Napoleon Bonaparte (French:
Napoléon Bonaparte , Italian: Napoleone di
Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), was a military
and political leader of France
and Emperor of the French as
Napoleon I, whose actions shaped European politics
in the early 19th century.
Born in
the French province of Corsica
and trained
as an artillery officer in mainland France, Bonaparte rose to
prominence under the First French
Republic and led successful campaigns against the First and Second Coalitions arrayed
against France. In 1799, he staged a
coup d'état and installed himself as
First Consul; five years later the French Senate proclaimed him
Emperor. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, the
French Empire under Napoleon,
engaged in a series of conflicts - the
Napoleonic Wars - involving every major
European power. After a streak of victories, France secured a
dominant position in continental Europe and Napoleon maintained the
French
sphere of influence
through the formation of extensive alliances and the appointment of
friends and family members to rule other European countries as
French
client states.
The
French invasion of
Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon's fortunes.
His
Grande Armée was
badly damaged in the campaign and never fully recovered.
In 1813,
the Sixth Coalition defeated his
forces at Leipzig
; the
following year the Coalition invaded France, forced Napoleon to
abdicate and exiled him to the island of Elba
.
Less than
a year later, he escaped Elba and returned to power, but was
defeated at the Battle of Waterloo
in June 1815. Napoleon spent the last six
years of his life under British supervision on the island of
Saint Helena. An autopsy concluded he
died of
stomach cancer, though
Sten Forshufvud and other scientists
have since conjectured that he was
poisoned with arsenic.
Napoleon's campaigns are studied at military academies the world
over. While considered a tyrant by his opponents, he is also
remembered for the establishment of the
Napoleonic code, which laid the
administrative and judicial foundations for much of
Western Europe.
Origins and education
Napoleon
Bonaparte was born the second of eight children, in Casa Buonaparte in the town of Ajaccio
, Corsica, on
15 August 1769, one year after the island was transferred to France
by the Republic of Genoa.
He was initially named
Napoleone di Buonaparte, acquiring
his first name from an uncle who had been killed fighting the
French, but later adopted the more French-sounding
Napoléon
Bonaparte.
The Corsican Buonapartes originated from minor
Italian nobility, who had come to Corsica
in the 16th century. His father
Nobile Carlo Buonaparte, an attorney, was named
Corsica's representative to the court of
Louis XVI in 1777. The dominant
influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, Maria
Letizia Ramolino, whose firm discipline
restrained a rambunctious child. He had an elder brother,
Joseph; and younger siblings
Lucien,
Elisa,
Louis,
Pauline,
Caroline and
Jérôme.
Napoleon was baptised
Catholic just before his
second birthday, on 21 July 1771 at Ajaccio Cathedral
.
Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background and family
connections afforded him greater opportunities to study than were
available to a typical Corsican of the time.
In January 1779,
Napoleon was enrolled at a religious school in Autun
, mainland
France, to learn French, and in May he was admitted to a military academy at Brienne-le-Château
. He spoke with a marked Corsican accent and
never learned to spell properly. Napoleon was teased by other
students for his accent and applied himself to study. An examiner
observed that Napoleon "has always been distinguished for his
application in mathematics. He is fairly well acquainted with
history and geography... This boy would make an excellent sailor."
On
completion of his studies at Brienne in 1784, Napoleon was admitted
to the elite École Militaire
in Paris; this ended his naval ambition, which
had led him to consider an application to the British Royal Navy. Instead, he trained to become
an
artillery officer and, when his
father's death reduced his income, was forced to complete the
two-year course in one year. He was examined by the famed scientist
Pierre-Simon Laplace, whom
Napoleon later appointed to the Senate.
Early career
On graduation in September 1785, Bonaparte was
commissioned a
second lieutenant in
La Fère
artillery regiment.
He served on garrison duty in Valence,
Drôme
and Auxonne
until after
the outbreak of the French
Revolution in 1789, though he took nearly two years of leave in
Corsica and Paris during this period. A fervent Corsican
nationalist, Bonaparte wrote to the Corsican leader
Pasquale Paoli in May 1789: "As the nation
was perishing I was born. Thirty thousand Frenchmen were vomited on
to our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood.
Such was the odious sight which was the first to strike me."
He spent the early years of the Revolution in Corsica, fighting in
a complex three-way struggle between royalists, revolutionaries,
and Corsican nationalists. He supported the revolutionary
Jacobin faction, gained the rank of
Lieutenant Colonel and command over a
battalion of volunteers. After he had exceeded his leave of absence
and led a riot against a French army in Corsica, he was somehow
able to convince military authorities in Paris to promote him to
Captain in July 1792.
He returned to Corsica once again, and came
into conflict with Paoli, who had decided to split with France and
sabotage a French assault on the Sardinian island of La Maddalena
, where Bonaparte was one of the expedition
leaders. Bonaparte and his family had to flee to the French
mainland in June 1793 because of the split with Paoli.
Siege of Toulon
In July
1793, he published a pro-republican pamphlet, Le Souper de
Beaucaire [Supper at Beaucaire
], which gained him the admiration and support of
Augustin Robespierre, younger
brother of the Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre. With
the help of fellow Corsican
Antoine Christophe Saliceti,
Bonaparte was appointed artillery commander of the republican
forces at the siege of Toulon. The city had risen against the
republican government and was
occupied by British troops. He adopted a plan to capture a hill
placing that would allow republican guns to dominate the city's
harbour and force the British ships to evacuate. The assault on the
position, during which Bonaparte was wounded in the thigh, led to
the capture of the city and his promotion to
Brigadier General. His actions brought him
to the attention of the
Committee of Public Safety and he
was given command of the artillery arm of France's
Army of Italy. He became engaged to
Désirée Clary, whose sister,
Julie Clary, married Bonaparte's elder
brother Joseph in 1794. The Clarys were a wealthy merchant family
from Marseille.
13 Vendémiaire
Following the fall of the Robespierres in the July 1794
Thermidorian Reaction, Bonaparte was
put under
house arrest in August 1794
for his association with the brothers. Although he was released
after only ten days, he remained out of favour. In April 1795, he
was assigned to the Army of the West, which was engaged in the
War in the Vendée—a civil war
and royalist
counter-revolution
in France's Vendée region. As an infantry command, it was a
demotion from artillery general, and he pleaded poor health to
avoid the posting.
He was moved to the Bureau of Topography of the Committee of Public Safety and
sought, unsuccessfully, to be transferred to Constantinople
(officially renamed Istanbul
on 28 March 1930) in order to offer his services to the Sultan. During this period he wrote a romantic
novella,
Clisson et
Eugénie, about a soldier and his lover, in a clear
parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Désirée. On 15
September Bonaparte was removed from the list of generals in
regular service, with the reason given being his refusal to serve
in the Vendée campaign. He now faced a difficult financial
situation and further reduced career prospects.
On 3 October, royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the
National Convention after they
were excluded from a new government, the
Directory.
One of the leaders of the Thermidorian
Reaction, Paul
Barras knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and gave
him command of the improvised forces in defence of the Convention
in the Tuileries
Palace
. Bonaparte had witnessed the
massacre
of the King's Swiss Guard there three years earlier and
realised artillery would be key to its defence. He ordered a young
cavalry officer,
Joachim Murat to
seize large cannons and used them to repel the attackers on 5
October 1795—
13 Vendémiaire An IV in the
French Republican Calendar. 1,400
royalists died and the rest fled. He had cleared the streets with
"a whiff of grapeshot" according to the 19th-century historian
Thomas Carlyle, in
The French Revolution: A
History.
