UC-Irvine's Muslim Student Union has announced that it has been re-instated. Their website also mentions some up-coming activities.
http://www.msu-uci.com/
Monday, January 31, 2011
Frank Gaffney's Article on the Muslim Brotherhood
Thanks to Act for America for sending me this article.
The below linked article by Frank Gaffney appears on the blog, "Big Peace".
http://bigpeace.com/fgaffney/2011/01/30/the-muslim-brotherhood-is-the-enemy/
When Gaffney speaks, we all should listen. He knows what he is talking about.
The below linked article by Frank Gaffney appears on the blog, "Big Peace".
http://bigpeace.com/fgaffney/2011/01/30/the-muslim-brotherhood-is-the-enemy/
When Gaffney speaks, we all should listen. He knows what he is talking about.
Statement by Rutgers University on the Anti-Israel Event
(Hat tip to Stand With Us)
Here is the statement of Rutgers University Media contact Ernest Miranda regarding this past weekend's anti-Israel event in which pro-Israel folks were kept from entering by means of a spur of the moment admission fee.
http://news.rutgers.edu/medrel/statements/2011/statement-of-preside-20110130/
Statement by Rutgers University on Douglass Campus Center Event
University responds to issues raised by outside groups at weekend event
January 30, 2011
On the evening of Saturday, January 29, an event was held by the organization American Muslims for Palestine in Trayes Hall at the Douglass Campus Center of Rutgers University.The organization is presenting its program at colleges, universities and community organizations around the country. A number of campus student groups worked with them to publicize the program. The event also drew protestors.
The university wishes to correct a number of assertions that have appeared in some published reports of the event:
Rutgers University was not the sponsor of Saturday evening's event at the Douglass Campus Center.
American Muslims for Palestine leased a hall inside the center from the university and paid the cost of the event. The organizers hired two off-duty officers to assist with security and crowd control.
The organizers had originally advertised a suggested donation of five to twenty dollars upon entry. At the event, the organizers chose to impose a five dollar entrance fee on attendees. Some attendees attempted to enter the venue without paying the fee or through unauthorized entrances, including fire doors.
Contrary to published reports, Rutgers University Police did not bar anyone who paid the fee -- which was imposed by the organizers who leased the space -- from entering the hall. Police assisted in facilitating access to the hall and crowd control. Individuals who declined to pay the entrance fee, or who wished to protest the event, gathered inside the student center.
Media Contact: Ernest Miranda
732-932-7084, ext. 613
E-mail: emiranda@ur.rutgers.edu
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ernest (o) Miranda????? I always wondered whatever happened to that guy. Hey Miranda! Haven't you learned by now that you have the right to silence and all that? You should have exercized it.
Heard Through the Grapevine in Cairo
I was e-mailed this video by a friend. It appears on Jihad Watch.
The Dearborn Mosque Incident
In case you are not aware, a 63-year-old California man, Roger Stockham, was arrested last Monday by Dearborn, Michigan police in the parking lot of a major mosque. His car contained some sort of explosives described as grade C fireworks.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/30/man-arrested-explosives-outside-nations-largest-mosques/?test=latestnews
Apparently, Stockham had been overheard in a bar the previous evening making threatening statements about the mosque. A patron notified the police and Stockham was busted the next day at the mosque. He is still in custody.
In the past, I have chosen to mention certain incidents like this when they occur since organizations like CAIR have a field day with these cases. Some have turned out to be hoaxes.
In this case, however, the police have actually made an arrest and seized some sort explosive device. I am still not sure what kind of devices these are.
Nonetheless, acts like these are clearly unacceptable. Fortunately, it appears to be one lone man. Folks, this is no way to respond to the radical Islamists. I know nothing about this mosque or its leaders. Thus, I must assume these are innocent people just like the majority of American Muslims.
I still maintain that America has a proud record of not targeting innocent Muslims, especially since 9-11. We must keep it that way. There is room for honest discussion about some of the religious leaders in America and their messages. That discussion, however, must never damn an entire people. That is not the way Americans should do it.
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/01/30/man-arrested-explosives-outside-nations-largest-mosques/?test=latestnews
Apparently, Stockham had been overheard in a bar the previous evening making threatening statements about the mosque. A patron notified the police and Stockham was busted the next day at the mosque. He is still in custody.
In the past, I have chosen to mention certain incidents like this when they occur since organizations like CAIR have a field day with these cases. Some have turned out to be hoaxes.
In this case, however, the police have actually made an arrest and seized some sort explosive device. I am still not sure what kind of devices these are.
Nonetheless, acts like these are clearly unacceptable. Fortunately, it appears to be one lone man. Folks, this is no way to respond to the radical Islamists. I know nothing about this mosque or its leaders. Thus, I must assume these are innocent people just like the majority of American Muslims.
I still maintain that America has a proud record of not targeting innocent Muslims, especially since 9-11. We must keep it that way. There is room for honest discussion about some of the religious leaders in America and their messages. That discussion, however, must never damn an entire people. That is not the way Americans should do it.
Obama was "Reaganesque"??!!
Isn't it amazing how our all-but-state-run media (except for Fox, of course) are falling all over themselves over Obama. After his State of the Union, which was about as flat as a can of Bud Lite, they all called it 'Reaganesque".
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2011/20110126125238.aspx
Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave at the comparison. Here was a man who knew that "Government is the problem". Now his worst fears about government are coming to realization under Obama.
And they are calling Obama's speech, "Reaganesque".
Ronald Reagan was a man who believed in the power of the individual-not the power of the government. He had faith that if the government could leave people alone, they would achieve great things. He also believed that the purpose of government was to serve and protect the people. This president has it backwards. Under Obama and his czars, they people are here to serve government. They have no faith whatsoever in the people.
These statements speak volumes about the credibility of the news media. It is as if they had been nationalized by their masters in the government and had their scripts reviewed by censors.
I lived for three years in Thailand when the country was under military rule and there was no free press. What I read coming out of the New York Times et al is eerily reminiscent of those days. Now you have four out of the 5 major news networks giving us that old political spin job about how Obama "hit a home run". In their words, he was Reaganesque.
Pass the Excedrin.
http://www.mrc.org/biasalert/2011/20110126125238.aspx
Ronald Reagan must be spinning in his grave at the comparison. Here was a man who knew that "Government is the problem". Now his worst fears about government are coming to realization under Obama.
And they are calling Obama's speech, "Reaganesque".
Ronald Reagan was a man who believed in the power of the individual-not the power of the government. He had faith that if the government could leave people alone, they would achieve great things. He also believed that the purpose of government was to serve and protect the people. This president has it backwards. Under Obama and his czars, they people are here to serve government. They have no faith whatsoever in the people.
These statements speak volumes about the credibility of the news media. It is as if they had been nationalized by their masters in the government and had their scripts reviewed by censors.
I lived for three years in Thailand when the country was under military rule and there was no free press. What I read coming out of the New York Times et al is eerily reminiscent of those days. Now you have four out of the 5 major news networks giving us that old political spin job about how Obama "hit a home run". In their words, he was Reaganesque.
Pass the Excedrin.
Hizb-ut-Tahrir in Britain
(Hat tip to Harry's Place)
Earlier I wrote about the attempt of Britain's radical Muslim group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir to join an Egyptian protest rally in London outside the Egyptian embassy. Harry's Place has an informative video from an earlier Hizb event that gives an insight into this charming outfit that seeks a world-wide Caliphate under Islamic rule. Harry also raises the question of why the Quaker Friends House in London gives this bunch a venue to hold their hateful events.
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/01/28/a-friendly-approach-to-extremists/
Below is the site for Friends House
http://www.quaker.org.uk/
All in the name of "peace", I guess.
PS: This organization is also in the US. They hold their annual conferences in the Chicago area.
Earlier I wrote about the attempt of Britain's radical Muslim group, Hizb-ut-Tahrir to join an Egyptian protest rally in London outside the Egyptian embassy. Harry's Place has an informative video from an earlier Hizb event that gives an insight into this charming outfit that seeks a world-wide Caliphate under Islamic rule. Harry also raises the question of why the Quaker Friends House in London gives this bunch a venue to hold their hateful events.
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/01/28/a-friendly-approach-to-extremists/
Below is the site for Friends House
http://www.quaker.org.uk/
All in the name of "peace", I guess.
PS: This organization is also in the US. They hold their annual conferences in the Chicago area.
Sunday, January 30, 2011
Where is Norman Finkelstein?
Norman Finkelstein on a recent panel. (He's the one on the left.)
If you are wondering where that great "independent scholar with a PhD from Princeton University has been recently.........
he's on another "Israel Sucks" tour.
Yes, Norman is spending his post-academic career flying around the world and giving his off-the-shelf speech damning Israel and anyone else who disagrees with him. If you are interested in wasting a couple of hours listening to his droning rhetoric, here is his schedule, right off his website:
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/?norman_finkelstein=see_him_live
Which leads to the question.....who pays for all these speaking appearances? I can't believe that anyone would pay to hear this clown speak. He is an absolute bore and drones on and on and on. Of course, he's a big hit with university audiences, not just young students with heads full of mush, but faculty, deans, asst deans, vice chancellors, directors of cross-cultural centers and head custodians-with their heads full of mush.
So if your city appears on the schedule, get ready.
The circus is coming to town.
Stand With Us Statement on Rutgers Incident
Saturday night, an event was held at Rutgers University entitled, "Never again for anyone" hosted by a group called BAKA, whose message is to compare the Holocaust to Israeli policies vis-a-vis Palestinians. A large group of Jewish students and community members arrived at the event, which was advertised as open. They were refused entry unless they agreed to pay an entrance fee, which had previously been announced as a suggestion donation. Here is a statement by the Jewish advocacy group (which I support) Stand With Us.
http://www.standwithus.com/app/iNews/view_n.asp?ID=1740
It appears that admission was free and open to the public with a suggested donation. When a large Jewish contingent showed up, they tried to change admission for them to $5.00. What also needs to be investigated is the allegation that organizers asked campus police to keep out those wearing kippas.
Here is a YouTube video of campus police handling the situation.
In addition, Atlas Shrugs has several videos of the incident at
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/01/barring-jews-at-rutgers-university.html
and also a website called Challah hu Akbar (whatever that means) has videos as well as the flyers for the event.
http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/2011/01/rutgers-university-event-bans-jewish.html
This is pretty much par for the course when anti-Israel events draw a large turnout of Israel supporters. I applaud the protesters who turned out to expose the hypocrisy of the pro-Palestinian activists. Forunately, things didn't get out of hand. I just wonder when these universities will recognize that these events require a strong campus police presence.
http://www.standwithus.com/app/iNews/view_n.asp?ID=1740
It appears that admission was free and open to the public with a suggested donation. When a large Jewish contingent showed up, they tried to change admission for them to $5.00. What also needs to be investigated is the allegation that organizers asked campus police to keep out those wearing kippas.
Here is a YouTube video of campus police handling the situation.
In addition, Atlas Shrugs has several videos of the incident at
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2011/01/barring-jews-at-rutgers-university.html
and also a website called Challah hu Akbar (whatever that means) has videos as well as the flyers for the event.
http://challahhuakbar.blogspot.com/2011/01/rutgers-university-event-bans-jewish.html
This is pretty much par for the course when anti-Israel events draw a large turnout of Israel supporters. I applaud the protesters who turned out to expose the hypocrisy of the pro-Palestinian activists. Forunately, things didn't get out of hand. I just wonder when these universities will recognize that these events require a strong campus police presence.
