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Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century
Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century
Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century
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Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century

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Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century is a historical work by Charles Morris. It presents the life and impact of famous leaders such as Napoleon, Bismarck, Lord Nelson, Garibaldi and many others.
LanguageEnglish
PublisherGood Press
Release dateDec 6, 2019
ISBN4064066234515
Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century

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    Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century - Charles Morris

    Charles Morris

    Famous Men and Great Events of the Nineteenth Century

    Published by Good Press, 2022

    goodpress@okpublishing.info

    EAN 4064066234515

    Table of Contents

    INTRODUCTION.

    CHAPTER I. The Threshold of the Century.

    CHAPTER II. Napoleon Bonaparte; The Man of Destiny.

    CHAPTER III. Europe in the Grasp of the Iron Hand.

    CHAPTER IV. The Decline and Fall of Napoleon’s Empire.

    CHAPTER V. Nelson and Wellington, the Champions of England.

    CHAPTER VI. From the Napoleonic Wars to the Revolution of 1830.

    CHAPTER VII. Bolivar, the Liberator of Spanish America.

    CHAPTER VIII. Great Britain as a World Empire.

    CHAPTER IX. The Great Reform Bill and the Corn Laws.

    CHAPTER X. Turkey, the Sick Man of Europe.

    CHAPTER XI. The European Revolution of 1848.

    CHAPTER XII. Louis Napoleon and the Second French Empire.

    CHAPTER XIII. Garibaldi and the Unification of Italy.

    CHAPTER XIV. Bismarck and the New Empire of Germany.

    CHAPTER XV. Gladstone, the Apostle of Liberalism in England.

    CHAPTER XVI. Ireland the Downtrodden.

    CHAPTER XVII. England and Her Indian Empire.

    CHAPTER XVIII. Thiers, Gambetta, and the Rise of the French Republic.

    CHAPTER XIX. Paul Kruger and the Struggle for Dominion in South Africa.

    CHAPTER XX. The Rise of Japan and the Decline of China.

    CHAPTER XXI. The Era of Colonies.

    CHAPTER XXII. How the United States Entered the Century.

    CHAPTER XXIII. Expansion of the United States from Dwarf to Giant.

    CHAPTER XXIV. The Development of Democratic Institutions in America.

    CHAPTER XXV America’s Answer to the British Claim of the Right of Search.

    CHAPTER XXVI. The United States Sustains Its Dignity Abroad.

    CHAPTER XXVII. Webster and Clay and the Preservation of the Union.

    CHAPTER XXVIII. The Annexation of Texas and the War with Mexico.

    CHAPTER XXIX. The Negro in America and the Slavery Conflict.

    CHAPTER XXX. Abraham Lincoln and the Work of Emancipation.

    CHAPTER XXXI. Grant and Lee and the Civil War.

    CHAPTER XXXII. The Indian in the Nineteenth Century.

    CHAPTER XXXIII. The Development of the American Navy.

    CHAPTER XXXIV. America’s Conflict With Spain.

    CHAPTER XXXV. The Dominion of Canada.

    CHAPTER XXXVI. Livingstone, Stanley, Peary, Nansen and Other Great Discoverers and Explorers.

    CHAPTER XXXVII. Robert Fulton, George Stephenson, and the Triumphs of Invention.

    CHAPTER XXXVIII. The Evolution in Industry and the Revolt Against Capital.

    CHAPTER XXXIX. Charles Darwin and the Development of Science.

    CHAPTER XL. Literature and Art in the Nineteenth Century.

    CHAPTER XLI. The American Church and the Spirit of Human Brotherhood.

    CHAPTER XLII. The Dawn of the Twentieth Century.

    BATTLE OF CHATEAU-GONTIER
    (

    Reign of Terror, 1792

    )

    INTRODUCTION.

    Table of Contents

    It is the story of a hundred years that we propose to give; the record of the noblest and most marvelous century in the annals of mankind. Standing here, at the dawn of the Twentieth Century, as at the summit of a lofty peak of time, we may gaze far backward over the road we have traversed, losing sight of its minor incidents, but seeing its great events loom up in startling prominence before our eyes; heedless of its thronging millions, but proud of those mighty men who have made the history of the age and rise like giants above the common throng. History is made up of the deeds of great men and the movements of grand events, and there is no better or clearer way to tell the marvelous story of the Nineteenth Century than to put upon record the deeds of its heroes and to describe the events and achievements in which reside the true history of the age.

    First of all, in this review, it is important to show in what the greatness of the century consists, to contrast its beginning and its ending, and point out the stages of the magnificent progress it has made. It is one thing to declare that the Nineteenth has been the greatest and most glorious of the centuries; it is another and more arduous task to trace the development of this greatness and the culmination of this career of glory. This it is that we shall endeavor to do in the pages of this work. All of us have lived in the century here described, many of us through a great part of it, some of us, possibly, through the whole of it. It is in the fullest sense our own century, one of which we have a just right to feel proud, and in whose career all of us must take a deep and vital interest.

    A Bird’s-Eye View

    Before entering upon the history of the age it is well to take a bird’s-eye view of it, and briefly present its claims to greatness. They are many and mighty, and can only be glanced at in these introductory pages; it would need volumes to show them in full. They cover every field of human effort. They have to do with political development, the relations of capital and labor, invention, science, literature, production, commerce, and a dozen other life interests, all of which will be considered in this work. The greatness of the world’s progress can be most clearly shown by pointing out the state of affairs in the several branches of human effort at the opening and closing of the century and placing them in sharp contrast. This it is proposed to do in this introductory sketch.

