The year 1815 dawned in France with growing popular discontent with the restoration of the monarchy and the "Bourbon pretender" -- Louis XVIII, the brother of the despised Louis XVI. (Since the young Dauphin survived his father's execution at the hands of the National Convention before himself dying in prison at age 10, the restoration acknowledged the heir-apparent's reign for the purpose of regnal numbering.)
For Napoleon, the great victory at Austerlitz was neary a decade past. Indeed, the memories of his greatest victories against the various coalitions -- Jena-Auerstadt (1806), Friedland (1807) and Wagam (1809) among others -- must have been replaced in the popular imagination by the military disasters -- the long and fruitless campaigns of attrition during the Peninsular War culminating in the (then) Marquess of Wellington's near-complete triumph against Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813, the apocolyptic decicion to invade Russia, the failure to fix the Russian main body at the Battle of Boridino, being forced to retreat from Moscow along the same - now barren - line of advace used to enter the holy city, the destruction of the Grande Armee by the onslaught of "General Winter" on the one hand and Russian hussars on the other, and the inevitible rout at the Battle of Leipzig which (in effect) opened the road to Paris to Napoleon's emboldened enemies.
The War of the Sixth Coalition was over and Napoleon exiled.
Apparently unhappy seated on a prison-throne, with knowledge of growing discontent especially within the ranks of the only nominally royalist armies of France and with the (to my mind, suspicious) absence of British and French naval partols, Napoleon slipped his gilded cage on February 26, 1815 and returned to France -- disembarking at Gulf Juan on the 1st of March. During his bloodless march on Paris, most of the royalist commanders and forces either openly defected, surrendered without battle or deserted en masse leading to the legend of Napoleon's address to royalist forces opposing him at Lyon -- "If any of you will shoot your Emperor, shoot him now."
Boney always wrote great press releases.
Learning of Napoleon's escape, the Great Powers issued a declaration through the 2nd Congress of Vienna, effectively declaring war on the person of Bonaparte himself:
The War of the Seventh Coalition -- destined to end at a crossroads outside Brussels (and a crossraods of history as well) had begun.
This is a thread to discuss, debate and needlessly bicker over the Napoleonic Wars in general and specifically the Hundred Days, the Battle of Waterloo and events commemorating its bicentenary.
For Napoleon, the great victory at Austerlitz was neary a decade past. Indeed, the memories of his greatest victories against the various coalitions -- Jena-Auerstadt (1806), Friedland (1807) and Wagam (1809) among others -- must have been replaced in the popular imagination by the military disasters -- the long and fruitless campaigns of attrition during the Peninsular War culminating in the (then) Marquess of Wellington's near-complete triumph against Joseph Bonaparte at the Battle of Vitoria in 1813, the apocolyptic decicion to invade Russia, the failure to fix the Russian main body at the Battle of Boridino, being forced to retreat from Moscow along the same - now barren - line of advace used to enter the holy city, the destruction of the Grande Armee by the onslaught of "General Winter" on the one hand and Russian hussars on the other, and the inevitible rout at the Battle of Leipzig which (in effect) opened the road to Paris to Napoleon's emboldened enemies.
The War of the Sixth Coalition was over and Napoleon exiled.
Apparently unhappy seated on a prison-throne, with knowledge of growing discontent especially within the ranks of the only nominally royalist armies of France and with the (to my mind, suspicious) absence of British and French naval partols, Napoleon slipped his gilded cage on February 26, 1815 and returned to France -- disembarking at Gulf Juan on the 1st of March. During his bloodless march on Paris, most of the royalist commanders and forces either openly defected, surrendered without battle or deserted en masse leading to the legend of Napoleon's address to royalist forces opposing him at Lyon -- "If any of you will shoot your Emperor, shoot him now."
Boney always wrote great press releases.
Learning of Napoleon's escape, the Great Powers issued a declaration through the 2nd Congress of Vienna, effectively declaring war on the person of Bonaparte himself:
The powers who have signed the Treaty of Paris, assembled at the Congress of Vienna, being informed of the escape of Napoleon Bonaparte, and of his entrance into France with an armed force, owe it to their own dignity, and the interest of social order, to make a solemn declaration of the sentiments which this event has excited in them.
By thus breaking the convention which had established him in the island of Elba, Bonaparte destroys the only legal title on which his existence depended, and by appearing again in France, with projects of confusion and disorder, he has deprived himself of the protection of the law, and has manifested to the universe that there can be neither peace nor truce with him.
The powers consequently declare, that Napoleon Bonaparte has placed himself without the pale of civil and social relations; and that, as an enemy and disturber of the tranquillity of the world, he has rendered himself liable to public vengeance.
They declare at the same time, that, firmly resolved to maintain entire the Treaty of Paris of the 30th of May 1814, and the dispositions sanctioned by that treaty, and those which they have resolved on, or shall hereafter resolve on, to complete and to consolidate it, they will employ all their means, and will unite all their efforts, that the general peace, the object of the wishes of Europe, and the constant purpose of their labours, may not again be troubled; and to provide against every attempt which shall threaten to re-plunge the world into the disorders and miseries of revolutions.
And although entirely persuaded that all France, rallying round its legitimate sovereign, will immediately annihilate this last attempt of criminal and impotent delirium, all the sovereigns of Europe, animated by the same sentiments, and guided by the same principles, declare, that if, contrary to all calculations, there should result from this event any real danger, they will be ready to give to the King of France and to the French nation, or to any other government that shall be attacked, as soon as they shall be called upon, all the assistance requisite to restore public tranquillity, and to make a common cause against all those who should undertake to compromise it.
The present declaration, inserted in the register of the congress assembled at Vienna on the 13th of March 1815, shall be made public.
Done and attested by the plenipotentiaries of the high powers who signed the Treaty of Paris, Vienna March 13th 1815.
The War of the Seventh Coalition -- destined to end at a crossroads outside Brussels (and a crossraods of history as well) had begun.
This is a thread to discuss, debate and needlessly bicker over the Napoleonic Wars in general and specifically the Hundred Days, the Battle of Waterloo and events commemorating its bicentenary.
via International Skeptics Forum http://ift.tt/1xezIZ6
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