under Jourdan, Hoche, and Pichegru, had withstood the great
European combination with astonishing success. The allies were
weakened by ill feeling between Prussia and Austria over the
second partition of Poland, and generally by a want of concert
and capable leadership in their action. On the other side, the
democratic military system of the Republic, under Carnot's
keen eyes, was continually bringing forward fresh soldierly
talent to the front. The fall of the Jacobins made no change
in that vital department of the administration, and the
successes of the French were continued. In the summer of 1794
they carried the war into Germany, and expelled the allies
from the Austrian Netherlands. Thence they invaded Holland,
and before the end of January, 1795, they were masters of the
country; the Stadtholder had fled to England, and a Batavian
Republic had been organized. Spain had suffered losses in
battle with them along the Pyrenees, and the King of Sardinia
had yielded to them the passes of the Maritime Alps. In April
the King of Prussia made peace with France. Before the close
of the year 1795 the revolt in La Vendée was at an end; Spain
had made peace; Pichegru had attempted a great betrayal of the
armies on the Rhine, and had failed.
Napoleon in Italy.
This in brief was the situation at the opening of the year
1796, when the "little Corsican officer," who won the
confidence of the new government of the Directory by saving
its constitution on the 13th Vendemiare, planned the campaign
of the year, and received the command of the army sent to
Italy. He attacked the Sardinians in April, and a single month
sufficed to break the courage of their king and force him to a
treaty of peace. On the 10th of May he defeated the Austrians
at Lodi; on the 15th he was in Milan. Lombardy was abandoned
to him; all central Italy was at his mercy, and he began to
act the sovereign conqueror in the peninsula, with a contempt
for the government at Paris which he hardly concealed. Two
ephemeral republics were created under his direction, the
Cisalpine, in Lombardy, and the Cispadane, embracing Modena,
Ferrara and Bologna. The Papacy was shorn of part of its
territories.
Every attempt made by the Austrians to shake the hold which
Bonaparte had fastened on the peninsula only fixed it more
firmly. In the spring he began movements beyond the Alps, in
concert with Hoche on the Rhine, which threatened Vienna
itself and frightened Austria into proposals of peace.
Preliminaries, signed in April, foreshadowed the hard terms of
the treaty concluded at Campo Formio in the following October.
Austria gave up her Netherland provinces to France, and part
of her Italian territories to the Cisalpine Republic; but
received, in partial compensation, the city of Venice and a
portion of the dominions of the Venetian state; for, between
the armistice and the treaty, Bonaparte had attacked and
overthrown the venerable republic, and now divided it with his
humbled enemy.
France under the Directory.
The masterful Corsican, who handled these great matters with
the airs of a sovereign, may have known himself already to be
the coming master of France. For the inevitable submission
again of the many to one was growing plain to discerning eyes.
The frightful school-teaching of the Revolution had not
impressed practical lessons in politics on the mind of the
untrained democracy, so much as suspicions, distrusts, and
alarms. All the sobriety of temper, the confidence of feeling,
the constraining habit of public order, without which the
self-government of a people is impracticable, were yet to be
acquired. French democracy was not more prepared for
republican institutions in 1797 than it had been in 1789.
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There was no more temperance in its factions, no more balance
between parties, no more of a steadying potency in public
opinion. But it had been brought to a state of feeling that
would prefer the sinking of all factions under some vigorous
autocracy, rather than another appeal of their quarrels to the
guillotine. And events were moving fast to a point at which
that choice would require to be made. The summer of 1797 found
the members of the Directory in hopeless conflict with one
another and with the legislative councils. On the 4th of
September a "coup d' état," to which Bonaparte contributed
some help, purged both the Directory and the Councils of men
obnoxious to the violent faction, and exiled them to Guiana.
Perhaps the moment was favorable then for a soldier, with the
great prestige that Bonaparte had won, to mount to the seat of
power; but he did not so judge.
The Expedition to Egypt.
