Napoleonic History

Stella Ghervas, "The Vienna Peace Settlements: From a Balance of Power to a Balance of Negotiation".

What were the innovations of the Congress of Vienna? It has been traditional to affirm that the European peace and security system established in the course of the Congress of Vienna had been an achievement of the political model of the balance of power. Historical reality was however more complex than that. Despite conflicting agendas, the statesmen and diplomats who drafted the settlements of 1814-15 genuinely sought to establish a lasting peace, after the long and bloody wars against Napoleon. In doing so, they effectively banned war among themselves for nearly four decades, until the outbreak of the Crimean War (1853).

In the early years of the nineteenth century, Napoleon instigated a series of institutional and political reforms intended to actualize social and moral regeneration in France. In doing so, he conceived of his role as preceptor of the nation through the political writings of the Enlightenment. With its biblical and ancient references, this literature revived the figure of the ideal legislator in response to a weakened divine-right monarchy. The present article discusses the legacy and evolution of the legislator political motif featured in an example of Napoleonic art, a relief ensemble completed in 1807 by Jean-Guillaume Moitte for the new iconographic program of the Louvre’s Cour Carrée: “The Muse of History leaning on the tradition of Thucydides and Herodotus”. This composition surmounted four personages on each side of the window: the prophet and lawgiver Moses, the Egyptian goddess Isis, the pious Roman legislator Numa Pompilius, and the founder of the Inca dynasty Manco Capac. The themes surrounding this composition provide a significant illustration of attempts at the regeneration and subordination of religious communities through legislation taken by Napoleon’s administration.

In 2007 the facsimile edition of an original manuscript written by a French soldier of Bonaparte’s Expedition in Egypt was published. Illustrated by naive coloured plates by the hand of the author, this document relates, almost day after day, the French Expedition in Egypt and Syria. It describes the main battles between the French troops and the English and Mameluks forces, but also the discovery of an exotic country and its culture at the end of the18th century, from a young revolutionary French soldier’s point of view. The purpose of this paper is to highlight a second version of this personal Description de l'Egypte, probably written shortly after the first one. A preliminary study shows that this variant, still unpublished and mentioned here for the first time, is longer and more detailed. Future research will have to explain why those two versions were written and now coexist.

Heeringen, R.M. van/A. Vissinga, 2016: Archeologisch vooronderzoek in het oostelijk deel van het camp d’Utrecht, een Frans legerkamp uit de periode van het Bataafs Gemenebest in Austerlitz. Een inventariserend veldonderzoek onder het protocol proefsleuven tussen Hubertweg 31 en Kamperlinie (Dorpsplan Austerlitz), gemeente Zeist, Amersfoort (Vestigia-rapport V1359).

During the past decades, the assassination attempt has been treated from different disciplines. Nevertheless, the mediatization of the assassination attempt or its treatment in images and audiovisual media has been widely neglected. Starting from a triptych applicable to 19th century tyrannicides and articulated by the assassination performance, the perpetrator’s arrest and, finally, his punishment, we aim at verifying to what extent this model fits into 20th-century assassination attempts. For this reason, three key assassinations will be considered. First, the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Archduke of Austria, in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914, perpetrated by Serbian nationalists, and which would lead to WWI. Second, the failed attempt on 20 July 1944 against Adolf Hitler in the Wolfsschanze; a plot in which many high rank officers of the Wehrmacht were involved. As third example, we will focus on John F. Kennedy’s assassination in
Dallas, on 22 November 1963, reputed to Lee H. Oswald.

