1800s

Events and Trends

- Beginning of the Napoleonic Wars (1803 - 1815).
- Semaphore is adopted by navies.
- United Kingdom founded in 1801

World Leaders

- Emperor Napoleon I (France)
- Emperor Francis II (Holy Roman Empire)
- Pope Pius VII
- Emperor Alexander I (Russia)
- King George III, (United Kingdom)
- President John Adams (United States)
- President Thomas Jefferson (United States) Category:1800s ja:1800年代

Napoleonic Wars

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of wars fought during Napoleon Bonaparte's rule over France. They were partly an extension of conflicts sparked by the French Revolution, and continued during the regime of the First French Empire. These wars revolutionized European army and artillery systems. French power rose quickly, conquering most of Europe; the fall was also rapid, beginning with the disastrous invasion of Russia, and Napoleon's empire ultimately suffered complete military defeat, resulting in the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in France. There is no consensus on when the French Revolutionary Wars ended and the Napoleonic Wars began; the latter are sometimes considered to have begun when Bonaparte seized power in France, in November 1799. Other versions put the period of warfare between 1799 and 1802 in the context of the French Revolutionary Wars, and set the Napoleonic Wars' beginning at the outbreak of war between the United Kingdom and France in 1803, following the brief peace concluded at Amiens in 1802. The Napoleonic Wars ended on 20 November 1815, following Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo and the Second Treaty of Paris. Collectively, the nearly continuous period of warfare from April 20, 1792, until November 20, 1815, is sometimes (though rarely these days) referred to as the Great French War.

Political effects of the wars

Great French War] The Napoleonic Wars brought some great changes upon the face of Europe:
- France was no longer a dominant power in Europe, as it had been since the times of Louis XIV.
- The United Kingdom emerged as the most powerful nation in the world. The Royal Navy held unquestioned naval superiority throughout the world, and the United Kingdom's industrial economy made it the most powerful commercial nation as well.
- In most European countries, the importation of the ideals of the French Revolution (democracy, due process in courts, abolition of privileges, etc.) had left a mark. Even though Napoleonic rule was authoritarian, it was often less authoritarian and arbitrary than that of previous monarchs (or for that matter the Jacobin and Directory regimes of France during the Revolution). European monarchs found it difficult to reinstate pre-revolutionary absolutism, and were forced to keep some of the reforms induced by the occupation. Institutional legacies have remained: for instance, many European countries have a Civil law legal system, with clearly redacted codes compiling the basic laws.
- A new and potentially powerful movement had been sprung: nationalism. Nationalism was to re-shape the course of European history forever. It was the force that spelled the beginning of some nations, and the end of others. The map of Europe was to be re-drawn in the next hundred years following Napoleon's wars, not based on fiefs and aristocracy, but on the basis of human culture, origin, and ideology.
- On the other hand, another concept had been brought about — that of Europe. Napoleon mentioned on several occasions his intention to create a single European state, and, although Napoleon's defeat set the thought of a unified Europe back over one and a half centuries, the European identity was rediscovered following the Second World War.

Military legacy of the wars

The Napoleonic Wars also had a profound military impact. Until the time of Napoleon, European states had employed relatively small armies with a large proportion of mercenaries that sometimes fought for foreign states against their native countries. However, military innovators in the middle of the 18th century began to recognize the potential of a "nation at war". Napoleon was an innovator in the use of mobility to offset numerical disadvantages, as he brilliantly demonstrated in his rout of the Austro-Russian forces in 1805 in the Battle of Austerlitz. The French Army reorganized the role of artillery in warfare, forming independent and mobile artillery units as opposed to the previous tradition of attaching artillery pieces in support of other troop units. Napoleon standardized the cannonball sizes to ensure easier resupply and compatibility among his army's artillery pieces. With the fourth-largest population in the world by the end of the 18th century (27 million, as compared to the United Kingdom's 12 million and Russia's 35-40 million), France was well poised to take advantage of the 'levée en masse'. Because the revolution and Napoleon's reign witnessed the first application of the lessons of the 18th century's wars on trade and dynastic disputes, it is often falsely assumed that such ideas were the fruit of the revolution rather than ideas which found their implementation in it. Not all the credit for the innovations of this period should be given to Napoleon, however. Lazare Carnot played a large part in the reorganization of the French army in 1793–4 — a time in which French fortunes were reversed with Republican armies advancing on all fronts. The sizes of the armies involved give an obvious indication of the change in warfare. During Europe's last major war, the Seven Years War, few armies ever numbered more than 200,000. By contrast, the French army peaked in size in the 1790s when about 1.5 million Frenchmen were enlisted. In total, about 2.8 million Frenchmen fought in the conflict on land, and about 150,000 fought at sea, bringing the total for France to almost 3 million combatants. The United Kingdom had 747,670 men under arms between 1792 and 1815. In addition, about a quarter of a million personnel served in the Royal Navy. Totals for other major combatants are difficult to find, but in September 1812, Russia had about 904,000 enlisted men in its land forces — meaning the total number of Russians that fought must have been in the vicinity of 2 million or more. Austria's forces peaked in number at about 576,000 and had little or no naval forces. After the United Kingdom, Austria was the most persistent enemy of France, and it is reasonable to assume that more than a million Austrians served in total. Prussia never had more than 320,000 men under arms at any given point, only just ahead of the United Kingdom. Spain's armies also peaked in size at around 300,000, but to this we need to add a considerable force of guerillas. The only other nations to ever have more than 100,000 under arms were the Ottoman Empire, Italy, Naples and Poland (not including the United States (286,730 total combatants) or the Maratha Confederation). Even small nations now had armies rivalling the Great Powers of past wars in size. However it is necessary to bear in mind that the above numbers of soldiers are obtained from military records and in practice the actual numbers of fighting men would be below this level due to desertion, fraud by officers claiming non-existent soldiers pay, death and, in some countries, deliberate exaggeration to ensure enlistment targets were met. Despite this there clearly was an expansion in the size of armed forces at this time. The initial stages of the Industrial Revolution had much to do with this — it now became easy to mass-produce weapons and thus equip significantly larger forces. The United Kingdom was the largest single manufacturer of armaments in this period, supplying most of the weapons used by the Allied powers throughout the conflicts (although using relatively few themselves). France was the second-largest producer, arming its own huge forces as well as those of the Confederation of the Rhine and other allies. Another advance which affected warfare was the semaphore system that allowed the war minister Carnot to communicate with French forces on the frontiers throughout the 1790s. This system continued to be used for the whole period of the wars. Additionally, aerial surveillance was used for the first time, when the French used a hot-air balloon to survey Allied positions before the Battle of Fleurus, on June 26, 1794. There were also advances in ordnance and rocketry during the conflict.

