| Napoleonic Wars | |||||||
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| Part of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars | |||||||
 Left to right, top to bottom: Battles of Austerlitz, Berlin, Friedland, Vienna, Moscow, Leipzig, Paris, Waterloo | |||||||
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| Belligerents | |||||||
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France and its client states: French Republic (until 1804) French Empire (from 1804) | ||||||
| Commanders and leaders | |||||||
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| Strength | |||||||
Other coalition members: 100,000 regulars and militia at peak strength (1813) Total: 3,000,000 regulars and militia at peak strength (1813) |
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| Casualties and losses | |||||||
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The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte (1804–1815) and a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe.[32] The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.[33]
The first stage of the war broke out when Britain declared war on France on 18 May 1803, alongside the Third Coalition. In December 1805, Napoleon defeated the allied Russo-Austrian army at Austerlitz, thus forcing Austria to make peace. Concerned about increasing French power, Prussia led the creation of the Fourth Coalition, which resumed war in October 1806. Napoleon soon defeated the Prussians at Jena-Auerstedt and the Russians at Friedland, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. The treaty had failed to end the tension, and war broke out again in 1809, with the Austrian-led Fifth Coalition. At first, the Austrians won a significant victory at Aspern-Essling but were quickly defeated at Wagram.
Hoping to isolate and weaken Britain economically through his Continental System, Napoleon launched an invasion of Portugal, the only remaining British ally in continental Europe. After occupying Lisbon in November 1807, and with the bulk of French troops present in Spain, Napoleon seized the opportunity to turn against his former ally, depose the reigning Spanish royal family, and declare his brother King of Spain in 1808 as José I. The Spanish and Portuguese thus revolted, with British support, and expelled the French from Iberia in 1814 after six years of fighting.
Concurrently, Russia, unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade, routinely violated the Continental System, prompting Napoleon to launch a massive invasion of Russia in 1812. The resulting campaign ended in disaster for France and the near-destruction of Napoleon's Grande Armée.
Encouraged by the defeat, Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, Sweden, and Russia formed the Sixth Coalition and began a new campaign against France, decisively defeating Napoleon at Leipzig in October 1813. The Allies then invaded France from the east, while the Peninsular War spilled over into southwestern France. Coalition troops captured Paris at the end of March 1814, forced Napoleon to abdicate in April, exiled him to the island of Elba, and restored power to the Bourbons. Napoleon escaped in February 1815 and reassumed control of France for around one Hundred Days. The allies formed the Seventh Coalition, which defeated him at Waterloo in June 1815, and exiled him to the island of Saint Helena, where he died six years later in 1821.[34]
The wars had profound consequences on global history, including the spread of nationalism and liberalism, advancements in civil law, the rise of Britain as the world's foremost naval and economic power, the appearance of independence movements in Spanish America and the subsequent decline of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, the fundamental reorganization of German and Italian territories into larger states, and the introduction of radically new methods of conducting warfare. After the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the Congress of Vienna redrew Europe's borders and brought a relative peace to the continent, lasting until the Revolutions of 1848 and the Crimean War in 1853.
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
- ^ Arnold 1995, p. 36.
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The Risorgimento is the name given to the process that ended with the political unification of Italy in 1871
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The functional importance of the Risorgimento to both Italian politics and Italian historiography has made this short period (1815–60) one of the most contested and controversial in modern Italian history
- ^ Walter, Jakob; Raeff, Marc (1996). The diary of a Napoleonic foot soldier. Princeton, N.J.
{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link) - ^ Martyn Lyons pp. 234–236
- ^ Payne 1973, pp. 432–433.
- ^ Esdaile 2009.
- ^ Riehn 1991, p. 50.
- ^ Leggiere 2014.
- ^ Chandler & Beckett, p. 132
- ^ Elliott, George (1816). The Life of the Most Noble Arthur, Duke of Wellington. London: J. Cundee. p. xiii–xiv. Archived from the original on 8 December 2023. Retrieved 22 November 2023.
- ^ Esdaile, Charles J. (2004). Fighting Napoleon: Guerrillas, Bandits and Adventurers in Spain, 1808–1814, p. 108. Yale University Press. Archived 22 November 2023 at the Wayback Machine Google Books. Retrieved 14 September 2013.
- ^ John France (2011). Perilous Glory: The Rise of Western Military Power. Yale UP. p. 351. ISBN 978-0-300-17744-2.
- ^ White 2014 cites Clodfelter and Danzer
- ^ a b White 2014, Napoleonic Wars cites Urlanis 1971
- ^ Canales 2004.
- ^ White 2014 cites Danzer
- ^ a b White 2014 cites Payne
- ^ Clodfelter
- ^ White 2014.
- ^ a b c Philo 2010.
- ^ Bodart 1916.
- ^ Colson, Bruno; Mikaberidze, Alexander, eds. (2023). The Cambridge History of the Napoleonic Wars: Volume 2: Fighting the Napoleonic Wars. Vol. 2. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. doi:10.1017/9781108278096. ISBN 978-1-108-41766-2.
- ^ "The Napoleonic Wars". Encyclopædia Britannica (Online ed.). Retrieved 30 January 2024.
- ^ Zamoyski, Adam (2018). Napoleon: A Life. London: Basic Books. p. 480. ISBN 978-0-465-05593-7. Archived from the original on 6 August 2020. Retrieved 7 November 2018.