The Joke Is You Have to Read this Now

Pictures coming soon to a multiple-day late filibuster near you. 

Napolean Specific

Why did people like Napoleon?

1. On a national scale, Napolean was popular as he stabilized the government and economy and made France into a great Empire.
2. On a more personal level, the different classes of France liked Napolean for different reasons.
1. He "reconfirmed the gains of the peasantry" which were made during the French Revolution when the public was given more land and status than was historically standard. 
2. Napolean also "reassured the middle class" by establishing the Civil Code of 1804 which granted all male citizens equality before the law and absolute security of wealth and property. 
3. He also gained the favor of French elites by exchanging royal favors and pardons for their loyal service, acknowledging the elites' hand in sovereignty and thus avoiding domestic conflict. 
3. On an intellectual level, French society might generally have liked Napolean for his synthesis of liberal and conservative theories of government. He not only gave rights and power to the Third Estate but also centralized the country based on political developments of the Old Regime.

How did Napoleon keep the people nationalistic?

• Nationalism is a loyalty and pride in one's country with the belief that it is better and more important than other countries. On a large scale, nationalism derives from the identification of a people with a common cultural identity exclusive to their shared country. People usually identify with each other when they share a common history, language, writing system, or social class- but when a nation has a very diverse cultural setting or unstable political climate as was the case with the French Empire during Napolean's reign, then that nation's leadership must take an active role in maintaining nationalistic attitudes. Nationalism is a useful tool for leaders as it unites public opinion in such a way that it can be more easily manipulated and distracts the public from internal problem's arising from leadership ambitions. 

1. Napolean was an example of a leader who used nationalism to his advantage. He recognized the areas where the public was unhappy after the revolution, so gave into their demands just enough that they would be de-radicalized, but not enough that it would threaten the rule he was trying to establish. People naturally tend to favor order and though the estates of France did not get every important governmental change they wanted, because Napolean was able to consolidate and thus simplify politics while also allowing them some breathing room to work for better lifestyles, the people of France came to be loyal to him. 
2. He was able to draw out this contentment and make the best of the public's loyalty by distracting them with war. Foreign enemies were the perfect scapegoats for the problems of the state, they were alien in their lack of cultural connections with the state's identity and so could be used as sink holes for the public's negative emotions.  War often brings about wealth in capitalistic countries and requires immense cooperation to undergo, forcing people to devote their attention to it in order to ensure their own lively-hood. It requires that men leave their country to fight, and as intellectual culture and politics were exclusively male-dominated eras of society, The Napoleonic wars left few behind to question the direction of leadership
3. Napolean also kept up nationalism by severely weakening the power of the Church,  that body whose influence was felt in all aspects of the average life during this time and whose schisms and political squabbles often rocked France at its foundations. He was able to do this by getting the Papacy to agree to the Concordat of 1801which established:
• Napolean's right to nominate bishops and control Church finances within France 
• A redistribution of established French bishoprics that better suited the Napoleonic government
• theological schools for priests and ministers 
• A better pay for bishops and other minor church officials who had previously been leached dry to fund the spending of the papacy
• A confirmation of the legitimacy of the redistribution of church property that occurred during the Revolution.

Why did the French get rid of Napolean if he was so good? 

The French did not get rid of Napolean as much as they did not help him take over France again after he had led them to spectacular military defeat on two separate occasions. The Russian winter was the first, and it marked the end of the French Empire.  Waterloo was the second, and it prevented Napolean from taking over France after he had lost the first set of his Napoleonic wars. 

Political Theory

How did we get back to one man rule?

1. The chaos of the French Revolution eventually lost its novelty when the Third Estate realized that the gains they had made during the revolution were pointless unless France had a stable government to protect them. 
2. Emmanuel Sieyes, the author of the liberal manifesto What Is the Third Estate?, directly assisted in Napoleon’s  dictatorial vie for power despite Sieyes’ claim in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen that “no body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.” He did this because he believed that the executive arm of the government must be strengthened at the expense of the legislative in order for stability to be established in France, likely reflecting the general sentiment of the public post-Revolution, given the conditions mentioned above. 
3. It also helped that all of the Revolutionary governments were pretty much just semi-Republican dictatorships, and the takeover of Napoleon just consolidated sovereignty into one competent man's hands from its former diluted state. In order to succeed, most republics needed some form of checks and balance system within the government that such parties as the Committee for Public Safety and Directory just didn’t have, making single-monarch absolutism more efficient at the time. 

