Consequences of the Napoleonic Wars
The first decade of the nineteenth century was a tumultuous time for Europe. The Napoleonic wars were raging across the continent from the Iberian Peninsula to Russia. When Napoleon was finally defeated in 1814, millions had died and entire countries were devastated. Napoleon’s many conquests across Europe changed the political situation on the European continent. The Napoleonic wars had consequences which still affect us today. Bonaparte dissolved the Holy Roman Empire and consolidated the hundreds of principalities into more manageable countries. His destruction of the feudal system led to the growth of Nationalism amongst the Germanic people. His defeat signified the end of France as the cultural and political centre of Europe, and the rise of Great Britain as the leading nation in Europe. When the victorious allies met in Vienna to negotiate a treaty to create a lasting peace and to restore the balance of power, Europe was in a chaotic state. The four great powers of Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia had to deal with the various issues of conflicting claims for various thrones, their own contradictory desires and what should be done with France. With the inclusion of France, the quintuple alliance created the concert of Europe whose purpose was to keep the borders established in 1815 intact, which meant preventing another war from breaking out.
The most significant outcome of the Napoleonic wars was the start of German unification. Before the Napoleonic wars, Germany was still separated into hundreds of little principalities, each with its own leader. While they were all de jure subservient to the Holy Roman Emperor and part of the Holy Roman Empire, de facto they each acted independently. While Prussia and Austria were the two largest Germanic states, neither would allow the other one to unite and control all of Germany. When Napoleon came to rule and defeated the two great German powers, he began to lay the foundation for the eventual unification of Germany. Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, which combined the hundreds of states into a more manageable sixteen states. He made it “centralized but competent” (Durant 590) by adopting bringing in many French policies such as the Napoleonic code. The Confederation collapsed with the defeat of Napoleon, but “this consolidation of the Germanies survived Napoleon’s downfall, and paved the way for the national unification of Germany” (Snyder 25). In 1815, the Congress of Vienna created the German Confederation. It had thirty nine member states, and counted Prussia and Austria amongst its members. Thus it contained the two most important German nations who had not been part of the Confederation of the Rhine. The German confederation lasted until 1866 when it was dissolved after the Austro-Prussian war and was succeeded by the North German Confederation.
The Napoleonic Wars also created a feeling of nationalism within the Germanic territory. When Prussia declared war and was subsequently beaten by France, Prussian leaders realized that Prussia needed to imitate France in order to beat her. “One fortress after another surrendered without firing a gun.” (Snyder 26) The Prussian people had lost all their spirit and saw no point in resisting Napoleon. The leaders realized they needed to imitate France and create an “enthusiastic patriotic army” instead of one of “fearful automatons” (Snyder 26). Napoleon served as a foreign enemy that could unite the Germans out of hatred for the French and their emperor. German intellectuals merged “their romanticism with the rising spirit of German nationalism” (Snyder 27). Humiliated by their defeat, the Prussians waited until 1813 when Napoleon was driven out of Russia. The Prussians rose up for their fatherland to drive out the foreign invader. The Napoleonic wars increased German nationalism throughout the former Holy Roman Empire, and would help Prussia unite Germany into one nation sixty years later. This was a significant outcome of the Napoleonic wars, as most of the German principalities remain one nation today, almost two hundred years since the final act of the Congress of Vienna.
The end of the Napoleonic wars symbolized the end of an era. France’s domination of European politics would come to an end, while England’s reign was about to begin. The French and the English had been rivals for centuries and wars between the two were common. When the French Revolution began and Napoleon rose to power, the people of England became fearful. Napoleon and his army were undefeated and in the process of conquering the other nations of Europe. Numerically and militarily, the English were outnumbered. Britain had a population of 15 million people and no standing army, while the French had nearly double their number at 28 million, and a conquering army (Durant 518). Fortunately for the English, Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger realized that English power lay in their economic strength. No matter the size of the French army, it would not matter if they could not reach England proper. “They could build and man ships numerous enough, armed enough, to control the oceans, blockade every French port, capture any French vessel at sea, annex to the British Empire any French Colony” (Durant 518). At the battle of Trafalgar in 1805, Admiral Horatio Nelson crippled the French fleet and “decided for a century Britain’s mastery of the seas” (Durant 525). No other nation was capable of fighting the British at sea, and their empire flourished. Napoleon forced the British into a desperate fight for survival where they invested the vast fortunes of their nation into an unbeatable navy.
