Current Events:
The liberal news source "Democracy Now" reported: "It’s almost beyond the capacity of the mind to cope with that George Bush seemingly was more engaged in the battle against HIV than Barack Obama," according to Stephen Lewis, the former special envoy for HIV/AIDS in Africa and co-founder of AIDS-Free World.
CNN reported in July "That Republican president Bush was a bigger advocate on AIDS than "liberal" Obama may come as a surprise, but many people around the world are starting to notice the discrepancy."
The hecklers were concerned about Global Aids funding. And in order to quiet them down Obama responds with what the other side wants and plans to do, stating that we are funding global AIDs relief and the other side is not. Bush was credited for huge contributions to fighting AIDS in Africa going back to 2003. The Washington Post noted that he had tripled funding by 2006. The AP lauded Bush's efforts in this regard. The British newspaper the Telegraph called him “an African hero. The BBC suggested Bush may have been the Africa's best friend. Scientific studies showed the Bush initiated program had reduced the mortality rate by 10%, amounting to hundreds of thousands of lives worldwide.
By contrast, there has recently been criticism of the Obama regime for flat-funding of the same programs. This is not to suggest that Obama doesn't care about the problem or even that cutting back on some funding might not be a good idea at some point. But Obama stated at this rally, that Republicans haven't been engaged on the issue or that they are the ones who should be protested for lack of attention to it, is not in accordance with the facts.
If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.Federalist No. 51, James Madison
Revival of Volatility Signals Historic Era in U.S. Politics
No man is allowed to be a judge in his own cause, because his interest would certainly bias his judgment, and, not improbably, corrupt his integrity. . . . The apportionment of taxes on the various descriptions of property is an act which seems to require the most exact impartiality; yet there is, perhaps, no legislative act in which greater opportunity and temptation are given to a predominant party to trample on the rules of justice. Every shilling with which they overburden the inferior number, is a shilling saved to their own pockets.Federalist No. 10, James Madison
It is in vain to say that enlightened statesmen will be able to adjust these clashing interests, and render them all subservient to the public good. Enlightened statesmen will not always be at the helm. Nor, in many cases, can such an adjustment be made at all without taking into view indirect and remote considerations, which will rarely prevail over the immediate interest which one party may find in disregarding the rights of another or the good of the whole.
Obama: "Punish Our Enemies," October 26, 2010
HW is available below (per our usual procedure HW is also posted at the bottom of the daily blog post as well as being posted on GradeConnect):
Chapter 11 Section 2 Radical Revolution and Reaction
During the first years of the revolution, a republic was established, Louis XVI was executed, and thousands of people were killed on suspicion of opposing the revolution. While factions fought over control within France, European states fearing the spread of revolution made plans to invade France. The National Convention responded by forming a Committee of Public Safety. The committee led a 12-month Reign of Terror, executing close to 40,000 suspected enemies and expunging signs of Catholic influence. The committee also raised the largest army in European history and repelled the invading armies. With the crisis past, the National Convention ended the Reign of Terror and executed its zealous leader, Maximilien Robespierre. Power shifted into the hands of more moderate middle-class leaders who produced a constitution in 1795. The constitution called for a two-house legislative body and an executive committee, called the Directory. The Directory faced mounting problems. In 1799 a popular General, Napoleon Bonaparte, seized power in a coup d'état.
Cf. http://www.abcya.com/word_clouds.htm
Word Cloud for Chapter 11 Section 2 Radical Revolution and Reaction
Paste this code into your blog or home page to link to this Wordle:
Objectives
Terms, People, and Places
The Move to Radicalism
Radicals Take Control and Execute the King
Comparing Viewpoints
On the Execution of a King
King Louis XVI of France was executed by order of the National Convention. Reaction to this event was both loud and varied throughout Europe. The excerpts below present two different views on this event.
5th
Critical Thinking
Which of the two viewpoints makes a better case for or against the execution of King Louis XVI? Cite examples from both statements to support your argument.
