Napoleon and the Wars of the First and Second Coalitions

what I want to do is give you a broad overview of all of the wars that France was in at this time and then talk about it a little bit more detail exactly what Napoleon was up to and his role in either beginning or ending many of these wars so you might remember from 1792 to 1795 a Russia Prussia Austria Austria and Great Britain I'll just write Britain for short and this was essentially started by the French you might remember king louis xvi was alive then he liked he supported the war because he thought that they would lose and maybe reinstate him or that it would make him popular the revolutionaries liked the war because they wanted to spread the revolution and you might remember it ended at the Treaty of Campo Formio Campo Formio in 1797 due mainly to Napoleon's victories in Italy this was Campo Formio there at that time he was in charge of the Italian campaign and the the government of France at that time was the directory in power to a large degree because of Napoleon's ability to defend them then from 1798 let me do this in a different color from 1798 to 1802 you have the second coalition second coalition now you might immediately see the point took power at the end of 1799 so this war spanned some of the directory being in control and some of Napoleon as first council being in control and here the players once again you have Austria and Great Britain they tend to be always at war with France at this period especially Great Britain instead of pressure you have Russia you have Russia and actually just to help you visualize what the Austrian Empire look like at this time in the Prussian Empire this map doesn't do it justice let me go down let me go down to this map that's in 1810 let me go a little bit earlier here this is in 1805 and I'll draw the boundaries a little bit bolder than they did so this is France this is these are the boundaries of France actually it was able to take some territory and what is now Italy so this is that is France right there I could do the whole boundary if you like but I think you get the idea but the one empire that existed then that doesn't exist in its current form what's Prussia doesn't even exist at all there is no Prussian Empire Prussian nation or the country of Prussia anymore you can see there it had some overlap with Germany some overlap with Poland some other countries won't go into detail there then you have the austrian empire austrian empire austrian empire is right over there right over there as you can see it is much it encompasses much more than just the modern nation or country of Austria and then you have the russian empire which you know give or take looks not too different than russia today but the big difference between the world there's many differences between the world now and the world then was that there was no nation of germany you had a bunch of people speaking german but they were divided into a bunch of small little states this map doesn't show it some of them were under austrian control some of them were under Prussian control and this loose confederation of German kingdoms and States this was called the Holy Roman Empire let me write that down Holy Roman Empire and as Voltaire famously said they were neither holy nor Roman they didn't speak Latin they weren't Italian they were German wasn't holy this wasn't you know it wasn't controlled by a religious figure and it wasn't an empire wasn't a tightly controlled state that was kind of expanding its boundaries it was this loose confederation of kingdoms so just that gives you a visualization of what the world looked like right then so with that in mind let me go back to my overview my overview right there and then the the second coalition it was ended well in 1801 1801 you had the Treaty of Luna Vil once again this was this was a defeat of Austria of the Austrians mainly due to the military capabilities Napoleon was now in charge of France but he led once again an Italian campaign against against the Italians the Austrians this is his victory in Marino right there I'll go in a little more detail that and that essentially declared victory on Austria allowed Napoleon to take more territory in along the Italian peninsula you can see it right there along the Italian peninsula right there and then later he had the Treaty of Amiens with the British in 1802 and that end really ended the coalition I guess you could say the coalition aid in 1801 because Austria was out of it Russia was kind of just passively observing I mean they participated but they didn't really a give or take or lose anything and then I could say at this point the United Kingdom essentially they were it was I guess the best explanation of why then it was war fatigue but we'll see that they weren't tired for long because then in May of 1803 in May of 1803 you have the beginning of your third coalition and I will go in a little bit more detail about this but third coalition Britain declares war on what we could call the French Empire and this isn't going to end until 1805 so you can see Great Britain's essentially at war almost well really continuously there there can tell I mean there's some few gaps give or take but there's always this tension this is the third coalition coalition and once again we have I could write the United Kingdom if you like because they actually now is the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland