Current events:
Reaction to a tragedy #1: "nearly seven minutes" passed according to the film, 'Fahrenheit 9/11.' Note: there are two PG-13 words in this clip. I state this upfront in the event that someone is offended by the language or wishes not to hear the language. (The entire film, which will not be shown, is rated R).
Reaction to a tragedy #2: over two and a half hours later.
Eight years after 9/11, the Fort Hood shooting took place.
The shootings began at 1:30 p.m C.S.T.; two and a half hours later Obama responds. The details of the event scroll on the bottom of the screen while he speaks. Eventually, Obama promises to "stay on it."
NBC Chicago's, Robert A. George, described the comment as "Obama's Frightening Insensitivity Following Shooting." Moreover, Obama sent his shout-out to Dr. Joe Medicine Crow as a "Congressional Medal of Honor winner" except that, Dr. Crow did not win the honor.
Made as part of his closing remarks at Tribal Nations Conference
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Now, I have to say, though, that beyond that, I plan to make some broader remarks about the challenges that lay ahead for Native Americans, as well as collaboration with our administration, but as some of you might have heard, there has been a tragic shooting at the Fort Hood Army base in Texas. We don’t yet know all the details at this moment; we will share them as we get them. What we do know is that a number of American soldiers have been killed, and even more have been wounded in a horrific outburst of violence.
My immediate thoughts and prayers are with the wounded and with the families of the fallen, and with those who live and serve at Fort Hood. These are men and women who have made the selfless and courageous decision to risk and at times give their lives to protect the rest of us on a daily basis. It’s difficult enough when we lose these brave Americans in battles overseas. It is horrifying that they should come under fire at an Army base on American soil.
I’ve spoken to Secretary Gates and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, and I will continue to receive a constant stream of updates as new information comes in. We are working with the Pentagon, the FBI, and the Department of Homeland Security, all to ensure that Fort Hood is secure, and we will continue to support the community with the full resources of the federal government.
In the meantime, I would ask all Americans to keep the men and women of Fort Hood in your thoughts and prayers. We will make sure that we get answers to every single question about this horrible incident. And I want all of you to know that as Commander-in-Chief, there’s no greater honor but also no greater responsibility for me than to make sure that the extraordinary men and women in uniform are properly cared for and that their safety and security when they are at home is provided for.
So we are going to stay on this. But I hope in the meantime that all of you recognize the scope of this tragedy, and keep everybody in their thoughts and prayers.
At the memorial service:
"But this much we do know: no faith justifies these murderous and craven acts."
Barack Obama, 10 November 2009
Some students thought it worthwhile to also compare Bush's first speech on 9/11, approximately the same amount of time (2-3 hours) after a tragedy as the tape entitled, "two and a half hours" later. Shortly after 12:30 p.m., Bush taped a short speech, which he wrote on a napkin.
Both of these last two clips are prepared speeches and the first ones following a national tragedy in the respective instance.
In the first clip, "nearly seven minutes," Bush is criticized for not thinking that perhaps Saudi Arabian or Taliban (Islamists) are responsible. The World Trade Center had only been attacked, with 6 dead and a 1,000 casualties, only eight years previously.
Notes from the In-service from yesterday.
Daily Lesson
Section 3 The Age of Napoleon
Nationalism Works Against Napoleon
Spain and Austria Battle the French
Resistance to foreign rule bled French-occupying forces dry in Spain. Napoleon introduced reforms that sought to undermine the Spanish Catholic Church. But many Spaniards remained loyal to their former king and devoted to the Church. When the Spanish resisted the invaders, well-armed French forces responded with brutal repression. Far from crushing resistance, however, the French response further inflamed Spanish nationalism. Efforts to drive out the French intensified.
Spanish patriots conducted a campaign of guerrilla warfare, or hit-and-run raids, against the French. (In Spanish, guerrilla means “little war.”) Small bands of guerrillas ambushed French supply trains or troops before retreating into the countryside. These attacks kept large numbers of French soldiers tied down in Spain when Napoleon needed them elsewhere.
Spanish resistance encouraged Austria to resume hostilities against the French. In 1805, at the Battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon had won a crushing victory against an Austro-Russian army of superior numbers. Now, in 1809, the Austrians sought revenge. But once again, Napoleon triumphed—this time at the Battle of Wagram. By the peace agreement that followed, Austria surrendered lands populated by more than three million subjects.
