Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars (1803â€"1815) were a series of major conflicts pitting the French Empire led by Napoleon against an array of European powers formed into various coalitions. They revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly owing to the application of modern mass conscription. The wars are traditionally seen as a continuation of the Revolutionary Wars, which broke out during the French Revolution. Initially, French power rose quickly as the armies of Napoleon conquered much of Europe. In his military career, Napoleon fought about 60 battles and lost seven, mostly at the end. The great French dominion collapsed rapidly after the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Napoleon was defeated in 1814, and then once more in 1815 at Waterloo after a brief return to power. The Allies then reversed all French gains since the Revolutionary Wars at the Congress of Vienna.

Before a final victory against Napoleon, five of seven coalitions saw defeat at the hands of France. France defeated the first and second coalitions during the French Revolutionary Wars, the third (notably at Austerlitz), the fourth (notably at Jena, Eylau, and Friedland) and the fifth coalition (notably at Wagram) under the leadership of Napoleon. These great victories gave the French Army a sense of invulnerability, especially when it approached Moscow. But after the retreat from Russia, in spite of incomplete victories, France was defeated by the sixth coalition at Leipzig, in the Peninsular War at Vitoria and at the hands of the seventh coalition at Waterloo.

The wars resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and sowed the seeds of nascent nationalism in Germany and Italy that would lead to the two nations' respective consolidations later in the century. Meanwhile, the global Spanish Empire began to unravel as French occupation of Spain weakened Spain's hold over its colonies, providing an opening for nationalist revolutions in Spanish America. As a direct result of the Napoleonic wars, the British Empire became the foremost world power for the next century, thus beginning Pax Britannica.

No consensus exists about when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began. An early candidate is 9 November 1799, the date of Bonaparte's coup seizing power in France. However, the most common date is 18 May 1803, when renewed war broke out between Britain and France, ending the one-year-old Peace of Amiens, the only period of general peace in Europe between 1792 and 1814. Most actual fighting ceased following Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815, although skirmishing continued as late as 3 July 1815 at the Battle of Issy. The Second Treaty of Paris officially ended the wars on 20 November 1815.

Background 1789â€"1802

News of the French Revolution of 1789 was received with great alarm by the rulers of France's neighbors, which only increased with the arrest and eventual execution of King Louis XVI of France. The first attempt to crush the French Republic came in 1793 when Austria, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples, Prussia, Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain formed the First Coalition. French measures, including general conscription (levée en masse), military reform, and total war, contributed to the defeat of the First Coalition, despite the civil war occurring in France. The war ended when General Napoleon Bonaparte forced the Austrians to accept his terms in the Treaty of Campo Formio. Only Great Britain remained opposed to the French Republic.

The Second Coalition was formed in 1798 by Austria, Great Britain, the Kingdom of Naples, the Ottoman Empire, the Papal States, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and other countries. During the War of the Second Coalition, the French Republic suffered from corruption and internal division under the Directory (five directeurs holding executive power). France also lacked funds, and no longer had the services of Lazare Carnot, the war minister who had guided it to successive victories following extensive reforms during the early 1790s. Bonaparte, the main architect of victory in the last years of the First Coalition, had gone to campaign in Egypt. Missing two of its most important military figures from the previous conflict, the Republic suffered successive defeats against revitalized enemies whom British financial support brought back into the war.

Bonaparte returned from Egypt to France on 23 August 1799, and seized control of the French government on 9 November 1799 in the coup of 18 Brumaire replacing the Directory with the Consulate led by himself. He reorganized the French military and created a reserve army positioned to support campaigns either on the Rhine or in Italy.

On all fronts, French advances caught the Austrians off guard and knocked Russia out of the war. In Italy, Bonaparte won a notable victory against the Austrians at Marengo in 1800, but the decisive win came at Hohenlinden later that year. The defeated Austrians left the conflict after the Treaty of Lunéville (9 February 1801), forcing Britain to sign the Peace of Amiens with France.

Start date and nomenclature

No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began. Possible dates include 9 November 1799, when Bonaparte seized power on 18 Brumaire in France; or 18 May 1803, when Britain and France ended the one short period of peace between 1792 and 1814, or 2 December 1804, when Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor.

British historians occasionally refer to the nearly continuous period of warfare from 1792 to 1815 as the Great French War, or as the final phase of the Anglo-French Second Hundred Years' War, spanning the period 1689 to 1815.

In France, the Napoleonic Wars are generally integrated with the French Revolutionary Wars : Les guerres de la Révolution et de l'Empire.

Napoleon's tactics

Napoleon was, and remains, famous for his battlefield victories, and historians have spent enormous attention in analyzing them. In 2008, Donald Sutherland wrote:

The ideal Napoleonic battle was to manipulate the enemy into an unfavourable position through maneuver and deception, force him to commit his main forces and reserve to the main battle and then undertake an enveloping attack with uncommitted or reserve troops on the flank or rear. Such a surprise attack either would produce a devastating effect on morale or force him to weaken his main battle line. Either way, the enemy's own impulsiveness began the process by which even a smaller French army could defeat the enemy's forces one by one.

After 1807, Napoleon's creation of a highly mobile, well-armed artillery force gave artillery increased tactical importance. Napoleon, rather than relying on infantry to wear away the enemy's defenses, now could use massed artillery as a spearhead to pound a break in the enemy's line. Once that was achieved he sent in infantry and cavalry.

Prelude

Britain was irritated by a number of French actions following the Treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte had annexed Piedmont and Elba, made himself President of the Italian Republic, a state in northern Italy that France had set up, and failed to evacuate Holland. France continued to interfere with British trade despite peace having been made and complained about Britain harboring certain individuals and not cracking down on their anti-French press.

Malta had been captured by Britain during the war and was subject to a complex arrangement in the 10th article of the Treaty of Amiens where it was to be restored to the Knights of St. John with a Neapolitan garrison and placed under the guarantee of third powers. However, the weakening of the Knights of St. John by the confiscation of their assets in France and Spain along with delays in obtaining guarantees prevented the British from evacuating it after three months as stipulated in the treaty.

The Helvetian Republic had been set up by France when they invaded Switzerland in 1798. France had withdrawn its troops, but violent strife subsequently broke out against the government, which many Swiss saw as overly centralized. Alarmed, Bonaparte reoccupied the country in October 1802 and imposed a compromise settlement. This action caused widespread outrage in Britain, who protested this as violation of the Treaty of Luneville. Although continental powers were unprepared to act, the British decided to send an agent who would help the Swiss obtain supplies, and also sent orders for their military not to return Cape Colony to Holland as they had committed to do so in the Treaty of Amiens.

Swiss resistance collapsed, however, before anything could be accomplished and after a month Britain countermanded the orders not to restore Cape Colony. At the same time Russia finally joined the guarantee with regards to Malta. Concerned that there would be hostilities when Bonaparte found out that Cape Colony had been retained, the British began to deliberately procrastinate on the evacuation of Malta. In January 1803 an official government paper in France published a report from a commercial agent which noted the ease that Egypt could be conquered. The British seized on this to demand some sort of satisfaction and security before evacuating Malta, which was a convenient stepping stone to Egypt. France disclaimed any desire to seize Egypt and asked what sort of satisfaction was required but the British were unable to give a response. There was still no thought of going to war, Prime Minister Addington publicly affirmed Britain was in a state of profound peace.

