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The 1810s (pronounced "eighteen-tens") was a decade of the Gregorian calendar that began on January 1, 1810, and ended on December 31, 1819.
The decade was opened with a very hostile political climate around the world. Napoleon was invading France's neighbours in efforts to build a French Empire, causing a chain of global-scaled conflicts known as the Napoleonic Wars. Here, France's Napoleonic empire saw its rise and fall through events such as Napoleon's attempts to conquer Russia, the War of 1812 (spillover to America), and the Battle of Waterloo (Napoleon's ultimate defeat). Imperialism began to encroach towards African and Asian territories through trade, as the United States saw mass-scaled migration that headed westward towards the American frontier (mostly through the opening of the Oregon Trail.)
In 1810, the French Empire reached its greatest extent. On the continent, the British and Portuguese remained restricted to the area around Lisbon and to besieged Cadiz. Napoleon married Marie-Louise, an Austrian Archduchess, with the aim of ensuring a more stable alliance with Austria and of providing the Emperor with an heir. As well as the French Empire, Napoleon controlled the Swiss Confederation, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Italy. Territories allied with the French included: the Kingdom of Spain, the Kingdom of Westphalia, the Kingdom of Naples, the Principality of Lucca and Piombino, and Napoleon's former enemies, Prussia and Austria. Denmark–Norway also allied with France in opposition to Great Britain and Sweden in the Gunboat War.
The French invasion of Russia of 1812 was a turning point, which reduced the French and allied invasion forces (the Grande Armée) to a tiny fraction of their initial strength and triggered a major shift in European politics, as it dramatically weakened the previously dominant French position on the continent. After the disastrous invasion of Russia, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and a number of German States, and the rebels in Spain and Portugal united to battle France in the War of the Sixth Coalition. Two-and-a-half million troops fought in the conflict and the total dead amounted to as many as two million. This era included the battles of Smolensk, Borodino, Lützen, Bautzen, and the Dresden. It also included the epic Battle of Leipzig in October, 1813 (also known as the Battle of Nations), which was the largest battle of the Napoleonic wars, which drove Napoleon out of Germany.
The final stage of the War of the Sixth Coalition, the defense of France in 1814, saw the French Emperor temporarily repulse the vastly superior armies in the Six Days Campaign. Ultimately, the Allies occupied Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate and restoring the Bourbons. Napoleon was exiled to Elba. Also in 1814, Denmark–Norway was defeated by Great Britain and Sweden and had to cede the territory of mainland Norway to the King of Sweden at the Treaty of Kiel.
Napoleon shortly returned from exile, landing in France on March 1, 1815, marking the War of the Seventh Coalition, heading toward Paris while the Congress of Vienna was sitting. On March 13, seven days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw; four days later the United Kingdom, Russia, Austria and Prussia, members of the Seventh Coalition, bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule. [1] This set the stage for the last conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the restoration of the French monarchy for the second time and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of Saint Helena, where he died in May 1821.
Spain in the 1810s was a country in turmoil. Occupied by Napoleon from 1808 to 1814, a massively destructive "war of independence" ensued, driven by an emergent Spanish nationalism. Already in 1810, the Caracas and Buenos Aires juntas declared their independence from the Bonapartist government in Spain and sent ambassadors to the United Kingdom. The British blockade against Spain had also moved most of the Latin American colonies out of the Spanish economic sphere and into the British sphere, with whom extensive trade relations were developed. The remaining Spanish colonies had operated with virtual independence from Madrid after their pronouncement against Joseph Bonaparte.
The Spanish government in exile (Cortes of Cádiz) created the first modern Spanish constitution. Even so, agreements made at the Congress of Vienna (where Spain was represented by Pedro Gómez Labrador, Marquis of Labrador) would cement international support for the old, absolutist regime in Spain.
King Ferdinand VII, who assumed the throne after Napoleon was driven out of Spain, refused to agree to the liberal Spanish Constitution of 1812 on his accession to the throne in 1814. The Spanish Empire in the New World had largely supported the cause of Ferdinand VII over the Bonapartist pretender to the throne in the midst of the Napoleonic Wars. When Ferdinand's rule was restored, these juntas were cautious of abandoning their autonomy, and an alliance between local elites, merchant interests, nationalists, and liberals opposed to the abrogation of the Constitution of 1812 rose up against the Spanish in the New World.
