The Buonaparte Famiglia

Even among monarchists, as well as polite society as a whole, there are two figures for whom I have more positive things to say than is generally considered acceptable; Benito Mussolini and Napoleon Bonaparte. Today, obviously, the topic of discussion is Napoleon. Given that he was the great bogey man of post-revolutionary Europe, I must make some disclaimers at the outset before any readers have to reach for the smelling salts. I fully agree that Napoleon was a usurper, if not technically so in the first instance of his seizure of power, certainly so after his escape from the island of Elba. I fully agree that he upset the peace of Europe and caused many and far-reaching problems for the “Old Order” that existed in the western world. I would say it is at least debatable whether he or the French Revolution itself was responsible for destroying the last vestiges of Christendom but he certainly swept up the pieces and tried to put it all back together according to his own designs and taking little to no consideration for legitimacy and hereditary, vested rights. I hope we are all clear on all of that.

All of those facts not being in dispute, I think it can also be regarded as beyond dispute that he was an extremely talented man. Certainly, in terms of his role as a military commander, he was a genius on such a level as has rarely been seen in the history of the world. One could argue over his talents as a statesman but he was certainly not inept in that regard. He did, I maintain, also do some good things, if not for Europe, at least for France. It was Napoleon who ended the horror that was the French Revolution, he did restore law, order and a functioning society to the country and it was Napoleon who finally restored Church-state relations in France with his concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII. It did not put everything back to the way it had been before the Revolution, but it did bring normalcy to Church-state relations, did away with the worst excesses of the revolutionaries and restored the Church to an official, recognized status in France. These were, to my mind, all very good things.

Napoleon, the former revolutionary, also became, with power, increasingly conservative and the new order he envisioned for Europe was not that of the First French Republic. Whereas the revolutionary armies had marched into neighboring lands erecting republics and planting those absurd “liberty” trees, Napoleon turned these into client-monarchies with monarchs chosen from among his top generals or, more often, the ranks of his own family. The sort of European system Napoleon endeavored to create, while not ideal, is not, at least to my mind, devoid of some promise. The ideal, for most traditional monarchists, would probably be the Europe of Christendom. Unfortunately, that high-minded ideal had never really been capable of producing the unity and concerted action that it might have done. This only seemed to come close to fruition during the Crusades and, even then, was certainly not devoid of division and trouble. The European order that Napoleon planned can be seen in how he tried to make the unity of Europe a largely family affair.

Napoleon was the second son of Carlo Maria di Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino of Corsica. The family had its roots in the nobility of Tuscany and carried on the traditional importance attached to the family common in that part of the world. Napoleon’s siblings were; Giuseppe, Luciano, Maria Anna Elisa (Elisa), Luigi, Maria Paula (Pauline), Maria Annunziata Carolina (Caroline) and Girolamo. Those were the names they were born with, like Napoleon, they would adopt the French versions of their names and later other versions based on what countries they were ‘farmed out’ to. The idea of Napoleon seemed to be to have a core of support in and around the French Empire based on blood ties with other allied countries brought into line by either being given a ruler of Napoleon’s choice or to be bound to the Bonaparte clan by marriage with those untouched being too few or too weak to oppose the rest.

Joseph Bonaparte

Giuseppe Buonaparte (later Joseph Bonaparte) was first made King of Naples and Sicily (though he did not actually control Sicily), which country he liked and where he was fairly popular. After only about two years, and much to his regret, Napoleon relieved him of the Neapolitan crown and transferred him to Spain where he ruled as King Jose I, though he was never accepted by the Spanish as a whole and never managed to be master of the entire country. To take his place in Naples, Napoleon made Marshal Joachim Murat the king instead. Aside from being a Marshal of France and one of Napoleon’s top subordinates, Murat was also married to Napoleon’s sister Caroline Bonaparte. Aside from Naples and the French Empire, the rest of the Italian peninsula consisted of the Kingdom of Italy which crown Napoleon held himself and second only in precedence to that of Imperial France. However, to act on his behalf in the Kingdom of Italy, operating out of Milan, Napoleon appointed his step-son Eugene de Beauharnais viceroy. Luciano or, later, Lucien Bonaparte, was the most difficult brother by virtue of being the most revolutionary of the bunch. Although given important government posts, he opposed his brother making himself Emperor of the French and refused any title or monarchical status.

Elisa Bonaparte

Napoleon’s sister Elisa Bonaparte was, after some other duties and political maneuverings, made Grand Duchess of Tuscany. The idea was to have at least France, Italy and Spain all under Bonaparte monarchs with others in countries close at hand. Brother Luigi Buonaparte (later Louis Bonaparte) was chosen in 1806 to be the monarch of the conquered Netherlands as King Lodewijk I of Holland. This replaced the Batavian Republic which the French revolutionaries had originally concocted and, to the surprise of some, Louis became a fairly popular monarch. In fact, Louis took his duties as King of Holland so seriously that he ultimately became more popular with the Dutch than with his own brother. When Dutch and French interests conflicted, Louis took the side of the Dutch whereas Napoleon expected him to bow to France. This, as one can imagine, was a state of affairs that could not endure and in 1810 Napoleon removed his brother from the throne and simply annexed Holland to the French Empire. Louis would ultimately spend most of the rest of his life in exile in the Austrian Empire but, in a way, he would have the last laugh over his ambitious brother as it was his family line which would carry on the name of Napoleon into the future with his third son ultimately becoming Emperor Napoleon III of the Second French Empire.

Maria Paola Buonaparte, better known as Pauline, had a very colorful life to say the least of it. In 1797, in Milan which had just been occupied by his French troops, Napoleon married Pauline to General Charles Leclerc who was later put in command of the expedition to restore French rule over Saint-Dominque (Haiti) which had been in rebellion since 1791. Despite frequent bouts with yellow fever, Pauline engaged in numerous affairs but refused all efforts by her husband to send her home. She much preferred being the mistress of Saint-Dominque than being a subordinate in Paris, famously saying that, “Here, I reign like Josephine”. In 1802 her husband died of fever and Pauline had to return to Europe and, with the papal envoy playing match-maker, was married to Prince Camillo Borghese of Sulmona. Napoleon later made her sovereign Princess and Duchess of Guastalla but she sold it for six million francs to the Duchy of Parma. After Napoleon’s downfall, she lived in a villa in Rome as the guest of Pope Pius VII.

Jerome Bonaparte

Caroline Bonaparte, as mentioned previously, was Queen of Naples after the appointment of her husband, Marshal Joachim Murat, and frequently held power there herself as regent during his absences. The youngest boy of the family, Girolamo Buonaparte, better known as Jerome, was also somewhat problematic. After service in the navy, Jerome ran off to the United States and married an American girl in 1803, much to the outrage of his brother. Napoleon annulled the marriage when the Pope would not and eventually had the couple divorced. From 1807 to 1813 Jerome served as monarch of the Kingdom of Westphalia, a new German state Napoleon had put together which essentially served as a buffer between the French Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia (or what was left of it anyway). In an effort to remake the country, revolutionary policies were implemented. Serfdom was abolished and a market economy was established, the guilds were out and the Jews were in. The country was soon depleted and officially bankrupt by 1812, hardly a ringing success by any measure.

