NAPOLEON BONAPARTE
[Sidenote: The Napoleonic Period.]
238. The aristocratic military leaders of old France had either run away
or been discredited along with the noble class to which they belonged.
Among the commanders who, through exceptional ability, arose in their
stead, one was soon to dominate the history of Europe as no man before
him had ever done. For fifteen years, his biography and the political
history of Europe are so nearly synonymous that the period that we are
now entering upon may properly be called after him, the Napoleonic
Period.
[Sidenote: Napoleon Bonaparte (b. 1769), a Corsican by birth, an Italian
by descent.]
Napoleon Bonaparte was hardly a Frenchman in origin. It is true that the
island of Corsica, where he was born August 15, 1769, had at that time
belonged to France for a year. But Napoleon's native language was
Italian, he was descended from Italian ancestors who had come to the
island in the sixteenth century, and his career revives, on a
magnificent scale, the ambitions and the policy of a _condottiere_
despot of the fifteenth century.[412]
[Sidenote: The young Bonaparte in a French military school.]
When he was ten years old he was taken to France by his father. After
learning a little of the French language, which he is said never to have
mastered perfectly, he was put into a military school where he remained
for six years. He soon came to hate the young French aristocrats with
whom he was associated. He wrote to his father, "I am tired of exposing
my poverty and seeing these shameless boys laughing over it, who are
superior to me only in their wealth, but infinitely beneath me in noble
sentiments." Gradually the ambition to free his little island country
from French control developed in him.
[Sidenote: His political intrigues in Corsica.]
[Sidenote: The Bonapartes banished from Corsica, 1793.]
On completing his course in the military school he was made second
lieutenant. Poor and without influence, he had little hope of any
considerable advance in the French army, and he was drawn to his own
country both by a desire to play a political rôle there and to help his
family, which had been left in straitened circumstances by his father's
death. He therefore absented himself from his command as often and as
long as he could, and engaged in a series of intrigues in Corsica with a
hope of getting control of the forces of the island. He fell out,
however, with the authorities, and he and his family were banished in
1793, and fled to France.
[Sidenote: Napoleon made commander-in-chief of the army of Italy, 1796.]
The following three years were for Bonaparte a period of great
uncertainty. He had lost his love for Corsica and as yet he had no
foothold in France. He managed, however, to demonstrate his military
skill and decision on two occasions and gained thereby the friendship of
the Directory. In the spring of 1796 he was made by the Directory
commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. This important appointment at
the age of twenty-seven forms the opening of a military career which in
extent and grandeur hardly finds a parallel in history, except that of
Alexander the Great. And of all Bonaparte's campaigns, none is more
interesting perhaps than his first, that in Italy in 1796-1797.
[Sidenote: Prussia and Spain conclude peace with the French republic,
1795.]
[Sidenote: The campaign in Italy, 1796-1797.]
239. After the armies raised by the Committee of Public Safety had
driven back their enemies in the autumn of 1793, the French occupied the
Austrian Netherlands, Holland, and that portion of Germany which lies on
the left, or west, bank of the Rhine. Austria and Prussia were again
busy with a new, and this time final, partition of Poland. As Prussia
had little real interest in the war with France, she soon concluded
peace with the new republic, April, 1795. Spain followed her example and
left Austria, England, and Sardinia to carry on the war. General
Bonaparte had to face the combined armies of Austria and of the king of
Sardinia. By marching north from Savona he skillfully separated his two
enemies, forced the Sardinian troops back toward Turin, and compelled
the king of Sardinia to conclude a truce with France.
[Illustration: Napoleon Bonaparte during the Italian Campaign]
This left him free to advance against the Austrians. These he outflanked
and forced to retreat. On May 15, 1796, he entered Milan. The Austrian
commander then shut himself up in the impregnable fortress of Mantua,
where Bonaparte promptly besieged him. There is no more fascinating
chapter in the history of warfare than the story of the audacious
maneuvers by which Bonaparte successfully repulsed four attempts on the
part of the Austrians to relieve Mantua, which was finally forced to
capitulate at the beginning of February of the following year. As soon
as he had removed all danger of an attack in the rear, the young French
general led his army toward Vienna, and by April, 1797, the Austrian
court was glad to sign a preliminary peace.
[Sidenote: The treaty of Campo-Formio, 1797.]
[Sidenote: Creation of the Cisalpine republic.]
