With the growth of the middle class throughout the 18th and 19th Centuries, the need for greater democracy and the wider distribution of power became ever more prevalent in European society. However, this was at odds with many ruling monarchs, such as in France, who saw the rights of the monarch as pre-eminent above all others.
The Napoleonic Wars
The series of campaigns in Europe fought between the French Empire and numerous allied coalitions are collectively known as the Napoleonic Wars. Spreading out from the earlier French Revolutionary Wars from around 1793 onwards, the wars saw Napoleon Bonaparte dominate much of continental Europe before his final defeat at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815.
As part of the campaigns against France, the Peninsular War ravaged the Iberian Peninsula from around 1807 until 1814. This conflict, in hindsight, proved extremely costly for Napoleon, who simultaneously had to deal with the British, Portuguese and Spanish guerrillas. Later he would track back his eventual demise to this war, which he called his ‘fatal knot'. The Spanish people were by far the biggest losers in this conflict and it left a crisis within the country that would leave it scarred for decades to come.
Defining moment
World History
