Germany. Arthur Schopenhauer devotes himself to writing his major work: “The World as Will and Representation.” According to Schopenhauer, the world exists only as representation, that is, only in relation to consciousness: “the world is my representation.” This concept, not dissimilar from Kant’s and, curiously,
The treaty the victors signed with defeated France after Napoleon’s abdication forced it to accept territorial sacrifices, but demanded no monetary compensation. Not everyone agreed: Prussia disagreed. But a strong France would have benefited the European balance of power.
War of 1812. The Royal Navy extends its naval blockade from Mississippi to all of New England. The American economy is collapsing, but the Americans are also achieving several military successes on the battlefield. Within weeks, the first proposals for a treaty will be reached.
Napoleon abdicates: first exile, on the island of Elba, the Austrians enter Lombardy and Veneto
The Allies decide to grant Napoleon Bonaparte sovereignty over the island of Elba. Napoleon had even asked to live in England, but the English were not happy with this possibility.
France. Battle of Fere-Champenoise. 50,000 Frenchmen, mostly new recruits, face 200,000 Prussians and Russians, mostly veterans. With the French defeated, the road to Paris is open. Napoleon will realize this only when it is too late.
Napoleon leaves Paris for Chalons where he has his headquarters.
Dresden. 35,000 Napoleonic troops are forced to surrender to the Allies. If Napoleon had brought them with him to Leipzig a month earlier, they could have turned the tide of the crucial battle.
After leaving Leipzig, Napoleon’s army moved very quickly towards France and crossed the Rhine on November 2 with 85,000 men.
Battle of Leipzig. 11:30 PM. The 29th and 45th Russian Chasseurs are very close to the only bridge over the Elster, as Napoleon’s army crosses it. The French have mined the bridge, and the French corporal has been instructed to detonate it as soon as
Battle of Leipzig. 2:00 PM. Napoleon launches his Guard, Drout’s cavalry and artillery, and all his infantry against Kleist and Württemberg’s dwindling battalions.
Battle of Leipzig (or Battle of the Nations). This was the largest battle of the Napoleonic Wars. It led to the French defeat in the German Campaign and the collapse of Napoleonic rule. For the first time, the various anti-Napoleonic powers were simultaneously on the
Leipzig. Even without Bernadotte and Bennigsen, the Allies had 205,000 men at their disposal against Napoleon’s 190,000.
The three army corps of the Swede Bernadotte cross the Elbe to join up with Blucher’s army corps.
Russian commander Chernyshev attacks Kassel, the capital of Westphalia, and overthrows the shaky puppet kingdom of Jérôme Bonaparte. But the focus of the moment is on the concentration of troops around Leipzig.
The first month of war after the truce cost Napoleon 100,000 men and 200 cannons, while the Allies lost 85,000 soldiers and 50 cannons, but were about to receive reinforcements.
Napoleon leaves Dresden. He hasn’t decided yet, but his final destination will be Leipzig.
Even before the armistice expired, blurting out that “it’s time to put an end to the diplomatic antics,” the Prussian Blucher moved his army into Silesia.
The armistice between Napoleon and the sixth (!) anti-Napoleonic coalition is extended by 3 weeks, until August 10th.
Russia. The Duchy of Warsaw establishes the quantities of food to be provided for the Tsarist army: 3,000 tons of flour, 400 tons of ground oats, 250 tons of vodka (!), 330 tons of meat, and 1,000 live cattle. Tsar Alexander will complain about the
Barclay de Tolly replaces Wittgenstein as commander-in-chief of the Russian armies in Europe.
Battle of Bautzen. Evening. Napoleon was deeply disappointed with the outcome of Bautzen: instead of a decisive victory, he had to settle for repelling the Allies with heavy losses on both sides: 13,000 to 25,000 on the French side (depending on the source) and 10,000
Battle of Bautzen. 96,000 Russo-Prussian allies face 180,000 Napoleonic troops. Napoleon has a decisive victory within reach, potentially destructive for the alliance he faces, but Marshal Ney’s mistakes deprive him of it.
Dresden. Allied Prussian and Russian troops fan out across Saxon territory toward Leipzig.
France. Napoleon incredibly manages to reassemble a Grande Armée, but suffers from a shortage of horses. In Russia the year before, he had lost 175,000, and in a few months he had only mustered 29,000.
Russia. Finance Minister Dmitry Guryev, faced with the disastrous Russian finances and enormous public debt, once again turned to Britain for help. This time, instead of requesting a subsidy, he was ordered to present the British government with a proposal for the issuance of “federal
Prussia. As soon as Kaiser Friedrich Wilhelm learns of the Convention of Tauroggen, he publicly denounces it and declares his unwavering loyalty to Napoleon.
Eastern Europe. Dozens of Napoleonic strongholds remain in French hands, besieged by the Russians. Danta is one of the most important. It’s a stalemate because the Russians are on their knees from the winter, too few and too dispersed to mount an effective siege, while
France. Napoleon has already arrived in Paris and has immediately begun building a new Grande Armée. To the amazement of all of Europe, and especially the Russians (who will take much longer to lick their wounds), he succeeds, and by spring he is ready for
Russia. Napoleon leaves his troops safe west of the Berezina and departs for Paris. The remaining troops are commanded by his trusted Murat.
Russia. Troops under the command of the Russian Chichagov managed to capture the gigantic supply depots of Minsk. They would have sustained Napoleon’s Grande Armée for a month.