On the continent, all of this meant that, for a longer period than most realize, Napoleon had a family network that brought about a sort of European unity. Brother Joseph was in Spain, brother Louis in Holland, step-son Eugene in northern Italy, sister Caroline and Marshal Murat in Naples, brother Jerome in Westphalia and Napoleon himself entered into a marriage alliance with the Austrian Empire by marrying Archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of Kaiser Franz II. Prussia was reduced and surrounded by Westphalia to the west, the French-allied kingdom of Bavaria to the south, the French-established Duchy of Warsaw to the east, ruled by Napoleon’s ally King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony, while to the north was the French-allied Kingdom of Denmark and Sweden where a Marshal of France was the new king. From 1807 to 1810 Czar Alexander I of Russia was an ally so that, for a time, the whole of Europe was more firmly united than it has probably ever been with the only major power holding aloof being Great Britain. Every continental power was either ruled by Napoleon himself, by one of his family, one of his allies or was so isolated as to be unable to do anything but go along other than the Ottoman Empire of Turkey which had a Serbian rebellion to deal with and which proved incapable of defeating the uprising by the fundamentalist Wahabi sect, making them no threat to the new Napoleonic order.

Napoleon I

Needless to say, with their origins being in the French Revolution, bad ideas spread throughout Europe with the French legions. However, there is nonetheless something to be said for it. By sheer brute force, Napoleon had done what no one else had done before; united the continent of Europe. He did end the Revolution, which was an obvious good, and was certainly preferable to the First Republic which had gone before him. I doubt any would call him pious, indeed, he seemed rather cynical about religion, but it was he who restored Church-state relations in France, had his coronation presided over by the Pope and, although it sounds odd given his character, it is nonetheless technically true that under Napoleon, the whole of European Christendom was united behind a Catholic emperor. Of course, he did it after making war on the Pope and basically taking him prisoner and, if you wanted to be really controversial, you might point out that this was pretty much how the coronation of Emperor Charles V came about but you really should not as that would be quite unfair to compare the two.

Ultimately, this episode of enforced European unity did not last, and perhaps could not have done so given the very ideas of the French Revolution that it enabled to spread. However, whether one takes it as good or bad, it was certainly remarkable and quite unprecedented. Had Napoleon not overreached, had this new order endured, can we imagine how history might have evolved? It is hard to imagine someone with such restless ambition as Napoleon retiring to a quiet life and with all of Europe, with the possible exception of Great Britain, pulling in the same direction, that seemingly impossible things might have been accomplished. It would be easy to picture Napoleon resuming his conquests with the a massive pan-European army that would liberate the Balkans, Constantinople and the Holy Land, which might then press on into Persia and India. Who knows how far they might have gone?

In closing, just to reassure all of my good, traditional, monarchist readers, yes, Napoleon was a usurper, yes, he upset the peace of Europe and yes he spread some pretty terrible ideas wherever he went. What is, I think, nonetheless important to point out was his drive and his audacity. Look at what he accomplished, think what more might have been accomplished and all because someone had the nerve to try. One, little, Corsican upstart did all of this and only because the impossible did not exist for him; he just did it. Great and seemingly impossible things can, actually, be accomplished but only by those who try. Napoleon dreamed of a Gallic-Roman empire with himself as the new Charlemagne, uniting Europe with his own family to lead in one common direction. For a time, and longer than I suspect most people realize, he did exactly that and in so doing, left behind a wealth of lessons on what to do, what not to do, and what can be possible. It is, I think, a subject worth pondering.

The Eclipse of Empires at Sedan

It was on this day in 1870 that the Battle of Sedan, between the forces of the French Emperor Napoleon III and the German forces led by the King of Prussia, ended in a decisive defeat for France. It was a day in history which saw one empire come to an end and another marching on to be born. For France, the battle would mark the end of their Second Empire while for Prussia and her allies it would mark the beginning of the Second German Reich. The French would not forget this humiliation and it would drive them to plunging headlong into the First World War in August of 1914, vowing to avenge Sedan and to recover Alsace-Lorraine, the provinces they would lose in the final peace agreement. For the Prussians, particularly Bismarck, it was the final step in his methodical plan to demonstrate that the Kingdom of Prussia had mastered her traditional rivals; Austria and France, showing the other German states that their fates would be bound to that of Prussia, making German unity a reality. Yes, quite a lot was determined by this two-day battle in the Ardennes.

Bismarck, Roon and Moltke

For quite some time, the Kingdom of Prussia had been a power that could not be ignored but one which was considered no more than a regional power. The stunning victories of Frederick the Great were far in the past and while the battles against the first Napoleon were a proud memory and ones that had revived German nationalism, it was lost on no one that they had been won in cooperation with several other, stronger, allied nations. Furthermore, many discounted the military expertise of the Prussians, rightly judging their most famous commander, Bluecher, as a great leader but certainly no great strategist. They failed to take notice of the more brilliant but less inspiring staff officers of the Prussian army at that time. King Wilhelm I may not have been another Frederick but his most eminent subjects; Bismarck, Graf von Roon and Graf von Moltke made up for the difference. Although he does not always receive the recognition he deserves, Graf von Moltke was undoubtedly one of the greatest military geniuses the German people would ever produce. Their victory over the Austrians in 1866 had been so swift and so overwhelming that many attributed the outcome more to the deficiency of Austria than the strength of Prussia.

Nonetheless, the Prussians, with recent victories over Denmark and Austria behind them, definitely had the momentum going forward into 1870. The French Second Empire was, contrarily, certainly not at its best but still was subject to higher expectations. Not that long before, Napoleon III had seemed to have done the impossible. Not only had he brought about the restoration of the Bonaparte house to power and revived the Napoleonic French Empire but he had also managed to make a Bonaparte emperor acceptable to the crowned heads of Europe. He had ended the traditional antagonism between France and Britain, his armies won laurels for their hard fought victories against mighty Russia, secured control of southern Vietnam and made Cambodia a French protectorate. They won battles in China, Africa and, though it was a hard fought and bloody affair, had seen the Austrians removed from Lombardy. Armies around the world copied French fashions and while the royalists refused to accept him, he still managed to make even the Pope in Rome his dependent. It was a high point for French influence around the world.

Napoleon III at Sedan

However, the war against Austria in Italy had not been the total victory that was hoped for and both parties were left rather unsatisfied. The age old rivalry over the Italian peninsula would ultimately prevent either from the cooperation both could have benefited from in the face of the rising power of Prussia. A new effort at Franco-Austrian cooperation came when French armies succeeded in placing a Habsburg on the throne of Mexico, the first step in what Napoleon III envisioned as a new era of monarchical expansion in the Americas. However, while French troops dominated the battlefields, Mexico became a drain on resources, money and manpower with the republicans resorting to low-level banditry. When the American Civil War ended with the defeat of the Confederacy, the United States was able to send all necessary support to her republican lackeys south of the border and order the French to clear out. French prestige was lowered by this withdrawal at the command of another power and, particularly in light of the noble, tragic death of the Habsburg Emperor of Mexico, Napoleon III himself came out looking like a man who lacked commitment and whose word could not be relied upon.

