Third anti-French coalition (1805)

At the beginning of 1805, a third anti-French coalition emerged, which included Great Britain, Russia, Austria and other European states. In response, Napoleon proclaimed himself king of Italy, initiating a system of dependent kingdoms and other monarchical possessions that replaced the former “daughter republics.”

In August 1805, Austrian troops, without waiting for the Russian army to approach, launched an offensive in southern Germany, but were defeated. The further course of the war was marked by two great battles that completely changed the balance of power in the international arena.

On October 21, 1805, the British squadron defeated the combined fleet of France and Spain in the famous Battle of the Cape Trafalgar in the Mediterranean Sea. Having suffered a catastrophic defeat at sea, Napoleon defeated his opponents on land. The French occupied Vienna, and on December 2, 1805, Austrian and Russian troops were defeated near the Moravian town Austerlitz in a battle known as the “Battle of the Three Emperors.” Russian troops returned to their homeland, and Austria signed a peace treaty, under the terms of which it recognized all the seizures and transformations carried out by Napoleon in Europe. Soon the emperor's brothers occupied the Neapolitan and Dutch thrones.

In the summer of 1806, Napoleon created Confederation of the Rhine, which included 16 German states. All of them left the Holy Roman Empire of the German nation, so its existence was meaningless. On August 6, 1806, Franz II renounced the title that had lost its meaning, and the thousand-year-old empire ended its history. Napoleon's radical transformation of Germany posed a mortal threat to Prussia, which took Austria's place in the anti-French coalition. But soon after the start of a new war, on October 14, 1806, the Prussian troops were completely defeated.

Beginning of the continental blockade

After Trafalgar, the British fleet no longer had rivals at sea, which allowed the British to establish a virtual blockade of Europe, regardless of the interests of other peoples and the norms of international law. In response, Napoleon decided to organize a blockade of the British Isles with the aim of “destroying Great Britain in its trade.” The Berlin Decree, signed by the Emperor in November 1806, marked the beginning of the so-called "continental system", in which, one after another, states dependent on Napoleon or entered into an alliance with him were involved.

In April 1807, Russia and Prussia entered into an agreement to continue the war with Napoleon, calling on other states to support them. However, this call was not heeded. In June 1807, Russian troops were defeated in East Prussia. The results of this war forced both sides to completely reconsider the principles of their foreign policy.

S. M. Solovyov:“Napoleon did not want a war with England: apart from losses, certain naval defeats, this war could not promise him anything.”

World of Tilsit

Napoleon had long sought an agreement with Russia, believing that peace with the Austrian emperor was “nothing against an alliance with the tsar.” Alexander I, for his part, became increasingly convinced that Russia’s main enemy was not France, but Great Britain, which built its prosperity on suppressing the economic development of other countries. In the summer of 1807, during a meeting between the two emperors in the city of Tilsit, not only a peace treaty was signed, but also an agreement on an alliance. The fate of Prussia, which was losing almost half of its territory, was also decided in Tilsit. As a French historian put it, “both wings of the Prussian eagle were chopped off.” The peace agreements provided for the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw in those territories that Prussia captured as a result of the partitions of Poland at the end of the 18th century.

On the site of the Rhineland possessions of Prussia, the Kingdom of Westphalia was created, whose king was Napoleon's brother. According to the Tilsit agreements, Russia and Prussia joined the continental blockade of England.

Continental blockade in 1807-1809

In an effort to undermine the foreign trade of continental Europe, the British tightened measures against neutral shipping, and in September 1807 they again attacked the capital of Denmark. With this attack they set “an example of an unheard-of violation of international law,” and their “modus operandi was such a terrifying combination of duplicity, shamelessness and violence that Europe was shocked.” In response, Denmark entered into an alliance with France and joined the continental blockade. Great Britain declared war on her, and Russia, outraged by the massacre of Denmark, declared war on Great Britain. In 1808, Russia also started a war against Sweden, which supported the British. The Russian-Swedish War ended in 1809 with the annexation of Finland to Russia, and Sweden entered the continental system. The entire Baltic was now closed to British trade. Material from the site

Beginning of the Peninsular Wars (1807-1808)

For his part, Napoleon attempted to close another gap in the continental system, striking in 1807 a blow to Portugal, which remained the largest trading partner of the British in Europe. Unable to resist the French army, the royal court of Portugal moved its residence overseas, to the capital of Brazil, Rio de Janeiro. Brazil, the largest European colony in the Western Hemisphere, was open to British trade. Thus, while strengthening the continental system in Europe, Napoleon at the same time contributed to the fact that vast American markets began to open up for the English. British troops landed in Portugal itself and, with the support of the local population, began a debilitating “Peninsula War” for France.

The logic of the new war required strengthening French control over Spain, so in May 1808 Napoleon obtained the Spanish Bourbons to abdicate power in favor of his brother. The consequences of this step were even more dramatic. A guerrilla war (guerrilla war) began in Spain - the first people's war against Napoleonic rule, and numerous Spanish colonies in America rose up to fight for

There is this observation:
Generals are always preparing for the last war

In the 19th century there were two world wars: the Napoleonic Wars, which ended with the Patriotic War of 1812 and the Russian entry into Paris in 1814, and the Crimean War of 1853-1856.

There were also two world wars in the 20th century: the First (1911 - 1914) and the Second (1938 - 1945).

Thus, in current history we have four large-scale world wars, which are the subject of four parts of this material.

The Napoleonic Wars are one of the stages in the development of the Western project, during which the era of the “gold standard” was opened, Switzerland became eternally neutral and another attempt was made to resolve the “Russian question”. About this in our material.

THE FRENCH AS A MEANS OF DESTROYING EMPIRES

Anti-French coalitions are temporary military-political alliances of European states that sought to restore in France the monarchical Bourbon dynasty, which fell during the French Revolution of 1789-1799. A total of 7 coalitions were created. Essentially, the Napoleonic Wars are the First World War of the 19th century, which ended in Paris in 1814. Waterloo is a more internal police operation of the West against Napoleon, who has already “gained his way back.”