He planned, instead, an expedition to Egypt, directed against
the British power in the East,--an expedition that failed in
every object it could have, except the absence in which it
kept him from increasing political disorders at home. He was
able to maintain some appearance of success, by his
subjugation of Egypt and His invasion of Syria; but of harm
done to England, or of gain to France in the Mediterranean,
there was none; since Nelson, at the battle of the Nile,
destroyed the French fleet, and Turkey was added to the
Anglo-Austrian coalition. The blunder of the expedition, as
proved by its whole results, was not seen by the French people
so plainly, however, as they saw the growing hopelessness of
their own political state, and the alarming reverses which
their armies in Italy and on the Rhine had sustained since
Bonaparte went away.
French Aggressions.--The new Coalition.
Continued aggressions on the part of the French had provoked a
new European coalition, formed in 1798. In Switzerland they
had overthrown the ancient constitution of the confederacy,
organizing a new Helvetic Republic on the Gallic model, but
taking Geneva to themselves. In Italy they had set up a third
republic, the Roman, removing the Pope forcibly from his
sovereignty and from Rome. Every state within reach had then
taken fresh alarm, and even Russia, undisturbed in the
distance, was now enlisted against the troublesome democracy
of France.
The unwise King of Naples, entering rashly into the war before
his allies could support him, and hastening to restore the
Pope, had been driven (December, 1798) from his kingdom, which
underwent transformation into a fourth Italian republic, the
Parthenopeian. But this only stimulated the efforts of the
Coalition, and in the course of the following year the French
were expelled from all Italy, saving Genoa alone, and the
ephemeral republics they had set up were extinguished. On the
Rhine they had lost ground; but they had held their own in
Switzerland, after a fierce struggle with the Russian forces
of Suwarrow.
Napoleon in power.
When news of these disasters, and of the ripeness of the
situation at Paris for a new coup d' état, reached Bonaparte,
in Egypt, he deserted his army there, leaving it, under
Kléber, in a helpless situation, and made his way back to
France. He landed at Fréjus on the 9th of October. Precisely a
month later, by a combination with Sieyès, a veteran
revolutionist and maker of constitutions, he accomplished the
overthrow of the Directory. Before the year closed, a fresh
constitution was in force, which vested substantially
monarchical powers in an executive called the First Consul,
and the chosen First Consul was Napoleon Bonaparte. Two
associate Consuls, who sat with him, had no purpose but to
conceal for a short time the real absoluteness of his rule.
From that time, for fifteen years, the history of France--it
is almost possible to say the history of Europe--is the story
of the career of the extraordinary Corsican adventurer who
took possession of the French nation, with unparalleled
audacity, and who used it, with all that pertained to
it--lives, fortunes, talents, resources--in the most
prodigious and the most ruthless undertakings of personal
ambition that the modern world has ever seen. He was
selfishness incarnate; and he was the incarnation of genius in
all those modes of intellectual power which bear upon the
mastery of momentary circumstances and the mastery of men. But
of the higher genius that might have worthily employed such
vast powers,--that might have enlightened and inspired a
really great ambition in the man, to make himself an enduring
builder of civilization in the world, he had no spark. The
soul behind his genius was ignoble, the spirit was mean. And
even on the intellectual side, his genius had its narrowness.
His projects of selfishness were extraordinary, but never
sagacious, never far-sighted, thoughtfully studied, wisely
planned. There is no appearance in any part of his career of a
pondered policy, guiding him to a well-determined end in what
he did. The circumstances of any moment, whether on the
battle-field or in the political arena, he could handle with a
swift apprehension, a mastery and a power that may never have
been surpassed. But much commoner men have apprehended and
have commanded in a larger and more successful way the general
sweep of circumstances in their lives. It is that fact which
belittles Napoleon in the comparison often made between him
and Cæsar. He was probably Cæsar's equal in war. But who can
imagine Cæsar in Napoleon's place committing the blunders of
blind arrogance which ruined the latter in Germany and Spain,
or making his fatuous attempt to shut England, the great naval
power, out of continental Europe?