Because of this downturn in French fortunes, it was all the easier for Bismarck, cunning character that he was, to provoke Louis Napoleon into instigating a war with Prussia. The French were not prepared, taking far too much for granted, while the Prussians were not. To use a not-so-technical term, France was basically curb-stomped by the Germans and the defeat at Sedan was the climax, though certainly not the end as France still had the ignominious end of the Paris Commune to look forward to. Neither army matched their traditional stereotype in this conflict. The French were slow, stuck rigidly to their plans and showed little initiative. The Germans, on the other hand, kept flexible, took risks and, as the old saying  goes, ‘marched toward the sound of the guns’. Napoleon III himself, rather like his famous uncle at Waterloo, was not at his best on this occasion. Whether the King of Prussia was or not hardly mattered, Graf von Moltke was and that is all that ultimately mattered.

Wilhelm I takes Napoleon's sword

At Sedan, by the second day, the French had been totally outmaneuvered and were trapped. The French Emperor, practically surrounded and outnumbered, ordered a succession of desperate attacks in an attempt to break out. None were successful and his army, which had hoped to relieve the siege of Metz, was itself finally forced to surrender. Napoleon handed over his army and his sword to King Wilhelm of Prussia and within only a couple of days the French Empire collapsed. Napoleon III would live out the rest of his life in exile while the Prussians went on to deal with the Paris Commune and then, at the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles, to have the assembled German princes proclaim the King of Prussia, “German Emperor”. All of this was a little too innovative for the very conservative Hohenzollern monarch, having an Austrian Kaiser and a German Kaiser seemed rather excessive and he refused to have “Sedan Day” made a national holiday in the new German Reich, though it was widely celebrated nonetheless, every year until the end of the First World War which was also the end of the Second Reich. All the same, Sedan had secured the unity of the German nation.

Monarchists played a major part in all of the events surrounding this momentous moment of European history. The war between France and Prussia was set off by the search for a new King of Spain after the overthrow in 1868 of Queen Isabella II who, having been unacceptable to the Carlists from birth, became unacceptable to the constitutional monarchists as well for being too conservative. Napoleon’s effort to find an ally to aid him against the Germans was also thwarted by monarchist opposition on two fronts, both regarding Italy as well as an at least perceived threat to the monarchy in Austria. The most important ally France could have had against Prussia was the Austrians. However, the Austrians were engaged in placating the Hungarians by implementing the “dualism” that would result in the Austrian Empire becoming Austria-Hungary which rather kept them busy. Austria also feared that if they became engaged in a war with Prussia, alongside France, the Italians might take advantage of the situation and go to war against them, so if Austria was to come on side, they wanted the Italians on side as well (where they could keep their eye on them).

Proclaiming the King of Prussia "German Kaiser"

However, this proved impossible for the same reason that Napoleon was unable to secure the new Kingdom of Italy as an ally against the Prussians. That reason, of course, was the presence of a French army in Rome propping up the rule of Pope Pius IX. While King Victor Emmanuel II was sympathetic to France, the Italians would have none of it so long as French troops remained on Italian soil and Napoleon dared not risk the wrath of the French royalists by withdrawing his army which was the only thing keeping the Pope in power in Rome. The result was that the French Empire was isolated with no other European power willing to take their side while Prussia, having already dealt with the Austrians, had the south German states ready to realign themselves to Berlin rather than Vienna.

Finally, there was also the issue of the royalists in France itself. Napoleon III had, throughout his reign, repeatedly taken action in the utterly futile cause of winning over the French royalists but, while many would fight for France, none would fight for him. Patrice de MacMahon, the commander of his army at Sedan, would fill the void left by Napoleon III with royalist support after suppressing the Paris Commune. The resulting national assembly had a monarchist majority, MacMahon was open to a restoration and the feuding French royalists had even managed to work out an acceptable compromise over who should take the throne. However, the designated heir, the Comte de Chambord, famously refused as he was told that the French tricolor would not be replaced with the Bourbon white as the national flag. That rather ended the discussion and while royalists thought that they could wait until the passing of Chambord for the next-in-line to the throne to bring about a restoration, Chambord lived longer than anyone expected and by the time he did go, the Third French Republic had taken root. The matter decided by the Battle of Sedan thus, ultimately, affected the House of Bourbon as well as the Houses of Bonaparte and Hohenzollern.

The Battle of Aspern-Essling, Austrian Victory Over Napoleon

It was on this day in 1809 that the Battle of Aspern-Essling was fought, during the War of the Fifth Coalition, between the forces of the French Empire of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Austrian Empire of Kaiser Franz I, with the Imperial and Royal Army being led by Archduke Charles of Teschen, probably the most formidable continental foe of the illustrious Corsican conqueror. The battle is not generally listed among the most significant of all time in the world but it was certainly not unimportant and had some very interesting aspects. It was a dark time for the Austrian Empire, Vienna had recently been taken by the French and the French or their allies were in possession of much of the Austrian heartland. Napoleon wished to cross the Danube and finish off the Archduke and his army but the Austrians had done a good job of destroying the bridges to hinder this effort. The idea, however, was to hinder and not attempt to stop, which the Archduke did not wish to do. Instead, it was his intention to allow Napoleon to cross the Danube so as to be able to fall upon his forces as they came across, before the entire Grande Armeé could arrive in force and concentrate against him. The Austrian plan was for the French to cross the river and they would then attack them on a front from the village of Aspern to the village of Essling.

The Prince of Liechtenstein

This was an excellent plan as it made the best use of the situation that the Austrians found themselves in. It would allow them to attack and annihilate a part of the French army which would be too strong to defeat when it was altogether and the French had to come after them, not only to deal with the threat that the Imperial & Royal Army posed to the French occupation of Vienna but also because Austrian irregulars led by the great hero Andreas Hofer from the Tyrol, were wreaking havoc on the French supply lines and rear echelon forces. The French had to move, they had to cross the Danube and as they did, Archduke Charles would attack them. He organized three of his corps (the Sixth, First and Second) to attack Aspern while the Fourth Corps would attack Essling. In the center, to respond to any French cavalry attack, was the commander of the Austrian reserve cavalry corps who happened to be Prince Johann I Joseph of Liechtenstein who had been, and would be again when the current crisis passed, the Sovereign Prince of Liechtenstein. Believe it or not, long before they were known for banking and art collecting, the Princes of Liechtenstein were more familiar as members of the Austrian army.

