Michelle said 1/11...

We started off the class discussing Napoleon, and the large empire he set up for himself, which brought unity and stability to France.

Napoleon divorces his wife Josephine and marries the daughter of the Austrian king. This allows France to become allies with Austria. With France expanding, Great Britain still remains the biggest threat to France. Napoleon wants to hurt Great Britain but he knows there is no way he can defeat them through war, so he makes an attempt to hurt Great Britain economically. Through these efforts Napoleon developed a continental system. This was a policy that says all nations in Europe are not allowed to trade with Great Britain. Keep in mind that Great Britain was at the height of its industrial revolution and most civilizations desire to trade with it. It turns out, Napoleon end up cancelling this policy and goes for Russia. 1812, Napoleon take 400,000 troops from Paris ad go across Austria to attack Russia. Russia is not modernized yet, and knew that they did not have the proper weaponry to defeat France. France ends up entering Russia, dressed in summer cloths, with the idea that they would get in and out of Russia, as champions, within 6 weeks. To their surprise, Russia had already destroyed their towns with nothing for France to take. This technique the Russians used is known as the scorched earth policy. After 6 months, Napoleon has no choice but to retreat with 7,000 soldiers back to France. This was a devastating loss for Napoleon, and the army was very difficult to rebuild.

After discussing the loss in Russia we went over a chain of events that occurred in France. First Napoleon returns back to France as a big loser in 1812. By now, the revolution in France is over. France is now battling Prussia, Russia, and Great Britain. April of 1814, after a major downfall in France, Napoleon steps down from power, leaving Louis XVIII to fill in as the new leader of France. Napoleon then tried to flee to Austria with his wife and son, but was stopped and sent to Elba, an island right next to southern France. With Frances support, Napoleon was able to sail back to France, train his army, and overthrow Louis XVIII. He was in control for 100 days, when Great Britain and Prussia send their forces into France. They fight the battle of Waterloo where Napoleon is defeated for the last time. Napoleon is sent to St. Helena with nobody on the island but his cook and doctor.

In class we also discussed Napoleons code, which he will consider his best accomplishment. He took all 14,000 laws that were in France before he came to power, and combines them into 50 laws. These laws appealed to the natural rights of men, but still had it’s weak points towards women.

At the end of class we briefly discussed the congress of Vienna, which consisted of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Great Britain, and France. They all gathered to decide what to do with France now that Napoleon was out of the picture. They felt that punishing France would be the wrong decision because France may revolt, but instead they wanted to “push the clock back” and bring France back to it’s old ways.

For homework we were assigned a quick worksheet, and our DBQ projects are due tomorrow. The next person to blog will be Nick P.