talwabatal - imperium coloniae 1800

1800

The Battle of Marengo

was fought on 14 June 1800 between French forces under the First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte and Austrian forces near the city of Alessandria, in Piedmont, Italy. Near the end of the day, the French overcame General Michael von Melas surprise attack, drove the Austrians out of Italy and consolidated Bonaparte's political position in Paris as First Consul of France in the wake of his coup d'état the previous November.[7]

Surprised by the Austrian advance toward Genoa in mid-April 1800, Bonaparte hastily led his army over the Alps in mid-May and reached Milan on 2 June. After cutting Melas's line of communications by crossing the River Po and defeating Feldmarschallleutnant (FML) Peter Karl Ott von Bátorkéz at Montebello on 9 June, the French closed in on the Austrian Army, which had massed in Alessandria. Deceived by a local double agent, Bonaparte dispatched large forces to the north and the south, but the Austrians launched a surprise attack on 14 June against the main French army, under General Louis Alexandre Berthier.[8]

Initially, their two assaults across the Fontanone stream near Marengo village were repelled, and General Jean Lannes reinforced the French right. Bonaparte realized the true position and issued orders at 11:00 am to recall the detachment under Général de Division (GdD) Louis Desaix while he moved his reserve forward. On the Austrian left, Ott's column had taken Castel Ceriolo, and its advance guard moved south to attack Lannes' flank. Melas renewed the main assault, and the Austrians broke the central French position. By 2:30 pm, the French were withdrawing, and Austrian dragoons seized the Marengo farm.[8] Bonaparte had by then arrived with the reserve, but Berthier's troops began to fall back on the main vine belts. Knowing that Desaix was approaching, Bonaparte was anxious about a column of Ott's soldiers marching from the north and so he deployed his Consular Guard infantry to delay it. The French then withdrew steadily eastward toward San Giuliano Vecchio as the Austrians formed a column to follow them, as Ott also advanced in the northern sector.[8]

Desaix's arrival at around 5:30 pm stabilized the French position, as the 9th Light Infantry Regiment delayed the Austrian advance down the main road and the rest of the army reformed north of Cascina Grossa. As the pursuing Austrian troops arrived, a mix of musketry and artillery fire concealed the surprise attack of Général de Brigade (GdB) François Étienne de Kellermann’s cavalry, which threw the Austrian pursuit into disordered flight back into Alessandria, with about 14,000 killed, wounded or captured. The French casualties were considerably fewer but included Desaix. The whole French line chased after the Austrians to seal une victoire politique (a political victory) that secured Bonaparte's grip on power after the coup. It would be followed by a propaganda campaign that sought to rewrite the story of the battle three times during his rule.[8]

The Battle of Marengo, by Louis-François Lejeune

Napoleon is presented the body of Desaix by Jean Broc (1771–1850)

The Battle of Marengo was Napoleon's first great victory as head of state , circle of Jean-Simon Berthelemy

1804

La Grande Armée

(French for 'The Great Army'; French pronunciation: [ɡʀɑ̃d aʀme]) was the main military component of the French Imperial Army commanded by Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte during the Napoleonic Wars. From 1804 to 1808, it won a series of military victories that allowed the French Empire to exercise unprecedented control over most of Europe. Widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest fighting forces ever assembled, it suffered enormous losses during the disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, after which it never recovered its strategic superiority.

The Grande Armée was formed in 1804 from the L'Armée des côtes de l'Océan (Army of the Ocean Coasts), a force of over 100,000 men that Napoleon had assembled for the proposed invasion of Britain. Napoleon later deployed the army in eastern Europe to eliminate the combined threat of Austria and Russia, which were part of the Third Coalition formed against France. Thereafter, the Grande Armée was the principal military force deployed in the campaigns of 1806/7, the French invasion of Spain, and 1809, where it earned its prestige, and in the conflicts of 1812, 1813–14, and 1815. In practice, however, the term Grande Armée is used in English to refer to all the multinational forces gathered by Napoleon in his campaigns.[2]

In addition to its size and multinational composition, the Grande Armée was known for its innovative formations, tactics, logistics, and communications. While most contingents were commanded by French generals, except for the Polish and Austrian corps, soldiers could climb the ranks regardless of class, wealth, or national origin.

Upon its formation, the Grande Armée consisted of six corps under the command of Napoleon's marshals and senior generals. When the Austrian and Russian armies began preparations to invade France in late 1805, the Grande Armée was quickly ordered across the Rhine into southern Germany, leading to Napoleon's victories at Ulm and Austerlitz. The French army grew as Napoleon seized power across Europe, recruiting troops from occupied and allied nations; it reached its peak of one million men at the start of the Russian campaign in 1812,[3] with the Grande Armée reaching its height of 413,000 French soldiers and over 600,000 men overall when including foreign recruits.[4]

In summer of 1812, the Grande Armée marched slowly east, and the Russians fell back with its approach. After the capture of Smolensk and victory at Borodino, the French reached Moscow on 14 September 1812. However, the army was already drastically reduced by skirmishes with the Russians, disease (principally typhus), desertion, heat, exhaustion, and long communication lines. The army spent a month in Moscow but was ultimately forced to march back westward. Cold, starvation, and disease, as well as constant harassment by Cossacks and Russian partisans, resulted in the Grande Armée's utter destruction as a fighting force. Only 120,000 men survived to leave Russia (excluding early deserters); of these, 50,000 were Austrians, Prussians, and other Germans, 20,000 were Poles, and just 35,000 were French.[5] As many as 380,000 died in the campaign.[6]

Napoleon led a new army during the campaign in Germany in 1813, the defence of France in 1814, and the Waterloo campaign in 1815, but the Grande Armée would never regain its height of June 1812. In total, from 1805 to 1813, over 2.1 million Frenchmen were conscripted into the French Imperial Army.[7]

1804

Coronation of Napoleon

Napoleon was crowned Emperor of the French on Sunday, December 2, 1804 (11 Frimaire, Year XIII according to the French Republican calendar), at Notre-Dame de Paris in Paris. It marked "the instantiation of [the] modern empire" and was a "transparently masterminded piece of modern propaganda".[1]

Napoleon wanted to establish the legitimacy of his imperial reign, with its new dynasty and new nobility. To this end, he designed a new coronation ceremony unlike that for the kings of France, which had emphasized the king's consecration (sacre) and anointment and was conferred by the archbishop of Reims in Reims Cathedral.[2] Napoleon's was a sacred ceremony held in the great cathedral of Notre Dame de Paris in the presence of Pope Pius VII. Napoleon brought together various rites and customs, incorporating ceremonies of Carolingian tradition, the Ancien Régime and the French Revolution, all presented in sumptuous luxury.[3]

On May 18, 1804, the Sénat conservateur vested the Republican government of the French First Republic in an emperor, and preparations for a coronation followed. Napoleon's elevation to emperor was overwhelmingly approved by the French citizens in the French constitutional referendum of 1804. Among Napoleon's motivations for being crowned were to gain prestige in international royalist and Catholic circles and to lay the foundation for a future dynasty.[2]: 243

The coronation balloon

Arrival of Napoleon at Notre-Dame for his coronation

Napoleon in coronation robes by François Gérard

The curule seat that was part of a set made for the reception of Napoleon by the corps legislatif after his coronation as emperor. Made in the workshop of Jacob-Desmalter and designed by Bernard Poyet, 1805

Napoleon I on his Imperial Throne by Jean-Auguste-Dominique Ingres, 1806

The Battle of Trafalgar, 21 October 1805 by Clarkson Frederick Stanfield

Battle of Trafalgar by William Lionel Wyllie, Juno Tower, CFB Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada

The Battle of Trafalgar painted by Samuel Drummond in 1825

The actual title of the image is unknown, painted in 1836 by Auguste Mayer, it is suggested that the information about the painting was lost during WWII and it was given incorrect background and title when recovered. The picture is one of six that Mayer painted in 1836 about the struggle and fights of ship of the line Bucentaure during the Battle of Trafalgar (cf. musée national de la Marine website). The ship in the foreground on right (firing to the Bucentaure) is the British 2nd-rate Sandwich, not present at Trafalgar, actually being hulked for harbour duty at the time. It is therefore generally held that the Sandwich is actually the British 2nd-rate Temeraire, incorrectly titled by the artist, and the dismasted ship in foreground left is the French 74-gun 3rd-rate Redoutable. Research shows that the French ship in the foreground is actually Bucentaure, as the figurehead is that of Bucentaure, the ship is a two-decker fitting the description and design of Bucentaure and the men clustered around the mainmast fit with the events aboard the Bucentaure during the battle.

Artist's conception of the situation at noon as Royal Sovereign was breaking into the Franco-Spanish line

Painter Denis Dighton's imagining of Nelson being shot on the quarterdeck of Victory

The gale after Trafalgar, depicted by Thomas Buttersworth.

The Battle of Trafalgar by J. M. W. Turner (oil on canvas, 1822–1824) combines events from several moments during the battle

Detail from a modern reproduction of an 1805 poster commemorating the battle

Nelson on top of Nelson's Column in Trafalgar Square in London

1805

The Battle of Trafalgar

(21 October 1805) was a naval engagement between the British Royal Navy and the combined fleets of the French and Spanish Navies during the War of the Third Coalition (August–December 1805) of the Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815).[5]

As part of Napoleon's plans to invade England, the French and Spanish fleets combined to take control of the English Channel and provide the Grande Armée safe passage. The allied fleet, under the command of the French admiral, Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, sailed from the port of Cádiz in the south of Spain on 18 October 1805. They encountered the British fleet under Lord Nelson, recently assembled to meet this threat, in the Atlantic Ocean along the southwest coast of Spain, off Cape Trafalgar.

Nelson was outnumbered, with 27 British ships of the line to 33 allied ships including the largest warship in either fleet, the Spanish Santísima Trinidad. To address this imbalance, Nelson sailed his fleet directly at the allied battle line's flank, hoping to break it into pieces. Villeneuve had worried that Nelson might attempt this tactic but, for various reasons, had made no plans in case this occurred. The plan worked almost perfectly; Nelson's columns split the Franco-Spanish fleet in three, isolating the rear half from Villeneuve's flag aboard Bucentaure. The allied vanguard sailed off while it attempted to turn around, giving the British temporary superiority over the remainder of their fleet. The ensuing fierce battle resulted in 22 allied ships being lost, while the British lost none.

The tactic exposed the leading ships in the British lines to intense fire from multiple ships as they approached the Franco-Spanish lines. Nelson's own HMS Victory led the front column and was almost knocked out of action. Nelson was shot by a French musketeer and died shortly before the battle ended. Villeneuve was captured along with his flagship Bucentaure. He attended Nelson's funeral while a captive on parole in Britain. The senior Spanish fleet officer, Admiral Federico Gravina, escaped with the remnant of the Franco-Spanish fleet (a third of what it had been in number of ships); he died of wounds sustained during the battle five months later.

