The Fallen Prince

The Fallen Prince



From the Memoirs of General Savary

The enemy, after driving us back on the preceding day, had taken up, on the bank of the river, a position from whence they had a complete view of our bridge in its whole extent; and contriving to fill with stones the largest boats they could find, they sent them down the current. This contrivance proved but too successful; since, of the two bridges we had constructed, the one was wholly carried away, and the other half destroyed. The scanty supply of boats and pontoniers had prevented our raising a stockade to protect the bridge, an omission which proved fatal to us. This disaster soon became known to the troops that were engaged, made them lose all hope of assistance, and the several corps withdrew in succession from the contest. It could not, in fact, be expected that, in the absence of all ammunition, they should remain in a position where certain destruction awaited them.

The Emperor commanded a retreat, and superintended it himself, by remaining exposed to a cannonade which we no longer answered. It became more and more harassing as we approached the bridge that communicated with the island of Lobau, and formed the centre of a circle, the circumference of which was occupied by the artillery. Our left and centre disputed every inch of ground in their retreat, and had not yet returned to the position between the villages of Essling and Aspern, from whence they had debouched in the morning, when the enemy made a desperate attack upon our right, and carried the village of Essling, which was defended by Boudet's division. The retreat could only be secured by our quickly regaining that position, from whence the enemy would have reached the bridge long before the arrival of Marshals Massena and Lannes to cover it. Our situation was most critical; and we were about to be thrown into complete disorder, when the Emperor directed General Mouton, his aide-de-camp, to attack immediately with the fusileer brigade belonging to the guards. It was in the middle of this chaos while the Austrians charged once more, the cannonade continuing, that the Emperor disappeared in a dark cloud.

The torch was extinguished by the fury of the wind; some four paces from the bank there was nothing to indicate the direction taken by the fugitives, the new Cæsar and his fortunes were swallowed up in the gulf of darkness, and night perhaps be sucked down into the abyss never to reappear, whilst I remained the sole witness to the catastrophe.

From “The Fifteen decisive battles of the world” by Sir. Edward Shepherd Creasy

Aspern-Essling

Following Napoleon’s failed offensive against the Austrian Center, archduke Charles had been able to exploit the weaknesses of the exhausted French army and by bringing the reserves to the fight, was able to drive the French army back and check both the Emperor and Marshall Lannes. With his repulse the impetus of the attack died out all along the line. Aspern had been lost, and the news reached Napoleon at the critical moment, thus beginning the fatal retreat that would end the life of the French emperor.
…news of the Emperor’s death did not spread through the camp until the night, when the battle was already lost, and even until the next morning, only the Emperor’s doctors and closest generals were aware of the tragedy that had struck the Imperial Army. To this day the very way in which the emperor died is a source of debate, some arguing that he died immediately on the field while others defend the theory that he died from his wounds at Lobau the next day. In any case, the emperor’s death on May 22nd would eventually prove to be a fatal blow to the French war effort, being just as demoralizing as the bloody defeat at the villages of Aspern and Essling and the retreat to the island of Lobau.
From…Rise and Fall of the French Empire
Even though Aspern-Essling had ended an Austrian victory, it was exhaustion and the untimely death of Napoleon Bonaparte that led to the defeat of the French army. It however didn’t matter to the officers accompanying Archduke Charles of Austria at the moment.



The news of Napoleon’s death gave the Austrian army, and especially its commanders, an incredible morale boost, and convinced the Austrian officers that this was the time to finish off the French army once and for all, by launching one final blow against them at Lobau, taking advantage of their exhaustion and the chaos and confusion reigning through their lines.
Archduke Charles was the first to reject such an idea, knowing that it would take some time for his own men to regroup and rest, but he was finally convinced by his officers and an assault on Lobau was ordered on May 24th of 1809.

From…the Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars, by S. Munro

The Battle of Lobau

…it is thus worthy of note that Lobau, much as Aspern-Essling, came as great pyrrhic victories for the Austrians, and even after Marshall Lannes had repulsed the initial assault against the remains of the French army at the island, the Austrian artillery fire combined with the relentless attacks by the Archduke’s forces were more than enough to make this a battle just as bloody as the engagements at Aspern and Essling.
The attacks of the second hour would prove just as futile for both sides, the Austrians being unable to destroy the French in detail and the French being unable to either completely retreat or to stop the Austrian attacks…
By the end of the third hour the battle was over and both sides were just as exhausted as the day before…over 10,000 Austrian soldiers lied on the fields while French casualties mounted up to 18,000 men…thus the French army had been reduced to a third of the 60,000 men that had fought at the second day at Aspern and Essling. More importantly, the French were now on the retreat and completely incapable of mounting any sort of counteroffensive as they marched along the Danube back to Bavaria.

From…The Last Coalition, by William Cohen

Three weeks after the Aspern and Essling campaign and the Archduke’s army was still recovering from the bloody battles along the Danube. Charles had suffered well over 30,000 casualties in a three day’s fighting, some claiming that after seeing the devastation left over the ruins of Aspern he famously and unknowingly played the role Pyrrhus of Epirus some 2,000 years after his own campaigns, saying: “Another victory like this and we will be over”
But in the meantime, the French army under Lannes and Massena had barely made it to Bavaria, where they were greeted by the King, the first foreign monarch to formally mourn the death of Napoleon and offer a state funeral, something that both Massena and Lannes politely refused.
The other theaters of the War that would later be known as the “War of the Fifth Coalition” were also looking up for those allied to Austria.
At Saxony, the Black Brunswickers, also known as the “Black Legion” under the Duke of Brunswick-Wolftenbuttel had defeated the pro-Bonapartist forces and taken the capital at Dresden, after having pushed back the armies of Marshall Junot and later another French army under Jerome Bonaparte himself.
These victories would play a major role in the development of the German nationalism that was being born under French rule over Germany. The exploits of Archduke Charles and the Duke of Brunswick overt the French, as well as the rebellion Andreas Hofer was leading against Franco-Bavarian domination in the Tyrol would fuel the fire of German nationalism throughout the French-dominated Confederation of the Rhine, triggering anti-French risings at Wurttemberg and Westphalia.

From…a History of the British Military 1776-1854

The Walcheren campaign that had begun in 1809 as a simple attempt to relief the Austrians fighting the bulk of the French Imperial Army had become a massive campaign of national liberation once news of the death of Emperor Napoleon I had reached London.
Soon afterwards there was already talking about increasing the size of Lord Chatham’s expedition to the Netherlands from 40,000 to 50,000 and of sending even more troops to reinforce Lord Wellesley’s precarious position in Spain.
John Pitt’s forces would remain at 40,000, the largest army Britain had committed to the war thus far, even larger than the force fighting at the time in the Peninsular war, but would be further reinforced with materiel and the Royal Navy, and was in little time able to seize a considerable portion of the Kingdom of Holland, more than enough to force its king Louis Bonaparte, to flee with his family to safety in France.
With Napoleon dead, the ring of client states he had set up for himself and his family took little time to crumble, and just a few weeks after Louis abandoned Holland, Jerome would do the same with Westphalia, leaving it to the armies of the Fifth Coalition on the summer of 1809 and Joseph as the only Bonaparte still on the throne.