    Tyranny and Oppression in the Eighteenth Century

    A hundred years ago the political aspect of the world was remarkably different from what it is now. Kings, many of them, were tyrants; peoples, as a rule, were slaves—in fact, if not in name. The absolute government of the Middle Ages had been in a measure set aside, but the throne had still immense power, and between the kings and the nobles the people were crushed like grain between the upper and nether millstones. Tyranny spread widely; oppression was rampant; poverty was the common lot; comfort was confined to the rich; law was merciless; punishment for trifling offences was swift and cruel; the broad sentiment of human fellowship had just begun to develop; the sun of civilization shone only on a narrow region of the earth, beyond which barbarism and savagery prevailed.

    In 1800, the government of the people had just fairly begun. Europe had two small republics, Switzerland and the United Netherlands, and in the West the republic of the United States was still in its feeble youth. The so-called republic of France was virtually the kingdom of Napoleon, the autocratic First Consul, and those which he had founded elsewhere were the slaves of his imperious will. Government almost everywhere was autocratic and arbitrary. In Great Britain, the freest of the monarchies, the king’s will could still set aside law and justice in many instances and parliament represented only a tithe of the people. Not only was universal suffrage unknown, but some of the greatest cities of the kingdom had no voice in making the laws.

    Government and the Rights of Man in 1900

    In 1900, a century later, vast changes had taken place in the political world. The republic of the United States had grown from a feeble infant into a powerful giant, and its free system of government had spread over the whole great continent of America. Every independent nation of the West had become a republic and Canada still a British colony, was a republic in almost everything but the name. In Europe, France was added to the list of firmly-founded republics, and throughout that continent, except in Russia and Turkey, the power of the monarchs had declined, that of the people had advanced. In 1800, the kings almost everywhere seemed firmly seated on their thrones. In 1900, the thrones everywhere were shaking, and the whole moss-grown institution of kingship was trembling over the rising earthquake of the popular will.

    Suffrage and Human Freedom

    The influence of the people in the government had made a marvelous advance. The right of suffrage, greatly restricted in 1800, had become universal in most of the civilized lands at the century’s end. Throughout the American continent every male citizen had the right of voting. The same was the case in most of western Europe, and even in far-off Japan, which a century before had been held under a seemingly helpless tyranny. Human slavery, which held captive millions upon millions of men and women in 1800, had vanished from the realms of civilization in 1900, and a vigorous effort was being made to banish it from every region of the earth. As will be seen from this hasty retrospect, the rights of man had made a wonderful advance during the century, far greater than in any other century of human history.

    Criminal Law and Prison Discipline in 1800

    In the feeling of human fellowship, the sentiment of sympathy and benevolence, the growth of altruism, or love for mankind, there had been an equal progress. At the beginning of the century law was stern, justice severe, punishment frightfully cruel. Small offences met with severe retribution. Men were hung for a dozen crimes which now call for only a light punishment. Thefts which are now thought severely punished by a year or two in prison then often led to the scaffold. Men are hung now, in the most enlightened nations, only for murder. Then they were hung for fifty crimes, some so slight as to seem petty. A father could not steal a loaf of bread for his starving children except at peril of a long term of imprisonment, or, possibly, of death on the scaffold.

    And imprisonment then was a different affair from what it is now. The prisons of that day were often horrible dens, noisome, filthy, swarming with vermin, their best rooms unfit for human residence, their worst dungeons a hell upon earth. This not only in the less advanced nations, but even in enlightened England. Newgate Prison, in London, for instance, was a sink of iniquity, its inmates given over to the cruel hands of ruthless gaolers, forced to pay a high price for the least privilege, and treated worse than brute cattle if destitute of money and friends. And these were not alone felons who had broken some of the many criminal laws, but men whose guilt was not yet proved, and poor debtors whose only crime was their misfortune. And all this in England, with its boast of high civilization. The people were not ignorant of the condition of the prisons; Parliament was appealed to a dozen times to remedy the horrors of the jails; yet many years passed before it could be induced to act.

    Prisons and Punishment in 1900

    Compare this state of criminal law and prison discipline with that of the present day. Then cruel punishments were inflicted for small offences; now the lightest punishments compatible with the well-being of the community are the rule. The sentiment of human compassion has become strong and compelling; it is felt in the courts as well as among the people; public opinion has grown powerful, and a punishment to-day too severe for the crime would be visited with universal condemnation. The treatment of felons has been remarkably ameliorated. The modern prison is a palace as compared with that of a century ago. The terrible jail fever which swept through the old-time prisons like a pestilence, and was more fatal to their inmates than the gallows, has been stamped out. The idea of sanitation has made its way into the cell and the dungeon, cleanliness is enforced, the frightful crowding of the past is not permitted, prisoners are given employment, they are not permitted to infect one another with vice or disease, kindness instead of cruelty is the rule, and in no direction has the world made a greater and more radical advance.

    The Factory System and the Oppression of the Workingman

    A century ago labor was sadly oppressed. The factory system had recently begun. The independent hand and home work of the earlier centuries was being replaced by power and machine work. The steam-engine and the labor-saving machine, while bringing blessings to mankind, had brought curses also. Workmen were crowded into factories and mines, and were poorly paid, ill-treated, ill-housed, over-worked. Innocent little children were forced to perform hard labor when they should have been at play or at school. The whole system was one of white slavery of the most oppressive kind.

    To-day this state of affairs no longer exists. Wages have risen, the hours of labor have decreased, the comfort of the artisan has grown, what were once luxuries beyond his reach have now become necessaries of life. Young children are not permitted to work, and older ones not beyond their strength. With the influences which have brought this about we are not here concerned. Their consideration must be left to a later chapter. It is enough here to state the important development that has taken place.

    Perhaps the greatest triumph of the nineteenth century has been in the domain of invention. For ages past men have been aiding the work of their hands with the work of their brains. But the progress of invention continued slow and halting, and many tools centuries old were in common use until the nineteenth century dawned. The steam-engine came earlier, and it is this which has stimulated all the rest. A power was given to man enormously greater than that of his hands, and he at once began to devise means of applying it. Several of the important machines used in manufacture were invented before 1800, but it was after that year that the great era of invention began, and words are hardly strong enough to express the marvelous progress which has since taken place.