The victory confirmed the naval supremacy Britain had established during the course of the eighteenth century, and was achieved in part through Nelson's departure from prevailing naval tactical orthodoxy.[6]

1805

The Battle of Austerlitz

(2 December 1805/11 Frimaire An XIV FRC), also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of the most important and decisive engagements of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle occurred near the town of Austerlitz in the Austrian Empire (modern-day Slavkov u Brna in the Czech Republic). The decisive victory of Napoleon's Grande Armée at Austerlitz brought the War of the Third Coalition to a rapid end, with the Treaty of Pressburg signed by the Austrians later in the month.[6] The battle is often cited as a tactical masterpiece, in the same league as other historic engagements like Cannae or Gaugamela.[7][8]

After eliminating an Austrian army during the Ulm Campaign, French forces seized Vienna in November 1805. The Austrians avoided further conflict until the arrival of the Russians bolstered Allied numbers. Napoleon sent his army north in pursuit of the Allies,[clarification needed] but then ordered his forces to retreat so he could feign a grave weakness. Desperate to lure the Allies into battle, Napoleon gave every indication in the days preceding the engagement that the French army was in a pitiful state, even abandoning the dominant Pratzen Heights near Austerlitz. He deployed the French army below the Pratzen Heights and deliberately weakened his right flank, enticing the Allies to launch a major assault there in the hopes of rolling up the whole French line. A forced march from Vienna by Marshal Davout and his III Corps plugged the gap left by Napoleon just in time. Meanwhile, the heavy Allied deployment against the French right weakened the allied center on the Pratzen Heights, which was viciously attacked by the IV Corps of Marshal Soult. With the Allied center demolished, the French swept through both enemy flanks and sent the Allies fleeing chaotically, capturing thousands of prisoners in the process.

The Allied disaster significantly shook the faith of Emperor Francis II in the British-led war effort. France and Austria agreed to an armistice immediately and the Treaty of Pressburg followed shortly after, on 26 December. Pressburg took Austria out of both the war and the Coalition while reinforcing the earlier treaties of Campo Formio and of Lunéville between the two powers. The treaty confirmed the Austrian loss of lands in Italy and Bavaria to France, and in Germany to Napoleon's German allies. It also imposed an indemnity of 40 million francs on the defeated Habsburgs and allowed the fleeing Russian troops free passage through hostile territories and back to their home soil. Critically, victory at Austerlitz permitted the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine, a collection of German states intended as a buffer zone between France and Central Europe. The Confederation rendered the Holy Roman Empire virtually useless, so the latter collapsed in 1806 after Francis abdicated the imperial throne. These achievements, however, did not establish a lasting peace on the continent. Prussian worries about growing French influence in Central Europe sparked the War of the Fourth Coalition in 1806.

1806

Francis II or I

(German: Franz II.; 12 February 1768 – 2 March 1835) was the last Holy Roman Emperor as Francis II (from 1792 to 1806), and the founder and Emperor of the Austrian Empire as Francis I (from 1804 to 1835). He assumed the title of Emperor of Austria in response to the coronation of Napoleon as Emperor of the French. Soon after Napoleon created the Confederation of the Rhine, Francis abdicated as Holy Roman Emperor. He was King of Hungary, Croatia and Bohemia. He also served as the first president of the German Confederation following its establishment in 1815.

Francis II continued his leading role as an opponent of Napoleonic France in the Napoleonic Wars, and suffered several more defeats after the Battle of Austerlitz. The marriage of his daughter Marie Louise of Austria to Napoleon on 10 March 1810 was arguably his severest personal defeat. After the abdication of Napoleon following the War of the Sixth Coalition, Austria participated as a leading member of the Holy Alliance at the Congress of Vienna, which was largely dominated by Francis' chancellor Klemens von Metternich culminating in a new European map and the restoration of most of Francis' ancient dominions. Due to the establishment of the Concert of Europe, which largely resisted popular nationalist and liberal tendencies, Francis was viewed as a reactionary later in his reign.

Francis II's grandchildren included Napoleon II (Napoleon's only legitimate son), Franz Joseph I of Austria, Maximilian I of Mexico, Maria II of Portugal and Pedro II of Brazil.

1806

The Kingdom of Holland

(Dutch: Koningrijk Holland (contemporary), Koninkrijk Holland (modern); French: Royaume de Hollande) was created by Napoleon Bonaparte, overthrowing the Batavian Republic in March 1806 in order to better control the Netherlands. Since becoming Emperor in 1804, Napoleon sought to extirpate republican tendencies in territories France controlled, and placed his third brother, Louis Bonaparte, on the throne of the puppet kingdom.[1] The name of the leading province, Holland, now designated the whole country. In 1807, East Frisia and Jever were added to the kingdom.

In 1809, after the Walcheren Campaign, Holland had to surrender all territories south of the river Rhine to France. Also in 1809, Dutch forces fighting on the French side participated in defeating the anti-Bonapartist German rebellion led by Ferdinand von Schill, at the battle of Stralsund.

King Louis did not perform to Napoleon's expectations – he tried to serve Dutch interests instead of his brother's – and the kingdom was dissolved in 1810, after which the Netherlands were annexed by France until 1813. Holland covered the area of the present-day Netherlands, with the exception of Limburg, and parts of Zeeland, which were French territory, and with the addition of East Frisia. It was the first formal monarchy in the Netherlands since 1581.

The long range result of the country having been a monarchy was to facilitate the ability of the House of Orange to assume, after Napoleon's fall, the status of full-fledged Monarchs – ending their centuries-long ambiguous status as Stadholders, which had been the source of unending instability and conflict throughout the history of the Dutch Republic.

Coat of arms of Holland

Flag of Holland

Louis Bonaparte, Constable of the Empire by François Gérard, 1806

Louis defends Dutch independence against Napoleon. Painted by Ten Kate

Francis I as Austrian Emperor, undated, Salzburg Museum

Printed version of the abdication of Emperor Francis II.

The Imperial Crown of Austria, used until the end of the Habsburg monarchy in Austria and originally made for Rudolf II, Holy Roman Emperor

Sarcophagus of Emperor Francis II in the Imperial Crypt in Vienna. The associated plaque describes him as the "last Roman emperor".

King Gustav IV of Sweden, who in 1806 issued a proclamation to his German subjects that the dissolution of the empire "would not destroy the German nation"

The German Empire (blue) and Austria-Hungary (red) in 1914

The modern states of Germany, seen by some as successors to the German states of the Holy Roman Empire

1806

The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

occurred de facto on 6 August 1806, when the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of the House of Habsburg-Lorraine, abdicated his title and released all imperial states and officials from their oaths and obligations to the empire. Since the Middle Ages, the Holy Roman Empire had been recognized by Western Europeans as the legitimate continuation of the ancient Roman Empire due to its emperors having been proclaimed as Roman emperors by the papacy. Through this Roman legacy, the Holy Roman Emperors claimed to be universal monarchs whose jurisdiction extended beyond their empire's formal borders to all of Christian Europe and beyond. The decline of the Holy Roman Empire was a long and drawn-out process lasting centuries. The formation of the first modern sovereign territorial states in the 16th and 17th centuries, which brought with it the idea that jurisdiction corresponded to actual territory governed, threatened the universal nature of the Holy Roman Empire.

The Holy Roman Empire by the time of the 18th century was widely regarded by contemporaries, both inside and outside the empire, as a highly "irregular" monarchy and "sick", having an "unusual" form of government. The empire lacked both a central standing army and a central treasury and its monarchs, formally elective rather than hereditary, could not exercise effective central control. Even then, most contemporaries believed that the empire could be revived and modernized. The Holy Roman Empire finally began its true terminal decline during and after its involvement in the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars.

Although the empire defended itself quite well initially, war with France and Napoleon proved catastrophic. In 1804, Napoleon proclaimed himself as the Emperor of the French, which Francis II responded to by proclaiming himself the Emperor of Austria, in addition to already being the Holy Roman Emperor, an attempt at maintaining parity between France and Austria while also illustrating that the Holy Roman title outranked them both. Austria's defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in December 1805 and the secession of a large number of Francis II's German vassals in July 1806 to form the Confederation of the Rhine, a French satellite state, effectively meant the end of the Holy Roman Empire. The abdication in August 1806, combined with a dissolution of the entire imperial hierarchy and its institutions, was seen as necessary to prevent the possibility of Napoleon proclaiming himself as Holy Roman Emperor, something which would have reduced Francis II to Napoleon's vassal.

Reactions to the empire's dissolution ranged from indifference to despair. The populace of Vienna, capital of the Habsburg monarchy, were horrified at the loss of the empire. Many of Francis II's former subjects questioned the legality of his actions; though his abdication was agreed to be perfectly legal, the dissolution of the empire and the release of all its vassals were seen as beyond the emperor's authority. As such, many of the empire's princes and subjects refused to accept that the empire was gone, with some commoners going so far as to believe that news of its dissolution was a plot by their local authorities. In Germany, the dissolution was widely compared to the ancient and semi-legendary Fall of Troy and some associated the end of what they perceived to be the Roman Empire with the end times and the apocalypse.

1806

The Confederated States of the Rhine

,[a] simply known as the Confederation of the Rhine,[b] also known as Napoleonic Germany, was a confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austria and Russia at the Battle of Austerlitz. Its creation brought about the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire shortly afterward. The Confederation of the Rhine lasted from 1806 to 1813.[1]

The founding members of the confederation were German princes of the Holy Roman Empire. They were later joined by 19 others, altogether ruling a total of over 15 million subjects. This granted a significant strategic advantage to the French Empire on its eastern frontier by providing a buffer between France and the two largest German states, Prussia and Austria (which also controlled substantial non-German lands).

The German princes render homage to the protector Napoleon, shortly after the ratification of the Confederation Treaty. This lithograph by Charles Motte was possibly made in the 1820s. The depiction should not be read literally; some princes were represented by envoys.

1806

The twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt

(German pronunciation: [ˈjeːna … ˈaʊ̯ɐ.ʃtɛt]; older spelling: Auerstädt) were fought on 14 October 1806 on the plateau west of the river Saale in today's Germany, between the forces of Napoleon I of France and Frederick William III of Prussia. The defeat suffered by the Prussian Army subjugated the Kingdom of Prussia to the French Empire until the Sixth Coalition was formed in 1813.[8]

Several figures who were later integral to the reformation of the Prussian Army participated at Jena–Auerstedt, including Gebhard von Blücher, Carl von Clausewitz, August Neidhardt von Gneisenau, Gerhard von Scharnhorst, and Hermann von Boyen.

Napoleon rebukes a Grenadier of his Imperial Guard, who (according to legend) eagerly shouted for attack ("en avant!" - "forward!") during the battle of Jena. By Horace Vernet, 1836[1]

French dragoon with captured Prussian flag at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, 1806 by Édouard Detaille (1848–1912)

Entry of Napoleon I into Berlin, 27th October 1806 by Charles Meynier (1768–1832)

The Pont d'Iéna in Paris was built to commemorate the Battle of Jena.

Upper and Lower Canada, circa 1812

James Madison, the fourth President of the United States (1809–1817). Madison was the leader of the Democratic-Republican Party, whose power base came from southern and western states.

Depiction of a British private soldier (left) and officer (right) of the period

Governor General George Prévost was urged to maintain a defensive strategy as British forces were already preoccupied with the Napoleonic Wars.

The United States Declaration of War (left) and Isaac Brock's Proclamation in response to it (right)

American expansion in the Indiana Territory

Northern theatre, War of 1812

The War of 1812

(18 June 1812 – 17 February 1815) was fought by the United States of America and its indigenous allies against the United Kingdom and its allies in British North America, with limited participation by Spain in Florida. It began when the United States declared war on 18 June 1812 and, although peace terms were agreed upon in the December 1814 Treaty of Ghent, did not officially end until the peace treaty was ratified by Congress on 17 February 1815.[11][12]

Tensions originated in long-standing differences over territorial expansion in North America and British support for Native American tribes who opposed U.S. colonial settlement in the Northwest Territory. These escalated in 1807 after the Royal Navy began enforcing tighter restrictions on American trade with France and press-ganged men they claimed as British subjects, even those with American citizenship certificates.[13] Opinion in the U.S. was split on how to respond, and although majorities in both the House and Senate voted for war, they divided along strict party lines, with the Democratic-Republican Party in favour and the Federalist Party against.[d][14] News of British concessions made in an attempt to avoid war did not reach the U.S. until late July, by which time the conflict was already underway.