In early March 1803 the Addington ministry received word that Cape Colony had been re-occupied by the British army in accordance with the orders which had subsequently been countermanded. On 8 March they ordered military preparations to guard against possible French retaliation, but publicly justified them by falsely claiming that it was only in response to French preparations and that they were conducting serious negotiations with France. In a few days it was known that Cape Colony had been surrendered in accordance with the counter-orders, but it was too late. Bonaparte berated the British ambassador in front of 200 spectators over its unjustified military preparations.

The Addington ministry realized they would face an inquiry over their false reasons for the military preparations, and during the month of April unsuccessfully attempted to secure the support of William Pitt the Younger to shield them from damage. That same month the ministry suddenly issued an ultimatum to France demanding the retention of Malta for at least ten years, the permanent acquisition of the island of Lampedusa from the Kingdom of Sicily, and the evacuation of Holland. In addition they offered to recognize French gains in Italy if they evacuated Switzerland and compensated the King of Sardinia for his territorial losses. France offered to place Malta in the hands of Russia to satisfy British concerns, pull out of Holland when Malta was evacuated, and form a convention to give satisfaction to Britain on other issues. The British falsely denied that Russia had made an offer and their ambassador left Paris. Desperate to avoid war Bonaparte sent a secret offer where he agreed to let Britain retain Malta if France could occupy the Otranto peninsula in Naples. All efforts were futile and Britain declared war on 18 May 1803.

War between Britain and France, 1803â€"1814

British motivations

Britain ended the uneasy truce created by the Treaty of Amiens when it declared war on France in May 1803. The British were increasingly angered by Napoleon's reordering of the international system in Western Europe, especially in Switzerland, Germany, Italy and the Netherlands. Kagan argues that Britain was insulted and alarmed especially by Napoleon's assertion of control over Switzerland. Britons felt insulted when Napoleon said it deserved no voice in European affairs (even though King George was an elector of the Holy Roman Empire), and ought to shut down the London newspapers that were vilifying Napoleon.

Britain had a sense of loss of control, as well as loss of markets, and was worried by Napoleon's possible threat to its overseas colonies. McLynn argues that Britain went to war in 1803 out of a "mixture of economic motives and national neuroses â€" an irrational anxiety about Napoleon's motives and intentions." However McLynn Concludes that in the long run it proved to be the right choice for Britain, because in the long run Napoleon’s intentions were hostile to British national interest. Furthermore, Napoleon was not ready for war and this was the best time for Britain to stop them.Britain therefore seized upon the Malta issue, refusing to follow the terms of the Treaty of Amiens and evacuate the island.

The deeper British grievance was their perception that Napoleon was taking personal control of Europe, making the international system unstable, and forcing Britain to the sidelines.

Numerous scholars have argued that Napoleon's aggressive posture made him numerous enemies while costing potential allies. The Continental powers as late as 1808 affirmed most of his remarkable gains and titles, but the continuing conflict with Britain lead him to start the Peninsula War and the invasion of Russia which many scholars see as a dramatic miscalculation.

There was one serious attempt to negotiate peace with France during the war, made by Charles James Fox in 1806. The British wanted to retain their overseas conquests and have Hanover restored to George III in exchange for accepting French conquests on the continent. The French were willing to confirm Malta, Cape Colony, Tobago, and French Indian posts to Britain but wanted to obtain Sicily in exchange for the restoration of Hanover, a condition the British refused.

Unlike its many coalition partners, Britain remained at war throughout the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Protected by naval supremacy (in the words of Admiral Jervis to the House of Lords "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea"), Britain maintained low-intensity land warfare on a global scale for over a decade. The British government paid out large sums of money to other European states, so that they could pay armies in the field against France. These payments are colloquially known as the Golden Cavalry of St George. The British Army provided long-term support to the Spanish rebellion in the Peninsular War of 1808â€"1814, assisted by Spanish guerrilla ('little war') tactics. Anglo-Portuguese forces under Arthur Wellesley supported the Spanish, which campaigned successfully against the French armies, eventually driving them from Spain, thus allowing Britain to invade southern France. By 1815, the British Army played the central role in the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.

Beyond minor naval actions against British imperial interests, the Napoleonic Wars were much less global in scope than preceding conflicts such as Seven Years' War, which historians term a "world war".

Economic warfare

In response to the naval blockade of the French coasts enacted by the British government on 16 May 1806, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree on 21 November 1806, which brought into effect the Continental System. This policy aimed to eliminate the threat from Britain by closing French-controlled territory to its trade. Britain maintained a standing army of just 220,000 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, of which less than half was available for campaigning, the rest being necessary for garrisoning Ireland and the colonies or providing security for England, whereas France's strength peaked at around 2,500,000 full-time and part-time soldiers including several hundred-thousand National Guardsmen that Napoleon could draft into the military if necessary. Both nations also enlisted large numbers of sedentary militia but they were unsuited for actual campaigning and were mostly employed to release regular forces for active duty. The Royal Navy effectively disrupted France's extra-continental trade â€" both by seizing and threatening French shipping and by seizing French colonial possessions â€" but could do nothing about France's trade with the major continental economies and posed little threat to French territory in Europe. Also, France's population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of Britain. However, Britain had the greatest industrial capacity in Europe, and its mastery of the seas allowed it to build up considerable economic strength through trade. That sufficed to ensure that France could never consolidate its control over Europe in peace. However, many in the French government believed that cutting Britain off from the Continent would end its economic influence over Europe and isolate it.

Financing the war

A key element in British success was its ability to mobilize the nation's industrial and financial resources and apply them to defeating France. With a population of 16 million Britain was half the size of France with 30 million. In terms of soldiers the French advantage was offset by British subsidies that paid for a large proportion of the Austrian and Russian soldiers, peaking at about 450,000 men in 1813. By the terms of the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1803, Britain paid a subsidy of ₤1.5 million for every 100,000 Russian soldiers in the field.

Most important, the British national output remained strong and the well-organized business sector channeled products into what the military needed. Britain used its economic power to expand the Royal Navy, doubling the number of frigates and increasing the number of large ships of the line by 50%, while increasing the roster of sailors from 15,000 to 133,000 in eight years after the war began in 1793. France, meanwhile, saw its navy shrink by more than half. The system of smuggling finished products into the continent undermined French efforts to ruin the British economy by cutting off markets. Subsidies to Russia and Austria kept them in the war. The British budget in 1814 reached £66,000,000, including £10 million for the Royal Navy, £40 million for the army, £10 million for the allies, and £38 million as interest on the national debt. The national debt soared to £679 million, more than double the GDP. It was willingly supported by hundreds of thousands of investors and tax payers, despite the higher taxes on land and a new income tax. The whole cost of the war came to £831 million. By contrast the French financial system was inadequate and Napoleon's forces had to rely in part on requisitions from conquered lands.

War of the Third Coalition 1805

Britain gathered together allies to form the Third Coalition against France. In response, Napoleon seriously considered an invasion of Great Britain, and massed 180,000 effectives at Boulogne. However, before he could invade, he needed to achieve naval superiorityâ€"or at least to pull the British fleet away from the English Channel. A complex plan to distract the British by threatening their possessions in the West Indies failed when a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve turned back after an indecisive action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805. The Royal Navy blockaded Villeneuve in Cádiz until he left for Naples on 19 October; the British squadron caught and overwhelmingly defeated the combined enemy fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October (the British commander, Lord Nelson, died in the battle). Napoleon would never again have the opportunity to challenge the British at sea, nor to threaten an invasion. He again turned his attention to enemies on the Continent.

