The History Onyx

The Fall of the Knights Templar

2012-02-25T23:35:00.001Z

The burning of Jacques de Molay and Guy de Charnay

On March 18th 1314, an old man in his mid-seventies appeared before a French ecclesiastical court to once again answer to charges first laid against himself and the men he represented seven years previously. The old man had nothing to lose. He knew he was almost certainly destined to burn for his alleged heinous crimes, which included denying Christ and the apostles, blasphemy and sodomy among other unsavoury practises which were frowned upon in Medieval Europe. All these charges were either incredibly trumped-up or completely false, concocted out of thin air by some very powerful enemies. The old man was Jacques de Molay, the last Grand Master of the Order of the Temple of Solomon, better known to history as the Knights Templar. De Molay's show-trial was to be the final grand spectacle of a campaign intended to bring down the Templars who, in happier times, had once been the untouchable darlings of Western Christendom.

By the time of his 1314 trial, de Molay had already confessed to his made-up crimes several times in the hope that doing so might save him from torture and an eventual death at the stake, the traditional final destination for heretics. He was deeply ashamed about his false admissions but the authorities were determined to keep piling on the humiliation. Following his hearing before the Bishops in Paris, de Molay was transported to the Cathedral of Notre Dame where was required to reaffirm his confessions before the assembled crowd from a public scaffold specially erected for the purpose. Once there, however, de Molay at last found the courage that had so far eluded him. He said the following words to the astonished onlookers:

"It is only right that at so solemn a moment, when my life has so little time to run, I should reveal the deception that has been practised and speak up for the truth. Before Heaven and Earth and all of you... I admit that I am guilty of the grossest iniquity. But the iniquity is that, to my shame and dishonour, I have suffered myself... to give utterance to falsehoods in admitting the disgusting charges against the Order... I declare, and I must declare, that the Order is innocent... I disdain to seek wretched and disgraceful existence by grafting another lie upon the original falsehood."

De Molay's recantation sent the assembled crowd into a frenzy. He was immediately dragged from the scaffold along with his supporter Guy de Charney, a fellow Templar who served as Preceptor of Normandy. The pair were then taken to the Île aux Javiaux, an island in the River Seine, and there they were put to death at the stake. De Molay and de Charnay died with dignity, becoming martyrs in the eyes of those more sympathetic to their plight. Even before the remains of the pyre had gone cold, onlookers were fishing out blackened bones and taking them away as religious relics.

The deaths of Jacques de Molay and Guy de Charnay could not save the Templars, however, and the writing was already on the wall for the Order. Other senior Templars such as Hugues de Rairond and Geoffrey de Gonneville immediately tried to limit the damage and save their own skins by publicly distancing themselves from their late Grand Master but it was no use. The Order had already been effectively wound-up by papal decree two years previously and Philip IV of France, the man behind the false allegations against the Templars, was determined to snuff out the last remaining knights. It was a sad and humiliating end for the Knights Templar, an organisation whose story had begun almost two centuries earlier.

The Templars' Beginnings

The Knights Templar were one of several military and religious orders founded for the purpose of managing the Christian conquests in the Holy Land after the First Crusade (1095-1099). A request by the Byzantine Emperor Alexius I for western military aid against the Seljuk Turks led to Pope Urban II calling upon all Latin Christians to join a war against the Muslim infidel. As armies of French and Norman knights flooded east, however, the situation quickly developed into a wider struggle for control of Palestine and Syria, which had been under Muslim control since the 7th Century and were of deep religious significance to both sides. The First Crusade was immensely successful for the Christians, who captured Jerusalem on July 15th 1099. Four so-called "crusader kingdoms" (Jerusalem, Tripoli, Antioch and Edessa) were established in the region by the victors.

These new Christian conquests needed to be administered and defended effectively if they were to survive and prosper in such a hostile region. It was decided that the best way to achieve this would be to establish Christian military orders based on the principles of chivalry and religious duty. Several such orders were set up after 1099, each being given a specific task to undertake. The Knights of the Holy Sepulchre, for example, were specifically tasked with guarding the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem, which had been built on the alleged site of Christ's crucifixion and subsequent burial prior to the resurrection, making it arguably the holiest Christian site in the world. Also set up around this time was the Order of the Hospital of St John of Jerusalem, known informally as the Knights Hospitaller, whose job it was to provide care for poor, sick and injured pilgrims.

Temple Mount, Jerusalem

It was the safety needs of these pilgrims, who came from Europe to visit the holy sites of Jerusalem and other places, that necessitated the creation of the Templars. Travelling through the Holy Land in the early 12th Century was a dangerous business for outsiders. The crusaders had managed to secure the cities but bandits continued roamed the near-lawless Palestinian countryside, looking out for vulnerable travellers to rob, murder or capture for sale into slavery. It was decided that another military order was needed to protect pilgrims on their journeys from the coastal ports of Jaffa and Acre to the various holy sites. In 1118 the Order of the Temple of Solomon, named after their headquarters on Temple Mount in Jerusalem, was founded for this purpose.

All Templar knights were of noble birth and most, like the Hospitallers, were French. During the initial period of the Order's history, it was dominated by men from the powerful noble families of eastern France. The first Grand Master was Hugues de Payens, a cousin of the powerful and wealthy Count of Champagne, who was himself an enthusiastic patron of the Order. Despite their privileged backgrounds, knights were expected to live lives of self-imposed poverty, chastity and humility in order to emphasise their spiritual purity and set a good example to people (their original full name was "The Order of the Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of Solomon"). With their combination of devout faith and formidable fighting prowess, the Templars successfully cultivated an image of themselves as model Medieval European knights.

Changing Focus

The success of the Knights Templar was dependant on the Crusades. With Christendom riding high after the successes of the First Crusade, the Order's members became celebrities, capturing people's imaginations with their embodiment of the crusading zeal. With this newfound fame inevitably came power and wealth, which meant that they soon forgot about their old commitments to poverty and humility.

The increasing amount of support that the Templars gained from Europe's rich and powerful guaranteed that they would not remain "Poor Knights of Christ" for long. By the time the Order was twenty years old, many noblemen were joining up and gifting vast sums of money. One such noble was Fulk, Count of Anjou (who also reigned as the fourth Crusader King of Jerusalem from 1131 to 1143), who joined the Order and donated thirty pounds of silver per year for its coffers. The Order also benefited massively from a rule of membership which stipulated that member knights were not allowed to own property. This meant that any well-endowed nobleman who joined up often simply gifted all his lands to the Order, which quickly acquired an extensive property portfolio.

Templar Knights

At the height of their power, the Knights Templar owned land in England, France, the Holy Roman Empire, Cyprus and the Italian states, along with the various fortresses that they had built and occupied in the Holy Land. In 1139 the Order became even more powerful when it was given papal protection by Pope Innocent II, protection which made it exempt from any church or secular jurisdiction. On top of that, Templar property was not taxed and members were declared exempt from paying church tithes. By the middle of the 12th Century, the Templars were effectively a law-unto-themselves, independent of any church or state authority.

The Templars' newfound power and prosperity allowed them to branch out into other areas besides their military duties. They were perhaps most famous as the money men of the Middle Ages, a status which was possible due to the Order having gained papal exemption from the ban on usury. No other Christian was allowed to engage in the sinful practice of lending money at interest and the only others who could, the Jews, were often targeted for religious persecution. This meant that the situation was incredibly favourable to the Templars and they quickly took advantage, setting up banks and financial institutions throughout Europe. Aspects of banking that we are familiar with today, such as current accounts, safety deposits, loans and credit, international money transfers (Templar knights were used to guard money in-transit) and trustee services were first instituted by the Order during the 12th and 13th Centuries. The Knights Templar were renowned for their honesty and efficiency when handling people's money. Even some prominent Muslims trusted them with theirs.

Declining Reputation

With their vast land holdings complimented by their near-total dominance of the emerging financial sector, the Templars became even richer still. It was inevitable that they would soon start to make people jealous, especially those who had borrowed from the Order and were now in debt to it. The Order still had its popularity to fall back on but that popularity was dependent on the continued success of Christian forces in the Crusades. The major turning point came with the Third Crusade (1187-1192), which was triggered by the loss of Jerusalem to Saladin's Saracen Muslim forces in 1187. In response, Christian armies led by the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, King Philip II Augustus of France and Richard the Lionheart, King of England and ruler of the mighty Angevin Empire in Western Europe, were dispatched to take back control of the holy city. They failed to achieve that goal and, as a result, Islam gained the ascendancy in the Holy Land.

During the course of the 13th Century, Christianity gradually lost ground in Palestine and Syria as Muslim forces, first the Saracens and then the Egyptian Mamluks, encroached upon what remained of the crusader states. In Europe, the once-irresistible crusading zeal more-or-less died out as rulers concentrated more on matters at home, reducing the likelihood of any further major expeditions to the Holy Land. As a result, the popularity and influence of the military orders went into decline. The Templars in particular suffered as they came under increasing scrutiny for their lack of success and excessive wealth.

The Siege of Acre

In 1291 the Muslims captured Acre, the last Christian-held city on the Palestinian mainland, expelling the crusaders from the Holy Land and bringing the era of the Crusades to a humiliating conclusion. The Knights Templar remained in control of the Island of Raud (now known as Arwad), three kilometers off the Syrian coast, until September 1302. Criticism of the military orders, especially the Templars, became even more intense after the fall of Acre, with Christians believing that their cause had lost God's approval and that the Devil was trying to subvert the Church by corrupting the orders. By the time Jacques de Molay became Grand Master in 1295, his organisation was weathering a storm of serious accusations (for the time), which included glorifying wealth, living in excessive luxury in contravention of their vows of poverty, and indulging in the sins of pride and arrogance.

A King's Vendetta

As previously mentioned, the mastermind behind the accusations against the Templars was the King of France, Philip IV (r.1285-1314). Philip's reasons for doing this were threefold. Firstly, he was incredibly jealous of the Templars' vast wealth, properties and power in France. Second, he was heavily in debt to the Order and bringing them to heel could potentially mean not having to pay back his loans. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, Philip saw attacking the Templars as a way of damaging another institution that he didn't get along with, the papacy (and indeed attacking the papacy as a way of damaging the Templars).With the military orders in decline and the Pope struggling to suppress the growing self-confidence among Europe's secular leaders, Philip IV seized the opportunity deal with both.

Having set events in motion by smearing the Templars with his false accusations, Philip launched his assault on the papacy in 1303. That September, the elderly Pope Boniface VIII, who two years earlier had declared defiantly that "God has set Popes over Kings and kingdoms", was relaxing at his papal retreat at Agani near Rome. On September 7th Boniface's holiday was rudely interrupted when Philip IV's chief minister, Guillaume de Nogaret barged his way into Agani with an escort of French soldiers. De Nogaret demanded that Boniface step down from his post but the 86-year-old pontiff steadfastly refused. What happened next is not clear but the most fanciful accounts allege that Boniface was beaten up by de Nogaret and threatened with execution. Whatever happened, Boniface was released from French captivity after three days but the experience must have had a profound impact on his frail constitution. A month later, on October 11th, he died.

Philip IV of France

The events at Agani effectively amounted to a hijacking of the papacy by the King of France. In 1305 the Frenchman Raymond Bertrand de Got was elected to the papacy as Pope Clement V. With the Pope now little more than Philip's puppet, the Templars were dangerously vulnerable and Philip knew it was time to move decisively against them. Two years later, with the full support of Clement V, Philip IV went public with his assault on the Knights Templar, making reference to their "abominable work" in his royal proclamation denouncing the Order:

"A bitter thing, a lamentable thing, a thing which is horrible to contemplate, terrible to hear of, a detestable crime, an excrable evil... Unreasoning beasts in their astonishing beastiality [and] exposed themselves to all supremely abominable cries which even the sensuality of unreasoning beasts abhors and avoids..."

This was a masterpiece of negative PR by Philip, one which played masterfully on the Medieval mind's various superstitions and fear of sexuality. He drew particular attention to the Order's initiation ceremonies for new members, the details of which were kept totally secret from outsiders. Therefore it was easy for Philip to convince people that there was some kind of ungodly or satanic rituals involved. By the Summer of 1308 Philip's accusations were finalised, claiming that the Order of the Temple of Solomon was a hotbed of blasphemy, sodomy, paedophilia, infanticide, witchcraft, the dark arts and devil-worship.

The End

On October 13th 1307 Philip's men on the ground began the process of bringing down the Knights Templar. 15,000 Templar knights and associate members were seized in a wave of arrests across France while the Church sent out friars to give sermons denouncing the Order from every parish pulpit. Despite the high number of arrests, they only amounted to around one in twenty senior members of the Order. Jacques de Molay was among those arrested, however, falling from his position high in royal favour where he had been just a matter of days previously.

Even before de Molay and other leaders of the Order were in his custody, Philip had wasted no time in having the Templars' property surveyed and was quick to redistribute it. One thing he was not able to do, however, was get his hands on the Order's records and paperwork, which he had hoped would give an element of truth to his accusations. The records were either destroyed by the Templars or sneaked out out of the country by fifty knights who had escaped via the port of La Rochelle.

The French authorities may have been denied their chance to get hold of any hard documentary evidence regarding what the Templars got up to in their spare time but in practice this didn't matter. Medieval prosecutions often relied on confessions which could extracted from the accused. False witnesses were also used extensively, with Philip sending out agents to find dissident Templars willing to speak out against their superiors. Two such men, Jean de Folliaco and Etienne de Troyes, claimed that they had been forced by the Order to deny Christ. Another was a purported former Templar named Esquin de Floyran. His evidence was taken in good faith despite his shady criminal past and the fact that he nursed an obvious grudge against the Order (another debtor, perhaps?).

In the prevailing atmosphere that was enveloping the invistigations of Templar activity, accusation on its own was often enough to confirm a person's guilt. If that was not enough then torture would be used to extract confessions (often just the threat or prospect of torture was enough, as de Molay's later confession would show) following the application of psychological pressure through sleep deprivation and/or deliberate starvation. Many Templars, threatened with torture or tempted by offers of freedom, willingly confessed only to subsequently find themselves thrown in jail.

For the most senior captives like de Molay, they would have to endure the humiliation of a public tribunal. This would inevitably lead to public confessions of wrongdoing and result in a propaganda coup for Philip IV, who was effectively portraying himself as a Christian champion valiantly fighting the evil and corrupted Templars. The only person who could now theoretically prevent him from destroying the Templars entirely was Pope Clement V, for the Templars were still technically under the protection of the papacy. Unfortunately for the Order, however, in 1309 Clement confirmed his position in King Philip's pocket by transferring the papal court from Rome to the city of Avignon in the south of France, where it would remain for the next 67 years. That same year, Clement withdrew his protection of the Knights Templar and formally condoned the persecutions after receiving threats from Philip, who was determined to fix the outcome of the trials.

Pope Clement V

It was in the Spring of 1310 that the executions began. On May 12th 54 Templars were burned on heresy charges outside Paris at the Pont de St Antoine de Champs. 64 more were burned before that month was out. The trials of all Templars barring the most senior (including de Molay) were completed by June 1311. The final act in the 194-year history of the Order of the Temple of Solomon came in early 1312 when it was officially suppressed and dissolved by Clement V's papal bull Vox in Excelso, the text of which read:

In view of the suspicion, infamy, loud insinuations and other things which have been brought against the other... and also the secret and clandestine reception of the brother of this Order; in view, moreover, of the serious scandal which has arisen from these things, which it did not seem could be stopped while the Order remained in being, and the danger to faith and souls, and the many horrible things which have been done by the very many of the brothers of this Order, who have lapsed into the sin of wicked apostasy, the crime of detestable idolatry, and the execrable outrage of the Sodomites... it is not without bitterness and sadness of heart that we abolish the aforesaid Order of the Temple, and its constitution, habit and anme, by an irrevocable and perpetually valid decree; and we subject it to perpetual prohibition with the approval of the Holy Council, strictly forbidding anyone to presume to enter the said Order in the future, or to receive or wear its habit, or to act as a Templar.

Aftermath

Following the final dissolution of the Knights Templar in 1312, most of the Order's lands in France went to the Knights Hospitaller, with Philip keeping 10% as his personal commission. In other counties where the Templars had been active, their lands were divided up similarly between secular rulers, the Church and the other military orders. In England, their lands were seized by King Edward II, who then proceeded to gift them to his notorious male favourite, Piers Gaveston. After Gaveston was murdered by his opponents in June 1312, the old Templar properties reverted to the English Crown but Edward, pressured by the same men who had killed his friend, was soon forced to transfer them to the Hospitallers, which he did in November 1313.

The trial of Jacques de Molay began in December 1313 and lasted for three months, ending in March 1314 with his recantation and subsequent execution. Philip IV did not live long to enjoy his victory over the Templars, however. Just eight months after the execution of de Molay, Philip died from a cerebral ictus.

The War of the Austrian Succession

2012-01-31T21:38:00.000Z

In 1740 the House of Habsburg, one of the dominant royal dynasties of Europe for the preceeding three centuries, was on its last legs. Forty years earlier the senior Spanish line of the family had inbred itself out of existence, leading to a disputed session and more than a decade of conflict that involved almost the whole of Europe. Now, with that bloodshed still within living memory, history looked set to repeat itself. This time, however, the focus was on the dynastic Habsburg lands in Austria and Central Europe which were ruled by the junior family line. The Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of these territories, Charles VI, had two daughters but no sons, leading to the inevitable question as to who could succeed him to lands and titles which had never and, according to some, could never be held by a woman.

It was Charles' death in 1740 and the succession of his eldest daughter Maria Theresa that triggered yet another round of conflict across Europe and North America. Maria Theresa's opponents fought on the principle that she was ineligible to succeed to her father's thrones. The reality, however, was that those opponents used it as a convenient excuse to challenge Habsburg power. The allied Bourbon kingdoms of France and Spain, ruled by Louis XV and his uncle Philip V respectively, were only too keen to expand their influence on the continent at the expense of the old enemy. The conflict also marked the arrival of Prussia on the European stage and established the reputation of its King, Frederick the Great, as one of the great military geniuses of the era.

Map showing the alliances and areas of fighting in Europe

The War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748), as it came to be known, was actually made up of a series of more localised conflicts, several of which were already happening when the main wider war started and subsequently became a part of it. These included the Anglo-Spanish War (1739-1742), the War of Jenkins' Ear (1739-1748), King George's War and two of the three Silesian Wars (1740-1742 and 1744-1745). The Silesian Wars turned out to be one of the conflict's most interesting aspects, as Frederick the Great's modernised Prussian armies fought it out with Austria for control of the resource-rich province of Silesia. The rivalry between Prussia and Austria would evolve into a much longer struggle for dominance over the area that is now Germany.

Background

At this point, before I go any further, I think that I should refer you to my previous post about the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) as it will provide you with an insight into the situation in Europe in the 18th Century and introduce you to some of the characters that reappear here, such as Charles VI, Philip V and Louis XV. The story of the War of the Austrian Succession begins, as I have said, with Charles VI who, in his younger days before becoming Emperor, had been the Habsburg candidate for the Spanish throne in that earlier conflict.

Charles and his allies ultimately failed to keep the Spanish crown in the Habsburg family and the death of his elder brother, Emperor Joseph I, without a male heir in 1711 meant that he unexpectedly became Holy Roman Emperor (in theory an elected office but, in practice, one which had been under the hereditary control of the Habsburgs since the 15th Century) and succeeded to the various family-held thrones and titles in Central Europe that were known collectively as the Habsburg Monarchy. These included Archduke of Austria, King of Hungary, King of Bohemia and King of Croatia.

Early on his his reign Charles, who been married for several years but had yet to have any children, was already becoming concerned about what might happen in the event of him dying without an heir. Joseph I had left behind two daughters who were theoretically barred from the succession by the Salic Law, an ancient legal precedent which prevented the inheritance of a throne or fief by a female. As time went on the possibility of the Habsburg Monarchy passing to a female became greater but steps had already been taken to prepare for such an eventuality. Back in 1703, during the reign of their father Leopold I, Joseph and Charles had agreed on the Mutual Pact of Succession, which granted legal succession rights to Joseph's daughters should the male line die out. As Joseph was the elder brother, his daughters were to take precedence over any daughters that Charles might yet still have.

Ten years later, with his brother now gone, Charles changed the law once again by passing the Pragmatic Sanction of 1713. The Pragmatic Sanction reaffirmed the right of a female to rule but, in a whopping case of double-standards, placed any future daughters of his own above his nieces in the line of succession. Despite the flagrant disregard that he had shown both for the previous agreement and for the senior line of succession, Charles initially had no problem with getting both the constituent parts of his empire and the other countries of Europe to accept the changes. In 1717 Charles' wife gave birth to their daughter Maria Theresa who, under the terms of the Pragmatic Sanction, became heiress presumptive to the Habsburg territories.

Maria Theresa of Austria

Charles VI might well have worked hard to prepare his territories for a female ruler but he did little to prepare his daughter for the job. Most likely this was because he felt that preparing Maria Theresa to rule could be taken as evidence that he was not going to have a son and that the female succession was a certainty. As a result, Maria Theresa was not given any kind of education in the difficult art that was governing the vast and diverse Habsburg territories. She was not shown state documents, was not allowed to attend meetings and was never even introduced to any ministers or political figures. When her father died in 1740, the naive 23-year-old suddenly found herself in the middle of a political storm as, for the second time in half a century, all Hell broke loose in Europe over the issue of the Habsburg succession.

The Female Succession and Opposition

On the death of Charles VI on October 20th 1740, Maria Theresa succeeded him as Archduchess of Austria, Duchess of Parma and Queen of Hungary, Bohemia and Croatia. The constituent peoples of the Habsburg Monarchy accepted and supported her as their ruler but it did not take long for some the other European powers to change their tune and suddenly argue that she was not entitled to her thrones after all. France, Spain, Prussia, Bavaria and Saxony led the opposition to Maria Theresa's succession while Great Britain and the Netherlands, motivated primarily by their traditional aminosity towards France, supported her.

Maria Theresa's acsession also raised the big question as to who would next occupy the Imperial throne. All the previous Holy Roman Emperors had been male and the position remained subject to Salic Law. Maria Theresa had already concurred that she had no chance whatsoever of being allowed to stand for the office in her own right, even if she was a Habsburg. Instead she had put forward her husband, Francis Stephen of Lorraine, Grand Duke of Tuscany as a candidate. Charles VI had persuaded most of the German states within the Holy Roman Empire to accept the Pragmatic Sanction and to support the candidacy of Francis Stephen but again it did not take long for opponents to appear once Charles was dead. One such opponent who fancied himself for the title of Emperor was Charles Albert, the Wittelsbach Elector of Bavaria and husband of Maria Amalia, the younger of Joseph I's daughters. Joseph's elder daughter, Maria Josepha was married to another of Maria Theresa's opponents, Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony and King of Poland.

The Saxon and Bavarian Electors may well have been the most vocal opponents of Maria Theresa and the Pragmatic Sanction. She had, after all, supplanted their wives in the Habsburg order of succession. The first person to open full hostilities against her, however, was Frederick II, who held the Electorate of Brandenburg as a constituent part of his wider realm, the Kingdom of Prussia. The enlightened and cultured Frederick, who had only been on the throne of Prussia since May that year, was the leader of a small but well-organised country which was on the verge of becoming a major international power. His motivations for opposing Maria Theresa were numerous, the main one being that he wished to unite his scattered territories in northern Germany by acquiring the intervening lands and forming a single contiguous Prussian state. He also harboured a deep resentment of the Habsburgs and the immense influence that they held over the German states and partly blamed them for his miserable and repressed early life, throughout which he had suffered constantly at the hands of his bullying pro-Habsburg father, Frederick William I.

First Silesian Campaign (1740-1742)

In late 1740, with the Austrians distracted by the political fallout resulting from Maria Theresa's succession, Frederick II decided to take advantage of the situation by attacking the neighbouring Habsburg province of Silesia, which was abundant in natural resources and rich in mineral wealth. His excuse for doing so was a questionable interpretation of a 200-year-old treaty, which had promised the Silesian duchy of Brieg to the Hohenzollerns of Brandenburg (the Prussian ruling dynasty) in the event of the ruling Piast dynasty dying out, which it had done back in 1675. Using this as a convenient pretext, Frederick's armies in Brandenburg crossed the River Oder and invaded Silesia on December 16th 1740.

Frederick II "the Great" of Prussia

At this time few of the other European powers took Prussia seriously as a military power. Although the Prussian army had taken part in the recent War of the Polish Succession (1733-1738), it had not been allowed to fight because the Austrians did not trust Frederick William I. This lack of activity had given Frederick William, known as "the Soldier King", a chance to create a highly efficient state bureaucracy and, more importantly, develop his beloved army into a well-drilled, well-trained, well-organised and well-equipped fighting force. The Prussian cavalry and artillery remained fairly average compared with the rest of Europe but the infantry, consisting of full-time professional soldiers, were arguably the best that the continent had to offer. Frederick William's efforts ensured that the army was ready to move almost as soon as his son Frederick came to the throne, allowing the latter to launch a lightning fast campaign against the Habsburgs when they were at their weakest.

All these factors ensured that Frederick II's invasion of Silesia was a complete and resounding success. The lack of a formal declaration of war meant that the Austrians were caught by surprise. There was no time for Maria Theresa to raise an army by traditional means and the handful of Austrian garrisons in the province could do little to resist the relentless Prussian advance. The Austrians decided to pull back to the mountain frontier of Bohemia and Moravia to the south, allowing the Prussians to overrun Silesia in less than two months. The Austrians rallied when the new campaigning season began the following Spring but the Prussian victory at the Battle of Mollwitz in April 1741 effectively confirmed Frederick's conquest. That conquest was legally recognised by the Treaty of Breslau, which was signed in June 1742. The acquisition of Silesia almost doubled Prussia's population and greatly increased its industrial capacity for the small price of having to treat the local population fairly, which the benevolent Frederick duly did.

Bohemian Campaign and Imperial Election (1741-1742)

As the Silesian campaign was going on, Maria Theresa's other opponents made their move. In 1741 King Louis XV of France sent an army to join with that of the Bavarian Elector Charles Albert, which was on the River Danube preparing to advance on the Austrian capital, Vienna. The Franco-Bavarian army began the march but the arrival of the Saxon army prompted a change of plan. They instead turned north into Bohemia, and launched a three-pronged assault on Prague. The French advanced via Amberg and Pilsen, the Bavarians via Budweis and the Saxons via the valley of the River Elbe.

At first there was little the Austrians could do as the majority of their forces were preoccupied with Frederick II and the Prussians in Silesia. They did have an army in Bohemia, commanded by Maria Theresa's husband Francis Stephen, but it was not going to last long on its own against this massive assault. They were eventually able to free up another army in October when the Austrian general Wilhelm Reinhard von Neipperg made a curious agreement with Frederick at the Silesian town of Neisse. The two agreed that Neipperg would abandon Neisse to the Prussians (after the two sides staged a mock siege) and take his army out of the province to where it could be better used against the enemy armies menacing Bohemia. The Austrian cause was also helped by the Hungarians, who demonstrated their firm loyalty to Maria Theresa by supplying a valuable force of conscripted light infantry.

As Neipperg brought his army south from Silesia, Field Marshal Khevenhüller collected together a fresh army at Vienna in preparation for a Winter offensive campaign against the French, Saxon and Bavarian armies in Bohemia. They were also planning to attack Bavaria itself, which was defended only by token forces. Yet again, however, it was their enemies that struck first. On November 26th 1741 the French army captured Prague, taking the Bohemian capital before Francis Stephen could arrive in time to save it. Elector Charles Albert, who was already styling himself as Archduke of Austria, was crowned as King of Bohemia in Prague on December 9th, taking this critical province of the Habsburg Monarchy out of Maria Theresa's hands. He also declared his intention to stand against Francis Stephen in the upcoming Imperial election.

Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria

The election was not due to take place for almost two months and the rest of December consisted mainly of indecisive skirmishes. It was not until December 27th that major hostilities resumed. The Austrians under Khevenhüller went on the offensive, first driving back the Bavarians at Linz and then marking the new year by pressing on into Bavaria itself. Charles Albert was not available to defend his ancestral homeland as the Imperial election was now imminent and all his attentions were focused on that. On January 24th 1742 the eyes of Europe were on the Free Imperial City of Frankfurt, where the Electors of the Holy Roman Empire gathered to choose their new Emperor, a position which had now been vacant for well over a year. With the candidates being Francis Stephen (House of Lorraine) and Charles Albert (House of Wittelsbach), this would be the first election since 1410 in which a non-Habsburg Emperor would be chosen.

Under normal circumstances there would have been nine Electors, six secular (the rulers of Brandenburg, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Bohemia and the Palatinate) and three ecclesiastical (the Archbishops of Cologne, Trier and Mainz). On this occasion, however, there were only eight due to Charles Albert's seizure of the Bohemian crown. Maria Theresa still claimed the throne of Bohemia and her right to vote in the election but Charles Albert succeeded in having her excluded from voting. The electoral rights of Bohemia were subsequently suspended until the thorny issue could be resolved. The remaining eight Electors were:

Philipp Karl von Eltz-Kempernich, Elector of Mainz
Franz Georg von Schönborn-Buchheim, Elector of Trier
Clemens August of Bavaria, Elector of Cologne
Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria (also King of Bohemia)
Frederick Augustus II, Elector of Saxony (also King of Poland)
Frederick II, Elector of Brandenburg (also King of Prussia)
George II, Elector of Hanover (also King of Great Britain)
Charles III Philip, Elector Palatine

In the years before his death, Emperor Charles VI had tried to secure the Imperial succession for his son-in-law Francis Stephen. Charles Albert opposed this on the grounds that his wife had a senior Habsburg claim to that of Maria Theresa and that he himself was descended from a previous Habsburg Emperor (Ferdinand II). Francis Stephen had nevertheless appeared to be the likely winner initially but his case fell apart after Charles VI died and the French, whose influence was inevitably crucial, opted to support Charles Albert's claim. There was also the problem of Frederick II, who refused to pledge his vote to Francis Stephen unless his wife recognised the Prussian conquest of Silesia (the Treaty of Breslau was not signed until June that year), which Maria Theresa refused to do.

When the vote came, Charles Albert, as Elector of Bavaria, obviously voted for himself. He had support from the two other Wittelsbach Electors; Archbishop Clemens August of Cologne and Charles III Philip of the Palatinate. Francis Stephen had the support of George II and the Archbishops of Trier and Mainz. With both candidates on three votes each, the election was deadlocked and everything depended on the Electors of Brandenburg and Saxony who, despite being allies of Charles Albert, were initially reluctant to commit to either man. In the end the vote was decided by the French, who used their immense diplomatic weight to ensure that the last two votes went to Charles Albert. Francis Stephen's supporters conceeded defeat and Charles Albert was formally elected as Emperor Charles VII. Maria Theresa never accepted the legitimacy of the result.

On February 12th 1742, Charles VII was crowned Holy Roman Emperor in Frankfurt but his celebrations would turn out to be short-lived. Unbeknownst to him at the time (remember that news travelled slowly back then), that day was also the day that the Bavarian capital, Munich, surrendered to the Austrians who were now running around his homeland unopposed. The French under the elderly Duc de Broglie retained a precarious hold over Bohemia but they continued to be shadowed by the army of Francis Stephen. Frederick II launched a diversionary invasion of Moravia at the request of Charles but he was reluctant to commit to anything that went beyond the interests of his own kingdom. His signing of the Treaty of Breslau removed Prussia from the war for the time being, leaving him satisfied with his Silesian acquisitions.

British Involvement (1743)

1743 began disastrously for Charles VII as it became increasingly obvious that the anti-Habsburg coalition was not working well. The French and Bavarian commanders were bickering and Austrian armies under Khevenhüller, Prince Charles Alexander of Lorraine and Prince Lobkowitz of Bohemia were wreaking havoc in Bavaria. On May 9th the Bavarians were defeated at Braunau am Inn, further compounding the Emperor's problems. The next challenge he had to deal with was the arrival of an Anglo-Austrian-Hanoverian army commanded by King George II. This army had been assembled on the lower Rhine and was now advancing south towards the Main and Neckar rivers.

George II of Great Britain

The British army had not fought a major war in Europe for twenty years and successive governments had failed to keep it properly maintained. George II had pushed to have reforms instigated within the army, desiring greater professionalism and promotion by merit rather than by sale of commissions, but his efforts had been either thwarted or ignored by his ministers, whose power was increasing at the expense of the monarchy during this period. The British army in the 1740s might well have been somewhat rusty but the great victories of Marlborough in the War of the Spanish Succession were still fresh in the memory and the French in particular were not going to take any chances. A French army under the Duc de Noailles was scratched together in central Germany to deal with George's force.

By now, de Broglie's army was in full retreat and Bavaria's strong-points continued to surrender one-after-another to the Austrians, who were also able to recapture Bohemia following the French withdrawal. By the time de Noailles' army came into contact with that of George II, the French and Bavarians had been pushed back almost to the River Rhine. The encounter on June 27th 1743, the Battle of Dettingen, is a significant event in British history because it would turn out to be the last time that a British monarch led an army in battle. George was initially outsmarted by his French opponent, who trapped the British, Austrians and Hanoverians near Aschaffenburg by blocking the defile (gorge) formed by the Spessart hills and the River Main and then surrounded them. George's army forced its way through the defile and broke out of the encirclement, inflicting heavy losses on the French.

Dettingen was added as yet another name on the list of unlikely British victories. George's son Prince William, Duke of Cumberland fought with distinction was was wounded in the leg by a musket ball. His actions earned him a fearsome military reputation and a promotion to Lieutenant General. Another British soldier who won major plaudits was Lieutenant James Wolfe, whose regiment (the 12th Regiment of Foot) was in the thick of the fighting. Wolfe would go on to become one of the best-known British generals of the 18th Century, largely thanks to the instrumental role he played in the seizure of Canada from the French during the Seven Years War (1756-1763). He died in 1759 during the successful British assault against Quebec.

Following their defeat at Dettingen, the French retreated from Germany and took up defensive positions on the west side of the Rhine, preparing to defend their homeland from invasion. The Austrian army of Prince Charles Alexander tried unsuccessfully to cross the river at Breisgau while George II moved north to Worms where he hoped to divert the attentions of the French. With the allies unable to force a crossing and the 1743 campaigning season drawing to a close, Prince Charles Alexander decided to abandon the fight for the time being and move his army into Winter quarters. George took his men to the Austrian Netherlands (modern Belgium), where they would be in the best position to deal with the French army that was assembling close to the frontier there should it move.

By the end of 1743 France, Spain and Bavaria were still opposed to Maria Theresa despite the Austrians having asserted their dominance in Germany. Saxony had changed sides that year and joined the pro-Habsburg alliance alongside Austria, Great Britain, Hanover, the Netherlands and Sardinia. Sweden and Russia had also been involved as part of their ongoing struggle for dominance in Northern and Eastern Europe (the Russians were supportive of Maria Theresa and the Swedes were fighting at the request of the French in order to keep the Russians distracted) but the Peace of Åbo, signed in August 1743, removed both countries from the equation. Prussia's position had become increasingly less clear, with Frederick II still opposed to Maria Theresa but no longer commited militarily to the conflict.

French and Second Silesian Campaigns (1744-1745)

Before 1744 France had been involved in the fighting primarily as an auxiliary partner in the anti-Habsburg alliance and was officially at war only with Great Britain. French officers and men had fought under the banners and colours of other nations such as Bavaria. That situation changed in 1744 when Louis XV secretly concluded a new alliance with Frederick II of Prussia, who had been greatly concerned by the Austrian successes of 1742 and 1743. In April the French declared war on Austria and Sardinia, thereby committing themselves fully to the conflict. Their first move was to plan an invasion of Great Britain in support of James Francis Edward Stuart, the Catholic Jacobite pretender to the British throne. An invasion fleet was assembled at Dunkirk but England was seemingly once again saved by the "Protestant Wind" which had blown away the Spanish Armada in 1588 and assisted the crossing of William of Orange a century later. The violent storms smashed the French fleet and the invasion had to be called off.

With his invasion plans for Great Britain now quite literally in pieces, Louis XV turned his attention to the land war and the army of George II in the neighbouring Austrian Netherlands. He personally led an army of 90,000 men into Flanders, quickly capturing the towns of Menin and Ypres. The army of the Duc de Coigny was still holding its defensive positions west of the Rhine, facing Prince Charles Alexander's Austrians, while a third French army under the Prince of Conti was sent south to assist the Spanish on their campaigns in Italy (see below).

Louis XV of France

The French campaign plan was then knocked into a cocked hat when, in the late Spring in 1744, Prince Charles Alexander suddenly advanced, crossing the Rhine at Philippsburg on July 1st. He then broke through and captured the defensive positions in eastern France known as the Lines of Weissenburg, cutting de Coigny off from the province of Alsace. De Coigny's forces were caught off-guard but eventually rallied and launched a counter-attack, breaking through the Austrian lines at Weissenburg and reaching Strasbourg. Despite having regained some semblance of control over the situation, the French were now in serious danger of invasion and Louis XV was therefore obliged to abandon his campaign in the Austrian Netherlands. In August Louis' army left the Low Countries and moved south to support de Coigny in Alsace and Lorraine.

