The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars
The joint Anglo-Russian invasion of the Netherlands is truly seen as the turning point in the first part of the war. Successful, by dint of their manpower and the hastily improvised organisation, the liberation of the Netherlands was rapidly followed by a drive on the French border itself, and revolution - again - within the French Republic.
As with all the regimes thrown up by the Revolution this new government in Paris did not last long. As the levee en masse failed to keep the Anglo-Russian armies from out of the republic, so too did a new force in French politics come to the fore. Having served under Joubert in Italy, Napoleon Bonaparte was that man whom only a revolution can create. At once ambitious and pragmatic, he had married another man's cast-off for the status she yet carried, and at a still young age now found himself defending Paris as it faced almost certain annihilation before the Joint Armies.
But defend it, he did, in a superb series of manoevres worthy of his former master himself. Beaten by these lightning strikes the Anglo-Russian armies fell back to the frontier, and as news came that old King George had died, the British lost all hope in the fight and agreed to a peace, seconded by Russia whose new Tsar had murdered his own father to seize the reins of power and control the destiny of his nation.
It was a new century and a bright and brave new world. But it lasted barely two years before both sides were accusing the others of breaking the peace. A renewal of the war followed in the wake of half-hearted attempts to save the peace, and it was not long before Napoleon made himself undisputed master of France. By 1805 he had crowned himself out of the very hands of the Pope himself, and declared himself to be Emperor.
But the French navy had reached a nadir, wiped from the seas by Nelson and shivering in its harbours as his much enlarged fleet patrolled off the coast of Aquitaine. Then came the visionaries in London, men who entered into an emergency government in the wake of conspiracy and revolt, the country seeming to convulse with the economic woes with which it was afflicted. There followed the invasion of Aquitaine, a step too far many thought, but with the navy pressed unto its limits and accepting losses to France across Louisiana and the Caribbean a bridgehead was established.
Buying in local leaders, many of whom had no love for Paris or the upstart Corsican, Britain gave the province self-rule, whilst controlling its militia and raising its levies for the navy and for the new army to be stationed there. Spain was in chaos, Portugal beaten down, and the central European allies destroyed, but the men in London argued that such things would have happened anyway, and pushed on with their grandiose design. From invasion it was now a plan to detach the ancient kingdom from the grasp of France, and...well, nobody quite knew.
When the allies made peace, and with Alexander's Russia wavering in its love and hate relationship with the enigmatic Corsican, many in Britain wanted an end to it all - an end to Aquitaine, an end to occupation, an end to the war itself. But the men of vision chose to fight on, to see their design through to whatever end it would meet.
Napoleon for his part had his hands full with Spain, and with fighting now the USA over Louisiana, for British focus upon keeping Aquitaine viable had meant that French convoys could escape the Mediterranean, and Leclerc's armies were now deep in conflict with the Americans, fighting for the existence of Louisiana itself as Washington poured in all the forces it could muster.
London reckoned that Alexander would not be quiescent for ever, and that their allies, beaten but not eliminated would one day rise again. It took a while, during which France battered relentlessly at the door of Aquitaine but Sir John Moore's armies and Earl Nelson's fleets kept the ancient kingdom alive, even whilst those in Bordeaux itself began to wonder where all of this was leading.
It is ironic that the resurrection of Austria as a fighting force, and the switch of sides of Russia, occurred within a week of the Aquitaine Revolt where the militias and forces loyal to many of the more pro-French of the leading citizens rose up against the British. Moore was killed attempting to defend the capital, and Marquess Wellesley, fresh from his campaign in India was drafted in to shore up the British defence. It was a close-run thing and only the descent of Austro-Russian forces on the French borders in Italy caused the rebels to question their actions. Even the Austrian defeat before Turin did not delay the advance into Savoy, and as Marseilles itself came under siege, the rebellion in Aquitaine died out.
Now many more British, veterans almost all of India, came in to take over the running of both army and government, relegating the locals to minor position until they could once again prove worthy in their loyalty. 1812 was a bad year for Napoleon, for not only were the Austro-Russians ravaging the South, not only did the British suppress the revolt in Aquitaine, but came the news from North America that Leclerc was killed, and Louisiana falling to the Americans.