The First and Second Coalitions

rocketry in 1799.]] :For a more detailed account, see the French Revolutionary Wars. The first attempt to crush the new French republic was made in 1792-1797 by the First Coalition, which consisted of:
- Austria,
- Piedmont,
- Prussia,
- Spain and
- the United Kingdom. It was defeated by the French efforts, which consisted of general conscription (levée en masse), military reform and total war. Napoleon Bonaparte's Italian campaign in 1796 and 1797 successfully knocked Piedmont out of the war. Piedmont had been one of the original members of the Coalition and had been a persistent threat to the French on the Italian front for four years by the time Bonaparte assumed command of the French Army of Italy. It took Bonaparte only a month to defeat Piedmont and push its Austrian allies back. The Papal forces were defeated by the French at Fort Urban, (forcing Pope Pius VI to sign a provisional peace treaty) and successive Austrian counteroffensives into Italy failed, leading to Bonaparte's entry into Friuli. The war was ended by Bonaparte when the Austrians were forced to accept his terms in the Treaty of Campo Formio. The United Kingdom remained the only power still at war with France by 1797. The Second Coalition (1798-1801) consisted of Russia, the United Kingdom, Austria, the Ottoman Empire, Portugal, Naples and the Papal States. The corrupt and divided French government, under the Executive Directory, was in turmoil, and the Republic was almost broken up and very short of funds (indeed in 1799, when Bonaparte assumed power, he found only 60,000 francs in the national treasury). Russian involvement was also a key change from the War of the First Coalition. Russian forces in Italy were commanded by the notoriously ruthless and militarily successful Alexander Suvorov. The French Republic was also stripped of Lazare Carnot—the war minister who had guided France to successive victories following massive reform during the first war. Furthermore, Bonaparte was involved in an Egyptian campaign with the objective of threatening British India. Stripped of two of its most important military commanders from the previous conflict, the Republic suffered successive defeats against revitalized enemies, brought back into the war by British financial support. After an ill-conceived campaign of Egypt by the French Directory, where 40,000 French troops where ultimately worn out by diseases and English and Ottoman attacks, Bonaparte managed to return to France on August 23rd 1799. He seized control of the French government in November 1799 (the coup of 18 Brumaire), toppling the Directory with the aid of ideologue Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès. The offensive of the Austrian forces on the Rhine and in Italy was a pressing threat to France, but all Russian troops were withdrawn from the front, following Tsarina Catherine II of Russia's death. Napoleon reorganised the French military and created a reserve army positioned to support the efforts either on the Rhine or in Italy. On all fronts, French advances caught Austrians off-guard. At the time, the French army had 300,000 troops fighting the Coalition's forces. In Italy, the situation was reversed by increased Austrian pressure, however, and Napoleon was forced to mobilise the Reserve Army. He clashed with the Austrians at Marengo (June 14, 1800) and would have lost had it not been for General Desaix's timely intervention to turn back the Austrian attacks and defeat them. Desaix died in the battle and Napoleon later commemorated his bravery by building monuments to him and including his name in the list of generals engraved on the face of the Arc de Triomphe. However, on the Rhine the decisive battle came when the French army of 180,000 faced the Austrian army of 120,000 at Hohenlinden (December 3). The Austrians were defeated and temporarily left the conflict after the Treaty of Lunéville (February 1801). Napoleon's main problem was now the United Kingdom, which remained an important influence on the continental powers in encouraging resistance to France. The United Kingdom had brought the second coalition together through subsidies and Napoleon realised that without British defeat or a treaty with the UK there could not be a complete peace. The British army was small and presented little or no threat to France itself, but the Royal Navy was a continuing threat to French shipping and to the French colonies in the Caribbean. Additionally, British funds were sufficient to unite the Great Powers on the continent against France and, despite numerous defeats, the Austrian army remained a potent danger for Napoleonic France. Napoleon was, however, unable to invade Great Britain directly. In the British Admiral Jervis's famous phrase, "I do not say, my Lords, that the French will not come. I say only they will not come by sea". The French fleet was defeated by Admiral Horatio Nelson in the Battle of the Nile (August 1) at Aboukir (Abu Qir), and a French expedition to Ireland was also quickly contained. The Treaty of Amiens (1802) resulted in peace between the UK and France, and marked the final collapse of the Second Coalition. However, the treaty was never likely to endure: neither side was satisfied by it and both sides dishonoured parts of it. Hostilities were renewed on May 18, 1803. The conflict changed over its course from a general desire to restore the French monarchy into an almost manichean struggle against Bonaparte. Bonaparte declared France an empire on May 28, 1804 and crowned himself emperor at Notre-Dame on December 2.

The Third Coalition

December 2 Napoleon planned an invasion of the British Isles, and massed 180,000 troops at Boulogne. However, he needed to achieve naval superiority to mount his invasion, or at least to pull the British fleet away from the English Channel. A complex plan to distract the British by threatening their possessions in the West Indies failed when a Franco-Spanish fleet under Admiral Villeneuve turned back after an inconclusive action off Cape Finisterre. Villeneuve was blockaded in Cádiz until he left for Naples on October 19, but was caught and defeated at the Battle of Trafalgar on October 21 by Lord Nelson. Napoleon had sent nine different plans to Villeneuve and the indecisive French commander hesitated continually. By this time, however, Napoleon had already all but abandoned plans to invade the British Isles, and turned his attention to enemies on the Continent once again. The French army left Boulogne and moved towards Austria. The series of naval and colonial conflicts, including a large number of minor naval actions, such as the Action of 1805, that characterised the months leading up to Napoleon's decision to abort the invasion of Great Britain were perhaps a clear sign of the new nature of war. Conflicts in the Caribbean, and in particular the seizure of colonial bases and islands throughout the wars, would directly and immediately have an effect upon the European conflict and battles thousands of miles apart could influence each other's outcomes. This could be considered a sign that the Napoleonic conflict had reached the point at which it had become a world war. The only precedent for widespread conflict on such a scale was the Seven Years' War. In April 1805, the United Kingdom and Russia signed a treaty to remove the French from Holland and Switzerland. Austria joined the alliance after the annexation of Genoa and the proclamation of Napoleon as King of Italy. The Austrians began the war by invading Bavaria with an army of about 70,000 under Karl Mack von Lieberich, and the French army marched out from Boulogne in late July, 1805 to confront them. At Ulm (September 25 - October 20) Napoleon managed to surround Mack's army by a brilliant envelopment, forcing its surrender without significant losses. With the main Austrian army north of the Alps defeated (another army under Archduke Charles maneuvered inconclusively against André Masséna's French army in Italy), Napoleon occupied Vienna. Far from his supply lines, he was faced with a superior Austro-Russian army under the command of Mikhail Kutuzov, with the Emperor Alexander of Russia personally present. On December 2 Napoleon crushed the joint Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz in Moravia (this is usually considered his greatest victory). He inflicted a total of 25,000 casualties on a numerically superior enemy army while sustaining fewer than 7,000 in his own force. After Austerlitz, Austria signed the Treaty of Pressburg, leaving the coalition. This required the Austrians to give up Venetia to the French dominated Kingdom of Italy and Tyrol to Bavaria. With the withdrawal of Austria from the war, stalemate ensued. Napoleon's army had a record of continuous unbroken victory on land, but the full force of the Russian army had not yet come into play.

