Download Chapter 19 – The Age of Napoleon and the Triumph of Romanticism

Chapter 19 – The Age of Napoleon and the Triumph of Romanticism
Napoleon Bonaparte
Born in 1769 to a minor noble family on the island of Corsica, Napoleon Bonaparte studied at French
military schools and in 1785 became an artillery officer in the army of Louis XVI. He was a brilliant and
charismatic leader who in 1793 at the age of twenty four as he forced the British to abandon the French port of
Toulon. He was wounded but promoted to the rank of general. He was a fervent supporter of the revolution
and enjoyed the favor the Robespierre and the Committee of Public Safety. During the Thermidorian
Reaction of 1795, he was at first put under house arrest but soon he was released. He first defended the
Directory in Paris and was appointed to take command the French army in Northern Italy where the next year
(1796) he drove the Austrians out of Italy at the Battle of Lodi.
At the same time, it must be remembered that the chief threat to the Directory came from royalist émigrés
who had returned to France and whose avowed intent was to restore the monarchy. Moreover in early 1797,
these constitutional monarchists (or royalists) had gained a majority in the National Legislature. So in
September 1797, the Directory staged their own coup d’état (a sudden and illegal overthrow of a
government) to preserve the republic and prevent a restoration of the Bourbons. They made their own
supporters legislators, increased censorship and exiled some of their opponents. Then they recalled Napoleon
from Italy where he once again brought order to the streets of Paris for the Directory.
France was still at war with Great Britain and Austria and Napoleon had made his reputation secure 1797,
when he drove the Austrian army out of Northern Italy and established French rule in Italy and Switzerland by
terms of the Treaty of Campo Formio. In November, Napoleon returned to Paris as a national hero. He was
determined to defeat Britain and so the next year (1798) he decided to invade Egypt, drive out the British
Fleet and damage English trade and communications with India. The invasion of Egypt was a success but the
English admiral, Lord Horatio Nelson, destroyed the French fleet at the Battle of Abukir Bay (sometimes
called the Battle of the Nile) on August 1st, which cut off the French army from France. It is interesting to
note that some of his soldiers accidently uncovered the famous Rosetta Stone which some thirty years later
would help a young French scholar, Jean-François Champollion, become the first European to translate
ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics. Political ramifications were more serious because the French invasion of part
of the Ottoman Empire alarmed Russia which joined a coalition with Great Britain, Austria and the Ottomans
against France.
As we have seen, the Directory was unable to solve many of France’s economic problems and the new foreign
coalition made their position even less tenable. The result was that one of the members of the Directory
proposed a new constitution. He was Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès (1748 –1836), commonly known as Abbé
Sieyès, was a French Roman Catholic clergyman, one of the chief theorists of the French Revolution. In1789,
he had written a powerful pamphlet – which had become the manifesto of the Revolution: What is the Third
Estate? Now he wanted an executive body independent of elections and a government based on the principle
of confidence from below, power from above. Abbe Sieyès’ proposal required another coup d’état just at the
time Napoleon was having reverses in Egypt. Napoleon returned to Paris where his soldiers ensured the
success of Sieyès’ coup.
Sieyès thought that Napoleon could be used and then pushed aside but the opposite happened. The proposed
constitution provided for power to be shared by a three consuls and it was Napoleon who quickly pushed
aside Sieyès and in December, 1799, issued the Constitution of the Year VIII. Although it paid lip service to
universal male suffrage, this constitution was complicated and placed the authority to rule not in three consuls
but in one consul, the First Consul, a post which Napoleon himself assumed. Napoleon was in many ways
looking back to the Roman emperor Augustus who hid his monarchy under the guise of old Republican
Rome. Nevertheless, Napoleon was more dictatorial than Augustus and he is considered the first of the
modern dictators of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. And like many recent dictators, Napoleon used the
rhetoric (arguments) of revolution to justify his seizure and expansion of power.