On May 21, 1809 as the French army was getting across the Danube, the Archduke launched his attack. First, at Aspern, the initial Austrian blow was dealt by General Johann von Hiller where he smashed into the French forces of General André Masséna, who he had fought before at Ebelsberg when the Austrians had been forced across the Danube. The fighting then had been savage and it was no less fierce on May 21. The French offered tenacious resistance as the successive waves of three Austrian army corps came smashing down on them, converging on their location. Street by street, house by house, the Austrians inched forward, slowly, painfully but inexorably until it seemed the French might not hold. Concerned that his flank would be turned, Napoleon launched an attack on the Austrian center, aimed at their artillery which was shelling French positions in Aspern. The French heavy cavalry in their shining cuirasses and plumed helmets with horsehair manes, rumbled forward, smashed the Austrians guns and took care to avoid the soldiers in square led by one Prince Friedrich Franz Xavier von Hohenzollern-Hechingen. He was from a different branch of the House of Hohenzollern than that which ruled the Kingdom of Prussia and, in fact, he had fought against the Prussians during his long military career. The French dashed around his infantry but met the Prince of Liechtenstein’s cavalry and though they made a good showing, they failed in their ultimate goal of diverting the Archduke from his plan of attack.

The French at Aspern-Essling

Meanwhile, at Essling, the town was hit by the Austrian Fourth Corps under Prince Franz Seraph of Orsini-Rosenberg whose family had been barons of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation and Imperial Counts. He faced the French Second Corps under Marshal Jean Lannes, who would ultimately lose his life in the battle. Once again, the fighting was fierce, the French just as determined in defense as the Austrians were determined in attack. By the time night fell, the French still held about half of the village of Aspern, the other half being in Austrian hands and while they also still held Essling, the Austrians had advanced so close that the two armies were said to be camped with pistol shot range from each other. As it was, Napoleon was confident that his troops had done well holding their ground and that the following day he could work one of his military miracles and bring about another French victory.

As dawn broke and the fighting erupted again on May 22, the confidence of the French Emperor seemed well founded. In Aspern, Masséna launched a counter-attack that stunned the Austrians and swiftly drove them back and out of the village. Simultaneously, Prince Orsini-Rosenberg was attacking Essling, however, Marshal Lannes and his men held on, were reinforced and launched their own counter-attack which, likewise, drove the Austrian forces from the town. However, that good news was followed by worrying news. At Aspern, the Austrian generals Hiller and Heinrich Graf von Bellegarde (a Saxon born officer from a noble family of Savoy) who commanded the Austrian First Corps, counter-attacked and smashed Masséna, driving the French out of town. Napoleon had to do something and he decided, once again, to launch a frontal attack on the Austrian center, this time with much more muscle. He aimed at precisely the point where the Austrian forces of the Prince of Hohenzollern and the Prince of Orsini-Rosenberg came together.

Austrian grenadiers charge at Essling

The French troops surged forward, infantry at the front, Lannes leading his men on the left and with cavalry in reserve. They hit the Austrian line and, as planned, the Austrians broke, each corps pulling back and the French charging into the opening. Napoleon had victory in his grasp, with the Austrian center broken, each wing could be rolled up in turn, attacked from flank and rear. However, at that critical moment, Archduke Charles himself personally led his last reserve forward, holding a Habsburg flag as he rallied his faltering soldiers. The Austrians held their ground, the French wave crashed against them but could go no farther. Along the line, the French were stunned and being shot to pieces. At the same time, unknown to the French, the Austrians had set several barges adrift on the river which moved downstream and at that moment hit the hastily assembled French bridges, destroying or damaging them. Napoleon feared his line of escape would be cut off and he would be trapped and destroyed on the riverbank so he called off his stalled attack.

Archduke Charles of Teschen

At Essling, the fight continued to be bitterly fought and see-sawed back and forth. The Prince of Orsini-Rosenberg attacked again and the Austrians took Essling but the French were able to counter-attack and drive him out. However, fearful of being cut off, Napoleon had ordered his men to fall back and so the Prince of Orsini-Rosenberg decided to shift his attack toward the French center since he had found no joy at Essling. Marshal Lannes fought a sort of rear-guard action, holding the Austrians off as long as possible while the French army retreated. He was mortally wounded in the process and by the end of the day, both armies were totally exhausted. Both sides had lost about 23,000 men killed, wounded or captured. It was not a decisive victory as Napoleon was able to escape with his army, nonetheless, it was a solid victory for the Austrians and Archduke Charles had done something that many had begun to think impossible; for the first time in about a decade, the famous Napoleon Bonaparte himself had been defeated in battle and the Archduke was the man who had done it. In the end, it was undone by another of Napoleon’s great victories at the Battle of Wagram which saw Austria defeated at the Fifth Coalition broke up, forcing the Kaiser to come to terms with Bonaparte. Still, the sting that the Habsburg Archduke had given him at Aspern-Essling meant that, while the terms of peace were certainly harsh, Napoleon was much less vindictive than he might have been and hoped to have Austria as a friend rather than a foe in the future.

The Bonaparte Crusader

Few people, even, or perhaps especially, monarchists would think of a Bonaparte as a religious crusader. Napoleon Bonaparte supported the violently anti-clerical French Revolution and though he ultimately made his peace with the Church, none could forget that he had looted Rome, annexed the Papal States and even took the Pope prisoner at one point. Devout Catholic monarchists were always among his most bitter of enemies. Yet, his nephew and eventual successor, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, eventually Emperor Napoleon III, had a reign which, on the face of it, would suggest to the casual viewer of history the character of a champion of Catholicism. Is this a case of appearances being deceiving? On the other hand, the Catholic Church has a history of strange relationships with those regarded as her most ardent defenders. Two men widely regarded as Catholic champions were Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and his son King Philip II of Spain. Both actually waged war against the Pope, the Emperor inadvertently unleashing the most savage and vicious brutalization of the city of Rome that ancient city has ever experienced. Emperor Napoleon III never did such a thing, in fact causing himself considerable trouble by his commitment to defending the Pope. Yet, Napoleon III remains less than highly regarded in virtually any of the wide variety of Catholic circles.

The reasons for this odd relationship owe something to the man himself, the Bonaparte president who made himself “Emperor of the French” as well as to the times in which he lived, his family name, which was both a blessing and a curse, and the changes in the nature of Catholic sentiment from what it had been in centuries past. What is undeniable is that Napoleon III did many things in the name of defending Catholicism and it is just as evident that it did him little good personally. Certainly, his past plays a part in his public image. Early on, no one would have taken Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to be a future protector of the Catholic Church. He joined a revolutionary secret society in Italy that made him a wanted criminal by both the Papal government and that of the Austrian Empire. His life-long goal, of course, was a return to political power in France for the Bonaparte name and in that he did manage to put himself alongside many Catholics. They may not have been in favor of the same thing but they were opposed to the same thing; the popular monarchy of King Louis-Philippe. Eventually, after numerous failures and exiles, Louis was successful in rising to power in the wake of the downfall of the last King to reign over France and he became President of the Second French Republic.

Almost immediately, the “Prince-President” as he was known, came charging to the rescue of the temporal power of the Catholic Church. In the Revolutions of 1848 radicals led by Giuseppe Mazzini had driven Pope Pius IX from the Eternal City and declared the birth of the Roman Republic. The French government sent troops to wipe out this new regime and, of course, increase French influence in Italy as well. However, as they marched on Rome they were defeated by the veteran Italian guerilla fighter Giuseppe Garibaldi. Louis Napoleon sent reinforcements and the Roman Republic was crushed in a second attack. From that time until the end of his rule, French troops would remain in Rome to suppress dissent and uphold the political power of Pope Pius IX. This earned Louis-Napoleon some popularity with French Catholics. However, while approving of his actions, not all approved of him and particularly worrying was the large presence of Catholic French monarchists in the international volunteer army Pope Pius IX assembled to defend the political power of the papacy. For those men, who were obviously ardent Catholics and just as ardent legitimist French monarchists, Napoleon III was a usurper who they would never respect or support regardless of what his policies happened to be.

