Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

The Napoleonic Wars (4): The fall of the French empire 1813–1815
The Napoleonic Wars (4): The fall of the French empire 1813–1815
The Napoleonic Wars (4): The fall of the French empire 1813–1815
Ebook159 pages2 hours

The Napoleonic Wars (4): The fall of the French empire 1813–1815

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

5/5

()

Read preview

About this ebook

This volume covers Napoleon's gradual fall from power, beginning in the spring of 1813, when France prepared to face the vengeance of Russia and Prussia. quickly raising new armies composed of inexperienced conscripts and invalided veterans, and with a critical shortage of cavalry, Napoleon resolved to preserve his empire in Germany, where he initially managed to achieve some hard-fought victories. When at last Austria threw in her lot with the Allies and the epic Battle of Leipzig followed, Napoleon was forced to retreat across the Rhine, there to resist the onslaught on home soil. The pressure against him proved too great, and with Paris lost and his marshals refusing to fight on, no option remained but abdication. Yet his last battle, and one of the most decisive in military history, was still to come: Waterloo.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateJun 6, 2014
ISBN9781472809872
The Napoleonic Wars (4): The fall of the French empire 1813–1815
Author

Gregory Fremont-Barnes

Gregory Fremont-Barnes is Senior Lecturer in War Studies at Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. He has previously lectured around the world and holds a doctorate in Modern History from Oxford. He has written widely on military history, and currently lectures at Sandhurst on the conduct of the Falklands War. He lives in Surrey.

Read more from Gregory Fremont Barnes

Related to The Napoleonic Wars (4)

Related ebooks

European History For You

View More

Related articles

Related categories

Reviews for The Napoleonic Wars (4)

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
5/5

1 rating1 review

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

  • Rating: 5 out of 5 stars
    5/5
    “The Napoleonic Wars (4): The Fall of the French Empire” by Gregory Fremont-Barnes is the final book in Osprey’s Essential Histories Napoleonic Wars series and is an excellent brief overview of the final years of the Napoleonic Era. Mr. Fremont Barnes is quite succinct in getting to the heart of the battles, their dynamics, individual players including personal tribulations and foibles. That he is able to accomplish this task in such a quick and concise manner while being informative and entertaining is a grand sign of an accomplished historian. Personally I would rather that Mr. Fremont-Barnes had reconstructed a different early nineteenth century city rather than London, perhaps Paris, but that’s me being nitpicky.

Book preview

The Napoleonic Wars (4) - Gregory Fremont-Barnes

Background to war

Origins of Prussian and Russian hostility

Germany in ferment, 1807–1812

Prussia’s involvement in the campaigns of 1813–15 may be traced back to the autumn of 1806, when, having remained aloof from the Third Coalition, she foolishly confronted Napoleon with only Saxony at her side and with the Russian armies too far to the east to be of assistance before winter. Prussia had smarted at Napoleon’s creation of the Confederation of the Rhine in the heart of Germany, and the French refusal to cede Hanover (formerly a British possession) as promised, convinced King Frederick William III (1770–1840) that the time had come to put into the field his armies, widely acknowledged to be the best in Europe. The twin decisive victories at Jena and Auerstädt on 14 October destroyed the illusion of Prussia’s superiority and in a matter of weeks practically the whole of her forces were rounded up or besieged in fortresses and obliged to capitulate.

Seeing the vaunted Prussian ranks broken at Jena and Auerstädt was shocking enough for contemporaries, but to witness the systematic hunting down of the remnants of the army and the pitifully feeble resistance offered by fortresses throughout the kingdom in the weeks that followed was more than the nation could bear. Years of French occupation were to follow. The Treaty of Tilsit, concluded in July 1807, imposed subordination and in its wake Napoleon took deliberate and concerted measures to reduce not only Prussia’s pride and prestige, but her military and economic power. Her status as a great power was effectively lost as Napoleon raised the status of smaller German states like Saxony, to which he allotted all Prussian territory in her former Polish province, while imposing a series of harsh restrictions on Prussia, including a massive indemnity of several hundred million francs. The much revered Queen Louise (1776–1810), symbol of Prussia’s former grandeur and pride, had to endure numerous personal insults under French occupation, including Napoleon’s description of her as ‘the only real man in Prussia’, and the queen’s subjects attributed her premature death to such indignities. French troops occupied Prussia’s fortresses on the Oder and her ports on the Baltic, while the Continental System destroyed the kingdom’s seaborne commerce. Large parts of her territory were ceded to the French puppet state of Westphalia and her army was restricted to 42,000 men for 10 years. By all these measures and others, Prussia was left severely – but not fatally – weakened, and with her pride badly wounded she would remain a potentially dangerous time-bomb in the years after Tilsit.

The result was a movement of reform and growing patriotism, some of it exposed for all to see, though much of it kept secret so as to avoid French detection and suppression. Young Prussians established the anti-French Tugendbunde (‘League of Virtue’), and other societies which encouraged not simply a narrow form of Prussian patriotism, but a kind of pan-German unity that demanded freedom from foreign domination in general, but French in particular. At official levels reforms were undertaken by men like Baron Stein (1757–1831), who worked in a civilian capacity, and by Gerhard von Scharnhorst (1755–1813) and Augustus von Gneisenau (1760–1831), who introduced new and sometimes radical changes within the army. Though aware of many of these activities, Napoleon did not fear Prussian attempts at social, economic and military reform, for he believed Frederick William to be too timid to challenge French might. In any event, his kingdom had neither the financial nor the military resources to wage a war of national

Enjoying the preview?
Page 1 of 1