Age of Revolutions · CHAPTER 6 ·
Rise of Napoleon
Chapter 6 of The Age of Revolutions, 1775–1848: “Napoleon Ascendant”
Napoleon inherited armies transformed by the Revolution and added fast concentration and unified command, winning from Italy in 1796 to Austerlitz in 1805. Taking power in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799, he issued the Civil Code while suppressing political liberty and restoring colonial slavery; Tilsit in 1807 marked his peak.
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The map above is the world of Europe, July 1807 — Tilsit: Europe redrawn.
Every state on the map that year: The world in 1800 · Europe in 1800.
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SHORT EXPLANATION
Revolutionary France supplied Napoleon with mass recruitment, advancement by ability and mobile formations. He brought these forces together quickly under unified command. In Italy, and later at Austerlitz and Jena, he exploited opportunities to fight opponents in separate campaigns.
Napoleon gave lasting institutions to part of the Revolution: the Civil Code protected property and equality before the law for men. He restricted political liberty and restored colonial slavery. By 1807 France dominated or influenced much of continental Europe, a position dependent on military success and a blockade against Britain.
The full story
Napoleon's Italian campaign in 1796 displayed a method that would serve him repeatedly: move fast enough to separate enemy armies, then defeat them one at a time. Egypt showed the limits of victory on land. His expedition won near the Pyramids in 1798, but Nelson destroyed the French fleet, leaving it strategically isolated. Napoleon returned to France and, in the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799, helped overthrow the Directory and took power himself.
The ruler who emerged from the Revolution secured some of its gains in law. The Civil Code protected property and formal equality among men, while service counted more than birth in careers. Its equality had boundaries: it strengthened paternal authority and reduced women's legal autonomy, and Napoleon restored slavery in French colonies. Stability for some beneficiaries of revolution came alongside a severe restriction of freedom for others.
His armies brought a different kind of power to Europe. The Grande Armée's corps could march separately and assemble quickly for battle. At Austerlitz in 1805, Napoleon drew an allied attack toward his apparently weak right and struck the center. Prussia fell after Jena–Auerstedt in 1806, and Tilsit in 1807 left much of Europe under French power or influence. The French and satellite tan spreading across the map records the extent of those gains.
Speed alone does not explain them. Prussia stayed out of the war of 1805, while Austria stayed out of the war of 1806–7; Napoleon could concentrate against enemies who had failed to bring their combined strength to bear. Even at Tilsit, however, Britain remained beyond his reach. Trafalgar had secured British command of the sea, and Russia was an ally rather than a French dependency. Napoleon tried to fight Britain economically by closing continental ports to its trade. That policy made the cooperation of other governments essential, even when their interest in commerce led them to resist it.
FULL EXPLANATION
Revolutionary capacity and personal command
A remarkable commander needs an army capable of carrying out his decisions. Revolutionary France had already expanded recruitment, promoted officers beyond the old aristocratic ranks and developed divisions that could operate with some independence. Napoleon coordinated corps, intelligence and rapid marches so that forces moving apart could come together at the point he chose. His opponents possessed military ability too, but their coalitions had different political aims and command arrangements. Bringing their forces together was difficult; Napoleon's system let him seek a decision before they did so. Institutions supplied his capacity, while his judgment helped determine where and when to concentrate it. The same concentration of authority had a cost: a system able to act quickly around one commander had fewer checks when his assumptions were wrong.
The settlement and its limits
Napoleon's settlement gave property holders reasons to defend revolutionary change. He protected land transfers, removed many feudal privileges and spread standardized administration. After his fall, later rulers could also find those institutions useful, helping the changes survive restoration in much of Europe. Political life followed another course. Censorship, police surveillance, managed plebiscites and imperial monarchy displaced republican contest. The Civil Code strengthened paternal authority over women, and slavery returned in French colonies. Historians therefore distinguish Napoleon's social inheritance from his political one: he made parts of the social settlement harder to reverse while closing much of the experiment in popular sovereignty. Many beneficiaries accepted his promise of order, though their choice did not make authoritarian rule inevitable.