European History for Dummies III: The Napoleonic Wars
A chart showing European wars ca. 1800
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars
Here's another in the series of glorious wars that make up European history This one is so confusing even historians don't know when it started. See if you can follow the Wikipedia account.
"The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts declared against Napoleon's French Empire and changing sets of European allies by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription. French power rose quickly, conquering most of Europe, but collapsed rapidly after France's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Napoleon's empire ultimately suffered complete military defeat resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France. The wars resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and sowed the seeds of nascent nationalism in Germany and Italy that would lead to the two nations' consolidation later in the century. Meanwhile, the Spanish Empire began to unravel as French occupation of Spain weakened Spain's hold over its colonies, providing an opening for nationalist revolutions in Spanish America. As a direct result of the Napoleonic wars, the British Empire became the foremost world power for the next century,[1] thus beginning Pax Britannica.
No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began. One possible date is 9 November 1799, when Bonaparte seized power in France with the coup of 18 Brumaire. 18 May 1803 is probably the most commonly used date, as this was when a renewed declaration of war between Britain and France (resulting from the collapse of the Treaty of Amiens), ended the only period of general peace in Europe between 1792 and 1814. The latest proposed date is 2 December 1804, when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor.
The Napoleonic Wars ended following Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815 and the Second Treaty of Paris.
The French Revolution of 1789 had a significant impact throughout Europe, which only increased with the arrest of King Louis XVI of France in 1792 and his execution in January 1793 for "crimes of tyranny" against the French people. The first attempt to crush the French Republic came in 1793 when Austria, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples, Prussia, Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain formed the First Coalition. French measures, including general conscription (levée en masse), military reform, and total war, contributed to the defeat of the First Coalition, despite the civil war occurring in France. The war ended when General Bonaparte forced the Austrians to accept his terms in the Treaty of Campo Formio. Only Great Britain remained diplomatically opposed to the French Republic.
The Second Coalition was formed in 1798 by Austria, Great Britain, the Kingdom of Naples, the Ottoman Empire, Papal States, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and other states. During the War of the Second Coalition, the French Republic suffered from corruption and internal division under the Directory. France also lacked funds, and no longer had the services of Lazare Carnot, the war minister who had guided it to successive victories following extensive reforms during the early 1790s. Napoleon Bonaparte, the main architect of victory in the last years of the First Coalition, had gone to campaign in Egypt. Missing two of its most important military figures from the previous conflict, the Republic suffered successive defeats against revitalized enemies whom British financial support brought back into the war.
"Yee gads!!"
Bonaparte returned from Egypt to France on 23 August 1799, and seized control of the French government on 9 November 1799 in the coup of 18 Brumaire, replacing the Directory with the Consulate. He reorganized the French military and created a reserve army positioned to support campaigns either on the Rhine or in Italy. On all fronts, French advances caught the Austrians off guard and knocked Russia out of the war. In Italy, Bonaparte won a notable victory against the Austrians at Marengo in 1800, but the decisive win came on the Rhine at Hohenlinden later that year. The defeated Austrians left the conflict after the Treaty of Lunéville (9 February 1801), forcing Britain to sign the "peace of Amiens" with France. Thus the Second Coalition ended in another French triumph. However, the United Kingdom remained an important influence on the continental powers in encouraging their resistance to France. London had brought the Second Coalition together through subsidies, and Bonaparte realized that without either defeating the British or signing a treaty with them he could not achieve complete peace.
"Good Golly, Miss Molly!"
No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began. Possible dates include 9 November 1799, when Bonaparte seized power in France;[2] 18 May 1803, when Britain and France ended the only period of peace in Europe between 1792 and 1814, and 2 December 1804, when Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor.
Sources in the UK occasionally refer to the nearly continuous period of warfare from 1792 to 1815 as the Great French War, or as the final phase of the Anglo-French Second Hundred Years' War, spanning the period 1689 to 1815.[3]
War between Britain and France, 1803–1814. Unlike its many coalition partners, Britain remained at war throughout the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Protected by naval supremacy (in the words of Admiral Jervis to the House of Lords "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea"), the United Kingdom maintained low-intensity land warfare on a global scale for over a decade. Despite such assurance by Admiral Jervis, evidence can still be seen of the beacon warning towers built in the event of such an invasion, for example, at Eston Nab, near Middlesbrough. The British Army gave long-term support to the Spanish rebellion in the Peninsular War of 1808–1814. Protected by topography, assisted by massive Spanish guerrilla activity, and sometimes falling back to massive earthworks (The Lines of Torres Vedras), Anglo-Portuguese forces succeeded in harassing French troops for several years. By 1815, the British Army would play the central role in the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.
Order of battle at Waterloo
The Treaty of Amiens (25 March 1802) resulted in peace between the UK and France, but satisfied neither side. Both parties dishonored parts of it: the French intervened in the Swiss civil strife (Stecklikrieg) and occupied several coastal cities in Italy, while the UK occupied Malta. Bonaparte tried to exploit the brief peace at sea to restore the colonial rule in the rebellious Antilles. The expedition, though initially successful, would soon turn to a disaster, with the French commander and Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, dying of yellow fever and almost his entire force destroyed by the disease combined with the fierce attacks by the rebels.
Hostilities between Britain and France renewed on 18 May 1803. The Coalition war-aims changed over the course of the conflict: a general desire to restore the French monarchy became closely linked to the struggle to stop Bonaparte.
Bonaparte declared France an Empire on 18 May 1804 and crowned himself Emperor at Notre-Dame on 2 December.
Having lost most of its colonial empire in the preceding decades, French efforts were focused mainly in Europe. Haiti had won its independence, the Louisiana Territory had been sold to the United States of America, and British naval superiority threatened any potential for France to establish colonies outside Europe. Beyond minor naval actions against British imperial interests, the Napoleonic Wars were much less global in scope than preceding conflicts such as Seven Years' War which historians would term a "world war".
In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System. This policy aimed to eliminate the threat from Britain by closing French-controlled territory to its trade. Britain maintained a standing army of just 220,000 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, whereas France's strength peaked at over 2,500,000, as well as several hundred thousand national guardsmen that Napoleon could draft into the military if necessary; however, British subsidies paid for a large proportion of the soldiers deployed by other coalition powers, peaking at about 450,000 in 1813.[4] The Royal Navy effectively disrupted France's extra-continental trade—both by seizing and threatening French shipping and by seizing French colonial possessions—but could do nothing about France's trade with the major continental economies and posed little threat to French territory in Europe. Also, France's population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of Britain. However, Britain had the greatest industrial capacity in Europe, and its mastery of the seas allowed it to build up considerable economic strength through trade. That sufficed to ensure that France could never consolidate its control over Europe in peace. However, many in the French government believed that cutting Britain off from the Continent would end its economic influence over Europe and isolate it.
War of the Third Coalition 1805
The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) into battle off Trafalgar. The Bucentaure also fights HMS Victory (behind her) and HMS Temeraire (left side of the picture). In fact, HMS Sandwich never fought at Trafalgar, it's a mistake from Auguste Mayer, the painter.[5]As Britain was gathering the Third Coalition against France, Napoleon planned an invasion of Great Britain,[6][7][8][9] and massed 180,000 effectives at Boulogne. However, in order to mount his invasion, he needed to achieve naval superiority—or at least to pull the British fleet away from the English Channel. A complex plan to distract the British by threatening their possessions in the West Indies failed when a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve turned back after an indecisive action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805. The Royal Navy blockaded Villeneuve in Cádiz until he left for Naples on 19 October; the British squadron subsequently caught and defeated his fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October (the British commander, Lord Nelson, died in the battle). Napoleon would never again have the opportunity to challenge the British at sea. By this time, however, Napoleon had already all but abandoned plans to invade England, and had again turned his attention to enemies on the Continent. The French army left Boulogne and moved towards Austria.
European strategic situation in 1805 before the War of the Third CoalitionIn April 1805, the United Kingdom and Russia signed a treaty with the aim of removing the French from the Batavian Republic (roughly present-day Netherlands) and the Swiss Confederation (Switzerland). Austria joined the alliance after the annexation of Genoa and the proclamation of Napoleon as King of Italy on 17 March 1805. Sweden, who had already agreed to lease Swedish Pomerania as a military base for British troops against France, formally entered the coalition on 9 August.
The Austrians began the war by invading Bavaria with an army of about 70,000 under Karl Mack von Leiberich, and the French army marched out from Boulogne in late July 1805 to confront them. At Ulm (25 September – 20 October) Napoleon surrounded Mack's army, forcing its surrender without significant losses. With the main Austrian army north of the Alps defeated (another army under Archduke Charles manoeuvred inconclusively against André Masséna's French army in Italy), Napoleon occupied Vienna. Far from his supply lines, he faced a larger Austro-Russian army under the command of Mikhail Kutuzov, with the Emperor Alexander I of Russia personally present. On 2 December, Napoleon crushed the joint Austro-Russian army in Moravia at Austerlitz (usually considered his greatest victory). He inflicted a total of 25,000 casualties on a numerically superior enemy army while sustaining fewer than 7,000 in his own force.
Austria signed the Treaty of Pressburg (26 December 1805) and left the Coalition. The Treaty required the Austrians to give up Venetia to the French-dominated Kingdom of Italy and the Tyrol to Bavaria.
With the withdrawal of Austria from the war, stalemate ensued. Napoleon's army had a record of continuous unbroken victories on land, but the full force of the Russian army had not yet come into play.
War of the Fourth Coalition 1806–1807
"Stop. Please stop."
After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806Within months of the collapse of the Third Coalition, the Fourth Coalition (1806–07) against France was formed by Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In July 1806, Napoleon formed the Confederation of the Rhine out of the many tiny German states which constituted the Rhineland and most other western parts of Germany. He amalgamated many of the smaller states into larger electorates, duchies and kingdoms to make the governance of non-Prussian Germany smoother. Napoleon elevated the rulers of the two largest Confederation states, Saxony and Bavaria, to the status of kings.
In August 1806, the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III decided to go to war independently of any other great power except the distant Russia. The Russian army, an ally of Prussia, was still far away when Prussia declared war. In September, Napoleon unleashed all the French forces east of the Rhine. Napoleon himself defeated a Prussian army at Jena (14 October 1806), and Davout defeated another at Auerstädt on the same day. Some 160,000 French soldiers (increasing in number as the campaign went on) attacked Prussia, moving with such speed that they destroyed as an effective military force the entire Prussian army of 250,000—which sustained 25,000 casualties, lost a further 150,000 prisoners and 4,000 artillery pieces, and over 100,000 muskets stockpiled in Berlin. At Jena, Napoleon fought only a detachment of the Prussian force. Auerstädt involved a single French corps defeating the bulk of the Prussian army. Napoleon entered Berlin on 27 October 1806. He visited the tomb of Frederick the Great and instructed his marshals to remove their hats there, saying, "If he were alive we wouldn't be here today". In total Napoleon had taken only 19 days from beginning his attack on Prussia until knocking it out of the war with the capture of Berlin and the destruction of its principal armies at Jena and Auerstädt. By contrast, Prussia had fought for three years in the War of the First Coalition with little achievement.
