A Journal for Western Man-- Issue IV
Part V
G. Stolyarov II
The naval Battle of Trafalgar in the summer of 1805 disrupted Napoleon's plan for the invasion of Britain. Although the Franco-Spanish fleet incurred heavy casualties and Admiral Villeneuve committed suicide as a result of the battle, the most able British commander, Admiral Horatio Nelson, also perished in the struggle. Many British sailors died. As a result of the encounter, both fleets became demoralized and incapable of resuming their operations. Britain's threat had been delayed at least momentarily. To exploit the moment, Napoleon imposed the Continental Blockade system on all the European states under his control. This new regulation aimed to disrupt the British economy by prohibiting nations from trading with the island power. He also deployed his Grande Armée and marched into Austria, catching the enemy General Mack by surprise through a complex scheme of maneuvers and acts of espionage. The Russians, functioning by the Julian Calendar while the remainder of Europe followed the Gregorian, could not arrive on time to assist Mack and thus did nothing to preclude the Battle of Ulm, Napoleon's first major victory in the Austrian Campaign. Mack's surrender cleared the path to Vienna, which Napoleon's forces occupied in November. However, the Russian and Austrian forces, led by the rulers of the two nations, Francis II and Alexander I, along with the Fieldmarshal Kutuzov, a student of Suvorov, had managed to meet and now outnumbered Napoleon three to one. Kutuzov objected to an armed encounter, planning to retreat and stretch out the French supply lines until they were unmanageable. Napoleon recognized that plan and utilized his ingenuity to counter it. He created an image of weakness for his army, meeting with a Russian representative and pleading for peace when, in reality, he was gaining much-needed organizational time. He ordered Soult to withdraw from his fortified position at the Austerlitz castle so as to stage a retreat and lure the Coalition forces into a trap. For many days Napoleon had studied the land around the Pratzen heights and could wage an optimal battle there. The Allied generals, having dived for the bait and assumed Napoleon's weakness, characterized by his retreat, did not heed Kutuzov's advice and convinced their sovereigns to enter into a battle. The result was the greatest tactical masterpiece of all time... executed by Napoleon! On December 2, 1805, on the anniversary of his coronation, the Battle of Austerlitz ended with a devastating blow to the Coalition. After recapturing the Pratzen heights from the Russian grenadiers, Napoleon stationed his artillery there and fired at the thin ice on the river crossings. As a result, numerous enemy troops perished during the retreat. Kutuzov himself lost an eye as a sharpshooter's bullet entered into his brain and began to wear away at it until his death eight years later (the results were not immediate, but the eventual gangrene did prevent the aging warrior from participating in the crucial Spring 1813 campaign during which Napoleon erased all the Russian gains of 1812). "After Austerlitz, Napoleon reached the height of his career. The Treaty of Pressburg (December 27, 1805) stripped Austria of additional lands and further humiliated the mighty Hapsburg state." (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 309).
Austria having withdrawn from the war, the Prussian king, Frederick-Wilhelm II, began to feel increasingly threatened by encroaching French ideals that had the potential of weakening the stranglehold of the Ancien Regime on the people of Prussia. He offered Napoleon an ultimatum, threatening to unleash the best-trained military in the world upon France if the latter did not withdraw its forces beyond the Rhine. Instead of responding, Napoleon, knowing that to surrender all he had worked to earn was not an option, marched the Grande Armee into Prussia and overran several enemy garrisons prior to coming into contact with the main enemy force. "The overconfident Prussian army sang as it marched to total destruction at the battles of Jena and Auerstadt (October 14, 1806), and Napoleon entered Berlin in triumph." (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 309). Napoleon's maneuverability and the devotion of his troops outweighed the rigidity and inflexibility of the Prussian military discipline. Subsequently, all the major Prussian armies and fortress garrisons surrendered without firing a shot. During one occasion, Napoleon had instructed Murat on the matter of the newest batch of prisoners. "Take away their guns!" he spoke. "They have twice our number!"
