created by DeepGap7 on 22/01/2025 at 20:41 UTC
3 upvotes, 2 top-level comments (showing 2)
I am currently reading the book "March of the Twenty Six" about Napoleon's marshals and it occurred to me that they have a number of similarities with Alexander the Great's generals. Like Alexander's Diadochi, would it have been possible for a number of Napoleon's marshals to (if they were so inclined) carve out their own Dynastic kingdoms from the dead Empire?
Comment by AutoModerator at 22/01/2025 at 20:41 UTC
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Comment by DBHT14 at 23/01/2025 at 04:05 UTC
16 upvotes, 0 direct replies
Aside from the one who DID do exactly that you mean haha?
We should start with the obvious one. Marshal Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte's Great Great Great Great Grandson is still on the throne of Sweden as Carl XVI. Bernadotte was in many ways similar to Napoleon himself, a young soldier when the revolution occurred, he rose quickly up the ranks. And even became an extended member of the Bonaparte family when he married Desiree Clary, Napoleon's one time fiancee and sister to Joseph's wife Julie. He had also been considered by the Abbe Sieyès to serve as the military poster child of the Coup of 18 Brumaire. His service with Bonaparte was usually competent if not spectacular, and his pride, and feeling that he could do his bosses job if given the change never quiet went away. His treatment of several hundred Swedish POW's taken in the aftermath of Jena-Aurestedt, and his later administration of German territories also added to his credentials. So when Sweden turned to Napoleon to find an heir to their throne and did not want Eugene or one of the Bonaparte brothers the lead negotiator went rogue and offered it to Bernadotte. It ended up being accepted by both sides after some smoothing of feathers and an arrest or two. And by 1812 his loyalties were firmly with his new nation chaffing under affronts to national honor and the Continental System. He was the initial lynchpin of the 6th Coalition, helping to hold Britain and Russia together. He took the field against his old comrades in Germany in 1813 in exchange for the return of Norway and Swedish Pomerania.
The one other Marshal we should note who was a reigning monarch in 1813/14 is the mercurial, dashing, and perpetual mistake maker Joachim Murat, King of Naples. A member of the close circle of old comrade of Napoleon who predated even the Army of Italy. It had been a young Captain Murat whose cavalry dashed off to secure the cannon on 13 Vendémiaire that enabled Napoleon's 'Whiff of Grapeshot". He served in Italy and Egypt, became a lauded cavalry leader, and entered into the family when he married Caroline Bonaparte. And was eventually made Marshal and then got the command of the Cavalry Reserve of the Grande Armee. But his hot headedness never really went away, nor was his struggle to see the bigger picture, or zealousness with which he guarded what he saw as his lot. This is perhaps no better exemplified then by his desertion from the Grande Armee in late December 1812 after being left in command by Bonaparte, leaving Eugene and Berthier to pick up the pieces. In 1814 he signed a treaty with Austria to keep his throne, and even switched sides and skirmished in coordination with Austrian forces against Eugene in northern Italy. But the problem afterward became clear that the British wanted to restore Ferdinand the Bourbon king to the throne of Naples. So before that can happen Murat throws in again with Napoleon during the 100 Days and still ends up losing his throne and shot for it when he later tries fomenting an uprising on a seeming suicide mission.
And that gets to the core of the matter, the map of Europe was not being remade in a vacuum in 1814/15. The Congress of Vienna was not going to let things be decided by the defeated Marshals in any circumstances. To say nothing of the fact that the French Army was exhausted, and not really able to stand up to the combined forces against them where they had not already been overrun. So the idea of say Davout and his trapped army trying to carve off a piece of Northern Germany for himself doesnt hold much weight. George III wanted Hanover back, and Prussia wanted as much of the rest as she could get! While everyone agreed a France needed to continue to exist, it was unambiguously going to be under a Bourbon monarch, even if most of the Allies had their own issues with that gaggle of malcontents ready to get their revenge on their new subjects.
One notable non Marshal that is worth mentioning is Eugene de Beauharnais, Josephine's son and Napoleon's stepson, serving as his Viceroy to the Kingdom of Italy. He took some seasoning and learning but became an effective administrator, popular leaders, and above average battlefield commander by 1812. Through 1813 and 1814 he held Italy against the Austrians, and then the addition of Murat's forces. His Father-In-Law was the King of Bavaria(another late stage flip from Bonaparte loyalist to Coalition member) and after the fall of Napoleon he held a Dukedom there, though an attempt to hold onto the throne of Italy post war flamed out quickly. His family then spread throughout Europe! Eugene died young in 1824, but among his descendants were an Empress of Brazil, a Queen of Sweden (his eldest daughter married Bernadotte's son), and his youngest son Maximilian married the daughter of Tsar Nicholar I and created a whole Russian branch of the family. So in this sense many of the families that came to high rank under Napoleon did not disappear after 1815 but melded into the rest of the wider European aristocracy. Nor was this extensive melding limited to Europe, many of the Bonapartes and others fled to America. Joseph for example became a fixture of the Philadelphia social scene, and Murat's eldest son married into the extended Washington family!