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- Jean-Baptiste-Jules Bernadotte, Prince of PonteCorvo
Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte, born January 26, 1763 in Pau, Béarn (France), died March 8, 1844 in Stockholm (Sweden), had a singular destiny, passing, in the space of twenty-eight years, from a modest rank of French non-commissioned officer, in 1790, with the prestigious role, in 1818 of king of Sweden and Norway (under the respective names of Charles XIV Jean (Karl XIV Johan) and Charles III Jean (Carl III Johan)), after having been in turn, under the Consulate and the First Empire, ambassador, minister, general then marshal of the Empire.
The soldier
He is the son of a lawyer. After receiving a careful education from his father, he embraced a military career out of taste in 1780. He enlisted as a simple soldier in the Brassac regiment in 1780, and was still only sergeant-major in 1789.
The French Revolution
When the French Revolution broke out, he had the rank of sergeant. After having distinguished himself in the armies of the Rhine and Sambre-et-Meuse, he was proclaimed, by Jean-Baptiste Kléber, brigadier general on the battlefield in 1794. He became a general of division a few months later and contributed powerfully to the victories of Fleurus and Juliers (1794)
The crossing he operated on the Rhine, near Weuwied, in 1793, the advantages he won over the enemy, near Lahn, in 1796, the blockade of Mainz, the battle of Neuhoff, the crossing of the Rednitz , the capture of Altdorf and Neumark, the defeat of General Cray on the Main, unshakeably establish his military reputation.
The Italian Campaign
Charged in 1797 with leading 20,000 men of the army of Sambre-et-Meuse to Napoleon Bonaparte in Italy, he competed in ardor with the young general, and, although he felt little sympathy for him, suspecting his ambitious designs , he seconded him with all his power:he took a glorious part in the passage of the Tagliamento, seized Gradisca, Trieste, Laybach, Idria, and came after the campaign to present to the Directory the flags taken from the enemy.
After 18 Fructidor, Bernadotte obtained command of Marseilles; but the troubles of this part of France and the repugnance he feels for violent measures, make him renounce this post. He then returned to the army of Italy.
Following the Treaty of Campo-Formio, Bernadotte was sent to Vienna as ambassador from February to April 1798. He provoked a riot there for displaying the tricolor flag on the embassy hotel, and soon left Austria, because it is refused reparations. He goes to Rastadt and from there to Paris.
Minister of War
In charge of the command of the army of observation, in 1799, he received the order to cross the Rhine to block Philippsbourg; but the setbacks of the French in Italy and Germany forced him to abandon this project.
Appointed then Minister of War from July 3 to September 14, 1799 by the influence of Barras after the 30 Prairial, he sought to revive the zeal of the French armies by vigorous measures, he then passed for the "sword" of the neo- Jacobins in the event of a coup d'etat and reorganized in 2 months (July 2-September 11, 1799) the services which were in a deplorable state; he had already recalled the victory under his banners when he was sidelined by an intrigue of Sieyes:he resigned; rightly or wrongly, he is attributed several faults which arouse discontent and force him to resign shortly before 18 brumaire.
He then retired to the countryside, spoke out against Napoleon Bonaparte's coup d'etat, and the cooling off between these two generals at that time increased. He is, however, pampered by Bonaparte, because he married Désirée Clary, his first fiancée and the sister-in-law of Joseph Bonaparte. Bernadotte enters the Council of State and accepts the command of the army of the West, in the Vendée (1800):he knows by his skilful dispositions to prevent the British from landing in Quiberon and to restore tranquility in the country.
He is compromised by the "libels" conspiracy, also known as the "butterpots" conspiracy set up by General Simon, his chief of staff. Fouché covers up the affair, but Bernadotte is deprived of his command.
The Empire
After the peace of Lunéville, he was appointed ambassador to the United States; but the resumption of hostilities prevented him from going to his post.
In 1804, he was sent to Hanover as governor general, and he received the baton of marshal during the first creation; he formed in this country an army corps, at the head of which he carried out several glorious feats of arms:thus, in 1805, he restored in Munich the Elector of Bavaria Maximilian I of Bavaria, an ally of France, and conquered the land of Salzburg.