As Louis was moving south, Frederick II brought Prussia back into the conflict and reopened hostilities against Austria, whose resources were now almost wholly committed against the French. Frederick launched a three-pronged assault against the sparsely-defended Bohemia, attacking via Saxony, Lusatia and Silesia. On September 8th, after a brief six-day siege, the Austrian garrison of Prague surrendered. The Prussian advance southwards continued but Maria Theresa held her nerve. The people of Hungary came through for her once again by providing more armed volunteers to defend Vienna while Austrian diplomats worked hard to ensure that the flighty Saxons would not defect yet again and return to the opposing camp. Over in France, Louis XV had been struck down by illness at the fortress town of Metz. The King's poor health meant that the French were unlikely to do anything major in the near future so Prince Charles Alexander disengaged his army from Lorraine and headed east to confront Frederick. The French stayed put, as predicted, with only the Bavarian army of Field Marshal Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff following the Austrians.

For the first time in the conflict (and his reign) Frederick was placed in a very difficult position. The Prussian army held Bohemia but was now vulnerable to a combined assault from the Austrians and their Saxon allies. Marshal Traun, a veteran Austrian commander, kept Frederick pinned down while the Hungarian reservists kept up the pressure with a series of minor victories. Once Prince Charles Alexander arrived with the main Austrian army, the Prussian position became untenable. Prague was recaptured and Frederick was forced to abandon Bohemia completely. The Prussians retreated into Silesia, closely followed by the Austrians who, despite having the advantage of momentum, were unable to press on into Silesia itself. The only piece of good news for the enemies of Austria was that Louis XV had recovered from his illness by the end of the year and, after capturing Freiburg, continued his campaign of conquest in the Austrian Netherlands.

Franco/Prussian Ascendancy and Second Imperial Election (1745)

1745 began with the formation of a pro-Habsburg Quadruple Alliance involving Austria, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Saxony. That alliance was agreed in Warsaw on January 8th but a far more crucial event took place twelve days later. On January 20th the Emperor Charles VII died after a reign of just three years, submitting the Imperial throne to another election and providing a golden opportunity for Maria Theresa to re-establish Austrian dominance over the German states. Charles' son and successor in Bavaria, Elector Maximilian III Joseph declined to stand as a candidate and thereby effectively opened the door for Francis Stephen, who was determined to make it second time lucky.

Relinquishing their claim to the Imperial throne initially did little to ease the pressure on the Wittelsbach family. The Bavarian army was caught in its Winter quarters by the Austrians and subsequently forced to give up vast swathes of home territory once again. The decisive Austrian victory at the Battle of Pfaffenhoffen on April 15th forced the Bavarians to surrender Munich for a second time. The two sides agreed to peace terms seven days later, which led to the Austrians withdrawing from Bavaria in exchange for Maximilian III Joseph's support for Francis Stephen's Imperial candidacy. The withdrawal of Bavaria from the war coupled with the impending takeover of the Holy Roman Empire by the pro-Habsburg camp left Frederick II's Prussia isolated. Frederick could not and did not expect any help from his ally Louis XV, whose efforts were still fully focused in the Austrian Netherlands.

The French campaign, led by Louis and the effective (German-born) Marshal of France, Maurice de Saxe was at last beginning to see positive results for them. The French inflicted a major defeat on the Duke of Cumberland's Anglo-Hanoverian-Dutch-Austrian army at Fontenoy on May 11th, allowing them to quickly capture Tournai and several Flemish towns such as Ghent, Bruges, Oudenarde and Dendermonde. The ports of Ostend and Nieuwpoort also fell to the French after Cumberland and his British troops returned home to deal with an unexpected crisis.

That crisis was, of course, the Jacobite rebellion of 1745. The uprising, the last serious effort by the exiled House of Stuart to regain their lost British thrones from the Hanoverians, was instigated and supported by the French (albeit rather half-heartedly due to their continental commitments) in order to keep the British distracted and leave them unopposed in the Low Countries. The ageing "Old Pretender", James Francis Edward Stuart opted not to lead the uprising himself and instead sent his son, Charles Edward Stuart. "Bonnie Prince Charlie" and his token French forces landed in Scotland on July 23rd, immediately attracting the support of several Highland clans. Attempts to strangle the insurrection at birth by local forces loyal to the Hanoverian British government were rebuffed and, on November 8th, Charles led his Jacobite army on an invasion of England. Within a month they were at Derby and London was in a state of panic.

Charles Edward Stuart

At the end of 1745 Hanoverian Britain teetered on the brink of what seemed like an imminent Catholic Stuart restoration but in the end it never came. Soon after arriving at Derby, Charles' nerve broke and, on the advice of his commanders, abandoned plans for a march on London (which would have meant having to get past George II's army at Finchley) and took his ragtag forces back north into Scotland. Cumberland's army harassed the Jacobites and chased them all the way up to Inverness. On April 16th 1746 Charles was decisively beaten by "Butcher Cumberland" at the Battle of Culloden and the uprising came to an end. The Stuart pretender scuttled off back to Europe empty-handed and the Scottish clans would be brutally punished for their trouble but their combined efforts had worked out well for the French, who were by then in almost total control of the Austrian Netherlands.

Rewind now back to May 1745. Just as the French were following up their great victory at Fontenoy, Frederick II took to the field, duelling methodically with Prince Charles Alexander's Austrians, who were still trying to recapture Silesia, in the valley of the River Elbe and in Silesia itself.The Prussian victory at the Battle of Hohenfriedberg in June led to a decision by Charles Alexander to withdraw his shattered forces into the nearby mountains. Hohenfriedberg was one of Frederick's most famous victories and was not long afterwards that the name "Frederick the Great" was being used for the first time.

The fighting between Prussia and Austria rumbled on throughout the Summer as the date of the Imperial election, set for September, drew nearer. Questions were being raised over a potential agreement between Frederick II and the British while French and Austrian armies jockeyed for influence in the area of central Germany around Frankfurt, where the election was once again to be held. The Austrians under Marshal Traun won that struggle and there was nothing to stop the election of Francis Stephen as Holy Roman Emperor Francis I, which took place on September 13th. The entire Habsburg legacy of Charles VI was now firmly in the hands of Maria Theresa (she had regained the throne of Bohemia following Charles VII's death) and her husband, just as the former Emperor had intended.

Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor

After a small amount of diplomatic prodding from London, Frederick II agreed to recognise Francis I as Emperor but Maria Theresa continued to antagonise the Prussians by refusing to drop her claim to Silesia. Fighting broke out yet again as an Austro-Saxon army under Prince Charles Alexander clashed with the Prussians at the Battle of Soor in Bohemia on September 30th. This was another Prussian victory despite initial uncertainties and was another classic example of boldness and tenacity displayed on the battlefield by Frederick and his men. The Austrians refused to give up, however, and soon they and their Saxon allies had reformed for an assault towards the Prussian capital, Berlin.

Frederick responded to this danger by quickly marching west from Silesia and headed for Dresden, the capital of Saxony, quickly racking up a string of minor victories and forcing the Austrians to cancel their attack on Berlin. The Saxons under Frederick Augustus Rotowsky moved into a defensive position near Dresden but they and their Austrian allied were routed by the Prussian army of Leopold I, Prince of Anhalt-Dessau at the Battle of Kesselsdorf on December 14th. With this defeat Maria Theresa at least bowed to the inevitable and signed the Peace of Dresden on Christmas Day. Under the terms of the peace, Frederick II re-affirmed his recognition of Francis I as Emperor but was allowed to keep Silesia as per the terms of the 1742 Treaty of Breslau.

Fighting in Italy (1741-1747)

The fighting on the Italian peninsula and around the Mediterranean was dominated largely by the Spanish and was initially motivated by territorial disputes which had not been sufficiently dealt with at the end of the War of the Spanish Succession. At the end of that conflict, the French Bourbon Prince, Philip, Duke of Anjou was recognised as King Philip V of Spain, handing him the crown which had been bequeathed to him by the last Habsburg King of Spain, Charles II. Spain's territories in continental Europe were redistributed amongst the other powers after the war, with Austria receiving the lion's share. Under the terms of the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, the formerly-Spanish Italian territories of Milan, Naples and Sardina went to Austria while Sicily went to the Duchy of Savoy. In 1720 Austria formally exchanged Sardinia for Sicily, much to the Duke of Savoy's annoyance.

Philip V of Spain

Austria held on to Naples and Sicily until 1734, when both kingdoms were reconquered by the Spanish under Philip V's son Charles, Duke of Parma during the War of the Polish Succession, in which Spain had supported its Bourbon ally France against Austria. The Duke subsequently became King Charles VII of Naples and King Charles V of Sicily. Charles had eventually managed to make peace with Austria just before the death of the Emperor Charles VI in 1740 and had wanted to keep his territories neutral in any future conflict but his father's loyalty to France and steadfast opposition to Maria Theresa's succession meant that he could not stay out of the struggle for long.

The conflict in Italy began in 1741 when a combined army of Spaniards and Neapolitans (people from Naples) assembled in the northern part of the Kingdom of Naples for an assault against the Duchy of Milan, which was still controlled by the Austrian Habsburgs. They advanced north towards the lands of one of their allies, the Duke of Modena but were outsmarted by the Austrians under Marshal Traun. Traun captured Modena and the Duke was forced to make peace, denying Philip and Charles a vital ally in the region. For the rest of 1741 and 1742 they were unable to make any headway against the Austrians in northern Italy. The arrival of a diversionary British force in Naples forced Charles to withdraw his troops for homeland defence, leaving the Spanish to continue the struggle on their own. Philip sent another army into the area from the north via the territory of his ally France, which was not yet involved in the Italian fighting, but this also failed to crack Traun's forces.

By 1743 Sardinia, which was fearful of a Spanish invasion had joined the war on the Austrian side. The Spanish in northern Italy finally achieved a victory against Traun at Campo Santo on February 8th only to be driven back six months later by newly arrived Austrian and German forces under the command of the Fürst von Lobkowitz. The Spanish withdrawal south to Remini was a setback for them but it gained plaudits from observers for being well-ordered, with the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau praising it as "the finest military manoeuvre of the whole century". Meanwhile the French entered the fighting in the region by attempting to intervene in the conflict between Spain and the Alpine Italian state of Piedmont. The French incursion was unexpectedly beaten off at the Battle of Casteldelfino in October.

1744 was the year that the Italian campaigns began to take on a much greater significance. Philip V and Louis XV had come up with a monumental war strategy which involved linking up the French army in southeastern France with the Spanish one in northern Italy. The support of the Genoese Republic practically gave the French an open road into Italy but it was the Austrians, anticipating the Franco-Spanish plan, who moved first. Lobkowitz pushed the Comte de Gage's Spanish forces even further south, driving them through the Papal States towards the Neapolitan frontier. King Charles of Naples and Sicily, having spent the last two years safeguarding his own territory, resumed the offensive and joined de Gage at the Battle of Velletri on August 12th. Lobkowitz was defeated in that encounter and he took his remaining forces north to assist the Piedmontese against a renewed French invasion led by the Prince of Conti. As de Gage went north in pursuit of Lobkowitz, Charles once again went back to Naples.

Charles VII and V of Naples and Sicily

The fighting in the Alpine regions during 1744 was a series of hotly-contested affairs but the French and Spanish nevertheless failed to achieve the link-up that they had desired. The Prince of Conti's French forces achieved a series of stunning successes against the local pro-Habsburg commander, Charles III Emmanuel, King of Sardina and Duke of Savoy, culminating in the victory at the Battle of Madonna dell'Olmo near the Piedmontese fortress of Cuneo on September 30th. Conti was not able Cuneo itself, however, and he was forced to return to his Winter quarters in France as the campaigning season drew to a close.

1745 was a year of major success for the anti-Habsburg coalition and it began with the signing of a secret treaty that formally aligned the Genoese Republic with France, Spain and Naples. The Austrians were disorganised due to a change in command necessitated by Marshal Traun's transfer to Germany, allowing their enemies to advance quickly and achieve the long-awaited link up in northern Italy. By the middle of July the Franco Spanish armies of de Gages, advancing north from Modena, and the Marquis de Maillebois, advancing along the Italian Riviera from the west, had joined together between the Scrivia and Tarano rivers in the Po Valley, creating a formiddable combined force of over 80,000 men. A march from their to Piacenza drew the Austrians away from their Sardianian allies, paving the way for the latter to be set upon and decisively beaten at the Battle at Bassignano on September 27th. Following their victory, the Franco-Spanish army quickly moved to capture the towns of Alessandria, Valenza and Casale Monferrato.

The French and Spanish had gained a major advantage against the Austrians in northern Italy but the complicated nature of local politics coupled with the playing out of events elsewhere meant that they could not press it home. The peace signed between Maria Theresa and Frederick II in late 1745 freed up additional Austrian forces which immediately moved south through the Tyrol to Italy. The French and Spanish were still in their Winter quarters when the Austrians attacked in early 1746. This assault initiated a series of attacked by the Austrian commander, Maximilian Ulysses Count Browne, that split up the concentrated Franco-Spanish army into smaller ones. The French under De Maillebois fell back to cover the Italian Riviera while the Spanish tried to counter against Browne's heavily-reinforced army, only for them to fail and subsequently take up a defensive position at Piacenza.

The Franco-Spanish overall commander in Italy was Philip V's son Philip, Duke of Parma (younger brother of Charles of Naples). Parma demanded that de Maillebois come to his aid, which the French commander duly did. Thanks to an effective forced-march, the French and Spanish were able to link up once again but both the Austrians and the Sardinians were bearing down on their position. On June 16th 1746 the two sides clashed in a mammoth struggle at the Battle of Piacenza. De Maillebois' army fought magnificently but Parma was well aware of the impending enemy victory and ordered them to withdraw. the French broke off the engagement and retreated to Genoa, eluding the clutches of the pursuing Austrians and Sardinians. Less than a month later some major bad news from home reached the Spanish. Philip V had died on July 9th and his successor was his mentally unbalanced son Ferdinand VI. The future of Spain and its war effort was now looking less than certain, and her Habsburg enemies were on the ascendancy.

By September the Austrians were firmly in control of most of northern Italy, including the territory of the Republic of Genoa. Their attempts to press an assault into the Alps failed, however, and a revolt by the Genoese in December drove the Austrians off their territory within a week. The French resumed the offensive under the Duc de Belle-Isle in 1747 while their Austrian enemies attempted to recapture the city of Genoa. Genoa held out and was eventually relieved by the French although a corps led by de Belle-Isle's younger brother was destroyed on July 10th as it tried to pass through the heavily-fortified Exilles Pass in Piedmont. 5000 Frenchmen, including seven generals, died for less than 100 Piedmontese. As a result of their victory the Piedmontese defenders of the Exilles became the toast of Europe, with Frederick II declaring that he himself could become King of all Italy if he only had troops of their fighting calibre.

Following their failure to recapture Genoa, the Austrians retreated into Lombardy where they continued a low-key campaign against de Belle-Isle's French forces, who pursued them there, until the end of hostilities more than a year later.

Last Campaigns in Europe (1746-1748)

The last major campaigns in Europe during the War of the Austrian succession took place around the Low Countries as Louis XV and Marshal de Saxe challenged the Dutch, who had so far kept a low profile in the pro-Habsburg coalition. Russia had rejoined the conflict in support of Maria Theresa but it would take time for her troops to arrive and aid their allies in Western Europe. The withdrawal of the British army, necessitated by the Jacobite uprising, had left the Dutch and Austrians vulnerable against the French, who were now on a roll after their victory at Fontenoy. Brussels was captured in February 1746 and almost all the other major fortresses and towns in the Austrian Netherlands were under French control by the end of that year. The victory of de Saxe against Prince Charles Alexander's Austrians at the Battle of Roucoux on October 11th meant that the Dutch Republic itself was now in danger of invasion.

Marshal Maurice de Saxe

The Dutch tried desperately to negotiate for peace but the French were not interested, and de Saxe's invasion began in April 1747. Dutch strongholds on the frontier did not hold out for long against the onslaught and the French advance continued. The Duke of Cumberland returned from Britain to assist his Dutch counterpart William IV, Prince of Orange but the pair of them were beaten at the Battle of Lauffeld on July 2nd. Bergen op Zoom was besieged shortly afterwards, holding out until September when the town was stormed by the French. The last significant action of the campaign and the war was the French assualt against the town of Maastricht, which surrendered on May 7th 1748.

Despite the fact that the French were doing so well, events soon transpired which convinced Louis XV that the conflict had to be brought to an end. Chief among these events was the arrival of the Russians, whose immense military contribution to Maria Theresa's cause threatened to turn the tide of the war back against the French. As the Russian army reached the Rhine, having marched all the way from Moscow, the combatant powers on both sides began negotiating for a general peace. This was achieved with the signing of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle in Aachen on October 18th 1748. The War of the Austrian Succession, having dragged on for eight long years, was at last at an end.

Aftermath of Peace

As was often the case with the wars that took place in Europe during the 18th Century, the peace terms that ended the War of the Austrian succession did little more than reaffirm the political situation that had existed before the fighting started. Under the terms of the Treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle, Maria Theresa was allowed to remain in control of the Habsburg Monarchy territories and her husband Francis I was fully recognised as Holy Roman Emperor. Louis XV, keen to be perceived as a chivalrous and peaceful ruler, agreed to give back all the territory that France had conquered. This earned Louis the respect of the rest of Europe but made him deeply unpopular with his own people, who saw it as a betrayal of everything that they had fought for.

The only major change of territory that remained valid under the terms of the peace was that of Silesia, which was confirmed as now belonging to Frederick II's Prussia. The end of the War of the Austrian succession marked the beginning of the political phenomenon known as "German Dualism", by which Austria vied with Prussia for influence over the German States. Prussia, backed by its formiddable armed forces, would eventually win this struggle for dominance and would be the driving force behind the eventual unification of Germany into a single nation state in 1871.

In Southern Europe, the pre-war status quo between Spain and Austria was largely maintained for the time being, with the Italian duchies of Parma, Piacenza and Guastella being restored to the Spanish Bourbons. Charles of Naples and Sicily succeeded his imbecilic half-brother Ferdinand VI to the throne of Spain as Charles III in 1759, becoming Spain's first mentally-stable monarch for almost a century. Charles' son Ferdinand replaced his father as ruler of Naples and Sicily, which were united into a single state known as the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Those parts of southern Italy remained under Bourbon rule until the 1860s when Italy was unified into single state ruled by the Savoy monarchs of Piedmont-Sardinia.

Maria Theresa and Francis I continued to rule their territories more or less unmolested. Among their children were Marie Antoinette, the ill-fated consort of Louis XVI of France, and Joseph II, an enlightened despot who succeded his father as Holy Roman Emperor in 1765 and his mother as head of the Habsburg Monarchy in 1780. The direct line of the House of Habsburg technically became extinct upon Maria Theresa's death in 1780 and, under Joseph II was replaced by the Vaudemont branch of the House of Lorraine. In order to be kind to tradition and maintain a degree of continuity, the new dynasty styled itself as the House of Habsburg-Lorraine and was often still referred to informally as just Habsburg. They continued to occupy the Imperial throne until the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806 and ruled the Habsburg Monarchy territories, known as the Austrian Empire from 1804 and Austria-Hungary from 1867, until they were overthrown at the end of the First World War.

The War of the Spanish Succession

2012-01-05T15:55:00.000Z

The year is 1700. Charles II, King of Spain and ruler of an empire that encompasses vast swathes of Western Europe, the Americas and the Far East, is dying and has no heir. The ensuing struggle between the two most powerful royal families of Europe, the Bourbons and the Habsburgs, over who should inherit this vast legacy sucked all the major powers into war and marked a bloody beginning to the 18th Century. The conflict lasted for over a decade and, despite some spectacular victories on the battlefield for both sides, produced no clear winner. The outcome was ultimately decided, as it had begun, at the negotiating table and the resulting treaties sought to maintain the all-important balance of power in Europe.

Background

Charles II was the last King of Spain from the senior Spanish line of the House of Habsburg, which had ruled Spain and its massive empire since 1516. Generations of acute inbreeding in his family meant that he had been born with numerous physical, intellectual and emotional disabilities, making his reign a difficult one both for him and for his subjects. His stunted genes had also left him impotent and, despite being married twice, he proved to be incapable of producing an heir to his throne. The absence of any children triggered an inevitable succession crisis and an heir had to be found instead from among the descendants of Charles' female relatives, whose claims to the throne carried major political implications both for Spain and for Europe as a whole. The two other European dynasties most closely related to Charles and his father, Philip IV, were the junior Austrian branch of the Habsburgs (whose constant intermarriage with their Spanish relations had caused the problem in the first place) and the House of Bourbon, the ruling dynasty in France.

Charles II of Spain

Charles' closest male heir was the Grand Dauphin Louis, the son of Charles' half-sister Maria Theresa and King Louis XIV of France. The problem with the Grand Dauphin as a choice of successor was the fact that his mother had renounced her right to the Spanish throne way back in 1660 when she married his father, although the renunciation was generally seen as being invalid due to the non-payment of her dowry. A far more obvious issue and one which concerned the whole of Europe, however, was the troublesome fact that the Grand Dauphin was first-in-line to the French throne. He could potentially unite the French and Spanish crowns and create an empire which would threaten the European balance of power. The possibility of the vast multi-continental Spanish Empire passing under the effective control of Louis XIV was one which the enemies of France were keen to avoid.

The alternative candidate was the Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I, whose mother was Charles' aunt (Philip IV's younger sister) Maria Anna. Leopold had a serious legal claim as Philip IV had stipulated in his will that the Spanish throne should pass to the Austrian Habsburgs if his line were to die out. However, this claim had exactly the same problem as that of the Grand Dauphin Louis in that it would reunite the Spanish and Austrian Habsburg territories and thereby also threaten the all-important balance of power. Leopold's claim was bitterly opposed by the French, who had good reason to not want a recreation of the unified Habsburg Empire which had caused them so much grief during the 16th Century. Back in 1668, Leopold had tried to deflect French objections by offering to divide up the Spanish territories between the Bourbons and the Habsburgs but he had a change of heart in 1689 when he secured English and Dutch support for his claim to the entire Spanish Empire in exchange for military support against France in the War of the Grand Alliance (1688-1697).

A solution to the problem seemed to appear in 1692 with the birth of yet another candidate, one which did not carry the political baggage that dogged Louis and Leopold. Prince Joseph Ferdinand was the son of Maximilian II Emmanuel, Elector of Bavaria and Maria Antonia of Austria. Maria Antonia was the daughter of Leopold by his first marriage to Margaret Theresa of Spain, a daughter of Philip IV. Joseph Ferdinand thus had a claim through both the Spanish and Austrian Habsburgs but, as it was via the maternal line, was himself a Wittelsbach (the ruling dynasty in Bavaria) rather than a Habsburg. The fact that Joseph Ferdinand was neither a Bourbon nor a Habsburg made a him a far more acceptable and less threatening candidate overall as the chances of Spain merging with France or Austria under his rule would be remote.

Support for Joseph Ferdinand's claim among the non-aligned countries of Europe remained strong despite the willingness of both Leopold and Louis XIV to defer the Bourbon and Austrian Habsburg claims onto junior branches of their houses in order to reduce the likelihood of any union. Leopold nominated his younger son, the Archduke Charles while Louis chose the Grand Dauphin's second son Philip, Duke of Anjou. Joseph Ferdinand remained the preferred choice of England and the Netherlands, the other two great powers in Western Europe at the time. Both countries were ruled by the dour, militaristic and highly unpopular (in England) Protestant Dutch Prince, William III, who feared the prospect of Catholic domination of Europe by either the French or the Habsburgs. William was also a bitter enemy of Louis XIV and had spent much of the 1690s trying to repel French incursions into the Dutch provinces.

Louis XIV of France

As the War of the Grand Alliance came to a close in 1697, the health of Charles II was evidently failing and the issue of the Spanish succession was now becoming a matter of serious international concern. England and France were tired of war and so tried to settle on a mutually agreeable solution. With the signing of the Treaty of The Hague in 1698, Louis XIV and William III recognised Joseph Ferdinand as heir to the Spanish throne but agreed to partition the Spanish territories in Flanders and Italy between the French and the Austrian Habsburgs. Nobody had bothered to ask the Spanish about this and there was widespread opposition to the treaty in Spain once it became public knowledge. The ailing Charles II personally nominated Joseph Ferdinand as his heir but specifically stated that there was to be no partitioning of territory and that the entire Spanish Empire would pass intact to the Bavarian Prince.

And that might well have been that were the situation not complicated by Joseph Ferdinand's death from smallpox in 1699 at the age of just six. The English and French responded to the news by quickly thrashing out a second partition treaty, the Treaty of London, which assigned the Spanish throne to Archduke Charles but gave the Spanish territories in Italy (Sicily, Sardinia, Naples and Milan) to France. When the Austrians found out about this they were greatly displeased. Not only had they wanted the whole of the Spanish Empire but now it seemed that they would have to give up the parts of it which had most interested them (the Italian provinces were wealthy, close to Austria and relatively easy to govern). The Spanish were also opposed to the second treaty, remaining unanimously against any partition of territory but divided over whether the throne should pass to a Habsburg or a Bourbon.

In the end the dominant pro-French faction at the Spanish court won the argument and it was Charles II himself, in one of the few decisive acts of his troubled life, who forced the issue. In October 1700 the terminally ill King officially named Philip of France, Duke of Anjou as his successor to the throne of Spain and all its territories but took steps to prevent a potential union of the French and Spanish crowns. Should Philip's older brother Louis die without an heir then Philip would have to renounce the Spanish throne in order to become King of France. If that were to happen then the Spanish throne would go to Philip's younger brother Charles, Duke of Berry, with Archduke Charles of Austria next-in-line if need be.

Prelude to War

When news of Charles II's will reached Louis XIV he was reported to have emphatically exclaimed that "the Pyrenees are no more!" but so far it was only a paper victory for the House of Bourbon. Louis' advisers urged a cautious course of action, recommending that he accept the terms of the Treaty of London rather than risk war by claiming the whole Spanish Empire for his grandson Philip. Louis' foreign minister Jean-Baptiste Colbert was against the idea and successfully argued that France would have to fight Austria either way as Austria did not accept the partition of territory described in the treaty. Louis concurred with Colbert and, knowing that the English and Dutch would not support him in forcing the terms of partition on the unwilling Austrians and Spanish, opted to push for Philip's full inheritance.

On November 1st 1700 Charles II finally died and the line of the Spanish Habsburgs died with him. Louis XIV immediately responded by proclaiming the Duke of Anjou as King Philip V of Spain and that the new King would rule the entire Spanish Empire, a direct violation of the Treaty of London. William III was vehemently opposed to Philip's succession but at this point he lacked the support of the ruling elites in either England or the Netherlands for a declaration of war against France. In April 1701 William was obliged to recognise Philip as King of Spain, which he did with the utmost reluctance.

Philip V of Spain

Louis XIV might well have avoided English or Dutch intervention in his upcoming struggle against the Habsburgs had he refrained from antagonising them but, in typical Louis XIV fashion, he pursued his goal of achieving French hegemony in Europe in a manner that was far too aggressive. He prevented Spain from trading with the Netherlands or England, threatening the vital economic and maritime interests of those two countries and giving William III the support that he needed from his subjects for direct action. On September 7th 1701 the English, Dutch and Austrians signed the second Treaty of the Hague. The treaty recognised Philip V as King of Spain but allotted the much sought-after Spanish territories in Italy to Austria. Austria would also receive the Spanish Netherlands (modern Belgium), keeping that crucial region free from French control. The treaty also responded to Louis' trade embargo by stipulating that England and the Netherlands were to retain their commercial rights in Spain.

As if he hadn't already done enough to aggravate his neighbours, Louis then took things a step further with an action that effectively amounted to a declaration of war against William. Nine days after the signing of the Hague treaty the former King James II and VII of England and Scotland, whom William had overthrown with the connivance of the English establishment back in 1688, died in France. Having previously acknowledged William's right to rule, Louis now recognised James' son, the Catholic James Francis Edward Stuart as rightful monarch. This endorsement of the Jacobite pretender was a direct threat to Protestant England and played nicely into William's hands. By now the English and Dutch had already begun raising armies in preparation for war.

The first actions of the conflict that would be known as the War of the Spanish Succession began slowly towards the end of 1701 when an Austrian army under Prince Eugene of Savoy invaded the Spanish-controlled Duchy of Milan in Italy, prompting an armed response from the French. As the fighting escalated, the nations of Europe made it clear where they stood in the dispute. England and the Netherlands sided with Austria as did most of the German states from the Holy Roman Empire, including Hanover and the newly-formed Kingdom of Prussia. Bavaria and Cologne, both ruled by the Wittelsbachs, were the only German states to declare for the Philip V's cause. Portugal and the Duchy of Savoy also initially backed Philip while the loyalties of Spain were divided between both camps. Castilian Spain generally supported Philip V while the Aragonese regions of Aragon, Catalonia and Valencia supported the claim of Archduke Charles.

First Phase (1701-1703)

Throughout 1702 Prince Eugene's army fought well in Italy. The opposing French were led by the Duc de Villeroi but he was captured after being defeated by Eugene at the Battle of Cremona on February 1st. Villeroi's replacement, the Duc de Vendôme was unable to push Eugene out of Italy despite his numerical superiority. The major battle of Vendôme's campaign was at Luzzara on August 15th, an encounter that proved to be indecisive.

1702 also saw the end of William III, who died on March 8th following a riding accident caused when his horse tripped over a molehill (prompting Jacobites everywhere to drink a toast to "the little gentleman in the black velvet waistcoat."). He was succeeded as monarch of England, Scotland and Ireland by his sister-in-law Anne, who resolved to continue England's commitment to the war with the help of her chief minister, Lord Godolphin. Her accession also saw the return to favour of the acclaimed but formerly disgraced English general John Churchill, Earl of Marlborough, whose wife Sarah was a close friend and confidante of the Queen. On May 4th 1702 England formally declared war on France and Marlborough was appointed as commander of the English, Dutch and hired German forces.

John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough

Marlborough led his troops with distinction in the Low Countries, outsmarting his French opponent, the Duc de Boufflers, and capturing several fortified towns including Venlo, Roermond, Stevensweert and Liège. Queen Anne rewarded him by elevating the earldom of Marlborough to a dukedom. To the south, on the River Rhine, an Imperial army under the Margrave of Baden-Baden captured Landau in September 1702. This left eastern France vulnerable to invasion but the threat was nullified by the entry of Bavaria into the war on the French side. The Imperial army was forced to withdraw back across the Rhine to Freidlingen, where it was defeated by a French army under the Duc de Villars.

At sea, meanwhile, the English and Dutch asserted their naval superiority and sought out a suitable Spanish port to capture so that they might have a base from which to launch operations in the western Mediterranean. An amphibious landing at Cádiz in September failed spectacularly but, on the way home, the Anglo-Dutch fleet commanded Admiral Sir George Rooke and Lieutenant Admiral Philips van Almonde attacked and totally destroyed the Spanish treasure fleet and its French escort ships at Vigo Bay of the northwestern coast of Spain. The ships' cargo of American silver had already been taken ashore, however, so the booty managed to elude the victors' clutches. Nonetheless, the victory was a major morale-booster and was instrumental in persuading Peter II of Portugal to abandon his alliance with France and join the Grand Alliance (as the pro-Austrian faction was known), which he did in 1703.

1703 saw mixed fortunes for both sides. Marlborough captured the city of Bonn and drove the Elector of Cologne into exile but was unable to capture the port of Antwerp in the Spanish Netherlands. The French and Bavarians were successful in Germany, with de Villars and Elector Maximilian II Emmanuel scoring key victories over Emperor Leopold's armies. Bavarian reluctance to commit to a march on Vienna, the capital of Habsburg Austria, led to de Villars' resignation but the run of French victories continued with the army of Camille de Tallard. Soon Louis XIV and his commanders were entertaining visions of a final decisive assault against Austria for the following year but those plans had to be revised after Portugal and Savoy defected to the Grand Alliance. The attitude of the English was also hardening. Having previously been content with Philip V remaining on the Spanish throne, albeit minus his European territories, they now decided that it would be in their best interests if he were replaced by Archduke Charles.

Second Phase (1704-1709)

As the new campaigning season began in 1704, the rolled out their new war strategy. The Duc de Villeroi would use his army in the Netherlands to keep Marlborough busy in the Low Countries while de Tallard and the Franco-Bavarian army under Maximilian and Ferdinand de Marsin, de Villars' replacement, would march east with the aim of capturing Vienna. It was a straightforward plan but the French had not counted on the initiative of Marlborough, who had no intention of staying out of the thick of the action.

Ignoring the wishes of the Dutch to remain close to home, Marlborough disengaged from de Villeroi and moved his Anglo-Dutch-German army southwards, along the Rhine, towards southern Germany in the hope of blocking the Franco-Bavarian advance on Vienna. At the same time, Prince Eugene of Savoy's Austrian army marched north from Italy in support. Marlborough and Eugene's armies linked up in Bavaria, near the village of Blenheim on the River Danube. On August 13th 1704 the combined army clashed with the French and Bavarians in a battle which, as far as the English were concerned, marked the greatest moment in the history of English arms since the Medieval glory days of Crécy, Poitiers and Agincourt (even though only around 16,000 of the 52,000 strong Allied army were English).

Marlborough signing the dispatch at Blenheim

The outcome of the Battle of Blenheim was a decisive victory for the Grand Alliance, knocking Bavaria out of the war and putting any French hopes of a quick victory to bed. News of the victory was greeted in England with the ringing of church bells and a thanksgiving service was held at the newly-built St. Paul's Cathedral, with Queen Anne herself in attendance. Marlborough was venerated as being among the greatest English military commanders ever, up there with the Black Prince, Henry V and Oliver Cromwell. The Queen, still under the influence of Marlborough's wife, rewarded him for his services to the nation by granting him the old royal estate at Woodstock in Oxfordshire and a sum of £240,000 with which to build a suitable home worthy of his glorious victory. The eventual result, completed in 1724, was Blenheim Palace, built in English baroque by the architect Sir John Vanburgh.

Blenheim was not the only piece of good news for England in August 1704. Nine days before that battle, the English navy finally got the Spanish port it had so badly needed when English and Dutch marines, led by the German Prince George of Hesse-Darmstadt and supported by the guns of Admiral Rooke's fleet, captured Gibraltar in the name of Archduke Charles. This development further strengthened the naval supremacy of the Grand Alliance and brought the War of the Spanish Succession to Spanish soil for the first time (not counting the failed landing at Cádiz back in September 1702). Gibraltar has remained in English/British hands ever since, a fact that continues to be a thorny issue in Anglo-Spanish relations to this day.

The defeat at Blenheim knocked French confidence badly and Marshal de Tallard was captured, remaining a prisoner in England until 1711. Following the battle, with Vienna now secure, Marlborough returned with his army to the Low Countries while Prince Eugene went back to Italy. 1705 saw little progress by either side anywhere and the situation developed into stalemate. Marlbrorough's attempt to invade France by advancing along the Moselle River came to nothing despite frequently wrongfooting his nemesis de Villeroi and breaking through the fortified lines of Brabant between Antwerp and Namur in the Spanish Netherlands. Little happened anywhere else other than indecisive confrontations between de Villars and the Margrave of Baden-Baden on the Rhine. The story was the same in Italy, where neither Prince Eugene nor the Duc de Vendôme could gain any advantage. The only other major event was the death of Emperor Leopold on May 5th. He was succeeded as Holy Roman Emperor and ruler of the Austrian Habsburg territories by his eldest son Joseph.

In 1706 the Grand Alliance broke the deadlock. Marlborough cleared the French out of the Spanish Netherlands, achieving another great victory against de Villeroi's at the Battle of Ramillies in May and following it up with the capture of Antwerp and Dunkirk. To the south, Prince Eugene also met with success after his opponent de Vendôme was transferred north to deal with the deteriorating situation in the Low Countries. In September, Eugene defeated the French under de Marsin and Louis XIV's nephew Phillipe II, Duke of Orléans at the Battle of Turin. By the end of the year the French had been expelled from Italy and were now firmly on the back foot.

With the Grand Alliance now in control of Germany, Italy and the Low Countries, the focus of the war now shifted to Spain itself. The Portuguese launched an invasion of Spain in 1706 and managed to capture the capital, Madrid. By the end of the year, however, the city had been recaptured by forces led by Philip V and James FitzJames, Duke of Berwick, an illegitimate son of James II and Arabella Churchill (Marlborough's sister) who was serving with the French army. Another Allied attempt to take Madrid in 1707 was soundly defeated by Berwick at the Battle of Almansa on April 25th as was yet another at the Battle of La Gudina on May 7th. Following these defeats, the armies of the Grand Alliance retreated back to Portugal and the war in Spain degenerated into a series of indecisive skirmishes.

Philip V makes the Duke of Berwick a Knight of the Golden Fleece

A major development that took place in 1707 was the passage of the Act of Union, which saw England and Scotland legally united into a single kingdom, Great Britain, which henceforth replaced England as a party in the war and brought the men and resources of Scotland into play. That year also saw the conflict intersect with the Great Northern War (1700-1721) which was being fought between Sweden and Peter the Great's Russia for supremacy in Northern and Eastern Europe. When the Swedish King, Charles XII arrived with his army in Germany on a mission to intimidate one of Peter's former allies, the Elector Augustus II of Saxony, into giving up his claim to the Polish throne, both the French and the Grand Alliance sent envoys to try and court him as a potential ally.