His domestic administration was beneficial to France in many
ways. He restored order, and maintained it, with a powerful
hand. He suppressed faction effectually, and eradicated for
the time all the political insanities of the Revolution. He
exploited the resources of the country with admirable success;
for his discernment in such matters was keen and his practical
judgment was generally sound. But he consumed the nation
faster than he gave it growth. His wars--the wars in which
Europe was almost unceasingly kept by the aggression of his
insolence and his greed--were the most murderous, the most
devouring, that any warrior among the civilized races of
mankind has ever been chargeable with.
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His blood-guiltiness in these wars is the one glaring fact
which ought to be foremost in every thought of them. But it is
not. There is a pitiable readiness in mankind to be dazzled
and cheated by red battle-lights, when it looks into history
for heroes; and few figures have been glorified more
illusively in the world's eye than the marvelous warrior, the
vulgar-minded adventurer, the prodigy of self-exalting genius,
Napoleon Bonaparte.
In the first year of his Consulate, Bonaparte recovered Italy,
by the extraordinary Marengo campaign, while Moreau won the
victory of Hohenlinden, and the Treaty of Luneville was
brought about. Austria obtained peace again by renewing the
concessions of Campo Formio, and by taking part in a
reconstruction of Germany, under Bonaparte's dictation, which
secularized the ecclesiastical states, extinguished the
freedom of most of the imperial cities, and aggrandized
Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden and Saxony, as protégés and
dependencies of France. England was left alone in the war,
with much hostile feeling raised against her in Europe and
America by the arrogant use she had made of her mastery of the
sea. The neutral powers had all been embittered by her
maritime pretensions, and Bonaparte now brought about the
organization among them of a Northern League of armed
neutrality. England broke it with a single blow, by Nelson's
bombardment of Copenhagen. Napoleon, however, had conceived
the plan of starving English industries and ruining British
trade by a "continental system" of blockade against them,
which involved the compulsory exclusion of British ships and
British goods from all European countries. This impossible
project committed him to a desperate struggle for the
subjugation of Europe. It was the fundamental cause of his
ruin.
The First Empire.
In 1802 the First Consul advanced his restoration of
absolutism in France a second step, by securing the Consulate
for life. A short interval of peace with England was arranged,
but war broke out anew the following year, and the English for
a time had no allies. The French occupied Hanover, and the
Germans were quiescent. But in 1804, Bonaparte shocked Europe
by the abduction and execution of the Bourbon prince, Duc
d'Enghien, and began to challenge again the interference of
the surrounding powers by a new series of aggressive measures.
His ambition had thrown off all disguises; he had transformed
the Republic of France into an Empire, so called, and himself,
by title, into an Emperor, with an imposing crown. The
Cisalpine or Italian Republic received soon afterwards the
constitution of a kingdom, and he took the crown to himself as
King of Italy. Genoa and surrounding territory (the Ligurian
Republic) were annexed, at nearly the same time, to France;
several duchies were declared to be dependencies, and an
Italian principality was given to Napoleon's elder sister. The
effect produced in Europe by such arbitrary and admonitory
proceedings as these enabled Pitt, the younger, now at the
head of the English government, to form an alliance (1805),
first with Russia, afterwards with Austria, Sweden and Naples,
and finally with Prussia, to break the yoke which the French
Emperor had put upon Italy, Holland, Switzerland and Hanover,
and to resist his further aggressions.
Austerlitz and Trafalgar.
The amazing energy and military genius of Napoleon never had
more astonishing proof than in the swift campaign which broke
this coalition at Ulm and Austerlitz. Austria was forced to
another humiliating treaty, which surrendered Venice and
Venetia to the conqueror's new Kingdom of Italy; gave up Tyrol
to Bavaria; yielded other territory to Würtemberg, and raised
both electors to the rank of kings, while making Baden a grand
duchy, territorially enlarged. Prussia was dragged by force
into alliance with France, and took Hanover as pay. But
England triumphed at the same time on her own element, and
Napoleon's dream of carrying his legions across the Channel,
as Cæsar did, was forever dispelled by Nelson's dying victory
at Trafalgar. That battle, which destroyed the combined navies
of France and Spain, ended hope of contending successfully
with the relentless Britons at sea.
