War of the Third Coalition

In the meantime Russia and Austria,. enraged at Napoleon's continued insults on the Continent, had made an alliance with England and formed the Third Coalition. Russia, poor as always, asked for British subsidies, which were rather unwillingly furnished; and Austria, hoping to find Napoleon entangled in his naval projects, pushed on her own preparations with great eagerness. Thus not only Great Britain, but Russia and Austria, the two greatest land powers, were ranged against Napoleon. But he, undaunted by his failure at Boulogne, turned with lightning rapidity on Austria and crushed her in the battles of Ulm (October 11, 1805) and Austerlitz (December 2,1805). But fortune refused to favor him at sea and in the colonies. On October 21, Admiral Nelson met the French and Spanish fleets 'off Cape Trafalgar and came off victor in one of the greatest sea-fights in history. The battle of Trafalgar destroyed forever Napoleon's hopes of winning control of the ocean, and, taken in conjunction with the victories of -Wellesley in India, marked a new era in the growth of the British empire.

Trafalgar placed the colonial possessions of the French, Dutch, and Spanish at the mercy of Great Britain, but cost her the life of Nelson, her greatest admiral, who was mortally wounded in the. fight. Three months afterward Great Britain lost her greatest statesman of the period. On January 23, 1806, Pitt died, worn out with the cares and anxieties of the war. He was succeeded by a coalition ministry under Fox and Grenville, known as the "Ministry of all the Talents."

The Continental System

Napoleon was gradually winning control of the Continent: Austria in 1805, Prussia in 1805, and Russia in 1806 and 1807, fell before his military genius; and when he made a treaty with the Czar Alexander I, in 1807, he seemed to be master of the fortunes of western Europe. But every effort to crush Great Britain had failed; and now, with the power of the Continent behind him, he determined to make one more mighty effort to destroy her. Believing that the strength of Great, Britain lay in her commerce, he determined to ruin her by excluding her goods from France and all the other states of Europe that would obey him.

In a decree issued from Berlin, May 16, 1806, he declared that the British Isles were in a state of blockade, and he threatened to seize the ships of any country that traded with them.' Great Britain replied in the first Orders in Council of January 7, 1807, threatening to seize the ships of any country that traded with France or her allies; and in November, after Napoleon had compelled nearly all of the states of Europe to adopt the Continental system, issued a second series of orders (November 4-25), repeating the threats of the first, and considerably adding to them. Napoleon replied from Milan (November 23, December 17), threatening to seize every neutral vessel that obeyed the British orders. This trade war undoubtedly injured Great Britain, already deeply agitated by labor troubles due to the introduction of machinery; but it injured France and Napoleon more. The Continent could not do without such goods as the colonies and Great Britain furnished, and states like Prussia, Russia, and Austria were exasperated by the continuance of a system that increased the costs of living and impoverished their people. Napoleon, without a navy, could not enforce his decrees; and an enormous amount of smuggling went on at every important port. In the end, this war contributed to the overthrow of Napoleon, because it cost him the allegiance of many peoples who had made alliances with him, and lured him on to attempt military feats that were too great for any man to perform.

War with the United States (1812)

Great Britain herself was led to commit deeds that seemed as openly acts of aggression as were any of which Napoleon had been guilty. In 1807, hearing that the latter was planning to compel Denmark to join him and his system, she proposed an alliance with Denmark; when this was refused, she sent a fleet, bombarded Copenhagen (September 7, 1807), and seized the Danish navy. Whatever may be said in defence of this action, certain is it that its results were disastrous to Great Britain. It aroused against her the wrath of the Danish nation and drove the Danes over to the side of Napoleon.

More serious still was the equally aggressive policy adopted by Great Britain toward neutrals. Her order forbidding them to trade directly with the Continent, and her claim of the right to search neutral vessels for contraband goods or British deserters, roused the United States to a declaration of war (June 18, 1812). The war, conducted in part on land and in greater part on sea, ended ingloriously for Great Britain. The American sailors proved the better seamen, and a series of brilliant battles terminated in a great victory for Perry, who defeated the British on Lake Erie. On the land, a British force captured and burned the city of Washington; desultory fighting went on along the Canadian frontier; and Jackson won an important victory over the British at New Orleans. Peace was finally signed at Ghent, December 24, 1814. This war, but a side issue in England's great military operations, gave a splendid impetus to American national unity, and led Great Britain to modify her naval policy.

Continuance of the Struggle with Napoleon: The Peninsular War

In 1808 the Spanish people rose in revolt against Napoleon, and Great Britain at once took a new part in the struggle. Portugal, her ally, was threatened with partition, as the outcome of Napoleon's intrigues with Spain ; and to her aid the British government despatched Wellesley, recently recalled from India. In August, 1808, Wellesley landed on the coast near Lisbon. From 1808 to 1814 this great general, often neglected by his own government, and thwarted by the Portuguese and Spaniards whom he had come to aid, fought courageously on. Napoleon at first endeavored to conduct the campaign in person; but in 1809 he was called back to central Europe by the uprising of Austria. In the battles 'of Aspern and Wagram, he defeated that power for the fourth time. In 1812 he began his fatal march on Moscow. In 1813 he struggled with wonderful genius against Prussia and Russia in the wars of liberation; until finally, in 1814, he was defeated by the Fourth Coalition at Leipzig, and compelled to return to France. All these years Wellesley, who had been made duke of Wellington in 1809, was fighting in Spain. Supplied with troops from England by way of the sea-coast, he was able to engage three hundred thousand of Napoleon's best soldiers at a time when the emperor stood in greatest need of them. Little by little he cleared Spain of French troops, got control of one district after another, and in 1814 was able to cross into France. There he joined the armies of the other allies, which, winning victories on French soil, compelled Napoleon to abdicate April 6, 1814.

Congress of Vienna : Napoleon at St. Helena

In 1814 Napoleon was sent to Elba, and the Bourbons were restored in France. To settle the future of Europe, a great congress, the most important thus far in the history of the world, was held at Vienna. England was represented there first by Lord Castlereagh and afterward by the duke of Wellington. While the congress was still in session, Napoleon escaped from Elba, and returning to France, established once more his authority and dynasty. Though he promised to rule in peace, the allies would not consent to his restoration, and immediately set their armies in motion against him. At Waterloo, on the frontier of Belgium, June 15-18,1815, he was totally defeated' by the combined forces of England, under Wellington, and of Prussia, under Blucher and Gneisenau. After abdicating for the second time, Napoleon was sent to the island of St. Helena, in the South Pacific where he died in 1821. The Congress of Vienna went on with its work, and in a great treaty of 1815 completed the rearrangement of the map of Europe. Peace had at last come to the nations, and England was released from war to enter upon a new era of growth and reform.