Wars of Liberation

Prussia, the weakest of the great powers, led the struggle against Napoleon as a war of national liberation.

The Wars of Liberation (German: Befreiungskriege) or Wars of Freedom (German: Deutscher Freiheitskampf) are the wars from 1813 to 1815 that liberated Germany, but also Italy and Spain from French rule and brought an end to the empire of Napoleon I. They were part of the Napoleonic Wars and the Coalition Wars. They arose after the beginnings of resistance in Prussia (since 1806/07), the Spanish War of Independence (since 1809) and the Austrian uprising (1809; Andreas Hofer) and ultimately from the catastrophe of the French Russian campaign (1812).

Notable dates

The Monument to the Battle of the Nations (German: Völkerschlachtdenkmal, sometimes shortened to Völki) is a monument in Leipzig, Germany, to the 1813 Battle of Leipzig (German: Völkerschlacht), also known as the Battle of the Nations. Paid for mostly by donations and the city of Leipzig, it was completed in 1913 for the 100th anniversary of the battle at a cost of six million goldmarks. 13 years after the unification of Germany, reconstruction and renovation work began in 2003. It was originally planned to be completed by the 200th anniversary of the Battle of the Nations in 2013. During the renovation work, the glazing of the four theme windows in the Hall of Fame, which had been destroyed in the Second World War and originally designed by August Unger, was also reconstructed. Based on sparse image material, the Wernigerode glass designer Günter Grohs was entrusted with this task. In several stages, the reddish-brown rectangular glazing from the post-war period was removed and replaced with the new windows. The window project was carried out in the F. Schneemelcher glass workshops in Quedlinburg and was completed in 2012. In 2003, the passenger elevator between the crypt and the external walkway, which had been removed after the Second World War, was restored and in 2006 a second one was added from the foundation area to the crypt. To access it, the door at the feet of the Michael figure, which had previously only been indicated in the image program, was opened. Together with the new ramps on the apron, the monument has become barrier-free up to a height of 57 metres and can also be visited virtually since November 2019.

Ludwig Elsholtz: Moment from the Battle of Paris, 30 March 1814; King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia and Emperor Alexander I of Russia on 30 March 1814 in front of Paris in anticipation of the French emissary, oil painting from 1836.

Parade of the Allies into Paris on 31 March 1814; King Friedrich Wilhelm III of Prussia (blue uniform), Emperor Alexander I of Russia (green uniform) and Emperor Franz I of Austria (white uniform) symbolically demonstrate their power and unity after Napoleon's defeat. The Parisian population cheers the soldiers from the streets and from their windows.

