Academic literature on the topic 'Napoleonic Wars, 1800-1815 – Literature and the wars'

Recent literature in International Relations has argued that the absence of ‘balancing’ behaviour by European states during the Napoleonic Wars from 1798 to 1815 calls into question current explanations for the presence or absence of such behaviour in international relations. This literature has argued that: (1) Napoleonic France presented a significant threat to the stability of the international system; (2) European states did not balance against this threat from 1798 to 1813, and subsequently balanced only after Napoleon's defeat in Russia in 1812; (3) members of the system possessed adequate power to balance successfully against this threat; and (4) since European states engaged in co-opting, rewarding, avoiding, or bandwagoning behaviour towards the French threats to the system, a new explanation for the absence of balancing behaviour is required. Each of these four points can be refuted by: taking a longer time perspective of the international system during the period in question, expanding state motives to include interests other than security, using a long cycle model of coalition leadership by a global leader, recognizing the constraints faced by European states in their choices of balancing or bandwagoning behaviour under threats from France, and taking into account the role of innovation and change in a period of global war.

These words introduced a collection entitledDeutsche Wehrlieder für das Königlich-Preussische Frei-Corps(German Military Songs for the Royal Prussian Volunteer Corps), that appeared in March 1813 immediately after Prussia declared war on France. It was not only in this songbook that the patriotic national mobilization for the struggle against Napoleonic rule was closely linked to the propagation of “valorous manliness” (wehrhafte Mannlichkeit). In the period of the Wars of Liberation between 1813 and 1815, the press and topical literature teemed with similar phrases and cultivated a veritable cult of manliness. A new breed of “patriotically”-minded, “combat-ready” men was needed if, as intended, a “people's army” of conscripts was to fight a successful “national war” against France. This phenomenon has generated scant interest in the extensive historical literature about the time between 1806 and 1815, which is considered as the birth period of the German national movement.

The revision of Romanticism in the last two or three decades went deeper than any other revolution in the canonization of western literature. Tom Wein (British Identities, Heroic Nationalisms and the Gothic Novel.1764-1824), Gary Kelly (English Fiction of the Romantic Period), Virgil Nemoianu (Taming Romanticism), or Michael Löwy and Robert Sayre (Romanticism Against the Tide of Modernity) demystified the uncritical association of this literary trend with the revolutionary political ethos in 1789 France, casting light on the conservative, pastoriented yearnings of the major representatives. Such considerations, however, do not apply to the American scene, where politics and poetics, unaffected, or at least not directly affected by the Reign of Terror and the Napoleonic wars remained faithful to the ideas of the French Revolution. Whereas Europe turned conservative, with the Great Powers forming suprastatal networks of influence (The Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 bonding the Kingdom of Prussia, the Austrian and Russian empires, joined a few years later by France and the United Kingdom), America built a political system grounded in the rights of the individual and pursued ” dreams” of personal and national assertiveness (the ”city on the hill,” “from rags to riches”) in opposition to the European ”concert of nations” model. Our paper is pointing to a necessary dissociation of meliorist plots and narratives of healing in the romantic canon on either part of the Atlantic instead of subsuming them under a common poetics/politics heading.

The financial strains of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars had a significant impact on the Bank of England. In its position as banker to the state and manager of the state's debt, it experienced a significant increase in workload and thus was forced rapidly to expand its workforce. From a complement of around 300 in the mid 1780s, the number of clerks employed had increased to over 900 in 1815. Using a unique set of records preserved in the Bank's archives, this article investigates the backgrounds and skills of the men recruited during the expansion of the early nineteenth century. It finds a significant gap between the skills required by the Bank and the skills possessed by its potential workforce.