The arrival of Spanish forces in the American colonies began in 1814, and was briefly successful in restoring central control over large parts of the Empire. Simón Bolívar, the leader of revolutionary forces in New Granada, was briefly forced into exile in British-controlled Jamaica, and independent Haiti. In 1816, however, Bolivar found enough popular support that he was able to return to South America, and in a daring march from Venezuela to New Granada (Colombia), he defeated Spanish forces at the Battle of Boyacá in 1819, ending Spanish rule in Colombia. Venezuela was liberated June 24, 1821, when Bolivar destroyed the Spanish army on the fields of Carabobo on the Battle of Carabobo. Argentina declared its independence in 1816 (though it had been operating with virtual independence as a British client since 1807 after successfully resisting a British invasion). Chile was retaken by Spain in 1814, but lost permanently in 1817 when an army under José de San Martín, for the first time in history, crossed the Andes Mountains from Argentina to Chile, and went on to defeat Spanish royalist forces at the Battle of Chacabuco in 1817.
Spain would also lose Florida to the United States during this decade. First, in 1810, the Republic of West Florida declared its independence from Spain, and was quickly annexed by the United States. Later, in 1818, the United States invaded Florida, resulting in the Adams-Onís Treaty, wherein Spain ceded the rest of Florida to the United States.
In 1820, Mexico, Peru, Ecuador, and Central America still remained under Spanish control. Although Mexico had been in revolt in 1811 under Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, resistance to Spanish rule had largely been confined to small guerrilla bands in the countryside. King Ferdinand was still dissatisfied with the loss of so much of the Empire and resolved to retake it. A large expedition was assembled in Cadiz with the aim of reconquest. However, Ferdinand's plans would be disrupted by Liberal Revolution, and Ferdinand was eventually forced to give up all of the New World colonies, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico.
In 1812, the United States declared war on Britain in the War of 1812. The U.S. reasons for war included the humiliation in the "Chesapeake incident" of 1807, continued British impressment of American sailors into the Royal Navy, restrictions on trade with France, and arming hostile American Indians in Ohio and the western territories. [2] United States President James Madison signed a declaration of war on June 18, 1812.
The United States conducted two failed invasion attempts in 1812, first by General William Hull across the Detroit River into what is now Windsor, Ontario, and a second offensive at the Niagara peninsula. A major American success came in 1813, when the American Navy destroyed the British fleet on Lake Erie, and forced the British and their American Indian allies to retreat back toward Niagara. [3] They were intercepted and destroyed by General William Henry Harrison at the Battle of the Thames in October 1813. Tecumseh, the leader of the tribal confederation, was killed, and his Indian coalition disintegrated. [4]
At sea, the powerful Royal Navy blockaded much of the coastline, conducting frequent raids. The most famous episode was a series of British raids on the shores of Chesapeake Bay, including an attack on Washington that resulted in the British burning of the White House, the Capitol, the Navy Yard, and other public buildings, in the "Burning of Washington" in 1814.
Once Napoleon was defeated in 1814, France and Britain became allies and Britain ended the trade restrictions and the impressment of American sailors. Running out of reasons for war and stuck in a military stalemate, the two countries signed the Treaty of Ghent on December 24, 1814. News of the peace treaty took two months to reach the U.S., during which fighting continued. In this interim, the British made one last major invasion, attempting to capture New Orleans, but were decisively defeated with very heavy losses by General Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in January 1815. The ending of the war opened a long era of peaceful relations between the United States and the British Empire.
The 1804–1813 Russo-Persian War was one of the many wars between the Persian Empire and Imperial Russia, and was well underway at the beginning of the decade. In 1810, the Persians scaled up their efforts late in the war, declaring a holy war on Imperial Russia. However, Russia's superior technology and tactics ensured a series of strategic victories. Even when the French were in occupation of the Russian capital Moscow, Russian forces in the south were not recalled but continued their offensive against Persia, culminating in Pyotr Kotlyarevsky's victories at Aslanduz and Lenkoran, in 1812 and 1813 respectively. Upon the Persian surrender, the terms of the Treaty of Gulistan ceded the vast majority of the previously disputed territories to Imperial Russia. This led to the region's once-powerful khans being decimated and forced to pay homage to Russia.
By 1815, Europe had been almost constantly at war. During this time, the military conquests of France had resulted in the spread of liberalism throughout much of the continent, resulting in many states adopting the Napoleonic code. Largely as a reaction to the radicalism of the French Revolution, [5] the victorious powers of the Napoleonic Wars resolved to suppress liberalism and nationalism, and revert largely to the status quo of Europe prior to 1789. [6]
The result was the Concert of Europe, also known as the "Congress System". It was the balance of power that existed in Europe from 1815 until the early 20th century. Its founding members were the United Kingdom, Austrian Empire, Russian Empire and Kingdom of Prussia, the members of the Quadruple Alliance responsible for the downfall of the First French Empire; in time France became established as a fifth member of the concert. At first, the leading personalities of the system were British foreign secretary Lord Castlereagh, Austrian chancellor Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich and Tsar Alexander I of Russia.
