Context
As the 18th century changed to the 19th century, the big question in Europe was
this: what would the French Revolution lead to?
Europe's rulers had good reason to be concerned. The social leveling reforms in
France had led to the destruction of aristocratic privilege and the execution of
a king. If these reforms spread to other countries, the conservative regimes
then in power would suffer. And as France made these reforms, such as opening
positions of leadership to all men based on talent, the country became more
efficient, powerful, and increasingly patriotic. As people at all levels of
French society began to feel more of a stake in France's future, the power of
the masses was starting to be tapped unlike ever before in history.
Napoleon, a minor Corsican aristocrat who rose to be Emperor of France,
represented the new confidence in social mobility and individual talent the
Revolution had wrought. And although he was a dictator, Napoleon was in many
ways very progressive, advancing many of the goals of the Revolution, and
rationalizing government and social processes wherever he went. Napoleon
represented change.
Nearly all of Europe fell under Napoleon's control, and certainly all of it was
forever changed by being ruled by him or fighting against him. Napoleon came
closer than anyone else in modern history to conquering Europe. The war he
provoked can be thought of as an early kind of "world war". Napoleon's wars
echoed in the New World as well, influencing the War of 1812 and Toussaint
l'Ouverture's dictatorship in Haiti.
Even as it spread conflict, Napoleon's conquests spread the new ideas and
new institutions of the French Revolution throughout Europe. The countries he
occupied had versions of the Napoleonic Code imposed on them, forming the
legal basis for much of Continental European law today. The liberal ideals of
legal equality codified in his law system spread to his opponents to, as
reformers like Baron Stein and Hardenberg realized that to compete with
France, they had to create a Prussian state that was like France. Thus,
Napoleon spread the ideas of the French Revolution even beyond the boundaries of
his vast empire.
Napoleon's regime also helped mobilize nationalist movements. In reacting to
their French overlords, some previously disunited linguistic-ethnic groups saw
reason to organize. In opposing France, these groups built up nationalist
movements, most notably in Germany. Germany even reacted intellectually,
starting to champion Romanticism, a school of thought opposed to the French
Enlightenment Rationalism Napoleon was spreading. Interestingly, the Napoleonic
Wars fueled the energies of both liberal and conservative opponents: in Spain, a
bloody Peninsular War was fought by guerillas who wanted to return a
Bourbon to the throne; in Germany people complained that they wanted more
self-rule.
The Napoleonic period was an extremely complicated time. Moral right and wrong
are hard to distinguish: Napoleon was a dictator, but not a particularly evil
one. He encouraged many developments we today consider quite positive. The
Napoleonic Wars were instigated by France, but each nation fought to protect and
expand its own national interest. The wars were punctuated by constantly
shifting alliances. Sometimes Prussia fought France, and sometimes it was
neutral. Austria, led by the crafty Metternich, tried to improve relations
with France towards the end the Napoleonic era. Russia initially opposed
Napoleon, then sided with him, and then turned against him again. The only
constant through the fifteen years of Napoleon's rule was the continued enmity
between England and France. Instead of a war between irreconcilable values, the
Napoleonic Wars were fought with essentially the same motivation driving all
sides: greed. The period was typified by "Realism" in diplomacy and war, for
all sides were simply trying to win whatever advantages they could.
If anyone won the Napoleonic Wars, it was Britain. Britain emerged in 1815 as a
commercial powerhouse with the world's preeminent navy and a large colonial
network. British industry might have provoked working-class rebellion if not for
the national unity having an enemy like Napoleon provided. Blaming the hard
lives of the working class on Napoleon's war mongering, Britain made it through
a critical and dangerous time of its young Industrial Revolution.
The quagmire Napoleon had made of Europe was cleaned up, as much as it could be,
by the Congress of Vienna (1814-1815). The resultant agreement from the two
years of deliberation was undoubtedly one of the most important and complicated
treaties in human history. The international order that the Congress designed
was balanced enough that future rising powers could be stopped by coalitions of
other powers. This made Europe fairly stable for the next century, but it also
protected conservative regimes. Napoleon had spread the new liberal changes as
he spread his empire; the kings and aristocrats at the Congress of Vienna
figured out a way to prolong the life of the old conservative regimes a while
longer. Thus, the Congress of Vienna set the stage for the coming battle
between liberalism and conservatism in the following period, from 1815 to the
revolutionary year 1848.