From…Europe in the 19th century, by L. Krieger

The rise of German Nationalism in the 19th century can easily be seen as a product of a long process that had been developing since the times of the Peace of Westphalia and even beyond that, to the times of Arminius and the defeat of the Roman legions at the Teutoburg Forrest, if you will, but it was not until the times of the French Revolution and Empire that the awakening of the sense of unity and German identity took place, and it was not until the events of the war of the Fifth Coalition, especially the battles of Aspern-Essling and the campaigns in Northern Germany, not to mention rebellions like the one of Andreas Hofer in Tyrol, that the true and modern German Nationalist movement was born…

From…The Last Coalition, by William Cohen

It is of course interesting to note that the events surrounding the Fifth Coalition and the last days of Napoleonic rule in Europe could be seen as a circle, a perfect display of the old theory of cause and effect…for every action there is a reaction.
Let us remember that it was the defeat of the French Imperial army at Bailén, at the hands of the Spanish Guerrillas and regulars, the event that triggered the War of the Fifth Coalition, giving Austria and her German allies the hope that the French Empire could indeed be defeated.

Several months later, after Napoleon’s autumn offensive had nearly crushed the fighting spirit of the Spanish and overrun much of Iberia and Austria, it was Archduke Charles and the Austrian army at Aspern and Essling the ones to give hope to the rest of Europe, the bloody and unforgettable battle having not only resulted in the defeat of the main French army in Germany, but also in the death of Emperor Napoleon himself.

This news did not only give hope to the Germans, leading to a widespread rebellion through the Confederation of the Rhine, but also to the continent of Europe as a whole, the best example being that of Spain, where the death of the Emperor and the French defeat were seen as signals of divine intervention, thus greatly contributing to the rise of the Spanish morale and the new widespread risings that took place in the early summer of 1809, which proved vital to the allied war effort and left the French position in the peninsula at its worst since the defeat at Bailén the previous year.

From…the House of Bonaparte, by B. Graham

The Coronation of Joseph Bonaparte as Emperor of the French was perhaps one of the most complicated dynastic successions in the history of France.
Not only was the Empire in a terrible position due to the Emperor’s death, a tragedy that by itself had done most to weaken the structure of France and the Napoleonic Empire in Europe than anything the Anti-French coalitions could have done in the previous decade, but the new Emperor was proving incredibly incapable of ruling the destiny of the French Empire and the domain that his brother had imposed over the continent.



Joseph had not proven to be particularly capable or competent as King of Spain, despite his best intentions and plans, yet when the news of his brother’s death reached him, he was in the middle of a war for his throne and was for weeks reluctant to leave Spain. The King of Spain was nevertheless the rightful successor to his brother in the thrones of France and Italy, as stipulated in the French constitution, and was thus required to leave the peninsula for France in order for him to be crowned.

It was nevertheless not until the French defeat at Córdoba, which fell to Arthur Wellesley and the Anglo-Spanish forces on June 8th that Joseph abandoned Madrid, leaving the French armies in Spain under the command of Marshall Michel Ney.

…the summer of 1809 saw the newly crowned emperor of the French, Joseph I, in a dire situation, his empire teetering on the brink of collapse and his rule on what could have seemed as its nearing end...

The Earl of Chatham and the British expedition to the Netherlands had forced his brother Louis out of the throne and taken much of Holland, despite Marshall Bernadotte’s best efforts to keep the British from linking with the Germans, which they did in late August of 1809.

Further south the Napoleonic domains in Italy were safe from the Austrian armies, but at Bavaria the forces of Archduke Charles had chased the remains of the Grandee Armée under Marshalls Lannes and Massena all the way to Wurttemberg, while the armies of the Fifth coalition saw their ranks being filled thanks to the rise of German patriotism, as well as the entry of the Kingdom of Prussia into the war, King Frederick William having declared war on July 18th, thus giving the Coalition an additional force of 60,000 by the end of the summer of 1809…

From…A History of the British Military 1776-1854

Encouraged by the successes of the Walcheren expedition in capturing Holland and defeating the armies of Marshall Bernadotte at Arnhem and Apeldoorn, the British Government was fast in their reinforcement of Wellesley’s war effort in Spain, thus enabling the general to take advantage of the chaos and confusion reigning over the French position in Iberia and launch a new offensive against Ney’s armies.

…following the successes of Sevilla and Córdoba in the mid-summer of 1809, Wellesley and Ney would engage once more at Ciudad Real, in one of the most decisive battles fought in the Spanish campaign of that year, with over 20,000 troops fighting in both sides, that it without mentioning the local militias formed during, before and after the battle, as thousands began to riot against French control of the city, forcing the armies of Marshalls Ney and Davout to fight a fifth column in the middle of the battle…


From…the Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars, by S. Munro

The Battle of Ehingen

It had been nearly ten weeks after the events of Aspern-Essling and Lobau that the French and Austrians armies met again. It had taken over three weeks for the Austrian army of Archduke Charles to be ready to stand and march again, while the mauled French army had spent much of the time eluding the pursuing Austrian forces and trying to receive more material as well as reinforcements in the form of troops…

…At Bavaria only some skirmishes would take place between Lannes’ armée and the Austrian forces after them, these taking place at Bogen and Monheim, and resulting mostly in successful French retreats which nevertheless proved costly for the Bavarians, Munich and Nurnberg falling under allied occupation on July 8th and July 14th respectively…

…Ehingen was a change to this situation which had the french army in constant retreat, only fighting the Austrians on a few skirmishes along the Danube. Quite the contrary, the stand at Ehingen would change the whole dynamics of the German front in the war…

…Having received reinforcements from France, the Imperial army under Jean Lannes and Andre Massena stood 50,000 men-strong, while Archduke Charles had nearly 60,000 men out of the 90,000 that he had commanded at Lobau. Not only the casualties, but the necessity to reinforce the Italian front and keep the occupied territories under control had diminished the Austrian army quiet considerably…

…It was the morning of August 2nd of 1809 when the battle began, when Marshal Lannes personally led a cavalry charge against the Austrian right flank, and despite being outnumbered, forced the Austrians to hold their line and later to pursue the French cavalry as they began a fake retreat northwards; this left the Austrian center vulnerable to Massena’s experienced Imperial Guard, under his personal command…

…A third force was commanded by Marshall Jacques MacDonald, distinguishing himself in the third hour of the battle, in which he personally led a charge that forced the attacking Austrian center back after Massena’s formations were nearly broken in the second hour…following these events, Marshal Lannes returned victorious after routing the Austrian right flank and was able to push the Austrian center from the north towards the Danube, even though the superior Austrian artillery, combined with the use at the last minute of the Hungarian reserves, would drive Lannes’ cavalry, thus saving the Austrian army from complete disaster…

From…The Last Coalition, by William Cohen

The month of August would see several reverses in the war, many unexpected turns that contributed to make the war of the Fifth coalition one of the most complex and fascinating of the wars against the French Republic and Empire…

…even though the Austrian had lost nearly 8,000 men and their momentum, the Prussian and German armies in the north had driven Jerome Bonaparte and most of Napoleon’s client states in Northern Germany and Poland, Warsaw having fallen to the forces of Marshal von Gneissenau in the summer of 1809, while Hannover was retaken by the Anglo-Prussian forces on August of that year, Westphalia being formally abolished as a state later that month while the territories of the Electorate of Hannover would be provisionally restored, even though not recognized until after the end of the war…

The front at the Rhine proved to be far more problematic than the allies had expected, and soon an stalemate was reached along the river, the English under Pitt and the French under Bernadotte at Arnhem, the Prussians under von Blucher and the Imperial army under MacDonald and Junot chasing each other between the cities of Koblenz and Weisbaden, and fighting at the battles of Ingelhelm and Bingen between August 9th and 10th of 1809, during the attempted Prussian crossing of the Rhine…


From…A History of the British Military 1776-1854

Three weeks after Wellesley’s victory over Ney at Ciudad Real, half of Spain had freed herself from French occupation, and the other half was in flames as a rain of steel and fire fell on the shoulders of Marshal Ney’s Imperial armies...
…Through the late summer and early fall of 1809 several Spanish cities began to rise against French control as the Anglo-Spanish armies in the south advanced…soon, violence erupted in every major Spanish city under French authority: Madrid, Barcelona, Zaragoza, Valencia, Burgos, Valladolid…leaving the French armies surrounded and helpless as the Spanish militias were being joined by the local population…

Michel Ney and his army of 50,000 men was forced out of Madrid by the rioting people and the local militias on August 20th, taking refuge in the city of Aranjuez, some 60 kilometers south of the capital.

