Untitled Flashcards Set

Battle of Waterloo June 18th 1815 only a few hours

The French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte returned from exile and marched his army against the Anglo-Dutch army commanded by the Duke of Wellington and the Prussians under Marshal Gebhard vin Blucher

French lost and Napoleon was forced to retreat and them abdicate (renounce ones throne)

190,000 soldiers about 50,000 casualties

Duke of Wellington hoped it was his last battle because it was so terrible

Change

Napoleon was forced to abdicate(again) and was exiled (again) To the island of St. Helena where he died in 1821

Major political shift consequence of his defeat

estimated at least 2 million Europeans died in Napoleonic wars

Great powers were so relieved that the Napoleonic wars were over that they met at the Congress of Vienna 1814-15 and pledged not to fight-a “balance of power” was to shape European relations.

The Congress of Vienna was a series of meetings held in Vienna, Austria from 1814–1815. The meetings were attended by diplomats and monarchs from European states to establish a new political order after the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte. 

They wanted to go back to how things were prior to French revolution no more fighting, take a step backwards instead of forward

Waterloo an seeking continuities, not change

The great powers that won the battle and the war were upset by the changes that France, the French revolution and Napoleon had imposed on Europe.

-Liberty, equality, fraternity, constitutions? huh?

-Beheading the queen and the king??

-Bowing to the self-made Corsican up-start?

Conservative reaction: the winners getting back to pre revolutionary “normal”

Embracing hereditary absolute monarchy and importance of tradition

Louis XV111 (18th) crowned in France

Great powers played with the map of Europe

Repression of previous reforms- Carlsbad Decrees in the German states and the six acts in England (1819)

So, waterloo was decisive in facilitating a return to the past…

Sir Edward Creasy, “Fifteen decisive battles of the world from Marathon to Waterloo” (1851)

very popular book, he believed in the importance of battles, very western (European)

last battle being waterloo

a long 37 years of peace

Did waterloo actually establish peace?

-age of reaction was also age of revolutions

-Legacy of the French revolution led to revolts, revolutions, and socio-political and economic protests across Europe and the word

Latin American, Greek, Irish, Belgian, Italian and German nationalists, French republican, Russian and english

Post- 1848 another Napoleon and renewed war!

Napoleon III French emperor (1852-70)

Crimean war: England, France, Sadinia and Turkiye agaisnt Russia (1853-56)

Franco-Austrian war (1859)

Rise of Prussia:

War with Denmark (1864)

Austro Prussian War (1866)

Franco-Prussian War (1870-71)…

War becomes a tool for Nationalism

Peace was a nice idea but Europe learned how to make war

Napoleon and the French left behind a military legacy of how to wage war. Waterloo did not end that.

Conscription, Propaganda, and economic mobilization: Total war

Industrialization made mass warfare even more possible and everyone had to jump onto the train of bigger armies and better weapons

The mass mobilization made individual battles LESS decisive