For the Execution
The crimes of Louis XVI are unhappily all too real; they are consistent; they are notorious. Do we even have to ask the question of whether a nation has the right to judge, and execute, its highest ranking public official . . . when, to more securely plot against the nation, he concealed himself behind a mask of hypocrisy? Or when, instead of using the authority confided to him to protect his countrymen, he used it to oppress them? Or when he turned the laws into an instrument of violence to crush the supporters of the Revolution? Or when he robbed the citizens of their gold in order to subsidize their foes, and robbed them of their subsistence in order to feed the barbarian hordes who came to slaughter them? Or when he created monopolies in order to create famine by drying up the sources of abundance so that the people might die in misery and hunger? . . .
—Jean-Paul Marat
Against the Execution
The Republican tyrants of France have now carried their bloody purposes to the uttermost diabolical stretch of savage cruelty. They have murdered their King without even the shadow of justice, and of course they cannot expect friendship nor intercourse with any civilized part of the world. The vengeance of Europe will now rapidly fall on them; and, in process of time, make them the veriest wretches on the face of the earth. The name of Frenchman will be considered as the appellation of savage, and their presence shunned as a poison, deadly destructive to the peace and happiness of Mankind. It appears evident, that the majority of the National Convention, and the Executive Government of that truly despotic country, are comprised of the most execrable villains upon the face of the earth. . . .
—London Times, January 25, 1793
The latter perspective, is one of the most well-known perspectives, and is considered the Burkean reaction based on ideas of the Englishman Edmund Burke.
8th
Bastille Day at Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia, 1:52
1st and 8th
Marie Antoinette downfall and execution, 3:57
Marie Antoinette was finally tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October. Unlike the king, who had been given time to prepare a defense, the queen's trial was far more of a sham, considering the time she was given (less than one day) and the Jacobin's misogynistic view of women in general.
She was accused of (most, if not all, of the accusations were untrue and probably libelous accusations, sending millions of livres, treasury money, to Austria, plotting to kill the duc d'Orléans, declaring her son to be the new king of France and orchestrating the massacre of the Swiss Guards in 1792. People were impressed with her defense and the women present in the courtroom were the market women who had stormed the palace for her in 1789 began to support her.
The outcome of the trial had already been decided by the Committee of Public Safety and she was declared guilty of treason in the early morning of 16 October, after two days of proceedings. The same day at 12:15 pm, two and a half weeks before her thirty-eighth birthday, wearing a simple white dress, she was executed Place de la Révolution (present-day Place de la Concorde). Her last words were, "Pardon me Sir, I meant not to do it", to Sanson the executioner, whose foot she accidentally stepped on before she was executed by guillotine.
Her body was thrown into an unmarked grave in the former Madeleine cemetery, rue d'Anjou, (which was closed the following year). Both her body and that of Louis XVI were exhumed on 18 January 1815, during the Bourbon Restoration, when the comte de Provence had become King Louis XVIII. Proper Christian burial of the royal remains took place three days later, on 21 January, in the necropolis of French Kings at the Basilica of St Denis.
Checkpoint
What occurred after radicals took control of the Assembly?
Crises and Response
The Convention Creates a New Committee
Biography
Robespierre
The Guillotine Defines the Reign of Terror
In a speech given on February 5, 1794, Robespierre explained why the terror was necessary to achieve the goals of the revolution:
Primary Source
“It is necessary to stifle the domestic and foreign enemies of the Republic or perish with them. . . . The first maxim of our politics ought to be to lead the people by means of reason and the enemies of the people by terror. . . . If the basis of popular government in time of peace is virtue, the basis of popular government in time of revolution is both virtue and terror.”
—Maximilien Robespierre, quoted in Pageant of Europe (Stearns)
Suspect were those who resisted the revolution. About 300,000 were arrested during the Reign of Terror. Seventeen thousand were executed. Many were victims of mistaken identity or were falsely accused by their neighbors. Many more were packed into hideous prisons, where deaths from disease were common.
