An Introduction to the History of Western Europe Part 66

Napoleon was anxious to have an heir to whom he could transmit his vast dominions. As Josephine bore him no children, he decided to divorce her, and after considering a Russian princess, he married the Archd.u.c.h.ess Maria Louisa, the daughter of the Austrian emperor and a grandniece of Marie Antoinette. In this way the former Corsican adventurer gained admission to one of the oldest and proudest of reigning families, the Hapsburgs. His new wife soon bore him a son, who was styled King of Rome.

[Sidenote: Relations between Napoleon and Alexander I of Russia.]

253. Among the continental states Russia alone was entirely out of Napoleon's control. There were plenty of causes for misunderstanding between the ardent young Tsar Alexander I and Napoleon. Up to this time the agreement of Tilsit had been maintained. Napoleon was, however, secretly opposing Alexander's plans for adding the Danubian provinces and Finland to his possessions. Then the possibility of Napoleon's reestablishing Poland as a national kingdom which might threaten Russia's interests, was a constant source of apprehension to Alexander.

By 1812 Napoleon believed himself to be in a condition to subdue this doubtful friend, who might at any moment become a dangerous enemy.

Against the advice of his more far-sighted counselors, the emperor collected on the Russian frontier a vast army of four hundred thousand men, composed to a great extent of young conscripts and the contingents furnished by his allies.

[Sidenote: Napoleon's campaign in Russia, 1812.]

The story of the fearful Russian campaign which followed cannot be told here in detail. Napoleon had planned to take three years to conquer Russia, but he was forced on by the necessity of gaining at least one signal victory before he closed the season's campaign. The Russians simply retreated and led him far within a hostile and devastated country before they offered battle at Borodino (September 7). Napoleon won the battle, but his army was reduced to something over one hundred thousand men when he entered Moscow a week later. The town had been set on fire by the Russians before his arrival; he found his position untenable, and had to retreat as winter came on. The cold, the want of food, and the hara.s.sing attacks of the people along the route made that retreat the most signal military tragedy on record. Napoleon regained Poland early in December with scarcely twenty thousand of the four hundred thousand with which he had started less than six months before.[432]

[Sidenote: Napoleon collects a new army.]

Napoleon hastened back to Paris, where he freely misrepresented the true state of affairs, even declaring that the army was in a good condition up to the time that he turned it over to Murat in December. While the loss of men in the Russian campaign was enormous, just those few had naturally survived who would be most essential in the formation of a new army, namely, the officers. With their help, Napoleon soon had a force of no less than six hundred thousand men with which to return to the attack. This contained one hundred and fifty thousand conscripts who should not have been called into service until 1814, besides older men who had been hitherto exempted.

[Sidenote: Social conditions in Prussia before 1806.]

254. By the end of February, 1813, the timid Frederick William had been induced by public sentiment in Prussia to break with his oppressor and join Russia. On March 17, he issued a famous address "To my People," in which he called upon them to a.s.sist him in the recovery of Prussian independence. Up to the defeat of Jena, Prussia was far more backward in its social organization than France had been before 1789. The agricultural cla.s.ses were serfs, who were bound to the land and compelled to work a certain part of each week for the lord without remuneration.[433] The population was divided into strict social castes.

Moreover, no n.o.ble could buy citizen or peasant land; no citizen, n.o.ble or peasant land; no peasant, n.o.ble or citizen land.

[Sidenote: Reform of the social system in Prussia.]

The disaster of Jena and the losses at Tilsit convinced the clearer-sighted statesmen of Prussia, especially Stein, that the country's only hope of recovery was a complete social and political revolution, not unlike that which had taken place in France. They saw that the feudal system must be abolished, the peasants freed, and the restrictions which hedged about the different cla.s.ses done away with, before it would be possible to arouse public spirit to a point where a great popular uprising might expel the intruder forever.

The first great step toward this general reform was the royal decree of October 9, 1807,[434] intended to "remove every obstacle that has. .h.i.therto prevented the individual from attaining such a degree of prosperity as he was capable of reaching." Serfdom was abolished and the restrictions on landholding removed, so that any one, regardless of cla.s.s, was at liberty to purchase and hold landed property of every kind. In some cases the principles of the French Revolution had been introduced by Napoleon or the rulers that he set up. In this case it was the necessity of preparing the country to throw off his yoke and regain its independence that led to the same result.

[Sidenote: Napoleon defeated by the allied Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, October, 1813.]

[Sidenote: Battle of Leipsic, October 16-19, 1813.]

