Chapter Three: The Flame of Revolution
Excerpt taken from
The Bloody Summer and The Buonaparte Empire
Author: Prof. Willem Aarden, European History professor at Oranje State University
Published: 2007
Perhaps one of the most important men to European history is
Napoleone di Buonaparte. Napoleone, in his lifetime, reshaped the face of Europe in more ways than one; and became an important icon for the freedom of men all over the world. His birthplace, the island of Corsica, had been a Genoan island for a very long time before in 1755, Corsica revolted from it's master and declared independence. However, after a short 15 years of independence, in 1770, Corsica was conquered and subjugated by the Papal State. Napoleon was raised under a rather harsh Catholic administration, which gave him a natural distrust for religious piety, which would follow him in his later life.
Though he was too young to serve in the Great War, given his age, and Papal neutrality, his life was shaped immensely by it.
After the end of the Great War, the sixteen year old Napoleone was contracted to work in Rome as an artisan. It was here he witnessed the beginnings of an Empire. While popular discontent in Rome hadn't been very high during the reign of Pope Pius VI, whom had died in 1784, only 9 years into his Papal reign. His successor, a very reactionary sort, Clement XV, was much harsher on the people, and extolled higher taxes and less "moral corruption".
While Romans were afraid to revolt against the Mouth of God, they resisted in many ways, mostly to annoy the Papal government.
However, while he was in Rome, Napoleone, and Europe, saw the Bloody Summer set in, starting with the events of June 13, 1787.
The Bloody Summer: The End of the Bourbon Monarchy
The events of June 13, 1787 surprised many contemporaries, but at the same time, surprised nobody. France's economic hemorrhaging had been a serious issue despite their victory in the Great War. France was up to it's eyeballs in debt supporting a group of defeated Republicans, food was more scarce than it had ever been, and class conflict was escalating after the upper classes began to reduce the food supply for the lower classes to keep themselves in good food.
On June 13, 1787, a fire broke out, which ravaged the lower quarters of Paris, killing scores of citizens. This, coupled by the lack of royal response triggered a horrendous uprising, as thousands of citizens began looting shops and homes across Paris. When Louis XVI ordered the army to use force to quell the rebellion, a simultaneous mass desertion occurred, as thousands of soldiers joined the swelling peasant rebellion.
The rioting continued before Louis called a meeting of the Estates General on June 21, hoping to end the rioting by making concessions. However, the Third Estate boycotted the meeting, stating that the Estates General was not representative of the people. This culminated in the rioting spreading toward Louis XVI's palace. On June 24, 1787, the Palace of Versailles was invaded and sacked by disgruntled French citizens. Louis XVI and his family were taken prisoner by the system. On June 25, a similar attack laid to waste the Estates General, and the Revolutionaries took complete control of the French government in a matter of hours afterwards.
On June 27, the leader of the rebellion, a man named Renaud Daniau declared an end to the monarchy and the establishment of the French Republic, which would "serve as a means to wash away the old order and create one anew!" -- triggering panic in the halls of foreign nations.
While Louis XVI and his wife were locked away in the Bastille; their son, Prince Louis, was spirited away by Loyalists before the raid on the Palace of Versailles, and was taken to the court of Austria, where he was given exile.
The Bloody Summer began with the execution of Louis XVI and Marie Antionette, and followed between June and September 1787 with the murder of several hundred noblemen, high class aristocracy and intellectuals, mostly in a surge of horrendous murder. In September, having thoroughly decimated some of the brightest thinkers and largest wallets of France, the Revolutionaries moved on to a new target -- Religion.
September 5, 1787 saw the sacking and destruction of the Notre Dame de Paris, one of the most memorable Christian churches in France, next to the Cathedral of Rheims, which was also sacked and destroyed two weeks later. These churches were reduced to scrap by makeshift gunpowder bombs and blunt instruments which destroyed large parts of the churches, leaving behind ruin.
This action alienated many moderate revolutionaries, who were soon purged by the radical ones under Consul Renaud Daniau.
Senatus Populusque Romanus
This had nasty effects in Italy. Rome, chafing under horrible taxation and cultural oppression of Pope Clement XV, broke out into massive revolt as pro-Jacobin rioters made aim to create a revolution of their own. Napoleone Buonaparte was initially supportive of their means, until he witnessed the event known as the
Rape of Lucia. Napoleone's diaries recall this event.