Even worse was the revolt of his own brother Louis, ensnared into a conspiracy by those around him, and before he knew it leading an advance on Paris to try to force his brother to make peace. Napoleon wept even as he gathered his armies, and would hold the corpse of his younger brother after killing him during a two-hour pitched battle outside of Versailles, a palace now much ruined by neglect, and by the ravages of the times. Louis' death secured his position with the army and 1813 began early, Napoleon striking South whilst the snows still lay and blizzards common in the heights. But the Austrians were sleeping, the Russians looking to the sea where Seniavin had arrived at Marseilles with a great fleet for their support.
In a series of battles over the course of five days, Napoleon annihilated the Austrian armies and drove on Marseilles itself. Far from home, their allies dead, and with a way out to their rear, the Russians fought poorly, and Napoleon stopped his forces, allowing them to embark and depart in ignoble flight. Re-entering Marseilles he was presented with a list by a sympathetic Arab, and called those upon it to his court - by nightfall over a hundred collaborators lay dead. This Night of the Sword would later be immortalised in one of Turner's greatest paintings, but the smell, the stink, the wetness of the gore, that fails to come across, despite the master's best efforts.
Yet Aquitaine remained. Many in London quaked that it would be next, but Napoleon had calculated and placed his adoptive son Prince Eugene de Beauharnais in command of the border, in possession of strong defensive forces, before the Emperor himself struck out East, across Italy and to Vienna itself. The new coalition collapsed, Austria sued for peace, Russia sulked and went to war with the Turk. Britain once more was alone, now even more so as Spain was pacified, and the United States of America brought to peace by Napoleon's cession of Louisiana, for the payment of a sum in compensation.
A half-hearted German rebellion was smaashed down in a lightning campaign by Davout, who crowned it by entering Berlin with the fallen Prussian eagles carried face-down by grenadiers before his own victorious army. For his success, Napoleon made him King of Westphalia, and then appointed a committee to run the country for him, lest he be deprived of his ever-victorious Marshal.
But Russia never gave in, Alexander refusing peace efforts even as the French navy allied with the Ottomans and chased Seniavin to his destruction off the Cretan coast. Making peace with Constantinople, Alexander built back up his forces and by 1815 was able once again to think and talk of war.
Many would decry the expenditure, but Britain found the money to fund the Spanish rebels and once again war spread across Iberia. Napoleon took first one then another of the enemy strongholds, but no sooner did he move from one province to another then the first rose in his wake. Navarre and the Basques proved hardest, supplied by the British by sea, and by land out of Aquitaine, and after a hard and fraught campaigning season, Napoleon left the theatre to Murat and returned to Paris to fulminate and plan.
Divorced from Josephine he married his French lover, Eleonore de La Plaigne, with whom he had already had a son, and whose husband, subsequent to that affair, had died before Vittoria that year. So she had no noble lineage, and certainly was not a royal, but the Emperor elevated her family to the peerage of his empire, and made her a Duchess, much as the kings of the Ancien Regime had been wont to do with their mistresses in the century just gone, much as even the English had done too. Another child followed within the year, and the first, Charles now ten years old, was made Napoleon's heir in blood and empire.
The London press had great play with these events, whilst in Bordeaux the leading citizens, in a bid to prove their loyalty, burnt effigies of the happy couple, and even of their children, though the youngest son was but a babe of barely weeks. France had reclaimed full mastery of the Mediterranean, and many in London, including Earl Nelson were calling for urgent reinforcements for Gibraltar. It had held out, held up well, but as a gateway to the Mediterranean, the British force there had served only as a watcher, rarely able to interfere with French traffic when so much of the Royal Navy was focused upon the Bay of Biscay.
Keeping Aquitaine secure, and keeping it supplied and defended was a long, hard and gruelling affair. Several ships of the line, including Nelson's Victory itself, were smashed to pieces by the storms, and though its crew survived the ship was broken up upon being towed into Plymouth. Revolving the squadrons at sea, whilst always keeping a large enough force that if the French did choose to do battle victory would be certain, was bleeding both the Royal Navy and the Admiralty dry. Once again many urged the abandonment of Aquitaine, but many more now spoke up - that it had cost so much, so long, that abandoning it now would be utterly stupid. So it remained, even though the men of vision were swept from office.
1816 almost did not exist, as far as the history books are concerned. There were many high-level talks between Russia and Great Britain, and Murat and Kellerman fought the Spanish across the breadth of Spain with scarcely more success than their Emperor the year before. Jamaica revolted in French hands, the slaves massacring their masters and seizing Kingston for themselves, and Nelson was granted a dukedom. But many histories brush over the year almost in its entirety for one question is always asked - what did Napoleon do?
