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![The Cast in Bronze traveling carillon at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in June 2008. A carillon (English pronunciation: /ˈkærəˌlɒn/, /ˈkærɨljɒn/ or /kəˈrɪljən/; French: [kaʁijɔ̃]) is a musical instrument that is usually housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building.](http://web.archive.org./web/20110427083646im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/82/af/36fcdaddd375476677c28ac2048a_grande.jpg "The Cast in Bronze traveling carillon at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in June 2008. A carillon (English pronunciation: /ˈkærəˌlɒn/, /ˈkærɨljɒn/ or /kəˈrɪljən/; French: [kaʁijɔ̃]) is a musical instrument that is usually housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building.")
![Mulhouse (French: Mulhouse, pronounced: [myluz]; Alsatian: Milhüsa or Milhüse, [mɪlˈyːzə]; German: Mülhausen; i.e. mill houses) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514[1] and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area[2] in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin department, and the second largest in the Alsace region after Strasbourg. Mulhouse is the principal commune of the 32 making up the Communauté d'agglomération](http://web.archive.org./web/20110427083646im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/a4/f3/4d28906f98537ed6f947dd1ce9aa_grande.jpg "Mulhouse (French: Mulhouse, pronounced: [myluz]; Alsatian: Milhüsa or Milhüse, [mɪlˈyːzə]; German: Mülhausen; i.e. mill houses) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514[1] and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area[2] in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin department, and the second largest in the Alsace region after Strasbourg. Mulhouse is the principal commune of the 32 making up the Communauté d'agglomération")
Historically, an individual became Free French after he enlisted in de Gaulle's Free French organisation located in London. Free French units were units formed by these people. De Gaulle's organization stopped accepting members in mid-1943 as Free French forces were merging with the French forces in North Africa, and the Comité français de libération nationale (CFLN) was set up in Algiers.
Postwar, to settle disputes over the Free French heritage, the French government issued an official definition of the term. Under this "ministerial instruction of July 1953" (instruction ministérielle du 29 juillet 1953), only those who served with the Allies after the Franco-German armistice in 1940 and before 1 August 1943 may correctly be called "Free French".
French forces after July 1943 are therefore correctly designated as the "forces of Liberation".
This article also includes the activities of French forces after 1942, in order to maintain continuity.
On 16 June, the new French President of the Council, Philippe Pétain, began negotiations with Axis officials. On 18 June, de Gaulle spoke to the French people via BBC radio. He asked French soldiers, sailors and airmen to join in the fight against the Nazis. In France, de Gaulle's "Appeal of the 18th of June" (Appel du 18 juin) was not widely heard that day but, together with de Gaulle's BBC broadcasts in subsequent days and his later communications, came to be widely remembered throughout France and its colonial empire as the voice of national honour and freedom. Some of the British Cabinet had attempted to block the speech, but were overruled by British Prime Minister Winston Churchill. To this day, the Appeal of 18 June remains one of the most famous speeches in French history. Nevertheless, on June 22, Pétain signed the armistice followed by a similar one with Italy on June 24; both of these came into force on 25 June. Pétain became leader of the newly established authoritarian regime known as Vichy France, the town of Vichy being the seat of government.
De Gaulle was tried in absentia in Vichy France and sentenced to death for treason; he, on the other hand, regarded himself as the last remaining member of the legitimate Reynaud government able to exercise power, seeing the rise to power of Pétain as an unconstitutional coup.
In 1944, once the Allies had defeated the German army in Normandy, Free French leaders wanted their troops to lead the liberation of Paris. Allied High Command requested the Free French force in question to be all-white, if possible, but this was very difficult because of the large numbers of black West Africans in their ranks. The 2nd Armored Division was chosen because only about one quarter of its troops were black.
During the winter of 1944 and 1945, many of the African troops in the Free French forces were replaced with whites. This process of blanchiment (whitening) was undertaken for several reasons. First, the full manpower of metropolitan France was available for the first time since 1940. Second, the original African recruits had suffered heavy casualties, or they had become worn-down by years of fighting, and conscripting or recruiting more was not practical. Third, African troops tended to become ill during the European winter's extreme weather. Fourth, it was politically vital to get all elements of French society involved in the war, including former Vichyites, many of whom had adopted racist attitudes toward Jews, etc., and could be similarly expected to have negative feelings toward the blacks. Finally, the Free French leadership did not want France to be perceived as dependent for its victory on non-white colonial subjects.
The Free French units in the Royal Air Force, Soviet Air Force, and British SAS were mainly composed of men from metropolitan France.
