War of the Fourth Coalition
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War of the Fourth Coalition | |||||||||
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Part of the Coalition Wars | |||||||||
Click an image to load the appropriate article. Left to right, top to bottom: Battle of Jena–Auerstedt, Fall of Berlin, Battle of Eylau and Battle of Friedland | |||||||||
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Belligerents | |||||||||
Fourth Coalition:
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Spain
Polish rebels | ||||||||
Commanders and leaders | |||||||||
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Strength | |||||||||
Total engaged: 422,000 Prussia: 254,000[1] Russia: 135,000[2] Saxony: 18,000[1] Sweden: 15,000[3] |
Total engaged: 237,500 French in Germany: 192,000[1] Confederation of Rhine: 27,000[1] Poland: 18,500[3] French in Italy: 40,000[1] (not engaged) French in Naples: 40,000[1] (not engaged) French in Holland: 18,000[1] (not engaged) |
The War of the Fourth Coalition (French: Guerre de la Quatrième Coalition) was a war spanning 1806–1807 that saw a multinational coalition fight against Napoleon's French Empire, subsequently being defeated. The main coalition partners were Prussia and Russia with Saxony, Sweden, and Great Britain also contributing. Excluding Prussia, some members of the coalition had previously been fighting France as part of the Third Coalition, and there was no intervening period of general peace. On 9 October 1806, Prussia declared war on France and joined a renewed coalition, fearing the rise in French power after the defeat of Austria and establishment of the French-sponsored Confederation of the Rhine in addition to having learned of French plans to cede Prussian-desired Hanover to Britain in exchange for peace. Prussia and Russia mobilized for a fresh campaign with France, massing troops in Saxony.[4]
Napoleon decisively defeated the Prussians in an expeditious campaign that culminated at the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt on 14 October 1806.[5] French forces under Napoleon occupied Prussia, pursued the remnants of the shattered Prussian Army, and captured Berlin. They then advanced all the way to East Prussia, Poland and the Russian frontier, where they fought an inconclusive battle against the Russians at the Battle of Eylau on 7–8 February 1807. Napoleon's advance on the Russian frontier was briefly checked during the spring as he revitalized his army with fresh supplies. Russian forces were finally crushed by the French at the Battle of Friedland on 14 June 1807, and three days later Russia asked for a truce.[6]
Through the
Despite the end of the Fourth Coalition, Britain remained at war with France. War would return to Continental Europe later in 1807, when Napoleon decided to invade Portugal in order to compel Portugal to join the
Origins
The Fourth Coalition (1806–1807) of Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden formed against France within months of the collapse of the previous coalition. Following his triumph at the Battle of Austerlitz and the subsequent demise of the Third Coalition, Napoleon looked forward to achieving a general peace in Europe, especially with his two main remaining antagonists, Britain and Russia. Meanwhile, he sought to isolate Prussia from the influence of these two powers by offering a tentative alliance, while also seeking to curb Prussia's political and military influence among the German states.[citation needed]
Despite the death of William Pitt in January 1806, Britain and the new Whig administration remained committed to checking the growing power of France. Peace overtures between the two nations early in the new year proved ineffectual due to the still unresolved issues that had led to the breakdown of the Peace of Amiens. One point of contention was the fate of Hanover, a German state in personal union with the British monarchy that had been occupied by France since 1803. Dispute over this state would eventually become a casus belli for both Britain and Prussia against France. This issue also dragged Sweden into the war, whose forces had been deployed there as part of the effort to liberate Hanover during the war of the previous coalition. The path to war seemed inevitable after French forces ejected the Swedish troops in April 1806.[citation needed]
Apart from some naval clashes and the peripheral Battle of Maida in southern Italy in July 1806 (though these actions are considered part of the tail end of the War of the Third Coalition), the main conflicts between Britain and France during the Fourth Coalition would involve no direct general military confrontation. Rather, there was an escalation in the ongoing economic warfare between the two powers. With Britain still retaining its dominance of the seas, Napoleon looked to break this dominance (after his defeat of Prussia) with his issuance of the Berlin Decree and the beginnings of his Continental System. Britain retaliated with its Orders in Council several months later.[7]
