| Coordinates | 40°26′30″N80°00′00″N |
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| Name | Napoleon I |
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| Imgw | 250 |
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| 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. |
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| Caption | The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries, by Jacques-Louis David, 1812 |
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| Succession | Emperor of the French |
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| Reign | 18 May 1804 – 11 April 1814()20 March 1815 – 22 June 1815 ( days) |
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| Coronation | 2 December 1804 |
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| Cor-type | france |
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| Full name | Napoleon Bonaparte |
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| Predecessor | None (himself as First Consul of the French First Republic; previous ruling monarch was Louis XVI) |
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| Successor | Louis XVIII (de jure in 1814) |
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| Succession1 | King of Italy |
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| Reign1 | 17 March 1805 – 11 April 1814 |
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| Coronation1 | 26 May 1805 |
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| Predecessor1 | None (himself as President of the Italian Republic; previous ruling monarch was Emperor Charles V) |
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| Successor1 | None (kingdom disbanded, next king of Italy was Victor Emmanuel II) |
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| Spouse | Joséphine de BeauharnaisMarie Louise of Austria |
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| Issue | Napoleon II |
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| House | House of Bonaparte |
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| Father | Carlo Buonaparte |
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| Mother | Letizia Ramolino |
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| Birth date | August 15, 1769 |
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| Birth place | Ajaccio, Corsica |
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| Death date | May 05, 1821 |
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| Death place | Longwood, Saint Helena, British Empire |
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| Place of burial | Les Invalides, Paris |
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| Religion | Roman Catholicism (but see Napoleon and religions) |
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Napoleon Bonaparte ( ; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French military and political leader during the latter stages of the French Revolution. As Napoleon I, he was Emperor of the French from 1804 to 1815. His legal reform, the Napoleonic code, has been a major influence on many civil law jurisdictions worldwide, but he is best remembered for his role in the wars led against France by a series of coalitions, the so-called Napoleonic Wars, during which he established hegemony over much of Europe and sought to spread revolutionary ideals.
Napoleon was born in Corsica to parents of noble Genoese 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. Napoleon's campaigns are studied at military academies throughout much of the world.
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.
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 christened
Napoleone di Buonaparte, probably acquiring his first name from an uncle (though an older brother, who did not survive infancy, was also named Napoleone), and called by this name until his twenties when he adopted the more French-sounding
Napoléon Bonaparte.
was Corsica's representative to the court of
Louis XVI of France]]
The Corsican Buonapartes originated from minor
Italian nobility, who had come to Corsica from
Liguria 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,
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. There were also two other children, a boy and girl, who were born before Joseph but died in infancy. Napoleon was baptised as a 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. 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
Early career
. 1798 portrait by
Richard Cosway.]]
Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was
commissioned a
Second Lieutenant in
La Fère artillery regiment.
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 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 at the age of 24. His actions brought him to the attention of the
Committee of Public Safety, and he was put in charge of the artillery of France's
Army of Italy. Whilst waiting for confirmation of this post, Napoleon spent time as inspector of coastal fortifications on the Mediterranean coast near Marseille. He devised plans for attacking
Piedmont as part of France's campaign
against the First coalition and was then sent on a mission, by Augustin, to the
Republic of Genoa, to understand that country's intentions towards France.
13 Vendémiaire
. Artillery fire in front of the
Église Saint-Roch,
Rue Saint-Honoré in Paris]]
Following the fall of the Robespierres in the July 1794
Thermidorian Reaction, Bonaparte was put under
house arrest at
Nice for his association with the brothers. He was released within two weeks and due to his technical skills was asked to draw-up plans to attack Italian positions in the context of France's war with Austria. He also took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by the Royal Navy.
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.
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 and drove them out of
Lombardy. 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 which 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.
, by Baron
Antoine-Jean Gros, (
ca. 1801),
Musée du Louvre, Paris]]
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 for circulation 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, 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.
Ruler of France
coup d'état, by
François Bouchot]]
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.
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 dispute culminated in a declaration of war by Britain in May 1803, and he reassembled the invasion camp at Boulogne. 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 higher education, a
tax code, road and sewer systems, and established the
Banque de France (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. 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.
, Italy, May 26, 1805.]]
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.
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 when he passed legislation to introduce the
mesures usuelles (traditional units of measurement) for retail trade – a system of measure that resembled the pre-revolutionary units but were based on the kilogram and the metre; for example the
livre metrique (metric pound) was 500 g instead of 489.5 g – the value of the
livre du roi (the king's pound). Other units of measure were rounded in a similar manner. This however laid the foundations for the definitive introduction of the metric system across Europe in the middle of the 19th century.
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
bourgeois 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.
Concordat
Seeking national reconciliation between revolutionaries and Catholics, the Concordat of 1801 was signed on 15 July 1801 between Napoleon and
Pope Pius VII. It solidified the Roman Catholic Church as the majority church of France and brought back most of its civil status.
During the French Revolution, the National Assembly had taken Church properties and issued the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which made the Church a department of the State, removing it from the authority of the Pope. This caused hostility among the Vendeans towards the change in the relationship between the Catholic Church and the French government. Subsequent laws abolished the traditional Gregorian calendar and Christian holidays.
While the Concordat restored some ties to the papacy, it was largely in favor of the state; the balance of church-state relations had tilted firmly in Napoleon's favour. Now, Napoleon could win favor with the Catholics within France while also controlling Rome in a political sense. Napoleon once told his brother Lucien in April 1801, "Skillful conquerors have not got entangled with priests. They can both contain them and use them." As a part of the Concordat, he presented another set of laws called the Organic Articles.
Jewish emancipation
Napoleon emancipated Jews (as well as Protestants in Catholic countries and Catholics in Protestant countries) from laws which restricted them to ghettos, and he 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 "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".