Following repeated broadcasts, by the end of July 1940, seven thousand people had volunteered for the Free French forces. The Free French Navy manned some fifty ships with about 3,700 men operating as an auxiliary force to the British Royal Navy.
A monument on Lyle Hill in Greenock, in western Scotland, in the shape of the Cross of Lorraine combined with an anchor, was raised by subscription as a memorial to the Free French naval vessels that sailed from the Firth of Clyde to take part in the Battle of the Atlantic. The memorial is also associated, locally, with the memory of the Maillé Brézé which exploded at the Tail of the Bank.
On 3 July 1940, British warships attacked French ships at Mers El Kébir in Algeria, sinking or crippling three battleships. This attack caused bitterness in France, particularly in the Navy (over 1,000 French sailors were killed), and discouraged many French soldiers from joining the Free French forces.
Some French warships did remain on the Allied side and others re-joined later after the Axis occupation of Vichy France (codenamed Case Anton) and the scuttling of the French fleet in Toulon. Those ships flew a separate flag, the Free French Naval Ensign, which is still in use as a mark of honour by ships that continue to use the name of a Free French ship.
After the fall of France in 1940, the French colonies of Cameroun and French Equatorial Africa (except for Gabon) joined the Free French while the remainder sided with the Vichy Regime. With the addition of French African colonies came a large number of African colonial troops. From July to November 1940, Free French forces fought French troops loyal to Vichy France during the West African Campaign. The outcome of this campaign was mixed with the Vichy French claiming victory at the Battle of Dakar and the Free French claiming victory at the Battle of Gabon. The French West African colonies remained Vichy French and the French Equatorial African colonies, now including Gabon, remained Free French.
In Asia and the Pacific, the French South Pacific colonies of New Caledonia, French Polynesia and the New Hebrides joined the Free French later. The South Pacific colonies would become vital Allied bases in the Pacific Ocean. French Indochina was invaded by Japan in September 1940, although the colony remained under nominal Vichy control. On 9 March 1945, the Japanese took full control of Indochina and launched the Second French Indochina Campaign.
In North America, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon (near Canada) joined the Free French after an "invasion" on 24 December 1941 by Rear Admiral Emile Muselier and the forces he was able to load onto three corvettes and a submarine of the Free French Naval Forces (Forces navales françaises libres, or FNFL).
During 1941, Free French units fought with the British Commonwealth army against Italian troops in Ethiopia and Eritrea during the East African Campaign. During the Syria-Lebanon Campaign, Free French forces fighting alongside British Commonwealth forces once more faced French troops loyal to Vichy France — this time in the Levant. By July 1941, General Henri Dentz and his Vichy Army of the Levant were defeated. Free French General Georges Catroux was appointed as High Commissioner of the Levant. From this point, Free France controlled both Syria and Lebanon until they became independent. In Africa, the Vichy colonies were gradually overthrown as Free French forces took part in the allied campaigns on the continent. Free French soldiers participated in the Allied North African campaign, in Libya and Egypt. General Marie Pierre Koenig and his unit, the 1st Free French Brigade, fought well against the Afrika Korps at the Battle of Bir Hakeim in June 1942, although eventually obliged to withdraw. To the west the Allies launched Operation Torch, an invasion of Vichy-controlled French North Africa in November 1942. Many Vichy troops surrendered and joined the Free French cause. Vichy coastal defences were captured by the French Resistance. Vichy General Henri Giraud rejoined the Allies, but he lacked the authority that was required and de Gaulle kept his leadership of the Free French, despite American objections. In late 1942, after the Battle of Madagascar, the Vichy French forces under Governor-General Armand Léon Annet were defeated and Free French General Paul Legentilhomme was appointed High Commissioner for Madagascar. On 28 December, after a prolonged blockade, the Vichy forces in French Somaliland were ousted.
The Nazi Germans lost faith in the Vichy regime after Operation Torch and, during Case Anton in November 1942, German and Italian forces occupied Vichy France. In response, the 60,000-strong Vichy forces in French North Africa — the Army of Africa — joined the Allied side as the French XIX Corps within the British 1st Army, which also included the U.S. II Corps and two British corps. They fought in Tunisia for six months until April 1943. Using antiquated equipment, the XIX Corps took heavy casualties (16,000) against modern armour and a desperate Axis enemy.
