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Hundred Days

The Hundred Days (French: les Cent-Jours IPA: [le sɑ̃ ʒuʁ]),[4] also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition (French: Guerre de la Septième Coalition), marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 (a period of 110 days).[a] This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign,[7] the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours (the hundred days) was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.[b]

War of the Seventh Coalition
Part of the Napoleonic Wars and the Coalition Wars
Battle of Quatre BrasBattle of LignyBattle of Waterloo
hundred days

Click an image to load the battle.
Left to right, top to bottom:
Battles of Quatre Bras, Ligny, Waterloo.
Date20 March – 8 July 1815[4]
(110 days)
Location
Result

Coalition victory

Belligerents
Commanders and leaders
Strength
800,000–1,000,000[5] 280,000[5]
See military mobilisation during the Hundred Days for more information.

Napoleon returned while the Congress of Vienna was sitting. On 13 March, seven days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw, and on 25 March Austria, Prussia, Russia and the United Kingdom, the four Great Powers and key members of the Seventh Coalition, bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule.[10] This set the stage for the last conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the second restoration of the French kingdom, and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of Saint Helena, where he died of stomach cancer in May 1821.

Background edit

Napoleon's rise and fall edit

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars pitted France against various coalitions of other European nations nearly continuously from 1792 onward. The overthrow and subsequent public execution of Louis XVI in France had greatly disturbed other European leaders, who vowed to crush the French Republic. Rather than leading to France's defeat, the wars allowed the revolutionary regime to expand beyond its borders and create client republics. The success of the French forces made a hero out of their best commander, Napoleon Bonaparte. In 1799, Napoleon staged a successful coup d'état and became First Consul of the new French Consulate. Five years later, he crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I.

The rise of Napoleon troubled the other European powers as much as the earlier revolutionary regime had. Despite the formation of new coalitions against him, Napoleon's forces continued to conquer much of Europe. The tide of war began to turn after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812 that resulted in the loss of much of Napoleon's army. The following year, during the War of the Sixth Coalition, Coalition forces defeated the French in the Battle of Leipzig.

Following its victory at Leipzig, the Coalition vowed to press on to Paris and depose Napoleon. In the last week of February 1814, Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher advanced on Paris. After multiple attacks, manoeuvring, and reinforcements on both sides,[11] Blücher won the Battle of Laon in early March 1814; this victory prevented the coalition army from being pushed north out of France. The Battle of Reims went to Napoleon, but this victory was followed by successive defeats from increasingly overwhelming odds. Coalition forces entered Paris after the Battle of Montmartre on 30 March 1814.

On 6 April 1814, Napoleon abdicated his throne, leading to the accession of Louis XVIII and the first Bourbon Restoration a month later. The defeated Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany, while the victorious Coalition sought to redraw the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna.

Exile in Elba edit

 
The journey of a modern hero, to the island of Elba. Print shows Napoleon seated backwards on a donkey on the road "to Elba" from Fontainebleau; he holds a broken sword in one hand and the donkey's tail in the other while two drummers follow him playing a farewell(?) march.
 
Napoleon with the Elba Squadron of volunteers from the 1st Polish Light Cavalry of his Imperial Guard

Napoleon spent only 9 months and 21 days in an uneasy forced retirement on Elba (1814–1815), watching events in France with great interest as the Congress of Vienna gradually gathered.[12] As he foresaw, the shrinkage of the great Empire into the realm of old France caused intense dissatisfaction among the French, a feeling fed by stories of the tactless way in which the Bourbon princes treated veterans of the Grande Armée and the returning royalist nobility treated the people at large. Equally threatening was the general situation in Europe, which had been stressed and exhausted during the previous decades of near constant warfare.[12]

The conflicting demands of major powers were for a time so exorbitant as to bring the Powers at the Congress of Vienna to the verge of war with each other.[13] Thus every scrap of news reaching remote Elba looked favourable to Napoleon to retake power as he correctly reasoned the news of his return would cause a popular rising as he approached. He also reasoned that the return of French prisoners from Russia, Germany, Britain and Spain would furnish him instantly with a trained, veteran and patriotic army far larger than that which had won renown in the years before 1814. So threatening were the symptoms, that the royalists at Paris and the plenipotentiaries at Vienna talked of deporting him to the Azores or to Saint Helena, while others hinted at assassination.[12][14]

Congress of Vienna edit

At the Congress of Vienna (November 1814 – June 1815) the various participating nations had very different and conflicting goals. Tsar Alexander I of Russia had expected to absorb much of Poland and to leave a Polish puppet state, the Duchy of Warsaw, as a buffer against further invasion from Europe. The renewed Prussian state demanded all of the Kingdom of Saxony. Austria wanted to allow neither of these things, while it expected to regain control of northern Italy. Castlereagh, of the United Kingdom, supported France (represented by Talleyrand) and Austria and was at variance with his own Parliament. This almost caused a war to break out, when the Tsar pointed out to Castlereagh that Russia had 450,000 men near Poland and Saxony and he was welcome to try to remove them. Indeed, Alexander stated "I shall be the King of Poland and the King of Prussia will be the King of Saxony".[15] Castlereagh approached King Frederick William III of Prussia to offer him British and Austrian support for Prussia's annexation of Saxony in return for Prussia's support of an independent Poland. The Prussian king repeated this offer in public, offending Alexander so deeply that he challenged Metternich of Austria to a duel. Only the intervention of the Austrian crown stopped it. A breach between the four Great Powers was avoided when members of Britain's Parliament sent word to the Russian ambassador that Castlereagh had exceeded his authority, and Britain would not support an independent Poland.[16] The affair left Prussia deeply suspicious of any British involvement.

Return to France edit

 
Napoleon leaving Elba, painted by Joseph Beaume
 
The brig Inconstant, under Captain Taillade and ferrying Napoleon to France, crosses the path of the brig Zéphir, under Captain Andrieux. Inconstant flies the tricolour of the Empire, while Zéphir flies the white ensign of the House of Bourbon.

While the Allies were distracted, Napoleon solved his problem in characteristic fashion. On 26 February 1815, when the British and French guard ships were absent, his tiny fleet, consisting of the brig Inconstant, four small transports, and two feluccas, slipped away from Portoferraio with some 1,000 men and landed at Golfe-Juan, between Cannes and Antibes, on 1 March 1815.[17] Except in royalist Provence, he was warmly received.[12] He avoided much of Provence by taking a route through the Alps, marked today as the Route Napoléon.[18]

Firing no shot in his defence, his troop numbers swelled until they became an army. On 5 March, the nominally royalist 5th Infantry Regiment at Grenoble went over to Napoleon en masse. The next day they were joined by the 7th Infantry Regiment under its colonel, Charles de la Bédoyère, who was executed for treason by the Bourbons after the campaign ended. An anecdote illustrates Napoleon's charisma: when royalist troops were deployed to stop the march of Napoleon's force before Grenoble at Laffrey, Napoleon stepped out in front of them, ripped open his coat and said "If any of you will shoot his Emperor, here I am." The men joined his cause.[19]

Marshal Ney, now one of Louis XVIII's commanders, had said that Napoleon ought to be brought to Paris in an iron cage, but, on 14 March, in Lons-le-Saulnier (Jura) Ney joined Napoleon with a small army of 6,000 men. On 15 March Joachim Murat, King of Naples, declared war on Austria in an attempt to save his throne, starting the Neapolitan War. Four days later, after proceeding through the countryside promising constitutional reform and direct elections to an assembly, to the acclaim of gathered crowds, Napoleon entered the capital, from where Louis XVIII had recently fled.[12] (Ney was arrested on 3 August 1815, tried on 16 November and executed on 7 December 1815.[20])

The royalists did not pose a major threat: the duc d'Angoulême raised a small force in the south, but at Valence it did not provide resistance against Imperialists under Grouchy's command;[12] and the duke, on 9 April 1815, signed a convention whereby the royalists received a free pardon from the Emperor. The royalists of the Vendée moved later and caused more difficulty for the Imperialists.[12]

Napoleon's health edit

Evidence as to Napoleon's health is somewhat conflicting: Carnot, Pasquier, Lavalette, Thiébault and others thought him prematurely aged and enfeebled.[12] At Elba Sir Neil Campbell had noted that he had become inactive and corpulent.[21] Also at Elba he had begun to suffer intermittently from retention of urine, but to no serious extent.[12] For much of his public life, Napoleon had been troubled by hemorrhoids, which made sitting on a horse for long periods of time difficult and painful. This condition had disastrous results at Waterloo; during the battle, his inability to sit on his horse for other than very short periods of time interfered with his ability to survey his troops in combat and thus exercise command.[22] Others reported no marked change in him. Mollien, who knew the emperor well, attributed the lassitude which now and then came over him to a feeling of perplexity caused by his changed circumstances.[12]

Constitutional reform edit

At Lyon, on 13 March 1815, Napoleon issued an edict dissolving the existing chambers and ordering the convocation of a national mass meeting, or Champ de Mai, for the purpose of modifying the constitution of the Napoleonic empire.[23] He reportedly told Benjamin Constant, "I am growing old. The repose of a constitutional king may suit me. It will more surely suit my son".[12]

That work was carried out by Benjamin Constant in concert with the Emperor. The resulting Acte additionel (supplementary to the constitutions of the Empire) bestowed on France a hereditary Chamber of Peers and a Chamber of Representatives elected by the "electoral colleges" of the empire.[12]

According to Chateaubriand, in reference to Louis XVIII's constitutional charter, the new constitution – dubbed La Benjamine – was merely a "slightly improved" version of the charter associated with Louis XVIII's administration;[12] however, later historians, including Agatha Ramm, have pointed out that this constitution permitted the extension of the franchise and explicitly guaranteed press freedom.[23] In the Republican manner, the Constitution was put to the people of France in a plebiscite, but whether due to lack of enthusiasm, or because the nation was suddenly thrown into military preparation, only 1,532,527 votes were cast, less than half of the vote in the plebiscites of the Consulat; however, the benefit of a "large majority" meant that Napoleon felt he had constitutional sanction.[12][23]

Napoleon was with difficulty dissuaded from quashing the 3 June election of Jean Denis, comte Lanjuinais, the staunch liberal who had so often opposed the Emperor, as president of the Chamber of Representatives. In his last communication to them, Napoleon warned them not to imitate the Greeks of the late Byzantine Empire, who engaged in subtle discussions while the ram was battering at their gates.[12]

Military mobilisation edit

 
Strategic situation in Western Europe in 1815: 250,000 Frenchmen faced a coalition of about 850,000 soldiers on four fronts. In addition, Napoleon had to leave 20,000 men in Western France to reduce a royalist insurrection.