At sea, the far larger Royal Navy imposed an effective blockade on U.S. maritime trade, while between 1812 to 1814 British regulars and colonial militia defeated a series of American attacks on Upper Canada.[15] This was balanced by the US winning control of the Northwest Territory with victories at Lake Erie and the Thames in 1813. The abdication of Napoleon in early 1814 allowed the British to send additional troops to North America and the Royal Navy to reinforce their blockade, crippling the American economy.[16] In August 1814, negotiations began in Ghent, with both sides wanting peace; the British economy had been severely impacted by the trade embargo, while the Federalists convened the Hartford Convention in December to formalise their opposition to the war.

In August 1814, British troops burned Washington, before American victories at Baltimore and Plattsburgh in September ended fighting in the north. Fighting continued in the Southeastern United States, where in late 1813 a civil war had broken out between a Creek faction supported by Spanish and British traders and those backed by the U.S. Supported by U.S. militia under General Andrew Jackson, the U.S.-backed Creeks won a series of victories, culminating in the capture of Pensacola in November 1814.[17] In early 1815, Jackson defeated a British attack on New Orleans, catapulting him to national celebrity and later victory in the 1828 United States presidential election.[18] News of this success arrived in Washington at the same time as that of the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which essentially restored the position to that prevailing before the war. While Britain insisted this included lands belonging to their Native American allies prior to 1811, as Congress did not recognize them as independent nations, the Americans did not comply with these provisions and the British made no effort to compel them to do so. The Native Americans were subsequently pushed west of the Mississippi River.

1812

The Battle of Salamanca

(in French and Spanish known as the Battle of Arapiles) on 22 July 1812 was a battle in which an Anglo-Portuguese army under the Earl of Wellington defeated Marshal Auguste Marmont's French forces at Arapiles, south of Salamanca, Spain, during the Peninsular War. A Spanish division was also present but took no part in the battle.

The battle involved a succession of flanking manoeuvres in oblique order, initiated by the British heavy cavalry brigade and Pakenham's 3rd Division and continued by the cavalry and the 4th, 5th and 6th divisions. These attacks resulted in a rout of the French left wing. Marmont and his deputy commander, General Bonet, received shrapnel wounds in the first few minutes of firing. Confusion amongst the French command may have been decisive in creating an opportunity, which Wellington seized.

General Bertrand Clauzel, third in seniority, assumed command and ordered a counter-attack by the French reserve toward the depleted Allied centre. The move proved partly successful but with Wellington having sent his reinforcements to the centre, the Anglo-Portuguese forces prevailed.

Allied losses numbered 3,129 British and 2,038 Portuguese dead or wounded. The Spanish troops took no part in the battle as they were positioned to block French escape routes and suffered just six casualties. The French suffered about 13,000 dead, wounded and captured. As a consequence of Wellington's victory, his army was able to advance to and liberate Madrid for two months, before retreating to Portugal. The French were forced to abandon Andalusia permanently while the loss of Madrid irreparably damaged King Joseph's pro-French government.

Gregory Fremont-Barnes (main editor) - The Encyclopedia of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, page 860. Adapted from Fremont-Barnes 2002A, 62.

W & A.K. Johnston Battle of Salamanca 22 July 1812 published by William Blackwood & Sons 1870

At the Battle of Salamanca, Sir Edward Pakenham's 3rd Division charges Thomieres

Wellington at Salamanca by William Heath

The Duke of Wellington is standing at half-length, wearing Field Marshal’s uniform, with the Garter star and sash, the badge of the Golden Fleece, and a special badge ordered by the Prince Regent to be worn from 1815 by Knights Grand Cross of the Military Division of the Order of the Bath who were also Knights Companion of the Order of the Garter.

1812

The Battle of Borodino

(Russian pronunciation: [bərədʲɪˈno])[a] took place near the village of Borodino on 7 September [O.S. 26 August] 1812[5] during Napoleon's invasion of Russia. The Grande Armée won the battle against the Imperial Russian Army but failed to gain a decisive victory and suffered tremendous losses. Napoleon fought against General Mikhail Kutuzov, whom the Emperor Alexander I of Russia had appointed to replace Barclay de Tolly on 29 August [O.S. 17 August] 1812 after the Battle of Smolensk. After the Battle of Borodino, Napoleon remained on the battlefield with his army; the Imperial Russian forces retreated in an orderly fashion southwards. Because the Imperial Russian army had severely weakened the Grande Armée, they allowed the French occupation of Moscow since they used the city as bait to trap Napoleon and his men.[6] The failure of the Grande Armée to completely destroy the Imperial Russian army, in particular Napoleon's reluctance to deploy his Imperial Guard, has been widely criticised by historians as a huge blunder, as it allowed the Imperial Russian army to continue its retreat into territory increasingly hostile to the French. Approximately a quarter of a million soldiers were involved in the battle, and it was the bloodiest single day of the Napoleonic Wars.

E. Percy Moran, The Battle of New Orleans (1910)

The battle as painted by Jean Hyacinthe de Laclotte, a member of the Louisiana Militia, based on his sketches made at the scene

The Death of Pakenham at the Battle of New Orleans by F. O. C. Darley shows the death of British Maj. Gen. Sir Edward Pakenham on January 8, 1815

Affair Below New Orleans: December 23, 1814[33]

Two examples of artillery pieces on Line Jackson. The one on the right is naval artillery and the left one is army artillery. The Americans used both equally. The British used mostly naval artillery during the campaign and with the small wheels and large frames these guns became bogged down in the muddy fields of Chalmette.

British Generals Pakenham and Gibbs Memorial at St. Paul's Cathedral in London

1814

The Battle of New Orleans

was fought on January 8, 1815[1] between the British Army under Major General Sir Edward Pakenham and the United States Army under Brevet Major General Andrew Jackson,[2] roughly 5 miles (8 km) southeast of the French Quarter of New Orleans,[6] in the current suburb of Chalmette, Louisiana.[2]

The battle was the climax of the five-month Gulf Campaign (September 1814 to February 1815) by Britain to try to take New Orleans, West Florida, and possibly Louisiana Territory which began at the First Battle of Fort Bowyer. Britain started the New Orleans campaign on December 14, 1814, at the Battle of Lake Borgne and numerous skirmishes and artillery duels happened in the weeks leading up to the final battle.

The battle took place 15 days after the signing of the Treaty of Ghent, which formally ended the War of 1812, on December 24, 1814, though it would not be ratified by the United States (and therefore did not take effect) until February 16, 1815, as news of the agreement had not yet reached the United States from Europe.[7] Despite a large British advantage in numbers, training, and experience, the American forces defeated a poorly executed assault in slightly more than 30 minutes. The Americans suffered just 71 casualties, while the British suffered over 2,000, including the deaths of the commanding general, Major General Sir Edward Pakenham, and his second-in-command, Major General Samuel Gibbs.

1814

The Treaty of Ghent

(8 Stat. 218) was the peace treaty that ended the War of 1812 between the United States and the United Kingdom. It took effect in February 1815. Both sides signed it on December 24, 1814, in the city of Ghent, United Netherlands (now in Belgium). The treaty restored relations between the two parties to status quo ante bellum by restoring the pre-war borders of June 1812.[a][1]

The treaty was approved by the British Parliament and signed into law by the Prince Regent (the future King George IV) on December 30, 1814. It took a month for news of the treaty to reach the United States, during which American forces under Andrew Jackson won the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815. The treaty did not take effect until the U.S. Senate ratified it unanimously on February 16, 1815.[2] U.S. President James Madison signed the treaty and exchanged final ratified copies with the British ambassador on February 17, 1815.

The treaty began more than two centuries of mostly-peaceful relations between the United States and the United Kingdom despite a few tense moments, such as the Aroostook War in 1838–39, the Pig War in 1859, and the Trent Affair in 1861.

Plaque at a building in Veldstraat, Ghent, where the American diplomats stayed and one of the locations where the treaty was negotiated. It was located at the retail "Esprit" store on Veldstraat 47 and placed by the United States Daughters of 1812. The room in which the treaty was signed is now part of the Hotel d'Hane-Steenhuyse.

The Peace Bridge between New York and Ontario

The leading British delegate Lord Gambier is shaking hands with the American leader John Quincy Adams. The British Undersecretary of State for War and the Colonies, Henry Goulburn, is carrying a red folder by Amédée Forestier (1854–1930)

1814

The Congress of Vienna

(French: Congrès de Vienne, German: Wiener Kongress) 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.[1] Participants were representatives of all European powers and other stakeholders, chaired by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich, and held in Vienna from September 1814 to June 1815.

The objective of the Congress was to provide a long-term peace plan for Europe by settling critical issues arising from the French Revolutionary Wars and the Napoleonic Wars through negotiation. The goal was not simply to restore old boundaries, but to resize the main powers so they could balance each other and remain at peace, being at the same time shepherds for the smaller powers. More generally, conservative leaders like Von Metternich also sought to restrain or eliminate republican, liberal, and revolutionary movements which, from their point of view, had upended the constitutional order of the European ancien régime, and which continued to threaten it.

At the negotiation table, the position of France was weak in relation to that of Britain, Prussia, Austria and Russia, partly due to the military strategy of its dictatorial leader over the previous two decades and his recent defeat. In the settlement the parties did reach, France had to give up all its recent conquests, while the other three main powers made major territorial gains. Prussia added territory from smaller states: Swedish Pomerania, most of the Kingdom of Saxony, and the western part of the former Duchy of Warsaw. Austria gained much of northern Italy. Russia added the central and eastern part of the Duchy of Warsaw. All agreed upon ratifying the new Kingdom of the Netherlands, which had been created just months before from formerly Austrian territory.

The immediate background was Napoleonic France's defeat and surrender in May 1814, which brought an end to 23 years of nearly continuous war. Negotiations continued despite the outbreak of fighting triggered by Napoleon's return from exile and resumption of power in France during the Hundred Days of March to July 1815. The Congress's agreement was signed nine days before Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

Some historians have criticised the outcomes of the Congress for causing the subsequent suppression of national, democratic, and liberal movements,[2] and it has been seen as a reactionary settlement for the benefit of traditional monarchs. Others have praised the Congress for protecting Europe from large widespread wars for almost a century.

descriptive numbers: 1. Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington (UK) 2. Joaquim Lobo da Silveira (Portugal) 3. António de Saldanha da Gama (Portugal) 4. Count Carl Löwenhielm (Sweden) 5. Louis Joseph Alexis de Noailles (France) 6. Prince Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von Metternich (Austria) 7. Frédéric-Séraphin de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet (France) 8. Count Karl Robert Nesselrode (Russia) 9. Pedro de Sousa Holstein, 1st Count, 1st Marquess and 1st Duke de Palmela (Portugal) 10. Robert Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh (UK) 11. Emmerich Joseph de Dalberg (France) 12. Baron Johann von Wessenberg-Ampringen (Austria) 13. Prince Andrey Kirillovich Razumovsky (Russia) 14. Charles Stewart, 1st Baron Stewart (UK) 15. Pedro Gómez Labrador, Marquis of Labrador (Spain) 16. Richard Le Poer Trench, 2nd Earl of Clancarty (UK) 17. Nikolaus von Wacken (Recorder) (Österreichischer Staatskanzleirat, Freiherr 1823) 18. Friedrich von Gentz (Congress Secretary) 19. Baron Friedrich Wilhelm Christian Karl Ferdinand von Humboldt (Prussia) 20. William Schaw Cathcart, 1st Earl Cathcart (UK) 21. Prince Karl August von Hardenberg (Prussia) 22. Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, 1st Sovereign Prince de Bénévent (France) 23. Count Gustav Ernst von Stackelberg (Russia)

Architect of the Congress System, Prince von Metternich, chancellor of the Austrian Empire from 1821 until the Revolution in 1848. Painting by Lawrence (1815)

Marquis of Labrador, Spanish Ambassador to the Congress of Vienna - Painting by Vicente López Portaña

Alexander I of Russia considered himself a guarantor of European security

Talleyrand proved an able negotiator for the defeated French.