At the end of the war, the Kingdom of Great Britain also acquired many French colonies and other gains. According to the Treaty of Paris “The Island of Malta and its Dependencies shall belong in full right and Sovereignty to His Britannic Majesty.” This gave the British greater control over the Mediterranean and naval dominance over the area. From their new port in Malta and other islands, they could deploy their ships to key points in Mediterranean trade. They also received other colonies, like Tobago in the Caribbean and Ceylon in East India, now known as Sri Lanka. These colonies made it easier for Britain to control the seas, as they now had more ports to where they could dock their ships and resupply.
France on the other hand, began to lose its power and influence on the international stage. At the Congress of Vienna, the goal of the quadruple alliance of Great Britain, Austria, Russia and Prussia was to limit France’s power and make sure the French could never start another devastating war. The borders of France were returned to their pre-revolution boundaries “such as they were on the 1st of January 1792, with the exception of the changes effected by the Treaty of Paris of 30th May 1814” (Article LXXXV of the Final act of the Congress of Vienna). They also wanted to create a ring of strong nations around France, to prevent the French from invading its neighbours. The kingdom of Belgium was added to the Netherlands, Prussia received territory east of the Rhine, and Switzerland was re-established and guaranteed neutrality. France was isolated in Europe, while Britain was capable of expanding around the world.
Another consequence of the Napoleonic wars was the new political system that was established in Europe after the war. The wars killed millions across Europe and devastated the countryside. As a result, the great powers wished to avoid another general European war. The powers of the quadruple alliance wanted to return Europe to its pre-French revolution state. They believed that the “old order was the proper order” (Albrecht-Carrié 9). After restoring select monarchs to their thrones, they began to create a system known as the Concert of Europe, whose mandate was to keep Europe from going to war. They agreed to meet in the future, whenever a crisis arose. It was the first time in history that leaders of nations agreed to attempt to ensure that any crises could be resolved and peace would be maintained. The great powers agreed to send representatives to meetings to discuss methods to keep the peace without resorting to violence (King 323). The Concert was initially successful, with meetings in 1818, 1819 and 1822 that managed to keep order in Europe.
The Congress of Vienna also wanted to keep the Balance of Power in Europe. They believed that if all the great powers were about equal in strength, none of them would risk attacking another country out of fear of repercussions. The congress of Vienna managed to prevent war in Europe because “the Vienna settlement involved no major injustice to any one of them not even to the defeated” (Seaman 9). Tsar Alexander tried to ensure this by creating the Holy Alliance between Catholic Austria, Protestant Prussia and Orthodox Russia. It was seen by some as “loose and vague assertion of the Christian principles” (Albrecht Carrié 13), Tsar Alexander of Russia wanted to use the alliance to preserve the peace and remind the rulers of Europe of their responsibility to the common people (Albrecht Carrié 15).
The Concert of Europe and the Congress of Vienna would also serve as models for diplomacy in the twentieth century. After the First World War, Woodrow Wilson had his diplomats study the Congress of Vienna to see how their predecessors had negotiated and how to make a successful treaty. The Concert of Europe also provided the diplomatic framework that the diplomats at Versailles would base the League of Nations and later the United Nations. The Congress of Vienna had seen how devastating war could be, and wished to prevent it.
The Napoleonic Wars had many long lasting consequences. It concluded twenty five years of warfare throughout Europe and spread the ideas of Nationalism and Liberalism. While the Congress of Vienna attempted to suppress and ignore these ideas, it still revolutionized the Political situation throughout Europe. Napoleons conquests changed the German speaking world with the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine and the abolition of the Holy Roman Empire. He planted the seeds of German nationalism which Bismarck would use to unite most of Germany into one state sixty years later France lost political influence and Great Britain gained became the leading great power economically and on the seas. The French became surrounded by an iron ring of strong nations, while the English created the world’s largest empire overseas. English replaced French as the international language of trade and diplomacy. The Congress of Vienna signified the start of almost a century of peace, until the start of World War One in 1914. While Napoleon may have died over a hundred and ninety years ago, the results of his actions can still be felt today.
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