Nationalism Spreads Through Europe via Napoleon's Conquest for Power
From 1795 to 1799, Napoleon a relatively short man standing at 5 foot 3 inches, rose from a general in the French army to supreme ruler of France. Napoleon, after returning from a conquest to Egypt, came back to find that the Directory had lost control as well as the confidence of the French citizens and he decided to seize power via a series of coup d'etats that involved dissolving the Directory through armed troops and the Napoleonic Empire emerged amidst the ruins. This is a direct result of Enlightenment Ideas because the enlightenment encouraged individuality and powers of reason rather than sticking with the tradition which, in this scenario, would be the rule by the Directory. The consequences of the Napoleon’s crusades would lead to the spread of nationalism, the sense of patriotism causing individuals to unify under common ground. Napoleon attempts to convert everyone into French citizens but they repel under the same views, and unite under one nation. Nationalism would be repressed for a generation in the Congress of Vienna and then fully expressed in the Revolution of 1848 otherwise known as the Spring of Nations.
After selling all land to the Americans, in an indirect effort, to capsize the dominance of Britain, Napoleon focused on Europe. This portrayed that he wanted to focus all his attention on Europe rather than expanding in America because he lost Haiti which would be his Western Empire capital to slave revolts and diseases like Yellow Fever (Haitian Revolution). He fought brilliant battles with ingenious strategies with all the major players including Russia, Prussia, and Austria forcing them to sign peace treaties. Napoleon, loosely controlled these major powers but managed to easily blackmail them on threat of sending his military after them. He had developed the largest European empire besides the Romans; yet he could not maintain that empire with that magnitude for more than five years because it was unstable. It was impossible to control all the people who disliked his rule with the limited men he had at his disposal and thereby was spread too thin. Without thinking about his military’s concerns he wanted to take control of Britain and thereby secure Europe . This resulted in the Battle of Trafalgar, and this specific loss made all the wins look like skirmishes (Mont-Blanc). Horatio Nelson, commander of the Navy, defeated the French and ensured that Napoleon could not take over the English. Multiple sailors aboard the Mont Blanc Ship wrote a collective journal during the battle and it iterates the theme of “Napoleon’s placement of ships did not display his battle prowess on land” (Mont-Blanc). To diminish the British economy and make the Europeans more self sufficient he set up blockade around the coastline of all the countries but Portugal would not accept this policy. This policy was called the Continental System; en route to Portugal Napoleon sent his army through Spain (de Clerq). This enraged citizens so Napoleon placed his brother Joseph as king but this spurred even more hatred as the spanish people feared the weakening of the Catholic Church just like the French Revolution weakened the Church in France and more importantly it unified the spanish people together in what is known as nationalism. It can be attributed to placing a foreign authority in power that did not have the same ideals as the majority and an outsider’s army marching through their country. The Spanish did not want to be ruled by the French anymore, and found themselves uniting under common ground whether it by ethnicity, well placed hatred, or religion. They raided the French army with the help of the English in small bands called guerrillas (de Clerq). This Spanish movement challenged the ideas of Napoleon and accepting themselves as French which is also a by-product of the enlightenment because they started thinking for themselves and stopped following the normal. With this spanish rebellion in 1808 the majority of people in other countries, became inspired, and stopped accepting France as their liberator but were too afraid to voice it or take action. In 1812 the French decide to attack the Russians on allegations that the Russians are planning to take over the French side of Poland and they refuse to stop trade with English (Patten). 420,000 troops enter Russia and the russian army apply the scorched earth policy which means burning every food source plant or animal in effort to starve the other army (Patten). In Borodino a terrible battle ensues and the French march on to Moscow where czar Alexander I burns Moscow rather than surrendering it. Upon retreat the Russian raiders raid the French army and the brutal winters exhausts the army leaving the number of survivors to less than 1/20 of the army alive. This causes other countries like Austria and Prussia, who are inspired with an unlimited gas tank of nationalism, to revolt forcing Napoleon to create a new army of inexperienced soldiers who lose badly. This assessment of Russia supported by Napoleon was an excuse to take down his allies without raising suspicion from the other allies but had an adverse effect. The Prussians and Austrians separately realized the notoriety of Napoleon’s plan and united under the banner of taking down Napoleon (Austria and Prussia did not unite together, but each individual country experiences nationalism and then join forces). Here ends the physical reign of the Napoleonic Empire but its effects will directly impact European History for the next 40 years.