William II, King of the Netherlands - painting by Jan Adam Kruseman 1840)

Frontispiece of the Acts of the Congress of Vienna

The national boundaries within Europe agreed upon by the Congress of Vienna

Napoleon leaving Elba, painted by Joseph Beaume

The brig Inconstant, under Captain Taillade and ferrying Napoleon to France, crosses the path of the brig Zéphir, under Captain Andrieux. Inconstant flies the tricolour of the Empire, while Zéphir flies the white ensign of the House of Bourbon.

Strategic situation in Western Europe in 1815: 250,000 Frenchmen faced a coalition of about 850,000 soldiers on four fronts. In addition, Napoleon had to leave 20,000 men in Western France to reduce a royalist insurrection.

Map of the Waterloo campaign

Napoleon's Return from Elba, by Charles de Steuben, 1818

1815

The Hundred Days

(French: les Cent-Jours IPA: [le sɑ̃ ʒuʁ]),[4] also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition, marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on 20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII on 8 July 1815 (a period of 110 days).[a] This period saw the War of the Seventh Coalition, and includes the Waterloo Campaign,[7] the Neapolitan War as well as several other minor campaigns. The phrase les Cent Jours (the hundred days) was first used by the prefect of Paris, Gaspard, comte de Chabrol, in his speech welcoming the king back to Paris on 8 July.[b]

Napoleon returned while the Congress of Vienna was sitting. On 13 March, seven days before Napoleon reached Paris, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared him an outlaw, and on 25 March Austria, Prussia, Russia and the United Kingdom, the four Great Powers and key members of the Seventh Coalition, bound themselves to put 150,000 men each into the field to end his rule.[10] This set the stage for the last conflict in the Napoleonic Wars, the defeat of Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo, the second restoration of the French kingdom, and the permanent exile of Napoleon to the distant island of Saint Helena, where he died in May 1821.

1815

The Battle of Quatre Bras

was fought on 16 June 1815, as a preliminary engagement to the decisive Battle of Waterloo that occurred two days later. The battle took place near the strategic crossroads of Quatre Bras [a] and was contested between elements of the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-allied army and the left wing of Napoleon Bonaparte's French Armée du Nord under Marshal Michel Ney. The battle was a tactical victory for Wellington (as he possessed the field at dusk), but because Ney prevented him going to the aid of Blucher's Prussians who were fighting a larger French army under the command of Napoleon Bonaparte at Ligny it was a strategic victory for the French.

The Prince of Orange (1815)

Michel Ney, 1st Duke of Elchingen, 1st Prince of the Moskva , Portrait by François Gérard, 1805

Jérôme-Napoléon Bonaparte ,Portrait by François Gérard, 1811

The Prince of Orange at the Battle of Quatre-Bras, by Jan Willem Pieneman

The Prince Bernhard of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach tells the officers of his brigade to stand their ground at Quatre-Bras by Jan Hoynck van Papendrecht

Brunswickers during the Battle of Quatre-Bras , Richard Knötel (1857-1914)

The 28th Regiment at Quatre Bras (at approximately 17:00) by Elizabeth Thompson, 1875

Detailed map of the battle of Quatre Bras, 16 June 1815 (Atlas to Alison's history of Europe)

In the church of Waterloo the victims of both battles of Quatre-Bras and Waterloo (16 and 18 June 1815) are associated in the same remembrance

Bonaparte photographed in the 1850s by Disdéri

1815

The Battle of Waterloo

(Dutch pronunciation: [ˈʋaːtərloː] (listen)) was fought on Sunday 18 June 1815, near Waterloo (at that time in the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, now in Belgium). A French army under the command of Napoleon was defeated by two of the armies of the Seventh Coalition. One of these was a British-led coalition consisting of units from the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Hanover, Brunswick, and Nassau, under the command of the Duke of Wellington (referred to by many authors as the Anglo-allied army or Wellington's army). The other was composed of three corps of the Prussian army under the command of Field Marshal von Blücher (the fourth corps of this army fought at the Battle of Wavre on the same day). The battle marked the end of the Napoleonic Wars. The battle was contemporaneously known as the Battle of Mont Saint-Jean (France) or La Belle Alliance ("the Beautiful Alliance" – Prussia).[11]

Upon Napoleon's return to power in March 1815, many states that had previously opposed him formed the Seventh Coalition, while hurriedly mobilising their armies. Wellington's and Blücher's armies were cantoned close to the northeastern border of France. Napoleon planned to attack them separately in the hope of destroying them before they could join in a coordinated invasion of France with other members of the coalition. On 16 June, Napoleon successfully attacked the bulk of the Prussian army at the Battle of Ligny with his main force, causing the Prussians to withdraw northwards on 17 June, but parallel to Wellington and in good order.

Napoleon sent a third of his forces to pursue the Prussians, which resulted in the separate Battle of Wavre with the Prussian rear-guard on 18–19 June, and prevented that French force from participating at Waterloo. Also on 16 June, a small portion of the French army contested the Battle of Quatre Bras with the Anglo-allied army. The Anglo-allied army held their ground on 16 June, but the withdrawal of the Prussians caused Wellington to withdraw north to Waterloo on 17 June.

Upon learning that the Prussian army was able to support him, Wellington decided to offer battle on the Mont-Saint-Jean [12] escarpment across the Brussels road, near the village of Waterloo. Here he withstood repeated attacks by the French throughout the afternoon of 18 June, aided by the progressively arriving Prussians who attacked the French flank and inflicted heavy casualties. In the evening, Napoleon assaulted the Anglo-allied line with his last reserves, the senior infantry battalions of the Imperial Guard. With the Prussians breaking through on the French right flank, the Anglo-allied army repulsed the Imperial Guard, and the French army was routed.

Waterloo was the decisive engagement of the Waterloo campaign and Napoleon's last. According to Wellington, the battle was "the nearest-run thing you ever saw in your life".[13] Napoleon abdicated four days later, and coalition forces entered Paris on 7 July. The defeat at Waterloo ended Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French and marked the end of his Hundred Days return from exile. This ended the First French Empire and set a chronological milestone between serial European wars and decades of relative peace, often referred to as the Pax Britannica.

The battlefield is located in the Belgian municipalities of Braine-l'Alleud and Lasne,[14] about 15 kilometres (9.3 mi) south of Brussels, and about 2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the town of Waterloo. The site of the battlefield today is dominated by the monument of the Lion's Mound, a large artificial hill constructed from earth taken from the battlefield itself; the topography of the battlefield near the mound has not been preserved.

1815

Napoleon abdicated

In favour of his son Napoleon II. On 24 June the Provisional Government proclaimed the fact to the French nation and the world.

After his defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, instead of remaining in the field with his shattered army, Napoleon returned to Paris in the hope of retaining political support for his position as Emperor of the French. He hoped, with his political base secured, to then be able to continue the war. It was not to be; instead the members of the two chambers created a Provisional Government and demanded that Napoleon abdicate. Napoleon toyed with the idea of a coup d'état similar to Eighteenth of Brumaire but decided against it. On 25 June Napoleon left Paris for the final time and after staying at the Palace of Malmaison, left for the coast hoping to reach the United States of America. In the meantime, the Provisional Government deposed his son and tried to negotiate a conditional surrender with the Coalition powers. They failed to obtain any significant concessions from the Coalition who insisted on a military surrender and the restoration of Louis XVIII. Napoleon, realising he could not hope to evade the Royal Navy, surrendered to Captain Maitland upon placing himself under his protection on board HMS Bellerophon. The British Government refused to allow Napoleon to set foot in England and arranged for his exile to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena where he died in 1821.

Napoleon on Board the Bellerophon, exhibited in 1880 by Sir William Quiller Orchardson. Orchardson depicts the morning of 23 July 1815, as Napoleon watches the French shoreline recede.

Napoleon on the Bellerophon at Plymouth, by Sir Charles Lock Eastlake, 1815. Eastlake was rowed out to the Bellerophon to make sketches, from which he later painted this portrait.

1815

The Treaty of Paris

Also known as the Second Treaty of Paris, was signed on 20 November 1815, after the defeat and the second abdication of Napoleon Bonaparte. In February, Napoleon had escaped from his exile on Elba, entered Paris on 20 March and began the Hundred Days of his restored rule. After France's defeat at the hands of the Seventh Coalition at the Battle of Waterloo,[1] Napoleon was persuaded to abdicate again, on 22 June. King Louis XVIII, who had fled the country when Napoleon arrived in Paris, took the throne for a second time on 8 July.

The 1815 treaty had more punitive terms than the treaty of the previous year. France was ordered to pay 700 million francs in indemnities, and its borders were reduced to those that had existed on 1 January 1790. France was to pay additional money to cover the cost of providing additional defensive fortifications to be built by neighbouring Coalition countries. Under the terms of the treaty, parts of France were to be occupied by up to 150,000 soldiers for five years, with France covering the cost; however, the Coalition occupation under the command of the Duke of Wellington was deemed necessary for only three years, and the foreign troops withdrew from France in 1818 (see Congress of Aix-la-Chapelle).[2][3]

In addition to the definitive peace treaty between France and Great Britain, Austria, Prussia, and Russia, there were four additional conventions and an act confirming the neutrality of Switzerland, signed on the same day.[4]

Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (French: le Désiré),[1][2] was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. He spent twenty-three years in exile: during the French Revolution and the First French Empire (1804–1814), and during the Hundred Days , portrait by François Gérard, c. 1814

1819

Thomas Stamford Bingley Raffles

FRS FRAS (5 July 1781 – 5 July 1826)[1][2] was a British colonial official who served as the Governors of the Dutch East Indies between 1811 and 1816, and Lieutenant-Governor of Bencoolen between 1818 and 1824. He is best known mainly for his founding of modern Malaysia and Singapore.

Raffles was heavily involved in the capture of the Indonesian island of Java from the Dutch during the Napoleonic Wars. The running of day-to-day operations on Singapore was mostly done by William Farquhar,[3] but Raffles was the one who got all the credit. He also wrote The History of Java (1817).[4]

Portrait of Watt (1736–1819) by Carl Frederik von Breda

1819

James Watt

FRS FRSE (/wɒt/; 30 January 1736 (19 January 1736 OS) – 25 August 1819)[1] was a Scottish inventor, mechanical engineer, and chemist who improved on Thomas Newcomen's 1712 Newcomen steam engine with his Watt steam engine in 1776, which was fundamental to the changes brought by the Industrial Revolution in both his native Great Britain and the rest of the world.

