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| War of the Fourth Coalition | |||||||||
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| Part of theNapoleonic Wars and theCoalition Wars | |||||||||
 Click an image to load the appropriate article. Left to right, top to bottom: Battle of Jena–Auerstedt,Fall of Berlin,Battle of Eylau andBattle of Friedland | |||||||||
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Fourth Coalition:
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| Total engaged: 422,000 Prussia: 254,000[1] Russia: 135,000[2] Saxony: 18,000[1] Sweden: 15,000[3] | Total engaged: 237,500 French in Germany: 192,000[1] Confederation of Rhine: 27,000[1] Poland: 18,500[3] French in Italy: 40,000[1] (not engaged) French in Naples: 40,000[1] (not engaged) French in Holland: 18,000[1] (not engaged) | ||||||||
TheWar of the Fourth Coalition (French:Guerre de la Quatrième Coalition) was a war spanning 1806–1807 that saw a multinational coalition fight againstNapoleon'sFrench Empire, subsequently being defeated. The main coalition partners werePrussia andRussia withSaxony,Sweden, andGreat Britain also contributing. Excluding Prussia, some members of the coalition had previously been fighting France as part of theThird Coalition, and there was no intervening period of general peace. On 9 October 1806, Prussia declared war on France and joined a renewed coalition, fearing the rise in French power after the defeat ofAustria and establishment of the French-sponsoredConfederation of the Rhine in addition to having learned of French plans to cede Prussian-desiredHanover to Britain in exchange for peace. Prussia and Russia mobilized for a fresh campaign with France, massing troops in Saxony.[4]
Napoleon decisively defeated the Prussians in an expeditious campaign that culminated at theBattle of Jena–Auerstedt on 14 October 1806.[5] French forces under Napoleon occupied Prussia, pursued the remnants of the shatteredPrussian Army, andcaptured Berlin. They then advanced all the way toEast Prussia, Poland and the Russian frontier, where they fought an inconclusive battle against the Russians at theBattle of Eylau on 7–8 February 1807. Napoleon's advance on the Russian frontier was briefly checked during the spring as he revitalized his army with fresh supplies. Russian forces were finally crushed by the French at theBattle of Friedland on 14 June 1807, and three days later Russia asked for a truce.[6]
Through theTreaties of Tilsit in July 1807, France made peace with Russia, which agreed to join theContinental System. The treaty was particularly harsh on Prussia, however, as Napoleon demanded much of the Prussian territory along the lowerRhine west of theElbe and in what was part of the formerPolish–Lithuanian Commonwealth. Respectively, these acquisitions were incorporated into the newKingdom of Westphalia, led by his brotherJérôme Bonaparte and into the newDuchy of Warsaw, a Polishclient state, ruled by his new ally theking of Saxony. At the end of the war, there was peace on Continental Europe with Napoleon as master of almost all of western and central continental Europe, except forSpain,Portugal, Austria and several other smaller states.
Despite the end of the Fourth Coalition, Britain remained at war with France. War would return to Continental Europe later in 1807, when Napoleon decided to invade Portugal in order to compel Portugal to join theContinental System. A joint Franco-Spanish force invaded Britain's ally Portugal, beginning thePeninsular War where Napoleon would also invade Spain as well. A furtherFifth Coalition would be assembled when Austria re-joined the conflict in 1809.