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The purpose of the Congress of Vienna is to ensure a long lasting peace between the major powers in Europe namely Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Austria, and France -post Napoleon death. It was also conceived to address the issues of the Napoleonic Empire and the French Revolution (Congress of Vienna). Prince Klemens of Austria was the most influential and the clear leader of the Congress. It is ironic and quite appropriate in certain ways that Klemens the anti-nationalistic figure gained power in this conference. Klemens hated the democratic ideals of the French Revolution, partially because he was of royal authority and feared his governmental position, and presented three changes that balanced power, restored royal families back to their thrones and stabilized laws so that they never changed. This demonstrates that he hated the idea of nationalism and group rule otherwise known as representative democracy which is what the Directory in France tried to accomplish. Since the Directory failed miserably, the other powers did not question Klemens’ decisions. Klemens’ created the Kingdom of Netherlands which comprised of the Dutch Republic and the Netherlands, joined the german states to form the German Confederation controlled by the Austrians and finally the addition of Genoa to the Kingdom of Sardinia otherwise known as present day Italy (Von Metternich). The process of reinstating royal families that Napoleon drove out in his opinion stabilized the countries because only one man can make decisions. He believed that joining many territories or countries together would result in one monarch having more power and thereby less arguments between royal powers and uniform decisions that could be enforced by the military. Under a body of people making decisions there is too much leniency and things tend to spiral out of control. In the Political Confessions of Faith by Klemens he converses with the czar of Russia about the political stability of Europe and the necessity of the Concert. It reveals that he wanted the czar on his side as he considered them a powerful foe after what they did to Napoleon (Von Metternich). He states the need for the Congress of Europe to exist because it was a system of checks and balances to prevent the downfall of the monarchy in that country. The Concert of Europe developed as a byproduct of the Congress of Vienna. If a country had a revolution the Concert would stop the revolution to maintain the constitutional or absolute monarchy (Congress of Vienna). This repressed the ideas of nationalism in Europe for a generation but thrived in America during this time. America was water locked, in the sense that no other power could interfere with their government without formally launching an attack via ships and Europe’s navy besides England was relatively weak.
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The revolution of 1848 elevated the political infrastructure of Europe to the same level as America. The French Revolution combined with Napoleon’s crusades in the late eighteenth century and early nineteenth century spurred a new set of political ideas that were put into motion in the revolution of 1848 otherwise termed the Spring of Nations. The Spring of Nations is a word play because it started in the Spring of 1848, and a spring once pushed down or oppressed it jumps up or expresses its true nature (Guizot). The conservatives in France were content with Louis the XVIII and wanted to maintain the monarchy but the majority wanted change. They wanted a representative democracy because they believed in liberty, fraternity, and equality (Guizot). This ideology in France spread to the rest of the European continent and struck in 1848. The fundamental seed for all of this is nationalism because people recognize themselves as part of a greater group, that is similar to them and thereby attempt to govern themselves with everyone’s interests in mind- no clash of interest because the representatives mostly have the same interests as the rest- whereas the king mainly thinks for himself (Nationalism). This is evident when Louis starves the people and spends that money on himself and his lavish palace. Nationalism spread like wildfire and the Congress of Vienna’s actions had been demolished as Germany, Italy, Greece and every country under a monarchical control fought to control themselves.
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A new era had begun that would be influenced by the visionaries of the previous one specifically Napoleon and Klemens. Napoleon started with a coup d'etat that led to his Empire, which resulted in people identifying themselves as part of their nation. The world powers met in a meeting called the Concert of Europe and Klemens reinstated and solidified the power of the monarchy for the next generation until the common folk of each country identified themselves as part of a larger entity and brought forth the Revolutions that created whole countries like Germany and Italy. Nationalism spread through Europe by a man determined to vanquish it, and survived despite a whole Congress dedicated to implementing the opposite technique, therefore it clearly cannot be denied an opportunity, and today people live with a sense of nationalism (maybe too much, as lots of wars are a result of over-nationalistic views) that inspired modern day representative democracy.
Works Cited
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<http://discovery.nationalarchives.gov.uk/details/r/C4250859>.
Wenzel von Metternich, Klemens. Political Confessions of Faith. Vienna, 1820. Web. 11 Nov.
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