During the Hundred Days the Coalition nations as well as Napoleon mobilised for war. Upon re-assumption of the throne, Napoleon found that Louis XVIII had left him with few resources. There were 56,000 soldiers, of which 46,000 were ready to campaign.[24] By the end of May the total armed forces available to Napoleon had reached 198,000 with 66,000 more in depots training up but not yet ready for deployment.[25] By the end of May Napoleon had formed L'Armée du Nord (the "Army of the North") which, led by himself, would participate in the Waterloo Campaign.[citation needed]

For the defence of France, Napoleon deployed his remaining forces within France with the intention of delaying his foreign enemies while he suppressed his domestic ones. By June he had organised his forces thus:

  • V Corps, – L'Armée du Rhin – commanded by Rapp, cantoned near Strasbourg;[26]
  • VII Corps – L'Armée des Alpes – commanded by Suchet,[1] cantoned at Lyon;
  • I Corps of Observation – L'Armée du Jura – commanded by Lecourbe,[26] cantoned at Belfort;
  • II Corps of Observation[27]L'Armée du Var – commanded by Brune, based at Toulon;[28]
  • III Corps of Observation[27] – Army of the Pyrenees orientales[29] – commanded by Decaen, based at Toulouse;
  • IV Corps of Observation[27] – Army of the Pyrenees occidentales[29] – commanded by Clauzel, based at Bordeaux;
  • Army of the West,[27]Armée de l'Ouest[29] (also known as the Army of the Vendee and the Army of the Loire) – commanded by Lamarque, was formed to suppress the Royalist insurrection in the Vendée region of France which remained loyal to King Louis XVIII during the Hundred Days.[citation needed]

The opposing Coalition forces were the following:

Archduke Charles gathered Austrian and allied German states, while the Prince of Schwarzenberg formed another Austrian army. King Ferdinand VII of Spain summoned British officers to lead his troops against France. Tsar Alexander I of Russia mustered an army of 250,000 troops and sent these rolling toward the Rhine. Prussia mustered two armies. One under Blücher took post alongside Wellington's British army and its allies. The other was the North German Corps under General Kleist.[30]

  • Assessed as an immediate threat by Napoleon:
    • Anglo-allied, commanded by Wellington, cantoned south-west of Brussels, headquartered at Brussels.
    • Prussian Army commanded by Blücher, cantoned south-east of Brussels, headquartered at Namur.
  • Close to the borders of France but assessed to be less of a threat by Napoleon:
  • Other coalition forces which were either converging on France, mobilised to defend the homelands, or in the process of mobilisation included:
    • A Russian Army, commanded by Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly, marching towards France
    • A Reserve Russian Army to support Barclay de Tolly if required.
    • A Reserve Prussian Army stationed at home in order to defend its borders.
    • An Anglo-Sicilian Army under General Sir Hudson Lowe, which was to be landed by the Royal Navy on the southern French coast.
    • Two Spanish Armies were assembling and planning to invade over the Pyrenees.
    • A Netherlands Corps, under Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, was not present at Waterloo but as a corps in Wellington's army it did take part in minor military actions during the Coalition's invasion of France.
    • A Danish contingent known as the Royal Danish Auxiliary Corps (commanded by General Prince Frederik of Hesse) and a Hanseatic contingent (from the free cities of Bremen, Lübeck and Hamburg) later commanded by the British Colonel Sir Neil Campbell, were on their way to join Wellington;[31] both however, joined the army in July having missed the conflict.[2][32]
    • A Portuguese contingent, which due to the speed of events never assembled.

War begins edit

 
Plenipotentiaries at the Congress of Vienna

At the Congress of Vienna, the Great Powers of Europe (Austria, Great Britain, Prussia and Russia) and their allies declared Napoleon an outlaw,[33] and with the signing of this declaration on 13 March 1815, so began the War of the Seventh Coalition. The hopes of peace that Napoleon had entertained were gone – war was now inevitable.[citation needed]

A further treaty (the Treaty of Alliance against Napoleon) was ratified on 25 March, in which each of the Great European Powers agreed to pledge 150,000 men for the coming conflict.[34] Such a number was not possible for Great Britain, as her standing army was smaller than those of her three peers.[35] Besides, her forces were scattered around the globe, with many units still in Canada, where the War of 1812 had recently ended.[36] With this in mind, she made up her numerical deficiencies by paying subsidies to the other Powers and to the other states of Europe who would contribute contingents.[35]

Some time after the allies had begun mobilising, it was agreed that the planned invasion of France was to commence on 1 July 1815,[37] much later than both Blücher and Wellington would have liked, as both their armies were ready in June, ahead of the Austrians and Russians; the latter were still some distance away.[38] The advantage of this later invasion date was that it allowed all the invading Coalition armies a chance to be ready at the same time. They could deploy their combined, numerically superior forces against Napoleon's smaller, thinly spread forces, thus ensuring his defeat and avoiding a possible defeat within the borders of France. Yet this postponed invasion date allowed Napoleon more time to strengthen his forces and defences, which would make defeating him harder and more costly in lives, time and money.[citation needed]

Napoleon now had to decide whether to fight a defensive or offensive campaign.[39] Defence would entail repeating the 1814 campaign in France, but with much larger numbers of troops at his disposal. France's chief cities (Paris and Lyon) would be fortified and two great French armies, the larger before Paris and the smaller before Lyon, would protect them; francs-tireurs would be encouraged, giving the Coalition armies their own taste of guerrilla warfare.[40]

Napoleon chose to attack, which entailed a pre-emptive strike at his enemies before they were all fully assembled and able to co-operate. By destroying some of the major Coalition armies, Napoleon believed he would then be able to bring the governments of the Seventh Coalition to the peace table[40] to discuss terms favourable to himself: namely, peace for France, with himself remaining in power as its head. If peace were rejected by the Coalition powers, despite any pre-emptive military success he might have achieved using the offensive military option available to him, then the war would continue and he could turn his attention to defeating the rest of the Coalition armies.[citation needed]

Napoleon's decision to attack in Belgium was supported by several considerations. First, he had learned that the British and Prussian armies were widely dispersed and might be defeated in detail.[41] Further, the British troops in Belgium were largely second-line troops; most of the veterans of the Peninsular War had been sent to America to fight the War of 1812.[42] And, politically, a French victory might trigger a friendly revolution in French-speaking Brussels.[41]

Waterloo campaign edit

 
A portion of Belgium with some places marked in colour to indicate the initial deployments of the armies just before the commencement of hostilities on 15 June 1815, with British forces in red, Prussians in green, and French in blue

The Waterloo Campaign (15 June – 8 July 1815) was fought between the French Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies: an Anglo-allied army and a Prussian army. Initially the French army was commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte, but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. Command then rested on Marshals Soult and Grouchy, who were in turn replaced by Marshal Davout, who took command at the request of the French Provisional Government. The Anglo-allied army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army by Prince Blücher.[citation needed]

Start of hostilities (15 June) edit

Hostilities started on 15 June when the French drove in the Prussian outposts and crossed the Sambre at Charleroi and secured Napoleon's favoured "central position"—at the junction between the cantonment areas of Wellington's army (to the west) and Blücher's army to the east.[43]

Battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny (16 June) edit

 
Map of the Waterloo campaign

On 16 June, the French prevailed, with Marshal Ney commanding the left wing of the French army holding Wellington at the Battle of Quatre Bras and Napoleon defeating Blücher at the Battle of Ligny.[44]

Interlude (17 June) edit

On 17 June, Napoleon left Grouchy with the right wing of the French army to pursue the Prussians, while he took the reserves and command of the left wing of the army to pursue Wellington towards Brussels. On the night of 17 June, the Anglo-allied army turned and prepared for battle on a gentle escarpment, about 1 mile (1.6 km) south of the village of Waterloo.[45]

Battle of Waterloo (18 June) edit

The next day, the Battle of Waterloo proved to be the decisive battle of the campaign. The Anglo-allied army stood fast against repeated French attacks, until with the aid of several Prussian corps that arrived on the east of the battlefield in the early evening, they managed to rout the French Army.[46] Grouchy, with the right wing of the army, engaged a Prussian rearguard at the simultaneous Battle of Wavre, and although he won a tactical victory, his failure to prevent the Prussians marching to Waterloo meant that his actions contributed to the French defeat at Waterloo. The next day (19 June), Grouchy left Wavre and started a long retreat back to Paris.[47]

Invasion of France edit

 
Invasion of France by the Seventh Coalition armies in 1815

After the defeat at Waterloo, Napoleon chose not to remain with the army and attempt to rally it, but return to Paris to try to secure political support for further action. This he failed to do. The two Coalition armies hotly pursued the French army to the gates of Paris, during which time the French, on occasion, turned and fought some delaying actions, in which thousands of men were killed.[48]

Abdication of Napoleon (22 June) edit

On arriving at Paris, three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to the hope of concerted national resistance, but the temper of the chambers and of the public generally forbade any such attempt. Napoleon and his brother Lucien Bonaparte were almost alone in believing that, by dissolving the chambers and declaring Napoleon dictator, they could save France from the armies of the powers now converging on Paris. Even Davout, minister of war, advised Napoleon that the destiny of France rested solely with the chambers. Clearly, it was time to safeguard what remained, and that could best be done under Talleyrand's shield of legitimacy.[49] Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès was the minister of justice during this time and was a close confidant of Napoleon.[50]

Napoleon himself at last recognised the truth. When Lucien pressed him to "dare", he replied, "Alas, I have dared only too much already". On 22 June 1815 he abdicated in favour of his son, Napoleon II, well knowing that it was a formality, as his four-year-old son was in Austria.[51]

French Provisional Government edit

 
The Château de Malmaison

With the abdication of Napoleon, a provisional government with Joseph Fouché as President of the Executive Commission was formed, under the nominal authority of Napoleon II.

Initially, the remnants of the French Army of the North (the left wing and the reserves) that was routed at Waterloo were commanded by Marshal Soult, while Grouchy kept command of the right wing that had fought at Wavre. However, on 25 June, Soult was relieved of his command by the Provisional Government and was replaced by Grouchy, who in turn was placed under the command of Marshal Davout.[52]

On the same day, 25 June, Napoleon received from Fouché, the president of the newly appointed provisional government (and Napoleon's former police chief), an intimation that he must leave Paris. He retired to Malmaison, the former home of Joséphine, where she had died shortly after his first abdication.[51]

On 29 June, the near approach of the Prussians, who had orders to seize Napoleon, dead or alive, caused him to retire westwards toward Rochefort, whence he hoped to reach the United States.[51] The presence of blockading Royal Navy warships under Vice Admiral Henry Hotham, with orders to prevent his escape, forestalled this plan.[53]

Coalition forces enter Paris (7 July) edit

French troops concentrated in Paris had as many soldiers as the invaders and more cannons.[citation needed] There were two major skirmishes and a few minor ones near Paris during the first few days of July. In the first major skirmish, the Battle of Rocquencourt, on 1 July, French dragoons, supported by infantry and commanded by General Exelmans, destroyed a Prussian brigade of hussars under the command of Colonel von Sohr (who was severely wounded and taken prisoner during the skirmish), before retreating.[54] In the second skirmish, on 3 July, General Dominique Vandamme (under Davout's command) was decisively defeated by General von Zieten (under Blücher's command) at the Battle of Issy, forcing the French to retreat into Paris.[55]

With this defeat, all hope of holding Paris faded and the French Provisional Government authorised delegates to accept capitulation terms, which led to the Convention of St. Cloud (the surrender of Paris) and the end of hostilities between France and the armies of Blücher and Wellington.[56]

On 4 July, under the terms of the Convention of St. Cloud, the French army, commanded by Marshal Davout, left Paris and proceeded to cross the river Loire. The Anglo-allied troops occupied Saint-Denis, Saint Ouen, Clichy and Neuilly. On 5 July, the Anglo-allied army took possession of Montmartre.[57] On 6 July, the Anglo-allied troops occupied the Barriers of Paris, on the right of the Seine, while the Prussians occupied those upon the left bank.[57]

On 7 July, the two Coalition armies, with von Zieten's Prussian I Corps as the vanguard,[58] entered Paris. The Chamber of Peers, having received from the Provisional Government a notification of the course of events, terminated its sittings; the Chamber of Representatives protested, but in vain. Their President (Lanjuinais) resigned his chair, and on the following day, the doors were closed and the approaches guarded by Coalition troops.[57][59]

Restoration of Louis XVIII (8 July) edit

On 8 July, the French King, Louis XVIII, made his public entry into Paris, amidst the acclamations of the people, and again occupied the throne.[57]

During Louis XVIII's entry into Paris, Count Chabrol, prefect of the department of the Seine, accompanied by the municipal body, addressed the King, in the name of his companions, in a speech that began "Sire,—One hundred days have passed away since your majesty, forced to tear yourself from your dearest affections, left your capital amidst tears and public consternation. ...".[9]

Surrender of Napoleon (15 July) edit

 
Napoleon on Board the Bellerophon, exhibited in 1880 by Sir William Quiller Orchardson. Orchardson depicts the morning of 23 July 1815, as Napoleon watches the French shoreline recede.

