Editing 1800s (decade) (section)

===Napoleonic Wars===
{{Main|Napoleonic Wars}}

The European political landscape was dominated by the [[Napoleonic Wars]], a series of conflicts declared against [[Napoleon]]'s [[First French Empire]] and changing sets of European allies by opposing coalitions that ran from 1803 to 1815. As a continuation of the wars sparked by the [[French Revolution]] of 1789, they revolutionized European armies and played out on an unprecedented scale, mainly due to the application of modern [[Levée en masse|mass conscription]]. French power rose quickly, conquering most of Europe by the end of the decade. The decade brought hard times.

On 9 November 1799 ([[18 Brumaire]]), Napoleon overthrew the French government, replacing it with the [[French Consulate|Consulate]], in which he was First Consul. On 2 December 1804, after a failed assassination plot, he crowned himself [[First French Empire|Emperor]]. In 1805, Napoleon planned to invade Britain, but a renewed British alliance with Russia and Austria ([[Third Coalition]]), forced him to turn his attention towards the continent, while at the same time failure to lure the superior British fleet away from the [[English Channel]], ending in a decisive French defeat at the [[Battle of Trafalgar]] (in this battle, British [[Admiral Horatio Nelson]] was fatally wounded<ref name="ThoughtCo"> J. McNamara, Robert. "Major Events of the First Decade of the 19th Century". ThoughtCo. Retrieved 13 April 2022.</ref>) on 21 October put an end to hopes of an invasion of Britain. On 2 December 1805, Napoleon defeated a numerically superior Austro-Russian army at [[Battle of Austerlitz|Austerlitz]], forcing Austria's withdrawal from the coalition (''see [[Treaty of Pressburg (1805)|Treaty of Pressburg]]'') and dissolving the [[Holy Roman Empire]]. In 1806, a [[Fourth Coalition]] was set up, on 14 October Napoleon defeated the Prussians at the [[Battle of Jena-Auerstedt]], marched through Germany and defeated the Russians on 14 June 1807 at  [[Battle of Friedland|Friedland]]. The [[Treaties of Tilsit]] divided Europe between France and Russia and created the [[Duchy of Warsaw]].

The [[War of the Fifth Coalition]], fought in the year 1809, pitted a coalition of the [[Austrian Empire]] and the [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland|United Kingdom]] against the French Empire and [[Bavaria]]. Major engagements between France and Austria, the main participants, unfolded over much of [[Central Europe]] from April to July, with very high casualty rates. Britain, already involved on the European continent in the ongoing [[Peninsular War]], sent another expedition, the [[Walcheren Campaign]], to the Netherlands in order to relieve the Austrians, although this effort had little impact on the outcome of the conflict. After much campaigning in Bavaria and across the [[Danube River|Danube valley]], the war ended favorably for the French after the bloody struggle at [[Battle of Wagram|Wagram]] in early July, resulting in the [[Treaty of Schönbrunn]] . Although fighting in the [[Peninsular War|Iberian Peninsula]] continued, the War of the Fifth Coalition was the last major conflict on the European continent until the [[Napoleon's invasion of Russia|French invasion of Russia]] in 1812 sparked the [[War of the Sixth Coalition|Sixth Coalition]].