battle of the Nations — Leipzig (16-19 October 1813)

• Largest battle in European history before WWI — over 600,000 troops engaged; 500,000 Allies under Schwarzenberg vs Napoleon's 200,000.
• Three-day battle ended in catastrophic French defeat — ~70,000 French casualties; Saxon and Württemberg contingents defected mid-battle.
• Napoleon's retreat to Rhine; the Confederation of the Rhine collapsed; Holland rose 15 Nov 1813.

12.3 1814 — Defence of France

• Allies crossed the Rhine New Year's night 1813-14; advanced into France.
• Napoleon's Six Days Campaign (10-15 February 1814) — final tactical masterpiece; defeated Blücher four times in six days; but the strategic situation was hopeless.
• Treaty of Chaumont (1 March 1814) — Allies bound themselves to fight on until Napoleon was overthrown; each pledged 150,000 troops and £5 million subsidy from Britain.
• Allies entered Paris 31 March 1814 after Marmont surrendered the city.
• French Senate voted Napoleon's deposition 2 April 1814.
• First Abdication at Fontainebleau — 6 April 1814 (in favour of his son, then unconditional 11 April).
• Attempted suicide by poison night of 12-13 April — the dose, prepared 1812, had lost potency.

12.4 Treaty of Fontainebleau (11 April 1814) & Elba

• Napoleon kept the title of "Emperor", was given the small Mediterranean island of Elba as a sovereign principality (population ~12,000) — an extraordinarily lenient settlement, mainly insisted on by Tsar Alexander.
• 2 million franc annual pension from France; Marie Louise given Duchies of Parma, Piacenza, Guastalla.
• Arrived Elba 4 May 1814; spent ten months reorganising the island.
• Marie Louise refused to join him; took up with Count Neipperg (Austrian) — never saw Napoleon again.
• First Restoration: Louis XVIII (brother of Louis XVI) returned; granted the Charter of 1814 (4 June) — limited constitutional monarchy with bicameral legislature and very narrow franchise. Returning émigrés alienated Bonapartist veterans and bourgeoisie.
• First Treaty of Paris (30 May 1814) — surprisingly generous: France kept 1792 frontiers, no indemnity, kept some colonies.

13. The Hundred Days & Waterloo (March-June 1815)

13.1 The Flight of the Eagle

• Napoleon, informed of Bourbon unpopularity and the Congress of Vienna's quarrels, escaped Elba 26 February 1815 with 1,000 men of his guard.
• Landed at Golfe-Juan (near Antibes) 1 March 1815.
• Marched north via Grenoble — the troops sent to arrest him at Laffrey (7 March 1815) defected when Napoleon opened his coat saying "if there is among you a soldier who wishes to kill his Emperor, here I am".
• Marshal Ney, who had promised Louis XVIII to "bring Napoleon back in an iron cage", defected with his army at Auxerre 14 March 1815.
• Louis XVIII fled Paris night of 19 March; Napoleon entered the Tuileries 20 March 1815.

13.2 The Acte Additionnel & Liberal Empire

• Napoleon recognised that pure autocracy was impossible — issued the Acte Additionnel aux Constitutions de l'Empire (22 April 1815) drafted by Benjamin Constant — bicameral legislature, freedom of press, religious toleration, jury trials. Plebiscite gave 1.55 million yes; 5,740 no; abstentions enormous.

13.3 Seventh Coalition

• Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon "outside the law" on 13 March 1815 — an outlaw to be hunted, not a sovereign making war.
• Britain, Prussia, Austria, Russia each pledged 150,000 men by Treaty of Vienna 25 March 1815.
• Napoleon raised about 280,000 troops; decided to strike first against the nearest forces — Wellington's Anglo-Dutch-German army in Belgium and Blücher's Prussians.