The defeat of the Royalist insurrection extinguished the threat to
the Convention and earned Bonaparte sudden fame, wealth, and the
patronage of the new Directory; Murat would become his
brother-in-law and one of his generals. Bonaparte was promoted to
Commander of the Interior and given command of the Army of Italy.
Within weeks he was romantically attached to Barras's former
mistress,
Joséphine de
Beauharnais, whom he married on 9 March 1796, after he had
broken off his engagement to Désirée Clary.
First Italian campaign
Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command
of the Army of Italy and led it on a successful invasion of Italy.
At the
Battle of Lodi he defeated
Austrian forces, then drove them out of
Lombardy.
He was defeated at Caldiero
by Austrian reinforcements, led by József Alvinczi, though Bonaparte
regained the initiative at the crucial Battle of
the Bridge of Arcole
and proceeded to subdue the Papal States
. Bonaparte argued against the wishes of
Directory atheists to march on Rome and dethrone the Pope as he
reasoned this would create a
power
vacuum that would be exploited by the
Kingdom of Naples. Instead, in March 1797,
Bonaparte led his army into Austria and forced it to
negotiate peace.
The Treaty of Leoben gave France control of
most of northern Italy and the Low
Countries and a secret clause promised the Republic of
Venice
to Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and
forced its surrender, ending 1,100 years of independence; he
also authorised the French to loot treasures such as the
Horses of Saint Mark.
His application of conventional military ideas to real-world
situations effected his military triumphs, such as creative use of
artillery as a mobile force to support his
infantry. He referred to his tactics thus: "I have
fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not
know at the beginning. Look at Caesar; he fought the first like the
last." He was adept at
espionage and
deception and could win battles by concealment of troop deployments
and concentration of his forces on the 'hinge' of an enemy's
weakened front. If he could not use his favourite
envelopment strategy, he would take-up the
central position and attack two
cooperating forces at their hinge, swing round to fight one until
it fled, then turn to face the other. In this Italian campaign,
Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons and 170
standards. The French army fought 67 actions
and won 18 pitched battles due to superior artillery technology and
Bonaparte's tactics.
During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in
French politics. He published two newspapers, ostensibly for the
troops in his army, but widely circulated in France as well, and in
May 1797, founded a third newspaper,
Le Journal de Bonaparte et
des hommes vertueux, which was published in Paris. Elections
in mid-1797 gave the royalist party more power and alarmed the
Directory. The royalists attacked Bonaparte for looting Italy and
claimed he had overstepped his authority in dealings with the
Austrians. Bonaparte sent General
Pierre
Augereau to Paris to lead a
coup d'état and purge the
royalists on 4 September—
18
Fructidor. This left Barras and his Republican allies in
control again, but dependent on Bonaparte who proceeded to peace
negotiations with Austria. These negotiations resulted in the
Treaty of Campo Formio, and
Bonaparte returned to Paris in December as a hero, more popular
than the Directors. He met with
Talleyrand,
France's new
Foreign Minister—who
would later serve in the same capacity for Emperor Napoleon—and
they began to prepare for an invasion of England.
Egyptian expedition
After two
months of planning, Bonaparte decided France's naval power was not
yet strong enough to confront the Royal Navy in the English
Channel
and proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt
and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in
India. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence
in the Middle East, with the ultimate dream of linking with a
Muslim enemy of the British in India,
Tippoo Sultan. Napoleon assured the Directory
that
"as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish
relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack
the English in their possessions." According to a
February 1798 report by Talleyrand: "Having occupied and
fortified Egypt, we shall send a force of 15,000 men from Suez
to India, to
join the forces of Tipu-Sahib and drive away the
English." The Directory, though troubled by the scope
and cost of the enterprise, agreed so the popular general would be
absent from the centre of power.
In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the
French Academy of Sciences. His
Egyptian expedition included a group of 167 scientists:
mathematicians, naturalists, chemists and
geodesists among them; their discoveries included
the
Rosetta Stone and their work was
published in the
Description de l'Égypte in
1809.
En route
to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Malta
on 9 June
1798, then controlled by the Knights
Hospitaller. The two hundred Knights of French origin
did not support the Grand Master, Prussian
Ferdinand von Hompesch zu
Bolheim, who had succeeded a Frenchman, and made it clear they
would not fight against their compatriots. Hompesch surrendered
after token resistance and Bonaparte captured a very important
naval base with the loss of only three men.
General
Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and
on 1 July landed at Alexandria
. Bonaparte successfully fought the
Battle of Chobrakit against the
Mamluks, an old power in the
Middle East.
This helped the French plan their attack in
the Battle of the Pyramids
fought over a week later, about 6 km from the pyramids
. General Bonaparte's forces were greatly
outnumbered by the Mamluks' cavalry—20,000 against 60,000—but he
formed hollow squares with supplies kept safely inside. 300 French
and approximately 6,000 Egyptians were killed.
On 1
August, the British fleet under Horatio
Nelson captured or destroyed all but two French vessels in the
Battle of
the Nile
and Bonaparte's goal of a strengthened French
position in the Mediterranean Sea
was frustrated. His army had nonetheless
succeeded in a temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though
it faced repeated uprisings.
In early 1799, he moved the army into the
Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria
and Galilee). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers
in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish
, Gaza
, Jaffa
, and
Haifa
. The
attack on
Jaffa was particularly brutal: Bonaparte, on discovering many
of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on
parole, ordered the garrison
and 1,400 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning to save
bullets. Men, women and children were robbed and murdered for three
days.
With his
army weakened by disease — mostly bubonic plague — and poor supplies,
Bonaparte was unable to reduce the
fortress of Acre
, and
returned to Egypt in May. To speed up the retreat, he
ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned. His supporters have
argued this decision was necessary given the continued harassment
of stragglers by Ottoman forces and those left behind alive were
indeed tortured and beheaded by the Ottomans. Back in Egypt, on 25
July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at
Abukir.
Ruler of France
While in Egypt, Bonaparte stayed informed of European affairs
through irregular delivery of newspapers and dispatches. He learned
France had suffered a
series of
defeats in the
War of
the Second Coalition. On 24 August 1799, he took advantage of
the temporary departure of British ships from French coastal ports
and set sail for France, despite the fact he had received no
explicit orders from Paris. The army was left in the charge of
Jean Baptiste Kléber.
Unknown to Bonaparte, the Directory had sent him orders to return
to ward off possible invasions of French soil but poor lines of
communication meant the messages had failed to reach him. By the
time he reached Paris in October, France's situation had been
improved by a series of victories. The Republic was bankrupt,
however, and the ineffective Directory was unpopular with the
French population. The Directory discussed Bonaparte's "desertion"
but was too weak to punish him.
Bonaparte 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 Talleyrand.
On 9
November—18 Brumaire by the French Republican Calendar—Bonaparte
was charged with the safety of the legislative councils, who were
persuaded to remove to the Château de Saint-Cloud
, to the west of Paris, after a rumour of a Jacobin
rebellion was spread by the plotters. By the following day,
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.