After five years of occupation (from 1809 exactly) by Portuguese troops come from Brazil, French Guiana was supposed to be retroceded to France after the fall of Napoleon and the first Treaty of Paris of may 1814. After the flight of the Eagle and the Hundred Days, however, the territory was to remain occupied by the Portuguese troops up to the end of the year 1817 when new French authorities could eventually be re-established in the colony. In my presentation here today, I will only stress some of the problems of this three year period of hesitations between de facto annexation to the Portuguese Empire of Brazil and de jure return to French sovereignty. • first, I focus on what it seems to be : a matter of rivalry between two colonial powers on the South American Continent – including the British, who were deeply interested in the new settlements of 1815 in the Eastern Caribbean, the Guiana plateau, and the Brazilian Empire. • second, I focus on the destiny of the slaves. Some of them were emancipated thanks to the conquest by the Portugueses, but for the most part of them, their condition was not changed by the new rulers of the colony. There was anyway a major interference, I mean the ban on the Atlantic slave trade edicted by the British in 1807 and confirmed by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The colonial lobby in Paris claimed for new attempts to provision Guiana with African, Brazilian and Caribbean slaves, and so did the plantation owners disadvantaged by foreign occupation.  • third, the conclusion of this period of occupation by the Portuguese is also the issue of the territory situated southwest of the river Oyapock, which was reconfigured by the re-drawing of frontiers in 1814-1817 into a Franco-Brazilian disputed zone for more or less a century : the so-called " contesté " finally obtained by Brazil at the beginining of the twentieth century after an international arbitration ruled by Switzerland.

Des aménagements voulus par Napoléon III au château de Compiègne, plusieurs sont parvenus jusqu’à nos jours, soulignant l’attachement certain du souverain et de son entourage pour les séjours automnaux dans le palais isarien. Il est une réalisation cependant dont il ne reste pratiquement aucune trace, sinon quelques trop rares témoignages : le musée gallo-romain, établi dans la serre tempérée du château. Ce fait est d’autant plus dommageable que cette galerie d’étude, véritable cabinet d’amateur dédié aux fouilles archéologiques locales, a sans doute été l’apport le plus personnel, certes terriblement éphémère, de l’Empereur pour sa résidence compiégnoise. Marque toute intime en effet car s’il est bien difficile d’affirmer que Napoléon III fut un homme passionné par les arts, loin s’en faut, du moins son constant et profond intérêt pour l’histoire en général et l’archéologie en particulier est parfaitement établi.

Dibattito “Quadro sanitario: dalla salubrità delle città alla modernizzazione delle professioni della salute” (19 maggio 2021), all’interno del ciclo di incontri “Eredità napoleoniche // Les héritages de Napoléon”, organizzato dall’Institut français Firenze

This essay is dedicated to cartography and the effects Napoleon's campaigns had on the representation of terrain. The reader is invited to consider Napoleon's particular style of cartography and its way of representing geographical features visually, as well as its establishment of the norms for modern cartography.
Despite the great development that scientific studies on the Napoleon­ic cartography of ltaly have had since the 1980s, we are still far from having an overview like the 'interpretative' Atlas designed twenty years ago by Anne God­lewska. This study ain1s to contribute to a first, non-exhaustive, list of the main cartographic campaigns carried out in ltaly by French military geographers during the wars of French Revolution and Empire. Tue reader is invited to consider the particular ain1s and style of the new ltalian cartography produced by the French Dépòt général de la Guerre as well as by the topographic offices of Milan and Naples.

Situated just to the north of the château/farm of Hougoumont on the Waterloo battlefield, the Bois d’Hougoumont seldom gets a mention in the history books. Many authors have assumed that the wood was cut down well before the battle, but Alasdair White’s recent research into the age of some of the trees in the wood show that they pre-date the Battle of Waterloo, suggesting that the Bois d’Hougoumont may well have existed at the time of the battle thus explaining some of the events that took place.

In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was common for British Army regiments to recruit Black males to serve as enlisted military musicians. The Irish regiments of the Crown also engaged in the practice, and this study will focus on the Black bandsmen of the 87th (Prince of Wales’s Irish) and 89th (Princess Victoria’s) Regiments of Foot, the antecedent regiments of the Royal Irish Fusiliers. For a more detailed exploration of Black military musicians in Ireland and Irish regiments see Ellis, JD. “The Black, the Red and the Green: Black Red-Coats and Ireland during the Eighteenth and Nineteenth Centuries.” Irish Sword 23, no.323 (2003): pp. 409-25. Also see www.academia.edu/

From Publisher:

Austerlitz, Wagram, Borodino, Trafalgar, Leipzig, Waterloo: these are the places most closely associated with the era of the Napoleonic Wars. But how did this period of nearly continuous conflict affect the world beyond Europe? The immensity of the fighting waged by France against England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia, and the immediate consequences of the tremors that spread throughout the world.