In the scientific literature, the first two coalitions are called “anti-revolutionary”, which were the reaction of European monarchies to changes in global politics, which were marked by the bourgeois revolution in France. However, during the actions of these supposedly “anti-revolutionary” coalitions in Europe, they disintegrated and disappeared from the political map:

• Holy Roman Empire,
• Kingdom of Prussia
• French Empire of Napoleon,
• In addition, there was a palace coup in Russia, which abruptly changed its course (it came to the Decembrists in 1825).

And the stage of spreading the ideology of liberalism at the global level began. However, starting from the third, these coalitions were called “anti-Napoleonic”. Why? Let's see further.

I anti-French coalition (1791-1797)

It included: England, Prussia, Naples, Tuscany, Austria, Spain, Holland, Russia.

In 1789, a bourgeois revolution took place in France. On July 14, the rebels noisily captured the Bastille. A bourgeois system was established in the country. In St. Petersburg, the revolution that began was initially considered an everyday rebellion caused by temporary financial difficulties and the personal qualities of King Louis XVI. With the growth of the revolution in St. Petersburg, they began to fear the spread of the revolution to all the feudal-absolutist countries of Europe. The fears of the Russian court were shared by the kings of Prussia and Austria.

In 1790, an alliance between Austria and Prussia was concluded with the aim of military intervention in the internal affairs of France, but they limited themselves to developing intervention plans and providing material assistance to the French emigration and the counter-revolutionary nobility within the country (Catherine loaned 2 million rubles to create a mercenary army).

In March 1793, a convention was signed between Russia and England on a mutual obligation to assist each other in the fight against France: to close their ports to French ships and impede French trade with neutral countries (Catherine II sent Russian warships to England to blockade the French coast).

At the end of 1795, a counter-revolutionary triple alliance was concluded between Russia, England and Austria (in Russia, preparations began for a 60,000-strong expeditionary force for action against France).

Paul I did not send the corps equipped in August 1796 to help Austria, and declared to his allies (Austria, England and Prussia) that Russia was exhausted by previous wars. Russia left the coalition. Paul I at the diplomatic level tried to limit the military successes of France.

In 1797, Napoleon captured Malta, an island under the personal protection of Paul I, which prompted Paul to declare war. The history of the capture of Malta is very interesting in itself, so we recommend reading - https://www.proza.ru/2013/03/30/2371.

French landing on Malta

Napoleon himself later wrote in his memoirs that

“decisive for the fate of the Order was that it surrendered under the protection of Emperor Paul, the enemy of France... Russia sought domination over this island, which was of such great importance due to its position, the convenience and safety of its port and the power of its fortifications. Seeking patronage in the North, the Order did not take into account and endangered the interests of the powers of the South...”

The capture of Malta was fatal for Napoleon, since it thereby involved Paul in the Napoleonic wars and predetermined Russia's participation in anti-French coalitions. But these events were also fatal for Paul, since during the Napoleonic wars he began to get closer to Napoleon, dooming himself to death.

II anti-French coalition (1798-1800)

It included: Great Britain, the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Naples.

The II anti-French coalition was created in 1798 consisting of Austria, the Ottoman Empire, England and the Kingdom of Naples. Russian military forces participated in military operations at sea (in alliance with the Ottoman fleet) and on land (together with Austria).

Black Sea squadron under the command of F.F. In the fall of 1798, Ushakova entered the Mediterranean Sea through the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles, and then into the Adriatic, where, together with the Turkish fleet, she captured the Ionian Islands and stormed the fortress of Corfu.

The capture of the Corfu fortress by a united Russian-Turkish squadron under the command of F.F. Ushakova

By the end of August 1799, as a result of Suvorov's Italian campaign of 1799 and Ushakov's Mediterranean campaign of 1799-1800, during which Russian troops liberated Naples in June 1799, and Rome in September, almost all of Italy was liberated from French troops. The remnants of the 35,000-strong French army of General Jean Moreau (about 18 thousand people) defeated at Novi retreated to Genoa, which remained the last region of Italy under French control. The offensive of the Russian-Austrian army under the command of Suvorov (about 43 thousand people) on Genoa, followed by the complete displacement of the French army from Italy, seemed to be the natural next step. The command of the combined Russian-Austrian troops was entrusted to A.V. Suvorov.

On April 15-17, 1799, Suvorov defeated the French at the Adda River. After this, in 5 weeks they managed to expel the French from Northern Italy. Milan and Turin were liberated without a fight.

The Austrians did not provide Suvorov's troops with food, provided incorrect maps of the area and, without waiting for the troops to arrive in Switzerland, left Rimsky-Korsakov's corps alone in front of superior enemy forces.

Rushing to the rescue, Suvorov chose the shortest and most dangerous route - through the Alps, the Saint Gotthard Pass (September 24, 1799 - the Battle of the Devil's Bridge).

Suvorov's crossing of the Devil's Bridge. Artist A. E. Kotzebue

But help for Rimsky-Korsakov was too late - he was defeated.

15 thousand grenadiers descend from the Alps and Pavel returns them to Russia.

England and Austria took advantage of the Russian victories. Due to the fact that England, like Austria, did not show due care for the Russian auxiliary corps located in Holland and operating against the French, and due to the fact that the British occupied after the liberation of Fr. Malta, and the Austrians occupied Northern Italy abandoned by Suvorov, Paul I breaks off relations with them and enters into new alliances.

Peace is concluded with France and an alliance is signed with Prussia against Austria and at the same time with Prussia, Sweden and Denmark against England.

On December 4-6, 1800, on the initiative of Paul I, a convention on armed neutrality was concluded between Russia, Prussia, Sweden and Denmark.