Desperate to take advantage of this golden opportunity, the French tried to persuade Charles XII to set his powerful army on the Emperor Joseph, who had greatly offended the Swedes by supporting the claim of Augustus II. Unfortunately for the Catholic French, Charles fancied himself as a champion of Protestantism and greatly disliked Louis XIV for the way he had treated the Protestant "Huguenot" minority in France (Louis had revoked the Edict of Nantes, which had promised toleration and equal rights for French Protestants, back in 1685). Charles also had little interest in the war in the west and subsequently returned the focus of his attention to Russia, ending any hope of Swedish intervention on either side.

Towards the end of 1707, Prince Eugene launched an invasion of southern France from Italy but was stalled by stiff French resistance. Marlborough remained busy in the Low Countries, picking off the remaining French fortresses in the area. The French tried to resist Marlborough but were dogged by leadership problems, with de Vendôme frequently failing to see eye-to-eye with his co-commander, Philip V's older brother Louis, Duke of Burgundy. Burgundy's hesitance to go on the offensive meant that Marlborough was once again able to unite his army with Eugene's and crush the French, which he did at the Battle of Oudenarde on July 11th 1708. The city of Lille fell to him shortly afterwards. Marlborough seemed now to be unstoppable, and his star in Britain continued to rise.

Following the disastrous setbacks of 1708, France was now on the brink of ruin. Not even Louis XIV could stand the pressure and he was at last forced to swallow his pride and enter negotiations with his enemies. He sent his foreign minister, the Marquis de Torcy to meet with the Allied commanders at The Hague. The French agreed to surrender Spain and all of its territories, asking only that they be allowed to keep Naples. Louis was even prepared to give money to help expel Philip V from Spain. The Allies went too far, however, and demanded that Louis use his own army to dethrone his grandson. Louis rejected this demand and broke off negotiations, vowing to fight on to the bitter end. He successfully appealed directly to the people of France, recruiting thousands more men into his armies.

The year 1709 proved to be a major turning point as the Grand Alliance launched three simultaneous invasions of France. Two of these were diversions intended to cover the main thrust on Paris by Marlborough and Prince Eugene. On September 11th they clashed with the Duc de Villars and Marshal Boufflers at the Battle of Malplaquet, which would be the bloodiest battle of the war. The Allies won the battle (in the sense that the French withdrew and left them in control of the battlefield) but the victory came at a great cost, losing over 20,000 men while the French only lost half that number. Also, unlike in Marlborough's earlier victories, the French army left the field intact and in good order.

"If it please God to give your majesty's enemies another such victory, they are ruined."
(Claude Louis Hector de Villars, Duc de Villars)

The invasion of France could not continue due to the massive losses incurred by the Allies, although they were able to follow up their "victory" by capturing the town of Mons. The effect on the morale of the Allied nations as a result of the battle was even more crucial. News of the slaughter at Malplaquet stunned Europe and even the British, drunk as they were on Marlborough's successes, were in no mood to celebrate the hollow victory. The aura of invincibility around Marlborough disappeared practically overnight and people's faith in the Grand Alliance was badly shaken. The French were now in a prime position to regain the upper-hand.

Third Phase (1710-1714)

In 1710 the Allies launched a final campaign in Spain which ended in failure. An army under Earl Stanhope and Archduke Charles reached Madrid but was defeated at the Battle of Brehuega by a relief army sent from France. This bad news was compounded by events in Britain which threatened to tear the Grand Alliance apart. Queen Anne fell out with Sarah Churchill and dismissed her from the royal household, an act which effectively ended Marlborough's influence over the government. Shortly afterwards, the Whig government collapsed and the pro-peace Tory ministry that replaced it immediately began pushing for a British withdrawal from the war.

Charles VI, Holy Roman Emperor

The Grand Alliance's cause was dealt a further blow in 1711 when the Emperor Joseph suddenly died childless. Normally this would have been a bad situation in itself but it now meant that Joseph's brother, Archduke Charles was to succeed him as Holy Roman Emperor (as Charles VI) and head of the House of Habsburg. This turn of events meant that an Austrian victory would now potentially upset the European balance of power just as much as a French one would, a fact which effectively mooted the Alliance's cause for war and left its members somewhat directionless and with little reason or desire to support the Habsburg claim to the Spanish throne.

In September 1711 the French city of Bouchain fell to Marlborough after a month-long siege. This turned out to be Marborough's last campaign and he was recalled to Britain at the end of the year. His replacement was the Irish nobleman James Butler, Duke of Ormonde, who toed the line of the new Tory regime by refusing to commit British troops to battle against the French. Soon the British Secretary of State Henry St John, Viscount Bolingbroke was secretly corresponding with the French foreign minister de Tourcy without the knowledge of either the Dutch or the Austrians. With the British now refusing to fight and actively looking for a way out, the integrity of the Grand Alliance was seriously compromised, allowing the French under de Villars to regain lost ground.

Although its significance was lost on the Allies at the time, the decisive encounter in the War of the Spanish Succession came at the Battle of Denain on July 24th 1712. An Austro-Dutch force under Prince Eugene and Arnold van Kepple, Earl of Abermarle captured the town of Denain in the Spanish Netherlands but was left vulnerable when, to their horror and surprise, Ormonde's British troops did not join them. Without British support, the Allies were swept aside by de Villars' French army, which outnumbered them three to one. Although Eugene's forces remained relatively intact after the defeat, what remained of the Grand Alliance's cause was effectively lost and their military situation quickly unravelled. It soon became clear to the enemies of France that the war had to be ended on the best terms possible.

With the signing of the Treaty of Utrecht in 1713, Great Britain and the Netherlands formally ceased hostilities against France. Fighting continued in Spain until September 1714 when Barcelona, which was still loyal to the Emperor Charles' cause, finally surrendered to Philip V after a protracted siege. The victorious Bourbons punished the Aragonese Spaniards for their loyalty to the enemy with the Nueva Planta decrees, which abolished the separate rights and institutions of the Crown of Aragon (The formerly separate kingdoms of Castile and Aragon had been united under a single Spanish monarch since 1516 but both had retained their individual political identities). This created a politically unified Spanish kingdom which was entirely under the laws and institutions of the Crown of Castile. In order to further consolidate his position and power in Spain, Philip created a more centralised form of government based upon the model utilised so successfully by his grandfather in France.

France continued to fight Austria until 1714 when the Treaties of Rastatt and Baden were ratified, formally bringing the War of the Spanish Succession to a close. The Spanish took much longer to accept the harsh conditions of the treaties (which you will find out about shortly) and Philip V did not formally make peace with Austria until 1720 when he was defeated in the War of the Quadruple Alliance (which you will also find out about shortly).

The War Outside Europe

So far I have focused solely on the fighting in continental Europe but events elsewhere in the world certainly deserve a mention. As the conflict escalated it became truly global, affecting the colonies and outposts held by the European powers beyond the seas. Nowhere was this more the case than in the West Indies and the Americas, Where the vast Spanish American empire uncomfortably shared this New World with various British, French, Portuguese and Dutch territories. The war in the Caribbean was largely motivated by the prospect of economic gain, thanks especially to the rich pickings offered by the Spanish and Portuguese treasure ships that worked the Atlantic sea routes bringing American gold and silver to their homelands. Pirates and privateers of all nations, often operating with state or private sponsorship, would also launch raids against colonial outposts in the hope of either obtaining plunder or being bought off with a ransom of money, goods or more slaves to work the plantations of their wealthy backers.

Many European colonies in the West Indies, anticipating the fallout that would ensue following Charles II's imminent death, had begun preparing themselves for trouble as early as 1699. When news of England's declaration of war against France in 1702 reached the New World (bear in mind that such news would have taken several weeks to cross the Atlantic by ship), the English governor of the Leeward Islands launched a successful attempt to expel the French from St. Kitts, an island upon which both countries had owned plantations. He was only able to follow up this success with a failed assault on Guadaloupe, however, although the English did manage to inflict a great deal of damage upon the local economy. The French retaliated in 1706 with various raids of their own, meeting with mixed success. The French suffered a major setback when their local commander, an experienced privateer by the name of Pierre Le Moyne d'Iberville, succumbed to yellow fever during preparations for an attack against the port of Charles Town (as Charleston was then known) in the Province of Carolina, one of the English colonies on the east coast of North America.

Approximate colonial make-up of North America in 1700

Piracy and pillaging aside, there was also a great deal of naval activity around the West Indies in these early stages of the war. England, France and Spain all had fleets in the area from 1701 onwards. The French fleet under the Marquis de Château-Renault, with 28 vessels, was the largest European fleet so far seen in the Caribbean but it avoided any confrontation with Vice-Admiral John Benbow's smaller English fleet. Château-Renault instead ordered his ships to escort the Spanish treasure fleet from Vera Cruz in Mexico (known then as New Spain) back home to Spain. It turned out to be a fatal decision, for shortly after their arrival the French and Spanish ships, if you remember, were attacked and sunk by Sir George Rooke's Anglo-Dutch fleet in October 1702 at the Battle of Vigo Bay.

On the North American mainland, the conflict there became known as Queen Anne's War as it was fought primarily between the English/British colonists and those of France and Spain. Both sides also drew on the support of their various allied Native American tribes. Hostilities began towards the end of 1702 when an English expedition from Carolina unsuccessfully attacked the fortress of St. Augustine in Spanish-controlled Florida. This achieved nothing beyond the near-extermination of the native tribes loyal to Spain. The French and Spanish responded with the previously-mentioned amphibious assault on Charles Town, which was launched from Cuba in September 1706. The attack ended in failure as those troops who did manage to land were driven off by the local militia.

Further north, the disputed border area between French Canada and the English-controlled Province of Massachusetts Bay also saw heavy fighting. Unfortunate communities in the outlying areas of Massachusetts and New Hampshire were subjected to near-constant raiding by the French and their native allies. The French avoided the Province of New York, however, as that area was home to the native Iroquois tribe, with whom they had been at peace since 1701. Meanwhile, the English had set their sights on the coastal peninsula known as Acadia (present day Nova Scotia, Canada) but repeated attempts by the Massachusetts militia to wrest control of the region from the French got nowhere. It was only with the help of a major naval expedition sanctioned by Queen Anne herself that Acadia was at last conquered in 1710, giving Great Britain a foothold in Canada that it would not relinquish for the next two centuries.

The British tried to follow up the success in Acadia by launching another naval expedition deep into French territory and capturing Quebec. This venture, launched in August 1711 quickly degenerated into farce and was soon abandoned having been nothing short of a complete disaster, indeed one of the worst disasters in the history of British seafaring. More than 800 men died when several of the ships foundered after running aground on rocks in the mouth of the Saint Lawrence River. This failure, along with the appointment of the pro-peace Tory government in London, brought an end to any further large-scale British campaigning and the North American theatre settled down, seeing little further action before the Treaty of Utrecht ended the war in 1713.

The Treaty of Utrecht and Renewed Spanish Aggression

The terms of the Treaty of Utrecht were very harsh on Spain but they provided a resolution to the conflict that preserved the status quo in Europe and was acceptable to those on both sides of the Habsburg/Bourbon divide. It was agreed that Philip V should remain as King of Spain but only if he renounced his claim to the throne of France, thereby averting any chance of a union between the two countries. Spain would get to keep her overseas empire, including the American colonies, but her European territories would be taken away and divided up among the members of the Grand Alliance. Sardinia, Naples, Milan and the Spanish Netherlands went to Austria while the Duchy of Savoy gained Sicily. The British got to keep Gibraltar and were also given the Mediterranean island of Minorca for good measure. Philip was also obliged to grant the British a thirty-year monopoly of non-Spanish slave trading in the Americas.

The redistribution of Spain's European territories

France accepted the terms of the treaty as they stipulated no changes to French territory in Europe. They were even willing to recognise the British conquests in Canada and stop supporting Catholic pretenders to the British throne. The only problem with the treaty, as far as the French were concerned, was that it removed a potential heir to the ageing Louis XIV's throne at a time when the House of Bourbon was going through a serious and unexpected dynastic crisis. During the last five years of the old King's life, a mixture of illness and misfortune conspired to wipe out nearly all of his male descendants, beginning with the death of the Grand Dauphin Louis from smallpox in 1711. The measles then claimed the Grand Dauphin's eldest son and grandson, the Duke of Burgundy and the Duke of Brittany, during an outbreak of the disease at Versailles in 1712. The Grand Dauphin's youngest son Charles, Duke of Berry also died following a hunting accident in 1714. By the time Louis XIV died at the age of 76 in September 1715, his only remaining descendants were his five-year-old great-grandson Louis, Duke of Anjou (Burgundy's youngest son) and Philip V.

As he was the senior claimant, the child Louis ascended the throne of France as Louis XV but, given his age and the disasters which had recently befallen his family, there was still every chance that he could die without an heir. As Philip V and his descendants were now legally barred from the French line of succession by the Treaty of Utrecht, such an occurrence would cause the extinction of the senior Bourbon line. All this greatly annoyed Philip, who was not only smarting at the loss of his Spanish territories but also firmly believed that it was not constitutionally possible for him to properly renounce his sacred birthright to claim the French throne. Egged on by his Italian wife Elisabeth Farnese and his chief minister Cardinal Alberoni, Philip decided to ignore the treaty, restore the Spanish Empire and push to be re-recognised as his nephew's heir in France.

Philip V's sudden burst of ambition immediately set alarm bells ringing around a war-weary Europe. Great Britain and the Netherlands immediately began preparing for a renewal of hostilities while Philip's French countrymen made it clear that they not going to support his efforts this time. Louis XV's regent was his great-grandfather's nephew Philippe II, Duke of Orléans. Philippe was more than willing to honour the Treaty of Utrecht because he would remain first-in-line to succeed Louis so long as Philip V and his descendants remained barred from the French throne. With that in mind, in 1717 he took France into an unlikely alliance with the Dutch and the British.

The conflict that followed, running from August 1717 to February 1720, is generally not regarded as being part of the War of the Spanish Succession but I feel that it ought be included for the sake of completing the sequence of events that led to eventual peace in Europe. Philip, having not yet made peace with the Habsburgs himself, reopened hostilities by attacking Sardinia. The Austrians were distracted by the Austro-Turkish War (1716-1718) against the Ottoman Empire and could not spare the resources needed to protect the newly-acquired Mediterranean island, which was reconquered by the Spanish in November 1717.

The initial Austrian reaction to this setback was limited due to the aforementioned commitments elsewhere. Prince Eugene of Savoy, now the Austrian supreme commander, wanted to avoid a war on Italy for as long as his manpower was needed to fight the Ottomans in the Balkans. That situation changed in July 1718 with the signing of the Treaty of Passarowitz, which brought an end to the Austro-Turkish War. Austria was now free to join forces with France, Great Britain and the Netherlands, forming a coalition that became known as the Quadruple Alliance. Philip V responded to these developments by stepping up his campaign of conquest in Italy. His next step was to invade Savoy-controlled Sicily, which he did with an army of 30,000 men at around the time the Passarowitz Treaty was signed.

The Final Struggle

The Spanish invasion of Sicily was successful and the Quadruple Alliance could do little other than demand that Philip immediately withdraw from Sardinia and Sicily. The eyes of Europe now fell upon Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy who had yet to make his position on the matter clear. He entered into secret negotiations with Cardinal Alberoni for the establishment of an anti-Austrian alliance but would eventually instead throw in his lot with the Quadruple Alliance. After the British Mediterranean fleet under Admiral Sir George Byng defeated the Spanish navy off Sicily at the Battle of Cape Passaro in August 1718, the Austrians attempted to retake the island but managed only to establish a minor beachhead around the town of Milazzo. At the end of the year, the Quadruple Alliance officially declared war on Spain.

There was a major political development in December 1718 as the Cellamare Conspiracy against the Duke of Orléans was discovered. It was revealed Spanish diplomats and enemies of Philippe within the French court had been plotting to have him removed from power and install Philip V as Louis XV's regent in his place. Philippe responded to the discovery of the plot by immediately ordering the Duke of Berwick to raise an army and invade Spain, which he did in April 1719. Berwick encountered little human opposition but the scourge of disease proved to be the undoing of his campaign and he was forced to withdraw after incurring heavy losses. The French were far more successful on the other side of the Atlantic, capturing the Florida town of Pensacola from the Spanish in May and thereby thwarting Spanish plans to invade the Province of Carolina. The Spanish retook the town in August but by the end of the year it had fallen again to the French, who sacked and burned the town before withdrawing.

Philippe II, Duke of Orléans

In June 1719 The Austrians renewed their offensive in Sicily. They were defeated at the Battle of Francavilla on June 20th but, with the British navy in total control of the surrounding seas, it would only be a matter of time before the isolated Spanish defenders ran out of men and supplies and would have to capitulate. The Austrians tried again and this time managed to break out of the Milazzo beachhead. By October they had recaptured Messina and were besieging the Spanish at Palermo.

The British war effort was running smoothly although the government was somewhat distracted by events at home. Having already failed once four years previously, 1719 was the year in which the Jacobite supporters of James Francis Edward Stuart, "The Old Pretender", launched a second half-hearted attempt at toppling the new Hanoverian regime of George I (Queen Anne had died in 1714). The exiled former British commander, the Duke of Ormonde, organised a Spanish naval expedition in support of James but his fleet was scattered in a storm off the Spanish coast and never got anywhere near British shores. The few hundred Spaniards and Jacobite Highlanders. who did make it to Scotland as part of a separate expedition were swiftly defeated. At the same time, a Spanish force sent from Cuba to attack the British settlement of Nassau in the Bahamas was driven off the local militia after causing only token damage.

The British reacted to these Spanish acts of aggression swiftly and decisively. The British fleet immediately sailed for Spain and launched a successful amphibious assault against the coastal town of Vigo, the site of the famous Anglo-Dutch victory against the Spanish treasure fleet back in 1702. From there the British landing force marched inland to Pontevedra, arriving their in October 1719. Philip V and the Spanish authorities, surprised by the success of this seaborne invasion of their territory, concluded that there was little point in prolonging the conflict. That December Philip dismissed Cardinal Alberoni and began peace negotiations. The result was the Treaty of the Hague, which was signed on February 17th 1720.

Peace and Aftermath

Under the terms of the long-overdue peace, Philip V was obliged to hand back all the territory that he had captured since 1717 and remain barred from the French line of succession. Along with the French agreement to return Pensacola, the only other piece of good news that came out of it for Philip was that his son Charles was recognised as heir to the Duchy of Parma, which he was set to inherit from his mother's childless half-cousin, Antonio Farnese. Charles would go on to become King Charles III of Spain in 1759, following the deaths of his father and his two elder half-brothers, Luis I and Ferdinand VI.

Having lost it's European territorial possessions, Spain, which was already suffering from a weak economy during the later Habsburg years despite the abundance of American gold and silver, became increasingly marginalised as a continental power after 1720. As he grew older Philip V suffered increasingly from his own mental demons as did Ferdinand VI, denying the country the strong leader that it so desperately needed for many more years. It also remained a socially and culturally backward nation dominated by the Catholic Church (the Church's tough stance on money-lending was partly responsible for the Spain's failure to turn its vast wealth into a strong economic performance) and its footsoldiers from the Spanish Inquisition. It was not until the reign of the mentally-sound Charles III, one of the 18th Century's many enlightened despots, that far-reaching social and economic reforms were attempted.

In the aftermath of the War of the Spanish Succession, the idea of a European balance of power quickly became a key part of the established international order. Although the much-feared union between France and Spain never materialised, the fact that the two countries were now ruled by the same family, along with the need to challenge the growing power of Great Britain around the globe, meant that it did not take long for them to become firm allies. France and Spain were allies under the Pacte de Famille, also known as the Bourbon Compact, from 1733 up until the downfall of the French Bourbon monarchy during the French Revolution at the end of that century. Despite being rejected by their French homeland, the House of Bourbon has proved itself to be among the great survivors of Europe's royal dynasties. The descendants of Philip V still rule in Spain today despite having been overthrown no less than three times (1808-1813, 1868-1874 and 1931-1975) since the Treaty of Utrecht secured them in Madrid.

The Duchy of Lancaster

2011-12-22T17:49:00.001Z

In this day and age of progressive ideas and moving with the times, England is struggling to hold on to parts of its rich historical legacy. One, or rather two aspects of the past which have managed to survive, however, are the royal duchies. The Duchy of Lancaster is one of those duchies, the other being the Duchy of Cornwall. The Duchy of Lancaster is held in trust for the sovereign and provides a source of revenue for the monarch (the Duchy of Cornwall does the same thing, albeit for the Prince of Wales).

In its present form, the Duchy of Lancaster comprises 46,000 acres of prime land and real estate across England and Wales, with much of its holdings centred on its heartland in the county of Lancashire. Its varied property portfolio ranges from farmland to historic buildings to modern urban developments. According to the financial number-crunchers, the value of the duchy was £348 million in the 2010 fiscal year. Plenty of pocket money for Her Majesty there then.

The Duchy of Lancaster exists as more than just a glorified royal rent collector, however. The duchy is also able to exert the powers and ceremonial duties of the British crown in the areas that form the old County Palatine of Lanacashire, those areas being modern Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and the Furness region of southern Cumbria. The passage of the Local Government Act in 1972 means that the Duchy of Lancaster also retains the right to appoint local Sheriffs and Lords Lieutenant in those aforementioned areas as well as in other areas around the historic county boundaries of Cheshire and Yorkshire.

History of the Duchy

The story of the Duchy of Lancaster begins with a man who has developed a habit of continually popping up in my blog posts, John of Gaunt. For those of you who don't already know, Gaunt was the third son of the chivalrous English warrior King, Edward III (r.1327-1377). Despite not being particularly good at either war or politics, Gaunt rose up to become one of the most powerful men in the land solely through his mastery of the two Ws: women and wealth. It was his acquisition of the Lancastrian lands, obtained through inheritance from his first wife, that made him so rich and influential.

Standard of the Duchy of Lancaster

Although the Duchy of Lancaster began with John of Gaunt in the mid-14th Century, the story of the Lancastrian inheritance actually goes back another hundred years. It was initially formed in 1265 when Henry III confiscated the lands which had formally belonged to Simon de Montfort, the rebellious baron who had caused Henry considerable grief throughout much of his reign. Henry awarded these lands to his youngest son, Edmund Crouchback and gave him the title Earl of Lancaster. In 1266 the lands of another fallen baron, Robert de Ferrers, were added to Edmund's estates. In 1284 Edmund's mother, Eleanor of Provence, granted him the luxurious Savoy Palace in London which had previously belonged to her uncle Peter II, Count of Savoy.

As the Crown of England was passed down through the senior line of the House of Plantagenet from his elder brother, Edward I, Edmund Crouchback's title and lands were passed down through his junior line to his grandson, Henry of Grosmont. In 1351 Edward III officially created the County Palatine of Lancashire and elevated Henry of Grosmont's earldom to a dukedom, thereby founding the Duchy of Lancaster. Henry had no sons, however, and his daughter Blanche, the Lancastrian heiress, married her third cousin John of Gaunt in 1359. Henry died in 1361 and his dukedom was formally conferred upon Gaunt by royal charter the following year once Blanche's sister had died and the other half of the Lancastrian inheritance had passed to him.

And that, in theory, should have been that. Gaunt was now Duke of Lancaster and, as a result of his vast marital inheritance, controlled over thirty castles, owned land in almost every county in England and had over 4000 armed retainers at his personal command. His estates provided an income of between £8000 and £10,000 per year, millions in today's money. Although Gaunt's wealth and power were certainly comparable to that of his father, the King (indeed Gaunt probably wielded more authority than the Crown in the Palatine of Lancashire, in the same way that the Prince-Bishops of Durham were effectively laws-unto-themselves in the old County Palatine of Durham), he was not the immediate heir to the throne and he had no intention whatsoever to challenge for the Crown. Had events played out like they were supposed to, the Duke of Lancaster would have become just another Peer of the Realm, albeit a very influential one. History, however, has a habit of throwing up the odd surprise.

Kenilworth Castle in Leicestershire, John of Gaunt's former seat

The chain of events which brought about the merger of the Duchy of Lancaster with the English Crown began when John of Gaunt bit the dust in 1399. His title and vast estates should have passed to his son by Blanche, Henry Bolingbroke. The problem was that Bolingbroke was serving a ten-year exile for the crime of testing the patience of his tyrannical cousin, King Richard II, one too many times. Seizing the opportunity to both increase his own power and get rid of Bolingbroke for good, Richard extended Bolingbroke's exile to life and confiscated the entire Lancastrian estate. Bolingbroke, understandably miffed, returned to England at the first available opportunity in order to regain his rightful inheritance. Once there, however, things took on a momentum of their own and soon Richard found himself deposed and under arrest. By the time he died in early 1400, Bolingbroke had seized the Crown and become King Henry IV. The House of Lancaster now occupied the throne of England itself.

Following his legally-dubious usurpation of the throne, Henry IV's first act was to declare the lands of the Duchy of Lancaster be held separately from the other lands held by the Crown and should descend to his heirs male. This act ensured that the duchy retained its own separate distinct identity despite its title being lost under that of King. The separation was confirmed in 1461 when the House of York displaced the Lancastrians and took the throne. Edward IV, the first Yorkist King, stipulated that the landed inheritance and Palatine responsibilities be grouped together under the title of Duchy of Lancaster and that it remain separate from the various other royal inheritances that he passed along to his heirs.

It was this separation from the other Crown lands that has ensured the continued survival of the Duchy of Lancaster as an independent royal entity. When George III ascended to the throne of Great Britain in 1760, one of his first acts was to surrender the English Crown lands and their income to the state in exchange for an annual allowance from the Civil List. These "nationalised" lands, known today as the Crown Estate, are still theoretically attached to the monarchy but they are not the monarch's personal property and cannot be sold off by him or her. The Crown Estate is accountable to Parliament and any surplus annual revenues go not to the monarch but to the Treasury.

Because of its separate identity, the Duchy of Lancaster (along with the Duchy of Cornwall) was not included as part of the Crown Estate and its inheritance has been preserved. To this day the Duchy of Lancaster remains a private landed inheritance in the hands of the reigning monarch and its revenues still go directly to him or her.

The Duchy Today

The Duchy of Lancaster today is not the property of the Crown but is the personal inherited property of the reigning monarch (other property privately owned by the monarch includes Balmoral Castle and Sandringham House) and has been so since Henry IV's usurpation of the Crown in 1399. The monarch still holds the title Duke of Lancaster, even if they are female. People within the lands of the Duchy often still toast the monarch as "the Queen, the Duke of Lancaster".

The County Palatine of Lancashire, heartland of the Duchy of Lancaster

The chief officer in charge of the duchy is known as the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, a position which is usually a ministerial post within the government and is sometimes even a cabinet post given to a junior MP. The actual day-to-day running of the estate has been in the hands of a deputy for at least the last two centuries, however, and the Chancellor actually does very little. As their duties to the duchy tend to amount to little more than a day's work per week, they are more often available as a minister-without-portfolio. It is also sometimes held in conjunction with another position. The current Chancellor, Lord Strathclyde, also serves as Leader of the House of Lords.

Marston Moor and the Siege of York

2011-11-19T14:37:00.001Z

It is 1644 and the English Civil War between King Charles I and his Parliament has been raging for two years. So far neither side has gained a decisive advantage and England is firmly divided between its two loyalties. By 1644 Parliament controlled London, the south east, East Anglia, Lancashire, parts of Yorkshire, and much of the Midlands while the King's forces controlled Wales, the West Country, the remainder of the Midlands and most of the north. Scotland was in the hands of Parliament's allies, the Scottish Protestant Covenanters.

With the country split so evenly down the middle, the outcome of the conflict hung precariously in the balance. The first two years of the war had gone fairly well for the Royalists overall but they had failed to seriously threaten their enemy's heartlands in the south east. By 1644 the Parliamentarians, driven by a fanatical religious zeal and a burning desire to defend their rights against what they perceived as a tyranical royal regime, had begun to slowly gain the ascendancy. Their commanders now felt that the time was right to undertake a campaign in northern England, which was a crucial Royalist stronghold but a vulnerable one in that it lay uncomfortably sandwiched between Scotland to the north and the Parliamentarian lands to the south.

Background: The Civil War in the North

During the early part of the Civil War, which began in 1642, the Royalist enjoyed an advantage of numbers and local support in the north of England. The only areas which favoured Parliament where Lancashire and the West Riding of Yorkshire, where the influence of the clothing-manufacturing towns persuaded the local squires and gentry to desert the King's side. The region saw its first fighting in the Summer of 1643 as the Royalists struck back against the encroaching Parliamentarians. A Royalist army commanded by William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle defeated the Parliamentarian forces of Lord Ferdinando Fairfax at the Battle of Adwalton Moor near Bradford on June 30th 1643. Fairfax and his son, Sir Thomas Fairfax were forced to retreat eastwards to the port of Hull, which was now the only town in Yorkshire still loyal to Parliament.

With the Parliamentarian threat to Yorkshire now largely dealt with, Newcastle planned to send his army south into Lincolnshire as part of a three-pronged Royalist assault towards London, alongside the armies of Lord Hopton and the King. Before they could attempt to capture the capital, however, the Royalists had to deal with the remaining Parliamentarian garrisions in the areas that they controlled, such as those at Gloucester and Plymouth in the West Country, as they still posed a serious threat. One such garrison was the one at Hull, which was established following the arrival there of the Lord Fairfax on July 22nd.

As Newcastle's main Royalist army moved into Lincolnshire during July 1643, the Parliamentarian General Lord Francis Willoughby moved his forces in as well and garrisoned the town of Gainsborough. Willoughby was immediately besieged by a small Royalist force led by Sir Charles Cavendish, son of the Earl of Devonshire. Lord Fairfax responded by sending a relief force, led by Sir John Meldrum and Oliver Cromwell, across the Humber Estuary from Hull. This force defeated the besieging Royalists and killed Cavendish at the Battle of Gainsborough on July 28th but the arrival of Newcastle's army forced them to withdraw, allowing the Royalists to recapture not only Gainsborough but Lincoln as well. All that now stood between them and London was the Parliamentarian army of the Eastern Association, commanded by Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester.

Instead of continuing south, however, Newcastle remained conscious of the threat to his rear and decided to take his army back north to deal with the Hull garrison. Having conducted a sortie out into the East Riding during August, Fairfax and his forces retreated back into Hull, allowing Newcastle's men to recapture Beverley on August 28th. The Royalist siege of Hull commenced on September 2nd but was hampered by the defenders' decision to open the sluice gates and break the banks of the Humber, flooding the countryside around the town. Starving out the garrison was practically impossible as the sea lanes were open and the English navy, which had declared for Parliament at the beginning of the war, was sailing in men and supplies without difficulty. The Parliamentarians were further bolstered by the return of Meldrum and Cromwell's forces on September 22nd, replacing the cavalry of Sir Thomas Fairfax which had left the city to join forces with the Eastern Association.

On October 9th the Royalists attempted to storm the defences but were repulsed and pushed even further away from the town by a Parliamentarian counter-attack. On October 11th the remaining Royalist forces in Lincolnshire were defeated at the Battle of Winceby, ending all hope of an advance on London. The following day Newcastle gave up, ended the siege of Hull and withdrew to the city of York. The Royalist forces in the north of England were now firmly on the defensive.

Besieging York

A Parliamentarian campaign against the Royalists in northern England was made possible thanks largely to the alliance, drawn up in late 1643, between Parliament and the Scottish Covenanters. The Scots agreed to join the fight in exchange for the establishment of Presbyterian church government in England, a demand which was acceptable to most of the members of England's Parliament, many of whom were of the Presbyterian denomination and detested the crypto-Catholic "High Church" policies that Charles I had attempted to impose on both kingdoms. Crucially, this new alliance, known as the Solemn League and Covenant, meant that the Royalist north could be attacked from both north and south. In January 1644 a Scottish army under Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven invaded Northumberland. Newcastle took his army north to meet him, leaving Lord Belasyse in command at York with a garrison of 1,500 cavalry and 1,800 infantry.

Meanwhile Sir Thomas Fairfax had moved into Cheshire, where his cavalry had taken part in the Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Nantwich, but was now returning east across the Pennines to rejoin his father's forces in Hull. To prevent the link-up, Lord Belasyse took a sizeable chunk of the York garrison to occupy the town of Selby, only for the lot of them to be captured when Fairfax and Sir John Meldrum stormed the town on April 11th. When he heared the news of what had happened, Newcastle realised that York itself, the lynchpin of the Royalist cause in northern England, was now under threat.

Newcastle retreated back to York post-haste, arriving there on April 19th just three days ahead of his enemies. Leven's Scots linked up with Lord Fairfax, who had linked up with his son and marched his army from Hull, and the combined force arrived outside York on April 22nd. As the Scots and Parliamentarians began preparing siege operations, Newcastle sent his Lieutenant General of Horse, Lord Goring and most of his cavalry out of the city to join up with other Royalist armies, escaping despite a determined pursuit. A garrison of 800 cavalry and 5000 infantry remained in York under the command of Newcastle and his Lieutenant General of Foot, Lord Eythin.

17th Century York was not an easy city to besiege. Lying at the confluence of the Rivers Ouse and Foss, it possessed the only bridge over the Ouse between Boroughbridge and Selby, making movement around it a major logistical headache. The problem of the River Ouse was partially adressed by creating a pontoon bridge, consisting of boats lashed together with rope, over the river near the village of Acaster Mablis, several miles south of the city. With movement and communications improved, the besieging armies took up position around York. The Scots occupied the southern and western sectors while Fairfax's troops covered the eastern sector in order to safeguard their supply route from Hull. The northern sector, between the Ouse and the Foss, was left unguarded at first, allowing the garrison to send and recieve messages and bring in occasional supplies.

The first two months or so of the siege were relatively uneventful, with most of the activity during this time being undertaken by the garrison. They and the city's population had gathered up the surrounding crops before the siege so they were well-supplied and living fairly comfortably. York's many breweries kept up the production of ale which, in those days, was far safer to drink than the untreated water from the rivers. Between April and June, soldiers from the garrison made several sorties out the city to harass the besiegers, deny them shelter and generally be a nuisance. One such raid saw the burning of several houses in Acomb, an outlying village to the west of the city, which the Scots were using as billets.

The besieging forces, particularly those of Fairfax, were not yet strong enough to attempt anything drastic and were still in the process of consolidating their supply lines. Siege operations in the eastern sector were also hampered by the garrison's demolition of the River Foss bridges and the obstacle presented by the King's Pool, a large man-made marshy lake created by the damming of the Foss shortly after the Norman Conquest. The lake provided a key defence to the eastern side of the city but by the 17th Century it was deteriorating due to the accumulation of silt from upriver. It was shallow enough in 1644 for the Fairfaxes to consider having their forces cross it on foot as a way of breaking the siege but they ultimately decided against the idea.

The Siege Intensifies

The Parliamentarians and Scots received a major boost on June 3rd when they were joined at York by Lord Manchester's army of the Eastern Association, which had spent the previous month mopping up the last Royalist garrisons in Lincolnshire and was now free to operate further afield. With the aid of another bridge-of-boats over the Ouse at Poppleton, Manchester's men duly took up positions in the previously unguarded northern sector, completing the investment of the city. Manchester's arrival freed up Parliamentarian forces which were then used to clear the surrounding area of any remaining Royalist strongholds, such as the one at Crayke castle near Easingwold.

Determined operations against the defences of York now began in earnest. The outer ring of Royalist defences consisted of a series of detached earthwork forts known as "sconces". The Scots captured two sconces in their sector but were unable to capture another at the Mount, located on the main south road out of the city about half a mile from Micklegate Bar (the city's southern gateway), because the men holding it were relieved by reinforcements sent from the main garrison. Following these events, Newcastle decided to maintain the position at the Mount but ordered his men to abandon the sconces in the other sectors and retreat into York itself, which was protected by its ring of Medieval city walls.

On June 8th Manchester, Leven and Fairfax formally summoned the garrison of York to surrender. Newcastle opened negotiatons but played for time, hoping that he might be eventually relieved by friendly forces if he could string out the proceedings for long enough. Both sides haggled for a week, during which a party of Royalist cavalry attempted to break out of the city but were driven back inside, until negoiations broke down on the 15th and full hostilities resumed. On June 9th news had arrived from London that a Royalist army commanded by King Charles' nephew, Prince Rupert of the Rhine was threatening Lancashire and that the besiegers should immediately detach forces to deal with this threat. Leven was against such a course of action, preferring to focus on capturing York first rather than compromise the strength of his army by splitting it up. Manchester and the Fairfaxes agreed with Leven and the siege continued.

As the Sconce at the Mount still remained in Royalist hands and the presence of a Royalist gun emplacement on Baile Hill deterring any assault from the south, the Parliamentarian commanders decided to concentrate their attacks in the other two sectors. In the eastern sector, Fairfax set up a battery of cannon on Lamel Hill which overlooked Walmgate Bar and the city's eastern ramparts. These guns pounded the walls for days and left scars on Walmgate Bar than can still be seen today. The attackers also attempted to destroy the gateway by digging a mine tunnel and laying explosives directly beneath it. This plan was thwarted when a deserter tipped off the Royalists, who responded by flooding the tunnel through a counter-mine.

In the northern sector, Manchester's men were also trying their hand at mining. Their tunnel was dug beneath St. Mary's tower, which was not part of the actual city walls but in fact stood at the northwest corner of the adjoining walls which enclosed the precincts of the former St. Mary's Abbey. On June 16th the explosives were detonated and the subsequent blast destroyed the tower. A Parliamentarian infantry regiment attempted to storm the newly-formed breach but were hampered by a lack of reinforcements and an even greater lack of judgement, which ultimately proved to be their undoing. Men from the garrison emerged from the Abbey's postern gate by the river and recaptured the breach from behind, trapping the attackers. The Parliamentarians lost some 300 men in the failed assault and they did not attempt to attack again. Nevertheless the breach remained a site of tense confrontation for the next several days as men from both sides traded insults and the occasional musket shot through it.

