Editing Napoleonic Wars (section)

==War of the Fourth Coalition, 1806–1807==
{{Main|War of the Fourth Coalition}}
[[File:Charles Meynier - Entrée de Napoléon à Berlin. 27 octobre 1806.jpg|thumb|''[[Entry of Napoleon into Berlin]]''. After defeating Prussian forces at [[Battle of Jena-Auerstedt|Jena]], the French Army entered Berlin on 27 October 1806.]]

Within months of the collapse of the Third Coalition, the [[War of the Fourth Coalition|Fourth Coalition]] (1806–1807) against France was formed by Britain, Prussia, Russia, [[Kingdom of Saxony|Saxony]], and Sweden. In July 1806, Napoleon formed the [[Confederation of the Rhine]] out of the many small German states which constituted the [[Rhineland]] and most other western parts of Germany. He [[German mediatisation|amalgamated many of the smaller states]] into larger electorates, duchies, and kingdoms to make the governance of non-Prussian Germany smoother. Napoleon elevated the rulers of the two largest Confederation states, [[Kingdom of Saxony|Saxony]] and [[Kingdom of Bavaria|Bavaria]], to the status of kings.

In August 1806, the Prussian king, [[Frederick William III of Prussia|Frederick William III]], decided to go to war independently of any other great power. The army of Russia, a Prussian ally, in particular, was too far away to assist. On October 8, 1806, Napoleon unleashed all the French forces east of the Rhine into Prussia. Napoleon defeated a Prussian army at [[Battle of Jena|Jena]] (14 October 1806), and [[Louis-Nicolas Davout|Davout]] defeated another at [[Battle of Auerstädt|Auerstädt]] on the same day. 160,000 French soldiers (increasing in number as the campaign went on) attacked Prussia, moving with such speed that they destroyed the entire [[Prussian Army]] as an effective military force. Out of 250,000 troops, the Prussians sustained 25,000 casualties, lost a further 150,000 as prisoners, 4,000 artillery pieces, and over 100,000 muskets. At Jena, Napoleon had fought only a detachment of the Prussian force. The battle at Auerstädt involved a single French corps defeating the bulk of the Prussian army. Napoleon entered Berlin on 27 October 1806. He visited the tomb of [[Frederick the Great]] and instructed his [[Marshal of the Empire|marshals]] to remove their hats there, saying, "If he were alive we wouldn't be here today". Napoleon had taken only 19 days from beginning his attack on Prussia to knock it out of the war with the capture of Berlin and the destruction of its principal armies at Jena and Auerstädt. Saxony abandoned Prussia, and together with small states from north Germany, allied with France.

[[File:Friedland mazurovsky.jpg|thumb|left|Charge of the Russian [[Imperial Guard (Russia)|Imperial Guard]] cavalry against French cuirassiers at the [[Battle of Friedland]], 14 June 1807]]

In the next stage of the war, the French drove Russian forces out of Poland and employed many Polish and German soldiers in several sieges in [[Silesia]] and [[Pomerania]], with the assistance of Dutch and Italian soldiers in the latter case. Napoleon then turned north to confront the remainder of the Russian army and to try to capture the temporary Prussian capital at [[Königsberg]]. A tactical draw at [[Battle of Eylau|Eylau]] (7–8 February 1807), followed by capitulation at [[Siege of Danzig (1807)|Danzig]] (24 May 1807) and the [[Battle of Heilsberg]] (10 June 1807), forced the Russians to withdraw further north. Napoleon decisively beat the Russian army at [[Battle of Friedland|Friedland]] (14 June 1807), following which Alexander had to make peace with Napoleon at [[Treaty of Tilsit|Tilsit]] (7 July 1807). In Germany and Poland, new Napoleonic client states, such as the [[Kingdom of Westphalia]], [[Duchy of Warsaw]], and [[Free City of Danzig (Napoleonic)|Republic of Danzig]], were established. Early that same year, the French [[Siege of Kolberg (1807)|besieged the fortified town of Kolberg]], which resulted in a lifting of the siege by a peace treaty on 2 July.

By September, Marshal [[Guillaume Brune]] completed the occupation of [[Swedish Pomerania]], allowing the Swedish army to withdraw with all its munitions of war.