The provisions of the definitive peace which was concluded at
Campo-Formio, October 17, 1797, illustrate the unscrupulous manner in
which Austria and the French republic disposed of the helpless lesser
states. It inaugurated the bewilderingly rapid territorial
redistribution of Europe, which was so characteristic of the Napoleonic
period. Austria ceded to France the Austrian Netherlands and secretly
agreed to use its good offices to secure for France a great part of the
left bank of the Rhine. Austria also recognized the Cisalpine republic
which Bonaparte had created out of the smaller states of northern Italy,
and which was under the "protection" of France. This new state included
Milan, Modena, some of the papal dominions, and, lastly, a part of the
possessions of the venerable and renowned but defenseless republic of
Venice which Napoleon had iniquitously destroyed. Austria received as a
partial indemnity the rest of the possessions of the Venetian republic,
including Venice itself.
[Sidenote: General Bonaparte holds court; his analysis of the French
character and of his own aims.]
240. While the negotiations were going on at Campo-Formio, the young
general had established a brilliant court. "His salons," an observer
informs us, "were filled with a throng of generals, officials, and
purveyors, as well as the highest nobility and the most distinguished
men of Italy, who came to solicit the favor of a glance or a moment's
conversation." He appears already to have conceived the rôle that he was
to play later. We have a report of a most extraordinary conversation
which occurred at this time.
"What I have done so far," he declared, "is nothing. I am but at the
opening of the career that I am to run. Do you suppose that I have
gained my victories in Italy in order to advance the lawyers of the
Directory?... Do you think either that my object is to establish a
republic? What a notion!... What the French want is Glory and the
satisfaction of their vanity; as for Liberty, of that they have no
conception. Look at the army! The victories that we have just gained
have given the French soldier his true character. I am everything to
him. Let the Directory attempt to deprive me of my command and they will
see who is the master. The nation must have a head, a head who is
rendered illustrious by glory and not by theories of government, fine
phrases, or the talk of idealists, of which the French understand not a
whit."
There is no doubt whom General Bonaparte had in mind when he spoke of
the needed head of the French nation who should be "rendered illustrious
by glory." This son of a poor Corsican lawyer, but yesterday a mere
unlucky adventurer, had arranged his programme; two years and a half
later he was the master of the French republic.
[Sidenote: Personal characteristics.]
We naturally ask what manner of person this was who could frame such
audacious schemes at twenty-eight and realize them at thirty years of
age. He was a little man, less than five feet two inches in height. At
this time he was extremely thin, but his striking features, quick,
searching eye, abrupt, animated gestures and rapid speech, incorrect as
it was, made a deep impression upon those who came in contact with him.
He possessed in a supreme degree two qualities that are ordinarily
incompatible. He was a dreamer, and at the same time a man whose
practical skill and mastery of detail amounted to genius. He once told a
friend that he was wont, when a poor lieutenant, to allow his
imagination full play and fancy things just as he would have them. Then
he would coolly consider the exact steps to be taken if he were to try
to make his dream come true.
[Sidenote: Sources of power in Napoleon's character.]
In order to explain Bonaparte's success it must be remembered that he
was not hampered or held back by the fear of doing wrong. He was utterly
unscrupulous, whether dealing with an individual or a nation, and
appears to have been absolutely without any sense of moral
responsibility. Affection for his friends and relatives never stood in
the way of his personal aggrandizement. To these traits must be added
unrivaled military genius and the power of intense and almost
uninterrupted work.
[Sidenote: The political conditions which rendered Napoleon's wonderful
successes possible.]
But even Bonaparte, unexampled as were his abilities, could never have
extended his power over all of western Europe, had it not been for the
peculiar political weakness of most of the states with which he had to
deal. There was no strong German empire in his day, no united Italy, no
Belgium whose neutrality was guaranteed--as it now is--by the other
powers of Europe. The French republic was surrounded by petty
independent, or practically independent, principalities which were
defenseless against an unscrupulous invader. Prussia, much smaller than
it now is, offered, as we shall see, no efficient opposition to the
extension of French control. Austria had been forced to capitulate,
after a short campaign, by an enemy far from its source of supplies and
led by a young and inexperienced general.
[Sidenote: Napoleon conceives the idea of an expedition to Egypt.]
