Napoleonic Wars (1792): Revolutionary wars

[586] [read-napoleonic-4-186] Napoleonic Wars is the record of 1792 under “Revolutionary wars.” The figure to read with it is 1802. 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. The Russian campaign destroyed the Grande Armee as a political instrument. Without it, Leipzig and 1814 are hard to imagine at that speed.

Coalitions, conscription and a European settlement Napoleon did not invent coalition war, but he forced Europe to invent mass armies and a diplomatic congress system to contain France. Valmy (1792) and the levee en masse created a new French war machine. Napoleon's 1796-97 Italian campaign and the 1798-1801 Egyptian expedition made him first a general, then a political necessity. The 18 Brumaire coup (1799) and the 1804 imperial coronation changed the regime without ending the war with Britain.

Amiens (1802) was a pause. Malta, trade, and mutual distrust reopened the war in 1803. Ulm and Austerlitz (1805), Jena-Auerstedt (1806), and Friedland (1807) made Napoleon master of the German lands and imposed Tilsit on Russia. The Continental System tried to blockade Britain by land -- an economic war that created smugglers and enemies.

Spain from 1808 was different: a popular war, a British army under Wellington, and a drain Napoleon never sealed. The 1812 Russian campaign -- Borodino, Moscow, the retreat -- is the operational catastrophe. 1813 in Germany became a war of nations; Sweden, Prussia, Austria and Russia coordinated better than in 1805.

Say Napoleonic Wars with 1792, “Revolutionary wars,” and 1802. The figure is not a national score.1792

Figures to keep

Year of the action: 1792
Figure in the record: 1802
Action: Napoleonic Wars
Line of the front: Revolutionary wars

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