• 6 August 1806 The Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation was dissolved, when the last Holy Roman Emperor Francis II (from 1804, Emperor Francis I of Austria) abdicated, following a military defeat by the French under Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 (see Treaty of Pressburg).
  • Defeated German kingdoms and duchies were contractually obliged to provide military contingente to the French Grande Armée on request. Many officers left their regiment because of their hate for the French, some joined one of the many Freikorps (e.g. Schill’sches Freikorps, Lützow’sche Freikorps or Black Brunswickers), others a German Legion (e.g. King's German Legion or later the Russian-German Legion).
  • Germans were always part of the continent of the Imperial French Army. As early as 1 November 1805, the foreign regiment "Régiment d' Isenburg" was formed in Mainz under Karl, Prince of Isenburg and Büdingen (a member of the army since 1804, Knight of the Legion of Honour since 1805, General of the Legion of Honour since December 1806, and General and Commander of the Army until December 1813). This took part in battles in Italy and Spain. In November 1806, the Francophile Prince of Isenburg and Büdingen formed a second German foreign regiment, the Regiment "Prussia". This regiment was later called the 4th Imperial French Foreign Regiment. Napoleon, like Caesar and so many other rulers and military leaders after him, admired the Germans' military skills. It was also no coincidence that Napoleon's opponent, Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington, equipped his mighty army with almost 40,000 Germans, more than the British general had British.
• 14 October 1806 The Battle of Jena–Auerstedt, part of the War of the Fourth Coalition, led subsequently to the defeat of the Prussian Army and Saxon Army, but also underlined the Fall of the 1st German Empire.
  • Since 1806 writers and intellectuals such as Johann Philipp Palm, Johann Gottlieb Fichte, Ernst Moritz Arndt, Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, and Theodor Körner had been criticising the French occupation of much of Germany. They advocated limitations to the dynastic princes of Germany and a joint effort by all Germans, including Prussians and Austrians, to eject the French. From 1810, Arndt and Jahn repeatedly asked high-ranking figures in Prussian society to prepare such a German uprising (German: Deutsche Erhebung).
• 14 March to 2 July 1807 Siege of Kolberg
• 24 June to 24 December 1812 French invasion of Russia
  • In 1812, Napoleon set up a new Grand Army, many of whose members were pressed into military service. The 612,000 men (not all of them marched against Moscow at the end of May 1812 after a magnificent princely convention in Dresden, others were responsible for home defense, and still others were responsible for reinforcing Napoleon's troops in the Kingdom of Naples) included at least 180,000 to 200,000 Germans (just under a third of the Grand Army), including 60,000 from Prussia, 30,000 from the Austrian Empire, 30,000 from Bavaria, and an unknown number from the remaining states of the occupied Rhine Confederation. Many Germans, especially Prussians, could not reconcile service for the tyrant Napoleon with their personal honor. Many well-known officers reluctantly refused to accept the command of the King of Prussia, who had been deprived of power since the Peace of Pressburg and the abdication of the Imperial Crown. Carl von Clausewitz wrote immediately after the war that of the 610,000 soldiers of the Grande Armée, only 23,000 reached the western bank of the Vistula. Not all troops penetrated deep into the Russian Empire, so the two auxiliary corps from Austria and Prussia (neutralized in late December 1812 following the convention in East Prussia) had shorter supply and retreat routes and had lower casualty figures (fallen, wounded, missing), while other German units were almost completely destroyed: the Bavarian VI Corps had 30,000 men, and on 13 December 1812, only 68 soldiers fit for combat were still there. Of more than 27,000 Westphalians, only 800 returned, and of 15,800 Württembergers, only 387 men returned. On 30 December 1812, the Baden division of 7,000 men still consisted of 40 combat-fit and 100 sick soldiers, while Thielmann's Saxon cavalry brigade only consisted of 55 men and the Mecklenburg contingent, once 2,000 men, only consisted of 59 soldiers.

"Napoleon pulled himself together and said to me in a calm tone [...]: 'The French cannot complain about me; to spare them, I sacrificed the Poles and the Germans. I lost 300,000 men in the Moscow campaign; not even 30,000 of them were French.' You forget, Sire, I exclaimed indignantly, that you are speaking to a German." — Klemens Wenzel Lothar Fürst von Metternich, Minister of Foreign Affairs (as of 1821 Chancellor) of the Austrian Empire, after a recorded conversation with Napoleon on 26 June 1813

• 30 December 1812 The Convention of Tauroggen (German: Konvention von Tauroggen) was an armistice signed at Tauragė (now Lithuania) between General Johann „Hans“ David Ludwig von Yorck on behalf of his Prussian troops and German-born General Hans Karl Friedrich Anton Graf von Diebitsch of the Imperial Russian Army. Yorck's act is traditionally considered a turning point of Prussian history, triggering an insurgency against Napoleon in the Rheinbund. At the time of the armistice, Tauroggen was situated in the Russian Empire, 40 kilometres (25 mi) east of the Prussian border.

Sitting opposite von Yorck from Potsdam was the Silesian Major General von Diebitsch, who had been serving in the Imperial Russian Army since 1801, where his father had already made his career. His companions were Lieutenant Colonel Carl von Clausewitz, a Brandenburger who later became a world-famous military philosopher, and the East Prussian Major Friedrich Graf zu Dohna-Schlobitten. On December 30, 1812, the Prussian X (10th) Army Corps, which was attached to the French Army, was declared neutral towards Russia. Lieutenant General Yorck von Wartenburg thus committed insubordination, as he violated the promise made by his king to give unconditional obedience to the French Emperor. He expected drastic sanctions from the King of Prussia, who was known for his policy of compliance with Napoleon I. Lieutenant General von Yorck was declared deposed and was to be brought before a court martial. Major General Friedrich von Kleist was now to take over, but refused to stab his friend and superior in the back. Despite his misgivings, after his unilateral action, von Yorck wrote a letter to Friedrich Wilhelm III, which would ultimately lead to a European alliance against Napoleon I. Never had the opportunity been better than now, wrote Yorck von Wartenburg, to rid himself of French rule over Prussia and other European countries. The king should now try to persuade other European powers to form a coalition against the French emperor. General von Yorck sent the letter on 3 January 1813.