The engine of the Terror was the guillotine (gil uh teen). Its fast-falling blade extinguished life instantly. A member of the legislature, Dr. Joseph Guillotin (gee oh tan), had introduced it as a more humane method of beheading than the uncertain ax. But the guillotine quickly became a symbol of horror.
Within a year, the Terror consumed those who initiated it. Weary of bloodshed and fearing for their own lives, members of the Convention turned on the Committee of Public Safety. On the night of July 27, 1794, Robespierre was arrested. The next day he was executed. After the heads of Robespierre and other radicals fell, executions slowed dramatically.
Checkpoint
Why did Robespierre think the Terror was necessary to achieve the goals of the revolution?
Reading Check
Examining
What were the differences between the Girondins and the Mountain?
The Reign of Terror
Infographic
Go Online
For: Interactive French Revolution
Visit: PHSchool.com
Web Code: nap-1821
Thinking Critically
1. Identify Point of View
What were the goals of the Committee of Public Safety?
2. Predict Consequences
How do you think life (it should read "life") in France changed after the Terror came to an end?
Crushing Rebellion
The Republic of Virtue
Reading Check
Identifying
Whom did the Committee of Public Safety consider to be enemies of the state?
A Nation in Arms
End of the Terror
In reaction to the Terror, the revolution entered a third stage. Moving away from the excesses of the Convention, moderates produced another constitution, the third since 1789. The Constitution of 1795 set up a five-man Directory and a two-house legislature elected by male citizens of property. The middle class and professional people of the bourgeoisie were the dominant force during this stage of the French Revolution. The Directory held power from 1795 to 1799.
Weak but dictatorial, the Directory faced growing discontent. Peace was made with Prussia and Spain, but war with Austria and Great Britain continued. Corrupt leaders lined their own pockets but failed to solve pressing problems. When rising bread prices stirred hungry sans-culottes to riot, the Directory quickly suppressed them. Another threat to the Directory was the revival of royalist feeling. Many émigrés were returning to France, and devout Catholics, who resented measures that had been taken against the Church, were welcoming them. In the election of 1797, supporters of a constitutional monarchy won the majority of seats in the legislature.
As chaos threatened, politicians turned to Napoleon Bonaparte, a popular military hero who had won a series of brilliant victories against the Austrians in Italy. The politicians planned to use him to advance their own goals. To their dismay, however, before long Napoleon would outwit them all to become ruler of France.
Checkpoint
What changes occurred after the Reign of Terror came to an end?
By 1799, the 10-year-old French Revolution had dramatically changed France. It had dislodged the old social order, overthrown the monarchy, and brought the Church under state control.
New symbols such as the red “liberty caps” and the tricolor confirmed the liberty and equality of all male citizens. The new title “citizen” applied to people of all social classes. All other titles were eliminated. Before he was executed, Louis XVI was called Citizen Capet, from the name of the dynasty that had ruled France in the Middle Ages. Elaborate fashions and powdered wigs gave way to the practical clothes and simple haircuts of the sans-culottes.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. Description: Louis le dernier
Louis XVI of France wearing a phrygian cap, drinking a toast to the health of the sans-culottes. Etching and mezzotint, with watercolor. Scanned from a photographic slide.
Captions, in English:
"Long live the nation" (from bottle to mouth)
Below:
Louis XVI, having put on the Phrygian cap, cried 'long live the nation'. He drank to the health of the sans-culottes and affected a show of great calm. He spoke high-sounding words about how he never feared the law, that he had never feared to be in the midst of the people; finally he pretended to play a personal part in the insurrection of June 20. Well! The same Louis XVI has bravely waited until his fellow citizens return to their hearths to wage a secret war and extract his revenge.
Date: 1792 Source: Library of Congress Author: unknown Permission Public domain: This image (or other media file) is in the public domain because its copyright has expired.
