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After the third and fourth Coalition wars,

Napoleon had decisively defeated all three

of his main rivals on the continent.

And he was now undoubtedly the master of Europe,

After the battle of Friedland, his enemy sued for peace

and they all met on a raft on a river for negotiations.

They had been fighting for the past four years

but now Napoleon and Alexander surprisingly got

along like a house on fire.

They laughed together.

They chatted long into the night.

They kissed, the two had a lot

of mutual respect and Napoleon even told his wife

that if Alexander were a woman,

I would make him my mistress,

kind of a weird thing to say to your wife, Napoleon.

In the end, they came to an amicable agreement.

Russia would lose barely any land.

And in return they'd joined France

against the UK and invade Sweden, win-win.

On the other hand, Frederick William III was sidelined

and Prussia lost an enormous amount

of territory to French client states.

Only the UK remained as the last major threat

to Napoleon and they continued to be a big thorn

in his side, constantly funding his enemies

and using their powerful Navy to wreak havoc

on French trade and overseas colonies.

But what could Napoleon do?

The British were safe across the channel.

Well, he said, "If I can't fight you with guns

I'll fight you with money."

Earlier 1806, Napoleon had announced the continental system.

A total shut off of the UK from continental trade.

No one in Europe was to trade with Britain

and Napoleon hope that by hitting their economy

he could force them to negotiate.

The British economy did take a hit

and they responded in their typical fashion

by going to Copenhagen and blowing a bunch of stuff up.

But in general, the British managed to stay afloat

by simply increasing their trade

with other parts of the world.

Many neutral countries found themselves stuck

between a rock and a hard place.

As the two European superpowers demanded

they ceased trade with the enemy.

Hey America, you better not trade with the French.

We also can burn down the white house.

What? This is going to wreck my economy.

I need to start saving money.

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Now, where were we?

Oh yeah, making peace with the Russians,

a continental blockade and blowing up Copenhagen.

Sick of being blown up

for doing almost nothing and under significant pressure

from Napoleon the Danish officially sided with France.

But Napoleon's blockade had the biggest effect

on continental Europe who were now cut off

from a major trading partner.

One that controlled the seas and held a rich growing empire.

And a lot of countries didn't fully comply.

Portugal, a traditional British ally, refuse to take part.

No problem.

Napoleon sent an army and invaded,

but it wasn't just Portugal.

Many of Napoleon's allies were also suspect.

Your majesty it seems that Spain

isn't properly enforcing your blockade.

Spain, why not?

Well, it appears, they've been trying to find a way out

of being your ally since they lost their fleet of Trafalgar.

What is with these people?

It's almost like everyone's only pretending to be my ally

because they know otherwise I'd beat them up.

Do I even have any real friends?

Are you my friend Pierre, say yes or I'll slap you.

Napoleon had come to mistrust his ally to the south.

And in particular Napoleon thought the Spanish

Royal family were an incompetent mess.

All right, Carlos, you've got to get it together.

How can I trust you, when all you do is go hunting?

Meanwhile, you let this ambitious nobody

who dislikes me run the country.

And you seem to be the only person

in the universe who doesn't realize he's blinking your wife.

And what's worse, who the heck are you?

I'm the king son.

I just over through my dad.

So actually now I'm the king.

You people are the biggest cluster of shameless

narcissistic idiots and all around

just the worst people I've ever met.

Here have a kid's choice award.

French forces, many having conveniently already

entered Spain to invade Portugal, occupied Spanish forts

and Napoleon invited the Spanish Royals

to France to help mediate their differences.

(audience cheering)

Alright, we're here with the Royal family of Spain.

So Fernando, you've been accused of plotting

against your father and vying for the Spanish throne.

What do you have to say for yourself?

Well, Napoleon...

That's great.

Well, I've got the test results right here,

Fernando in the case of the Spanish throne,

you are not the king.

(audience laughing)

And Carlos, you are also not the king.

(audience laughing)

I'm the King.

(audience cheering)

Actually Napoleon made his brother the king,

but for all intents and purposes, Spain was now his puppet.