French Consulate
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, Bonaparte and his troops crossed the Alps into Italy,
where French forces had been almost completely driven out by the
Austrians whilst he was in Egypt. The campaign began badly for the
French after Bonaparte made strategic errors; one force was left
besieged at Genoa but managed
to hold out and thereby occupy Austrian resources. This effort and
French general
Desaix's
timely reinforcements, allowed Bonaparte to narrowly avoid defeat
and triumph over the Austrians in June at the significant
Battle of Marengo.
Bonaparte's brother
Joseph led the peace negotiations in Lunéville
and reported that Austria, emboldened by British
support, would not recognise France's newly gained
territory. As negotiations became increasingly fractious,
Bonaparte gave orders to his general
Moreau to strike Austria once more.
Moreau led France to victory at
Hohenlinden. As a result, the
Treaty of Lunéville was
signed in February 1801: the French gains of the Treaty of Campo
Formio were reaffirmed and increased.
Temporary peace in Europe
Bonaparte
set up a camp at Boulogne-sur-Mer
to prepare for an invasion of Britain but both
countries had become tired of war and signed the Treaty of Amiens in October 1801 and March
1802; this included the withdrawal of British troops from most
colonial territories it had recently occupied. The peace was
uneasy and short-lived; Britain did not evacuate Malta as promised
and protested against Bonaparte's
annexation of
Piedmont
and his
Act of Mediation, which
established a new
Swiss
Confederation, though neither of these territories were covered
by the Treaty. The dispute culminated in a declaration of war by
Britain in May 1803, and he reassembled the invasion camp at
Boulogne.
Bonaparte faced a major setback and eventual defeat in the Haitian
Revolution. By the
Law of 20 May
1802 Bonaparte re-established
slavery in
France's colonial possessions, where it had been banned following
the Revolution. Following a slave revolt, he sent an army to
reconquer
Saint-Domingue and
establish a base. The force was, however, destroyed by
yellow fever and fierce resistance led by
Haitian generals
Toussaint
Louverture and
Jean-Jacques
Dessalines. Faced by imminent war against Britain and
bankruptcy, he recognised French possessions on the mainland of
North America would be indefensible and sold them to the United
States—the
Louisiana Purchase—for
less than three cents per
acre ($7.40 per
km²).
Reforms
Bonaparte
instituted lasting reforms, including centralised administration of
the departments, higher education, a tax
code, road and sewer systems and the Banque de
France
—the country's central
bank. He negotiated the
Concordat of 1801 with the Catholic
Church, which sought to reconcile the mostly Catholic population to
his regime. It was presented alongside the
Organic Articles, which regulated public
worship in France. Later that year, Bonaparte became President of
the French Academy of Sciences and appointed
Jean Baptiste Joseph Delambre
its Permanent Secretary. In May 1802, he instituted the
Légion d'Honneur, a substitute for the
old royalist decorations and
orders of
chivalry, to encourage civilian and military achievements; the
order is still the highest decoration in France. His powers were
increased by the
Constitution
of the Year X including:
Article 1. The French
people name, and the Senate proclaims Napoleon-Bonaparte First
Consul for Life. After this he was generally referred to as
Napoleon rather than Bonaparte.
Napoleon's
set of civil laws, the
Code Civil—now often known as the
Napoleonic code—was prepared by committees
of legal experts under the supervision of
Jean Jacques
Régis de Cambacérès, the
Second Consul. Napoleon
participated actively in the sessions of the
Council of State that revised the
drafts. The development of the Code was a fundamental change in the
nature of the
civil law
legal system with its stress on clearly written and accessible law.
Other codes were commissioned by Napoleon to codify criminal and
commerce law; a Code of Criminal Instruction was published, which
enacted rules of
due process. See
Legacy.
French Empire
Napoleon faced royalist and
Jacobin plots as France's ruler,
including the
Conspiration des poignards
[Daggers conspiracy] in October 1800 and the
Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise
two months later. In January 1804, his police uncovered an
assassination plot against him which involved Moreau and which was
ostensibly sponsored by the
Bourbon
former rulers of France. On the advice of Talleyrand, Napoleon
ordered the kidnapping of the
Duke of Enghien,
in violation of neighbouring
Baden's
sovereignty. After a
secret trial the
Duke was executed, even though he had not been involved in the
plot.
Napoleon used the plot to justify the re-creation of a hereditary
monarchy in France, with himself as
Emperor,
as a Bourbon restoration would be more difficult if the Bonapartist
succession was entrenched in the constitution.
Napoleon crowned himself Emperor Napoleon I on 2
December 1804 at Notre Dame de Paris
and then crowned Joséphine Empress. Claims
that he seized the crown out of the hands of
Pope Pius VII during the ceremony—to avoid his
subjugation to the authority of the pontiff—are
apocryphal; the coronation procedure had been
agreed in advance.
At Milan Cathedral
on 26 May 1805, Napoleon was crowned King of Italy with the Iron Crown of Lombardy. He
created eighteen
Marshals of the
Empire from amongst his top generals, to secure the
allegiance of the army.
Ludwig van
Beethoven, a long-time admirer, was disappointed at this turn
towards imperialism, and scratched his dedication to Napoleon from
his
3rd Symphony.
War of the Third Coalition
By 1805, Britain had convinced Austria and Russia to join a Third
Coalition against France. Napoleon knew the French fleet could not
defeat the Royal Navy in a head-to-head battle and planned to lure
it away from the English Channel. The
French
Navy would escape from the British blockades of Toulon and
Brest and threaten to attack the West Indies, thus drawing-off the
British defence of the
Western
Approaches, in the hope a Franco-Spanish fleet could take
control of the Channel long enough for French armies to cross from
Boulogne and
invade
England. However, after defeat at the naval
Battle of Cape Finisterre
in July 1805 and
Admiral
Villeneuve's retreat to Cadiz, invasion was never again a
realistic option for Napoleon.
Instead, he ordered the army stationed at Boulogne, his
Grande Armée, to secretly
march to Germany in a
turning
movement—the
Ulm Campaign. This
encircled the Austrian forces about to attack France and severed
their lines of communication.
On 20 October 1805, the French captured
30,000 prisoners at Ulm
, though the
next day Britain's victory at the Battle of Trafalgar
meant the Royal Navy gained control of the
seas. Six weeks later, on the first anniversary of
his coronation, Napoleon defeated Austria and Russia at Austerlitz
. This ended the Third Coalition and he
commissioned the Arc de
Triomphe
to
commemorate the victory. Austria had to concede territory: the
Peace of Pressburg led to the
dissolution of the Holy Roman
Empire and creation of the Confederation of the Rhine
with Napoleon named as its Protector.
Napoleon would go on to say that "The battle of Austerlitz is the
finest of all I have fought." Frank McLynn suggests Napoleon was so
successful at Austerlitz he lost touch with reality, and what used
to be French foreign policy became a "personal Napoleonic one".
Vincent Cronin disagrees, stating
Napoleon was not overly ambitious for himself, that "he embodied
the ambitions of thirty million Frenchmen".
Middle-Eastern alliances
Even after the failed campaign in Egypt, Napoleon continued to
entertain a grand scheme to establish a French presence in the
Middle East. An alliance with Middle-Eastern powers would have the
strategic advantage of pressuring Russia on its southern border.
From 1803, Napoleon went to considerable lengths to try to convince
the Ottoman Empire to fight against Russia in the
Balkans and join his anti-Russian coalition.