This is a file from the Wikimedia Commons. Commons is a freely licensed media file repository. Summary: Cabinet des médailles de la Bibliothèque nationale de France, Paris, France Description: Attis as a child, wearing the Phrygian cap. Parian marble, 2nd century AD, probably during the reign of Emperor Hadrian.Nationalism Spreads
Revolution and war gave the French people a strong sense of national identity. In earlier times, people had felt loyalty to local authorities. As monarchs centralized power, loyalty shifted to the king or queen. Now, the government rallied sons and daughters of the revolution to defend the nation itself. Nationalism, a strong feeling of pride in and devotion to one’s country, spread throughout France. The French people attended civic festivals that celebrated the nation and the revolution. A variety of dances and songs on themes of the revolution became immensely popular.
By 1793, France was a nation in arms. From the port city of Marseilles (mahr say), troops marched to a rousing new song. It urged the “children of the fatherland” to march against the “bloody banner of tyranny.” This song, “La Marseillaise” (mahr say ez), would later become the French national anthem.
Revolutionaries Push For Social Reform
Revolutionaries pushed for social reform and religious toleration. They set up state schools to replace religious ones and organized systems to help the poor, old soldiers, and war widows. With a major slave revolt raging in the colony of St. Domingue (Haiti), the government also abolished slavery in France’s Caribbean colonies.
Evaluating
How did the French revolutionary army help to create modern nationalism?
The Directory
Reading Check
Describing
Describe the government that replaced the National Convention.
Preview
Chapter 11 Section 3 The Age of Napoleon
Napoleon formed a new government, the consulate, in which he held absolute power. In 1802 he was crowned emperor and signed a peace treaty with Russia, Great Britain, and Austria. At home, he made peace with the Catholic Church and created a functioning bureaucracy. His Napoleonic Code preserved many of the rights gained in the revolution. War was soon renewed. By 1807, Napoleon had created a French empire. In parts of the empire, Napoleon sought to spread the revolution. However, his invasions had contributed to the spread of nationalism as well. This, along with British sea power, would spell his defeat. After a disastrous invasion of Russia, other European nations attacked Napoleon's army and captured Paris. Napoleon was exiled from France, and the monarchy was restored. Napoleon returned to power briefly, only to face final military defeat against a combined Prussian and British force at Waterloo and to be exiled once again.
 |
| The Age of Napoleon |
Objectives
*Understand Napoleon’s rise to power and why the French strongly supported him.
*Explain how Napoleon built an empire and what challenges the empire faced.
*Analyze the events that led to Napoleon’s downfall.
*Outline how the Congress of Vienna tried to create a lasting peace.
Terms, People, and Places
consulate
nationalism
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
plebiscite
Napoleonic Code
annex
Continental System
guerrilla warfare
scorched-earth policy
abdicate
Congress of Vienna
Duke of Wellington
legitimacy
Concert of Europe
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 Rise of Napoleon
Enter "Boney"
After the execution of King Louis XVI, France entered a state of confusion and chaos without a single leader. Meanwhile, Napoleon Bonaparte, a brilliant and ambitious captain in the French army, was rapidly rising in the military ranks. Soon enough, Napoleon would come to rule almost all of Europe. One of his earliest victories in Lodi, Italy, convinced him that he was only just beginning his successful rise to power:
“From that moment, I foresaw what I might be. Already I felt the earth flee from beneath me, as if I were being carried into the sky.”
—Napoleon Bonaparte
Focus Question
Explain Napoleon’s rise to power in Europe, his subsequent defeat, and how the outcome still affects Europe today.
From 1799 to 1815, Napoleon Bonaparte would dominate France and Europe. A hero to some, an evil force to others, he gave his name to the final phase of the revolution—the Age of Napoleon.
Early Life
Napoleon was born in Corsica, a French-ruled island in the Mediterranean. At age nine, he was sent to France to be trained for a military career. When the revolution broke out, he was an ambitious 20-year-old lieutenant, eager to make a name for himself.
