NAPOLEONIC EUROPE (1799-1815)
Napoleon's
Vast Empire (1809-1811)
Between 1809 and 1811,
Napoleon's empire stood at its greatest extent. In 1809, Napoleon turned 40,
and became concerned at his lack of an heir. Hoping that a younger woman would
conceive more readily, he had his marriage to Josephine annulled and started
looking for a suitably aristocratic second wife. Alexander I turned Napoleon's
inquiries about his sister down, and Metternich stepped into the breach,
offering Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria as a wife. In 1811, the new
empress gave birth to a son, Napoleon II, known as the "King of
Rome".
By 1810 to 1811, Napoleon's
empire included nearly all of Europe except for the Balkans. It was comprised
of an enlarged France (which had swallowed Belgium and Holland, parts of
Germany, and the Italian coast all the way to Rome) and various puppet nations
actually ruled by Napoleon or by a Bonaparte subservient to Napoleon. In
addition to those lands he ruled over directly, Napoleon held alliances with
Austria, Russia, Denmark, Sweden, and a greatly reduced Prussia. Essentially
all of Europe was now "at war" with Britain, their resources and
industry and populations being used to serve the French Empire. All of these
states, from the Empire to the Napoleonic allies, participated in the
Continental System.
Napoleon made good use of
his large family, appointing his brothers and sisters as royalty throughout
Europe. When he ran out of family, he switched to more distant relatives and
the servants he believed most faithful. For instance, when Napoleon had to
transfer his brother Joseph from Naples to rule over Spain, he made one of his
leading generals, Murat, into the King of Naples. He also made his stepson,
Josephine's son, into the viceroy of the Kingdom of Italy.
Napoleon's takeovers all
followed a similar script. First, his army would take a region over. Then,
Napoleon would impose his powerful influence on a collaborationist government
made up of locals friendly to France as they drafted a new constitution.
Napoleon then might impose his direct ruler, or the rule of a family member, or
leave the collaborationist government in place so long as it remained loyal to
him. From this position of power, Napoleon would encourage numerous reforms,
spreading the ideals of the revolution throughout Europe.
Commentary
Josephine, who had given
birth to two children by her first husband, protested the annulment, suggesting
that the lack of an heir was Napoleon's fault. Of course, Josephine was 46 by
1810, and contrary to the public image of timeless love, both engaged in
numerous affairs. Marie Louise, Napoleon's new empress, was 18 when they
married, and quickly produced the desired heir. Napoleon's decision to call
this son the "King of Rome" greatly upset Pope Pius VII, though the
Pope stopped protesting after Napoleon had him brought to France to remain
under French custody. Oddly, Napoleon's marriage to Marie Louise, a Hapsburg,
made him the nephew-in-law of Louis XVI, the king executed during the French
Revolution.
With Napoleon now related
to the king the Revolution overthrew, it seemed that France was moving full
circle. This appearance was not merely symbolic: seeking loyal allies in
France, Napoleon started making people who served him well into nobles. Within
two decades of the French Revolution directed
against aristocracy, anew aristocracy was coming into existence.
The organization of
Napoleon's empire was by no means simple. Each of the dependent states existed
under various regimes that gave a poor illusion of self-government. This
Napoleonic hodgepodge included a Swiss Federation, the Italian Republic, and
the Confederation of the Rhine. Though Czar Alexander I was very vocal that
Napoleon should not recreate the old state of Poland, Napoleon did it anyway,
giving it a new name: The Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Alexander was not impressed by
Napoleon's creativity.
Though in France Napoleon
had begun to grant nobility, his dominance of the European continent continued
to spread the liberal ideal of the French Revolution throughout Europe.
Napoleon did not believe that every country was a special situation that
deserved unique treatment. Instead, he was a "universalist",
believing that the same universal truths and laws applied exactly the same,
everywhere. He therefore spread his system of laws, the Napoleonic Code, to all
of the territories he controlled, with only minor changes from place to place.
Although Napoleon brought conflict wherever he went, he also spread the idea of
societies in which everyone was equal before the law, and where legal
privileges for certain classes did not exist. Napoleon did what he could to end
peasantry, although in Eastern Europe (for instance in Poland) peasantry seemed
to continue even when it was legally outlawed, because the same people
continued to own the land, and the same people continued to work it. It
general, though, the Napoleonic Code was a dramatically modernizing force,
bringing about social reform from its effects on modernizing of the Prussian
bureaucracy into a meritocracy to its creation of the idea of the totally
secular state. Napoleon even ended the Inquisition in Spain, perhaps a further
reason for the proud, tradition-bound Spaniards to fight back ferociously in
the Peninsular War.
In addition to his social
and political reforms, Napoleon also spread the more rational metric system
used in France after the Enlightenment, a major reason why it is used so widely
there today. Britain, where Napoleon did not impose his system of laws and
regulations, was slower in adopting the metric system.
Bit by bit, Napoleon's
armies carried parts of the French Revolution throughout Europe, provoking a
kind of "Revolution without revolution" on the continent. All of this
was done without concentration camps, and Fouche's secret police was almost
entirely for spying, almost never for killing. As attempts to take over Europe
go, Napoleon's can be seen as a fairly positive event in many ways. Napoleon
and many French saw the Napoleonic Empire as a recreation of the once great and
heavily romanticized Roman Empire. Neoclassical French artists like
Jacques-Louis David did their best to associate France with glories of Imperial
Rome. Napoleon encouraged a monument- building campaign, constructing Triumphal
Arches in the style of the Romans. From 1807-1811, other than the continued
threat posed by Britain, Napoleon's dream of a unified Europe appeared a
distinct possibility.
REFERENCE
Bergeron, Louis, et al. France Under Napoleon. Princeton University Press: 1981.
Chapman, Tim. The
Congress of Vienna : Origins, Processes and Results. Routledge: 1998.
Durant, William James, et al. The Age of Napoleon: A History of
European Civilization from 1789 to 1815. Simon
& Schuster: 1975
James, Cyril Lionel Robert. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint
L'Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. 2nd ed. Vintage Books: 1989.
Rothenberg, Gunther E. Art of Warfare in the Age of
Napoleon. Indiana University
Press: 1981.
Tone, John Lawrence. The Fatal Knot: The Guerilla War in
Navarre and the Defeat of Napoleon in Spain. University of North Carolina Press:
1994.
){kind=link}
Social Plugin