Everyone has heard of Napoleon. The historical French leader, presumed to be short, who rose to great heights, and then fell to great lows when he was defeated at Waterloo, in Belgium. For the most part, that's all that most people know about him. The truth is a little different. Like all people, he had his good points and his bad points. The first thing one needs to do when considering history is to actually CONSIDER history. It would not be fair to judge a person who acted in the late 1700's based on 21st century politics. Things were quite a bit different then than they are now. Sometimes that's good. Sometimes not. Whichever the case, here you'll get a very brief, unrevised look at the career of Napoleon Bonaparte I of France. We hope that you'll get a quick and functioning knowledge of your basic history of the legendary Napoleon Bonaparte.
Born on 15 August, 1769 in Ajaccio, Corsica to Italian parents, and christened Napoleone di Buonoparte, he came from a background of minor nobility. Because of this moderate affluence, he was able to study, among other things, to be a French artillery officer. As a child, he had a good grasp of mathematics and geometry. Later, he served as a Second Lieutenant until just after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. At around this time, he was involved in fighting a complicated and somewhat confusing campaign in Corsica between Corsican royalists, revolutionaries and others. At one point, he even battled against a French army. This did not prevent him from later being promoted to the rank of captain in Paris. He was at odds with the Corsican leader, Pasquale Paoli, and eventually, Napoleone di Buonoparte and his family were forced to flee into France to escape from Corsica. He later changed his name to the more French-sounding moniker of Napleon Bonaparte.
The French and the British had more or less been at war contiuously since medieval times. This was at a time before the existence of nation-states, when most of Europe was a collection of loose alliances and small Holy Roman Empire Papal States. A complicated mess, left over from the collapse of the Roman Empire, and lasting hundreds of years, throughout the Dark Ages and well past the renaissance. Other than the currently-serving Popes, the rest of the continent was more-or-less a disorganized and decentralized jigsaw puzzle of small sovereignties and wavering loyalties. The alliances of these small states changed frequently, and there was usually a lot of discontent to breed trouble. Rather than nations fighting each other, there were coalitions, some large, some very small. Some were merely representing a single city. It would make your head spin for me to list all of the coalitions and ciy-states that existed at the time. The same goes for keeping track of which ones were aligned for or against each other at any given time.
Napoleon used his influences within the French military and leadership to rise to power, mainly through his unique grasp of artillery placement and use, and his ability to write compelling opinions. He was said not to be a very good speller, but that he was quite good at math and geometry. And he was certainly credited in his lifetime as being a very capable military tactician. Napoleon is largely credited for inventing the concept of light, mobile artillery, which brought him many military victories. With the help of Jean-Baptiste Gribeaubal, and his ingenious contributions to weapons production technology, Napoleon was instrumental in driving the British out of Toulon in 1793. This allowed Napoleon to rise to the rank of Brigadier General, and eventually, Emperor. The French had an army in Italy, and Napoleon's success there further increased his position of standing with the French leaders. French involvment in these coalition battles eventually led to widespread French power and influence. In one of Napoleon's most successful campaigns, he was able to defeat Rome, ending an 1,100 year-long independence, and creating a much better position for the French. It was at this time that Napoleon's political influence grew vastly.
For a time, Napoleon was away in Egypt, attempting to expand the French Empire there, but had a great deal of difficulties due to numerous local uprisings and harassment from the British Royal Navy. Britain largely owes its Empirical strength to its powerful Navy. While Napoleon was away and busy in Egypt, the French were again being beset by coalition warfare, and also going bankrupt, and had lost a lot of the support of its people. Upon his return to France, there was a coup by Napoleon, his brother and some other supporters. Leading an army into Paris, he eventually triumphed over opponents, drafted a new constitution, and shortly thereafter elected himself as First Consul, the most powerful position in France. This allowed him to take up residence in the Tullieres Palace. He returned to Italy with his troops and drove out the Austrians in another of many coalition skirmishes. The large number of battles and struggles between these coaltions came to be known as the Napoleonic Wars.
After the narrow victory over the Austrians, there was a short-lived peace in Europe, followed by yet more coalition warfare. With the French colony in Haiti being lost to a revolution there, and in general a state of near-bankruptcy, Napoleon realized that he could not hold onto or defend the vast tracts of French territory in America, so he made an offer to United States President Thomas Jefferson to sell that land. His offer was accepted, and Napoleon got 60 million Francs (11.2 million dollars), and the United States g o t a huge, massive tract of real estate to call its own. Over 800,000 square miles worth. This of course, was the famous Louisiana Purchase of 1803. This equated to less than three cents an acre. Quite the deal for the United States, and now worth vastly more.
Napoleon was mostly victorious in his military campaigns, and enjoyed many successes, and suffered a few failures. While in power in France, he instituted many reforms, most notably a set of laws called the Code Civil or Napoleonic Code. These were sweeping reforms to what was before a feudal system. This brought about a legal system of due process and justice, commerce laws, private property laws, the formation of a central bank, and many others. He instituted an infrastructure system of roads and sewers, and other improvements to civil engineering, ushering in the modern age from the medieval age. These reforms worked so well that many of them are still used today in Europe and abroad, including the United States. He changed the military model of using small units to a large, centralized force, and wisely accepted the ideas of arms designers to standardize the production of weapons, rather than having a large assortment of mismatched weapons in the field. At around this time, the British and the Americans were doing likewise.