"We are now so near them that we are very ill neighbours one to another"
(Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester)

Relief

At the same time that Manchester's men were having trouble at the breach, events further afield were threatening to catch the Parliamentarians and Scots by surprise. On June 28th news reached them that Prince Rupert's Royalist army, having already captured several Parliamentarian strongholds in Lancashire, was mustering at Skipton and preparing to relieve York. Although a Parliamentarian force under Sir John Meldrum and the Earl of Denbigh was on its way north from the Midlands to reinforce the besiegers, there was no chance of it arriving in time to intercept Rupert. As Rupert reached Knaresborough Castle, just fourteen miles west of York, on June 30th, the Parliamentarian and Scottish commanders faced a major dilemma. If they stayed where they were around York, separated by the rivers, Rupert's army coud come along and destroy the three besieging armies one at a time, with the others unable to intervene effectively.

With heavy hearts all-round, Manchester, Leven and Fairfax decided that they had to break off the siege and move to intercept Rupert on their own terms. On the night of June 30th their armies abandoned their siege lines and withdrew to the west to take up positions on Marston Moor, blocking Rupert's direct line-of-advance on York from Knaresborough. It was not until the next day that Newcastle and his garrison realised that their enemies had gone, prompting a mad rush out of the city to plunder cannon, ammunition and supplies from the deserted siege positions.

Early on July 1st, a detachment of Royalist cavalry from Knaresborough appeared on Marston Moor and the Parliamentarians began preparing for battle. Too late did they realise that this was in fact a distraction and that Rupert's main army had outwitted them with a 22-mile flank march to the north and was already behind them. Rupert crossed the Ouse at Boroughbridge, placing the river between himself and the enemy, and then turned south back towards York and a link-up with Newcastle's forces there. His troops defeated Manchester's dragoons, which had been left behind to guard the Poppleton bridge-of-boats, and entered York to a raptuous welcome. Newcastle was reunited with his former cavalry commander, Lord Goring, who informed him that Rupert desired his assistance in the upcoming showdown on Marston Moor.

Newcastle fully intended to use the bulk of his garrison army to reinforce Rupert's but his troops were plagued by a lack of discipline in the immediate aftermath of the siege. They had not been paid for some time and many had mutinied, demanding either payment or discharge. Drunkenness and looting were also rampant, with many men having still not returned from their quest for plunder outside the city. Newcastle eventually managed to pursuade the men to return to the colours and, at around midday on July 2nd, led around 3000 of them away to Marston Moor, following Rupert's army. Around 1000 men were left behind to hold York.

Preparing for Battle

When the Parliamentarian and Scottish commanders at Marston Moor realised that Rupert had outsmarted them, they debated over what course of action to take. It was decided that they should move their forces south to Tadcaster and Cawood in order to protect their supply line from Hull against any move south by the Royalists. The Parliamentarian infantry began to move early on July 2nd, leaving Sir Thomas Fairfax and the cavalry behind on the moor to act as a rearguard. Some of the troops had already reached Tadcaster when news arrived at around 9am that Rupert's army had crossed the Ouse at Poppleton and was heading for Marston Moor. The men in Tadcaster were hastily recalled and only just managed to get back to the field in time for Rupert's arrival.

Just after midday, Rupert was joined on the field by Newcastle and several hundred "Gentleman Volunteers" from the York garrison. Again Rupert greeted him coldly, accosting him for not arriving sooner. The two sides now faced each-other on the field but neither attacked, with the Royalists exhausted from the previous day's march and the Parliamentarians still returning to the field from their aborted visit to Tadcaster. Newcastle was strongly opposed to the idea of a major battle and believed that the Parliamentarian/Scottish army would eventually collapse of its own accord. Rupert was not convinced and argued that he had specific orders from the King to destroy the enemy immediately. He also wanted to attack as soon as possible in order to catch the Parliamentarians and Scots by surprise and negate their increasing numerical advantage.

At around 4pm the rest of Newcastle's troops from York, led by Lord Eythin, arrived on the field and began shuffling reluctantly into position alongside the other Royalist forces. Eythin and Prince Rupert shared a mutual dislike for one-another, with the pair having fought and suffered failure together on previous occasions. Following the pair's defeat at the Battle of Vlotho during the Thirty Years War on the continent, Rupert blamed the defeat on Eythin's overcautiousness while Eythin pinned the blame on the rashness of Rupert's actions. At Marston Moor, Eythin criticised Rupert for deploying the Royalist army too close to the enemy, arguing that the lay of the land concealed their view of the Parliamentarian/Scottish frontline and would allow them to attack the Royalist army without being noticed until it was too late. Rupert tried to accommodate Eythin by suggesting the army pull back to a more advantageous position only for Eythin to then say that it was too late in the day to redeploy. The Royalist's remained in their positions and settled down for the night.

Parliamentarian and Scottish Deployment

Scottish Army of the Solemn League and Covenant

(2000 cavalry, 500 dragoons, 11000 infantry, 30-40 guns)

General: Alexander Leslie, Earl of Leven

Lieutenant General of the Horse: Sir David Leslie

Right Wing:

Earl of Leven's Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Lord Balgonie, 8 troops)
Earl of Dalhousie's Regiment (7 troops)
Earl of Eglinton's Regiment (7 troops)

Left Wing:

Lieutenant General Leslie's Regiment (8 troops)
Earl of Balcarres' Regiment (8 troops)
Lord Kirkudbright's Regiment (8 troops)

Dragoons:

Colonel Hugh Fraser's Regiment (6 companies)

Lieutenant General of the Foot: William Baillie
Sergeant Major General of the Foot: Sir James Lumsden

Vanguard:

Crawford-Lindsay's Fifeshire Regiment (Earl of Crawford-Lindsay, 10 companies)
Midlothian Regiment (Viscount Maitland, 10 companies)
Clydesdale Regiment (Lieutenant General Hamilton, 10 companies)
Edinburgh Regiment (Colonel James Rae)

Main Battle Group:

Loudoun-Glasgow Regiment (Earl of Loudoun, 10 companies)
Tweeddale Regiment (Earl of Buccleuch, 10 companies)
Kyle and Carrick Regiment (Earl of Cassillis, 10 companies)
Nithsdale and Anandale Regiment (William Douglas of Kilhead, 10 companies)
Dunfirmline's Fifeshire Regiment (Earl of Dunfirmline, 10 Companies)
Strathearn Regiment (Lord Coupar, 10 companies)
Stirlingshire Regiment (Lord Livingstone, 10 companies)
Linlithgow and Tweeddale Regiment (Master of Yester, 10 companies)

Rearguard:

Angus Regiment (Viscount Dudhope, 10 companies)
Minister's Regiment (Sir Arthur Erskine of Scotscraig, 5 companies)
Levied Regiment (Lord Sinclair, 7 companies)

General of the Ordnance: Sir Alexander Hamilton

8 brass demi-cannons
1 brass culverin
3 brass quarter-cannons
9 iron demi-culverins
48 brass demi-culverins

The officers of the Scottish army were highly experienced and many had seen action in the Thirty Years War. Many of the ordinary soldiers were young and inexperienced, however, and the Scottish cavalry used smaller and lighter horses than the English, meaning that they had to be placed in the rear behind the heavier Parliamentarian cavalry.

Parliamentarian Army of the Eastern Association

(3000 cavalry, 4000 infantry)

General: Edward Montagu, Earl of Manchester

Lieutenant General of the Horse: Oliver Cromwell
Commissary General: Bartholomew Vermuyden

Earl of Manchester's Cavalry Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Algernon Sidney, 11 troops)
Cromwell's Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Edward Whalley, 14 troops)
Vermuyden's Regiment (5 troops)
Charles Fleetwood's Regiment (6 troops)

Dragoons:

Lieutenant Colonel John Lilburne (strength unknown)

Sergeant Major General of the Foot: Lawrence Crawford

Earl of Manchester's Infantry Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel Clifton, 18 companies)
Crawford's Regiment (Lieutenant Colonel William Hamilton, 8 companies)
Sir Miles Hobart's Regiment (9 companies)
Francis Russell's Regiment (10 companies)
Edward Montagu's Regiment (10 companies)
John Pickering's Regiment (10 companies)

Manchester's army was arguably the best trained and administered force to take to the field at Marston Moor. The main problem in this army was the religious tension between the Puritans, who were backed by Cromwell, and the Presbyterians, who were backed by Manchester and Crawford. These tensions did not surface during the battle and the army maintained its cohesion throughout.

Parliamentarian Army of the Northern Association

(2000 cavalry, 2000 infantry)

General: Ferdinando Fairfax, Baron Fairfax of Cameron
Lieutenant General: Sir Thomas Fairfax

Lieutenant General of the Horse: John Lambert

Lord Fairfax's Cavalry Regiment
Sir Thomas Fairfax's Regiment
Charles Fairfax's Regiment
Sir Hugh Bethell's Regiment
John Lambert's Regiment
Lionel Copley's Regiment
Francis Boynton's Regiment
Sir Thomas Norcliff's Regiment
George Dodding's Regiment

Lieutenant General of the Foot: Unknown

Lord Fairfax's Infantry Regiment
John Bright's Regiment
Sir William Constable's Regiment
Francis Lascelles' Regiment
Robert Overton's Regiment
Ralph Ashton's Regiment
George Doddington's Regiment
Alexander Rigby's Regiment

The individual strength of the regiments in Fairfax's army is not known. What is known, however, is that many of the regiments were very weak due to an outbreak of disease in the army during the Siege of York. As a result, Fairfax's army had a far higher number of recent recruits than those of Manchester and Leven.

Royalist Deployment

Main Royalist Army
(2500 cavalry, 7750 infantry, 14 guns)

General: Prince Rupert, Count Palatine of the Rhine
Lieutenant General: John Byron, Baron Byron

Sergeant Major General of the Horse: Sir John Urry

Prince Rupert's Lifeguard (140 cavalry)
Prince Rupert's Cavalry Regiment (500 cavalry)
Lord Byron's Regiment
Colonel Marcus Trevor's Regiment
Sir John Urry's Regiment
Sir William Vaughan's Regiment
Lord Molyneaux's Regiment
Sir Thomas Tyldesley's Cavalry Regiment
Thomas Leveson's Regiment

Sergeant Major General of the Foot: Henry Tillier

Prince Rupert's Infantry Regiment
Lord Byron's Regiment
Sir John Girlington's Regiment
Henry Warren's Regiment
Sir Michael Erneley's Regiment
Richard Gibson's Regiment
Henry Tillier's Regiment
Robert Broughton's Regiment
Sir Thomas Tyldesley's Infantry Regiment
Edward Chisenall's Regiment
Henry Cheator's Regiment

14 assorted field guns

Prince Rupert's own regiments of horse and foot formed the core of this army. The rest consisted of Lord Byron's forces, which Rupert had picked up in Cheshire and North Wales, and various English regiments which had either been formed in Lancashire or recently returned from fighting in Ireland. Sympathy for the Puritans was said to be abundant among the men of these units, a fact which could potentially jeopardise their loyalty to the Royalist cause.

Contingent of Northern Horse
(3500 cavalry, 250 infantry)

General of the Horse: George Goring, Lord Goring
Lieutenant General: Sir Charles Lucas
Commissary General: George Porter

Sir Charles Lucas' Brigade (700 cavalry)
Sir Richard Dacre's Brigade (800 cavalry)
Sir William Blakiston's Brigade (600 cavalry)
Sir Edward Widdrington's Brigade (400 cavalry)
Colonel Samuel Tuke's Regiment (200 cavalry)
Colonel Francis Carnaby's Regiment (200 cavalry)
Commissary General George Porter's Troop (50 cavalry)

Derbyshire Contingent:

John Frescheville's Regiment (240 cavalry)
Roland Eyre's Regiment (160 cavalry)
Detachments from Frescheville's, Eyre's and John Milward's Regiments of Foot (around 220 men)

This force was made up largely of Newcastle's cavalry, which had escaped from York at the beginning of the siege. Other men and horses had been picked up by Goring in Derbyshire as he travelled to Lancashire to link up with Prince Rupert's army. There were to many weakened regiments to list initally and the cavalry was eventually reorganised into the groups shown above. The "Northern Horse", as they were known, were well known for their tenacity in battle but suffered from disciplinary problems in the ranks.

Garrison of York
(3000 infantry)

General: William Cavendish, Marquess of Newcastle
Lieutenant General: James King, Lord Eythin

Sir Thomas Mentham's "Troop of Gentlemen Volunteers"

Sergeant Major General: Sir Francis Mackworth

As with Goring's horse, Newcastle's infantry were from too many weak regiments to list separately. They were formed into seven "divisions" on the battlefield at Marston Moor. The infantry regiments of Sir Thomas Glemham, Sir John Belasyse and Sir Henry Slingsby, totalling some 1000 men, had been left behind in York to hold the city.

The Moment of Truth

As the two armies moved into position in the late afternoon of July 2nd, the Parliamentarians and Scots occupied Marston Hill, a ridge of high ground between the villages of Long Marston and Tockwith. The Royalists occupied the low-lying moor behind a drainage ditch, which Prince Rupert hoped would serve as protection from cavalry charges. The Royalists were considerably outnumbered, fielding 17000 men in total against the 22000+ men of the Scottish/Parliamentarian force.

The onset of bad weather and the discouragement from Newcastle and Lord Eythin persuaded Rupert to call off his assault until the following day. As the Royalist troops broke ranks for supper as around 7pm, there lack of readiness for battle had not gone unnoticed by Lord Leven, who was watching from up on Marston Hill. Shortly after 7.30pm, just as a thunderstorm was breaking over the battlefield, Leven ordered his men to charge.

Lord Byron's cavalry, holding the right wing of the Royalist army, was quickly beaten back by a charge from Oliver Cromwell's "Ironsides". Despite being ordered to stand his ground, Byron rashly ordered a counter-charge which disorganised his horses and prevented the Royalist field guns from being able to fire without fear of hitting their own men. In the clashes that followed, Byron's cavalry was routed and put to flight. Cromwell was slightly wounded in the neck by a pistol shot and was obliged to temporarily leave the field for treatment. Rupert personally led his reserve cavalry to cover his collapsing right flank and launch a counter-attack against the Ironsides. The attack was beaten off by Sir David Leslie's Scottish cavalry and the cream of the Royalist horse fled the field in disarray. Rupert himself only narrowly avoided capture by hiding in a nearby bean field.

In the centre of the field the Scottish and Parliamentarian infantry, led by Crawford's, Baillie's and Lord Fairfax's regiments of foot, managed to successfully cross the drainage ditch and capture several guns. The 2000 horses and 600 musketeers of the Parliamentarian right wing, however, met with considerable difficulties. The commander of the right wing, Sir Thomas Fairfax, later wrote:

"Our Right Wing had not, all, so good success, by reason of the whins and ditches which we were to pass over before we could get to the Enemy, which put us into great disorder: notwithstanding, I drew up a body of 400 Horse. But because the intervals of Horse, in this Wing only, were lined with Musketeers; which did us much hurt with their shot; I was necessitated to charge them. We were a long time engaged with one another, but at last we routed that part of their Wing ... [I] myself only returned presently, to get to the men I left behind me. But that part of the Enemy which stood, perceiving the disorder they were in, had charged and routed them, before I could get to them."

Fairfax's second-in-command, Lieutenant General Lambert, was unable to reach his superior so he instead had his forces attack in another location, where they were easily picked off by Royalist musketeers as they advanced only four abreast. When Lord Goring's cavalry counter-attacked, the Parliamentarian right flank collapsed, with only the Scottish cavalry in the rear offering any major resistance. As the majority of Goring's cavalry ran off to loot the Parliamentarian baggage train, Sir Charles Lucas led the rest in an attack against the right flank of the Parliamentarian/Scottish infantry, which was now exposed.

Meanwhile, Newcastle's infantry from the York garrision had launched an assault against Lord Fairfax's infantry in the centre of the Parliamentarian frontline, throwing the latter off-balance. Sir William Blakiston's brigade of horse followed up the attack, accompanied by a troop of Gentlemen Volunteers led by Newcastle himself. By this stage it was starting to get dark and the deteriorating visibility coupled with the unrelenting Royalist pressure caused the cohesion of the Parliamentarian infantry to unreavel. Half the Scottish infantry and all of Fairfax's infantry were subsequently routed, with Lord Leven and Lord Fairfax leaving the battlefield shortly afterwards, believing the day to be lost. Lord Manchester was now the only remaining Parliamentarian commander still in the fight although his command was effectively limited to his own regiment of foot which remained in the rear.

With Leven gone, the remaining Scottish regiments in the battle were left in the hands of their individual commanders. An isolated infantry brigade on their right wing, consisting of the regiments of Viscount Maitland and the Earl of Crawford-Lindsay, held out against repeated charges from Lucas' cavalry. On the third charge Lucas' horse was killed from under him and he was taken prisoner. Further back, Sir James Lumsden managed to reform and redeploy the other Scottish infantry units which had not fled. They, along with Manchester's infantry, repulsed and scattered Blakiston's Royalist cavalry brigade.

By this stage it was almost fully dark and a full moon was rising over the battlefield. The countryside for miles around was strewn with scattered fugitives from both sides who had fled the fighting. A messenger from Ireland, Arthur Trevor, scoured the field looking for Prince Rupert, who was still missing. Trevor sent this account of the chaos back to his Royalist boss in Ireland, the Marquess of Ormonde:

"In this horrible distraction did I coast the country; here meeting with a shoal of Scots crying out, 'Weys us, we are all undone'; and so full of lamentation and mourning, as if their day of doom had overtaken them, and from which they knew not whither to fly; and anon I met with a ragged troop reduced to four and a Cornet; by and by with a little foot officer without hat, band, sword, or indeed anything but feet and so much tongue as would serve to enquire the way to the next garrisons, which (to say the truth) were well filled with the stragglers on both sides within a few hours, though they lay distant from the place of the fight 20 or 30 miles."

With soldiers fleeing and commanders missing-in-action on both sides, the Battle of Marston Moor seemed set to end in an inconclusive stalemate. The tide turned, however, when a patched-up Oliver Cromwell returned to the fight alongside his disciplined Ironsides, who had rallied behind the Royalist right wing. Sir Thomas Fairfax, meanwhile, had been separated from his forces and now found himself surrounded by Goring's men. Fairfax removed his field sign (a white handkerchief or slip of paper which identified him as a Parliamentarian) from his hat and slipped away to join Cromwell, passing on information regarding the tenuous situation on his side of the battlefield.

Cromwell and his cavalry, supported by Sir David Leslie's cavalry and Lord Crawford-Lindsay's infantry, charged across the field for what would turn out to be the decisive encounter of the battle. Their target was Goring's cavalry, who were now exhausted and still distracted pillaging the Parliamentarian baggage train. Goring managed to get them into position just in time but when the Ironsides struck, the outnumbered Royalist cavalry fell back and withdrew to the edge of the field. Despite the appeals of the few remaining officers who had not been taken prisoner, Goring's men refused to take any further part in the fighting. They eventually obeyed orders to return to York later that night.

The battle was now all but lost for the Royalists, with the Parliamentarians and Scots proceeding to mop up their remaining forces. The remaining infantry units in the Royalist centre were overwhelmed, with many of those attempting to flee being cut down by their triumphant pursuers. The remnants of Lord Newcastle's infantry, known as the "Whitecoats", put up a brave last stand in a ditched enclosure a mile north of Long Marston. With their position guarding the line or retreat back towards York, the Whitecoats valiantly refused to budge, repulsing charge after charge from Cromwell's cavalry. Their resistance was eventually broken by Colonel Hugh Fraser's Scots dragoons and the last thirty or so survivors finally surrendered.

The Battle of Marston Moor was now over. It had been a complete and total victory for the Parliamentarians and Scots. The Royalists had lost all their guns and over 5000 men. 4000 of those were killed, many of which had fallen during the Whitecoats' last stand. 1500 Royalists had been captured, including Sir Charles Lucas and Sir Henry Tillier. The Parliamentarians and Scots lost around 300 men between them overall, including Lord Fairfax's son (and Sir Thomas' brother), Charles Fairfax and Cromwell's nephew, Valentine Walton who was mortally wounded after being struck by a cannonball early in the battle. Cromwell was with Walton when he died and he later wrote a religiously-charged letter to Walton's father (Cromwell's brother-in-law, also called Valentine Walton), informing him of the battle and his son's last words before his death:

To my loving Brother, Colonel Valentine Walton

It's our duty to sympathize in all mercies; and to praise the Lord together in chastisements or trials, that so we may sorrow together.

Truly England and the Church of God hath had a great favour from the Lord, in this great victory given unto us, such as the like never was since this war began.

It had all the evidences of an absolute victory obtained by the Lord's blessing upon the Godly Party principally. We never charged but we routed the enemy. The Left Wing, which I commanded, being our own horse, saving a few Scots in our rear, beat all the Prince's horse. God made them as stubble to our swords. We charged their regiments of foot with our horse, and routed all we charged. The particulars I cannot relate now; but I believe, of twenty thousand the Prince hath not four thousand left. Give glory, all the glory, to God.

Sir, God hath taken away your eldest son by a cannon-shot. It brake his leg. We were necessitated to have it cut off, whereof he died.

Sir, you know my own trials this way [Cromwell's own son Oliver had died recently, succumbing to typhoid while in garrison at Newport Pagnell]: but the Lord supported me with this, That the Lord took him into the happiness we all pant for and live for. There is your precious child full of glory, never to know sin or sorrow any more. He was a gallant young man, exceedingly gracious. God give you His comfort. Before his death he was so full of comfort that to Frank Russel and myself he could not express it, 'It was so great above his pain.'This he said to us. Indeed it was admirable. A little after, he said, One thing lay upon his spirit. I asked him, What that was? he told me it was, That God had not suffered him to be any more the executioner of His enemies. At his fall, his horse being killed with the bullet, and as I am informed three horses more, I am told he bid them, Open to the right and left, that he might see the rogues run. Truly he was exceedingly beloved in the Army, of all that knew him. But few knew him; for he was a precious young man, fit for God. You have cause to bless the Lord. He is a glorious Saint in Heaven; wherein you ought exceedingly to rejoice. Let this drink up your sorrow; seeing these are not feigned words to comfort you, but the thing is real and undoubted a truth. You may do all things by the strength of Christ. Seek that, and you shall easily bear your trial. Let this public mercy to the Church of God make you to forget your private sorrow. The Lord be your strength: so prays

Your truly faithful and loving brother,

OLIVER CROMWELL

Aftermath and the Fall of York

Those straggling Royalist troops who managed to escape the carnage on Marston Moor made their way through the darkness back to York. Newcastle joined them there as did Prince Rupert, who had barely managed to evade capture and make his own way back to the city. While there may certainly have been other forces in the north of England which could have been used to rebuild the Royalist armies, Rupert decided that he would be better off with the King's main "Oxford Army" in the south. On July 4th Rupert and Lord Goring left York for the last time, taking some 5000 cavalry and a few hundred infantry with him. The two men first took a detour north to Richmond in order to aviod interception before Rupert headed back across the Pennines. Goring continued north to Scotland so as to provide his services to the Marquess of Montrose, the leader of the Royalist forces there.

Newcastle, having staked his entire fortune on the Royalist cause, now considered the situation hopeless and decided that he could not face "the laughter of the court". Ignoring the pleas of Rupert and the King, Newcastle left York before the Prince and set sail from Scarborough on June 3rd to a life of exile on the continent, accompanied by his sons, brother and most of his senior officers, including Lord Eythin. After Newcastle's departure. Sir Thomas Glemham was left in charge of the York garrison, which now consisted of just 1000 men and a few cannon.

The victorious armies quickly regrouped. Lord Leven had fled to Leeds, more than twenty miles away from Marston Moor, and was surprised to learn that his side had won the day without him. On June 5th the Parliamentarian and Scottish armies, now reinforced by Sir John Meldrum and the Earl of Denbigh, resumed the siege. There was now no hope of relief and Glemham was in an inpossible position with only one way out. The Royalists negotiated honourable terms for surrender of York, the main one being that no Scottish troops be garrisoned in the city. On July 16th, Glemham's men marched out of the city with full honours and their dignity intact, heading for the other northern Royalist strongholds at Richmond, Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Carlisle. Within days many of them had deserted, returning to their communities still without pay.

Following the surrender of York, Lord Leven's army headed north to mop up the other Royalist strongholds while Lord Manchester's returned south from whence it came. Lord Fairfax's army remained and he was duly appointed by Parliament as Governor of the York. He would later earn the thanks of the population for his efforts to protect the city's many churches, including York Minster, from the iconoclastic Protestant zealots in his army. His refusal to allow or tolerate any acts of vandalism ensured the survival of York's architectural, cultural and religious heritage through what would turn out to be a very rough period for the established Anglican church, which the zealots criticised as "popish".

Legacy

The Royalist defeat at Marston Moor on July 2nd 1644 and the departure of Newcastle and Rupert marked the collapse of the Royalist cause in northern England, denying the King its crucial manpower and the use of the ports on the east coast. Over the next few months the Parliamentarians and Scots would eliminate the remaining Royalist garrisons in the north, culminating in Sir John Meldrum's bloody siege/assault against Scarborough Castle in the early months of 1645. The Northern Horse continued to fight for the King under Sir Marmaduke Langdale, making a number of forays south in order to relieve Royalist garrisons in South Yorkshire. Over time they became increasingly indisciplined, however, and their antics ultimately ended up doing their cause more harm than good.

Events in the north aside, Marston Moor turned out to be a critical setback for the Royalists overall. Prince Ruperts had been decisively beaten in battle for the first time, destroying the aura of invincibility that had previously surrounded him. He had also suffered a major personal blow as his favourite hunting poodle and animal companion, "Boye" had been killed during the battle, a fact that Parliamentarian propagando was quick to exploit. By contrast, Oliver Cromwell had proven himself as a popular and capable military commander. Following the battle, he was able to exert an increasing influence over both Parliament and its armies, eventually rising to dominate both.

The first phase of the English Civil War was brought to an effective conclusion when Cromwell and Sir Thomas Fairfax led the "New Model Army" to a crushing Parliamentarian victory at the Battle of Naseby on June 14th 1645. Within months King Charles himself was in Parliament's custody, pending an agreement that would limit the powers of the Crown for good. The naturally autocratic Charles resisted and, when he reignited the Civil War in 1648, Parliament now had grounds to put him on trial for treason. On January 30th 1649 King Charles I was executed and the Civil War ended with the establishment of a quasi-republican "Commonwealth". One can only imagine how differently things could have turned out had the crucial events in the north five years earlier played out differently......

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway

2011-10-29T23:18:00.000+01:00

While it certainly was not the first railway, the Liverpool and Manchester holds the distinction of being the first true railway in the traditional sense. It was the first inter-city passenger railway with a timetabled service and served almost solely by steam locomotives rather than the old-school horse trains. Opened in 1830, the Liverpool and Manchester Railway set the standard for all other public rail transport that grew up in its wake, a growth which would eventually lead to a comprehensive network of railways criss-crossing the United Kingdom. All this success arose from uncertain beginnings, however, with the Liverpool and Manchester experiencing perhaps the dodgiest of dodgy starts ever endured by any commercial enterprise. Just obtaining permission for a railway and building the line were major trials in themselves, whilst opening day was marred by breakdowns, crashes, foul weather, angry mobs and the first recorded high-profile fatal railway accident.

Tough Beginnings

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway was conceived out of the need to better connect the bustling port of Liverpool with the towns of Lancashire, many of which were already heavily industrialised by the early 19th Century. Textile raw materials arrived at Liverpool by sea and would then be transported inland to the mill towns where steam-powered machinery and a great deal of elbow grease turned it into finished cloth. In the 18th and early 19th centuries, the quickest and most efficient way to move goods around was by canal. In this particular part of England there had been a canal system in place for decades prior to 1830. The Bridgewater Canal had opened in 1761 whilst the Mersey and Irwell Navigation had been in operation since the 1730s, shuffling goods through its various locks and channels.

The canals were good for moving materials in bulk but the boats were tediously slow, often having to be towed from the bank by horses. The companies that owned the canals were also becoming increasingly unpopular due to their excessive profiteering, imposing heavy tolls that observers believed were strangling the growth of Manchester and the other mill towns. An alternative means of transportation was sought and the coming of the railways seemed to provide the answer. Rail transport had already existed for many years in the form of small-scale colliery wagonways but the adaptation of the steam engine for motive traction opened up a wealth of new opportunities. Railways took a major step forward in 1825 when the Stockton and Darlington Railway opened in the northeast of England, using a combination of steam and horse-drawn trains to link the coalfields of County Durham with the ships of the River Tees.

The Stockton and Darlington may have been something of a trial run for the new concept of the public railway but it turned out to be a runaway success, moving people and goods around far quicker than your average stagecoach or canal barge. The benefits were recognised before the Stockton and Darlington was even completed and it did not take long for the idea to reach Lancashire, where the intention to build a railway line between Liverpool and Manchester was originally proposed by Joseph Sandars, a Liverpool corn merchant, and John Kennedy, owner of Manchester's largest spinning mill. The two men were greatly influenced by William James, a land surveyor who had earned himself a fortune through property speculation. James was a major proponent of railway development in those crucial early years and even went so far as to advocate a national network of lines, an idea way ahead of its time but nevertheless one that ultimately became a reality.

The Liverpool and Manchester Railway Company was founded on May 24th 1823 by local merchant Henry Booth, who became both secretary and treasurer. Support for a railway was strong at both ends of the line but plans were frustrated by the opposition of local magnates who owned the land between Liverpool and Manchester, land over which the new railway would have to cross. In the days before electoral reform these landowners held a massive amount of influence over the political process, making it incredibly difficult to get Parliament's permission for anything that went against their wishes.

William James and Robert Stephenson were initially appointed as surveyors and engineers for the new project and the surveying of land for the railway's route began not long after the company was founded in 1823, even though they had yet to gain the consent of Parliament. Much of the work had to be done quickly and covertly in order to avoid attracting the attention of hostile local landowners and their violent minions, thus it was hardly surprising that this first survey was found to be riddled with errors. James was soon declared bankrupt, having already spent several spells in a debtors' prison, and Stephenson left the country in order to pursue engineering projects in South America. In 1824 the company appointed Robert's father, George Stephenson as the new chief engineer.

As a leading pioneer of steam traction and one of the several brains behind the Stockton and Darlington Railway, George Stephenson already enjoyed a reputation as one of Britain's top engineers. By this time, however, Stephenson's popularity was counting against him as his increasing workload meant he could not focus all his energies on any one particular project. He was also a very practical man and a self-taught hands-on engineer who hailed from a humble working-class background, preferring to delegate paperwork and theory to others. Without his son to help him, George was unable do the complex calculations required for the survey so much of the work ended up being done by less-than-capable subordinates.

In 1825 the first Liverpool and Manchester Railway Act was put before Parliament. The results of George Stephenson's survey failed to stand up to the scrutiny of the MPs and their various vested interests. Several aspects of the survey were found to be wildly inaccurate whilst the bluff and uneducated Stephenson, with his thick Geordie accent and total lack of social grace, failed to make a good impression on the haughty politicians. In the end it came as little surprise that the bill was thrown out. Opposition to the bill in Parliament was spearheaded by Robert Haldane Bradshaw, a trustee of the Marquess of Stafford's Worsley estates, which just happened to include the Bridgewater Canal.

Stephenson's failure left him in disgrace, and the directors of the Liverpool and Manchester soon decided that he needed to be replaced. The brothers George and John Rennie became co-engineers while Charles Blacker Vignoles was appointed as surveyor. The Rennies made a tremendous effort to placate and overcome opposition to the scheme. Thanks to their extensive network of legal and political contacts, they were able to approach the Marquess of Stafford directly. Bringing the Marquess round to supporting the railway was a spectacular coup for the company and was possible thanks largely to the efforts of the MP for Liverpool, William Huskisson. Huskisson was a personal friend of the Marquess and also happened to be one of the major supporters of the railway in Parliament. The company's fortunes were also boosted by the return of Robert Stephenson, who was a far more refined, educated and well-spoken character than his father. The younger Stephenson was able to win over the railway's critics with the results of Vignoles' survey, which was not only far more up to scratch than previous efforts but also managed to bypass most of the local opposition by proposing a different route for the new line.

In May 1826 the resubmitted Liverpool and Manchester bill finally passed through Parliament and received the Royal Assent. The company immediately went public and began issuing stock. The Marquess of Stafford did very well out of his newfound support for the scheme, pocketing 1000 shares. In all there were 308 shareholders with 4233 shares. For those who bought shares in the new railway, it would turn out to be a very sound investment indeed.

Construction

Construction of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had not even begun when the process hit its first snag. The Rennies haggled with the company for better terms and ended up being removed from their posts. Vignoles soon followed them out the door, believing it to be the honourable thing for an ex-army man like himself to do. George Stephenson was reappointed as chief engineer but this time he brought his young assistant, Joseph Locke. Locke would later go on to be a great railway engineer in his own right, becoming the chief engineer behind the Grand Junction Railway which in 1837 would link the Liverpool and Manchester line with Robert Stephenson's London and Birmingham Railway, creating Britain's first major railway trunk route.

With George Stephenson back at the helm the business of construction could finally commence. The 35-mile railway was a remarkable engineering achievement for its time. The 2000m long Wapping Tunnel, which linked Liverpool's docks with Edge Hill, was the first tunnel to be bored under a city. Almost as grand an achievement was the 2-mile cutting through the rock at Olive Mount, which was up to 70 feet deep in places. 64 bridges and viaducts were needed on the line, all of which were built of brick and stone with the exception of the cast iron girder bridge that carried the line over the River Irwell into Manchester's Liverpool Road station. The largest bridge on the line was (and still is) the nine-arch viaduct that towered 70 feet above the Sankey Brook valley and Sankey Canal.

The biggest engineering headache of all, however, was how to get the line across Chat Moss, a vast area of peat bog west of Manchester. Various people had tried to drain the Moss with mixed success but Stephenson was of the opinion that drainage was not possible. The solution that he and Joseph Locke came up with was to fill the bog with wooden and heather hurdles, sunk with rocks and earth, to provide a solid foundation for the tracks. Filling went on non-stop for weeks until an adequate foundation had been created. The railway still crosses Chat Moss on Stephenson's floating foundations to this day, supporting trains many times heavier than those used in the 1830s.

As he had done with the Stockton and Darlington, Stephenson used the traditional track gauge of 4 ft 8 1/2 in (1435mm) that had originated with the old colliery wagonways and would go on to become the world's standard gauge. What made the Liverpool and Manchester so innovative was the use of parallel double tracks, allowing trains to travel in both directions at the same time. Double track was used not only because the anticipated levels of traffic required it but also because, in an age before the invention of the telegraph, there was no method of operating a single track line effectively.

By 1829 construction of the railway was progressing steadily and the company bosses set the engineers their next task, finding locomotives suitable for running on the line. Steam traction was still an unknown quality to many people and the planned use of it was de-emphasized during the passage of the railway bill through Parliament, lest any MP be deterred by the thought of these "monstrous machines" blowing up or belching out noxious fumes across the great British countryside. The Liverpool and Manchester board of directors became polarised between those advocating steam locomotives and those who preferred the tried and tested method of cable haulage - using static steam engines beside the line to pull trains uphill on cables and allowing gravity to take them downhill. George Stephenson was not adverse to the idea of cable haulage but he was aware of its one fundamental flaw, that a single breakdown in any one location would paralyse the whole line.

In the end it was decided that using steam locomotives was the best way forward. Early steam locomotives were not very powerful and could not handle steep gradients but the heavily engineered Liverpool and Manchester line was ideally suited to their use. Gradients on the new line were minimal, typically around 1 in 2000 for most of its length, with the only steep sections being a 1 in 100 at Rainhill and a 1 in 50 that led from Edge Hill station down to the Liverpool docks. The finished railway was cable-worked on the steep sections west of Edge Hill, allowing trains to reach the main Liverpool passenger terminus at Crown Street.

In order to find the ideal locomotives for the job, the company directors organised a competition to see which manufacturer produced the engine with the best performance. The Rainhill Trials were held on a section of the partially-completed line in October 1829. A prize of £500 was offered to whoever won the contest, regardless of whether or not any locomotive would actually be chosen for the railway. John Kennedy, Nicholas Wood (a mining engineer with locomotive design experience) and John Urpeth Rastrick (a noted locomotive engineer) presided as judges. Ten locomotives were entered but only five actually got to take part in the trials. They were:

Cycloped (Thomas Shaw Brandreth)
Novelty (John Ericsson and John Braithwaite)
Perseverance (Timothy Burstall)
Rocket (George and Robert Stephenson)
Sans Pareil (Timothy Hackworth)

The locomotives were tested upon a variety of criteria, the overall aim being to see which candidate could complete several runs along the 2.5km section of line the fastest and most efficiently. The locomotives were plagued by reliability issues, although Novelty earned the affection of the watching crowds by achieving a then-phenomenal speed of 28mph before having to withdraw from the competition due to a burst boiler pipe. The eventual winner of the £500 was the Stephensons' Rocket, which performed consistently, reached a top speed of 30mph and was the only one to complete the trials. Robert Stephenson & Company gladly accepted the contract to supply locomotives for the Liverpool and Manchester Railway. Sans Pareil was also purchased by the company and ran on the line for two years.

