Napoleon:

Napoleon Bonaparte (French: Napoléon Bonaparte), later known as Napoleon I, the Great (August 15, 1769 – May 5, 1821)^[1] was a general who became ruler of France. He led France to war against most of Europe. His empire at its largest spread from Russia to Egypt to the Atlantic Ocean. Eventually he was defeated by a coalition led by Great Britain and Prussia.

The ideas of the French Revolution spread around Europe during the age of Napoleon.

Early life

Napoleon was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Ajaccio, Corsica. His father was Carlo Buonaparte, a lawyer, politician and representative to King Louis XVI's court. His mother was Marie-Letizia Buonaparte. The Buonapartes were a wealthy family from the Corsican nobility. He had an elder brother, Joseph, and younger siblings Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jerome. He was baptised Catholic just before his second birthday, on July 21 1771 at Ajaccio Cathedral. Napoleon changed his name so it sounded more French.

Early Military Career

2nd Lieutenant Bonaparte

Napoleon was able to enter the military academy at Brienne in 1779. He was nine years old when he entered the academy. He moved to the Parisian École Royale Militaire in 1784 and graduated a year later as a second lieutenant of artillery. Napoleon was able to spend much of the next eight years in Corsica. There he played an active part in political and military matters. He came into conflict with the Corsican nationalist Pasquale Paoli, and his family was forced to flee to Marsille in 1793.

Siege of Toulon

The French Revolution caused much fighting and disorder in France. At times, Napoleon was connected to those in power. Other times, he was in jail. He helped the French Republic from those royalist who supported the former king of France. In September 1793, he assumed command of an artillery brigade at the siege of Toulon, where royalist leaders had welcomed a British fleet and enemy troops. The British were driven out in December 17, 1793, and Bonaparte was rewarded with promotion to brigadier general and assigned to the French army in Italy in February 1794.

13 Vendémiaire

General Napoleon Bonaparte was later appointed by the republic to repel the royalist on October 5 1795. More than a 1400 royalists died and the rest fled. He had cleared the streets with "a whiff of grapeshot" according to the 19th-century historian Thomas Carlyle. He was then promoted to major general and mark his name on the French Revolution.

The defeat of the Royalist rebelions ended the threat to the Convention and earned Bonaparte sudden fame, wealth, and the patronage of the new Directory. In March 9, 1796, Napoleon married Josephine de Beauharnais,a widow older than him and a very unlikely wife to future ruler.

Italian Campaign

The campaign in Italy is the first time Napoleon led France to war. Late in March 1796, Bonaparte begins a series of operations to divide and defeat the Austrian and Sardinian armies in Italy. He defeated the Sardinians in April 21, adding Savoy and Nice to territories of France. Then, in a series of brilliant battles, he won Lombardy from the Austrians. Mantua, the last Lombard stronghold fell in Frbruary 1797.

Egyptian Campaign

In May 1798, General Napoleon left for a campaign in Egypt. The French needed to threaten Britain's empire in India and the French Directory's concerns that Napoleon would take control of France. The French Army under Napoleon won an overwhelming victory in the Battle of Pyramids. Barely 300 French soldiers died, while thousand of Mamluks (an old power in the Middle East) lay dead. But his army is weakened by bubonic plague and poor supplies. The Egyptian campaign was a military failure but a cultural success, the Rosetta Stone was founded by a French engineer Captain Pierre-François Bouchard, and French scholar Jean-François Champollion was able to decipher the code in the stone. Napoleon went back to France because of a change in the French government. Some believe that Napoleon should not have left his soldiers in Egypt. Napoleon helped lead the Brumaire coup of November 1799.

Ruler of France

Napoleon during the coup d'état of 18 Brumaire in Saint-Cloud

Napoleon Bonaparte returned in Paris on October 1799. France's situation had been improved by a series of victories but Republic was bankrupt and the ineffective Directory was unpopular with the French population. He was approached by one of the Directors, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, for his support in a coup to overthrow the constitutional government. The leaders of the plot included his brother Lucien Bonaparte, the speaker of the Council of Five Hundred, Roger Ducos, another Director, Joseph Fouché, and Charles Maurice Talleyrand. The deputies had realised they faced an attempted coup. Faced with their remonstrations, Bonaparte led troops to seize control and disperse them, which left a rump legislature to name Bonaparte, Sièyes, and Ducos as provisional Consuls to administer the government.

Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1800)

Though Sieyès expected to dominate the new regime, he was outmanoeuvred by Bonaparte, who drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul. This made Bonaparte the most powerful person in France and he took up residence at the Tuileries.

In 1800, Napoleon assured his power by crossing the Alps and defeating the Austrians at Marengo. He then negotiated a general European peace that established the Rhine River as the eastern border of France. He also concluded an agreement with the pope (the Concordat of 1801), which contributed to French domestic tranquility by ending the quarrel with the Roman Catholic Church that had arisen during the French Revolution.

In France the administration was reorganized, the court system was simplified, and all schools were put under centralized control. French law was standardized in the Napoleonic Code, or civil code, and six other codes. They guaranteed the rights and liberties won in the Revolution, including equality before the law and freedom of religion.

Emperor of the French

Napoleon on his Imperial throne, by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres, 1806

In February 1804, a British-financial plot against Bonaparte was uncovered by the former police minister Joseph Fouche. It gave Napoleon an excuse to established a hereditary dynasty. In December 2, 1804, Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself "Emperor of the French" . People of the French didn't see him as the monarch of the old regime because his holding a Roman position that has the gloryattached to it. He invited Pope Pius VII to preside over his coronation at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris. During the ceremony, however, Napoleon I took the crown from the pope's hand and place it on his own head. At Milan Cathedral on May 26 1805, Napoleon was crowned King of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy.

Reforms

To restore prosperity, Napoleon modernizes finance. He regulated the economy to control prices, encourage new industry, and build roads and canals. To ensure well-trained officials and military officers, he promoted a system of public schools under strict government control. He also backed off from some social reforms of the revolution. He made peace with the Catholic Church in the Concordat of 1801. The Concordat kept the Church under state control but recognized religious freedom for Catholics.

Napoleon I won support across class lines. He encourage émigré to return, provided they oath of loyalty. Peasants were relived when he recognized their right to lands they had bought from Church and nobles during the revolution. Napoleon's chief opposition came from royalists and republicans.

Napoleonic Code

Among Napoleon's most lasting reforms was a new law code, popularly called the Napoleonic Code. It embodied Enlightenment principles such as equality of all citizens before the law, religious toleration, and advancement based on virtue. But the Napoleonic Code undid some reforms of the French Revolution. Women, for example, lost most of their newly gained rights under the new code. the law considered women minors who could not exercise the rights of citizenship. Male heads of households regained full authority over their wives and children. Again, Napoleon valued order and authority over individual rights.

The Grand Empire

Map of Europe. French Empire shown as slightly bigger than present day France as it included parts of present-day Netherlands and Italy.

First French Empire at its greatest extent in 1811

██ French Empire

██ Conquered "Rebellious" States

██ Conquered "Allied" States

Emperor Napoleon abandoned plans to invade England and turned his armies against the Austro-Russian forces, defeating them at the Battle of Austerlitz on December 2, 1805. In 1806 Napoleon destroyed the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstädt and the Russian army at Friedland. He crowned his elder brother Joseph Bonaparte as King of Naples and Sicily in 1806 and converted the Dutch Republic into the kingdom of Holland for his brother Louis. Napoleon also established the Confederation of the Rhine (most of the German states) of which he was protector.

At Tilsit in July 1807, Napoleon made an ally of Russian tsar Alexander Romanov and greatly reduced the size of Prussia. He also added new states to the empire: the kingdom of Westphalia, under his youngest brother Jerome, the duchy of Warsaw, and others states.