    The Era of Wonderful Inventions

    To attempt to name all the inventions of the nineteenth century would be like writing a dictionary. Those of great importance might be named by the hundreds; those which have proved epoch-making by the dozens. To manufacture, to agriculture, to commerce, to all fields of human labor, they extend, and their name is legion. Standing on the summit of this century and looking backward, its beginning appears pitifully poor and meager. Around us to-day are hundreds of busy workshops, filled with machinery, pouring out finished products with extraordinary speed, men no longer makers of goods, but waiters upon machines. In the fields the grain is planted and harvested, the grass cut and gathered, the ground ploughed and cultivated, everything done by machines. Looking back for a century, what do we see? Men in the fields with the scythe and the sickle, in the barn with the flail, working the ground with rude old ploughs and harrows, doing a hundred things painfully by hand which now they do easily and rapidly by machines. Verily the rate of progress on the farm has been marvelous.

    The Fate of the Horse and the Sail

    The above are only a few of the directions of the century’s progress. In some we may name, the development has been more extraordinary still. Let us consider the remarkable advance in methods of travel. In the year 1800, as for hundreds and even thousands of years before, the horse was the fastest means known of traveling by land, the sail of traveling by sea. A hundred years more have passed over our heads, and what do we behold? On all sides the powerful, and swift locomotive, well named the iron-horse, rushes onward, bound for the ends of the earth, hauling men and goods to right and left with a speed and strength that would have seemed magical to our forefathers. On the ocean the steam engine performs the same service, carrying great ships across the Atlantic in less than a week, and laughing at the puny efforts of the sail. The horse, for ages indispensable to man, is threatened with banishment. Electric power has been added to that of steam. The automobile carriage is coming to take the place of the horse carriage. The steam plough is replacing the horse plough. The time seems approaching when the horse will cease to be seen in our streets, and may be relegated to the zoological garden.

    In the conveyance of news the development is more like magic than fact. A century ago news could not be transported faster than the horse could run or the ship could sail. Now the words of men can be carried through space faster than one can breathe. By the aid of the telephone a man can speak to his friend a thousand miles away. And with the phonograph we can, as it were, bottle up speech, to be spoken, if desired, a thousand years in the future. Had we whispered those things to our forefathers of a century past we should have been set down as wild romancers or insane fools, but now they seem like every-day news.

    These are by no means all the marvels of the century. At its beginning the constitution of the atmosphere had been recently discovered. In the preceding period it was merely known as a mysterious gas called air. To-day we can carry this air about in buckets like so much water, or freeze it into a solid like ice. In its gaseous state it has long been used as the power to move ships and windmills. In its liquid state it may also soon become a leading source of power, and in a measure replace steam, the great power of the century before.

    Education, Discovery and Commerce

    In what else does the beginning of the twentieth stand far in advance of that of the nineteenth century? We may contrast the tallow candle with the electric light, the science of to-day with that of a century ago, the methods and the extension of education and the dissemination of books with those of the year 1800. Discovery and colonization of the once unknown regions of the world have gone on with marvelous speed. The progress in mining has been enormous, and the production of gold in the nineteenth century perhaps surpasses that of all previous time. Production of all kinds has enormously increased, and commerce now extends to the utmost regions of the earth, bearing the productions of all climes to the central seats of civilization, and supplying distant and savage tribes with the products of the loom and the mine.

    Such is a hasty review of the condition of affairs at the end of the nineteenth century as compared with that existing at its beginning. No effort has been made here to cover the entire field, but enough has been said to show the greatness of the world’s progress, and we may fairly speak of this century as the Glorious Nineteenth.

    DEATH OF MARAT

    Never was there a more worthy act of murder than that of the monster Marat, the most savage of the leaders of the Reign of Terror, by the knife of the devoted maiden, Charlotte Corday. She boldly avowed her guilt and its purpose, and suffered death by the guillotine, July 17, 1793.

    THE LAST VICTIMS OF THE REIGN OF TERROR—

    (FROM THE PAINTING BY MULLER)


    CHAPTER I.

    The Threshold of the Century.

    Table of Contents

    The Age we Live in and its Great Events

    After its long career of triumph and disaster, glory and shame, the world stands to-day at the end of an old and the beginning of a new century, looking forward with hope and backward with pride, for it has just completed the most wonderful hundred years it has ever known, and has laid a noble foundation for the twentieth century, now at its dawn. There can be no more fitting time than this to review the marvelous progress of the closing century, through a portion of which all of us have lived, many of us through a great portion of it. Some of the greatest of its events have taken place before our own eyes; in some of them many now living have borne a part; to picture them again to our mental vision cannot fail to be of interest and profit to us all.

    True History and the Things which Make it

    When, after a weary climb, we find ourselves on the summit of a lofty mountain, and look back from that commanding altitude over the ground we have traversed, what is it that we behold? The minor details of the scenery, many of which seemed large and important to us as we passed, are now lost to view, and we see only the great and imposing features of the landscape, the high elevations, the town-studded valleys, the deep and winding streams, the broad forests. It is the same when, from the summit of an age, we gaze backward over the plain of time. The myriad of petty happenings are lost to sight, and we see only the striking events, the critical epochs, the mighty crises through which the world has passed. These are the things that make true history, not the daily doings in the king’s palace or the peasant’s hut. What we should seek to observe and store up in our memories are the turning points in human events, the great thoughts which have ripened into noble deeds, the hands of might which have pushed the world forward in its career; not the trifling occurrences which signify nothing, the passing actions which have borne no fruit in human affairs. It is with such turning points, such critical periods in the history of the nineteenth century, that this work proposes to deal; not to picture the passing bubbles on the stream of time, but to point out the great ships which have sailed up that stream laden deep with a noble freight. This is history in its deepest and best aspect, and we have set our camera to photograph only the men who have made and the events which constitute this true history of the nineteenth century.