In this ambitious and far-ranging work, Alexander Mikaberidze argues that the Napoleonic Wars can only be fully understood in an international perspective. France struggled for dominance not only on the plains of Europe but also in the Americas, West and South Africa, Ottoman Empire, Iran, India, Indonesia, the Philippines, Mediterranean Sea, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans. Taking specific regions in turn, Mikaberidze discusses major political-military events around the world and situates geopolitical decision-making within its long- and short-term contexts. From the British expeditions to Argentina and South Africa to the Franco-Russian maneuvering in the Ottoman Empire, the effects of the French Revolution and Napoleonic Wars would shape international affairs well into the next century. In Egypt, the wars led to the rise of Mehmed Ali and the emergence of a powerful state; in North America, the period transformed and enlarged the newly established United States; and in South America, the Spanish colonial empire witnessed the start of national-liberation movements that ultimately ended imperial control.

Skillfully narrated and deeply researched, here at last is the global history of the period, one that expands our view of the Napoleonic Wars and their role in laying the foundations of the modern world.

This volume is related to the Russian Army during the zar Paul I era, and are about infantry: fusiliers, grenadiers and muskeeter regiments. Compiled at Saint Petersburg during the year from 1837 and 1851, the Historical Description of the Clothing and Arms of the Russian Army has had an enormous impact and great importance for the study on the history of Russian costume and uniformology development over the past centuries .There are various ancient editions of the work but Mark Conrad’s translation is the first one and the best, remaining true to the original structure and essential style of the text. Conrad’s comprehensive translation is an indispensable resource for today’s historian, strategists, and scholars. The Viskovatov’s enormous work is based on a great quantity of archival documents and contains four thousand colored and b/w illustrations. It is composed by 30 or 34 volumes (1st edition 1-30, St. Petersburg, 1841-62, and 2nd edition Vols. 1-34, St. Petersburg - Novosibirsk - Leningrad, 1899-1948). The topics discussed start from the early czars until the late nineteenth century. Our new edition has enriched the book with the plates: we revised and colored many of the images so far available just in black and white, as well we found some rare color plates with the collaboration of private collectors. These, together with the first ever English translation, make our collection exclusive and of great value.