By January 1830 the Liverpool and Manchester Railway was essentially complete. That month the first experimental train was hauled along the line by Rocket. Opening day was set for September, with the company preparing to pull out all the stops for the grandiose occasion.

The Grand Opening

The directors decided upon September 15th 1830 for opening day after finding out that the Prime Minister was due in the area on the 13th for a dinner in Manchester and would therefore be able to attend. The Prime Minister was none other than Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. The grand old soldier-statesman had come a long way since masterminding Britain's final victory over Napoleon at Waterloo fifteen years earlier but by 1830 his approval ratings were in freefall due to his continued opposition to electoral reform. Nowhere was the Iron Duke's unpopularity more evident than in the industrial northwest of England, where his unrelenting desire to preserve the status quo meant that the area's booming population was left largely without representation in Parliament. Wellington was not particularly fond of railways either, and became increasingly dismayed as railway-mania took off in later years. When Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Great Western Railway received the consent of Parliament in 1835, Wellington spitefully grumbled to the newspapers that the proposed line would "encourage the working classes to move about". There can be little doubt that he felt the same way about the Liverpool and Manchester Railway.

Despite his hatred of railways and the local people's hatred of him, Wellington accepted his invitation nonetheless. He was not the only high-profile personality invited to attend the grand opening. The guest list read out like a who's-who of early 19th Century politics and society. Cabinet ministers Sir Robert Peel and Charles Arbuthnot were there. So was the Chief Whip, William Holmes. Fanny Kemble, the actress, author and anti-slavery campaigner also got an invitation as did the Marquess of Stafford, the Earl of Wilton, Joseph Sandars and the Austrian ambassador, Prince Esterházy. William Huskisson attended the festivities against the advice of his doctor following treatment of a kidney complaint. Huskisson saw it as his duty to attend but he also hoped that getting close to the Prime Minister, from whom he had been estranged for two years due to their conflicting stances on various issues, would help to get him out of the political wilderness and possibly even a government post. Being a moderate Tory who was popular in both Liverpool and Manchester, Huskisson was something of a rare breed and several newspapers were already singling him out for greatness. With his future prospects in mind, Huskisson was eager to reconcile with Wellington.

The opening day organisers decided that the Prime Minister and the other dignitaries should assemble in Liverpool and be transported along the line to Manchester in trains hauled by eight of the company's locomotives. The Prime Minister's train, consisting of four passenger carriages, would travel on the southern track while the other seven trains would use the northern track in order to reduce the possibility of Wellington being delayed should any of the locomotives break down or crash. A celebratory luncheon was to be held for the VIPs at the Manchester terminus, Liverpool Road.

The event had already become a major crowd-puller before the first train had even moved, with every hotel and lodging house in Liverpool fully booked on the night before. On opening day itself, the area around Crown Street station was already swarming with people by 9am. At 10am the Duke of Wellington arrived and was greeted by a band playing See, the Conquering Hero Comes from Handel's opera Judas Maccabeus, beginning a tradition of that tune being played at the opening of almost every British railway station from then on. Once Wellington and his party had boarded their carriage, a single gun salute marked the official opening of the railway. The brakes on Wellington's train were released and the carriages gently rolled down the gradient out of the station towards to be coupled up with Northumbrian, the most advanced locomotive that the Stephensons had built to date. The procession of trains began leaving Crown Street at around 11am, rolling downhill through the tunnel to Edge Hill before proceeding on to Manchester under their own steam.

The great departure from Liverpool had gone off without a hitch but it did not take long for the first incident to take place. Some thirteen miles out of Liverpool at Parr the leading train on the northern track was forced to stop suddenly after its locomotive, Phoenix came off the rails, causing the locomotive of the train following behind, North Star, to bump into the back of it. The world's first passenger train-on-train collision was described in the tasteful language of the time by an unknown journalist from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, who was aboard the leading train:

"One of our engine wheels, how I know not, contrived to bolt from the course—in plain words, it escaped from the rail, and ploughed along upon the clay, with no other inconvenience than an increase of friction, which damped our speed, and with the additional application of the break, soon brought us to an anchor. The engine, however, behind us, not being aware of our mishap, came pelting on at a smart pace, without receiving its signal for checking motion in time. Accordingly, those on the look-out hastily called on their fellow-passengers to be on their guard, and prepare for a jolt, which took place with a crash upon our rear, sufficiently loud and forcible to give an idea of what would happen, if by any strange chance it had charged us with the unrestrained impetuosity of its powers."

There were no reported casualties resulting from the minor shunt and the trains were able to resume the journey once Phoenix was put back on the rails. After crossing the Sankey Viaduct, the trains passed the junction for George Stephenson's unfinished line to Warrington, which he hoped would ultimately be extended further to link the Liverpool and Manchester line to Birmingham and London. Beyond Warrington Junction the trains passed through the market town of Newton-le-Willows, which roughly marked the halfway point on the line. 55 minutes after leaving Liverpool, the first trains reached their scheduled water and rest stop at Parkside station, located in an isolated rural area half a mile east of Newton-le-Willows.

Blood on the Tracks

The Prime Minister's train had travelled considerably slower than the others for the benefit of its occupants and the cheering crowds along the line who came to see them. By the time Northumbrian pulled its illustrious load into Parkside at 11.55am, the first two trains on the northern track hauled by Phoenix and North Star had already passed through and were waiting beyond the station for Northumbrian to resume the lead of the procession. Having been stuck in their cramped carriages for almost an hour, the passengers took the opportunity to stretch their legs and have a closer look at the water apperatus. Some fifty men left the train despite the drizzly weather and warnings from railway officials that it would be safer to stay on board. Parkside had been designed as a potential future junction station for lines to Wigan and Bolton, and had multiple lines of track in place.

The men stood around on the tracks chatting about various topics, most relating to the day's events and the potential of rail travel. William Huskisson took the opportunity to congratulate Joseph Sandars on his achievement before he was approached by William Holmes, who suggested that it was a good time for him to approach the Prime Minister and attempt a reconciliation. Huskisson agreed and went over to Wellington, who was still seated in his special carriage. The two men greeted one-another with a warm handshake but Huskisson was unable to say anything of worth before a shout suddenly went up from the crowd:

"An engine is approaching! Take care gentlemen!"

That engine was Rocket, with Joseph Locke at the controls, approaching Parkside with the third train on the northern track. Most of the men on the tracks immediately scampered out of the way, either getting back into their carriages or taking refuge on the nearby embankment. With Rocket just eighty feet away, only Holmes, Huskisson and Prince Esterházy now remained in its path, unable to board Wellington's carriage because it did not have fixed steps and there was not enough time to attach the removable ones. Another MP in Wellington's carriage, Edward Littleton of Staffordshire, reached down to grab Esterházy and managed to pull him inside to safety.

By now Joseph Locke had noticed that there was people on the line ahead but Rocket, being the engineering prototype that it was, did not have brakes. The only way for Locke to stop was to engage the locomotive's reverse gear but the process took ten seconds and he was already too close to stop in time. Huskisson and Holmes panicked as Rocket continued to bear down on them. Holmes climbed up and clung on to the side of Wellington's carriage but Huskisson continued to dither, running for the embankment twice but returning to the carriage both times. he eventually decided to climb on to the side of the carriage as well, with Wellington himself recommending that the two men had better step inside.

In 1830 the gap between the two sets of tracks was the same as the track gauge itself (4 ft 8 1/2 in) with the carriages overhanging the track by 2 ft. Had Huskisson and Holmes stayed where they were, pressed against the side of the carriage, there would have been just enough room for Rocket and its train to pass them without injury. When Rocket was just feet away, however, Huskisson lost his nerve and tried to clamber into the carriage. When those inside failed to pull him in, Holmes cried out "For God's sake, Mr Huskisson, be firm!" but Huskisson made a grab for the carriage door, which swung open and left him dangling directly in the path of the oncoming train. Holmes, Locke, Wellington and the others watched in horror as Rocket struck the door and Huskisson fell beneath the wheels of the locomotive.

"[Huskisson] was caught by it, thrown down and the engine passed over his leg and thigh, crushing it in a most frightful way. It is impossible to give an idea of the scene that followed, of the horror of everyone present or of the piercing shrieks of his unfortunate wife, who was in the car. He said scarcely more than, "It's all over with me. Bring me my wife and let me die"".
(Harriet Arbuthnot, a passenger in the Duke of Wellington's carriage)

Once Rocket had finally come to a halt, William Rathbone, Lord Wilton and Joseph Parkes were the first to reach the stricken Huskisson. They found that one of the locomotive's wheels had passed over his right calf and thigh, crushing the bones of both without damaging the knee. His thigh muscle was exposed and the arteries, although flattened, had not been severed and were seen to pulse with Huskisson's heartbeat. Huskisson, suffering from shock, seemed not to be in any pain but continually called for his wife and announced that was going to die. A man threw his coat over the damaged leg so as not to cause further distress to Huskisson's wife Emily, who had been travelling on the train with her husband. When she reached the scene of the accident she became hysterical and had to be restrained as Lord Wilton applied a makeshift turniquet, which he had made using handkerchiefs and an elderly passenger's walking stick. The door of a nearby railway storeroom was torn off its hinges and used as a stretcher.

As news of an incident spread among the crowd and railwaymen went out to stop approaching trains, panic broke out and many of those present thought that the Prime Minister had been assassinated. The anonymous writer from Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine wrote:

"On looking out, I observed the Duke's train drawn up parallel to another train, with a considerable number of persons on foot assembled in the intervening space; and, at the same time, I perceived an appearance of hustling, and stooping, and crowding together for which I could not well account. In another moment, a gentleman rushed forth, and came running up the line towards us; as he neared, I saw evidently that he was much agitated, and pale, and breathless, in short, that something dreadful had happened was obvious. At length he stopped, and fifty voices exclaimed, "Has any thing happened? What is the matter?" In a state of distracted nervousness, and in broken unconnected words, he at last broke silence: "Oh God! he is dead! He is killed! he is killed!". "Who, and when, and how?" burst from every mouth; the first passing thought on my own, and probably every other mind, being, that some desperate and successful attempt had been made on the Duke's life. The truth, however, soon spread like wildfire to the right and left, acting, as it fell upon every car, like a spell. Smiles and cheerful countenances were changed for one general gloom. Amongst those who were near the fatal spot, the first feeling was one of thankfulness, that their own immediate relative was not the victim; the next, and most permanent, was sympathy with the unhappy lady who saw her husband stretched, lacerated and bleeding, on the ground. A further sympathy was, I am sure, as generally and as sincerely felt, a sympathy with those gentlemen, who, as directors, had for so long devoted themselves to the accommodation of the public, and looked forward to this day as a gratifying and auspicious termination of their labours; conscious, too, as they were, that had their printed directions, issued with the tickets, been adhered to, no such accident could by any possibility have occurred."

Huskisson received on-the-spot medical attention from doctors who had travelled on Wellington's train with him, including the Royal Physician Henry Herbert Southy. The doctors agreed that Huskisson's life could be saved if an amputation were performed as soon as possible, suggesting that he be returned to Liverpool for treatment. George Stephenson then arrived on the scene and convinced them that it would be best to take him on to Manchester. Huskisson was stretchered onto the flat-bottomed wagon of Wellington's train, which had housed the band, and the other carriages were detached. Northumbrian set off, with Stephenson himself driving, and tore through the open countryside towards Manchester, achieving a new world speed record of 40mph in the process. Lord Wilton, Lord Colville and the doctors travelled in the wagon with Huskisson, keeping him comfortable and steady. Crowds of onlookers, who were unaware of what had happened, cheered and waved as Northumbrian rushed past.

One of the doctors, Liverpool surgeon Joseph Brandreth, believed that Huskisson was close to death and suggested that they stop at the first house they come to. It was decided to stop at the vicarage of Reverend Thomas Blackburne in Eccles, four miles short of Manchester. Huskisson, a personal friend of Blackburne, concurred with the idea but none of them were aware that Blackburne had also been invited to attend the opening of the railway and was waiting around with all the other passengers back at Parkside station. When the train reached Eccles, however, they discovered that Blackburne's wife, having decided not to attend the opening festivities, was still at the vicarage and ready to receive them. By now the weather had deteriorated into a fearsome thunderstorm and the doctors struggled to ferry Huskisson on his makeshift stretcher through the torrent of hail and sleet towards the vicarage, which was a few hundred yards away from the railway. Once his passengers had disembarked, Stephenson continued driving on towards Manchester, where he hoped to summon further medical assistance.

Huskisson was taken into the vicarage at and placed on a sofa. Once he had been sedated with laudanum and brandy, the doctors examined his injuries more closely. Being unfamiliar with industrial injuries, they struggled to assess the damage with much certainty. Nonetheless they still believed that Huskisson could be saved if his leg could be amputated. They could not do this without the proper medicine and equipment, however, and were obliged to wait for more help to come from Manchester. That help eventually arrived in the form of four surgeons, led by William Robert Whatton. By the time they arrived, however, Huskisson was suffering from severe spasms and had to be held down in order to prevent him from falling off the sofa. Taking account of the patient's worsening condition, Whatton knew that he had to perform an amputation immediately in order to avoid further, potentially fatal blood loss but that could not be done successfully with Huskisson in such an agitated state. More improvised sedatives were applied and Huskisson soon began to calm down. By 4pm his condition had stabilised enough for him to be able to dictate his last will and testament to his secretary, leaving everything to his wife. Still believing that his end was near, he took the sacrament from Reverend Blackburne (who had returned from Manchester by horse) and said the Lord's Prayer with Lord Wilton.

Trouble in Manchester

Back at Parkside, after the wounded Huskisson and his party had left for Eccles, the assembled crowd of railwaymen and dignitaries debated over what to do next. As the telegraph had not yet been invented and the signalling system was too primitive, it was impossible for them to effectively communicate with Liverpool, Manchester or Eccles. The railway executives, believing that the company was not liable for the accident, argued that the trains should continue on to Manchester in order to prove the viability of the railway. It was also pointed out that a large crowd had gathered in Manchester to witness the arrival of the trains and catch a glimpse of the Prime Minister. Joseph Sandars advised that if the trains did not continue, the crowds in Manchester could become volatile or hear news of the accident and believe it to be more serious than it was. The Duke of Wellington and his Home Secretary, Sir Robert Peel argued against going ahead, saying that it would be disrespectful to Huskisson, and instead advocated going back to Liverpool to await news on Huskisson's condition.

Eventually, at around the same time that Whatton's team of surgeons reached Eccles, riders on horseback arrived at Parkside with news that the crowds in Manchester were getting restless. Fearing that there would be a riot if Wellington failed to put in an appearance, it was decided to complete the journey. The three carriages of the Prime Minister's train, stranded on the southern track without a locomotive following the departure of Northumbrian to Eccles, were attached by a long chain to Phoenix and North Star, who's trains had been coupled together on the northern track. The procession of trains began to leave Parkside at around 1.30pm, travelling slowly through the foul weather towards Manchester. The anonymous correspondent from Blackwoods Edinburgh Magazine described the journey:

"During the long interval spent in a state of uncertainty, individual feelings were vented in a variety of ways. Some were in tears, some retired from the crowd and paced hastily up and down the road, some seated themselves by the side in silence. Some stood absorbed, while others discussed the accident in little knots and parties. Some were gesticulating, while others were looking on speechless and motionless. The final decision being in favour of advancing, seats were resumed, and we moved on; but the buoyant exhilaration of the morning was past, and the whole now wore the sombre aspect of a funeral procession. The military band was left to return as it could; I saw them, crest-fallen, picking their way homeward through the mud and mire; our trumpeters, who had hitherto rather overpowered us with their efforts, were ordered to keep silence, and no responsive greetings met the shouts of spectators, as yet in ignorance of the sad event. The weather, too, began to assume a cheerless aspect, and the lively face of a well-cultivated country was soon exchanged for the dreary wilds of Chat Moss, that Paradise of Will o' the Wisps, snipes, and blue devils ... A heavy shower, with distant thunder, tended little to raise our spirits in crossing this irreclaimable wilderness of nearly six miles in extent, continuing with more or less intermission till the end of our journey."

As the trains crossed Chat Moss, they were met by George Stephenson, who was returning from Manchester along the southern track with Northumbrian. Stephenson informed the party of Huskisson's condition when he last saw him before leaving Eccles for Manchester (erroneously claiming that the amputation had been performed successfully) and boasted of having set a new speed record. The carriages of Wellington's train were detached from the train on the northern track and re-attached to Northumbrian, which immediately set off at full-speed back towards Manchester. As the train got closer to the city, however, the crowds beside the line became increasingly hostile, with much jeering, booing and the waving of anti-Wellington banners. As the crowds became denser they began spilling onto the tracks, forcing Northumbrian to slow to a crawl and delaying Wellington's arrival even further. When the train eventually pulled into Manchester Liverpool Road station at just before 3pm, all Hell broke loose.

Just as the riders at Parkside had warned, the Manchester crowd had indeed turned nasty. The assembled mob, described by one observer as "A slovenly, ragged set, with hair uncombed and beards unshaven, with waistcoats open, exhibiting unwashed skin, dirty linen, and bare necks.", booed the Prime Minister and pelted his carriage with vegetables. Tricoleur flags, evoking revolutionary sentiment and memories of Napoleon, were waved alongside banners carrying slogans such as "NO CORN LAWS!" and "VOTE BY BALLOT!". As the passengers left the train and headed of to the celebratory luncheon, Reverend Blackburne received the news that Huskisson was in his vicarage and immediately set off for home on horseback. Wellington, fearing the mob, flatly refused to leave his carriage and demanded that food instead be brought out to him. He also insisted that the trains be prepared for return to Liverpool as soon as possible. The Duke's train, now hauled by Comet left Manchester at around 4.30pm, with the other seven trains unable to depart due to mechanical failures and the lack of space to rearrange the locomotives. These trains and their 600 passengers were eventually able to depart after their carriages were joined together in a single long (and very slow) train hauled by the three remaining serviceable locomotives.

At 6.30pm, having stopped at Eccles to enquire as to Huskisson's condition, Wellington's train reached Roby and the Prime Minister disembarked in order to spend the night at Childwell Hall, the nearby home of his friend, the Marquess of Salisbury. Those on the long train, slowed down by the darkness and the weight of its combined load, were not as fortunate as the Prime Minister and did not arrive back in Liverpool until 10.30pm, after which they staggered off exhausted into the darkened city to find somewhere to spend the night. A subdued and under-attended evening dinner was held by local businessmen at the Adelphi Hotel, interrupted only by conflicting reports from Eccles. By 11pm, when the final toasts were being raised to the King's health and to Huskisson's recovery, the MP for Liverpool was already dead.

The Death of William Huskisson

As the trains plodded home to Liverpool during the evening, Huskisson's condition worsened and soon his doctors reached the conclusion that he was beyond help. He needed to have his leg amputated but he was now too weak to survive any major surgery. Huskisson was already resigned to his fate when the news was broken to him and his wife. Emily Huskisson once again broke into hysterics and had to be calmed down, after which she sat weeping in the corner, waiting for the end to come. Huskisson thanked the doctors for their admirable efforts before receiving more laudanum. His reported last words to them were "Why endeavour to support my strength? I must die, it is only prolonging my sufferings". At around 11pm Huskisson's secretary sat down in Reverend Blackburne's study and penned the following letter to the Lord Mayor of Liverpool:

Sir,

With the deepest grief, I have to acquaint you, for the information of yourself, and of the community over which you preside, that Mr Huskisson breathed his last at 9 o'clock this evening. He was attended from the moment of the accident, with indefatigable assiduity, by Dr Brandreth of Liverpool, Dr Hunter of Edinburgh, and Mr Ransome, Mr Whatton, Mr Garside and Mr White, of Manchester.

His last moments were soothed by the devoted attentions of his now distracted widow, and by the presence of some of his distinguished and faithful friends.

I have the honour to be, Sir
Your most obedient humble servant.

When the news broke the next day, all further celebrations in Liverpool were cancelled and the city went into a state of mourning for its popular representative. The Duke of Wellington also wrote to the Lord Mayor from his lodgings in Roby, declining the Freedom of the City which he was due to receive that day, before scuttling back to London. On November 15th, exactly two months to the day after the opening of the railway, Wellington lost a vote of confidence in Parliament and his Tory government collapsed. A Whig administration led by Charles, Earl Grey took office and began the process of electoral reform that Wellington had so stubbornly opposed, culminating in the Reform Act of 1832 which redressed many of the grievances regarding Britain's corrupt and antiquated electoral procedure.

William Huskisson's funeral, held in Liverpool on September 24th 1830, was a major public event despite his wife's wish that the occasion remain a private affair, with more than 3000 tickets being issued for his burial in St James' Cemetery and some 69,000 people, roughly half of the city's population, turning out to line the route of his funeral procession. He was lowered into the ground at 1pm and a final gun salute marked the end of the service, although many of Liverpool's businesses remained shut for the rest of the day. Huskisson's substantial tomb remains and is now overshadowed by Liverpool's Anglican cathedral, which was later built next-door to the cemetery.

Aftermath and Legacy

The opening day of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway had certainly been an eventful one but the accidents and crowd trouble ultimately did the company no harm at all in the long-term. Indeed the events of opening day had given the railway copious amounts of free publicity, raising public awareness of this exciting new way to travel. The new line was a runaway success, shifting 188,726 passengers and 35,800 tons of goods during the first six months of 1831. Half a million passengers travelled on the railway during its first year of operation, heralding the arrival of the railway at the forefront of the British public's affections and the rapid expansion, spearheaded by the Stephensons, Joseph Locke and other emerging engineers such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel, that saw Britain's fledgling rail network grow to a colossal 17,000 route miles by the end of the 19th Century. The lessons of William Huskisson's death were not forgotten, however, and George Stephenson ensured that all his new locomotives were fitted with brakes from 1831 onwards.

Following his downfall from power, the Duke of Wellington remained bitterly opposed to railways for the rest of his life. He did not travel by rail again until 1843 when he accompanied the equally anti-rail Queen Victoria for a trip on the London and South Western Railway, which Joseph Locke designed and built. Wellington died of a stroke on September 14th 1852 and was, rather fortunately, remembered more for his military successes than for his political career. One and a half million people attended his funeral.

Rocket remained in use on the Liverpool and Manchester railway for several years until it was rendered obsolete by the introduction of the more advanced Planet class of locomotives. After a period spent working at a colliery, it eventually found its way back to the Stephensons' company in the 1850s as the role it played in the advancement of the Industrial Revolution was recognised. In 1876 Rocket, having been substantially altered since its days on the Liverpool and Manchester, went on display as a stationary exhibit in London's Science Museum, where it remains to this day. Two fully-functioning replicas of Rocket were built during the 20th Century, both done using the Stephensons' original designs and specifications. One of these replicas took part in a re-enactment of the Rainhill Trials on the Llangollen Railway in 1999, marking the 170th anniversary of the original trials. Rocket came out on top once again, narrowly beating off the competition from replicas of Novelty and Sans Pareil.

The original route of the Liverpool and Manchester Railway remains in operation today, serving as a secondary route between the two cities (the former Cheshire Lines Committe route via Warrington, built later in the century, is now the busier route). Crown Street station soon proved unable to handle the growing volume of traffic and was replaced by the larger and better-sited Liverpool Lime Street station in 1836. Parkside station closed after only a few years as the advent of more advanced locomotives eliminated the need for a water stop on the line. The station site has since been cleared and all that is there today is a white stone memorial beside the tracks, marking the site of Huskisson's fatal accident and commemorating his unfortunate reputation as the world's first high-profile railway fatality.

First World War Timeline: 1918

2011-09-30T22:26:00.007+01:00

1918 was, of course, the year that the carnage and the bloodshed at last came to an end. After the guns stopped firing at 11am on November 11th, those men who had been fortunate enough to survive found themselves in a world totally different to the one their predecessors occupied when they marched off to war in 1914. This new world was a world left in a state of shock at the scale of the slaughter and facing an uncertain future, a world of democracy and political ideologies without many of the Kings and Emperors that had kept the old order ticking over for centuries.

Before all this could happen, however, there was still the matter of bringing an end to the war, which in early 1918 still showed little sign of breaking free from the trench stalemate that had held the two sides in place almost since the beginning. The Western Front would prove to be the decisive theater in these final struggles, with the Germans gambling everything on a series of all-out offensives that they hoped would smash their British and French foes and achieve that elusive final victory. Despite having crucial extra manpower freed up by the ending of the war in the east, the Germans were seriously struggling to meet the demands of their war effort and had little choice but to act quickly and decisively in the west. With American troops now flooding into France and soon to take up their positions in the Allied frontline, the balance of military power was set to swing permanently against the Central Powers.

The German Spring Offensives caught the Allies off balance, penetrating deep into their territory and finally resuming a degree of mobile warfare on the Western Front after more than three years of stalemate. The Germans did not break through completely, however, and the Allies held on. By August it was clear that the German attacks had run out of steam and from then on it was all downhill for the Kaiser's reich. The Allies, now reinforced by large numbers of American troops, began to push the Germans out of France and back into Belgium. As Austria-Hungary collapsed, the Ottomans sued for peace and their own country was consumed by revolutionary chaos Germany's military and political leaders at last agreed that the war had to be ended.

January 8th 1918

In a speech before a joint session of the United States Congress, President Woodrow Wilson outlines his vision for post-war Europe, a vision known as the Fourteen Points.

January 24th 1918

Some 200,000 workers in Berlin and other German cities go out on strike, protesting against the worsening conditions on Germany's home front. The demands of the war effort and the debilitating effects of the British naval blockade mean that many Germans are starving and both economy and society are reaching breaking point.

February 18th 1918

Fighting on the Eastern Front resumes after Russia's armistice with the Central Powers, signed on December 23rd 1917, breaks down.

February 21st 1918

British forces advancing northwards through the Ottoman province of Palestine capture the city of Jericho.

March 3rd 1918

Leon Trotsky, representing the new Bolshevik regime in Russia, signs the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk. This peace treaty takes Russia out of the war against the Central Powers for good. Although the terms of the peace are very harsh on Russia, requiring them to hand over all Polish, Ukrainian and Baltic territories to Germany, it relieves a great deal of pressure on the Bolsheviks and allows them to focus on the civil war against anti-Communist "White" forces. The ending of the war in the east also allows Germany to transfer massive amounts of men and equipment to the Western Front, giving her a crucial numerical advantage over the Allies there.

March 21st 1918

The Germans on the Western Front, their numbers bolstered by troops transferred from the east, begin a series of massive attacks against the Allies that become known as the Spring Offensive. The attacks are the brainchild of Germany's Chief Quartermaster General and co-Commander-in-Chief, Erich Ludendorff. Ludendorff knows that this is the last chance to achieve a German victory before American manpower tips the balance irreversibly in favour of the Allies so he and the German high command have decided to risk everything in an all-or-nothing gamble to win the war.
The first attack of Ludendorff's Spring Offensive, Operation Michael, is launched against the British Fifth Army on the River Somme, near the town of Saint Quentin. The aim of this attack is to break through the Allied frontline at the crucial weak point where the British and French armies meet, splitting the British from the French and capturing the city of Amiens, a key strategic transportation hub for the Allies.Within two days of the beginning of the assault, spearheaded by a concentrated artillery bombardment and elite stormtrooper units, the Germans have broken through in several places and the British are in full retreat.
The French capital, Paris comes under fire from the German "Paris Gun", a massive long-range heavy siege gun built by the German munitions manufacturer, Krupp. The gun allows the Germans to shell Paris from 75 miles away.

March 26th 1918

French general Ferdinand Foch is appointed as Supreme Commander of all Allied forces on the Western Front, giving some much-needed uniformity and coordination to an Allied command that had been previously divided between General Philippe Pétain (France), Field Marshal Sir Douglas Haig (United Kingdom) and General John Pershing (United States), with no one person in overall control. Foch's authority is later extended to include the Italian Front as well.

March 29th 1918

88 French civilians are killed and another 68 are injured when a shell fired by the Paris Gun hits the St-Gervais-et-St-Protais Church, causing its roof to collapse in on the congregation during the Good Friday service.

April 1st 1918

The British army's Royal Flying Corps is merged with the Royal Naval Air Service to form the Royal Air Force.

April 5th 1918

Ludendorff calls off Operation Michael after the British on the Somme manage to re-establish and hold the line, halting the German advance at the village of Villers-Bretonneux, just eleven miles east of Amiens. The German troops are exhausted having advanced such a long distance in just a few days. Bringing supplies and artillery forward across the shell-blasted 1916 Somme battlefields, which the Germans have recaptured, is turning out to be a major logistical headache, Sapping the Germans' momentum and making it difficult for them to consolidate their gains.

April 9th 1918

Germany launches the second assault of Ludendorff's Spring Offensive, Operation Georgette, also known as the Battle of the Lys and the Fourth Battle of Ypres. The aim of this operation is to break through the Allied line in the area around Ypres and Arras, which has been left vulnerable by the transfer of British forces to the Amiens sector, and cut off the British army's main supply routes by capturing the French Channel ports. Two Portuguese divisions collapse in the face of the German onslaught and the Allies are forced to fall back, giving up all the land around Ypres that they had gained in 1917, including the Messines and Passchendaele Ridges. Ypres itself, however, still remains in Allied hands.

April 11th 1918

As his troops are pushed back by the Germans in the Ypres sector, the British commander, Sir Douglas Haig, issues his famous order of the day: "With our backs to the wall and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end." It is feared that the Germans will be able to reach Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne within a week if the British are not immediately reinforced with French forces. Fortunately for the Allies, the British are managing to hold a line on the River Lys and the German advance is runing out of steam.

April 21st 1918

Germany's leading fighter ace, Manfred "The Red Baron" von Richthofen is fatally wounded by Allied anti-aircraft fire during a dogfight near Amiens. He is able to land his plane on the Allied side of the lines before dying and is buried with full military honours by the British. Richthofen is replaced as commander of the Jagdgeschwader 1 fighter unit by Wilhelm Reinhard. After his own death in a flying accident on July 3rd, Reinhard is replaced as commander by the future Nazi Air Minister, Hermann Göring.

April 29th 1918

Ludendorff calls a halt to Operation Georgette as it becomes clear that the Germans are not going to break through to the Channel ports. Despite having gained significant territory in the Ypres salient and around the Franco-Belgian border, the Germans have failed to capture either Ypres or the important rail hub of Hazebrouck.

May 7th 1918

Romania is forced to sign the Treaty of Bucharest is the withdrawal of Russia from the war left the Romanians powerless to resist the Central Powers. The treaty is never ratified.

May 27th 1918

The Germans launch the third phase of the Spring Offensive, Operation Blücher-Yorck. The German attack takes place on the River Aisne between Soissons and Rheims, the objective being to push southwest towards Paris and draw in French forces to defend the capital. Ludendorff hopes that this diversion of French reinforcements will leave the struggling British vulnerable in their sectors to the north, allowing for a possible resumption of the Michael and Georgette offensives at some later date.

June 1st - 26th 1918

The United States Army sees its first significant action of the war as two American divisions, including a brigade from the Marine Corps, fight alongside the French Sixth Army for control of Belleau Wood near the town of Château-Thierry. Belleau Wood is just forty miles northeast of Paris and marks the furthest point of the German advance during the Blücher-Yorck offensive.

June 6th 1918

Ludendorff calls off Operation Blücher-Yorck. Yet again the Germans have gained a large amount of territory, reaching the River Marne for the first time since 1914, but have failed to achieve a breakthrough. Germany has also lost many of her best assault troops in the offensive, incurring 130,000 casualties in all (roughly the same figure as the Allies). German manpower is now stretched to the absolute limit, with the high command finding it increasingly difficult to make up the losses.

June 9th - 12th 1918

The final phase of Ludendorff's Spring Offensive, Operation Gneisenau, yields token territorial gains for the Germans but the German army is fast reaching the limits of its endurance. The Allies have also regrouped since the early shocks of the Spring Offensive and are now soaking up the pressure effectively. A surprise French counter-attack at Compiègne on June 11th leads to the calling-off of the German offensive after just three days.

June 10th 1918

An attempt by the Austro-Hungarian navy to break the Italian naval blockade of the Adriatic Sea is abandoned after the dreadnought battleship Szent István is sunk by Italian torpedo boats.

June 13th - 23rd 1918

Austro-Hungarian forces in Italy attempt to cross the Piave River but are repelled by the Italians and their Anglo-French reinforcements.

July 15th 1918

The German army on the Western Front launches what will turn out to be its final offensive action of the war, the Second Battle of the Marne. The Germans attempt to break out of the salient created by Blücher-Yorck but are thwarted by an effective French defence and total Allied air superiority.

July 17th 1918

Russia's former Tsar Nicholas II, his wife, their five children and several members of their household are executed by the Bolsheviks in the cellar of the Ipatiev House, the secure compound where they were being held in the Siberian town of Ekaterinburg. The decision to kill the Imperial Family was made in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of approaching White forces.

July 18th 1918

As the Second Battle of the Marne rages on, French and American forces launch a major counter-attack against the west side of the Blücher-Yorck salient that threatens to roll up the Germans from the rear. Ludendorff orders an evacuation of the salient and by August 7th the Germans have pulled back to their starting positions on the River Aisne. The Second Battle of the Marne is a crucial victory for the Allies, who inflict 168,000 casualties on the Germans and take 30,000 prisoners. More importantly, the German army has now lost all offensive capability and its reserves are all but used up. The initiative is now firmly in the hands of the Allies.

August 6th 1918

General Ferdinand Foch is promoted, becoming a Marshal of France.

August 8th - 11th 1918

British and Commonwealth forces launch the Battle of Amiens, attacking the German salient created by Operation Michael. The Allied attack, which involves a well-coordinated use of artillery, aircraft and tanks to support the advancing infantry, is a resounding success and the Germans are forced to withdraw. Ludendorff famously refers to August 8th as "the black day of the German army".

August 17th 1918
The Allied attack front is widened even further as the French Tenth Army attacks the Germans south of the Somme, around the town of Noyon.

August 21st 1918

British forces on the Somme recapture the town of Albert from the Germans.

August 26th 1918

The British First Army, stationed north of the Somme sector, launches the Second Battle of Arras, further widening the Allied front of attack.

August 29th 1918

The French capture Noyon from the Germans.
British forces cross the Somme battlefields of 1916 and capture Bapaume from the Germans.

September 12th 1918

The German military situation on the Western Front becomes critcal as the British achieve another victory at the Battle of Havrincourt. The German high command decides to abandon what remains of their 1918 gains and withdraw to the Hindenburg Line, the strong defensive positions from which they launched the Spring Offensive.

September 15th 1918

British, French and Greek forces in the southern Balkans attack and break through the Bulgarian lines at Dobro Pole in the former Serbian province of Macedonia. The defeat triggers a revolt in the Bulgarian army but they and their German allies are able to halt the Allies at Dorian on September 19th. Tough military pressure remains on Bulgaria, however, and soon its forces begin to crumble.

September 19th - 21st 1918

The British complete the conquest of Palestine and are now poised to attack further north into Ottoman-held Syria.

September 26th 1918

Marshal Foch orders an offensive against the southern sector of the Hindenburg Line west of Verdun. The Meuse-Argonne Offensive, conducted by French and American forces, continues until the end of the war and brings further significant, albeit costly, successes for the Allies.

September 28th 1918

The northern Allied army group commanded by King Albert I of Belgium attacks the German positions around Ypres, quickly penetrating enemy lines and advancing over six miles on the first day. The offensive ends on October 2nd due to logisical problems, with the Allies having advanced up to eighteen miles in some places.

September 30th 1918

Following the collapse of its forces in the Balkans, Bulgaria agrees to an armistice with the Allies, the first of the Central Powers to do so.

October 1st 1918

The British, having invaded Syria, capture Damascus from the Ottomans

October 8th 1918

Canadian forces break through the Hindenburg Line at the Second Battle of Cambrai. With all its reserves exhausted and its final key defensive position breached, the German army has no choice but to fall back.

October 14th - 19th 1918

King Albert's Allied forces in the north resume their offensive with the Battle of Courtrai, penetrating deep into Belgium. By October 19th, Oostend, Lille, Douai, Zeebrugge and Bruges had been recaptured from the Germans. The entire Belgian coastline is now in Allied hands, with the Western Front now ending at the Belgian-Dutch border.

October 15th 1918

Adolf Hitler, an Austrian-born corporal serving in the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment of the German Army, is caught along with several colleagues in a mustard gas attack. Hitler is left temporarily blinded and spends the rest of the war in hospital.

October 20th 1918

Germany suspends its submarine campaign.

October 24th 1918

Germany's Imperial Naval Command under Admiral Reinhard Scheer and Admiral Franz von Hipper, based at the port of Kiel, issues orders for the High Seas Fleet to set sail for a final battle against the British Royal Navy.

October 29th 1918

German sailors at the port of Wilhelmshaven refuse the Naval Command's orders to put to sea, believing that there is little point in risking their lives when the end of the war is so obviously close and that a naval attack would jeopardise peace negotiations. The mutinies are brought under control after two days but the attack against the British is called off as it is felt that the crews' loyalty can no longer be relied upon.
As the German military situation on the Western Front continues to collapse, Erich Ludendorff resigns as Chief Quartermaster General and is replaced by Wilhelm Groener. Both Groener and the army Chief-of-Staff, Paul von Hindenburg are now of the opinion that the war must be ended.