Napoleon favored the Jacobins and republican rule. However, he found the conflicting ideas and personalities of the French Revolution confusing. He wrote to his brother in 1793: “Since one must take sides, one might as well choose the side that is victorious, the side which devastates, loots, and burns. Considering the alternative, it is better to eat than be eaten.”
Additional references:
Napoleon and Josephine
Courtship and Marriage
The Emperor and Empress
Crisis and Divorce
A New Life
Napoleon and Josephine (screen at your leisure outside of class)
Military Successes
During the turmoil of the revolution, Napoleon rose quickly in the army. In December 1793, he drove British forces out of the French port of Toulon (too lohn). He then went on to win several dazzling victories against the Austrians, capturing most of northern Italy and forcing the Hapsburg emperor to make peace. Hoping to disrupt British trade with India, he led an expedition to Egypt in 1798. The Egyptian campaign proved to be a disaster, but Napoleon managed to hide stories of the worst losses from his admirers in France. He did so by establishing a network of spies and censoring the press.
The French military and scientific expedition in Egypt occurred 1798-1801.
Music: Maurice Ravel - "le Bolero" (screen at your leisure outside of class--set to events we are studying)
Consul and Emperor
Two years later, Napoleon had acquired enough power to assume the title Emperor of the French. He invited the pope to preside over his coronation in Paris. During the ceremony, however, Napoleon took the crown from the pope’s hands and placed it on his own head. By this action, Napoleon meant to show that he owed his throne to no one but himself.
At each step on his rise to power, Napoleon had held a plebiscite (pleb uh syt), or popular vote by ballot. Each time, the French strongly supported him. As you will read, although the people theoretically had a say in government through their votes, Napoleon still held absolute power. This is sometimes called democratic despotism. To understand why people supported him, we must look at his policies.
Checkpoint
How did Napoleon rise to power so quickly in France?
Reading Check
What personal qualities did Napoleon possess that gained him popular support?
Napoleon's Domestic Policies
Peace With the Church
He made peace with the Catholic Church in the Concordat of 1801. The Concordat kept the Church under state control but recognized religious freedom for Catholics. Revolutionaries who opposed the Church denounced the agreement, but Catholics welcomed it.
Codification of the Laws
Among Napoleon’s most lasting reforms was a new code of laws, popularly called the Napoleonic Code. It embodied Enlightenment principles such as the equality of all citizens before the law, religious toleration, and the abolition of feudalism.
But the Napoleonic Code undid some reforms of the French Revolution. Women, for example, lost most of their newly gained rights and could not exercise the rights of citizenship. Male heads of households regained complete authority over their wives and children. Again, Napoleon valued order and authority over individual rights.
Checkpoint
What reforms did Napoleon introduce during his rise to power?
A New Bureaucracy
During the Consulate and empire, Napoleon consolidated his power by strengthening the central government. Order, security, and efficiency replaced liberty, equality, and fraternity as the slogans of the new regime.
To restore economic prosperity, Napoleon controlled prices, encouraged new industry, and built roads and canals. He set up a system of public schools under strict government control to ensure well-trained officials and military officers
Preserver of the Revolution?
Anne Louise Germaine de Staël
The date of the beginning of what Mme de Staël's admirers call her duel with Napoleon is not easy to determine. Judging from the title of her book Dix annees d'exil, it should be put at 1804; judging from the time at which it became pretty clear that the first man in France and she who wished to be the first woman in France were not likely to get on together, it might be put several years earlier. Napoleon said about her, according to the Memoirs of Mme. de Remusat, that she "teaches people to think who never thought before, or who had forgotten how to think."
The whole question of this duel, however, requires consideration from the point of view of common sense. It displeased Napoleon no doubt that Mme de Staël should show herself recalcitrant to his influence. But it probably pleased Mme de Staël to quite an equal degree that Napoleon should apparently put forth his power to crush her and fail. Both personages had a curious touch of charlatanerie. If Mme de Staël had really desired to take up her struggle against Napoleon seriously, she need only have established herself in England at the peace of Amiens. But she lingered on at Coppet, where she was shadowed by Napoleon's spies due to her tendency to defy Napoleon's orders, firstly that she keep away from Paris, and later out of France altogether, leaving her restless and lonely in rural Switzerland and constantly yearning after her beloved Paris.