241. After arranging the Peace of Campo-Formio, General Bonaparte
returned to Paris. He at once perceived that France, in spite of her
enthusiasm for him, was not yet ready to accept him as her ruler. He
saw, too, that he would soon sacrifice his prestige if he lived quietly
in Paris like an ordinary person. His active mind soon conceived a plan
which would forward his interests. France was still at war with England,
its most persevering enemy during this period. Bonaparte convinced the
Directory that England could best be ruined in the long run by seizing
Egypt and threatening her commerce through the Mediterranean, and
perhaps ultimately her dominion in the East. Bonaparte, fascinated by
the career of Alexander the Great, pictured himself riding to India on
the back of an elephant and dispossessing England of her most precious
colonial dependencies. He had, however, still another and a
characteristic reason for undertaking the expedition. France was on the
eve of a new war with the European powers. Bonaparte foresaw that, if he
could withdraw with him some of France's best officers, the Directory
might soon find itself so embarrassed that he could return as a national
savior. And even so it fell out.
[Sidenote: The campaign in Egypt, 1798-1799.]
[Sidenote: Nelson destroys the French fleet.]
The French fleet left Toulon, May 19, 1798. It was so fortunate as to
escape the English squadron under Nelson, which sailed by it in the
night. Bonaparte arrived at Alexandria, July 1, and easily defeated the
Turkish troops in the famous battle of the Pyramids. Meanwhile Nelson,
who did not know the destination of the enemy's fleet, had returned from
the Syrian coast where he had looked for the French in vain. He
discovered Bonaparte's ships in the harbor of Alexandria and completely
annihilated them in the first battle of the Nile (August 1, 1798). The
French troops were now completely cut off from Europe.[413]
[Sidenote: Syrian campaign.]
[Sidenote: Bonaparte deserts the army in Egypt and returns to Paris.]
The Porte (i.e., the Turkish government) declared war against France,
and Bonaparte resolved to attack Turkey by land. He accordingly marched
into Syria in the spring of 1799, but was repulsed at Acre, where the
Turkish forces were aided by the English fleet. Pursued by pestilence,
the army regained Cairo in June after terrible suffering and loss. It
was still strong enough to annihilate a Turkish army that landed at
Alexandria; but news now reached Bonaparte from Europe which convinced
him that the time had come for him to hasten back. Northern Italy, which
he had won, was lost; the allies were about to invade France, and the
Directory was completely demoralized. Bonaparte accordingly secretly
deserted his army and managed, by a series of happy accidents, to reach
France by October 9, 1799.
[Sidenote: The _coup d'état_ of the 18th Brumaire, November 9, 1799.]
[Sidenote: Bonaparte made First Consul.]
242. The Directory, one of the most corrupt and inefficient governmental
bodies that the world has ever seen, had completely disgraced
itself.[414] Bonaparte readily found others to join with him in a
conspiracy to overthrow it. A plan was formed for abruptly destroying
the old government and replacing it by a new one without observing any
constitutional forms. This is a procedure so familiar in France during
the past century that it is known even in English as a _coup d'état_
(literally translated, a "stroke of state"). The conspirators had a good
many friends in the two assemblies, especially among the "Elders."
Nevertheless Bonaparte had to order his soldiers to invade the hall in
which the Assembly of the Five Hundred was in session and scatter his
opponents before he could accomplish his purpose. A chosen few were then
reassembled under the presidency of Lucien Bonaparte, one of Napoleon's
brothers, who was a member of the assembly. They voted to put the
government in the hands of General Bonaparte and two others, to be
called _Consuls_. These were to proceed, with the aid of a commission
and of the "Elders," to draw up a new constitution.[415]
[Sidenote: The constitution of the year VIII.]
[Sidenote: The Council of State.]
The new constitution[416] was a very cumbrous and elaborate one. It
provided for no less than four assemblies, one to propose the laws, one
to consider them, one to vote upon them, and one to decide on their
constitutionality. But Bonaparte saw to it that as First Consul he
himself had practically all the power in his own hands. The Council of
State, to which he called talented men from all parties and over which
he presided, was the most important of the governmental bodies. This
body and the administrative system which he soon established have
endured, with a few changes, down to the present day. There is no surer
proof of Napoleon's genius than that, with no previous experience, he
could conceive a plan of government that should serve a great state like
France, through all its vicissitudes, for a century.
[Sidenote: The administrative system instituted by Napoleon.]
In each department he put an officer called a _prefect_, in each
subdivision of the department a _subprefect_. These, together with the
mayors and police commissioners of the towns, were all appointed by the
First Consul. The prefects, "little First Consuls," as Bonaparte called
them, resembled the intendants--the king's officers under the old
régime. Indeed, the new government suggested in several important
respects that of Louis XIV.
[Sidenote: The new government accepted by a plebiscite.]