End of the Holy Roman Empire.
France was never permitted to learn the seriousness of
Trafalgar, and it put no check on the vaulting ambition in
Napoleon which now began to o'erleap itself. He gave free rein
to his arrogance in all directions. The King of Naples was
expelled from his kingdom and the crown conferred on Joseph
Bonaparte. Louis Bonaparte was made King of Holland. Southern
Germany was suddenly reconstructed again. The little kingdoms
of Napoleon's creation and the small states surrounding them
were declared to be separated from the ancient Empire, and
were formed into a Confederation of the Rhine, under the
protection of France. Warned by this rude announcement of the
precarious tenure of his imperial title as the head of the
Holy Roman Empire, Francis II. resigned it, and took to
himself, instead, a title as meaningless as that which
Napoleon had assumed,--the title of Emperor of Austria. The
venerable fiction of the Holy Roman Empire disappeared from
history on the 6th of August, 1806.
Subjugation of Prussia.
But while Austria had become submissive to the offensive
measures of Napoleon, Prussia became now fired with
unexpected, sudden wrath, and declared war in October, 1800.
It was a rash explosion of national resentment, and the
rashness was dearly paid for. At Jena and Auerstadt, Prussia
sank under the feet of the merciless conqueror, as helplessly
subjugated as a nation could be. Russia, attempting her
rescue, was overcome at Eylau and Friedland; and both the
vanquished powers came to terms with the victor at Tilsit
(July, 1807). The King of Prussia gave up all his kingdom west
of the Elbe, and all that it had acquired in the second and
third partitions of Poland. A new German kingdom, of
Westphalia, was constructed for Napoleon's youngest brother,
Jerome. A free state of Danzig, dependent on France, and a
Grand Duchy of Warsaw, were created. The Russian Czar, bribed
by some pieces of Polish Prussia, and by prospective
acquisitions from Turkey and Sweden, became an ally of
Napoleon and an accomplice in his plans for the subjection of
Europe. He enlisted his empire in the "continental system"
against England, and agreed to the enforcement of the decree
which Napoleon issued from Berlin, declaring the British
islands in a state of blockade, and prohibiting trade with
them. The British government retorted by its "orders in
council," which blockaded in the like paper-fashion all ports
of France and of the allies and dependencies of France. And so
England and Napoleon fought one another for years in the
peaceful arena of commerce, to the exasperation of neutral
nations and the destruction of the legitimate trade of the
world.
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The crime against Spain.
And now, having prostrated Germany, and captivated the Czar,
Napoleon turned toward another field, which had scarcely felt,
as yet, his intrusive hand. Spain had been in servile alliance
with France for ten years, while Portugal adhered steadily to
her friendship with Great Britain, and now refused to be
obedient to the Berlin Decree. Napoleon took prompt measures
for the punishment of so bold a defiance. A delusive treaty
with the Spanish court, for the partition of the small kingdom
of the Braganzas, won permission for an army under Junot to
enter Portugal, through Spain. No resistance to it was made.
The royal family of Portugal quitted Lisbon, setting sail for
Brazil, and Junot took possession of the kingdom. But this
accomplished only half of Napoleon's design. He meant to have
Spain, as well; and he found, in the miserable state of the
country, his opportunity to work out an ingenious,
unscrupulous scheme for its acquisition. His agents set on
foot a revolutionary movement, in favor of the worthless crown
prince, Ferdinand, against his equally worthless father, Charles
IV., and pretexts were obtained for an interference by French
troops. Charles was first coerced into an abdication; then
Ferdinand was lured to an interview with Napoleon, at Bayonne,
was made prisoner there, and compelled in his turn to
relinquish the crown. A vacancy on the Spanish throne having
been thus created, the Emperor gathered at Bayonne a small
assembly of Spanish notables, who offered the seat to Joseph
Bonaparte, already King of Naples. Joseph, obedient to his
imperial brother's wish, resigned the Neapolitan crown to
Murat, his sister's husband, accepted the crown of Spain, and
was established at Madrid with a French army at his back.