In 1802 she published the first of her really noteworthy books, the novel Delphine, in which the femme incomprise was in a manner introduced to French literature, and in which she herself and not a few of her intimates appeared in transparent disguise. In the autumn of 1803 she returned to Paris. Had she not made her anxiety about the question of exile so public, it remains a question whether Napoleon would have exiled her; but, as she began at once appealing to all sorts of persons to protect her, he seems to have thought it better that she should not be protected. She was directed not to reside within forty leagues of Paris, and after considerable delay she determined to go to Germany.
Reading Check
Evaluating
What was the significance of Napoleon's Code?
Napoleon's Empire
Building the Empire
From 1804 to 1812, Napoleon furthered his reputation on the battlefield. He successfully battled the combined forces of the greatest European powers. He took great risks and even suffered huge losses. “I grew up on the field of battle,” he once said, “and a man such as I am cares little for the life of a million men.” By 1812, his Grand Empire reached its greatest extent.
As a military leader, Napoleon valued rapid movements and made effective use of his large armies. He developed a new plan for each battle so opposing generals could never anticipate what he would do next. His enemies paid tribute to his leadership. Napoleon’s presence on the battlefield, said one, was “worth 40,000 troops.”
Vocabulary Builder
anticipate—(an tis uh payt) vt. to foresee or expect
The Map of Europe Is Redrawn
As Napoleon created a vast French empire, he redrew the map of Europe. He annexed, or incorporated into his empire, the Netherlands, Belgium, and parts of Italy and Germany. He also abolished the tottering Holy Roman Empire and created a 38-member Confederation of the Rhine under French protection. He cut Prussian territory in half, turning part of old Poland into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.
Napoleon controlled much of Europe through forceful diplomacy. One tactic was placing friends and relatives on the thrones of Europe. For example, after unseating the king of Spain, he placed his own brother, Joseph Bonaparte, on the throne. He also forced alliances on European powers from Madrid to Moscow. At various times, the rulers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia reluctantly signed treaties with the “Corsican ogre,” as the monarchs he overthrew called him.
In France, Napoleon’s successes boosted the spirit of nationalism. Great victory parades filled the streets of Paris with cheering crowds. The people celebrated the glory and grandeur that Napoleon had gained for France.
Napoleon’s Power in Europe, 1812
Go Online
For: Audio guided tour
Visit: PHSchool.com
Web Code: nap-1841
Map Skills
Napoleon’s empire reached its greatest extent in 1812. Most of the countries in Europe today have different names and borders.
1. Locate:
(a) French empire, (b) Russian empire, (c) Germany
2. Region
Locate the Confederation of the Rhine. What is this area called today?
3. Make Comparisons
Compare Europe of Napoleon’s empire to Europe of today on the maps above. How has Europe changed?
Spreading the Principles of the Revolution
In the end, Napoleon’s Continental System failed to bring Britain to its knees. Although British exports declined, Britain’s powerful navy kept vital trade routes open to the Americas and India. Meanwhile, trade restrictions created a scarcity of goods in Europe, sent prices soaring, and intensified resentment against French power.
French armies under Napoleon spread ideas of the revolution across Europe. They backed liberal reforms in the lands they conquered. In some places, they helped install revolutionary governments that abolished titles of nobility, ended Church privileges, opened careers to men of talent, and ended serfdom and manorial dues. The Napoleonic Code, too, influenced countries in continental Europe and Latin America.
Checkpoint
How did Napoleon come to dominate most of Europe by 1812?
Reading Check
Identifying
What were the three parts of Napoleon's Grand Empire? (i.e., identify which areas or countries make up the following): French Empire, Dependent states, and States allied with Napoleon.