we have the United Kingdom in there we have Russia in there and once again we have Austrian there are other players there was Portugal but these were the prime players and we'll see in this video that this the third coalition the War of the third coalition really ended with Napoleon being the dominant power in Europe and ended with him essentially thinking that he is unstoppable so I'll do a little bit more detail on that this resulted in 1805 with the then Emperor Napoleon and we'll talk about how he became Emperor but in 1805 Napoleon or maybe I should say 1806 because it's ended at the end of 1805 Napoleon views himself as unstoppable as invincible invincible he got some good victories that fed his already large ego so with this as an overview let's I guess review a little bit of the life of Napoleon and the roles that he directly played in pretty much all of these conflicts so the first time we heard about Napoleon was in 1793 and I'll just draw it right here you might remember there were all of these Royalists insurrections going on against the Revolutionary Government and they had this bright artillery captain in Toulon who put down an uprising there in 1793 he got some I guess you could say France wide or nationwide fame from doing that then in 1795 you what you might remember you might remember the directory was trying to get formed in Paris so this is 1793 then in 1795 let me do a better color than that it's hard to read in 1795 he was he defended the twee Lurie by essentially sending out that grapeshot and mowing down people to keep the Royalists from taking out the Revolutionary Government so once again hugely hugely popular so that was in 70 so all of that was occurring during the War of the first coalition and then Napoleon was sent was made the general in charge of the Italian camp and in 1797 he was essentially able to end the war of the force first coalition in a victorious way for France by defeating Austrian Italy in that and that ended the first coalition with the Campo Formio this was Napoleon that was Napoleon right there then you might remember ok you know he's this hugely popular guy he actually started publishing some newspapers and he actually sent some military generals to put down further counter-revolutions on the part of the Royalists so he became even more and more popular and the directory was a little bit of her afraid of him at this point so they said hey you know why don't you go do whatever you want and that's when Napoleon he left from to LAN and he went to Egypt he went to Egypt with his visions of grandeur where he did all of the damage down there and you know and killed and won multiple wars against the Ottomans in both Egypt and Syria but unfortunately for him his good friend Horatio Nelson destroyed his whole fleet in the Battle of the Nile Horatio let me write that in a darker color so that is Horatio Nelson destroyed his entire fleet there so they were stranded in 1799 Napoleon was essentially able to abandon all of his troops and then come back to France on his own so this is in 1799 Napoleon makes his way makes his way back to France and then we saw in the last video he takes power with two of the directors as the three councils of France but in short order he is able to declare himself as First Consul in 1799 this is hard to read let me do in this so in 1799 1799 he is first First Consul and is in sent essentially the dictator or the authoritarian ruler of France but all of while this was happening remember this was all during this war of the second coalition in 1798 you know he wasn't much help in that war he was out in Egypt doing all of these silly things they were at war with Britain that's why Horatio Nelson went and destroyed his fleet but even after he takes power at the end of 1799 or early 1800 they're still at war so Napoleon he decides to take things take charge so he leads the troops across the Alps into Italy into Italy right here and once again this pattern is emerging he and it and this one actually wasn't very clear in the beginning that it was going to go his way the Italian campaign it started very badly but eventually he was able to win against once again the Austrians at the Battle of Mourinho and hope in Lindon I know I'm probably not saying all of these well but once again through Napoleon directly leading the troops he was able to end the war of the second coalition then the and then the United Kingdom or Great Britain however you want to call it Great Britain tends to or great the you know many times when people use the word Great Britain is referring to the entire United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland if you wanted to be formal Great Britain refers just to the island of Great Britain that has England and Scotland and Wales on it well this is Ireland but I don't feel like keep repeatedly saying the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland which was now United in the early 1800s I'll just keep saying Great Britain but there was just fatigue so the war essentially ended with Great Britain as well this is as we said before this was the Treaty of Amiens but very very very short-lived peace because then in 1803 with Napoleon still in power the the third coalition form and in the next video we're going to see exactly how Napoleon was able to once again be victorious over these powers to become essentially in his mind invincible