Unable to remain in France or escape from it, Napoleon surrendered to Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon in the early morning of 15 July 1815 and was transported to England. Napoleon was taken to the island of Saint Helena where he died as a prisoner in May 1821.[60][51]

Other campaigns and wars edit

While Napoleon had assessed that the Coalition forces in and around Brussels on the borders of north-east France posed the greatest threat, because Tolly's Russian army of 150,000 were still not in the theatre, Spain was slow to mobilise, Prince Schwarzenberg's Austrian army of 210,000 were slow to cross the Rhine, and another Austrian force menacing the south-eastern frontier of France was still not a direct threat, Napoleon still had to place some badly needed forces in positions where they could defend France against other Coalition forces whatever the outcome of the Waterloo campaign.[61][26]

Neapolitan War edit

The Neapolitan War between the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples and the Austrian Empire started on 15 March 1815 when Marshal Joachim Murat declared war on Austria, and ended on 20 May 1815 with the signing of the Treaty of Casalanza.[62]

Napoleon had made his brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, King of Naples on 1 August 1808. After Napoleon's defeat in 1813, Murat reached an agreement with Austria to save his own throne. However, he realized that the European Powers, meeting as the Congress of Vienna, planned to remove him and return Naples to its Bourbon rulers. So, after issuing the so-called Rimini Proclamation urging Italian patriots to fight for independence, Murat moved north to fight against the Austrians, who were the greatest threat to his rule.[citation needed]

The war was triggered by a pro-Napoleon uprising in Naples, after which Murat declared war on Austria on 15 March 1815, five days before Napoleon's return to Paris. The Austrians were prepared for war. Their suspicions were aroused weeks earlier, when Murat applied for permission to march through Austrian territory to attack the south of France. Austria had reinforced her armies in Lombardy under the command of Bellegarde prior to war being declared.[citation needed]

The war ended after a decisive Austrian victory at the Battle of Tolentino. Ferdinand IV was reinstated as King of Naples. Ferdinand then sent Neapolitan troops under General Onasco to help the Austrian army in Italy attack southern France. In the long term, the intervention by Austria caused resentment in Italy, which further spurred on the drive towards Italian unification.[63][64][65][66]

Civil war edit

Provence and Brittany, which were known to contain many royalist sympathisers, did not rise in open revolt, but La Vendée did. The Vendée Royalists successfully took Bressuire and Cholet, before they were defeated by General Lamarque at the Battle of Rocheserviere on 20 June. They signed the Treaty of Cholet six days later on 26 June.[1][67]

Austrian campaign edit

Rhine frontier edit

In early June, General Rapp's Army of the Rhine of about 23,000 men, with a leavening of experienced troops, advanced towards Germersheim to block Schwarzenberg's expected advance, but on hearing the news of the French defeat at Waterloo, Rapp withdrew towards Strasbourg turning on 28 June to check the 40,000 men of General Württemberg's Austrian III Corps at the Battle of La Suffel—the last pitched battle of the Napoleonic Wars and a French victory. The next day Rapp continued to retreat to Strasbourg and also sent a garrison to defend Colmar. He and his men took no further active part in the campaign and eventually submitted to the Bourbons.[26][68]

To the north of Württenberg's III Corps, General Wrede's Austrian (Bavarian) IV Corps also crossed the French frontier, and then swung south and captured Nancy, against some local popular resistance on 27 June. Attached to his command was a Russian detachment, under the command of General Count Lambert, that was charged with keeping Wrede's lines of communication open. In early July, Schwarzenberg, having received a request from Wellington and Blücher, ordered Wrede to act as the Austrian vanguard and advance on Paris, and by 5 July, the main body of Wrede's IV Corps had reached Châlons. On 6 July, the advance guard made contact with the Prussians, and on 7 July Wrede received intelligence of the Paris Convention and a request to move to the Loire. By 10 July, Wrede's headquarters were at Ferté-sous-Jouarre and his corps positioned between the Seine and the Marne.[1][69]

Further south, General Colloredo's Austrian I Corps was hindered by General Lecourbe's Armée du Jura, which was largely made up of National Guardsmen and other reserves. Lecourbe fought four delaying actions between 30 June and 8 July at Foussemagne, Bourogne, Chèvremont and Bavilliers before agreeing to an armistice on 11 July. Archduke Ferdinand's Reserve Corps, together with Hohenzollern-Hechingen's II Corps, laid siege to the fortresses of Hüningen and Mühlhausen, with two Swiss brigades[70][page needed] from the Swiss Army of General Niklaus Franz von Bachmann, aiding with the siege of Huningen. Like other Austrian forces, these too were pestered by francs-tireurs.[1][71]

Italian frontier edit

Like Rapp further north, Marshal Suchet, with the Armée des Alpes, took the initiative and on 14 June invaded Savoy. Facing him was General Frimont, with an Austro-Sardinian army of 75,000 men based in Italy. However, on hearing of the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Suchet negotiated an armistice and fell back to Lyons, where on 12 July he surrendered the city to Frimont's army.[72]

The coast of Provence was defended by French forces under Marshal Brune, who fell back slowly into the fortress city of Toulon, after retreating from Marseilles before the Austrian Army of Naples under the command of General Bianchi, the Anglo-Sicilian forces of Sir Hudson Lowe, supported by the British Mediterranean fleet of Lord Exmouth, and the Sardinian forces of the Sardinian General d'Osasco, the forces of the latter being drawn from the garrison of Nice. Brune did not surrender the city and its naval arsenal until 31 July.[1][73]

Russian campaign edit

The main body of the Russian Army, commanded by Field Marshal Count Tolly and amounting to 167,950 men, crossed the Rhine at Mannheim on 25 June—after Napoleon had abdicated for the second time—and although there was light resistance around Mannheim, it was over by the time the vanguard had advanced as far as Landau. The greater portion of Tolly's army reached Paris and its vicinity by the middle of July.[1][74]

Treaty of Paris edit

 
All the participants of the War of the Seventh Coalition. Blue: The Coalition and their colonies and allies. Green: The First French Empire, its protectorates, colonies and allies.

Issy was the last field engagement of the Hundred Days. There was a campaign against fortresses still commanded by Bonapartist governors that ended with the capitulation of Longwy on 13 September 1815. The Treaty of Paris was signed on 20 November 1815, bringing the Napoleonic Wars to a formal end.[citation needed]

Under the 1815 Paris treaty, the previous year's Treaty of Paris and the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, of 9 June 1815, were confirmed. France was reduced to its 1790 boundaries; it lost the territorial gains of the Revolutionary armies in 1790–1792, which the previous Paris treaty had allowed France to keep. France was now also ordered to pay 700 million francs in indemnities, in five yearly installments,[c] and to maintain at its own expense a Coalition army of occupation of 150,000 soldiers[75] in the eastern border territories of France, from the English Channel to the border with Switzerland, for a maximum of five years.[d] The two-fold purpose of the military occupation was made clear by the convention annexed to the treaty, outlining the incremental terms by which France would issue negotiable bonds covering the indemnity: in addition to safeguarding the neighbouring states from a revival of revolution in France, it guaranteed fulfilment of the treaty's financial clauses.[e]

On the same day, in a separate document, Great Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia renewed the Quadruple Alliance. The princes and free towns who were not signatories were invited to accede to its terms,[78] whereby the treaty became a part of the public law according to which Europe, with the exception of the Ottoman Empire,[f] established "relations from which a system of real and permanent balance of power in Europe is to be derived".[g]

Timeline of French constitutions edit

 

See also edit

Notes edit

  1. ^ Histories differ over the start and end dates of the Hundred Days; another popular period is from 1 March, when Napoleon I landed in France, to his defeat at Waterloo on 18 June.[citation needed] Winkler Prins (2002) counted 100 days from Napoleon's entry in Paris on 20 March to the Cambray Proclamation of 28 June 1815.[6]
  2. ^ Louis XVIII fled Paris on 19 March.[8] When he entered Paris on 8 July, Count Chabrol, prefect of the department of the Seine, accompanied by the municipal body, addressed Louis XVIII in the name of his companions, in a speech that began "Sire,—One hundred days have passed away since your majesty, forced to tear yourself from your dearest affections, left your capital amidst tears and public consternation. ...".[9]
  3. ^ Article 4 of the Definitive Treaty of 20 November 1815. The 1814 treaty had required only that France honour some public and private debts incurred by the Napoleonic regime (Nicolle 1953, pp. 343–354), see Articles 18, 19 and 20 of the 1814 Paris Peace Treaty
  4. ^ The army of occupation and the Duke of Wellington's moderating transformation from soldier to statesman are discussed by Thomas Dwight Veve.[76]
  5. ^ A point made by Nicolle.[77]
  6. ^ Turkey, which had been excluded from the Congress of Vienna by the express wish of Russia (Strupp 1960–1962, "Wiener Kongress").
  7. ^ The quote is from Article I of the Additional, Separate, and Secret Articles to the [Paris Peace Treaty] of 30th May, 1814 (Hertslet 1875, p. 18); it is quoted to support the sentence by Wood 1943, p. 263 and note 6 (Wood's main subject is the Treaty of Paris (1856), terminating the Crimean War).

