Transcript Napoleon`s

Mrs. Tucker
Victor Valley High School
AP European History
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
Discuss Napoleon's rise to power and explain
how he was able to become Emperor.

Identify Napoleon's administrative reforms
and understand how they differed from Old
Regime policies.

Trace France's military conquests, the
establishment of the French Empire, and
European resistance to France.

Explain Napoleon's reasons for invading
Russia and understand how the failed invasion
marked the beginning of his downfall.

Discuss the Congress of Vienna and its
significance.

Differentiate between Romanticism and the
Enlightenment and explain why Romanticism
thrived during the Napoleonic Age.
 Napoleon Bonaparte was
born in Ajaccio, Corsica in
769 to a wealthy family,
Carlo and Marie
Buonaparte.
 His merit as well as his
family’s influence got him
into military school, where
he graduated in 1785 from
the Parisian École Royale
Militaire as a second
lieutenant.
 Lack of trained military
leaders led Napoleon to
prominence ;
 Early victories in Italy led
to an assignment in Egypt,
which failed, and he
abandoned his regiment to
return to Paris.
 He participated in the
Brumaire Coup and made
himself First Consul in the
triumvirate.
In France in 1799, under yet another new
constitution,
 Napoleon Bonaparte made himself First
Consul.
 He had taken advantage of the
Directory's weaknesses, his own past
military successes (and the ability of the
public to overlook his failures!), and the
naivete of politicians who thought
Napoleon could be used as a figurehead,
to grant himself powers comparable to
those of Roman emperors and Greek
tyrants.
 The way he used this power
foreshadowed the dictators of the 20th
century: he used military force,
camouflaged by talk of revolution and
nationalism, to instigate imperialist
aggression that served to strengthen his
hold on power.