In April 1805, Britain and Russia signed a treaty with the aim of removing the French from the Batavian Republic (roughly present-day Netherlands) and the Swiss Confederation (Switzerland). Austria joined the alliance after the annexation of Genoa and the proclamation of Napoleon as King of Italy on 17 March 1805. Sweden, which had already agreed to lease Swedish Pomerania as a military base for British troops against France, formally entered the coalition on 9 August.

The Austrians began the war by invading Bavaria with an army of about 70,000 under Karl Mack von Leiberich, and the French army marched out from Boulogne in late July 1805 to confront them. At Ulm (25 September â€" 20 October) Napoleon surrounded Mack's army, forcing its surrender without significant losses. With the main Austrian army north of the Alps defeated (another army under Archduke Charles manoeuvred inconclusively against André Masséna's French army in Italy), Napoleon occupied Vienna. Far from his supply lines, he faced a larger Austro-Russian army under the command of Mikhail Kutuzov, with the Emperor Alexander I of Russia personally present. On 2 December, Napoleon crushed the joint Austro-Russian army in Moravia at Austerlitz (usually considered his greatest victory). He inflicted a total of 25,000 casualties on a numerically superior enemy army while sustaining fewer than 7,000 in his own force.

Austria signed the Treaty of Pressburg (26 December 1805) and left the Coalition. The Treaty required the Austrians to give up Venetia to the French-dominated Kingdom of Italy and the Tyrol to Bavaria. With the withdrawal of Austria from the war, stalemate ensued. Napoleon's army had a record of continuous unbroken victories on land, but the full force of the Russian army had not yet come into play. Napoleon had now consolidated his hold on France, had taken control of Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and most of Western Germany and northern Italy. His admirers say that Napoleon wanted to stop now, but was forced to continue in order to gain additional security from a concert of countries that refused to accept his conquests. Esdaille, however, rejects that explanation and instead says that it was a good time to stop expansion, for the major powers were ready to accept Napoleon as he was:

in 1806 both Russia and Britain had been positively eager to make peace, and they might well have agreed to terms that would have left the Napoleonic imperium almost completely intact. As for Austria and Prussia, they simply wanted to be left alone. To have secured a compromise peace, then, would have been comparatively easy. But...Napoleon was prepared to make no concessions.

War of the Fourth Coalition 1806â€"1807

Within months of the collapse of the Third Coalition, the Fourth Coalition (1806â€"07) against France was formed by Britain, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden. In July 1806, Napoleon formed the Confederation of the Rhine out of the many tiny German states which constituted the Rhineland and most other western parts of Germany. He amalgamated many of the smaller states into larger electorates, duchies and kingdoms to make the governance of non-Prussian Germany smoother. Napoleon elevated the rulers of the two largest Confederation states, Saxony and Bavaria, to the status of kings.

In August 1806, the Prussian king, Frederick William III decided to go to war independently of any other great power. The army of Russia, a Prussian ally, in particular was too far away to assist. In September, Napoleon unleashed all the French forces east of the Rhine. Napoleon himself defeated a Prussian army at Jena (14 October 1806), and Davout defeated another at Auerstädt on the same day. Some 160,000 French soldiers (increasing in number as the campaign went on) attacked Prussia, moving with such speed that they destroyed the entire Prussian army as an effective military force. Out of 250,000 troops the Prussians sustained 25,000 casualties, lost a further 150,000 prisoners, 4,000 artillery pieces, and over 100,000 muskets. At Jena, Napoleon had fought only a detachment of the Prussian force. Auerstädt involved a single French corps defeating the bulk of the Prussian army. Napoleon entered Berlin on 27 October 1806. He visited the tomb of Frederick the Great and instructed his marshals to remove their hats there, saying, "If he were alive we wouldn't be here today". In total, Napoleon had taken only 19 days from beginning his attack on Prussia until knocking it out of the war with the capture of Berlin and the destruction of its principal armies at Jena and Auerstädt. By contrast, Prussia had fought for three years in the War of the First Coalition with little achievement. Saxony quit Prussia and together with small states from north Germany allied with France.

In the next stage of the war the French drove Russian forces out of Poland and employed many Polish and German soldiers in several sieges in Silesia and Pomerania, with the assistance of Dutch and Italian soldiers in the latter case. Then Napoleon turned north to confront the remainder of the Russian army and to try to capture the temporary Prussian capital at Königsberg. A tactical draw at Eylau (7â€"8 February 1807), followed by capitulation at Danzig (24 May 1807) and Battle of Heilsberg (10 June 1807) forced the Russians to withdraw further north. Napoleon then routed the Russian army at Friedland (14 June 1807). Following this defeat, Alexander had to make peace with Napoleon at Tilsit (7 July 1807). In Germany and Poland new Napoleonic client states, like the Kingdom of Westphalia, Duchy of Warsaw and Republic of Danzig were established.

By September, Marshal Brune completed the occupation of Swedish Pomerania, allowing the Swedish army, however, to withdraw with all its munitions of war.

In early September 1807, Britain attacked neutral Denmark, conducting a naval bombardment of Copenhagen in order to make Denmark surrender its fleet. The large Danish fleet posed a possible threat in that it might replace many of the ships France had lost at Trafalgar in 1805. The British attack led Denmark to join the war on the side of France.

At the Congress of Erfurt (Septemberâ€"October 1808), Napoleon and Alexander agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System, which led to the Finnish War of 1808â€"09 and to the division of Sweden into two parts separated by the Gulf of Bothnia. The eastern part became the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland.

Poland

In 1807 Napoleon created a powerful outpost of his empire in Eastern Europe. Poland had recently been partitioned by its three large neighbors, but Napoleon created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which depended on France from the very beginning. The duchy consisted of lands seized in Russia, Austria, and Prussia; its Grand Duke was Napoleon's ally the king of Saxony, but Napoleon appointed the intendants who ran the country. The population of 4.3 million was released from occupation and by 1814 sent about 200,000 men to Napoleon's armies. That included about 90,000 who marched with him to Moscow; few marched back. The Russians strongly opposed any move toward an independent Poland and one reason Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was to punish them. The Grand Duchy was dissolved in 1815 and Poland would not be a state until 1918. However Napoleon's impact on Poland was dramatic, including the Napoleonic legal code, the abolition of serfdom, and the introduction of modern middle class bureaucracies.

War of the Fifth Coalition 1809

The Fifth Coalition (1809) of Britain and Austria against France formed as Britain engaged in the Peninsular War in Spain and Portugal. Again Britain stood alone, and the sea became the major theatre of war against Napoleon's allies. During the time of the Fifth Coalition, the Royal Navy won a succession of victories in the French colonies.

On land, the Fifth Coalition attempted few extensive military endeavours. One, the Walcheren Expedition of 1809, involved a dual effort by the British Army and the Royal Navy to relieve Austrian forces under intense French pressure. It ended in disaster after the Army commander, John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham, failed to capture the objective, the naval base of French-controlled Antwerp. For the most part of the years of the Fifth Coalition, British military operations on land (apart from the Iberian Peninsula) remained restricted to hit-and-run operations executed by the Royal Navy, which dominated the sea after having beaten down almost all substantial naval opposition from France and its allies and blockading what remained of France's naval forces in heavily fortified French-controlled ports. These rapid-attack operations were aimed mostly at destroying blockaded French naval and mercantile shipping and the disruption of French supplies, communications, and military units stationed near the coasts. Often, when British allies attempted military actions within several dozen miles or so of the sea, the Royal Navy would arrive and would land troops and supplies and aid the Coalition's land forces in a concerted operation. Royal Navy ships even provided artillery support against French units when fighting strayed near enough to the coastline. However, the ability and quality of the land forces governed these operations. For example, when operating with inexperienced guerrilla forces in Spain, the Royal Navy sometimes failed to achieve its objectives simply because of the lack of manpower that the Navy's guerrilla allies had promised to supply.

