Napoleon was at war or preparing for war during his entire reign. He certainly seemed up to the task of defeating the European powers.His military successes, real and apparent before 1799, had been crucial in his bid for political power. By 1802, he had signed favorable treaties with both Austria and Great Britain.
He appeared to deliver a lasting peace and to establish France as a dominant power in Europe. But the peace was short-lived. In 1803 France embarked on an eleven year period of continuous war: under Napoleon command, the French army delivered defeat after defeat to the European powers. Austria fell in 1805, Prussian in 1806, and the Russian armies of Alexander I were defeated at Friedland in 1807.
In 1807 Napoleon invaded Spain in order to drive out British expeditionary forces intent on invading French. Spain became a satellite kingdom in French Empire, although the conflict continued.
Britain was one the exception to the string of Napoleonic victories. Napoleon initially considered sending s French fleet to invade the Island nation.
Lacking the strength to achieve this, he turned to economic war fare and blocked European ports against British trade. Beginning in 1806, the continental system, as the blockade was known, erected a structure of protection for French manufacturers in all continental European market.
The British responded to the tariff walls, and boycotts with a naval blockade that succeeded in cutting French commerce off from its Atlantic market.
Still by 1810, the French leader was a master of the continent. French armies had extended revolutionary reforms and legal codes outside French and brought with them civil equality and religious tolerance.
They also drained defeated countries of their resources and had inflicted the horrors of wars with army’s occupation, force billeting and pillage. Napoleon’s empire extended across Europe, with only a diminished Austria, Prussia, and Russian remaining independent.
Napoleon and war