The Young Grundtvig and NorwayBy Gustav AlbeckThis article is a revised and extended version of the lecture given by Professor Albeck on April 30th 1984 at the annual general meeting of the Grundtvig Society in Oslo. It describes Grundtvig’s close relationship to a number of Norwegian friends he made during his residence at the Walkendorf hostel in Copenhagen in the years 1808-11; this circle of friends lasted and widened to include other Norwegians in his later life.Grundtvig was 67 before he set foot on Norwegian soil, but from his early youth he had familiarised himself with the Norwegian landscape and history through Norwegian literature. His feeling of kinship with the spirit and history of Norway was for a time stronger than his consciousness of being Danish. In his youth Norway and the Norwegians played a major role in opinion-making in Denmark, and in this respect Grundtvig was no different from his contemporary Danes. But the idea of Norway’s future continued to concern him long after his youth was over. The lecture, however, confines itself to the way certain Norwegians regarded Grundtvig between 1808 and 1811.When Grundtvig returned to Copenhagen from Langeland in 1808 he had no friends in the capital. But at the Walkendorf hostel he met first and foremost Svend B. Hersleb, a Norwegian theologian, to whom he addressed a jocular poem in the same year, revealing that Grundtvig now felt himself young again and among young people following his unrequited passion for Constance Leth. Otherwise we have only a few witnesses to this first period of happiness, with Grundtvig gaining a foothold on the Danish parnassus through his first Norse Mythology and Scenes from Heroic Life in the North.The fullest accounts of Grundtvig’s relationship to the Norwegians in the period following his nervous breakdown and religious breakthrough in 1810 come from the journals of the Norwegian-Danish dean and poet, Frederik Schmidt, made during various trips to Denmark. These journals were published in extenso between 1966 and 1985 in three volumes, the last of which includes a commentary by the editors and a postscript by Gustav Albeck. Many of the valuable notes about Grundtvig are repeated in the lecture. Frederik Schmidt was the son of a Norwegian bishop; he became a rural dean and later a member of the first National Assembly at Eids voll in 1814. He was a Norwegian patriot but loyal to the Danes and in fact returned to Denmark in 1820. His descriptions of Grundtvig’s conversations with Niels Treschow, the Norwegian-born Professor of Philosophy at Copenhagen University, give an authentic and concentrated picture of Grundtvig’s reflections on his conversion to a strict Lutheran faith, which for a time threatened to hinder his development as a secular writer. Schmidt found their way of presenting their differing views “very interesting and human”, and Grundtvig’s Christian faith “warm, intense and sincere”. “In the animated features of his dark eyes and pale face there is something passionate yet also gentle”. When Schmidt himself talked to Grundtvig about a current paper which stated that in early Christianity there was a fusion between Greek thought and oriental feeling, Grundtvig exclaimed, “Yet another Christianity without Christ!” A draft of a reply to one of Schmidt’s articles shows that at that point, April 1811, Grundtvig did not believe in the working of “the living word” in its secular meaning. The draft was not printed and Grundtvig does not appear to have discussed it with Schmidt. There is a very precise description of Grundtvig’s appearance: “There is... something confused in his eyes; he sometimes closes them after a tiring conversation, as if he wants to pull his thoughts together again.” Schmidt in no way agrees with Grundtvig’s point of view, which he partly puts down to “disappointed hopes, humbled pride and the persecution... he has been subjected to...” But he does find another important explanation in Grundtvig’s “need for reassuring knowledge” and his conviction “that the misery of the age can only be helped by true religious feeling”.There are also descriptions of Grundtvig in a more jovial mood, for example together with Professor George Sverdrup, where Grundtvig repeated some rather unflattering accounts of the playwright Holberg’s behaviour towards a couple of professors who were colleagues. The same evening he and Schmidt set about attacking Napoleon while Treschow and Sverdrup defended him. Schmidt considered Grundtvig’s little book, New Year’s Eve, “devout to the point of pietist sentiment”, but thought the error lay rather in Grundtvig’s head than his heart. Lovely is the Clear Blue Night (Dejlig er den himmel blaa), published in April 1811 was even read aloud by Schmidt to a woman poet; but he criticised The Anholt-Campaign.After 1814 Schmidt adopted a somewhat cooler tone towards Grundtvig’s books. He was unable to go along with Grundtvig’s talk of a united Denmark- Norway as his fatherland. He criticised the poems Grundtvig published in his periodical, Danevirke, including even The Easter Lily for its “vulgar language”, which Grundtvig appeared to confuse with a true “language of power”. It is impossible to prove any close relationship between Schmidt and Grundtvig, but he was an attentive observer when they met in Copenhagen in 1811.With the opening of the Royal Frederik University in