Economic warfare continued: the French Continental System against the British naval blockade of French-controlled territory. Due to military shortages and lack of organisation in French territory, many breaches of the Continental System occurred as French-dominated states tolerated or even encouraged trade with British smugglers. Both sides entered additional conflicts in attempts to enforce their blockade; the British fought the United States in the War of 1812 (1812â€"15), and the French engaged in the Peninsular War (1808â€"14). The Iberian conflict began when Portugal continued trade with Britain despite French restrictions. When Spain failed to maintain the continental system, the uneasy Spanish alliance with France ended in all but name. French troops gradually encroached on Spanish territory until they occupied Madrid, and installed a client monarchy. This provoked an explosion of popular rebellions across Spain. Heavy British involvement soon followed.

Austria, previously an ally of France, took the opportunity to attempt to restore its imperial territories in Germany as held prior to Austerlitz. Austria achieved a number of initial victories against the thinly spread army of Marshal Berthier. Napoleon had left Berthier with only 170,000 men to defend France's entire eastern frontier (in the 1790s, 800,000 men had carried out the same task, but holding a much shorter front).

After defeats in Spain suffered by France, Napoleon took charge and enjoyed success, retaking Madrid, defeating the Spanish and forcing a withdrawal of the heavily out-numbered British army from the Iberian Peninsula (Battle of Corunna, 16 January 1809). But when he left, the guerrilla war against his forces in the countryside continued to tie down great numbers of troops. Austria's attack prevented Napoleon from successfully wrapping up operations against British forces by necessitating his departure for Austria, and he never returned to the Peninsular theatre. The British then sent in a fresh army under Sir Arthur Wellesley (later called the Duke of Wellington) whom the French could not stop.

The Peninsular war proved a major disaster for France. Napoleon did well in when he was in direct charge, but that followed severe losses, and was followed by worse losses. He severely underestimated how much manpower would be needed. Spain proved to be a major, long-term drain on money, manpower and prestige. Historian David Gates called it the "Spanish ulcer." France lost the Peninsular War; Napoleon realized it had been a disaster for his cause, writing later, "That unfortunate war destroyed me ... All the circumstances of my disasters are bound up in that fatal knot."

Meanwhile the Austrians drove into the Duchy of Warsaw, but suffered defeat at the Battle of Raszyn on 19 April 1809. The Polish army captured West Galicia following its earlier success.

Napoleon assumed personal command in the east and bolstered the army there for his counter-attack on Austria. After a few small battles, the well-run campaign forced the Austrians to withdraw from Bavaria, and Napoleon advanced into Austria. His hurried attempt to cross the Danube resulted in the massive Battle of Aspern-Essling (22 May 1809) â€" Napoleon's first significant tactical defeat. But the Austrian commander, Archduke Charles, failed to follow up on his indecisive victory, allowing Napoleon to prepare and seize Vienna in early July. He defeated the Austrians at Wagram, on 5â€"6 July. (It was during the middle of that battle that Marshal Bernadotte was stripped of his command after retreating contrary to Napoleon's orders. Shortly thereafter, Bernadotte took up the offer from Sweden to fill the vacant position of Crown Prince there. Later he would actively participate in wars against his former Emperor.)

The War of the Fifth Coalition ended with the Treaty of Schönbrunn (14 October 1809). In the east, only the Tyrolese rebels led by Andreas Hofer continued to fight the French-Bavarian army until finally defeated in November 1809, while in the west the Peninsular War continued.

In 1810, the French Empire reached its greatest extent. On the continent, the British and Portuguese remained restricted to the area around Lisbon (behind their impregnable lines of Torres Vedras) and to besieged Cadiz.

Napoleon married Marie-Louise, an Austrian Archduchess, with the aim of ensuring a more stable alliance with Austria and of providing the Emperor with an heir (something his first wife, Josephine, had failed to do). As well as the French Empire, Napoleon controlled the Swiss Confederation, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Italy. Territories allied with the French included:

• the Kingdom of Spain (under Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's elder brother)
• the Kingdom of Westphalia (Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon's younger brother)
• the Kingdom of Naples (under Joachim Murat, husband of Napoleon's sister Caroline)
• the Principality of Lucca and Piombino (under Elisa Bonaparte (Napoleon's sister) and her husband Felice Baciocchi);

and Napoleon's former enemies, Prussia and Austria.

Subsidiary Wars

The Napoleonic wars were the direct cause of a number of wars in the Americas and elsewhere.

War of 1812

Coinciding with the War of the Sixth Coalition, though technically not considered part of the Napoleonic Wars, was the War of 1812. The neutral United States declared war on Britain. One main reason was British interference with American merchant ships and forced enlistment into the British navy. France had interfered too (and at one point the U.S. considered declaring war on France.) The war ended in a military stalemate and there were no boundary changes at the Treaty of Ghent which took effect in early 1815, when Napoleon was on Elba. The main effect of the War of 1812 on the Napoleonic Wars was to let the Americans distract the British navy, giving the French a slight advantage. The Louisiana Purchase of 1803 came during the peaceful lull after Napoleon decided against building a New World Empire. So he took Louisiana from Spain and sold it to the U.S. for $15 million, including $11 million in gold.

The Latin American Revolutions

The abdication of kings Carlos IV and Fernando VII of Spain and the installation of Napoleon's brother as King José provoked civil wars and revolutions leading to the independence of most of Spain's mainland American colonies.

The Invasion of Russia 1812

The Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 resulted in the Anglo-Russian War (1807â€"12). Emperor Alexander I declared war on Britain after the British attack on Denmark in September 1807. British men-of-war supported the Swedish fleet during the Finnish War and scored victories over the Russians in the Gulf of Finland in July 1808 and August 1809. However, the success of the Russian army on the land forced Sweden to sign peace treaties with Russia in 1809 and with France in 1810 and to join the Continental Blockade against Britain. But Franco-Russian relations became progressively worse after 1810, and the Russian war with Britain effectively ended. In April 1812, Britain, Russia and Sweden signed secret agreements directed against Napoleon.

The central issue for both Napoleon and Tsar Alexander I was control over Poland. Each wanted a semi-independent Poland he could control. As Esdaile notes, "Implicit in the idea of a Russian Poland was, of course, a war against Napoleon." Schroeder says Poland was "the root cause" of Napoleon's war with Russia but Russia's refusal to support the Continental System was also a factor.

In 1812, at the height of his power, Napoleon invaded Russia with a pan-European Grande Armée, consisting of 650,000 men (270,000 Frenchmen and many soldiers of allies or subject areas). The French forces crossed the Niemen River on 24 June 1812. Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War, while Napoleon proclaimed a Second Polish war. The Poles supplied almost 100,000 men for the invasion-force, but against their expectations, Napoleon avoided any concessions to Poland, having in mind further negotiations with Russia.