While working as an instrument maker at the University of Glasgow, Watt became interested in the technology of steam engines. He realised that contemporary engine designs wasted a great deal of energy by repeatedly cooling and reheating the cylinder. Watt introduced a design enhancement, the separate condenser, which avoided this waste of energy and radically improved the power, efficiency, and cost-effectiveness of steam engines. Eventually, he adapted his engine to produce rotary motion, greatly broadening its use beyond pumping water.

Watt attempted to commercialise his invention, but experienced great financial difficulties until he entered a partnership with Matthew Boulton in 1775. The new firm of Boulton and Watt was eventually highly successful and Watt became a wealthy man. In his retirement, Watt continued to develop new inventions though none was as significant as his steam engine work.

As Watt developed the concept of horsepower,[2] the SI unit of power, the watt, was named after him.

1819

The Battle of Boyacá

(1819), was the decisive battle that ensured the success of Bolívar's campaign to liberate New Granada. The battle of Boyaca is considered the beginning of the independence of the north of South America, and is considered important because it led to the victories of the battle of Carabobo in Venezuela, Pichincha in Ecuador, and Junín and Ayacucho in Peru.[1]

New Granada acquired its definitive independence from the Spanish Monarchy, although fighting with royalist forces would continue for years.[2]: 232–235

Brigadier Generals Francisco de Paula Santander and José Antonio Anzoátegui led a combined republican army of Newgranadians to defeat in two hours a Royalist Newgranadian forces led by Spanish Colonels José María Barreiro and Francisco Jiménez.

The battle occurred 150 km from Bogotá in the Andes Mountains, in a place known as Casa de Teja, close to a bridge over the Teatinos River and 3 roads heading to Samaca, Motavita and Tunja, an area which is now part of the Boyacá Department.

1824

The Anglo-Dutch Treaty

Also known as the Treaty of London, was a treaty signed between the United Kingdom and the Netherlands in London on 17 March 1824. The treaty was to resolve disputes arising from the execution of the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814. For the Dutch, it was signed by Hendrik Fagel and Anton Reinhard Falck, and for the British, George Canning and Charles Williams-Wynn.[1]

Partition of the Johor Empire before and after the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1824 [2] Under British influence: Johor Sultanate Pahang Kingdom Singapore Under Dutch influence: Indragiri Sultanate Riau-Lingga Sultanate

1826

View from the Window at Le Gras

[2] (French: Point de vue du Gras) is a heliographic image and the oldest surviving camera photograph. It was created by French inventor Nicéphore Niépce in 1826[3][4][5][6][7][8] in Saint-Loup-de-Varennes, France, and shows parts of the buildings and surrounding countryside of his estate, Le Gras, as seen from a high window.

Joseph Nicéphore Niépce

(French: [nisefɔʁ njɛps]; 7 March 1765 – 5 July 1833),[1] commonly known or referred to simply as Nicéphore Niépce, was a French inventor, usually credited with the invention of photography.[2] Niépce developed heliography, a technique he used to create the world's oldest surviving product of a photographic process: a print made from a photoengraved printing plate in 1825.[3] In 1826 or 1827, he used a primitive camera to produce the oldest surviving photograph of a real-world scene. Among Niépce's other inventions was the Pyréolophore, one of the world's first internal combustion engines, which he conceived, created, and developed with his older brother Claude Niépce.[4]

Heliography

(in French, héliographie) from helios (Greek: ἥλιος), meaning "sun", and graphein (γράφειν), "writing") is the photographic process invented, and named thus, by Joseph Nicéphore Niépce around 1822,[1] which he used to make the earliest known surviving photograph from nature, View from the Window at Le Gras (1826 or 1827), and the first realisation of photoresist [2] as means to reproduce artworks through inventions of photolithography and photogravure.

The Pyréolophore

[a] (French: [pi.ʁe.ɔ.lɔ.fɔʁ]) was probably the world's first internal combustion engine. It was invented in the early 19th century in Chalon-sur-Saône, France, by the Niépce brothers: Nicéphore (who went on to invent photography) and Claude. In 1807 the brothers ran a prototype internal combustion engine, and on 20 July 1807 a patent was granted by Napoleon Bonaparte after it had successfully powered a boat upstream on the river Saône.

The Pyréolophore ran on what were believed to be "controlled dust explosions" of various experimental fuels. The fuels included mixtures of Lycopodium powder (the spores of Lycopodium, or clubmoss), finely crushed coal dust, and resin.

Operating independently, in 1807 the Swiss engineer François Isaac de Rivaz built the de Rivaz engine, a hydrogen-powered internal combustion engine. These practical engineering projects may have followed the 1680 theoretical design of an internal combustion engine by the Dutch scientist Christiaan Huygens. The separate, virtually contemporaneous implementations of this design in different modes of transport means that the de Rivaz engine may be correctly described as the first use of an internal combustion engine in an automobile (1808), whilst the Pyréolophore was the first use of an internal combustion engine in a boat (1807).

One of the three earliest known photographic artifacts, created by Nicéphore Niépce in 1825. It is an ink-on-paper print, but the printing plate used to make it was photographically created by Niépce's heliography process. It reproduces a 17th-century Flemish engraving.

The original plate on display at the Harry Ransom Center in Austin, Texas, in 2004

Original plate (left) and colorized reoriented enhancement (right). The photo was found to be taken at his home from a second-story south-facing bedroom window.[1]

Gersheim's enhanced version

Chambre noire de Nicéphore Niépce de 1820.

Diagram of the first internal combustion engine,the Pyreolophore, of 1806 which was powered by a mixture of coal dust and lycopodium powder by the Niépce brothers

Plaque on the house where was born Nicephore Niepce, inventor of photography : 15, rue de l'Oratoire, Chalon-sur-Saône, France

Battle of Navarino, by Ivan Aivazovsky, showing the Russian squadron, in line ahead (left-centre, white flags with blue transversal crosses) bombarding the Ottoman fleet (right, with red flags)

Battle of Navarino. Vladimir Kosov

Battle of Navarin, National Historical Museum, Athens, Greece. Engraved by Robert William Smart, and Henry Pyall, after drawings made by Sir John Theophilus Lee under the immediate inspection of Capt. Lord Vis. Inglesre"..

Burning and beached hulks of Ottoman warships under the cliffs of Navarino. Painting by Auguste Mayer

Mahmud II, Ottoman sultan 1808–39, who struggled for eight years to defeat the Greek revolution, ultimately in vain

1827

The Battle of Navarino

was a naval battle fought on 20 October (O. S. 8 October) 1827, during the Greek War of Independence (1821–29), in Navarino Bay (modern Pylos), on the west coast of the Peloponnese peninsula, in the Ionian Sea. Allied forces from Britain, France, and Russia decisively defeated Ottoman and Egyptian forces which were trying to suppress the Greeks, thereby making Greek independence much more likely. An Ottoman armada which, in addition to Imperial warships, included squadrons from the eyalets (provinces) of Egypt and Algiers,[a] was destroyed by an Allied force of British, French and Russian warships. It was the last major naval battle in history to be fought entirely with sailing ships, although most ships fought at anchor. The Allies' victory was achieved through superior firepower and gunnery.

The context of the three Great Powers' intervention in the Greek conflict was the Russian Empire's long-running expansion at the expense of the decaying Ottoman Empire. Russia's ambitions in the region were seen as a major geostrategic threat by the other European powers, which feared the disintegration of the Ottoman Empire and the establishment of Russian hegemony in the Eastern Mediterranean. The precipitating factor was support of elements in Orthodox Russia for Greek coreligionists, despite the opposition of Tsar Alexander in 1821 following the Greek rebellion against their Ottoman overlords. Similarly, despite official British interest in maintaining the Ottoman Empire, British public opinion strongly supported the Greeks. Fearing unilateral Russian action, Britain and France bound Russia, by treaty, to a joint intervention which aimed to secure Greek autonomy, whilst still preserving Ottoman territorial integrity as a check on Russia.

The Powers agreed, by the Treaty of London (1827), to force the Ottoman government to grant the Greeks autonomy within the empire and despatched naval squadrons to the Eastern Mediterranean to enforce their policy. The naval battle happened more by accident than by design as a result of a manoeuvre by the Allied commander-in-chief, Admiral Edward Codrington, aimed at coercing the Ottoman commander to obey Allied instructions. The sinking of the Ottomans' Mediterranean fleet saved the fledgling Greek Republic from collapse. But it required two more military interventions by Russia, in the form of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–9 and a French expeditionary force to the Peloponnese to force the withdrawal of Ottoman forces from Central and Southern Greece, to finally secure Greek independence.

1828

The Russo-Turkish War

of 1828–1829 was sparked by the Greek War of Independence of 1821–1829. War broke out after the Ottoman Sultan Mahmud II closed the Dardanelles to Russian ships and revoked the 1826 Akkerman Convention in retaliation for Russian participation in October 1827 in the Battle of Navarino.[2]

Territorial changes since the Treaty of Adrianople.[1]

Moscow Triumphal Gate in St. Petersburg (1836–1838) commemorates Russia's victory in the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–1829.

1829

The Treaty of Adrianople

(also called the Treaty of Edirne) concluded the Russo-Turkish War of 1828–29, between Imperial Russia and the Ottoman Empire. The terms favored Russia, which gained access to the mouths of the Danube and new territory on the Black Sea. The treaty opened the Dardanelles to all commercial vessels, granted autonomy to Serbia, and promised autonomy for Greece. It also allowed Russia to occupy Moldavia and Walachia until the Ottoman Empire had paid a large indemnity; those indemnities were later reduced. The treaty was signed on 14 September 1829 in Adrianople by Count Alexey Fyodorovich Orlov of Russia and Abdülkadir Bey of the Ottoman Empire.[2]

1829

Stephenson's Rocket

is an early steam locomotive of 0-2-2 wheel arrangement. It was built for and won the Rainhill Trials of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway (L&MR), held in October 1829 to show that improved locomotives would be more efficient than stationary steam engines.[7]

Rocket was designed and built by Robert Stephenson in 1829, and built at the Forth Street Works of his company in Newcastle upon Tyne.

Though Rocket was by no means the first steam locomotive, it was the first to bring together several innovations to produce the most advanced locomotive of its day. It is the most famous example of an evolving design of locomotives by Stephenson that became the template for most steam engines in the following 150 years.

The locomotive was preserved and displayed in the Science Museum in London until 2018, after which it was displayed at the National Railway Museum in York.

Count Ioannis Antonios Kapodistrias , the first head of state of independent Greece (1827–31) Portrait by Dionysios Tsokos

1830

Protocol of London

was a treaty signed between the Kingdom of France, the Russian Empire, and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland on February 3, 1830. It was the first official, international diplomatic act recognizing Greece as a sovereign and independent state, with all the rights - political, administrative, and commercial - that derived from its independence, which would extend south of the border defined by the rivers Achelous and Spercheios. The first governor of the newly-formed state (1830-1831) was Ioannis Kapodistrias, who had already previously served as governor of Greece in 1828 following a resolution of the Third National Assembly at Troezen.

The London Protocol also determined that the Greek state would be a monarchy and its ruler would have the title "Ruler Sovereign of Greece". For the position of monarch, the contracting countries initially selected Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (later elected Leopold I, King of the Belgians) who, despite his initial acceptance, ultimately declined their proposal.

After the Leopold's decision to decline the offer of the Greek throne[1] and the assassination of Kapodistrias, a new treaty, signed April 25 / May 7, 1832, named the 17-year-old Prince Otto of Bavaria as the King of Greece and designated the new state the Kingdom of Greece. The selection of Otto as king, which was influenced by the philhellenism of his father, King Ludwig I of Bavaria, was not fully agreed upon the three great powers, notably the United Kingdom.