Aranjuez would serve as the major French base in central Spain and as Ney’s headquarters until Wellesley’s arrival on September 4th and Ney’s retreat to Alcala de Henares, where the two forces would finally engage once more on September 17th.

From…the Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars, by S. Munro

Battle of Alcalá de Henares

…Of course, Aranjuez, or the battle of the Jarama River, as it is also known, was only a minor skirmish, both armies being hardly in conditions to do much fighting, and thus Ney was forced to retreat through hostile territory to Alcalá de Henares, on his way to Guadalajara and the route back to France, although some argue whether it was Ney’s intention to retreat back to France or to defend Guadalajara, where a French garrison of 11,900 was still standing…in any case the French would be caught by the British and Spanish forces north of Alcalá and Ney’s 50,000 were forced to engage Wellesley’s 64,000 north of the Spanish town…



…the battle itself lasted for about two hours, in which the British were able to use their numerically superior cavalry to drive the French right flank and force Ney’s center to retreat several yards, before the French marshal ordered the infantry to form squares, thus driving the British cavalry back. This action made it necessary for the future Duke of Wellington to use his last reserves to reinforce his Spanish and English forces in the center in order to engage the French infantry in the middle of the battlefield…it was this action the one to finally broke the mauled and exhausted French infantry and win the battle for the coalition forces…

From…On the Napoleonic wars, by Leonid Chekov

…as we all know, Freudenstatd followed Balingen, Balingen followed Ehingen and Ehingen followed Lobau and Aspern-Essling, but it is necessary to understand that few of the battles after Ehingen had any actual relevance. Just as the skirmishes that had taken place between Aspern-Essling on May and Ehingen on August, none of the engagements that took place between the armies of Jean Lannes and Archduke Charles after the stand at Ehingen were important…

…both at Freudenstadt and Balingen the French had been able to outmaneuver and out-speed the Austrians and thus escape the large battle that the Austrian commander was seeking, that decisive engagement that would decide the fate of the war and end the conflict. Both Massena and Lannes knew that the French army could not leave any battlefield victorious in the shape in which it was after Ehingen, and therefore the strategy of hit and run, postponing any large battle until the army could be regrouped and reinforced, was used until the army was stronger, one of the sides was completely exhausted or until the winter arrived, thus giving both sides a chance to rest for a few weeks…

…unfortunately for the French, they would not be lucky enough to see the winter set in before the Austrians could cross the Rhine…

…on September 18th, the Prussian army of General von Blucher, mustering over 67,000 men, joined the army of Archduke Charles of Austria at Bretten, in the Grand Duchy of Baden, thus giving the combined German army a force of 145,000 men, to face a French force of 47,000…

From…Rise and Fall of the French Empire

The news of the formation of a “Grand Army of Germany”, as it would be later called by many nationalists and historians in the aftermath of the war, were coldly received in Paris, where Emperor Joseph was finding it incredibly difficult to maintain the position of his empire, both in Germany and in Spain…

…Calls for an armistice with the Fifth Coalition were beginning to gain strength, both in the French government and the ranks of the High command of the Imperial army, as well as in the hearts of the people and even within the very Imperial family, according to some sources, especially with figures such as Louis Bonaparte…

…The Emperor was nevertheless not the kind of man to give up that easily, not to mention that he was far from the cowardly image that had been made of him in Spain after his departure of the peninsula, quite the opposite, Joseph knew that for the Empire to survive and the position of both France and his family to be kept within any new European scenario, the empire would have to negotiate from a position of strength, and that was hardly the case in September of 1809…
…the orders that came from Paris on late September of that year would be kept a secret for many years after Emperor Joseph I gave them, but in lame terms they had all of Spain south of the Ebro evacuated, excepting for Valencia, where the French armies had suppressed the local insurrections and restored imperial control over the province, while for the German front it meant a merging of MacDonald’s and Lannes’ armies into a single “Army of the Rhine”, with reinforcements from Italy and France herself…

…the letters, retrieved by an agent of the French state on May of 1810 and later restored by a Parisian historian in 1855 would later be known as the “Paris Letters”, a de facto guideline for the French strategy in the war of the Fifth coalition from September of 1809 onwards…


From…the Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars, by S. Munro

The Army of the Rhine

Formed between September 30th and October 10th of 1809, the new French Grand Armée was the largest formed by the Empire in the war thus far, numbering over 124,000 men, under the official command of Emperor Joseph I, although under the effective command of Marshall’s Lannes and Massena, with MacDonald and Stoult in charge of the 2nd and the 3rd corps respectively, while a fifth marshal, Davout, would be in charge of the reserves…

The army itself was created by direct order of the French Emperor as a mean to counter the large Austro-Prussian army that had been formed at Bretten under the overall command of Archduke Charles, with von Blucher and the Duke of Brunswick nominally under him…


From…On the Napoleonic wars, by Leonid Chekov

The German invasion of Alsace on October of 1809 had been expected only for a few days since the formation of the Grand Army at Bretten, and once the little French garrisons that had been left behind to guard the general French retreat back to the motherland had been defeated at Rastatt and Pforzheim, the armies of Archduke Charles and General von Blucher entered en masse into the French Empire…

…This is what historians generally call the “Six Weeks campaign”, one of the most decisive and rather complex operations in the war of the Fifth coalition, as well as one of the most memorable campaigns in the history of the Anti-French wars of the late 18th century and the early 19th century…

From…the Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars, by S. Munro

The Six Weeks campaign

This is the name generally given to the last and most crucial campaign of the War of the Fifth coalition, if one is not to consider Aspern-Essling and its effects, that is…

…the entry of the massive Austro-Prussian army into France on October of 1809 was greeted with alarm and fear throughout France, as this was the first time since Napoleon took over that the Motherland was facing such a terrible and menacing threat…

…Generally speaking, the Six Weeks campaign followed the same mechanics of the French strategy that had been used in the aftermath of Lobau and Ehingen, outmaneuvering and out-speeding the larger German armies and thus avoiding large engagements until the conditions favored the Imperial armies. This strategy was also implemented with the hope that the Germans could be exhausted and even outmaneuvered out of France at some point, following the tactics used by the Spanish guerrillas of attacking the supply lines and outflanking the enemy through the use of more compact attack forces and speed…thankfully for the Austro-Prussian forces, the French were never able to fully use this strategy against them…

Through October of 1809 several skirmishes between the Imperial and the Allied forces took place, at Haguenau, at Epinal, at Nancy and at Metz, in a long and tiring campaign that resulted in overall exhaustion for the soldiers, irritation for the German commanders and the fall of several cities and towns of Alsace and Lorraine, until November 12th of 1809, at least, where the bulk of the Army of the Rhine was caught up by the pursuing Austro-Prussian Forces at the town of Verdun-sur-Meuse…

From…Rise and Fall of the French Empire

Verdun

This could be easily be described as the battle that decided the outcome of the war of the Fifth coalition, and perhaps the fate of the whole of Europe and the world, being technically the final engagement of the war, or more accurately the one to produce the necessary effects on the European leadership to have the war end by the end of the month.

