The law in question did not apply to Guadeloupe, Guyane, or other colonies despite rogue generals and other authoritative officials using its connotation of peace and order in order to beguile the people and put slavery back in business throughout some of the lands. Although this law does not explicitly give rebirth to slavery, it reinstated the slave trade that came and went into the Caribbean colonies.
Under the general named Leclerc, Napoleon designed and sent an expedition with the sole goal of taking back control over the Saint-Dominique. They did not succeed in capturing Touissant Louveture because of the high influx of illness throughout the entire army of the French. Later after this, in the year 1803, the remaining members of the French fleet decided to leave the island. Thereafter, the slaves declared an independent republic that they chose to call “Haiti” in the year 1804.
Napoleon saw that his efforts in colonization were rusty and failing, so he sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States of America in 1803. This alone doubled the size of USA. The historical records showed that the money Napoleon got for Louisiana was just about three cents each acre, and totaled fifteen million dollars.
The so-called peace era was saturated with intrigue and tension because Britain did not even manage to keep true to their promises. Unlike what they formerly agreed upon, Britain did not evacuate Malta. Instead, they birthed protests against the annexation of Piedmont and Act of Mediation by Napoleon, which founded a brand new Swiss Confederation. The territories in question were not covered by the Treaty of Amiens, but they surely ignited controversy among the whole of Europe. The tension that brewed reached an all-time high when Britain finally declared war in May 1803. This declaration was promptly met by Napoleon. His response was gathering an invasion camp at Boulogne.
Napoleon encountered various assassination plots during the Consulate, royalist and Jacobin alike. These plots included the Conspiration des poignards or the Dagger plot in October of 1800 and two months after, came the Plot of Rue Saint-Nicaise which is also known as the Infernal Machine . In the year 1804, the authorities and the police discovered another assassination plot against Napoleon, which involved Moreau and was unashamedly supported by the Bourbon family, an affluent family of former French rulers. Following Talleyrand’s technical advice, Napoleon had the Duke of Enghien kidnapped. This action violated the sovereignty of Baden. After a clandestine military trial, the Duke was quickly killed despite not having been involved in the assassination plot. This exacerbated many royal courts’ fury all throughout Europe, and became a crucial factor that started the Napoleonic Wars.
Napoleon used these plots to his advantage by using them as springboards to power. He used the plots to expand his power by creating an imperial system founded upon the Roman model. He held the belief that restoring the Bourbon’s power will be so much difficult if the succession of their family was still embedded in the threads of the constitution. In the year 1804, he was proclaimed as the Emperor of France when he launched another referendum. Just like with the votation for his being the forever consulate, this particular election brought out about three million and six hundred people to participate in the votation.
His coronation was in December of the same year.With the same flair for drama that Napoleon very much preferred, two different crowns were brought just for the ceremony itself, namely a laurel wreath of gold that recalled the Roman Empire by its very design and an exact replica of Charlemagne’s crown. During his entrance and all throughout the ceremony’s proceedings, Napoleon had worn the laurel wreath, and for the official coronation, he had raised the Charlemagne crown over his own head. He only hovered it over his head as a symbolic gesture but did not settle it atop his head because he did not take off the golden wreath. Instead, he put the Charlemagne crown over his wife Josephine’s head. The event was commemorated through Jacques-Louis David’s officially sanctioned painting. Aside from being crowned as the Emperor of France, Napoleon was also crowned King of Italy. Another separate ceremony at the Cathedral of Milan took place and crowned him with the Iron Crown of Lombardy on May of the year 1805. Then, he managed to create eighteen Marshals of the Empire that were plucked directly from his most stellar generals. He did this to secure the army’s allegiance to him.
In 1803, war broke again between France and Britain, with Britain declaring a war against France, thus bringing an end to the peace of Amiens. In the next year, an Anglo-Swedish agreement paved way for the Third Coalition to take place. By the year 1805, Britain had listed Russia as its ally. Much later, because France had defeated Austria twice and was in for a exacting their vengeance, the latter country also joined the coalition.
Before the Third Coalition was formed, Napoleon had already brought together an invasion force called the Armee d’Angleterre composed of about six camps at Boulogne in the norther part of France. His sole intentions for using this invasion force was to ultimately strike against England. The country did not invade, but Napoleon had already briefed his troops and gave them meticulous training and invaluable strategy for some foreseen and much anticipated military operations. The troops in Boulogne composed what would Napoleon later call La Grande Armee. In the very beginning, this French army was comprised of about two hundred thousand men and were divvied up into a total of seven corps. They were each a large field unit that included around more or less forty cannons that were entirely capable of acting independently until other corps could come to back them up. Every corps that was planted properly along a strong position of defense was trained and honed to survive at least a whole day without needing another corps’ support. This afforded numerous tactical and strategic for La Grande Armee on each campaign. Napoleon also equipped a cavalry reserve of over twenty thousand, organized into two cuirassier divisions, one light cavalry, four mounted dragoon divisions, all of which were supported by twenty four artillery pieces. La Grande Arme expanded continuously, and in 1805 it had a total of three hundred and fifty thousand men who were led by the most competent generals and individually well prepared and well trained.
