Abstract
Peace Treaties from the French Revolution to the Congress of Vienna In 1795/97 revolutionary France asserted its power over Western Europe. Napoleon’s military and political engagement as First Consul secured the Rhine frontier, Upper Italy, and the glacis of the allied republics. Efforts to secure a settlement with Great Britain in 1802, however, proved short-lived. The campaigns of the Grande Armée against Austria and Prussia after 1805 extended French hegemony to Central Europe but still Napoleon’s only answer to Britain’s continuing maritime supremacy was the Continental Blockade. The Peace of Tilsit with the Czar (1807) also failed to forge an anti-British alliance. The logic of the economic war, and Napoleon’s intervention in Spain led to overextension and, finally, the defeats of 1812/13. The novel and ultimately successful combination of alliances and military campaigns by the allies 1813/14 was perpetuated in the Vienna Settlement. It was able to stabilise Europe because it included France and created multilateral political structures.