Napoleon sent General
Horace
Sebastiani as envoy extraordinary, promising to help the
Ottoman Empire recover lost territories. In February 1806,
following Napoleon's victory at Austerlitz and the ensuing
dismemberment of the
Habsburg
Empire, the Ottoman Emperor
Selim III
finally recognized Napoleon as Emperor, formally opting for an
alliance with France
"our sincere and natural ally", and
war with Russia and England. A Franco-Persian alliance was also
formed, from 1807 to 1809, between Napoleon and the
Persian Empire of
Fath Ali Shah, against Russia and Great
Britain. The alliance ended when France allied with Russia and
turned its focus to European campaigns.
War of the Fourth Coalition
The Fourth Coalition was assembled in 1806, and Napoleon defeated
Prussia at the
Battle of Jena-Auerstedt in
October. He marched against advancing Russian armies through
Poland, and was involved in the bloody stalemate of the
Battle of Eylau on 6 February 1807.
After a
decisive victory at Friedland
, he signed the Treaties of Tilsit; one with Tsar
Alexander I of Russia which
divided the continent between the two powers; the other with
Prussia which stripped that country of half its territory.
Napoleon
placed puppet rulers on the thrones of
German states, including his brother
Jérôme as king of the new Kingdom of
Westphalia
. In the French-controlled part of Poland, he
established the Duchy of
Warsaw
with King Frederick Augustus I of
Saxony as ruler.
With his
Milan and
Berlin Decrees, Napoleon attempted to enforce
a Europe-wide commercial boycott of Britain called the
Continental System. This act of
economic warfare did not succeed, as it encouraged British
merchants to smuggle into continental Europe and Napoleon's
exclusively land-based customs enforcers could not stop them.
Peninsular War
Portugal did not comply with the Continental System so, in 1807,
Napoleon invaded with the support of Spain. Under the pretext of a
reinforcement of the Franco-Spanish army occupying Portugal,
Napoleon invaded Spain as well, replaced
Charles IV with his brother Joseph and
placed his brother-in-law Joachim Murat in Joseph's stead at
Naples. This led to resistance from the Spanish army and civilians
in the
Dos de Mayo Uprising.
Following a French retreat from much of the country, Napoleon took
command and defeated the
Spanish Army.
He retook Madrid, then outmaneuvered a British army sent to support
the Spanish and drove it to the coast. Before the Spanish
population had been fully subdued, Austria again threatened war and
Napoleon returned to France.
The costly and often brutal Peninsular War continued in Napoleon's
absence; in the second
Siege
of Saragossa most of the city was destroyed and over 50,000
people perished. Although Napoleon left 300,000 of his finest
troops to battle Spanish
guerrillas as
well as British and Portuguese forces commanded by
Arthur Wellesley, 1st
Duke of Wellington, French control over the peninsula again
deteriorated. Following several allied victories, the war concluded
after Napoleon's abdication in 1814.. Napoleon later described the
Peninsular War as central to his final defeat, writing in his
memoirs
That unfortunate war destroyed me... All... my
disasters are bound up in that fatal knot. .
War of the Fifth Coalition and remarriage
In April 1809, Austria abruptly broke its alliance with France and
Napoleon was forced to assume command of forces on the Danube and
German fronts.
After early successes, the French faced
difficulties in crossing the Danube and
suffered a defeat in May at the Battle of Aspern-Essling
near Vienna
. The
Austrians failed to capitalise on the situation and allowed
Napoleon's forces to regroup.
He defeated the Austrians again at Wagram
and a new peace, the Treaty of Schönbrunn, was signed
between Austria and France.
Britain was the other member of the coalition. In addition to the
Iberian Peninsula, the British planned to open another front in
mainland Europe. However, Napoleon was able to rush reinforcements
to Antwerp, due to Britain's inadequately organised
Walcheren Campaign. He concurrently
annexed the Papal States because of the Church's refusal to support
the Continental System; Pope Pius VII responded by
excommunicating the emperor. The Pope was
then abducted by Napoleon's officers, and though Napoleon had not
ordered his abduction, he did not order Pius' release. The Pope was
moved throughout Napoleon's territories, sometimes while ill, and
Napoleon sent delegations to pressure him on issues including
agreement to a new concordat with France, which Pius refused. In
1810 Napoleon married the Austrian
Marie Louise, Duchess of
Parma, following his divorce of Joséphine; this further
strained his relations with the Church and thirteen cardinals were
imprisoned for non-attendance at the marriage ceremony. The Pope
remained confined for 5 years, and did not return to Rome
until May 1814.
Napoleon consented to one of his marshals—and long-term
rival—
Bernadotte, ascent
to the Swedish throne in November 1810. Napoleon had indulged
Bernadotte's indiscretions because he was married to Désirée Clary,
but came to regret sparing his life when Bernadotte later sided
Sweden with France's enemies.
Invasion of Russia
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.
By 1811, however, tensions between the two nations had increased
and Alexander was under pressure from the
Russian nobility to break off the alliance.
The first clear sign the alliance had deteriorated was the
relaxation of the Continental System in Russia, which angered
Napoleon. By 1812, advisers to Alexander suggested the possibility
of an invasion of the French Empire and the recapture of Poland. On
receipt of intelligence reports on Russia's war preparations,
Napoleon expanded his
Grande Armée to more than 450,000
men. He ignored repeated advice against an invasion of the vast
Russian heartland and prepared for an offensive campaign; on 23
June 1812, his invasion of Russia commenced.
In an attempt to gain increased support from Polish nationalists
and patriots, Napoleon termed the war the
Second Polish
War—the
First Polish War had been the
Bar Confederation uprising by Polish
nobles against Russia in 1768. Polish patriots wanted the Russian
part of Poland to be joined with the Duchy of Warsaw and an
independent Poland created. This was rejected by Napoleon, who
stated he had promised his ally Austria this would not happen.
Napoleon refused to
manumit the Russian
serfs, due to concerns this might provoke a
reaction in his army's rear. The serfs would later commit
atrocities against French soldiers during France's retreat.
The Russians avoided Napoleon's objective of a decisive engagement
and instead retreated deeper into Russia. A brief attempt at
resistance was made at
Smolensk in August; the Russians
were defeated in a series of battles and Napoleon resumed his
advance. The Russians again avoided battle, although in a few cases
this was only achieved because Napoleon uncharacteristically
hesitated to attack when the opportunity arose. Due to the Russian
army's
scorched earth tactics, the
French found it increasingly difficult to forage food for
themselves and their horses.
The
Russians eventually offered battle outside Moscow on 7 September:
the Battle of
Borodino
resulted in approximately 44,000 Russian and 35,000
French, dead, wounded or captured, and may have been the bloodiest
day of battle in history up to that point. Although the
French had won, the Russian army had accepted, and withstood, the
major battle Napoleon had hoped would be decisive. Napoleon's own
account was: "The most terrible of all my battles was the one
before Moscow. The French showed themselves to be worthy of
victory, but the Russians showed themselves worthy of being
invincible."
The Russian army withdrew and retreated past Moscow. Napoleon
entered the city, assuming its fall would end the war and Alexander
would negotiate peace. However, on orders of the city's governor
Fyodor Rostopchin, rather than
capitulation, Moscow was ordered burned. After a month, concerned
about loss of control back in France, Napoleon and his army
left.
The French suffered greatly in the course of a ruinous retreat,
including from the harshness of the
Russian Winter.