After these successes, Guadeloupe and Martinique in the West Indies, as well as French Guiana on the northern coast of South America, joined Free France in 1943. In November 1943, the French forces received enough military equipment through Lend-Lease to re-equip eight divisions and allow the return of borrowed British equipment. At this point, the Free French and ex-Vichy French Corps were merged. In 1943, Colonel (later General) Philippe Leclerc and Lieutenant-Colonel Camille d'Ornano led a column of 16,500 colonial troops from Chad to attack Italian forces in southern Libya and to occupy Kufra in the Fezzan region.
At de Gaulle's initiative, the Groupe de Chasse 3 Normandie was formed on 1 September 1942, for service on the Eastern Front. It served with distinction and was awarded the supplementary title Niemen by Stalin.
The Free French Navy, commanded by Admiral Emile Muselier, played a role in the occupation of French colonies in Africa, in supporting the French Resistance, in D-Day (Operation Neptune), and the Pacific War.
Later, the Resistance was more formally referred to as the "French Forces of the Interior" (Forces Françaises de l'Intérieur, or FFI). From October 1944 to March 1945, many FFI units were amalgamated into the French Army in order to regularize the units.
By the time of the Normandy Invasion, the Free French forces numbered more than 400,000 strong. 900 Free French paratroopers landed as part of the in the British Special Air Service Brigade (S.A.S.); the Free French 2nd Armoured Division, under General Leclerc, landed at Utah Beach in Normandy on 1 August 1944, and eventually led the drive towards Paris, while the divisions which had been fighting in Italy became part of the French First Army, under General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny, and joined the U.S. 7th Army in Operation Dragoon. This operation was the Allied invasion of southern France. The Allied forces advanced up the line of the Rhône River to liberate the Vosges and southern Alsace.
parading down the Champs Elysées on 26 August 1944, the day after the Liberation of Paris]] Fearing the Germans would destroy Paris if attacked by a frontal assault, General Dwight Eisenhower ordered his forces to cease their advance and reconnoitre the situation. At this time, Parisians rose up in full-scale revolt. As the Allied forces waited near Paris, General Eisenhower acceded to pressure from de Gaulle and his Free French Forces. De Gaulle was furious about the delay and was unwilling to allow the people of Paris to be slaughtered as had happened in the Polish capital of Warsaw during the Warsaw Uprising. De Gaulle ordered General Leclerc to attack single-handedly without the aid of Allied forces. In response, General Eisenhower, in an attempt to spare De Gaulle's forces heavy casualties during his initiative, granted the Free French forces the honour of spearheading the Allied assault and liberating the capital city of France.
General Leclerc sent a small advance party to enter Paris, with the message that the 2e Division Blindée (composed of 10,000 French, 3,600 Maghrebis and about 350 Spaniards) would be there the following day. This party was commanded by Captain Raymond Dronne, and was given the honor to be the first Allied unit to enter Paris ahead of the 2e Division Blindée. The 9th company of the 3rd Battalion of the Régiment de Marche du Tchad was made up mainly of Spanish Republican exiles. After hard fighting that cost the 2nd Division 35 tanks, 6 self-propelled guns, and 111 vehicles, von Choltitz, the military governor of Paris, surrendered the city at the Hôtel Meurice. Jubilant crowds greeted the Liberation of Paris. French forces and de Gaulle conducted a now iconic parade through the city.
At that time, General Alphonse Juin was the chief of staff of the French army, but it was General François Sevez who represented France at Reims on 7 May, while it was General Jean de Lattre de Tassigny who was the leader of the French delegation at Berlin on V-E day, as he was the commander of the French First Army. France was then given an occupation zone in Germany, as well as in Austria and in the city of Berlin, but they were given it slightly later than those of the "Big Three". It was not only the role that France played in the war which was recognized, but its important strategic position and significance in the Cold War as a major democratic, capitalist nation of Western Europe in holding back the influence of communism on the continent.