October 30th 1918

As British troops enter the vital oil town of Mosul in northern Mesopotamia, the Ottoman Empire signs the Armistice of Moudros with the Allies, bringing an end to the fighting in the Middle East.

October 31st 1918

Hungary terminates its personal union with Austria, officially dissolving the Austro-Hungarian state. There is now nothing left of the former Habsburg realm except for the majority-German Alpine and Danubian provinces.

November 3rd 1918

Austria and Hungary sign a general armistice with Italy and the rest of the Allies. It comes into effect the following day.
A second more widespread German naval mutiny breaks out, this time in Kiel itself. Within a few days the mutinous sailors are in control of the city and several other uprisings break out all over Germany, bringing the country to the brink of revolution.

November 9th 1918

Kaiser Wilhelm II abdicates as both German Emperor and King of Prussia before going into exile in the Netherlands, where he will remain until his death in 1941.
Prince Max of Baden resigns as Chancellor of Germany and is replaced by the Social Democratic Party leader, Friedrich Ebert.
Shortly after the Kaiser's abdication is announced, the Social Democrat politician Philipp Scheidemann, hoping to prevent the Communists from seizing the initiative, proclaims the creation of a German Republic from a balcony of the Reichstag Building in Berlin. The co-leader of the Spartacist League, Karl Liebknecht proclaims a Communist Republic at almost the same time.

November 11th 1918

Canadian forces in Belgium recapture the city of Mons, the site of the British Expeditionary Force's first battle against the Germans in August 1914.
5am: A German delegation led by the politician Matthias Erzberger signs an armistice with the Allies in Marshal Foch's railway carriage at the forest of Compiègne, northeast of Paris.
11am: The Armistice of Compiègne comes into effect and the fighting on the Western Front ceases, finally bringing an end to the war. The last soldier to die in the conflict is believed to be the American Henry Gunther, who was killed less than a minute before the cease-fire.
Emperor Charles I of Austria-Hungary renounces his right to participate in Austria's affairs-of-state and relieves its officials of their oath of loyalty to him. He issues a similar proclamation for Hungary two days later but does not officially abdicate either throne.
The Second Polish Republic is founded from former Russian and Austro-Hungarian territory, making Poland an independent state for the first time since 1795.

November 12th 1918

The Republic of Austria is proclaimed, ending centuries of rule by the House of Habsburg.

November 14th 1918

The Republic of Czechoslovakia is proclaimed.
As per the terms of the armistice, Germany's submarine fleet is interned by the British.
General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, commmander of the colonial German army in East Africa, agrees to a cease-fire with the British after learning of the armistice in Europe.

November 16th 1918

The Hungarian Democratic Republic is proclaimed.

November 21st 1918

British Vice-Admiral Sir David Beatty accepts the surrender of the German High Seas Fleet. The German vessels are later escorted to the British naval base at Scapa Flow in the Orkneys where they are kept at anchor, awaiting a decision on their future. They are scuttled by their own crews on June 21st 1919.

November 23rd 1918

General Lettow-Vorbeck's undefeated African army surrenders honourably to the British at Abercorn in the British colony of Northern Rhodesia. Lettow-Vorbeck later returns home to a hero's welcome and is honoured with a victory parade in Berlin.

December 1st 1918

Serbia and Montenegro unite with the former Austro-Hungarian Slavic territories to form the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes, which will later become known as Yugoslavia.

First World War Timeline: 1917

2011-09-29T13:58:00.001+01:00

Following on from the immense losses of the previous year, 1917 turned out to be a major crisis year for the Allies. The strain of the war began to really take its toll as the French army mutinied and Russia collapsed amid a revolution that would change the course of its history. With the French demoralised and Russia's involvement in the war all but over, it was left to the British and their empire to carry the full burden of the Allied war effort for much of 1917. Despite the slaughter of the Somme still being fresh in the memory, Britain and the dominions demonstrated their continuing commitment to the war with more costly offensives at Vimy, Messines, Arras, Passchendaele and Cambrai. The critical nature of the Allies' situation in 1917 was further compounded by the collapse of the Italian Front in the face of a major Central Powers offensive, an attack which almost knocked Italy out of the war.

The only glimmers of hope for the Allies at this point were the British successes against the Ottomans in the Middle East and, crucially, the entry of the United States of America into the war on their side. The presence of fresh American troops on the Western Front would tip the balance decisively against the Germans, who by this stage were running desparately short of manpower, but getting those newly-recruited "doughboys" across the Atlantic and training them up for an active combat role would take time. The embattled British and French would have to hold the line on their own for a little while longer.

January 9th 1917

The British in Egypt drive the Ottomans out of the Sinai peninsula.

January 16th 1917

The German Foreign Minister, Arthur Zimmerman sends a telegram to the German ambassador in Mexico, instructing him to propose an alliance between Mexico and Germany to the Mexican government should the United States enter the war on the side of the Allies. Relations between Mexico and the United States are currently tense following raids by Mexican bandits on American border towns and a subsequent US military incursion into Mexican territory.

February 1st 1917

Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare, hoping to starve Britain out of the war once and for all despite the risk of further aggravating the United States.

February 3rd 1917

The United States officially breaks off diplomatic relations with Germany.

February 23rd 1917

The British, advancing north through Ottoman-controlled Mespotamia, recapture Kut-al-Amara.
The German forces on the Western Front begin making a strategic withdrawal to the newly-built defences of the Hindenburg Line.

March 1st 1917

Arz von Straussenberg replaces Conrad von Hötzendorf as Chief of the Austro-Hungarian General Staff.
The contents of Arthur Zimmerman's telegram, having been intercepted and decoded by the British intelligence services, are made public in the United States, triggering a wave of negative American public opinion towards Germany.

March 7th 1917

Workers go on strike at the Putilov industrial plant in Russia's captial, Petrograd (St Petersburg). The walkouts and demonstrations escalate and by March 10th, the entire city is more or less shut down and the population is in uproar. There are some 180,000 troops available in Petrograd but most are untrained and unreliable conscripts who are reluctant to take action against the rioters, many of whom are women.

March 8th - 11th 1917

The British in Mesopotamia capture Baghdad from the Ottomans.

March 11th 1917

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia orders the army to quell the rioting and demonstrations in Petrograd but the situation there is already out of the government's control. The troops in the capital mutiny and many even join the rioters. As the Tsar's authority collapses, socialist organisations establish the Petrograd Soviet to represent the interests of workers and soldiers.

March 15th 1917

Under pressure from army chiefs government ministers, Tsar Nicholas II abdicates the Russian throne on behalf of both himself and his son Alexei. Nicholas nominates his brother, Grand Duke Michael Alexandrovich to succeed him but Michael declines the throne, effectively ending the monarchy in Russia. A Provisional Government under the liberal aristocrat, Prince Georgy Yevgenyevich Lvov is formed to fill the power vacuum and continue the war but it is soon locked in a tense competition for power with the Petrograd Soviet. Nicholas and his family are placed under house arrest at Tsarskoye Selo, a royal palace complex south of Petrograd.

March 26th 1917

A British attempt to capture the town of Gaza in southern Palestine is repulsed by the Ottomans.

April 2nd 1917

President Woodrow Wilson goes before a joint session of the United States Congress to ask for a declaration of war against Germany.

April 5th 1917

The Germans complete their withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, shortening the length of the Western Front by some thirty miles. This strategic retreat hands considerable territory in France to the Allies but the German army is now in a far stronger position defensively.

April 6th 1917

The American declaration of war against Germany passes through Congress, with the Senate voting 82-6 in favour and the House of Representatives voting 373-50 in favour. President Wilson signs the declaration, thereby making it official. The United States is now in the war.

April 9th 1917

The British on the Western Front launch the Battle of Arras, attacking the northernmost section of the Hindenburg Line near the towns of Arras and Lens.

April 9th - 12th 1917

As part of the ongoing Arras offensive, Canadian forces stationed south of the Belgian border gain a significant victory against the Germans at the Battle of Vimy Ridge.

April 16th 1917

The French Commander-in-Chief, Robert Nivelle orders a major offensive against the Germans occupying the Chemin des Dames, a plateau of high ground north of the River Aisne. The French plan, disrupted somewhat by the German withdrawal to the Hindenburg Line, is soon shown to have serious shortcomings and the French attackers are slaughtered in their thousands.
The Russian Bolshevik leader Vladimir Ilych Ulyanov, better known by the pseudonym Lenin, arrives in Petrograd by train, having returned to Russia from exile in Switzerland. The Germans allowed for Lenin's safe passage, hoping that his presence in Russia will help to destablise the Provisional Government and hinder its efforts to continue the war against the Central Powers.

April 19th 1917

A second British incursion into Palestine is repelled by the Ottomans.

April 29th 1917

The first cases of desertion and indiscipline are reported among French troops at Chemin des Dames. These incidents quickly evolve into a widespread mutiny involving almost half of the French army on the Western Front.

May 3rd 1917

The men of the French 2nd Division outright refuse their orders to attack the German positions at Chemin des Dames.

May 5th - 15th 1917

The Allies in Greece carry out a limited offensive against the Central Powers in the southern Balkans.

May 9th 1917

The Chemin des Dames offensive ends in complete failure with the French having got virtually nowhere whilst incurring nearly 120,000 casualties. The French army is now in the middle of a full-blown mutiny and Nivelle's reputation and career are in tatters.

May 12th 1917

Italy launches the Tenth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on June 6th.

May 15th 1917

Robert Nivelle is removed as French Commander-in-Chief and is replaced by Philippe Pétain. The highly popular Pétain immediately takes steps to quell the mutinies, arresting and executing ringleaders but at the same time meeting the troops in person and promising to redress their more serious grievances. Order in the French army is largely restored by May 20th.

May 16th 1917

The Battle of Arras comes to an end. The British have gained some ground and inflicted 125,000 casualties on the Germans but they themselves have suffered nearly 160,000 casualties and failed to achieve a decisive breakthrough. A number of new experimental tactics, such as the creeping barrage, have been tried and tested during the offensive.

June 7th 1917

The British in Belgium detonate 19 of the 21 mines laid beneath the German frontline on the Messines Ridge south of Ypres. The explosions, reportedly large enough to be felt and heard in London, are immediately followed by an infantry assault which quickly overruns the shattered German defences. The capture of the Messines Ridge is completed on the 8th.

June 10th - 25th 1917

Italian and Austro-Hungarian troops fight for control of Mount Ortigara, a major strategic point on the Trentino border between the two countries. Men from the Italian 52nd Alpine Division capture the summit on June 10th only to lose it to an Austro-Hungarian counter-attack on the 25th.

June 12th 1917

The pro-German King Constantine I of Greece abdicates in favour of his son Alexander and leaves the country, removing the main obstacle to Greece joining the Allies.

June 25th 1917

The first troops of the American Expeditionary Force, commanded by General John Pershing, arrive in France.

June 29th 1917

Greece declares war on the Central Powers.

July 1st - 19th 1917

The Russian provisional government launches what turns out to be the final Russian initiative of the war. The Kerensky Offensive, named after the provisional government's Minister for War, Alexander Kerensky, is a total disaster and the Russian army actually ends up losing more ground than it gains due to fierce German and Austro-Hungarian counter-attacks.

July 6th 1917

Arab rebels led by the British liason officer T.E. Lawrence ("of Arabia") capture the Jordanian port of Arqaba from the Ottomans.

July 17th 1917

Responding to the virulent anti-German feeling that has run rampant in his country since the start of the war, King George V of the United Kingdom issues a royal proclamation officially changing the name of the British Royal Family from Saxe-Coburg Gotha to Windsor. George will further distances his family from their German lineage by giving up his German titles and stripping many of his German relatives of their British titles and honours.

July 20th 1917

Representatives of Serbia and the Slavic peoples of Austria-Hungary sign the Corfu Declaration in Greece. This Anglo-French-sponsored agreement displays the intention of the Slavs to unite and form their own single state in the Balkans should the Allies win the war.

July 31st 1917

Following on from the successful attack on the Messines Ridge, the British launch the Third Battle of Ypres. The British commander on the Western Front, Sir Douglas Haig, hopes this major offensive will achieve a decisive breakthrough and lead to the capture of the Belgian ports of Oostend and Zeebrugge, where the Germans have based more than a third of their submarine fleet. The offensive soon bogs down, however, due to stiff German resistance and unseasonable wet weather turning the shell-blasted, low-lying Flanders countryside into a sea of knee-deep mud and water-filled craters. The first phase of the fighting is focused on the northeastern sector of the Ypres salient, where the Allies make significant gains during August but fail to break through.

August 6th - 20th 1917

Romanian forces achieve a major victory over the Central Powers at the Battle of Mărăşeşti.

August 18th 1917

Italy launches the Eleventh Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on August 28th.

August 20th 1917

The rejuvinated French army launches a limited offensive at Verdun, capturing 10,000 German prisoners by September 9th. Fighting continues sporadically into October.

September 1st 1917

The Germans on the Eastern Front capture the Baltic port of Riga from the Russians, who are now on the verge of total collapse.

September 8th 1917

The Russian Commander-in-Chief, Lavr Kornilov is dismissed from his post and arrested following his attempt to seize power in a coup against the Provisional Government. Alexander Kerensky accuses Kornilov of trying to set up a military dictatorship whilst Kornilov alleges that he had recieved authorisation to restore order in Petrograd and restructure the Provisional Government.

September 20th 1917

The second phase of the Third Battle of Ypres begins. As conditions on the muddy battlefield continue to deteriorate, the British have given up any hope of a breakthrough and now aim to capture the German-held Passchendaele Ridge, several miles east of Ypres.

September 26th 1917

British and Australian forces at Ypres capture Polygon Wood following heavy fighting and reach the foot of Passchendaele Ridge.

October 24th 1917

Austro-Hungarian forces on the Italian Front, now backed up by substantial numbers of German troops, launch a major offensive against the Italians on the River Isonzo, which has been the scene of several insignificant Italian attacks since 1915. The Central Powers' offensive, known as the Battle of Caporetto, succeeds in achieving a breakthrough and the Italian army is routed.

October 31st 1917

The British launch a third Gaza offensive against the Ottomans in southern Palestine. This attack is more successful than the first two and the British break through the Ottoman lines by November 7th, paving the way for a general advance north through Palestine.

November 6th 1917

Canadian forces at Ypres reach the crest of Passchendaele Ridge and capture the village of Passchendaele itself from the Germans.

November 7th 1917

The October Revolution begins in Russia. Lenin and the Bolsheviks seize power from the ineffective Provisional Government and establish a Communist state. The revolution immediately triggers a civil war, with liberals and monarchists joining forces to fight the new regime.

November 8th 1917

Armando Diaz replaces Luigi Cadorna as Commander-in-Chief of the Italian army.

November 10th 1917

The Third Battle of Ypres concludes as the new Allied frontline is established for the Winter. The British and their Commonwealth allies have succeeded in pushing the Germans off the high ground surrounding Ypres but losses on both sides are very high. The exact casualty figures for the offensive are disputed, with Allied losses anywhere between 200,000 and 450,000 men killed or wounded. German losses are roughly similar.
The Battle of Caporetto comes to an end as the retreating Italians manage to establish and hold a new frontline along the Piave River. The offensive has been a major success for the Central Powers, who have advanced some sixty miles into Italy and are now barely ten miles away from Venice. Six British and French divisions are quickly transferred from the Western Front in order to reinforce the battered Italians. The Allies are able to hold off the German and Austro-Hungarian attempts to cross the Piave, which continue until the end of the year.

November 13th 1917

Paul Painlevé is replaced by Georges Clemenceau as Prime Minister of France.

November 17th 1917

British and German naval squadrons fight a brief and indecisive engagement in the North Sea, known as the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight. The clash began when German minesweepers were engaged by two British light cruisers, sucking in battleships and battlecruisers from both sides.

November 20th 1917

General Julian Byng's British Third Army launches an offensive against the Hindenburg Line near the French town of Cambrai, using large numbers of Mark IV tanks to spearhead the assault.

November 25th 1917

Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck's colonial German army, running low on supplies and under constant pressure from the British, abandons German East Africa and undertakes a strategic retreat south into the Portuguese colony of Mozambique.

December 6th 1917

The Grand Duchy of Finland declares its independence from Russia.

December 7th 1917

The United States declares war on Austria-Hungary.

December 8th 1917

The Battle of Cambrai ends with neither side gaining an advantage. Initial British successes, while proving that the Hindenburg Line is not impregnable, were quickly rendered moot by swift and effective German counter-attacks that won back lost territory. The British tanks are still suffering from teething problems, namely reliability issues, and are yet to become a truly effective addition to the military arsenal.

December 11th 1917

British forces in Palestine capture the city of Jerusalem from the Ottomans during a bitter struggle that lasts for most of December.

December 23rd 1917

The new Bolshevik government in Russia signs an armistice with Germany, bringing an end to Russian involvement in the war.

First World War Timeline: 1916

2011-09-23T17:49:00.001+01:00

1916 was a tough year for all the participating nations of World War I. After a year and a half of near-constant stalemate, bringing huge losses for little gain, the countries of Europe were beginning to feel the pain of war and its various unpleasant side-effects. Germany's home front began to struggle, starved of food and supplies by the Allied naval blockade. In Britain, the government introduced military conscription to replace the enthusiastic volunteers of 1914. During the second half of 1916 many thousands of those volunteer soldiers, drawn from all corners of British society, would be killed and maimed in the Battle of the Somme, the greatest and bloodiest British offensive of the war. The United Kingdom would also face internal strife as Irish demands for home rule spilled over into armed rebellion.

The Somme was just one of several great offensives to take place in 1916. Italy would continue its persistant but fruitless attacks against Austria-Hungary whilst the Russian army, battered and bruised after a year of setbacks, would launch its most successful attack of the war on the Eastern Front. In the west, the Germans would attempt to "bleed the French army white" at the Battle of Verdun, exploiting French national pride in order to inflict irreplaceble losses on their enemy and force an attrition victory. This year would also see the greatest sea battle of the war as the capital ships of Britain and Germany fought it out for naval supremacy. By the end of the year, morale on all sides was badly shaken and there was still no end to the fighting in sight, paving the way for major unrest and further bloodshed in 1917.

January 8th - 16th 1916

Austria-Hungary follows up the Central Powers' successful invasion of Serbia by attacking Serbia's Balkan ally Montenegro, which quickly capitulates.

January 9th 1916

The last British troops on the Gallipoli peninsula are evacuated from Cape Helles, concluding the unsuccessful Dardanelles campaign. Despite prior predictions of a 50% casualty rate for the evacuation, only two men are wounded and nobody is killed, making it by far the most successful aspect of the entire campaign for the Allies.

January 11th 1916

The Greek Island of Corfu is occupied by the Allies.

January 24th 1916

Reinhard Scheer is appointed commander of the German High Seas Fleet.

January 27th 1916

The Military Service Act is passed by the British government, providing for the conscription of single men aged 18-41. This would be extended to married men in May. Ireland is exempted from conscription in an effort to avoid antagonising Irish nationalist groups.

February 13th - 16th 1916

The Russians launch a major offensive against the Ottomans in the Caucasus region. The Battle is a decisive Russian success and the city of Erzurum is captured.

February 21st 1916

On the Western Front, German forces under the command of Crown Prince Wilhelm, son-and-heir of Kaiser Wilhelm II, launch a massive offensive against the salient surrounding the fortress city of Verdun in eastern France. The Germans know that the French, for reasons of strategy and national pride, will do everything possible to prevent the fall of Verdun. Their plan therefore is to attack the city and draw more and more French troops into the fighting, gradually sapping the strength of the French army until it can no longer continue the war.

February 23rd 1916

The government of Portugal, following a British request, interns 36 German and Austro-Hungarian ships in Lisbon and ignores German demands for their release. Relations between Portugal and Germany are already strained due to the latter's submarine campaign stifling Portuguese trade with Britain (Portugal's ally since 1386). There have also been several German incursions into the Portuguese African colony of Angola.

February 24th 1916

German troops from the 24th Brandenburg Regiment capture Fort Douaumont, the centrepiece of the network of French defences around Verdun. The small French garrison of just 68 men surrenders without firing a shot.

February 25th 1916

The French high command places General Philippe Pétain in charge of the French forces at Verdun.

February 28th 1916

German forces in Cameroon surrender to the British and French. The only German forces left in Africa are Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck's colonial troops in East Africa. Lettow-Vorbeck orchestrates an effective guerilla campaign for the remainder of the war, tying down a significant number of British and Empire troops.

March 1st 1916

Germany resumes unrestricted submarine warfare.
Italy launches the Fifth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on March 15th.

March 2nd 1916

The future Free French leader and President of France, Captain Charles de Gaulle, is captured by the Germans near Verdun after being gassed and stabbed in the leg with a bayonet. The French high command initially believes him to be dead, with Pétain writing in the regimental journal that de Gaulle had been "an outstanding officer in all respects". He will spend the rest of the war in captivity, making five unsuccessful escape attempts.

March 8th 1916

In Mesopotamia, a British attempt to relieve the besieged garrison at Kut-al-Amara is repelled by the Ottomans at the Battle of Dujaila.

March 9th 1916

Portugal and Germany declare war against each-other.

March 18th 1916

The Russian Second Army attempt to relieve pressure on the French at Verdun by attacking the German Tenth Army on the Eastern Front around Lake Naroch. The offensive peters out in April with the Russians having achieved nothing.

April 24th - 30th 1916

The Easter Rising breaks out in Ireland, started by Irish republican groups fighting for an end to British rule. The armed uprising is centred on Dublin, with other minor skirmishes in Wexford, Meath, Louth and Galway. The week-long uprising is supressed by British troops and the leaders are court-martialled and executed.

April 25th 1916

The besieged British garrison at Kut-al-Amara surrenders to the Ottomans.

April 26th 1916

German fighter pilot Manfred von Richthofen, soon to be known as the "Red Baron", scores his first kill by shooting down a French Nieuport fighter over Verdun. He will go on to chalk up eighty kills in all, making him the leading fighter ace of the war.

May 1st 1916

General Pétain is promoted to commander of the French Centre Army Group on the Western Front. He is succeeded as commander of the Verdun sector by the attack-minded General Robert Nivelle.

May 10th 1916

Germany suspends unrestricted submarine warfare.

May 15th 1916

Austria-Hungary launches a major offensive against the Italians near Asiago in the mountainous Trentino region of northern Italy. The attack catches the Italians by surprise and the Austro-Hungarian troops break through onto the Venetian plain. The hasty transfer of troops from the Isonzo front prevents a total Italian collapse and the attack ends on June 10th.

May 31st 1916

The British Royal Navy's Grand Fleet clashes with the German High Seas Fleet in the North Sea off the west coast of Denmark. The Battle of Jutland lasts for two days and is the only full-scale naval battle of the war, involving the main battleship fleets from both nations. The result of the encounter is inconclusive but the Germans claim victory as they have lost fewer ships and men than the British. The reality is that Britain maintains her naval dominance and the German fleet remains bottled up in its home ports for the remainder of the war.

June 4th 1916

The Russians launch the Brusilov Offensive against the Austro-Hungarians in Poland and Galicia. The offensive is named after the Russian commander of the southwestern sector of the Eastern Front, Aleksei Brusilov.

June 5th 1916

An Arab revolt against the Ottomans, conceived by the Arab bureau of the British Foreign Office, begins in the Hejaz region of the Arabian peninsula.
The British cruiser HMS Hampshire sinks en-route to Russia after hitting a German mine west of the Orkney Islands. Among the dead is the British Minister for War and face of the 1914 recruitment campaign, Lord Kitchener.

June 7th 1916

As fierce fighting around Verdun continues, the Germans capture another key defensive position, Fort Vaux from the French.

June 21st 1916

German assault troops continue the Verdun offensive by capturing the Thiaumont Redoubt and the village of Fleury. The only remaining French defensive position between the Germans and Verdun itself is Fort Souville.

June 24th 1916

British artillery begins a week-long bombardment of the German positions on both sides of the River Somme in Picardy, France. It is hoped that the bombardment will soften up the enemy in preparation for a major British offensive intended to divert German resources away from Verdun and take the pressure off the embattled French army.

July 1st 1916

The Battle of the Somme begins with the explosion of a 40,000-pound mine beneath the German-held Hawthorne Ridge Redoubt at 7:20am. The first British troops go over the top ten minutes later and are immediately mown down in their thousands by gunfire from the intact German defences, which the preliminary bombardment had failed to destroy. With over 19,000 men killed and more than 57,000 casualties overall, it is the worst single day of fighting in the entire history of the British army

July 2nd - 25th 1916

Ottoman forces in the Caucasus are defeated by the Russians at the Battle of Erzincan.

July 12th 1916

The German attempt to capture Fort Souville is beaten off by its French garrison. The attack marks the high-point of the German offensive at Verdun as the German high command soon orders a scaling-back of operations and begins transferring troops and equipment to the Somme.

July 30th 1916

A massive explosion takes place at an American munitions depot on Black Tom Island, New Jersey. The explosion, caused by German saboteurs, kills seven people and causes extensive damage across Jersey and New York City.

August 3rd 1916

Italy launches the Sixth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on August 17th, with the Italians having captured Gorizia from the Austro-Hungarians.
Ottoman forces launch a second offensive into the British-controlled Sinai peninsula from Palestine. British forces in Egypt repel the assault, which ends on August 5th.

August 17th 1916

Romania signs a treaty with the Allies and agrees to join the war on their side. The Romanian government hopes to seize to the Romanian-majority province of Transylvania from Austria-Hungary.

August 27th 1916

Italy declares war on Germany.
Romania declares war on the Central Powers. Three Romanian armies immediately invade Transylvania through the Carpathian mountains, pushing the Austro-Hungarian First Army back towards Hungary.

August 29th 1916

Paul von Hindenburg replaces Erich von Falkenhayn as Chief of the German General Staff. From this point onwards, Germany is effectively a military dictatorship ruled by Hindenburg and his co-commander, Erich Ludendorff. Kaiser Wilhelm II and his ministers are left virtually powerless, with the Kaiser reduced to performing ceremonial duties.

September 1st 1916

A multinational force of Germans, Ottomans and Bulgarians commanded by August von Mackensen attacks Romania from the south. The Romanian garrison at Turtucaia is besiged and surrenders on September 6th.

September 12th 1916

The Allied forces stationed in Salonika, Greece launch an offensive against the Central Powers forces in southern Serbia which lasts until November 19th. There is much soul-searching amongst the Greek leadership about how best to respond to the Allied military presence on their soil. Greece is officially still neutral but King Constantine I is pro-German. His Prime Minister and government, on the other hand, are sympathetic to the Allied cause.

September 14th 1916

Italy launches the Seventh Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends three days later.

September 15th 1916

The British offensive on the Somme continues with the Battle of Flers-Courcelette. This battle sees the debut of the tank as a weapon of war, with the British able to deploy 21 of their 49 machines against the German defenders. These early tanks, while able to overcome trenches and barbed-wire, are unable to break the deadlock on the Western Front at this stage due to being very slow, too few in number, notoriously unreliable and prone to getting bogged-down on the churned-up battlefields.
The Romanian war council suspends the Transylvanian offensive and orders a counter-attack against Mackensen's army in the south but neither they nor their Russian allies achieve much success. The Romanian offensive is called off on October 3rd.

September 18th 1916

The new German commander in the Balkans, ex-Chief of Staff Erich von Falkenhayn, orders a renewed Central Powers offensive against the Romania. By October 25th it had succeeded in pushing all Romanian forces out of Transylvania and back inside their own borders.

September 20th 1916

The Russian Brusilov Offensive ends with the Russians having gained several miles of ground along a wide front in the Austro-Hungarian province of Galicia. The offensive was the most successful Russian attack of the war and it has brought the Austro-Hungarian armies to the brink of collapse, further increasing their reliance on German support. Russian losses resulting from the offensive are high, however, and morale on the Russian home front is at an all-time low.

September 23rd 1916

As part of Hindenburg and Ludendorff's plan to adopt a more defensive strategy on the Western Front, German forces begin construction of the Hindenburg Line behind their current positions in France.

October 9th 1916

Italy launches the Eighth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends three days later.

October 24th 1916

The French at Verdun, having launched a counter-offensive against the Germans earlier in the month, recapture Fort Douaumont.

October 28th 1916

German fighter ace Oswald Boelcke is killed in a crash-landing following a mid-air collision with colleague Erwin Böhme. Boelcke had notched up forty kills prior to his death.

November 1st 1916

Italy launches the Ninth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends three days later.

November 2nd 1916

The French recapture Fort Vaux from the Germans. This action effectively marks the end of the Battle of Verdun although the fighting in that sector drags on until mid-December, by which stage the Germans will have been driven back almost to their February starting lines. French battlefield deaths at Verdun number 163,000 whilst the number of German dead is 143,000.

November 18th 1916

The Battle of the Somme draws to a close. The British have suffered some 624,000 casualties since the start of the offensive while German casualties amount to some 465,000 men. The British have managed to penatrate no further than six miles into German-held territory and many of their first-day objectives, such as the town of Bapaume, remain firmly in German hands.

November 21st 1916

The British hospital ship HMHS Britannic, sister ship to the Olympic and Titanic, sinks after hitting a German mine in the Aegean Sea close to the Greek island of Kea. 30 men lose their lives.
Emperor Franz Joseph I of Austria-Hungary dies, concluding a reign of 68 years. He is succeeded by his grandnephew, Archduke Charles.

November 25th 1916

Vice-Admiral David Beatty replaces Admiral Sir John Jellicoe as commander of the British Grand Fleet. Jellicoe, who took much of the blame for the losses at Jutland, is promoted away from active command, becoming First Sea Lord.

December 5th 1916

Herbert Asquith resigns as British Prime Minister. He is replaced by the Minister for Munitions, David Lloyd George.

December 6th 1916

Central Powers forces in Romania occupy the capital, Bucharest. King Ferdinand and his government have already fled to the northeastern city of Iaşi, behind the Russian lines on the Eastern Front.

December 13th 1916

Robert Nivelle replaces Joseph Joffre as Commander-in-Chief of the French army.

December 27th 1916

The former German colony of Togoland in West Africa, conquered by the Allies in 1914, is formally divided into British and French administrative zones.

December 29th 1916

A clique of Russian nobles, led by Prince Felix Yusupov and Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich, murder Grigori Rasputin at Yusupov's house in Petrograd (St Petersburg), dumping his body in the frozen River Neva. Rasputin, a monk and mystic of questionable character, had gained an immense and potentially damaging influence over the Russian royal family due to his apparent ability to heal Tsar Nicholas II's son Alexei, who is severely afflicted with haemophilia.

First World War Timeline: 1915

2011-09-21T19:21:00.000+01:00

When World War I broke out in the golden Summer of 1914, nobody expected that the hosilities would go on for more than six months at the most. Unfortunately for the troops on both sides, the promise that it would all be over by Christmas was rendered hollow as many of them saw out the year in frozen trenches just yards away from the enemy. Thousands of men had already died and it didn't look like the fighting was going to end anytime soon.

1915 began largely as 1914 had ended. The Western Front saw the continuation of costly and hardly-beneficial offensives as tactically bankrupt commanders struggled to adapt to the limitations of trench warfare. New ideas and inventions were utilised in an effort to break the deadlock. Aircraft began to come into their own as a weapon of war whilst chemical weapons were used for the first time as the Germans deployed poison gas on both the Western and Eastern Fronts. The fighting in the east had retained some degree of mobile warfare, with the Germans and Austro-Hungarians gaining the initiative and forcing the Russians out of Galicia and Poland.

This year of the war also saw more nations join the fighting, expanding the two warring factions and earning them the nicknames that would stick for the rest of the war and beyond. The British/French/Russian led coalition became known as the Allies while Germany, Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire became the Central Powers. The Allies, bolstered by Italy's defection, hoped to extend the conflict to other areas around Europe in order to grind down enemy resources and avoid the deadlock of the Western Front, opening up new fronts in Ottoman Turkey and the Italian/Austrian Alps. These new ventures, however, would turn out to be just as frustrating.

January 2nd 1915

Russia launches an offensive against the Austro-Hungarians in the Carpathian mountains. It will continue until April 12th.

January 19th 1915

The first air raid on Britain by Zeppelin airships takes place. Two Zeppelins, blown off-course by strong winds, drop bombs on several coastal towns in Norfolk, killing four people.

January 24th 1915

Elements of the British Grand Fleet and the German High Seas Fleet face off at the Battle of Dogger Bank in the North Sea. As the German battlecruiser SMS Blücher is sunk with the loss of most of her crew, the encounter is considered a victory for the British.

January 28th 1915

The Ottomans attack from Palestine into British-controlled Egypt, hoping to capture the Suez Canal and deprive the British of the quickest route to India. The attack fails and the Ottomans withdraw by February 3rd.

January 31st 1915

The Germans use poison gas for the first time, deploying chlorine gas against the Russians at the Battle of Bolimov.

February 4th 1915

Germany begins a campaign of unrestricted submarine warfare against Allied and neutral merchant shipping, intending to starve Britain out of the war and deprive the Allies of American war material.

February 7th - 22nd 1915

The Russian Tenth Army is defeated by the Germans at the Second Battle of the Masurian Lakes. The Russian position in Poland is left greatly weakened as a result.

February 19th 1915

The Allies launch the Dardanelles campaign against the Ottoman Empire. British and French ships bombard the Ottoman defenses around the Dardanelles Straits in preparation for a land assault which is hoped will capture the Ottoman capital, Constantinople, and reopen access to the Black Sea.

March 10th - 13th 1915

On the Western Front, a British attempt to take the offensive at the Battle of Neuve Chapelle is halted.

March 22nd 1915

The siege of Przemyśl ends with the Russians capturing the Galician fortress city from the Austro-Hungarians.

April 22nd 1915

The Germans in Flanders launch the Second Battle of Ypres. The German assault begins with a chlorine gas attack on the Moroccan and Algerian colonial troops of the French 45th and 78th Divisions at Gravenstafel. The gas kills over 6000 men in less than ten minutes and opens a four-mile wide gap in the Allied line as the survivors flee. A lack of reinforcements and concerns about what the lingering gas might do to their own troops prevent the Germans from fully exploiting this success and the gap is quickly refilled by Canadian troops.

April 24th 1915

The fighting at Ypres continues with a second German gas attack on the Canadian frontline near the village of St Julien. Improvised countermeasures against the gas fail and the Allied line cracks once again, allowing the Germans to capture St Julien and much of the northern sector of the Ypres salient. The Allies pull back and hastily reform their frontline much closer to Ypres itself.

April 25th 1915

Italy secretly signs the London Pact, thereby agreeing to join the Allies.
The first Allied forces land on the Gallipoli peninsula in Turkey, beginning the land phase of the Dardanelles campaign. It turns out that the naval bombardment was not as effective as had been hoped and the disembarking British, French, Australian and New Zealand troops immediately encounter stiff Ottoman resistance.

April 28th 1915

An Allied offensive at Gallipoli, the First Battle of Krithia, is repelled by the Ottomans.

May 1st - 3rd 1915

August von Mackensen's German forces break through the Russian lines at the Battle of Gorlice-Tarnów, paving the way for a reconquest of Galicia by the Central Powers.

May 6th - 8th 1915

The Second Battle of Krithia at Gallipoli produces exactly the same outcome as the first.

May 7th 1915

The British ocean liner RMS Lusitania is sunk off the coast of Ireland by the German submarine U-20. Among the 1198 dead are 128 American citizens. The sinking triggers outrage in the United States despite the German embassy having warned in advance that passengers sailing under British colours in British waters do so at their own risk.

May 12th 1915

Troops from South Africa capture Windhoek, the capital of German South West Africa.

May 23rd 1915

Italy declares war on Austria-Hungary.

May 25th 1915

The Second Battle of Ypres draws to a close. The Germans have not broken through but they have managed to considerably reduce the size of the Ypres salient. Ypres itself is now well within range of German artillery and the old town, having already suffered considerable damage, is gradually shelled to destruction over the remainder of the war.

June 4th 1915

The Ottomans repel another Allied offensive at the Third Battle of Krithia.
The Russians abandon Przemyśl as their positions in Galicia continue to collapse.

June 23rd 1915

The Italian Front sees its first action of the war as the Italians launch the first of a series of offensives against the Austro-Hungarians along the River Isonzo, which straddles the border between the two countries. The First Battle of the Isonzo rumbles on indecisively until July 7th.

June 27th 1915

The Germans and Austro-Hungarians recapture the Galician provincial captial, Lemberg from the Russians.

July 9th 1915

The remaining German forces in South West Africa surrender to the South Africans.

July 18th 1915

Italy launches the Second Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on August 3rd.

August 5th 1915

German forces advancing in Poland capture Warsaw from the Russians.

August 6th - 29th 1915

The British in Gallipoli launch the August Offensive, also known as the Battle of Sari Bair. This is the final attempt to dislodge the Ottomans from the peninsula and ends in failure.

September 1st 1915

Germany suspends its policy of unrestricted submarine warfare in response to the American outcry that followed the sinking of the Lusitania.

September 8th 1915

Tsar Nicholas II of Russia removes Grand Duke Nicholas as Commander-in-Chief and assumes personal command of the Russian armed forces.

September 19th 1915

German forces advancing eastwards from East Prussia capture the Russian city of Vilnius.

September 25th - 28th 1915

A major British offensive on the Western Front, the Battle of Loos, ends in failure.

October 6th 1915

Bulgaria joins the Central Powers.
Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria, backed up by substantial German forces, launch a major invasion of Serbia.