===Scandinavia and Finland===
{{Main|Gunboat War|Finnish War|Dano-Swedish War of 1808–1809}}
[[File:Battle of Trangen.JPG|thumb|The [[Battle of Trangen]] during the [[Dano-Swedish War of 1808–1809|Dano–Swedish War, 1808–1809]]. The [[Norwegian Army|Norwegians]] fought bravely and defeated the Swedes.]]
Britain's first response to Napoleon's Continental System was to launch a major naval attack against [[Denmark-Norway|Denmark]]. Although ostensibly neutral, Denmark was under heavy French and Russian pressure to pledge [[Royal Danish Navy|its fleet]] to Napoleon. London could not take the chance of ignoring the Danish threat. In August 1807, the Royal Navy [[Battle of Copenhagen (1807)|besieged and bombarded Copenhagen]], leading to the capture of the [[History of the Danish navy|Dano–Norwegian fleet]], and assuring use of the sea lanes in the North and Baltic seas for the British merchant fleet. Denmark joined the war on the side of France, but without a fleet it had little to offer,{{sfn|Ryan|1953}}{{page needed|date=May 2021}}{{sfn|Munch-Petersen|2007}}{{page needed|date=May 2021}} beginning an engagement in a [[Gunboat War|naval guerrilla war]] in which small gunboats attacked larger British ships in Danish and Norwegian waters. Denmark also committed themselves to participate in a war against Sweden together with France and Russia.

At Tilsit, Napoleon and Alexander had agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System, which led to a [[Finnish War|Russian invasion of Finland]] in February 1808, followed by a [[Dano-Swedish War of 1808–1809|Danish declaration of war]] in March. Napoleon also sent an auxiliary corps, consisting of troops from France, [[Kingdom of Spain (Napoleonic)|Spain]] and [[Kingdom of Holland|Holland]], led by Marshal [[Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte]], to Denmark to participate in the invasion of Sweden. But British naval superiority prevented the armies from crossing the [[Øresund]] strait, and the war came mainly to be fought along the Swedish–Norwegian border. At the [[Congress of Erfurt]] (September–October 1808), France and Russia further agreed on the division of Sweden into two parts separated by the [[Gulf of Bothnia]], where the eastern part became the Russian [[Grand Duchy of Finland]]. British voluntary attempts to assist Sweden with humanitarian aid remained limited, and did not prevent Sweden from adopting a more Napoleon-friendly policy.{{sfn|Götz|2014|pp=519–539}}{{page range too broad|date=May 2021}}

The war between Denmark and Britain effectively finished with a British victory at the [[Battle of Lyngør]] in 1812, involving the destruction of the last large Dano–Norwegian ship—the [[frigate]] ''[[HDMS Najaden (1811)|Najaden]]''.

===Poland===
{{Main|Duchy of Warsaw}}
[[File:January Suchodolski, Bitwa pod Somosierrą.jpg|thumb|[[Polish cavalry]] at the [[Battle of Somosierra]] in Spain, 1808]]

In 1807, Napoleon created a powerful outpost of his empire in Central Europe. [[History of Poland|Poland]] had recently been [[Partitions of Poland|partitioned by its three neighbours]], but Napoleon created the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, which depended on France from the beginning. The duchy consisted of lands seized by Austria and Prussia; its Grand Duke was Napoleon's ally King [[Frederick Augustus I of Saxony]], but Napoleon appointed the intendants who administered the country. The population of 4.3&nbsp;million was released from occupation and, by 1814, sent about 200,000 men to Napoleon's armies. That included about 90,000 who marched with him to Moscow; few marched back.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Otto Pivka |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ETYsTuIaKkQC&pg=PA8 |title=Napoleon's Polish Troops |publisher=Osprey Publishing |year=2012 |isbn=978-1-78096-549-9 |pages=8–10 |access-date=18 June 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160515091845/https://books.google.com/books?id=ETYsTuIaKkQC&pg=PA8 |archive-date=15 May 2016 |url-status=live}}</ref> The Russians strongly opposed any move towards an independent Poland and one reason Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812 was to punish them. The Grand Duchy was absorbed into the [[Russian Empire]] as a semi-autonomous [[Congress Poland]] in 1815; Poland did not become a sovereign state again until 1918, following the collapse of the neighbouring Russian, [[German Empire|German]] and [[Austria–Hungary|Austro-Hungarian]] Empires in the aftermath of [[World War I]]. Napoleon's impact on Poland was significant, including the Napoleonic legal code, the abolition of [[serfdom]], and the introduction of modern middle-class bureaucracies.{{sfn|Riley|2013|pp=27–28}}{{sfn|Grab|2003|pp=176–187}}