The Grande Armée marched through Russia, winning a number of relatively minor engagements and the major Battle of Smolensk on 16â€"18 August. However, in the same days, a part of the French Army led by Marshal Nicolas Oudinot was stopped in the Battle of Polotsk by the right wing of the Russian Army, under command of General Peter Wittgenstein. This prevented the French march on the Russian capital, Saint Petersburg; the fate of the invasion was to be decided in Moscow, where Napoleon himself led his forces.

Russians used scorched-earth tactics, and harried the Grande Armée with light Cossack cavalry. The Grande Armée did not adjust its operational methods in response. This refusal led to most of the losses of the main column of the Grande Armée, which in one case amounted to 95,000 men, including deserters, in a single week.

At the same time, the main Russian army retreated for almost three months. This constant retreat led to the unpopularity of Field Marshal Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly and a veteran, Prince Mikhail Kutuzov, was made the new Commander-in-Chief by Tsar Alexander I. Finally, the two armies engaged in the Battle of Borodino on 7 September, in the vicinity of Moscow. The battle was the largest and bloodiest single-day action of the Napoleonic Wars, involving more than 250,000 men and resulting in at least 70,000 casualties. It was indecisive. The French captured the main positions on the battlefield, but failed to destroy the Russian army; logistical difficulties meant that French losses were irreplaceable, unlike Russian ones.

Napoleon entered Moscow on 14 September, after the Russian Army retreated yet again. But by then, the Russians had largely evacuated the city and even released criminals from the prisons to inconvenience the French; furthermore, the governor, Count Fyodor Rostopchin, ordered the city to be burnt. Alexander I refused to capitulate, and the peace talks, attempted by Napoleon, failed. In October, with no sign of clear victory in sight, Napoleon began the disastrous Great Retreat from Moscow.

At the Battle of Maloyaroslavets the French tried to reach Kaluga, where they could find food and forage supplies. But the replenished Russian Army blocked the road, and Napoleon was forced to retreat the same way he had come to Moscow, through the heavily ravaged areas along the Smolensk road. In the following weeks, the Grande Armée was dealt a catastrophic blow by the onset of the Russian Winter, the lack of supplies and constant guerrilla warfare by Russian peasants and irregular troops.

When the remnants of the Napoleon's army crossed the Berezina River in November, only 27,000 fit soldiers survived, with some 380,000 men dead or missing and 100,000 captured. Napoleon then left his men and returned to Paris, to prepare the defence against the advancing Russians, and the campaign effectively ended on 14 December 1812, when the last enemy troops left Russia. The Russians had lost around 210,000 men, but with their shorter supply lines, they soon replenished their armies.

War of the Sixth Coalition 1812â€"1814

Seeing an opportunity in Napoleon's historic defeat, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, and a number of German states re-entered the war. Napoleon vowed that he would create a new army as large as the one he had sent into Russia, and quickly built up his forces in the east from 30,000 to 130,000 and eventually to 400,000. Napoleon inflicted 40,000 casualties on the Allies at Lützen (2 May 1813) and Bautzen (20â€"21 May 1813). Both battles involved total forces of over 250,000, making them some of the largest conflicts of the wars so far. Metternich in November 1813 offered Napoleon the Frankfurt proposals. They would allow Napoleon to remain Emperor but France would be reduced to its "natural frontiers" and lose control of most of Italy and Germany and the Netherlands. Napoleon still expected to win the wars, and rejected the terms. By 1814, as the Allies were closing in on Paris, Napoleon did agree to the Frankfurt proposals, but it was too late and He rejected the new harsher terms Proposed by the Allies.J. P. Riley (2013). Napoleon and the World War of 1813: Lessons in Coalition Warfighting. Routledge. p. 206. 

Meanwhile, in the Peninsular War, Arthur Wellesley renewed the Anglo-Portuguese advance into Spain just after New Year in 1812, besieging and capturing the fortified towns of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and in the Battle of Salamanca (which was a damaging defeat of the French). As the French regrouped, the Angloâ€"Portuguese entered Madrid and advanced towards Burgos, before retreating all the way to Portugal when renewed French concentrations threatened to trap them. As a consequence of the Salamanca campaign, the French were forced to end their long siege of Cadiz and to permanently evacuate the provinces of Andalusia and Asturias.

In a strategic move, Wellesley planned to move his supply base from Lisbon to Santander. The Angloâ€"Portuguese forces swept northwards in late May and seized Burgos. On 21 June, at Vitoria, the combined Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish armies won against Joseph Bonaparte, finally breaking French power in Spain. The French had to retreat out of the Iberian peninsula, over the Pyrenees.

The belligerents declared an armistice from 4 June 1813 (continuing until 13 August) during which time both sides attempted to recover from the loss of approximately a quarter of a million total men in the preceding two months. During this time Coalition negotiations finally brought Austria out in open opposition to France. Two principal Austrian armies took the field, adding 300,000 men to the Coalition armies in Germany. In total the Allies now had around 800,000 front-line soldiers in the German theatre, with a strategic reserve of 350,000 formed to support the frontline operations.

Napoleon succeeded in bringing the total imperial forces in the region to around 650,000â€"although only 250,000 came under his direct command, with another 120,000 under Nicolas Charles Oudinot and 30,000 under Davout. The remainder of imperial forces came mostly from the Confederation of the Rhine, especially Saxony and Bavaria. In addition, to the south, Murat's Kingdom of Naples and Eugène de Beauharnais's Kingdom of Italy had a total of 100,000 armed men. In Spain, another 150,000 to 200,000 French troops steadily retreated before Angloâ€"Portuguese forces numbering around 100,000. Thus in total, around 900,000 Frenchmen in all theatres faced around 1,800,000 Coalition soldiers (including the strategic reserve under formation in Germany). The gross figures may mislead slightly, as most of the German troops fighting on the side of the French fought at best unreliably and stood on the verge of defecting to the Allies. One can reasonably say that Napoleon could count on no more than 450,000 men in Germanyâ€"which left him outnumbered about four to one.

Following the end of the armistice, Napoleon seemed to have regained the initiative at Dresden (August 1813), where he once again defeated a numerically superior Coalition army and inflicted enormous casualties, while sustaining relatively few. However, the failures of his marshals and a slow resumption of the offensive on his part cost him any advantage that this victory might have secured. At the Battle of Leipzig in Saxony (16â€"19 October 1813), also called the "Battle of the Nations", 191,000 French fought more than 300,000 Allies, and the defeated French had to retreat into France. Napoleon then fought a series of battles, including the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube, in France itself, but the overwhelming numbers of the Allies steadily forced him back. His remaining ally Denmark-Norway became isolated and fell to the coalition.

The Allies entered Paris on 30 March 1814. During this time Napoleon fought his Six Days Campaign, in which he won multiple battles against the enemy forces advancing towards Paris. However, during this entire campaign he never managed to field more than 70,000 men against more than half a million Coalition soldiers. At the Treaty of Chaumont (9 March 1814), the Allies agreed to preserve the Coalition until Napoleon's total defeat.

Napoleon determined to fight on, even now, incapable of fathoming his massive fall from power. During the campaign he had issued a decree for 900,000 fresh conscripts, but only a fraction of these ever materialized, and Napoleon's schemes for victory eventually gave way to the reality of the hopeless situation. Napoleon abdicated on 6 April. However, occasional military actions continued in Italy, Spain, and Holland throughout the spring of 1814.

The victors exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba, and restored the French Bourbon monarchy in the person of Louis XVIII. They signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau (11 April 1814) and initiated the Congress of Vienna to redraw the map of Europe.