The Fourth Coalition

The Fourth Coalition (1806-1807) of the United Kingdom, Prussia, Saxony, Russia and Sweden against France was formed within months of the collapse of the previous coalition. In July 1806 Napoleon formed the Confederation of the Rhine out of the many tiny German states which constituted the Rhineland and most other parts of Germany. Many of the smaller states were amalgamated into larger electorates, duchies and kingdoms to make the governance of non-Prussian Germany a smoother affair. The largest states were Saxony and Bavaria, both of which had their leaders elevated to the status of kings by Napoleon. In August the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III made the decision to go to war independently of any other great power, save the distant Russia. The more sensible course of action would have been to declare war the previous year and join Austria and Russia. This might have contained Napoleon and prevented the Allied disaster at Austerlitz. As it was, the Russian army, an ally of Prussia, was far away when the declaration of war was made. In September Napoleon launched all French forces east of the Rhine. The Prussian army was defeated by Napoleon at Jena and by Davout at Auerstädt (October 14 1806). Some 160,000 (increasing in number as the campaign went on) French went against Prussia and moved with such speed that Napoleon was able to destroy as an effective military force the entire quarter of a million strong Prussian army - which sustained 25,000 casualties, lost a further 150,000 prisoners and 4,000 artillery pieces, and over 100,000 muskets stockpiled in Berlin. In the former battle Napoleon only fought a detachment of the Prussian force. The latter battle involved a single French corps defeating the bulk of the Prussian army. Napoleon entered into Berlin on the 27th and visited the tomb of Frederick the Great, there instructing his marshals to remove their hats, saying, "If he was alive we wouldn't be here today." In total Napoleon had taken only 19 days from beginning his attack on Prussia until knocking it out of the war with the capture of Berlin and the destruction of its principal armies at Jena and Auerstadt. By contrast Prussia had fought for three years in the War of the First Coalition with little achievement. In Berlin, Napoleon issued a series of decrees which, on November 1, 1806 brought the Continental System into effect, which aimed to eliminate the threat of the United Kingdom by closing French controlled territory to its trade. The United Kingdom's army remained a minimal threat to France; the UK maintained a standing army of just 220,000 at the height of the Napoleonic Wars, whereas France's strength peaked at over 1,500,000 in addition to the armies of numerous allies and several hundred thousand national guards that could be drafted into the military if necessary. The Royal Navy however was instrumental in disrupting France's extra-continental trade - both by seizing and threatening French shipping and by seizing French colonial possessions - but could do nothing about France's trade with the major continental economies and posed no threat to French territory in Europe. In addition France's population and agricultural capacity far outstripped that of the United Kingdom. However, the United Kingdom's industrial capacity was the greatest in Europe and its mastery of the seas allowed it to build up considerable economic strength through trade. That was sufficient to ensure that France was never able to consolidate its control over Europe in peace. However many in the French government believed that cutting the United Kingdom off from the Continent would end its economic influence over Europe and isolate it. This was what the Continental System was designed to achieve, although it never succeeded in this objective. The next stage of the war involved driving Russian forces out of Poland and creating a new Grand Duchy of Warsaw. Napoleon then turned north to confront the remainder of the Russian army and attempt to capture the new Prussian capital at Königsberg. A tactical draw at Eylau (February 7-8) forced the Russians to withdraw further north. Napoleon then routed the Russian army at Friedland (June 14). Following this defeat, Alexander was forced to make peace with Napoleon at Tilsit (July 7, 1807). By September, Marshal Brune completed the occupation of Swedish Pomerania allowing the Swedish army, however, to withdraw with all its munitions of war. At the Congress of Erfurt (1808) Napoleon and Alexander agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System, which led to the Finnish War and the division of Sweden through the Gulf of Bothnia. The eastern part became the Russian Grand Duchy of Finland.

The Fifth Coalition

Grand Duchy of Finland The Fifth Coalition (1809) of the United Kingdom and Austria against France was formed while the United Kingdom was also engaged in the Peninsular War against France. Once again, the United Kingdom stood alone, owing much to the existence of the English Channel, the UK's emphasis on naval rather than military strength and the fact that the UK's army had never been completely engaged against the French. British military activity was reduced to a succession of victories in the French colonies and another naval victory at Copenhagen (September 2, 1807). On land, only the disastrous Walcheren Expedition (1809) was attempted. In Europe the struggle was carried on in the sphere of economic warfare - the French Continental System vs. the British naval blockade of French controlled territory. Due to shortages in French territory there were numerous breaches of the Continental System, as French dominated states engaged in illicit, although often tolerated, trade with British smugglers. Both sides entered additional conflicts in attempts to enforce their blockade; the British fought the United States in the War of 1812 (1812-1814), and the French engaged in the Peninsular War (1808-1814). The Iberian conflict began when Portugal continued trade with the United Kingdom despite French restrictions. When Spain failed to maintain the system the alliance with France came to an end and French troops gradually encroached on its territory until Madrid was occupied. British intervention soon followed. Austria, previously an ally of the French, took the opportunity to attempt to restore its German empire held prior to Austerlitz. Austria achieved a number of initial victories against the thinly spread army of Marshal Davout. Napoleon had left Davout with only 170,000 troops to defend France's entire Eastern frontier. The same task had been carried out in the 1790s by 800,000 troops and at that time those forces were required to hold a much shorter front. Napoleon had enjoyed easy success in Spain, retaking Madrid, defeating the Spanish and British and driving the main British army from the peninsula. Austria's attack prevented Napoleon from successfully wrapping up operations against British forces by necessitating his departure to Austria, he never returned to the Peninsula theatre. In his absence and the absence of his best marshals (Davout remained in the east throughout the war) the situation deteriorated, especially when the prodigious British general, Sir Arthur Wellesley, arrived to command British forces. The Austrians drove into the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, but were defeated at the Battle of Radzyn April 19, 1809. The Polish army captured West Galicia following its earlier success. Napoleon assumed command in the east and bolstered the army there for his counterattack on Austria. A series of relatively minor battles ensued until the massive Battle of Aspern-Essling - Napoleon's first tactical defeat. Failure by the Austrian commander, Archduke Karl, to follow up on his small victory, meant that Napoleon was able to prepare for a renewed attempt to seize Vienna and in early July he did so. He defeated the Austrians at Wagram, on July 5-6. It was during this battle that Marshal Bernadotte was stripped of his title and ridiculed by Napoleon in front of other senior officers. Bernadotte was offered the vacant position of Crown Prince of Sweden and took this, thus betraying Napoleon. Later he would actively participate in wars against his former Emperor. The Fifth Coalition was ended by the Treaty of Schönbrunn (October 14, 1809). In the east only the Tyrolese rebels led by Andreas Hofer continued to fight the French-Bavarian army until being finally demolished in November 1809, while in the west the Peninsular War continued. In 1810 the French empire reached its greatest extent. The British and Portuguese were restricted to the area around Lisbon behind their impregnable lines of Torres Vedras. Napoleon married Marie-Louise, an Austrian Archduchess in order to ensure a more stable alliance with Austria and to provide the Emperor with an heir, something his first wife, Josephine, had failed to do. As well as the French empire, Napoleon controlled the Swiss Confederation, the Confederation of the Rhine, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw and the Kingdom of Italy. Allied territories included: the Kingdom of Spain (Joseph Bonaparte); Kingdom of Westphalia (Jerome Bonaparte); the Kingdom of Naples (Joachim Murat, brother-in-law); Principality of Lucca and Piombino (Felix Bacciochi, brother-in-law); and his former enemies, Prussia and Austria.

