The comparative ease with which Napoleon had thus been able to supplant the Spanish Bourbons was equaled only by the difficulty which he and his brother now experienced with the Spanish people. Until 1808 the Corsican adventurer had had to deal primarily with divine-right monarchs and their old-fashioned mercenary armies; henceforth he was confronted with real nations, inspired by the same solid patriotism which had inspirited the French and dominated by much the same revolutionary fervor. The Spanish people despised their late king as weak and traitorous; they hated their new king as a foreigner and an upstart. For Spain they were patriotic to the core: priests and nobles made common cause with commoners and peasants, and all agreed that they would not brook foreign interference with their domestic concerns. All Spain blazed forth in angry insurrection. Revolutionary committees, or juntas, were speedily organized in the provinces; troops were enrolled; and a nationalist reaction was in full swing. By 1 August, 1808, Joseph was obliged to flee from Madrid and the French troops were in retreat toward the Pyrenees,
[Sidenote: Interrelation of the Continental System and Spanish
Nationalism]
[Sidenote: The Peninsular War, 1808-1813]
To add to the discomfiture of the French, George Canning, the British foreign minister, promptly promised his country's active assistance to a movement whose real significance he already clearly perceived. In ringing words he laid down the British policy which would obtain until Napoleon had been overthrown: "We shall proceed upon the principle that any nation of Europe which starts up to oppose a Power which, whether professing insidious peace or declaring open war, is the common enemy of all nations, becomes instantly our ally." On 1 August, 1808, true to this declaration, a British army under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley, subsequently duke of Wellington, landed in Portugal and proceeded to cooperate with Portuguese and Spanish against the French. It was the beginning of the so-called Peninsular War, which, with little interruption, was to last until 1813 and to spell the first disasters for Napoleon.
Within three weeks after their landing the British were in possession of Portugal. Roused by this unexpected reverse, Napoleon assumed personal command of the French forces in the Peninsula. And such was his vigor and resourcefulness that in December, 1808, he reinstated Joseph in Madrid and drove the main British army out of Spain. The success of Napoleon, however, was but temporary and illusory. Early in 1809 grave developments in another part of Europe called him away from Spain, and the marshals, whom he left behind, quarreled with one another and at the same time experienced to the full the difficulties which Napoleon himself would have encountered had he remained.
The difficulties which impeded French military operations in the Iberian peninsula were well-nigh insurmountable. The nature of the country furnished several unusual obstacles. In the first place, the poverty of the farms and the paucity of settlements created a scarcity of provisions and rendered it difficult for the French armies to resort to their customary practice of living upon the land. Secondly, the sudden alternations of heat and cold, to which the northern part of Spain is liable, coupled with the insanitary condition of many of the towns, spread disease among the French soldiery. Finally, the succession of fairly high and steep mountain ranges, which cross the Peninsula generally in a direction of northwest to southeast, prevented any campaigning on the large scale to which Napoleonic tactics were accustomed, and put a premium upon loose, irregular guerrilla fighting, in which the Spaniards were adepts. In connection with these obstacles arising from the nature of the country must be remembered the fierce patriotic determination of the native people and the arms and disciplined commanders furnished by the British.
[Sidenote: Nationalism in Austria]
[Sidenote: Premature Efforts of Austria]
[Sidenote: Wagram (1809) and the Failure of Austria]
The era of national revolts had dawned, and it was not long before Austria learned the lesson from Spain. Ever since 1792 the Austrian ruler had borne the brunt of the Continental warfare against revolutionary France. And stung by the disasters and humiliations of 1805 and 1806, the Emperor Francis intrusted preparations for a war of revenge to the Archduke Charles and to Count Stadion, an able statesman and diplomat. The immediate results were: first, a far-reaching scheme of military reform, which abolished the obsolete methods of the eighteenth century, the chief characteristics of the new order being the adoption of the principle of the "nation in arms" and of the war organization and tactics in use among the French; and secondly, the awakening of a lively and enthusiastic feeling of patriotism among the Austrian people, especially among the Tyrolese, whom the arbitrary act of the French despot had handed over to Bavaria. The opportunity for an effective stroke appeared to be afforded by the Spanish situation, and the general result was a desperate attempt, premature as the event proved, to overthrow Napoleon. On 9 April, 1809, Austria declared war, and the next day Archduke Charles with a splendid army advanced into Bavaria. Napoleon, who temporarily put the Spanish danger out of his mind, struck the archduke with his usual lightning rapidity, and within a week's time had forced him back upon Vienna. Before the middle of May the French emperor was once more in the Austrian capital. But the Archduke Charles remained resolute, and on 21-22 May inflicted such a reverse on Napoleon at Aspern on the Danube below Vienna, that, had there been prompt cooperation on the part of other Austrian commanders and speedy assistance from other states, the Corsican might then have been overthrown and Europe saved from a vaster deluge of blood. As it was, Napoleon was allowed a fateful breathing spell, and on 5-6 July he fought and won the hard battle of Wagram. Wagram was not a rout like Austerlitz, but it was sufficiently decisive to induce the Austrian emperor to accept an armistice, and, after the failure of a coöperating British expedition, to conclude the treaty of Vienna or Schönbrunn (14 October, 1809), by the terms of which he had to surrender western Galicia to the grand-duchy of Warsaw and eastern Galicia to Russia; to cede the Illyrian provinces to the French Empire; and to restore the Tyrol, together with a strip of Upper Austria, to Bavaria. This treaty cost Austria four and one-half million subjects, a heavy war indemnity, and promises not to maintain an army in excess of 150,000 men, nor to have commercial dealings with Great Britain. As a further pledge of Austria's good behavior, and in order to assure a direct heir to his greatness, Napoleon shortly afterwards secured an annulment of his marriage with Josephine on the ground that it had not been solemnized in the presence of a parish priest, and early in 1810 he married a young Austrian archduchess, Maria Louisa, the daughter of the Emperor Francis II. Even this venture at first seemed successful, for in the following year a son was born who received the high-sounding appellation of king of Rome. But Austria remained at heart thoroughly hostile; Maria Louisa later grew faithless; and the young prince, half- Habsburg and half-Bonaparte, was destined to drag out a weary and futile existence among enemies and spies.
[Sidenote: Influence of the French Revolution upon Prussia]
Meanwhile, the national reaction against Napoleon grew apace. It was in Prussia that it reached more portentous dimensions than even in Austria or in Spain. Following so closely upon the invigorating victories of Frederick the Great, the disaster of Jena and the humiliation of Tilsit had been a doubly bitter cup for the Prussian people. Prussian statesmen were not lacking who put the blame for their country's degradation upon many of the social and political conditions which had characterized the "old régime" in all European monarchies, and, as these statesmen were called in counsel by the well-intentioned King Frederick William III (1797-1840), the years from 1807 to 1813 were marked by a series of internal reforms almost as significant in the history of Prussia as were those from 1789 to 1795 in the history of France.
[Sidenote: The Regeneration of Prussia]