Defeat

The Congress of Erfurt sought to preserve the Russo-French alliance and the leaders had a friendly personal relationship after their first meeting at Tilsit in 1807. But the relationship is short-lived, in June 23, 1812, Napoleon went to war with Russia. They defeated many Russian cities and villages, but by the time they reached Moscow it was winter.Due to the Russian army's scorched earth tactics, the French found it increasingly difficult to forage food for themselves and their horses. Napoleon's army was unable to defeat the Russians. The Russians began to attack. Napoleon and his army had to go back to France. The French suffered greatly in the course of Napoleon's retreat. He withdrew back into France, his army reduced to 70,000 soldiers and 40,000 stragglers, against more than three times as many Allied troops. Finally at the Battle of Leipzig, he is defeated by the Allies: Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia.

Abdication of Emperor Napoleon in Fontainebleau

Exile in Elba

Napoleon had no choice but to abdicate in favor of his son but the Allies refused to accept this and Napoleon abdicated unconditionally on April 11, 1814. Before his formal abdication, Napoleon attempted suicide with a pill but it didn't work. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau the victors exiled him to Elba, an island of 12,000 inhabitants in the Mediterranean. The Allies allow Napoleon to keep an imperial title "Emperor of Elba" and an allowance of 2 million francs a year. Napoleon even requested a 21 gun solute as emperor of the island of Elba. Many delegates fear that Elba is to close to Europe to keep such a dangerous force.

The Hundred Days

Separated from his son and wife, who had come under Austrian control, cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and aware of rumours he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon escaped from Elba on February 26 1815. He made a surprise march on March 1, 1815 to Paris. His former troops joined him and Louis XVIII fled to exile. He again became ruler of France for a length of 100 days. Napoleon was defeated at the Battle of Waterloo by the British under Duke of Wellington and Prussians on June 18 1815, which was his last battle. Napoleon was again captured and taken to his second exile on the island of Saint Helena on the Atlantic Ocean.

Second Exile and Death

Napoleon's death at St. Helena

Napoleon was sent to the island of Saint Helena off the coast of Africa. He died on May 5, 1821 of stomach cancer. Napoleon kept himself informed of the events through The Times and hoped for release in the event that Holland became Prime Minister. He also enjoyed the support of Lord Cochrane, who was involved in Chile's and Brazil's struggle for independence and wanted to rescue Napoleon and help him set-up a new empire in South America, a scheme frustrated by Napoleon's death in May 5,1821. There were other plots to rescue Napoleon from captivity including one from Texas, where exiled soldiers from the Grande Armée wanted a resurrection of the Napoleonic Empire in America. There was even a plan to rescue him with a primitive submarine. For Lord Byron, Napoleon was the epitome of the Romantic hero, the persecuted, lonely and flawed genius. The news that Napoleon had taken up gardening at Longwood also appealed to more domestic British sensibilities.

Legacy

Statue in Cherbourg-Octeville unveiled by Napoleon III in 1858. Napoleon I strengthened the town's defences to prevent British naval incursions.

French people remain proud of Napoleon's glory days. The Napoleonic Code reflects the modern French Constitution. Weapons and other kinds of military technology remained largely static through the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, but 18th century operational mobility underwent significant change. Napoleon's biggest influence was in the conduct of warfare. His popularity would later help his nephew Louis-Napoléon to become ruler of France.

On the world stage, Napoleon's conquest spread the ideas of the revolution. He failed to make Europe into a French Empire. Instead, he sparked nationalist feeling across Europe.

Quotes

“The surest way to remain poor is to be honest“
“Ability is of little account without opportunity.”“I can no longer obey; I have tasted command, and I cannot give it up.”
“Women are nothing but machines for producing children.”
“If you wish to be a success in the world, promise everything, deliver nothing.”
“In politics... never retreat, never retract... never admit a mistake.”
“He who fears being conquered is sure of defeat.”
“Soldiers generally win battles; generals get credit for them”
“The best cure for the body is a quiet mind.”
“What is history but a fable agreed upon?”

References

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Napoleon I of France

↑ McLynn, Frank (1998). Napoleon. Pimlico., 6. ISBN 0712662472.

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