1831

Leopold I

(French: Léopold; 16 December 1790 – 10 December 1865) was the first king of the Belgians, reigning from 21 July 1831 until his death in 1865.

The youngest son of Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Leopold took a commission in the Imperial Russian Army and fought against Napoleon after French troops overran Saxe-Coburg during the Napoleonic Wars. After Napoleon's defeat, Leopold moved to the United Kingdom where he married Princess Charlotte of Wales, who was second in line to the British throne and the only legitimate child of the Prince Regent (the future King George IV). Charlotte died after only a year of marriage, but Leopold continued to enjoy considerable status in Britain.

After the Greek War of Independence (1821–1830), Leopold was offered the throne of Greece under the 1830 London Protocol that created an independent Greek state, but turned it down, believing it to be too precarious. Instead, he accepted the throne of Belgium in 1831 following the country's independence in 1830. The Belgian government offered the position to Leopold because of his diplomatic connections with royal houses across Europe, and because as the British-backed candidate, he was not affiliated with other powers, such as France, which were believed to have territorial ambitions in Belgium which might threaten the European balance of power created by the 1815 Congress of Vienna.

Leopold took his oath as King of the Belgians on 21 July 1831, an event commemorated annually as Belgian National Day. His reign was marked by attempts by the Dutch to recapture Belgium and, later, by internal political division between liberals and Catholics. As a Protestant, Leopold was considered liberal and encouraged economic modernisation, playing an important role in encouraging the creation of Belgium's first railway in 1835 and subsequent industrialisation. As a result of the ambiguities in the Belgian Constitution, Leopold was able to slightly expand the monarch's powers during his reign. He also played an important role in stopping the spread of the Revolutions of 1848 into Belgium. He died in 1865 and was succeeded by his son, Leopold II.

1832

Treaty of Constantinople

The Great Powers ratified the terms of the Constantinople Arrangement in connection with the border between Greece and the Ottoman Empire in the London Protocol of 30 August 1832, which marked the end of the Greek War of Independence and established modern Greece as an independent state free of the Ottoman Empire. The Treaty of Constantinople was the product of the London Conference of 1832 which opened in February 1832 with the participation of the Great Powers (Britain, France and Russia) on the one hand and the Ottoman Empire on the other. The factors which shaped the treaty included the refusal of Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha to assume the Greek throne. He was not at all satisfied with the Aspropotamos–Spercheios line, which replaced the more favorable Arta–Volos line considered by the Great Powers earlier.[1]

The withdrawal of Leopold as a candidate for the throne of Greece, and the July Revolution in France, delayed the final settlement of the frontiers of the new kingdom until a new government was formed in London. Lord Palmerston, who took over as British Foreign Secretary, agreed to the Arta-Volos borderline. However, the secret note on Crete, which the Bavarian plenipotentiary communicated to the Courts of Britain, France and Russia, bore no fruit.

Under the protocol signed on 7 May 1832 between Bavaria and the protecting Powers, and basically dealing with the way in which the Regency was to be managed until Otto reached his majority (while also concluding the second Greek loan, for a sum of £2,400,000 sterling), Greece was defined as an independent kingdom, with the Arta-Volos line as its northern frontier. The Ottoman Empire was indemnified in the sum of 40,000,000 piastres for the loss of the territory. The borders of the Kingdom were reiterated in the London Protocol of 30 August 1832 signed by the Great Powers, which ratified the terms of the Constantinople Arrangement in connection with the border between Greece and the Ottoman Empire and marked the end of the Greek War of Independence creating modern Greece as an independent state free of the Ottoman Empire.

1832

The Kingdom of Greece

(Greek: Βασίλειον τῆς Ἑλλάδος [vaˈsili.on tis eˈlaðos]) was established in 1832 and was the successor state to the First Hellenic Republic. It was internationally recognised by the Treaty of Constantinople, where Greece also secured its full independence from the Ottoman Empire after nearly four centuries.

The Kingdom of Greece was dissolved in 1924 and the Second Hellenic Republic was established following Greece's defeat by Turkey in the Asia Minor Campaign. A military coup d'état restored the monarchy in 1935 and Greece became a Kingdom again until 1973.[note 1][note 2] The Kingdom was finally dissolved in the aftermath of a seven-year military dictatorship (1967–1974) and the Third Hellenic Republic was established following a referendum held in 1974.

Portrait by Friedrich Dürck, 1833

Coat of arms of Kingdom of Greece

A romantic portrayal of Otto in Evzonas uniform, in front of ancient Greek ruins, by Gottlieb Bodmer

Otto with Amalia on a ride through Athens

Otto in traditional Greek clothing.

Men of the Royal Gendarmerie Corps which was established after the enthronement of Otto in 1833

A painting representing the 3 September 1843 Revolution

The expulsion of Otto in 1862 as portrayed in a popular colour lithograph

Otto in Bavaria, 1865

The Battle of San Jacinto – 1895 painting by Henry Arthur McArdle (1836–1908)[1]

The Republic of Texas, including the disputed territory

Sam Houston

"Surrender of Santa Anna" by William Henry Huddle shows the Mexican president and general surrendering to a wounded Sam Houston, the Battle of San Jacinto

San Jacinto Battle Flag in the Texas House of Representatives

The San Jacinto Monument

April 21, 1906 Army of the Republic of Texas veteran reunion. L–R are William P. Zuber, John W. Darlington, Aca C. Hill, Stephen F. Sparks, L. T. Lawlor, and Alfonso Steele. All participated in the Battle of San Jacinto, as well as other skirmishes.[92]…

1836

The Battle of San Jacinto

(Spanish: Batalla de San Jacinto), fought on April 21, 1836, in present-day La Porte and Pasadena, Texas, was the final and decisive battle of the Texas Revolution. Led by General Samuel Houston, the Texan Army engaged and defeated General Antonio López de Santa Anna's Mexican army in a fight that lasted just 18 minutes. A detailed, first-hand account of the battle was written by General Houston from the headquarters of the Texan Army in San Jacinto on April 25, 1836.[3] Numerous secondary analyses and interpretations have followed.

General Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, and General Martín Perfecto de Cos both escaped during the battle. Santa Anna was captured the next day on April 22 and Cos on April 24. After being held for about three weeks as a prisoner of war, Santa Anna signed the peace treaty that dictated that the Mexican army leave the region, paving the way for the Republic of Texas to become an independent country. These treaties did not necessarily recognize Texas as a sovereign nation but stipulated that Santa Anna was to lobby for such recognition in Mexico City. Sam Houston became a national celebrity, and the Texans' rallying cries from events of the war, "Remember the Alamo" and "Remember Goliad" became etched into Texan history and legend.

1837

Victoria

(Alexandrina Victoria; 24 May 1819 – 22 January 1901) was Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland from 20 June 1837 until her death in 1901. Her reign of 63 years and 216 days was longer than that of any previous British monarch and is known as the Victorian era. It was a period of industrial, political, scientific, and military change within the United Kingdom, and was marked by a great expansion of the British Empire. In 1876, the British Parliament voted to grant her the additional title of Empress of India.

Victoria was the daughter of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (the fourth son of King George III), and Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. After the deaths of her father and grandfather in 1820, she was raised under close supervision by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy. She inherited the throne aged 18 after her father's three elder brothers died without surviving legitimate issue. Victoria, a constitutional monarch, attempted privately to influence government policy and ministerial appointments; publicly, she became a national icon who was identified with strict standards of personal morality.

Victoria married her first cousin Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha in 1840. Their children married into royal and noble families across the continent, earning Victoria the sobriquet "the grandmother of Europe" and spreading haemophilia in European royalty. After Albert's death in 1861, Victoria plunged into deep mourning and avoided public appearances. As a result of her seclusion, British republicanism temporarily gained strength, but in the latter half of her reign, her popularity recovered. Her Golden and Diamond jubilees were times of public celebration. Victoria died aged 81 in 1901 at Osborne House on the Isle of Wight. The last British monarch of the House of Hanover, she was succeeded by her son Edward VII of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.

1839

Daguerreotype

(/dəˈɡɛər(i.)əˌtaɪp, -(i.)oʊ-/ (listen);[1][2] French: daguerréotype) was the first publicly available photographic process; it was widely used during the 1840s and 1850s. "Daguerreotype" also refers to an image created through this process.

Invented by Louis Daguerre and introduced worldwide in 1839,[3][4][5] the daguerreotype was almost completely superseded by 1860 with new, less expensive processes, such as ambrotype (collodion process), that yield more readily viewable images. There has been a revival of the daguerreotype since the late 20th century by a small number of photographers interested in making artistic use of early photographic processes.[6]

To make the image, a daguerreotypist polished a sheet of silver-plated copper to a mirror finish; treated it with fumes that made its surface light-sensitive; exposed it in a camera for as long as was judged to be necessary, which could be as little as a few seconds for brightly sunlit subjects or much longer with less intense lighting; made the resulting latent image on it visible by fuming it with mercury vapor; removed its sensitivity to light by liquid chemical treatment; rinsed and dried it; and then sealed the easily marred result behind glass in a protective enclosure.

The image is on a mirror-like silver surface and will appear either positive or negative, depending on the angle at which it is viewed, how it is lit and whether a light or dark background is being reflected in the metal. The darkest areas of the image are simply bare silver; lighter areas have a microscopically fine light-scattering texture. The surface is very delicate, and even the lightest wiping can permanently scuff it. Some tarnish around the edges is normal.

Several types of antique photographs, most often ambrotypes and tintypes, but sometimes even old prints on paper, are commonly misidentified as daguerreotypes, especially if they are in the small, ornamented cases in which daguerreotypes made in the US and the UK were usually housed. The name "daguerreotype" correctly refers only to one very specific image type and medium, the product of a process that was in wide use only from the early 1840s to the late 1850s.

Daguerreotype of Louis Daguerre in 1844 by Jean-Baptiste Sabatier-Blot

The first authenticated image of Abraham Lincoln, a daguerreotype of him as U.S. Congressman-elect in 1846, attributed to Nicholas H. Shepard

19th century printed reproduction of a still life believed to be a circa 1832 Niépce physautotype (glass original accidentally destroyed circa 1900)[14]

Daguerreotype camera built by La Maison Susse Frères in 1839, with a lens by Charles Chevalier

Still life with plaster casts, made by Daguerre in 1837, the earliest reliably dated daguerreotype[note 1]

Title pages of Daguerre's 1839 manual, published soon after Arago's lecture to meet the intense public demand for more information about the process.

The earliest reliably dated photograph of people, View of the Boulevard du Temple was taken by Daguerre one spring morning in 1838 from the window of the Diorama, where he lived and worked. It bears the caption huit heures du matin (translation: eight o'clock in the morning).[note 2]

‘View of the Predikherenlei and Predikherenbrug’ depicts the first photographic record of Ghent and in all probability Belgium. It dates back to October 1839, when optician François Braga arrived in Ghent with the daguerreotype camera. Together with his friend, seller of prints and engravings Joseph Pelizzaro, he took the picture on the second floor of judge Philippe Van de Velde’s residence on the Ajuinlei. Of the four original plates they made, two plates are in the holdings of STAM – Ghent City Museum, while the two others are lost.…

1840–1841 camerae obscurae and plates for daguerreotype called "Grand Photographe" produced by Charles Chevalier (Musée des Arts et Métiers)

The earliest known photograph of a living animal (excluding humans). This daguerreotype was taken by French photographer Joseph-Philibert Girault de Prangey while visiting Rome between April and July 1842.[65]

Six daguerreotypes show a panorama of San Francisco, California, in 1853.

