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Home The Napoleonic War, 1803-1815 The Peninsular War and the Fall of Napoleon, 1809-1814 1809-1814; Part 6 |
1809-1814; Part 6But this feeling of Patriotism, which he roused everywhere against him - indeed, almost created in Germany - triumphed in the end. So in the contest of the peoples of Europe against one despot, Napoleon was bound to go down. Rightly is the fight of Leipzig (his first great defeat in a pitched battle) called the Volkerschlacht, "The Fight of the Nations". It was national patriotism which crushed him. The same fact is revealed in another way. At first all the wars which France had to wage in Europe were short. Austria was the only country which kept up a fairly continuous war, and even she had made peace four times before Leipzig. Shattering defeats at Rivoli, Marengo, and Hohenlinden, Austerlitz and Wagram brought her to the ground. Of the others, Prussia and Russia joined for brief periods; Spain and the German States wavered now to one side, now to the other. Great Britain alone was constant, but at first could find no decisive point of attack. Victories at sea and the capturing of colonies could not end the war. But when she found and fostered a national spirit of resistance in Portugal and Spain, Napoleon's downfall began. The Peninsular War is the first long war with which he had to grapple, and he could not end it, partly because of the patriotic, though guerrilla, warfare which Spain fought, and partly because he could not strike at the heart of the sea-power which supported Spain, His troops entered every European capital (Except Constantinople, Christiania and Stockholm, and St. Petersburg; but they reached Moscow), but they could not reach London. And so the long struggle in Spain gave Europe time to rally.Meantime, whilst Wellington was fighting in the Peninsula, Great Britain found herself involved in a new war. The "Continental System" and the British retaliatory measures had placed the United States and other neutral countries in an almost intolerable position. A neutral ship, if it was sailing to or from a British port, might be seized by the French; if it was not, it might be seized by the British. Moreover, the British had searched United States merchant vessels, and even on one occasion a United States war vessel, for British seamen who had joined American ships to avoid being impressed into British men-of-war. Disputes led to war being declared in 1812, In the earlier stages of the war, though Captain Broke in the Shannon upheld our prestige by causing the American frigate Chesapeake to surrender in fifteen minutes, the American frigates - so equipped as to be almost ships of the line - won many successes over the lighter-armed British frigates; and United States privateers took some five hundred British merchantmen in seven months. The land operations of the United States across the Canadian frontier were, however, a failure. The Canadians, whether of French or of British descent, combined with the British regulars to resist the invasion, and fought with great courage and persistency. Eventually Great Britain, in 1814, after Napoleon's abdication, was able to send a large fleet and her Peninsular veterans to America. Washington was taken, but an attack upon New Orleans failed, and peace was made at the end of the year. |
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