The Fall of Napoleon
Disaster in Russia
As shown in this painting, the Russian winter took its toll on Napoleon’s army. Philippe Paul de Ségur, an aide to Napoleon, describes the grim scene as the remnants of the Grand Army returned home.
What were the effects of this disaster in Russia?
Primary Source
“In Napoleon’s wake [was] a mob of tattered ghosts draped in . . . odd pieces of carpet, or greatcoats burned full of holes, their feet wrapped in all sorts of rags. . . . [We] stared in horror as those skeletons of soldiers went by, their gaunt, gray faces covered with disfiguring beards, without weapons . . . with lowered heads, eyes on the ground, in absolute silence.”
—Memoirs of Philippe Paul de Ségur
Tsar Alexander I of Russia was once an ally of Napoleon; they had signed the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807, a period when Napoleon was in no position to attack Russia (Glover, p. 160; Marshall-Cornwall, p. 219). The tsar and Napoleon planned to divide Europe if Alexander helped Napoleon in his Continental System.
Many countries objected to this system, and Russia became unhappy with the economic effects of the system as well (Glover, p. 161). Yet another cause for concern was that Napoleon had enlarged the Grand Duchy of Warsaw that bordered Russia on the west, all without notifying his supposed ally (Glover, p. 161; Marshall-Cornwall, p. 219). In addition, Napoleon at first proposed to marry for the second time to a Russian princess but he snubbed Russia to engage the Austrian Marie-Therese without notifying the Russians (Glover, p. 161).
In any case, perhaps the biggest but unstated reason was that Europe could not accommodate two egos as large as Napoleon's and the Tsar's on one continent. The war could have been avoided but it was not.
The causes which brought about the rupture between the Emperor the Tsar are numerous and complex; Napoleon's main motive was that he could not tolerate a on the boundary of his Empire the existence of a Power which was not entirely subservient to his own will. Napoleon had already beaten the Russians in battle (1806-1807 leading to Tilsit, Marshall-Cornwall, pp. 177-178) and he had formed a poor opinion of their leadership. Once they were finally beaten, he could create a strong Poland as a buffer state and satellite of France. Unfortunately, Napoleon decided to conquer Russia before he had succeeded in conquering Spain (Marshall-Cornwall, p. 219).
These and other slights led the tsar to withdraw his support from the Continental System. Napoleon responded to the tsar’s action by assembling an army with soldiers from 20 nations, known as the Grand Army.
In 1812, with about 600,000 soldiers and 50,000 horses, Napoleon invaded Russia. To avoid battles with Napoleon, the Russians retreated eastward, burning crops and villages as they went. This scorched-earth policy left the French hungry and cold as winter came. Napoleon entered Moscow in September. He realized, though, that he would not be able to feed and supply his army through the long Russian winter. In October, he turned homeward.
The 1,000-mile retreat from Moscow turned into a desperate battle for survival. Russian attacks and the brutal Russian winter took a terrible toll. Fewer than 20,000 soldiers of the once-proud Grand Army survived. Many died. Others deserted. French general Michel Ney sadly concluded: “General Famine and General Winter, rather than Russian bullets, have conquered the Grand Army.” Napoleon rushed to Paris to raise a new force to defend France. His reputation for success had been shattered.
Discovery School Channel (Video)
Watch Napoleon’s Lost Army on the Witness History Discovery School™ video program to learn about Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812.
Napoleon's Lost Army (5:52)
Summary
In Vilnius, Lithuania, scientists are studying the remains of an army that Napoleon lost. This segment explores Napoleon's invasion of Russia in 1812 and the terrible retreat that followed. Napoleon entered Russian with some 500,000 troops, but when his retreating army reached the town of Vilnius, only about 20,000 remained.
Questions from the Video
Multiple Choice
What Russian action prompted Napoleon to launch his invasion of Russia?
What strategy did the Russians use against Napoleon's army?
Writing Practice
How are archaeologists, forensic scientists, and historians able to reconstruct the story of Napoleon's invasion of Russia?
Checkpoint
What challenges threatened Napoleon’s empire and what led to the disaster in Russia?