The new ruler objected as decidedly as Louis XIV had done to the idea of
being controlled by the people, who, he believed, knew nothing of public
affairs. It was enough, he thought, if they were allowed to say whether
they wished a certain form of government or not. He therefore introduced
what he called a _plebiscite_. The new constitution when completed was
submitted to the nation at large, and all were allowed to vote "yes" or
"no" on the expediency of its adoption. Over three million voted in
favor of it and only fifteen hundred and sixty-two against it. This did
not necessarily mean, however, that practically the whole nation wished
to have General Bonaparte as its ruler. A great many may have preferred
what seemed to them an objectionable form of government to the risk of
rejecting it. Herein lies the injustice of the plebiscite. There are
many questions that cannot be answered by a simple "yes" or "no."
[Sidenote: Bonaparte generally acceptable to France as First Consul.]
Yet the accession of the popular young general to power was undoubtedly
grateful to the majority of citizens, who longed above all for a stable
government. The Swedish envoy wrote just after the _coup d'état_: "A
legitimate monarch has perhaps never found a people more ready to do his
bidding than Bonaparte, and it would be inexcusable if this talented
general did not take advantage of this to introduce a better form of
government upon a firmer basis. It is literally true that France will
perform impossibilities in order to aid him in this. The people (with
the exception of a despicable horde of anarchists) are so sick and weary
of revolutionary horrors and folly that they believe that any change
cannot fail to be for the better.... Even the royalists, whatever their
views may be, are sincerely devoted to Bonaparte, for they attribute to
him the intention of gradually restoring the old order of things. The
indifferent element cling to him as the one most likely to give France
peace. The enlightened republicans, although they tremble for their form
of government, prefer to see a single man of talent possess himself of
the power than a club of intriguers."
[Sidenote: Necessity of renewing the war.]
243. Upon becoming First Consul, General Bonaparte found France at war
with England, Russia, Austria, Turkey, and Naples. These powers had
formed a coalition in December, 1798, had defeated the armies that the
Directory sent against them, and undone Bonaparte's work in Italy. It
now devolved upon him to reëstablish the prestige of France abroad, as
well as to restore order and prosperity at home. A successful campaign
would, moreover, fill the empty treasury of the state; for Bonaparte
always exacted large contributions from the defeated enemy and from
those of his allies, like the ephemeral Cisalpine republic, who were
under the "protection" of France. Besides, he must keep himself before
the people as a military hero if he wished to maintain his supremacy.
[Sidenote: Napoleon crosses the Alps and surprises the Austrians.]
Early in the year 1800 Bonaparte began secretly to collect an army near
Dijon. This he proposed to direct against an Austrian army which was
besieging the French general, Masséna, in Genoa. Instead of marching
straight into Italy, as would have been most natural, the First Consul
resolved to take the Austrian forces in the rear. Emulating Hannibal, he
led his troops over the famous Alpine pass of the Great St. Bernard,
dragging his cannon over in the trunks of trees which had been hollowed
out for the purpose. He arrived safely in Milan on the 2d of June to the
utter astonishment of the Austrians, who were taken completely by
surprise.
[Sidenote: The battle of Marengo, June 14, 1800.]
Bonaparte now moved westward, but in his uncertainty as to the exact
whereabouts of the Austrians, he divided his force when near the village
of Marengo (June 14) and sent a contingent under Desaix southward to
head off the enemy in that direction. In the meantime the whole Austrian
army approached from Alessandria and the engagement began. The Austrians
at first repulsed the French, and Bonaparte saw all his great plans in
jeopardy as he vainly besought his soldiers to make another stand. The
defeat was soon turned, however, into one of the most brilliant
victories; for Desaix had heard the firing and returned with his
division. Meanwhile the aged and infirm Austrian commander had returned
to Alessandria, supposing that the battle was won. The result was that
the French troops, reënforced, returned to the attack and carried all
before them. The brave Desaix, who had really saved the day, was killed;
Bonaparte simply said nothing of his own temporary defeat, and added one
more to the list of his great military successes. A truce was signed
next day, and the Austrians retreated behind the Mincio River, leaving
Bonaparte to restore French influence in Lombardy. The districts that he
had "freed" had to support his army, and the reëstablished Cisalpine
republic was forced to pay a monthly tax of two million francs.
[Sidenote: A general pacification, 1801.]
A victory gained by the French at Hohenlinden in December of the same
year brought Austria to terms, and she agreed to conclude a separate
peace with the French republic. This was the beginning of a general
pacification. During the year 1801 treaties were signed with all the
powers with which France had been at war, even with England, who had not
laid down her arms since war was first declared in 1793.
