Revolutions in the Atlantic World, New Edition: A Comparative History by Wim Klooster

Author:Wim Klooster
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Tags: Europe, General, HIS000000 History / General, Revolutionary, History
Publisher: NYU Press
Published: 2018-01-23T00:00:00+00:00

Napoleon’s Intervention

The first fissures in the imperial construction indeed appeared as a consequence of events an ocean away. In 1807, Napoleon, now emperor of France and master of the larger part of Europe, invaded Portugal, inducing the Portuguese court to move from Lisbon to Rio de Janeiro. The flight of the king and ten thousand of his supporters to Brazil caused a remarkable change. Now Portugal became the colony, Brazil the metropolis. It would prove to be the first step toward Brazilian independence.37

One year after he invaded Portugal, Napoleon imprisoned the Spanish king, Ferdinand VII, and his father, Charles IV, and ordered his own brother Joseph to fill the vacant throne. Under Charles IV, Spain had in fact been ruled by the king’s favorite, Manuel Godoy, Príncipe de la Paz. It was Godoy who involved Spain in France’s warfare at the Treaty of San Ildefonso (1796). Both partners suffered in the end, as Britain established naval supremacy by destroying the combined fleets of France and Spain at the Battle of Trafalgar (1805). As a consequence, Spain could no longer defend her colonies. At home, Godoy’s policies made him many enemies. The discontent contributed to the coup d’état of crown prince Ferdinand in March 1808, known as the Mutiny of Aranjuez, which led to the dismissal of Godoy and the abdication of Charles IV. This changing of the guards was not directly in France’s interest, since Napoleon had previously sent many soldiers to Spain in an attempt to strengthen the Continental System, his grandiose plan to seal off the whole European continent from British ships and commerce.

Ostensibly to mediate in the affairs of the Bourbon family, the emperor next invited the old and the new king to Bayonne in the southwest of France, not far from the Spanish border. Once he arrived, Ferdinand was forced to abdicate in favor of his father, who in turn left the throne vacant for Napoleon. And Napoleon ordered his brother Joseph, King of Naples, to fill the throne. The emperor now made the mistake of believing that, as elsewhere in Europe, he could establish control over Spain by way of a few swift campaigns. He had not reckoned with the Spanish people, who rose in revolt, roused by the clergy against the “atheist” French.38 The insurgency began on May 2, when the French government tried to bring the remaining members of the royal family in a carriage to France. Eleven weeks later, the Spanish army crushed their French opponents, mostly second-rate soldiers, in the Battle of Bailén. The French were so hard-pressed that King Joseph was briefly forced to leave Madrid not long after his accession. But the French recovered and the central junta—originally appointed by Ferdinand before he departed for Bayonne—that coordinated Spanish resistance had to abandon its headquarters in Seville. The junta relocated to Cádiz, situated on a peninsula in the southwest, the only town that remained free territory. In the rest of the country, guerrillas kept the resistance alive, supported by English expedition troops.

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