13.4 The Waterloo Campaign

• Battle of Ligny (16 June 1815) — Napoleon defeated Blücher's Prussians but failed to destroy them; Blücher's army retreated north (not east as Napoleon assumed).
• Battle of Quatre Bras (16 June 1815) — Marshal Ney's inconclusive engagement with Wellington's vanguard.
• Heavy rain night of 17-18 June 1815 — Napoleon delayed attack on morning of 18 June to let ground dry, allowing time for Prussians to march to Wellington's aid.
• Battle of Waterloo — Sunday 18 June 1815 — south of Brussels:
  • Wellington (68,000) held the ridge of Mont-Saint-Jean; key positions Hougoumont, La Haye Sainte, Papelotte.
  • Napoleon (72,000) attacked from south.
  • Hougoumont diversionary attack 11:30 am; D'Erlon's main attack 1:30 pm repulsed; Ney's massive cavalry charges 4-6 pm against British squares failed; La Haye Sainte fell ~6 pm.
  • Prussians under Blücher arrived on French right flank from Wavre around 4:30 pm; pinned down Lobau's corps at Plancenoit.
  • Napoleon's final throw — the Imperial Guard — repulsed for the first time in its history around 8 pm. "La Garde recule!" sparked rout.
  • French casualties ~25,000 killed/wounded, 7,000 captured; Allied ~22,000.
• Napoleon returned to Paris 21 June 1815; Second Abdication 22 June 1815 in favour of his son; Allies refused to recognise "Napoleon II".

14. Saint Helena & Death (1815-21)

• Napoleon surrendered to Captain Maitland of HMS Bellerophon at Rochefort, 15 July 1815, hoping for asylum in England.
• The British government, under Lord Liverpool, decided he was too dangerous to allow on European soil — chose Saint Helena, a volcanic island in the South Atlantic 1,870 km from the African coast.
• Arrived 17 October 1815; housed first at the Briars, then at Longwood House from 10 December 1815.
• Permanent garrison of 2,800 troops, naval squadron; rigorously controlled by Governor Sir Hudson Lowe (arrived April 1816) — petty and humiliating in his restrictions.
• Napoleon dictated his memoirs to Comte de Las Cases (until Las Cases' removal 1816) — published 1823 as Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène. Sold 60,000 copies in the first year; became the foundation of the "Napoleonic Legend" — Napoleon as champion of revolution, liberty, nationality.
• Died 5 May 1821, aged 51. Autopsy ascribed cause to stomach cancer (which his father had also died of). Some modern arsenic-poisoning theories from hair samples are inconclusive — arsenic was widely used in 19th-century wallpaper and embalming.
• Buried on Saint Helena; remains repatriated to France 1840 (Retour des Cendres); now in the Dôme des Invalides in Paris in a giant sarcophagus of red quartzite.

15. Congress of Vienna — Personalities & Principles (Sep 1814 - Jun 1815)

15.1 The Four Statesmen (and Talleyrand)

15.2 The Underlying Principles

• Legitimacy (Talleyrand's coinage) — restoration of "legitimate" pre-1789 dynasties: Bourbons in France/Spain/Naples; Pope to Rome; House of Orange to the Netherlands; House of Savoy to Piedmont; etc.
• Balance of Power — prevent any single state (especially France) from threatening Europe again; redraw frontiers with that in mind.
• Compensation — losers among victors compensated with territory elsewhere (Russia gains Poland, Austria gains North Italy in compensation for losing Belgium).
• Containment of France — strong buffer states on French borders: Netherlands (united with Belgium), Prussia in Rhineland, Switzerland (perpetually neutral), enlarged Piedmont-Sardinia, Kingdom of Holland.
• Restoration but not Reaction — Napoleonic administrative gains (Code, prefects, equality before law) were left intact in much of Italy and Germany; pure pre-1789 absolutism was not attempted.

15.3 Crisis over Poland & Saxony

• Tsar Alexander demanded the entire Duchy of Warsaw as a Russian-controlled Kingdom of Poland; Prussia, in compensation, demanded all of Saxony.
• Britain, Austria, France (Talleyrand) signed a secret treaty of 3 January 1815 threatening war against Russia and Prussia if they pressed their demands. This was the moment Talleyrand brought France inside the Council of Four — France was now equal partner.
• Crisis resolved March 1815: Russia got most of Poland (smaller "Congress Poland"); Prussia got northern Saxony + Rhineland + Westphalia; Austria kept Galicia.
• Napoleon's return from Elba (March 1815) accelerated agreement.
• Final Act of the Congress of Vienna signed 9 June 1815 — nine days before Waterloo.

16. Vienna Settlement — Territorial Arrangements

17. Concert of Europe & Holy Alliance

17.1 The Quadruple Alliance (20 November 1815)

• Signed at Paris between Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia — same day as Second Treaty of Paris.
• Pledged to maintain the Vienna Settlement for 20 years; exclude any Bonaparte from the French throne forever; meet periodically in congresses to address problems.
• Became the Quintuple Alliance when France was admitted at Aix-la-Chapelle 1818.