In the meantime, Russia spent most of 1806 recovering from defeats from the previous year's campaign. Napoleon had hoped to establish peace with Russia and a tentative peace treaty was signed in July 1806, but this was vetoed by Tsar Alexander I and the two powers remained at war. Though nominally an ally in the coalition, Russia remained a dormant entity for much of the year (giving virtually no military aid to Prussia in the main battles that October, as Russian armies were still mobilising). Russian forces would not fully come into play in the war until late 1806 when Napoleon entered Poland.[citation needed]
Finally, Prussia had remained at peace with France the previous year, though it did come close to joining the Allies in the Third Coalition. A French corps led by Marshal
Another cause was Napoleon's formation in July 1806 of the
The Confederation was above all a military alliance: in return for continued French protection, member states were compelled to supply France with large numbers of their own military personnel (mainly to serve as auxiliaries to the Grande Armée), as well as contribute much of the resources needed to support the French armies still occupying western and southern Germany. Prussia was indignant at this increasing French meddling in the affairs of Germany (without its involvement or even consultation) and viewed it as a threat. Napoleon had previously attempted to ameliorate Prussian anxieties by assuring Prussia he was not averse to its heading a North German Confederation, but his duplicity regarding Hanover dashed this. A final spark leading to war was the summary arrest and execution of German nationalist Johann Philipp Palm in August 1806 for publishing a pamphlet which strongly attacked Napoleon and the conduct of his army occupying Germany. After giving Napoleon an ultimatum on 1 October 1806, Prussia (supported by Saxony) finally decided to contend militarily with the French Emperor.[9]
Prussian campaign
In August 1806, the Prussian king
The initial military manoeuvres began in September 1806. In a letter to Marshal Soult detailing the plan for the campaign, Napoleon described the essential features of Napoleonic warfare and introduced the phrase le bataillon-carré ("square battalion").[10] In the bataillon-carré system, the various corps of the Grande Armée would march uniformly together in close supporting distance.[10] If any single corps was attacked, the others could quickly spring into action and arrive to help.[11] Napoleon unleashed all French forces east of the Rhine, deploying the corps of the Grande Armée along the frontier of southern Saxony. In a preemptive strike to catch the Prussians unaware, the Emperor had the Grande Armée march as a massive bataillon carré (battalion square) in three parallel columns through the Franconian Forest in southern Thuringia. Each corps would be in mutual supporting distance of each other, both within the column and laterally to the other columns (once through the difficult passage of the forest), thus allowing the Grande Armée to meet the enemy at any contingency. This strategy was adopted due to Napoleon's lack of intelligence regarding the Prussian main army's whereabouts and uncertainty over his enemy's puzzling manoeuvres in their march to face him. The reason for this stemmed mainly from the mutual mistrust within the Prussian high command that had resulted in division among the Prussian commanders over which plan of action for the war would be adopted. Despite the deficiency in pinpointing the main Prussian army's exact position, Napoleon correctly surmised their probable concentration in the vicinity of Erfurt-Weimar and formulated a general plan of a thrust down the Saale valley towards Gera and Leipzig, then wheeling westward in order to envelop the left flank of where he believed the Prussians were located and thus cut off their communications and line of retreat to Berlin.[citation needed]
On 8 October 1806, after a cavalry skirmish at
At the double
During the
Some 160,000 French soldiers fought against Prussia increasing in number as the campaign went on, with reinforcements arriving across the Wesel bridgehead from the peripheral theatre surrounding the recently formed Kingdom of Holland, advancing with such speed that Napoleon was able to destroy as an effective military force the entire quarter of a million-strong Prussian army. The Prussians sustained 65,000 casualties including the deaths of two members of the royal family lost a further 150,000 prisoners, over 4,000 artillery pieces, and over 100,000 muskets stockpiled in Berlin. The French suffered around 15,000 casualties for the whole campaign. Napoleon entered Berlin on 27 October 1806 and visited the tomb of Frederick the Great, telling his marshals to show their respect, saying, "If he were alive we wouldn't be here today".[12]