The Armée had begun
as over 400,000 frontline troops, but in the end fewer than 40,000
crossed the Berezina
River
in November 1812, to escape. The Russians
had lost 150,000 in battle and hundreds of thousands of
civilians.
War of the Sixth Coalition
There was a lull in fighting over the winter of 1812–13 while both
the Russians and the French rebuilt their forces; Napoleon was then
able to field 350,000 troops. Heartened by France's loss in Russia,
Prussia joined with Austria, Sweden, Russia, Great Britain, Spain,
and Portugal in a new coalition.
Napoleon assumed command in Germany and
inflicted a series of defeats on the Coalition culminating in the
Battle of
Dresden
in August 1813. Despite these
successes, the numbers continued to mount against Napoleon and the
French army was pinned down by a force twice its size and lost at
the Battle of
Leipzig. This was by far the largest battle of the
Napoleonic Wars and cost more than 90,000 casualties in
total.
Napoleon withdrew back into France, his army reduced to 70,000
soldiers and 40,000 stragglers, against more than three times as
many Allied troops. The French were surrounded: British armies
pressed from the south, and other Coalition forces positioned to
attack from the German states. Napoleon won a series of victories
in the
Six Days Campaign, though
these were not significant enough to turn the tide and Paris was
captured by the Coalition in March 1814.
When Napoleon proposed the army march on the capital, his marshals
decided to
mutiny. On 4 April, led by
Ney, they confronted Napoleon. Napoleon
asserted the army would follow him and Ney replied the army would
follow its generals. Napoleon had no choice but to abdicate. He did
so in favour of his son; however, the Allies refused to accept this
and Napoleon was forced to abdicate unconditionally on 11 April.
In the Treaty of Fontainebleau the victors exiled him to Elba, an island of 12,000 inhabitants in the Mediterranean, 20 km off the Tuscan coast. They gave him sovereignty over the island and allowed him to retain his title of Emperor. Napoleon attempted suicide with a pill he had carried since a near-capture by Russians on the retreat from Moscow. Its potency had weakened with age and he survived to be exiled, while his wife and son took refuge in Vienna. In the first few months on Elba he created a small navy and army, developed the iron mines, and issued decrees on modern agricultural methods.
Hundred Days
Separated from his wife and son, 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 26 February 1815.
He landed at Golfe-Juan
on the French mainland, two days later.
The 5th
Regiment was sent to intercept him and made
contact just south of Grenoble
on 7 March 1815. Napoleon approached the
regiment alone, dismounted his horse and, when he was within
gunshot range, shouted, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you
wish." The soldiers responded with, "Vive L'Empereur!" and marched
with Napoleon to Paris;
Louis
XVIII fled. On 13 March, the powers at the
Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon an
outlaw and four days later Great Britain, the
Netherlands, Russia, Austria and Prussia bound themselves to put
150,000 men into the field to end his rule.
Napoleon arrived in Paris on 20 March and governed for a period now
called the Hundred Days. By the start of June the armed forces
available to him had reached 200,000 and he decided to go on the
offensive to attempt to drive a wedge between the oncoming British
and Prussian armies. The French Army of the North crossed the
frontier into the
United Kingdom of the
Netherlands, in modern-day Belgium.
Napoleon's forces fought the allies, led by
Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von
Blücher, at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Wellington's army withstood
repeated attacks by the French and drove them from the field while
the Prussians arrived in force and broke through Napoleon's right
flank. The French army left the battlefield in disorder, which
allowed Coalition forces to enter France and restore Louis XVIII to
the French throne.
Off the port of Rochefort,
Charente-Maritime
, after consideration of an escape to the United
States, Napoleon formally demanded political asylum from the
British Captain
Frederick Maitland on on 15 July 1815.
Exile on Saint Helena
Napoleon was imprisoned and then exiled to the island of
Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean,
2,000 km from any major landmass.
In his first two
months there, he lived in a pavilion on the Briars
estate, which belonged to a William
Balcombe. Napoleon became friendly with his family,
especially his younger daughter Lucia Elizabeth who later wrote
Recollections of the Emperor Napoleon. This friendship
ended in 1818 when British authorities became suspicious that
Balcombe had acted as an intermediary between Napoleon and Paris,
and dismissed him from the island.
Napoleon
moved to Longwood
House
in December 1815; it had fallen into disrepair, and
the location was damp, windswept and unhealthy. The Times published articles insinuating that
the British government was trying to hasten his death and he often
complained of the living conditions in letters to the governor and
his custodian,
Hudson Lowe. With a small
cadre of followers, Napoleon dictated his memoirs and criticised
his captors—particularly Lowe. Lowe's treatment of Napoleon is
regarded as poor by historians such as Frank McLynn. Lowe
exacerbated a difficult situation through measures including a
reduction in Napoleon's expenditure, a rule that no gifts could be
delivered to him if they mentioned his imperial status, and a
document that his supporters had to sign that guaranteed they would
stay with the prisoner indefinitely.
In 1818,
The Times reported a false rumour of Napoleon's
escape and said the news had been greeted by spontaneous
illuminations in London. There was sympathy for him in the British
Parliament:
Lord
Holland gave a speech which demanded the prisoner be treated
with no unnecessary harshness. 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 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.
Death
In February 1821, his health began to fail rapidly and on 3 May,
two British physicians who had recently arrived, attended him and
could only recommend
palliatives. He
died two days later, after confession,
Extreme Unction and
Viaticum at the hands of Father Ange
Vignali. His last words were, "France, armée, tête d'armée,
Joséphine."("France, army, head of the army, Joséphine.")
Napoleon's original death mask was created around 6 May, though it
is not clear which doctor created it.
In his will, he had
asked to be buried on the banks of the Seine
, but the
British governor said he should be buried on St. Helena, in the
Valley of the Willows. Hudson Lowe insisted the
inscription should read 'Napoleon Bonaparte',
Montholon and
Bertrand wanted the Imperial
title 'Napoleon' as royalty were signed by their first names only.
As a result the tomb was left nameless.
In 1840,
Louis-Philippe, King
of the French obtained permission from the British to return
Napoleon's remains to France.
The remains were transported aboard the
frigate Belle-Poule, which
had been painted black for the occasion and on 29 November she
arrived in Cherbourg
. The remains were transferred to the
steamship Normandie, which transported them to Le Havre
, up the Seine to Rouen
and on to
Paris. On 15 December, a
state
funeral was held.
The hearse proceeded from the Arc de
Triomphe down the Champs-Élysées
, across the Place de la Concorde
to the Esplanade des
Invalides
and then
to the cupola in St Jérôme's Chapel, where it stayed until the tomb
designed by Louis Visconti was
completed. In 1861, Napoleon's remains were entombed in
a porphyry sarcophagus in the
crypt under the dome at Les Invalides.
Cause of death
Napoleon's physician,
Francesco
Antommarchi, led the
autopsy which found
the cause of death to be
stomach
cancer, though he did not sign the official report, stating,
"What had I to do with... English reports?" Napoleon's father had
died of stomach cancer though this was seemingly unknown at the
time of the autopsy. Antommarchi found evidence of a
stomach ulcer and it was the most convenient
explanation for the British who wanted to avoid criticism over
their care of the Emperor.