Reading Check
Explaining
Why did Napoleon invade Russia?
The Final Defeat
The disaster in Russia brought a new alliance of Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia against a weakened France. In 1813, they defeated Napoleon in the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig.
Napoleon Abdicates Briefly
The next year, Napoleon abdicated, or stepped down from power. The victors exiled him to Elba, an island in the Mediterranean. They then recognized Louis XVIII, brother of Louis XVI, as king of France.
The restoration of Louis XVIII did not go smoothly. He agreed to accept the Napoleonic Code and honor the land settlements made during the revolution. However, many émigrés rushed back to France bent on revenge. An economic depression and the fear of a return to the old regime helped rekindle loyalty to Napoleon.
As the victorious allies gathered in Vienna for a general peace conference, Napoleon escaped his island exile and returned to France. Soldiers flocked to his banner. As citizens cheered Napoleon’s advance, Louis XVIII fled. In March 1815, Napoleon entered Paris in triumph.
Prince Clemens von Metternich
As Austria’s foreign minister, Metternich (1773–1859) used a variety of means to achieve his goals. In 1809, when Napoleon seemed vulnerable, Metternich favored war against France. In 1810, after France had crushed Austria, he supported alliance with France. When the French army was in desperate retreat from Russia, Metternich became the “prime minister of the coalition” that defeated Napoleon. At the Congress of Vienna, Metternich helped create a new European order and made sure that Austria had a key role in it. He would skillfully defend that new order for more than 30 years. Why did Metternich’s policies toward France change?
Crushed at the Battle of Waterloo
Waterloo Interactive Battle Simulator
The Battle of Waterloo Game
Napoleon’s triumph was short-lived. His star soared for only 100 days, while the allies reassembled their forces. On June 18, 1815, the opposing armies met near the town of Waterloo in Belgium. British forces under the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian army commanded by General Blücher crushed the French in an agonizing day-long battle. Once again, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and to go into exile on St. Helena, a lonely island in the South Atlantic. This time, he would not return.
Napoleon's death was not without controversy and there is evidence that he may have been poisoned (Cf. The Murder of Napoleon by Ben Weider. As a fascinating sidelight to the story of Napoleon, it appears that Count Charles-Tristan de Montholon, an aide to Napoleon and a member of the "pre-Revolutionary aristocracy" poisoned him slowly with arsenic (a poison) on St. Helena (Weider, p. 33).
Napoleon, although it was widely known that he had suffered from physical ailments his entire life (it appears to be the scratching disease, scabies, Napoleon's Glands, Arno Karlen, p. 7), had nonetheless a legendary reputation for work; yet, he succumbed at the relatively young age of 51 thus at the very least his death should raise questions.
At the time of Napoleon's death, the arsenic poisoning went unnoticed and it was not until a Swedish researcher in 1955, Sten Forshufvud, reconstructed the accounts and medical evidence of Napoleon's death that a modern, forensic connection could be established determining that Napoleon was murdered. Montholon had a motive, he was attached to the pre-Revolutionary aristocracy, and he appeared to be an agent of Count d'Artois, brother of King Louis XVIII, and later Charles X in the restored French monarchy who hated the Revolutionary Napoleon (Weider, pp. 144, 254).
Napoleon himself may have sensed something was amiss in his last days. Six days before his death he directed:
After my death, which cannot be far off. I want you to open my body. . . . I want you to remove my heart, which you will put in spirits of wine and take to Parma, to my dear Marie-Louise [Napoleon's second wife]. . . . I recommend that you examine my stomach particularly carefully; make a precise, detailed report on it, and give it to my son. . . . I charge you to overlook nothing in this examination. . . . I bequeath to all the ruling families the horror and shame of my last moments.(Wieder, preface).
Napoleon’s Legacy
Napoleon died in 1821, but his legend lived on in France and around the world. His contemporaries as well as historians today have long debated his legacy. Was he “the revolution on horseback,” as he claimed? Or was he a traitor to the revolution?
No one, however, questions Napoleon’s impact on France and on Europe. The Napoleonic Code consolidated many changes of the revolution. The France of Napoleon was a centralized state with a constitution. Elections were held with expanded, though limited, suffrage. Many more citizens had rights to property and access to education than under the old regime. Still, French citizens lost many rights promised so fervently by republicans during the Convention.