The Fourth Coalition (1806–1807) of Great Britain, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden formed against France within months of the collapse of the previous coalition. Following his triumph at theBattle of Austerlitz and the subsequent demise of theThird Coalition, Napoleon looked forward to achieving a general peace in Europe, especially with his two main remaining antagonists, Britain and Russia. Meanwhile, he sought to isolate Prussia from the influence of these two powers by offering a tentative alliance, while also seeking to curb Prussia's political and military influence among the German states.[citation needed]
Despite the death ofWilliam Pitt in January 1806, Britain and the new Whig administration remained committed to checking the growing power of France. Peace overtures between the two nations early in the new year proved ineffectual due to the still unresolved issues that had led to the breakdown of thePeace of Amiens. One point of contention was the fate ofHanover, a German state in personal union with the British monarchy that had been occupied by France since 1803. Dispute over this state would eventually become acasus belli for both Britain and Prussia against France. This issue also dragged Sweden into the war, whose forces had been deployed there as part of the effort to liberate Hanover during the war of the previous coalition. The path to war seemed inevitable after French forces ejected the Swedish troops in April 1806.[citation needed]
Apart from somenaval clashes and the peripheralBattle of Maida insouthern Italy in July 1806 (though these actions are considered part of the tail end of the War of the Third Coalition), the main conflicts between Britain and France during the Fourth Coalition would involve no direct general military confrontation. Rather, there was an escalation in the ongoing economic warfare between the two powers. With Britain still retaining its dominance of the seas, Napoleon looked to break this dominance (after his defeat of Prussia) with his issuance of theBerlin Decree and the beginnings of hisContinental System. Britain retaliated with itsOrders in Council several months later.[7]
In the meantime, Russia spent most of 1806 recovering from defeats from the previous year's campaign. Napoleon had hoped to establish peace with Russia and a tentative peace treaty was signed in July 1806, but this was vetoed by TsarAlexander I and the two powers remained at war. Though nominally an ally in the coalition, Russia remained a dormant entity for much of the year (giving virtually no military aid to Prussia in the main battles that October, as Russian armies were still mobilising). Russian forces would not fully come into play in the war until late 1806 when Napoleon entered Poland.[citation needed]
Finally, Prussia had remained at peace with France the previous year, though it did come close to joining the Allies in the Third Coalition. A French corps led by MarshalBernadotte had illegally violated the neutrality ofAnsbach in Prussian territory on their march to face the Austrians and Russians. Anger by Prussia at this trespass was quickly tempered by the results of Austerlitz, and a convention of continued peace with France was signed two weeks after that battle atSchönbrunn. This convention was modified in a formal treaty two months later, with one clause in effect promising to give Hanover to Prussia in exchange for Ansbach's being awarded to France's allyBavaria. In addition, on 15 March 1806 Napoleon elevated his brother-in-law MarshalJoachim Murat to become ruler of theGrand Duchy of Berg andDuchy of Cleves (acquired from Bavaria in return for its receiving Ansbach). Murat exacerbated Prussian enmity by tactlessly ejecting a Prussian garrison that was stationed in his newly acquired realm, prompting a stern rebuke from Napoleon. Relations between France and Prussia quickly soured when Prussia eventually discovered that Napoleon had secretly promised to return sovereignty of Hanover back to Britain during his abortive peace negotiations with the British. This duplicity by the French would be one of the main causes for Prussia declaring war that autumn.[8]
Another cause was Napoleon's formation in July 1806 of theConfederation of the Rhine out of the various German states which constituted theRhineland and other parts of western Germany. A virtual satellite of the French Empire with Napoleon as its "Protector", the Confederation was intended to act as a buffer state from any future aggressions from Austria, Russia or Prussia against France (a policy that was an heir of theFrench revolutionary doctrine of maintaining France's "natural frontiers"). The formation of the Confederation was the final nail in the coffin of the moribundHoly Roman Empire and subsequently its lastHabsburg emperor,Francis II, formally abolished the empire. Napoleonconsolidated the various smaller states of the former Holy Roman Empire which had allied with France into larger electorates, duchies and kingdoms to make the governance of non-Prussian and Austrian Germany more efficient. He also elevated the electors of the two largest Confederation states, his alliesWürttemberg andBavaria, to the status of kings.[citation needed]
The Confederation was above all a military alliance: in return for continued French protection, member states were compelled to supply France with large numbers of their own military personnel (mainly to serve as auxiliaries to theGrande Armée), as well as contribute much of the resources needed to support the French armies still occupying western and southern Germany. Prussia was indignant at this increasing French meddling in the affairs of Germany (without its involvement or even consultation) and viewed it as a threat. Napoleon had previously attempted to ameliorate Prussian anxieties by assuring Prussia he was not averse to its heading aNorth German Confederation, but his duplicity regarding Hanover dashed this. A final spark leading to war was the summary arrest and execution of German nationalistJohann Philipp Palm in August 1806 for publishing a pamphlet which strongly attacked Napoleon and the conduct of his army occupying Germany. After giving Napoleon an ultimatum on 1 October 1806, Prussia (supported by Saxony) finally decided to contend militarily with the French Emperor.[9]