Wake up!!
In the next stage of the war the French drove Russian forces out of Poland and instituted a new state, the Duchy of Warsaw. Then Napoleon turned north to confront the remainder of the Russian army and to try to capture the temporary Prussian capital at Königsberg. A tactical draw at Eylau (7–8 February 1807) forced the Russians to withdraw further north. Napoleon then routed the Russian army at Friedland (14 June 1807). Following this defeat, Alexander had to make peace with Napoleon at Tilsit (7 July 1807). By September, Marshal Brune completed the occupation of Swedish Pomerania, allowing the Swedish army, however, to withdraw with all its munitions of war.
During 1807, Britain attacked Denmark and captured its fleet. The large Danish fleet could have greatly aided the French by replacing many of the ships France had lost at Trafalgar in 1805. The British attack helped bring Denmark into the war on the side of France.
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 1808–09 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.
War of the Fifth Coalition 1809
The Fifth Coalition (1809) of the United Kingdom and Austria against France formed as the UK engaged in the Peninsular War against France.
Again the UK stood alone, and the sea became the major theatre of war against Napoleon's allies. During the time of the Fifth Coalition, the Royal Navy won a succession of victories in the French colonies.
On land, the Fifth Coalition attempted few extensive military endeavours. One, the Walcheren Expedition of 1809, involved a dual effort by the British Army and the Royal Navy to relieve Austrian forces under intense French pressure. It ended in disaster after the Army commander—John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham—failed to capture the objective, the naval base of French-controlled Antwerp. For the most part of the years of the Fifth Coalition, British military operations on land—apart from in the Iberian Peninsula—remained restricted to hit-and-run operations executed by the Royal Navy, which dominated the sea after having beaten down almost all substantial naval opposition from France and its allies and blockading what remained of France's naval forces in heavily fortified French-controlled ports. These rapid-attack operations functioned rather like exo-territorial guerrilla strikes: they aimed mostly at destroying blockaded French naval and mercantile shipping, and disrupting French supplies, communications, and military units stationed near the coasts. Often, when British allies attempted military actions within several dozen miles or so of the sea, the Royal Navy would arrive and would land troops and supplies and aid the Coalition's land forces in a concerted operation. Royal Navy ships even provided artillery support against French units when fighting strayed near enough to the coastline. However, the ability and quality of the land forces governed these operations. For example, when operating with inexperienced guerrilla forces in Spain, the Royal Navy sometimes failed to achieve its objectives simply because of the lack of manpower that the Navy's guerrilla allies had promised to supply.
The European strategic situation in February 1809Economic warfare also continued—the French Continental System against the British naval blockade of French-controlled territory. Due to military shortages and lack of organization in French territory, many breaches of the Continental System occurred as French-dominated states engaged in illicit (though often tolerated) trade with British smugglers. Both sides entered additional conflicts in attempts to enforce their blockade; the British fought the United States in the War of 1812 (1812–15), and the French engaged in the Peninsular War (1808–14). The Iberian conflict began when Portugal continued trade with the UK despite French restrictions. When Spain failed to maintain the continental system, the uneasy Spanish alliance with France ended in all but name. French troops gradually encroached on Spanish territory until they occupied Madrid, and installed a client monarchy. This provoked an explosion of popular rebellions across Spain. Heavy British involvement soon followed.
Austria, previously an ally of France, took the opportunity to attempt to restore its imperial territories in Germany as held prior to Austerlitz. Austria achieved a number of initial victories against the thinly spread army of Marshal Berthier. Napoleon had left Berthier with only 170,000 troops to defend France's entire eastern frontier (in the 1790s, 800,000 troops had carried out the same task, but holding a much shorter front).
Napoleon had enjoyed easy success in Spain, retaking Madrid, defeating the Spanish and consequently forcing a withdrawal of the heavily out-numbered British army from the Iberian Peninsula (Battle of Corunna, 16 January 1809). But when he left, the guerrilla war against his forces in the countryside continued to tie down great numbers of troops. Austria's attack prevented Napoleon from successfully wrapping up operations against British forces by necessitating his departure for Austria, and he never returned to the Peninsula theatre. In his absence and that of his best marshals (Davout remained in the east throughout the war) the French situation in Spain deteriorated, and then became dire when Sir Arthur Wellesley arrived to take charge of British-Portuguese forces.
The Austrians drove into the Duchy of Warsaw, but suffered defeat at the Battle of Raszyn on 19 April 1809. The Polish army captured West Galicia following its earlier success.
Duchy of Warsaw
Napoleon assumed personal command in the east and bolstered the army there for his counter-attack on Austria. After a few small battles, the well-run campaign forced the Austrians to withdraw from Bavaria, and Napoleon advanced into Austria. His hurried attempt to cross the Danube resulted in the massive Battle of Aspern-Essling (22 May 1809)— Napoleon's first significant tactical defeat. But the Austrian commander, Archduke Karl, failed to follow up on his indecisive victory, allowing Napoleon to prepare and seize Vienna in early July. He defeated the Austrians at Wagram, on 5–6 July. (It was during the middle of that battle that Marshal Bernadotte was stripped of his command after retreating contrary to Napoleon's orders. Shortly thereafter, Bernadotte took up the offer from Sweden to fill the vacant position of Crown Prince there. Later he would actively participate in wars against his former Emperor.)
The War of the Fifth Coalition ended with the Treaty of Schönbrunn (14 October 1809). In the east, only the Tyrolese rebels led by Andreas Hofer continued to fight the French-Bavarian army until finally defeated in November 1809, while in the west the Peninsular War continued.
In 1810, the French Empire reached its greatest extent. On the continent, the British and Portuguese remained restricted to the area around Lisbon (behind their impregnable lines of Torres Vedras) and to besieged Cadiz. Napoleon married Marie-Louise, an Austrian Archduchess, with the aim of ensuring a more stable alliance with Austria and of providing the Emperor with an heir (something his first wife, Josephine, had failed to do). As well as the French Empire, Napoleon controlled the Swiss Confederation, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Italy. Territories allied with the French included:
the Kingdom of Spain (under Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's elder brother)
the Kingdom of Westphalia (Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon's younger brother)
the Kingdom of Naples (under Joachim Murat, husband of Napoleon's sister Caroline)
the Principality of Lucca and Piombino (under Elisa Bonaparte (Napoleon's sister) and her husband Felice Baciocchi); and Napoleon's former enemies, Prussia and Austria.
Can you say "nepotism"?
(to be continued.......)
The Invasion of Russia
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2010)
Charles Joseph Minard’s famous graph of the decreasing size of the Grande Armée represented by the width of the line as it marches to Moscow (tan) and back (black).The Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 resulted in the Anglo-Russian War (1807–12). Emperor Alexander I declared war on the United Kingdom after the British attack on Denmark in September 1807. British men-of-war supported the Swedish fleet during the Finnish War and had victories over the Russians in the Gulf of Finland in July 1808 and August 1809. However, the success of the Russian army on the land forced Sweden to sign peace-treaties with Russia in 1809 and with France in 1810 and to join the Continental Blockade against Britain. But Franco-Russian relations became progressively worse after 1810, and the Russian war with the UK effectively ended. In April 1812, Britain, Russia and Sweden signed secret agreements directed against Napoleon.
In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia. He aimed to compel Emperor Alexander I to remain in the Continental System and to remove the imminent threat of a Russian invasion of Poland. The French-led Grande Armée, consisting of 650,000 men (270,000 Frenchmen and many soldiers of allies or subject areas), crossed the Niemen River on 23 June 1812. Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War, while Napoleon proclaimed a Second Polish war. The Poles supplied almost 100,000 troops for the invasion-force, but against their expectations, Napoleon avoided any concessions to Poland, having in mind further negotiations with Russia. Russia maintained a scorched-earth policy of retreat, broken only by the Battle of Borodino on 7 September 1812. This required the Grande Armée to adjust its methods of operation, but it refused to do so.[10] This refusal led to most of the losses of the main column of the Grande Armée, which in one case amounted to 95,000 troops in a single week.[11] The bloody confrontation of Borodino ended in a tactical defeat for Russia, thus opening the road to Moscow for Napoleon.[12]
By 14 September 1812, the Grande Armée had captured Moscow. But by then, the Russians had largely abandoned the city, even releasing prisoners from the prisons to inconvenience the French. Alexander I refused to capitulate, and the governor, Count Fyodor Vasilievich Rostopchin, ordered the city burnt to the ground.[13] With no sign of clear victory in sight, Napoleon began the disastrous Great Retreat from Moscow. The remnants of the Grande Armée crossed the Berezina River in November, and only 27,000 fit soldiers remained. Napoleon then left his army and returned to Paris to prepare to defend Poland against the advancing Russians. With some 380,000 men dead and 100,000 captured,[14] the situation seemed less dire than at first. The Russians had lost around 210,000 men, leaving their army depleted. But with their shorter supply lines, they could replenish their armies faster than the French.
War of the Sixth Coalition 1812–1814
Seeing an opportunity in Napoleon's historic defeat, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, and a number of German states re-entered the war. Napoleon vowed that he would create a new army as large as the one he had sent into Russia, and quickly built up his forces in the east from 30,000 to 130,000 and eventually to 400,000. Napoleon inflicted 40,000 casualties on the Allies at Lützen (2 May 1813) and Bautzen (20–21 May 1813). Both battles involved total forces of over 250,000, making them some of the largest conflicts of the wars so far.
Meanwhile,
.....in the Peninsular War, Arthur Wellesley renewed the Anglo-Portuguese advance into Spain just after New Year in 1812, besieging and capturing the fortified towns of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and in the Battle of Salamanca (which was a damaging defeat to the French). As the French regrouped, the Anglo–Portuguese entered Madrid and advanced towards Burgos, before retreating all the way to Portugal when renewed French concentrations threatened to trap them. As a consequence of the Salamanca campaign, the French were forced to end their long siege of Cadiz and to permanently evacuate the provinces of Andalusia and Asturias.
In a strategic move, Wellesley planned to move his supply base from Lisbon to Santander. The Anglo–Portuguese forces swept northwards in late May and seized Burgos. On 21 June, at Vitoria, the combined Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish armies won against Joseph Bonaparte, finally breaking the French power in Spain. The French had to retreat out of the Iberian peninsula, over the Pyrenees.
The belligerents declared an armistice from 4 June 1813 (continuing until 13 August) during which time both sides attempted to recover from the loss of approximately a quarter of a million total troops in the preceding two months. During this time Coalition negotiations finally brought Austria out in open opposition to France. Two principal Austrian armies took the field, adding an additional 300,000 troops to the Coalition armies in Germany. In total the Allies now had around 800,000 front-line troops in the German theatre, with a strategic reserve of 350,000 formed to support the frontline operations.
Napoleon succeeded in bringing the total imperial forces in the region to around 650,000—although only 250,000 came under his direct command, with another 120,000 under Nicolas Charles Oudinot and 30,000 under Davout. The remainder of imperial forces came mostly from the Confederation of the Rhine, especially Saxony and Bavaria. In addition, to the south, Murat's Kingdom of Naples and Eugène de Beauharnais's Kingdom of Italy had a total of 100,000 armed men. In Spain, another 150,000 to 200,000 French troops steadily retreated before Anglo–Portuguese forces numbering around 100,000. Thus in total, around 900,000 French troops in all theatres faced around 1,800,000 Coalition troops (including the strategic reserve under formation in Germany). The gross figures may mislead slightly, as most of the German troops fighting on the side of the French fought at best unreliably and stood on the verge of defecting to the Allies. One can reasonably say that Napoleon could count on no more than 450,000 troops in Germany—which left him outnumbered about four to one.
