Napoleonic Interactive!

[King Kurt]

Due to me not reading the small print, the Kingdom of Naples is ruled by King Ferdinand, not Marshall Murat whose image was in my last post!!!

In the interest of historical accuracy, meet the King of Naples - not as striking as Murat, but still a fine figure of a man.

For completeness, I include the power behind his throne, the Queen Marie Caroline, sister of Marie Antoinette.

I have just been returned to my throne after a peasant's revolt, lead by Cardinal Ruffo, ably assisted by Nelson and the English fleet.

Looking forward to some fun and death to all Jackobins!!!

[Rodion Romanovich]

Spain is currently led by king Charles IV

...of the Bourbon dynasty, the same dynasty that was overthrown in the French revolution. Spain's protest against the execution of the French king led to a French declaration of war. After a short campaign in the Pyrenees, the Spanish army was forced to retreat, and Spain was invaded by France. Charles IV left much of the administration to his wife's lover Manuel de Godoy, who became Prime minister and negotiated peace with France, on conditions which could be described as de facto vassalhood of Spain in relation to France. Recently in one such treaty, in order to get back land lost from France during the French invasion, Manuel de Godoy accepted a treaty in which Spain was forced to declare war on Britain and Portugal.

Historically, Spanish official foreign policy, led by Godoy's policies, ended up making Spain support France without getting much in return during most of the Napoleonic wars period, and despire his title "prince of peace" he was responsible for causing Spain to be drawn into wars that proved disastrous for them, including the battle of Trafalgar, as well as eventually making way for tempting Napoleon to put the Frenchman Joseph I Napoleon on the throne. This caused massive revolt from the people, who took full advantage of the terrain to wage guerilla war on the French occupying forces, tying down so large reserves of French troops that it made way for their defeat on other fronts, and inflicted heavy losses on them. During the peninsular war, Wellington took advantage of this isolated French garrison and the superiority of the British fleet to land a British led army in the area, and managed to inflict several defeats on the French forces in the area.

[Caius]

Im in!