References edit

Citations edit

  1. ^ a b c d e f g h i Chandler 1981, p. 181.
  2. ^ a b Hofschroer 2006, pp. 82, 83.
  3. ^ Hervé de Weck: Franche-Comté expedition in German, French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland, 8 May 2007.
  4. ^ a b "Hundred Days". Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved 11 October 2021.
  5. ^ a b Chandler 1966, p. 1015.
  6. ^ "Honderd Dagen, De". Encarta Encyclopedie Winkler Prins (in Dutch). Microsoft Corporation/Het Spectrum. 1993–2002.
  7. ^ Beck 1911, "Waterloo Campaign".
  8. ^ Townsend 1862, p. 355.
  9. ^ a b Gifford 1817, p. 1511.
  10. ^ Hamilton-Williams 1996, p. 59.
  11. ^ Uffindell 2003, pp. 198, 200.
  12. ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Rose 1911, p. 209.
  13. ^ Hamilton-Williams 1996, pp. 44, 45.
  14. ^ Hamilton-Williams 1996, p. 43.
  15. ^ Hamilton-Williams 1996, p. 45.
  16. ^ Hamilton-Williams 1996, p. 48.
  17. ^ "Escape from Elba". The Waterloo Association. 9 June 2018. Retrieved 14 August 2022.
  18. ^ Adams 2011.
  19. ^ Hamilton-Williams 1996, p. 42.
  20. ^ Le Journal de Paris, 22 novembre 1815; Journal des débats politiques et littéraires, 22 novembre 1815
  21. ^ Campbell, N., & Maclachlan, A. N. C. (1869). Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba: Being a journal of occurrences in 1814-1815. London: J. Murray
  22. ^ Hibbert 1998, pp. 143, 144.
  23. ^ a b c Ramm 1984, pp. 132–134.
  24. ^ Chesney 1868, p. 34.
  25. ^ Chesney 1868, p. 35.
  26. ^ a b c d Chandler 1981, p. 180.
  27. ^ a b c d Chalfont 1979, p. 205.
  28. ^ Siborne 1895, pp. 775, 779.
  29. ^ a b c Chandler 1981, p. 30.
  30. ^ Chesney 1868, p. 36.
  31. ^ Plotho 1818, pp. 34, 35 (Appendix).
  32. ^ Sørensen 1871, pp. 360–367.
  33. ^ Baines 1818, p. 433.
  34. ^ Barbero 2006, p. 2.
  35. ^ a b Glover 1973, p. 178.
  36. ^ Chartrand 1998, pp. 9, 10.
  37. ^ Houssaye 2005, p. 327.
  38. ^ Houssaye 2005, p. 53.
  39. ^ Chandler 1981, p. 25.
  40. ^ a b Houssaye 2005, pp. 54–56.
  41. ^ a b Chandler 1966, p. 1016.
  42. ^ Chandler 1966, p. 1093.
  43. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 111–128.
  44. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 129–258.
  45. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 159–323.
  46. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 324–596.
  47. ^ Siborne 1848, p. 625.
  48. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 597–754.
  49. ^ Rose 1911, pp. 209–210.
  50. ^ Muel, Leon (1891). Gouvernements, ministères et constitutions de la France depuis cent ans. Marchal et Billard. p. 100. ISBN 978-1249015024.
  51. ^ a b c d Rose 1911, p. 210.
  52. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 687, 717.
  53. ^ Cordingly 2013, p. 7.
  54. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 741–745.
  55. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 752–757.
  56. ^ Siborne 1848, pp. 754–756.
  57. ^ a b c d Siborne 1848, p. 757.
  58. ^ Lipscombe 2014, p. 32.
  59. ^ Waln 1825, pp. 482–483.
  60. ^ Laughton 1893, p. 354.
  61. ^ Beck 1911, p. 371.
  62. ^ Domenico Spadoni. "CASALANZA, Convenzione di". Archive. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  63. ^ Pietro Colletta (1858). History of the kingdom of Naples: 1734-1825, chapter III. T. Constable and Co.
  64. ^ "The annual register, or, a view of the history, politicks, and literature for the year. Volume 57 (A new edition), 1815 - chapter VII". Archive. Retrieved 17 April 2020.
  65. ^ A Glance at Revolutionized Italy a Visit to Messina and a Tour Through the Kingdom of Naples ... in the Summer of 1848 by Charles Mac Farlane. Smith, Elder and C. 1849. pp. 33–.
  66. ^ Multiple Authors (17 September 2013). Revolutionary Wars 1775–c.1815. Amber Books Ltd. pp. 190–. ISBN 978-1-78274-123-7.
  67. ^ Gildea 2008, pp. 112, 113.
  68. ^ Siborne 1895, p. 772.
  69. ^ Siborne 1895, pp. 768–771.
  70. ^ Chapuisat 1921, Edouard Table III.
  71. ^ Siborne 1895, pp. 773, 774.
  72. ^ Siborne 1895, pp. 775–779.
  73. ^ Siborne 1895, p. 779.
  74. ^ Siborne 1895, p. 774.
  75. ^ Article 5 of the Definitive Treaty of 20 November 1815.
  76. ^ Veve 1992, pp. ix, 4, 114, 120.
  77. ^ Nicolle 1953, p. 344.
  78. ^ Final Act of the Congress of Vienna, Article 119.

Works cited edit

  • Adams, Keith (November 2011). . Classic and Performance Cars—Octane. Dennis Publishing. Archived from the original on 7 May 2013.
  • Baines, Edward (1818). History of the Wars of the French Revolution, from the breaking out of the wars in 1792, to, the restoration of general peace in 1815. Vol. 2. Longman, Rees, Orme and Brown. p. 433.
  • Barbero, Alessandro (2006). The Battle: a new history of Waterloo. Walker & Company. ISBN 978-0-8027-1453-4.
  • Chandler, David (1966). The Campaigns of Napoleon. New York: Macmillan.
  • Chandler, David (1981) [1980]. Waterloo: The Hundred Days. Osprey Publishing.
  • Chalfont, Lord; et al. (1979). Waterloo: Battle of Three Armies. Sidgwick and Jackson.
  • Chapuisat, Édouard (1921). Der Weg zur Neutralität und Unabhängigkeit 1814 und 1815. Bern: Oberkriegskommissariat. (also published as: Vers la neutralité et l'indépendance. La Suisse en 1814 et 1815, Berne: Commissariat central des guerres)
  • Chartrand, Rene (1998). British Forces in North America 1793–1815. Osprey Publishing.
  • Chesney, Charles Cornwallis (1868). Waterloo Lectures: a study of the Campaign of 1815. London: Longmans Green and Co.
  • Cordingly, David (2013). Billy Ruffian. A&C Black. p. 7. ISBN 978-1-4088-4674-2.
  • Gildea, Robert (2008). Children of the Revolution: The French, 1799–1914 (reprint ed.). Penguin UK. pp. 112, 113. ISBN 978-0-1419-1852-5.
  • Gifford, H. (1817). History of the Wars Occasioned by the French Revolution: From the Commencement of Hostilities in 1792, to the End of ... 1816; Embracing a Complete History of the Revolution, with Biographical Sketches of Most of the Public Characters of Europe. Vol. 2. W. Lewis. p. 1511.
  • Glover, Michael (1973). Wellington as Military Commander. London: Sphere Books.
  • Hamilton-Williams, David (1996). Waterloo New Perspectives: the Great Battle Reappraised. Wiley. ISBN 978-0-4710-5225-8.
  • Hertslet, Edward (1875). The map of Europe by treaty; showing the various political and territorial changes which have taken place since the general peace of 1814. London: Butterworths. p. 18.
  • Hibbert, Christopher (1998). Waterloo (illustrated, reprint, revised ed.). Wordsworth Editions. p. 144. ISBN 978-1-8532-6687-4.
  • Hofschroer, Peter (2006). 1815 The Waterloo Campaign: Wellington, his German allies and the Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras. Vol. 1. Greenhill Books.
  • Houssaye, Henri (2005). Napoleon and the Campaign of 1815: Waterloo. Naval & Military Press Ltd.
  • Laughton, John Knox (1893). "Maitland, Frederick Lewis" . In Lee, Sidney (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 35. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 353–355.
  • Lipscombe, Nick (2014). Waterloo – The Decisive Victory. Osprey Publishing. p. 32. ISBN 978-1-4728-0104-3.
  • Nicolle, André (December 1953). "The Problem of Reparations after the Hundred Days". The Journal of Modern History. 25 (4): 343–354. doi:10.1086/237635. S2CID 145101376.
  • Plotho, Carl von (1818). Der Krieg des verbündeten Europa gegen Frankreich im Jahre 1815. Berlin: Karl Friedrich Umelang.
  • Ramm, Agatha (1984). Europe in the Nineteenth Century. London: Longman.
  • Siborne, William (1848). The Waterloo Campaign, 1815 (4th ed.). Westminster: A. Constable.
  • Siborne, William (1895). "Supplement section". The Waterloo Campaign 1815 (4th ed.). Birmingham, 34 Wheeleys Road. pp. 767–780.
  • Sørensen, Carl (1871). Kampen om Norge i Aarene 1813 og 1814. Vol. 2. Kjøbenhavn.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • Strupp, K.; et al. (1960–1962). "Wiener Kongress". Wörterbuch des Völkerrechts (in German). Berlin.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)[full citation needed]
  • Townsend, George Henry (1862). The Manual of Dates: A Dictionary of Reference to All the Most Important Events in the History of Mankind to be Found in Authentic Records. Routledge, Warne, & Routledge. p. 355.
  • Uffindell, Andrew (2003). Great Generals of the Napoleonic Wars. Staplehurst: Spellmount. ISBN 978-1-8622-7177-7.
  • Veve, Thomas Dwight (1992). The Duke of Wellington and the British Army of Occupation in France, 1815–1818 (illustrated ed.). Westport, CT: Greenwood Press. pp. ix, 4, 114, 120. ISBN 978-0-3132-7941-6.
  • Waln, Robert (1825). Life of the Marquis de La Fayette: Major General in the Service of the United States of America, in the War of the Revolution... J.P. Ayres. pp. 482–483.
  • Wood, Hugh McKinnon (April 1943). "The Treaty of Paris and Turkey's Status in International Law". The American Journal of International Law. 37 (2): 262–274. doi:10.2307/2192416. JSTOR 2192416.

Attribution edit

Further reading edit

  • Abbot, John S. C. (1902). "Chapter XI: Life in Exile, 1815–1832". Makers of History: Joseph Bonaparte. New York and London: Harper & Brothers. pp. 320–324.
  • Alexander, Robert S. (1991). Bonapartism and Revolutionary Tradition in France: The Federes of 1815. Cambridge University Press.
  • Bowden, Scott (1983). Armies at Waterloo: a detailed analysis of the armies that fought history's greatest Battle. Empire Games Press. ISBN 978-0-9130-3702-7.
  • Gurwood, Colonel (1838). The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. Vol. 12. J. Murray.
  • Hofschroer, Peter (1999). 1815 The Waterloo Campaign: The German victory, from Waterloo to the fall of Napoleon. Vol. 2. Greenhill Books. ISBN 978-1-8536-7368-9.
  • Mackenzie, Norman (1984). The Escape from Elba. Oxford University Press.
  • Lucas, F. L. (1965). "'Long Lives the Emperor', an essay on The Hundred Days". The Historical Journal. 8 (1): 126–135. doi:10.1017/S0018246X00026868. JSTOR 3020309. S2CID 159765354.
  • Schom, Alan (1992). One Hundred Days: Napoleon's road to Waterloo. New York: Atheneum. pp. 19, 152.
  • Smith, Digby (1998). The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book. London: Greenhill Books.
  • Stephens, Henry Morse (1886). "Campbell, Neil (1776–1827)" . In Stephen, Leslie (ed.). Dictionary of National Biography. Vol. 8. London: Smith, Elder & Co. pp. 389–390.
  • Wellesley, Arthur (1862). Supplementary Despatches, Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington. Vol. 10. London: United Services, John Murray.
  • Woloch, Isser (2002). Napoleon and His Collaborators. W.W. Norton & Company. ISBN 978-0-3933-2341-2.