Russia. Napoleon is already in Gzatsk, where he establishes his headquarters, 230 kilometers from Smolensk, on the main road. On their way there, they must pass through the battlefield of Borodino, where thousands of unburied corpses still lie, exposed to the elements and climatic changes
Napoleon leaves Moscow. With the reinforcements received in recent weeks, his army numbers 100,000. The Guard represents the core of the force, and has practically never seen action. Kutuzov has 63,000 men at his disposal in his army, and 620 cannons, far more than the
Russia. The highest-ranking Russian officer in charge of provisions reports having enough biscuits to feed 120,000 men for just 20 days, that is, until November 6th, and 54,000 hectoliters of oats for the horses.
Tarutino, Russia. Napoleon’s troops, led by Murat, are narrowly defeated by the Russian army in the suburbs of Moscow. Kutuzov will establish his headquarters there.
Moscow. Several fires break out in the city. At the time, they were attributed to Napoleon’s troops, but were likely started by the retreating Tsarist army. Seventy-five percent of Moscow’s buildings were reduced to ashes in six days of fires, costing 270 million rubles, an
Russia. Tsarist commander Barclay is removed and replaced by Mikhail Kutuzov. This represents a significant concession to Russian patriotic sentiment, which the calculating Barclay did not respond to.
Smolensk, Russia. While the Russian commanders hesitate and argue, Napoleon strikes: he concentrates his army at Rasasna, south of the Dnieper, and then attacks Smolensk via Krasnyj. After 30–40 assaults by Murat’s cavalry, the Russians retreat, but in an orderly fashion, from Krasnyj. Smolensk holds.
Smolensk, Russia. The two main Russian armies finally unite: commanders Barclay and Bagration meet.
Peace of Friedrichsham between Russia and Sweden. Russia, after a year of war with the Swedes, takes control of Finland. This was precisely the Tsar’s goal, as he intended to protect the capital, St. Petersburg, from future Swedish aggression.
Abraham Lincoln was born into a pioneer family in Kentucky. His father was a Virginian, but his origins were from Massachusetts. The family soon moved first to Indiana and finally to Illinois.
Joseph Liouville: The volume of any region of phase space must remain constant during any Hamiltonian evolution
The French army in Santo Domingo, led by Rochambeau, reduced to 8,000 men by yellow fever, surrenders to the British fleet.
Russia. Tsar Paul I is assassinated by aristocrats outraged by his arbitrary behavior. The leaders of these aristocrats are the governor of St. Petersburg, Count Peter von der Pahlen.
Germinal Year IV of the Revolutionary Calendar. Cuvier, of the Natural History Museum in Paris, presents the results of an analysis of animal remains found in Siberia (of a mammoth). He concludes that they resemble those of an elephant, but are clearly different. The molars,
In December 1795, the Directory decided to suspend the issuance of checks and paper money (assignats) and to destroy all the equipment used to produce them. A public destruction took place on February 18, 1796, in Place Vendôme in Paris: almost all the assignat printing
Vauquelin analyzes the crushed beryllium crystals. The essential constituents are silica, or silicon dioxide, found in sand, quartz, and amethyst, and alumina, an aluminum oxide also found in rubies and sapphires. But there’s also a new oxide, which, once isolated, tastes sweet, so Vauquelin calls
Danton, Desmoulines and other Indulgents who had proposed the cessation of the Terror were arrested.
In Vendée, a revolt breaks out among citizens who refuse to enlist in the revolutionary army.
The American Constitution is enacted, perhaps the most extraordinary document of political and institutional construction in all of history. It establishes a federal state, with the quartet of powers established by Locke (an executive branch, a bicameral legislature, and a Supreme Court), a single market,
Nails are made with hand-operated machines (previously they were made one by one by hammer blows by blacksmiths)
Spain. Frenchman Pierre-Francoise Chabaneau is hired by the brothers Fausto and Juan Jose Elhuyar (who had already extracted tungsten from wolframite) to extract metallic platinum from the platina ore arriving in large quantities from South America. The 10cm cube (with impurities of osmium and iridium)
The Dutch plenipotentiaries in Paris signed the peace treaty, by which the United Provinces ceded the Nagapattinam base in India to Great Britain and opened trade in the Dutch East Indies (or, at least, the Moluccas) to British ships. After the end of the Fourth
The English colony of Minorca (since 1713) surrenders to the French and Spanish. There are 14,000 English prisoners, most of them suffering from scurvy. A single shipment of lemons could have made the difference.
Caribbean (West Indies). The French under De Grasse besiege and then conquer the English islands of Nevis and Montserrat, and later St. Kitts.
England. King George III proclaims astronomer William Herschel King’s Astronomer. Herschel soon after names the planet Uranus, initially Georgium Sidus (King George’s Star). After passionate debate, and as with Jupiter’s satellites, it is decided to give the new planet a mythological name.
Virginia. Thomas Jeffersson becomes embroiled in the scientific debate over the origin of the strange bones and molars (actually from an American mastodon) found in North America. Jeffersson writes that the notorious American Incognitum is likely a carnivore and is still out there, somewhere, in
London. The government decides not to reinforce troops in North America and to relieve Lord Clinton of his duties. The recognition of American independence is moving closer, although the new British government has not yet made a decision to do so.
New York. The British fleet, with 25 warships and 7,149 soldiers on board, sets sail from New York to rescue Cornwallis at Yorktown (which, however, is just then surrendering to the Americans).