On January 12, 1801, Paul I gave an order according to which 22.5 thousand Cossacks with 24 guns under the command of Vasily Petrovich Orlov (1745-1801) - the military ataman of the Don Cossack army were to carry out the Indian campaign - to reach Khiva and Bukhara and capture the British India. The Cossacks set out on the campaign on February 28.

February 9 and March 11, 1801- decrees were issued prohibiting the release of Russian goods from British ports and along the entire western border, not only to England, but also to Prussia. An embargo was imposed on British merchant ships in Russian ports.

The conspirators wanted to time the denouement to coincide with March 15 - the “Ides of March”, which brought the death of the tyrant Caesar, but external events accelerated the decision, since the emperor, by the evening or night of March 8, came to the conclusion that “they wanted to repeat the year 1762.” The conspirators began to fuss.

Fonvizin in his notes describes the reaction of his subjects as follows:

“In the midst of the multitude of assembled courtiers, the conspirators and murderers of Paul walked insolently. They, who had not slept at night, half-drunk, disheveled, as if proud of their crime, dreamed that they would reign with Alexander. Decent people in Russia, not approving the means by which they got rid of Paul's tyranny, rejoiced at his fall. Historiographer Karamzin says that the news of this event was a message of redemption throughout the whole state: in houses, on the streets, people cried, hugged each other, as on the day of the Holy Resurrection. However, only the nobility expressed this delight; other classes accepted this news rather indifferently».

Alexander I ascended the throne, as a result of which the general atmosphere in the country immediately changed. Nevertheless, for Alexander himself, the murder caused deep psychological trauma, which may have caused him to turn to mysticism late in life. Fonvizin describes his reaction to the news of the murder:

“When it was all over and he learned the terrible truth, his grief was inexpressible and reached the point of despair. The memory of this terrible night haunted him all his life and poisoned him with secret sadness.”

On the eve of Paul's death, Napoleon came close to concluding an alliance with Russia. The assassination of Paul I in March 1801 postponed this possibility for a long time - until the Peace of Tilsit in 1807. Relations with England, on the contrary, were renewed.

III anti-French coalition (1805)

Unlike the first two, it was exclusively defensive in nature. Its members included: Russia, England, Austria, Sweden. Russian diplomacy took part in the formation of a coalition consisting of England, Austria, Sweden and Sicily.

There were no goals of restoring the Bourbons. The coalition was created to stop the further spread of French expansion in Europe and protect the rights of Prussia, Switzerland, Holland and Italy. England was especially interested in creating a coalition, because 200,000 French soldiers stood on the banks of the English Channel, ready to land on Foggy Albion.

September 9, 1805 - The Austrian army invaded Bavaria. However, already on September 25-26, it was defeated by the French army and began to retreat, suffering heavy losses. And on October 20, the Austrian army capitulated. And on November 13, Vienna was taken.

On November 10, 1805, Russian troops united with Austrian reinforcements and occupied the Olsha positions.

On November 20, 1805, in the “Battle of the Three Emperors” - Napoleon, Alexander I and Franz II - near Austerlitz, the combined Russian-Austrian troops were defeated by the French.

Cuadro de François Gérard, 1810, neoclasicismo. Batalla de Austerlitz

On December 26, 1805, Austria signed a peace treaty with France at Pressburg, emerging from the war with major territorial and political losses. The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation ceased to exist.

IV anti-French coalition (1806-1807)

Its members included: Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, Saxony, Sweden.

On June 19 and July 12, secret union declarations were signed between Russia and Prussia. In the autumn of 1806, a coalition was formed consisting of England, Sweden, Prussia, Saxony and Russia.

October 14, 1806 - the Battle of Jena and Auerstedt, in which the Prussian army was completely defeated by the French. The army as an organized force of Prussia ceased to exist overnight. Following this the collapse of the Prussian kingdom occurred, which was conquered by the French army within three weeks.

On November 21, 1806, in Berlin, Napoleon signed a decree on the “blockade of the British Isles.” In 1807, Italy, Spain, and the Netherlands joined the continental blockade, after Tilsit - Russia and Prussia, and in 1809 - Austria.

On January 26 - 27, 1807, the battle of Preussisch-Eylau took place, where an army of Russian and Prussian soldiers repulsed all French attacks.

On June 9 (21), 1807, a truce was signed and 2 days later it was ratified by Alexander I. On June 13 (25), the two emperors met on a raft in the middle of the Neman River opposite the city of Tilsit.

Meeting of Alexander I and Napoleon on the Neman. Engraving by Lamo and Misbach. 1st quarter 19th century

V anti-French coalition (1809)

The anti-French coalition emerged after the destruction of Napoleon's Grand Army in Russia during the Russian Campaign of 1812.

The coalition included: Russia, Sweden, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia (the last two were allies of France until the beginning of 1813).

April 5, 1812 The St. Petersburg Union Treaty was concluded between Russia and Sweden. After Napoleon's invasion of Russia began, on July 6 (18), 1812, the Peace of Orebro was signed between Russia and Great Britain, eliminating the state of war between the two powers that had existed since 1807. On December 18 (30), 1812 in Taurogen, the Prussian General York signed a neutrality convention with the Russians and withdrew troops to Prussia.

FIRST PATRIOTIC WAR

Russia's participation in the continental blockade, established by Napoleon by a special decree of November 21, 1806 and directed against England, had a detrimental effect on the Russian economy. In particular, the volume of Russian foreign trade between 1808 and 1812 decreased by 43%. And France, Russia's new ally under the Treaty of Tilsit, could not compensate for this damage, since Russia's economic ties with France were insignificant.

The continental blockade completely upset Russian finances. Already in 1809, the budget deficit increased 12.9 times compared to 1801 (from 12.2 million to 157.5 million rubles).

Therefore, the reasons for the Patriotic War of 1812 were Russia’s refusal to actively support the continental blockade, in which Napoleon saw the main weapon against Great Britain, as well as Napoleon’s policy towards European states, carried out without taking into account the interests of Russia, or rather, how Alexander, who ascended the throne, saw them I.