On November 12th of 1809 Marshals Lannes and Massena stood north of Verdun with a force of 114,000 men, while on the other side of the battlefield Archduke Charles and General von Blucher commanded an army of 132,000 men from all over Germany, Austria and Hungary…

…The battle began when General Kleist launched a massive charge of the Heavy Cavalry, with the intention of breaking through the French lines at the beginning of the engagement and thus winning the field for the Germans in the first moments of the battle…this rushed decision would come costly for the Prussian cavalry, which lacking proper artillery support, fell prey to the Imperial Army’s own artillery, located in the middle of an infantry square…the speed with which the French were able to regroup into the well-formed and tight squares after the initial breaking of the lines, as well as the use of the light artillery were enough to repel the Prussian cavalry and inflict over 6,000 casualties between dead and wounded…
What followed was a French attempt to chase the Prussian cavalry with their infantry, thus precipitating events and forcing the Austro-Prussian commanders to respond with their own infantry, while both sides began a bloody cannonade, aiming at the middle of the field and thus raining death and misery upon the soldiers fighting at the fields of Verdun…

…by this, the third hour, the battle had already cost both sides some 20,000 lives according to modern estimates, and was only about to get worse…

…By the fourth hour the battle had already spread to the town of Verdun and along the Meuse, thanks to the use of all the several corps…on the left flank MacDonald’s 3rd Corps and Gneisenau’s 2nd Prussian corps were engaging in a bloody stalemate along the Meuse river, while at the center the French infantry had begun to fight in the town itself, digging trenches and building barricades inside the city, defending it from the Austrian assault street to street, although the German forces had already begun to bombard the city into oblivion with their heavy artillery…

By the end of the day both sides were exhausted but the battle was far from over; some 40,000 men had died throughout the day…Massena and the 1st corps held the town of Verdun against the forces of Archduke Charles himself, while the left flank MacDonald’s 3rd Corps had managed to keep Gneisenau at bay…only the right flank was proving problematic: the 4th corps had been nearly disintegrated by the Austrian assaults and Marshal Stoult himself had been badly wounded, henceforth the reserves under Davout would have the task of defending the right flank from the Austrians and the Black Brunswickers…

From…the Dictionary of the Napoleonic Wars, by S. Munro

The Battle of Verdun

…the second day at Verdun began in the early hours of November 13th, when the Austrian artillery began to pound the town and the French center in earnest, only stopping to allow the infantry to assault the fortifications once more…
...at noon the Austrian center attacked the French for the fourth time that day, forcing Massena to withdraw several hundreds of meters before another French push forced the Austrians out of the city, in a routine that had taken much of the morning and the previous day’s afternoon…only the arrival of Prussian reinforcements assured that the southern portion of the city remained in German hands.

…at five o’clock the reserves and the remains of Marshal Lannes’ cavalry launched an attack against the Austro-Prussian right flank, in a completely unexpected and fierce manner, taking the enemy forces by surprise and breaking a whole through the Austrian lines big enough for Lannes to launch a second charge, this time against the Austrian center charging towards Verdun…both sides were exhausted and the end was near, and many began to think that maybe with one last push, they might just end the bloody fight…

From…On War and Peace, by P. Goldstein

In order to perfectly understand the process that followed the armistice of Metz on December 4th of 1809 it is absolutely necessary to realize exactly what both sides of the engagement had been through in the war…just like the preceding coalitions, the Fifth was astonishingly bloody, even by the standards of that time, and there are no better examples that the carnages of Aspern and Essling, Lobau and of course, the bloody Battle of Verdun, which modern estimates place as one of the bloodiest of the Napoleonic and French revolutionary campaigns with over 70,000 dead overall, with some 35,000 dead for the French and 45,000 for the Austro-Prussian contingents…

Such was the amount of blood spilled over the fields and the streets of Verdun that the very will to fight of the allied commanders was completely lost by the third day of the battle, and even if the war lasted for another two weeks in which the mauled and beaten armies of Austria and France maneuvered over northern France trying to avoid each other or simply limiting themselves to engage in petty cavalry maneuvers and skirmishes, the fact is that the war was over the minute the Austrian and Prussian commanders ordered a general retreat from Verdun on November 15th…

From…A Study in power: Europe in the times of the Emperors

Verdun and Metz were the names that had the deepest impact in Vienna when news of the French Campaign reached the Imperial court of Francis II of Austria…
the Emperor was completely confident in his brother’s chance of victory in the fields of France, but when the letters and the missives Archduke Charles had sent to him reached his hands, with the horrid descriptions of the bloody battlefields and the brutal conditions that both himself and his troops had to endure, the Emperor realized that the war was over for better or worse…the men had lost their will to fight, as had their commanders, all that was left was to hope that the French lost their own will at the fields of Verdun…

From…The Last Coalition, by William Cohen

Vienna was the natural choice for the peace talks to be held, if not the only choice. The Fifth Coalition had started and pretty much remained as an Austrian affair since the beginning, and if anything, Austria had remained at the head of the anti-French alliance to the very end, dealing with much of the destruction brought upon them by the war and the French armies, having built the coalition by themselves and more importantly, it had been the Austrian Armies the ones to defeat and kill Napoleon at Aspern and Lobau…nobody would have been willing or capably to deny the depth of the Austrian contribution to the war and to the world, and the gratitude that was owed to the Austrian Armies of Archduke Charles…

The negotiations began at Earnest on January of 1810, at the Schonbrunn Palace, the summer residence of the Imperial Family, with representatives of all the involved powers represented, including the governments of the French Empire, the United Kingdom, Austria, Prussia, Sicily, Sardinia, Bavaria and some other representatives, including some sent by Russia to observe the development of the circumstances.



There was one special case and that was the problem with the representation of the Kingdom of Spain…which government should be recognized? The Juntas of Cadiz? The Napoleonic Kingdom of Joseph Bonaparte? or should King Ferdinand be freed and allowed to attend? Finally, it was agreed to allow representatives of both the Napoleonic and the loyalist government to attend, but not to negotiate fully, the fate of Spain being left in the hands of the negotiators acting in the names of Austria and France…

The final treaty was the work, or more accurately the result that came from the feud between the French representative, the famed Prince of Benevent, Maurice de Talleyrand, and the Austrian diplomat, Prince Klemens von Metternich.
Both sides were of course working in the best interest of their countries, but the negotiations were plagued by one problem: the war had had no clear victor.
Even if the Austrians and the Fifth coalition were being perceived as the victorious side of the war, the Battle of Verdun had left both of them wary of their own capability to win the war, not to mention exhausted from the bloodbath.

