Opportunities of Peace. Period of Consolidation. The French revolution instigated a year storm that swept up all Europe and whose winds reached to the far corners of the earth. In the middle of the hurricane gusts and squalls came a lull. The Treaty of Amiens between Britain the last protagonist of the revolutionary wars, and Napoleon Bonaparte the leader of France's new government, was a time of peace both for temporary restoration and for the consolidation of a new order.
However like the eye of a hurricane, it was only a temporary respite before the winds renewed with a ferocity even greater than before. Is this a correct analogy? There are a number of possibilities to be floated: Was the pacification of Europe consummated by the Treaty of Amiens truly an interlude in one endless struggle was the whole war just one episode in the contest for Europe and the world?
Perhaps Amiens was more correctly a gap between a Revolutionary storm that finally blew itself out before a Napoleonic storm gathered itself? Or was the peace itself illusionary and representing simply a new phase; either a shift from hot to cold war or alternatively an experiment in appeasement after both sides had been worn down by confrontation? The fact of the matter is, Amiens hasn't received much attention at all. It has become a convenient place to either finish one general history of the revolutionary wars, or to start another with the Napoleonic wars.
Thus the peace settlement tends to fall between the cracks. Histories of Napoleon must of course cover the subject, but tend to see the pacification of Europe as following logically from Marengo, before turning their focus to the rupture. In this myopic view they do not really address why there was a will for peace, nor do they address the diplomatic process. It is also far too easy to garner some belligerent quotes from an obstinate opponent of peace in England such as Lord Grenville and to stereotype a reactionary conspiracy to renew the war with greater vigour.
It is equally easy to view French expansion during the peace and forget the complex web that preceded this. There is therefore, a need to look at the peace process in it's own right and to answer three critical questions:.