In August 1806, the Prussian kingFrederick William III made the decision to go to war independently of any other great power, save the distant Russia, influenced by his wife QueenLouise and the war party inBerlin.[citation needed] Another course of action might have involved openly declaring war the previous year and joining Austria and Russia in the Third Coalition. In fact, the Tsar had visited the Prussian king and queen at the tomb ofFrederick the Great inPotsdam that very autumn, and the monarchs secretly swore to make common cause against Napoleon. Had Prussian forces been engaged against the French in 1805, this might have contained Napoleon and prevented the eventual Allied disaster atAusterlitz. In any event, Prussia vacillated in the face of the swift French invasion of Austria and then hastily professed neutrality once theThird Coalition was crushed. When Prussia did declare war against France in 1806, its main ally the Russians still remained far away remobilising. TheElectorate of Saxony would be Prussia's sole German ally. Napoleon could scarcely believe Prussia would be so foolish to take him on in a straight fight with hardly any allies at hand on its side, especially since most of hisGrande Armée was still in the heart of Germany close to the Prussian border. He drummed up support from his soldiers by declaring that Prussia's bellicose actions had delayed their phased withdrawal back home to France to enjoy praise for the previous year's victories.[citation needed]
The initial military manoeuvres began in September 1806. In a letter toMarshal Soult detailing the plan for the campaign, Napoleon described the essential features of Napoleonic warfare and introduced the phrasele bataillon-carré ("square battalion").[10] In thebataillon-carré system, the various corps of theGrande Armée would march uniformly together in close supporting distance.[10] If any single corps was attacked, the others could quickly spring into action and arrive to help.[11] Napoleon unleashed all French forces east of theRhine, deploying the corps of theGrande Armée along the frontier of southern Saxony. In a preemptive strike to catch the Prussians unaware, the Emperor had theGrande Armée march as a massivebataillon carré (battalion square) in three parallel columns through theFranconian Forest in southernThuringia. Each corps would be in mutual supporting distance of each other, both within the column and laterally to the other columns (once through the difficult passage of the forest), thus allowing theGrande Armée to meet the enemy at any contingency. This strategy was adopted due to Napoleon's lack of intelligence regarding the Prussian main army's whereabouts and uncertainty over his enemy's puzzling manoeuvres in their march to face him. The reason for the Prussian scheme of manoeuvre stemmed mainly from the mutual mistrust within the Prussian high command. This had resulted in division among the Prussian commanders over which plan of action for the war would be adopted. Despite the deficiency in pinpointing the main Prussian army's exact position, Napoleon correctly surmised their probable concentration in the vicinity ofErfurt-Weimar and formulated a general plan of a thrust down theSaale valley towardsGera andLeipzig, then wheeling westward in order to envelop the left flank of where he believed the Prussians were located, thus cutting off their communications and line of retreat to Berlin.[citation needed]
On 8 October 1806, after a cavalry skirmish atSaalburg, a Prussian division was brushed aside in theBattle of Schleiz on 9 October. The following day, MarshalLannes, debouching from the passage of the forest, crushed a Prussian division atBattle of Saalfeld, where the popular PrinceLouis Ferdinand was killed.
At the doubleBattle of Jena-Auerstedt on 14 October, Napoleon smashed a Prussian army led byFrederick Louis, Prince of Hohenlohe-Ingelfingen andErnst von Rüchel atJena, while his MarshalLouis-Nicolas Davout routedCharles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick's main army atAuerstedt. At Jena, Napoleon fought only a contingent of the Prussian army. At Auerstedt a single French corps defeated the bulk of the Prussian army, despite being heavily outnumbered. Victory at Auerstedt was all but secured once theDuke of Brunswick (as well as fellow commander Friedrich Wilhelm Carl von Schmettau) were both mortally wounded. Prussian command devolved to the less-able King Fredrick William, who believed he was facing Napoleon himself. Matters worsened once the vanquished remnants of the Prussian army from Jena stumbled onto the clash at Auerstedt, further plunging the Prussians' morale and triggering their precipitous retreat. For this conspicuous victory, Marshal Davout was later created the Duke of Auerstedt by Napoleon.
During theBattle of Jena-Auerstedt, MarshalJean-Baptiste Bernadotte had marched fromNaumburg toDornburg and arrived atApolda late in the day, due to the poor state of the roads. Apolda sits on strategically important heights between Auerstedt to the North and Jena to the South, and Napoleon had ordered Bernadotte to move toDornburg and seizeApolda; upon establishing his artillery on the heights, Bernadotte compelled the Prussians to withdraw from Jena and Auerstedt.[citation needed] Napoleon, believing Bernadotte to be a coward due to his absence in either battle, nearlycourt-martialed him. On 17 October, Bernadotte mauledEugene Frederick Henry, Duke of Württemberg's previously untouched Reserve corps at theBattle of Halle and chased it across theElbe river, this redeeming himself in Napoleon's eyes.