In total, Napoleon and the Grande Armée had taken only 19 days from the commencement of the invasion of Prussia until essentially knocking it out of the war with the capture of Berlin and the destruction of its principal armies at Jena and Auerstedt. Most of the shattered remnants of the Prussian army and the displaced royal family escaped to refuge in
On 21 November 1806, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree to bring into effect the Continental System. This policy aimed to control the trade of all European countries without consulting their governments. The ostensible goal was to weaken the British economy by closing French-controlled territory to its trade, but British merchants smuggled in many goods and the Continental System was not a powerful weapon of economic war.[13]
Polish, Russian and Swedish campaigns
Towards the end of 1806, the French entered Poland and Napoleon created a new
Meanwhile, Swedish involvement was primarily concerned with protecting
Results
Following the Treaties of Tilsit, Britain and Sweden remained the only two major coalition members still at war with France. Russia soon declared war against Britain and after a British attack on Copenhagen, Denmark–Norway joined the war on the side of Napoleon (Gunboat War), opening a second front against Sweden. A short British expedition under Sir John Moore was sent to Sweden (May 1808) to protect against any possible Franco-Danish invasion.[citation needed]
At the Congress of Erfurt (September–October 1808) Napoleon and Alexander agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System, which led to the Finnish War of 1808–1809 (meaning Sweden played no role in the next coalition against Napoleon) and to the division of Sweden into two parts separated by the Gulf of Bothnia. The eastern part became the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland. Due to the Continental System, Britain was yet again still at war with Napoleon and was not affected by the peace treaty.[citation needed]
In negotiations with captured Swedes after the
As for the French, after the Treaty of Tilsit, the Empire was seemingly at its zenith. Flush with triumph and deeming France free from any immediate obligations in Central and Eastern Europe, Napoleon decided to capture the Iberian ports of Britain's long-time ally Portugal. His main aim was to close off another strip of the European coast and a major source for British trade.[citation needed]
On 27 October 1807, Spain's Prime Minister
See also
- Gunboat War
- List of battles of the War of the Fourth Coalition
- Napoleonic Wars
- Peninsular War
- War of the Fifth Coalition
- War of the Third Coalition
References
- ^ a b c d e f g Clodfelter 2017, p. 150.
- ^ Clodfelter 2017, pp. 150–151.
- ^ a b Clodfelter 2017, p. 151.
- JSTOR 1835810.
- ISBN 978-1-5381-1350-9.
- ISBN 978-1-85532-285-1.
- JSTOR 2140167.
- ISBN 9780826442123.
- ^ Petre, Francis Loraine (1914). Napoleon's Conquest of Prussia – 1806. John Lane. pp. v–vii.
- ^ a b Chandler 1966, pp. 467–468
- ^ Brooks 2000, p. 110
- ISBN 978-1907795633.
- ISBN 978-0-19-820654-5.
- ^ Maps of Napoleon's Campaign In Poland 1806–07.
Bibliography
- Clodfelter, Micheal (2017). Warfare and armed conflicts: a statistical encyclopedia of casualty and other figures, 1492–2015 (4th ed.). Jefferson, North Carolina: McFarland & Co., Inc., Publishers. ISBN 978-0-7864-7470-7.
Further reading
- Asprey, Robert B. (2001). "Chs. 1–8". The reign of Napoleon Bonaparte. New York: New York : Basic Books. ISBN 978-0-465-00481-2.
- Bodart, Gaston; Westergaard, Harald; Kellogg, Vernon L. (Vernon Lyman) (1916). Losses of life in modern wars : Austria-Hungary : France. Oxford : Clarendon Press.
- Chandler, David G. (1993). Jena 1806: Napoleon destroys Prussia. Osprey military campaign series (Repr. ed.). Oxford: Osprey. ISBN 978-1-85532-285-1.
- David G. Chandler (1973). "Chs. 39–54". The Campaigns of Napoleon (2nd ed.). New York: Weidenfeld and Nicolson. ISBN 978-0-02-523660-8.
- Esposito, Vincent J.; Elting, John Robert (1999). A military history and atlas of the Napoleonic wars (Rev. ed.). London : Mechanicsburg, Pa: Greenhill Books ; Stackpole Books. pp. 57–83. ISBN 978-1-85367-346-7.
- Horne, Alistair (1979). Napoleon, master of Europe 1805 - 1807. New York: Morrow. ISBN 978-0-688-03500-6.
- Kagan, Frederick W. (2007). The end of the old order: Napoleon and Europe, 1801–1805. Cambridge, MA: Da Capo Press. pp. 141ff. OCLC 70714210.
- Maude, Frederic Natusch (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 19 (11th ed.). pp. 212–236. .
- Schroeder, Paul W. (1994). The transformation of European politics, 1763–1848. Oxford history of modern Europe (Reprinted ed.). Oxford: Clarendon Press. pp. 287–333. ISBN 978-0-19-822119-7.