1939

The First Opium War

(Chinese: 第一次鴉片戰爭; pinyin: Dìyīcì Yāpiàn Zhànzhēng), also known as the Opium War or the Anglo-Sino War was a series of military engagements fought between Britain and the Qing dynasty of China between 1839 and 1842. The immediate issue was the Chinese enforcement of their ban on the opium trade by seizing private opium stocks from merchants at Canton and threatening to impose the death penalty for future offenders. Despite the opium ban, the British government supported the merchants' demand for compensation for seized goods, and insisted on the principles of free trade and equal diplomatic recognition with China. Opium was Britain's single most profitable commodity trade of the 19th century. After months of tensions between the two nations, the British navy launched an expedition in June 1840, which ultimately defeated the Chinese using technologically superior ships and weapons by August 1842. The British then imposed the Treaty of Nanking, which forced China to increase foreign trade, give compensation, and cede Hong Kong to the British. Consequently the opium trade continued in China. Twentieth century nationalists consider 1839 the start of a century of humiliation, and many historians consider it the beginning of modern Chinese history.

In the 18th century, the demand for Chinese luxury goods (particularly silk, porcelain, and tea) created a trade imbalance between China and Britain. European silver flowed into China through the Canton System, which confined incoming foreign trade to the southern port city of Canton. To counter this imbalance, the British East India Company began to grow opium in Bengal and allowed private British merchants to sell opium to Chinese smugglers for illegal sale in China. The influx of narcotics reversed the Chinese trade surplus, drained the economy of silver, and increased the numbers of opium addicts inside the country, outcomes that seriously worried Chinese officials.

In 1839, the Daoguang Emperor, rejecting proposals to legalise and tax opium, appointed Viceroy Lin Zexu to go to Canton to halt the opium trade completely.[8] Lin wrote an open letter to Queen Victoria, which she never saw, appealing to her moral responsibility to stop the opium trade.[9][10][11] Lin then resorted to using force in the western merchants enclave. He arrived in Guangzhou at the end of January and organized a coastal defense. In March, British opium dealers were forced to hand over 2.37 million pounds of opium. On 3 June, Lin ordered the opium to be destroyed in public on Humen Beach to show the Government's determination to ban smoking.[12] All other supplies were confiscated and a blockade of foreign ships on the Pearl River was ordered.[13][page needed]

Tensions escalated in July after British sailors killed a Chinese villager and the British government refused to hand the accused men over to Chinese authorities. Fighting later broke out, with the British navy destroying the Chinese naval blockade, and launching an offensive.[12] In the ensuing conflict, the Royal Navy used its superior naval and gunnery power to inflict a series of decisive defeats on the Chinese Empire.[14] In 1842, the Qing dynasty was forced to sign the Treaty of Nanking—the first of what the Chinese later called the unequal treaties—which granted an indemnity and extraterritoriality to British subjects in China, opened five treaty ports to British merchants, and ceded Hong Kong Island to the British Empire. The failure of the treaty to satisfy British goals of improved trade and diplomatic relations led to the Second Opium War (1856–60). The resulting social unrest was the background for the Taiping Rebellion, which further weakened the Qing regime.[15][full citation needed][16]

Qing Dynasty Anonymous "Daoguang Emperor Xuanzong's Court Dress"

Victoria par Alexander Bassano, 1882.

Destruction of Chinese war junks during the First Opium War , Edward Duncan (1803–1882)

Queen Pōmare IV, portrait by Charles Giraud, Musée du quai Branly.

Queen Pomare's Palace, Tahiti (LMS, 1869, p.30)[1]

Prise du fort de Fautahua à Tahiti, 17 décembre 1846, Charles Giraud, 1857

Pomare, Queen of Tahiti, the Persecuted Christian Surrounded by Her Family at the Afflictive Moment when the French Forces Were Landing, painting by LMS artist George Baxter, 1845.

Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars taking over Tahiti on 9 September 1842

1843

Pōmare IV

(28 February 1813 – 17 September 1877), more properly ʻAimata Pōmare IV Vahine-o-Punuateraʻitua (otherwise known as ʻAimata – "eye-eater", after an old custom of the ruler to eat the eye of the defeated foe[2]), was the Queen of Tahiti between 1827 and 1877. She was the fourth monarch of the Kingdom of Tahiti.

The Franco-Tahitian War

(French: Guerre franco-tahitienne) or French–Tahitian War (1844–1847) was a conflict between the Kingdom of the French and the Kingdom of Tahiti and its allies in the South Pacific archipelago of the Society Islands in modern-day French Polynesia.

Tahiti was converted to Protestant Christianity by the London Missionary Society (LMS) in the early 19th century with the patronage of the Pōmare Dynasty. Influenced by British missionary George Pritchard, Queen Pōmare IV expelled French Catholic missionaries from her kingdom in 1836 and incurred the ire of France. Between 1838 and 1842, French naval commander Abel Aubert du Petit-Thouars responded to French complaints of mistreatment and forced the queen and the Tahitian chiefs to sign over Tahiti as a protectorate. Pritchard and Pōmare IV attempted to resist French rule and to convince the British to intervene in favor of the Tahitian. These efforts were unsuccessful and led to the imprisonment of Pritchard and the deposition and voluntary exile of Pōmare IV to her relatives in neighboring Raiatea.

From 1844 to 1847, the French fought Tahitian forces on the main island of Tahiti. The technologically inferior Tahitians were no match for the French marines in the field and so relied on their superior knowledge of the island's mountainous interior to wage guerilla warfare. The last native stronghold was captured in late 1846. On the second front, the French attempted to assert control over the three neighboring island kingdoms in the Leeward Islands. However, their efforts were thwarted by the defeat of the French against the forces of Queen Teriitaria II of Huahine in 1846. The British never intervened directly in the conflict but there was significant diplomatic pressure and tension between the two European powers. The war ended when Queen Pōmare agreed to return and rule under the French protectorate. France and Great Britain, signed the Jarnac Convention or the Anglo-French Convention of 1847, in which the two powers agreed to respect the independence of Queen Pōmare's allies in the Leeward Islands. These actions ultimately forestalled the end of Tahitian independence until the 1880s.

1842

British Hong Kong

Hong Kong was a colony and later a dependent territory of the British Empire from 1841 to 1997, apart from a period of occupation under the Japanese Empire from 1941 to 1945 during the Pacific War. The colonial period began with the British occupation of Hong Kong Island in 1841, during the First Opium War between the British and the Qing dynasty. The Qing had wanted to enforce its prohibition of opium importation within the dynasty that was being exported mostly from British India, as it was causing widespread addiction among its populace.

The island was ceded to Britain by the Treaty of Nanking, ratified by the Daoguang Emperor in the aftermath of the war of 1842. It was established as a crown colony in 1843. In 1860, the British took the opportunity to expand the colony with the addition of the Kowloon Peninsula after the Second Opium War, while the Qing was embroiled in handling the Taiping Rebellion. With the Qing further weakened after the First Sino-Japanese War, Hong Kong's territory was further extended in 1898 when the British obtained a 99-year lease of the New Territories.

Although the Qing dynasty had to cede Hong Kong Island and Kowloon in perpetuity as per the treaty, the leased New Territories comprised 86.2% of the colony and more than half of the entire colony's population. With the lease nearing its end during the late 20th century, Britain did not see any viable way to administer the colony by dividing it, whilst the People's Republic of China (PRC) would not consider extending the lease or allow continued British administration thereafter.

With the signing of the Sino-British Joint Declaration in 1984, which stated that the economic and social systems in Hong Kong would remain relatively unchanged for 50 years, the British government agreed to transfer the entire territory to China upon the expiration of the New Territories lease in 1997 – with Hong Kong becoming a special administrative region (SAR) until at least 2047.[5][6]

The Treaty of Nanking

was the peace treaty which ended the First Opium War (1839–1842) between Great Britain and the Qing dynasty of China on 29 August 1842. It was the first of what the Chinese later termed the Unequal Treaties.

In the wake of China's military defeat, with British warships poised to attack Nanjing, British and Chinese officials negotiated on board HMS Cornwallis anchored in the Yangtze at the city. On 29 August, British representative Sir Henry Pottinger and Qing representatives Qiying, Yilibu, and Niu Jian signed the treaty, which consisted of thirteen articles.

The treaty was ratified by the Daoguang Emperor on 27 October and Queen Victoria on 28 December. Ratification was exchanged in Hong Kong on 26 June 1843. The treaty required the Chinese to pay an indemnity, to cede the Island of Hong Kong to the British as a colony, to essentially end the Canton system that had limited trade to that port and allow trade at Five Treaty Ports. It was followed in 1843 by the Treaty of the Bogue, which granted extraterritoriality and most favored nation status.

1843

The Colony of Natal

was a British colony in south-eastern Africa. It was proclaimed a British colony on 4 May 1843 after the British government had annexed the Boer Republic of Natalia, and on 31 May 1910 combined with three other colonies to form the Union of South Africa, as one of its provinces.[3] It is now the KwaZulu-Natal province of South Africa.[4]

It was originally only about half the size of the present province, with the north-eastern boundaries being formed by the Tugela and Buffalo rivers beyond which lay the independent Kingdom of Zululand (kwaZulu in the Zulu language).[3]

Fierce conflict with the Zulu population led to the evacuation of Durban, and eventually, the Boers accepted British annexation in 1844 under military pressure. A British governor was appointed to the region and many settlers emigrated from Europe and the Cape Colony. The British established a sugar cane industry in the 1860s. Farm owners had a difficult time attracting Zulu labourers to work on their plantations, so the British brought thousands of indentured labourers from India.[3] As a result of the importation of Indian labourers, Durban became the home to the largest concentration of Indians outside India.[5]

Coat of arms of the South African Republic

Coat of Arms of the Orange Free State

Coat of arms of the Cape Colony 1876-1910

War theater in northern Natal

Detail of a painting depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift during the Anglo-Zulu War 11 January – 4 July 1879

Samuel F. B. Morse, c. 1857

Original Samuel Morse telegraph

Cover of Foreign Conspiracy Against the Liberties of the United States by Samuel F.B. Morse, 1835 edition

Portrait of James Monroe, 5th President of the United States (c. 1819) by Morse

Portrait of John Adams by Morse

Portrait of Lafayette by Morse

Self-portrait of Morse in 1812 (National Portrait Gallery)

The Gallery of the Louvre 1831–33 by Morse

Portrait of Samuel F. B. Morse taken by Mathew Brady, in 1866. Medals worn (from wearer's right to left, top row): Nichan Iftikhar (Ottoman); Order of the Tower and Sword (Portugal); Order of the Dannebrog (Denmark); cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (Spain); Legion of Honour (France); Order of Saints Maurice and Lazarus (Italy). Bottom row: Grand cross of the Order of Isabella the Catholic (Spain)…

Statue of Samuel F. B. Morse by Byron M. Picket, New York's Central Park, dedicated 1871

Plaque at the first telegraph office

Birthplace of Morse, Charlestown, Massachusetts, c. 1898 photo

Chart of the Morse code 26 letters and 10 numerals[1]

1844

Samuel Finley Breese Morse

(April 27, 1791 – April 2, 1872) was an American inventor and painter. After having established his reputation as a portrait painter, in his middle age Morse contributed to the invention of a single-wire telegraph system based on European telegraphs. He was a co-developer of Morse code and helped to develop the commercial use of telegraphy.