Gunboat War 1807â€"1814

Initially, Denmark-Norway declared itself neutral in the Napoleonic Wars, established a navy, and traded with both sides. But the British attacked and captured or destroyed large portions of the Dano-Norwegian fleet in the First Battle of Copenhagen (2 April 1801), and again in the Second Battle of Copenhagen (Augustâ€"September 1807). This ended Dano-Norwegian neutrality, beginning an engagement in a naval guerrilla war in which small gunboats would attack larger British ships in Danish and Norwegian waters. The Gunboat War effectively ended with a British victory at the Battle of Lyngør in 1812, involving the destruction of the last large Dano-Norwegian shipâ€"the frigate Najaden.

War of the Seventh Coalition 1815

See also: Hundred Days and the Neapolitan War between the Kingdom of Naples and the Austrian Empire.

The Seventh Coalition (1815) pitted Britain, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and a number of German states against France. The period known as the Hundred Days began after Napoleon escaped from Elba and landed at Cannes (1 March 1815). Travelling to Paris, picking up support as he went, he eventually overthrew the restored Louis XVIII. The Allies rapidly gathered their armies to meet him again. Napoleon raised 280,000 men, whom he distributed among several armies. To add to the 90,000-strong standing army, he recalled well over a quarter of a million veterans from past campaigns and issued a decree for the eventual draft of around 2.5 million new men into the French army. This faced an initial Coalition force of about 700,000â€"although Coalition campaign-plans provided for one million front-line soldiers, supported by around 200,000 garrison, logistics and other auxiliary personnel. The Coalition intended this force to have overwhelming numbers against the numerically inferior imperial French armyâ€"which in fact never came close to reaching Napoleon's goal of more than 2.5 million under arms.

Napoleon took about 124,000 men of the Army of the North on a pre-emptive strike against the Allies in Belgium. He intended to attack the Coalition armies before they combined, in hope of driving the British into the sea and the Prussians out of the war. His march to the frontier achieved the surprise he had planned, catching the Anglo-Dutch Army in a dispersed arrangement. The Prussians had been more wary, concentrating 3/4 of their Army in and around Ligny. The Prussians forced the Armée du Nord to fight all the day of the 15th to reach Ligny in a delaying action by the Prussian 1st Corps. He forced Prussia to fight at Ligny on 16 June 1815, and the defeated Prussians retreated in some disorder. On the same day, the left wing of the Armée du Nord, under the command of Marshal Michel Ney, succeeded in stopping any of Wellington's forces going to aid Blücher's Prussians by fighting a blocking action at Quatre Bras. Ney failed to clear the cross-roads and Wellington reinforced the position. But with the Prussian retreat, Wellington too had to retreat. He fell back to a previously reconnoitred position on an escarpment at Mont St Jean, a few miles south of the village of Waterloo.

Napoleon took the reserve of the Army of the North, and reunited his forces with those of Ney to pursue Wellington's army, after he ordered Marshal Grouchy to take the right wing of the Army of the North and stop the Prussians re-grouping. In the first of a series of miscalculations, both Grouchy and Napoleon failed to realize that the Prussian forces were already reorganized and were assembling at the village of Wavre. In any event the French army did nothing to stop a rather leisurely retreat that took place throughout the night and into the early morning by the Prussians. As the 4th, 1st, and 2nd Prussian Corps marched through the town towards Waterloo the 3rd Prussian Corps took up blocking positions across the river, and although Grouchy engaged and defeated the Prussian rearguard under the command of Lt-Gen von Thielmann in the Battle of Wavre (18â€"19 June) it was 12 hours too late. In the end, 17,000 Prussians had kept 33,000 badly needed French reinforcements off the field.

Napoleon delayed the start of fighting at the Battle of Waterloo on the morning of 18 June for several hours while he waited for the ground to dry after the previous night's rain. By late afternoon, the French army had not succeeded in driving Wellington's forces from the escarpment on which they stood. When the Prussians arrived and attacked the French right flank in ever-increasing numbers, Napoleon's strategy of keeping the Coalition armies divided had failed and a combined Coalition general advance drove his army from the field in confusion.

Grouchy organized a successful and well-ordered retreat towards Paris, where Marshal Davout had 117,000 men ready to turn back the 116,000 men of Blücher and Wellington. Davout was defeated at Issy and negotiations for surrender had begun.

On arriving at Paris three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to the hope of a concerted national resistance; but the temper of the legislative chambers, and of the public generally, did not favour his view. Lacking support Napoleon abdicated again on 22 June 1815 and on 15 July, surrendered himself to the British squadron at Rochefort. The Allies exiled him to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died on 5 May 1821.

Meanwhile in Italy, Joachim Murat, whom the Allies had allowed to remain King of Naples after Napoleon's initial defeat, once again allied with his brother-in-law, triggering the Neapolitan War (March to May, 1815). Hoping to find support among Italian nationalists fearing the increasing influence of the Habsburgs in Italy, Murat issued the Rimini Proclamation inciting them to war. But the proclamation failed and the Austrians soon crushed Murat at the Battle of Tolentino (2 May to 3 May 1815), forcing him to flee. The Bourbons returned to the throne of Naples on 20 May 1815. Murat tried to regain his throne, but after that failed, he was executed by firing squad on 13 October 1815.

Political effects

The Napoleonic Wars brought radical changes to Europe, but the reactionary forces returned to power and tried to reverse some of them. Napoleon had succeeded in bringing most of Western Europe under one rule. However, France's constant warfare with the combined forces of the other major powers of Europe for over two decades finally took its toll. By the end of the Napoleonic Wars, France no longer held the role of the dominant power in Europe, as it had since the times of Louis XIV. In its place, Britain emerged as the most important economic power, and its Royal Navy held unquestioned naval superiority across the globe well into the 20th century.

In most European countries, subjugation in the French Empire brought with it many liberal methods of the French Revolution including democracy, due process in courts, abolition of serfdom, reduction of the power of the Catholic Church, and a demand for constitutional limits on monarchs. The increasing voice of the middle classes with rising commerce and industry meant that restored European monarchs found it difficult to restore pre-revolutionary absolutism, and had to retain many of the reforms enacted during Napoleon's rule. Institutional legacies remain to this day in the form of civil-law legal systems, with clearly redacted codes compiling their basic lawsâ€"an enduring legacy of the Napoleonic Code.

During the wake of the Napoleonic period, nationalism, a relatively new movement, became increasingly significant. This would shape much of the course of future European history. Its growth spelled the beginning of some states and the end of others, as the map of Europe changed dramatically in the hundred years following the Napoleonic Era. Rule by fiefdoms and aristocracy was widely replaced by national ideologies based on shared origins and culture. Importantly, Bonaparte's reign over Europe sowed the seeds for the founding of the nation-states of Germany and Italy by starting the process of consolidating city-states, kingdoms and principalities.

The Napoleonic wars also played a key role in the independence of the Latin American colonies from Spain and Portugal. The conflict significantly weakened the authority and military power of Spain, especially after the Battle of Trafalgar. There were many uprisings in Spanish America, leading to the wars of independence. In Portuguese America, Brazil experienced greater autonomy as it now served as seat of the Portuguese Empire and ascended politically to the status of Kingdom. These events also contributed to the Portuguese Liberal Revolution in 1820 and the Independence of Brazil in 1822.

Afterwards, in order to prevent another such war, The Congress of Vienna in 1814â€"15 reassigned territories in order to create a balance of power in which no one state would be able to dominate Europe the way Napoleonic France had. The balance on the whole kept Europe peaceful for 100 years.