"The night we were to hold a grand demonstration for our cause -- liberty, justice, equality, things like that -- we found ourselves in the midst of violence. Jacobins, blood-thirsty like wild dogs, descended into the crowds spreading hate and misdeed. As I milled away from the violence, I had the misfortune to see a collection of Jacobin men violently sullying a woman. She cried out in agony and it seemed as if everyone around her bid silence to her struggle. I did not."
- Napoleone di Buonaparte, 1790
Accounts from that day show Napoleone taking up a blunt object, believed to be a stick of wood, and beating three Jacobin men to death. Several men in the crowd joined him in attacking the Jacobins. Violence erupted into the crowd before Napoleone and the men who came to his aid charged into the crowd and stormed the stage where the Jacobin leader was giving a hate-filled speech. Seizing control, Napoleone spoke.
"
Men of Rome, I bid you listen! The Jacobin will do nothing but bring ruin upon us! While His Holiness has done us wrong, we cannot descend into French cannibalism and blood-shed! The deaths of thousands cannot be permitted, as the powers of Europe will descend here and force us to our own deaths! The Americans are an example of this! Strike against the Jacobins, and we shall have victory over the Papal State!"
- His speech shortly after hitting the revolutionary leader with a large stick.
The speech had many non-Jacobins in the crowd turning on those who
were Jacobins. In a matter of minutes, the Jacobins had either been maimed or driven out of the crowd. Napoleone's speech increased his popularity immensely, and within two days, on September 9, 1787, a large number of people marched on the Vatican to drive the Pope out. The Swiss Guard attempted to halt the crowd, but was overwhelmed. Pope Clement XV escaped to Spain shortly afterwards, leaving Rome without a leader.
This lead to the gathering of the Revolutionaries at the Vatican, who decided that there should be a new form. Assembling the "Senate of Rome", they unanimously called upon Napoleone to be named Consul of the Roman Republic. Several men argued that Consul was a term used by the French Jacobins, and a counter-proposal was made and debated.
On September 10, 1787, the Roman Senate offered Napoleone di Buonaparte the title Augustus, and Emperor of the Roman Empire. Napoleone was informed by one of his close associates, Marzio Giotto Vespa. Napoleone traversed to the Colosseum to receive his crown.
Flag of the Roman Empire, or more colloquially, the Empire of Italy.
The establishment of this Empire triggered alarm in the same circles that the French one had. However, almost in the immediate aftermath, Augustus Napoleone circulated letters across Italy, decrying the Parisian violence and stating that such violence was above the "civilized people of Rome". His letter was signed, "Augustus Napoleone di Buonaparte".
The letter reached the court of the Habsburgs, whom were interested in the concept of a moderate Empire in Italy. While it was a threat to their interests, they courted diplomats to Rome to talk to Napoleone about a possible coalition against France.
However, before the diplomats could arrive, the French Republic struck hard and quickly. In early 1788, the French army organized under Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, who had impressed the Jacobins, struck into Italy with speed, rapidly overrunning Savoy and Genoa by late Spring. Austrian and French soldiers clashed in Milano and other parts of Northern Italy through the rest of the year.
The 'White' King: King Ludwik II of Poland-Lithuania
Stanisław II August suffered a massive coronary and died in May 1788. His death lead to a new election for the Polish-Lithuanian monarch. While Prussia, Austria and Russia remained interested in the affairs, Catherine the Great of Russia was growing ever more infirm and unaware of the world around her; Frederick William II was an incompetent monarch, barely capable of keeping Prussia together and strong in the face of hostile French movements near Germany; and the Austrian Emperor, Francis, was embroiled in a war against the French Republic in Italy and border skirmishes near the Holy Roman Empire's heartland, rendering all three powers once again, incapable of playing politics in Poland.
A number of candidates came up to the fore, however, none of them were deemed good enough to the Sejm, who wished to avoid a repeat of August the Saxon -- any Hohenzollern, Habsburg or Romanov candidates were dismissed outright or played around with. An idea came to the forefront from many liberal thinkers in the state -- a proposal that was horribly dark horse and was called by many a mistake waiting to happen was put forward. Prince Louis, the so called heir of the French monarchy upon his brother's death, was proposed to be named King of Poland-Lithuania on the condition that, if he was restored to France, he abdicate his crown.
Because of the fact that the child was still a toddler, barely 3 years old, he was in no condition to respond. However, this news was interesting to the Austrians, who were harboring the boy in Vienna. The Austrians accepted his appointment as King on the condition that Poland-Lithuania join the war against France.