The Consulate (1799-1804)
When Napoleon became First Consul, he ushered in a new and short period of French history, called the
Consulate. The leaders of the Third Estate had changed much. Heredity privilege had been abolished so that
advancement in society could be based on talent and competence. Feudalism was destroyed and farmland
taken from the nobility and the Church. But it is important to note that the new dominant class of Bourgeoisie
had no intention of sharing their new social privileges with the lower classes. And it was Napoleon who met
their needs. When he presented his Constitution of the Year VIII which secured Bourgeoisie power, the voters
approved it overwhelmingly.
By 1799, France was exhausted: internal warfare, conscription and crop-food shortages and more than a
decade of conflict with her Austrian, Prussian and British foes. Napoleon was up to the challenge. Russia
dropped out of the Second Coalition and then, in 1800, Napoleon won a great victory at the Battle of
Marengo in Italy and drove Austria out of the coalition by the Treaty of Luneville in 1801. That left Great
Britain alone until the Treaty of Amiens in 1802 which brought peace to Europe.
At home, Napoleon restored peace and order. He used flattery, bribery, a general amnesty to win over his
enemies and employ men from all factions. He wisely allowed many aristocrats to return and reclaim some of
their lost land. Napoleon only required loyalty to him and he was thus able to secure the loyalty not only of
moderates but also Jacobins and constitutional monarchists. Napoleon also streamlined and centralized the
government and made its departments more efficient.
On the other hand, Napoleon tolerated no opposition. Although he was a child of the Enlightenment,
Napoleon was, like Catherine the Great of Russia, no champion of intellectual freedom or representative
government. He limited free speech, censored newspapers, used secret police and spies to protect his power
and made systematic use of propaganda. He stamped out a royalist rebellion in the province of Vendee in
western France and, after an attempt on his life in 1804, he suppressed the Jacobins. He also seized and
executed a Bourbon duke from Enghien to make his point.
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Napoleon also brought order back to France by making peace with the Roman Catholic Church. The Jacobins
had been determined to erase the influence of the Church and when French armies under Napoleon had
invaded Italy in the late 1790s, they drove Pope Pius VI out of Rome into exile where here died in 1799. Pius
VI was followed the next year by Pius VII who was able to work with Napoleon because of his ability to
think ahead of his times (outside the box). As a cardinal he had written that Christianity was compatible with
the ideals of equality and democracy. So Napoleon and Pius VII signed The Concordat of 1801(or
agreement) which included the following:
1. A declaration that "Catholicism was the religion of the great majority of the French" but not the
official state religion, thus maintaining religious freedom, in particular to Huguenots and Jews.
2. The government nominated bishops but the popes had the right to depose them.
3. The government paid salaries to the clergy who were required to swear allegiance to the state.
4. The Roman Catholic Church gave up all its claims to Church lands that were confiscated after 1790.
5. The Sunday again became a day of worship beginning Easter Day, 18 April 1802. (The French
Republican Calendar, which had been abolished, was replaced by the Gregorian Calendar in 1806.
The truth was that the French people were sick of the godless Cult of Reason)
In 1804 Napoleon issued a revised Body of Civil Law, called the Code Napoleon, which also brought
stabilization to France. The Code undid some of the reforms of the revolution, but it re-affirmed the political
and legal equality of all adult men, protected private property and established a merit-based society in which
qualification and talent replaced birth and social standing for employment. The code did not grant much to
women: married women needed their husband’s consent to dispose of their own property and divorce
remained more difficult to obtain for women than for men.