    Two of the World’s Greatest Events

    On the threshold of the century with which we have to deal two grand events stand forth; two of those masterpieces of political evolution which mold the world and fashion the destiny of mankind. These are, in the Eastern hemisphere, the French Revolution; in the Western hemisphere, the American Revolution and the founding of the republic of the United States. In the whole history of the world there are no events that surpass these in importance, and they may fitly be dwelt upon as main foundation stones in the structure we are seeking to build. The French Revolution shaped the history of Europe for nearly a quarter century after 1800. The American Revolution shaped the history of America for a still longer period, and is now beginning to shape the history of the world. It is important therefore that we dwell on those two events sufficiently to show the part they have played in the history of the age. Here, however, we shall confine our attention to the Revolution in France. That in America must be left to the American section of our work.

    The Feudal System and Its Abuses

    The Mediæval Age was the age of Feudalism, that remarkable system of government based on military organization which held western Europe captive for centuries. The State was an army, the nobility its captains and generals, the king its commander-in-chief, the people its rank and file. As for the horde of laborers, they were hardly considered at all. They were the hewers of wood and drawers of water for the armed and fighting class, a base, down-trodden, enslaved multitude, destitute of rights and privileges, their only mission in the world to provide food for and pay taxes to their masters, and often doomed to starve in the midst of the food which their labor produced.

    France, the country in which the Feudal system had its birth, was the country in which it had the longest lease of life. It came down to the verge of the nineteenth century with little relief from its terrible exactions. We see before us in that country the spectacle of a people steeped in misery, crushed by tyranny, robbed of all political rights, and without a voice to make their sufferings known; and of an aristocracy lapped in luxury, proud, vain, insolent, lavish with the people’s money, ruthless with the people’s blood, and blind to the spectre of retribution which rose higher year by year before their eyes.

    One or two statements must suffice to show the frightful injustice that prevailed. The nobility and the Church, those who held the bulk of the wealth of the community, were relieved of all taxation, the whole burden of which fell upon the mercantile and laboring classes—an unfair exaction that threatened to crush industry out of existence. And to picture the condition of the peasantry, the tyranny of the feudal customs, it will serve to repeat the oft-told tale of the peasants who, after their day’s hard labor in the fields, were forced to beat the ponds all night long in order to silence the croaking of the frogs that disturbed some noble lady’s slumbers. Nothing need be added to these two instances to show the oppression under which the people of France lay during the long era of Feudalism.

    The Climax of Feudalism in France

    This era of injustice and oppression reached its climax in the closing years of the eighteenth century, and went down at length in that hideous nightmare of blood and terror known as the French Revolution. Frightful as this was, it was unavoidable. The pride and privilege of the aristocracy had the people by the throat, and only the sword or the guillotine could loosen their hold. In this terrible instance the guillotine did the work.

    It was the need of money for the spendthrift throne that precipitated the Revolution. For years the indignation of the people had been growing and spreading; for years the authors of the nation had been adding fuel to the flame. The voices of Voltaire, Rousseau and a dozen others had been heard in advocacy of the rights of man, and the people were growing daily more restive under their load. But still the lavish waste of money wrung from the hunger and sweat of the people went on, until the king and his advisers found their coffers empty and were without hope of filling them without a direct appeal to the nation at large.

    The States General is Convened

    It was in 1788 that the fatal step was taken. Louis XVI, King of France, called a session of the States General, the Parliament of the kingdom, which had not met for more than a hundred years. This body was composed of three classes, the representatives of the nobility, of the church, and of the people. In all earlier instances they had been docile to the mandate of the throne, and the monarch, blind to the signs of the times, had no thought but that this assembly would vote him the money he asked for, fix by law a system of taxation for his future supply, and dissolve at his command.

    He was ignorant of the temper of the people. They had been given a voice at last, and were sure to take the opportunity to speak their mind. Their representatives, known as the Third Estate, were made up of bold, earnest, indignant men, who asked for bread and were not to be put off with a crust. They were twice as numerous as the representatives of the nobles and the clergy, and thus held control of the situation. They were ready to support the throne, but refused to vote a penny until the crying evils of the State were reformed. They broke loose from the other two Estates, established a separate parliament under the name of the National Assembly, and begun that career of revolution which did not cease until it had brought monarchy to an end in France and set all Europe aflame.

    The Fall of the Bastille

    The court sought to temporize with the engine of destruction which it had called into existence, prevaricated, played fast and loose, and with every false move riveted the fetters of revolution more tightly round its neck. In July, 1789, the people of Paris took a hand in the game. They rose and destroyed the Bastille, that grim and terrible State prison into which so many of the best and noblest of France had been cast at the pleasure of the monarch and his ministers, and which the people looked upon as the central fortress of their oppression and woe.

    With the fall of the Bastille discord everywhere broke loose, the spirit of the Revolution spread from Paris through all France, and the popular Assembly, now the sole law-making body of the State, repealed the oppressive laws of which the people complained, and with a word overturned abuses many of which were a thousand years old. It took from the nobles their titles and privileges, and reduced them to the rank of simple citizens. It confiscated the vast landed estates of the church, which embraced nearly one-third of France. It abolished the tithes and the unequal taxes, which had made the clergy and nobles rich and the people poor. At a later date, in the madness of reaction, it enthroned the Goddess of Reason and sought to abolish religion and all the time-honored institutions of the past.

    The Revolution grew, month by month and day by day. New and more radical laws were passed; moss-grown abuses were swept away in an hour’s sitting; the king, who sought to escape, was seized and held as a hostage; and war was boldly declared against Austria and Prussia, which showed a disposition to interfere. In November, 1792, the French army gained a brilliant victory at Jemmapes, in Belgium, which eventually led to the conquest of that kingdom by France. It was the first important event in the career of victory which in the coming years was to make France glorious in the annals of war.