In 1955, the diaries of Napoleon's valet, Louis Marchand, appeared
in print. His description of Napoleon in the months before his
death led
Sten Forshufvud to put
forward other causes for his death, including deliberate
arsenic poisoning, in a 1961 paper in
Nature. Arsenic was used as a
poison during the era because it was undetectable when administered
over a long period. Forshufvud, in a 1978 book with
Ben Weider, noted the emperor's body was found to
be remarkably well-preserved when moved in 1840. Arsenic is a
strong preservative and therefore this supported the poisoning
hypothesis. Forshufvud and Weider observed that Napoleon had
attempted to quench abnormal thirst by drinking high levels of
orgeat syrup that contained cyanide
compounds in the almonds used for flavouring. They maintained that
the
potassium tartrate
used in his treatment prevented his stomach from expellation of
these compounds and that the thirst was a symptom of poisoning.
Their hypothesis was that the
calomel given
to Napoleon became an overdose, which killed him and left behind
extensive
tissue damage. A 2007
article stated that the type of arsenic found in Napoleon's hair
shafts was mineral type, the most toxic, and according to
toxicologist Dr Patrick Kintz, this supported the conclusion that
his death was murder.
The wallpaper used in Longwood contained a high level of arsenic
compound used for colouring by British manufacturers. The adhesive,
which in the cooler British environment was innocuous, may have
grown
mold in the more humid climate and
emitted the poisonous gas
arsine. This theory
has been ruled out as it does not explain the arsenic absorption
patterns found in other analyses. A 2004 group of researchers
claimed treatments imposed on the emperor accidentally caused death
by
Torsades de pointes—a
condition where the heart ceases to function properly.
There have been modern studies which have supported the original
autopsy finding. Researchers, in a 2008 study, analysed samples of
Napoleon's hair from throughout his life, and from his family and
other contemporaries. All samples had high levels of arsenic,
approximately 100 times higher than the current average. According
to these researchers, Napoleon's body was already heavily
contaminated with arsenic as a boy, and the high arsenic
concentration in his hair was not due to intentional poisoning;
people were constantly exposed to arsenic from glues and dyes,
throughout their lives. A 2007 study found no evidence of arsenic
poisoning in the relevant organs and stated that stomach cancer was
the cause of death.
Marriages and children
Napoleon married
Joséphine
de Beauharnais in 1796, when he was twenty-six; she was a
thirty-two-year old widow whose first husband had been executed
during the Revolution. Until she met Bonaparte, she had been known
as 'Rose', a name which he disliked. He called her 'Joséphine'
instead, and she went by this name henceforth. Bonaparte often sent
her love letters while on his campaigns. He formally adopted her
son
Eugène and cousin
Stéphanie, and
arranged dynastic marriages for them. Joséphine had her daughter
Hortense marry Napoleon's
brother,
Louis.
Joséphine had lovers, including a
Hussar
lieutenant, Hippolyte Charles, during Napoleon's Italian campaign.
Napoleon learnt the full extent of her affair with Charles while in
Egypt, and a letter he wrote to his brother Joseph regarding the
subject was intercepted by the British. The letter appeared in the
London and Paris presses, much to Napoleon's embarrassment.
Napoleon had his own affairs too: during the Egyptian campaign he
took Pauline Bellisle Foures, the wife of a junior officer, as his
mistress. She became known as
Cleopatra after the
Ancient Egyptian ruler.
While Napoleon's mistresses had children by him, Joséphine did not
produce an heir, possibly due either to the stresses of her
imprisonment during
the Terror or to an
abortion she may have had in her twenties. Napoleon ultimately
chose divorce so he could remarry in search of an heir. In March
1810, he married by
proxy Marie Louise, Archduchess of
Austria, and a great niece of
Marie
Antoinette; thus he had married into the
German royal family. They
remained married until his death, though she did not join him in
exile on Elba and thereafter never saw her husband again. The
couple had one child,
Napoleon
Francis Joseph Charles (1811–1832), known from birth as the
King of Rome. He became Napoleon
II in 1814 and reigned for only two weeks. He was awarded the title
of the Duke of Reichstadt in 1818 and died of
tuberculosis aged 21, with no children.
Napoleon acknowledged two illegitimate children:
He may have had further unacknowledged illegitimate offspring as
well:
Image
Napoleon has become a worldwide
cultural
icon who symbolises military
genius and
political power. Since his death,
many towns, streets, ships, and even cartoon characters have been
named after him. He has been portrayed in hundreds of films and
discussed in hundreds of thousands of books and articles.
During the Napoleonic Wars he was taken seriously by some in the
British press as a dangerous
tyrant, poised
to invade. A
nursery rhyme warned
children that Bonaparte ravenously ate naughty people; the
'
bogeyman'. The British
Tory press sometimes depicted Napoleon as much smaller
than average
height and this image
persists. Confusion about his height also results from the
difference between the
French pouce and
British inch—2.71 and 2.54 cm
respectively; he was tall, average height for the period, sometimes
quoted as .
In 1908 psychologist
Alfred Adler cited
Napoleon to describe an
inferiority
complex where short people adopt an overaggressive behavior to
compensate for lack of height; this inspired the term
Napoleon complex. The
stock character of Napoleon is a comically
short "petty tyrant" and this has become a
cliché in
popular
culture. He is often portrayed wearing a comically large
bicorne and a
hand-in-waistcoat gesture—a reference to
the 1812 painting by Jacques-Louis David.
Legacy
Warfare
In the field of
military
organisation, Napoleon borrowed from previous theorists such as
Jacques
Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, the reforms of preceding
French governments and developed much of what was already in place.
He continued the policy, which emerged from the Revolution, of
promotion based primarily on merit.
Corps
replaced divisions as the largest army units,
mobile artillery was integrated
into reserve batteries, the staff system became more fluid and
cavalry returned as an important formation in French military
doctrine—these methods are now referred to as essential features of
Napoleonic warfare. Though he consolidated the practice of modern
conscription introduced by the
Directory, one of the restored monarchy's first acts was to end
it.
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. Napoleon was regarded by the influential
military theorist
Carl von
Clausewitz as a genius in the operational art of war and
historians rank him as a great military commander. Wellington, when
asked who was the greatest general of the day, answered: "In this
age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon."
A new emphasis towards the destruction, not just outmanoeuvring, of
enemy armies emerged. Invasions of enemy territory occurred over
broader fronts which made wars costlier and more decisive. The
political impact of war increased significantly; defeat for a
European power now meant more than the loss of isolated enclaves.
Near-
Carthaginian peaces
intertwined whole national efforts, intensifying the Revolutionary
phenomenon of total war.
Metric system
The official introduction of the metric system in September 1799
was unpopular in large sections of French society, and Napoleon's
rule greatly aided adoption of the new standard across not only
France but the French
sphere of
influence. Napoleon ultimately took a retrograde step in 1812,
as he passed legislation to return France to its traditional units
of measurement, but these were decimalised and the foundations were
laid for the definitive introduction of the metric system across
Europe in the middle of the 19th century.
Jewish emancipation
Napoleon
emancipated Jews from
laws which restricted them to
ghettos, and
expanded their rights to property, worship, and careers. Despite
the anti-semitic reaction to Napoleon's policies from foreign
governments and within France, he believed emancipation would
benefit France by attracting Jews to the country given the
restrictions they faced elsewhere. He stated that, "I will never
accept any proposals that will obligate the Jewish people to leave
France, because to me the Jews are the same as any other citizen in
our country. It takes weakness to chase them out of the country,
but it takes strength to assimilate them." He was seen as so
favourable to the Jews that the
Russian Orthodox Church formally
condemned him as "Antichrist and the Enemy of God".