The Sejm debated this, and agreed. Within a month of the death of Stanislaw, little Louis of Bourbon was transported to Warsaw to be named King of Poland-Lithuania. A Regency Council was assembled, this time being more liberals than conservatives, which began the process of continuing the planned reforms of Stanislaw II, hoping to turn Poland-Lithuania into a permanent part of European history.
King Ludwik II of Poland-Lithuania, pictured at age seven, 1792
Napoleone's Gambit: Rome At War
Napoleone, having secured his own temporal power, spent the length of time leading into the war in Italy consolidating his hold over the Papal State's territory. However, he soon faced an immediate issue. the Kingdom of Naples, outright hostile to anything Revolutionary, especially with what Napoleone did to remove the Pope all together, joined with Spain and attempted to invade and evict Napoleone from Italy all together. Initial victories put Napoleone on the backstep, before he struck back hard, driving the Neapolitans back across the border into their own territory.
Calling upon Austria, Napoleone proposed that Rome would join the War against France upon the conclusion of a war against Naples, provided Austria recognize Roman rights to, at least, the Southern half of Italy, and provide support and diplomatic pressure on Spain.
Austria agreed, having lost ground in Lombardy and retreated toward Venice in the interim. France's army swung south and pushed toward Tuscany, threatening Napoleone's Kingdom. With haste, Napoleone invaded Naples with full force. Ferdinand of Naples and Sicily took flight from Napoli which fell to Napoleone's armies in a matter of four weeks, in October 1788.
Pushing further, Ferdinand's armies fell back into Sicily, where the fighting stopped for the moment. While Spain bided its time to strike back at Napoleone, France suffered a moderate famine in 1788-1789, as the winter was the harshest it had been in a while. To distract from this problem, the French halted their expansion into Italy and attacked Spain, forcing Spain into a frenzy. The French army burrowed deep into Spanish soil, forcing the Spanish King and his Sicilian ally to seek peaceful terms with Napoleone. Napoleone was, in the end, named King of Naples, with Ferdinand remaining only the King of Sicily.
After the end of the Neapolitan War, Napoleone's
Imperial Army went north. In March 1789, France launched an offensive south, slamming full force into the Italian states in Central Italy. The reigning Princes there were either killed or imprisoned. Several fled south to Rome and begged Napoleone to save their realm from French looting, and swore fealty. Namely, the Grand Prince of Tuscany and the King of Savoy, as well as the Prince of Genoa, along with the minor princes in Austrian diplomatic orbit, yet independent.
Napoleone marched north and engaged France just south of Florence. The battle was a slogger, meaning Rome was now committed to a long haul war against the French Empire.
The Peninsular War, and the Five Years Offensive
Despite abhorrent French overextension in Italy and Spain alike, Spain's armies, having been caught unawares, faltered in the face of renewed French offensives in 1789. Despite numerous attempts to cull the French invasion, Spain faltered, and the King of Spain and his family fled west into Portugal, seeking refuge. France, after establishing a puppet republic in Madrid, attacked Portugal. This lead into the United Kingdom declaring war on France, and pledging to end their nonsense once and for all.
The Portuguese Army halted France's invasion with ease, but was spread thin due to France placing soldiers on flank. The stalemate lasted for months on end, before France organized a retreat back to the original border in January 1790, and bribed Portugal into signing a white peace treaty. However, British forces arrived and took back Gibraltar which had gone back to Spain in the 1785 Peace Treaty, and began harassing France in Southern Spain, making it nigh impossible for France to dislodge them, nor for Britain to make an offensive. This problem distracted French manpower significantly, prolonging the so called "Peninsular War".
In 1790, France undertook one of it's final major offensives of the war, and one of it's most successful ones. The
Five Years Offensive was launched in the Spring of 1790, with French forces surging into Southern Netherlands and Western Holy Roman Empire, intent on taking all of the French irredentist land. The offensive was slow, yet it made constant progress. From 1790 to 1795, the French army slowly but surely consumed the Habsburg territories in the west, and carved into the Rhineland.
In 1795, France descended upon the United Provinces, intent on ending their merchant power and gaining complete economic control of Western Europe outside of Great Britain. French naval ships, along with soldiers, attacked the United Provinces, and quickly made their way through the territory.
In April 1795, the United Provinces, and it's capital, fell to the French Republic, and ceased to exist. France declared itself the inheritor of all Dutch colonies, including South Africa.
However, a large number of Dutch ships and merchants, as well as nobility, escaped from the United Provinces on boat in the night, escaping French naval sorties. They arrived in South Africa in July 1795, and met with the local leaders, and soon realized that establishing a government in exile was significantly less possible than they thought...