Il lungo arco cronologico che va dal 1494 sino alla vittoria austriaca nella Prima guerra per l’indipendenza italiana (1849) si apre con l’instaurarsi nella Penisola della ‘preponderanza’ di una potenza ‘straniera’, la Francia dei Valois, e si chiude con la restaurazione dell’egemonia di un’altra, l’Austria degli Asburgo-Lorena. Le vicissitudini degli antichi Stati italiani nei secoli compresi tra queste date sono state interpretate, sino al secondo ’900, come il riflesso della passività dei popoli e delle élites peninsulari e della loro subordinazione a decisioni politiche elaborate oltralpe. Questo caposaldo della storiografia ottocentesca è stato recentemente messo in discussione anche grazie a un nuovo approccio agli studi storici militari, la New Military History: in tale prospettiva l’esercito viene analizzato quale prodotto delle dinamiche sociali e politiche interne all’aggregato politico di cui costituisce il braccio armato, e la guerra diviene il terreno privilegiato dell’incontro-scontro tra le progettualità sociali e politiche di tutti gli attori interessati, ossia delle potenze in competizione e dei soggetti che mettono a disposizione dello sforzo bellico – volontariamente o forzosamente – le indispensabili risorse umane e materiali.
Proprio da questo modello di ricerca emerge il protagonismo delle élites e della base sociale peninsulari nelle guerre della Prima età moderna, determinato da tre dati di fatto ineludibili: il carattere permanente della competizione politica e militare che nell’arco cronologico considerato coinvolse in Europa un numero di potenze sempre maggiore, e che fu il prodotto della vocazione all’espansione territoriale delle dinastie sovrane ai vertici di tali potenze; l’incapacità dei contendenti di finanziare attraverso il gettito fiscale ordinario uno sforzo bellico esercitato su più fronti, che richiese l’accrescimento numerico degli eserciti, nonché l’aggiornamento delle armi e delle strutture organizzative, scandito dai costanti progressi tecnologici; l’impossibilità di finanziare le crescenti spese di guerra attraverso il solo incremento della pressione fiscale, per le inevitabili tensioni interne che tali politiche avrebbero ingenerato.
Per comprendere le modalità della risposta delle monarchie alla sfida posta dal conflitto permanente in Europa è necessario precisare che nelle società d’Antico regime il tessuto sociale era costituito, oltre che da vincoli famigliari e parentali, da legami di subordinazione e protezione: legami che rispondevano, dal basso, all’impossibilità di migliorare la propria condizione individuale senza il sostegno di un superiore nella piramide sociale e, dall’alto, all’altrettanto oggettiva impossibilità di esercitare una qualunque forma di potere (incluso il comando di un reparto in guerra) senza un folto numero di protetti (i ‘clienti’). Questi ultimi offrivano i propri ‘servizi’ in cambio del ‘favore’ del patrono che dispensava – a seconda del rango dei suoi sottoposti e del proprio – cibo e vestiti, terre da lavorare, denaro, posti nella burocrazia e nell’esercito, rendite, protezione in sede giudiziaria, incarichi di prestigio, convenienti matrimoni e soprattutto la mediazione tra i propri clienti e altri patroni più potenti di lui, ossia i patroni del patrono. Il ricorso da parte delle dinastie in lotta ai privati, ai più potenti tra i propri sudditi, alle loro risorse economiche e relazionali – una scelta obbligata proprio in virtù delle ininterrotte emergenze belliche – si articolò prevalentemente in tali dinamiche clientelari e privatistiche sino a ben oltre l’Età dei Lumi.

http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674729711

Convened following Napoleon’s defeat in 1814, the Congress of Vienna is remembered as much for the pageantry of the royals and elites who gathered there as for the landmark diplomatic agreements they brokered. Historians have nevertheless generally dismissed these spectacular festivities as window dressing when compared with the serious, behind-the-scenes maneuverings of sovereigns and statesmen. Brian Vick finds this conventional view shortsighted, seeing these instead as two interconnected dimensions of politics. Examining them together yields a more complete picture of how one of the most important diplomatic summits in history managed to redraw the map of Europe and the international system of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

The Congress of Vienna investigates the Vienna Congress within a broad framework of influence networks that included unofficial opinion-shapers of all kinds, both men and women: artists and composers, entrepreneurs and writers, hosts and attendees of fashionable salons. In addition to high-profile negotiation and diplomatic wrangling over the post-Napoleonic fates of Germany, Italy, and Poland, Vick brings into focus other understudied yet significant issues: the African slave trade, Jewish rights, and relations with Islamic powers such as the Ottoman Empire and Barbary Corsairs. Challenging the usual portrayal of a reactionary Congress obsessed with rolling back Napoleon’s liberal reforms, Vick demonstrates that the Congress’s promotion of limited constitutionalism, respect for religious and nationality rights, and humanitarian interventions was influenced as much by liberal currents as by conservative ones.

Même aux antipodes, Napoléon continue à faire peur. Il angoisse littéralement un Hudson Lowe, dépassé par sa tâche et tatillon à l'excès. Au-delà des raisons pas très claires du départ de Las Cases et de son fils (voir page 24), l'attitude du gouverneur est pour le moins surprenante. Prétendre attendre des instructions précises d'une hiérarchie située à de longues semaines de navigation dénote une incapacité à assumer sa mission et conduit à tous les excès ! Pourtant, après leur victoire à Waterloo, les Anglais, même en pleine crise économique, jouent un rôle de tout premier plan (voir page 18).
En cette fin d'année 1816, la peur de l'Empereur est partout présente. On va même jusqu'à craindre les chansons dont les paroles sont jugées trop subversives et ne pas hésiter à poursuivre leurs auteurs (voir page 78). Cette peur domine la vie politique française au point qu'elle justifie la dissolution de la "Chambre introuvable". Tant pis si la conspiration de l'Epingle noire révélée par une police hyperactive est plus imaginaire que réelle (voir page 28)...