Napoleon III & Eugenie

However, after managing to become President-for-life and finally Emperor as Napoleon III, Louis took a step that added greatly to the Catholic character of his empire. He married the very devout, conservative and lovely Spanish countess Eugenie de Montijo. For the rest of his reign, Empress Eugenie could be counted on to always argue in favor of Catholic causes and rushing to the rescue whenever the Church was imperiled. Napoleon III was usually persuaded to oblige but, it seems safe to suppose, perhaps not always with the purest of motives. As early as 1853 the Emperor took France into a major and costly war ostensibly on the grounds of defending the rights of Catholics in the Holy Land, which was ruled by the Ottoman Empire, in response to demands from Czar Nicholas I of Russia for greater rights for Orthodox Christians. In truth, of course, the war was more about Britain and France trying to prevent Russian expansion into the Balkans as well as holding off the possible collapse of the Ottoman Empire for fear of the destabilizing effects that would have (surely an unrealistic concern…) but, officially, it was portrayed in the French press as Napoleon III defending the Catholics of the Holy Land against Eastern Orthodox efforts to dominate them. The war was hard and the war was bloody but, fortunately for Napoleon III, it ended in an Allied victory and the Russian Empire being forced to sue for peace.

French attack on DaNang

Not long after, Napoleon III initiated the first of what would be several interventions in East Asia when, in 1858, he joined the British in an expedition into China. Here, the initial pretext was the murder of a French priest and a general unpleasantness for Christians in China. However, again, there was also the ulterior motive of opening up Chinese markets to French trade. French influence in China would also, ultimately, be tied to French involvement in Indochina, starting with Vietnam. Here again, the first involvement came about in response to the persecution of Catholic missionaries. Of course, there was much more to it than that. France had originally made an alliance with the Nguyen Dynasty in the reign of King Louis XVI. However, due to domestic unrest at home, France never supplied the assistance the King had promised but still tried to collect payment (in privileges and territory) from the “Great South”. However, subsequent Vietnamese monarchs tried to keep their distance from the French and draw closer to China. Emperors Minh Mang, Thieu Tri and Tu Duc tried to discourage missionary activity by expelling French priests and threatening to execute Catholics. Some were but the most dramatic threats were never followed through on and were issued mostly in an effort to frighten foreigners into staying away. That tactic did not work, nor did the effort to carry out anti-foreign policies at times when France seemed to be distracted by events elsewhere.

French attack on Saigon

Empress Eugenie was always quick to urge her husband to take action whenever Catholics were in danger around the world. It is also true that the French navy had a high proportion of very conservative, Catholic officers and they were able to take action on their own authority being so far removed from the government in Paris. They, like Napoleon III, were also concerned about France falling behind Britain in the race to gain control of Asian territories. Ultimately, again, the persecution of Catholics prompted French naval forces to take action and in 1858 they bombarded and captured the coastal city of Danang. Napoleon III sent in reinforcements and an undeclared war was underway. French forces suffered heavily from heat and tropical diseases as well as fierce Vietnamese resistance. Despite their technological superiority, the Vietnamese forces may have been able to prevail with the aid of their inhospitable climate were it not for the outbreak of a revolt in the north that forced Emperor Tu Duc to come to terms with France in order to prevent the possible overthrow of the dynasty. In 1859 French forces occupied Saigon and Cochinchina, the extreme south of Vietnam, became a French colony. In time, all of Indochina would come under French control.

French land in Beyrouth, Lebanon

New opportunities for Napoleon to act as the champion of the Catholic Church came quickly. In what is now Lebanon, then part of the vaguely defined region of Syria within the Ottoman Empire, Maronite Christians came under vicious attack by radical Islamic elements. The Middle East had a special place in the historical memory of France and for the Bonapartes in particular due to the victories there by the first Napoleon. The song “Departing for Syria” had been written by the Emperor’s mother and had become a sort of unofficial national anthem for the Second French Empire. To the applause of French Catholics, Napoleon III sent about 7,000 soldiers to Lebanon in 1860 and 1861, putting a stop to the violence against the Maronites and obtaining from the Ottoman Sultan the right to appoint a Christian governor for the region (who was subject to the approval of the Sultan of course). In less than a year the French troops were withdrawn and Napoleon III could congratulate himself on a rather neat and successful intervention which had increased French influence in the near east and won him praise (if not lasting, heartfelt support) from Catholics in France. His next foreign adventure would not end so well.

French officers in Mexico

For some time there had been growing concern over events in Mexico. A bitter civil war ended with the radical, anti-clerical Benito Juarez becoming President and defaulting on all foreign debts. The Catholic Church lost all special privileges, Church property was seized and the Mexican government attempted to take total control of the Catholic Church in Mexico. Empress Eugenie took a special interest in this case and urged her husband to do something. Many powerful bankers also wanted some action that would see them paid the money owed them. Ordinarily, the United States would have prevented anyone from intervening in Mexico (other than themselves of course) but as a civil war was raging north of the Rio Grande there was nothing that the Lincoln administration could do but issue threats and condemnations. In 1862 Napoleon III joined with the British and Spanish in a joint expedition to enforce the payment of debts from Mexico. After some rushed promises, Britain and Spain withdrew but France did not and after an early setback at the Battle of Puebla, Napoleon III sent in more troops and the French were everywhere victorious. Mexico City was taken, a Catholic conservative junta was established and in 1864 the Archduke Maximilian of Austria was crowned Emperor of Mexico. More victories followed and soon the government-on-the-run of Juarez was on the verge of total defeat and collapse.

The Prince-Regent of Korea

Everything seemed to be going well but then, in the spring of 1865, Confederate General Robert E. Lee was forced to surrender and the American Civil War soon came to an end. The United States sent a curt ultimatum to France: pull out or we will force you out. War weariness had been growing at home and a dejected Emperor ordered French forces to withdraw from Mexico. At about the same time, there was another episode, again on behalf of the Catholic Church, that caused Napoleon III some serious embarrassment. In 1866 the Prince-Regent and father of the King of Korea launched a surprise campaign to eliminate western elements in his country and had about 10,000 Catholics massacred, Korean converts and French missionaries. This was combined in the minds of the French naval officers in the region with further persecutions in China. As the Chinese had dominated Korea off and on for about a thousand years, the French thought that retribution against one would also send a message to the other. Admiral Pierre Gustave Roze led a naval force and about 600 French marines to punish Korea for this and threatened to conquer the whole kingdom for the French Empire. This was mostly an empty threat as, without considerable reinforcements from France, Roze could obviously not conquer anything with his one squadron and a few hundred marines. As it happened, they were overwhelmed by about 10,000 Korean troops and were forced to retreat after doing relatively little damage.

