[33] The wars had profound consequences on global history, including the spread of nationalism and liberalism, advancements in civil law, the rise of Britain as the world's foremost naval and economic power, the appearance of independence movements in Spanish America and the subsequent decline of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires, the fundamental reorganization of German and Italian territories into larger states, and the introduction of radically new methods of conducting warfare.

Furthermore, Britons felt insulted when Napoleon stated that their country deserved no voice in European affairs, even though King George III was an elector of the Holy Roman Empire.

Napoleon suffered further setbacks: French power in the Iberian Peninsula was broken at the Battle of Vitoria the following summer, and a new alliance began, the War of the Sixth Coalition.

[42][page range too broad] Due to the longevity of the wars, the extent of Napoleon's conquests, and the popularity of the ideals of the French Revolution, the period had a deep impact on European social culture.

Many subsequent revolutions, such as that of Russia, looked to the French as a source of inspiration,[43] while its core founding tenets greatly expanded the arena of human rights and shaped modern political philosophies in use today.

Bonaparte annexed Piedmont and Elba, made himself President of the Italian Republic, a state in northern Italy that France had set up, and failed to evacuate Holland, as it had agreed to do in the treaty.

[55] Malta was captured by Britain during the war and was subject to a complex arrangement in the 10th article of the Treaty of Amiens, where it was to be restored to the Knights of St. John with a Neapolitan garrison and placed under the guarantee of third powers.

Although continental powers were unprepared to act, the British decided to send an agent to help the Swiss obtain supplies, and also ordered their military not to return Cape Colony to Holland as they had committed to do in the Treaty of Amiens.

[61] The Addington ministry realised they would face an inquiry over their false reasons for the military preparations, and during April unsuccessfully attempted to secure the support of William Pitt to shield them from damage.

[62] In the same month, the ministry issued an ultimatum to France, demanding a retention of Malta for at least ten years, the permanent acquisition of the island of Lampedusa from the Kingdom of Sicily, and the evacuation of Holland.

The British felt insulted when Napoleon said it deserved no voice in European affairs (even though King George was an elector of the Holy Roman Empire) and sought to restrict the London newspapers that were vilifying him.

[68] As late as 1808, the continental powers affirmed most of his gains and titles, but the continuing conflict with Britain led him to start the Peninsular War and the invasion of Russia, which many scholars see as a dramatic miscalculation.

I say only they will not come by sea"), Britain did not have to spend the entire war defending itself and could thus focus on supporting its embattled allies, maintaining low-intensity land warfare on a global scale for over a decade.

Anglo-Portuguese forces under Arthur Wellesley supported the Spanish, who campaigned successfully against the French armies, eventually driving them from Spain and allowing Britain to invade southern France.

In response to the naval blockade of the French coasts enacted by the British government on 16 May 1806, Napoleon issued the Berlin Decree on November 21, 1806, which brought into effect the Continental System.

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 indecisive action off Cape Finisterre on 22 July 1805.

At Tilsit, Napoleon and Alexander had agreed that Russia should force Sweden to join the Continental System, which led to a Russian invasion of Finland in February 1808, followed by a Danish declaration of war in March.

[92][page range too broad] 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 Najaden.

[96][page needed] For a time, the British and Portuguese remained restricted to the area around Lisbon (behind their impregnable Lines of Torres Vedras), while their Spanish allies were besieged in Cádiz.

[128] Provisioning such an enormous army with adequate food and fresh water had proven difficult since the very start of the campaign, exacerbated by the sparse terrain of western Russia; diseases such as typhus and dysentery rapidly became rampant among the rank and file.

While an indecisive engagement, it nevertheless doomed the Grande Armée; with the Russians refusing to be dislodged, Napoleon was forced to retreat back down the Smolensk road along which he had already advanced, and which had already been denuded of supplies – most crucially, food.

The lack of horses also rendered Napoleon's cavalry ineffective, leaving the Grande Armée vulnerable to sustained guerrilla warfare by Russian peasants and irregular troops.

[136] In the Peninsular War, Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington, renewed the Anglo-Portuguese advance into Spain just after New Year in 1812, besieging and capturing the fortified towns of Ciudad Rodrigo, Badajoz, and crushing a French army at the Battle of Salamanca.

[138][page needed] The belligerents declared an armistice from 4 June 1813 (continuing until 13 August) during which time both sides attempted to recover from the loss of approximately a quarter of a million men in the preceding two months.

[136] Following the end of the armistice, Napoleon seemed to have regained the initiative at Dresden (August 1813), where he once again defeated a numerically superior coalition army and inflicted enormous casualties, while sustaining relatively few.

On the same day, the left wing of the Armée du Nord, under the command of Marshal Michel Ney, succeeded in stopping any of Wellington's forces going to aid Blücher's Prussians by fighting a blocking action at Quatre Bras.

On arriving at Paris three days after Waterloo, Napoleon still clung to the hope of a concerted national resistance; but the temper of the legislative chambers, and of the public generally, did not favour his view.

[38] The century of relative transatlantic peace, after the Congress of Vienna, enabled the "greatest intercontinental migration in human history"[145] beginning with "a big spurt of immigration after the release of the dam erected by the Napoleonic Wars.

"[146] Immigration inflows relative to the US population rose to record levels (peaking at 1.6 per cent in 1850–51)[147][page range too broad] as 30 million Europeans relocated to the United States between 1815 and 1914.

The French Revolution made every civilian a part of the war machine, either as a soldier through universal conscription, or as a vital cog in the home front machinery supporting and supplying the army.