Following the end of the armistice, Napoleon seemed to have regained the initiative at Dresden (August 1813), where he defeated a numerically superior Coalition army and inflicted enormous casualties, while the French army sustained relatively few. However, the failures of his marshals and a slow resumption of the offensive on his part cost him any advantage that this victory might have secured. At the Battle of Leipzig in Saxony (16–19 October 1813), also called the "Battle of the Nations", 191,000 French fought more than 300,000 Allies, and the defeated French had to retreat into France. Napoleon then fought a series of battles, including the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube, in France itself, but the overwhelming numbers of the Allies steadily forced him back. His remaining ally Denmark-Norway became isolated and fell to the coalition.
The allies entered Paris on 30 March 1814. During this time Napoleon fought his Six Days Campaign, in which he won multiple battles against the enemy forces advancing towards Paris. However, during this entire campaign he never managed to field more than 70,000 troops against more than half a million Coalition troops. At the Treaty of Chaumont (9 March 1814), the Allies agreed to preserve the Coalition until Napoleon's total defeat.
Napoleon determined to fight on, even now, incapable of fathoming his massive fall from power. During the campaign he had issued a decree for 900,000 fresh conscripts, but only a fraction of these ever materialized, and Napoleon's increasingly unrealistic schemes for victory eventually gave way to the reality of the hopeless situation. Napoleon abdicated on 6 April. However, occasional military actions continued in Italy, Spain, and Holland throughout the spring of 1814.
The victors exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba, and restored the French Bourbon monarchy in the person of Louis XVIII. They signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau (11 April 1814) and initiated the Congress of Vienna to redraw the map of Europe.
"From the river to the sea.........."
Hold on, Greta. There's more.
Gunboat War 1807–1814
Initially, Denmark-Norway declared itself neutral in the Napoleonic Wars, established a navy, and traded with both sides. But the British attacked and captured or destroyed large portions of the Dano-Norwegian fleet in the First Battle of Copenhagen (2 April 1801), and again in the Second Battle of Copenhagen (August–September 1807). This ended the Dano-Norwegian neutrality, who engaged in a naval guerrilla war in which small gunboats would attack larger British ships in Danish and Norwegian waters. The Gunboat War effectively ended with a British victory at the Battle of Lyngør in 1812, involving the destruction of the last large Dano-Norwegian ship—the frigate Najaden.
War of 1812
Coinciding with the War of the Sixth Coalition but not considered part of the Napoleonic Wars by most Americans, the otherwise neutral United States, owing to various transgressions (such as impressment), by the British, declared war on the United Kingdom and attempted to invade Canada. The war ended in status quo ante bellum under the Treaty of Ghent, signed on 24 December 1814, though sporadic fighting continued for several months (most notably, the Battle of New Orleans). Apart from the seizing of then-Spanish Mobile by the United States, there was negligible involvement from other participants of the broader Napoleonic War. Notably, a series of British raids, later called the Burning of Washington, would result in the burning of the White House, the Capitol, the Navy Yard, and other public buildings. The main effect of the War of 1812 on the wider Napoleonic Wars was to force Britain to divert troops, supplies and funds to defending Canada. This inadvertently helped Napoleon in that Britain could no longer use these troops, supplies and funds in the war against France.
War of the Seventh Coalition 1815
"Stop it, will ya. I can't take any more!" .
The Seventh Coalition (1815) pitted the United Kingdom, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and a number of German states against France. The period known as the Hundred Days began after Napoleon left Elba and landed at Cannes (1 March 1815). Travelling to Paris, picking up support as he went, he eventually overthrew the restored Louis XVIII. The Allies rapidly gathered their armies to meet him again. Napoleon raised 280,000 men, whom he distributed among several armies. To add to the 90,000 troops in the standing army, he recalled well over a quarter of a million veterans from past campaigns and issued a decree for the eventual draft of around 2.5 million new men into the French army. This faced an initial Coalition force of about 700,000—although Coalition campaign-plans provided for one million front-line troops, supported by around 200,000 garrison, logistics and other auxiliary personnel. The Coalition intended this force to have overwhelming numbers against the numerically inferior imperial French army—which in fact never came close to reaching Napoleon's goal of more than 2.5 million under arms.
Napoleon took about 124,000 men of the Army of the North on a pre-emptive strike against the Allies in Belgium. He intended to attack the Coalition armies before they combined, in hope of driving the British into the sea and the Prussians out of the war. His march to the frontier achieved the surprise he had planned, catching the Anglo-Dutch Army in a dispersed arrangement. The Prussians had been more wary, concentrating 3/4 of their Army in and around Ligny. The Prussians forced the Armee du Nord to fight all the day of the 15th to reach Ligny in a delaying action by the Prussian 1st Corps.[15] He forced Prussia to fight at Ligny on 16 June 1815, and the defeated Prussians retreated in some disorder.[16] On the same day, the left wing of the Army of the North, under the command of Marshal Michel Ney, succeeded in stopping any of Wellington's forces going to aid Blücher's Prussians by fighting a blocking action at Quatre Bras. Ney failed to clear the cross-roads and Wellington reinforced the position. But with the Prussian retreat, Wellington too had to retreat. He fell back to a previously reconnoitred position on an escarpment at Mont St Jean, a few miles south of the village of Waterloo.
Napoleon took the reserve of the Army of the North, and reunited his forces with those of Ney to pursue Wellington's army, after he ordered Marshal Grouchy to take the right wing of the Army of the North and stop the Prussians re-grouping. In the first of a series of miscalculations, both Grouchy and Napoleon failed to realize that the Prussian forces were already reorganized and were assembling at the village of Wavre. In any event the French army did nothing to stop a rather leisurely retreat that took place throughout the night and into the early morning by the Prussians.[17] As the 4th, 1st, and 2nd Prussian Corps marched through the town towards the Battlefield of Waterloo the 3rd Prussian Corp took up blocking positions across the river, and although Grouchy engaged and defeated the Prussian rearguard under the command of Lt-Gen von Thielmann in the Battle of Wavre (18–19 June) it was 12 hours too late. In the end, 17,000 Prussians had kept 33,000 badly needed French reinforcements off the field.
Napoleon delayed the start of fighting at the Battle of Waterloo on the morning of 18 June for several hours while he waited for the ground to dry after the previous night's rain. By late afternoon, the French army had not succeeded in driving Wellington's forces from the escarpment on which they stood. When the Prussians arrived and attacked the French right flank in ever-increasing numbers, Napoleon's strategy of keeping the Coalition armies divided had failed and a combined Coalition general advance drove his army from the field in confusion.
Grouchy organized a successful and well-ordered retreat towards Paris,
"Let's get outta here, boys."
......where Marshal Davout had 117,000 men ready to turn back the 116,000 men of Blücher and Wellington. Militarily, it appeared quite possible that the French could defeat Wellington and Blücher, but politics proved the source of the Emperor's downfall. In any event Davout was defeated at Issy and negotiations for surrender had begun.
On arriving at Paris three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to the hope of a concerted national resistance; but the temper of the chambers, and of the public generally, did not favour his view. The politicians forced Napoleon to abdicate again on 22 June 1815. Despite the Emperor’s abdication, irregular warfare continued along the eastern borders and on the outskirts of Paris until the signing of a cease-fire on 4 July. On 15 July, Napoleon surrendered himself to the British squadron at Rochefort. The Allies exiled him to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died on 5 May 1821.
Meanwhile in Italy, Joachim Murat, whom the Allies had allowed to remain King of Naples after Napoleon's initial defeat, once again allied with his brother-in-law, triggering the Neapolitan War (March to May, 1815). Hoping to find support among Italian nationalists fearing the increasing influence of the Habsburgs in Italy, Murat issued the Rimini Proclamation inciting them to war. But the proclamation failed and the Austrians soon crushed Murat at the Battle of Tolentino (2 May to 3 May 1815), forcing him to flee. The Bourbons returned to the throne of Naples on 20 May 1815. Murat tried to regain his throne, but after that failed, a firing squad executed him on 13 October 1815."
Political effects
One word: In-breeding.
Can't make this stuff up, folks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Wars
Here's another in the series of glorious wars that make up European history This one is so confusing even historians don't know when it started. See if you can follow the Wikipedia account.
"The Napoleonic Wars were a series of conflicts declared against Napoleon's French Empire and changing sets of European allies by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the French Revolution of 1789, they revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to the application of modern mass conscription. French power rose quickly, conquering most of Europe, but collapsed rapidly after France's disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812. Napoleon's empire ultimately suffered complete military defeat resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France. The wars resulted in the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire and sowed the seeds of nascent nationalism in Germany and Italy that would lead to the two nations' consolidation later in the century. Meanwhile, the Spanish Empire began to unravel as French occupation of Spain weakened Spain's hold over its colonies, providing an opening for nationalist revolutions in Spanish America. As a direct result of the Napoleonic wars, the British Empire became the foremost world power for the next century,[1] thus beginning Pax Britannica.
No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began. One possible date is 9 November 1799, when Bonaparte seized power in France with the coup of 18 Brumaire. 18 May 1803 is probably the most commonly used date, as this was when a renewed declaration of war between Britain and France (resulting from the collapse of the Treaty of Amiens), ended the only period of general peace in Europe between 1792 and 1814. The latest proposed date is 2 December 1804, when Napoleon crowned himself Emperor.
The Napoleonic Wars ended following Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815 and the Second Treaty of Paris.
The French Revolution of 1789 had a significant impact throughout Europe, which only increased with the arrest of King Louis XVI of France in 1792 and his execution in January 1793 for "crimes of tyranny" against the French people. The first attempt to crush the French Republic came in 1793 when Austria, the Kingdom of Sardinia, the Kingdom of Naples, Prussia, Spain and the Kingdom of Great Britain formed the First Coalition. French measures, including general conscription (levée en masse), military reform, and total war, contributed to the defeat of the First Coalition, despite the civil war occurring in France. The war ended when General Bonaparte forced the Austrians to accept his terms in the Treaty of Campo Formio. Only Great Britain remained diplomatically opposed to the French Republic.
The Second Coalition was formed in 1798 by Austria, Great Britain, the Kingdom of Naples, the Ottoman Empire, Papal States, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and other states. During the War of the Second Coalition, the French Republic suffered from corruption and internal division under the Directory. France also lacked funds, and no longer had the services of Lazare Carnot, the war minister who had guided it to successive victories following extensive reforms during the early 1790s. Napoleon Bonaparte, the main architect of victory in the last years of the First Coalition, had gone to campaign in Egypt. Missing two of its most important military figures from the previous conflict, the Republic suffered successive defeats against revitalized enemies whom British financial support brought back into the war.
"Yee gads!!"