No matter what some historians say about Napoleon’s aggression in 1812, on the eve of the war Russia itself was preparing for an attack. And Alexander I, back in the fall of 1811, proposed that Prussia “defeat the monster” with a preemptive strike. The Russian army even began to prepare for the next campaign against Napoleon, and only the treachery of Prussia prevented Alexander from starting the war first - Napoleon was ahead of him.

The Russian monarch did not favor Napoleon. For Alexander, the war with him was

“...an act of struggle of his personal pride, regardless of the political reasons that caused it,” writes historian M.V. Dovnar-Zapolski. — Despite the appearance of friendly relations, the “Byzantine Greek,” as Napoleon characterized his Tilsit friend, could never bear the humiliation he experienced. Alexander never forgot anything and never forgave anything, although he was remarkably good at hiding his true feelings. Moreover, Alexander, like his opponent, loved to indulge in dreams of activities that would pursue world interests. It is not surprising that the war acquired a double meaning in the eyes of Alexander: firstly, a sense of pride prompted him to take revenge on his rival, and ambitious dreams took Alexander far beyond the borders of Russia, and the good of Europe took first place in them. Despite the failures - and even moreover, as the failures grew, Alexander became more determined to continue the war until the enemy was completely destroyed. The very first significant failures exacerbated Alexander’s sense of revenge.”

Paul I, in our opinion, would have conducted his policy differently and, most likely, would have supported the blockade of Great Britain and then, most likely, there would have been no Patriotic War of 1812, and Great Britain could have joined the number of empires that disappeared during the Napoleonic Wars. It is clear that this development of events did not suit some groups in the West (it is clear that most of them were in Great Britain), so the English ambassador was an accomplice in the conspiracy against Paul I.

It must be said that British intelligence acted farsightedly. Delayed the fall of colonial Britain by almost a hundred years! The story eventually followed the course of events in which Napoleon invades Russia.

June 22 - 24, 1812. Troops of Napoleon's Grand Army cross the Neman, invading Russian territory

According to the calculations of the military historian Clausewitz, the army of the invasion of Russia, together with reinforcements during the war, numbered 610 thousand soldiers, including 50 thousand soldiers from Austria and Prussia. That is, we can talk about a united European army. With the support or at least non-interference of the rest of Europe, until March 1813.

On January 18 (30), 1813, a treaty similar to the Taurogen Treaty was signed by the commander of the Austrian corps, General Schwarzenberg (Seichen Truce), after which he surrendered Warsaw without a fight and went to Austria.

The official act that consolidated the formation of the 6th coalition was the Kalisz Union Treaty between Russia and Prussia, signed on February 15 (27), 1813 in Breslau and February 16 (28), 1813 in Kalisz.

At the beginning of 1813, only Russia waged the war against Napoleon in central Europe.. Prussia entered the coalition with Russia in March 1813, then in the summer of the same year England, Austria and Sweden joined, and after the defeat of Napoleon in the Battle of the Nations near Leipzig in October 1813, the German states of Württemberg and Bavaria joined the coalition. Doesn't remind you of anything, does it?

Spain, Portugal and England fought independently with Napoleon on the Iberian Peninsula. Active hostilities lasted for a year from May 1813 to April 1814, with a 2-month truce in the summer of 1813.

In 1813, the war against Napoleon was fought with varying success in Germany, mainly in Prussia and Saxony. In 1814, the fighting moved to French territory and ended by April 1814 with the capture of Paris and Napoleon's abdication of power.

Treaty of Paris 1814- a peace treaty between the participants of the sixth anti-French coalition (Russia, Great Britain, Austria and Prussia), on the one hand, and Louis XVIII, on the other. Signed in Paris on May 30 (May 18, old style). Sweden, Spain and Portugal later joined the treaty. The treaty provided for France to retain the borders that existed on January 1, 1792, with the addition of only part of the Duchy of Savoy, the former papal possessions of Avignon and Venescens, and small strips of land on the northern and eastern borders that previously belonged to the Austrian Netherlands and various German states (including purely the German town of Saarbrücken with rich coal mines), only about 5 thousand km² and more than one million inhabitants.

France returned most of the colonial possessions it had lost during the Napoleonic Wars. Sweden and Portugal returned to France all the colonies taken from it; England retained only Tobago and St. Lucia in the West Indies and the island of St. Mauritius in Africa, but returned the island of Haiti to Spain. France was given the option of keeping all the art objects it had seized, with the exception of trophies taken from the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and the thefts made from the Vienna library. She was not obliged to pay the indemnity.

The Netherlands regained independence and was returned to the House of Orange. Switzerland was declared independent. Italy, with the exception of the Austrian provinces, was to consist of independent states. The German principalities united into a union. Freedom of navigation on the Rhine and Scheldt was declared. France, by special agreement with England, pledged to abolish the slave trade in its colonies. Finally, it was decided that representatives of all the powers that took part in the war would gather, within two months, for a congress in Vienna to resolve still unclear issues.

As for the war with Russia, which became inevitable, after losing it, Napoleon spoke like this:

“I did not want this famous war, this bold enterprise, I had no desire to fight. Alexander didn’t have such a desire either, but the prevailing circumstances pushed us towards each other: fate did the rest.”

But did “rock” do it?

THE ROLE OF FREEMASONRY IN THE RISE AND FALL OF NAPOLEON

Once upon a time, the arbitrariness of would-be revolutionaries brought Napoleon Bonaparte to power. Why? Yes, because the Freemasons, who saw that the revolution was not going at all where they wanted, needed a strong hand to suppress the raging revolutionary fanatics and extremists. The famous Austrian statesman and diplomat Prince Clemens von Metternich remarked on this matter:

“Napoleon, who was himself a Freemason when he was a young officer, was allowed and even supported by this secret force in order to protect himself from a great evil, namely, from the return of the Bourbons.”