In 1805, Bernadotte contributed powerfully to the surrender of Ulm by turning the Austrian army. At the Battle of Austerlitz, he commanded the center of the French army which resisted the desperate shock of the Russians.
In 1806, on June 5, Marshal Bernadotte was created Prince of Pontecorvo. That same year, in the Prussian campaign, he commanded the 1st corps; on the day of Jena-Auerstaedt he went back and forth between the two nearby battlefields without taking part in any, his conduct was such that the Emperor signed the order to have him brought before a court martial; he had failed to cause the battle to be lost.
He then defeated the Prussians in front of Halle and at Lübeck, where he took Blücher prisoner, forced him to capitulate and captured Lubeck, where the carnage was horrible despite the generals' efforts to stop him. Bernadotte has, on this occasion, the greatest regard for the remaining inhabitants of Lubeck and especially for the Swedish prisoners.
Then, marching on Poland, he crosses the Vistula, he occupies Elbing, Braunsberg, and defeats the Russians on January 27 at Mohrungen and at Spanden, on June 5, on the Passarge, where he is seriously wounded (1807). This injury prevents him from taking part in the Battle of Friedland.
Appointed, after his recovery, governor of the Hanseatic towns, and charged with operating against Sweden, he suspended hostilities as soon as he learned that a revolution had thrown Gustav IV of Sweden, the only one hostile to France, from the throne (March 13 1808); this loyal conduct earned him the esteem and affection of the Swedes, but it seems to have aroused the discontent of Napoleon I, whose plans it thwarted. Bernadotte, for him, hardly shines on the battlefields:he remains inactive in Austerlitz, Auerstaedt, arrives after the battle in Eylau.
After the peace of Tilsitt, he commanded, until 1809, the army of occupation of northern Germany.
At the break between France and Austria, he took command of the Saxon army. He commanded the corps, composed largely of Saxons, and contributed powerfully with them to the victory of Wagram, but he retired after the battle, not finding that the Emperor had done justice to his troops in his bulletins.
Napoleon puts him aside. Fouché obtained the Army of the Scheldt for him at the end of July 1809. He was nonetheless responsible for repelling the British who had landed at Walcheren (July 1809); he accomplishes this difficult mission in 60 days. Despite this new success, he was once again deprived of his command:the Emperor took the army of the Scheldt away from him in September.
Prince of Sweden
He is in complete disgrace when a throne is offered to him. He became Prince Royal of Sweden Charles XIV Jean on August 21, 1810, adopted by King Charles XIII having no children, the States General of Örebro elected Marshal Bernadotte hereditary prince of Sweden.
The only condition imposed on him is to abjure the Catholic religion for the reformed. Eugène de Beauharnais had refused to do so, his wife, Princess of Bavaria, could not have consoled herself.
He leaves with the consent of Napoleon who accepts this choice, hoping thus to have a solid ally in northern Europe. Some observers partially explain this approval by the fact that the Marshal had married Désirée Clary, former fiancée of the young Bonaparte.
Bernadotte abjures on October 20, he disembarks at Helsingborg, and on the following 31, he is presented to the States; on November 5, adopted by King Charles XIII, he took the name of Charles-Henri. He first agrees to support the policy of the Emperor and even accedes to the continental blockade and from 1811, during the illness of his adoptive father, he begins to direct the affairs of the kingdom.
In 1812, he provoked the decree which opened the ports of Sweden to the commerce of all nations. That same year, he held the destinies of the world in his hands for a moment:before Napoleon had reached Moscow, he could retake Finland and march on Saint Petersburg; but at the beginning of 1812, the French troops having invaded Swedish territory, he broke with Napoleon. Far from proving to be the ally expected by the emperor, the new crown prince prefers to play the card of his kingdom above all.
Seeing the Empire shaken, he favored, in 1813, the entry of Sweden into the coalition against France, proving to be a talented general. In July 1813, he joined the coalition against France, not without having tried every means to enlighten Napoleon on the dangers of his situation; he takes command of the Allied army in northern Germany.