Some 160,000 French soldiers fought against Prussia, French numbers increasing as the campaign went on, with reinforcements arriving across theWesel bridgehead from the peripheral theatre surrounding the recently formedKingdom of Holland. Collectively, the French advanced with such speed that Napoleon was able to destroy as an effective military force almost the entire quarter of a million-strong Prussian army. The Prussians sustained 65,000 casualties, including the deaths of two members of the royal family. They lost a further 150,000 prisoners, over 4,000 artillery pieces, and over 100,000 muskets stockpiled in Berlin. The French suffered around 15,000 casualties for the whole campaign.Napoleon entered Berlin on 27 October 1806 and visited the tomb of Frederick the Great, telling his marshals to show their respect, saying, "If he were alive we wouldn't be here today".[12]
In total, Napoleon and theGrande Armée had taken only 19 days from the commencement of the invasion until essentially knocking Prussia out of the war with the capture of Berlin, following the earlier destruction of its principal armies at Jena and Auerstedt. The majority of the remnants of the Prussian army and the displaced royal family escaped to refuge inEast Prussia, nearKönigsberg, eventually linking up with the approaching Russians, thus allowing the remnants of the Prussian state to continue the fight into 1807. Meanwhile, on 11 December 1806, theTreaty of Posen elevatedSaxony to a kingdom, upon it allying with France and joining theConfederation of the Rhine, thereby leaving the Allied Coalition.[citation needed]
On 21 November 1806, Napoleon issued theBerlin Decree to bring into effect theContinental System. This policy aimed to control the trade of all European countries without consulting their governments. The ostensible goal was to weaken the British economy by closing French-controlled territory to its trade, but British merchants smuggled in many goods and theContinental System proved ineffective as a weapon of economic war.[13]
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Towards the end of 1806, the French entered Poland and Napoleon created a newDuchy of Warsaw, to be ruled by his new allyFrederick Augustus I of Saxony. The area of the duchy had already been liberated by apopular uprising that had escalated from anti-conscription rioting. Napoleon then turned north to confront the approaching Russian armies[14] and to attempt to capture the temporary Prussian capital atKönigsberg. In pursuit of this aim, twice his attempts to entrap and defeatBennigsen's Russian 1st Army atPultusk and in the vicinity ofHeilsberg during the turn of the year were thwarted. A tactical and bloody draw atEylau (7–8 February) forced the Russians to withdraw further north. After spending much of the spring recuperating his forces, Napoleon finally routed the Russian army atFriedland (14 June). Following this defeat, Alexander sued for peace with Napoleon atTilsit (7 July 1807).[citation needed]
Meanwhile, Swedish involvement was primarily concerned with protectingSwedish Pomerania. Despite being defeated atLübeck, the Swedes successfully defended the fort ofStralsund andpushed the French forces out of Swedish Pomerania in early April, 1807. On 18 April, France and Sweden agreed to a ceasefire. However, Swedish refusal to join the Continental System led to a second invasion of Swedish Pomerania led by MarshalBrune. Stralsund fell on 24 Augustafter a siege and the Swedish army abandonedRügen, thus leaving France in control overSwedish Pomerania; the resulting armistice, agreed by Marshal Brune and Swedish generalJohan Christopher Toll, had allowed the Swedish army to withdraw with all its munitions of war.[citation needed]
Following theTreaties of Tilsit, Britain and Sweden remained the only two major coalition members still at war with France. Russia soon declaredwar against Britain and after aBritish attack on Copenhagen,Denmark–Norway joined the war on the side of Napoleon (Gunboat War), opening a second front against Sweden. A short British expedition under SirJohn Moore was sent to Sweden (May 1808) to protect against any possible Franco-Danish invasion.[citation needed]
At theCongress of Erfurt (September–October 1808) Napoleon and Alexander agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System, which led to theFinnish War of 1808–1809 (meaning Sweden played no role in the nextcoalition against Napoleon) and to the division of Sweden into two parts separated by theGulf of Bothnia. The eastern part became the RussianGrand Duchy of Finland. Due to the Continental System, Britain was yet again still at war with Napoleon and was not affected by the peace treaty.[citation needed]
In negotiations with captured Swedes after theBattle of Lübeck, Marshal Bernadotte first came to the attention of the Swedish authorities. This would set in motion a chain of events that eventually led to him being elected heir to the Swedish throne, and later KingCharles XIV John of Sweden.[citation needed]
As for the French, after theTreaty of Tilsit, the Empire was seemingly at its zenith. Flush with triumph and deeming France free from any immediate obligations in Central and Eastern Europe, Napoleon decided to capture the Iberian ports of Britain's long-time ally Portugal. His main aim was to close off another strip of the European coast and a major source for British trade.[citation needed]
On 27 October 1807, Spain's Prime MinisterManuel de Godoy signed theTreaty of Fontainebleau with France, by which in return for the alliance and passage of French armies through its realm, Spain would receive Portuguese territory. In November 1807, after the refusal of Prince RegentJohn of Portugal to join the Continental System, Napoleon sent an army into Spain under GeneralJean-Andoche Junot with the aim of invading Portugal (as well as the secret task of being the vanguard for the eventual French occupation of Spain). Napoleon soon embroiled himself and France in Spain's internal power struggles within its royal family, eventually leading to the Spanish populace turning on the French occupiers and the beginning of thePeninsular War.[citation needed]