The treaty was nonetheless signed on February 2nd of 1810, recognizing the victory of the Fifth coalition and the de facto defeat of the French Empire, even if the government of Joseph I would never acknowledge such a thing in his lifetime.
The treaty was what the Austrian Foreign Minister, Prince Metternich, would later call “one of his greatest triumphs”; the treaty did not only establish a new geopolitical system in Europe, but a system that left Austria as one of its key players, if not the major player in the European scenery, thanks to her role as leader of the Fifth coalition, while it restored much of the lost territory and prestige that had been lost in the previous decade of fighting…

…For the Austrian Empire, the treaty meant a restoration of her place in the new concert of Europe, as a major player, equal to France and head of the Reactionary Right in Europe, while territorially the provinces of Tyrol and Illyria were returned to the Habsburg Crown, not to mention large territories from the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Bavaria, in addition to other territories in Italy and Germany taken from France and her allies in the region…France would also be forced to pay a large war indemnity to the Empire of Austria…

…For France, the new order instituted by the Fifth Coalition meant a loss of her place as the most powerful and leading power in Europe…the French would be force to evacuate all German land east of their frontier on the Rhine, the territories of Holland and Spain as well…of course, Joseph Bonaparte would be forced to formally abdicate to the throne of Spain and recognize the rightful rule of the Bourbon Dynasty, while also recognizing the rule of the old royal families in the thrones of Germany and Holland…

…Prussia left the negotiations table with large parts of Saxony and Poland, which was dismembered between Austria and Prussia, as well as some territories bordering her domains, as well as some provinces in northern Germany taken from France…as we know, France was forced to abandon all of her territories east of the Rhine, although that still left her with a large German minority aiming for liberation within her borders…

…Italy was mostly left untouched, excepting for some territories awarded to Austria…More importantly, the Emperor of France would later give the throne of Italy to his brother Louis, while at the same time restoring the French territories in Central Italy as the Kingdom of Etruria, for his brother Jerome, the Kingdom of Westphalia having been dismantled between Prussia and the new Kingdom of Hannover, the only territorial spoil of war gained by King George of Great Britain during the war of the Fifth Coalition…

From…the Rise and Fall of Nations and Nationalism, by L. Hubbard

…The importance of the War of the Fifth coalition and its role in the rise of the Nationalistic movements in Europe, particularly German nationalism, if often underrated, especially because the role that Austria played in these events is often not considered…

…the war left Austria not only as the most powerful and influential nation of Europe, albeit temporarily, and restored her place amongst the powers of the world, but also awarded her the dual role of leader of the German nationalist movement, having rallied the people of Germany to her cause and expelled the French from German soil in the war, and defender of the rights of the Kings of Europe, that is by having restored the practice of Enlightened Absolutism to Central Europe and Spain, although this restoration, unlike the devolution of self-rule to the German states, would prove to be far from lasting…

maverick said:

…For France, the new order instituted by the Fifth Coalition meant a loss of her place as the most powerful and leading power in Europe…the French would be force to evacuate all German land east of their frontier on the Rhine, the territories of Holland and Spain as well…of course, Joseph Bonaparte would be forced to formally abdicate to the throne of Spain and recognize the rightful rule of the Bourbon Dynasty, while also recognizing the rule of the old royal families in the thrones of Germany and Holland…

Click to expand...

I would like to ask a few questions about the status of the Netherlands. Is it a kingdom with Willem of Orange-Nassau as king or is it a republic again with Willem as stadholder?
Are any of the Dutch colonies returned to the Netherlands and if so which ones? (I am hoping for the capecolony, but probably not)
What are the borders of the Netherlands? Are they the borders of the old republic? The kingdom of Holland borders (without Zeeuws Vlaanderen and Limburg)? Or are all Dutch territories south of the Rhine still French? Is Belgium (or only Flanders) Dutch? Or does it have the current day borders? Is East-Frisia still part of the Netherlands (like it was during the kingdom of Holland)? Are there any other interesting border changes?

The Kingdom of Holland keeps the borders of the 1809 Kingdom, with William as King...and I guess that the colonies return to them...Here's a map...

Interesting Timeline and very well written. One quibble is that I think that the Allies wouldn't have given up for just one loss. Especially with the second front in Spain and the loss of Napoleon.

Bump...

It's not just one loss, it's one big loss...and the war ends like some sort of stalemate that allows the French to keep Italy and the territories west of the Rhine...

maverick said:

Bump...

It's not just one loss, it's one big loss...and the war ends like some sort of stalemate that allows the French to keep Italy and the territories west of the Rhine...

Click to expand...

It's a perfectly reasonable border for France, But Austria got to little. A good idea could be to exhange the territories you gave them in Franconia with whole of Bavaria or just South Bavaria or exhange Saxony with Poland, maybe split Saxony Beetween Prussia (give Prussia the Saxon territories they got in OTL) and Austria (the post 1815 OTL Saxony) and give Saxonys royal family a Polish kingdom of the territories Russia got in 1815.

It's a nice timeline and I would love to see it continued

From…Spain in the times of Enlightenment

The times between the general French withdrawal from Spanish Soil and the return of the Royal family saw the Spanish government fall completely in the hands of the Junta Central of Sevilla, which lost little time before moving to Madrid and asserting their authority in the capital.

The new “Junta Central de Madrid” replaced the old provincial Juntas and created a centralized government in the name of King Ferdinand VII, thus replacing the old “Consejo de Regencia” as well and becoming the first official and centralized government in the Peninsula since the fall of Spain to the Napoleonic forces in 1808. The new junta was nevertheless a revived version of the original central Junta and the Cortes de Cadiz, and as such was divided between three main factions: the Absolutistas, who favored a return to the Enlightened despotism of the Bourbon monarchy, the Jovellanistas, led by Minister Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, who advocated for the ideals of the illustration and reform, but without defending the revolutionary ideals of the time, and the Liberales, who were on the other hand defenders of the Revolutionary dogma born from the French revolution.

The problems caused by this divisions and the apparent majority of the reformists in the Junta would nevertheless only prove to be the tip of the Iceberg in post-Napoleonic Spain.

For once, a great amount of power still rested in the hands of the local juntas of Defense, some of which did not recognize the Junta Central, especially for its perceived liberal majority, not to mention that soon after the French retreat many local militias and Juntas declared autonomous governments in the name of King Ferdinand VII, awaiting for an absolutist restoration, while the moderates and the liberals in Madrid and the largest cities were hoping for some political and administrative reform in order to take Spain from its backward position in the continent…

…this series of problems would nonetheless prove petty compared to the crisis provoked on February 19th of 1810, when the King in exile, when rumors about the King being caught in a storm in the Pyrenees reached Madrid, throwing the capital into chaos and confusion, and even after the news about the King’s death were confirmed in late February, the Spanish Government found itself in the middle of a terrible crisis…

From…A History of Spain and its people
The Death of King Ferdinand VII could not have come at a worst time. The Junta Central at Madrid had foreseen problems with any return of the Bourbon monarchs and their absolutist government, and had thus began a process of reform that led to the formation of the Juntas de Madrid, created with the purpose of creating a constitution and thus establishing a real government capable of defending the interests of the nation above the interests of the monarch.

The main members and leaders of the moderate and liberal factions were aware that the King would not have accepted this immediately, even if most of the people and the moderate faction entertained the idea of the King swearing loyalty to a constitution and accepting the will of the people.

The problem was made even worse when the line of Succession and the crown of Spain fell on the shoulders of King Ferdinand’s younger brother, the Infante Carlos Maris Isidro de Borbón a man of deep religious convictions and absolutist ideas.
Carlos V would be crowned as King of Spain on March 17th of 1810, and the History of Spain would take yet another turn…

From…Historia General de las Americas

It was a raining day in Buenos Aires when the Cabildo was gathered to decide upon the fate of the Viceroy Cisneros and the relation between the people of the Rio de la Plata and Spain.

The people gathered around the Cabildo were wearing red bands around their arms, as a sign of support for a declaration of autonomy from Spain, a demonstration orchestrated by the revolutionary group led by the known agitators Domingo French and Antonio Beruti, who gave out the armbands and had seized control of the plaza in order to allow only the anti-Spanish revolutionary elements and ensuring control of the development of events in the Cabildo, even though this would have proven unnecessary, most of the anti-revolutionary elements in the city having preferred to isolate themselves and not risk an open revolt in the city by interfering…

….by the end of the day, that fatidic day that was the “25 de mayo of 1810”, the Cabildo was forced by the will of the people to accept the fact that the statu quo could no longer be maintained and that the authority of the Spanish crown could no longer be recognized without severe changes in the relation of power between the colonies and the crown…thus the first autonomous government of the Rio de la Plata, formed in the model of the Spanish Juntas de Gobierno and the many similar juntas that had been formed in several other cities such as Santiago, Caracas and Quito, was created, and the Primera Junta de Gobierno of Buenos Aires was born, with the moderate Colonel Cornelio Saavedra as Presidente (Chairman), the radicals Mariano Moreno and Juan Jose Paso as Secretaries and…

The formation of the Junta was followed by an official announcement made by Chairman Cornelio Saavedra from the balcony of the Cabildo of Buenos Aires…

Interesting update. Nice to see some focus put onto Spain. A Civil likely at all?