hundred, days, this, article, about, napoleon, last, period, rule, seventh, coalition, final, allied, offensive, western, front, during, world, offensive, other, uses, disambiguation, this, article, needs, additional, citations, verification, please, help, imp. This article is about Napoleon s last period of rule and the Seventh Coalition For the final Allied offensive on the Western Front during World War I see Hundred Days Offensive For other uses see Hundred Days disambiguation This article needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources Unsourced material may be challenged and removed Find sources Hundred Days news newspapers books scholar JSTOR November 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message The Hundred Days French les Cent Jours IPA le sɑ ʒuʁ 4 also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition French Guerre de la Septieme Coalition marked the period between Napoleon s return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 a period of 110 days a This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition and includes the Waterloo Campaign 7 the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns The phrase les Cent Jours the hundred days was first used by the prefect of Paris Gaspard comte de Chabrol in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July b War of the Seventh CoalitionPart of the Napoleonic Wars and the Coalition Warshundred daysClick an image to load the battle Left to right top to bottom Battles of Quatre Bras Ligny Waterloo Date20 March 8 July 1815 4 110 days LocationFranceNetherlandsResultCoalition victory Second Treaty of Paris End of the Napoleonic Wars Second exile of Napoleon to the island of Saint Helena and second Bourbon Restoration Beginning of the Concert of EuropeBelligerents United Kingdom Prussia Russia 1 Netherlands Austria Bourbon Restoration Brunswick Denmark no combat 2 Hanover Liechtenstein Nassau Sardinia 1 Sicily 1 Switzerland 3 Tuscany Wurttemberg France NaplesCommanders and leadersArthur Wellesley Duke of Wellington Thomas Picton Hudson Lowe Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher Archduke Charles of Austria Karl von Schwarzenberg Frederick Bianchi Johann Frimont Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly William of Orange Frederick of Orange Niklaus Franz von Bachmann Frederik of HesseNapoleon I Louis Nicolas Davout Michel Ney Emmanuel de Grouchy Louis Gabriel Suchet Jean de Dieu Soult Guillaume Brune Edouard Mortier Francois Joseph Lefebvre Jean Rapp Bertrand Clauzel Charles Decaen Jean Maximilien Lamarque Claude Lecourbe Guillaume Duhesme Joachim Murat Strength800 000 1 000 000 5 280 000 5 See military mobilisation during the Hundred Days for more information Napoleonic Wars Interactive fullscreen map nearby articles Key 1 Third Coalition Germany 1803 Austerlitz 2 Fourth Coalition Prussia 1806 Jena 3 Peninsular War Portugal 1807 Torres Vedras 4 Peninsular War Spain 1808 Vitoria 5 Fifth Coalition Austria 1809 Wagram 6 French invasion of Russia 1812 Moscow 7 Sixth Coalition Germany 1813 Leipzig 8 Sixth Coalition France 1814 Paris 9 Hundred Days 1815 Waterloo Napoleon returned while the Congress of Vienna was sitting On 13 March seven days before Napoleon reached Paris the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw and on 25 March Austria Prussia Russia and the United Kingdom the four Great Powers and key members of the Seventh Coalition bound themselves to put 150 000 men each into the field to end his rule 10 This set the stage for the last conflict in the Napoleonic Wars the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo the second restoration of the French kingdom and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of Saint Helena where he died of stomach cancer in May 1821 Contents 1 Background 1 1 Napoleon s rise and fall 1 2 Exile in Elba 1 3 Congress of Vienna 2 Return to France 2 1 Napoleon s health 2 2 Constitutional reform 3 Military mobilisation 4 War begins 5 Waterloo campaign 5 1 Start of hostilities 15 June 5 2 Battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny 16 June 5 3 Interlude 17 June 5 4 Battle of Waterloo 18 June 5 5 Invasion of France 5 6 Abdication of Napoleon 22 June 5 7 French Provisional Government 5 8 Coalition forces enter Paris 7 July 6 Restoration of Louis XVIII 8 July 7 Surrender of Napoleon 15 July 8 Other campaigns and wars 8 1 Neapolitan War 8 2 Civil war 8 3 Austrian campaign 8 3 1 Rhine frontier 8 3 2 Italian frontier 8 4 Russian campaign 9 Treaty of Paris 10 Timeline of French constitutions 11 See also 12 Notes 13 References 13 1 Citations 13 2 Works cited 13 3 Attribution 14 Further readingBackground editNapoleon s rise and fall edit This section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed March 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars pitted France against various coalitions of other European nations nearly continuously from 1792 onward The overthrow and subsequent public execution of Louis XVI in France had greatly disturbed other European leaders who vowed to crush the French Republic Rather than leading to France s defeat the wars allowed the revolutionary regime to expand beyond its borders and create client republics The success of the French forces made a hero out of their best commander Napoleon Bonaparte In 1799 Napoleon staged a successful coup d etat and became First Consul of the new French Consulate Five years later he crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I The rise of Napoleon troubled the other European powers as much as the earlier revolutionary regime had Despite the formation of new coalitions against him Napoleon s forces continued to conquer much of Europe The tide of war began to turn after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812 that resulted in the loss of much of Napoleon s army The following year during the War of the Sixth Coalition Coalition forces defeated the French in the Battle of Leipzig Following its victory at Leipzig the Coalition vowed to press on to Paris and depose Napoleon In the last week of February 1814 Prussian Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von Blucher advanced on Paris After multiple attacks manoeuvring and reinforcements on both sides 11 Blucher won the Battle of Laon in early March 1814 this victory prevented the coalition army from being pushed north out of France The Battle of Reims went to Napoleon but this victory was followed by successive defeats from increasingly overwhelming odds Coalition forces entered Paris after the Battle of Montmartre on 30 March 1814 On 6 April 1814 Napoleon abdicated his throne leading to the accession of Louis XVIII and the first Bourbon Restoration a month later The defeated Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany while the victorious Coalition sought to redraw the map of Europe at the Congress of Vienna Exile in Elba edit nbsp The journey of a modern hero to the island of Elba Print shows Napoleon seated backwards on a donkey on the road to Elba from Fontainebleau he holds a broken sword in one hand and the donkey s tail in the other while two drummers follow him playing a farewell march nbsp Napoleon with the Elba Squadron of volunteers from the 1st Polish Light Cavalry of his Imperial GuardNapoleon spent only 9 months and 21 days in an uneasy forced retirement on Elba 1814 1815 watching events in France with great interest as the Congress of Vienna gradually gathered 12 As he foresaw the shrinkage of the great Empire into the realm of old France caused intense dissatisfaction among the French a feeling fed by stories of the tactless way in which the Bourbon princes treated veterans of the Grande Armee and the returning royalist nobility treated the people at large Equally threatening was the general situation in Europe which had been stressed and exhausted during the previous decades of near constant warfare 12 The conflicting demands of major powers were for a time so exorbitant as to bring the Powers at the Congress of Vienna to the verge of war with each other 13 Thus every scrap of news reaching remote Elba looked favourable to Napoleon to retake power as he correctly reasoned the news of his return would cause a popular rising as he approached He also reasoned that the return of French prisoners from Russia Germany Britain and Spain would furnish him instantly with a trained veteran and patriotic army far larger than that which had won renown in the years before 1814 So threatening were the symptoms that the royalists at Paris and the plenipotentiaries at Vienna talked of deporting him to the Azores or to Saint Helena while others hinted at assassination 12 14 Congress of Vienna edit At the Congress of Vienna November 1814 June 1815 the various participating nations had very different and conflicting goals Tsar Alexander I of Russia had expected to absorb much of Poland and to leave a Polish puppet state the Duchy of Warsaw as a buffer against further invasion from Europe The renewed Prussian state demanded all of the Kingdom of Saxony Austria wanted to allow neither of these things while it expected to regain control of northern Italy Castlereagh of the United Kingdom supported France represented by Talleyrand and Austria and was at variance with his own Parliament This almost caused a war to break out when the Tsar pointed out to Castlereagh that Russia had 450 000 men near Poland and Saxony and he was welcome to try to remove them Indeed Alexander stated I shall be the King of Poland and the King of Prussia will be the King of Saxony 15 Castlereagh approached King Frederick William III of Prussia to offer him British and Austrian support for Prussia s annexation of Saxony in return for Prussia s support of an independent Poland The Prussian king repeated this offer in public offending Alexander so deeply that he challenged Metternich of Austria to a duel Only the intervention of the Austrian crown stopped it A breach between the four Great Powers was avoided when members of Britain s Parliament sent word to the Russian ambassador that Castlereagh had exceeded his authority and Britain would not support an independent Poland 16 The affair left Prussia deeply suspicious of any British involvement Return to France edit nbsp Napoleon leaving Elba painted by Joseph Beaume nbsp The brig Inconstant under Captain Taillade and ferrying Napoleon to France crosses the path of the brig Zephir under Captain Andrieux Inconstant flies the tricolour of the Empire while Zephir flies the white ensign of the House of Bourbon While the Allies were distracted Napoleon solved his problem in characteristic fashion On 26 February 1815 when the British and French guard ships were absent his tiny fleet consisting of the brig Inconstant four small transports and two feluccas slipped away from Portoferraio with some 1 000 men and landed at Golfe Juan between Cannes and Antibes on 1 March 1815 17 Except in royalist Provence he was warmly received 12 He avoided much of Provence by taking a route through the Alps marked today as the Route Napoleon 18 Firing no shot in his defence his troop numbers swelled until they became an army On 5 March the nominally royalist 5th Infantry Regiment at Grenoble went over to Napoleon en masse The next day they were joined by the 7th Infantry Regiment under its colonel Charles de la Bedoyere who was executed for treason by the Bourbons after the campaign ended An anecdote illustrates Napoleon s charisma when royalist troops were deployed to stop the march of Napoleon s force before Grenoble at Laffrey Napoleon stepped out in front of them ripped open his coat and said If any of you will shoot his Emperor here I am The men joined his cause 19 Marshal Ney now one of Louis XVIII s commanders had said that Napoleon ought to be brought to Paris in an iron cage but on 14 March in Lons le Saulnier Jura Ney joined Napoleon with a small army of 6 000 men On 15 March Joachim Murat King of Naples declared war on Austria in an attempt to save his throne starting the Neapolitan War Four days later after proceeding through the countryside promising constitutional reform and direct elections to an assembly to the acclaim of gathered crowds Napoleon entered the capital from where Louis XVIII had recently fled 12 Ney was arrested on 3 August 1815 tried on 16 November and executed on 7 December 1815 20 The royalists did not pose a major threat the duc d Angouleme raised a small force in the south but at Valence it did not provide resistance against Imperialists under Grouchy s command 12 and the duke on 9 April 1815 signed a convention whereby the royalists received a free pardon from the Emperor The royalists of the Vendee moved later and caused more difficulty for the Imperialists 12 Napoleon s health edit Evidence as to Napoleon s health is somewhat conflicting Carnot Pasquier Lavalette Thiebault and others thought him prematurely aged and enfeebled 12 At Elba Sir Neil Campbell had noted that he had become inactive