This was one of the two most ruinous of the political blunders
of Napoleon's life. He had cheated and insulted the whole
Spanish nation, in a way too contemptuous to be endured even
by a people long cast down. There was a revolt which did not
spring from any momentary passion, but which had an obstinacy
of deep feeling behind that made effective suppression of it
impossible. French armies could beat Spanish armies, and
disperse them, but they could not keep them dispersed; and
they could not break up the organization of a rebellion which
organized itself in every province, and which went on, when
necessary, without any organization at all. England sent
forces to the peninsula, under Wellington, for the support of
the insurgent Spaniards and Portuguese; and thenceforward, to
the end of his career, the most inextricable difficulties of
Napoleon were those in which he had entangled himself on the
southern side of the Pyrenees.
The chastening of Germany.
The other cardinal blunder in Napoleon's conduct, which proved
more destructive to him than the crime in Spain, was his
exasperating treatment of Germany. There was neither
magnanimity on the moral side of him nor real wisdom on the
intellectual side, to restrain him from using his victory with
immoderate insolence. He put as much shame as he could invent
into the humiliations of the German people. He had Prussia
under his heel, and he ground the heel upon her neck with the
whole weight of his power. The consequence was a pain and a
passion which wrought changes like a miracle in the temper and
character of the abused nation. There were springs of feeling
opened and currents of national life set in motion that might
never have been otherwise discovered. Enlightened men and
strong men from all parts of Germany found themselves called
to Prussia and to the front of its affairs, and their way made
easy for them in labors of restoration and reform. Stein and
Hardenburg remodeled the administration of the kingdom,
uprooted the remains of serfdom in it, and gave new freedom to
its energies. Scharnhorst organized the military system on
which rose in time the greatest of military powers. Humboldt
planned the school system which educated Prussia beyond all
her neighbors, in the succeeding generations. Even the
philosophers came out of their closets and took part, as
Fichte did, in the stirring and uplifting of the spirit of
their countrymen. So it was that the outrages of Napoleon in
Germany revenged themselves, by summoning into existence an
unsuspected energy that would be turned against him to destroy
him in the end.
But the time of destruction was not yet come. He had a few
years of triumph still before him,--of triumph everywhere
except in Portugal and Spain. Austria, resisting him once more
(1809), was once more crushed at Wagram, and to such
submissiveness that it gave a daughter of the imperial house
in marriage to the parvenu sovereign of France, next year,
when he divorced his wife Josephine. He was at the summit of
his renown that year, but already declining from the greatest
height of his power. In 1811 there was little to change the
situation.
The fall of Napoleon.
In 1812 the downfall of Napoleon was begun by his fatal
expedition to Russia. The next year Prussia, half regenerated
within the brief time since Jena and Tilsit, went into
alliance with Russia, and the War of Liberation was begun.
Austria soon joined the alliance; and at Leipzig (Oct. 18,
1813) the three nations shattered at last the yoke of
oppression that had bound Europe so long. At the same time,
the French armies in Spain were expelled, and Wellington
entered France through the Pyrenees, to meet the allies who
pursued Napoleon across the Rhine. Forced to abdicate and
retire to the little island of Elba (the sovereignty of which
was ceded to him), he remained there in quiet from May, 1814,
until March, 1815, when he escaped and reappeared in France.
Army and people welcomed him. The Bourbon monarchy, which had
been restored by the allies, fell at his approach. The king,
Louis XVIII., fled. Napoleon recovered his throne and occupied
it for it few weeks. But the alliance which had expelled him from
it refused to permit his recovery of power. The question was
settled finally at Waterloo, on the 18th of June, when a
British army under Wellington and a Prussian army under
Blücher won a victory which left no hope to the beaten
Emperor. He surrendered himself to the commander of a British
vessel of war, and was sent to confinement for the remainder
of his life on the remote island of St. Helena.
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The Congress of Vienna.