Stella Ghervas & Mark Jarrett,  "Wie Frieden geschaffen wird" [How Peace was established], Die Zeit 38, September 11, 2014, p. 20.
http://www.zeit.de/2014/38/wiener-kongress-europa-frieden
Der Wiener Kongress vor 200 Jahren gilt als Triumph der Reaktion gegen die Revolution. Aber er war auch ein großer Moment der Diplomatie, der Europa stabilisierte.

Factors including the impact across Europe of the Napoleonic Wars, the implementation of the ideology of the French Revolution, the Napoleonic Code and the Continental System all advocate the argument that Napoleon Bonaparte did indeed to a great extent fundamentally change Europe, both before and after his death.

Critica dei libri : V.  Criscuolo, Il  congresso  di Vienna, Bologna,  Il  Mulino, 2015, C. Meneguzzi Rostagni, Politica di potenza  e cooperazione,    L’organizzazione internazionale dal  Congresso di Vienna alla globalizzazione, Padova, Cedam, 2015; L. Mascilli Migliorini, Metternich,  Roma, Salerno Ed. 2014

Stella Ghervas, “Das Erbe des Wiener Kongresses und der Wert von Friedensstiften” [The Legacy of the Congress of Vienna and the Virtue of Peacemakers], Aus Politik und Zeitgeschichte (APuZ), Vol. 65, No. 22-24 (2015): 15-20.

Abstract (in German):
„Eine Betrachtung des Wiener Kongresses und des „Kongresssystems“ von 1815 bis 1823 entlang ihrer (Miss-)Erfolge bei der Bewahrung des Friedens zeigt fünf
„Lektionen“ auf, die heute noch angewandt werden könnten – vor allem mit Blick auf eine tragfähige Beziehung zwischen der Europäischen Union und Russland“.
See also on-line version: https://www.bpb.de/apuz/206927/das-erbe-des-wienerkongresses

Abstract (in English):
“This article examines the legacy of the Congress of Vienna and the ‘Congress System’ (1815-23) through their successes and failures in keeping peace. It outlines five “lessons” or principles that might still be applicable, especially in establishing a viable relationship between the European Union and Russia.”

El Primer Imperio francés y la Revolución francesa han ofrecido al lector aficionado, y al público especializado, una serie de figuras enigmáticas que, a su vez, han supuesto una "inmensa producción bibliográfica" alrededor de su legado histórico. Este es el caso de Josefina de Beauharnais, la emperatriz María Luisa, las hermanas de Napoleón I, etc. Sin embargo, si éstas son bien conocidas en Europa oriental y en las áreas de influencia francófona, en el caso español es evidente el desconocimiento parcial acerca de los autores de esta temática y sus objetos de estudio. Fuera de la novela histórica, mujeres destacables entre 1789 y 1815 no cuentan con una monografía en lengua castellana y, como se ha señalado más arriba, sus autores tampoco se han visto traducidos. Es impensable observar que el profesor J. Tulard, biógrafo de Napoleón I o Florence de Baudus, descendiente directa de un oficial del "Gran Ejército", no sean conocidos entre los interesados en la materia hoy en el área peninsular. De hecho, esta última ha dedicado recientemente un trabajo a la relación del emperador francés con los monarcas españoles (2021).

A pesar de ello, es obvio que algún interés ha habido en el territorio español por la Europa de Napoleón, hecho que reflejan los escasos trabajos de Marcel Dupont Carolina Bonaparte (1945) y Genevieve Chastenet Paulina Bonaparte (1998), aunque este trabajo fue publicado en Hispanoamérica. Los fondos de la Biblioteca Histórica Marqués de Valdecilla de la Universidad Complutense de Madrid albergan pequeños vestigios de la Europa de Napoleón y las mujeres que la habitaron.