The Kingdom of Prussia, Austrian Empire and Russian Empire formed the Holy Alliance with the expressed intent of preserving Christian social values and traditional monarchism. [7] Every member of the coalition promptly joined the Alliance, save for the United Kingdom.
Among the meetings of the Powers in the latter part of the 1810s were the Congresses of Vienna (1814–1815), Aix-la-Chappelle (1818), and Carlsbad (1819).
The 1810s continued a trend of increasing commercial viability of steamboats in North America, following the early success of Robert Fulton and others in the preceding years. In 1811 the first in a continuously operating line of river steamboats left the dock at Pittsburgh to steam down the Ohio River to the Mississippi and on to New Orleans. [9] Inventor John Stevens' boat, the Juliana, began operation as the first steam-powered ferry October 11, 1811, with service between New York, and Hoboken, New Jersey. John Molson's PS Accommodation was the first steamboat on the St. Lawrence and in Canada. [10] Unlike Fulton, Molson did not show a profit. Molson had also two paddle steamboats "Swiftsure" of 1811 and "Malsham" of 1813 with engines by B&W. [11] The experience of these vessels, especially that they could now offer a regular service, being independent of wind and weather, helped make the new system of propulsion commercially viable, and as a result its application to the more open waters of the Great Lakes was next considered. That idea went on hiatus due to the War of 1812.
In a 25-day trip in 1815, the Enterprise further demonstrated the commercial potential of the steamboat with a 2,200-mile voyage from New Orleans to Pittsburgh. [12] [13] In 1817, a consortium in Sackets Harbor, New York, funded the construction of the first US steamboat, Ontario, to run on Lake Ontario and the Great Lakes, beginning the growth of lake commercial and passenger traffic. [14]
The first commercially successful steamboat in Europe, Henry Bell's Comet of 1812, started a rapid expansion of steam services on the Firth of Clyde, and within four years a steamer service was in operation on the inland Loch Lomond, a forerunner of the lake steamers still gracing Swiss lakes. On the Clyde itself, within ten years of Comet's start in 1812 there were nearly fifty steamers, and services had started across the Irish Sea to Belfast and on many British estuaries. P.S."Thames", ex "Argyle" was the first seagoing steamer in Europe, having steamed from Glasgow to London in May 1815. [15] P.S."Tug", the first tugboat, was launched by the Woods Brothers, Port Glasgow, on November 5, 1817; in the summer of 1817 she was the first steamboat to travel round the North of Scotland to the East Coast. [16]
The first steamship credited with crossing the Atlantic Ocean between North America and Europe was the American ship SS Savannah , though she was actually a hybrid between a steamship and a sailing ship. The SS Savannah left the port of Savannah, Georgia, on May 22, 1819, arriving in Liverpool, England, on June 20, 1819; her steam engine having been in use for part of the time on 18 days (estimates vary from 8 to 80 hours).
Lord Byron, regarded as one of the greatest British poets and remains widely read and influential, wrote his most well-known work during this decade. Amongst Byron's works are the brief poems She Walks in Beauty , When We Two Parted, and So, we'll go no more a roving , in addition to the narrative poems Childe Harold's Pilgrimage and Don Juan .
Other events in literature:
The Congress of Vienna of 1814–1815 was a series of international diplomatic meetings to discuss and agree upon a possible new layout of the European political and constitutional order after the downfall of the French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte. Participants were representatives of all European powers and other stakeholders. The Congress was chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich, and was held in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815.
The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts fought between the First French Empire under Napoleon Bonaparte (1804–1815) and a fluctuating array of European coalitions. The wars originated in political forces arising from the French Revolution (1789–1799) and from the French Revolutionary Wars (1792–1802) and produced a period of French domination over Continental Europe. The wars are categorised as seven conflicts, five named after the coalitions that fought Napoleon, plus two named for their respective theatres: the War of the Third Coalition, War of the Fourth Coalition, War of the Fifth Coalition, War of the Sixth Coalition, War of the Seventh Coalition, the Peninsular War, and the French invasion of Russia.
Ferdinand VII was King of Spain during the early 19th century. He reigned briefly in 1808 and then again from 1813 to his death in 1833. Before 1813 he was known as el Deseado, and after, as el Rey Felón.
The Napoleonic era is a period in the history of France and Europe. It is generally classified as including the fourth and final stage of the French Revolution, the first being the National Assembly, the second being the Legislative Assembly, and the third being the Directory. The Napoleonic era begins roughly with Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'état, overthrowing the Directory, establishing the French Consulate, and ends during the Hundred Days and his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo. The Congress of Vienna soon set out to restore Europe to pre-French Revolution days. Napoleon brought political stability to a land torn by revolution and war. He made peace with the Roman Catholic Church and reversed the most radical religious policies of the Convention. In 1804 Napoleon promulgated the Civil Code, a revised body of civil law, which also helped stabilize French society. The Civil Code affirmed the political and legal equality of all adult men and established a merit-based society in which individuals advanced in education and employment because of talent rather than birth or social standing. The Civil Code confirmed many of the moderate revolutionary policies of the National Assembly but retracted measures passed by the more radical Convention. The code restored patriarchal authority in the family, for example, by making women and children subservient to male heads of households.
