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Home The Napoleonic War, 1803-1815 Growth of Napoleon's Power, 1805-1809, and the Continental System |
Growth of Napoleon's Power, 1805-1809, and the Continental SystemGreat Britain had vanquished Napoleon on the sea, and for the remainder of the war her maritime supremacy was not seriously contested; but she seemed powerless to stop Napoleon's progress on land. On December 2, 1805 - six weeks after Trafalgar - Napoleon's campaign in Germany culminated in the defeat of the Austrians and Russians at Austerlitz, a defeat which broke up the Third Coalition and forced Austria to make peace (Pitt was at Bath when he heard the news of Austerlitz. Shortly afterwards he went to Putney, and seeing, on entering his house, a map of Europe, he exclaimed, "Roll up that map, it will not be wanted these ten years,," The battle hastened Pitt's decline, and he died six weeks after receiving news of it). The beginning of 1806 saw the death of Pitt, the brain of the Third Coalition, and the end of it the downfall of Prussia, which after a ten years' neutrality had at last been induced to take up arms against France, only to be overwhelmed at the battle of Jena. In the summer of 1807, as a result of Napoleon's victory at Friedland and of Russia's dissatisfaction owing to the tardiness of Great Britain - so the Russians alleged - in providing her with subsidies, the Czar made at Tilsit an alliance with Napoleon, and not only agreed to the dismemberment of Prussia and to the reorganization of Germany, but promised in secret articles to make common cause with Napoleon against Great Britain. In the autumn of 1807 Portugal, the old ally of Great Britain, was attacked; Lisbon was occupied by French troops, and the Portuguese royal family fled to Brazil. Finally, in the spring of 1808, Napoleon, making unscrupulous use of the hostility between Charles, the king of Spain, who has been described as a good-natured imbecile, and his cowardly son Ferdinand, persuaded both father and son to go to Bayonne, and there - not without threats - got the one to resign the crown of Spain and the other to renounce his claim to it, and sent his own brother, Joseph, to Madrid to become king.Napoleon then seemed supreme. The French empire included France, Belgium, the land up to the Rhine, and Piedmont and Tuscany. As King of Italy, Napoleon had the direct rule, in addition, of Lombardy and Venetia, As Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, he controlled the policies and the armies of nearly all the German powers except Austria and Prussia. Of his brothers, Louis was King of Holland, Jerome King of Westphalia, and Joseph King of Spain, whilst his brother-in-law, Murat, was King of Naples. Russia was his ally, whilst Prussia - reduced to half its former size - and Austria were quiescent. |
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