    MARIE ANTOINETTE LED TO EXECUTION

    The hapless wife of Louis XVI, of France, imprisoned during the Revolution in the prisons of the Temple and Conciergerie, separated from her family and friends, and treated to great indignities, died at length under the knife of the guillotine, October 16, 1793.

    THE BATTLE OF RIVOLI

    Rivoli is a village of Venetia, Italy, on the western bank of the Adige; population, about 1,000. On January 14 and 15, 1797, Napoleon Bonaparte here, in his first campaign as commander-in-chief, gained a great victory over the Austrians commanded by Alvinczy, who lost 20,000 prisoners.

    King and Queen Under the Guillotine

    The hostility of the surrounding nations added to the revolutionary fury in France. Armies were marching to the rescue of the king, and the unfortunate monarch was seized, reviled and insulted by the mob, and incarcerated in the prison called the Temple. The queen, Marie Antoinette, daughter of the Emperor of Austria, was likewise haled from the palace to the prison. In the following year, 1793, king and queen alike were taken to the guillotine and their royal heads fell into the fatal basket. The Revolution was consummated, the monarchy was at an end, France had fallen into the hands of the people, and from them it descended into the hands of a ruthless and blood-thirsty mob.

    The Reign of Terror

    At the head of this mob of revolutionists stood three men, Danton, Marat, and Robespierre, the triumvirate of the Reign of Terror, under which all safety ceased in France, and all those against whom the least breath of suspicion arose were crowded into prison, from which hosts of them made their way to the dreadful knife of the guillotine. Multitudes of the rich and noble had fled from France, among them Lafayette, the friend and aid of Washington in the American Revolution, and Talleyrand, the acute statesman who was to play a prominent part in later French history.

    Marat, the most savage of the triumvirate, was slain in July, 1793, by the knife of Charlotte Corday, a young woman of pious training, who offered herself as the instrument of God for the removal of this infamous monster. His death rather added to than stayed the tide of blood, and in April, 1794, Danton, who sought to check its flow, fell a victim to his ferocious associate. But the Reign of Terror was nearing its end. In July the Assembly awoke from its stupor of fear, Robespierre was denounced, seized, and executed, and the frightful carnival of bloodshed came to an end. The work of the National Assembly had been fully consummated; Feudalism was at an end, monarchy in France had ceased, and a republic had taken its place, and a new era for Europe had dawned.

    The Wars of the French Revolution

    Meanwhile a foreign war was being waged. England had formed a coalition with most of the nations of Europe, and France was threatened by land with the troops of Holland, Prussia, Austria, Spain and Portugal, and by sea with the fleet of Great Britain. The incompetency of her assailants saved her from destruction. Her generals who lost battles were sent to prison or to the guillotine, the whole country rose as one man in defence, and a number of brilliant victories drove her enemies from her borders and gave the armies of France a position beyond the Rhine.

    These wars soon brought a great man to the front, Napoleon Bonaparte, a son of Corsica, with whose nineteenth century career we shall deal at length in the following chapters, but of whose earlier exploits something must be said here. His career fairly began in 1794, when, under the orders of the National Convention—the successor of the National Assembly—he quelled the mob in the streets of Paris with loaded cannon and put a final end to the Terror which had so long prevailed.

    Placed at the head of the French army in Italy, he quickly astonished the world by a series of the most brilliant victories, defeating the Austrians and the Sardinians wherever he met them, seizing Venice, the city of the lagoon, and forcing almost all Italy to submit to his arms. A republic was established here and a new one in Switzerland, while Belgium and the left bank of the Rhine were held by France.

    Napoleon in Italy and Egypt.

    His wars here at an end, Napoleon’s ambition led him to Egypt, inspired by great designs which he failed to realize. In his absence anarchy arose in France. The five Directors, then at the head of the Government, had lost all authority, and Napoleon, who had unexpectedly returned, did not hesitate to overthrow them and the Assembly which supported them. A new government, with three Consuls at its head, was formed, Napoleon as First Consul holding almost royal power. Thus France stood in 1800, at the end of the Eighteenth Century.

    England as a Centre of Industry and Commerce.

    In the remainder of Europe there was nothing to compare with the momentous convulsion which had taken place in France. England had gone through its two revolutions more than a century before, and its people were the freest of any in Europe. Recently it had lost its colonies in America, but it still held in that continent the broad domain of Canada, and was building for itself a new empire in India, while founding colonies in twenty other lands. In commerce and manufactures it entered the nineteenth century as the greatest nation on the earth. The hammer and the loom resounded from end to end of the island, mighty centres of industry arose where cattle had grazed a century before, coal and iron were being torn in great quantities from the depths of the earth, and there seemed everywhere an endless bustle and whirr. The ships of England haunted all seas and visited the most remote ports, laden with the products of her workshops and bringing back raw material for her factories and looms. Wealth accumulated, London became the money market of the world, the riches and prosperity of the island kingdom were growing to be a parable among the nations of the earth.

    On the continent of Europe, Prussia, which has now grown so great, had recently emerged from its mediæval feebleness, mainly under the powerful hand of Frederick the Great, whose reign extended until 1786, and whose ambition, daring, and military genius made him a fitting predecessor of Napoleon the Great, who so soon succeeded him in the annals of war. Unscrupulous in his aims, this warrior king had torn Silesia from Austria, added to his kingdom a portion of unfortunate Poland, annexed the principality of East Friesland, and lifted Prussia into a leading position among the European states.

    The Condition of the German States

    Germany, now—with the exception of Austria—a compact empire, was then a series of disconnected states, variously known as kingdoms, principalities, margravates, electorates, and by other titles, the whole forming the so-called Holy Empire, though it was neither holy nor an empire. It had drifted down in this fashion from the Middle Ages, and the work of consolidation had but just begun, in the conquests of Frederick the Great. A host of petty potentates ruled the land, whose states, aside from Prussia and Austria, were too weak to have a voice in the councils of Europe. Joseph II., the titular emperor of Germany, made an earnest and vigorous effort to combine its elements into a powerful unit; but he signally failed, and died in 1790, a disappointed and embittered man.