Napoleonic Code
The Napoleonic code was adopted throughout much of Europe, though
only in the lands he conquered, and remained in force after
Napoleon's defeat. Napoleon said: "My true glory is not to have won
40 battles...Waterloo will erase the memory of so many
victories. ... But...what will live forever, is my Civil
Code." The Code still has importance today in a quarter of the
world's jurisdictions including in Europe, the Americas and Africa.
Dieter Langewiesche described the code as a "revolutionary project"
which spurred the development of
bourgeoisie society in Germany by the extension
of the right to own
property and an
acceleration towards the end of
feudalism.
Napoleon
reorganised what had been the Holy Roman Empire, made-up of more
than a thousand entities, into a more streamlined forty-state
Confederation of the Rhine; this provided the basis for the German
Confederation
and the unification of Germany in
1871. The movement toward national unification in Italy was
similarly precipitated by Napoleonic rule. These changes
contributed to the development of
nationalism and the
Nation state.
Bonapartism
In French political history, Bonapartism has two meanings. The term
can refer to people who restored the French Empire under the
House of Bonaparte including
Napoleon's Corsican family and his nephew Louis. Napoleon left a
Bonapartist dynasty which ruled France again; Louis became
Napoleon III of France, Emperor of
the
Second French Empire and
was the first
President of
France. In a wider sense, Bonapartism refers to a broad
centrist political movement that advocates
the idea of a
strong and
centralized state, based on
popular support.
Admirers and critics
Napoleon ended lawlessness and disorder in post-Revolutionary
France. He was, however, considered a tyrant and
usurper by his opponents. His critics charge that he
was not significantly troubled when faced with the prospect of war
and death for thousands, turned his search for undisputed rule into
a series of conflicts throughout Europe and ignored treaties and
conventions alike. Napoleon institutionalised plunder of conquered
territories: French museums contain art stolen by Napoleon's forces
from across Europe.
Artefacts were brought to the Louvre
for a
grand central Museum; his example would later serve as inspiration
for more notorious imitators. He was compared to
Hitler most famously by the historian
Pieter Geyl in 1947.
David G. Chandler, historian of Napoleonic warfare,
replied that "nothing could be more degrading to the former and
more flattering to the latter."
When other countries offered terms to Napoleon which would have
restored France's borders to positions that would have delighted
his predecessors, Napoleon refused compromise and only accepted his
enemies' surrender. Drawing on research by
Jacques Bainville, however, several
scholars have cast doubt on the sincerity of these offers, as the
aim of the powers concerned was Napoleon's destruction, and these
historians have concluded he shrewdly avoided his enemies'
traps.
Critics argue that Napoleon's true legacy must reflect the loss of
status for France and needless deaths brought by his rule:
historian
Victor Davis Hanson
writes, "After all, the military record is
unquestioned—17 years of wars, perhaps
six million Europeans dead,
France bankrupt, her overseas colonies lost." McLynn notes that,
"He can be viewed as the man who set back European economic life
for a generation by the dislocating impact of his wars. Vincent
Cronin replies that such criticism relies on the flawed premise
that Napoleon was responsible for the wars which bear his name,
when in fact France was the victim of a series of coalitions which
aimed to destroy the ideals of the Revolution.
Some
occultists consider Napoleon one of the
anti-christs prophecized by
Nostradamus.
International Napoleonic Congresses are held regularly and include
participation by members of the French and American military,
French politicians and scholars from different countries.
Titles
Notes
- McLynn 1998, p.6
- Bresler 1999, p.15–16
- McLynn 1998, p.2
- Cronin 1994, p.20–21
- Cronin 1994, p.27
- McLynn 1998, p.18
- Hibbert 1998, p.21–2
- Asprey 2000, p.13
- McLynn 1998, p.23
- McLynn 1998, p.26
- McLynn 1998, p.37
- McLynn 1998, p.55
- McLynn 1998, p.61
- Roberts 2001, p.xviii
- Schom 1998, p.16
- Schama 1989, p.688
- McLynn 1998, p.103
- Schom 1998, p.25
- McLynn 1998, p.92
- Schom 1998, p.26
- Dwyer 2008, p.164
- McLynn 1998, p.93
- Roberts 2001, p.xvi
- McLynn 1998, p.96
- Johnson 2002, p.27
- McLynn 1998, p.102
- McLynn 1998, p.129
- Schama 1989, p.738
- McLynn 1998, p.132
- McLynn 1998, p.145
- McLynn 1998, p.142
- Harvey 2006, p.179
- McLynn 1998, p.135
- Hanley 2005, Chapter 3
- Schom 1998, pp.69–70
- Schom 1998, p.87
- Amini 2000, p.12
- Schom 1998, pp.72–73
- Alder 2002
- McLynn 1998, p.175
- Smith 1998, p.140
- Roberts 2001, p.xx
- Schom 1998, pp.139–144
- Roberts 1995, p.147–160
- McLynn 1998, p.189
- McLynn 1998, p.193
- Schom 1998, pp.176–179
- Schom 1998, pp.186–188
- Connelly 2006, p.57
- Schom 1998, p.194
- McLynn 1998, p.215
- McLynn 1998, p.224
- McLynn 1998, p.235
- Schom 1997, p.302
- McLynn 1998, p.265
- Jackson 2004, p.33
- Connelly 2006, p.70
- Blaufarb 2007, p.101–2
- Edwards 1999, p.55
- McLynn 1998, p.290
- McLynn 1998, 255
- Bruce 1995, p.321–3
- McLynn 1998, p.296
- McLynn 1998, p.297
- Napoleon gave the pope a tiara following the ceremony, now
referred to as the Napoleon Tiara.