The Sixth Coalition

: See Napoleon's invasion of Russia : See also War of 1812 between the British Empire and the United States of America The Sixth Coalition (1812–1814) consisted of the United Kingdom and Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria and a number of German States. 1814 In 1812, Napoleon invaded Russia to compel Emperor Alexander I to remain in the Continental System and to remove the imminent threat of Russian invasion of Poland. The Grande Armée, 650,000 men (270,000 Frenchmen and many soldiers of allies or subject powers), crossed the Niemen River on June 23 1812. Russia proclaimed a Patriotic War, while Napoleon proclaimed a Second Polish war, but against the expectations of the Poles who supplied almost 100,000 troops for the invasion force he avoided any concessions toward Poland, having in mind further negotiations with Russia. Russia maintained a scorched earth policy of retreat broken only by the battle of Borodino (September 7), when the Russians stood and fought. This was bloody and the Russians were eventually forced to back down and open the road to Moscow. By September 14, Moscow was captured although by this point it had been largely abandoned by the Russians and prisoners had been released from Moscow’s prisons to inconvenience the French. Alexander I refused to capitulate and with no sign of clear victory in sight Napoleon was forced to withdraw from Moscow after the governor, Prince Rastopchin, ordered the city burnt to the ground. So the disastrous Great Retreat began, with 370,000 casualties largely as a result of starvation and the freezing weather conditions, and 200,000 captured. By November only 27,000 fit soldiers were among those who crossed the Berezina River. Napoleon now left his army to return to Paris and prepare a defence of Poland from the advancing Russians. The situation was not as dire as it might at first have seemed — the Russians had lost around 400,000 men and their army was similarly depleted. However they had the advantage of shorter supply lines and were able to replenish their armies with greater speed than the French. Meanwhile, in the Peninsular War, at Vitoria (June 21, 1813) the French power in Spain was finally broken by Arthur Wellesley's victory over Joseph Bonaparte. The French were forced to retreat out of Spain, over the Pyrenees. Seeing an opportunity in Napoleon's historic defeat, Prussia re-entered the war. Napoleon vowed that he would create a new army as large as that he had sent into Russia and quickly built up his forces in the east from 30,000 to 130,000 and eventually to 400,000. Napoleon inflicted 40,000 casualties on the Allies at Lützen (May 2) and Bautzen (May 20– 21). Both battles involved total forces of over 250,000 — making them some of the largest conflicts of the wars so far. An armistice was declared from June 4 continuing until August 13 during which time both sides attempted to recover from approximately quarter of a million losses since April. It was during this time that Allied negotiations finally brought Austria out in open opposition to France. Two principal Austrian armies were deployed, adding an additional 300,000 troops to the Allied armies in Germany. In total the Allies now had around 800,000 frontline troops in the German theatre with a strategic reserve of 350,000 being formed to support the frontline operations. Napoleon was able to bring the total imperial forces in the region up to around 650,000 — although only 250,000 were under his direct command, with another 120,000 under Nicolas Charles Oudinot and 30,000 under Davout. The Confederation of the Rhine furnished Napoleon with the bulk of the remainder of the forces with Saxony and Bavaria as principal contributors. In addition, to the south Murat's Kingdom of Naples and Eugène de Beauharnais's Kingdom of Italy had a combined total of 100,000 men under arms. In Spain an additional 150-200,000 French troops were being steadily beaten back by Spanish and British forces numbering around 150,000. Thus in total around 900,000 French troops were opposed in all theatres by somewhere around a million Allied troops (not including the strategic reserve being formed in Germany). The figures are however slightly misleading as most of the German troops fighting on the side of the French were unreliable at best and on the verge of defecting to the Allies. It is reasonable to say that Napoleon could count on no more than 450,000 troops in Germany — which meant he was outnumbered by about two to one. Eugène de Beauharnais Following the end of the armistice Napoleon seemed to have regained the initiative at Dresden where he defeated a numerically superior allied army inflicting enormous casualties while the French army sustained relatively few. However the failures of his Marshals and a slow resumption of the offensive on his part cost him any advantage that this victory might have secured him. At the Battle of Leipzig in Saxony (October 16–19, 1813), also called the "Battle of the Nations", 191,000 French fought more than 450,000 Allies, and the French were defeated and forced to retreat into France. Napoleon then fought a series of battles, including the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube, in France, but was steadily forced back against overwhelming odds. During this time his Six Days Campaign was fought, in which he won multiple battles against the enemy forces advancing towards Paris. However he never managed to field more than 70,000 troops during this entire campaign against more than half a million Allied troops. At the Treaty of Chaumont (March 9) the Allies agreed to preserve the Coalition until Napoleon's total defeat. The Allies entered Paris on March 30 1814. Napoleon was determined to fight on, even now, incapable of fathoming his massive fall from power. During the campaign he had issued a decree for 900,000 fresh conscripts, but only a fraction of these were ever raised and Napoleon's increasingly unrealistic schemes for victory eventually gave way to the reality of the hopeless situation. Napoleon abdicated on April 6. However, occasional military actions continued in Italy, Spain and Holland throughout the spring of 1814. Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba, and the Bourbon kings were restored under Louis XVIII. The Treaty of Fontainebleau was signed and the Congress of Vienna was held to redraw the map of Europe.

Gunboat War

See: Gunboat War (1807–1814) Denmark-Norway originally declared itself neutral in the Napoleonic Wars, but engaged in trade that profited from the war and established a navy. After a show of intimidation in the first Battle of Copenhagen in 1801, the British captured large portions of the entire Danish fleet in the Second Battle of Copenhagen. This ended the Danish neutrality, and the Danish engaged in a naval guerilla war in which small gunboats would attack larger British ships in Danish and Norwegian waters. The Gunboat War effectively ended with a British victory at the Battle of Lyngør in 1812, in which the last Danish battleship — a frigate — was destroyed.