In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French, and the next year, he was crowned the King of Italy. His reigns as leader of Italy and France overlapped each other. After the military victories and reforms, pushing out the old medieval ways, many saw his crowning as Emperor and King as a throwback to the feudal and imperialist system, and were displeased. Among the displeased was the famous composer, Ludwig von Beethoven, a former admirer of Napoleon, now bitterly disgusted with him. He even went so far as to scratch homage to Napoleon from his Third Symphony.
More coalition wars, campaigns and skirmishes followed. While Napoleon was on a victorious roll across a vast portion of the European continental mainland, the British were holding their own at sea with their vastly superior Royal Navy. Also, Britain's island geography made the British homeland more defensible. For the most part, Napoleon enjoyed victory in his coalition wars and conquests. Then came his 1812 invasion of Russia. France and Russia had an alliance dating from 1807, but like so many others in Europe, it deteriorated, and once again, war visited Europe. Napoleon was able to push the Russian forces clear beyond Moscow, and it looked like certain victory for Napoleon, until he experienced a natural Russian advantage: the Russian Winter. Russia has winters like no other, and throughout time, it has aided the Russians in driving off would-be conquerors. Basically the same thing happened to Hitler's Army in World War II. The bitter cold took a very heavy toll on Napoleon's forces, who were wracked with frostbite, starvation and disease. What the bitter cold of a Russian winter did not take away from attackers, it sucked into the deep mud of the Russian spring thaw. Mud so widespread and deep that it hinders troop movements and bogs down everything. Even if his men and horses could find food, they couldn't negotiate the famous Russian mud. It's also known to produce a crop of disease-carrying mosquitoes that won't quit. For the most part, Napoleon won the battle for Russia. But the Russian habit of leaving nothing behind for conquering forces to take (Scorched Earth Policy) and the winter and spring mud is too much for any attacker. The Russians burned Moscow, rather than let Napoleon have it. Originally 400,000 strong, fewer than 40,000 soldiers remained of Napoleon's Army, which gave up on Russia and retreated back to France.
Upon returning to France, some of Napoleon's generals staged a mutiny, and he was forced to abdicate the throne, and was exiled to the Island of Elba in the Mediterranean. This is a result of the Treaty of Fontainebleu. In his exile, Napoleon was given sovereignty over the populated island, and while there, put together a small army and navy, but his wife and son were living in exile in Austria. He knew that there was a plan to exile him to another island in the Atlantic, so he escaped from Elba and made his way back to France. When he landed on French soil, a regiment sent to intercept him was instead won over by him, and together they returned to Paris, causing Louis XVIII to flee. Evidently, Napoleon still inspired some fear and respect with his presence. Neighboring Austria caught wind of his return, and acted to raise up a large coalition force against him.
Napoleon reigned in
Paris for around a hundred
days, and had built up an army of some 200,000 troops. Upon
the
advance of the Austrian coalition army, Napoleon launched an offensive
attack, in an attempt to divide their forces.
They met up
in Waterloo, in what is now Belgium, and fought. The British
forces led by the Duke of Wellington, aided by the arrival of the
Russian coalition were able to drive back Napoleon's forces, which fled
in disarray. The coalition forces then marched on Paris and
restored Louis XVIII to the throne.
After a brief imprisonment, Napoleon was again exiled, this time to the small island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic Ocean, very far away from any main land mass, and mostly uninhabited. Some members of the British Parliament and even some Lords sympathized with him. Even though the Duke of Wellington was a rival of Napoleon, he admired him. There were a few other intrigues, plans of escape and rumors, but further conquest was not to be. Living in Longwood House, the former Deputy Territorial Governor's decaying mansion on St. Helena, Napoleon's health declined, and he died of stomach cancer on 5 May, 1821. Napoleon remained buried in obscurity until the French King Louis-Phillipe had his remains returned to France in 1840. He was given a state funeral and intombed at the chapel in Les Invalides, a hospital campus for French soldiers in Paris, where he remains to this day. It is now a famous and very popular military museum that leaves a lasting impression on those who visit.
There are a number of things that Napoleon is noted for, such as having a very profound effect on the history and future of France. He did some bad or questionable things, such as ordering disease-wracked soldiers in his army poisoned, to keep them from falling into the hands of the enemy while leaving Egypt. During his reign, he reinstituted slavery in outlying French colonies, and when it came to politics and the military, he was a sly operator. But he also paved the way for th e abolition of the loose coalition of Papal States, in favor of autonomous nations, which still endures. From what was once a mass of disorganized sovereign and combative hotspots is now the mighty nation of Germany, for better or for worse, even after its travails of the 20th Century. Continental mainland Europe is now a strong collection of sovereign European Union nations. Many of his Code Civil/Napoleonic Code laws and ideas are still practiced worldwide, including the UK and the United States. While he was in part, defeated by the British, many Brits, including some high-ranking Lords still admired him. He is also viewed as a military genius, having easily proved that through his many conquests and tactics. He also enacted the Jewish E man cipation, which allowed Jews to own private property, and other rights. Oh, I almost forgot; Napoleon's height. The Duke of Wellington stated that Napolen was approximately 1.7 meters tall, or about 5 feet, 8 inches. A tad under 6 feet. The normal, average adult height.
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Replica of Napoleon's Personal St. Etienne Traveling Pistol.
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