Christiania in 1813 Grundtvig became separated from his Norwegian friends, as Hersleb, Treschow and Sverdrup were all appointed to the new Norwegian university. They were keen for Grundtvig to join them as Professor of History. Sverdrup in particular was captivated by his personality, and in a letter dated April 21st 1812 he informed Grundtvig that he was among the candidates for the post proposed by the commission to the King. But Grundtvig himself hesitated; he felt “calm and quietly happy” in Udby “as minister for simple Christians”. To his friend, the Norwegian-born Poul Dons, he wrote, “... something in me draws me up there, something keeps me down here.” The fact that he never got the job was in many ways his own fault. His World Chronicle (1812) could not but offend scholars of a rationalist approach, in particular the prediction at the end of the book about the new university’s effect. It is linked to Grundtvig’s interpretation (1810) of the letters to the seven churches in Revelation, which are seen as a prediction of the seven great churches in the historical advance of Christianity.“It was an idea,” says Albeck, “which in spite of its obvious irrationality never left Grundtvig, and as late as 1860 it found poetic form in the great poem, The Pleiades of Christendom (Christenhedens Syvstjerne).” Grundtvig “was in no doubt that the sixth church was the Nordic, and that it would grow out of the Norwegian university, the new Wittenberg.” In 1810 Grundtvig felt himself “chosen to be the forerunner of a new reformer, a new Johan Huss before a new Luther.” From a scholarly point of view there is no reason to reproach the Danish selection panel for the negative judgment they reached regarding Grundtvig’s qualifications as a historian. His name was not even mentioned in the appointments for the new professorships. He had caused quite a stir not long before by writing a birthday poem for the King in which he directly expressed his wish that the new university might become a Wittenberg. The poem took the form of a series of accusations against Norway and the Norwegians, and in particular against Nicolai Wergeland, who in a prize-winning essay on the Norwegian university entitled Mnemosyne had stuck a few needles into Denmark and the Danes. Grundtvig accused the Norwegians of ingratitude to Denmark and unchristian pride. Even his good friend Hersleb reacted to such an attack.From the diaries of the Norwegian, Claus Pavels, we know how the Norwegian poet, Jonas Rein, wrote and told Grundtvig that “a greater meekness towards people with a different opinion would be more fitting for a teacher of Christianity.” Grundtvig replied that he had had to speak the truth loud and clear in a degenerate age. The Bishop of Bergen, Nordal Brun, also considered Grundtvig’s views as expressed to the King “misplaced and insulting”. He was particularly hurt that Norway “should have to thank Denmark for its Christianity and protestantism”. When Grundtvig printed the poem in Little Songs (Kv.dlinger) in 1815, Nicolai Wergeland was moved to write Denmark’s Political Crimes against the Kingdom of Norway, published in 1816.For Grundtvig’s Norwegian friends it was a matter of regret that he did not come to Norway, not least for Stener Stenersen, who in 1814 became a lecturer and in 1818 a professor of theology at the Norwegian university. His correspondence with Grundtvig from 1813 is now regarded as a valuable source for Grundtvig’s view of Christianity at that time. In his diary entry for August 27th 1813 Pavels notes that Stenersen had proposed that the Society for the Wellbeing of Norway should use all its influence to get Grundtvig to Norway. In his proposition Stenersen asked who possessed such unity and purity of thought as to be able to understand fully the importance of scholarship; he himself had only one candidate - Grundtvig. From a contemporary standpoint he had won his way to the Christian faith. But the rationalist Pavels, the source of our information, was far from convinced that “no man in the whole of Norway” possessed these abilities in equal measure to Grundtvig”. He therefore had misgivings about “requesting him as Norway’s last and only deliverer”.When Grundtvig heard of Stenersen’s proposition he sought an audience with the King on September 8th at which he clearly expressed his desire to become Professor of History at the Norwegian University. Two Danish professors, Børge Thorlacius and Laurids Engelsto. found it strange, however, that Treschow, Sverdrup and Hersleb could “deify Grundtvig”. And his great wish was never fulfilled. Nonetheless he did not give up. On November 15th he saw that the post of curate was being advertised at Aggers church near Christiania and applied for the job. From his book Roskilde Rhymes (published on February 1st 1814) it is clear that he believed that it was there that his great work was to be accomplished. But in those very days Frederik VI was signing the peace of Kiel which would separate Norway from Denmark, and Grundtvig from his wish.In the preface to Danevirke (dated May 1817) he realised that he had deserved the scorn of the Norwegians, for he had expected too much of them. But he never forgot his Norwegian friends. He named one of his sons after Svend Hersleb, and another son married Stenersen’s daughter. When he himself visited Norway in 1851 he was welcomed like a prince.