255. Napoleon had therefore to face now, not only the cabinets of Europe and the regular armies that they directed, but a people who were being organized to defend their country. His soldiers were, however, still triumphant for a time. He met with no successful opposition, and on May 14, 1813, he occupied Dresden in the territory of his faithful ally, the king of Saxony. This he held during the summer, and inflicted several defeats upon the allies, who had been joined by Austria in August. He gained his last great victory, the battle of Dresden, August 26-27.

Finding that the allied armies of the Russians, Prussians, and Austrians, which had at last learned the necessity of cooperating against their powerful common enemy, were preparing to cut him off from France, he retreated early in October and was totally defeated in the tremendous "Battle of the Nations," as the Germans love to call it, in the environs of Leipsic (October 16-19).

[Sidenote: Germany, Holland, and Spain throw off the Napoleonic yoke.]

As the defeated emperor crossed the Rhine with the remnants of his army, the whole fabric of his political edifice in Germany and Holland collapsed. The members of the Confederation of the Rhine joined the allies. Jerome Bonaparte fled from his kingdom of Westphalia, and the Dutch drove the French officials from Holland. During the year 1813 the Spanish, with the aid of the English under Wellington, had practically cleared their country of the French intruders.

[Sidenote: Occupation of Paris by the allies, March 31, 1814.]

[Sidenote: Napoleon abdicates and is banished to the island of Elba.]

In spite of these disasters, Napoleon refused the propositions of peace made on condition that he would content himself henceforth with his dominion over France. The allies consequently marched into France, and the almost superhuman activity of the hard-pressed emperor could not prevent their occupation of Paris (March 31, 1814). Napoleon was forced to abdicate, and the allies, in seeming derision, granted him full sovereignty over the tiny island of Elba and permitted him to retain his imperial t.i.tle. In reality he was a prisoner on his island kingdom, and the Bourbons reigned again in France.

[Sidenote: Return of Napoleon.]

Within a year, encouraged by the dissensions of the allies and the unpopularity of the Bourbons, he made his escape, landed in France (March 1, 1815), and was received with enthusiasm by a portion of the army. Yet France as a whole was indifferent, if not hostile, to his attempt to reestablish his power. Certainly no one could place confidence in his talk of peace and liberty. Moreover, whatever disagreement there might be among the allies on other matters, there was perfect unanimity in their att.i.tude toward "the enemy and destroyer of the world's peace." They solemnly proclaimed him an outlaw, and devoted him to public vengeance.

[Sidenote: Battle of Waterloo, June, 1815.]

[Sidenote: Exile to Saint Helena.]

Upon learning that English troops under Wellington and a Prussian army under Blucher had arrived in the Netherlands, Napoleon decided to attack them with such troops as he could collect. In the first engagements he defeated and drove back the Prussians. Wellington then took his station south of Brussels, at Waterloo. Napoleon advanced against him (June 18, 1815) and might have defeated the English had they not been opportunely reenforced by Blucher's Prussians, who had recovered themselves. As it was, Napoleon lost the most memorable of modern battles. Yet, even if he had not been defeated at Waterloo, he could not long have opposed the vast armies which were being concentrated to overthrow him. This time he was banished to the remote island of Saint Helena, where he could only brood over the past and prepare his _Memoirs_, in which he carefully strove to justify his career of ambition.[435]

General Reading.--Of the many lives of Napoleon the best and most recent are the following: FOURNIER, _Life of Napoleon_ (a translation of this work from the original German, edited by E.G.

Bourne, is announced by Holt & Co.); ROSE, _Life of Napoleon the First_ (The Macmillan Company, 2 vols., $4.00). The fullest biography of Napoleon is that of SLOANE, _Life of Napoleon Bonaparte_ (The Century Co., 4 vols., $18). An excellent sketch of the military history may be found in ROPES, _The First Napoleon_ (Houghton, Mifflin & Co., $2.00).

CHAPTER x.x.xIX

EUROPE AFTER THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA

[Sidenote: Problem of the reconstruction of Europe after Napoleon's fall.]

256. There is no more important chapter in the political history of Europe than the reconstruction of the map after Napoleon's abdication.

The allies immediately reinstated the Bourbon dynasty on the throne of France in the person of Louis XVI's younger brother, the count of Provence, who became Louis XVIII.[436] They first restricted France to the boundaries that she had had at the beginning of 1792, but later deprived her of Savoy as a punishment for yielding to the domination of Napoleon after his return from Elbe. A great congress of the European powers was summoned to meet at Vienna, where the allies proposed to settle all those difficult problems that faced them. They had no idea of reestablishing things just as they were before the Napoleonic cataclysm, for the simple reason that Austria, Russia, and Prussia all had schemes for their own advantage that precluded so simple an arrangement.