17.2 The Holy Alliance (26 September 1815)

• Tsar Alexander I's personal initiative — signed at Paris by Russia, Austria, Prussia; later joined by almost all European monarchs except Britain (Castlereagh called it "a piece of sublime mysticism and nonsense"), the Pope (rejected Protestant signatories), and the Ottoman Sultan.
• Sovereigns pledged to govern as Christian brothers, treat subjects as children, base international relations on the Gospel.
• In practice — became Metternich's vehicle for justifying intervention against revolutions wherever they erupted.

17.3 The Congress System (1818-22)

18. The Metternich System (1815-1848)

18.1 The Doctrine

• Defence of the existing order against three threats: liberalism, nationalism, revolution.
• Tools: censorship, secret police, university surveillance, intervention abroad.
• "When France sneezes, Europe catches cold" — attributed to Metternich; awareness that France was always potentially revolutionary.
• "Italy is a geographical expression" — Metternich; rejected Italian nationalism as fiction.

18.2 The Carlsbad Decrees (20 September 1819)

• Triggered by the murder of conservative playwright August von Kotzebue by student Karl Sand (23 March 1819).
• Imposed on all 39 German Confederation states:
  • Press censorship of newspapers and pamphlets.
  • Surveillance of universities; dismissal of liberal professors; ban on student fraternities (Burschenschaften).
  • Federal commission at Mainz to investigate revolutionary activity.
• Effectively silenced German liberalism for 30 years.

18.3 Cracks in the System

• 1820-21 — Liberal revolutions in Spain, Portugal, Naples, Piedmont; suppressed by Austrian/French intervention.
• Greek War of Independence (1821-32) — Britain, France, Russia broke with Metternich's principles; backed Greek independence against the Ottoman Sultan (an established sovereign). Battle of Navarino 1827; Treaty of Adrianople 1829; Greek independence recognised 1832.
• Latin American Independence (1810-25) — Spain's American colonies broke away; Britain (Canning) and the United States (Monroe Doctrine, 2 Dec 1823) protected them from European reconquest.
• Belgian Revolution (Aug 1830) — Belgium broke from Netherlands; recognised as independent neutral state by Treaty of London 1839.
• July Revolution in France (27-29 July 1830) — overthrew Bourbon Charles X; brought in the "bourgeois" Orléanist monarchy of Louis-Philippe; broke the legitimist principle of 1815.
• Polish Uprising (Nov 1830 - Oct 1831) — crushed by Russia; Congress Poland's autonomy abolished.
• Revolutions of 1848 — the "Springtime of Peoples" toppled Metternich himself (he fled Vienna 13 March 1848). The Vienna order was structurally broken although the 1848 revolutions themselves failed and were largely reversed.

19. Lasting Achievements & Legacy of Napoleon

19.1 Institutional Legacy in France

• Code Civil and the four companion codes — still in force.
• Prefectoral system — still the spine of French administration.
• Bank of France, Cour des Comptes (1807), Conseil d'État, Lycées, Imperial University, Legion of Honour, École Polytechnique — all survive.
• Metric system (created 1795 but Napoleon imposed it and spread it across Europe).
• Departmental division — 83 départements (1789), expanded to 130 under Empire, now 101 (including overseas) — still the basic administrative unit.

19.2 Legacy in Europe

• Codification — civil codes adopted across most of Europe outside Britain and Russia; modelled on Code Napoléon.
• End of feudalism — abolished in every territory the French armies entered (Italy, Germany west of Elbe, Spain, Poland) — could not be fully restored after 1815.
• End of Holy Roman Empire (1806) — opened the road to German unification.
• Consolidation of Germany — Confederation of the Rhine and Vienna's German Confederation reduced 350+ states to 39 — preliminary to 1871.
• Italian national consciousness stirred under French rule (Kingdom of Italy 1805-14).
• Religious toleration / Jewish emancipation — wherever French armies went, Jews were emancipated; partly reversed but a precedent set.
• Modern nationalism — paradoxically, Napoleonic occupation produced the first wave of modern nationalism in Germany (Fichte's Addresses to the German Nation 1808), Spain, Russia, Italy.