Empress Eugenie as 'Queen of Asia'

Some demanded a more serious expedition to bring serious retaliation against Korea but with the deteriorating situation in Mexico, Napoleon III considered further action to be out of the question. By the following year the Mexican Empire had collapsed and Napoleon III faced more criticism, being blamed for abandoning the ill-fated Emperor Maximilian to a republican firing squad. In the years that followed, France also came under increasing threat from the rising power of the Kingdom of Prussia which was rallying all the German states north of Austria behind its leadership. Napoleon III hoped that the Catholic German states of the south would take the side of France or at least remain neutral rather than ally with the Protestant Kingdom of Prussia but that hope was a vain one. The French Emperor still had one heavy price to pay for his policy of acting as the defender of the Pope and the Catholic Church. With France under threat and Austria having just been humbled in a short war with Prussia, there was a plan to form an alliance to contain Prussian expansion. However, the Austrian Empire was worried about the newly formed Kingdom of Italy taking advantage of any conflict to reclaim Italian territory still under Austrian control. The Austrians would not agree to any alliance with France unless the Italians joined in as well to ensure that they would not act independently or take the other side.

French light infantry in Rome

At first, this seemed to be no problem. King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy had been an ally of Napoleon before and was fully prepared to take part in such an alliance. There was just one problem and that was the continued presence of French troops on Italian soil, the garrison that remained in Rome to maintain papal rule of the city. The nationalist Italians wanted all foreign troops out of Italy and wanted no part of an alliance with France until those forces were gone. Napoleon III knew that he would face an immediate outcry from French Catholics if he withdrew his army, especially after having maintained them there for so long. He simply could not do it and so the hoped for alliance never came to be. Without Italy, Austria would not move and so France stood along against Prussia and her German allies. The result was the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 which saw the Second French Empire crushed and Napoleon III forced to abdicate and go into exile. So, we return to our original question; was Emperor Napoleon III a champion of Catholicism and should he be remembered as such?

"Apotheosis of Napoleon"

To some adherents of the Bonaparte legacy he may well be and, as we have seen, they have a considerable number of facts to support such a claim. If one is to look at who took action, who took risks and who plain and simply ‘did something’ to protect the Catholic Church and Catholics around the world, Napoleon III certainly deserves some credit for that because he did. However, it can also be said with justification that he might have done the right thing for the wrong reasons. In every case there was invariably some ulterior motive to the imperial foreign policy besides an altruistic effort to protect Catholicism. Yet, has that not almost always been the case anyway? Very rarely does any government do something for one reason and one reason only. What makes it perhaps even more interesting that, whatever his other reasons for doing so, Napoleon III so frequently took action to defend the Catholic Church is the conclusion that it ultimately did him little to no good at least as far as his own career and his objective of firmly establishing the Bonaparte dynasty in France was concerned. A cynical look at the basic facts and political realities would cause not a few to conclude that Napoleon was wrong to have risked anything or gone to any pains to help the Church at all. The fact that he did may, perhaps, have been the result of a fundamental misunderstanding of the nature of French Catholics.

Napoleon III at Sedan

Most really devout French Catholics who were serious about religion and about defending the Church and particularly the power of the Pope were, as mentioned earlier, staunch monarchists and the most zealous were the legitimist monarchists in particular. They might still fight for France in spite of Napoleon (and some did) but they were never going to accept him. Napoleon III was never going to win these people over no matter what his policies did. Even if he had stepped in front of an assassins bullet and gave his life for the Pope it would not change the fact that he was a Bonaparte and would never have any legitimacy to rule over France in the eyes of the legitimists. Certainly there were some Catholics who did support Napoleon III and many more that were prepared to accept him and at least not oppose him but his policies in regard to the Church probably won him more enemies on the left than they did friends on the Catholic right. Most monarchists never regarded him as anything more than a usurper and were it not for the bitter feud between French royalists it is possible he would have never come to power in the first place.

The legacy that was not

Was Napoleon III a Catholic champion? He certainly did a great deal on behalf of the Church and Catholics around the world that the leader of no other major power did. He did it with ulterior motives in most every case but that was nothing really new. It was also always hard to regard his actions as totally sincere given his radical, revolutionary youth, particularly when seen in combination with his ulterior motives. There was also the tendency to view any effort undertaken on behalf of the Church to be credited to Empress Eugenie rather than Napoleon III. Whether his actions won him favor in the eyes of God is something known only in eternity. For the world in which he lived, Napoleon III was faced with the fact that, at the end of the day, his greatest strength was his greatest weakness. He had risen to power on his name and his connection to his famous uncle. If he had not been a Bonaparte he would have likely died in obscurity. However, that very name alone probably meant that he would never be seen as a great hero to most devout Catholics. He may have done a great deal for the Church around the world, but for French royalists, as much as they might have approved of what he did, he was still not the man that should have been doing it and nothing could change that. In purely political terms, for his empire and the future of his dynasty, what Napoleon III did for the Church ended up gaining him nothing and in some ways costing him a great deal.

Today in French Royal History

On this day in 1804 Napoleon Bonaparte was declared "Emperor of the French" by the French Senate. Later, Pope Pius VII would preside at his formal coronation. This was not supposed to be seen as a restoration of monarchy in France but an imperial elevation for the French Republic, similar to the way the Roman Republic carried on after Augustus became Emperor. However, it certainly was a monarchy, just not the traditional monarchy of France. The fact is that Napoleon had monarchical aspirations for some time. It was offensive to him that anyone should dare to consider themselves more lofty than he and he considered the Austrian Hapsburgs the most offensive. It helped that the Archduke of Austria was also the Holy Roman Emperor and traditionally there had only been one Emperor in western Europe and Kaiser Franz II knew that Napoleon had his eye on the job. So, in order to deprive the 'Corsican upstart' of his prize, Franz II abdicated and dissolved the (by then nominal) Holy Roman Empire and became Emperor Franz I of Austria. So, there were two emperors in the west and one in the east (the Tsar of all the Russias, but Napoleon was coming to him as well) and Napoleon began to revive monarchy where French forces had once torn it down, farming out his relatives to create new royal houses. However, it did not work as republicans found it repugnant and monarchists believed in sticking with the legitimate dynasties. Napoleon was the first to try to combine the ideals of the French Revolution with the structure of a monarchy but he would not be the last to prove unsuccessful at it.

Monarch Profile: Emperor Napoleon I

The man who would become Emperor of the French and one of the most renowned military commanders in history was born Napoleone di Buonaparte on August 15, 1769 in Ajaccio on the island of Corsica. His parents were Carlo Maria di Buonaparte and Maria Letezia Ramolino. The year before he was born the island of Corsica had been ceded to France from the Republic of Genoa and Carlo di Buonaparte, a lawyer, was chosen to represent Corsica at the court of King Louis XVI in 1777. Because of the connections of his family, he was able to go to school in France where he learned to speak French and was later enrolled at a military academy. At first he was made fun of by his classmates because of his “provincial” manners and Italian accent but this only motivated him to succeed all the more nor did it turn him off of his admiration for France, at least in the long term. The historiography of Napoleon has often been divided into two camps with those hostile to Napoleon emphasizing his Italian-Corsican background and those enamored with Napoleon who portrayed him as purely French and, indeed, the very embodiment of French greatness. The truth, of course, cares nothing for agenda. In fact, Napoleon was not French in his background or ethnicity. In terms of the blood in his veins he was as Italian as one could be. However, he was French, not just by adoption, but by choice.