In the War of the Sixth Coalition, sometimes known in Germany as the Wars of Liberation, a coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Spain, Great Britain, Portugal, Sweden, Sardinia, and a number of German States defeated France and drove Napoleon into exile on Elba. After the disastrous French invasion of Russia of 1812 in which they had been forced to support France, Prussia and Austria joined Russia, the United Kingdom, Sweden, and Portugal, and the rebels in Spain who were already at war with France.
The Illyrian Provinces were an autonomous province of France during the First French Empire that existed under Napoleonic Rule from 1809 to 1814. The province encompassed large parts of modern Italy and Croatia, extending their reach further east through Slovenia, Montenegro, and Austria. Its capital was Ljubljana. It encompassed six départements, making it a relatively large portion of territorial France at the time. Parts of Croatia were split up into Civil Croatia and Military Croatia, the former served as a residential space for French immigrants and Croatian inhabitants and the latter as a military base to check the Ottoman Empire.
This article presents a timeline of events in the history of the United Kingdom from 1800 AD until 1899 AD. For a narrative explaining the overall developments, see the related History of the British Isles.
The results of the War of 1812, which was fought between the United Kingdom and the United States from 1812 to 1814, included no immediate boundary changes. The main result of the War of 1812 has been over two centuries of peace between the two countries.
Karl Philipp, Fürst zu Schwarzenberg was an Austrian Generalissimo and former Field Marshal. He first entered military service in 1788 and fought against the Turks. During the French Revolutionary War, he fought on the allied side against France and in that period rose through the ranks of the Imperial Army. During the Napoleonic Wars, he fought in the Battle of Wagram (1809), which the Austrians lost decisively against Napoleon. He had to fight for Napoleon in the Battle of Gorodechno (1812) against the Russians and won. During the War of the Sixth Coalition, he was in command of the allied army that decisively defeated Napoleon in the Battle of Leipzig (1813). He participated in the Battle of Paris (1814), which forced Napoleon to abdicate.
The presidency of James Madison began on March 4, 1809, when James Madison was inaugurated as President of the United States, and ended on March 4, 1817. Madison, the fourth United States president, took office after defeating Federalist Charles Cotesworth Pinckney decisively in the 1808 presidential election. He was re-elected four years later, defeating DeWitt Clinton in the 1812 election. His presidency was dominated by the War of 1812 with Britain. After serving two terms as president, Madison was succeeded in 1817 by James Monroe, his Secretary of State and a fellow member of the Democratic-Republican Party.
Prince Alexander Ivanovich Chernyshyov, General of Cavalry (1827), was a Russian military leader, diplomat and statesman, whose career began in the Napoleonic Wars. After the Battle of Austerlitz (1805), he carried out successful diplomatic missions to France and Sweden and served with distinction in battles of 1812 and 1813. Chernyshyov rose through the ranks to the role of Russian Minister of War (1827–1852), chairman of the State Council and Cabinet of Ministers (1848–1856), and acquired the styles from Count (1826) to Serene Prince (1849).
The Adriatic campaign was a minor theatre of war during the Napoleonic Wars in which a succession of small British Royal Navy and Austrian Navy squadrons and independent cruisers harried the combined naval forces of the First French Empire, the Kingdom of Italy, the Illyrian Provinces and the Kingdom of Naples between 1807 and 1814 in the Adriatic Sea. Italy, Naples and Illyria were all controlled either directly or via proxy by the French Emperor Napoleon I, who had seized them at the Treaty of Pressburg in the aftermath of the War of the Third Coalition.
The Pallas class constituted the standard design of 40-gun frigates of the French Navy during the Napoleonic Empire period. Jacques-Noël Sané designed them in 1805, as a development of his seven-ship Hortense class of 1802, and over the next eight years the Napoléonic government ordered in total 62 frigates to be built to this new design. Of these some 54 were completed, although ten of them were begun for the French Navy in shipyards within the French-occupied Netherlands or Italy, which were then under French occupation; these latter ships were completed for the Netherlands or Austrian navies after 1813.
The First French Empire or French Empire and also known as Napoleonic France, was the empire ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte, who established French hegemony over much of continental Europe at the beginning of the 19th century. It lasted from 18 May 1804 to 4 April 1814 and again briefly from 20 March 1815 to 7 July 1815, when Napoleon was exiled to St. Helena.
William II was King of the Netherlands, Grand Duke of Luxembourg, and Duke of Limburg.