Part of being a great leader was having a complete sense of self-awareness. Thus, Napoleon thought over his army and navy strengths and weaknesses before proceeding. While his army was undoubtedly ready for action, he admitted that his navy fleet would not be able to hold against the royal navy in a full force battle. Hence, he devised strategies and laid out diversionary tactics so that it will be lured away from the English Channel. Napoleon’s main strategy was for the French Navy to escape from the British blockades of Toulon and Brest while they threatened to exert their offensive forces against the West Indies. What Napoleon hoped for this attack was to weaken the defenses of the Western Approaches as he went over with this plan of attack. He was hoping he would accomplish this through sending ships to the Caribbean and to allow a combined French and Spanish fleet to take over the channel just so the French armies could cross the channel and proceed with the invasion.
However, Napoleon’s plans were foiled shortly after the British victory at the Battle of Cape Finisterre when a French Admiral named Villenueve decided to retreat to Cadiz instead of meeting with the French navy at Brest so that they could supposedly proceed to attack the British forces in the English channel.
Upon the beginning of August, Napoleon slowly put together that the strategies and plans he had laid out had not been followed accurately and had drastically changed. Realizing that his continental enemies may be falling into his troops soon, he made a snap decision to turn the strategies around and attack his enemies first to give them the advantage of surprising the enemy. He turned his fleets and troops around from the English Channel to Rhine. His sole goal at this point was to annihilate the armies of Austria which were isolated in Southern Germany. Doing this, he also had a time pressure wielded against himself, for this task must be accomplished before Austria’s Russian allies could come to their rescue.
After great efforts in keeping their movements clandestine later on a fated day in September, two h
undred thousand French men started to move past the Rhine. The enemy’s commander, the Austrian Karl Mack brought the larger portion of the Austrian army together at Ulm’s fortress in Swabia. Napoleon then redirected his forces towards the southeastern territories. La Grande Armee then executed a complex strategic performance which ought to outdo the positions installed by the Austrian troops. What soon was dubbed as the Ulm Maneuver caught General Karl Mack completely off guard since the general found out too late that his own army had been sabotaged.
General Mack finally gave in and surrendered his army to Napoleon and La Grande Armee shortly after the Battle of Ulm in the latter part of the year 1805. This was because the general finally realized that it was practically impossible for his troops to triumph over the French armies’ strategic hold on them. In contrast with the French’s two thousand casualties, their Austrian enemies had thirty times that number as French’s now captives. Napoleon’s army managed to imprison all sixty thousand of these Austrian troops through rapid marching.
When the Ulm Campaign was concluded, this triumph was soon considered as a remarkable victory for the French. However, the taste of victory for them was short-lived for Great Britain’s royal navy was in total control over the waters. The British then won in the Battle of Trafalgar, and afterwards, Britain established their domination over all seas for the rest of the remaining time of the Napoleonic Wars.
This loss prompted Napoleon not to push through with his plans in colonizing England. Instead, he directed his forces against the other militaries of Austria and Russia. His troops won against both of these countries in Austerlitz.
Right after the Ulm Campaign, La Grande Armee managed to colonize Vienna one month after. Vienna’s fall benefitted the French greatly in terms of a huge bounty and weaponry; they got their hands on a hundred thousand muskets, five hundred cannons, and good as new bridges in the Danube.
Even the Holy Roman Emperor Francis II and Tsar Alexander I both agreed to face Napoleon in battle head-on during this critical point in time. These leaders decided on this despite hesitations expressed by their subordinates.
Napoleon sent La Grande Armee northward in order to resume battle with the allied forces, but eventually demanded for his forces to pull back so that he could execute an act to fake a crucial weakness since he became bloodthirsty into coaxing his enemies into a full battle. Napoleon supported his act and let it be known that his troops are in such a pathetic condition. He even went out of his way to abandon the Pratzen Heights near Austerlitz’ village. Then, during the Battle of Austerlitz that happened the next month in Moravia, he sent La Grande Armee below the Pratzen Heights and inconspicuously but intentionally made his right flank weaker, all the while with the ultimate goal of enticing the allied forces to direct their attacks towards where Napoleon wanted them to be. This move was risky, but if everything went well then Napoleon would play his enemies right into his hands, and this move will roll up the entire line of the French army. Then Marshal Davout and his III Corps from Vienna executed a forced march and promptly filled the crevices that Napoleon left. On the other hand, the allied forces’ attacks against the French’s right flank then weakned their forces on the Pratzen Heights because it was ruthlessly taken apart by Marshal Soult’s IV Corps. Upon the crumbling of the allied forces’ center, the French army easily fought against both enemy flanks. This strategic move sent these allied forces into a turmoil and scrambled for retreat. The French armies captured a handful of prisoners in the process. Soon, this victory will go down in the history books as a strategic masterpiece because of its incredibly risky yet almost perfect execution of the tactics.