Category:National liberation armies * Category:Charles de Gaulle Category:France – United Kingdom relations Free France Category:Governments in exile during World War II
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| Name | Napoleon I |
|---|---|
| Imgw | 225 |
| Alt | Full length portrait of Napoleon in his forties, in high-ranking white and dark blue military dress uniform. He stands amid rich 18th century furniture laden with papers, and gazes at the viewer. His hair is Brutus style, cropped close but with a short fringe in front, and his right hand is tucked in his waistcoat. |
| Caption | The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, by Jacques-Louis David, 1812 |
| Succession | Emperor of the French |
| Reign | 18 May 1804 – 11 April 1814()20 March 1815 – 22 June 1815 ( days) |
| Coronation | 2 December 1804 |
| Full name | Napoleon Bonaparte |
| Predecessor | French ConsulateHimself as First Consul of the French First Republic. |
| Successor | Louis XVIII (de jure in 1814; as legitimate monarch in 1815)Napoleon II (according to his father's will of 1815) |
| Succession1 | King of Italy |
| Reign1 | 17 March 1805 – 11 April 1814 |
| Coronation1 | 26 May 1805 |
| Predecessor1 | Himself as President of the Italian Republic |
| Successor1 | Kingdom disbanded Next monarch crowned in Milan was Emperor Ferdinand I, next king of Italy was Victor Emmanuel II of Savoy |
| Spouse | Joséphine de BeauharnaisMarie Louise of Austria |
| Issue | Napoleon II |
| House | House of Bonaparte |
| Father | Carlo Buonaparte |
| Mother | Letizia Ramolino |
| Date of birth | August 15, 1769 |
| Place of birth | Ajaccio, Corsica |
| Date of death | May 05, 1821 |
| Place of death | Longwood, Saint Helena, British Empire |
| Place of burial | Les Invalides, Paris |
| Religion | Roman Catholicism |
Napoleon was born in Corsica, France to parents of minor noble Italian ancestry and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France. Bonaparte rose to prominence under the French First 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 19th 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 in confinement by the British on the island of Saint Helena. An autopsy concluded he died of stomach cancer, though Sten Forshufvud and other scientists have since conjectured he was poisoned with arsenic.
Napoleon's campaigns are studied at military academies throughout much of the world. 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.
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. Napoleon was teased by other students for his accent and applied himself to reading. 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 the first Corsican to graduate from the Ecole Militaire
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.
Bonaparate became engaged to Désirée Clary, whose sister, Julie Clary, married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph; the Clarys were a wealthy merchant family from Marseilles. 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 Vendée, a region in west central France, on the Atlantic Ocean. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general - for which the army already had a full quota - 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 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 for his refusal to serve in the Vendée campaign. He now faced a difficult financial situation and 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. 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. One thousand four hundred 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 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.
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 co-operating 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 through superior artillery technology and Bonaparte's tactics.
During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics; he founded two newspapers both for the troops in his army and also circulated in France. The royalists attacked Bonaparte for looting Italy and warned he might become a dictator. Bonaparte sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris to lead a coup d'état and purge the royalists on 4 September—Coup of 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. 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. 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."
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. , 1798–1799]] General Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and on 1 July landed at Alexandria. and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed; the victory boosted the morale of the French army.
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 was frustrated. His army had succeeded in a temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799, he moved an 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 and 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.
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. (However, British eyewitness accounts later showed that most of the men were still alive and had not been poisoned.) His supporters have argued this was necessary given the continued harassment of stragglers by Ottoman forces, and indeed those left behind alive were tortured and beheaded by the Ottomans. Back in Egypt, on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir.
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. 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. 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, Sieyès, and Ducos as provisional Consuls to administer the government. This made Bonaparte the most powerful person in France. This effort, and French general Louis Desaix's timely reinforcements, allowed Bonaparte narrowly to avoid defeat and to 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.
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.
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. The story 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 is 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. 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 march to Germany secretly 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, "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".
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. A Franco-Persian alliance was also formed, from 1807 to 1809, between Napoleon and the Persian Empire of Fat′h-Ali Shah Qajar, against Russia and Great Britain. The alliance ended when France allied with Russia and turned its focus to European campaigns. 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.
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 because of concerns this might provoke a reaction in his army's rear. The serfs later committed 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. Owing to the Russian army's scorched earth tactics, the French found it increasingly difficult to forage food for themselves and their horses.
's graph shows the decreasing size of the Grande Armée as it marched to Moscow and back]] 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 in time. 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 Feodor Rostopchin, rather than capitulation, Moscow was 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. The Russians had lost 150,000 in battle and hundreds of thousands of civilians.
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; 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 Austria. 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.
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. Napoleon was defeated because he had to fight two armies with one, attacking an army in an excellent defensive position through wet and muddy terrain. His health that day may have affected his presence and vigour on the field, added to the fact that his subordinates may have let him down. Despite this, Napoleon came very close to clinching victory. Outnumbered, 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.
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 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 his supporters had to sign that guaranteed they would stay with the prisoner indefinitely. 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.
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 mould 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.
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 because of either the stresses of her imprisonment during the Reign of Terror or 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 Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria, and a great niece of Marie Antoinette by proxy; thus he had married into a German royal and imperial 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. with Napoleon II]]
Napoleon acknowledged two illegitimate children: Charles Léon (1806–1881) by Eléonore Denuelle de la Plaigne, and Count Alexandre Joseph Colonna-Walewski (1810–1868) by Countess Marie Walewska. Hélène Napoleone Bonaparte (1816–1910) by Albine de Montholon; and Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, whose mother remains unknown.
