Napoleon Bonaparte's Relentless Campaigns and the Question of Why He Never Stopped Fighting

Napoleon Bonaparte is one of the few people who truly changed the face of an entire continent. When he came to power in 1799, Europe looked like this, and by the time of his fall, at least the first, it was already like this, with completely different systems of government operating in many of the changed states, and in some even new royal dynasties had emerged. During this period, Napoleon led France through numerous wars, large and small, and each time, as he emerged victorious, he imposed radical changes on the defeated and those who were too weak to resist. Of course, in the end he lost, and those to whom he had previously dictated terms restored most of the former borders and rulers whom Napoleon

had replaced. But was there a moment between his first great victory and his final defeat when Napoleon could have simply stopped, cementing France's position as the European hegemon and establishing a lasting imperial dynasty there? First of all, to achieve a lasting peace, both sides in the conflict must agree to it-either because they have been so defeated that there is no choice, or because continuing the war or starting a new one would be too costly or hopeless. Napoleon was often in a position to dictate terms because he could and often did utterly defeat his opponents. But the biggest problem throughout his reign was obviously the United Kingdom of Great Britain, which was soon to officially annex Ireland. As you can see

, the United Kingdom is quite difficult to march to, so to force it to surrender, Napoleon would have had to either ferry his army across the English Channel and then defeat the British on land-which was difficult because the Royal Navy simply wouldn't let him through. The alternative would be to make the economic cost of war so high that Britain itself would begin to seek peace agreements. The main way to achieve this was to impose an economic embargo and stop trade across the English Channel, so that the British government would see that peace was more advantageous. Napoleon actually tried to do this with the Continental Blockade, requiring other European powers to refuse to trade with the British, but it failed for three reasons. The first

was that some countries simply refused, such as Portugal or later Russia, who preferred to risk war with France than lose trade with Britain and its empire. The second reason is that smuggling has always existed, and the embargo only increased the prices of British goods, making the economic damage minimal, not to mention that the rest of the world still existed and the British could trade with them. The third reason for the failure of the Continental Blockade was the Royal Navy, which not only guaranteed trade across the Atlantic, but was also powerful enough to blockade a significant part of Europe, dealing a significant blow to the economies there in return. Whatever the case, the main thing is that without the ability to force

Britain to surrender, there was always a constant rival who gladly financed the European land powers to fight Napoleon, and over time this bore fruit. So, with that in mind, when could Napoleon stop? His first opportunity came at the end of the War of the Second Coalition. After France's victory in the War of the First Coalition, the rest of Europe was not at all thrilled with the new status quo. Neither side honored the terms of the peace treaty, and after the French invaded the Papal States, attempted to retake Egypt from the Ottomans, and captured Malta, European powers formed the Second Coalition in 1799 to put France in its place

and restore the old order. Spoiler: they failed. The French did fail in the Ottoman Empire, and after fleeing back to France, Napoleon quickly overthrew the government there and made himself First Consul of the French Republic. However, everywhere else the French were very successful. The Russians soon withdrew from the war due to heavy losses and conflicts with Britain over international maritime trade. The Austrians made peace in 1801, effectively agreeing that the French's recent conquests would not be revisited anytime soon. Britain did not want to continue the war alone, so it signed the Peace of Amiens in 1802, returning all overseas colonies captured during the war in exchange for Napoleon's promise to open

France to British trade. The Ottomans also made peace, returning to the pre-war state. At that time, peace reigned on the continent, and Napoleon had time to carry out internal reforms in France and consolidate his power. However, the peace lasted just over a year before Britain again declared war on France. They did this because the peace treaty they signed was not very beneficial to them. The aforementioned hopes that France would open its markets to British goods never came true. And combined with Napoleon's attempts to retake Haiti and increase the size of the French garrison in Louisiana, the British government began to grow nervous, suspecting that Napoleon was not interested in a lasting peace. Napoleon was

happy to take bold steps to strengthen France, even if it provoked war. For example, during the previous peace treaty, the French agreed to withdraw their troops from these territories, and, to no one's surprise, they did not do so. Instead, Napoleon reorganized the occupation governments and annexed these territories. When the British expressed their discontent, Napoleon declared that Britain, like the Ottoman Empire, was not a true European power and therefore its opinion was not worth considering, and threatened to occupy and annex Hanover if they did not stop complaining. Britain chose war. Now that these two were at war again, it didn't necessarily mean that the rest of Europe had to intervene. And this would have been a great moment for Napoleon to stop,

but ironically, no. You see, this is where another reason why Napoleon didn't stop appears. Stopping was simply not in Napoleon's nature, and he was not afraid to provoke war to get what he wanted. The French annexations were a violation of the peace that France had signed with Austria, but Vienna simply decided to accept it. Napoleon soon proclaimed himself Emperor of the French, which the Austrians again reluctantly accepted. But when he decided to radically change the political system in Italy, which Austria considered its legitimate sphere of influence, and made himself its king, this was considered a step beyond the limit, and the Viennese government declared war. And this was largely the cycle of