Another concept emerged â€" that of a unified Europe. After his defeat, Napoleon deplored the fact that his dream of a free and peaceful "European association" remained unaccomplished. Such a European association would share the same principles of government, system of measurement, currency and Civil Code. Some one-and-a-half centuries later, and after two world wars several of these ideals re-emerged in the form of the European Union.

Military legacy

Enlarged scope

The Napoleonic Wars also had a profound military impact. Until the time of Napoleon, European states employed relatively small armies, made up of both national soldiers and mercenaries. These regulars were highly drilled professional soldiers. These Ancien Régime armies could only deploy small field armies due to rudimentary staffs and comprehensive yet cumbersome logistics. Both issues combined to limit actual field forces to approximately 30,000 men under a single commander.

However, military innovators in the mid-18th century began to recognize the potential of an entire nation at war: a "nation in arms".

The scale of warfare dramatically enlarged during the Revolutionary and subsequent Napoleonic Wars. Before, it was rare for a battle to involve more than 30,000 soldiers on each side. The French twin innovations of separate corps (allowing a single commander to efficiently command more than the traditional command span of 30,000 men) and living off the land (which allowed field armies to deploy more men without requiring an equal increase in supply arrangements such as depots and supply trains) allowed the French republic to field much larger armies than their more traditional opponents. Napoleon subsequently ensured that what were effectively separate French field armies during the time of the French republic operated as a single army under his control as Emperor, often allowing him to substantially outnumber his opponents. This forced his continental opponents to increase the size of their armies as well, moving away from the traditional small, well drilled Ancien Régime armies of the 18th century to mass conscript armies with its attendant political consequences.

The Battle of Marengo, which largely ended the War of the Second Coalition was fought with fewer than 60,000 men on both sides. The Battle of Austerlitz which ended the War of the Third Coalition involved fewer than 160,000 men. The Battle of Friedland which led to peace with Russia in 1807 involved about 150,000 men.

After these defeats, the continental powers developed various forms of mass conscription to allow them to face France on even terms and the size of field armies increased rapidly. The battle of Wagram of 1809 involved 300,000 men, and 500,000 fought at Leipzig in 1813, of whom 150,000 were killed or wounded.

About a million French soldiers became casualties (wounded, invalided or killed), a higher proportion than in the First World War. The European total may have reached 5,000,000 military deaths, including disease.

France had after Russia the largest population in Europe by the end of the 18th century (27 million, as compared to Britain's 12 million and Russia's 35 to 40 million). It was well poised to take advantage of the levée en masse. Before Napoleon's efforts, Lazare Carnot played a large part in the reorganization of the French army from 1793 to 1794â€"a time which saw previous French misfortunes reversed, with Republican armies advancing on all fronts.

The sizes of the armies involved give an obvious indication of the changes in warfare. During Europe's major pre-revolutionary war, the Seven Years' War of 1756â€"1763, few armies ever numbered more than 200,000 in total with actual field forces often numbering less than 30,000. By contrast, the French army peaked in size in the 1790s with 1.5 million Frenchmen enlisted although actual strength was much less. Haphazard bookkeeping, rudimentary medical support and lax recruitment standards ensured that strength on paper never came close to actual strength as soldiers either never existed, fell ill or were unable to withstand the physical demands of soldiering. And lastly, the French republic could never have afforded such a large force.

In total, about 2.8 million Frenchmen fought on land and about 150,000 at sea, bringing the total for France to almost 3 million combatants during almost 25 years of warfare.

Britain had a total 750,000 men under arms between 1792 and 1815 as its army expanded from 40,000 men in 1793 to a peak of 250,000 men in 1813. Over 250,000 sailors served in the Royal Navy. In September 1812, Russia had 900,000 enlisted men in its land forces, and between 1799 and 1815 a total of 2.1 million men served in the its army. Another 200,000 served in the Russian Navy. Indicative of the discrepance between paper figures and actual field strength is that out of the alleged 900,000 men, the actual field armies deployed against France had numbered less than 250,000 all together.

There are no consistent statistics for other major combatants. Austria's forces peaked at about 576,000 (during the war of the sixth coalition) and had little or no naval component yet never fielded more than 250,000 men in field armies. After Britain, Austria proved the most persistent enemy of France, more than a million Austrians served during the long wars. Its large army was overall quite homogeneous and solid and in 1813 operated in Germany (140,000 men), Italy and the Balkans (90,000 men at its peak, about 50,000 men during most of the campaigning on these fronts). However, Austria's manpower was becoming quite limited toward the end of the wars, hence leading its generals to favor cautious and conservative strategies, to limit their losses.

Prussia never had more than 320,000 men under arms at any time. In 1813-1815, while the core of its army (about 100,000 men) was characterized by its extreme competence and determination, the bulk of its forces consisted of second-line and third line troops as well as militiamen of variable strength. Many of these troops performed reasonably well and often displayed considerable bravery but lacked the professionalism of their regular counterparts and were not as well equipped. Others were largely unfit for actual operations, except sieges. During the 1813 campaign, 130,000 men were actually used in the military operations, with 100,000 effectively participating in the main German campaign, and about 30,000 being used to besiege isolated French garrisons.

Spain's armies also peaked at around 200,000 men, not including more than 50,000 guerrillas scattered over Spain. In addition the Maratha Confederation, the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Naples and the Duchy of Warsaw each had more than 100,000 men under arms. Even small nations now had armies rivalling the size of the Great Powers' forces of past wars but in reality, most of these were poor quality forces only suitable for garrison duties. The size of their actual combat troops remained modest yet these could still provide a welcome addition to the major powers. The percentage of French troops in the Grande Armee which Napoleon led into Russia was about 50% while the French allies also provided a significant contribution to the French forces in Spain. As these small nations joined the Coalition forces in 1813-1814, they provided a useful addition to the coalition while depriving Napoleon of much needed cannon fodder.

Innovations

The initial stages of the Industrial Revolution had much to do with larger military forcesâ€"it became easy to mass-produce weapons and thus to equip significantly larger forces. Britain served as the largest single manufacturer of armaments in this period. It was the arsenal that supplied most of the weapons used by the Coalition powers throughout the conflicts. France produced the second-largest total of armaments, equipping its own huge forces as well as those of the Confederation of the Rhine and other allies.

Napoleon himself showed innovative tendencies in his use of mobility to offset numerical disadvantages, as brilliantly demonstrated in the rout of the Austro-Russian forces in 1805 in the Battle of Austerlitz. The French Army reorganized the role of artillery, forming independent, mobile units, as opposed to the previous tradition of attaching artillery pieces in support of troops.

Another advance affected warfare: the semaphore system had allowed the French War-Minister, Carnot, to communicate with French forces on the frontiers throughout the 1790s. The French continued to use this system throughout the Napoleonic wars. Additionally, aerial surveillance came into use for the first time when the French used a hot-air balloon to survey Coalition positions before the Battle of Fleurus, on 26 June 1794.