and corpulent 21 Also at Elba he had begun to suffer intermittently from retention of urine but to no serious extent 12 For much of his public life Napoleon had been troubled by hemorrhoids which made sitting on a horse for long periods of time difficult and painful This condition had disastrous results at Waterloo during the battle his inability to sit on his horse for other than very short periods of time interfered with his ability to survey his troops in combat and thus exercise command 22 Others reported no marked change in him Mollien who knew the emperor well attributed the lassitude which now and then came over him to a feeling of perplexity caused by his changed circumstances 12 Constitutional reform edit Main article Charter of 1815 At Lyon on 13 March 1815 Napoleon issued an edict dissolving the existing chambers and ordering the convocation of a national mass meeting or Champ de Mai for the purpose of modifying the constitution of the Napoleonic empire 23 He reportedly told Benjamin Constant I am growing old The repose of a constitutional king may suit me It will more surely suit my son 12 That work was carried out by Benjamin Constant in concert with the Emperor The resulting Acte additionel supplementary to the constitutions of the Empire bestowed on France a hereditary Chamber of Peers and a Chamber of Representatives elected by the electoral colleges of the empire 12 According to Chateaubriand in reference to Louis XVIII s constitutional charter the new constitution dubbed La Benjamine was merely a slightly improved version of the charter associated with Louis XVIII s administration 12 however later historians including Agatha Ramm have pointed out that this constitution permitted the extension of the franchise and explicitly guaranteed press freedom 23 In the Republican manner the Constitution was put to the people of France in a plebiscite but whether due to lack of enthusiasm or because the nation was suddenly thrown into military preparation only 1 532 527 votes were cast less than half of the vote in the plebiscites of the Consulat however the benefit of a large majority meant that Napoleon felt he had constitutional sanction 12 23 Napoleon was with difficulty dissuaded from quashing the 3 June election of Jean Denis comte Lanjuinais the staunch liberal who had so often opposed the Emperor as president of the Chamber of Representatives In his last communication to them Napoleon warned them not to imitate the Greeks of the late Byzantine Empire who engaged in subtle discussions while the ram was battering at their gates 12 Military mobilisation editMain article Military mobilisation during the Hundred Days nbsp Strategic situation in Western Europe in 1815 250 000 Frenchmen faced a coalition of about 850 000 soldiers on four fronts In addition Napoleon had to leave 20 000 men in Western France to reduce a royalist insurrection During the Hundred Days the Coalition nations as well as Napoleon mobilised for war Upon re assumption of the throne Napoleon found that Louis XVIII had left him with few resources There were 56 000 soldiers of which 46 000 were ready to campaign 24 By the end of May the total armed forces available to Napoleon had reached 198 000 with 66 000 more in depots training up but not yet ready for deployment 25 By the end of May Napoleon had formed L Armee du Nord the Army of the North which led by himself would participate in the Waterloo Campaign citation needed For the defence of France Napoleon deployed his remaining forces within France with the intention of delaying his foreign enemies while he suppressed his domestic ones By June he had organised his forces thus V Corps L Armee du Rhin commanded by Rapp cantoned near Strasbourg 26 VII Corps L Armee des Alpes commanded by Suchet 1 cantoned at Lyon I Corps of Observation L Armee du Jura commanded by Lecourbe 26 cantoned at Belfort II Corps of Observation 27 L Armee du Var commanded by Brune based at Toulon 28 III Corps of Observation 27 Army of the Pyrenees orientales 29 commanded by Decaen based at Toulouse IV Corps of Observation 27 Army of the Pyrenees occidentales 29 commanded by Clauzel based at Bordeaux Army of the West 27 Armee de l Ouest 29 also known as the Army of the Vendee and the Army of the Loire commanded by Lamarque was formed to suppress the Royalist insurrection in the Vendee region of France which remained loyal to King Louis XVIII during the Hundred Days citation needed The opposing Coalition forces were the following This section needs additional citations for verification Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources in this section Unsourced material may be challenged and removed November 2022 Learn how and when to remove this template message Archduke Charles gathered Austrian and allied German states while the Prince of Schwarzenberg formed another Austrian army King Ferdinand VII of Spain summoned British officers to lead his troops against France Tsar Alexander I of Russia mustered an army of 250 000 troops and sent these rolling toward the Rhine Prussia mustered two armies One under Blucher took post alongside Wellington s British army and its allies The other was the North German Corps under General Kleist 30 Assessed as an immediate threat by Napoleon Anglo allied commanded by Wellington cantoned south west of Brussels headquartered at Brussels Prussian Army commanded by Blucher cantoned south east of Brussels headquartered at Namur Close to the borders of France but assessed to be less of a threat by Napoleon The German Corps North German Federal Army which was part of Blucher s army but was acting independently south of the main Prussian army Blucher summoned it to join the main army once Napoleon s intentions became known The Austrian Army of the Upper Rhine commanded by Field Marshal Karl Philipp Prince of Schwarzenberg The Swiss Army commanded by Niklaus Franz von Bachmann The Austrian Army of Upper Italy Austro Sardinian Army commanded by Johann Maria Philipp Frimont The Austrian Army of Naples commanded by Frederick Bianchi Duke of Casalanza Other coalition forces which were either converging on France mobilised to defend the homelands or in the process of mobilisation included A Russian Army commanded by Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly marching towards France A Reserve Russian Army to support Barclay de Tolly if required A Reserve Prussian Army stationed at home in order to defend its borders An Anglo Sicilian Army under General Sir Hudson Lowe which was to be landed by the Royal Navy on the southern French coast Two Spanish Armies were assembling and planning to invade over the Pyrenees A Netherlands Corps under Prince Frederick of the Netherlands was not present at Waterloo but as a corps in Wellington s army it did take part in minor military actions during the Coalition s invasion of France A Danish contingent known as the Royal Danish Auxiliary Corps commanded by General Prince Frederik of Hesse and a Hanseatic contingent from the free cities of Bremen Lubeck and Hamburg later commanded by the British Colonel Sir Neil Campbell were on their way to join Wellington 31 both however joined the army in July having missed the conflict 2 32 A Portuguese contingent which due to the speed of events never assembled War begins edit nbsp Plenipotentiaries at the Congress of ViennaAt the Congress of Vienna the Great Powers of Europe Austria Great Britain Prussia and Russia and their allies declared Napoleon an outlaw 33 and with the signing of this declaration on 13 March 1815 so began the War of the Seventh Coalition The hopes of peace that Napoleon had entertained were gone war was now inevitable citation needed A further treaty the Treaty of Alliance against Napoleon was ratified on 25 March in which each of the Great European Powers agreed to pledge 150 000 men for the coming conflict 34 Such a number was not possible for Great Britain as her standing army was smaller than those of her three peers 35 Besides her forces were scattered around the globe with many units still in Canada where the War of 1812 had recently ended 36 With this in mind she made up her numerical deficiencies by paying subsidies to the other Powers and to the other states of Europe who would contribute contingents 35 Some time after the allies had begun mobilising it was agreed that the planned invasion of France was to commence on 1 July 1815 37 much later than both Blucher and Wellington would have liked as both their armies were ready in June ahead of the Austrians and Russians the latter were still some distance away 38 The advantage of this later invasion date was that it allowed all the invading Coalition armies a chance to be ready at the same time They could deploy their combined numerically superior forces against Napoleon s smaller thinly spread forces thus ensuring his defeat and avoiding a possible defeat within the borders of France Yet this postponed invasion date allowed Napoleon more time to strengthen his forces and defences which would make defeating him harder and more costly in lives time and money citation needed Napoleon now had to decide whether to fight a defensive or offensive campaign 39 Defence would entail repeating the 1814 campaign in France but with much larger numbers of troops at his disposal France s chief cities Paris and Lyon would be fortified and two great French armies the larger before Paris and the smaller before Lyon would protect them francs tireurs would be encouraged giving the Coalition armies their own taste of guerrilla warfare 40 Napoleon chose to attack which entailed a pre emptive strike at his enemies before they were all fully assembled and able to co operate By destroying some of the major Coalition armies Napoleon believed he would then be able to bring the governments of the Seventh Coalition to the peace table 40 to discuss terms favourable to himself namely peace for France with himself remaining in power as its head If peace were rejected by the Coalition powers despite any pre emptive military success he might have achieved using the offensive military option available to him then the war would continue and he could turn his attention to defeating the rest of the Coalition armies citation needed Napoleon s decision to attack in Belgium was supported by several considerations First he had learned that the British and Prussian armies were widely dispersed and might be defeated in detail 41 Further the British troops in Belgium were largely second line troops most of the veterans of the Peninsular War had been sent to America to fight the War of 1812 42 And politically a French victory might trigger a friendly revolution in French speaking Brussels 41 Waterloo campaign editMain article Waterloo campaign See also List of battles of the Hundred Days nbsp A portion of Belgium with some places marked in colour to indicate the initial deployments of the armies just before the commencement of hostilities on 15 June 1815 with British forces in red Prussians in green and French in blueThe Waterloo Campaign 15 June 8 July 1815 was fought between the French Army of the North and two Seventh Coalition armies an Anglo allied army and a Prussian army Initially the French army was commanded by Napoleon Bonaparte but he left for Paris after the French defeat at the Battle of Waterloo Command then rested on Marshals Soult and Grouchy who were in turn replaced by Marshal Davout who took command at the request of the French Provisional Government The Anglo allied army was commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussian army by Prince Blucher citation needed Start of hostilities 15 June edit Main article Waterloo Campaign Start of hostilities 15 June Hostilities started on 15 June when the French drove in the Prussian outposts and crossed the Sambre at Charleroi and secured Napoleon s favoured central position at the junction between the cantonment areas of Wellington s army to the west and Blucher s army to the east 43 Battles of Quatre Bras and Ligny 16 June edit Main articles Battle of Quatre Bras and Battle of Ligny nbsp Map of the Waterloo campaignOn 16 June the French prevailed with Marshal Ney commanding the left wing of the French army holding Wellington at the Battle of Quatre Bras and Napoleon defeating Blucher at the Battle of Ligny 44 Interlude 17 June edit Main article Waterloo Campaign Interlude 17 June On 17 June Napoleon left Grouchy with the right wing of the French army to pursue the Prussians while he took the reserves and command of the left wing of the army to pursue Wellington towards Brussels On the night of 17 June the Anglo allied army turned and prepared for battle on a gentle escarpment about 1 mile 1 6 km south of the village of Waterloo 45 Battle of Waterloo 18 June edit Main article Battle of Waterloo The next day the Battle of Waterloo proved to be the decisive battle of the campaign The Anglo allied army stood fast against repeated French attacks until with the aid of several Prussian