[Sidenote: Two most important provisions of the treaties of 1801.]
[Sidenote: Bonaparte sells Louisiana to the United States, 1803.]
Among many merely transitory results of these treaties there were two
provisions of momentous import. The first of these, Spain's cession of
Louisiana to France in exchange for certain advantages in Italy, does
not concern us here directly. When war again broke out, Bonaparte sold
the district to the United States, and among the many transfers of
territory that he made during his reign, none was more important than
this. We must, however, treat with some detail the second of the great
changes, which led to the complete reorganization of Germany and
ultimately rendered possible the establishment of the present powerful
German empire.
[Sidenote: Cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France and the
results for Germany.]
244. In the treaty signed by Austria at Lunéville in February, 1801, the
emperor agreed, on his own part and on the part of the Holy Roman
Empire, that the French republic should thereafter possess in full
sovereignty the territories lying on the left bank of the Rhine which
belonged to the empire, and that thereafter the Rhine should form the
boundary of France from the point where it left Switzerland to where it
flowed into Dutch territory. As a natural consequence of this cession,
various princes and states of the empire found themselves dispossessed,
either wholly or in part, of their lands. The empire bound itself to
furnish the hereditary princes who had lost possessions on the left bank
of the Rhine with "an indemnity within the empire."
[Sidenote: Secularization of church lands.]
This provision implied a veritable territorial metamorphosis of the old
Holy Roman Empire, which, except for the development of Prussia, was
still in pretty much the same condition as in Luther's time.[417] There
was no unoccupied land to give the dispossessed princes; but there were
two classes of states in the empire that did not belong to _hereditary_
princes, namely, the ecclesiastical states and the free towns. As the
churchmen,--archbishops, bishops, and abbots,--who ruled over the
ecclesiastical states, were forbidden by the rules of the church to
marry, they could of course have no lawful heirs. Should an
ecclesiastical ruler be deprived of his realms, he might, therefore, be
indemnified by a pension for life, with no fear of any injustice to
heirs, since there could be none. The transfer of the lands of an
ecclesiastical prince to a lay, i.e., hereditary, prince was called
_secularization_. The towns, once so powerful and important, had lost
their former influence, and seemed as much of an anomaly in the German
Confederation as the ecclesiastical states.
[Sidenote: Decree of the German diet redistributing German territory,
1803.]
[Sidenote: Disappearance of the imperial cities.]
[Sidenote: Fate of the knights.]
_Reichsdeputationshauptschluss_ was the high-sounding German name of the
great decree issued by the imperial diet in 1803, redistributing the
territory so as to indemnify the hereditary princes dispossessed by the
cession of the left bank of the Rhine to France. All the ecclesiastical
states, except the electorate of Mayence, were turned over to lay
rulers. Of the forty-eight imperial cities, only six were left. Three of
these still exist as republican members of the present German
federation; namely, the Hanseatic towns,--Hamburg, Bremen, and Lübeck.
Bavaria received the bishoprics of Würzburg, Bamberg, Augsburg,
Freising, and a number of the imperial cities. Baden received the
bishoprics of Constance, Basel, Speyer, etc. The knights who had lost
their possessions on the left bank were not indemnified, and those on
the right bank were deprived of their political rights within the next
two or three years, by the several states within whose boundaries they
lay.[418]
[Sidenote: Importance of the extinction of the smaller German states.]
The final distribution was preceded by a bitter and undignified scramble
among the princes for additional bits of territory. All turned to Paris
for favors, since the First Consul, and not the German diet, was really
the arbiter in the matter. Germany never sank to a lower degree of
national degradation than at this period. But this amalgamation was,
nevertheless, the beginning of her political regeneration; for without
the consolidation of the hundreds of practically independent little
states into a few well-organized monarchies, such a union as the present
German empire would have been impossible, and the country must have
remained indefinitely in its traditional impotency.
[Sidenote: Extension of French territory.]
[Sidenote: French dependencies.]
The treaties of 1801 left France in possession of the Austrian
Netherlands and the left bank of the Rhine, to which increase of
territory Piedmont was soon added. Bonaparte found a further resource in
the dependencies, which it was his consistent policy to create. Holland
became the Batavian republic, and, with the Italian (originally the
Cisalpine) republic, came under French control and contributed money
and troops for the forwarding of French interests. The constitution of
Switzerland was improved in the interests of the First Consul and,
incidentally, to the great advantage of the country itself.