Total war

Historians have explored how the Napoleonic wars became total wars. Most historians argue that the escalation in size and scope came from two sources. First was the ideological clash between revolutionary/equalitarian and conservative/hierarchical belief systems. Second was the emerging nationalism in France, Germany, Spain, and elsewhere that made these "people's wars" instead of contests between monarchs. Bell has argued that even more important than ideology and nationalism were the intellectual transformations in the culture of war that came about through The Enlightenment. One factor he says was that war was no longer a routine event but a transforming experience for societiesâ€"a total experience. Secondly the military emerged in its own right as a separate sphere of society distinct from the ordinary civilian world. The French Revolution made every civilian a part of the war machine, either as a soldier through universal conscription, or as a vital cog in the home front machinery supporting and supplying the army. Out of that, says Bell, came "militarism," the belief that the military role was morally superior to the civilian role in times of great national crisis. The fighting army represented the essence of the nation's soul. As Napoleon himself proclaimed, "It is the soldier who founds a Republic and it is the soldier who maintains it."

Last veterans

• Geert Adriaans Boomgaard (1788â€"1899) was the last surviving veteran. He fought for France in the 33ème Régiment Léger
• Louis Victor Baillot (1793â€"1898) also from France, was the last Battle of Waterloo veteran. He also saw action at the siege of Hamburg.(See an 1898 photograph)
• Pedro Martinez (1789â€"1898) was the last Battle of Trafalgar veteran. He served in the Spanish navy on San Juan Nepomuceno.
• Josephine Mazurkewicz (1794â€"1896) was the last female veteran. She was an assistant surgeon in Napoleon's army and later participated in the Crimean War.
• Pvt Morris Shea (1795â€"1892) of the 73rd Foot was the last British veteran.
• Sir Provo Wallis (1791â€"1892) was the last Royal Navy officer. He saw action on HMS Shannon during the War of 1812.
• Pictures of French veterans in uniform

In fiction

• Leo Tolstoy's epic novel, War and Peace recounts Napoleon's wars between 1805 and 1812 (especially the disastrous 1812 invasion of Russia and subsequent retreat) from a Russian perspective.
• Stendhal's novel The Charterhouse of Parma opens with a ground-level recounting of the Battle of Waterloo and the subsequent chaotic retreat of French forces.
• Les Misérables by Victor Hugo takes place against the backdrop of the Napoleonic War and subsequent decades, and in its unabridged form contains an epic telling of the Battle of Waterloo.
• Adieu is a novella by Honoré de Balzac in which can be found a short description of the French retreat from Russia, particularly the battle of Berezina, where the fictional couple of the story are tragically separated. Years later after imprisonment, the husband returns to find his wife still in a state of utter shock and amnesia. He has the battle and their separation reenacted, hoping the memory will heal her state.
• William Makepeace Thackeray's novel Vanity Fair takes place during the Napoleonic Warsâ€"one of its protagonists dies at the Battle of Waterloo.
• The Duel, a short story by Joseph Conrad, recounts the story based on true events of two French Hussar officers who carry a long grudge and fight in duels each time they meet during the Napoleonic wars. The short story was adapted by director Ridley Scott into the 1977 Cannes Film Festival's Best First Work award winning film The Duellists.
• Le Colonel Chabert by Honoré de Balzac. After being severely wounded during the battle of Eylau (1807), Chabert, a famous colonel of the cuirassiers, was erroneously recorded as dead and buried unconscious with French casualties. After extricating himself from his own grave and being nursed back to health by local peasants, it takes several years for him to recover. When he returns in the Paris of the Bourbon Restoration, he discovers that his "widow", a former prostitute that Chabert made rich and honourable, has married the wealthy Count Ferraud. She has also liquidated all of Chabert's belongings and pretends to not recognize her first husband. Seeking to regain his name and monies that were wrongly given away as inheritance, he hires Derville, an attorney, to win back his money and his honor.
• A poem Borodino by Mikhail Lermontov describes the Battle of Borodino from the perspective of poet's uncle, a Russian officer.
• The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas, père starts during the tail-end of the Napoleonic Wars. The main character, Edmond Dantès, suffers imprisonment following false accusations of Bonapartist leanings.
• The novelist Jane Austen lived much of her life during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, and two of her brothers served in the Royal Navy. Austen almost never refers to specific dates or historical events in her novels, but wartime England forms part of the general backdrop to several of them: in Pride and Prejudice (1813, but possibly written during the 1790s), the local militia (civilian volunteers) has been called up for home defence and its officers play an important role in the plot; in Mansfield Park (1814), Fanny Price's brother William is a midshipman (officer in training) in the Royal Navy; and in Persuasion (1818), Frederic Wentworth and several other characters are naval officers recently returned from service.
• Charlotte Brontë's novel Shirley (1849), set during the Napoleonic Wars, explores some of the economic effects of war on rural Yorkshire.
• Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Brigadier Gerard serves as a French soldier during the Napoleonic Wars
• Fyodor Dostoevsky's book The Idiot had a character, General Ivolgin, who witnessed and recounted his relationship with Napoleon during the Campaign of Russia.
• The Hornblower books by C.S. Forester follow the naval career of Horatio Hornblower during the Napoleonic Wars.
• The Aubreyâ€"Maturin series of novels is a sequence of 20 historical novels by Patrick O'Brian portraying the rise of Jack Aubrey from Lieutenant to Rear Admiral during the Napoleonic Wars. The film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World starring Russell Crowe and directed by Peter Weir is based on this series of books.
• The Sharpe series by Bernard Cornwell star the character Richard Sharpe, a soldier in the British Army, who fights throughout the Napoleonic Wars.
• The Bloody Jack book series by Louis A. Meyer is set during the Second Coalition of the Napoleonic Wars, and retells many famous battles of the age. The heroine, Jacky, soon meets none other than Bonaparte himself.
• The Napoleonic Wars provide the backdrop for The Emperor, The Victory, The Regency and The Campaigners, Volumes 11, 12, 13 and 14 respectively of The Morland Dynasty, a series of historical novels by author Cynthia Harrod-Eagles.
• The Richard Bolitho series by Alexander Kent novels portray this period of history from a naval perspective.
• Dinah Dean's series of historical novels are set against the background of the Napoleonic Wars and are told from a Russian perspective â€" "The Road to Kaluga", "Flight From the Eagle", "The Eagle's Fate", "The Wheel of Fortune", "The Green Gallant" â€" follow a small group of soldiers (and their relatives) over months of campaigning from the fall of Moscow up to the liberation of Paris, the last 3 books â€" "The Ice King", "Tatya's Story", "The River of Time" â€" fall some years later but have the same cast of characters.
• Julian Stockwin's Thomas Kydd series portrays one man's journey from pressed man to Admiral in the time of the French and Napoleonic Wars
• Simon Scarrow â€" Napoleonic series. Rise of Napoleon and Wellington from humble beginnings to history's most remarkable and notable leaders. 4 books in the series.
• The Lord Ramage series by Dudley Pope takes place during the Napoleonic Wars.
• Jeanette Winterson's 1987 novel The Passion (book)
• Georgette Heyer's 1937 novel An Infamous Army recounts the fortunes of a family in the run up to, and during the course of, the Battle of Waterloo. Heyer's novel is noted for its meticulous research on the progress of the battle, combining her noted period romance writing with her detailed research into regency history.

Science fiction and fantasy

• Bryan Talbot's graphic novel Grandville is set in an alternate history in which France won the Napoleonic War, invaded Britain and guillotined the British Royal Family.
• The Temeraire series by Naomi Novik takes place in alternate-universe Napoleonic Wars where dragons exist and serve in combat.
• Susanna Clarke's historical fantasy novel, Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, takes place during the Napoleonic Wars. Much of the plot is driven by Mr. Norrell's successful campaign to convince the British government that magic can be employed to prosecute the Peninsular War.