Map
Europe After the Congress of Vienna, 1815 Cf. http://phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?wcprefix=nap&wcsuffix=1842&fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&x=2&y=3
Go Online
For: Audio guided tour
Visit: PHSchool.com
Web Code: nap-1842
Map Skills
At the Congress of Vienna, European leaders redrew the map of Europe in order to contain France and keep a balance of power.
1. Locate
(a) German Confederation, (b) Netherlands, (c) Vienna
2. Region
Name three states that were in the German Confederation.
3. Recognize Cause and Effect
Why did the Congress enlarge some of the countries around France?
On the world stage, Napoleon’s conquests spread the ideas of the revolution. He failed to make Europe into a French empire. Instead, he sparked nationalist feelings across Europe. The abolition of the Holy Roman Empire would eventually help in creating a new Germany. Napoleon’s impact also reached across the Atlantic. In 1803, his decision to sell France’s vast Louisiana Territory to the American government doubled the size of the United States and ushered in an age of American expansion.
Checkpoint
How did Napoleon impact Europe and the rest of the world?
Leaders Meet at the Congress of Vienna
After Waterloo, diplomats and heads of state again sat down at the Congress of Vienna. They faced the monumental task of restoring stability and order in Europe after years of war. The Congress met for 10 months, from September 1814 to June 1815. It was a brilliant gathering of European leaders. Diplomats and royalty dined and danced, attended concerts and ballets, and enjoyed parties arranged by their host, Emperor Francis I of Austria. The work fell to Prince Clemens von Metternich of Austria, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, and Lord Robert Castlereagh of Britain. Defeated France was represented by Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand.
The chief goal of the Vienna decision makers was to create a lasting peace by establishing a balance of power and protecting the system of monarchy. Each of the leaders also pursued his own goals. Metternich, the dominant figure at the Congress, wanted to restore things the way they were in 1792. Alexander I urged a “holy alliance” of Christian monarchs to suppress future revolutions. Lord Castlereagh was determined to prevent a revival of French military power. The aged diplomat Talleyrand shrewdly played the other leaders against one another so France would be accepted as an equal partner.
The peacemakers also redrew the map of Europe. To contain French ambitions, they ringed France with strong countries. In the north, they added Belgium and Luxembourg to Holland to create the kingdom of the Netherlands. To prevent French expansion eastward, they gave Prussia lands along the Rhine River. They also allowed Austria to reassert control over northern Italy.
To turn back the clock to 1792, the architects of the peace promoted the principle of legitimacy, restoring hereditary monarchies that the French Revolution or Napoleon had unseated. Even before the Congress began, they had put Louis XVIII on the French throne. Later, they restored “legitimate” monarchs in Portugal, Spain, and the Italian states.
Congress Fails to See Traps Ahead
To protect the new order, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain extended their wartime alliance into the postwar era. In the Quadruple Alliance, the four nations pledged to act together to maintain the balance of power and to suppress revolutionary uprisings, especially in France. Another result of the Congress was a system known as the Concert of Europe, in which the powers met periodically to discuss any problems affecting the peace of Europe.
The Vienna statesmen achieved their immediate goals in creating a lasting peace. Their decisions influenced European politics for the next 100 years. Europe would not see war on a Napoleonic scale until 1914. They failed, however, to foresee how powerful new forces such as nationalism would shake the foundations of Europe and Latin America in the next decades.
Portrait of Louis XVIII
Checkpoint
Explain the chief goal and outcome of the Congress of Vienna.
Links, resources, and bibliographical references
Video clips about Napoleon
Map of Napoleon's Empire
Refight Trafalgar!
Napoleon's Empire in 1812
Napoleon's army retreating from Moscow
Waterloo Interactive Battle Simulator
The Battle of Waterloo Game
The Napoleonic Alliance
The Napoleonic Collection
Institute on Napoleon and the French Revolution at Florida State University
The Napoleon Foundation
The War Times Journal: Napoleonic Wars
The Napoleonic Guide
Email HW to gmsmith@shanahan.org:
1. Study for Test, Ch. 11 Sections 2 and 3, Monday, multiple choice.