 The French Revolution
ended with Napoleon's
Consulate; the bourgeoisie
and the peasants were
satisfied.
 Napoleon seemed to offer
stability, and the voters
approved his constitution
in a plebiscite.
 Napoleon signed treaties
that brought peace to
Europe, and maneuvered
to build coalitions and
crush dissent at home.
 He concluded a concordat with the
pope in 1801, which basically ratified
the status quo but allowed Napoleon
to replace clergy throughout France.
 Napoleon continued to strengthen
his hold on power, and initiated
codification of French law (the
Napoleonic Code).
 Like the concordat with the church,
the Napoleonic Code mostly
endorsed changes that had been
effected by the revolution, while
incrementally enhancing the state's
power.
 By 1804, Napoleon was ready to
crown himself emperor, making
himself Napoleon I.
 Between 1804 and 1815,
Napoleon conquered most of
Europe, dismantling
remnants of the Old Regime
along the way.
 The revolution had mobilized
all France, and Napoleon took
advantage of the fact that he
could field more troops at
once than any other military
leader.
 Napoleon's greatest victory
was probably his 1805 defeat
of combined Austrian and
Russian forces at Austerlitz.
 He occupied Vienna,
reorganized Germany,
caused the dissolution of
the Holy Roman Empire,
and cut Prussia in half.
 He treated conquered
Europe like the domain
of a Corsican family,
appointing relatives to
rule other states under
his supervision.
 The only power that could
compete with France was
Britain.
 Napoleon's greatest defeat yet
had already come in 1805 at
the hands of the British navy
under Lord Nelson, who
defeated the combined
French and Spanish fleets at
the Battle of Trafalgar.
 Napoleon attempted to
weaken Britain through trade
embargoes, but this policy
turned out to hurt the
Continental System more
than it hurt Britain.
 Napoleonic rule brought
the French revolution's
reforms to conquered
Europe, but it also bred
resentment of a political
structure that was clearly
designed for the benefit
of France and Napoleon,
not the local population.
 Nationalism, in various
guises, emerged in
opposition to Napoleon.
 In German areas,
romanticism and
nationalism were linked.
 After Napoleon defeated
the Prussians at Jena in
1806, German cultural
nationalism was eclipsed
by a form of nationalism
that aimed for political
unification.
 Prussia became the magnet
for these unifiers, despite
opposition from Frederick
William III.
 Baron von Stein and Count
von Hardenberg initiated
administrative and social
reforms in Prussia; their
goal was to allow a
mobilization similar to
France's, while preserving
Junker power.
 In Spain, meanwhile, when
Napoleon deposed the Spanish
Bourbons and put his brother
Joseph on the throne, he
unleashed a rebellion led by the
loyal, Catholic peasantry.
 The resulting guerilla warfare,
supported by Britain, drained
French strength.
 In 1809, Austria thought
Napoleon was sufficiently
distracted that it would be safe
to declare war on France, but
this was a miscalculation; France
won yet more territory and
subjects from Austria.
When Russia withdrew
from the Continental
System in 1810, Napoleon
launched his Grand
Army towards Moscow.
 When Russia withdrew from
the Continental System in
1810, Napoleon launched his
Grand Army towards Moscow.
 In September 1812, near
Moscow at Borodino, the
French won the battle but lost
the fight.
 The Grand Army had to
retreat through the Russian
winter, and close to half a
million French soldiers died.
 .
 Even in 1813, however,
with a powerful coalition
arrayed against him,
Napoleon refused to
negotiate.
 He was defeated at
Leipzig in the October
1813 "Battle of the
Nations."
 In the spring of 1814,
Napoleon went into exile
on the island of Elba
 The Congress of Vienna met
for over a year, from
September 1814 to November
1815, and reached a settlement
that prevented general war for
a century.
 The Congress broke new
ground in international law
and diplomacy by
establishing that treaties were
made between states, not
between individual
monarchs, and that the
purpose of the settlement was
to secure peace, not to punish
the defeated.
 Even before the Congress
convened, under the
guidance of British
foreign secretary Robert
Stewart, Viscount
Castlereagh, Britain,
Austria, Russia, and
Prussia formed the
Quadruple Alliance to
preserve European
peace.
 Bourbons were restored
to the throne of a France
that was reduced to its
size in 1792.
 At the Congress, new
state boundaries were
created to provide
security around France's
borders.
 Territorial adjustments in
eastern Europe were also
necessary, but more
contentious.
 In the midst of the
Congress, Napoleon
attempted a comeback.
 His Hundred Days back in
power ended when he was
defeated by the British and
Prussians at Waterloo in
June, 1815; he was sent to
exile on the island of Saint
Helena.
 Romanticism was an
intellectual movement
that emerged throughout
Europe during the period
of the French Revolution
and Napoleonic rule.
 In a reaction against the
Enlightenment,
romanticism emphasized
the value of intuition,
spirituality, folklore,
dreams, and other forms
of human experience
that lie beyond the realm
of reason.
 Romanticism's intellectual
foundations were laid largely
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau and
Immanuel Kant.
 Rousseau's belief that human
nature was corrupted by
society and by material
prosperity, and his interest in
childhood, was reflected in
the romantic movement's
efforts to reform education
and family life.
• Kant argued for the
subjectivity of human
knowledge.
• He theorized that, since
humans share an innate
understanding of the
categorical imperative,
morality must be
something independent
of sensory experience;
this, to him, proved the
existence of god.
 "Romantic literature" meant
slightly different things in
different countries and
periods.
 In general, it meant literature
that stressed the imaginative
elements, and was not bound
by formal rules.
 Romantic literature peaked in
England and Germany before
France. English romantics
such as Coleridge and
Wordsworth excelled in
poetry that dealt with themes
including morality, mortality,
and creativity.
 German romantics wrote a
great deal of poetry, but
almost all of the significant
German romantic authors
also wrote at least one
novel.
 Goethe was the greatest
German writer of the era,
though he was a more
complicated figure than
the label "romantic"
suggests. Faust was his
seminal work.
 Romanticism in religion
stressed the individual's
heartfelt response to the
divine.
 Methodism developed
in England in the middle
of the 18th century as a
reaction against deism
and rationalism in the
Church of England.
 John Wesley led the
movement, preaching in
open fields in western
England.
 Methodists believe in
Christian perfectibility in
this life; the enthusiastic
emotional experience is
part of Christian
conversion.
 In France,
Chateaubriand argued
that passion is at the
heart of religion.
 Schleiermacher, too,
wrote about religion as
dependent on emotions;
he interpreted the
various religions of the
world as evidence of the
universal dependence on
an infinite being.
 Romanticism glorified
both individuals and
individual cultures.
 The German philosophy of
idealism helped explain the
relationship between the
acts of strong individuals
and the shaping of history.
 German romantics were
also active in encouraging
the study and revival of
folk culture.
 The German philosopher
explained world history in
terms of the evolution of the
prevailing ideas of a time and
place.
 Europe's interest in the Arab
world was revived through
literature, theory, and current
events – Napoleon's invasion
of Egypt sparked new
European scholarship on the
region's history, though not
surprisingly pre-existing
western stereotypes
influenced the new work.