Key places on the map
On this day
Why it happened
An army made by revolution. Napoleon inherited much of the military machinery that made his victories possible. Revolutionary France had expanded recruitment and opened promotion beyond aristocratic birth. Its armies used requisition and mobile formations that could move separately and concentrate for battle. Napoleon coordinated these resources under strong personal command. At Jena the Prussians faced a force able to move and assemble with remarkable speed; revolutionary institutions supplied the means, and Napoleon directed their use.
Enemies who fought separately. Austria, Prussia and Russia had interests of their own and distrusted one another. Their combined strength mattered little if Napoleon could meet each before the others joined it. Prussia stayed out of the 1805 campaign, Austria out of the war of 1806–7, and defeated powers made separate peace. This division gave Napoleon opportunities to concentrate against forces smaller than the coalition as a whole.
The appeal of order. A decade of revolution had given many French people something they wanted to keep: transferred land, equality before the law and opportunities for advancement. Napoleon offered landholders, the army and property owners a government capable of securing those gains. Their support helped him consolidate power after Brumaire. The promise of order was attractive to beneficiaries of the Revolution, even as his government narrowed political liberty.
Britain’s command of the sea. Nelson's victory over the Franco-Spanish fleet at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805 came in the same fortnight as Ulm. France could win on the continent, but Napoleon could not readily cross the sea to invade Britain. Britain, meanwhile, could finance further enemies on land. The naval defeat left a powerful opponent able to continue the war beyond the reach of French armies.
THE TURNING POINT
Austerlitz, 2 December 1805. At Austerlitz on 2 December 1805, Napoleon withdrew from the dominant Pratzen Heights to invite an attack on his weakened right. The allies moved toward it; he struck their center and took the heights. Allied casualties are estimated at 27,000, against 9,000 French, and Austria made peace within the month. Pitt reportedly looked at a map of Europe and said to “roll it up — it will not be wanted these ten years.” The victory secured Napoleon's dominance, but the later wars in Spain and Russia would test whether battles could solve every problem of governing an empire.
What it changed
Reform and resentment in Germany. Germany's political landscape contracted from roughly 300 states to around 40. In parts of Germany, the Confederation of the Rhine brought the Civil Code, secularized lands and modern administration; it also brought French garrisons and conscription. The reforms came with foreign domination, and resistance grew. Fichte lectured in occupied Berlin on “the German nation,” and German forces would fight Napoleon at Leipzig in 1813.
A blockade that had to be enforced. With invasion of Britain beyond reach, Napoleon issued the Berlin decree in 1806 to close Europe to British trade. The blockade could work only if ports complied. Governments with an interest in commerce had reason to resist, and enforcing the policy would draw France into conflicts involving Portugal, Spain and eventually Russia.
Polish hopes and French power. Eleven years after Poland's final partition, the Duchy of Warsaw gave Poles a new state. Find its tan patch on the Vistula. About 100,000 Poles would fight for Napoleon, hoping for a fuller restoration, but the Vienna settlement ended the duchy in 1815. The hope and the disappointment both remained in Polish memory.
DISCUSSION QUESTION — In what ways did Napoleon preserve and overturn the French Revolution?
Napoleon preserved important gains: he protected revolutionary land transfers and legal equality for men, opened careers to ability and removed feudal privileges. His political settlement moved the other way. Censorship, police rule, managed plebiscites and empire curtailed liberty, while the restoration of colonial slavery violated the promise of universal freedom. He secured selected social gains under authoritarian rule.
An interesting fact
The army Napoleon took to Egypt included 167 scholars, among them engineers, chemists, naturalists and artists. Their research helped produce the Description de l’Égypte, twenty-three volumes published over two decades that influenced the development of Egyptology. In 1799 soldiers strengthening a fort found the Rosetta Stone; after the 1801 capitulation it passed to Britain. The French scholar Champollion used copies and ink rubbings to decipher hieroglyphs in 1822.
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