Appointed Generalissimo of the Northern Army, the Prince Royal landed at Stralsund with 30,000 Swedes, defeated Oudinot at Gross-Beeren (August 23, 1813), Ney at Dennevitz (September 6, 1813), and took a decisive part in the Battle of Leipzig (1813)
Then he descended the Elbe, seized Lubeck and headed for Holstein, where he forced the King of Denmark to sign, on January 14, 1814, the Peace of Kiel, under which Norway was ceded to Sweden. . He then advanced slowly towards France at the head of his army and gained enough time for the news of the peace of Paris to exempt him from crossing the Rhine. He protests loudly against the invasion of French territory, and accuses the allies of failing in the promised faith; he even tries, but in vain, to persuade Napoleon I to peace, and to divert the allies from crossing the Rhine.
He cherishes the hope of replacing Napoleon on the imperial throne, a prospect to which Tsar Alexander I would not have been hostile, within the framework of a sort of "exchange" which would have seen one of his nephews accede to the Swedish throne. This combination, if proven, had no follow-up. The Congress of Vienna, having preferred to ratify the Restoration of the Bourbons in France, withdraws the crown of Norway from the kingdom of Denmark to offer it to the Swedish sovereigns.
Hardly had he returned to Sweden, where he was received with enthusiasm, when he marched on Norway, possession of which had been assured to him by the allies, and captured it in 15 days (1814).
In 1815, he formally refused to join the second coalition against Napoleon.
King of Sweden
On February 5, 1818, ex-Marshal Bernadotte became King of the Union of the Kingdoms of Sweden and Norway under the name of Karl XIV Johan (Charles XIV Jean) in Sweden and Karl III Johan in Norway. Charles-Jean is only concerned with making his States prosper; it cements the (forced) union of Swedes and Norwegians, while leaving each of the two peoples, to a certain extent, its own constitution, develops public education, agriculture, industry and commerce, and joins together, by the channel of Gothie, the Ocean and the Baltic (1822). He takes as his motto:"The love of my people is my reward" (Folkets kärlek min belöning in Swedish), a rather vain claim in the eyes of his Scandinavian contemporaries, even if the Swedes and Norwegians who know little about the history of the 18th century century and the painful Swedish-Norwegian union (dissolved in 1905) have kept a rather pleasant memory. However, he forced the administration of the two kingdoms and the Court to use French, since he himself had always refused to learn Swedish and, a fortiori, the Norwegian languages. If the opinion of the Swedish aristocracy (who found in him the war leader they lacked after the bankruptcy of Gustaf IV Adolf in his war against Russia, costing Sweden the loss of Finland) towards him is positive on the whole, the same is not true for Norwegian patriots, who see in him only evil, arbitrariness and political madness, unconcerned with the daily needs and aspirations of Norwegians to free themselves from the yoke of the crown Swedish since 1814, annexing Norway which has just emerged from the Danish condominium (helstaten, from 1660 to 1814).
His descendants still rule over Sweden.
Search
A major investigation is underway in the Bernadotte archives in Stockholm, it was launched by the FRAMESPA laboratory of the University of Toulouse 2-Le mirail in 2003. The documents are kept at the Royal Palace in Stockholm (Kungliga Slottet) and they are can be consulted in the national archives after obtaining an authorization signed by the king and the organization of the transfer of files from one collection to another. These archives are completely in French because Bernadotte, despite his efforts, having never mastered Swedish, he had all the documents of his administration systematically translated into French. The coordinator of this survey, Jean-Marc Olivier, draws up the first results in issue 2 of the Revue d'histoire nordique in October 2006. A dozen masters have already been defended at this university on Bernadotte, who became Charles XIV Jean, they are kept in the library of the UFR "History, arts and archaeology".
Bibliography
His Correspondence with Napoleon from 1810 to 1814, Paris, 1819, and a Collection of his Letters, Proclamations and Speeches (Stockholm, 1825) have been published. His History was written by Touchard-Lafosse, 1838, and by Bernard Sarrans, 1845.
Anecdotes
It is reported that, during his lifetime, Charles XIV Jean would not have let any doctor examine him bare-chested. We would have discovered the explanation during his funeral toilet:this former soldier of the Republic would indeed have been carrying a tattoo saying “Death to kings! (or “Death to Tyrants”).
The Swedish University of Chalmers in Gothenburg paid tribute to him by adopting his motto in French:“Avancez! .
Bernadotte, then a young soldier in the guardhouse in Paris, received in 1780 a bequest of ten louis from the poet Nicolas Gilbert.
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- Bernadotte coat of arms