On top of that, Masons considered Napoleon an effective weapon for the destruction of European monarchies, and after such a gigantic purge they hoped that it would be easier for them to carry out their plan for building a world republic.

“Freemasonry itself decided to follow Napoleon, and therefore on the day of the 18th Brumaire the most influential revolutionaries helped him,” says the author of the book “The Secret Power of Freemasonry” A.A. Selyaninov explains: “They thought that Napoleon would rule France by proxy.”

Napoleon with a Masonically hidden hand

But Napoleon, nominated by the Freemasons, gradually began to crush Freemasonry under himself. First he became consul, then first consul, then consul for life, and then emperor. Finally, the moment came when it became clear to everyone that the interests of Napoleon, who used the Freemasons for his rise, and the Freemasons, who had high hopes for him, diverged.

The revolutionary dictator turned into an autocratic despot, and the Freemasons changed their attitude towards him.

"The secret societies turned sharply against him when he discovered a desire to restore to his own interests a staunch, conservative autocracy,"

- Montaigne de Poncins testified. By the winter of 1812, it became abundantly clear that Napoleon had lost the campaign utterly.

On October 23, 1812, a rather strange coup attempt took place in Paris, organized by General Malet. Of course, the conspirators were arrested and shot, but the behavior of the capital’s authorities that day turned out to be extremely passive. Moreover, one gets the impression that the news, inspired by the conspirators, that Napoleon died in Russia, made many very happy.

In 1813, a series of defeats that began in Russia followed, and in January 1814, the allied armies crossed the Rhine and entered French territory. Louis d'Estampes and Claudio Jeannet in their book "Freemasonry and the Revolution" write about this:

“From February 1814, realizing that it was impossible to resist the royalist tendencies, the strength of which was growing every day, Freemasonry decided that it was necessary to abandon Napoleon and begin to curry favor with the new regime in order to save at least what was left of the revolution.”

On March 31, 1814, Paris capitulated. When the Allied troops entered France, the Parisian Masons decided to open the doors to their brothers - the Masonic officers of the hostile armies.

And already on May 4, 1814, a banquet was held dedicated to the restoration of the Bourbons. The further events of Napoleon’s “hundred days” and the Battle of Waterloo are essentially a police operation of the West, and not a continuation of the Napoleonic Wars, which by that time had solved some European problems without, however, solving the “Russian question”.

THE EMERGENCE OF SWITZERLAND AS A GLOBAL MANAGERIAL “TRIGON”

The cantons located in the valleys of Schwyz (where the country's name came from), Uri and Unterwalden, dissatisfied with the Habsburg policy of abolishing communal privileges, began to fight. Having managed to come to an agreement with the Holy Roman Empire, first Uri in 1231, and then Schwyz in 1240, received the rights of imperial territories and were freed from the claims of petty feudal lords.

The founding year of Switzerland is considered to be 1291, when the inhabitants of three Alpine valleys entered into an agreement on mutual support in case of attack.

A decade and a half later, the Reformation began in Switzerland. There is a spread of Protestant ideas in Zurich and Geneva and a split in Switzerland into two hostile religious camps. Two interfaith wars end in the defeat of the Protestant cantons. Strengthening the regime of dominance of the city nobility (patricians). For the next three centuries, the confrontation between Catholics and Protestants continued, repeatedly resulting in bloody wars.

Although, at the same time, the time from 1415 to 1513 is called the “heroic age” of Swiss history. The Confederation fought successful wars against the Habsburgs, France, the Holy Roman Empire, and the Dukes of Milan, Savoy, and Burgundy. Thanks to these victories, the Swiss gained a reputation as excellent warriors, and the confederation expanded to 13 cantons.

In 1648, the Peace of Westphalia was signed, in which there is a separate “Swiss Article”, which means the completion of a long process that began in 1499 (when, during the “Swabian War” with the Great Roman Empire of the German nation, the actual independence of Switzerland from the empire was established), in as a result of which Switzerland becomes independent not only in fact, but also formally and legally.

To govern the confederation, all-Union diets were periodically convened, while Switzerland did not have a common army, government or finance. This management system lasted until the French Revolution (1798).

From 1798 until Napoleon's defeat at Waterloo, Switzerland was under French rule. Having occupied Switzerland, France imposed a constitution copied from the French one. But it attacked traditional federalism, and many Swiss did not support it. Having come to power, Napoleon gave the country a new Constitution in 1802, restoring many of the rights of the cantons and expanding their number from 13 to 19. After Napoleon's defeat, the cantons renounced his constitution and made attempts to recreate the previous confederation, but the country had already lived for some time under the federal government, which affected the future history of Switzerland.

It was in 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon, that the Treaty of Union was signed in Switzerland, proclaiming the union of 22 cantons. It was then that the great powers recognized perpetual neutrality of Switzerland, which was secured by the Congress of Vienna and the Paris Peace Treaty.

In subsequent years, there was a struggle between the patrician power of individual cantons and supporters of the transformation of Switzerland into an integral state on democratic principles, which ended in 1848 with the victory of the latter (just 5 years before the Crimean War!). A constitution was adopted and a federal parliament was created, and from then on a period of quiet development of the Swiss Confederation began.

The territorial structure of Switzerland as a federal republic currently includes 26 cantons (20 cantons and 6 half-cantons). The cantons (German Kantone, French cantons, Italian cantoni, Roman chantuns) are the largest state-territorial units of the Swiss Confederation. The lowest level of territorial-administrative division is communities (German: Gemeinde), of which there were 2,495 as of January 2012 (in 2011 - 2,495 communities)

Each canton has its own constitution and laws, the legislative body is the cantonal council (kantonsrat), or grand council, the executive body is the ruling council (regierungsrat), or council of state, consisting of the governor (landammann), or chairman of the state council, and government advisers ( regierungsrat), or state councilors. Canton is completely independent in solving internal problems. The central government is in charge of international affairs, the federal budget and the issue of money. However, Switzerland is a single state. Country motto: " One for all and all for one!"(Latin: Unus pro omnibus, omnes pro uno).

gold standard

The beginning of the era of the “gold standard” (legislative formalization of guaranteed gold backing of state credit notes) is considered to be the period after the Napoleonic wars: 1816 - 1821 (“Gold”, A.V. Anikin, ed. 1988).

gold standard- a system of monetary relations in which each country expressed the value of its currency in a certain amount of gold, and central banks or governments were obliged to buy and sell gold at a fixed price.