Morse code

is a method used in telecommunication to encode text characters as standardized sequences of two different signal durations, called dots and dashes, or dits and dahs.[3][4] Morse code is named after Samuel Morse, one of the inventors of the telegraph.

International Morse code encodes the 26 basic Latin letters A through Z, one accented Latin letter (É), the Arabic numerals, and a small set of punctuation and procedural signals (prosigns). There is no distinction between upper and lower case letters.[1] Each Morse code symbol is formed by a sequence of dits and dahs. The dit duration is the basic unit of time measurement in Morse code transmission. The duration of a dah is three times the duration of a dit. Each dit or dah within an encoded character is followed by a period of signal absence, called a space, equal to the dit duration. The letters of a word are separated by a space of duration equal to three dits, and words are separated by a space equal to seven dits.[1][5][a]

Morse code can be memorized and sent in a form perceptible to the human senses, e.g. via sound waves or visible light, such that it can be directly interpreted by persons trained in the skill.[7][8] Morse code is usually transmitted by on-off keying of an information-carrying medium such as electric current, radio waves, visible light, or sound waves.[9][10] The current or wave is present during the time period of the dit or dah and absent during the time between dits and dahs.[11][12]

Since many natural languages use more than the 26 letters of the Latin alphabet, Morse alphabets have been developed for those languages, largely by transliteration of existing codes.[13]

To increase the efficiency of encoding, Morse code was originally designed so that the length of each symbol is approximately inverse to the frequency of occurrence of the character that it represents in text of the English language. Thus the most common letter in English, the letter E, has the shortest code – a single dit. Because the Morse code elements are specified by proportion rather than specific time durations, the code is usually transmitted at the highest rate that the receiver is capable of decoding. Morse code transmission rate (speed) is specified in groups per minute, commonly referred to as words per minute.[b][7]

1846

The Battle of Sobraon

was fought on 10 February 1846, between the forces of the East India Company and the Sikh Khalsa Army, the army of the Sikh Empire of the Punjab. The Sikhs were completely defeated, making this the decisive battle of the First Anglo-Sikh War.

Saradar Sham Singh Attariwala rallying and then leading the Sikh Khalsa Army at Sobraon

The Battle of Sobraon 10 February 1846 , J. Harris after H. Martens

Raja Lal Singh, who led Sikh forces against the British during the First Anglo-Sikh War, 1846

1848

The Communist Manifesto

(German: Kommunistisches Manifest), originally the Manifesto of the Communist Party (German: Manifest der Kommunistischen Partei), is a political pamphlet written by German philosophers Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Commissioned by the Communist League and originally published in London in 1848, the Manifesto remains one of the world's most influential political documents.[citation needed] It presents an analytical approach to class struggle and criticizes capitalism and the capitalist mode of production, without attempting to predict communism's potential future forms.

The Communist Manifesto summarises Marx and Engels' theories concerning the nature of society and politics, namely that, in their own words, "[t]he history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles". It also briefly features their ideas for how the capitalist society of the time would eventually be replaced by socialism. In the last paragraph of the Manifesto, the authors call for a "forcible overthrow of all existing social conditions", which served as a call for communist revolutions around the world.[1][2]

In 2013, The Communist Manifesto was registered to UNESCO's Memory of the World Programme along with Marx's Capital, Volume I.[3]

Cover of the Communist Manifesto’s initial publication in February 1848 in London.

Only surviving page from the first draft of the Manifesto, handwritten by Karl Marx

Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Karl Heinrich Marx

FRSA (German: [maʁks]; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 pamphlet The Communist Manifesto and the four-volume Das Kapital (1867–1883). Marx's political and philosophical thought had enormous influence on subsequent intellectual, economic, and political history. His name has been used as an adjective, a noun, and a school of social theory.

Born in Trier, Germany, Marx studied law and philosophy at the universities of Bonn and Berlin. He married German theatre critic and political activist Jenny von Westphalen in 1843. Due to his political publications, Marx became stateless and lived in exile with his wife and children in London for decades, where he continued to develop his thought in collaboration with German philosopher Friedrich Engels and publish his writings, researching in the British Museum Reading Room.

Marx's critical theories about society, economics, and politics, collectively understood as Marxism, hold that human societies develop through class conflict. In the capitalist mode of production, this manifests itself in the conflict between the ruling classes (known as the bourgeoisie) that control the means of production and the working classes (known as the proletariat) that enable these means by selling their labour-power in return for wages.[4] Employing a critical approach known as historical materialism, Marx predicted that capitalism produced internal tensions like previous socioeconomic systems and that these tensions would lead to its self-destruction and replacement by a new system known as the socialist mode of production. For Marx, class antagonisms under capitalism—owing in part to its instability and crisis-prone nature—would eventuate the working class's development of class consciousness, leading to their conquest of political power and eventually the establishment of a classless, communist society constituted by a free association of producers.[5] Marx actively pressed for its implementation, arguing that the working class should carry out organised proletarian revolutionary action to topple capitalism and bring about socio-economic emancipation.[6]

Marx has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history, and his work has been both lauded and criticised.[7] His work in economics laid the basis for some current theories about labour and its relation to capital.[8][9][10] Many intellectuals, labour unions, artists, and political parties worldwide have been influenced by Marx's work, often modifying or adapting his ideas. Marx is typically cited as one of the principal architects of modern social science.[11][12]

Friedrich Engels

(/ˈɛŋ(ɡ)əlz/ ENG-(g)əlz,[2][3][4] German: [ˈfʁiːdʁɪç ˈʔɛŋl̩s]; 28 November 1820 – 5 August 1895) was a German philosopher, critic of political economy, historian, political theorist and revolutionary socialist. He was also a businessman, journalist and political activist, whose father was an owner of large textile factories in Salford (Lancashire, England) and Barmen, Prussia (now Wuppertal, Germany).[5][6][7]

Engels developed what is now known as Marxism together with Karl Marx. In 1845, he published The Condition of the Working Class in England, based on personal observations and research in English cities. In 1848, Engels co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Marx and also authored and co-authored (primarily with Marx) many other works. Later, Engels supported Marx financially, allowing him to do research and write Das Kapital. After Marx's death, Engels edited the second and third volumes of Das Kapital. Additionally, Engels organised Marx's notes on the Theories of Surplus Value which were later published as the "fourth volume" of Das Kapital.[8][9] In 1884, he published The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State on the basis of Marx's ethnographic research.

On 5 August 1895, aged 74, Engels died of laryngeal cancer in London. Following cremation, his ashes were scattered off Beachy Head, near Eastbourne.

On the barricades on the Rue Soufflot, Paris, 25 June 1848 (1848-49), by Horace Vernet

Map of Europe in 1848–1849 depicting the main revolutionary centers, important counter-revolutionary troop movements and states with abdications

Danish soldiers parade through Copenhagen in 1849 after victories in the First Schleswig War

Galician slaughter (Polish: Rzeź galicyjska) by Jan Lewicki (1795–1871), depicting the massacre of Polish nobles by Polish peasants in Galicia in 1846.

The June Uprising of 1848 in Prague injected a strong political element into Czech National Revival.

Episode from the Five Days of Milan, painting by Baldassare Verazzi

Proclamation of the Serbian Vojvodina in May 1848 during the Serb Revolution

The Battle of Buda in May 1849 by Mór Than

Trial of the Irish patriots at Clonmel. Young Irelanders receiving their sentence of death.

A depiction of Leopold I of Belgium's symbolic offer to resign the crown in 1848

The revolutionary barricades in Vienna in May 1848

Chartist meeting on Kennington Common 10 April 1848

1848

Springtime of Nations

The Revolutions of 1848, known in some countries as the Springtime of the Peoples[2] or the Springtime of Nations, were a series of political upheavals throughout Europe starting in 1848. It remains the most widespread revolutionary wave in European history to date.[citation needed]

The revolutions were essentially democratic and liberal in nature, with the aim of removing the old monarchical structures and creating independent nation-states, as envisioned by romantic nationalism. The revolutions spread across Europe after an initial revolution began in France in February. Over 50 countries were affected, but with no significant coordination or cooperation among their respective revolutionaries. Some of the major contributing factors were widespread dissatisfaction with political leadership, demands for more participation in government and democracy, demands for freedom of the press, other demands made by the working class for economic rights, the upsurge of nationalism, the regrouping of established government forces,[3] and the European Potato Failure, which triggered mass starvation, migration, and civil unrest.[4]

The uprisings were led by temporary coalitions of reformers, the middle classes, the upper classes (the bourgeoisie) and workers;[5] however, the coalitions did not hold together for long. Many of the revolutions were quickly suppressed, as tens of thousands of people were killed, and even more were forced into exile. Significant lasting reforms included the abolition of serfdom in Austria and Hungary, the end of absolute monarchy in Denmark, and the introduction of representative democracy in the Netherlands. The revolutions were most important in France, the Netherlands, Italy, the Austrian Empire, and the states of the German Confederation that would make up the German Empire in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Although the United Kingdom did not see any notable actions at home, in British Ceylon there was a parallel but unsuccessful uprising against British rule known as the Matale Rebellion. The wave of uprisings ended in October 1849.

The French Revolution

(French: Révolution française de 1848), also known as the February Revolution (Révolution de février), was a brief period of civil unrest in France, in February 1848, that led to the collapse of the July Monarchy and the foundation of the French Second Republic. It sparked the wave of revolutions of 1848.

The revolution took place in Paris, and was preceded by the French government's crackdown on the campagne des banquets. Starting on 22 February as a large-scale protest against the government of François Guizot, it later developed into a violent uprising against the monarchy. After intense urban fighting, large crowds managed to take control of the capital, leading to the abdication of King Louis Philippe on 24 February and the subsequent proclamation of the Second Republic.

The 1848 Revolutions in the Italian states

, part of the wider Revolutions of 1848 in Europe, were organized revolts in the states of the Italian peninsula and Sicily, led by intellectuals and agitators who desired a liberal government. As Italian nationalists they sought to eliminate reactionary Austrian control. During this time, Italy was not a unified country, and was divided into many states, which, in Northern Italy, were ruled by the Austrian Empire. A desire to be independent from foreign rule, and the conservative leadership of the Austrians, led Italian revolutionaries to stage revolution in order to drive out the Austrians. The revolution was led by the state of the Kingdom of Sardinia. Some uprisings in the Kingdom of Lombardy–Venetia, particularly in Milan, forced the Austrian General Radetzky to retreat to the Quadrilatero (Quadrilateral) fortresses.[1]

King Charles Albert, who ruled Piedmont-Sardinia from 1831 to 1849, aspired to unite Italy with the endorsement of Pope Pius IX, head of the Papal States, which comprised then vast territories in the center of the Italian peninsula. He declared war on Austria in March 1848 and launched a full-out attack on the Quadrilateral. Lacking allies, Charles Albert was no match for the Austrian army and was defeated at the Battle of Custoza on 24 July 1848. He signed a truce and withdrew his forces from Lombardy, and thus Austria remained dominant in a divided Italy until the Second Italian War of Independence.

The "March Revolution" in the German states

took place in the south and the west of Germany, with large popular assemblies and mass demonstrations. Led by well-educated students and intellectuals,[29] they demanded German national unity, freedom of the press, and freedom of assembly. The uprisings were poorly coordinated, but had in common a rejection of traditional, autocratic political structures in the 39 independent states of the German Confederation. The middle-class and working-class components of the Revolution split, and in the end, the conservative aristocracy defeated it, forcing many liberal Forty-Eighters into exile.[30]

1848

the California Gold Rush