From…A History of Spain and its people

…by January of 1811 the situation between King Carlos and the Junta De Gobierno in Madrid had begun to deteriorate and was reached a point of no return…

As a fervent defender of the principles of Enlightened Absolutism and the rights of the Kings, Carlos V saw the Junta and its liberal ideals as an affront to his own god-given rights and power, and thus began to see the Government body as an enemy of the state filled with dangerous revolutionary elements…

…counting with the support of the Church and the most conservative elements within the nation, especially in the North and in the conservative rural countryside, where his religious and moral values made him quite popular with the people, as well as the moderate and conservative elements within the Junta and the Military, the King began a massive effort to limit the powers of the Junta and its most radical elements...

…the most important of the King’s efforts to reduce and even completely eliminate the power and influence of the Junta was the dismissal of the “cortes de Madrid”, thus putting and end to any constitutionalist ambition of the Junta Central and ensuring that he would continue to enjoy the benefits of unlimited and unchecked power, and as his reign progressed, the King would come to use his royal prerogative with little regard of the opinions of the Junta, his ministers or the people…

From…Historia General de las Americas

…if the government of Spain had proven somewhat slow in its reactions to the formation of the autonomous Juntas in Buenos Aires, Santiago, Quito, Bogota and Caracas due to the great distance that separated the metropolis from the colonies, the royalist response would nevertheless not go without resonating in the streets of the various revolutionary centers in South America.

Even if the citizens of the most important cities in Spanish America had risen in rebellion against the Spanish Crown, there was one place and once particular capital where the rule of the Bourbon King and the Spanish Crown was as strong as ever, and that capital was the city of Lima, in the viceroyalty of Peru, where Jose Fernandez De Abascal y Sousa was Viceroy.

An extremely cunning and capable administrator, not to mention an able reformer, Abascal was as well an ardent royalist and supporter of the Enlightened despotism the Bourbon Monarchs had enforced, and thus Peru became the center of the counter-revolutionary actions in South America…

…it took little time for the Viceroy to organize a swift and decisive response to the various insurrectionist movements that had sprung throughout the continent, and within months, the royalist armies of Peru had reincorporated the territories of Chile and Quito, while occupying the provinces of Cordoba, Potosi, La Paz, Charcas from the former viceroyalty of the Rio de La Plata, thus returning the territories of the Alto Peru to the control of Lima…

From…El Río de la Plata en tiempos de la revolución

…matters in Buenos Aires were far from idle when the year of 1811 arrived and passed…it was indeed a terrible year for the revolutionary cause in South America…

The divisions in the Primera Junta between the radical Morenistas, who wished to implement and spread a Jacobin revolutionary program and immediately severe all ties with Spain, and the moderate Saavedristas, who pursued a more calm, quiet and rational policy, led to the fall of the Junta and the creation of the Junta Grande, which included the represenatives of the other provinces outside Buenos Aires, much to the anger of Mariano Moreno and his radical faction, even though he would continue to hold a position in the new Junta.

Mariano Moreno’s role in the revolution had led to many wanting him out of the Junta, and he himself had planned to leave the country temporarily to lead a diplomatic mission to Europe, but the renewed presence of the Spanish fleet on the Rio de la Plata forced any international adventure out of the picture and forced the man that many historians would later see as a new Robespierre to remain in the country, even if his campaign of revolutionary terror would have to be moderated after the incidents with the counterrevolutionary plots at Cordoba and the execution of the former viceroy, Liniers at Cabeza de Tigre…

From…Historia General de las Americas

Despite the strength of the revolutionary movements in the continent, only two nations would come to actually declare independence in the year of 1811: Venezuela and Paraguay.

Paraguay, formerly a province within the Viceroyalty of the Rio de la Plata, declared independence from Spain even before Buenos Aires, and what was even worse to the eyes of the Junta in Buenos Aires, the new country declared independence from both Madrid and Buenos Aires, an event that was seen by the Junta Grande as an insult and that led them to send the disastrous Paraguay expedition of 1811, under General Manuel Belgrano…

…Venezuela’s case was different, declaring their independence from Spain on June of 1811, with Francisco de Miranda and Simon Bolivar as the heads of the revolutionary movement…the excitement that followed the declaration would be however short-lived, within a year, the revolution had been suffocated by the intervention of a large Spanish expedition sent by King Carlos V, as well as, incredibly enough, a devastating earthquake that shook Caracas on July of 1812, on a “Jueves Santo”, an event that led many to assume that this was a divine punishment for the declaration of independence and the creation of a constitution…

…meanwhile, further south, the forces of the United Provinces of the Rio de la Plata continued their campaign against the Spanish at Alto Peru and in the Banda Oriental…

From…the South American wars of independence

The failure of the United Provinces at Paraguay and the First Alto Peru campaign in 1811 would be followed by a great deal of divisions and discussions in the Junta Grande, which had the double task of creating a nation and fighting a war with the Spanish…

The Junta Grande, which lacked the ability to successfully run the “country” and the war due to both the inherent complications of the mission and the large size of the legislative body, lost much of her power to the Directorate on September of 1811, when this government body was created with the purpose of serving as an executive power, leaving the Junta to fulfill legislative functions…

The only positive turn in the war was the revolt led by Jose Gervasio Artigas in the Banda Oriental, thus depriving the Spanish from an important base from which to attack the Rio de La Plata, even though the Spanish fleet would continue to control Montevideo and several other cities in the Banda Oriental until the years of 1812 and 1813 even…

Yet there would be a further turn of events in the war, at least for the perspective of the Rio de la Plata, and that was the arrival of men like Jose de San Martin and Carlos Maria de Alvear from Spain, amongst others, men with both great military experience and a patriotic desire for independence, and most importantly, men of illustrated ideals that would come to play an important role both in the development of the revolutionary program in Buenos Aires and within the schemes of men like Mariano Moreno and his followers…

This radicalization would be later seen in the formation of the “Logia Lautaro” by San Martin and other similarly-minded officers with Masonic and liberal ideals, dedicated to the independence of South America and the ideals of liberalism and constitutionalism, and the strengthening of the “Sociedad patriotica”, an organization of Morenistas that would come to be a key player in the development of events in Buenos Aires as well as the “Logia Lautaro”

Could you clarify the colonial situation ? Has Britain withdrawn from ALL Dutch territories like Guyana ? Has France kept Seychelles? Has Britain kept Malta? Your implication that "Britain made no gains" was unclear(as in over the whole Napoleonic wars or just that treaty). Sorry for he nitpicking.

Oh, sorry...I meant no gains directly from France...

-The Dutch get all of their territory back, at least the colonies...
-Malta is kept by the British, as are the Seychelles...