What did the Revolution change?

The Revolution allowed for France to experiment with different forms of Republican government such as the representative oligarchy that was the Directory and the totalitarian state that Robespierre brought to the field. Even though these experiments usually turned out poor, much like toothpaste once it has been squeezed out of its canister, the idea of self-determination could not be stuffed back into the public's subconscious once it was out, forcing later monarchs to awkwardly scoop it up from the counter and try to make the best of it by learning to compromise with the people.  

On the other hand, the French Revolution also changed the public's faith in their own ability to rule, forever killing of the idea of total democracy and republic. 

Does the rise of Napolean and the failure of the Republic model not prove that the Revolution failed? 

Not necessarily. Even though Napolean ignored any attempt to establish a system of checks and balances within France, he did compromise with liberal radicals on a few significant points they had been fighting for. Namely, he granted fair taxes to the poor, made all male citizens legally equal, and kept the representative element of the National Assembly even if he just used it as a puppet mouthpiece to please the people. 

The Seven Coalitions of the Napoleonic Wars

First Coalition (1792–1797):

•  Great Britain, Spain, Prussia, Italy vs.  Revolutionary France, Austria, and Russia
• Napolean was not yet the leader of France, only a prominent general 
• French Victory 
• Turning point was Napolean's success in Italy
• Treaty of Campo Formio 
• cements Austrian/French alliance
• Austria gets some territory
• France gets Belgium and land around Rhine River
• Russia is not compensated due to tensions with Austria 

Second Coalition (1799–1802): 

• Balance of Power upset - leading powers unhappy 
• Britain, Austria, and Russia
• Russia upset from lack of compensation in former affair
• Austria upset because France's rapidly expanding power and instability was becoming threatening even though they were allies 
• Occurred almost concurrently with Napolean's power take over as First Consul in 1799
• French Victory 
• Treaty of Lunéville 1801
• France gains lands in Tuscany and  Italy 
• occupation of Italy and Prussia
• Austria granted Venetia and the Dalmatian coast in order to reestablish alliance
• Treaty of Amiens 
• France and Britain 
• peace for 14 months before Third Coalition

Third Coalition (1805)

•  Britain, Austria, and Russia
• Napolean's extreme lack of respect for the balance of power causes Russia and Austria to 360 again
• French Victory
• Turning point was the Battle of Austerlitz 
• France crushes Austrian-Russian forces 
• Austria gets off easy again with Treaty of Pressburg which re-establishes their relationship as defined by the Treaty of Campo Formio 

Fourth Coalition (1806–1807)

• Russia, Britain, Prussia, Sweden 
•  Napolean manages to piss off Sweden. 
• Sweden. 
• French Victory 
• Turning point was the Battle of Friedland 
• France crushes Prussian-Austrian Force 
•  Treaties of Tilsit 
• France makes peace with Russia
• France now dominates almost all western and central Europe

Fifth Coalition (1809)

• Austria goes all Medea on Napolean again after his Russian team up and allies itself with Britain 
• British Victory
• Just kidding, its France
•  Treaty of Schönbrunn 
• France finally punishes Austria for being such a bipolar backstabber 
• takes huge amount of territory, nearly 1/5th of the population
• Metternich manages to convince him to keep traditional Habsburg lands intact

Sixth Coalition (1812–1814) 

• Surprise Russia betrayed Napoleon 
• Napoleon is so emotional unstable from being jilted he invades Russia in the winter.
• Hahaha. Yes, this is the one
• Napoleon is defeated and suddenly his allies realize that France isn't the toughest kid on the playground anymore 
• allies all join Coalition 
• Turning point was the Battle of Leipzig 
• 1814 Napolean was exiled from France to Elba 

Seventh Coalition (1815)

•  Napoleon calls it a comeback despite already having been in Europe for years
• This time period is called the Hundred Days because it literally lasts the same duration of time it took a crippled man to teach the American government how to be a parent. 
• All his old enemies and frenemies boo him off the stage
• Turning point was the Battle of Waterloo 
•  Napolean exiled for the last time 

How did the Napoleonic Wars unite the rest of Europe?