The disaster that this Austerlitz battle brought forth for the allied forces made a remarkable dent in the faith of the Emperor Francis in the war movements carried out by the British. Meanwhile, the Treaty of Pressburg had been written on December. Right before this, France and Austria had already agreed immediately to a truce and a ceasefire. Pressburg eased Austria away from both the Coalition and the war while it reinforced the earlier written treaties, the Treaty of Campo Formio and the Treaty of Luneville. Pressburg confirmed that Austria lost its territories to France in Italy and Bavaria, and the territories in Germany to Napoleon’s allies in Germany. Also, it imposed official exception from financial payments over to the Habsburgs who were the defeated armies, and allowed the Russian soldiers to flee out of enemy soil and into their home turf safely.
Napoleon resumed his long-term plans and goals in creating a relationship that casts the French in a spotlight within the Middle East. He sought perhaps another alliance with the empire that resides in this part of the world, and with another ultimate goal which was to instill fear in Britain and Russia.
The empire in question was called the Ottoman empire, and its leader was Selim III. Ottoman’s emperor proceeded to declare its alliance with France. Because Selim was sweet-talked by Napoleon himself, he was none the wiser for what exactly had he signed up for when he pledged allegiance to the French. Little did he know that the fate waiting for his empire involved getting decimated by the combined British and Russian forces. Aside from the Ottoman empire, Napoleon also managed to get his hands into an alliance with a Franco-Persian empire and another with Fat’h-Ali Shah Qajar of the Persian Empire. Somehow, Russia also found itself as an ally to France eventually, and around this time, Napoleon’s newfound alliances with some Middle East countries started to fall into pieces. Unfortunately, he was not able to cement any alliances in the Middle Eastern countries at all.
In 1806, following his Austerlitz victory, Napoleon founded the Confederation of the Rhine. A myriad of German states was declared as buffer zones lying in between Central Europe and French territories. However, the creation of this particular confederation sent alarm bells to the Prussians and signified the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The French’s attempt at outrightly reorganizing the territories of the Germans spelled what could be seen as a threat or even possibly an elimination against Prussians’ influence in this region. Meanwhile, in Berlin, war fever had broken out and consistently rose throughout summer. Frederick William III was heavily advised by his wife Queen Louise and his supportive court to go to war in order to challenge France’s apparent domination of central Europe.
Napoleon’s raw drafts and blueprints of the military tactics started brewing by September of 1806. He wrote to Marshal Soult to narrate intricate details of his campaign and how he would plan to execute them. He described in full detail the basic features of his well thought out warfare. He also coined the term “le bataillon-carre” which means square battalion. This system will have different Grande Armee corps and these will come together to march forward and closely work with each other in near distances. This way, if a single corps were to be attacked, the other ones could immediately move into a new position and come to their aid. Napoleon proceeded to invade Prussia with a hundred and eighty thousand troops who quickly march on the right side of the River Saale.
Just like with his former campaigns, his core goal was to annihilate one enemy before aid could come for them and make the war uneven and unfavorable for his side. The French army promptly acted as soon as they learned where the Prussian army may be in. They marched to the west and crossed the River Saale. They beat the Prussians without question during the simultaneous battles of Jena and Auerstedt on October, and they also inflicted wounds upon their enemy army that were hard to recover from. Therefore, the Prussian king became incapacitated when his metaphorical limbs were cut, limbs pertaining to crucial members of his army such as the commanders. Once his situation had him cornered, he began to fail at being an effective leader to his army. This led to the Prussians’ eventual and imminent downfall. During this juncture, the French army was able to hold a hundred and forty enemy soldiers captive. All in a single month, they were also able to acquire two thousand cannons and a huge amount of ammunition wagons. However, the Prussians were not an acquiescing army. They refused to make any kind of deals with the Fren
ch up until the Russians finally joined their fight.
After this notable victory, Napoleon implemented the first few factors of the Continental System through the issuance of the Berlin Decree in November of 1806. The Continental System prevented the nations from all over Europe to continue their trades with Britain, but this system was vastly neglected and thus violated all throughout his term. Over the next weeks, Napoleon raged a battle and marched through Poland against the approaching armies of Russia. Then in February of 1807, he was enveloped in a stalemate which took too much casualties during the Battle of Eylau.
Both forces had to regroup and re-gather their resources to prepare for the next battles. They allowed themselves to indulge in some months of rest, and they only resumed battle again in the hot month of June. They met again in Heilsburg but still the results of their battle remained inconclusive. It was only in the second week of June that Napoleon finally achieved quite a triumph against Russians. He achieved this feat during the Battle of Friedland, where his troops managed to sweep out a large part of the army of the Russians, albeit with a not-so-ideal amount of casualties. Napoleon and his French army’s victory was too great that it was enough to convince the Russians to agree to an armistice with the French. Shortly after their defeat, Czar Alexander sought Napoleon out for a truce. Napoleon then sent a message back to the czar saying that the Vistula River was a neutral border for both the French and the Russians. Once the czar got this message, he agreed to begin negotiating for peace in the town of Tilsit after they meet on River Niemen. Allegedly, upon meeting, Czar Alexander’s very first words to Napoleon involved making it clear that he loathed the English just as much as Napoleon did.
Confusion, Confession and Conviction Page 27