England in the Nineteenth Century
by Charles William Chadwick Oman (9780217206327)

Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. THE STRUGGLE WITH BONAPARTE: (2) THE CONTINENTAL SYSTEM?THE PENINSULAR WAR WATERLOO. 1806-1815. With the battles of Trafalgar and Austerlitz, followed by the death of Pitt, the first stage in the great struggle with the French emperor came to an end. There was no jjaDOieon's further talk of the invasion of England, nor did second line Bonaparte attempt any more to dispute the ofPucy- dominion of the seas. But his mind was none the less set on the humiliation of England, though his methods of assailing her became more indirect. He had now in his eye the establishment of a domination over the whole of Europe. The first step towards the systematic reduction of his neighbours to subjection was the establishment of the " Confederation of the Rhine," whose members were from the first his slaves. The second was the planting out of his relatives as rulers of the smaller states of Europe. In 1806 his brother Joseph was made King of Naples, from which the imbecile Bourbon house were driven out, because they had dared to show sympathy with Austria during the war of 1805. A few months later came the crowning of his brother Lewis as King of Holland?the Bata- vian republic being ruthlessly swept away, without any option being given to the Dutch of declaring their wishes as to the government of their land. Bonaparte began to talk of himself as the " successor of Charlemagne," an ominous saying forGermans and Spaniards, since the great Frankish emperor's dominions had extended as far as the Elbe and the E ro. Meanwhile Pitt had found no competent successor in England. No statesman commanded sufficient authority with the people or the Parliament to take his place, ministry The result that followed was a coalition ministry. The WniS party, excluded from office for m...

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