He expected the Spanish people to be over the moon

at the removal of their unpopular Royal family.

Imagine his surprise when it turned out

that people don't really like to be subjugated

by a foreign power least of all one who had previously

attacked the Catholic church.

And so the people of Spain revolted.

Brutal fighting broke out as bands of armed Spaniards,

ambushed French troops across the kingdom

and vicious atrocities were committed on both sides.

In addition to fighting the regular Spanish

and Portuguese forces,

the French had to contend with tens of thousands

of guerrilla fighters throughout the Spanish countryside.

The British even took the opportunity to land an army led

by the future Duke of Wellington.

and now British forces were defeating French ones on land.

Napoleon briefly went to Spain in person,

and he did drive back the allied armies.

But before long, his attention was needed elsewhere.

The whole thing became a nightmare for the emperor.

He excelled at traditional warfare,

but this was something more akin to Napoleon's Vietnam.

The whole conflict would keep hundreds of thousands

of French soldiers and resources bogged down for years.

Napoleon was never able to break the will

the Spanish people

and this problem weakened his position in Europe.

Hey, Francis, want to go to war with Napoleon again?

I don't know Britain, he's already whomped me three times.

I'll give you a bazillion pounds.

Well, okay.

Seeing that Napoleon was now caught up in Spain

and with some British funding, Austria decided maybe,

just maybe this time they'd have a chance.

So did they?

No.

Napoleon defeated them in just four months?

It was quick, but it wasn't exactly easy.

The Austrians had been watching Napoleon

and learning and they had made some reforms,

while Napoleon after years of war

was increasingly having to rely

on inexperienced conscripts.

So this time the Austrians gave him a run for his money.

The Fifth Coalition saw some of the bloodiest battles

to date, including Napoleon's first major defeat.

And when he did finally defeat the Austrians

at the Battle of Wagram, it was a very costly victory.

Still Napoleon had yet again, kicked Francis' butt

and as part of the peace terms,

Austria lost a bunch more land.

not long after however Napoleon

and Francis came to another agreement.

It was decided that Napoleon would marry Francis'

young daughter, but wait,

doesn't Napoleon already have a wife.

Well, yes he did.

Josephine and Napoleon had become quite fond of one another.

But now that Napoleon was playing the Monarch game,

he needed a male heir

and his aging wife wasn't giving him one.

So it was out with the old and in with the new.

at least he didn't behead anyone.

For Austria, they felt that if Napoleon

was going to keep on winning,

they may as well be on his side.

So through the marriage,

Napoleon got an alliance with Austria

and a beautiful baby potato.

Between them failing blockade against Britain,

the ongoing war in Spain

and now his recent struggles in Austria,

cracks in Napoleon's invincibility were beginning to show.

But still, look at this map.

So blue, so beautiful, even Sweden after being pulverized

by Russia, over through their king.

And after an interesting chain of events,

ended up putting one of Napoleon's own marshals in charge.

Marshall Bernadotte took the name Karl Johan

and became crown prince of Sweden.

After agreeing to join Napoleon's continental system,

for now, Sweden was team France.

Napoleon was on top of the world.

He had won an endless string of victories.

All he had to do now was sit back and not make

any major miscalculations that could completely

turn the tide of war.

So let's see what comes next.

France's alliance with Russia was a terrifying prospect.

Together, the two could have been unstoppable,

but unfortunately, the alliance didn't last.

The Russians felt they weren't getting a fair deal.

Napoleon's Duchy of Warsaw right on their doorstep,

was a bit of an insult.

And then their economy began to tank

because of Napoleon's British blockade.

And eventually they began to open up trade.

Your majesty, it seems Alexander is no longer abiding

by the continental system and has begun trading

with the British.

Alexander, but he kissed me.

He kissed you?

You wouldn't get it, Pierre.

No one would ever kiss you.

The security of Napoleon's empire depended on removing

the British threat and he wasn't happy

with Russia's backdoor shenanigans.

And so in 1812, Napoleon decided to go to war.

He gathered together the most massive army