and the peace of Campo Formio with Austria. Only Great Britain remained at war with France. In 1799, taking advantage The treaties of Lunéville and Amiens. of the absence of Napoleon in Egypt, the Second Coalition was formed by Russia, Great Britain and Austria. Though the French were driven from Italy, Massena defeated the Russians in Switzerland, and the English were forced to retire from Holland. The return of Napoleon from Egypt was followed by the establishment of the Consulate in November 1799, by the overthrow of the Austrians at Marengo and Hohenlinden, by the treaty of Lunéville with the emperor, and by the treaty of Amiens in 1802 with the English government. (See French Revolutionary Wars.)
Up to this point the Revolution may be said to have benefited Europe and to have shaken to its base the 18th-century ideas of government. During the years succeeding the peace of Campo Formio a revolution was effected in Germany. The Holy Roman Empire had become an anachronism, The German Revolution. and as soon as France became possessed of the left bank of the Rhine it was obvious that the imperial constitution required revision. The jealousies existing among the German princes and the overthrow of Austria at Austerlitz enabled Napoleon to carry out a revolution in Germany according to his own ideas. At first, in 1804, new arrangements were made with regard to the character and formation of the diet. The constitution of that assembly was so altered that a Protestant majority free from Austrian influence was now assured. The middle states, such as Prussia, Baden, Bavaria, Württemberg and Hanover, received additions of territory, taken either from the ecclesiastical states or from the lands belonging to the imperial knights. After Austerlitz Napoleon in 1806 established the Confederation of the Rhine, and the Holy Roman Empire came finally to an end. A great European revolution had now been effected, but much remained to be done before a feeling of nationality could be aroused among the people of central Europe.
Already before the peace of Amiens Pitt had tried to stir up national feeling in Austria and Prussia, the means which he suggested for opposing Napoleon being in great measure those which were adopted in 1813 and 1814. But during Pitt’s lifetime central Europe was not The causes of Napoleon’s success. moved by any feeling of nationality or of patriotism. During the war of the Second Coalition in 1799 Austria had acted without any regard for her allies, while Prussia, from motives of jealousy of and from want of confidence in Austria, had refused to move. It was not till the small states which hitherto had formed independent units had been destroyed and Austria and Prussia trampled under foot by Napoleon that a strong national spirit in Germany was evoked. Until the treaty of Tilsit had been signed in 1807 there was no visible growth of a national uprising in any part of Europe. During the intervening years Prussia had been crushed at Jena and her kingdom cut short (1806), while Alexander I. of Russia, after a fierce campaign against Napoleon, had agreed in 1807 to the treaty of Tilsit, which apparently placed Europe at the feet of France and Russia. Napoleon was, as he thought, now in a position to Napoleon aims at the destruction of Great Britain. bring about the humiliation of Great Britain. Already in November 1806, realizing that he could not ruin England by direct invasion, he had issued the first Berlin Decree, which ordered the exclusion of British goods from the continent. The Continental System necessitated by the victory of Trafalgar was thus definitely set up. After Tilsit he proposed to become supreme in the Baltic, and, by securing the dependence of Spain and Portugal, to dominate the Mediterranean, and to resume his plans for conquests in the East, and for the destruction of the British power in India. Thus the effects of the British naval victories of the Nile and Trafalgar would be completely nullified, the Mediterranean would be closed to British ships, Great Britain’s Indian possessions would be lost, and Great Britain herself would be forced by starvation into surrender. Fortunately for Europe various circumstances hindered the realization of these ambitious schemes. Alexander, who feared that the French emperor, desired Constantinople, never proved a very helpful ally, the measures taken by Great Britain seriously interfered with Napoleon’s schemes, and, before he had subjugated Spain, first Austria in 1809 and then Russia in 1812 offered an active resistance to his projects. The first note of opposition to Napoleon’s plans was struck by Canning, when in 1807 he carried off the Danish fleet to England. Then the British fleet conveyed to Brazil in safety the Portuguese royal family when Portugal was invaded by Junot, while the surrender of 30,000 French troops at Baylen in July 1808, which was followed in August by the convention of Cintra, indicated that Spanish patriotism was, when roused, as effective as in the days of the Spanish Succession War. Austria was the first country to follow the example of Spain, and though she was defeated at Wagram and forced to accept Napoleon’s hard terms, the national feeling aroused in Germany in 1809 rapidly developed. But Napoleon was apparently unconscious of the growth and importance of a national sentiment in any of the subject countries. In 1810 he had married Marie Louise of Austria, on the 20th of March 1811 a son was born to him, and he now seems to have resolved upon the establishment of a strictly hereditary empire with Paris its capital and Rome its second city. In extent, his empire would be vaster than that of Charlemagne, and the pope was to be completely subordinate to the emperor. This conception of the establishment of a reformed Holy Roman Empire with its centre at Paris did not appear unrealizable in 1811 when everything seemed to favour the new Charlemagne. Napoleon’s power was apparently securely established, and during the years 1810 and 1811 he was again returning to his vast oriental designs. A sudden check, however, was about to be placed upon his ambitious schemes.
The establishment of French influence in Italy and Germany had stirred up in both countries a national feeling, the growth of which was encouraged by the example of Spain. No greater mistake was ever made by Napoleon than when, ignoring the strength of the Spanish resistance, The triumph of “nationality.” and the development of a national movement in Germany, he resolved to enter upon the Russian campaign and to march to Moscow. Unconsciously Napoleon “had called into vigorous life the forces of Democracy and Nationality in Germany and Italy.” The failure of the Moscow campaign led at once to a national rising in Prussia, and as soon as Austria had united her forces with those of Prussia and Russia, the overthrow of Napoleon at Leipzig in October 1813 was the result, and “the imperial yoke was shaken from the neck of the German people.” Napoleon’s wars had roused feelings of patriotism in Italy, Germany, Russia and Spain. It was at least realized by the nations of continental Europe, what had long been apparent to Englishmen, that a nation to be strong must be united. To “the subversive cosmopolitanism” of the French Revolution was now opposed the modern idea of nationality, against which the Napoleonic legions hurled themselves in vain. (See Napoleon I.; Napoleonic Campaigns; French Revolution; Alexander I., emperor of Russia; Metternich.) (A. Hl.)
The downfall of Napoleon involved that of the political system of Europe which he had constructed. The changes wrought by the revolutionary period in the old states system were, however, too profound to admit of any attempt at a complete restoration, even had the interests of the Reconstruction of Europe. allied powers been consistent with such a course. The object of the four great powers in whose hands the settlement of Europe now lay, was rather, after taking precautions to confine France within her “legitimate boundaries,” to arrange such a “just equilibrium” in Europe that no individual state should for the future be in a position to overset the balance of power. The first object was to be attained by the re-establishment of the ancient dynasty in France, as a guarantee to Europe against a renewal of the revolutionary propaganda; the Congress of Vienna, 1814–1815. second was the work of the congress of Vienna, by which, between September 1814 and June 1815, the reconstruction of Europe was taken in hand. The opening of the congress, in which for the first time all Europe seemed to be united for the friendly settlement of common