In the time of the young Napoleon, a Corsican could either hold on to regional pride and maintain resentment at French rule or embrace France as the most powerful country they had encountered. This was the way for Napoleon though it took him some time to get there and it came about fully when he realized that France was the only vehicle large enough for his ambition. When that became clear, he determined that the advancement of France would be his goal and in so doing he would advance himself to the most extreme heights possible. He learned French, later adopted the French spelling of his name and devoted his entire life to France. As ambitious and egotistical as he could be, he always held France, if not first in his heart, at least second to himself and even that is somewhat debatable. France was sacred to him and even in his darkest hours he never entertained the same bitterness toward his country that other fallen despots often do. France was the most wonderful thing this young man from Corsica had ever seen and if it had any faults it was only that it lacked his leadership to lead it to the glorious destiny that France deserved. It did not happen overnight of course. His first inclination had been to become a Corsican nationalist and during the French Revolution he was part of the most radical, revolutionary faction in Corsica but when he broke with the would-be leader of Corsican independence, Pasquale Paoli, he returned to France and became as ardent a Frenchman as one could be.

Joining the ranks of the radical Jacobins, Napoleon cut all ties with his homeland when Corsica declared independence from France in 1793. At that point, his choice was made; he chose to no longer be Corsican but to be French. Young Napoleon embraced the revolutionary cause and became an officer in the republican artillery, distinguishing himself at the siege of Toulon fighting the British, Spanish, Piedmontese and those French who had turned traitor. His plan won the city back for the revolutionaries and he was made a brigadier general. His star was on the rise having taken command in a difficult situation, devised a plan that led to victory and having been wounded in the process, he had all the makings of a revolutionary hero. His status rose even higher when, on October 5, 1795, he suppressed a royalist uprising in Paris with a “whiff of grapeshot” and, as a reward, he was put in charge of the Army of Italy. In this post he proved himself a natural and gifted military leader. In 1796 and 1797 he defeated the Austrians at Lodi, Castiglione, Arcola and Rivoli until, in the end, Austria and Italy were at his mercy. He also gained the high esteem of his soldiers by leading from the front, at Lodi even personally leading a bayonet charge across a bridge against the Austrian rear guard. It was because of this that his troops dubbed him “the Little Corporal”.

With these exploits, Napoleon had become a celebrity in France and he took full advantage of it in both the military and political spheres. Already he identified the British as his greatest enemy but a cross-channel invasion was not possible at that stage so he took 40,000 men and invaded Egypt, menacing British trade routes and threatening India. He won several victories over the Turks and their subject peoples who were fierce but outdated in their tactics. In the end, however, the British thwarted him by a victory at sea in the battle of the Nile thanks to the skillful leadership of the British admiral Horatio Nelson. Napoleon, seeing the situation was doomed, left his army and returned to France. Some, recognizing his ambition, skill and popularity, had thought that sending him to the Middle East would put him out of the way. As it happens, they were right to be wary for when he returned Napoleon involved himself in a plot against the Directory and, in the end, he managed to make himself First Consul; effectively the dictator of France. He enacted a new, expansive system of conscription (we have the French Revolution to thank for the “nation in arms”) and in 1800 invaded Austria which resulted in a negotiated peace that established the Rhine as the eastern border of France. On the home-front Napoleon reworked the civil laws and formalized the changes of the revolution into the Napoleonic Code. In 1802 he revised the constitution to be “Consul for Life”.

Great Britain, however, was the one enemy he could not touch and the following year renewed their war against France, later joined by Austria and Russia. However, even with the gains he had already made, his ambition was still not fulfilled and in 1804 he crowned himself Emperor, having Pope Pius VII brought up from Rome to preside over the ceremony and his give papal blessing to the new French Emperor. Yet, still, the British remained his greatest irritant. In 1805 the British fleet, again led by Horatio Nelson, destroyed the French and Spanish navies at the battle of Trafalgar. On land, however, Napoleon proved unstoppable and he set out on what was arguably his most brilliant military campaign. He moved quickly, maneuvered adeptly and struck with vicious force. On October 17, 1805 he defeated the Austrians at Ulm and on December 2 won a stunning victory over the Austro-Russian forces at the battle of Austerlitz. That victory alone would have earned him a page in military history but Napoleon was still not finished. In 1806 he defeated the Prussians at Jena and in 1807 defeated the Russians at Friedland, forcing them to make peace. With the Treaty of Tilsit, Europe was effectively divided between France and Russia with the French Empire in the commanding position. Napoleon had made himself Emperor in 1804 and within three years had effectively made himself master of Europe.

This was an astounding event and it shows just how rapidly life was changing for Napoleon and how rapidly he was being changed himself. In little more than ten years he had gone from being an obscure junior artillery officer to crowning himself “Emperor of the French”. He had married the aristocratic Josephine de Beauharnais, the great love of his life, he had gone from fighting French troops in Corsica to leading French troops to some of their greatest victories, he had gone from being a Jacobin revolutionary to proclaiming himself a monarch -and of imperial status no less. And along with a helping of plain good fortune (which he would be the first to recognize) he had done it all by his own skill. He was brilliant on the battlefield, and away from it he allowed no opportunity to slip through his fingers, advancing himself by being a revolutionary when the revolutionaries were in power, fighting for the Directory then going along with the coup against it and finally, when standing on the world stage, sought to make himself the equal of the Emperors of Austria and Russia. It was nothing short of astounding. Later in life, Napoleon never liked to portray himself as a traitor or a revolutionary when, in fact, he was both. However, the more he advanced, the more conservative he became and eventually he tried to force republicanism and monarchy together, to create a revolutionary kind of monarchy, not eliminating monarchy as the French revolutionaries had originally sought to do, but simply replacing them with his own version. And he was succeeding.

For the devout, traditional royalists of France Napoleon would not and could not be anything but an upstart usurper, however, many people who would have been royalists were converted to his side because of the order and return to normalcy that Napoleon brought to France. He ended the chaos, bloodshed and instability of the French Revolution and while he emancipated Jews and Protestants he also signed a concordat with the Pope that recognized Catholicism as the religion of the majority in France and restored to the Catholic Church most (but not all) of the privileges that the First Republic had taken from them. Napoleon had also portrayed his French Empire as a restoration of the empire of Charlemagne and the style he adopted was a very noticeably Roman one; wearing a laurel crown at his coronation, topping the standards of his regiments with eagles and in countless other ways. As the Pope had come to terms with him, as the position of the Church had been settled in France, it became possible, in the minds of many at least, to be a good Catholic and a loyal supporter of the new Emperor Napoleon I. The most unanswerable argument Napoleon could always make to his critics was that he simply got it done. The republican purists might have condemned him for his monarchial aspirations and the royalists might denounce him as a usurper but the fact was, they had not succeeded and Napoleon had. They did not restore calm and order to France, he did. They did not resolve the problems with the Church, he did and the government and legal system he established proved successful enough to endure, in part, even to our own time. He got it done and no one, then or now, could deny it, regardless of their own opinions of the man.