• Napolean was the prerequisite to dictators like Hitler and Stalin who caused a spread of nationalism in their own countries and nationalism in other countries as well. The difference with this foreign nationalism was that it was developed in opposition of Napolean's French Empire. 
• French Armies tended to massacre civilians in their various attempts at taking over Europe, uniting the state the victims were a part of in a common anti-French identity. Above you see a painting called The Third of May, a propaganda work by Francisco Goya illustrating Napolean's massacre of the Spanish people so as to inspire nationalism against the French. 
• Nationalism against the French Empire also united several foreign powers in the form of the various Coalitions of the Napoleonic wars. Victims of Napolean's vie for power forged alliances with those countries who united under a fear of Napolean's rapidly evolving strength. The belief in a balance of power within Europe had throughout history been a common ground on which European countries united in order to preserve, and the Napoleonic wars were just another example of this tendency. 

Quadruple Alliance

Upon thoroughly trouncing the French in the War of the Seventh Coalition, why did the Quadruple Alliance let them get off easy after all of the trouble they caused? 

• What was the Quadruple Alliance?
• Conservative aristocratic monarchal alliance
• Russia, Prussia, Austria, Great Britain
• What was their purpose?
• After defeating France, determined to put it back in line through a peace settlement
•  Did not want war, tried to make a settlement that would prevent it
• Successful, century of relative peace 
• Combined leniency to France w/ defensive measures 
• The motive behind this leniency 
• Balance of power kept Europe in equilibrium and kept from aggressive competition or the domination of Europe 
• Supported by foreign ministers: Metternich, Castlereagh, Talleyrand
• The Leniency in Question
• Peace of Paris 
• France has 1972 boundaries
• Does not have to pay reparations 
• Restored Bourbon dynasty of king
• Barriers to Prevent French Aggression
• Low Countries United Under Dutch Monarchy 
•  Belgium, Holland
• Frequent French victims and border neighbors
• Could oppose France more effectively
• Prussia 
• A lot more territory on Eastern Boarder 
• Stand defensive on Rhine against France 
• Compensation to Victors in the Form of Territory
• Britain - colonies and strategic outposts Austria - parts of Italy and Poland 
• The Quadruple Alliance also directly led to the European Congress system
• Agreed to meet periodically  to discuss common interest 
• nationalism 
•  Helped protect balance of power diplomacy
• Consider appropriate measures for the maintenance of peace in Europe 
• Guiding forces in keep Europe peace
• Stability - Balance of Power
• Legitimacy - Conservative Restoration
• Legitimate rulers are the hereditary monarchs
• Traditional Nobility

"Conservatism bad," says the Liberal Media. So then why should I, a Millennial Bleeding Heart, care about the Conservative Restoration?

Because it brought about that long period of European peace and stability, you hippy. 

What are the principles of Conservatism?

• Tradition is one of the basic human institutions
• Nobility was one of the oldest institutions in Europe 
• Proper government was pre-1789 
• Monarchy, bureaucracy, aristocracy, obedient peasantry
• Liberalism responsible for generation of war
•  National self-determination of liberalism threatened to destroy old customs, balance of power, peace, and nobility 
•  Blamed middle class for stirring up lower class 
• Before middle class existed peasants never revolted
• keep an eye on middle class

Metternich and why you should care know about him.

• Austrian Foreign Minister from 1809-1848
• Saw the necessity of censoring the press 
• Restored Austria as a dominant European power during the 7th Coalition
• hosted and pretty much led the Congress of Vienna 
• directly responsible for the leniency with France - needed them to act as a counterweight against Russian enemies
• His moderation was what led to the long lasting European order
• Strongly conservative as liberal ideas of the dual revolution would have caused chaos in already complex Austrian politics. 
• His conservatism was what influenced the Conservatism of the Quadruple Alliance