Napoleon pages 59-60

Napoleon Bonaparte

(1799-1814/15)

Biography• August 15th, 1769.

• May 5th, 1821.

• Emperor of France (1804-1815).

• Napoleonic wars.

• To establish a strong government.

• The solution: an empire.

• T h e c o n c e n t r a t i o n o f p o w e r (absolutism).

• Ironic, he was a “Jacobin”, an extremist republican.

• Napoleon had a huge power, controling almost every single country in Europe.

• But he faced two oppositions:

• Russia.

• Spain.

The Empire1811

Historical battles by Napoleon

Battle of Austerlitz

Battle of Waterloo

Battle of Leipzig

600,000 men

Two different periods under Napoleon

• The Consulate (1799-1804).

• The Empire (1804-1814).

The Consulate

• The government between the Directory and the Empire.

• Napoleon = main government.

• More conservative.

• More authoritarian.

• More autocratic.

• Centralized republic.

• Approval of the bourgeoisie.

The Empire

• Authority concentration.

• Absolutism.

• Dream: creating a European Empire.

Consecration of the Emperor Napoleon I and Coronation of the Empress Josephine

Jacques-Louis David

• Official painter of Napoleon.

• The crowning: Notre-Dame (Paris), a link to the Revolution.

• The date: December 2nd, 1804.

Considerations as Emperor

• Tyrant, absolutist, pretending to be a liberal.

• But spreading ideas across Europe, export the French Revolution ideas (opposite to absolutist regimes).

• So, he saw himself as an enlighted despot.

• He considered to be ending the Ancien Regime.

Despot

• Greek: “master”, “the one with power”. • Egypt: to describe the unlimited power

of the pharaons. • Byzantine Empire: member of the

nobility. • History: tyrant, autokrator. • “God complex”.

His goal

• Apply and develope the ideas of the French Revolution.

• Export these ideas to the countries that he conquered.

Art & War

The May 3rd, 1808 in Madrid (Francisco Goya, 1814)

Los fusilamientos del tres de mayo

• Conmemoration of the resistance of the Spaniards against the Army of Napoleon in 1808.

• Image of the horror of the war.

May 2nd, 1808 (Francisco de Goya, 1814)

The Charge of the Mamelukes

• The uprising against Napoleon’s Army in Puerta de Alcalá, close to Puerta del Sol.

• Mamelukes: French Imperial Guard.

• Origins: 1702 in the Ottoman Empire.

• Hate against the moors, the spark.

Roustam Raza (Napoleon’s personal bodyguard)

Massacre in Korea (Pablo Picasso, 1951)

Criticism against the U.S. intervention in Korea

Gernika (Pablo Picasso, 1937)

Criticism to the horror of bombing civilians

Y no hay remedio (And it can`t be helped) Francisco Goya (1810-1812)

No se puede mirar (One cannot look at this) Francisco Goya (1810-1812)

The French Revolution &

Napoleon, in Spain Page 61

The French Revolution in Spain

• 1793-1795: War of the Convention (War of the Pyrenees).

• France invaded the Basque Country & Catalonia.

• Goal: propagate the revolution.

• After the War: Spain and France signed an alliance to fight against United Kingdom.

• In 1805, Napoleon used this alliance, but France lost against the UK in the Battle of Trafalgar.

Battle of Trafalgar (1805)

Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson

Napoleon in Spain

• 1808-1813: War of Independence.

• Spain conquered in the way to Portugal.

• The goal was America.

• “Guerrilla” fighting against the occupation., coordinated by a “Junta General”, well-known anti-French dignitaries.

• Help of the English allies.

Consequence

• The “Cortes” in Cadiz, the anti-revolutionary convoked parliament (1812).

• The Constitution of Cadiz, a liberal system of government without the French.

• Declarar España como un E s t ado Nac ión l i b e r a l y monárquico, que conservara su tradición católica.

The French dilema: Spain/Portugal/America

or Russia

The new target: RUSSIA

• In 1813, the French army left Spain heading towards Russia.

• The consequence for Spain:

• Ferdinand VII came back from the exile.

• He changed the Constitution (1812).

• Spain back to Ancien Regime.

Napoleon & Russia

Napoleon’s withdrawal from Russia

The Night Bivouac of the Napoleon Army (1812)

The hard winter defeated Napoleon’s

army

The effects of the French Revolution on the Basque Country

Individually – to collect

Activity 52

Post-Napoleon.The organization of a new Europe

(1815-1830)

Napoleon: two important aspects

• He was an extraordinary man, with charisma and military genius. He made HISTORY.

• Spreading revolutionary ideas & institutions, he made impossible the restoration of the Ancien Regime.

• Feudalism was dying.

• The church was gradually losing power.

• Concept of State connected to concept of Nation.

• Bourgeoisie = most powerful social class.

Napoleon defeated (1814)

• Two exiles:

• Elba (1814).

• “The Hundred Days”, back from the exile.

• Saint Helena (1815).

Saint Helena

No possibility to return

The Congress of Vienna (1814-1815)

Ambassadors at the

Congress of Vienna

GOAL Back to the Ancien Regime

• But, the situation was different.

• The world was different.

Ideas of the French and American Revolution

& the parliamentarysystem of Great Britainincluding Liberalism & Nationalism, driven by

the bougeoisie.

Absolutism, driven by the

absolutist monarchswho met in Vienna.

Two opposing ideologies

• Four major powers in the victory against France:

• Austria, Prussia, Russia & Great Britain

• One intention: reversing the “Napoleon effect”.

The meeting

Reversing the Napoleon’s effect

• France back to pre-1789 boundaries.

• Restoration of legitimate monarchs.

• A balance of power to avoid “another Napoleon”.

• Intervention in internal conflict of a state if monarch is in danger.

• “There is always an alternative to conflict” = “congress” system to solve it.