From…Historia General de las Americas

The situation in the rest of the continent could of course only be ignored by the Portuguese court at Rio de Janeiro for so long, especially with the power of the liberals and the constitutionalist factions in the colony on the rise…

King John VI had abandoned his Kingdom of Portugal for Brazil along with the royal family when Napoleon invaded his country in 1808, and now, as he was readying himself and his family to return, the threat of a new revolution in his own lands menaced the future of both himself and the Portuguese monarchy in Brazil…

From…the South American wars of independence

Following the disastrous adventures of Paraguay and the Alto Peru of 1811, the loyalist invasion of the North by the forces of Peru under General Pio Tristán came as the last nail in the coffin of Supreme Director Juan Martin de Pueyrredon’s political career, being temporarily replaced by Feliciano Chiclana and later by Gervasio de Posadas.

The downfall of the authoritarian and ineffective Pueyrredon would nevertheless be of little comfort considering the threat of the loyalist armies invading the North…

This would be the beginning of the Jujuy Exodus, when the commander of the Army of the North, Manuel Belgrano, ordered the complete evacuation of the people and the burning of everything else left behind and that could be used by the advancing enemy…this “scorched earth” tactic would include the killing of the livestock, the destruction of farms, the burning of crops and even the poisoning of the water at the wells…

From…El Río de la Plata en tiempos de la revolución

The Spanish raids on Buenos Aires and other positions along the Parana River and the Rio de la Plata, accompanied by the landing of a small invading force at Santa Fe, were more than enough to convince the Directorate of the threat that was the Spanish presence in the Banda Oriental…they would also prove to be the bases on which the invasion of the Eastern Provinces would be mounted…

The landing at San Lorenzo, met by the Division of “Granaderos a Caballo” under Lieutenant Colonel San Martin would result in the short and decisive battle of San Lorenzo on January of 1813, the first step towards Fame in the career of Colonel San Martin in South America…



Following the battle, two decisive steps would be taken by the directorate in the war effort against Spain: firstly, the creation of a “war navy”, under the Irish mercenary and patriot William Brown, and secondly, the beginning of a campaign to liberate the Eastern Provinces from the Spanish yoke by sending an army to link with Artigas’ rebels…

This “Army of the East” would be led by Jose de San Martin himself, now a General, and Jose Maria de Alvear…

From…Historia General de las Americas

The audacity and unexpected success of Lieutenant Colonel Brown’s tiny fleet against the superior Spanish force at Montevideo on May of 1813 would not only earn the Irishman the title of Admiral, but would also give the United Provinces a great morale boost and the necessary control of the Rio de la Plata to mount an invasion of the Banda Oriental on June of 1813…

The actual necessity of this campaign had been much argued in Buenos Aires, with a strong faction advocating for a new invasion of the Alto Peru, even though the previous two had ended in a near disaster for the United Provinces…the invasion of the Banda Oriental on the other hand could quite possibly ensure the complete destruction of the Spanish presence on the Rio de la Plata and end the two front war the United Provinces had been facing since the beginning of the war…

The invasion of the eastern Provinces, joined by a new general insurrection led by patriot Artigas began on June 16th of 1813, despite the many logistical and political problems that arose from the very beginning of the campaign…

From…The United States, a General and Political History 1789-1824

James Madison’s reelection as President of the United States was seen as many within the party and the nation that things were going well, marching on smooth tracks and generally progressing well enough to make the president a popular enough figure, when in fact the country was facing several problems at the time, including deep divisions within the nation over the issue of the banks and the President’s rather odd federalist policies…and of course, the ongoing war with the Indians in the West and the South…

What is more, in his second term Madison would be forced to confront divided cabinet, a factious party, a recalcitrant Congress and obstructionist governors, all with their own interests, while at the same time having to continue to engage the Tribes of the West and the South in endless campaigns that would nevertheless give such prominent national heroes such as William Henry Harrison, of the Tecumseh campaigns, and the “conqueror of the Creeks”, Andrew Jackson…

From…Historia General de las Americas

The conditions on the battlefield at the second siege of Montevideo had made the campaign one of the bloodiest of the revolutionary wars in the United Provinces, and even as the battle seemed to be nearing its end by May of 1814, the Spanish resistance at the port was yet to be broken and the resolve of the patriot forces was yet to be tested…

And so the siege was prolonged for another six weeks, while at Buenos Aires and at Córdoba events of even greater political and historical significance were unfolding…

From…El Río de la Plata en tiempos de la revolución

There had been great expectation for the “Congreso de Córdoba” and the discussion of the matter of independence even before the events of May of 1810, but the various political divisions and internal struggles that had plagued the Argentine republic since its “birth” had led to a delay of 4 years and a moratorium on the issue of independence, until the more Jacobin Morenista faction was able to gain the upper hand over the moderates in the Junta Grande on December of 1813 and gain a majority, making its leader, Secretario de Gobierno (Secretary of State) and the de facto second most powerful man in the United Provinces, after the Supreme Director Gervasio de Posadas…

The Congress, which would gather the representatives of all of the United Provinces and even some symbolic ones from the occupied Banda Oriental and the Alto Peru, would be in assembly for several months between February 8th of 1814 and October 13th of that year, and amongst its role would be the one of creating a constitution, even though this would not be achieved for yet another decade…

…the Congress of Córdoba and its importance nevertheless lie in the decision reached by the representatives of the United Provinces on April 9th of 1814 and the famed declaration of Independence of the “Provincias Unidas del Rio de la Plata” on April 11th of 1814, a day that would forever be remembered as the “Independence Day” in the Argentine territory…

From…Historia General de las Americas

The news of the Argentine declaration of independence had several effects on the revolutionary effort in South America, not only providing an actual legal framework on which the revolutions could be carried, but also giving a huge morale boost for the troops fighting at Montevideo and the Alto Peru…

…this declaration was followed by continued attacks on the Spanish defenses at the city of Montevideo and by several anti-Spanish uprisings at the occupied cities of Santiago, Quito and Bogota, all of which were nonetheless swiftly quelled by the more powerful royalist forces…

For Spain, the declaration was both an abomination and a political quagmire, and the prospect of any European power recognizing or legitimizing such an affront was quickly seen as the greatest threat to the Spanish political credibility in the eyes of King Carlos V, even though the most interested powers in such affairs, the United States of America, the United Kingdom and Bonapartist France, would not recognize the South American Republic until the decade of the 1820s…

…But most importantly from the military point of view, the famous, or infamous, declaration prompted the revolutionary general Simon Bolivar to move forwards the date for his invasion of Venezuela from Nueva Granada, thus beginning his ill-fated “Campaña Ominosa”

From…a Dictionary of the 19th Century

Campaña Ominosa: the terribly infamous name by which historians refer to Simon Bolivar’s last campaign in the Revolutionary Wars of South America. Having been forced out of Venezuela by the Spanish Invasion of 1812, and evacuated to Southern Nueva Granada with the remains of his men, Bolivar had been able to rebuild his force while promoting his revolutionary ideals until April of 1814, when news of the Argentine Declaration of Independence and the new mutinies at Caracas and Bogota convinced the general to launch a new liberating campaign against the Spanish at Venezuela.