England has been applying this principle since 1816, the USA - since 1837, Germany - since 1875, but the first country to legislate the gold standard was Napoleonic France, which chose the bimetallic gold-silver system in 1803. The gold standard of the Napoleondor coin (issued from 1803 to 1914) was introduced by Napoleon I, who abolished the previous louis d'or-based coinage and set the standard for the gold content of the franc at 0.2903 g (the so-called "germinal franc"). The coin received its name from the profile of Napoleon Bonaparte originally depicted on it.

But still, the main development of the world gold standard system took place in England.

England's gold standard

The history of gold money in England from the discovery of America to the end of the 17th century will not take up much space. This was the era of quasi-bimetallism, when both gold and silver coins were constantly minted and had equal legal rights as money. In general, during these two centuries the exchange rate was favorable for silver. Therefore, silver money predominated in circulation.

In the first three quarters of the 18th century. the coin coefficient was favorable for gold and unfavorable for silver, thereby promoting the entry of the yellow metal into England and the displacement of the white metal.

In 1797, English paper money consisted of notes issued by the Bank of England and circulated primarily in and around London, and notes from “provincial” banks circulated primarily near the place of issue. Banknotes were subject to exchange for specie upon demand, but were not a legal means of payment.

There were no restrictions on English banks receiving deposits and circulating them in the form of bank checks; in the second half of the 18th century. - early 19th century the use of such deposit currency was constantly expanding.

From 1797 to 1821, England had a de facto paper monetary standard, although a law was passed in 1816 that switched it to a pure gold standard 5 years later.

Early in 1819, both houses of Parliament appointed secret committees to consider the issue of resuming the exchange. Both committees eventually adopted a recommendation that the Bank of England be obliged to resume, from February 1, 1820, the exchange of notes for gold in accordance with a specially designed scale of depreciation of gold prices, with the resumption of full cash payment no later than May 1, 1823. This system of gradual return to the free exchange of banknotes for gold through a gradual change in the exchange rate was never put into practice. Even before February 1820, the premium on gold disappeared, and on May 1, 1821, payments in specie at par were fully resumed.

Thus, after a paper monetary standard of about a quarter of a century, England returned to the metal standard, but now it was the gold standard rather than the bimetallic standard, which had been abolished in 1797.

Based on the laws of 1816 and 1817, the English gold standard, after returning to specie payments in 1821, functioned until the outbreak of the First World War in 1914.

The gold standard was formalized at a conference in Paris in 1821. The basis is gold, which was legally assigned the role of the main form of money. The exchange rate of national currencies was strictly tied to gold and, through the gold content of the currency, related to each other at a fixed rate.

Pushkin's interest

Of course, one can consider it an accident that this period coincided with the time of the creation of “Ruslan and Lyudmila”. But accidents that reflect certain patterns are essentially statistical predeterminations. If we take into account that the Napoleonic wars were financed by the Rothschild clan, then we can only admit that Pushkin, at the age of twenty, saw and understood the general course of things better than the Russian Decembrist Freemasons, brought up on the economic thought of the West. A.V. Anikin (real name - Yevreisky), the author of the above-mentioned monograph on the role of gold in the financial and credit system, was so concerned about Pushkin’s knowledge of Chernomor’s beard that he published a special book “Muse and Mammon. Socio-economic motives in Pushkin,” ed. 1989. From it we learn that the Jewish Anika warrior was most concerned about Pushkin's early interest in the behind-the-scenes activities of the Rothschild banking house. On the other hand, thanks to the information of Anikin, an authoritative specialist in Jewish financial circles, the reader had the opportunity to get acquainted with the rationale for the historical pattern of the birth of the poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila”.

ROTHSCHILDS AND NAPOLEONIC WARS

Rothschild brothers

The Frankfurt banker Mayer-Amschel, who became the founder of this dynasty, died on September 19, 1812. Five of his sons continued the business - Amschel Mayer (1773-1855), Solomon Mayer (1774-1855), Nathan Mayer (1777-1836), Kalmann Mayer (1788-1855) and James Mayer (1792-1868).

They became known as the “Five Fingers of One Hand.” Amschel conducted all business in Frankfurt. Nathan, who emigrated to Manchester, as already mentioned, became the founder of a British bank. Solomon founded the Austrian bank, Kalmann the Neapolitan bank, and James the French bank. And this is exactly how the gigantic fortune of the Rothschild family, who had a direct connection with the union of “free masons,” arose. James Rothschild quickly became one of the richest men in France, and his brother Nathan Rothschild achieved enormous success in the gold bullion trade and became the most sought-after moneylender in London.

Even when Napoleon was victoriously walking through Europe, and the Rothschilds were profiting from military orders, he suddenly refused to the Rothschild clan to join their financial empire to his. Moreover, in February 1800 he created the Bank of France, independent of the Rothschilds. And in April 1803, he carried out a monetary reform, introducing silver and gold francs, and the Bank of France received the exclusive right to issue money.

The Rothschilds were outraged, but Napoleon said:

“The hand that gives is always higher than the hand that takes. Financiers have no patriotism and honesty - their only goal is profit."

If the government depends on the bankers, then the country is run not by the government, but by the bankers.