19.3 The Napoleonic Legend

• Created largely by Napoleon himself at Saint Helena through Mémorial de Sainte-Hélène (Las Cases, 1823).
• Cultivated by veterans, peasants, and writers (Stendhal, Balzac, Hugo) — "Napoleon as champion of revolution and equality, betrayed by feudal Europe".
• Politically exploited by his nephew Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte — elected President of the Second Republic 1848; coup d'état 2 December 1851; Napoleon III, Second Empire 1852-1870.
• "Retour des Cendres" — remains brought back to Paris 1840 by King Louis-Philippe to defuse Bonapartist sentiment; ironically rekindled it.

19.4 Critiques

• Cost: between 3 and 6 million dead in Napoleonic Wars (most modern estimates 5 million).
• Re-established hereditary nobility and slavery in French colonies (1802 — Toussaint Louverture imprisoned, Haiti broke away).
• Suppressed political liberty within France — Tribunate purged 1802, abolished 1807; censorship; secret police under Fouché; arbitrary detention.
• Made French expansion irrevocably tied to a single man — when he fell, French dominance ended.

20. Global Impact & Indian Connections

20.1 Wider Global Effects

• Latin American Independence (1810-25) — Spain's American empire collapsed during the Peninsular War; Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín led wars of independence; new republics modelled on US and French constitutions.
• Louisiana Purchase (30 April 1803) — Napoleon sold Louisiana Territory (2.1 million km²) to the United States for $15 million (~3 cents/acre) — doubled US territory; financed his planned war with Britain.
• Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) — Napoleon's attempt to restore slavery (1802) backfired; Toussaint Louverture defeated and imprisoned, but General Leclerc's army was destroyed by yellow fever and Haitian resistance; Haiti declared independence 1 January 1804 under Dessalines — first black republic, first successful slave revolution in history.
• End of Holy Roman Empire (1806) — set in motion the unification of Germany (1871) and Italy (1870-71).
• British Industrial supremacy — wartime blockade and the Continental System destroyed continental rivals; Britain emerged as workshop of the world after 1815.
• Modern conscription and total war — levée en masse, mass armies, the nation in arms — became the European pattern up to WWI.

20.2 Connections to India

• Napoleon's Indian ambitions — Egyptian campaign (1798) explicitly aimed at threatening British India; Napoleon's correspondence with Tipu Sultan of Mysore (intercepted) was used by Wellesley to justify the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War — Tipu killed at Seringapatam 4 May 1799. Indirect Napoleonic effect on Indian history.
• Wellesley brothers — Arthur Wellesley (later Duke of Wellington), made his reputation in India: Seringapatam 1799, Battle of Assaye 1803 (described by Wellington himself as his hardest-fought battle); his elder brother Richard Wellesley as Governor-General 1798-1805 explicitly framed conquests as preventing French influence in India.
• The Code Napoléon and Indian codification — the codification project of 19th-century British India (Macaulay's Indian Penal Code 1860, Code of Criminal Procedure, Indian Contract Act 1872) was inspired by both Benthamite utilitarianism and the example of the Code Napoléon as the model of a unified, rational, comprehensive code.
• Sources of Indian Constitution — through France (Liberty, Equality, Fraternity in our Preamble) — direct inheritance of the Revolution-Napoleonic settlement.
• French Pondicherry/Chandernagore — French Indian possessions continued (Pondicherry, Karikal, Mahé, Yanam, Chandernagore) until 1954.
• Trafalgar's effect — destruction of French naval power (1805) ended any realistic French threat to British India; sealed British supremacy in the Indian Ocean.
• European balance of power after 1815 freed Britain to concentrate on imperial expansion — the "Pax Britannica" 1815-1914 was the global counterpart of the Vienna Settlement.

20.3 Final Assessment

Napoleon's career marks the great transition in modern history. He carried the Revolution's social gains (legal equality, careers open to talent, the secular state, codified law) across Europe by force of arms — and in doing so he provoked the nationalisms that would tear apart his empire and shape the 19th and 20th centuries. The Vienna Settlement attempted to freeze Europe in 1815, and partly succeeded for a generation; but it could not put back what Napoleon had unleashed. The "long 19th century" (1789-1914) is, in many ways, the story of working out what happened between 1789 and 1815.