The Seventh Coalition

See: War of the Seventh Coalition See also: Neapolitan War between the Kingdom of Naples and the Austrian Empire Austrian Empire The Seventh Coalition (1815) of the United Kingdom, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, The Netherlands and a number of German States against France. The period known as the Hundred Days began after Napoleon left Elba and landed at Cannes, March 1, 1815. Travelling to Paris, picking up support as he went, eventually overthrowing the restored Louis XVIII. The allies immediately gathered their armies to meet him again. Napoleon raised 280,000 men which were divided into several armies. To the 90,000 troops in the standing army he recalled well over a quarter of a million veterans from past campaigns and issued a decree for the eventual draft of around 2.5 million new men into the French army. This was arrayed against an initial Allied force of about 700,000 — although Allied campaign plans provided for one million frontline troops supported by around 200,000 garrison, logistics and other auxiliary personnel. This force was intended to be overwhelming against the numerically inferior imperial French army which never came close to reaching Napoleon's goal of more than 2.5 million under arms. March 1 Napoleon took about 124,000 men of the Army of the North on a pre-emptive strike, to attack the Allies in Belgium. His intention was to attack the Allied armies before they combined, in the hope of driving the British into the sea and the Prussians out of the war. His march to the frontier achieved the surprise he had planned. He forced the Prussians to fight at Ligny on June 16 and the defeated Prussians retreated in some disorder. On the same day the left wing of the Army of the North, under the command of Marshal Michel Ney, succeeded in stopping any of Wellington's forces going to the aid of Blücher's Prussians by fighting a blocking action at Quatre Bras. However Ney failed to clear the cross-roads and Wellington reinforced the position. With the Prussian retreat, Wellington was forced to retreat as well, however. He fell back to a previously reconnoitered position on an escarpment at Mont St Jean, a few miles south of the village of Waterloo. Napoleon took the reserve of the Army of the North, and reunited his forces with those of Ney to pursue Wellington's army, but not before he ordered Marshal Grouchy to take the right wing of the Army of the North and stop the Prussians reorganising. Grouchy failed and although he engaged and defeated the Prussian rearguard under the command of Lt-Gen. von Thielmann in the Battle of Wavre (18–19 June), the rest of the Prussian army "marched towards the sound of the guns" at Waterloo. The start of the Battle of Waterloo on the morning of June 18 1815 was delayed for several hours as Napoleon waited until the ground had dried from the previous night's rain. By late afternoon the French army had not succeeded in driving Wellington's Allied forces from the escarpment on which they stood. When the Prussians arrived and attacked the French right flank in ever increasing numbers, Napoleon's strategy of keeping the Allied armies divided had failed and his army was driven from the field in confusion by a combined Allied general advance. Grouchy partially redeemed himself by organizing a successful and well-ordered retreat towards Paris where Marsal Davout had 117,000 men at the ready to turn back the 116,000 men of Blucher and Wellington. Militarily it would still have been quite possible (indeed it was probable) for the French to defeat Wellington and Blucher, but politics was to be the source of the Emperor's downfall. On arriving at Paris three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to the hope of a concerted national resistance; but the temper of the chambers, and of the public generally, was not in his favour. Napoleon was forced to abdicate again on June 22, 1815. Despite the emperor’s abdication, irregular warfare continued along the eastern borders and at the outskirts of Paris until a ceasefire was signed on July 4. On 15 July Napoleon surrendered himself to the British squadron at Rochefort. The Allies exiled him to the remote South Atlantic island of Saint Helena.

References

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External links

- [http://wikisource.org/wiki/EB1911:Napoleonic_Campaigns Wikisource]
- [http://www.dean.usma.edu/history/web03/atlases/napoleon/napoleon%20war%20index.htm United States Military Academy]
- [http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/timelines/britain/geo_napo_wars.shtml BBC]

1803

1803 was a common year starting on Saturday (see link for calendar).

Events

- January 4 - William Symington demostrates his Charlotte Dundas, the "first practical steamboat".
- January 30 - Monroe and Livingston sail for Paris to discuss, and possibly buy, New Orleans. They end completing the Louisiana Purchase.
- February 21 - Edward Despard and six others are hanged, drawn and quartered for plotting to assassinate king George III and to destroy the Bank of England
- February 24 - The Supreme Court of the United States, in Marbury v. Madison, establishes the principle of judicial review.
- March 1 - Ohio is admitted as the 17th U.S. state, retroactive from August 7, 1953.
- April 30 - Louisiana Purchase made by the United States from France.
- March 12 - Port Gibson, MS is chartered
- May 18 - The United Kingdom redeclares war on France after France refused to withdraw from Dutch territory.
- July 4 - The Louisiana Purchase is announced to the American people.
- July 5 - The convention of Artlenburg leads to the French occupation of Hanover (which had been ruled by the British king).
- July 23 - Robert Emmet's uprising in Ireland begins
- July 26 - The wagonway between Wandsworth and Croydon is opened, being the first public railway line of the world.
- August 3 – British begin Second Anglo-Maratha War against Sindhia of Gwalior
- September 20 - Irish rebel Robert Emmet is executed
- September 23 - The Battle of Assaye in India – British-lead troops defeat Maratha forces
- October 20 - Senate ratifies the Louisiana Purchase Treaty, doubling the size of the United States.
- November 30 - At the Cabildo building in New Orleans, Spanish representatives Governor Manuel de Salcedo and the Marqués de Casa Calvo, officially transfer Louisiana Territory to French representative Prefect Pierre Clément de Laussat (just 20 days later, France had transferred the same land to the United States as the Louisiana Purchase).
- Aargau, Graubünden, St. Gallen, Thurgau, the Ticino, Vaud become Swiss cantons.
- France - the Livre Tournois (Tours Pound) is replaced by the Franc.
- William Osgoode, Chief Justice of Lower Canada, rules that slavery is inconsistent with British Law.

Ongoing events

- Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)

Births

- February 2 - Albert Sidney Johnston, American Confederate general (d. 1862)
- February 15 - John Sutter, American pioneer (d. 1880)
- April 7 - Flora Tristan, French feminist (d. 1844)
- May 12 - Justus von Liebig, German chemist (d. 1873)
- May 24 - Charles Lucien Bonaparte, French naturalist and ornithologist (d. 1857)
- May 25 - Ralph Waldo Emerson, American writer (d. 1882)
- May 25 - Edward George Bulwer-Lytton, English novelist and playwright (d. 1873)
- June 24 - George James Webb, English-born composer (d. 1887)
- July 24 - Adolphe Charles Adam, French composer (d. 1856)
- July 31 - John Ericsson, Swedish inventor and engineer (d. 1889)
- September 4 - Sarah Childress Polk, First Lady of the United States (d. 1891)
- September 27 - Samuel Francis du Pont, American admiral (d. 1865)
- September 28 - Prosper Mérimée, French writer (d. 1870)
- November 14 - Jacob Abbott, American writer (d. 1879)
- November 29 - Christian Doppler, Austrian mathematician (d. 1853)
- December 11 - Hector Berlioz, French composer (d. 1869)

Deaths

- January 23 - Arthur Guinness, Irish brewer (b. 1725)
- February 9 - Jean François de Saint-Lambert, French poet (b. 1716)
- February 18 - Johann Wilhelm Ludwig Gleim, German poet (b. 1719)
- February 20 - Marie Dumesnil, French actress (b. 1713)
- March 14 - Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, German poet (b. 1724)
- April 2 - Sir James Montgomery, 1st Baronet, Scottish politician and judge (b. 1721)
- April 7 - Toussaint L'Ouverture, Haitian revolutionary (b. 1743)
- June 24 - Matthew Thornton, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1714)
- September 5 - Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, French general and author (b. 1741)
- September 15 - Gian Francesco Albani, Italian Catholic cardinal (b. 1719)
- October 2 - Samuel Adams, American revolutionary leader (b. 1722)
- October 26 - Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Marquess of Stafford, English politician (b. 1721)
- November 23 - Roger Newdigate, English politician (b. 1719)
- December 18 - Johann Gottfried Herder, German philosopher and writer (b. 1744)
- December 30 - Francis Lewis, American signer of the Declaration of Independence (b. 1713)
- Jacques-Donatien Le Ray, French "Father of the American Revolution" (b. 1726) Category:1803 ko:1803년 ms:1803

1815

1815 was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar).