Bonaparte returned from Egypt to France on 23 August 1799, and seized control of the French government on 9 November 1799 in the coup of 18 Brumaire, replacing the Directory with the Consulate. He reorganized the French military and created a reserve army positioned to support campaigns either on the Rhine or in Italy. On all fronts, French advances caught the Austrians off guard and knocked Russia out of the war. In Italy, Bonaparte won a notable victory against the Austrians at Marengo in 1800, but the decisive win came on the Rhine at Hohenlinden later that year. The defeated Austrians left the conflict after the Treaty of Lunéville (9 February 1801), forcing Britain to sign the "peace of Amiens" with France. Thus the Second Coalition ended in another French triumph. However, the United Kingdom remained an important influence on the continental powers in encouraging their resistance to France. London had brought the Second Coalition together through subsidies, and Bonaparte realized that without either defeating the British or signing a treaty with them he could not achieve complete peace.
"Good Golly, Miss Molly!"
No consensus exists as to when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began. Possible dates include 9 November 1799, when Bonaparte seized power in France;[2] 18 May 1803, when Britain and France ended the only period of peace in Europe between 1792 and 1814, and 2 December 1804, when Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor.
Sources in the UK occasionally refer to the nearly continuous period of warfare from 1792 to 1815 as the Great French War, or as the final phase of the Anglo-French Second Hundred Years' War, spanning the period 1689 to 1815.[3]
War between Britain and France, 1803–1814. Unlike its many coalition partners, Britain remained at war throughout the period of the Napoleonic Wars. Protected by naval supremacy (in the words of Admiral Jervis to the House of Lords "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea"), the United Kingdom maintained low-intensity land warfare on a global scale for over a decade. Despite such assurance by Admiral Jervis, evidence can still be seen of the beacon warning towers built in the event of such an invasion, for example, at Eston Nab, near Middlesbrough. The British Army gave long-term support to the Spanish rebellion in the Peninsular War of 1808–1814. Protected by topography, assisted by massive Spanish guerrilla activity, and sometimes falling back to massive earthworks (The Lines of Torres Vedras), Anglo-Portuguese forces succeeded in harassing French troops for several years. By 1815, the British Army would play the central role in the final defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo.
Order of battle at Waterloo
The Treaty of Amiens (25 March 1802) resulted in peace between the UK and France, but satisfied neither side. Both parties dishonored parts of it: the French intervened in the Swiss civil strife (Stecklikrieg) and occupied several coastal cities in Italy, while the UK occupied Malta. Bonaparte tried to exploit the brief peace at sea to restore the colonial rule in the rebellious Antilles. The expedition, though initially successful, would soon turn to a disaster, with the French commander and Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, dying of yellow fever and almost his entire force destroyed by the disease combined with the fierce attacks by the rebels.
Hostilities between Britain and France renewed on 18 May 1803. The Coalition war-aims changed over the course of the conflict: a general desire to restore the French monarchy became closely linked to the struggle to stop Bonaparte.
Bonaparte declared France an Empire on 18 May 1804 and crowned himself Emperor at Notre-Dame on 2 December.
Having lost most of its colonial empire in the preceding decades, French efforts were focused mainly in Europe. Haiti had won its independence, the Louisiana Territory had been sold to the United States of America, and British naval superiority threatened any potential for France to establish colonies outside Europe. Beyond minor naval actions against British imperial interests, the Napoleonic Wars were much less global in scope than preceding conflicts such as Seven Years' War which historians would term a "world war".
In 1806, Napoleon issued the series of Berlin Decrees, which brought into effect the Continental System. This policy aimed to eliminate the threat from Britain by closing French-controlled territory to its trade. Britain maintained a standing army of just 220,000 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, whereas France's strength peaked at over 2,500,000, as well as several hundred thousand national guardsmen that Napoleon could draft into the military if necessary; however, British subsidies paid for a large proportion of the soldiers deployed by other coalition powers, peaking at about 450,000 in 1813.[4] The Royal Navy effectively disrupted France's extra-continental trade—both by seizing and threatening French shipping and by seizing French colonial possessions—but could do nothing about France's trade with the major continental economies and posed little threat to French territory in Europe. Also, France's population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of Britain. However, Britain had the greatest industrial capacity in Europe, and its mastery of the seas allowed it to build up considerable economic strength through trade. That sufficed to ensure that France could never consolidate its control over Europe in peace. However, many in the French government believed that cutting Britain off from the Continent would end its economic influence over Europe and isolate it.
War of the Third Coalition 1805
The British HMS Sandwich fires to the French flagship Bucentaure (completely dismasted) into battle off Trafalgar. The Bucentaure also fights HMS Victory (behind her) and HMS Temeraire (left side of the picture). In fact, HMS Sandwich never fought at Trafalgar, it's a mistake from Auguste Mayer, the painter.[5]As Britain was gathering the Third Coalition against France, Napoleon planned an invasion of Great Britain,[6][7][8][9] and massed 180,000 effectives at Boulogne. However, in order to mount his invasion, he needed to achieve naval superiority—or at least to pull the British fleet away from the English Channel. A complex plan to distract the British by threatening their possessions in the West Indies failed when a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve turned back after an indecisive action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805. The Royal Navy blockaded Villeneuve in Cádiz until he left for Naples on 19 October; the British squadron subsequently caught and defeated his fleet in the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October (the British commander, Lord Nelson, died in the battle). Napoleon would never again have the opportunity to challenge the British at sea. By this time, however, Napoleon had already all but abandoned plans to invade England, and had again turned his attention to enemies on the Continent. The French army left Boulogne and moved towards Austria.
European strategic situation in 1805 before the War of the Third CoalitionIn April 1805, the United Kingdom and Russia signed a treaty with the aim of removing the French from the Batavian Republic (roughly present-day Netherlands) and the Swiss Confederation (Switzerland). Austria joined the alliance after the annexation of Genoa and the proclamation of Napoleon as King of Italy on 17 March 1805. Sweden, who had already agreed to lease Swedish Pomerania as a military base for British troops against France, formally entered the coalition on 9 August.
The Austrians began the war by invading Bavaria with an army of about 70,000 under Karl Mack von Leiberich, and the French army marched out from Boulogne in late July 1805 to confront them. At Ulm (25 September – 20 October) Napoleon surrounded Mack's army, forcing its surrender without significant losses. With the main Austrian army north of the Alps defeated (another army under Archduke Charles manoeuvred inconclusively against André Masséna's French army in Italy), Napoleon occupied Vienna. Far from his supply lines, he faced a larger Austro-Russian army under the command of Mikhail Kutuzov, with the Emperor Alexander I of Russia personally present. On 2 December, Napoleon crushed the joint Austro-Russian army in Moravia at Austerlitz (usually considered his greatest victory). He inflicted a total of 25,000 casualties on a numerically superior enemy army while sustaining fewer than 7,000 in his own force.
Austria signed the Treaty of Pressburg (26 December 1805) and left the Coalition. The Treaty required the Austrians to give up Venetia to the French-dominated Kingdom of Italy and the Tyrol to Bavaria.
With the withdrawal of Austria from the war, stalemate ensued. Napoleon's army had a record of continuous unbroken victories on land, but the full force of the Russian army had not yet come into play.
War of the Fourth Coalition 1806–1807
"Stop. Please stop."
After defeating Prussian forces at Jena, the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806Within months of the collapse of the Third Coalition, the Fourth Coalition (1806–07) against France was formed by Prussia, Russia, Saxony, Sweden, and the United Kingdom. In July 1806, Napoleon formed the Confederation of the Rhine out of the many tiny German states which constituted the Rhineland and most other western parts of Germany. He amalgamated many of the smaller states into larger electorates, duchies and kingdoms to make the governance of non-Prussian Germany smoother. Napoleon elevated the rulers of the two largest Confederation states, Saxony and Bavaria, to the status of kings.
In August 1806, the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III decided to go to war independently of any other great power except the distant Russia. The Russian army, an ally of Prussia, was still far away when Prussia declared war. In September, Napoleon unleashed all the French forces east of the Rhine. Napoleon himself defeated a Prussian army at Jena (14 October 1806), and Davout defeated another at Auerstädt on the same day. Some 160,000 French soldiers (increasing in number as the campaign went on) attacked Prussia, moving with such speed that they destroyed as an effective military force the entire Prussian army of 250,000—which sustained 25,000 casualties, lost a further 150,000 prisoners and 4,000 artillery pieces, and over 100,000 muskets stockpiled in Berlin. At Jena, Napoleon fought only a detachment of the Prussian force. Auerstädt involved a single French corps defeating the bulk of the Prussian army. Napoleon entered Berlin on 27 October 1806. He visited the tomb of Frederick the Great and instructed his marshals to remove their hats there, saying, "If he were alive we wouldn't be here today". In total Napoleon had taken only 19 days from beginning his attack on Prussia until knocking it out of the war with the capture of Berlin and the destruction of its principal armies at Jena and Auerstädt. By contrast, Prussia had fought for three years in the War of the First Coalition with little achievement.
Wake up!!
In the next stage of the war the French drove Russian forces out of Poland and instituted a new state, the Duchy of Warsaw. Then Napoleon turned north to confront the remainder of the Russian army and to try to capture the temporary Prussian capital at Königsberg. A tactical draw at Eylau (7–8 February 1807) forced the Russians to withdraw further north. Napoleon then routed the Russian army at Friedland (14 June 1807). Following this defeat, Alexander had to make peace with Napoleon at Tilsit (7 July 1807). By September, Marshal Brune completed the occupation of Swedish Pomerania, allowing the Swedish army, however, to withdraw with all its munitions of war.
During 1807, Britain attacked Denmark and captured its fleet. The large Danish fleet could have greatly aided the French by replacing many of the ships France had lost at Trafalgar in 1805. The British attack helped bring Denmark into the war on the side of France.
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 1808–09 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.
War of the Fifth Coalition 1809
The Fifth Coalition (1809) of the United Kingdom and Austria against France formed as the UK engaged in the Peninsular War against France.
Again the UK stood alone, and the sea became the major theatre of war against Napoleon's allies. During the time of the Fifth Coalition, the Royal Navy won a succession of victories in the French colonies.
On land, the Fifth Coalition attempted few extensive military endeavours. One, the Walcheren Expedition of 1809, involved a dual effort by the British Army and the Royal Navy to relieve Austrian forces under intense French pressure. It ended in disaster after the Army commander—John Pitt, 2nd Earl of Chatham—failed to capture the objective, the naval base of French-controlled Antwerp. For the most part of the years of the Fifth Coalition, British military operations on land—apart from in the Iberian Peninsula—remained restricted to hit-and-run operations executed by the Royal Navy, which dominated the sea after having beaten down almost all substantial naval opposition from France and its allies and blockading what remained of France's naval forces in heavily fortified French-controlled ports. These rapid-attack operations functioned rather like exo-territorial guerrilla strikes: they aimed mostly at destroying blockaded French naval and mercantile shipping, and disrupting French supplies, communications, and military units stationed near the coasts. Often, when British allies attempted military actions within several dozen miles or so of the sea, the Royal Navy would arrive and would land troops and supplies and aid the Coalition's land forces in a concerted operation. Royal Navy ships even provided artillery support against French units when fighting strayed near enough to the coastline. However, the ability and quality of the land forces governed these operations. For example, when operating with inexperienced guerrilla forces in Spain, the Royal Navy sometimes failed to achieve its objectives simply because of the lack of manpower that the Navy's guerrilla allies had promised to supply.
