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When Napoleon made himself master of France in 1799, revolutionary upheavals had destroyed privilege - barriers of geography and class which prevented the authority of the central government from falling equally upon all. Thus Napoleon was able to consolidate the physical, human and especially the fiscal resources of the nation and to launch an unprecedented campaign of conquest in which the military effectiveness of the "modern" state overwhelmed traditionally organized opponents. Only Britain, Portugal and Russia refused to succumb, and their resistance led to his defeat in 1814-15.
In Europe the Napoleonic Wars produced irreversible political, social and legal changes; however, Britain's mastery of the oceans was unbreakable, and as Napoleon attempted with some success to close the European continent to Britain - both as a market and as a source of supply - the significance of the wars overseas is more practical than doctrinal. The Napoleonic regime could do little in the Americas to implement the anti-slavery resolutions of earlier revolutionary governments, and full emancipation came only in the mid-19th century. For many years the British blockade cut off the Spanish-American colonies from their colonial master and made them dependent upon English trade for European goods, certainly contributing to their successful struggle for independence in the early 19th century. And faced with the mounting financial pressures of incessant warfare, in 1803 Napoleon sold to the US the Louisiana Territory, the whole western drainage basin of the Mississippi River, thus precluding a French West in that part of North America. For Canada, the greatest impact of the wars was a stimulus to the export economy. Fundamental was the British navy's need for a secure source of timber, the American Revolution having left the supply from the former Atlantic colonies uncertain and the French wars having closed the Baltic. The result was an enormous development of the Canadian forest industry, especially in New Brunswick, accompanied by some growth of the trade in grain. The Napoleonic Wars, during which both sides infringed the rights of neutrals, also produced a secondary struggle called the WAR OF 1812 between the US and Britain. Various issues, aggravated by British impressment of American seamen, led the young US to attempt expeditions against Canada, seen by Americans as campaigns of liberation but by Canadians as invasions; this struggle was ended in 1815 without significant results, though it was followed in 1817 by the RUSH-BAGOT AGREEMENT demilitarizing the Great Lakes - the basis of future agreements peacefully regulating the entire Canadian-American border. In sum, the revival of French political and military power produced no notable reawakening of francophone assertiveness overseas, though one might note the foundation in Lower Canada of the first French-language newspaper, Le Canadien, in 1806. The Napoleonic Wars seem not to have challenged seriously the British domination of the Atlantic established in 1763.
Napoleon BonaparteNapoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 on the island of Corsica. Through his military exploits and his ruthless efficiency, Napoleon rose from obscurity to become Napoleon I, Emperor of the French.
Author
G.A. ROTHROCK
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