The Emperor of the French
After the 1804 attempt on his life, Napoleon used the opportunity to strengthen his control and establish a
dynasty to make his power more secure. His intention was to found a dynasty and so a new constitution
declared him the Emperor of the French. Since he was at the height of his popularity, a plebiscite
overwhelmingly ratified this constitution. Napoleon invited Pius VII to take part in the coronation but at the
last minute the pope agreed that Napoleon should crown himself although other more traditional accounts
indicate that Napoleon had the intention of upstaging the pope. At any rate Napoleon did not want to be
associated with the typical hereditary monarch and is said to have explained: "To be a king is to inherit old
ideas and genealogy. I don't want to descend from anyone... The title of Emperor is greater...” and
henceforth he would be known as Napoleon I.
Outside France Napoleon sought to build a French empire. In the decade and a half that he dominated Europe,
he accomplished what Louis XIV had failed to attain. He conquered the Iberian and Italian peninsulas,
occupied the Netherlands and routed the Russian, Prussian and Austrian armies. He sent his brothers to rule as
the kings of Spain and the Netherlands. He forced Austria and Prussia to be his unwilling allies. In North
America he forced Spain to cede Louisiana back to France, but then almost immediately, when he needed
cash, sold it in the famous Louisiana Purchase to Thomas Jefferson in 1801, thus doubling the size of the new
American Republic.
There was one enemy, however, whom he could not subdue and that was Great Britain which was protected
by the English Channel and her awesome navy. Because Napoleon had intervened in the Haitian Slave
Rebellion, intervened in some German States and the Dutch Republic and forced Spain to cede back to
France Louisiana, Great Britain declared war in May, 1803. It fell to William Pitt the Younger to form another
coalition against France and by August 1805 Russia and Austria also declared war. On land things went
Napoleon’s way as he won perhaps his greatest military victory crushing the Russians and Austrians at the
Battle of Austerlitz. But a sea it was a different matter. Just as he was preparing to invade Great Britain, his
French-Spanish Navy was smashed at the Battle of Trafalgar by the English admiral Lord Horatio Nelson
(victor of the Battle of the Nile).
In July, 1806 Napoleon reorganized much central Germany into a French dominated Confederation of the
Rhine causing the Austrian emperor Francis II to abolish the Holy Roman Empire. Prussia now became
involved and declared war on France. Napoleon reacted rapidly and crushed the Prussian army late in 1806 at
Jena and Auerstädt in twin victories. Two weeks after these victories, Napoleon was in Berlin and issued the
Berlin Decrees which forbade his allies from importing any British goods. Finally, Napoleon in June, 1807,
defeated the Russians at the Battle of Friedland and occupied East Prussia. In July 1807, Napoleon met with
the Russian emperor, Alexander I, on a raft in the middle of Niemen River on the Russian-Polish border. On
July 7, they signed the Treaty of Tilsit which confirmed France’s territorial gains, stripped Prussia of half of
its territory and redrew the map of Europe to reflect these new realities as his brothers became kings of Spain
and the Netherlands and his stepson ruler of Italy. It is important to note that Prussia, which had survived
extinction because of Alexander, became a secret ally of Russia. Both waited for a chance for revenge.
After Tilsit, only Great Britain remained a threat which was primarily economic because Britain dominated
the shipping lanes. But the threat was also military as Britain stood ready to help resistance movements to
Napoleon. So extending the Berlin Decrees, Napoleon decided to break Great Britain by stranglehold and
tried to blockade all of Europe’s ports to English merchants. During this protracted struggle to strangle Great
Britain economically, which was called the Continental System, both France and Britain seized the neutral
ships of many nations, including the United States. American anger at the British seizures of both her ships
and her sailors (impressment) led to the fruitless War of 1812 in which neither Great Britain or the United
States could claim victory. Nevertheless, in the end, Napoleon’s Continental System failed to effectively
damage British trading might and (very important) badly hurt most European economies. France, of course,
was favored which only encouraged smuggling and helped bring on resistance.
Resistance to Napoleon
Wherever Napoleon ruled he imposed the Code Napoleon abolished hereditary social distinctions and Feudal
privileges for the nobility. Town guilds and oligarchies were dissolved or deprived of power. Established
churches lost their monopolies and were made subordinate to the state. Toleration replaced religious
monopoly but as needed as most of these reforms were, it was clear that they were intended to increase
Napoleon’s fame and France’s glory.