The truth is more prosaic than the speculations which were rampant. In a highly secret operation he was cured of ailments that had afflicted him for several years, but such was the period of recovery that he did little but play with his children, especially young Prince Joseph Napoleon, and managed to sire another child, a daughter this time, by year's end. Most histories record this as a year of pause, a year of waiting, a year of calm before the storm, but the emperor's diaries, written in detail for the first time during 1816, do not show any indication of what was to come.
Few indeed could know the heights and depths which 1817 would bring both nations, Britain and France alike united though divided in their different griefs, their differing victories, and their different fears. And it started so well for Britain, King George IV more popular than ever since the marriage of his daughter, Princess Charlotte his only heir. Her husband, Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield was granted on marriage the dignatory of Duke of Kendal, and soon it was announced that the princess was pregnant with their first child.
Meanwhile, Marquess Wellesley's younger brother had taken control of the tiny British expeditionary force in Galicia and by hard work and strokes of genius managed to weld of it, and the local Spanish juntas an effective enough army to rout Juneau before La Coruna and to advance into Asturias. Created Earl of Wellington, the younger Wellesley proved that the solid but uninspiring past, where he had served first under Moore in Aquitaine and then under his brother, had lacked the opportunity for flair, not lacked the flair itself. For Aquitaine was at all costs a defensive assignment, even a great victory on the border would have brought no advance, but consolidation. Conservatism was the name of the game there, and it had not suited a man of Wellington's properties.
Now he came into his own, and the Radical-Liberal government in London threw troops at him, in part stripping bare convoys bound for Aquitaine in order to supply a man they quickly claimed as their own darling. By mid 1817 he had joined up the British and Spanish forces across the entire Northern coast of Spain into an effective army, and proved his worth by advancing on Zaragoza and killing Murat in a two-day pitched battle.
The death of another brother-in-law stirred the Emperor to action and leaving his palace for the first time in twelve months, he gathered to him the vast forces of France and invaded Spain, just in time to save Kellerman at Barcelona but only by fighting the doughty Wellington, now a Marquess like his brother, to a standstill.
The adherents of the men of vision decried the policy London was now pursuing. By giving unto Wellington all he asked, they had roused Napoleon from his slumbers, and worse, brought about imminent ruin for their protegee for with odds of four to one, and worsening, what chance did the Marquess have?
But the Russians were finally to be roused, sweeping across Prussia and smashing Westphalia before a startled Davout could properly deploy his forces. Hit again by the sudden re-entry of Austria into the war, and with even Bavaria rising in revolt, Davout could only pull his forces back to France and gather what strength the Emperor had left him. In one of those moments where an outsider cringes with embarassment for the obvious misunderstanding, Davout ordered Prince Eugene to despatch the best units of his army for the defence of France, but Eugene sitting on the borders of Aquitaine believed that he was told to send the largest part, and refused. Stunned that the Emperor's adopted son would refuse so necessary an order, Davout sent to Napoleon, then preparing to seize Zaragoza from the Anglo-Spanish and demanded an answer. Eugene, unaware of events, sat back thinking he had shown Davout where the limits of his power lay, and continued his vigilant defence against constant probing raids from out of Aquitaine.
Napoleon agitated over the matter instead of preparing for battle and in the end sent to Eugene a missive to be subordinate to Davout in all things, and as an afterword commended his defence against Aquitaine and told him to keep up the good work. That done, but still with half a mind in Paris, he launched his attack - and was beaten. As he limped back to Barcelona, wounded in pride and in the leg, he learnt from Davout that Eugene had once again refused. Shades of his brother Louis, he thought, and with Charles and young Joseph Napoleon now in the line of succession, perhaps Eugene was seeing a reason to revolt. Exhausted, depressed and afraid, Napoleon sent the order for Davout to arrest Eugene, take what he needed for the defence of France and appoint Bernadotte to the Aquitaine border.
For his part Davout was stunned by the order, but with Russian and Austrian armies already over the frontier took what desperate measures seemed necessary and seized the person of the prince, throwing him into gaol, and ordering his elite guard and grenadier units to Paris at once, leaving two thirds the number of his force to Bernadotte to guard the South-West. Eugene never learnt that most of his army was being left in place, for two days later he was dead, murdered many presumed upon the secret order of the Emperor.
Davout held off the Russians, defeated the Austrians and stabilised the border, but Paris was tiring of the empire, and even the parade of the two princes through the city did little to raise their spirits. Napoleon rallied his forces, raising their spirits as his health returned, and left Barcelona in the capable hands of Poniatowski. Whilst Wellington threw himself useless against the one-time Pole, Napoleon gathered an army across the South of France and drove the Austrians deep back into Italy.
