1814
On January 1 Blücher crossed the Rhine to begin the invasion of France. He was defeated at Brienne, but won at Rothière, and with the aid of the Russians pressed Napoleon hard in a series of battles. In March the allies won decisive victories at Laon and Arcis-sur-Aube. England, Russia, Prussia, and Austria bound themselves together for twenty years more, England agreeing to pay each of the other powers two million pounds; France was to be reduced to its original boundaries. Napoleon refused the terms offered him. Marie Louise fled from Paris. The allied armies entered Paris on March 31, and on April 11, after trying to poison himself, Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau. He retired to Elba, which was assigned to him as a mimic kingdom. Talleyrand now became dominant in Paris, and the Bourbons were restored, Louis XVIII being crowned King of France. Ferdinand VII resumed power in Spain. By the Treaty of Paris, France retained her old territory, received back the colonies captured by England, kept Alsace-Lorraine, and much of the plunder gathered by Napoleon. Russia held Poland and Finland.
In June the Americans, under Brown, seized Fort Erie and fought indecisive actions with the British at Chippewa and Lundy's Lane. In August a British force, under Ross and Cockburn, landed in Maryland, defeated the Americans at Bladensburg, and advanced to Washington. Madison and his cabinet fled. The defenseless city was entered by the enemy; the White House and uncompleted Capitol were burned, and the government stores and buildings at Alexandria were destroyed. An attack on Baltimore was repulsed, inspiring Key's "Star-Spangled Banner." On Lake Champlain, McDonough captured four vessels of a British squadron and put the rest to flight. Two hundred men from a British fleet on its way to New Orleans attempted to board the privateer General Armstrong (Samuel Reid, captain), in the neutral harbor of Fayal. They were repulsed. Three British vessels closed in, and after a plucky fight Reid and his ninety men scuttled the General Armstrong, and escaped, having seriously damaged the British fleet. Jackson took Pensacola, in Florida, from the British; he also killed eight hundred Creeks for their massacre of the inhabitants of Fort Mims, and finally broke the power of the Indians in Alabama and Georgia by his victory at Horseshoe Bend. During all this time New England had held practically aloof from the war with the British, giving little assistance to the other States. On Christmas Day a treaty of peace between England and the United States was signed at Ghent.
Norway accepted the King of Sweden as ruler—an arrangement only recently abandoned. The Bourbons entered on reprisals in France and Spain, having "learned nothing and forgotten nothing." Jesuits permitted to return to France. Despotism renewed in the German states. The Prince Regent of England excluded his wife, Caroline, from court. Count Rumford, scientist, and the ex-Empress Josephine, Napoleon's first wife, died.
RULERS—The same as in the previous year, except that the Bourbons were restored in France and Spain; Louis XVIII King of France, and Ferdinand VII King of Spain.
1815
On January 8, the news of the peace not having reached America, Jackson won the battle of New Orleans, inflicting a loss of two thousand on the British, and losing only twenty-one men. At Mobile, the Americans captured another British force, but off New York Commodore Decatur had to surrender, with his ship, the President, to the British blockading squadron.
England restored Java to Holland, but retained Demerara and the Cape of Good Hope. The Papal States were reestablished, and the Swiss Federation formed. On February 26 Napoleon slipped out of Elba; on March 1 he landed in France, where he was received with joy by his old soldiers, and on March 20 he entered Paris, beginning the Hundred Days. Ney deserted Louis XVIII to join Napoleon, and practically the whole army followed. Louis fled to Ghent.
England, Austria, Prussia, and Russia at once united against Napoleon. In a few days he mobilized and equipped an army of one hundred and twenty thousand veterans, and in June he was ready to attack the British and Prussian forces in Belgium. At Quatre-Bras, on June 16, Ney fought an indecisive engagement with the former, while at Ligny, on the same day, Napoleon defeated the Prussians under Blücher. On the 18th, Napoleon's army confronted that of Wellington before Waterloo. Before noon the fight began. Ney made repeated and gallant charges against the solid British squares, but his cavalry was slaughtered. Late in the day Blücher, after a forced march, arrived with part of his army, and, joining the British, sent the French forces flying. Napoleon barely escaped, and the allies pursued the shattered remnants of his army. The Napoleonic wars, which had cost nine million lives and untold treasure, and had remade the map of the world, were ended.
On June 20 Napoleon reached Paris, and on June 22 he abdicated, the House of Representatives having adopted by acclamation Lafayette's motion that the chamber should sit permanently, and that any attempt to dissolve it should be high treason. On July 7 the allies again entered Paris; on the 15th Napoleon surrendered to Captain Maitland of the British ship Bellerophon, at Rochefort. He was taken to England, and thence sent as a prisoner to the island of St. Helena, where he arrived October 15.