[Sidenote: Provisions of the Congress of Vienna in regard to the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy, and Germany.]

The Congress of Vienna began its sessions November 1, 1814. The allies quickly agreed that Holland should become an hereditary kingdom under the house of Orange, which had long played so conspicuous a role in the nominal republic. In order that Holland might be the better able to check any new encroachments on the part of France, the former Austrian Netherlands were given to her. Switzerland was declared independent, as were all the small Italian states which had existed prior to the innovations of Napoleon, except the ancient republics of Venice and Genoa, neither of which was restored. Genoa was given to the king of Sardinia; Venetia to Austria, as an indemnity for her losses in the Netherlands. Austria also received back her former territory of Milan, and became, by reason of her control of northern Italy, a powerful factor in determining the policy of the whole Italian peninsula. As to Germany, no one desired to undo the great work of 1803 and restore the old anarchy. The former members of the Rhine Confederation were bent upon maintaining the "sovereignty" which Napoleon had secured for them; consequently the allies determined that the several states of Germany should be independent, but "united in a federal union."

[Ill.u.s.tration: EUROPE IN 1815]

[Sidenote: Dispute over disposal of the Polish territory and the fate of the kingdom of Saxony.]

So far all was tolerably harmonious. Nevertheless, serious differences of opinion developed at the congress, which nearly brought on war among the allies themselves, and encouraged Napoleon's return from Elba. These concerned the disposition of the Polish territory that Napoleon had converted into the grand duchy of Warsaw. Prussia and Russia were agreed that the best way would be to let the Tsar make a separate state of this territory, and unite it in a personal union with his Russian realms.

Prussia was then to be indemnified for her losses in the East by annexing the lands of the king of Saxony, who, it was argued, merited this retribution for remaining faithful to Napoleon after the other members of the Confederation of the Rhine had repudiated him.

Austria and England, on the other hand, were bitterly opposed to this arrangement. They approved neither of dispossessing the king of Saxony nor of extending the Tsar's influence westward by giving him Poland. The great diplomatist, Talleyrand, who represented Louis XVIII at the congress, now saw his chance. The allies had resolved to treat France as a black sheep, and permit the other four great powers to arrange matters to suit themselves. But they were now hopelessly at odds, and Austria and England found France a welcome ally in their opposition to the northern powers. So in this way the disturber of the peace of Europe for the last quarter of a century was received back into the family of nations.

[Sidenote: The compromise.]

A compromise was at last reached. The Tsar was allowed to create a kingdom of Poland out of the grand duchy of Warsaw, but only half of the possessions of the king of Saxony were ceded to Prussia. As a further indemnity, Frederick William III was given certain districts on the left bank of the Rhine which had belonged to ecclesiastical and petty lay princes before the Treaty of Luneville. The great importance of this arrangement we shall see later when we come to trace the development of the present German empire.

[Sidenote: Changes in the map of Europe since 1815.]

If one compares the map of Europe in 1815 with that of the present day,[437] he will be struck with the following differences. In 1815 there was no German empire, and Prussia was a much smaller and less compact state than now. It has evidently grown at the expense of its neighbors, as several of the lesser German states of 1815,--Hanover, Na.s.sau, and Hesse-Ca.s.sel,--no longer appear on the map, and Schleswig Holstein, which then belonged to Denmark, is now Prussian. It will be noted that the present German empire does not include any part of the Austrian countries, as did the Confederation of 1815, and that, on the other hand, it does include all of Prussia. The kingdom of Poland has become an integral part of the Russian dominions. Austria, excluded from the German union, has entered into a dual union with Hungary, in which the two countries are placed upon the same footing.

There was no kingdom of Italy in 1815. Now Austria has lost all hold on Lombardy and Venetia, and all the little states reestablished by the Congress of Vienna, including the Papal States, have disappeared. A new kingdom, Belgium, has been created out of the old Austrian Netherlands which the congress gave to the king of Holland. France, now a republic again, has recovered Savoy, but has lost all her possessions on the Rhine by the cession of Alsace and Lorraine to the German empire.

Lastly, Turkey in Europe has nearly disappeared, and several new states, Greece, Servia, Roumania, and Bulgaria, have appeared in southeastern Europe. It is the purpose of the following chapters to show how the great changes indicated on the map took place and explain the accompanying internal changes, in so far as they represent the general trend of modern development or have an importance for Europe at large.

[Sidenote: Influence of Napoleon in spreading the reforms achieved by the Revolution.]

[Sidenote: Reactionary policy in the smaller states of Europe.]