The European Response
Britain's Survival (Napoleon Strikes Britain)
Britain alone, of all the major European powers, remained outside Napoleon’s European empire. With only a small army, Britain relied on its sea power to stop Napoleon’s drive to rule the continent. In 1805, Napoleon prepared to invade England. But at the Battle of Trafalgar, fought off the southwest coast of Spain, British Admiral Horatio Nelson smashed the French fleet.
Nelson won a decisive at Trafalgar but he only enjoyed his victory briefly as he fell mortally wounded during the battle.
The Battle of Trafalgar - Nelson's Victory (but dies mortally wounded in battle), 1:46
Nelson's Principles of War
Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/launch_ani_trafalgar.shtml
Battlefield Academy: Re-fight Trafalgar!
Cf. http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/empire_seapower/launch_gms_trafalgar_bfacademy.shtml
With an invasion ruled out, Napoleon struck at Britain’s lifeblood, its commerce. He waged economic warfare through the Continental System, which closed European ports to British goods. Britain responded with its own blockade of European ports. A blockade involves shutting off ports to keep people or supplies from moving in or out. During their long struggle, both Britain and France seized neutral ships suspected of trading with the other side. British attacks on American ships sparked anger in the United States and eventually triggered the War of 1812.
Nationalism
In 1812, Napoleon continued his pursuit of world domination and invaded Russia. This campaign began a chain of events that eventually led to his downfall. Napoleon’s final defeat brought an end to the era of the French Revolution.
Nationalism Works Against Napoleon
Napoleon’s successes contained seeds of defeat. Although nationalism spurred French armies to success, it worked against them too. Many Europeans who had welcomed the ideas of the French Revolution nevertheless saw Napoleon and his armies as foreign oppressors. They resented the Continental System and Napoleon’s effort to impose French culture on them.
From Rome to Madrid to the Netherlands, nationalism unleashed revolts against France. In the German states, leaders encouraged national loyalty among German-speaking people to counter French influence.
Reading Check
Explaining
Why did being a sea power help Britain survive an attack by the French?
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.
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.
Battle for Leipzig courtesy of the Hawks Club on one of their custom historical maps and historical simulations, 3:29.
After the Russian campaign and Leipzig Napoleon was finished. He was forced to abdicate, and he comforted his old guard who were his veterans and those who followed him for twenty years since the Italian campaign.
He gave his famous speech to the guard, France Has Fallen. The background music is Sigfried's Funeral March by Wagner from Twilight of the Gods, 2:54.
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.
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.
Crushed at the Battle of Waterloo
You can learn more or prepare for the Battle of Waterloo Game by viewing the Waterloo Interactive Battle Simulator.
Waterloo Interactive Battle Simulator
If you have not prepared with the Battle Simulator the fight at Waterloo will still occur in the Game.
The Battle of Waterloo Game
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.
Resources
Crushed at the Battle of Waterloo
Battles and Campaigns (Mapping History) by Malcomb Swanston, p. 107.
The Encyclopedia of Warfare by Robin Cross, Napoleon's Tactics, p. 135; on Waterloo, pp. 141-143.
Napoleon as Military Commander by James Marshall-Cornwall, pp, 263-281.
The Napoleonic Wars: an Illustrated History, 1792-1815, by Michael Glover, pp. 215-222.
Waterloo Interactive Battle Simulator
The Battle of Waterloo Game
Chapter 12 Preview
The Congress of Vienna
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.
A key question to consider is: why did Metternich’s policies toward France change?
Map
Europe After the Congress of Vienna, 1815
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
Napoleon as Military Commander by James Marshall-Cornwall
The Napoleonic Wars: an Illustrated History, 1792-1815, by Michael Glover
Napoleon's Glands and Other Ventures in Biohistory by Arno Karlen
The Murder of Napoleon by Ben Weider
Battles and Campaigns (Mapping History) by Malcomb Swanston
Resources
Bibliographic resources for the French Revolution
Previous to or the buildup to the Revolution
Cf. The Coming of the French Revolution (Princeton Classic Editions)
by Georges Lefebvre.