During the Napoleonic Wars he was taken seriously by 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 about tall, average height for the period.
In 1908 psychologist Alfred Adler cited Napoleon to describe an inferiority complex in which short people adopt an over-aggressive behaviour 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 large bicorne hat with a hand-in-waistcoat gesture—a reference to the 1812 painting by Jacques-Louis David.
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."
Napoleon suffered various military setbacks however: Aspern-Essling in 1809, Russia in 1812 and at Leipzig in 1813. He also had to abandon his forces in Egypt — the result of strategic defeat rather than any reverse in pitched battle. With the exception of two small scale battles in Italy, Napoleon was not defeated in a field battle without being heavily outnumbered. However, Napoleon can be said to have had a vice: his success contained the seeds of its own failure, because Napoleon would keep conquering until rendered unable to do so by defeat.
Under 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 meant more than the loss of isolated enclaves. Near-Carthaginian peaces intertwined whole national efforts, intensifying the Revolutionary phenomenon of total war.
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. His role in the Haitian Revolution and decision to reinstate slavery in France's oversea colonies are controversial and have an impact on his reputation. Napoleon institutionalised plunder of conquered territories: French museums contain art stolen by Napoleon's forces from across Europe. Artefacts were brought to the Musée du Louvre for a grand central museum; his example would later serve as inspiration for more notorious imitators. He was compared to Adolf Hitler most famously by the historian Pieter Geyl in 1947. David G. Chandler, historian of Napoleonic warfare, wrote that, "Nothing could be more degrading to the former and more flattering to the latter."
Critics argue 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.
International Napoleonic Congresses are held regularly and include participation by members of the French and American military, French politicians and scholars from different countries.
Category:1769 births Category:1821 deaths Category:18th-century rulers in Europe Category:19th-century monarchs in Europe Category:Attempted assassination survivors Category:Culture heroes Category:Deaths from stomach cancer Category:Dictatorship Category:First French Empire Category:French commanders of the Napoleonic Wars Category:French emperors Category:French exiles Category:French military leaders of the French Revolutionary Wars Category:French military personnel of the French Revolutionary Wars Category:French Roman Catholics Category:House of Bonaparte Category:Italian monarchs Category:Kings of Italy Category:Leaders who took power by coup Category:Members of the French Academy of Sciences Category:Monarchs that abdicated Napoleon I Category:People excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church Category:People from Ajaccio Category:Presidents of Italy Category:Princes of Andorra
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![The Cast in Bronze traveling carillon at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in June 2008. A carillon (English pronunciation: /ˈkærəˌlɒn/, /ˈkærɨljɒn/ or /kəˈrɪljən/; French: [kaʁijɔ̃]) is a musical instrument that is usually housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building.](http://web.archive.org./web/20110427083646im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/82/af/36fcdaddd375476677c28ac2048a_thumb.jpg "The Cast in Bronze traveling carillon at the Colorado Renaissance Festival in June 2008. A carillon (English pronunciation: /ˈkærəˌlɒn/, /ˈkærɨljɒn/ or /kəˈrɪljən/; French: [kaʁijɔ̃]) is a musical instrument that is usually housed in a free-standing bell tower, or the belfry of a church or other municipal building.")
![Mulhouse (French: Mulhouse, pronounced: [myluz]; Alsatian: Milhüsa or Milhüse, [mɪlˈyːzə]; German: Mülhausen; i.e. mill houses) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514[1] and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area[2] in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin department, and the second largest in the Alsace region after Strasbourg. Mulhouse is the principal commune of the 32 making up the Communauté d'agglomération](http://web.archive.org./web/20110427083646im_/http://cdn.wn.com/pd/a4/f3/4d28906f98537ed6f947dd1ce9aa_thumb.jpg "Mulhouse (French: Mulhouse, pronounced: [myluz]; Alsatian: Milhüsa or Milhüse, [mɪlˈyːzə]; German: Mülhausen; i.e. mill houses) is a city and commune in eastern France, close to the Swiss and German borders. With a population of 110,514[1] and 278,206 inhabitants in the metropolitan area[2] in 2006, it is the largest city in the Haut-Rhin department, and the second largest in the Alsace region after Strasbourg. Mulhouse is the principal commune of the 32 making up the Communauté d'agglomération")