    Austria, then far the most powerful of the German states, was from 1740 to 1780 under the reign of a woman, Maria Theresa, who struggled in vain against her ambitious neighbor, Frederick the Great, his kingdom being extended ruthlessly at the expense of her imperial dominions. Austria remained a great country, however, including Bohemia and Hungary among its domains. It was lord of Lombardy and Venice in Italy, and was destined to play an important but unfortunate part in the coming Napoleonic wars.

    Dissension in Italy and Decay in Spain

    The peninsula of Italy, the central seat of the great Roman Empire, was, at the opening of the nineteenth century, as sadly broken up as Germany, a dozen weak states taking the place of the one strong one that the good of the people demanded. The independent cities of the mediæval period no longer held sway, and we hear no more of wars between Florence, Genoa, Milan, Pisa and Rome; but the country was still made up of minor states—Lombardy, Venice and Sardinia in the north, Naples in the south, Rome in the centre, and various smaller kingdoms and dukedoms between. The peninsula was a prey to turmoil and dissension. Germany and France had made it their fighting ground for centuries, Spain had filled the south with her armies, and the country had been miserably torn and rent by these frequent wars and those between state and state, and was in a condition to welcome the coming of Napoleon, whose strong hand for the time promised the blessing of peace and union.

    Spain, not many centuries before the greatest nation in Europe, and, as such, the greatest nation on the globe, had miserably declined in power and place at the opening of the nineteenth century. Under the emperor Charles I. it had been united with Germany, while its colonies embraced two-thirds of the great continent of America. Under Philip II. it continued powerful in Europe, but with his death its decay set in. Intolerance checked its growth in civilization, the gold brought from America was swept away by more enterprising states, its strength was sapped by a succession of feeble monarchs, and from first place it fell into a low rank among the nations of Europe. It still held its vast colonial area, but this proved a source of weakness rather than of strength, and the people of the colonies, exasperated by injustice and oppression, were ready for the general revolt which was soon to take place. Spain presented the aspect of a great nation ruined by its innate vices, impoverished by official venality and the decline of industry, and fallen into the dry rot of advancing decay.

    The Partition of Poland by the Robber Nations.

    Of the nations of Europe which had once played a prominent part, one was on the point of being swept from the map. The name of Poland, which formerly stood for a great power, now stands only for a great crime. The misrule of the kings, the turbulence of the nobility, and the enslavement of the people had brought that state into such a condition of decay that it lay like a rotten log amid the powers of Europe.

    The ambitious nations surrounding—Russia, Austria, and Prussia—took advantage of its weakness, and in 1772 each of them seized the portion of Poland that bordered on its own territories. In the remainder of the kingdom the influence of Russia grew so great that the Russian ambassador at Warsaw became the real ruler in Poland. A struggle against Russia began in 1792, Kosciusko, a brave soldier who had fought under Washington in America, being at the head of the patriots. But the weakness of the king tied the hands of the soldiers, the Polish patriots left their native land in despair, and in the following year Prussia and Russia made a further division of the state, Russia seizing a broad territory with more than 3,000,000 inhabitants.

    In 1794 a new outbreak began. The patriots returned and a desperate struggle took place. But Poland was doomed. Suvoroff, the greatest of the Russian generals, swept the land with fire and sword. Kosciusko fell wounded, crying, Poland’s end has come, and Warsaw was taken and desolated by its assailants. The patriot was right; the end had come. What remained of Poland was divided up between Austria, Prussia, and Russia, and only a name remained.

    Russia and Turkey.

    There are two others of the powers of Europe of which we must speak, Russia and Turkey. Until the seventeenth century Russia had been a domain of barbarians, weak and disunited, and for a long period the vassal of the savage Mongol conquerors of Asia. Under Peter the Great (1689–1725) it rose into power and prominence, took its place among civilized states, and began that career of conquest and expansion which is still going on. At the end of the eighteenth century it was under the rule of Catharine II., often miscalled Catharine the Great, who died in 1796, just as Napoleon was beginning his career. Her greatness lay in the ability of her generals, who defeated Turkey and conquered the Crimea, and who added the greater part of Poland to her empire. Her strength of mind and decision of character were not shared by her successor, Paul I., and Russia entered the nineteenth century under the weakest sovereign of the Romanoff line.

    Turkey, once the terror of Europe, and sending its armies into the heart of Austria, was now confined within the boundaries it had long before won, and had begun its long struggle for existence with its powerful neighbor, Russia. At the beginning of the nineteenth century it was still a powerful state, with a wide domain in Europe, and continued to defy the Christians who coveted its territory and sought its overthrow. But the canker-worm of a weak and barbarous government was at its heart, while its cruel treatment of its Christian subjects exasperated the strong powers of Europe and invited their armed interference.

    As regards the world outside of Europe and America, no part of it had yet entered the circle of modern civilization. Africa was an almost unknown continent; Asia was little better known; and the islands of the Eastern seas were still in process of discovery. Japan, which was approaching its period of manumission from barbarism, was still closed to the world, and China lay like a huge and helpless bulk, fast in the fetters of conservatism and blind self-sufficiency.


    CHAPTER II.

    Napoleon Bonaparte; The Man of Destiny.

    Table of Contents

    The first fifteen years of the nineteenth century in Europe yield us the history of a man, rather than of a continent. France was the centre of Europe; Napoleon, the Corsican, was the centre of France. All the affairs of all the nations seemed to gather around this genius of war. He was respected, feared, hated; he had risen with the suddenness of a thundercloud on a clear horizon, and flashed the lightnings of victory in the dazzled eyes of the nations. All the events of the period were concentrated into one great event, and the name of that event was Napoleon. He seemed incarnate war, organized destruction; sword in hand he dominated the nations, and victory sat on his banners with folded wings. He was, in a full sense, the man of destiny, and Europe was his prey.