AbstractThis article has two goals: first, it aims to solve a mystery in Yiddish studies by identifying the previously unknown author of one of the earliest Eastern European modern literary texts in Yiddish, and reconstructing the historical context in which he wrote the text. Second, it will show how this archival-biographical discovery sheds new light on the history of Eastern European Jews during the Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815) as well as on the rise of Haskalah literature. Finally, as the title of this article suggests, I will argue that there was a direct link between narration and denunciation, between the Austrian imperial interest in collecting insider information about the Jews and the turn to writing literature in Jewish languages.

Immortalisé par Victor Hugo dans Les Misérables, le général Lamarque est surtout connu pour ses funérailles qui ont dégénérées en juin 1832, en une insurrection républicaine réprimée par le pouvoir orléaniste. Pourtant, sa vie ne saurait se résumer à cette image d’Épinal : grâce à des archives souvent inédites ou peu exploitées, le travail de l'historien a permis de dissocier le mythe, qui s'est construit autour du personnage, de la réalité historique pour dresser un portrait inédit de ce Landais engagé dans les affaires de son temps. Issu de la bourgeoisie de robe, il adhère rapidement aux idées d'une Révolution qui lui donne les moyens d'être un acteur des événements : garde national,Jacobin, officier dans un bataillon de volontaires. Instruit et cultivé, il est également pourvu d'un grand courage physique. Sans jamais appartenir aux premiers cercles du pouvoir, il est proche des membres de la famille Bonaparte qui assurent son ascension.Sa carrière militaire sous l'Empire n'est toutefois que de second ordre et c'est à la périphérie de l'Europe qu'il se distingue dans la contre-guérilla. Déçu par la Restauration, il rallie Napoléon lors des Cent-Jours qui l'envoie en Vendée. Cette affectation le compromet durablement aux yeux du pouvoir royaliste qui ne voit plus en lui qu'un général bonapartiste. Exilé, il ne revient en France qu'en 1818 et embrasse une carrière littéraire tout en cherchant à garder son rang dans la société. Au contact de l'opposition libérale, il renoue avec la politique au quotidien. Sa reconversion en politique n'est pourtant pas une évidence. Ce n'est qu'en 1828 qu'il devient député et ce n'est que sous la monarchie de Juillet qu'il devient un héros populaire
Immortalized by Victor Hugo in « Les Misérables », General Lamarque is mainly known for his funerals in June 1832, which turned into a republican insurrection,suppressed by Orléanist power. However, his life could not be summarized by this stereotyped image : thanks to unexploited or less exploited archives, the historian’swork permitted to dissociate the myth shaped around his character from historical reality, to get an original portrait of this character from the Landes. Coming originally from the bourgeoisie of the robe, he soon stuck to Revolution ideas which gave him the means to be an actor of events : National Guard, Jacobin, officer in a Volunteers Battalion. Educated and cultured, he also came complete with his physical courage. He never was a part of first circles of power, he was close to the House of Bonaparte which provided his rise. His military career under the Empire is yet only second-rate. It is atthe Europe's periphery he stands out in Guerrilla warfare. Disappointed by theRestoration, he rallied to Napoleon during The Hundred Days, who sent him to theVendée. This posting sustainably compromised him to the eyes of royalist power whichonly saw him as a Bonapartist general. Exiled, he only came back to France in 1818 and decided for a literary career as well as he tried to keep his position in society. Through contact with the liberal opposition, he joined politic in everyday life. This change of career was not obvious though. He only became a Member of Parliament in 1828. Hewas only recognized as a popular hero under July Monarchy

Napoleon’s defeat in 1813 generates a number of explanations from historians regarding why he lost this epic campaign which ultimately resulted in France losing control over the German states. Scholars discussing the French marshalate of the Napoleonic era frequently assert that these generals could not win battles without the emperor present. Accustomed to assuming a subordinate role under Bonaparte’s direct supervision, these commanders faltered when deprived of the strong hand of the master. This thesis contributes to this historiographical argument by positing that the pre-professional nature of Napoleon’s marshalate precluded them from adapting to the evolving nature of warfare during the First French Empire. Emerging from non-military backgrounds and deriving their capabilities solely from practical experience, the marshals failed to succeed at endeavors outside of their capacity. An examination of the military administration of the Old Regime, the effects of the French Revolution on the French generalate, and the circumstances under which Bonaparte labored when creating the imperial marshalate demonstrates that issues systemic to the French high command contributed to French defeat in 1813. This thesis also provides evidence that Napoleon understood this problem and attempted to better prepare his marshals for independent command by instructing them in his way of war during the 1813 campaign.

