Why did it take so long to defeat France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars?

Authors Avatar

Why did it take so long to defeat France in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars?

        With Napoleon beginning his military career in 1796/7 with victories in the Italian Campaign, a new form of an old threat was realised in Europe. It was obvious that Napoleon was a general to be feared in his own right, let alone as the leader of the most powerful nation in Europe. Napoleons self-declaration of ‘Emperor’ in 1804 proved beyond doubt to Europe that Napoleon ambitions were empirical. It was obvious that Napoleon as a general would be difficult to defeat. Throughout the last decade of the 18th century and the first decade and a half of the 19th century, the power of France became almost absolute. Yet with many other countries in Europe that would not benefit from France being so powerful, why didn’t these countries defeat France sooner rather than later, and why did the Empire collapse in 1814? The answers to these questions lie in the nature of Europe, and the fears that each nation had. For instance, Prussia’s foreign policy was generally centred on her geopolitical situation, while Austria was more concerned with safeguarding her interests by curtailing French power rather than defeating her. At the same time, one may see that the majority of Russian interests lay traditionally in the East. In effect, the situation in Europe was generally controlled by foreign policy based on differing national interests, largely dictated by geopolitical position. Yet, one may also see that major European countries did go to war with France, Austria in 1800, and Russia in 1807, but always alone and usually at a relative loss. This begs the question of why no one nation was really committed to helping another against France. The reasons are quite complex, but the answer is simple, each nation of Europe was in fear of not only Napoleon, but of each other.

        Fear is the most important factor in the European situation. Countries were gelled together not through their common enemy of French power, but through their common fear of encirclement. For instance, Austria’s policy of preventing Russia from taking over Turkey was not so much a policy to stop Russian advancement as a policy to ensure that Russia did not have an empire which encircled Austria- thus placing Austria in a Catch-22 situation of either a Franco-Russian alliance encircling them, or a Franco-Russian war being conducted through their lands. The same can be said for Prussia, her neutrality policy was to make sure that a Franco-Russian war did not happen, since Prussia would be caught in the clash between the two nations on either side of her. Prussia is a good example since after the partition of Poland in 1795, Prussia and Russia were brought together, thus the polish buffer which protected Prussia was lost and the country thrown into disarray as their price was Belgium which was given to the French, which brought Prussia further towards France. In effect, fear was inextricably linked to foreign policy that was linked to a geopolitical situation that all but Russia had to be aware of. The power of France in a capacity for destroying any other country in Europe was immense, but the fears of France must also be recognised. For instance, an Austrian alliance with Spain and Prussia could quite easily threaten France militarily. One must be aware that even a nation of France’s size is in danger of spreading resources too thinly, there are a limited number of troops to be spread around, and fighting on three frontiers is disastrous to even the most militarily advanced nation (e.g. Germany in WWII).

Join now!

        It is for this reason that France takes on a policy that one may term ‘damage limitation’. This means that France was quite willing to conquer lands and show here power, such as in north Italy and the Tyrol, but then give these lands, often divided in the case of the Tyrol, to their more powerful neighbours such as Austria and Germany. France’s appeasement policy is evident in her willingness to make peace treaties such as Campo Formio, Amiens, and Tilsit. Yet, these treaties are not entirely representative of Peace treaties in that France tend to make gains in ...

This is a preview of the whole essay