France's interactions with other European powers at the time. Napoleon won the war, imposed harsh conditions on the defeated, and during peacetime constantly changed the borders and governments of surrounding states. One of the other European powers soon found these changes intolerable and therefore, often unwisely, declared war on Napoleon to reverse them. And this repetition highlights the main reason why Napoleon could not stop even if he wanted to. France had no serious allies to rely on, only vassals to watch over or recently defeated enemies who promised to behave quietly. Neither helped stabilize France's position, because none of the other major powers had any reason to accept the new European system. All the great

powers were monarchies that were terrified of the thought of their dynasties being overthrown by their own people in favor of petty nobles, and hated all the ideas that were spreading as a result of the French Revolution and Napoleonic conquests. France would never be able to win Britain over, and Spain was seen as a declining power whose loyalty was questionable. So his best options for establishing friendship were Austria or Russia. The Austrians were forced to sign numerous humiliating peace treaties, which reduced their territory to this extent, and the empire itself was forced to dissolve the Holy Roman Empire and lose most of its influence in its former territories. Napoleon was not overly concerned with Austria, and when

the idea of being lenient with her was put forward to secure an alliance to deter the Russians, he rejected it because, in his opinion, weakening an enemy you had already defeated only made him less able to resist what you had planned next . As for the Russians, Napoleon repeatedly made alliances with them, but made almost no effort to support them. He expected the Russians to give up their most valuable trading partner in exchange for, to put it mildly, very little. Napoleon initially agreed to assist the Russians in the division of the Ottoman Empire, but refused to make further commitments, which disappointed the government in St. Petersburg. And when the Russians eventually decided to return to trade with Britain,

Napoleon invaded with his intimidated former enemies and vassal states, and it ended badly. He was defeated, and the European powers, sensing weakness, formed the Sixth Coalition. Now that they were all united against him, you would think that Napoleon's ability to just stop everything and rule France would be limited, but the second interesting fact is that it is not. After a series of victories over France, the coalition forces offered Napoleon the chance to remain Emperor of the French in exchange for France giving up all of this. This seems like a pretty good deal, since as you all know, you can always take back what's yours if you really want to. However, Napoleon rejected this

proposal, as the coalition's advance began to slow. He hoped that by forcing the imprisoned, recently deposed king of Spain to agree to neutrality in exchange for his return to the throne, the French would be able to take the masses of their troops who remained there and throw them into the fight against the rest of Europe, which would inevitably lead to his victory. Another reason Napoleon rejected this proposal was that he simply did not trust the coalition powers. He believed that they would use the peace to build up their forces again and incite a rebellion in France in the hope of getting rid of him at

any cost, which was a perfectly reasonable assumption. Regardless of his response, the coalition soon rescinded the proposed terms and demanded that Napoleon leave, and that France's borders be further reduced before that. Napoleon, of course, was defeated and abdicated in 1814, ending any hope of preserving his dynasty. This continued until his return in 1815, when he even suggested to the allies that he would graciously accept their previous terms and promise not to make a series of conquests if they would simply allow him to rule. Surprisingly, they rejected this, and after another series of battles, Napoleon was again defeated and this time exiled to the island of St. Helena, where he remained for the

rest of his days. And his dynasty, except for that one guy 40 years later, of course, is over, and the most obvious changes in Europe that he introduced have been mostly undone. I hope you enjoyed this episode, special thanks to my patrons: James Bizenett, Skye Chappell, Katwitzger, Gustav Swan, Anthony Beckett, Michael Hulbert, Lester Diamond, Y and Hockey, the McWhopper, Alex Schwinn, Marvin Cassau, Respectable Level of Chaos, Andy McGehee, Robert K. Perkins, Castle Bravo, Captain Seadog, Commune June, Paul H the Flying Deutschland, Rod D. Martin, Shonen, Spencer Lightfoot, Eric Linden, Dr. Frederick, Dan Lehman, Radiology Ryan, D. Jim Stanham, Winston Caywood, Brady

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