Napoleonic Wars (1808): Spain erupts

[248] [desk-napoleonic-1] Napoleonic Wars is the record of 1808 under “Spain erupts.” The figure to read with it is 1803. Do not arrange states in a league. Fix who moved what, and where, to that year. Do not add a later war into the same total. Napoleon's blockade of British trade, imposed on Europe, widely evaded.

Coalition wars of 1803-1815 that spread conscription, the Code, and a British sea-power order -- ending at Waterloo. The Napoleonic Wars (usually dated 1803-1815) continued the French Revolutionary Wars that began in 1792. After the brief Peace of Amiens, Britain and France returned to war; seven coalitions formed and broke around Napoleon's France. Austerlitz (1805) wrecked the Third Coalition; Jena (1806) smashed Prussia; the 1808-14 Peninsular War bled France in Spain and Portugal.

The 1812 invasion of Russia destroyed the Grande Armee through battle, weather and distance. Leipzig (16-19 October 1813), the "Battle of the Nations," forced Napoleon back to France. He abdicated in 1814, returned from Elba in the Hundred Days, and lost at Waterloo on 18 June 1815 to Wellington and Blucher.

Deaths are estimated at about 3.5-6 million, including civilians and the Caribbean and Egyptian sideshows. The Congress of Vienna (1814-15) restored a conservative order that still had to live with the Code Napoleon, conscription, and British naval supremacy. English memory centres Trafalgar and Waterloo; French and German memories centre other dates.

Say Napoleonic Wars with 1808, “Spain erupts,” and 1803. The figure is not a national score.1808

Figures to keep

Year of the action: 1808
Figure in the record: 1803
Action: Napoleonic Wars
Line of the front: Spain erupts

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