German Nationalism: Until around 1800, Germany had no sense of nationalism. But that began to
change with the advent of the Romantic Movement. The movement also called Romanticism was artistic,
literary, and intellectual and it took shape in the second half of the 18th century partly as a reaction to the
Industrial Revolution and partly a revolt against the aristocratic social and political ideas of the Age of
Enlightenment and the scientific rationalization of nature. It was embodied most strongly in the visual arts,
music, and literature but also was a fundamental component in the development of Nationalism or the
ideology that the nation is the basic bond that defines political unity – especially in Germany. Early German
nationalistic writers had focused on the admirable qualities of German culture and the history of German
peoples. This “cultural nationalism” was the norm until the Prussian humiliation at Jena and Auerstädt.
At this point, German intellectuals urged resistance to Napoleon and a byproduct was a growing and fervent
German nationalism that would culminate in the unification of Germany in 1871. German nationalists also
tended to criticize most German princes who ruled selfishly and incapably (incompetently) and thus seemed to
conspire with Napoleon. Their belief became a patriotism which taught that only a people united in language
and culture could defeat France but also unite Germany – and after the Treaty of Tilsit when most German
princes were subservient to or complicit with Napoleon, only one German state was independent enough to
develop such patriotic fervor: Prussia.
Prussian Reforms: It was to Prussia that many German nationalists fled where they clamored for reforms
and German unification under the Prussian king, Frederick William III (the grand-nephew of Frederick the
Great). Ironically, Frederick William III and his Junker nobility feared and hated reform but the humiliation at
Jena created the atmosphere where reforms came about despite their opposition. The two geniuses behind
needed reform were Baron Henrich vom Stein (1757-1831) and the Prussian Prime Minister, Prince Karl
von Hardenberg, whose reform goals never intended to take power or domination away from the king or the
Junker landowning aristocrats who formed the bulk of the army officer corps and state bureaucracy. Their
reforms fell into two categories: land and the military.
Serfdom was abolished which broke the Junker monopoly of landholding in eastern Prussia. It is important to
note that in contrast to Prussian holdings in western Germany where serfdom simply ceased to exist, serfdom
in eastern Germany survived in a vestigial form. Indeed serfs were freed and free to leave the land but those
who stayed had to continue the old manorial obligations. They could even gain ownership of the land if they
surrendered a third of it to the Junker lord. The result was that Junker landholdings actually grew and many
former serfs emigrated to the cities and just in time to feed the growing industrial revolution. Other freed serfs
became laborers and these landless laborers created new social problems.
Military reforms had the goal of increasing the number and quality of soldiers. Napoleon at Jena taught the
Prussians brutally that an army of free patriots commanded by officers chosen by merit and not social
standing could defeat an army of serfs or mercenaries commanded by incompetent princes. To remedy this
situation (to come into the future), Stein and Hardenberg abolished inhumane punishments, fostered
patriotism, opened the officer corps to commoners, gave promotions on the basis of merit and organized war
colleges to develop new theories of strategy and tactics. Finally, Napoleon limited the size of the Prussian
army to 42,000 men to prevent Prussia from using universal conscription so the Prussians brilliantly trained
42,000 men per year and then placed them in reserve so that by showdown time with Napoleon after 1812, the
Prussian army was around 270,000 well trained soldiers.