corps that arrived on the east of the battlefield in the early evening they managed to rout the French Army 46 Grouchy with the right wing of the army engaged a Prussian rearguard at the simultaneous Battle of Wavre and although he won a tactical victory his failure to prevent the Prussians marching to Waterloo meant that his actions contributed to the French defeat at Waterloo The next day 19 June Grouchy left Wavre and started a long retreat back to Paris 47 Invasion of France edit Main article Waterloo Campaign Invasion of France and the occupation of Paris 18 June 7 July nbsp Invasion of France by the Seventh Coalition armies in 1815After the defeat at Waterloo Napoleon chose not to remain with the army and attempt to rally it but return to Paris to try to secure political support for further action This he failed to do The two Coalition armies hotly pursued the French army to the gates of Paris during which time the French on occasion turned and fought some delaying actions in which thousands of men were killed 48 Abdication of Napoleon 22 June edit Main article Abdication of Napoleon 1815 On arriving at Paris three days after Waterloo Napoleon still clung to the hope of concerted national resistance but the temper of the chambers and of the public generally forbade any such attempt Napoleon and his brother Lucien Bonaparte were almost alone in believing that by dissolving the chambers and declaring Napoleon dictator they could save France from the armies of the powers now converging on Paris Even Davout minister of war advised Napoleon that the destiny of France rested solely with the chambers Clearly it was time to safeguard what remained and that could best be done under Talleyrand s shield of legitimacy 49 Jean Jacques Regis de Cambaceres was the minister of justice during this time and was a close confidant of Napoleon 50 Napoleon himself at last recognised the truth When Lucien pressed him to dare he replied Alas I have dared only too much already On 22 June 1815 he abdicated in favour of his son Napoleon II well knowing that it was a formality as his four year old son was in Austria 51 French Provisional Government edit Main articles French Provisional Government of 1815 and Waterloo Campaign peace negotiations nbsp The Chateau de MalmaisonWith the abdication of Napoleon a provisional government with Joseph Fouche as President of the Executive Commission was formed under the nominal authority of Napoleon II Initially the remnants of the French Army of the North the left wing and the reserves that was routed at Waterloo were commanded by Marshal Soult while Grouchy kept command of the right wing that had fought at Wavre However on 25 June Soult was relieved of his command by the Provisional Government and was replaced by Grouchy who in turn was placed under the command of Marshal Davout 52 On the same day 25 June Napoleon received from Fouche the president of the newly appointed provisional government and Napoleon s former police chief an intimation that he must leave Paris He retired to Malmaison the former home of Josephine where she had died shortly after his first abdication 51 On 29 June the near approach of the Prussians who had orders to seize Napoleon dead or alive caused him to retire westwards toward Rochefort whence he hoped to reach the United States 51 The presence of blockading Royal Navy warships under Vice Admiral Henry Hotham with orders to prevent his escape forestalled this plan 53 Coalition forces enter Paris 7 July edit Main article Waterloo Campaign Waterloo to Paris 2 7 July French troops concentrated in Paris had as many soldiers as the invaders and more cannons citation needed There were two major skirmishes and a few minor ones near Paris during the first few days of July In the first major skirmish the Battle of Rocquencourt on 1 July French dragoons supported by infantry and commanded by General Exelmans destroyed a Prussian brigade of hussars under the command of Colonel von Sohr who was severely wounded and taken prisoner during the skirmish before retreating 54 In the second skirmish on 3 July General Dominique Vandamme under Davout s command was decisively defeated by General von Zieten under Blucher s command at the Battle of Issy forcing the French to retreat into Paris 55 With this defeat all hope of holding Paris faded and the French Provisional Government authorised delegates to accept capitulation terms which led to the Convention of St Cloud the surrender of Paris and the end of hostilities between France and the armies of Blucher and Wellington 56 On 4 July under the terms of the Convention of St Cloud the French army commanded by Marshal Davout left Paris and proceeded to cross the river Loire The Anglo allied troops occupied Saint Denis Saint Ouen Clichy and Neuilly On 5 July the Anglo allied army took possession of Montmartre 57 On 6 July the Anglo allied troops occupied the Barriers of Paris on the right of the Seine while the Prussians occupied those upon the left bank 57 On 7 July the two Coalition armies with von Zieten s Prussian I Corps as the vanguard 58 entered Paris The Chamber of Peers having received from the Provisional Government a notification of the course of events terminated its sittings the Chamber of Representatives protested but in vain Their President Lanjuinais resigned his chair and on the following day the doors were closed and the approaches guarded by Coalition troops 57 59 Restoration of Louis XVIII 8 July editOn 8 July the French King Louis XVIII made his public entry into Paris amidst the acclamations of the people and again occupied the throne 57 During Louis XVIII s entry into Paris Count Chabrol prefect of the department of the Seine accompanied by the municipal body addressed the King in the name of his companions in a speech that began Sire One hundred days have passed away since your majesty forced to tear yourself from your dearest affections left your capital amidst tears and public consternation 9 Surrender of Napoleon 15 July edit nbsp Napoleon on Board the Bellerophon exhibited in 1880 by Sir William Quiller Orchardson Orchardson depicts the morning of 23 July 1815 as Napoleon watches the French shoreline recede Unable to remain in France or escape from it Napoleon surrendered to Captain Frederick Maitland of HMS Bellerophon in the early morning of 15 July 1815 and was transported to England Napoleon was taken to the island of Saint Helena where he died as a prisoner in May 1821 60 51 Other campaigns and wars editMain article Minor campaigns of 1815 See also List of battles of the Hundred Days While Napoleon had assessed that the Coalition forces in and around Brussels on the borders of north east France posed the greatest threat because Tolly s Russian army of 150 000 were still not in the theatre Spain was slow to mobilise Prince Schwarzenberg s Austrian army of 210 000 were slow to cross the Rhine and another Austrian force menacing the south eastern frontier of France was still not a direct threat Napoleon still had to place some badly needed forces in positions where they could defend France against other Coalition forces whatever the outcome of the Waterloo campaign 61 26 Neapolitan War edit The Neapolitan War between the Napoleonic Kingdom of Naples and the Austrian Empire started on 15 March 1815 when Marshal Joachim Murat declared war on Austria and ended on 20 May 1815 with the signing of the Treaty of Casalanza 62 Napoleon had made his brother in law Joachim Murat King of Naples on 1 August 1808 After Napoleon s defeat in 1813 Murat reached an agreement with Austria to save his own throne However he realized that the European Powers meeting as the Congress of Vienna planned to remove him and return Naples to its Bourbon rulers So after issuing the so called Rimini Proclamation urging Italian patriots to fight for independence Murat moved north to fight against the Austrians who were the greatest threat to his rule citation needed The war was triggered by a pro Napoleon uprising in Naples after which Murat declared war on Austria on 15 March 1815 five days before Napoleon s return to Paris The Austrians were prepared for war Their suspicions were aroused weeks earlier when Murat applied for permission to march through Austrian territory to attack the south of France Austria had reinforced her armies in Lombardy under the command of Bellegarde prior to war being declared citation needed The war ended after a decisive Austrian victory at the Battle of Tolentino Ferdinand IV was reinstated as King of Naples Ferdinand then sent Neapolitan troops under General Onasco to help the Austrian army in Italy attack southern France In the long term the intervention by Austria caused resentment in Italy which further spurred on the drive towards Italian unification 63 64 65 66 Civil war edit Provence and Brittany which were known to contain many royalist sympathisers did not rise in open revolt but La Vendee did The Vendee Royalists successfully took Bressuire and Cholet before they were defeated by General Lamarque at the Battle of Rocheserviere on 20 June They signed the Treaty of Cholet six days later on 26 June 1 67 Austrian campaign edit Rhine frontier edit In early June General Rapp s Army of the Rhine of about 23 000 men with a leavening of experienced troops advanced towards Germersheim to block Schwarzenberg s expected advance but on hearing the news of the French defeat at Waterloo Rapp withdrew towards Strasbourg turning on 28 June to check the 40 000 men of General Wurttemberg s Austrian III Corps at the Battle of La Suffel the last pitched battle of the Napoleonic Wars and a French victory The next day Rapp continued to retreat to Strasbourg and also sent a garrison to defend Colmar He and his men took no further active part in the campaign and eventually submitted to the Bourbons 26 68 To the north of Wurttenberg s III Corps General Wrede s Austrian Bavarian IV Corps also crossed the French frontier and then swung south and captured Nancy against some local popular resistance on 27 June Attached to his command was a Russian detachment under the command of General Count Lambert that was charged with keeping Wrede s lines of communication open In early July Schwarzenberg having received a request from Wellington and Blucher ordered Wrede to act as the Austrian vanguard and advance on Paris and by 5 July the main body of Wrede s IV Corps had reached Chalons On 6 July the advance guard made contact with the Prussians and on 7 July Wrede received intelligence of the Paris Convention and a request to move to the Loire By 10 July Wrede s headquarters were at Ferte sous Jouarre and his corps positioned between the Seine and the Marne 1 69 Further south General Colloredo s Austrian I Corps was hindered by General Lecourbe s Armee du Jura which was largely made up of National Guardsmen and other reserves Lecourbe fought four delaying actions between 30 June and 8 July at Foussemagne Bourogne Chevremont and Bavilliers before agreeing to an armistice on 11 July Archduke Ferdinand s Reserve Corps together with Hohenzollern Hechingen s II Corps laid siege to the fortresses of Huningen and Muhlhausen with two Swiss brigades 70 page needed from the Swiss Army of General Niklaus Franz von Bachmann aiding with the siege of Huningen Like other Austrian forces these too were pestered by francs tireurs 1 71 Italian frontier edit Like Rapp further north Marshal Suchet with the Armee des Alpes took the initiative and on 14 June invaded Savoy Facing him was General Frimont with an Austro Sardinian army of 75 000 men based in Italy However on hearing of the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo Suchet negotiated an armistice and fell back to Lyons where on 12 July he surrendered the city to Frimont s army 72 The coast of Provence was defended by French forces under Marshal Brune who fell back slowly into the fortress city of Toulon after retreating from Marseilles before the Austrian Army of Naples under the command of General Bianchi the Anglo Sicilian forces of Sir Hudson Lowe supported by the British Mediterranean fleet of Lord Exmouth and the Sardinian forces of the Sardinian General d Osasco the forces of the latter being drawn from the garrison of Nice Brune did not surrender the city and its naval arsenal until 31 July 1 73 Russian campaign edit The main body of the Russian Army commanded by Field Marshal Count Tolly and amounting to 167 950 men crossed the Rhine at Mannheim on 25 June after Napoleon had abdicated for the second time and although there was light resistance around Mannheim it was over by the time the vanguard had advanced as far as Landau The greater portion of Tolly s army reached Paris and its vicinity by the middle of July 1 74 Treaty of Paris edit nbsp All the participants of the War of the Seventh Coalition Blue The Coalition and their colonies and allies Green The First French Empire its protectorates colonies and allies Main article Treaty of Paris 1815 Issy was the last field