The European strategic situation in February 1809Economic warfare also continued—the French Continental System against the British naval blockade of French-controlled territory. Due to military shortages and lack of organization in French territory, many breaches of the Continental System occurred as French-dominated states engaged in illicit (though often tolerated) trade with British smugglers. Both sides entered additional conflicts in attempts to enforce their blockade; the British fought the United States in the War of 1812 (1812–15), and the French engaged in the Peninsular War (1808–14). The Iberian conflict began when Portugal continued trade with the UK despite French restrictions. When Spain failed to maintain the continental system, the uneasy Spanish alliance with France ended in all but name. French troops gradually encroached on Spanish territory until they occupied Madrid, and installed a client monarchy. This provoked an explosion of popular rebellions across Spain. Heavy British involvement soon followed.
Austria, previously an ally of France, took the opportunity to attempt to restore its imperial territories in Germany as held prior to Austerlitz. Austria achieved a number of initial victories against the thinly spread army of Marshal Berthier. Napoleon had left Berthier with only 170,000 troops to defend France's entire eastern frontier (in the 1790s, 800,000 troops had carried out the same task, but holding a much shorter front).
Napoleon had enjoyed easy success in Spain, retaking Madrid, defeating the Spanish and consequently forcing a withdrawal of the heavily out-numbered British army from the Iberian Peninsula (Battle of Corunna, 16 January 1809). But when he left, the guerrilla war against his forces in the countryside continued to tie down great numbers of troops. Austria's attack prevented Napoleon from successfully wrapping up operations against British forces by necessitating his departure for Austria, and he never returned to the Peninsula theatre. In his absence and that of his best marshals (Davout remained in the east throughout the war) the French situation in Spain deteriorated, and then became dire when Sir Arthur Wellesley arrived to take charge of British-Portuguese forces.
The Austrians drove into the Duchy of Warsaw, but suffered defeat at the Battle of Raszyn on 19 April 1809. The Polish army captured West Galicia following its earlier success.
Duchy of Warsaw
Napoleon assumed personal command in the east and bolstered the army there for his counter-attack on Austria. After a few small battles, the well-run campaign forced the Austrians to withdraw from Bavaria, and Napoleon advanced into Austria. His hurried attempt to cross the Danube resulted in the massive Battle of Aspern-Essling (22 May 1809)— Napoleon's first significant tactical defeat. But the Austrian commander, Archduke Karl, failed to follow up on his indecisive victory, allowing Napoleon to prepare and seize Vienna in early July. He defeated the Austrians at Wagram, on 5–6 July. (It was during the middle of that battle that Marshal Bernadotte was stripped of his command after retreating contrary to Napoleon's orders. Shortly thereafter, Bernadotte took up the offer from Sweden to fill the vacant position of Crown Prince there. Later he would actively participate in wars against his former Emperor.)
The War of the Fifth Coalition ended with the Treaty of Schönbrunn (14 October 1809). In the east, only the Tyrolese rebels led by Andreas Hofer continued to fight the French-Bavarian army until finally defeated in November 1809, while in the west the Peninsular War continued.
In 1810, the French Empire reached its greatest extent. On the continent, the British and Portuguese remained restricted to the area around Lisbon (behind their impregnable lines of Torres Vedras) and to besieged Cadiz. Napoleon married Marie-Louise, an Austrian Archduchess, with the aim of ensuring a more stable alliance with Austria and of providing the Emperor with an heir (something his first wife, Josephine, had failed to do). As well as the French Empire, Napoleon controlled the Swiss Confederation, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Italy. Territories allied with the French included:
the Kingdom of Spain (under Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's elder brother)
the Kingdom of Westphalia (Jérôme Bonaparte, Napoleon's younger brother)
the Kingdom of Naples (under Joachim Murat, husband of Napoleon's sister Caroline)
the Principality of Lucca and Piombino (under Elisa Bonaparte (Napoleon's sister) and her husband Felice Baciocchi); and Napoleon's former enemies, Prussia and Austria.
Can you say "nepotism"?
(to be continued.......)
The Invasion of Russia
This article needs additional citations for verification.
Please help improve this article by adding reliable references. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (July 2010)
Charles Joseph Minard’s famous graph of the decreasing size of the Grande Armée represented by the width of the line as it marches to Moscow (tan) and back (black).The Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 resulted in the Anglo-Russian War (1807–12). Emperor Alexander I declared war on the United Kingdom after the British attack on Denmark in September 1807. British men-of-war supported the Swedish fleet during the Finnish War and had victories over the Russians in the Gulf of Finland in July 1808 and August 1809. However, the success of the Russian army on the land forced Sweden to sign peace-treaties with Russia in 1809 and with France in 1810 and to join the Continental Blockade against Britain. But Franco-Russian relations became progressively worse after 1810, and the Russian war with the UK effectively ended. In April 1812, Britain, Russia and Sweden signed secret agreements directed against Napoleon.
In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia. He aimed to compel Emperor Alexander I to remain in the Continental System and to remove the imminent threat of a Russian invasion of Poland. The French-led Grande Armée, consisting of 650,000 men (270,000 Frenchmen and many soldiers of allies or subject areas), crossed the Niemen River on 23 June 1812. Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War, while Napoleon proclaimed a Second Polish war. The Poles supplied almost 100,000 troops for the invasion-force, but against their expectations, Napoleon avoided any concessions to Poland, having in mind further negotiations with Russia. Russia maintained a scorched-earth policy of retreat, broken only by the Battle of Borodino on 7 September 1812. This required the Grande Armée to adjust its methods of operation, but it refused to do so.[10] This refusal led to most of the losses of the main column of the Grande Armée, which in one case amounted to 95,000 troops in a single week.[11] The bloody confrontation of Borodino ended in a tactical defeat for Russia, thus opening the road to Moscow for Napoleon.[12]
By 14 September 1812, the Grande Armée had captured Moscow. But by then, the Russians had largely abandoned the city, even releasing prisoners from the prisons to inconvenience the French. Alexander I refused to capitulate, and the governor, Count Fyodor Vasilievich Rostopchin, ordered the city burnt to the ground.[13] With no sign of clear victory in sight, Napoleon began the disastrous Great Retreat from Moscow. The remnants of the Grande Armée crossed the Berezina River in November, and only 27,000 fit soldiers remained. Napoleon then left his army and returned to Paris to prepare to defend Poland against the advancing Russians. With some 380,000 men dead and 100,000 captured,[14] the situation seemed less dire than at first. The Russians had lost around 210,000 men, leaving their army depleted. But with their shorter supply lines, they could replenish their armies faster than the French.
War of the Sixth Coalition 1812–1814
Seeing an opportunity in Napoleon's historic defeat, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, and a number of German states re-entered the war. Napoleon vowed that he would create a new army as large as the one he had sent into Russia, and quickly built up his forces in the east from 30,000 to 130,000 and eventually to 400,000. Napoleon inflicted 40,000 casualties on the Allies at Lützen (2 May 1813) and Bautzen (20–21 May 1813). Both battles involved total forces of over 250,000, making them some of the largest conflicts of the wars so far.
Meanwhile,
.....in the Peninsular War, Arthur Wellesley renewed the Anglo-Portuguese advance into Spain just after New Year in 1812, besieging and capturing the fortified towns of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and in the Battle of Salamanca (which was a damaging defeat to the French). As the French regrouped, the Anglo–Portuguese entered Madrid and advanced towards Burgos, before retreating all the way to Portugal when renewed French concentrations threatened to trap them. As a consequence of the Salamanca campaign, the French were forced to end their long siege of Cadiz and to permanently evacuate the provinces of Andalusia and Asturias.
In a strategic move, Wellesley planned to move his supply base from Lisbon to Santander. The Anglo–Portuguese forces swept northwards in late May and seized Burgos. On 21 June, at Vitoria, the combined Anglo-Portuguese and Spanish armies won against Joseph Bonaparte, finally breaking the French power in Spain. The French had to retreat out of the Iberian peninsula, over the Pyrenees.
The belligerents declared an armistice from 4 June 1813 (continuing until 13 August) during which time both sides attempted to recover from the loss of approximately a quarter of a million total troops in the preceding two months. During this time Coalition negotiations finally brought Austria out in open opposition to France. Two principal Austrian armies took the field, adding an additional 300,000 troops to the Coalition armies in Germany. In total the Allies now had around 800,000 front-line troops in the German theatre, with a strategic reserve of 350,000 formed to support the frontline operations.
Napoleon succeeded in bringing the total imperial forces in the region to around 650,000—although only 250,000 came under his direct command, with another 120,000 under Nicolas Charles Oudinot and 30,000 under Davout. The remainder of imperial forces came mostly from the Confederation of the Rhine, especially Saxony and Bavaria. In addition, to the south, Murat's Kingdom of Naples and Eugène de Beauharnais's Kingdom of Italy had a total of 100,000 armed men. In Spain, another 150,000 to 200,000 French troops steadily retreated before Anglo–Portuguese forces numbering around 100,000. Thus in total, around 900,000 French troops in all theatres faced around 1,800,000 Coalition troops (including the strategic reserve under formation in Germany). The gross figures may mislead slightly, as most of the German troops fighting on the side of the French fought at best unreliably and stood on the verge of defecting to the Allies. One can reasonably say that Napoleon could count on no more than 450,000 troops in Germany—which left him outnumbered about four to one.
Following the end of the armistice, Napoleon seemed to have regained the initiative at Dresden (August 1813), where he defeated a numerically superior Coalition army and inflicted enormous casualties, while the French army sustained relatively few. However, the failures of his marshals and a slow resumption of the offensive on his part cost him any advantage that this victory might have secured. At the Battle of Leipzig in Saxony (16–19 October 1813), also called the "Battle of the Nations", 191,000 French fought more than 300,000 Allies, and the defeated French had to retreat into France. Napoleon then fought a series of battles, including the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube, in France itself, but the overwhelming numbers of the Allies steadily forced him back. His remaining ally Denmark-Norway became isolated and fell to the coalition.
The allies entered Paris on 30 March 1814. During this time Napoleon fought his Six Days Campaign, in which he won multiple battles against the enemy forces advancing towards Paris. However, during this entire campaign he never managed to field more than 70,000 troops against more than half a million Coalition troops. At the Treaty of Chaumont (9 March 1814), the Allies agreed to preserve the Coalition until Napoleon's total defeat.
Napoleon determined to fight on, even now, incapable of fathoming his massive fall from power. During the campaign he had issued a decree for 900,000 fresh conscripts, but only a fraction of these ever materialized, and Napoleon's increasingly unrealistic schemes for victory eventually gave way to the reality of the hopeless situation. Napoleon abdicated on 6 April. However, occasional military actions continued in Italy, Spain, and Holland throughout the spring of 1814.
The victors exiled Napoleon to the island of Elba, and restored the French Bourbon monarchy in the person of Louis XVIII. They signed the Treaty of Fontainebleau (11 April 1814) and initiated the Congress of Vienna to redraw the map of Europe.
"From the river to the sea.........."
Hold on, Greta. There's more.
Gunboat War 1807–1814
Initially, Denmark-Norway declared itself neutral in the Napoleonic Wars, established a navy, and traded with both sides. But the British attacked and captured or destroyed large portions of the Dano-Norwegian fleet in the First Battle of Copenhagen (2 April 1801), and again in the Second Battle of Copenhagen (August–September 1807). This ended the Dano-Norwegian neutrality, who engaged in a naval guerrilla war in which small gunboats would attack larger British ships in Danish and Norwegian waters. The Gunboat War effectively ended with a British victory at the Battle of Lyngør in 1812, involving the destruction of the last large Dano-Norwegian ship—the frigate Najaden.