But Napoleon needed money, and therefore in the same 1803 he sold French territories in North America to the United States. Their size was then approximately 2.1 million square meters. km, and the transaction price is 15 million dollars, or 80 million French francs. In carrying out this transaction, Napoleon used the banks of the Rothschilds' direct competitors - the Baring banking house in London and the Hope Bank in Amsterdam. With the help of the money he received, he quickly equipped an army and began to spread his influence throughout Europe, capturing everything in his path.

Operation Gold

The Rothschild clan could not forgive Napoleon, who soon became emperor, for such arbitrariness. And they declared war on the impostor, that is, they began to provide loans to almost any country that was in the camp of his opponents. In fact, the Rothschild clan decided to overthrow Napoleon, for which it began to actively finance the British and Russians, that is, his main opponents. Napoleon did not want to fight with Russia, but he was forced to do so, and this could not have happened without the hand of the Rothschilds.

When in 1812 the main body of Napoleon's army was already in Russia, Nathan Rothschild came up with a brilliant plan to finance the “second front”, that is, the actions of the Duke of Wellington’s army on the Iberian Peninsula. To do this, Nathan Rothschild bought 800 thousand pounds (those pounds!) of gold from the East India Company, and then sold this gold, so necessary for Wellington to conduct military operations, to the English government. Naturally, he did this with huge profits. However, the British did not know how to transfer this gold to Wellington through French territory. And then the Rothschilds themselves took on this risky business.

The essence of the operation they carried out is as follows: first, James Rothschild unexpectedly appeared in Paris, and then his brothers wrote him letters containing feigned complaints that they were going to take gold from England to Spain, but the English government allegedly flatly refused them this. At the same time, the Rothschilds made sure that their messages to their brother would definitely fall into the hands of the French secret police. And the French Ministry of Finance took the bait. If the English enemies are against gold leaving England, the French ministry decided that these same Rothschilds must be helped so that they can still take out this gold of theirs...

Thus, the trick with the letters was a success, and Napoleon's government helped the Rothschilds to ensure that the gold eventually ended up in Spain, where it entered Wellington's army, which fought against the French.

Later, at a business dinner in London, Nathan Rothschild boasted that this was the best deal of his life.

It is worth noting that the Rothschilds also made good money from the continental blockade of England. At that time, Europe could only obtain British colonial goods (spices, cotton, tobacco, coffee, etc.) by smuggling. So, Nathan Rothschild created a reliable network of smugglers who passed through any Napoleonic cordons. And, of course, the prices for these goods were fantastic.

Nathan Rothschild

It is also believed that Nathan Rothschild personally organized the collapse of the London Stock Exchange after Wellington's victory at Waterloo. And it's called his "best deal." However, this is only very far from what actually happened. Although the Rothschilds themselves at some point believed in this myth, which indicates the reliability of the moral and psychological qualities of Nathan from the myth and Nathan in life.

The Myth of the “Best Deal”

It told about the Battle of Waterloo, which was allegedly witnessed by Nathan Rothschild. By the evening of June 18, 1815, the founder of the London branch of the Rothschild banking empire realized that the French had lost the battle. On fast horses, he reached the Belgian coast with great speed for those times. Nathan urgently needed to cross to the British Isles, but due to a storm at sea, all the ships were in ports.

The sea storm still did not stop the enterprising financier. He paid one of the fishermen such a fare that he decided to take a risk and went out to sea.

Nathan Rothschild's idea was simple and effective. He was in a hurry to take advantage of what was highly valued in the financial world even then, two centuries ago - important information. Taking advantage of the fact that no one on the London Stock Exchange but himself knew about Wellington's victory, he bought a huge number of shares and then sold them at a higher price, earning 20 million francs in a matter of hours.

This story has been included in numerous biographies of the House of Rothschild. It was composed by Georges Darnavell, who held left-wing political views. He, moreover, did not hide his hatred of Jews in general and especially the Rothschilds, who by 1846 were already one of the richest and most famous people in Europe.

Supporters of Georges Darnavell's version proved it with the help of an article in the London Courier for June 20, 1815. The note, published two days after the battle and the day before the official announcement of victory, said that Rothschild had bought up a lot of shares.

At first glance, the article proves the version of enrichment and confirms the legend, but it turned out that it did not happen. A check of the archives that contain the London Courier for June 15, 1815 shows that there is no article about Rothschild purchasing a large number of shares. It was even possible to establish the source of origin of this misinformation. It appeared in 1848 in the writings of the Scottish historian Archibald Alison. In addition, supporters of the story of the “greedy villain” Rothschild cite the diary of a young American, James Gallatin, who visited London in 1815, but in 1957 it turned out that it was a fake.

One of the Rothschilds was the first to refute the fable composed by Georges Darnavell, already in the eighties of the last century. Baron Victor Rothschild, who wrote a book about the ancestor Nathan, established that Darnawell's "Satan" lies at the heart of the whole story, and exposed many of the fables contained in it.

On the other hand, Victor Rothschild found in the archive a letter from an employee of one of the Parisian banks, written a month after Waterloo. It contained the following phrase:

“Commissioner White tells me that you made excellent use of the information you received regarding the victory at Waterloo.”

However, three decades later, new information appeared that refuted this evidence of Nathan Rothschild’s “guilt.” It has now been proven that the first to hear the news of the victory at Waterloo was not Nathan, but a certain “Mr. S. from Dover.” He learned about the defeat of the French in Ghent and immediately rushed to London with the news. Mr. S. spoke of the victory in the City on the morning of June 21, 1815, i.e. at least 12 hours before the official announcement of the news. At least three London newspapers wrote about it that day.

It is also known that in the evening Nathan Rothschild received a letter from Ghent reporting the victory at Waterloo and that he hastened to convey this news to the authorities.

Although Rothschild was not the only one who learned about Napoleon's defeat earlier than others, he had enough time to buy shares. However, the amount of profit is clearly very overestimated. However, in general, this story shows the attitude of the Rothschilds to the opportunities to profit from the war (read the details of this story here - http://expert.ru/2015/05/4/kapital-rotshildov/).