Events

- January 2 - Lord Byron marries Anna Isabella Milbanke, Seaham, County Durham.
- January 3 - Austria, Britain, and France form a secret defensive alliance treaty against Prussia and Russia.
- January 8 - War of 1812: Battle of New Orleans
- February 3 - The first commercial cheese factory is founded in Switzerland
- February 4 - Netherlands, Foundation of the first dutch student association, the Groninger Studenten Corps, Vindicat atque Polit. The first rector of the senate was B.J. Winters.
- February 6 - New Jersey grants the first American railroad charter to a John Stevens.
- February 26 - Napoleon Bonaparte escapes from Elba
- March 1 - Napoleon returns to France from his banishment on Elba.
- March 16 - Willem I becomes King of the Netherlands
- March 20 - Napoleon enters Paris after escaping from Elba with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000 beginning his "Hundred Days" rule.
- April 5-April 12 - Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies blows its top during an eruption event. 92,000 are killed during this eruption. The event is the cause of 1816 becoming known as the Year Without a Summer.
- April 23- Second Serbian Uprising against Ottoman rule takes place in Takovo, Serbia. By the end of the year Serbia had been acknowledged as a semi-independent state. Ideals of the First Serbian Uprising have thus been temporarily achieved.
- June 9 - End of the Congress of Vienna: new European political situation is set.
- June 18 - Battle of Waterloo ends the Napoleonic wars.
- June 22 - Napoleon abdicates again, restoration of Louis XVIII as King of France
- July 8 - Louis XVIII returns to Paris
- July 17 - In France, Napoleon surrenders at Rochefort to British forces.
- October 15 - Napoleon I of France begins his exile on St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean.
- October 21 - Humphry Davy patents the miner's safety lamp for use in coal mining
- Austria, Prussia and Russia sign a Holy Alliance to uphold the European status quo.
- British missionaries arrive in New Zealand
- In Britain, use of pillory is limited to punishment for perjury
- Second wave of Amish immigration to North America
- First-class cricket begins.

Ongoing events

- Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)-Seventh Coalition/Hundred Days
- War of 1812 (1812-1815)
- Congress of Vienna (1814 - 1815)

Births

- January 10 - John A. Macdonald, first Prime Minister of Canada (d. 1891)
- February 15 - Constantin von Tischendorf, German Biblical scholar (d. 1874)
- April 1 - Otto von Bismarck, German statesman (d. 1898)
- April 1 - Edward Clark, Governor of Texas (d. 1880)
- April 6 - Robert Volkmann, German composer (d. 1883)
- April 24 - Anthony Trollope, British author (d. 1882)
- August 5 - Edward John Eyre, explorer
- October 16 - Francis Lubbock, Governor of Texas (d. 1905)
- October 31 - Karl Weierstrass, German mathematician (d. 1897)
- November 2 - George Boole, English mathematician and philosopher (d. 1864)
- December 10 - Augusta Ada King (neé Byron), Countess of Lovelace, early English computer pioneer (d. 1852)
- November 12 - Elizabeth Cady Stanton, American women's rights activist (d. 1902)
- December 21 - Thomas Couture, French painter (d. 1879)

Deaths

- January 8 - Edward Pakenham, British general (killed in battle) (b. 1778)
- January 16 - Emma, Lady Hamilton, English mistress of Horatio Nelson (b. 1765)
- February 24 - Robert Fulton, American inventor (b. 1765)
- February 26 - Prince Josias of Coburg, Austrian general (b. 1737)
- March 4 - Frances Abington, English actress (b. 1737)
- March 5 - Franz Mesmer, German developer of hypnotism (b. 1734)
- April 21 - Joseph Winston, American patriot and Congressman from North Carolina (b. 1746)
- June 1 - Louis Alexandre Berthier, French marshal (b. 1753)
- June 16 - Friedrich Wilhelm, Duke of Brunswick, German noble and general (killed in battle) (b. 1771)
- June 18 - Thomas Picton, British general (killed in battle) (b. 1758)
- June 18 - Claude-Etienne Michel, French general (killed in battle) (b. 1772
- June 18 - Guillaume Philibert Duhesme, French general (killed in battle) (b. 1766)
- August 2 - Guillaume Marie Anne Brune, French marshal (murdered) (b. 1763)
- September 9 - John Singleton Copley, American painter (b. 1738)
- September 20 - Nicolas Desmarest, French geologist (b. 1725)
- October 15 - Joachim Murat, French marshal and King of Naples (executed) (b. 1767)
- December 3 - John Carroll, first American Roman Catholic Archbishop (b. 1735)
- December 7 - Michel Ney, French marshal (executed) (b. 1769) Category:1815 ko:1815년 ms:1815 simple:1815 th:พ.ศ. 2358

United Kingdom

:For other meanings of the terms "United Kingdom" and "UK" , see United Kingdom (disambiguation) and UK (disambiguation). :For an explanation of terms like England, (Great) Britain and United Kingdom see British Isles (terminology). The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (usually shortened to the United Kingdom or the UK) is a country located off the north-western coast of continental Europe, surrounded by the North Sea, the English Channel, the Celtic Sea, the Irish Sea, and the Atlantic Ocean. It is composed of four constituent parts: three constituent countries—England, Scotland, and Wales—on the island of Great Britain, and the province of Northern Ireland on the island of Ireland. The border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland forms the United Kingdom's principal international land border, although there is a nominal frontier with France in the middle of the Channel Tunnel. The UK has several overseas territories and the Crown dependencies of the Isle of Man and the Channel Islands come under the UK's sovereignty. The UK also has close relationships with the fifteen other Commonwealth Realms, as they all share the same head of state. The UK is also one of the largest member states of the European Union and a founding partner of both the UN and NATO.
Terminology