- McLynn 1998, p.321
- McLynn 1998, p.332
- Goetz 2005, p.301
- Schom 1997, p.414
- McLynn 1998, p.350
- Cronin 1994, p.344
- Watson 2003, p.13-14
- Karsh 2001, p.11
- Karsh 2001, p.12
- McLynn 1998, p.356
- McLynn 1998, p.370
- McLynn 1998, p.426
- McLynn 1998, p.497
- Gates 2001, p.20
- Chandler 1995, p.631
- McLynn 1998, p.408
- Harvey 2006, p.631
- Gates 2001, p.177
- Gates 2001, p.467
- Napoleon Bonaparte, Memorial de Sainte-Helene, Vol 1 (Paris:
Garnier fretes, 1961 (1823), pp. 609-610
- Castle 1994, p.90
- McLynn 1998, p.422
- McLynn 1998, p.470
- McLynn 1998, p.433–5
- McLynn 1998, p.472
- McLynn 1998, p.378
- Riehn 1991, p.24
- Riehn 1991, p.81
- McLynn 1998, p.504—505
- Harvey 2006, p.773
- McLynn 1998, p.518
- Markham 1988, p.194
- McLynn 1998, p.522
- Markham 1988, p.190 and 199
- McLynn 1998, p.541
- McLynn 1998, p.549
- McLynn 1998, p.565
- Chandler 1995, p.1020
- Fremont-Barnes 2004, p.14
- McLynn 1998, p.585
- Gates 2003, p.259
- Schom 1998, p.702
- McLynn 1998, p.597
- McLynn 1998, p.604
- McLynn 1998, p.605
- Hibbert 1998, p.403
- Chesney 2006, p.35
- Cordingly 2004, p.254
- Balcombe 1845
- Thomson 1969, p.77–9
- Schom 1997, p.769–770
- McLynn 1998, p.642
- McLynn 1998, p.644
- Macaulay 1986, p.141
- Wilkins 1972
- McLynn 1998, p.651
- McLynn 1998, p.655
- Wilson 1975, p.293–5
- Driskel 1993, p.168
- McLynn 1998, p.656
- Johnson 2002, p.180–1
- Cullen 2008, p.146–48
- Cullen 2008, p.156
- Mari 2004
- Cullen 2008, p.161
- McLynn 1998, p.117
- McLynn 1998, p.271
- McLynn 1998, p.118
- McLynn 1998, p.188
- McLynn 1998, p.100
- McLynn 1998, p.663
- McLynn 1998, p.630
- McLynn 1998, p.423
- Lowndes 1943
- and Bell 2007, p.13
- Roberts 2004, p.93
- Hall 2006, p.181
- Bordes 2007, p.118
- Archer 2002, p.397
- Flynn 2001, p.16
- Archer 2002, p.383
- Archer 2002, p.380
- Roberts 2001, p.272
- Archer 2002, p.404
- O'Connor 2003
- McLynn 1998, p.436
- Schwarzfuchs 1979, p.50
- Cronin 1994, p.315
- Wanniski 1998, p.184
- Wood 2007, p.55
- Scheck 2008, Chapter: The Road to National Unification
- Astarita 2005, p.264
- Alter 2006, p.61–76
- Outhwaite 2003 p.50
- Abbott 2005,p.3
- McLynn 1998, p.666
- Poulos 2000
- Geyl 1947
- Chandler, p. xliii
- Bertman 2002
- Hanson 2003
- Cronin 1994, pp.342–3
Citations
- McLynn 1998, p.6
- Bresler 1999, p.15–16
- McLynn 1998, p.2
- Cronin 1994, p.20–21
- Cronin 1994, p.27
- McLynn 1998, p.18
- Hibbert 1998, p.21–2
- Asprey 2000, p.13
- McLynn 1998, p.23
- McLynn 1998, p.26
- McLynn 1998, p.37
- McLynn 1998, p.55
- McLynn 1998, p.61
- Roberts 2001, p.xviii
- Schom 1998, p.16
- Schama 1989, p.688
- McLynn 1998, p.103
- Schom 1998, p.25
- McLynn 1998, p.92
- Schom 1998, p.26
- Dwyer 2008, p.164
- McLynn 1998, p.93
- Roberts 2001, p.xvi
- McLynn 1998, p.96
- Johnson 2002, p.27
- McLynn 1998, p.102
- McLynn 1998, p.129
- Schama 1989, p.738
- McLynn 1998, p.132
- McLynn 1998, p.145
- McLynn 1998, p.142
- Harvey 2006, p.179
- McLynn 1998, p.135
- Hanley 2005, Chapter 3
- Schom 1998, pp.69–70
- Schom 1998, p.87
- Amini 2000, p.12
- Schom 1998, pp.72–73
- Alder 2002
- McLynn 1998, p.175
- Smith 1998, p.140
- Roberts 2001, p.xx
- Schom 1998, pp.139–144
- Roberts 1995, p.147–160
- McLynn 1998, p.189
- McLynn 1998, p.193
- Schom 1998, pp.176–179
- Schom 1998, pp.186–188
- Connelly 2006, p.57
- Schom 1998, p.194
- McLynn 1998, p.215
- McLynn 1998, p.224
- McLynn 1998, p.235
- Schom 1997, p.302
- McLynn 1998, p.265
- Jackson 2004, p.33
- Connelly 2006, p.70
- Blaufarb 2007, p.101–2
- Edwards 1999, p.55
- McLynn 1998, p.290
- McLynn 1998, 255
- Bruce 1995, p.321–3
- McLynn 1998, p.296
- McLynn 1998, p.297
- Napoleon gave the pope a tiara following the ceremony, now
referred to as the Napoleon Tiara.
- McLynn 1998, p.321
- McLynn 1998, p.332
- Goetz 2005, p.301
- Schom 1997, p.414
- McLynn 1998, p.350
- Cronin 1994, p.344
- Watson 2003, p.13-14
- Karsh 2001, p.11
- Karsh 2001, p.12
- McLynn 1998, p.356
- McLynn 1998, p.370
- McLynn 1998, p.426
- McLynn 1998, p.497
- Gates 2001, p.20
- Chandler 1995, p.631
- McLynn 1998, p.408
- Harvey 2006, p.631
- Gates 2001, p.177
- Gates 2001, p.467
- Napoleon Bonaparte, Memorial de Sainte-Helene, Vol 1 (Paris:
Garnier fretes, 1961 (1823), pp. 609-610
- Castle 1994, p.90
- McLynn 1998, p.422
- McLynn 1998, p.470
- McLynn 1998, p.433–5
- McLynn 1998, p.472
- McLynn 1998, p.378
- Riehn 1991, p.24
- Riehn 1991, p.81
- McLynn 1998, p.504—505
- Harvey 2006, p.773
- McLynn 1998, p.518
- Markham 1988, p.194
- McLynn 1998, p.522
- Markham 1988, p.190 and 199
- McLynn 1998, p.541
- McLynn 1998, p.549
- McLynn 1998, p.565
- Chandler 1995, p.1020
- Fremont-Barnes 2004, p.14
- McLynn 1998, p.585
- Gates 2003, p.259
- Schom 1998, p.702
- McLynn 1998, p.597
- McLynn 1998, p.604
- McLynn 1998, p.605
- Hibbert 1998, p.403
- Chesney 2006, p.35
- Cordingly 2004, p.254
- Balcombe 1845
- Thomson 1969, p.77–9
- Schom 1997, p.769–770
- McLynn 1998, p.642
- McLynn 1998, p.644
- Macaulay 1986, p.141
- Wilkins 1972
- McLynn 1998, p.651
- McLynn 1998, p.655
- Wilson 1975, p.293–5
- Driskel 1993, p.168
- McLynn 1998, p.656
- Johnson 2002, p.180–1
- Cullen 2008, p.146–48
- Cullen 2008, p.156
- Mari 2004
- Cullen 2008, p.161
- McLynn 1998, p.117
- McLynn 1998, p.271
- McLynn 1998, p.118
- McLynn 1998, p.188
- McLynn 1998, p.100
- McLynn 1998, p.663
- McLynn 1998, p.630
- McLynn 1998, p.423
- Lowndes 1943
- and Bell 2007, p.13
- Roberts 2004, p.93
- Hall 2006, p.181
- Bordes 2007, p.118
- Archer 2002, p.397
- Flynn 2001, p.16
- Archer 2002, p.383
- Archer 2002, p.380
- Roberts 2001, p.272
- Archer 2002, p.404
- O'Connor 2003
- McLynn 1998, p.436
- Schwarzfuchs 1979, p.50
- Cronin 1994, p.315
- Wanniski 1998, p.184
- Wood 2007, p.55
- Scheck 2008, Chapter: The Road to National Unification
- Astarita 2005, p.264
- Alter 2006, p.61–76
- Outhwaite 2003 p.50
- Abbott 2005,p.3
- McLynn 1998, p.666
- Poulos 2000
- Geyl 1947
- Chandler, p. xliii
- Bertman 2002
- Hanson 2003
- Cronin 1994, pp.342–3
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