• 4 March 1813 French withdraw from Berlin.
• 10 March 1813 The Prussian king founded the Iron Cross, the first order to be awarded indiscriminately to all ranks.
• 17 March 1813 Declaration of war; In his proclamation "To my people" (An mein Volk), King of Prussia Friedrich Wilhelm III in Breslau called for a German uprising against the French occupation, thus putting an end to his policy of fulfillment.
  • In Prussia, money was collected for the war. Under the motto "I gave gold for iron" (Gold gab ich für Eisen), 6.5 million thalers were collected. People from all walks of life, including the lower classes, contributed to the donations. The enthusiasm for the war was particularly great among the Jewish population.
• 17 March 1813 to 16–19 October 1813 (Battle of Leipzig) / 31 October 1813​​ (Battle of Hanau) The German campaign, as part of the War of the Sixth Coalition, was fought in 1813. Members of the Sixth Coalition, including the German states of Austria and Prussia, plus Russia and Sweden, fought a series of battles in Germany against the French Emperor Napoleon, his marshals, and the armies of the Confederation of the Rhine – a forced confederation of German client states established at the behest of Napoleon some months after he defeated Austria and Russia at the Battle of Austerlitz – which ended the domination of the First French Empire. Napoleon was forced to abdicate and Louis XVIII assumed the French throne. The war came to a formal end with the Treaty of Paris in May 1814.
  • As a result, the Confederation of the Rhine began to disintegrate. The enlarged southern German middle states remained, while the Napoleonic artificial states of Berg, Frankfurt and Westphalia, as well as the Kingdom of Saxony and the area to the left of the Rhine, were placed under Stein's central administrative department. On the Allied side, the question arose as to whether the war should continue after Napoleon had been expelled from Germany. Metternich wanted to be content with the Rhine border, but encountered opposition from Stein, Blücher, Gneisenau and others, who wanted to continue fighting until Europe was finally liberated and Napoleon was overthrown. They were supported in this by effective nationalist journalism, such as that developed by Arndt and Joseph Görres. Napoleon did not respond to Metternich's offer of peace.
• 11 January 1814 to 30 March 1814 (Battle of Paris) Winter campaign of 1814
  • Battles: Épinal – Colombey – Brienne – La Rothière – Champaubert – Montmirail – Château-Thierry – Vauchamps – Mormant – Montereau – Bar-sur-Aube – Soissons – Craonne – Laon – Reims – Arcis-sur-Aube – Fère-Champenoise – Saint-Dizier – Claye – Paris
• April 1814 Napoleon abdicated in favour of his son on 4 April. The Allies rejected this out of hand, forcing Napoleon to abdicate unconditionally on 6 April. The terms of his abdication, which included his exile to the Isle of Elba, were settled in the Treaty of Fontainebleau on 11 April 1814. A reluctant Napoleon ratified it two days later.
• 30 May 1814 The French occupiers leave Hamburg, which they have largely destroyed and burned down.
• 1814–1815 The Congress of Vienna (Wiener Kongreß) from 18 September 1814 to 9 June 1815 redefined numerous borders in Europe and defined new states. The reason was the end of the French period (German: Franzosenzeit) with the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte, who had previously significantly changed the political map of the continent, at the Battle of Leipzig.
• 1815 The War of the Seventh Coalition (Siebte Koalition) ended with the Battle of Waterloo

History

Field marshal Wellington (left) and Generalfeldmarschall von Blücher congratulate each other after their victory over Napoleon on 18 June 1815 shortly after 9 p.m. south of the dairy near the inn "La Belle Alliance" (which fittingly is translated as "the beautiful alliance") a few miles south of Brussels.