French Empire
and
Empress Josephine'' by
Jacques-Louis David，in 1804.]]
Napoleon faced royalist and Jacobin plots as France's ruler, including the
Conspiration des poignards (Dagger plot) in October 1800 and the
Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise (also known as the
infernal machine) 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
Louis Antoine, 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. 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".
Middle-Eastern alliances
, 27 April 1807, by
François Mulard]]
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.
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 outmanoeuvred 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 the
Treaty of Schönbrunn was signed between Austria and France. 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.
at its greatest extent in 1811]]
Napoleon consented to the ascent to the Swedish throne of
Bernadotte, one of his marshals and a long-term rival of Napoleon's, 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 allied 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 had increased and Alexander was under pressure from the
Russian nobility to break off the alliance. An early sign the relationship had deteriorated was the Russian's virtual abandonment of the Continental System, which led Napoleon to threaten Alexander with serious consequences if he formed an alliance with Britain. 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 Russian heartland and prepared for an offensive campaign; on 23 June 1812 the invasion 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 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.
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.
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; 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.
Exile in Elba
}} 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.
Hundred Days
, 1815 - painting by
William Sadler. The Battle of Waterloo Campaign was Napoleon's last. This defeat in the War of the Seventh Coalition put an end to Napoleon's rule as Emperor of the French and marked the end of his
Hundred Days' return from exile.]]
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, Russia, Austria and Prussia bound themselves to each 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. 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.
Exile on Saint Helena
Napoleon was imprisoned and then exiled to the island of
Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, 1,870 km from the west coast of Africa. 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 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.
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 in the presence of Father Ange Vignali. 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.
Cause of death
Napoleon's physician,
François Carlo Antommarchi, led the autopsy which found the cause of death to be
stomach cancer, though he did not sign the official report. 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. 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.
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.
Marriages and children
, Empress of the French, painted by
François Gérard, 1801]]
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 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.
Napoleon and religions
Napoleon's baptism was held in Ajaccio on 21 July 1771, he was piously raised and received a Christian education, however his teachers failed to give faith to the young boy. As an adult, Napoleon was described as a "deist with involuntary respect and fondness for Catholicism." He never believed in a living God, Napoleon's deity was an absent and distant God,
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 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.
caricatured a diminutive Napoleon]]
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.
Legacy
Warfare
unveiled by Napoleon III in 1858. Napoleon I strengthened the town's defences to prevent British naval incursions.]]
In the field of
military organisation, Napoleon borrowed from previous theorists such as
Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, and from the reforms of preceding French governments, and then developed much of what was already in place. He continued the policy, which emerged from the Revolution, of promotion based primarily on merit. 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."
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.
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.
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, Emperor of the
Second French Empire and was the first
President of France. In a wider sense, Bonapartism refers to a broad centrist or center-right political movement that advocates the idea of a strong and
centralised state, based on
populism.
Criticism
, by
James Gillray.]]
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. 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.
Titles, styles, honours and arms
| Type | Monarchical |
|---|
| Name | Napoléon I,Emperor of the French |
|---|
| Reference | His Imperial Majesty |
|---|
| Spoken | Your Imperial Majesty |
|---|
| Alternative | My Lord |
|---|
| Type | Monarchical |
|---|
| Name | Napoleone I of Italy |
|---|
| Reference | His Royal Majesty |
|---|
| Spoken | Your Royal Majesty |
|---|
| Alternative | My Lord |
|---|
Titles and styles
18 May 1804 – 11 April 1814: His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French
17 March 1805 – 11 April 1814: His Imperial and Royal Majesty the Emperor of the French, King of Italy
20 March 1815 – 22 June 1815: His Imperial Majesty the Emperor of the French
Full titles
1804–1805
His Imperial Majesty Napoleon the First,
By the Grace of God and the
Constitutions of the
Republic,
Emperor of the French.
1805–1806
His Imperial and Royal Majesty Napoleon the First, By the Grace of God and the Constitutions of the Republic, Emperor of the French,
King of
Italy.
1806–1809
His Imperial and Royal Majesty Napoleon the First, By the Grace of God and the Constitutions of the Republic, Emperor of the French, King of Italy,
Protector of the
Confederation of the Rhine.
1809–1814
His Imperial and Royal Majesty Napoleon the First, By the Grace of God and the Constitutions of the Republic, Emperor of the French, King of Italy, Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine, Mediator of the
Helvetic Confederation.
1815
His Imperial Majesty Napoleon the First, By the Grace of God and the Constitutions of the Republic, Emperor of the French.
Ancestry
Titles
Notes
Citations
References
External links
The Napoleonic Guide
Napoleon Series
International Napoleonic Society
Napoleon 101, podcast by J. David Markham
Napoleon Bonaparte and Chess Edward Winter (chess historian)
Biography by the US Public Broadcasting Service
Biography on the Napoleon Bonaparte Wikia
John Holland Rose
John Gibson Lockhart
William Milligan Sloane Vol. 1/4
William Milligan Sloane Vol. 3/4
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: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 people of Italian descent
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 who abdicated
Category:People excommunicated by the Roman Catholic Church
Category:People from Ajaccio
Category:Presidents of Italy
Category:Princes of Andorra
![Tutmés III - O Napoleão do Egito [Parte 1/2]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110908151816im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/UQc_OXNq2zg/0.jpg "Tutmés III - O Napoleão do Egito [Parte 1/2]")
![Tutmés III - O Napoleão do Egito [parte 2/2]](http://web.archive.org./web/20110908151816im_/http://i.ytimg.com/vi/A2K0fuuchAA/0.jpg "Tutmés III - O Napoleão do Egito [parte 2/2]")