War of 1812
Coinciding with the War of the Sixth Coalition but not considered part of the Napoleonic Wars by most Americans, the otherwise neutral United States, owing to various transgressions (such as impressment), by the British, declared war on the United Kingdom and attempted to invade Canada. The war ended in status quo ante bellum under the Treaty of Ghent, signed on 24 December 1814, though sporadic fighting continued for several months (most notably, the Battle of New Orleans). Apart from the seizing of then-Spanish Mobile by the United States, there was negligible involvement from other participants of the broader Napoleonic War. Notably, a series of British raids, later called the Burning of Washington, would result in the burning of the White House, the Capitol, the Navy Yard, and other public buildings. The main effect of the War of 1812 on the wider Napoleonic Wars was to force Britain to divert troops, supplies and funds to defending Canada. This inadvertently helped Napoleon in that Britain could no longer use these troops, supplies and funds in the war against France.
War of the Seventh Coalition 1815
"Stop it, will ya. I can't take any more!" .
The Seventh Coalition (1815) pitted the United Kingdom, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, the Netherlands and a number of German states against France. The period known as the Hundred Days began after Napoleon left Elba and landed at Cannes (1 March 1815). Travelling to Paris, picking up support as he went, he eventually overthrew the restored Louis XVIII. The Allies rapidly gathered their armies to meet him again. Napoleon raised 280,000 men, whom he distributed among several armies. To add to the 90,000 troops in the standing army, he recalled well over a quarter of a million veterans from past campaigns and issued a decree for the eventual draft of around 2.5 million new men into the French army. This faced an initial Coalition force of about 700,000—although Coalition campaign-plans provided for one million front-line troops, supported by around 200,000 garrison, logistics and other auxiliary personnel. The Coalition intended this force to have overwhelming numbers against the numerically inferior imperial French army—which in fact never came close to reaching Napoleon's goal of more than 2.5 million under arms.
Napoleon took about 124,000 men of the Army of the North on a pre-emptive strike against the Allies in Belgium. He intended to attack the Coalition armies before they combined, in hope of driving the British into the sea and the Prussians out of the war. His march to the frontier achieved the surprise he had planned, catching the Anglo-Dutch Army in a dispersed arrangement. The Prussians had been more wary, concentrating 3/4 of their Army in and around Ligny. The Prussians forced the Armee du Nord to fight all the day of the 15th to reach Ligny in a delaying action by the Prussian 1st Corps.[15] He forced Prussia to fight at Ligny on 16 June 1815, and the defeated Prussians retreated in some disorder.[16] On the same day, the left wing of the Army of the North, under the command of Marshal Michel Ney, succeeded in stopping any of Wellington's forces going to aid Blücher's Prussians by fighting a blocking action at Quatre Bras. Ney failed to clear the cross-roads and Wellington reinforced the position. But with the Prussian retreat, Wellington too had to retreat. He fell back to a previously reconnoitred position on an escarpment at Mont St Jean, a few miles south of the village of Waterloo.
Napoleon took the reserve of the Army of the North, and reunited his forces with those of Ney to pursue Wellington's army, after he ordered Marshal Grouchy to take the right wing of the Army of the North and stop the Prussians re-grouping. In the first of a series of miscalculations, both Grouchy and Napoleon failed to realize that the Prussian forces were already reorganized and were assembling at the village of Wavre. In any event the French army did nothing to stop a rather leisurely retreat that took place throughout the night and into the early morning by the Prussians.[17] As the 4th, 1st, and 2nd Prussian Corps marched through the town towards the Battlefield of Waterloo the 3rd Prussian Corp took up blocking positions across the river, and although Grouchy engaged and defeated the Prussian rearguard under the command of Lt-Gen von Thielmann in the Battle of Wavre (18–19 June) it was 12 hours too late. In the end, 17,000 Prussians had kept 33,000 badly needed French reinforcements off the field.
Napoleon delayed the start of fighting at the Battle of Waterloo on the morning of 18 June for several hours while he waited for the ground to dry after the previous night's rain. By late afternoon, the French army had not succeeded in driving Wellington's forces from the escarpment on which they stood. When the Prussians arrived and attacked the French right flank in ever-increasing numbers, Napoleon's strategy of keeping the Coalition armies divided had failed and a combined Coalition general advance drove his army from the field in confusion.
Grouchy organized a successful and well-ordered retreat towards Paris,
"Let's get outta here, boys."
......where Marshal Davout had 117,000 men ready to turn back the 116,000 men of Blücher and Wellington. Militarily, it appeared quite possible that the French could defeat Wellington and Blücher, but politics proved the source of the Emperor's downfall. In any event Davout was defeated at Issy and negotiations for surrender had begun.
On arriving at Paris three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to the hope of a concerted national resistance; but the temper of the chambers, and of the public generally, did not favour his view. The politicians forced Napoleon to abdicate again on 22 June 1815. Despite the Emperor’s abdication, irregular warfare continued along the eastern borders and on the outskirts of Paris until the signing of a cease-fire on 4 July. On 15 July, Napoleon surrendered himself to the British squadron at Rochefort. The Allies exiled him to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died on 5 May 1821.
Meanwhile in Italy, Joachim Murat, whom the Allies had allowed to remain King of Naples after Napoleon's initial defeat, once again allied with his brother-in-law, triggering the Neapolitan War (March to May, 1815). Hoping to find support among Italian nationalists fearing the increasing influence of the Habsburgs in Italy, Murat issued the Rimini Proclamation inciting them to war. But the proclamation failed and the Austrians soon crushed Murat at the Battle of Tolentino (2 May to 3 May 1815), forcing him to flee. The Bourbons returned to the throne of Naples on 20 May 1815. Murat tried to regain his throne, but after that failed, a firing squad executed him on 13 October 1815."
Political effects
One word: In-breeding.
Can't make this stuff up, folks.
Yusuf al-Qaradawi's "Statements of Understanding and Tolerance"
Yusuf al-Qaradawi
If you want to see an example of the Muslim Brotherhood's duplicity and lies, look no further than their spiritual mentor, Yusuf al Qaradawi, an Egyptian clerical scholar who presently lives in Qatar. The below piece comes from Ikhwan Web, the English-language web site of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, which I have just linked onto Fousesquawk. It contains statements by Qaradawi condemning recent attacks on Christians in Muslim countries.
http://www.ikhwanweb.com/article.php?id=22781
If you are not familiar with Qaradawi, you would think this is the type of moderate Muslim leader we have been looking for, right?
Wrong.
When the Brotherhood's spokesman, Ibrahim El Houdaiby, came to speak at UC-Irvine in 2008, he referred to Qaradawi as an example of a peaceful, moderate leader when I confronted him with documents that indicated that the Brotherhood was not a moderate organization. I took him up on his suggestion to read Qaradawi and did research on this man. Much of what he has said sounds tolerant. Below is some of what I learned.
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/05/words-of-yusuf-al-qaradawi.html
Qaradawi's Wikipedia entry demonstrates the conflict between many of his statements.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yusuf_al-Qaradawi
It would do us all well to watch how the Muslim Brotherhood acts in these days of crisis in Egypt. They delight in telling their Western audiences that they are peaceful, democratic reformers. It looks like that may be soon put to the test in Egypt.
Chris Matthews on Egypt: It's Bush's Fault
(Hat tip to Hot Air and News Busters)
Chris Matthews has come out with another laffer in "analyzing" the Egyptian crisis. Apparently, it's all about George W Bush-even though every president in the past generation has been supporting the Egyptian regime.
I can hardly wait to hear Matthews' analysis of how next Sunday's losing team lost the Super Bowl. He'll blame Bush for that too. Matthews must think it was Bush who starting giving Egypt $1.5 billion a year in mostly military aid after they made peace with Israel. This bunch is about as objective as Cindy Sheehan.
Isn't MSNBC embarrassed over the performance of its news anchors and their blatant partisanship?
Chris Matthews has come out with another laffer in "analyzing" the Egyptian crisis. Apparently, it's all about George W Bush-even though every president in the past generation has been supporting the Egyptian regime.
I can hardly wait to hear Matthews' analysis of how next Sunday's losing team lost the Super Bowl. He'll blame Bush for that too. Matthews must think it was Bush who starting giving Egypt $1.5 billion a year in mostly military aid after they made peace with Israel. This bunch is about as objective as Cindy Sheehan.
Isn't MSNBC embarrassed over the performance of its news anchors and their blatant partisanship?
Egypt and Ikhwan Web
I have never linked a website with which I disagree up to now, but given the events in Egypt and the much-discussed role of the Muslim Brotherhood, I am linking their English-language website, Ikhwan Web to Fousesquawk under "Blogs I read". I think it is instructive to see what they are saying as the events in Cairo play out. They do, actually, post some pieces that are against their point of view including one I wrote when their representative, Ibrahim el Houdaiby came to speak at UC-Irvine in 2008. Currently, they are running an article by American Muslim moderate Zuhdi Jasser. Their link is:
http://www.ikhwanweb.com/
Make no mistake. You will read more than your share of lies on this site. They still maintain, as El-Houdaiby maintained in 2008, that the MB has no presence in the US. That is a flat-out falsehood. In spite of that, it is imperative to follow what they are saying in Egypt in the midst of this crisis. One thing that they make clear is that they are, indeed, involved in the events.
http://www.ikhwanweb.com/
Make no mistake. You will read more than your share of lies on this site. They still maintain, as El-Houdaiby maintained in 2008, that the MB has no presence in the US. That is a flat-out falsehood. In spite of that, it is imperative to follow what they are saying in Egypt in the midst of this crisis. One thing that they make clear is that they are, indeed, involved in the events.
Saturday, January 29, 2011
Hizb ut Tahrir Tries to Join Protest in London
The Islamist group Hizb ut Tahrir turned out to join Egyptians this weeked at the Egyptian Embassy in London. They were reportedly turned away by the Egyptians who insisted on a non-sectarian protest. Consequently, they had to move their own protest about 100 yeards away.
(Demotix)
http://www.demotix.com/news/573113/hizb-ut-tahrir-turned-away-embassy-protest
Hizb ut Tahrir, which also has a branch in the US, seeks a world-wide Islamic caliphate.
(Demotix)
http://www.demotix.com/news/573113/hizb-ut-tahrir-turned-away-embassy-protest
Hizb ut Tahrir, which also has a branch in the US, seeks a world-wide Islamic caliphate.
Jim (The Jerk) Moran Makes Another Dopey Statement
Jim (The Jerk) Moran and a staffer brief a constituent
Jim (The Jerk) Moran is a Democratic congressman from Bullsnuts, Virginia who has been often featured on Fousesquawk because he has a hot temper and frequently makes an ass out of himself with his stupid statements. When Jim the Jerk walks into a room, babies cry, dogs growl, the paint peels off the walls and flowers die. This is the guy who accused American Jews of instigating the war in Iraq, demanded to see the ID of a man who asked a hostile question at a town hall meeting, and was embarrassed on video by a man who represented himself as a constiuent from Virginia's 12th District (which doesn't exist).