The Wars of Liberation
Spain: In 1796, Spain and France were allies but that changed when Napoleon sent his armies into Spain to
force Portugal to abandon its traditional alliance with Great Britain. The army stayed in Spain to protect is
lines of supply and communication. When a revolt broke out in Madrid in 1808 over a dynastic dispute
between the Bourbon king Charles IV (1748-1819) and his son Ferdinand VII (1784-1833), in which
Charles abdicated in favor of his son, Napoleon used it as an opportunity to depose Ferdinand and make his
brother Joseph Bonaparte (1768-1844) king of Spain. The Spanish (especially the peasants) were deeply
devoted to the Bourbons and were devoutly Roman Catholic. When the French army became an army of
occupation; when Joseph Bonaparte became king and when attacks began of the privileges of the Roman
Catholic Church (Churches and convents were used as stables and barracks, and artworks were sent to
France), there was public outrage. The upper classes were willing to collaborate with the French, but the
lower clergy, monks and peasants rebelled.
In Spain more than anywhere else in Europe, Napoleon faced a civil resistance rooted in deep social feelings
and a new kind of warfare. Guerrilla bands cut lines of communication, killed stragglers, destroyed isolated
outposts and units and then disappeared into the mountains. Some historians call this struggle the first of the
Wars of Nationalism that would characterize the nineteenth century. The British landed an army under the
command of Sir Arthur Wellesley (1762-1852), later the Duke of Wellington, to protect the Portuguese and
aid Spanish insurgents. So began the Peninsular Campaign that would be hard fought and finally end after
Napoleon’s defeat in 1813. Although Spain ultimately threw off the French yoke and her efforts helped drain
French resources, the damage to her infrastructure and economy led to political instability for decades.
Austria: When Spain became a thorn in Napoleon’s side, Austria decided to rejoin the struggle. She
declared war in 1808 and hoped that French distractions and aid from German princes would help defeat
Napoleon. Napoleon moved quickly and won a decisive victory at the Battle of Wagram near Vienna. By the
terms of the Treaty of Schönbrunn (sometimes called the Treaty of Vienna), Austria ceded parts of her
empire to Bavaria, the Duchy of Warsaw, Russia and France losing about three and a half million people.
Austria also paid a large indemnity (reparation), recognized Napoleon’s conquests and Joseph Bonaparte as
king of Spain. Austria was also forced to agree to allow Napoleon to marry the archduchess, Marie Louise
1791-1847), daughter of the emperor Francis I. Thus in 1810, Napoleon (age 41) divorced his childless- wife
Josephine (age 46) to marry the Austrian archduchess (age 18) in hopes of producing an heir, Napoleon II
(who never ruled and died in 1832) the next year.
The Invasion of Russia and Downfall
Meanwhile relations with Russia were deteriorating. The young Tsar Alexander I had been charmed by
Napoleon during their meeting on the raft on the Niemen River in 1807, but a number of factors caused their
alliance to collapse. Russian nobles were angry that the Continental System prevented them from selling
lumber to Great Britain. The French were not willing to help Russia conquer Constantinople. The enlargement
of the Duchy of Warsaw made Russia nervous. Finally Napoleon’s annexation of Holland (violating the
Treaty of Tilsit; his attempt to set up one of his generals, Marshal Bernadotte (1763-1844), as king of
Sweden (who in 1818 he did become king), and his marriage to Marie Louise personally angered the Tsar. So
at the end of 1810, Alexander withdrew from the Continental System and prepared for War.
As a result, Napoleon was determined to end the Russian military threat and amassed his million-man Grande
Armée (although historians say the number was closer to 600,000) with a core of elite French troops totaling
about a third of the army. Napoleon expected a quick victory when he invaded in late June of 1812. He
defeated (or better said pushed back) the Russian army and thrust deep into Russia and even occupied
Moscow. But the Russians adopted a unique strategy (which they would use again in World War II) which
was to burn all the land in front of Napoleon’s forces (scorched earth policy). Thus by September, it was
obvious the Russians were not surrendering and, with shortages of food and supplies, the morale of the
Grande Armée was deteriorating. His advisors urged him to retreat.