Yet the campaign did not end once Prussia signed armistice and consented to an alliance with France. Napoleon realized that Poland, its people long oppressed, censored, and exploited by the Russian nobility, yearned for an independent existence and a national identity in addition to the reformist changes that had recently occurred in France. While the Russian military under Bennigsen amassed at the border between Poland and Prussia, Napoleon led his forces on to Konigsberg, a wealthy trading port that would serve as his base of operations and a supply point. During the winter of 1806-1807 numerous skirmishes had taken place, the indecisive Bennigsen withdrawing his forces every time, even when there was a potential for a Russian advantage. On February 8, 1807, the two sides encountered each other at Eylau. The assaults by Russian grenadiers were commendable, and Napoleon came within a hair of losing his own life when enemy cannon bombarded the cemetery at which he was stationed. However, the French held their positions and, at the end of the day, the Russians withdrew once more, opening the path to Konigsberg. After resting and replenishing his forces, Napoleon was prepared to begin a full-scale liberation of Poland. At Friedland on June 14, 1807, Bennigsen's indecisiveness proved fatal to the Russian army. While he dallied, Napoleon "drove the Russians from the field." (Encyclopedia of World Biography, 309). Alexander I soon met with Napoleon in Tilsit (June 25, 1807), and the two leaders signed a treaty that promised mutual cooperation and a division of influence in Europe. Russia entered the Continental Blockade system, thus dealing a crippling blow to the British Empire. In the meantime, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw was forged and an independent Polish government established. The Polish were grateful to Napoleon for having accomplished what years of civil upheaval could not and agreed to supply him with troops and material goods. An entire corps was therefore generated under the leadership of Marshal Joseph Poniatowski, one of the new progressive Polish elite whose devotion to Napoleon equaled that of the French commanders.
Beginning in 1807, radical adherents of the Ancien Regime in Spain began to aggressively plot a return to the old Hapsburg monarchy. Their guerilla tactics enabled small groups of partisans to ambush and brutally torture groups of French soldiers. Joseph was forced to flee Madrid and appeal to his brother for military assistance. Thus the French armies entered Spain and dealt numerous crushing blows to the subversives. Madrid was soon regained after Napoleon's prized artillery bombarded the city from above. Joseph was reinstated as King and the rebels driven into Portugal. Unfortunately, the fanatical juntas of renegade Spanish nobles began to receive British support as an army led by Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, landed in Portugal and thus created a stalemate that stagnated the campaign for the next four years. In the meantime, the pro-feudal elements in Austria stirred up the masses to declare war on Napoleonic France. The Emperor of the French was forced to shift his attention to the Eastern Front in order to devastate the armies of the Archduke Karl at Wagram in 1809. As a result of this, Emperor Francis II dissolved the Holy Roman Empire and entered into an alliance with Napoleon that guaranteed Austrian assistance in France's future conflicts.
It was this alliance that Napoleon hoped to secure when he married Marie-Louise, the daughter of Francis II, for political purposes. Despite their strong attachment to one another, Napoleon and Josephine agreed to a divorce in order to expand the formidability of Napoleon’s domain. Napoleon also required an heir to his throne in order to secure the regime that he had created in the French Empire. In the fall of 1810, Marie-Louise gave birth to Napoleon II, who was dubbed "King of Rome" by his adoring father. However, Napoleon II, despite his subsequent wealth and connections to two ruling families, would never equal his namesake's glory due to his early death by tuberculosis in 1831.
In numerous ways the year 1811 was the apogee of Napoleon's power. The Continental System was still secure, and the undersupplied British forces in Portugal were suffering defeat after defeat by Napoleon's more maneuverable veterans. The meritocracy prospered, and numerous individuals born into lower-class families had taken advantage of the opportunity to ascend up the social hierarchy. The Emperor ordered massive fireworks displays over the Seine river to be arranged for the anniversaries of the 1799 coup (November 19) and the 1804 coronation (December 2). The Grande Armee numbered over 600000 troops, all either French volunteers or allied soldiers. "[Napoleon] brought much longed for order and stability to France and forged a sense of unity. He attempted to unite under his wing both the revolutionaries and the émigrés-- nobles, clergy, and others who chose or were forced to live in exile under the Revolution . ('I became the arch of the alliance between the old and the new, the natural mediator between the old and the new orders... I belonged to them both.' Napoleon. 1816.)" (Holmberg, 3).