The Fall of the French Monarchy 1787-1792 (The French Revolution) by Michel Vovelle.
Great Fear of 1789
by Georges Lefebvre.
General works on the Revolution
The Crowd in the French Revolution (Galaxy Books) by George Rude.
A Short History of the French Revolution, 1789-1799 by Albert Soboul.
The Abolition Of Feudalism: Peasants, Lords, And Legislators In The French Revolution, by John Markoff.
Interpreting the French Revolution by Francois Furet.
Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution by Simon Schama.
The Radical Revolution
The Sans-Culottes
by Albert Soboul.
The Vendee: A Sociological Analysis of the Counter-Revolution of 1793 by Charles Tilly.
Revolutionary Themes After the Revolution
Reflections on the Revolution in France (Oxford World's Classics) by Edmund Burke.
The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 by Eric Hobsbawm.
Work and Revolution in France: The Language of Labor from the Old Regime by William H. Sewell Jr.
The Course in German History by A.J.P. Taylor.
References:
Chapter 10 Test Prep page
Cf. http://shanawiki.wikispaces.com/Honors+World+History+II+Fall+2010+Chapter+10+Test+Prep+Page
These questions may be--but there is no guarantee--on the Test. They are here as possible questions on the Test for study purposes.
The Enlightenment and the American Revolution (1700–1800)
Philosophy in the Age of Reason
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=naa&wcsuffix=1719
Enlightenment Ideas Spread Self-Test
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=naa&wcsuffix=1729
Birth of the American Republic Self-Test
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=naa&wcsuffix=1739
Chapter Self-Test
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=naa&wcsuffix=1749
Sec. 1 The French Revolution Begins
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=nba&wcsuffix=1811
On the Eve of Revolution
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=nba&wcsuffix=1811
And, additional questions.
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=nba&wcsuffix=1821
Marie Antoinette downfall and execution, 3:57
Marie Antoinette was finally tried by the Revolutionary Tribunal on 14 October. Unlike the king, who had been given time to prepare a defense, the queen's trial was far more of a sham, considering the time she was given (less than one day) and the Jacobin's misogynistic view of women in general.
She was accused of (most, if not all, of the accusations were untrue and probably libelous accusations, sending millions of livres, treasury money, to Austria, plotting to kill the duc d'Orléans, declaring her son to be the new king of France and orchestrating the massacre of the Swiss Guards in 1792. People were impressed with her defense and the women present in the courtroom were the market women who had stormed the palace for her in 1789 began to support her.
The outcome of the trial had already been decided by the Committee of Public Safety and she was declared guilty of treason in the early morning of 16 October, after two days of proceedings. The same day at 12:15 pm, two and a half weeks before her thirty-eighth birthday, wearing a simple white dress, she was executed Place de la Révolution (present-day Place de la Concorde). Her last words were, "Pardon me Sir, I meant not to do it", to Sanson the executioner, whose foot she accidentally stepped on before she was executed by guillotine.
Her body was thrown into an unmarked grave in the former Madeleine cemetery, rue d'Anjou, (which was closed the following year). Both her body and that of Louis XVI were exhumed on 18 January 1815, during the Bourbon Restoration, when the comte de Provence had become King Louis XVIII. Proper Christian burial of the royal remains took place three days later, on 21 January, in the necropolis of French Kings at the Basilica of St Denis.
Allan Sherman - You Went The Wrong Way Old King Louie, 3:33
Chapter: Know It? Show It
Radical Days of the Revolution
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=nba&wcsuffix=1831
The French Revolution and Napoleon
Cf. http://www.phschool.com/webcodes10/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.gotoWebCode&wcprefix=nba&wcsuffix=1831
HW: email (or hard copy) me at gmsmith@shanahan.org.
Tuesday HW
1. p. 344, Practicing the Skill, #1-4
Email only if you answer (i.e., you voluntarily choose to participate):
Last week what I liked least about the class was . . .
Last week what I enjoyed most about the class was . . .