In September, Russian public opinion forced a fight. The Russians were led by the brilliant General Mikhail
Kutuzov (1745-1813), who preferred to let “General Winter’ wear down the Grande Armée. The subsequent
Battle of Borodino was the bloodiest single battle of all the Napoleon’s victories. The French lost 30,000
men and the Russians over 60,000. But it was a Pyrrhic victory; the Russians were defeated but their army
was still intact. The Russians then set fire to Moscow and destroyed much of the city. Napoleon sent repeated
peace offers to Alexander who ignored them. In October, Napoleon, caught without supplies as the Russian
winter was setting in, began his retreat westward. In that terrible retreat that followed, it is estimated that he
lost most (at least half a million) of his Grande Armée.
After his defeat in Russia, Napoleon was far from beaten. He quickly raced to Paris where was able to subdue
his political opponents and raised another army of 350,000 men. Moreover, neither the Russians nor the
Austrians wanted to fight him again. In fact, the Austrian Foreign Minister, Prince Klemens von Metternich
(1773-185), would have gladly negotiated a peace that would leave Napoleon on his throne but with his
empire reduced in size and influence. Napoleon outright rejected such a solution. But patriotic pressure and
national ambition among Napoleon’s enemies would bring about another coalition.
The next year the Russians, Austrians and Prussians with British (contributing both financial support and
military support in Spain) formed the sixth and last coalition and moved against the French emperor.
Napoleon’s generals were tired and had lost confidence in him and his new army was mostly inexperienced
and poorly equipped. Napoleon himself was worn out and sick. In October 1813 however, Napoleon was
defeated at the Battle of Leipzig (sometimes called the Battle of the Nations) which was the largest of the
Napoleonic Wars and cost the lives of more than 90,000 soldiers. In March 1814, the allied armies marched
into Paris and, by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and exiled to Elba, an island
in the Mediterranean where he had sovereignty over the island and even retained the title of emperor.
The Congress of Vienna
The fear of Napoleon had held the coalitions against him together but once he was ousted, the victors began to
pursue their own interests. The first agreement between the victors was engineered by Robert Stewart,
Viscount Castlereagh (1769-1822), the British foreign secretary. In March 1814, even before the victors
marched into Paris, he brought about the Treaty of Chaumont, which provided for the restoration of the
Bourbons, a contraction of France’s borders and a twenty year quadruple alliance (Britain, Austria, Russia,
Prussia) to preserve whatever settlement they agreed upon. Final details would be worked out at a congress to
be held in Vienna in September.
The Congress of Vienna lasted until November 1815 and most of the work was done by the big four powers
and the rest met only to ratify their decisions. The first issue was an affirmation of the Balance of Power
principle in which the victors agreed that no single state should be allowed to dominate Europe; and that
France especially be prevented from doing so again. Next the map of Europe was redrawn and the states
around France were strengthened. They established the Kingdom of the Netherlands which included
Holland, Belgium and Luxembourg. Prussia was given important new territories along the Rhine River and
Austria was given full control of Northern Italy. The Holy Roman Empire which had been dissolved in 1806
was not reconstituted and in all areas the congress established the rule of legitimate monarchs and rejected any
democratic principle or philosophy.
Then there followed a quarrel concerning Eastern Europe. Alexander I wanted all of Poland under Russian
rule. Prussia was agreeable if she received all of Saxony (which had supported Napoleon) in return. Austria
balked because she did not wish to give up her part of Poland, allow Prussian power to grow or Russia
penetrate into central Europe. War almost broke out until Talleyrand (Napoleon’s foreign minister who now
represented France) suggested that the strength of France might be added to Britain and Austria might to bring
Alexander around. When this leaked out, Alexander agreed to become ruler of a smaller Poland, Prussia
settled for only a part of Saxony – and France now became a power in the deliberations of the Congress.
