Episode 43 Expanding the Empire
Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon
Dr Suzanne M Desan
Film Review
In February 1806 Prussian king William III declared war on France after Napoleon defied an ultimatum to withdraw his troops to the west bank of the Rhine. In their first battle, Napoleon overran William III’s troops in less than five weeks. This was faster than Hitler’s tanks overran France in 1940.
After the king fled to East Prussia, Napoleon’s army marched into Poland (which had been been divided up between Russia, Prussia and Austria). Owing to strong ties between French and Polish revolutionaries, the Poles welcomed in as a liberator.
In February 1807, Napoleon confronted the Russian army in Poland. After days of battle, neither prevailed and both armies withdrew. That June Napoleon crushed Czar Alexander’s troops at the battle of Friedland and made separate treaties with Prussia and Russia.
After forcing Prussia to cede more than a third of their territory, Napoleon created the Duchy of Warsaw (from the Polish territory Prussia had seized in the 18th century) and the kingdom of Westphalia (in East Prussia).
Napoleon and Alexander emerged from their negotiations as allies. In the Treaty of Tillset, Alexander agreed to recognize the Duchy of Warsaw and the rest of Napoleon’s empire, to pressure the UK to enter peace negotiations with France, to ally with Napoleon against the Ottoman Turks and to back Napoleon’s economic boycott of the UK.
In 1806, Napoleon had instituted an economic blockade against Britain with his Continental Block System. It stipulated that no country under his control could buy British goods or goods carried by British ships. Under this decree, Napoleon threatened to seize any ships headed for British ports or cooperating with Britain. After Nelson destroyed the French fleet at Trafalgar in 1805, it was difficult to enforce and Britain continued to attack French maritime trade.
When Portugal refused to honor the economic boycott, in 1807 the Spanish king Carlos IV allowed Napoleon to march through Spain to invade Portugal. Despite the cooperation of the Spanish government, his next move was to invade Madrid in early 1808. Forcing both Carlos and his son Ferdinand to go into exile, Napoleon placed his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne in July 1808.
Joseph’s tenure lasted 11 day, after the Spanish population rose up against French military occupation. At Bailén, Napoleon’s army experienced its first major defeat when the Spanish army took 20,000 French troops prisoner.
In late 1808, deployed 300,000 troops to Spain to restore Joseph to the Spanish throne. For the next five years, Napoleon faced a relentless war in Spain, fighting a British, Spanish and Portuguese military coalition augmente by an enraged population engaged in rampant guerilla warfare.*
*The term “guerilla,” meaning unofficial combat by non-military individuals, entered the Spanish (and French, Portuguese and English) language during this war.
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