- United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland: The official name for the sovereign state
- United Kingdom: an abbreviation of United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Britain: an informal term that sometimes means United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means Great Britain
- British: an informal term that sometimes means from the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland and sometimes means from Great Britain
- Great Britain (as a geographical term): the largest island of the British Isles
- Great Britain (as a political term): England + Wales + Scotland
- British Isles (as a geographical term): Great Britain + Ireland + many smaller surrounding islands. This term is disputed, please see below.
- Ireland (as a geographical term): the second largest island of the British Isles
- Ireland (as a political term): an abbreviation of the Republic of Ireland, a sovereign state on the island of Ireland
- Northern Ireland: a political region of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland
- Ulster (as a geographical term): Often used to refer to Northern Ireland. It is derived from the Irish Language term 'Ulad.' It was one of the ancient Irish provinces (the others were Connaught, Leinster and Munster.). Although it is normally used to refer to Northern Ireland, Ulster also (traditionally) includes Counties Cavan, Monaghan and Donegal, which lie in the Republic of Ireland. The term Ulster is often favoured by the Protestant community.
History
Protestant Today's state is the latest of several unions formed over the last 1000 years. Scotland and England have existed as separate unified entities since the 10th century. Wales, under English control since the Statute of Rhuddlan in 1284, became part of the Kingdom of England by the Laws in Wales Act 1535. With the Act of Union 1707, the separate kingdoms of England and Scotland, having shared the same monarch since 1603, agreed to a permanent union as the Kingdom of Great Britain. The Act of Union 1800 united the Kingdom of Great Britain with the Kingdom of Ireland, which had been gradually brought under English control between 1169 and 1691, to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland was formed in 1922, after bitter fighting which echoes down to the current political strife, the Anglo-Irish Treaty partitioned Ireland into the Irish Free State and Northern Ireland, with the latter remaining part of the United Kingdom. As provided for in the treaty, Northern Ireland, which consists of six of the nine counties of the Irish province of Ulster, immediately opted out of the Free State and to remain in the UK. The nomenclature of the UK was changed in 1927 to recognise the departure of most of Ireland, with the current name being adopted. 1927 The United Kingdom, the dominant industrial and maritime power of the 19th century, played a leading role in developing Western world ideas of property, liberty, capitalism and parliamentary democracy - to say nothing of its part in advancing world literature and science. At its zenith, the British Empire stretched over one quarter of the Earth's surface and encompassed a third of its population. The first half of the 20th century saw the UK's strength seriously depleted from the effects of World War I and World War II. The second half witnessed the dismantling of the Empire and the UK rebuilding itself into a modern and prosperous nation. The UK has been a member of the European Union since 1973. Its attitude towards further integration is conservative, and there is significant Euroscepticism in UK politics. It has not chosen to adopt the Euro, owing to internal political considerations and the government's judgement of the prevailing economic conditions.
Government and politics
The United Kingdom is a constitutional monarchy, with executive power exercised on behalf of the Queen by the Prime Minister and other cabinet ministers who head departments. The cabinet, including the Prime Minister, and other ministers collectively make up Her Majesty's Government. These ministers are drawn from and are responsible to Parliament, the legislative body, which is traditionally considered to be "supreme" (that is, able to legislate on any matter and not bound by decisions of its predecessors). The UK is one of the few countries in the world today that does not have a codified constitution, relying instead on customs and separate pieces of constitutional law. While the monarch is Head of State and holds all executive power, it is the Prime Minister who is the head of government. The government is answerable chiefly to the House of Commons and the Prime Minister is drawn from this chamber of Parliament by constitutional convention. The majority of cabinet members will be from the House of Commons, the rest from the House of Lords. Ministers do not, however, legally have to come from Parliament, though that is the modern day custom. The British system of government has been emulated around the world - a legacy of the United Kingdom's colonial past - most notably in the other Commonwealth Realms. The Prime Minister is chosen as the MP who can command a majority in the House of Commons - usually the leader of the largest party or, if there is no majority party, the largest coalition. The current Prime Minister is Tony Blair of the Labour Party, who has been in office since 1997. In the United Kingdom the monarch has extensive theoretical powers, but his or her role is mainly, though not exclusively, ceremonial. The monarch is an integral part of Parliament (as the "Crown-in-Parliament") and theoretically gives Parliament the power to meet and create legislation. An Act of Parliament does not become law until it has been signed by the Queen (being given Royal Assent), although no monarch has refused to assent to a bill that has been approved by Parliament since Queen Anne in 1708. Although the abolition of the monarchy has been suggested several times, the popularity of the monarchy remains strong in spite of recent controversies. Support for a British republic usually fluctuates between 15% and 25% of the population, with roughly 10% undecided or indifferent [http://www.mori.com/mrr/2000/c000616.shtml]. The current monarch is Queen Elizabeth II who acceded to the throne in 1952 and was crowned in 1953. Parliament is the national legislature of the United Kingdom. It is the ultimate legislative authority in the United Kingdom, according to the doctrine of parliamentary sovereignty. It is bicameral, composed of the elected House of Commons and the unelected House of Lords, whose members are mostly appointed. The House of Commons is the more powerful of the two houses. The House of Commons has 646 members who are directly elected from single-member constituencies based on population. The House of Lords has 724 members (though this number is not fixed): hereditary peers, life peers, and bishops of the Church of England. The Church of England is the established church of the state in England. established church]] The two largest political parties are the Labour Party and Conservative Party. The UK has long had a two-party system, but in the last 20 years the Liberal Democrats have re-emerged as a large third party. The electoral system used for general elections is first-past-the-post. The constitution of the United Kingdom is un-codified and partially unwritten, which means that no single document regulates how the government works, and unwritten constitutional conventions are used extensively. The constitution is based on the principle that Parliament is the ultimate sovereign body in the country. There has long been a widespread sense of national identity in the Celtic nations. Throughout the late 19th century the UK debated giving Ireland home rule. The Scottish National Party was founded in 1934, and Plaid Cymru (Party of Wales) in 1925. Referenda for devolution succeeded in 1997 for Scotland and Wales and in 1998 for Northern Ireland. In 1999, the Scottish Parliament and the National Assembly for Wales were established, the former having primary legislative power. Proportional representation is used for the elections, which has resulted in a Labour-Liberal Democrat coalition government in Scotland. Due to internal disagreements, the Northern Ireland Assembly has been suspended since 2002.
Subdivisions
The United Kingdom is a country that is divided into four constituent parts:
- England
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
- Wales The constituent parts of the United Kingdom have administrative subdivisions as follows:
- The regions and administrative counties of England
- The council areas of Scotland
- The counties and county boroughs of Wales
- The districts of Northern Ireland The Laws in Wales Act 1535 incorporated Wales and England into England and Wales for legal purposes. Although all four have historically been divided into counties, England's population is an order of magnitude larger than the others so in recent years it has for some purposes been divided into nine intermediate-level Government Office Regions. Each region is made up of counties and unitary authorities, apart from London, which consists of London boroughs. Although at one point it was intended that each or some of these regions would be given its own regional assembly, the plan's future is uncertain, as of 2004, after the North East region rejected its proposed assembly in a referendum. Scotland consists of 32 Council Areas. Wales consists of 22 Unitary Authorities, styled as 10 County Boroughs, 9 Counties, and 3 Cities. Northern Ireland is divided into 26 Districts. Also sometimes associated with the United Kingdom, though not constitutionally part of the United Kingdom itself, are the Crown dependencies (the Bailiwicks of Jersey and Guernsey, and the Isle of Man) as self-governing possessions of the Crown, and a number of overseas territories under the sovereignty of the United Kingdom.
Military
The armed forces of the United Kingdom are known as the British Armed Forces or Her Majesty's Armed Forces, officially the Armed Forces of the Crown. Their Commander-in-Chief is the Queen and they are managed by the Ministry of Defence. Ministry of Defence The British Armed Forces are charged with protecting the United Kingdom and its overseas territories, promoting the United Kingdom's wider security interests, and supporting international peacekeeping efforts. They are active and regular participants in NATO and other coalition operations. The United Kingdom fields one of the most powerful and comprehensive military forces in the World. Its global power projection capabilities are second only to those of the United States Armed Forces. The British Army had a reported strength of 112,700 in 2004, including 7,600 women, and the Royal Air Force a strength of 53,400. The 40,900-member Royal Navy is in charge of the United Kingdom's independent strategic nuclear arm, which consists of four Trident Ballistic Missile Submarines, while the Royal Marines provide infantry units for amphibious assault and for specialist reinforcement forces in and beyond the NATO area. This puts total active duty military troops in the 210,000 range, currently deployed in over 80 countries. The UK's special forces, principally the SAS, provides elite commandos trained for quick, mobile, military responses; often where secrecy or covert operations are required. The Royal Navy is the second largest navy in the World in terms of gross tonnage. Despite the United Kingdom's wide ranging capabilities, recent pragmatic defence policy has a stated assumption that any large operation would be undertaken as part of a coalition. Bosnia, Kosovo, Afghanistan, Iraq (Granby, No-Fly-Zones, Desert Fox and Telic) may all be taken as precedent - indeed the last true war in which the British military fought alone was the Falklands War of 1982, in which military action was initiated by Argentina and the UK was fighting a defensive, rather than offensive, campaign. The British army has been actively involved in the Troubles in Northern Ireland. However, a programme of demilitarisation is being gradually implemented.
Geography
Troubles World Factbook Map of the United Kingdom]] Most of England consists of rolling lowland terrain, divided east from west by more mountainous terrain in the Northwest (Cumbrian Mountains of the Lake District) and north (the upland moors of the Pennines) and limestone hills of the Peak District by the Tees-Exe line. The lower limestone hills of the Isle of Purbeck, Cotswolds, Lincolnshire and chalk downs of the Southern England Chalk Formation. The main rivers and estuaries are the Thames, Severn and the Humber Estuary. The largest urban area is Greater London. Near Dover, the Channel Tunnel links the United Kingdom with France. There is no peak in England that is 1000 metres (3,300 ft) or greater. Wales is mostly mountainous, the highest peak being Snowdon at 1085 metres (3,560 ft) above sea level. North of the mainland is the island of Anglesey. The largest and capital city is Cardiff, located in South Wales. Scotland's geography is varied, with lowlands in the south and east and highlands in the north and west, including Ben Nevis, the UK's highest mountain at 1343 metres (4,406 ft). There are many long and deep-sea arms, firths, and lochs. A multitude of islands west and north of Scotland are also included, notably the Hebrides, Orkney Islands and Shetland Islands. The largest city is Glasgow. Northern Ireland, making up the north-eastern part of Ireland, is mostly hilly. The main cities are Belfast ('Beal Feirste' in Irish) and Londonderry / Derry ('Doire' in Irish). The province is home to one of the UK’s World Heritage Sites, the Giant's Causeway, which consists of more than 40,000 six-sided basalt columns up to 40 feett (12 m) high. In total it is estimated that the UK includes around 1098 small islands, some being natural and some being crannogs, a type of artificial island which was built in past times using stone and wood, gradually enlarged by natural waste building up over time.
Economy
artificial island The United Kingdom, a leading trading power and financial centre, has an essentially capitalist economy, the fourth largest in the world in terms of market exchange rates and the sixth largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates. Over the past three decades, the government has greatly reduced public ownership by means of privatisation programmes, and has contained the growth of the Welfare State. Agriculture is intensive, highly mechanised, and efficient by European standards, producing about 60% of food needs with only 1% of the labour force. The UK has large coal, natural gas, and oil reserves; primary energy production accounts for 10% of GDP, one of the highest shares of any industrial state. Services, particularly banking, insurance and business services, account for by far the largest proportion of GDP. Industry continues to decline in importance, although the UK is still Europe's largest manufacturer of armaments, petroleum products, personal computers, televisions, and mobile telephones. Tourism is also important: with over 24 million tourists a year, between China (33) and Austria (19.1), the United Kingdom is ranked as the sixth major tourist destination in the world. The Blair government has put off the question of participation in the Euro system, citing five economic tests that would need to be met before they recommend that the UK adopts the Euro, and hold a referendum.
Society

