His Conquests

Napoleon with the battle of Austerlitz

The battle of Austerlitz is considered by many historians as the most successful battle, most succeeded of Napoleon Bonaparte who fine tactician, completes with this battle (still today taught in many military academies) the brilliant countryside that it carried out since the sand of Boulogne-sur-Mer to the snow of Austerlitz.

Military conquests of Napoleon

Rupture of the peace of Amiens in May 1803 until the fall of the Empire in 1814 and the interlude of the Hundred Days in 1815, the war was continual. The historians are in disagreement on the causes of this permanent war. Some accuse the insatiable ambition of the emperor: new Alexandre, it believed himself intended to dominate the world; for others, its ambition was restricted to organize new Europe dominated by France.

Others still point out the heritage of the Revolution: Napoleon was to defend the natural borders that its adversaries and especially Great Britain did not want to recognize in France. Noticing that Great Britain was present in all the successive coalitions directed against France, others reflect ahead the role of the British imperialism, which could not accept the Napoleonean attempts to compete with it in the economic domain: even when it wished peace, Napoleon ran up against the British opposition.

One also could show the logical bond, after 1807, between the continental Blockade and the interventions in Italy, in the Baltic, in the Iberian peninsula and, in 1812, in Russia: it was necessary, so that the blockade was effective, to control all the shores by where the British goods had been able to unload, to oblige the tsar, the old ally, to respect its engagements.

There is in all these explanations a share of truth, but none can with it only claim to incarnate it. One could also add the hatred of the aristocracies against that which they presented like the parvenu of the Revolution, the hatred of the people which forged in the suffering of oppression the national feeling which will raise them in 1813.

Starting from a certain level of conquests, Napoleon was taken in gears which continuously threw it in an escape ahead perhaps which it did not wish always: it was inevitably to find its term.


Napoleonean strategy

Napoleon was the Master of the army; he was very little worried to train general officers who had been able to help it effectively; given up with themselves, the marshals were poor. The preparation of the campaigns extremely left something to be desired; never Napoleon could do without the suppliers, who, such famous Ouvrard, piled up scandalous fortunes. The lack of money forced to delay the payment of the balances, to neglect clothing, food, the means of transport: the war was to nourish the war. In the same way, the armament remained summary; the improvisation remained the rule. This is why the victory was to be fulgurating and immediate: nothing with the back was ready to support a long campaign.

The Napoleonean strategy rested on simple principles: to attract the enemy on a ground chosen, to bring it by a man work feints to weaken a point, to break the unfavourable line at this precise place then to insulate and to split up the various enemy groups; an alternative consisted in voluntarily yielding on the center to make it wrap by the going wing; the continuation completed the victory. As for the tactics, it had hardly varied: a lot of riflemen progressed in loose order by using the ground, exhausted the adversary arranged on line by a heavy fire; the infantry could attack then, sweeping the enemy rows by her mass. The cavalry was used to break the unfavourable lines, to cut up them and continue the runaways. As for artillery, concentrated in strong units, it prepared, by its fire power, the action of the infantry.

An evolution occurred during the years: gradually, the French came from there to neglect the preparation of the attack by the riflemen while at the same time the adversaries initiated themselves with the new practices, increased the fire power of their formations; from there French disappointments in Spain and in Waterloo. Moreover, conceived for a victory fast and striking down in rich countries and of average extent, without average techniques nor sure communications, the Napoleonean army was going to face insurmountable difficulties as soon as it would meet the vast wide ones of Germany of North, of Poland and Russia, the extreme or frozen deserts of Spain.

Various campaigns of Napoleon

1800 - 1804

Period of the Consulate
1800
Countryside of Italy
1803
Countryside of Boulogne


1804 - 1814
Period of the Empire
1805
Countryside of Germany
1806 -1807
Countryside of Prussia and Poland
1809
Countryside of Germany and Austria
1807 - 1814
War of Spain
1812
Countryside of Russia
1814
Countryside of France


1814 - 1815
100 days period
1815
Countryside of Belgium




The geographical distribution

Napoleonean Empire in 1811

Chart Alain Houot

Three geographically distinct fields composed the system: the Italian field, the Iberian peninsula and the German group, to which one can attach the Netherlands and Switzerland.

The Italian field

The Italian field understood French Italy, the kingdom of Italy, the provinces illyriennes, the kingdom of Naples. It was marked the most. Everywhere, the Civil code was introduced, abolished feudality, the simplified administration. In the kingdom of Italy, whose sovereign in title was Napoleon, the government was entrusted to Eugene de Beauharnais. In this creation, where it did not have to take account of the monarchical tradition nor of the revolutionary memories, it accentuated centralization methodically, multiplied the civils servant, carried out the modernization of the army, introduced the Civil code, narrowly subordinated the kingdom to the French economy. The middle-class, which provides many officers to the army, showed a certain attachment for the mode, but the condition of the peasants hardly evolved.

The kingdom of Naples, initially given to Joseph, then after 1808 in Murat, was also deeply transformed: a land reform was installation, but with the fall of Murat one was only at the beginnings. It is in the old States of the pope that resistance was sharpest: the populations, accustomed for some to the begging and the armed robbery, for others with the resources drawn from the presence of the pontifical court, did not forgive the administrative effort and the departure of the pope. In 1814, Italy was in full transformation.

The Iberian peninsula

The Iberian peninsula, theoretically annexed in 1808, Joseph becoming king d' Espagne, was never subjected: no reform was implemented safe in Catalonia, where they were very moderate.

The Netherlands, country where existed a strong national tradition and where domination of the middle-class was old, was spared initially; when it had been annexed, the attempts at assimilation encountered a deaf resistance, especially with regard to finances and the land reform.

The German group

The Confederation of the Rhine, created in 1806, was a vast heteroclite grouping of vassal territories, without bonds between them, if it is not the person of their guard. Two States depended directly on the Emperor: the Grand Duchy of Berg, managed by Napoleon after the departure of Murat, and the kingdom of Westphalia, amputee of his shores of the North Sea in 1810. It is in the latter that the introduction of the system was most complete; it constituted for Germany a kind of model State.

The nobility suffered from the loss of its privileges, but was comforted by accepting the loads and the honors; as for the middle-class, it was, like everywhere else, large the recipient of the transformations. Napoleon was only the guard of the other States of the Confederation; nevertheless, they underwent transformations in general, except with regard to the political regime and the release of the peasants. Though the Grand Duchy of Warsaw had been offered to the duke of Saxony, Napoleon also proceeded to it to reforms, copied on the French model, but, not being able to be based on a non-existent middle-class, it preserved its preponderance at the nobility. Thus, so everywhere the reform of the State was started, everywhere the social reform was attenuated or fell through.