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/fightin-jim-moran-loses-it.html
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2009/08/jim-jerk-moran-d-va-checks-id-at-town.html
This week, Jimmy the Jerk has again embarrassed himself by telling an Arabic news outlet that the GOP won the House in the last election because of racism. Not only does Jimmy the J repeat this tired old canard about President Obama's political opponents, he paints a racist picture of his own country to an Arab audience.
Ladies and gentlemen, Jim (The Jerk) Moran
(Democrat, of course)
Jim (The Jerk) Moran is a Democratic congressman from Bullsnuts, Virginia who has been often featured on Fousesquawk because he has a hot temper and frequently makes an ass out of himself with his stupid statements. When Jim the Jerk walks into a room, babies cry, dogs growl, the paint peels off the walls and flowers die. This is the guy who accused American Jews of instigating the war in Iraq, demanded to see the ID of a man who asked a hostile question at a town hall meeting, and was embarrassed on video by a man who represented himself as a constiuent from Virginia's 12th District (which doesn't exist).
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2010/04/fightin-jim-moran-loses-it.html
http://garyfouse.blogspot.com/2009/08/jim-jerk-moran-d-va-checks-id-at-town.html
This week, Jimmy the Jerk has again embarrassed himself by telling an Arabic news outlet that the GOP won the House in the last election because of racism. Not only does Jimmy the J repeat this tired old canard about President Obama's political opponents, he paints a racist picture of his own country to an Arab audience.
Ladies and gentlemen, Jim (The Jerk) Moran
(Democrat, of course)
Diplomatic Crisis in Pakistan
An American diplomat in Lahore has been arrested for shooting to death two Pakistanis who were apparently trying to rob him. The US Embassy and the US Government are demanding the release of the man under diplomatic immunity. As it stands now, the man remains in police custody and prosecution for murder procedures are in the works.
http://americanintelligence.us/index.php?/blog/1/entry-20211-us-diplomat-arrested-in-pakistan/
Below is the official US reaction:
http://robcrilly.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/arrested-american-diplomat/
And here is the usual reaction on the street:
This appears to be a clear cut case of diplomatic immunity, especially since even the local police state that the two victims were in fact, trying to rob the American. As for why he was carrying a gun in the first place, I can offer an insight. Under diplomatic agreements between countries, certain diplomats, depending on their agency and other factors may be granted an official license by the host country to carry firearms. When I was stationed in Thailand and Italy with DEA and carrying a diplomatic passport in the former and official in the latter,* I carried a firearm authorized by official gun licenses issued by the Thai and Italian governments since my job entailed working with their respective police forces and actually participating in certain enforcement operations with them. (We were never authorized to make arrests.)
* If you are working in an embassy, you are given a diplomatic passport. Normally those working in consulates in other cities carry official passports.
I remember in Thailand, there was case of a female French intelligence officer who was the intended victim of an armed robbery. She shot her assailant to death. (She was covered by diplomatic immunity and not charged.)
As the facts are reported, there is no justification for holding this person in custody or prosecuting him. Diplomatic immunity is often abused and can lead to infuriating results when a clear cut case of criminality must go unpunished in the host country. In cases where actual crimes were committed by the diplomat, the involved country may waive that immunity and allow the person to be prosecuted by the host country as happened in Washington some years ago when the Georgian government waived immunity of one of their diplomats who had killed people while driving drunk.
In spite of its obvious drawbacks, diplomatic immunity is designed to prevent abuses such as what happened in Iran in 1979. It should be applied in this case. If this American is not released, in my view, it should be the final straw between the US and this useless country.
http://americanintelligence.us/index.php?/blog/1/entry-20211-us-diplomat-arrested-in-pakistan/
Below is the official US reaction:
http://robcrilly.wordpress.com/2011/01/29/arrested-american-diplomat/
And here is the usual reaction on the street:
This appears to be a clear cut case of diplomatic immunity, especially since even the local police state that the two victims were in fact, trying to rob the American. As for why he was carrying a gun in the first place, I can offer an insight. Under diplomatic agreements between countries, certain diplomats, depending on their agency and other factors may be granted an official license by the host country to carry firearms. When I was stationed in Thailand and Italy with DEA and carrying a diplomatic passport in the former and official in the latter,* I carried a firearm authorized by official gun licenses issued by the Thai and Italian governments since my job entailed working with their respective police forces and actually participating in certain enforcement operations with them. (We were never authorized to make arrests.)
* If you are working in an embassy, you are given a diplomatic passport. Normally those working in consulates in other cities carry official passports.
I remember in Thailand, there was case of a female French intelligence officer who was the intended victim of an armed robbery. She shot her assailant to death. (She was covered by diplomatic immunity and not charged.)
As the facts are reported, there is no justification for holding this person in custody or prosecuting him. Diplomatic immunity is often abused and can lead to infuriating results when a clear cut case of criminality must go unpunished in the host country. In cases where actual crimes were committed by the diplomat, the involved country may waive that immunity and allow the person to be prosecuted by the host country as happened in Washington some years ago when the Georgian government waived immunity of one of their diplomats who had killed people while driving drunk.
In spite of its obvious drawbacks, diplomatic immunity is designed to prevent abuses such as what happened in Iran in 1979. It should be applied in this case. If this American is not released, in my view, it should be the final straw between the US and this useless country.
Update on OC Grand Jury Investigation of UCI- Muslim Student Union
Below is an LA Times piece on the reported Grand Jury investigation into the disruption of the Israel ambassador's speech at UC-Irvine last February.
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/uci-students-who-protested-israeli-ambassador-likely-to-face-grand-jury-probe.html
It also appears that the students' attorney, Carol Sobel, collaborated with UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky a few years ago on a report about the LAPD Ramparts Division scandal.
http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v34-issue2/chemerinsky.pdf
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/01/uci-students-who-protested-israeli-ambassador-likely-to-face-grand-jury-probe.html
It also appears that the students' attorney, Carol Sobel, collaborated with UCI Law School Dean Erwin Chemerinsky a few years ago on a report about the LAPD Ramparts Division scandal.
http://llr.lls.edu/volumes/v34-issue2/chemerinsky.pdf
Quote of the Week (From Iran)
Hat tip to Harry's Place
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast (pictured below) has called on political leaders in Egypt to follow the “rightful demands” of their people.
“Iran expects Egyptian officials to listen to the voice of their Muslim people, respond to their rightful demands and refrain from exerting violence by security forces and police against an Islamic wave of awareness that has spread through the country in form of a popular movement,” Mehmanparast said Saturday.
Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast (pictured below) has called on political leaders in Egypt to follow the “rightful demands” of their people.
“Iran expects Egyptian officials to listen to the voice of their Muslim people, respond to their rightful demands and refrain from exerting violence by security forces and police against an Islamic wave of awareness that has spread through the country in form of a popular movement,” Mehmanparast said Saturday.
Friday, January 28, 2011
Is the US Involved in the Egyptian Uprising?
The British newspaper, The Telegraph, has an interesting story asking whether the US Government has been playing a role in the current Egyptian uprising.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289686/Egypt-protests-Americas-secret-backing-for-rebel-leaders-behind-uprising.html
Far be it from me to venture an opinion on this question. President Obama and his administration are stressing that the Egyptian government should respect the right of the masses to protest. Given the economic situation facing the Egyptian people and the dictatorial nature of the government, that seems reasonable. If there is going to be a regime change in Egypt, clearly the West wants to see democracy advance in the Middle East. Yet, given our experience in Iran, a dose of realism is required here. A more realistic scenario would be that the Mubarak regime would be replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood and an Islamist regime.
If the latter is what transpires and our government played an active role in bringing an Islamist regime into power in Egypt, then the feckless performance of Jimmy Carter vis-a-via Iran would pale in comparison.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/egypt/8289686/Egypt-protests-Americas-secret-backing-for-rebel-leaders-behind-uprising.html
Far be it from me to venture an opinion on this question. President Obama and his administration are stressing that the Egyptian government should respect the right of the masses to protest. Given the economic situation facing the Egyptian people and the dictatorial nature of the government, that seems reasonable. If there is going to be a regime change in Egypt, clearly the West wants to see democracy advance in the Middle East. Yet, given our experience in Iran, a dose of realism is required here. A more realistic scenario would be that the Mubarak regime would be replaced by the Muslim Brotherhood and an Islamist regime.
If the latter is what transpires and our government played an active role in bringing an Islamist regime into power in Egypt, then the feckless performance of Jimmy Carter vis-a-via Iran would pale in comparison.
Random Shots in the Dark (31)
I have just decided; I want to have Charlie Sheen's baby.
That's right.
Charlie had to go to an LA hospital this week. According to the story going around LA, Charlie had a party at his mansion with five babes, including two porn stars and a briefcase-full of cocaine.
The diagnosis is that Charlie suffered a hernia.
Which is a perfect segue into our next story. President Obama has done what all presidents do after a state of the union speech. He hopped a plane to Bullsnuts, Wisconsin, where he inspected a green widget factory and gave a speech. You gotta hand it to Obama. He knows how to spend our money. First, during the State of the Union, he drags in a couple of brothers who run some kind of business he approves of. Now he drags the staff and Secret Service off to Wisconsin for a photo op.
"It's only money, folks."
Meanwhile........
Which is another perfect segue into our next story-Egypt. Yes. While Obama is talking about green jobs in Wisconsin, the Middle East is burning-first in Tunisia and now in Egypt. And if you think democracy is on the march in Egypt-think again. All I know is that my friend from a previous blog, Ahmed the flag-maker, is about to expand his business to Egypt-and Tunisia.
And if that isn't ridiculous enough, Joe Biden told an interviewer this week that Hosni Mubarak is not a dictator!
"He's no dictator. Why, he's the Lone Ranger."
In Britain (another country that's sinking fast) the government has reacted to the events in Egypt with alarm.
But there is good news. George Galloway will soon be allowed back into Egypt-as an honored guest no less.
"Welcome to Egypt, Mr Galloway."
Now for the bad news. Remember back in 1979 when Jimmy Carter helped grease the skids for the Shah of Iran?
"Uhhh.....yeaaaah."
Let's imagine this scenario. Mubarak is given sanctuary in the US. The Muslim Brotherhood takes power in Egypt. The new regime demands the extradition of Mubarak. The US Embassy is stormed and our diplomats are taken hostage.
"Play it again, Sam."
But there is more great news. Yesterday, somebody e-mailed me the latest video of Yvonne Ridley's pals in the Taliban stoning someone to death in Afghanistan.
Yes, indeed, Multiculturalism in action. It's the usual scenario. A 19-year-old girl refuses to marry some old fart her "Dear old Dad" wants her to marry. She gets caught with her real boyfiriend and both are stoned to death as the crowd shouts something like "Ollie Ollie oxen free!"
But there is more good news. Our illustrious State Department has a solution for all this barbarity, you see.
"Good news, Archibald. We have just received the new batch of gender-neutral visa applications."
Immigrant visas. That's right. We need to bring these folks to the US so they can see our way of life then demand that we adopt their way of life. Hey! It's already working in the UK, where shariah law is being accepted in certain communities. Why no less an authority than the Archbishop of Canterbury (wherever the Hell that is) is urging that the British nation must adapt itself to shariah law.
Rowan Williams- Archbishop of Canterbury
Dope
But there is more good news......
The Steelers are in the Super Bowl.