Demographics
At the April 2001 census, the United Kingdom's population was 58,789,194, the third-largest in the European Union (behind Germany and metropolitan France) and the twenty-first largest in the world. Its overall population density is one of the highest in the world. Almost one-third of the population lives in England's prosperous south-east and is predominantly urban and suburban--with about 7.2 million in the capital of London. The United Kingdom's high literacy rate (99%) is attributable to universal public education introduced for the primary level in 1870 and secondary level in 1900 (except in Scotland where it was introduced in 1696). Education is mandatory from ages five through sixteen. referendum The Church of England and the Church of Scotland function as the official national religions in their respective countries, but most religions found in the world are represented in the United Kingdom. Anglicanism is the state religion that has been established in England since 1534 during the reign of King Henry VIII. During his reign, England broke ties with the Roman Catholic church and established the Church of England as the offical religion of England. Reforms to the nature of the church's relationship to the state have been ongoing, especially concerning the nature of the House of Lords and the appointment of a fixed amount of the lordships going to Lords Temporal, bishops of the Church of England. A group of islands close to continental Europe, the British Isles have been subject to many invasions and migrations, especially from Scandinavia and the continent, including Roman occupation for several centuries. Contemporary Britons are descended mainly from the varied ethnic stocks that settled there before the eleventh century. The pre-Celtic, Celtic, Roman, Anglo-Saxon, and Norse influences were blended on Great Britain under the Normans, Scandinavian Vikings who had lived in Northern France. Although Celtic languages persist in Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland, the predominant language is English, which is a West Germanic language descended from Old English, featuring a large amount of borrowings from Norman French.The other indigenous languages include the Celtic languages; Welsh, the closely related Irish and Scots Gaelic, and the Cornish language; as well as Lowland Scots, which is closely related to English; Romany; and British Sign Language (Northern Ireland Sign Language is also used in Northern Ireland). Celtic dialectal influences from Cumbric persisted in Northern England for many centuries, most famously in a unique set of numbers used for counting sheep. Recent immigrants, especially from the Commonwealth, speak many other languages, including Bengali, Cantonese, Hindi, Punjabi and Urdu. The United Kingdom has the largest number of Hindi speaking peoples outside of the Indian sub continent.
Culture
Urdu The United Kingdom contains many of the world's leading universities, including the University of Cambridge, the University of Oxford and the University of London (which incorporates, amongst others, Imperial College and University College London), and has produced many great scientists and engineers including Sir Isaac Newton, Charles Darwin and Isambard Kingdom Brunel; the nation is credited with many inventions including the locomotive, vaccination, television, vacuum, and both the internal combustion and the jet engine. The English language has spread to all corners of the world (primarily because of the country’s empire) and is referred to as a ‘global language’. It is now taught as a second language more than any other around the world. Over the next few decades, it is estimated that approximately half the world’s population will be proficient in the language. Playwright William Shakespeare is arguably the most famous writer in the history of the English language; other well-known writers from the United Kingdom include the Brontë sisters (Charlotte, Emily, and Anne), Jane Austen, William Thackeray, J. R. R. Tolkien, John Milton, H. G. Wells and Charles Dickens. Important poets include Lord Byron, Robert Burns, Lord Tennyson and William Blake. Notable composers from the United Kingdom have included William Byrd, John Taverner, William Lawes, John Dowland, Thomas Tallis, and Henry Purcell from the 16th and early 17th centuries, and, more recently, Sir Edward Elgar, Sir Arthur Sullivan (most famous for working with librettist Sir W. S. Gilbert), Ralph Vaughan Williams and Benjamin Britten in the 19th and 20th. George Frideric Handel spent most of his composing life in England. The BBC is the oldest and perhaps the most respected broadcasting network on the globe, with the BBC World Service radio channel and its news output held in particularly high regard. The other main television networks are ITV, Channel 4, five (TV) and Sky Television. Popular programmes in the UK include the three soaps Eastenders, Coronation Street and Emmerdale, as well as the comedy news quiz Have I Got News For You and Reality TV shows Big Brother and The X Factor. Various British TV formats have