October 11th 1915

The prospect of abandoning the Dardanelles campaign and evacuating the Allied forces from Gallipoli is raised for the first time. The British commander in Gallipoli, Sir Ian Hamilton, resists the proposal and is subsequently replaced by Sir Charles Monro. The decision to evacuate is made later in the month.

October 14th 1915

Bulgaria declares war on Serbia.

October 15th 1915

The United Kingdom declares war on Bulgaria.

October 16th 1915

France declares war on Bulgaria.

October 18th 1915

Italy launches the Third Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on November 4th.

October 19th 1915

Italy and Russia declare war on Bulgaria.

October 27th 1915

A French army lands at the Greek port of Salonika. Together with British and Italian support, it sets up a stationary Balkan Front to protect neutral Greece from the German, Austro-Hungarian and Bulgarian forces advancing south through Serbia.

November 10th 1915

Italy launches the Fourth Battle of the Isonzo. The attack ends on December 2nd.

November 15th 1915

Winston Churchill, having already lost his position as First Lord of the Admiralty over his role in the Gallipoli fiasco, resigns from Britain's coalition government and goes off to fight on the Western Front, commanding the 6th Battalion of the Royal Scots Fusiliers in Belgium.

November 22nd - 25th 1915

A British-Indian force campaigning in the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq) is repulsed by the Ottomans at the Battle of Ctestiphon. The British commander, Major-General Charles Townshend, orders a retreat to the south.

November 27th 1915

The Serbian army collapses in the face of the Central Powers' invasion. Many Serbian troops head southwest through neighbouring Albania and are evacuated from the Adriatic coast by Allied ships.

December 7th 1915

Charles Townshend's 8000-strong British-Indian army, along with the reinforcements sent by the British from Basra, is besiged by the Ottomans at the town of Kut-al-Amara, 100 miles south of Baghdad.

December 19th 1915

Douglas Haig replaces Sir John French as commander of the British and Commonwealth forces on the Western Front.

December 20th 1915

The last Allied troops leave the Sulva and ANZAC beachheads at Gallipoli, completing the first phase of the Allied evacuation that had been decided upon in October. British troops remain stationed at Cape Helles on the tip of the Gallipoli peninsula.

First World War Timeline: 1914

2011-09-19T23:34:00.009+01:00

It all began, rather fittingly, with an act of violence, a few gunshots fired in what was a seemingly unimportant corner of Europe far away from the hustle and bustle of Berlin, London and Paris. Those gunshots, however, would trigger a chain of events that sent Europe spinning headlong into the bloodiest conflict it had ever known. The outbreak of war in 1914 was greeted with relief and even celebration amongst the people of the participating nations. It was the culmination of years of international tension fuelled by military buildups, colonial scrambling and the establishing of alliances that split Europe into two armed camps. On one side, dominating central Europe, was the young, powerful and ambitious German Empire and the old decrepit multi-ethnic empire of Austria-Hungary. Surrounding them was the intimidating alliance of Russia, France and the United Kingdom.

The killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in June 1914 provided the spark that ignited this unstable powder keg. Austria-Hungary's declaration of war against Serbia triggered the system of European alliances, sucking in the great powers one-by-one until all of them (and their colonies) were participating in a Europe-wide conflict. It was then, for the first time, that the worst form of modern industrialised warfare was unleashed. The great European powers had used modern weapons to great effect on the poorly-armed natives of Asia and Africa but when those weapons were turned on other European powers, who also possessed them, the result was futile and bloody stalemate.

As the fighting got underway and the troops began marching off to battle, it was believed on both sides that the war would be over by Christmas. The reality was that nobody had really anticipated anything beyond their own unrealistic ambitions for a quick victory. Both Germany and France had developed strategies to that effect in the years before the war but their grand visions failed to achieve the decisive victory they had intended due to a combination of bad luck, poor planning and determined opposition. By the end of the year the Germans were deep into Belgium and France but their advance had been halted by the British and French, whose counter-attacks had also been fought off. The Western Front, as it became known, had solidified into a continuous line of trenches and fortifications stretching uninterrupted for hundreds of miles from the North Sea coast to Switzerland. With little chance of a breakthrough against heavily dug-in opposition. Both sides settled down and prepared for a long stay.

June 28th 1914

Politics, Bosnia: Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, and his wife Sophie are assassinated during a visit to Sarajevo, the capital of Bosnia, a Slavic-populated province of Austria-Hungary. The killer is a Bosnian-Serb student named Gavrilo Princip who is found to be a member of the Black Hand, a Serbian nationalist group. Austria-Hungary directly accuses the government of neighbouring Serbia as being involved in the murders.

July 23rd 1914

Politics, Austria-Hungary: The leaders of Austria-Hungary, after consulting with their German allies, send Serbia an ultimatum, the terms of which would effectively destroy Serbia as an independant state. Austria-Hungary demands a reply within 48 hours.

July 25th 1914

Politics, Serbia: Serbia begins to mobilise its armed forces. The government also responds to the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum, agreeing to all but one of its ten demands. The Austro-Hungarians judge this to be unacceptable and Emperor Franz Josef I orders a general mobilisation to begin on the following day.

July 28th 1914

Politics, Austria-Hungary: Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia at noon.
Politics, United Kingdom: The government of the United Kingdom, led by the Liberal Prime Minister Herbert Asquith, orders the ships of the Royal Navy to return to their various home bases. Britain's main battleship force, the Grand Fleet begins to assemble at Scapa Flow in the Orkney Islands off the northern coast of Scotland.

July 29th 1914

Politics, Russia: Tsar Nicholas II of Russia, an ally of Serbia, puts his signiture to a general mobilisation order. It comes into force on August 4th.
Politics, Germany: Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany orders his navy to mobilise, with the High Seas Fleet assembling along the Jade River near the port of Wilhelmshaven. Wilhelm also warns his cousin-in-law Nicholas II that Russia's decision to mobilise could trigger a wider war.
Balkan Front, Serbia: Austro-Hungarian warships on the River Danube open the first hostilities of the war with a bombardment of Belgrade, the Serbian capital.

July 30th 1914

Politics, Netherlands: The government of the Netherlands declares Dutch neutrality in the upcoming conflict.

July 31st 1914

Politics, Germany: The Germans warn Russia to cease all preparations for war and must do so by noon on August 1st. The Russians respond by claiming that their mobilisation is against Austria-Hungary only.

August 1st 1914

Politics, Germany: Germany declares war on Russia and begins to mobilise military forces on the frontier between the two countries.
Politics, France: President Raymond Poincaré of France, an ally of Russia, agrees to issue a general mobilisation order.
Politics, Belgium: The government of Belgium proclaims that it will maintain its position of armed neutrality, a position guaranteed by Britain and France.

August 2nd 1914

Politics, Ottoman Empire: Germany signs a secret treaty with the Ottoman Empire. The treaty is orchestrated by the nationalist Ottoman War Minister, Enver Pasha, who hopes to restore the declining empire as a major power and protect it from possible Russian attack.
Western Front, Luxembourg: German troops occupy Luxembourg.
Politics, Germany: Germany delivers an ultimatum to Belgium demanding that German troops be allowed to move freely through Belgian territory in order to pre-empt a French attack against Germany. Obtaining safe passage through Belgium is essential to the German war strategy, the Schlieffen Plan, which hopes to avoid a war on two fronts by quickly invading France through Belgium and defeating the French before Russia is able to fully mobilise.
Western Front, France/Germany: Small-scale skirmishes between French and German troops are reported to be taking place on the border between the two countries.

August 3rd 1914

Politics, Belgium: Belgium rejects the German ultimatum demanding free passage through its territory. Britain and France confirm that they will provide armed support for Belgium against any German attack.
Politics, United Kingdom: King George V of the United Kingdom signs a general mobilisation order.
Politics, Germany: Germany declares war on France.
Politics, Italy: Italy, a pre-war ally of Germany and Austria-Hungary, declares that it will remain neutral because Austria-Hungary's attack on Serbia was an act of aggression not covered by the provisions of their defensive alliance.
Politics, Ottoman Empire: The Ottoman Empire declares a state of armed neutrality and begins to mobilise its armed forces.
Politics, Romania: The government of Romania decides to adopt a position of armed neutrality despite the German-born King Carol I's desire to join the war alongside Germany and Austria-Hungary. Romanian public opinion is more sympathetic towards Russia and its allies.

August 4th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: Germany declares war on Belgium and its armies begin to cross the frontier, with General Alexander von Kluck's First Army and General Karl von Bülow's Second Army spearheading the invasion. The British government sends ultimatum is sent to Germany, demanding that all German troops leave Belgian soil.
Naval War, Mediterranean: Official hostilities between France and Germany open with a ten-minute bombardment of two ports in French Algeria by two German warships, the battlecruiser SMS Goeben and the light cruiser SMS Breslau. The ships then head east across the Mediterranean until they encounter two British battlecruisers, HMS Indefatigable and HMS Indomitable. The British ultimatum to Germany has not yet expired so the British ships do not open fire, allowing Goeben and Breslau to continue on to Turkey, where they are later presented to the Ottoman Empire as a gift.
Politics, United Kingdom: Having not received a response to their ultimatum within the alotted time, the British government declares war on Germany at 11pm. Britain's declaration of war automatically commits the British Empire and the dominions (Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa) to the conflict.
Politics, United States: The United States of America declares neutrality.

August 5th 1914

Politics, Ottoman Empire: The Ottoman Empire closes the Dardanelles Straits, preventing Russian ships from leaving, and any other ships from entering, the Black Sea.
Politics, Austria-Hungary: Austria-Hungary declares war on Russia.

August 6th 1914

Naval War, Indian Ocean: The German light cruiser SMS Königsberg sinks the British light cruiser HMS Pegasus near the Kenyan port of Mombasa. Königsberg continues to disrupt British commerce in the Indian Ocean util the end of October, when the arrival of British naval reinforcements forces her to take refuge on the Rufiji River in German East Africa.
Politics, Serbia: Serbia declares war on Germany.

August 7th 1914

Western Front, France: The first troops of the British Expeditionary Force (BEF), under the command of Field Marshal Sir John French, begin arriving in France.
Western Front, France/Germany: The French army launches their own war strategy, Plan XVII, with the aim of recapturing the Alsace and Lorraine provinces that had been lost to Germany after the Franco-Prussian war (1870-71). It begins with an advance by General Pau Pau's French Army of Alsace into southern Alsace. The city of Mulhouse on the River Rhine is captured on the 8th, triggering mass celebrations in France, but the Germans recapture it a day later.

August 8th 1914

Politics, United Kingdom: Britain's Minister of War, Lord Kitchener of Khartoum calls for 100,000 volunteers to join the British army. 175,000 people join up within a week of the recruitment campaign launch on September 5th.

August 10th 1914

Politics, France: France declares war on Austria-Hungary.

August 12th 1914

Politics, United Kingdom: Britain declares war on Austria-Hungary.
Balkan Front, Serbia: 200,000 Austro-Hungarian troops under General Oskar Potiorek invade Serbia. The outnumbered Serbs, commanded by Field Marshal Radomir Putnik, put up a stronger-than-expected resistance the Battle of the Jadar River, forcing the invaders to withdraw from Serbia on August 16th.

August 14th 1914

Home Front, United Kingdom: The phrase "War to end all wars." is used for the first time by the British science-fiction novelist H.G. Wells.

August 14th - 24th 1914

Western Front, France/Germany: The main French offensive of Plan XVII is launched as the First and Second Armies, commanded by General Auguste Dubail and General Noël de Castelnau, begin attacking into Lorraine southeast of Metz. The advancing French troops, still wearing their brightly-coloured 19th Century uniforms, incur massive losses at the hands of German machine-gunners and are repulsed by Crown Prince Rupprecht of Bavaria's Sixth Army and General Josias von Heeringen's Seventh Army, which then counter-attack and push the French back. Only a determined stand on the high ground outside Nancy by General Ferdinand Foch's XX Corps prevents a major French defeat. By August 22nd the French in Alsace and Lorraine are back in their starting positions and Plan XVII is effectively a failure.

August 16th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: The garrison of the Belgian fortress city of Liège surrenders to German General Erich Ludendorff after an eleven-day siege and artillery bombardment. The German First and Second Armies are now able to cross the River Meuse and resume their advance through Belgium, which has been delayed considerably. The Belgian field army begins an orderly withdrawal, destroying bridges as it retreats.
Home Front, Germany: An 25-year-old Austrian-born artist named Adolf Hitler, having petitioned King Ludwig III of Bavaria directly, is granted permission to serve in the German army. Hitler joins the 16th Bavarian Reserve Infantry Regiment and serves throughout the war as a messenger runner, earning several medals for valour.

August 17th - 19th 1914

Eastern Front, East Prussia: Russia launches an invasion of Germany, having mobilised its forces much faster than German military planners had anticipated. General Pavel Rennenkampf's First Army and General Alexander Samsonov's Second Army invade the sparsely-defended German province of East Prussia from the east and southeast. The thinly-spread German Eighth Army under General Max von Prittwitz achieves a minor success against Rennenkempf's advance guard at the Battle of Stallupönen but is unable to stop what British propaganda is already lauding as "the Russian Steamroller".

August 18th 1918

Western Front, Belgium: King Albert I of Belgium orders the 75,000-strong Belgian army to retreat to the port of Antwerp. The move is completed two days later, with the Germans pulling some 60,000 men from their advancing armies to keep the Belgians bottled up in the city.

August 19th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: German troops in the town of Aerschot shoot 150 civilians, one of many confirmed or suspected atrocities committed by the German army in Belgium during the war.

August 20th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: German forces occupy Brussels, the Belgian capital.
Eastern Front, East Prussia: A German attempt to block the Russian invasion of East Prussia is defeated, prompting a rush by the German high command to transfer men and material eastwards. As a result many German units are pulled from the armies in the west. Prittwitz is removed from his Eighth Army command and is replaced by Paul von Hindenburg, who is called out of retirement to take up the post. Erich Ludendorff, fresh from his exploits in Belgium, is appointed as Hindenburg's chief-of-staff.
Africa, Cameroon: A small British expedition, consisting of some 400 men, enters the German colony of Cameroon from neighbouring Nigeria.
Air War, Germany: The German high command is asked to consider launching aerial attacks on British cities, ports and bases using Zeppelin airships.

August 20th - 25th 1914

Western Front, Ardennes: The French Third and Fourth Armies, commanded by General Pierre Ruffey and General Fernand de Langle de Cary, move to counter an advance through Luxembourg and the Ardennes by two German armies, the Fourth under Duke Albrecht of Württemberg and the Fifth under Crown Prince Wilhelm, the Kaiser's son-and-heir. The two sides come into contact on the 22nd, triggering three days of bitter fighting. The French, lacking supporting artillery, are badly mauled, with the Third Army being almost totally destroyed. The two French armies fall back to the River Meuse and hold a line between Sedan and Verdun.

August 22nd 1914

Western Front, Belgium/France: North of the Ardennes, the German First, Second and Third Armies continue their advance through Belgium and begin to turn south towards the French border. The French Commander-in-Chief, General Joseph Joffre, orders General Charles Lanzerac's Fifth Army to hold the line of the River Sambre between Charleroi and Namur against Bülow's Second Army and Max von Hausen's Third Army (formerly the Royal Saxon Army). The French fight stubbornly to halt the German advance once it arrives but casualty figures for the defenders are appalingly high. Lanzerac seeks permission from Joffre to withdraw and it is granted. he French Third and Fourth Armies on the River Meuse also begin to pull back but keep their right flank anchored firmly on the fortifications of Verdun.

August 23rd 1914

Politics, Japan: Japan, which has been an ally of the United Kingdom since 1902, declares war on Germany with the intention of seizing the German colony of Tsingtao in China.
Western Front, Belgium/France: The BEF, stationed on the left flank of Lanzerac's French Fifth Army, sees its first action of the war when it encounters Kluck's German First Army at the Belgian town of Mons. The outnumbered British troops hold the line of the Mons Canal for several hours, inflicting massive casualties on the Germans with accurate and high-volume rifle fire. Despite their best efforts the British are soon overwhelmed and forced to pull back. The withdrawal of Lanzarac's forces from Charleroi leaves the British right flank exposed, forcing them to conduct a full retreat into France. In the aftermath of the Battle of Mons, Kaiser Wilhelm II famously refers to the BEF as a "contemptible little army", leading to them being nicknamed "The Old Contemptibles".
Eastern Front, Galicia/Poland: Austria-Hungary launches an offensive from its northeastern province of Galicia into Russian-controlled Poland. The Austro-Hungarian forces move forward along a 200-mile front, looking to destroy the four armies of General Nikolai Ivanov's Russian Southwest Army Group. The advance begins well, with the Austro-Hungarian First Army pushing the Russian Fourth Army back at Krasnik.

August 25th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: The Belgian fortress city of Namur surrenders to the Germans.
Western Front, Belgium: German troops sack and burn the Belgian city of Leuven as part of their general campaign of terror intended to subjugate the Belgian population. The university's 14th Century library is among the buildings deliberately destroyed. Hundreds of thousands of irreplaceable volumes and documents are lost, including many original Medieval and Renaissance manuscripts.

August 25th - 27th 1914

Western Front, France: The BEF continues its retreat south across northeast France, fighting desperate rearguard actions against the pursuing German First Army. The British II Corps under General Horace Smith-Dorrien turns to fight at Le Cateau, beating off the German attempts to surround its 40,000 men. The Corps is able to break free and resume the retreat, having suffered nearly 8000 casualties.

August 26th 1914

Africa, Togoland: British and French troops invade and quickly conquer the German colony of Togoland in West Africa, winning a decisive victory at the Battle of Kamina.

August 26th - 31st 1914

Eastern Front, East Prussia: Alexander Samsonov's Russian Second Army in East Prussia is smashed by Hindenburg's Eighth Army at the Battle of Tannenberg. Attempts by Rennenkamp's First Army to reinforce Samsonov from the north are beaten off and Samsonov himself is surrounded by August 29th. He later commits suicide. The Germans have achieved a major victory, stopping Russia's invasion dead in its tracks, and British and French faith in Russia's military ability is badly shaken. The only good news for Russia's western allies is that German reinforcements from the Western Front are still in transit at the time of Hindenburg's victory, meaning that the advance into France has been weakened without benefit to Germany.
Eastern Front, Galicia: The Austro-Hungarian offensive into Poland begins to stutter as Ivanov's Russian Southwest Army Group organises an effective defence and prepares to launch a counter-attack. That counter-attack comes when when the Russian Third and Eighth Armies fall upon the Austro-Hungarian Third Army, pushing it back towards the Galician provincial capital, Lemberg.

August 28th 1914

Naval War, North Sea: A squadron of light cruisers and destroyers from the British Royal Navy inflicts a minor defeat on the Germans at the battle of Heligoland Bight off Germany's North Sea coast. The Germans lose four small vessels and over 700 men before the arrival of their main fighting ships prompts a British withdrawal. The impact on German morale is far more significant, with the Kaiser informing his naval commanders that they cannot afford to risk losing more ships. This leads to the shelving of all planned large-scale operations involving the High Seas Fleet.

August 29th 1914

Western Front, France: As the Anglo-French retreat into France continues in the face of the German advance, Genral Joffre orders Lanzerac's French Fifth Army to cover the BEF's retreat by attacking the flank of the German First Army near Guise and Saint Quentin. The main attack makes little progress but the French I Corps, commanded by General Louis Franchet d'Espery, is able to temporarily block the advance of the German Second Army in a supporting action. This turn of events prompts General Bülow to request support from General Kluck, commander of the German First Army. Kluck is unable to reach the German high command for clarification so, on his own initiative, he moves the First Army eastwards to support Bülow and the Second Army, believing there to be no serious threat to his exposed right flank. This move takes the French capital, Paris out of the path of the invading German armies.

August 30th 1914

Pacific, Samoa: Troops from New Zealand occupy German Samoa in the Pacific Ocean.
Air War, France: Paris becomes the first capital city to suffer aerial bombing as a lone German Taube monoplane drops four small bombs and propaganda leaflets.

September 2nd 1914

Western Front, France: The German First and Second Armies, which are by now seriously overstretched, reach the River Marne less than forty miles from Paris. The Germans are able to cross the river and get even closer to the French capital, within twenty miles, before General Joffre orders a major French counter-attack on September 4th.

September 3rd - 11th 1914

Eastern Front, Galicia: The Austro-Hungarian offensive against the Russians crumbles as the Russian Fifth Army drives a wedge between the Austro-Hungarian First and Fourth Armies at the Battle of Rava Ruska. The Austro-Hungarians are routed and forced to retreat some 100 miles to the Carpathian Mountains, allowing the Russians to capture Lemberg and take control of the entire Galicia province. The failure of the Galician campaign, which has cost Austria-Hungary some 350,000 casualties, convinces the German high command that their ally is not up to the task of fighting a modern industrial war. As more Russian attacks are planned, Austria-Hungary becomes increasingly dependant on German military assistance.

September 5th - 9th 1914

Western Front, France: The Schlieffen Plan fails as the German advance into France is halted at the First Battle of the Marne, in which the French and British attack the advancing German armies right along the front from Paris to Verdun. The first phase of the battle, known as the Battle of the Ourcq, sees the newly formed French Sixth Army under General Joseph Gallieni attack the open right flank of the German First Army. General Kluck is able to avoid a collapse of that flank thanks to the aggressive response of his local commander, General Hans von Gronau, to the French attacks. Kluck believes that Gallieni's assault is a diversion and refuses Gronau's requests for reinforcement, preferring instead to keep pushing forward against the BEF. It is not until September 7th that Kluck realises that a genuine French offensive is underway, pulling his forces back over the Marne to face the attacking Sixth Army, which is now under the command of General Michel Maunoury. Gallieni returns to Paris to resume his role as military governor, organinsing the transport of reinforcements to the frontline using the city's fleet of taxicabs.

September 6th - 10th 1914

Western Front, France: As the Battle of the Ourcq continues to rage to the west. The BEF opens the second crucial phase of the First Battle of the Marne by attacking into a widening gap that has opened up between the German First and Second Armies. The French Fifth Army, now led by General Franchet d'Esperey, also exploits the gap and then swings east to attack the right flank of the German Second Army. General Bülow responds to this attack, known as the Battle of the Two Morins, by pulling back this flank and realigning it to face westwards, further widening the gap. The BEF crosses the Marne on September 9th and is soon in a position where it can threaten the German First Army's rear.
Western Front, France: The French Ninth Army under General Ferdinand Foch launches the third phase of the Marne offensive by attacking the left flank of the German Second Army. The Saxon troops of Hausen's German Third Army attack Foch's right wing at the same time, causing him to break off his attack and pull the Ninth Army back to defensive positions which, despite their best efforts, the Germans are unable to crack. Foch telegraphs his situation to Joffre with the message: "My centre is falling back. My right retreats. Situation excellent. I attack!".
Western Front, France: To the east of Foch, General Langle de Cary's French Fourth Army opens the next phase of the Marne offensive by attacking Duke Albrecht's German Fourth Army, an engagement known as the Battle of Vitry-le-François. The French are quickly counter-attacked but hold the front successfully against Albrecht's vicious assaults for three days.
Western Front, France: The final phase of Joffre's Marne offensive opens with an attack by the rejuvinated French Third Army, now commanded by General Maurice Sarrail, against Crown Prince Wilhelm's German Fifth Army at the eastern extreme of the Marne front, around Verdun and the Argonne Forest. The Crown Prince launches his own attack at the same time, however, resulting in fierce fighting and very nearly a German breakthrough. Sarrail is only just able to hold the French line.
Western Front, France/Germany: As the First Battle of the Marne plays out to the west, fierce fighting continues along the Franco-German border in Alsace and Lorraine. The German Sixth and Seventh Armies launch powerful attacks against the French First and Second Armies on September 4th but the French are able to hold them back and prevent a breakthrough. The German attacks are called off on September 10th and the frontline between Verdun and the Swiss border begins to settle down.

September 7th - 17th 1914

Balkan Front, Serbia: General Oskar Potiorek commands a second Austro-Hungarian invasion of Serbia. His troops are able to cross the Drina River and hold off the counter-attacks launched by Marshal Putnik's Serbian forces. After ten days of fighting the Serbs are short of supplies so Putnik pulls them back to positions around Belgrade.

September 8th 1914

Western Front, France: The Chief of the German General Staff, General Helmuth von Moltke the Younger sends a subordinate officer, Lieutenant Colonel Richard Hentsch, to assess Germany's military situation at the ongoing First Battle of the Marne, particularly the state of the First and Second Armies, which risk being rolled up from the flanks by the BEF and French Fifth Army. General Bülow is already planning to withdraw the Second Army from the Marne.

September 9th 1914

Western Front, France: Moltke concurs with General Bülow and Lieutenant Colonel Hentsch that the German Second Army should retreat from the Marne and set up a better defensive position further north. General Kluck is ordered to do the same with the First Army, which soon begins to fall back from its positions east of Paris. Soon the Third, Fourth and Fifth Armies are ordered to withdraw as well, with all five German armies digging in along a new line stretching from Noyon, a town of the River Oise some fifty miles north of Paris, along the valley of the River Aisne to Verdun. The German retreat to the Aisne is greeted as a major victory in Britain and France. Although the German army remains far from defeated, its invasion of France has ended in failure and Germany must now face the situation it was trying to avoid, a war on two fronts.
Western Front, Belgium: King Albert launches a brief Belgian attack against the German forces around Antwerp, prompting the Kaiser to order the immediate capture of the city. Extra German reinforcements and heavy artillery pieces are brought in over the next month while British naval infantry arrives in Antwerp's port to support the Belgian garrison.

September 9th - 14th 1914

Eastern Front, East Prussia: Hindenburg's German Eighth Army in East Prussia inflicts a decisive defeat on Rennenkampf's Russian First Army at the Battle of the Masurian Lakes, forcing the Russians to withdraw from German territory altogether. The Russians have lost 150 artillery pieces and suffered 125,000 casualties. German losses are at around 40,000.

September 11th 1914

Pacific, New Guinea: Australian forces invade the German colony in New Guinea. The conquest is completed ten days later.

September 14th 1914

Politics, Germany: Erich von Falkenhayn replaces Helmuth von Moltke as Chief of the German General Staff after the latter suffers a nervous breakdown.

September 15th - 18th 1914

Western Front, France: General Joffre is keen to keep up the pressure on the Germans following the successes of the Marne and orders the British and French armies to attack the new German defensive line on the River Aisne, with the BEF leading the charge against the German-held Chemin des Dames Ridge between Soissons and Craonne. The Battle of the Aisne results in deadlock as the attackers find themselves unable to dislodge the entrenched Germans from their positions. Joffre calls off the offensive on September 18th and the British and French begin to dig in themselves, sowing the seeds for what will soon evolve into trench warfare.

September 17th 1914

Politics, Australia: During an election campaign speech. Prime Minister Andrew Fisher of Australia proclaims that his country will support Britain "to the last man and the last shilling".

September 17th - 27th 1914

Eastern Front, Galicia: With the Russian threat to East Prussia eliminated, the German commanders in the east, Hindenburg and Ludendorff, begin transporting forces by rail to support the Austro-Hungarians, who are still reeling from the loss of Galicia. The Germans also correctly believe that the Russians are planning to launch an attack from Galicia into Silesia, one of Germany's key mining and industrial regions. The German troop transfer is both quick and efficient, allowing for the formation of the Ninth Army under Hindenburg's command near Cracow to guard against any further encroachment upon German territory by Russian forces.

September 18th 1914

Western Front, France: As the Battle of the Aisne degenerates into stalemate, the opposing armies on the Western Front give up frontal assaults and instead attempt a series of manoeuvres to find each-other's open flank. Over the following month, the French will attempt to exploit the German right flank whilst the Germans do the same on the French left. Neither side gains any advantage and the flanking moves only serve to extend the front northwards through Picardy and Artois towards the Belgian border and the coast beyond, a process which becomes known as the "Race to the Sea".

September 19th - 20th 1914

Western Front, France: Artillery from the German Third Army bombards the cathedral city of Rheims, which the French have recently recaptured following the German retreat to the Aisne. The shelling causes extensive damage to the ancient city and its Medieval cathedral, the former coronation venue for the Kings of France. British and French propagandists quickly seize upon this perceived act of cultural vandalism, claiming that the Germans are out to destroy all traces of western civilization and must be stopped.

September 22nd 1914

Naval War, North Sea: The German submarine U-9 sinks the British cruisers Aboukir, Hogue and Cressy in quick succession off the Dutch coast, resulting in the loss of 1400 British sailors and a major blow to British naval prestige.
Naval War, Indian Ocean: The German light cruiser SMS Emden, which has been operating in the Indian Ocean since August 22nd, bombards British oil facilities at the Indian port of Madras.
Air War, Germany: Four Tabloid aircraft from the Royal Naval Air Service launch the first British air raid on Germany, dropping bombs on the Zeppelin facilities at Cologne and Düsseldorf.

September 22nd - 26th 1914

Western Front, France: The French manage to repel a series of German attacks against Verdun but are forced to withdraw from St Mihiel to the south, creating the St Mihiel salient which the Germans will hold until 1918.
Western Front, France: The Race to the Sea continues with bloody fighting at the Battle of Picardy. Casualties are severe on both sides but neither is able to gain an advantage. As a result of this battle, the Western Front is extended northwards from Noyon, with the frontline crossing the River Somme between the towns of Péronne and Albert, east of Amiens.

September 27th 1918

Western Front, France: General Falkenhayn opens the next phase of the Race to the Sea by ordering his commanders to attack the left flank of the French front north of the Somme. The Battle of Artois results in yet another stalemate due to the quick transfer of French reinforcements to the left flank by Joffre, which block the German attacks. The battle ends on October 10th, with the Western Front having been extended even further north to the River Lys near the Belgian border.

September 28th 1914

Eastern Front, Poland: Despite being outnumbered by sixty divisions to nineteen, Hindenburg's German Ninth Army on the Eastern Front launches an offensive towards the River Vistula into Russian-controlled Poland with the aim of capturing Warsaw.

October 6th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: The British and Belgian forces defending Antwerp are now close to being cut off by the surrounding Germans, who began siege operations against the city on September 28th. It is decided to evacuate the Belgian field army from the city so that it can be better used elsewhere. The evacuation is completed by October 8th, with King Albert and his government being taken out by sea and dropped off further down the Belgian coast between the ports of Oostend and Zeebrugge. The Belgian army leaves by land and heads westwards along the coast, hoping to meet the Western Front as it continues to extend north.

October 9th 1914

Eastern Front, Poland: Hindenburg's German Ninth Army reaches the River Vistula south of Warsaw, the provincial capital of Russian Poland. The German offensive loses momentum and comes to a stop three days later, having been met by increasingly stiff Russian resistance.

October 10th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: The remnants of the Antwerp garrison surrender themselves and the city to the Germans.
Politics, Romania: King Carol I of Romania dies and is succeeded by his nephew Ferdinand. The new King, influenced by his British wife Marie (a granddaughter of Queen Victoria), enters into a secret agreement with Russia which will guarantee territory for Romania if Russia wins its war against Germany and Austria-Hungary.

October 13th 1914

Home Front, United Kingdom: The first troops from the Canadian Expeditionary Force reach Europe, landing in Britain at the port of Plymouth.

October 14th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: The BEF, having been transferred to Belgium from the Aisne sector in order to be closer to its supply ports on the northern French coast, moves into West Flanders and begins to take up positions around the Medieval market town of Ypres. The Germans had entered Ypres on October 7th but left on the following day in order to regroup east of the town for a major offensive, allowing the British to move in and plug one of the last gaps in the Western Front.

October 16th 1914

Home Front, New Zealand: The New Zealand Expeditionary Force sets sail for Europe from Wellington, having been delayed while waiting for the arrival of an adequate British naval escort.

October 17th 1914

Home Front, Australia: 20,000 troops set sail from Australia, heading for Europe.

October 18th - 28th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: Field Marshal Sir John French orders the BEF to advance southeast from Ypres towards Menin and Lille. This move has been anticipated by the Germans, who have already begun a slow advance west towards the Channel ports of Dunkirk, Calais and Boulogne. Despite Falkenhayn's rushing of reinforcements to the Ypres sector, the British and French are able to hold off the German advance. General Sir Douglas Haig's British I Corps launches a counter-attack on October 19th, beginning the First Battle of Ypres. The attacks are hindered by the wet Autumn weather and the stubborn German defence of the ridges which overlook Ypres from the east and south.
Western Front, Belgium: North of Ypres, the Belgian army, with French support, secures the northernmost sector of the front against the Germans at the Battle of the Yser. Having completed their withdrawal from Antwerp, the Belgians struggle to hold the line of the Yser Canal between Ypres and the coast before taking the decision to inundate the entire area. On King Albert's orders the sluice gates at Nieuwpoort are opened on October 26th, flooding the low-lying Flanders countryside and bringing the German advance along the coast to a standstill.

October 20th 1914

Naval War, North Sea: The British Giltra becomes the first merchant ship to be sunk by a submarine. The crew of U-17, abiding by the established rules of submarine warfare, intercept the ship off the coast of Norway, board her, evacuate the crew and then scuttle her.

October 23rd 1914

Middle East, Mesopotamia: As the Ottoman Empire edges closer towards an alliance with Germany, British-led Indian troops sail from Bahrain and land in the Ottoman province of Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). The initial British attacks are limited but nevertheless sufficient to evict the Ottomans from southern Mesopotamia and push towards Basra, which lies near the confluence of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers.
Politics, Romania: The government of Romania closes its borders to all German traffic, preventing vital German supplies from reaching the Ottoman Empire by land.

October 29th 1914

Naval War, Black Sea: The government of the Ottoman Empire announces that it is entering the war on the side of Germany and Austria-Hungary. The announcement is immediately followed-up with a naval bombardment of the Russian Black Sea ports of Odessa, Sevastopol and Theodosia by the Ottoman fleet, which includes the former German vessels Goeben and Breslau.
Western Front, Belgium: The First Battle of Ypres enters its bloody second phase as the Germans, who have been building up their forces for a major attack, go onto the offensive in Flanders. Knowing that this is their last chance to break through the enemy forces and capture the French Channel ports which are so vital to British operations on the continent, the German high command throws the Fourth and Sixth Armies against the exposed British frontline which now forms a vulnerable salient around Ypres. The intense fighting continues for almost a month with German forces gaining more valuable high ground but failing to crack the British line. Many of the German dead are enthusiastic but semi-trained student volunteers, leading the German media to refer to the battle as the "Massacre of the Innocents".

October 30th 1914

Politics, United Kingdom: Prince Louis of Battenberg resigns from his post as Britain's First Sea Lord, citing difficulties arising from his close blood ties to the Germans.

November 1st 1914

Politics, Russia: Russia declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
Naval War, Pacific Ocean: A German cruiser squadron commanded by Admiral Graf Maximilian von Spee defeats Vice Admiral Sir Christopher Craddock's Royal Navy squadron off the coast of central Chile, near the city of Coronel. The British are fearful that Spee will soon move his ships into the South Atlantic, threatening their commerce routes. A new Royal Navy squadron of stronger ships under Vice Admiral Sir F.D. Sturdee is sent south to intercept him.

November 2nd 1914

Naval War, North Sea: The United Kingdom begins a naval blockade of Germany, which will remain in place until well after the war.
Caucasus Front, Armenia: The Russian I Caucasian Corps launches an invasion of the Ottoman province of Armenia but is repulsed by an Ottoman counter-attack on November 11th.

November 3rd - 5th 1914

Africa, German East Africa: German colonial forces in East Africa, commanded by General Paul Emil von Lettow-Vorbeck, defeat an amphibious assault by a numerically superior British army against the German-held port of Tanga. The Battle of Tanga marks the start of a four-year guerrilla campaign by Lettow-Vorbeck's forces, which consist a few German companies and large numbers of local troops, known as askaris. Despite receiving little aid or reinforcement from Germany, Lettow-Vorbeck is able to tie down increasingly large numbers of British and Empire troops in East Africa throughout the course of the war.

November 5th 1914

Politics, United Kingdom: The United Kingdoms declares war on the Ottoman Empire.
Politics, France: France declares war on the Ottoman Empire.

November 5th - 30th 1914

Balkan Front, Serbia: Austro-Hungarian troops in Serbia launch a renewed offensive against the Serbian defensive positions around Belgrade. The Serbs are able to hold off the attacks until ammunition and supplies begin to run low. Marshal Putnik is eventually obliged to conduct an orderly retreat.

November 8th 1914

Espionage, United Kingdom: The British Admiralty forms the decoding unit known as Room 40, which becomes the hub of Britain's intelligence-gathering operations.

November 9th 1914

Naval War, Indian Ocean: In an intense one-on-one encounter in the Indian Ocean, the Australian light cruiser HMAS Sydney destroys the German light cruiser SMS Emden. This is the Royal Australian Navy's first single-ship engagement.

November 10th 1914

Far East, China: Japan secures the surrender of the German garrison at Tsingtao, concluding a siege which began on August 27th.

November 11th 1914

Politics, Ottoman Empire: Sultan Mehmed V of the Ottoman Empire declares a Jihad (holy war) against Britain, France and Russia.

November 11th - 25th 1914

Eastern Front, Poland: The German Ninth Army, now led by General August von Mackensen following Hindenburgs recent promotion to overall commander on the Eastern Front, launches another German offensive into Russian Poland. Mackensen aims to drive a wedge between the Russian First and Second Armies near the city of Łódź and defeat each one in turn. The Germans overwhelm Rennenkampf's First Army and surround the Second before falling victim to a swift Russian counter-attack. General Reinhard von Scheffer-Boyadel's German XXV Reserve Corps is surrounded but manages to break out of the Russian encirclement, capturing 16,000 prisoners and 60 guns in the process. The offensive ends indecisively but the initiative remains with the Germans, who have thwarted the Russian plan to invade Silesia. German casualties in the offensive number 35,000 while the Russians have lost at least three times that number.