Encyclopædia Britannica

[[File:Bronzemedaille zu Ehren der Generalfeldmarschälle H.D.L. Yorck (Graf von Wartenberg), G.L. Blücher (Fürst von Wahlstatt) und A. Graf Gneisenau.jpg|thumb|350px|Bronze medal in honor of the General Field Marshals Ludwig Graf Yorck von Wartenburg, Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher (Prince of Wahlstatt) and August Graf Neidhardt von Gneisenau]]

A new struggle for liberation opened three years later with the defeat of Napoleon’s grande armée in Russia. As the Russian armies began to cross western frontiers in December 1812, the crucial question became what reception they would find among the rulers and the inhabitants of central Europe. The first state to cut its ties to Paris was Prussia. It was not the king, however, but one of his generals, Johann, Graf (count) Yorck von Wartenburg, who decided on his own initiative to cooperate with the Russians. Only hesitatingly and fearfully did Frederick William III then agree in February 1813 to a war against France, although many Prussians greeted the outbreak of the conflict with enthusiasm. The other rulers of the German states refused initially to follow the Prussian example. The members of the Confederation of the Rhine were still convinced of Napoleon’s invincibility, while Austria preferred to see the combatants exhaust each other until it could play the role of mediator and arbiter. The foreign minister in Vienna, Klemens, Fürst (prince) von Metternich, was afraid that the hegemony of France in central Europe might be replaced by that of Russia. He tried, therefore, to pursue a strategy of armed neutrality, hoping that he could persuade the opposing sides to accept a compromise that would maintain an equilibrium between Alexander I and Napoleon. This plan failed because of the obstinacy of the latter, who feared that concessions in foreign affairs would weaken his control over internal politics in France. The upshot was that in August 1813 Austria entered the conflict on the side of Russia and Prussia, and the balance of military power shifted in favour of the anti-French coalition. The faith of the secondary states in Napoleon’s star began to weaken, and Bavaria became the first member to secede from the Confederation of the Rhine (October 8). One great allied victory would now suffice to bring all of Germany into the struggle against France. That victory came on October 19, 1813, at the Battle of Leipzig. After four days of bitter fighting, the French army was forced to retreat, and its domination of central Europe was finally at an end. Before the year was out, Napoleon had withdrawn across the Rhine. Of all his conquests in Germany, only the left bank was still under the effective control of Paris. The Confederation of the Rhine promptly collapsed, as its members rushed to go over to the winning side before it was too late. The Rhineland was also reconquered early in 1814, after the allies had launched their invasion of France. In the course of the spring, the capture of Paris, the restoration of the Bourbons, and the conclusion of peace in the first Treaty of Paris (May 30) ended the Wars of Liberation except for the episode of the Hundred Days (de), when Napoleon briefly returned to power and was ultimately beaten at Waterloo. The western frontier of the German states was to remain essentially the same as at the time of the initial outbreak of hostilities more than 20 years previously. New state boundaries within Germany would still have to be determined, to be sure, and the problem of a new political organization of the nation awaited the victorious statesmen, but the period of foreign hegemony was over at last. The rulers of the German states, relying partly on the forces of innovation, partly on those of tradition, had succeeded in freeing themselves from alien domination. Now they had to decide what use they would make of their freedom. Would they create a new polity of unity and liberty, which many reformers demanded, or would they reestablish the old order of absolutism and particularism, which the conservatives advocated? As the statesmen began to gather in Vienna in the fall of 1814 to restore peace to a continent ravaged by two decades of war, they pondered the problem of devising an enduring form of government for Germany.