    A Remarkable Man and a Wonderful Career

    Never has there been a more wonderful career. The earlier great conquerors began life at the top; Napoleon began his at the bottom. Alexander was a king; Cæsar was an aristocrat of the Roman republic; Napoleon rose from the people, and was not even a native of the land which became the scene of his exploits. Pure force of military genius lifted him from the lowest to the highest place among mankind, and for long and terrible years Europe shuddered at his name and trembled beneath the tread of his marching legions. As for France, he brought it glory, and left it ruin and dismay.

    We have briefly epitomized Napoleon’s early career, his doings in the Revolution, in Italy, and in Egypt, unto the time that France’s worship of his military genius raised him to the rank of First Consul, and gave him in effect the power of a king. No one dared question his word, the army was at his beck and call, the nation lay prostrate at his feet—not in fear but in admiration. Such was the state of affairs in France in the closing year of the eighteenth century. The Revolution was at an end; the Republic existed only as a name; Napoleon was the autocrat of France and the terror of Europe. From this point we resume the story of his career.

    The Enemies and Friends of France.

    The First Consul began his reign with two enemies in the field, England and Austria. Prussia was neutral, and he had won the friendship of Paul, the emperor of Russia, by a shrewd move. While the other nations refused to exchange the Russian prisoners they held, Napoleon sent home 6,000 of these captives, newly clad and armed, under their own leaders, and without demanding ransom. This was enough to win to his side the weak-minded Paul, whose delight in soldiers he well knew.

    Napoleon now had but two enemies in arms to deal with. He wrote letters to the king of England and the emperor of Austria, offering peace. The answers were cold and insulting, asking France to take back her Bourbon kings and return to her old boundaries. Nothing remained but war. Napoleon prepared for it with his usual rapidity, secrecy, and keenness of judgment.

    There were two French armies in the field in the spring of 1800, Moreau commanding in Germany, Massena in Italy. Switzerland, which was occupied by the French, divided the armies of the enemy, and Napoleon determined to take advantage of the separation of their forces, and strike an overwhelming blow. He sent word to Moreau and Massena to keep the enemy in check at any cost, and secretly gathered a third army, whose corps were dispersed here and there, while the powers of Europe were aware only of the army of reserve at Dijon, made up of conscripts and invalids.

    Movements of the Armies in Germany and Italy

    Meanwhile the armies in Italy and Germany were doing their best to obey orders. Massena was attacked by the Austrians before he could concentrate his troops, his army was cut in two, and he was forced to fall back upon Genoa, in which city he was closely besieged, with a fair prospect of being conquered by starvation if not soon relieved. Moreau was more fortunate. He defeated the Austrians in a series of battles and drove them back on Ulm, where he blockaded them in their camp. All was ready for the great movement which Napoleon had in view.

    Twenty centuries before Hannibal had led his army across the great mountain barrier of the Alps, and poured down like an avalanche upon the fertile plains of Italy. The Corsican determined to repeat this brilliant achievement and emulate Hannibal’s career. Several passes across the mountains seemed favorable to his purpose, especially those of the St. Bernard, the Simplon and Mont Cenis. Of these the first was the most difficult; but it was much the shorter, and Napoleon determined to lead the main body of his army over this ice-covered mountain pass, despite its dangers and difficulties. The enterprise was one to deter any man less bold than Hannibal or Napoleon, but it was welcome to the hardihood and daring of these men, who rejoiced in the seemingly impossible and spurned at hardships and perils.

    Napoleon Crosses the Alps at St. Bernard Pass

    The task of the Corsican was greater than that of the Carthaginian. He had cannon to transport, while Hannibal’s men carried only swords and spears. But the genius of Napoleon was equal to the task. The cannon were taken from their carriages and placed in the hollowed-out trunks of trees, which could be dragged with ropes over the ice and snow. Mules were used to draw the gun-carriages and the wagon-loads of food and munitions of war. Stores of provisions had been placed at suitable points along the road.

    Thus prepared, Napoleon, on the 16th of May, 1800, began his remarkable march, while smaller divisions of the army were sent over the Simplon, the St. Gothard and Mont Cenis passes. It was an arduous enterprise. The mules proved unequal to the task given to them; the peasants refused to aid in this severe work; the soldiers were obliged to harness themselves to the cannon, and drag them by main strength over the rocky and ice-covered mountain path. The First Consul rode on a mule at the head of the rear-guard, serene and cheerful, chatting with his guide as with a friend, and keeping up the courage of the soldiers by his own indomitable spirit.

    A few hours’ rest at the hospice of St. Bernard, and the descent was begun, an enterprise even more difficult than the ascent. For five days the dread journey continued, division following division, corps succeeding corps. The point of greatest peril was reached at Aosta, where, on a precipitous rock, stood the little Austrian fort of Bard, its artillery commanding the narrow defile.

    It was night when the vanguard reached this threatening spot. It was passed in dead silence, tow being wrapped round the wheels of the carriages and a layer of straw and refuse spread on the frozen ground, while the troops followed a narrow path over the neighboring mountains. By daybreak the passage was made and the danger at an end.

    The Situation in Italy

    The sudden appearance of the French in Italy was an utter surprise to the Austrians. They descended like a torrent into the valley, seized Ivry, and five days after reaching Italy met and repulsed an Austrian force. The divisions which had crossed by other passes one by one joined Napoleon. Melas, the Austrian commander, was warned of the danger that impended, but refused to credit the seemingly preposterous story. His men were scattered, some besieging Massena, in Genoa, some attacking Suchet on the Var. His danger was imminent, for Napoleon, leaving Massena to starve in Genoa, had formed the design of annihilating the Austrian army at one tremendous blow.