Officier de cavalerie originaire de la noblesse picarde, Armand de Caulaincourt (1773-1827) gravit rapidement tous les échelons de la cour consulaire puis impériale, devenant en 1804 grand-écuyer de l’Empire. Mais, malgré l’importance de ses fonctions curiales, Napoléon le destine à une carrière de diplomate. Après différentes missions, il le nomme ambassadeur de France en Russie, à la fin de l’année 1807. Fervent partisan de l’alliance de Tilsit, Caulaincourt participe à toutes les grandes négociations franco-russes mais doit assister à la lente dégradation des relations entre les deux empires. À son retour à Paris en 1811, son bilan politique est maigre. Sa défense opiniâtre du tsar Alexandre, mais surtout son opposition à la campagne militaire qui se prépare, irritent Napoléon. Elles lui permettent toutefois d’acquérir une nouvelle stature après le désastre de Russie : pour ses contemporains Caulaincourt devient l’« homme de la paix ». Une image que Napoléon réutilise lorsqu’il le charge de le représenter aux congrès de Prague (1813) et de Châtillon (1814). Le duc de Vicence, devenu ministre des Relations extérieures, ne parvient pas à faire accepter la paix ; il lui faut finalement négocier l’abdication de Napoléon et renoncer, après les Cent-Jours, à toute carrière politique. Cette étude, qui s’appuie sur les archives personnelles de Caulaincourt et ses célèbres Mémoires, entend redonner toute son importance à cette figure majeure du Premier Empire, en insistant sur son action et sa pensée dans le domaine de la diplomatie. L’exemple de ce parcours devant permettre de contribuer à reconsidérer et réévaluer le rôle du personnel diplomatique napoléonien
A cavalry officer born into Picardy's landed gentry, Armand de Caulaincourt rose rapidly through the ranks of the consular, and later the imperial court, to become in 1804 Grand Squire of the Empire. However, notwithstanding the importance of his curial functions, Napoleon destined him to a diplomatic career. After several missions, he was appointed as Ambassador of France to Russia (1807). Caulaincourt took part in all the major negotiations between France and Russia, but was forced to witness a slow breakdown in relations between the two Empires. At the time of his return to Paris in 1811, his political accomplishments were unimpressive. His stalwart defense of Tsar Alexander, and especially his opposition to the upcoming military campaign, were an irritation to Napoleon. Nevertheless, these stances allowed him to gain new stature after the disaster in Russia : in the eyes of his contemporaries, he became the “Peacemaker”, an image Napoleon used to his advantage by appointing him his representative at the congresses in Prague (1813) and in Châtillon (1814). The Duke of Vicenza, now Minister for Foreign Affairs, could not, however, broker an agreement in favour of peace : he was forced to negotiate Napoleon's abdication and to give up any hope of political career after the Hundred Days. This study, based on Caulaincourt's personal records and famous Memoirs, aims at restoring a major figure of the First French Empire to his due importance, while focusing on his action and thought in the field of diplomacy. The exemplary value of his career should also allow historians to reconsider and reevaluate the role of Napoleon's diplomatic personnel

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)
The sailors in the British Navy during the Napoleonic Wars are largely unknown to us. This thesis explores their worldview, as revealed through songs, memoirs, plays and broadsides. Through interactions with women and working-class men on shore and officers at sea, these men developed a collective identity rooted in working class masculinity. Ultimately, this thesis refutes the idea that sailors occupied a world completely removed from land and were, rather, actively influenced by ideologies and culture on shore.

Innovations in novelistic form that appear at the end of the Napoleonic Wars do so in the context of a national discussion about colonial emigration, and an uprooting and dispersing of British people on a profound scale, that provoked a reimagining of global space. Poverty, unemployment, and security, both domestically and in the colonies, were concerns about which emigration was proposed as a possible solution. This helps to explain two influential formal innovations made by Walter Scott in Guy Mannering (1815). The first is the invention of a new geographical imaginary. The novel is distinctive for its international backstory that takes place in India outside the main temporal and geographical frames of the novel, as well as a mode of calibrating distance in relation to details of size and scale, and through manipulating levels of readerly attention. The second innovation is its eccentric character, the gypsy, Meg Merrilies, who specifically derives from these spatial concerns. Her character is especially topical as it draws on contemporary beliefs about gypsies, a displaced people thought to have originated in India, but who are also identified with Scottish peasants displaced during the Highland Clearances, and other indigenous displaced people. Through the character of Meg, the novel examines contemporary questions about property, place, and belonging, as well as race and indigeneity. Meg’s persistence in print culture through the next several decades, reimagined in theatrical renditions, poems, print commodities, and travel writings, turns her into a celebrity character, and constituent element of a migratory British culture.

This chapter analyses the wartime behaviour of maritime merchants, particularly the necessity of seeking new trade ventures. As a case-study, it seeks to determine why Britain sought maritime trade with Denmark-dependent Iceland, during the Napoleonic Wars, and how this trade was conducted. It contextualises the maritime activities of Iceland in 1800; traces the trade voyages of the Clarence, the HMS Rover, the Margaret and Ann, and the Talbot to Iceland. It concludes by affirming the trade began as a result of chance, and failed to thrive due to the pressures of war.