engagement of the Hundred Days There was a campaign against fortresses still commanded by Bonapartist governors that ended with the capitulation of Longwy on 13 September 1815 The Treaty of Paris was signed on 20 November 1815 bringing the Napoleonic Wars to a formal end citation needed Under the 1815 Paris treaty the previous year s Treaty of Paris and the Final Act of the Congress of Vienna of 9 June 1815 were confirmed France was reduced to its 1790 boundaries it lost the territorial gains of the Revolutionary armies in 1790 1792 which the previous Paris treaty had allowed France to keep France was now also ordered to pay 700 million francs in indemnities in five yearly installments c and to maintain at its own expense a Coalition army of occupation of 150 000 soldiers 75 in the eastern border territories of France from the English Channel to the border with Switzerland for a maximum of five years d The two fold purpose of the military occupation was made clear by the convention annexed to the treaty outlining the incremental terms by which France would issue negotiable bonds covering the indemnity in addition to safeguarding the neighbouring states from a revival of revolution in France it guaranteed fulfilment of the treaty s financial clauses e On the same day in a separate document Great Britain Russia Austria and Prussia renewed the Quadruple Alliance The princes and free towns who were not signatories were invited to accede to its terms 78 whereby the treaty became a part of the public law according to which Europe with the exception of the Ottoman Empire f established relations from which a system of real and permanent balance of power in Europe is to be derived g Timeline of French constitutions edit nbsp See also edit nbsp France portalMalplaquet proclamation issued to French by Wellington on 22 June 1815 Lists of battles of the French Revolutionary Wars and Napoleonic Wars List of battles of the Hundred DaysNotes edit Histories differ over the start and end dates of the Hundred Days another popular period is from 1 March when Napoleon I landed in France to his defeat at Waterloo on 18 June citation needed Winkler Prins 2002 counted 100 days from Napoleon s entry in Paris on 20 March to the Cambray Proclamation of 28 June 1815 6 Louis XVIII fled Paris on 19 March 8 When he entered Paris on 8 July Count Chabrol prefect of the department of the Seine accompanied by the municipal body addressed Louis XVIII in the name of his companions in a speech that began Sire One hundred days have passed away since your majesty forced to tear yourself from your dearest affections left your capital amidst tears and public consternation 9 Article 4 of the Definitive Treaty of 20 November 1815 The 1814 treaty had required only that France honour some public and private debts incurred by the Napoleonic regime Nicolle 1953 pp 343 354 see Articles 18 19 and 20 of the 1814 Paris Peace Treaty The army of occupation and the Duke of Wellington s moderating transformation from soldier to statesman are discussed by Thomas Dwight Veve 76 A point made by Nicolle 77 Turkey which had been excluded from the Congress of Vienna by the express wish of Russia Strupp 1960 1962 Wiener Kongress The quote is from Article I of the Additional Separate and Secret Articles to the Paris Peace Treaty of 30th May 1814 Hertslet 1875 p 18 it is quoted to support the sentence by Wood 1943 p 263 and note 6 Wood s main subject is the Treaty of Paris 1856 terminating the Crimean War References editCitations edit a b c d e f g h i Chandler 1981 p 181 a b Hofschroer 2006 pp 82 83 Herve de Weck Franche Comte expedition in German French and Italian in the online Historical Dictionary of Switzerland 8 May 2007 a b Hundred Days Encyclopaedia Britannica Retrieved 11 October 2021 a b Chandler 1966 p 1015 Honderd Dagen De Encarta Encyclopedie Winkler Prins in Dutch Microsoft Corporation Het Spectrum 1993 2002 Beck 1911 Waterloo Campaign Townsend 1862 p 355 a b Gifford 1817 p 1511 Hamilton Williams 1996 p 59 Uffindell 2003 pp 198 200 a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Rose 1911 p 209 Hamilton Williams 1996 pp 44 45 Hamilton Williams 1996 p 43 Hamilton Williams 1996 p 45 Hamilton Williams 1996 p 48 Escape from Elba The Waterloo Association 9 June 2018 Retrieved 14 August 2022 Adams 2011 Hamilton Williams 1996 p 42 Le Journal de Paris 22 novembre 1815 Journal des debats politiques et litteraires 22 novembre 1815 Campbell N amp Maclachlan A N C 1869 Napoleon at Fontainebleau and Elba Being a journal of occurrences in 1814 1815 London J Murray Hibbert 1998 pp 143 144 a b c Ramm 1984 pp 132 134 Chesney 1868 p 34 Chesney 1868 p 35 a b c d Chandler 1981 p 180 a b c d Chalfont 1979 p 205 Siborne 1895 pp 775 779 a b c Chandler 1981 p 30 Chesney 1868 p 36 Plotho 1818 pp 34 35 Appendix Sorensen 1871 pp 360 367 Baines 1818 p 433 Barbero 2006 p 2 a b Glover 1973 p 178 Chartrand 1998 pp 9 10 Houssaye 2005 p 327 Houssaye 2005 p 53 Chandler 1981 p 25 a b Houssaye 2005 pp 54 56 a b Chandler 1966 p 1016 Chandler 1966 p 1093 Siborne 1848 pp 111 128 Siborne 1848 pp 129 258 Siborne 1848 pp 159 323 Siborne 1848 pp 324 596 Siborne 1848 p 625 Siborne 1848 pp 597 754 Rose 1911 pp 209 210 Muel Leon 1891 Gouvernements ministeres et constitutions de la France depuis cent ans Marchal et Billard p 100 ISBN 978 1249015024 a b c d Rose 1911 p 210 Siborne 1848 pp 687 717 Cordingly 2013 p 7 Siborne 1848 pp 741 745 Siborne 1848 pp 752 757 Siborne 1848 pp 754 756 a b c d Siborne 1848 p 757 Lipscombe 2014 p 32 Waln 1825 pp 482 483 Laughton 1893 p 354 Beck 1911 p 371 Domenico Spadoni CASALANZA Convenzione di Archive Retrieved 17 April 2020 Pietro Colletta 1858 History of the kingdom of Naples 1734 1825 chapter III T Constable and Co The annual register or a view of the history politicks and literature for the year Volume 57 A new edition 1815 chapter VII Archive Retrieved 17 April 2020 A Glance at Revolutionized Italy a Visit to Messina and a Tour Through the Kingdom of Naples in the Summer of 1848 by Charles Mac Farlane Smith Elder and C 1849 pp 33 Multiple Authors 17 September 2013 Revolutionary Wars 1775 c 1815 Amber Books Ltd pp 190 ISBN 978 1 78274 123 7 Gildea 2008 pp 112 113 Siborne 1895 p 772 Siborne 1895 pp 768 771 Chapuisat 1921 Edouard Table III Siborne 1895 pp 773 774 Siborne 1895 pp 775 779 Siborne 1895 p 779 Siborne 1895 p 774 Article 5 of the Definitive Treaty of 20 November 1815 Veve 1992 pp ix 4 114 120 Nicolle 1953 p 344 Final Act of the Congress of Vienna Article 119 Works cited edit Adams Keith November 2011 Driven Citroen SM Classic and Performance Cars Octane Dennis Publishing Archived from the original on 7 May 2013 Baines Edward 1818 History of the Wars of the French Revolution from the breaking out of the wars in 1792 to the restoration of general peace in 1815 Vol 2 Longman Rees Orme and Brown p 433 Barbero Alessandro 2006 The Battle a new history of Waterloo Walker amp Company ISBN 978 0 8027 1453 4 Chandler David 1966 The Campaigns of Napoleon New York Macmillan Chandler David 1981 1980 Waterloo The Hundred Days Osprey Publishing Chalfont Lord et al 1979 Waterloo Battle of Three Armies Sidgwick and Jackson Chapuisat Edouard 1921 Der Weg zur Neutralitat und Unabhangigkeit 1814 und 1815 Bern Oberkriegskommissariat also published as Vers la neutralite et l independance La Suisse en 1814 et 1815 Berne Commissariat central des guerres Chartrand Rene 1998 British Forces in North America 1793 1815 Osprey Publishing Chesney Charles Cornwallis 1868 Waterloo Lectures a study of the Campaign of 1815 London Longmans Green and Co Cordingly David 2013 Billy Ruffian A amp C Black p 7 ISBN 978 1 4088 4674 2 Gildea Robert 2008 Children of the Revolution The French 1799 1914 reprint ed Penguin UK pp 112 113 ISBN 978 0 1419 1852 5 Gifford H 1817 History of the Wars Occasioned by the French Revolution From the Commencement of Hostilities in 1792 to the End of 1816 Embracing a Complete History of the Revolution with Biographical Sketches of Most of the Public Characters of Europe Vol 2 W Lewis p 1511 Glover Michael 1973 Wellington as Military Commander London Sphere Books Hamilton Williams David 1996 Waterloo New Perspectives the Great Battle Reappraised Wiley ISBN 978 0 4710 5225 8 Hertslet Edward 1875 The map of Europe by treaty showing the various political and territorial changes which have taken place since the general peace of 1814 London Butterworths p 18 Hibbert Christopher 1998 Waterloo illustrated reprint revised ed Wordsworth Editions p 144 ISBN 978 1 8532 6687 4 Hofschroer Peter 2006 1815 The Waterloo Campaign Wellington his German allies and the Battles of Ligny and Quatre Bras Vol 1 Greenhill Books Houssaye Henri 2005 Napoleon and the Campaign of 1815 Waterloo Naval amp Military Press Ltd Laughton John Knox 1893 Maitland Frederick Lewis In Lee Sidney ed Dictionary of National Biography Vol 35 London Smith Elder amp Co pp 353 355 Lipscombe Nick 2014 Waterloo The Decisive Victory Osprey Publishing p 32 ISBN 978 1 4728 0104 3 Nicolle Andre December 1953 The Problem of Reparations after the Hundred Days The Journal of Modern History 25 4 343 354 doi 10 1086 237635 S2CID 145101376 Plotho Carl von 1818 Der Krieg des verbundeten Europa gegen Frankreich im Jahre 1815 Berlin Karl Friedrich Umelang Ramm Agatha 1984 Europe in the Nineteenth Century London Longman Siborne William 1848 The Waterloo Campaign 1815 4th ed Westminster A Constable Siborne William 1895 Supplement section The Waterloo Campaign 1815 4th ed Birmingham 34 Wheeleys Road pp 767 780 Sorensen Carl 1871 Kampen om Norge i Aarene 1813 og 1814 Vol 2 Kjobenhavn a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link Strupp K et al 1960 1962 Wiener Kongress Worterbuch des Volkerrechts in German Berlin a href Template Cite book html title Template Cite book cite book a CS1 maint location missing publisher link full citation needed Townsend George Henry 1862 The Manual of Dates A Dictionary of Reference to All the Most Important Events in the History of Mankind to be Found in Authentic Records Routledge Warne amp Routledge p 355 Uffindell Andrew 2003 Great Generals of the Napoleonic Wars Staplehurst Spellmount ISBN 978 1 8622 7177 7 Veve Thomas Dwight 1992 The Duke of Wellington and the British Army of Occupation in France 1815 1818 illustrated ed Westport CT Greenwood Press pp ix 4 114 120 ISBN 978 0 3132 7941 6 Waln Robert 1825 Life of the Marquis de La Fayette Major General in the Service of the United States of America in the War of the Revolution J P Ayres pp 482 483 Wood Hugh McKinnon April 1943 The Treaty of Paris and Turkey s Status in International Law The American Journal of International Law 37 2 262 274 doi 10 2307 2192416 JSTOR 2192416 Attribution edit nbsp This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Beck Archibald Frank 1911 Waterloo Campaign 1815 In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 28 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 371 381 nbsp This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain Rose John Holland 1911 Napoleon I In Chisholm Hugh ed Encyclopaedia Britannica Vol 19 11th ed Cambridge University Press pp 190 211 Further reading edit nbsp Wikisource has original works on the topic Hundred Days nbsp Wikisource has original works on the topic Waterloo Campaign Abbot John S C 1902 Chapter XI Life in Exile 1815 1832 Makers of History Joseph Bonaparte New York and London Harper amp Brothers pp 320 324 Alexander Robert S 1991 Bonapartism and Revolutionary Tradition in France The Federes of 1815 Cambridge University Press Bowden Scott 1983 Armies at Waterloo a detailed analysis of the armies that fought history s greatest Battle Empire Games Press ISBN 978 0 9130 3702 7 Gurwood Colonel 1838 The Dispatches of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington Vol 12 J Murray Hofschroer Peter 1999 1815 The Waterloo Campaign The German victory from Waterloo to the fall of Napoleon Vol 2 Greenhill Books ISBN 978 1 8536 7368 9 Mackenzie Norman 1984 The Escape from Elba Oxford University Press Lucas F L 1965 Long Lives the Emperor an essay on The Hundred Days The Historical Journal 8 1 126 135 doi 10 1017 S0018246X00026868 JSTOR 3020309 S2CID 159765354 Schom Alan 1992 One Hundred Days Napoleon s road to Waterloo New York Atheneum pp 19 152 Smith Digby 1998 The Greenhill Napoleonic Wars Data Book London Greenhill Books Stephens Henry Morse 1886 Campbell Neil 1776 1827 In Stephen Leslie ed Dictionary of National Biography Vol 8 London Smith Elder amp Co pp 389 390 Wellesley Arthur 1862 Supplementary Despatches Correspondence and Memoranda of Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington Vol 10 London United Services John Murray Woloch Isser 2002 Napoleon and His Collaborators W W Norton amp Company ISBN 978 0 3933 2341 2 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title Hundred Days amp oldid 1193646024, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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