If Napoleon had stopped there, if he had let the peace in Europe continue and simply endured the hardships imposed by his sullen enemies it is entirely possible that there might still be a Bonaparte on the throne of France today. However, as with many of those who advance themselves so far, Napoleon thought he could advance farther still. He was overreaching to be sure, but it was not necessarily overconfidence as so many assume. Napoleon had a high opinion of his own abilities certainly but to the great frustration of his enemies it was mostly justified. As his British adversary the Duke of Wellington said, his mere presence on a battlefield was as good as 40,000 extra soldiers. The problem was that Napoleon could not be everywhere at once and while he had many adept commanders amongst the Marshals of France, most were better subordinates than they were independent commanders. Likewise, Napoleon had re-drawn the map of Europe, tearing down old countries and establishing new kingdoms. He farmed out his siblings to become monarchs in Germany, Italy and Holland but only his brother Louis, who was made king over the Dutch, proved both capable and popular (so much so that Napoleon eventually removed him and annexed the Netherlands to France). Critically, one such country was also Spain. Having meddled in Spanish affairs previously, Napoleon finally took over the country outright and placed his brother Giuseppe (Joseph) on the throne as King Jose I.

The Kingdom of Spain proved easy to conquer but impossible to pacify. The word “guerilla” entered the lexicon as Spanish irregular forces harassed the French occupiers at every turn. Spain, generally dismissed as a sideshow by Napoleon, would be a drain on French resources that would ultimately prove critical. It was also worsened by the fact that Napoleon didn’t stop at Spain but decided, while he was in the neighborhood and all, to conquer Portugal in 1807. The Royal Family went into exile in Brazil but this proved a pivotal moment as it got Great Britain (longtime allies of Portugal) involved in the Peninsular War. The British would support the Spanish resistance, revamp the Portuguese army into a very effective fighting force and would send troops to Spain to bedevil the French led by the man who would ultimately bring Napoleon down; Arthur Wellesley, later made Duke of Wellington. France would lose 300,000 men in Spain and have nothing to show for it.

The Spanish quagmire, however, was not enough of a distraction to deter Napoleon from even grander ambitions. Russia was still smarting from the loss of Poland and was unhappy with French influences in Russia and the impact on the Russian economy of Napoleon’s effort to force everyone to stop trading with Britain. By 1812 French spies informed Napoleon that Tsar Alexander I had about decided he had had enough of this and would be taking action. In response, Napoleon launched the most ambitious offensive of his career. Gathering all of his allies (and those allied by force) into a massive army of 600,000 men, Napoleon invaded Russia in the summer of 1812. Most know the basic story of how the invasion unfolded. The French won battles, advanced and advanced but never achieved a decisive victory. Many of the Russian generals seemed hopelessly inept but the stalwart Russian soldiers, on the other hand, seemed inhumanly unflappable. Despite all losses they never gave up and while the French kept advancing, the Russians kept falling back, destroying everything as they went. Napoleon even captured Moscow but it was far from a prize or a decisive victory. The burnt out ruins of the city he marched into summed up the entire Russian campaign; cold, hunger and hardship that gained France nothing. And, all the while, with the Russian armies remaining intact as a threat, bands of fierce Cossacks harassed the French flanks and supply lines. The invasion turned into a disaster and had to be abandoned. The famous retreat from Moscow was nothing short of a nightmare for the French and their allies. Of the 600,000 men Napoleon had led into the steppes of Russia, only about 40,000 survived the ordeal.

By the spring of 1813, Napoleon had recovered somewhat but was faced with the combined forces of Great Britain, Russia, Sweden and Prussia arrayed against him. Napoleon scraped together another army and went out to meet them, confident that, having defeated multiple enemies before, he could do so again. For a time, it seemed that might be the case as he fought as brilliantly as he had in the past but this time it was to no avail. The French were defeated at Leipzig in October of 1813 and forced to retreat to France. With a population tired of his wars and the horrendous casualties they caused, along with the Allied powers closing in on them, Napoleon’s marshals urged him to admit defeat. Feeling disgusted and betrayed Napoleon abdicated on April 11, 1814 and was exiled to the island of Elba on the Italian coast. King Louis XVIII was restored to the throne of France and Europe breathed a sigh of relief. By this time Napoleon had divorced Empress Josephine and in 1810 had married Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria, the eldest child of Emperor Francis I. He did this to obtain an heir and make the Bonaparte succession secure as well as to, hopefully, gain recognition as a legitimate member of the crowned heads of Europe by marrying into the House of Hapsburg. In 1811 she gave birth to his only son, Napoleon II. With his downfall in 1814, Napoleon would never see them again and that too weighed heavily upon him.

So, Napoleon did not stay exiled very long. He had little trouble escaping from Elba, won over the army sent to arrest him to his side and triumphantly restored himself to power. However, the other European powers had had enough and, at the Congress of Vienna, declared Napoleon an enemy of world peace basically and joined forces to crush him immediately. He probably knew this was bound to happen and it calls into question the point of his restoration and all those who would die as a result but, Napoleon believed that if he could move quickly and defeat the British and the Prussians before all the Allies could unite against him there would be time to make some arrangement or at least hope for a miracle that would enable his empire and dynasty to survive. And, it must be said, at the outset, he displayed his usual skill. He divided the Prussians from the British (a coalition force that included a large number of Germans and the Dutch-Belgian army) and was able to bring superior forces to bear against the British under Wellington at the small Belgian town of Waterloo.

However, when it came time for battle on June 18, 1815, Napoleon was ill and displayed none of his usual foresight and aggressiveness. He attacked the British lines again and again but the British always managed to hold on. Just when it seemed the enemy would crack under sheer weight of numbers, the Prussians arrived on the scene. Desperate to end the battle, Napoleon threw in his “Old Guard” but the British repulsed them as well. Wellington counter-attacked, the Prussians closed in and the French were totally defeated. Napoleon was finally and permanently beaten. Once again he was exiled but this time to the remote island of St Helena in the middle of the South Atlantic where he lived out the rest of his life. Napoleon Bonaparte, the man who made himself “Emperor of the French” and who conquered most of Europe died on May 5, 1821 at the age of 51. Meanwhile, the Congress of Vienna had worked to put Europe back together after Napoleon had spread war and devastation from Lisbon to Moscow. Most damaging though was that his success had spread the ideas of the French Revolution across the whole continent and by both raising up some peoples and inspiring others to resist him, he made nationalism a much more potent force in the future. The impact of “the Little Corporal” would be felt from the Iberian Peninsula to the steppes of Russia, from Scandinavia to Sicily for a very long time to come.

For other thoughts on Napoleon and his place in history, see this post.