The men who, in the nine months from September 1814 to June 1815, redrew the map of Europe were diplomats of the old school. Francis I and the prince von Metternich of Austria, Frederick William III and the prince von Hardenberg of Prussia, Alexander I of Russia, Viscount Castlereagh of England, Talleyrand of France, and the representatives of the secondary states were all intellectual heirs of the 18th century. They feared the principles of the French Revolution, they scorned the theories of democratic government, and they opposed the doctrines of national self-determination. But they recognized that the boundaries and governments of 1789 could not be restored without modification or compromise. There had been too many changes in attitudes and loyalties that the rigid dogmas of legitimism were powerless to undo. The task before the peacemakers was thus the establishment of a sound balance between necessary reform and valid tradition capable of preserving the tranquillity that Europe desperately needed. The decisions regarding Germany reached during the deliberations in Vienna followed a middle course between innovation and reaction, avoiding extreme fragmentation as well as rigid centralization. The Confederation of the Rhine was not maintained, but neither was the Holy Roman Empire restored. Although the reforms introduced during the period of foreign domination were partly revoked, the practices of enlightened despotism were not entirely reestablished. Despite the complaints of unbending legitimists and the dire predictions of disappointed reformers, the peacemakers succeeded in creating a new political order in Germany that endured for half a century. The long years of war and unrest that had convulsed Europe during the era of the French Revolution and Napoleon were followed by even longer years of stability and tranquillity. The Germany that emerged in 1815 from the Congress of Vienna included 39 states ranging in size from the two Great Powers, Austria and Prussia, through the minor kingdoms of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, and Hanover; through smaller duchies such as Baden, Nassau, Oldenburg, and Hesse-Darmstadt; through tiny principalities such as Schaumburg-Lippe, Schwarzburg-Sondershausen, and Reuss-Schleiz-Gera; to the free cities of Hamburg, Bremen, Lübeck, and Frankfurt am Main. The new boundaries in Germany bore little resemblance to the bewildering territorial mosaic that had been maintained under the Holy Roman Empire, but there were still many fragments, subdivisions, enclaves, and exclaves, too many for the taste of ardent nationalists. Yet the overall pattern of state frontiers represented a significant improvement over the chaotic patchwork of sovereignties and jurisdictions that had characterized the old order. The peacemakers not only created more integrated and viable political entities but also altered the role that these entities were to play in the affairs of the nation. Without design or even awareness on the part of Frederick William III, his kingdom of Prussia assumed a pivotal position in Germany. The victorious powers, on guard against a revival of French aggression, decided to make Prussia the defender of the western boundary of Germany. The Rhineland and Westphalia, including the Ruhr district that would develop into the greatest industrial centre on the Continent, became Prussian provinces. More than that, the king agreed at the urging of Alexander I to cede the bulk of his Polish possessions to Russia in return for a substantial part of Saxony. Prussia, which at the end of the 18th century had been in the process of becoming a binational state, was thrust back into Germany and given a strategic position on both frontiers of the nation. The centre of gravity of Austria, on the other hand, shifted eastward. Francis I had decided to abandon the historic role of his state as protector of the Holy Roman Empire against the French for the sake of greater geographic compactness and military defensibility. The possessions in southern and western Germany were surrendered along with the Austrian Netherlands in return for Venetian territory on the Adriatic.

Quotes

• “The joining together of the Germans had to be slower; that's why I had only simplified their monstrous complication. Not that they had not been prepared for this union; on the contrary, they were just too many and could have reacted blindly to us before they understood us. How was it that no German Fürst understood the mood of his nation or knew how to use it? Truly, had heaven allowed me to be born a German prince, amidst the innumerable crises of our day I should infallibly have united the thirty million Germans; and, as I think I know them, I still think that if they had once elected me and proclaimed me, they would never have left me, and I would not be here [...] However that may be, this union must take place, late or soon, by the force of things." — Exiled on St. Helena, Napoleon Bonaparte had underestimated the Germans and overestimated the French.

See also

• Wars of Unification

Further reading

• Friedrich Meinecke:
  • Das Zeitalter der deutschen Erhebung 1795–1815 (1906, 2. Aufl. 1913, 3. Aufl. 1924, 4. Aufl. 1941)
  • Die deutsche Erhebung von 1914 – Vorträge und Aufsätze (1915)
• Martin Rink: The German wars of liberation 1807–1815 – The restrained insurgency, 2013
• Michael V. Leggiere: Napoleon and the Struggle for Germany – The Franco-Prussian War of 1813, Volume 1 "The War of Liberation, Spring 1813", Cambridge University Press, 2015

External links

• Dem 18. Juni 1815 (Poem)
• Wars of Liberation, German Part
• Wars of Liberation (War Of The Sixth Coalition)
• National Monument for the Wars of Liberation (Nationaldenkmal für die Befreiungskriege)
• Prussian War Commemorative Medal for the Wars of Liberation (Kriegsdenkmünze für die Befreiungskriege)