November 23rd 1914

Middle East, Mesopotamia: British Indian forces in Mespotamia capture the southern port of Basra from the Ottomans.

November 24th 1914

Western Front, Belgium: The First Battle of Ypres comes to an end with the Germans having failed to either capture Ypres or break through to the French Channel ports. The British have secured the ports, which are vital for their supplies and reinforcements, but the battles of 1914 have all but destroyed the pre-war regular British army. Territorial and colonial troops are already being called upon to make up the British losses until Kitchener's volunteers complete their training. The Western Front now stretches uninterrupted from the Belgian coast at Nieuwpoort all the way to the Franco-Swiss border near Belfort. French industry has been dealt a serious blow, with 40% of France's coal mines, 64% of its iron ore deposits and 24% of its steel industries being located inside the areas now occupied by the Germans. Both sides continue to strengthen and consolidate their current positions, which will eventually become highly elaborate and extensive defence systems.

December 1st 1914

Caucasus Front, Armenia: The Russians capture the Armenian towns of Sarai and Batumi from the Ottomans.

December 2nd 1914

Balkan Front, Serbia: Austro-Hungarian forces occupy Belgrade.

December 3rd - 9th 1914

Balkan Front, Serbia: Marshal Putnik's Serbian army, now resupplied with ammunition from France, launches a major offensive against the Austro-Hungarian forces inside Serbia. The assault is a major victory for the Serbs, who rout the Austro-Hungarians at the Battle of Kolubra and push them off Serbian territory. As the Serbs retake Belgrade, the humiliated General Oskar Potiorek is removed from his command by the Austro-Hungarian General Staff and replaced by Archduke Eugene. Austria-Hungary has suffered some 230,000 casualties in the Serbian campaign since September, a loss rate of roughly 50%. Serbian castualties total 170,000.

December 8th 1914

Naval War, Atlantic Ocean: Admiral Spee's squadron of German cruisers, having moved into the South Atlantic following their victory at Coronel, attempts to attack the British coaling and communications facilities at Stanley on the Falkland Islands. However, Spee is unaware of the presence of Vice-Admiral Sir F.D. Sturdee's Royal Navy squadron, which had reached the Falklands two days earlier, and is taken by surprise. The Germans attempt to withdraw but the faster and more heavily-armed British ships, led by the dreadnought battleships HMS Inflexible and HMS Invincible, give chase and attack. The German squadron is decimated, with Spee and nearly 2000 other German sailors lost aboard the four ships sent to the bottom: Spee's flagship SMS Scharnhorst, SMS Gneisenau, SMS Nürnberg and SMS Leipzig. The light cruiser SMS Dresden is the only German ship to escape.

December 14th 1914

Western Front, France/Belguim: The British and French armies on the Western Front launch a general offensive along the front from the North Sea to Verdun in one last effort to break through the German defences before the onset of Winter brings an end to the campaigning season. Although the British and French outnumber the Germans, who have transferred large numbers of men to the Eastern Front, their commanders have underestimated the growing strength of the German trench systems and the excellent fighting quality of the German army. Most of the fighting peters out by December 24th, with little progress having been made, once the commanders at last realise that achieving a quick victory is now impossible. Only in the Champagne region, where the French have made moderate gains at the expense of huge casualties, does the fighting go on over the Winter months.

December 16th 1914

Naval War, North Sea: Battlecruisers from the German High Seas Fleet, having been carrying out minelaying operations in the North Sea since early November, bombard the towns of Scarborough, Whitby and Hartlepool on the east coast of England, causing the first deaths on British soil from enemy action in the war. There are 137 fatalities, mostly civilians.

December 18th 1914

Middle East, Egypt: In order to protect its valuable strategic position in the Mediterranean and Middle East from Ottoman aggression, the United Kingdom declares a protectorate over Egypt and British troops soon begin to move in to protect the Suez Canal. The security of the canal is vital to the British as it provides them with easy access to both India and the oil-producing regions around the Persian Gulf.

December 21st 1914

Caucasus Front, Armenia: Ottoman forces commanded by Enver Pasha lauch a major offensive against the Russians in Armenia and the Caucasus, forcing three Russian divisions to retreat by the end of the year.

December 25th 1914

Western Front, Belgium/France: An unofficial ceasefire known as the Christmas Truce takes place between British and German troops on some sectors of the Western Front. Men from both sides meet in no man's land (the area of exposed open ground that separated the trenches of both sides) to fraternise, bury the dead, exchange gifts and play football. The fraternisations continue for up to a week in some places until the military authorities on both sides order a stop to it.

December 29th 1914

Caucasus Front, Armenia: Russian forces in the Caucasus region, commanded by General Illiarion Ivanovich Vorontsov-Dashkov, repel an Ottoman attempt to capture the town of Kars at the Battle of Sarikamish, which concludes on January 2nd. The Ottoman troops are ill-equipped for a Winter campaign and suffer heavy losses in the fighting.

Napoleon and the Reshaping of Europe

2011-09-16T19:15:00.000+01:00

"I wished to found a European system, a European Code of Laws, a European judiciary: there would be but one people in Europe."
(Napoleon Bonaparte)

This particular quote from Napoleon's memoirs, written during his final exile, pretty much sums up the motives that drove him during his years of power and would certainly sound familiar to anyone clued up on the workings of the modern European Union. Between 1799 and 1815 this diminutive son of a Corsican courtier changed Europe almost beyond recognition. Rising through the ranks of the French army and navigating through the political chaos of the French Revolution, Napoleon became First Consul and later Emperor of the French, abolishing the unstable First French Republic but at the same time retaining the core revolutionary principles which had been behind its creation. Utilising his almost peerless skills as a military commander, the Emperor proceeded to expand those principles across Europe, plunging the continent into a state of almost continuous war for two decades.

As French power and influence spread to an extent that the old monarchs of the Ancien Régime could only have dreamed of, Napoleon swept aside old enemies and old institutions, replacing the latter with French revolutionary institutions and setting up new states based along French revolutionary lines. Napoleon came close to achieving his goal of becoming a modern day Julius Caesar but in the end he overstretched himself, allowing a coalition of enemy powers to defeat and overthrow him. His downfall would allow for the return of the deposed Bourbon monarchy but that arrangement, contrived by his foreign opponents, would ultimately fail to sweep away the changes that he and his revolutionary predecessors had introduced. The reforms of Napoleon and his empire had shaken the old institutions of Europe to their foundations and paved the way for the eventual emergence of recognizably modern nation states.

Background

Napoleon was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in 1769. Hailing from the Mediterranean island of Corsica, Napoleon's family was of old Italian gentry stock (the island had been transferred to France from the Republic of Genoa in the year before his birth) and his father, Carlo served as the Corsican representative at the court of the ill-fated French King Louis XVI. It was not until Napoleon was in his early twenties that he changed his name to the more French-sounding Napoléon Bonaparte.

Despite the general lack of opportunities for self-advancement in Corsica at the time, Napoleon's background opened doors for him and in January 1779 he moved to a religious school in mainland France in order to better learn the French language. Five months later he transferred to a military academy where he studied hard and earned praise from his teachers, with one obsever suggesting that he would make a good sailor. In 1784 Napoleon's naval ambitions ended when he moved on to the elite École Militaire in Paris and studied to become an artillery officer. Despite having to complete the two-year course in a single year (he was left with a reduced income after the death of his father), he become the first Corsican ever to graduate from the institution, passing out in September 1785. Napoleon became a commissioned second lieutenant in the La Fère artillery regiment and spent the first four years of his army career alternating various undramatic garrison duties with extended periods on leave in Corsica and Paris.

The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 changed the young Napoleon's life just as much as it changed the course of French history. As France was swept by turmoil and the entire population seemed to be losing their heads (some more literally than others), Napoleon found himself in the midde of a complex struggle between royalists, revolutionaries and Corsican nationalists. Supporting the revolutionary Jacobin faction, he was promoted to lieutenant colonel and commanded a band of volunteers. In 1792, as the revolution intensified and the former Louis XVI met his undignified end at the hands of Madame Guillotine, Napoleon somehow earned himself a promotion to captain despite having exceeded his period of leave and even led a riot against a French army. He and his family were forced to flee to the French mainland in June 1793 after a falling-out with the Corsican nationalist leadership.

It did not take long for Napoleon to come to the attention of the revolutionary authorities. Augustin Robespierre, younger brother of Maximilien, was a keen supporter and used his contacts to get Napoleon appointed as artillery commander at the siege of Toulon, where the army of the newly-established French Republic was struggling to dislodge the British troops who had landed there in aid of the town's anti-revolutionary population. Napoleon concocted a plan to capture a nearby hill which would allow the Republican guns to dominate Toulon's harbour and force the British supply ships to withdraw. Napoleon was wounded during the operation but the hill was won and with it the siege. That victory earned him yet another promotion, making him a brigadier general at the age of just 24.

Napoleon's ascendancy was threatened only by the downfall of the Robespierres and he spent a period under house arrest following the downfall of the brothers in 1794. Fortunately for him he was returned to favour and took part in an unsuccessful attempt to recapture Corsica from the British. His next posting was to the Vendée region, where the Army of the West was dealing with a royalist counter-revolution. Napoleon saw this infantry command as a demotion and did everything he could to get out of it, pleading poor health and seeking a transfer to Constantinople where he might serve the Ottoman Sultan. His refusal to take up his Vendée command led to him being struck from the list of generals in regular service, leaving him with dire financial and career prospects.

A royalist uprising against the National Convention broke out in Paris in October 1795 and this provided the sidelined Napoleon with a path to redemption. Realising that artillery would be the key to holding off the mob, Napoleon's troops seized the guns they needed to protect the Convention at the Tuileries Palace. Over 1400 royalists died and the rest fled, crushing the rebellion and catapulting Napoleon to national fame. The young general was appointed Commander of the Interior and given command of the French Army of Italy. On March 11th 1796, two days after his marriage to Joséphine de Beauharnais, Napoleon left Paris to take up his new command.

The First Napoleonic Campaigns

Napoleon led his army on a successful invasion of northern Italy, an area which was heavily contested between France and Habsburg Austria. He drove the Austrians out of Lombardy and proceeded to subdue the Papal States but, despite the prevailing attitude of atheism in Revolutionary France, decided that it would not be a good idea to forcibly dethrone the Pope and evict the Catholic Church from Rome (he feared that doing to would create a power vacuum to be exploited by the Kingdom of Naples). In March 1797 Napoleon changed strategy and attacked Austria directly, forcing the Habsburgs to sue for peace. The Treaty of Leoben gave France control of northern Italy and the Austrian Netherlands (modern Belgium) whilst secretly promising the Venitian Republic to the Habsburgs. Napoleon reneged on that last part of the agreement and captured Venice for France as well, ending more than 1000 years of its independent existence.

Napoleon's successes in the Italian campaign marked his transition into a truly great military leader. The Army of Italy fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles thanks to superior artillery and the novel tactics used by Napoleon. 150,000 prisoners and more than 500 cannon were captured during the campaign. Despite his successes and tactical innovations, namely his mastery of deception and espionage on the battlefield, the young general was initially modest about his achievements and claimed that he was merely continuing the battlefield traditions of past military heroes. He described his tactics thus:

"I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning. Look at Caesar; he fought the first like the last."

Napoleon's profile back home in France continued to grow at a rate almost as fast as his victory tally. Even while he was still away in Italy, he was becoming increasingly influential in French politics, thanks in part to the two newspapers he had founded and put into circulation both among his troops and among the civilian population. Discontented royalists were already voicing their concerns about Napoleon's intentions, criticising him and his army for looting Italy and even going so far as to suggest that he might become a dictator. In September 1797 Napoleon responded to these attacks by sending troops to Paris, purging the royalists and concentrating executive power in the hands of the republican camp. This new government was effectively dependent on the backing of Napoleon, who managed to come out smelling of roses in the aftermath of the coup d'état. After negotiating a renewed peace with Austria, the terms of which granted yet more territory and shifted France's eastern frontier to the banks of the River Rhine, Napoleon returned to Paris a national hero.

Next on the French military's agenda was a plan to deal with the old enemy, Great Britain. Napoleon collaborated with the French foreign minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, in planning an invasion of England but, after two months of brainstorming, the former concluded that France's naval strength was not yet sufficient to challenge the might of the British Royal Navy, which would have to be overcome for any invasion to succeed. Napoleon instead proposed a military expedition to take control of Egypt, thereby establishing a French presence in the Middle East and disrupting Britain's access to her vital trading interests in India. His plan struck a chord with the French government and they gave it their blessing.

Napoleon's expetitionary force managed to elude the pusuing Royal Navy and arrived in Alexandria on July 1st 1798, having already captured the strategic Mediterranean island of Malta from the Order of the Knights Hospitaller with the loss of just three men (the French-born knights disliked their Prussian Grand Master and had no desire to fight against their fellow countrymen). The French immediately began a successful campaign against the ruling Ottoman Turks and the Mamluks, Egypt's ruling military caste. After perfecting his tactics at the Battle of Shubra Khit, Napoleon led his army of 25,000 to a great victory against a larger Ottoman/Mamluk force at the Battle of the Pyramids, fought within sight of the famous ancient monuments. Napoleon's victory gave rise to the legend that a French cannon was responsible for blowing the nose off the Sphinx, although there is evidence which proves that the nose was missing well before 1798, namely sketches drawn by Frederic Louis Norden in the late 1730s.

Napoleon Before the Sphinx by Jean-Léon Gérôme

Napoleon's successes in Egypt brought him close to achieving his ambitious plans for the Middle East but his efforts were ultimately undone by the British, who were not intending to stand by and watch this French upstart threaten their interests. On August 1st 1798 a British fleet commanded by Admiral Horatio Nelson, who had been shadowing the French expedition across the Mediterranean, located and destroyed Napoleon's ships at the Battle of the Nile. Frustrated by the British and Egyptian uprisings against the French occupation, Napoleon moved his army north into the Ottoman province of Damascus (modern day Syria and Galilee).

Throughout early 1799 several coastal towns in the Damascus province were captured, including Haifa, Jaffa, Arish and Gaza. The assault on Jaffa was particularly brutal, with Napoleon ordering the execution of over 1400 prisoners after it was discovered that many of the town's defenders had been captured by the French before (Napoleon viewed their return to action as something of a parole violation). By this stage, the French army was being weakened by disease and supply problems, leading to a failure to capture the fortress city of Acre. In May 1799 Napoleon and his men returned to the relative safety of Egypt, struggling to stay ahead of the harassing Ottoman forces who mercilessly tortured and beheaded any unfortunate French stragglers. Upon his return to Egypt in July, Napoleon regained some of his lost pride by repelling an amphibious Ottoman attack at Abukir.

Ruler of France

While away in Egypt, Napoleon used newspapers and dispatches to keep up with events back home in France and elsewhere in Europe. He was dismayed to learn of a continuing series of French defeats at the hands of the Second Coalition and resolved to rectify the situation by returning to France. In August 1799 he took advantage of the British absence and set sail for France, despite having received no orders to do so (such orders had actually been sent but a combinaation of distance and poor lines of communication meant they failed to reach him). By the time Napoleon arrived back in Paris that October, France's military situation had improved but her government was effectively bankrupt, having been almost constantly at war in the decade since the Revolution.

The republican leadership was becoming increasingly unpopular and Napoleon was soon approached by one of its leaders, Emmanuel-Joseph Sieyès, and asked for his support in a plot to overthrow the constitutional government of the First Republic. Napoleon agreed and soon other key figures were on board, including Talleyrand and Napoleon's brother Lucien. On November 9th 1799, Napoleon was charged with the safety of the legislative councils after the plotters spread false rumours about a Jacobin uprising. The following day, the deputies realised that a coup was afoot and attempted to remonstrate with Napoleon, who promptly sent in troops to sieze control and disperse those legislators who opposed the takeover. This left only a rump legislature, which promptly named Napoleon, Sieyès and Roger Ducos (another conspirator) as provisional Consuls in charge of administering the government of France.

In the aftermath of the 1799 coup, it had been expected that Sieyès, as the mastermind behind the whole thing, would be the one to dominate the government. This didn't happen as he ended up being outsmarted and outmanoeuvred by Napoleon. Napoleon drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII, secured his own election as First Consul and took up residence at the Tuileries Palace, the former Paris residence of the Bourbon Kings of France. He was now the undisputed ruler of France but it was not long before he had to get back in the saddle and return to Italy, where the Habsburgs had managed to regain the ascendancy.

In 1800 Napoleon Bonaparte crossed the Alps and arrived back on his old Italian stomping grounds. This second campaign did not begin well as the First Consul made a series of uncharacteristc strategic mistakes, leading to one of his armies being besieged by the Austrians at Genoa. The timely arrival of reinforcements allowed the French to regain the upper hand and they scored a key victory at Marengo, bringing Austria to the negotiating table. Napoleon's brother Joseph led the French delegation but negotiations were frustrated as the Habsburgs, emboldened by British support, refused to recognise the French gains in northern Italy. Napoleon responded with a direct and successful attack against Austria, forcing the Habsburgs to back down. A peace treaty was signed in February 1801, by which Austria recognised the French territorial gains of 1797.

Returning to France, Napoleon set up camp on the Channel coast at Boulogne and began to plan an invasion of Britain. Both countries had grown tired of the war, however, and the British were ready to make peace. Terms were agreed in the 1801 Treaty of Amiens but it was not an easy peace. Britain refused to abandon Malta and continued to criticise the increasingly aggressive French foreign policy, namely Napoleon's annexation of Piedmont (another Italian state) and the creation of a new Swiss Confederation. In May 1803 Britain re-declared war on France and Napoleon's invasion camp was reassembled. Only the continued presence of the Royal Navy prevented the French from being able to cross the English Channel.

Napoleon's Reforms

Beginning during his stint as First Consul, Napoleon initiated a series of lasting reforms, including higher education, a tax code and improved road and sewer systems. In May 1802 the Legion of Honour was introduced, replacing the old royalist decorations and orders of chivalry, as a means of recognising and encouraging civilian and military achievements. The Legion of Honour remains the highest decoration in France to this day. Napoleon himself solidified his grip on power when the Constitution of the Year X was ratified. Article 1 of this new constitution proclaimed Napoleon as permanent ruler of the nation:

"Article 1. The French people name, and the Senate proclaims Napoleon-Bonaparte First Consul for Life"

Napoleon's Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VIII was instrumental in reconciling his regime with the Catholic faith, which had been brutally supressed in France in the years since the Revolution. Roman Catholicism was restored as the majority religion of France but the balance of power between church and state, a highly contentious issue in the years before the Revolution, was decisively redressed in favour of the state. Greater religious toleration was introduced, including the emancipation of both Protestants and Jews. This allowed the religious minorites to leave their ghettos and assimilate into French society, which Napoleon believed would benefit the country as a whole. His accommodating attitude to the Jews in particular drew a mixed reaction at home and abroad, with the Russian Orthodox Church even going so far as to denounce Napoleon as the "Antichrist and the Enemy of God".

The one reform programme that Napoleon as perhaps best remembered for, however, was his introduction of what became known as the Napoleonic Code, something for which he later hoped to remembered more than for his great victories on the battlefield. The Code was based on French Revolutionary principles and, by creating a single clearly-defined set of laws, replaced the old feudal and royal laws which many people found to be confusing and contradictory. Its provisions included the prohibition of all birth-based privileges, establishing merit as the principal qualification for government office, allowing for freedom of religion and making divorce more accessible. Judges were prohibited from refusing justice on the grounds of insufficiency of the law, meaning that they were now required to interpret the law before passing judgement.

This new civic code, introduced in March 1804 and imposed throughout the French Emprire, revolutionised the way in which countries were run and it continues to have relevance today amidst the constitutions of various European, African and American nations. It would go on to make a particularly strong impact in the German and Italian states that fell under Napoleon's influence, sweeping away their outdated feudalism-based systems and setting them on the road to unification and nationhood. With that in mind, the Napoleonic Code played a significant role in the development of both nationalism and the concept of the modern nation state.

Empire and War

The appointment of Napoleon as First Consul certainly helped to stabilise the volatile post-revolution political climate in France but the enemy factions continued their plotting. Napoleon faced several attempts on his life by the royalists and Jacobins between 1799 and 1804. Napoleon's response to the discovery of a Bourbon-sponsored conspiracy in January 1804 was to recreate the hereditary monarchy in France. It would not be the Bourbon pretender Louis XVIII as King, however, but Napoleon as Emperor. This turn of events came as a shock to republicans but Napoleon argued successfully that a Bourbon restoration would be made all but impossible if the Bonapartist succession were entrenched in the constitution. The introduction of the Napoleonic Code reassured the people that the values and principles of the Revolution would be safeguarded under the new regime.

Coronation portrait of Napoleon

On May 18th 1804 the French Senate vested the republican government in the Emperor as head-of-state. On December 2nd, in what was described as a masterpiece of modern propaganda that blended Roman imperial pageantry with legend of Charlemagne, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in the presence of Pope Pius VII at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Although the coronation ceremony had been meticulously planned in advance and carried out to the letter, rumours persisted soon afterwards that Napoleon had snatched the Imperial Crown from the Pope to avoid showing any signs of subjugation to the Holy Father's authority. Six months later, the French conquests in northern Italy were consolidated when Napoleon was crowned King of Italy at Milan Cathedral on May 26th 1805. Eighteen Marshals of the Empire were created from amongst Napoleon's top generals in order to secure the allegiance of the army. Rulers and observers from around Europe followed the events in France with increasing concern. The German composer Ludwig van Beethoven, a longtime admirer of Napoleon, was disappointed by the turn towards imperialism and subsequently scratched his dedication to the new Emperor from his 3rd Symphony.

Napoleon had bigger issues to contend with than brassed off composers, however, for France's enemies were circling and hoped to strange the new empire at birth. By 1805 the British had persuaded both Austria and Russia to join them in a Third Coalition against France, triggering war once again. Napoleon knew that tackling the Royal Navy head-on was never likely to produce a favourable outcome so instead he divised a plan to lure the British fleet out of the channel by breaking the French navy out of its Mediterranean ports (where they were pinned down by a British blockade) and using it to threaten the West Indies. It was hoped that this would lure the bulk of the Royal Navy across the Atlantic, allowing the ships of France and her ally Spain to secure the English Channel for an invasion of Britain. This plan failed, however, as the British reaffirmed their naval supremacy at the Battle of Cape Finisterre. The French fleet scampered away to the Spanish port of Cadiz, ending for good Napoleon's hopes of invading the British Isles.

With his ambitions now limited to continental Europe, Napoleon pulled his army back from the Channel coast and turned east towards Austria and the German states. On October 21st 1805 the French encircled and captured an advancing Austrian army at Ulm in Bavaria, taking 30,000 prisoners. It was a great victory for Napoleon but the good feeling was somewhat soured when news came through that Admiral Nelson and the Royal Navy had inflicted a total defeat on the Franco-Spanish fleet at the Battle of Trafalgar, which took place the day after the events at Ulm. Nelson had been killed but the British were now totally unchallenged at sea. On land, however, they were powerless to stop the Napoleonic military juggernaut, which now stood on the verge of redrawing the political map of Europe.

On December 2nd 1805, the first anniversary of Napoleon's coronation, the Emperor achieved what was perhaps his greatest victory of all. His army, having invaded the Austrian province of Moravia, resoundly defeated a combined Russian and Austrian army at the Battle of Austerlitz, taking Austria out of the war and effectively brininging an end to the Third Coalition. Napoleon commemorated his victory with the construction of the Arc de Triomphe whilst the defeated Habsburgs were obliged to hand over substantial territories and give up the dominant position in Germany that they had enjoyed for centuries. In 1806 the last Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II, abdicated the imperial throne, dissolved the 868-year-old Holy Roman Empire and became Emperor Francis I of Austria, a title which he had created for himself two years previously having anticipated Napoleon's plans for Germany.

Master of Europe

With the Holy Roman Empire gone and Austria now a reluctant ally, Napoleon completely reorganised the German states into a new political entity known as the Confederation of the Rhine. Most of the German sovereignties, including Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse willingly joined this pro-French alliance which streamlined more than a hundred former states into around forty larger ones. The Napoleonic Code was enacted throughout the Confederation and the Emperor himself was named as its honorary Protector, reinforcing the status of its members as French puppet states. They would go on to provide vital troops and materials for Napoleon's future campaigns.

France retained direct control of the German land west of the Rhine whilst a new state, the Kingdom of Westphalia, was established in the area that had been British Hanover. Westphalia was intended as a Napoleonic model state and the Emperor's brother Jérôme Bonaparte was installed as monarch, as per Napoleon's policy of using friends and family members to reinforce his influence around Europe. Joseph Bonaparte, the oldest of the Emperor's brothers, became King of Naples in 1806, further consolidating French control in the Italian peninsula. Another brother, Louis was installed as King of Holland in 1806 and reigned there until 1810 when Holland and a swathe of northern Germany were annexed by France in order to protect the North Sea coast from British incursions.

Despite what he had achieved in Germany, the largest and most powerful German state of all still remained outside Napoleon's sphere of influence. Prussia had rapidly emerged as a significant European power during the previous century and, up until this point, had largely stayed out of Napoleon's business. The defeat of Austria and the shift in the balance of power in central Europe had concerned the Prussians, however, and in 1806 King Frederick William III took Prussia into the Fourth Coalition alongside Britain, Russia, Saxony and Sweden. The well-drilled and professional Prussian army moved south into Saxony, awaiting the inevitable attack from Napoleon and his German allies.

The French army enters Berlin

Napoleon's army defeated the Prussians in a lightning fast campaign, the decisive confrontation being the battle of Jena-Auerstedt on October 14th 1806. Eleven days later the French army entered Berlin, the Prussian capital. Frederick William III and the remnants of his army fled to Königsberg in East Prussia but soon the French were there as well, fighting a number of bloody clashes with Tsar Alexander I's forces near the Russian border. In December, Saxony abandoned the coalition and joined the Confederation of the Rhine, earning it an elevation from electorate to kingdom. The War of the Fourth Coalition was brought to a close in July 1807 when Napoleon made peace with both Russia and Prussia. Prussia was left utterly humilated, losing half of its territory and having to cover the costs of maintaining the French occupation forces. Former Prussian lands in Poland were reorganised into another French puppet state, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which would be ruled by Napoleon's new ally, King Frederick Augustus I of Saxony.

The main outcome of Napoleon's victory against the Fourth Coalition was the creation of the Continental System. This was a French-enforced Europe-wide boycott of British trade, a measure which they hoped would hit the British where it hurts the most and force them to sue for peace. All the nations of mainland Europe, including Britain's defeated coalition partners, were expected to join the system but Portugal refused to comply, triggering another campaign known as the Peninsular War. Napoleon gained Spanish backing for an invasion of Portugal, which took place in 1807. French troops began to occupy Spain itself in February 1808, citing a need to reinforce the country against the British and Portuguese as reason for doing so. Joseph Bonaparte was transferred to Madrid and replaced the Bourbon Charles IV as King of Spain, with Napoleon's brother-in-law Joachim Murat replacing Joseph as King of Naples.

The Spanish army continued to resist the French occupation with some success until Napoleon defeated it and retook Madrid. Much of the Spanish population was also hostile and the Portuguese, now reinforced by British troops, continued to hold out. Before Napoleon was able to finish the job, Austria broke its alliance with France in 1809, forcing the Emperor to leave for Germany. 300,000 of his best men were left behind to deal with the Spanish insurrections and the Anglo-Portuguese army commanded by Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington. Napoleon was able to deal with Austria but the "Spanish Ulcer" drained 70million francs per year from his treasury and gradually ground down his forces in the Iberian peninsula, handing the initiative to the coalition forces.

Elsewhere in Europe, French influence continued to expand. A British attempt to open a second front in Holland was beaten off in late 1809 while the Papal states in Italy were annexed by Napoleon due to the Catholic Church's failure to support the Continental System. Pius VII responded by excommunicating the Emperor, who responded in turn by abducting the ailing pontiff and keeping him in French custody. He would not return to Rome until 1814. Relations with the church were further strained in 1810 when Napoleon divorced his barren wife, Empress Joséphine and married Archduchess Marie Louise of Austria in the hope of fathering a dynastic heir. A son, also named Napoleon, was born in 1811.

Napoleon's French Empire at its greatest extent (1812)

In 1810 the Swedish court, perhaps hoping to curry favour with Napoleon, selected the popular Marshal of France, Jean Bernadotte, to succeed the heirless Charles XIII as King of Sweden. Bernadotte had been a long-time rival of Napoleon but had got away with his indiscretions because he was married to the Emperor's ex-fiancée, Désirée Clary. After some initial reluctance, Napoleon gave his consent to the appointment and Bernadotte became Crown Prince and commander of the Swedish armed forces, eventually becoming King in 1818. The descendants of Bernadotte and Clary continue to occupy the throne of Sweden to this day.

The Turning of the Tide

By the End of 1810 Napoleon was the almost undisputed lord and master of western and central Europe. The only unresolved issue, apart from the ongoing campaign in Spain and Portugal, was what to do about Russia. The Russians were doing everything possible to avoid joining the Continental System and Tsar Alexander I was under increasing pressure from his nobles to break off the alliance with France which had been established after the defeat of the Fourth Coalition. In 1812 the vast Russian army began preparations for an invasion of Poland and perhaps even France itself. When Napoleon got wind of these plans, he went against the pleas of his military advisers and gathered an army of over 450,000 men, drawn from all corners of the empire, for an invasion of Russia.

On June 23rd 1812, Napoleon and his Grande Armée crossed the River Niemen and entered Russia. The Emperor hoped to achieve a quick and decisive victory over the Russians and force them to make peace on his terms but the Russians refused to play ball. The Russian army's notoriously incompetant officer corps had been revitalised in recent years by the importing of decent foreign-born commanders who recognised the need to trade space for time. With this in mind, the Russian armies avoided a confrontation and retreated, drawing the French army deeper and deeper into the vastness of the Russian hinterland. As they pulled back they carried out a textbook scorched-earth policy, denying food and shelter to the advancing enemy whose own supply lines became dangerously overstretched and vulnerable.

On September 7th the Russian army finally stopped to give battle at Borodino, less than 80 miles short of Moscow. The Battle of Borodino was the bloodiest day of fighting in the entire Napoleonic Wars with some 44,000 Russian and 35,000 French casualties. It was something of a victory for Napoleon but it was not the decisive encounter he was looking for. The Russians left the field and continued their retreat in good order, leaving the road to Moscow open. Napoleon's troops entered the city on September 14th and found it to be almost totally abandoned. That same day fires broke out in the city and burned out of control for four days. The cause of Moscow's destruction remains a disputed issue, with some blaming Russian saboteurs and others maintaining that the fires were started accidentally by French troops.

Napoleon's Withdrawal from Russia by Adolph Northen

Napoleon and his army, greatly depleted by death and desertion but still some 100,000 strong, stayed in Moscow for a month but the anticipated peace feelers from Alexander I in St Petersburg never came (Moscow was not the Russian capital at that time). Fearing that that the empire might not hold together for much longer in his absence, Napoleon ordered a retreat and his army left Moscow in mid-October for the long journey home. During the long and painful retreat, the remanants of the once-mighty Grande Armée were constantly harassed by the Russian army and ravaged by the famously unforgiving Russian Winter. Of the 450,000 troops that began the campaign, less than 40,000 managed to make it back to the relative safety of Poland. Napoleon had already left by then, having raced back to France ahead of his army after hearing the news of an attempted coup.

Napoleon's Downfall

Napoleon managed to cling on to power but the catastrophe in Russia had destroyed his aura of invincibilty and left his military clout gravely weakened. There was a lull in the fighting during the first half of 1813 while France and Russia rebuilt their forces but soon Napoleon was forced to face the full might of the Sixth Coalition. Austria and Prussia, seizing the opportunity presented by Napoleon's weakness, broke their alliances with the Emperor and joined with the Russians in a campaign to break French power in Germany. Meanwhile, the British and Portuguese had effectively liberated Spain from French rule and were threatening France from the south. To the north, Crown Prince Bernadotte turned against his former master and brought Sweden into the coalition.

Facing the challenge head-on, Napoleon assumed command in Germany and did initially did well with his rebuilt army, deafeating the coalition at the Battle of Dresden in August 1813. The turning point came in October when the French were pinned down by a much larger coalition force near Leipzig in Saxony. The three-day encounter, known as the Battle of the Nations, was the largest battle in European history prior to the First World War, involving some 600,000 troops. The French fought magnificently but were ultimately overwhelmed by the enemy forces which were led by the most illustrious commanders the coalition had to offer, including Bernadotte, Michael Andreas Barclay de Tolly (Russia), Prince Karl Philipp of Schwarzenberg (Austria) and Gebhard Lebrecht von Blücher (Prussia).

Napoleon and what remained of his army scrambled back to France in preparation for the inevitable invasion. The Confederation of the Rhine crumbled as its member states jumped ship and joined the coalition, leaving France's eastern frontiers vulnerable. In October 1813 Wellington's British army crossed the Pyrenees and invaded southern France. February 1814 saw the main invasion from the east as Russian, Austrian and Prussian forces entered France. In a series of battles known as the Six Days Campaign, Napoleon won several victories but none were significant enough to get him out of the bleak situation he now found himself in. The numerical superiority of the coalition armies prevailed and in March, Paris fell to the Russians.

On April 4th Napoleon was confronted by a delegation of French army leaders, led by Marshal Michel Ney. Napoleon was convinced that the army would carry out his wish to recapture Paris but the generals asserted that the troops would follow their orders rather than his. Without the support of the army. Napoleon had no choice but to abdicate and his wish to do so in favour of his son was firmly rejected by the coalition powers. On April 11th 1814 Napoleon abdicated unconditionally. The Act of Abdication, signed at the palace of Fontainebleau, read:

"The Allied Powers having declared that Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the restoration of peace in Europe, Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even that of his life, which he is not ready to do in the interests of France."

Under the terms of his abdication, Napoleon was banished to the island of Elba in the Mediterranean. In September 1814 the victorious powers met at the Congress of Vienna with the aim of deciding the fate of Napoleon's empire. Territory all over Europe changed hands whilst the Bourbon monarchy of Louis XVIII was restored to France in an attempt to return the continent to a pre-revolutionary footing. The delegates at the Congress may well have believed that they could just sweep aside Napoleon's legacy but the former Emperor was not to remain out of the way for long.

The Last Waltz

During Napoleon's time on Elba, he was separated from his wife and son (both were in Austrian custody) and cut off from the allowance promised to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau. He became aware of rumours that he was about to be moved to a more remote location in the Atlantic and decided to act first. On February 26th 1815 Napoleon escaped from Elba and headed back to France, where he arrived two days later. The 5th Regiment of Foot was sent south to intercept him and the two parties met just south of Grenoble. Napoleon stood before the soldiers and dared them to kill him, to which the soldiers responded by immediately joining his cause. Napoleon's support swelled even more as he headed north towards Paris and he arrived in the capital on March 20th. With Louis XVIII having already fled the country, Napoleon was back in control.

As one might expect, the news of Napoleon's return to power with almost the full backing of the French military and civilian population went down like a lead balloon amongst those at the Congress of Vienna, which was still taking place. The coalition powers declared Napoleon an outlaw and the big four nations; Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia, bound themselves to each put 150,000 men into the field to end his rule for good. By the beginning of June 1815 Napoleon had regrouped his army and planned an offensive campaign that would drive a wedge between the British and Prussian armies that were converging on France from the northeast. The French Army of the North crossed the frontier into the southern Netherlands (modern-day Belgium) and met the Duke of Wellington's Anglo-Dutch army south of Brussels near the village of Waterloo.

The British contingent of Wellington's army consisted mostly of second-line troops as the experienced veterans of the Peninsular War were still in North America following a recently-concluded war against the United States. During the first phases of the Battle of Waterloo, fought on June 18th 1815, the raw British troops held good defensive positions on the wet and muddy terrian and managed to withstand repeated French assaults. Napoleon came close to victory but the arrival of Blücher's Prussian army overwhelmed his right flank and the French army was driven from the field in disarray. The battle, the campaign and Napoleon were finished. Defeated and in poor health, the Emperor abdicated for the second and final time before handing himself over to the British. His return to power had lasted barely a hundred days.

Napoleon had hoped to gain political asylum in Britain but instead he was sent into exile once again, this time to the isolated island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic. Guarded round the clock by British soldiers, the former Emperor spend six years on the island and suffered from increasingly bad health, which he believed was caused by a British attempt to poison him. Napoleon died of stomach cancer, aged 51, on May 5th 1821 and was initially buried on the island. It was not until 1840 that his remains were removed from Saint Helena and returned to France for a full state funeral and internment amongst the nation's other great military heroes at Les Invalides in Paris. Napoleon Bonaparte was gone but the world he left behind, having learnt some important lessons in governance, law and military practice, would never be the same.

English Monarchs: Elizabeth I

2011-08-31T23:31:00.001+01:00

Reign: November 17th 1558 - March 24th 1603

Born: September 7th 1533

Died: March 24th 1603

Father: Henry VIII of England

Mother: Anne Boleyn

Royal House: Tudor