The Hundred Days
Napoleon spent nine months and 21 days in uneasy retirement on Elba carefully watching events in France
and the Congress of Vienna. He realized that the shrinkage of France’s borders, the accession the Bourbon
king Louis XVIII (brother of Louis XVI) and the arrogance of many of the reinstated aristocrats made the
French people resentful and longing for the good old days – of Napoleon, that is. So in February 1815,
Napoleon escaped back to France and proceeded north to Parish. On the way he met troops sent to capture
hime. Napoleon approached them alone, dismounted his horse and, when he was within gunshot range,
shouted, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish." The soldiers responded with, "Vive L'Empereur!" and
marched with Napoleon to Paris; Louis XVIII fled to Holland. Napoleon promised a liberal constitution and a
peaceful foreign policy. The allies would have none of it. They declared Napoleon an outlaw and sent armies
to crush him once and for all.
Napoleon gathered an intensely loyal army and took the offensive hoping to drive a wedge between the allies
before they could gather together. He marched to modern Belgium and met and attacked the British and
Prussian forces near a little town called Waterloo. The Duke of Wellington's British army withstood repeated
attacks by the French and drove them from the field while the Prussians under Gebhard von Blücher arrived
in force and broke through Napoleon's right flank. Napoleon almost won but his luck had finally run out. This
time the European victors banished him to a tiny island in the South Atlantic, St. Helena, where he had
personal freedom and died of cancer in 1821 (although there are many poisoning theories, one as recently as
2005).
The Fruits of the Congress of Vienna
Napoleon’s Hundred Days had frightened the allied powers and so the Congress of Vienna – which now
began its sessions again - made the terms of the peace harsher for France. France lost a little more territory but
also had to pay an indemnity and be humiliated by an occupation army. The Russian Tsar Alexander proposed
a Holy Alliance whereby the monarchs would promise to act together in accordance with Christian principles.
Prussia and Austria were agreeable but Lord Castlerage kept England aloof and it came to nothing. However,
England, Russia, Prussia and Austria did renew the Quadruple Alliance more to maintain the peace that to be
military allies.
The conservative political leaders at the congress feared both revolution and nationalism - and were
determined to prevent both. Their aim was no less than to restore the pre-revolutionary world order, the
ancien regime. The guiding spirit of the Congress was Clemens von Metternich, the Austrian foreign
minister, who led the congress in dismantling Napoleon’s empire, redrawing Europe’s national boundaries,
returning sovereignty to Europe’s royal families, and creating a diplomatic order based on The Balance of
Power first developed after the Thirty Years War that would hopefully prevent any one state from dominating
the others. In other words, they tried to return Europe to the status quo before 1789. The bottom line was
peace and stability by returning to what they thought was a political system that would work. The great
powers sought to ensure that each of them would respect the decisions of the congress and not use force to
change them. France wisely and willingly agreed.
Nevertheless it was impossible for them to see into the future. In their fear of revolution, one of their chief
aims was to suppress rising national consciousness in minority groups in the Austrian-Hungarian Empire. This
Balance of Power lasted until the dreadful slaughter of World War I, and was a key component of the 19th
century governmental thinking in Europe, as conservative rulers used secret police, censorship and
propaganda to prevent minority populations from rebellion. Nevertheless, the bottom line is that it is
important to understand that the work of the Congress of Vienna – as unable as it was to see the swiftness of
nationalism and the changes it caused in Europe – made decisions that kept Europe without general war until
1914.
The Romantic Movement
Isaac Newton’s Third Law of Motion states: To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction:
or the forces of two bodies on each other are always equal and are directed in opposite directions. This law
generally applies to human beings as well. In a general way, humans can be described as machines (as the
universe can) because they do react when acted upon. The rebirth of critical thinking during the Renaissance,
the growth of science, the emergence of the Philosophes and Age of Enlightenment and the violence of the
French Revolution culminating the Age of Napoleon brought a reaction called Romanticism, which - simply
stated - was a rebellion against the rational and scientific. Romantic thinkers, writers and artists came to
believe that imagination and intuition were also necessary to understand the world.