The Treaty of Alliance was ratified on March 25 and in it, the Great Powers of Europe agreed to join forces, and each of them had to pledge 150,000 men. Up to that point, Napoleon had hoped for a peaceful resolution, but now, war was inevitable. The Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon, an outlaw on March 13 which was officially the start of the War of the Seventh Coalition. Huffington Post The War of the Seventh Coalition Begins The coalition had to set aside their differences and tackle the problem. Within three weeks, Napoleon went from irrelevance to outright threat once again. By the time Napoleon arrived in Paris, his army had swelled. With 6,000 men, he was determined to carry out his mission, but when he faced Napoleon on March 14, he was overcome by emotion upon meeting his one-time leader and fell in line along with his army. His former commander, Ney, was sent to capture him and proclaimed that Napoleon should be brought to Paris in an iron cage. When faced with the royalist 5 th Infantry at Grenoble, Napoleon reportedly opened his coat and said: “If any of you will shoot his Emperor, here I am.” After a tense silence, a cheer went up: “Long live the emperor!” A day after the 5 th Infantry Regiment at Grenoble pledged allegiance to Napoleon the 7 th Infantry Regiment followed suit. Napoleon appeared at Grenoble a few days after leaving Cannes, and he rallied more troops behind him by claiming he would save the people from the slavery imposed on them by priests and nobles. The growing tensions between the Royals and the lower classes had reached a breaking point, so Napoleon had timed his return perfectly. He achieved this by promising free elections, political reform, and peace for French citizens. His small force was woefully insufficient at first, but the former emperor used his charisma to grow his original group into a formidable army quickly. Napoleon decided to march through the Alps thus avoiding the enemy region. He was warmly received when he arrived in France barring the Royalist stronghold of Provence. Napoleon’s march to Paris was far from uneventful. Napoleon opens his coat and invites the men to shoot him. Upon learning of the threat, Louis XVIII fled the capital on March 13 and Napoleon arrived on March 20. He landed at Cannes on March 1, 1815, with approximately 1,500 men and marched towards Paris immediately. Napoleon took advantage of the situation by sailing towards France with a view to staking a claim to rule France again, resume his European conquest and liberate France from the allies. Also, there were numerous stories of Bourbon princes treating veterans of the Grand Armée poorly, and Louis XVIII was not a popular ruler. While Napoleon was in Elba, he saw that the people of France were not happy about the once great empire dwindling. Matters became so tense that there was a possibility of war between members of the coalition at one stage. For example, Tsar Alexander of Russia wanted to absorb most of Poland, Prussia demanded Saxony, Austria wanted northern Italy (and didn’t want Russia or Prussia to get what they desired) and the Great Britain representative, Viscount Castlereagh, supported France and Austria and was at odds with his parliament. WikipediaĪs Napoleon had anticipated, it was a difficult task since each of the major powers has its own set of conflicting demands. Napoleon says goodbye to his Imperial Guard in 1814. During his exile, the coalition forces that defeated him tried to redefine the borders of Europe at the Congress of Vienna which began in November 1814. Napoleon went to Elba but only remained in exile for just over nine months before he decided to come back and retake power. Napoleon had abdicated his throne on April 6, 1814, which paved the way for Louis XVIII to take the crown it also led to the first Bourbon Restoration. In what proved to be Napoleon’s last stand, the former Emperor of France managed to raise an army one last time in an attempt to recapture past glories. The entire period is actually 111 days, but it was an extremely busy time as it included the famous Waterloo Campaign, the Neapolitan War, and several other battles. The Hundred Days is the term given to the period between Napoleon’s return from exile to the second restoration of King Louis XVIII.
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