    NAPOLEON CROSSING THE ALPS

    The renowned exploit of Hannibal leading an army across the lofty and frozen passes of the Alps, was emulated by Napoleon in 1800, when he led his army across the St. Bernard Pass, descended like a torrent on the Austrians in Italy, and defeated them in the great battle of Marengo.

    NAPOLEON AND THE MUMMY OF PHARAOH

    Strange thoughts must have passed through the mind of him soon to be Emperor of France, in gazing on the shriveled form of one of the great monarchs of old Egypt. Did he not ask himself then: what are glory and power worth, if this is the end of kingly greatness?

    The people of Lombardy, weary of the Austrian yoke, and hoping for liberty under the rule of France, received the new-comers with transport, and lent them what aid they could. On June 9th, Marshall Lannes met and defeated the Austrians at Montebello, after a hot engagement. I heard the bones crackle like a hailstorm on the roofs, he said. On the 14th, the two armies met on the plain of Marengo, and one of the most famous of Napoleon’s battles began.

    The Famous Field of Marengo

    Napoleon was not ready for the coming battle, and was taken by surprise. He had been obliged to break up his army in order to guard all the passages open to the enemy. When he entered, on the 13th, the plain between the Scrivia and the Bormida, near the little village of Marengo, he was ignorant of the movements of the Austrians, and was not expecting the onset of Melas, who, on the following morning, crossed the Bormida by three bridges, and made a fierce assault upon the divisions of generals Victor and Lannes. Victor was vigorously attacked and driven back, and Marengo was destroyed by the Austrian cannon. Lannes was surrounded by overwhelming numbers, and, fighting furiously, was forced to retreat. In the heat of the battle Bonaparte reached the field with his guard and his staff, and found himself in the thick of the terrific affray and his army virtually beaten.

    The retreat continued. It was impossible to check it. The enemy pressed enthusiastically forward. The army was in imminent danger of being cut in two. But Napoleon, with obstinate persistence, kept up the fight, hoping for some change in the perilous situation. Melas, on the contrary,—an old man, weary of his labors, and confident in the seeming victory,—withdrew to his headquarters at Alessandria, whence he sent off despatches to the effect that the terrible Corsican had at length met defeat.

    He did not know his man. Napoleon sent an aide-de-camp in all haste after Desaix, one of his most trusted generals, who had just returned from Egypt, and whose corps he had detached towards Novi. All depended upon his rapid return. Without Desaix the battle was lost. Fortunately the alert general did not wait for the messenger. His ears caught the sound of distant cannon and, scenting danger, he marched back with the utmost speed.

    Napoleon met his welcome officer with eyes of joy and hope. You see the situation, he said, rapidly explaining the state of affairs. What is to be done?

    A Great Battle Lost and Won

    It is a lost battle, Desaix replied. But there are some hours of daylight yet. We have time to win another.

    While he talked with the commander, his regiments had hastily formed, and now presented a threatening front to the Austrians. Their presence gave new spirit to the retreating troops.

    Soldiers and friends, cried Napoleon to them, remember that it is my custom to sleep upon the field of battle.

    Back upon their foes turned the retreating troops, with new animation, and checked the victorious Austrians. Desaix hurried to his men and placed himself at their head.

    Go and tell the First Consul that I am about to charge, he said to an aide. I need to be supported by cavalry.

    A few minutes afterwards, as he was leading his troops irresistibly forward, a ball struck him in the breast, inflicting a mortal wound. I have been too long making war in Africa; the bullets of Europe know me no more, he sadly said. Conceal my death from the men; it might rob them of spirit.

    The soldiers had seen him fall, but, instead of being dispirited, they were filled with fury, and rushed forward furiously to avenge their beloved leader. At the same time Kellermann arrived with his dragoons, impetuously hurled them upon the Austrian cavalry, broke through their columns, and fell upon the grenadiers who were wavering before the troops of Desaix. It was a death-stroke. The cavalry and infantry together swept them back in a disorderly retreat. One whole corps, hopeless of escape, threw down its arms and surrendered. The late victorious army was everywhere in retreat. The Austrians were crowded back upon the Bormida, here blocking the bridges, there flinging themselves into the stream, on all sides flying from the victorious French. The cannon stuck in the muddy stream and were left to the victors. When Melas, apprised of the sudden change in the aspect of affairs, hurried back in dismay to the field, the battle was irretrievably lost, and General Zach, his representative in command, was a prisoner in the hands of the French. The field was strewn with thousands of the dead. The slain Desaix and the living Kellermann had turned the Austrian victory into defeat and saved Napoleon.

    The Result of the Victory of Marengo

    A few days afterwards, on the 19th, Moreau in Germany won a brilliant victory at Hochstadt, near Blenheim, took 5,000 prisoners and twenty pieces of cannon, and forced from the Austrians an armed truce which left him master of South Germany. A still more momentous armistice was signed by Melas in Italy, by which the Austrians surrendered Piedmont, Lombardy, and all their territory as far as the Mincio, leaving France master of Italy. Melas protested against these severe terms, but Napoleon was immovable.

    I did not begin to make war yesterday, he said. I know your situation. You are out of provisions, encumbered with the dead, wounded, and sick, and surrounded on all sides. I could exact everything. I ask only what the situation of affairs demands. I have no other terms to offer.

    Napoleon Returns to France

    During the night of the 2d and 3d of July, Napoleon re-entered Paris, which he had left less than two months before. Brilliant ovations met him on his route, and all France would have prostrated itself at his feet had he permitted. He came crowned with the kind of glory which is especially dear to the French, that gained on field of battle.

    Five months afterwards, Austria having refused to make peace without the concurrence of England, and the truce being at an end, another famous victory was added to the list of those which were being inscribed upon the annals of France. On the 3d of December the veterans under Moreau met an Austrian army under the Archduke John, on the plain of Hohenlinden, across which ran the small river Iser.

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