A century later, the name of Nathan Rothschild was inscribed in the Guinness Book of Records as the most brilliant financier of all time and a representative of a family that by the middle of the 19th century became the richest in the world. It is not for nothing that the rest of the 19th century is called the “century of the Rothschilds.”

Naturally, they were closely connected with the Freemasons. Moreover, it can be argued that the Masonic lodges, receiving the funding they needed, were complicit with the Rothschilds, but it cannot be said that these were all Masonic lodges.

It is even believed that Robespierre himself was a blind instrument in the hands of Mayer-Amschel Rothschild. No wonder the Incorruptible said:

“It seems to me that we are constantly being pushed by a “hidden hand” against our will. Every day our Committee of Public Safety does what yesterday it decided not to do.”

Robespierre was deprived of his life also because he dared to express his indignation: the foreigners, represented by Adam Weishaupt and other Rothschild agents, turned into real rulers!

Napoleon also did not want to serve secret lodges and foreign billionaires. I paid for this. He died on May 5, 1821 in exile, on a distant island lost in the Atlantic Ocean. And his fall, which began in 1812 in Russia, without a doubt, became a real triumph of the Rothschild clan, which is only one of the strands of Chernomor’s huge beard.

CHERNOMORA'S BEARD

The poem “Ruslan and Lyudmila” was written by Pushkin from 1818 to 1820, when the gold standard had already appeared in Europe.

Chernomor's beard is the first holistic allegorical representation of the financial and credit system in literature. I.V. Goethe, a contemporary of Pushkin, would touch upon this topic ten years later, in the second part of Faust. An eighty-year-old man, coming from a wealthy merchant family, he was concerned about the decline in public confidence in the new means of payment for that time - paper money. Therefore, his Mephistopheles, while explaining to “those of little faith” the benefits of a new form of money for society as a whole, simultaneously worked for the global Rothschild international.

“With tickets you are always light,
They are more convenient than money in your wallet,
They relieve you of your luggage
When buying valuables and selling them.
You will need gold, metal
I have the money changer in stock,
If they don’t have it, we’re digging up the ground.
And we cover the entire paper issue,
We are selling the find at auction
And we repay the loan in full.
Again we shame the man of little faith,
Everyone glorifies our measure in chorus,
And with gold coinage on a par
The paper is strengthening in the country.”

However, incantations alone, even in a highly artistic form, were apparently not enough to restore confidence in the means of payment, and in 1867, the world's gesheftmakhers, with special agreements in Paris (at an international exhibition) on the introduction of the “gold standard,” made the first attempt to stop the growth of the “beard” of the world spider.

With the beginning of the First World War (if we count from the Napoleonic wars, then the third, since the battles of the “Crimean War” took place in the Baltic, the White Sea and Kamchatka, which means it can be considered the second), these agreements lost force, and until 1944 Chernomor's beard, one might say, grew uncontrollably.

In 1944, a second attempt was made to introduce the “gold standard” in the United States at Bretton Woods. The Soviet Union also took part in the development of the Bretton Woods agreements as part of delegations from 44 countries. Stalin, who by the end of the war had risen to the level of conceptual confrontation with the Western leaders of global politics, understood that the charter of the International Monetary Fund, developed within the framework of these agreements, was just an attempt to take control of the growth of Chernomor’s beard, thanks to which it would be possible to strangle in a “civilized” way all the "beauties of the world". Not wanting to replenish the gallows gallery with the peoples of the USSR, Stalin refused to ratify the Bretton Woods agreements in 1945 and for some time closed the path to the expansion of generalized weapons of fourth priority (world money) into the USSR for the hunchbacked dwarf.

RESULTS OF THE NAPOLEONIC WARS

We consider it important to note that the Napoleonic Wars solved many problems at the level of global politics:

• The ideological monopoly of the Holy Roman Empire, like itself, was finally crushed, which opened the door for the Reformation and the spread of liberalism throughout Europe.
• The Kingdom of Prussia was destroyed and the conditions were created for the “smoldering” of Germany’s hot spot in Europe (in fact, the foundations were laid in the form of German territorial claims for the First World War of the 20th century, although before that the situation should have still matured).
• Switzerland has finally emerged as an “incubator” and “testing ground” for testing various management technologies, which status it still retains today, given the peculiarity that each canton has its own constitution, laws, legislature and government.
• The West could not solve the “Russian question” by sending the Napoleon it created to the east, which Victory in the Patriotic War caused an upsurge in the Russian spirit.
  Tarle E.V. in his book “Napoleon's Invasion, 1959,” on p. 737. said “without the twelfth year there would have been no Pushkin.” The entire Russian culture and national identity received a powerful impetus in the year of the Napoleonic invasion. And according to A.I. Herzen, from the point of view of the creative activity of broad layers of society, “the true history of Russia is revealed only in 1812; everything that came before was just a preface.”
• But the year 1812 is also associated with the “desire for free-thinking,” which ultimately led to the Decembrist uprising in 1825, of whom more than half of those involved in this case were members of Masonic lodges and worked under the leadership of foreign senior Masonic hierarchs for implementation in Russia "ideals" of the Western project. Infection with their “fashionable disease” could well have occurred during the campaign against Paris (although it happened earlier - for Europeans, Russia was “opened” by Peter I). The unjustifiably bloody experience of the French Revolution and the counter-revolutionary uprising in the Vendée, which devoured both their own and other people’s children, taught them nothing. A.A. Bestuzhev enthusiastically wrote to Nicholas I from the Peter and Paul Fortress: “...Napoleon invaded Russia, and then the Russian people first felt their strength; It was then that a feeling of independence, first political, and subsequently popular, awakened in all hearts. This is the beginning of free thought in Russia.”

We have been disentangling the results of the spread of this “free-thinking”, not free from Masonic rituals and vows, for more than two centuries.

One of the next attempts to solve the “Russian question” on a local scale was the Crimean War, which we will talk about in the second part of this material.