Napoleonic Wars

On May 18, 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte was crowned Emperor of the French at Notre-Dame de Paris. The following year, the Third Coalition started in response, but he crowned himself King of Italy. Austrian Emperor Franz I angrily declared war on him and began the War of the Third Coalition. The British destroyed the French Navy at the Battle of Trafalgar in October. In December, the Austrians and the Russians allied and fought the French at the Battle of Austerlitz. The Russo-Austrian army suffered a devastating defeat and had to sign a treaty with Napoleon.

In 1806, the War of the Fourth Coalition started. The Kingdom of Prussia declared war on France first but was crushed by Napoleon's troops at the Battle of Jena. Napoleon captured Berlin before the Russians could help. In 1807, Napoleon defeated the Russian army at the Battle of Friedland, which ended the Fourth Coalition.

In 1809, the War of the Fifth Coalition began with Austria declaring war on Napoleon. In the early phases of the war, the Austrians had the advantage of the war, but later the French captured Vienna and ended the Fifth Coalition. At the height of his power in 1810, Napoleon had controlled France, Spain, northern Italy, Germany and part of Russia.

In 1808, the Peninsular War began when Napoleon crowned his brother Joseph Bonaparte as King of Spain, and France fought British, Spanish, and Portuguese troops. In 1809, the Finnish War began between Russia and Sweden after Sweden and Portugal made peace with France. That led to the annexation of Finland by Russia and the decisive failure of Sweden. In 1811, France and Russia had disagreements again, and Napoleon allied with Prussia and Austria and invaded Russia.

Napoleon staged a French invasion of Russia in 1812 by gathering the largest army that Europe and possibly the whole world had ever seen, just as the Americans and the British started the War of 1812. In Russia, Napoleon barely won the huge Battle of Borodino but lost many of his soldiers. Napoleon hoped to make peace with the Russias, but they decided to retreat and abandon Moscow to the advancing French troops. Napoleon found Moscow empty and burning. The cold winter along with starvation from scorched earth tactics devastated Napoleon's army. That was the first important defeat in his conquest of Europe

Napoleon's weakened Grande Armée had to retreat to Paris through the freezing winter of Russia but was finally defeated by the Russians. Prussia and Austria declared war after Napoleon's failure and began the War of the Sixth Coalition. Later, Leo Tolstoy's novel War and Peace and Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky's music piece 1812 Overture depicted the Patriotic War and celebrated the resistance and the liberation of Russia.

Meanwhile, the much smaller War of 1812 started between the British and the Americans, the latter trying to conquer Canada. The war continued until 1815, neither side gaining anything. Revolutions in Latin America made independent states in the Americas of most of the Spanish Empire, which was unstable by the French invasion.

The British, Spanish and Portuguese had pushed Napoleon's forces out of Spain after the Battle of Vitoria. Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig and captured Paris in 1814. The brother of the executed King Louis XVI had already proclaimed himself as French King Louis XVIII, was sent by the Prussian forces to Paris and was crowned. Napoleon was forced to abdicate.

Napoleon was later exiled to Elba and was nearly assassinated. However, he and 200 other men escaped back to Paris, forced Louis XVIII off the throne and stated the Hundred Days. The former Allies formed the Seventh Coalition, and the Duke of Wellington defeated Napoleon again at the Battle of Waterloo with the help of the Prussian General Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher in 1815. Louis XVIII was returned to the throne again, and the Second Restoration began.