London once again saw change, mass revolts against shortages and high prices, and against the repression of revolts themselves, leading to an emergency government headed by the Duke of Liverpool. Calling Nelson to the cabinet, Liverpool switched his focus away from Wellington in Spain and back towards his brother in Aquitaine. New forces had been gathered to reinforce Wellington but these were now sent to Bordeaux, and with a massive commitment of forces, Liverpool told his commanders that it was do or die time. Britain could not afford another protracted campaigning season; it had to be now.
Napoleon only woke up to the danger when British forces overwhelmed Bernadotte, taking him prisoner in the melee and cutting off large swathes of his army. Already before the walls of Linz, the emperor had a long march back with his army, for Davout was deep in combat in defence of the Northern frontier against the massed armies of Russia and the allied German states, including ironically, but not surprisingly, his own Westphalia where the brother of the King of Prussia had declared himself king with the support of the local nobility.
Charlotte died, in childbirth and the baby also died. To many it seemed that all hopes for Britain died too. Gone was a glorious new era once George IV finally passed away. Gone were the dreams embedded in a beautiful princess and her dashing warrior husband. The Duke of Kendal immediately offered his services to the nation, and such was the shortage of trained and experienced officers that within a fortnight he was in Bordeaux, training up a regiment to join with what was rapidly becoming a march on Paris.
Davout had appointed Augureau to hold the border, but with Bernadotte's best units already in Davout's hands, and many of the rest taken prisoner in the battle which saw his death, Augureau found he had only half an army to work with, and that not the better half.
Winter saved the French Empire, and 1818 drew ever nearer. Napoleon reorganised the armies of France, and took personal command of those that would face West in the Spring. Augureau was sent to Italy where in March an Austrian cannonball would remove his head. And Wellington was not sleeping.
Frustrated beyond measure by the Duke of Liverpool's government's change of policy in the previous year, he had spent the ensuing months building up a substantial Spanish army, firmed up and officered by his own British veterans, and with the promise of victory for 1818 just about held together throughout the long hard Winter.
Spring 1818 would be a cataclysmic moment in history. Tsar Alexander himself had arrived at Aachen to take personal command of the Russian armies, whilst the German alliance now almost equalled Russian forces in number, if not in leadership. Austria had built up its forces in Lombardy and opened the campaigning season by forcing their way into Savoy.
Napoleon would fight a dashing lightning campaign, switching from army to army as he defeated first the British out of Aquitaine, then the Anglo-Spanish of Wellington, then the Austrians, then the German alliance, then Wellington once more, before he met his match. It is an oddity of history that a great and so often victorious leader should lose to one of much lesser rank, whose forces were in a fortuitous position, whose armies were fresh but not green, reinforced by veterans and newly re-equipped. But Napoleon was near exhaustion, his elite guards down to a fraction of their paper strength, and all tired out by rushing from one front to the other.
In London it was seen as Fate, if a cruel and twisted kind of Fate. The Duke of Kendal's corps had been advancing from Bordeaux to join up with the main British army closing slowly upon Paris when Napoleon had come crashing into it. Had the French known it was there they would have deployed, taken precautions, fought a better fight, but most of Napoleon's cavalry were dead, what was left was flanking him such was the danger of being taken from the West, and he knew from Davout in Paris where the main British forces in this area were.
And so he crashed into Kendal's corps, and the rest is history. The battle was bloody, the victors taking over fifty percent casualties, but by its end Napoleon was dead, the French in full flight, and Kendal was able to send post haste to Bordeaux that swift action would end the war for once and for all.
But it did not need London to act, nor even Bordeaux. French survivors brought the news into Paris over the next few days, and though Davout attempted to declare Charles emperor, and create a council of Regency, the heart had been ripped out of the nation. Stoned in the street, the empress took the two young princes and fled to the Netherlands, which nation had retained its neutrality after the original turn of the century peace. Davout fell back upon Paris, and declaring it an open city surrendered the nation in the name of an emergency council of ministers who had taken affairs into their own hands.
The Duke of Artois was proclaimed King Charles X of France, his elder brother having died in exile the year before, and the Bourbons were restored to Paris at the point of a Russian bayonet. Meanwhile a joint peace conference met in the ruins of Versailles to hammer out a settlement for the continent, and indeed the world.
The Treaty of Versailles 1818
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Best Regards
Grey Wolf