After several small skirmishes that resulted in victories for the patriots’ cause, Bolivar faced a Spanish Army twice the size of his own at Araure on September of 1814, under the command of Spanish General Juan Domingo Monteverde…
The Battle of Araure is generally considered to have been the final battle of the Venezuelan Revolution of 1810-1814, resulting in the loss of 3,000 men for the independentist cause and the death of the great patriot leader of Venezuela, General Simon Bolivar…

From…A History of Spain and its people

By 1815, the Spanish People had begun to openly question the rule of Carlos V and were growing tired of both his repressive authoritarian tendencies and his contemptuous manners and attitude towards the political institutions of the state and the people in general…

Not only was the king preventing any reform from taking place, but he was in fact diminishing the roles of the various secretaries and ministries to an absolute minimum and actually reverting the state and a great deal of the reforms of his predecessors, in what some called an attempt to “bring Spain back to the times of the Catholic Monarchs”…

Politically, the rule of Carlos V had forced many of the Ilustrados and Liberales into either prison or exile, and the depth of his repression led to several anti-government mutinies that were swiftly crushed by his mighty military, while the reformist and liberal factions continued to attract the support of the people in the wake of the King’s growing authoritarianism…

It is of course also worthy of note that the King failed to gain the love of the people for much of his reign, and while his armies were being able to subdue the revolutionaries in South America and Spain’s prestige was being rebuilt, the King himself was proving to be a poor administrator and a man lacking the will to care for the people, spending much of his rule in the palaces of Aranjuez or El Escorial in Madrid, away from the people and surrounded by ministers as conservative and anti-reformist as himself…

And what’s perhaps most importantly, the war effort in South America and the economic policies of King Carlos V were having a terrible toll on the economy of Spain and the wealth of its rich merchant class, which was beginning to replace the old land-based aristocracy as the most powerful in the Kingdom…

The camel’s back would be finally be broken on May 13th of 1815, when the King ordered the arrest of, amongst other liberal politicians, Minister Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos, the leader of the moderate liberal faction in the Junta Central de Gobierno…the arrest of Jovellanos and his followers led to massive outrage and violent demonstrations throughout Madrid, and on May 14th, the “Spanish Revolution of 1815” began...

From…A dictionary of the 19th century

Spanish Revolution of 1815, the

…although the date on which historians generally agree that the Spanish Revolution of 1815 began is May 14th of 1815, most also tend to consider that the Madrid Riots of May 14th would not have had the far-reaching effects they had had it not been for the “Pronunciamiento del 18 de Mayo”, in which General Francisco Espoz y Mina led a mutiny against the government of King Carlos V and declared himself to support the Junta de Gobierno…



…leading a force of 18,000 men at Cadiz, that had been assembled to reinforce the armies at New Spain and Peru, Espoz y Mina was able to gather the support of other general while seizing control of Southern Spain through the summer of 1815…

…The King himself would be taken prisoner after a small skirmish outside the city of Aranjuez, and on August 27th of 1815 Carlos V would be forced to surrender to the revolutionary forces and accept the authority of the Junta Central de Gobierno…

Good Timeline so far. Interesting to see a TL focusing on Spain.

From…Spain in the times of Enlightenment

The Junta Central de Gobierno was assembled once more in its original form and with its power restored on September 9th of 1815, merely days after the surrender of King Carlos to the revolutionary reformist forces and his imprisonment at the Palace of Aranjuez, where he would spend the better part of his life after the events of 1815…

…amongst the first acts of the New Junta was to declare a general amnesty to all the political prisoners that had been arrested under the direct rule of the King between 1810 and 1815, most prominently members of the “Enlightened Party” such as Minister Jovellanos and others like himself, although the amnesty would also be extended to those who had fought for the King during the short revolutionary war and were now willing to declare their loyalty to the new government and swear to the new constitution, which would be finally finished on 1816…

From…A History of Spain and its people

Having represented and lead the ideals of Enlightenment and reform of the Illustrated era, Minister Gaspar Melchor de Jovellanos was the perfect choice for the position of Secretary of State and head of the new reformist government, and despite his age, the “grand old man” as many had begun to call him, accepted the position on September 15th of 1815, just three days after he had been released from his imprisonment…

Jovellanos’ tenure as Chief of Ministers and Secretary of State would be short-lived in spite of the great hopes that had been deposited on his shoulders. His age and his frail health would force the minister to resign to his position on November 4th.

But despite the little time that he spent as head of the new government, Jovellanos was able to begin several reforms, especially regarding the tax and agrarian policies of the Kingdom, even though the affairs of the reform of the Public administration and the wars in the colonies would have to be handled by his successor, Minister Evaristo Pérez de Castro…



From…Historia General de las Americas

The war effort in the aftermath of the victory at the siege of Montevideo and the Campaigns in the Banda Oriental had grinded to a halt during 1815, mostly due to the internal divisions between the Moderates and the Radicals in the Junta Grande and the indecision of Supreme Director Gervasio de Posadas, who continued to hesitate between listening to the moderates led by Secretary Bernardino Rivadavia or the Jacobins of Minister Mariano Moreno…
…at the Banda Oriental, Artigas had been left in charge of the province and the armies once the Spanish and viceroy Elio surrendered on 1814, while Generals San Martin and Alvear left for the west, where Alvear was put in charge of the Army of the North and San Martin of the Governance of Cuyo…
…Both officers were aware that a new strategy was needed to defeat the Spanish and that neither defending the north nor invading the Alto Peru were the way to end the war…this thinking put both war heroes in the radical faction of the military, which supported the likes of Mariano Moreno, Juan Larrea and the Sociedad Patriotica.

In this context General Jose de San Martin took charge of the Province of Cuyo, as part of his plan to create a liberating army and march through the Andes towards the Spanish stronghold of Santiago, to later attack the fortress of Lima by sea, while Alvear was to invade the Alto Peru from the South in a diversionary attack…

San Martin’s plan would nevertheless never come to fruition, due to the political developments in Buenos Aires and Madrid, following the fall of King Carlos in Spain and Gervasio de Posadas in Buenos Aires…

From…El Río de la Plata en tiempos de la revolución

The fall of Supreme Director Posadas had been a long time coming, his inability to cope with the national hardships the country was going through or to deal with the rivaling factions in the Junta Grande had made him weak and vulnerable to attack, and thus on May 18th of 1815 the radical faction within the Junta Grande voted to replaced him, and thus he and his supporters were sacked the following day…

This situation left the country with no central authority, as quarrelling between the two main factions began in earnest as soon as Posadas had left the position, and while the radicals continued to stand by Mariano Moreno, the moderates and conservatives were behind men like Minister Rivadavia or deputy Balcarce…
The chaotic struggle would finally be solved by the arrival of General Carlos Maria de Alvear and a small army mutiny in the city in support of the general…in the lack of a better candidate, Alvear was chosen as a compromise, being both a war hero and having the support of the military…

Alvear’s rise to the position of Supreme Director would not only be of great significance due to his support of San Martin’s project in Cuyo, but also for the political impact of his “military government”, in which he would come to depend almost exclusively on the army to support his rule…

From…Historia General de las Americas

The year of 1816 began with a renewal of hostilities in South America and with two new governments on both sides that had little idea of how to end the war…

For Spain the war was meaning a great loss of prestige and economic resources, especially considering that the most valuable parts of the continent, such as the rich mines of Potosi or the trading ports of Maracaibo and Lima, remained under loyalist control…

Several attempts to breakthrough the revolutionary lines and invade from the north had been foiled by the Guerrillas of General and Governor Martin Miguel de Güemes, who had defeated as much as 7 Spanish incursions in the north, facing overwhelming odds and superior forces in every occasion…

Montevideo and the Banda Oriental had been lost, as had been the control of the Rio de la Plata, and the new Government in Spain realized that nothing could be done to reverse that situation, not to mention that the Junta lacked both the resources and the political will to make a direct move against the United Provinces…

Thus, and much to the surprise of everybody in the world and perhaps even to the surprise of many members of the Consejo de Ministros and the Junta Central, the Spanish Government extended an offer of an armistice to the United Provinces and the Government of Carlos Maria de Alvear…the war could last forever as far as the two governments was concerned and an eternal stalemate was hardly in the plans of Alvear or Pérez de Castro…

The initial ceasefire would be signed on June 4th of 1816, while the peace negotiations and treaty would not be concluded until February of 1818…