Napoleon Bonaparte

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Nice hair

Napoleon Bonaparte was a Corsican-born military tactician and politician who shaped and founded the First French Empire. He rose to power in 1799 after a coup d'état (the "Coup of 18 Brumaire") and ruled France for five years before the French Senate declared him Emperor. This spawned many bad "can he do it? Of Corsi-can" jokes.

Despite popular stereotypes, Napoleon was not particularly short, standing at about 5'6" (1.68m), which was a perfectly average height for the time. The widely-cited "short Napoleon" caricature is derived from anti-French propaganda published in Britain that intentionally conflated the size of the French inch (2.71 cm) and the British inch (2.54 cm). Nevertheless, a Napoleon complex refers to a short person compensating for their stature in other ways.

[edit] Rise and fall of an emperor

Napoleon was born in French-controlled Corsica to Carlo Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino; he was a turbulent child. In January 1779 he was enrolled by his father at a religious school in mainland France where he learned French; then he went to a military academy at Brienne-le-Château and finally to the elite École Militaire in Paris where he became an artillery officer.

He gained his reputation as a tactician during the French Revolution, after being promoted to general, he led the famous Italian campaign, defeating a coalition of Austria, Russia, Piedmont-Sardinia, and some Italian states.

Subsequently, Napoleon was sent by the Senate to invade Egypt where he defeated the Mamelukes in the "Battle of the Pyramids." After a successful campaign he came back to France, overthrew the ruling French Directory and made himself the first French Consul. In 1804, he removed all pretense of democracy and declared himself Emperor and then King of Italy. His civil code from the same year however, the Code Napoléon, was a comprehensive rewriting of Justinian's Roman Law in accordance with the principles of the French Revolution. Later it formed the basis of the private law of the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain, and was quite influential throughout the rest of Europe.

Napoleon was primarily a military leader, and becoming emperor did not change that. He implemented several innovations to warfare, better perfecting the art of killing thousands of people in a short amount of time. He went on to conquer his ally Spain through deceit, thereby causing the first major guerrilla war, known as the Peninsular War. He also fought a series of wars against coalitions of other European countries, mainly Austria, Prussia and Russia, where he consistently defeated them, even when badly outnumbered. Britain, while technically at war with France almost continually since the French Revolution, mostly contented herself to dominate the seas with her massive navy (which caused a minor side war with the US), assist the Spanish and Portuguese in the Peninsular War, and bankroll the war efforts of other countries. Napoleon also more or less ended the Holy Roman Empire and reorganized it, sowing the seeds that would later create a unified country of Germany (which would have no negative consequences). Eventually his opponents started to learn from their mistakes, and started copying Napoleon's strategies, causing the battles to become larger and bloodier.

Finally, in 1812 he launched an ill-advised, massive invasion of Russia. The Russians cleverly chose to mostly avoid fighting battles against him, and to destroy their villages and farms rather than leave them for Napoleon's army to use, a strategy referred to as "scorched earth". After a long march and a couple of the largest battles ever seen up to that point, Napoleon entered Moscow only to find it was empty and burning. With a winter brewing that he was unprepared for, his army starving and tired, and the Russians refusing to give the decisive battle he wanted, Napoleon was forced to leave Russia in defeat. His army suffered horrendous casualties from starvation, disease and the cold- only about 1 in 5 men survived.

With his primary army almost completely destroyed, Napoleon's opponents jumped at the opportunity and created a sixth coalition to defeat him, which was finally successful. He was sent into exile on the island of Elba, off the west coast of Italy. He was able to escape about a year later, gathered a new army, and was defeated once and for all at the Battle of Waterloo, in Belgium. Not wanting a repeat of the escape from exile, the British sent him (and a small army to guard him) to the island of St. Helena, thousands of miles away from Europe in the middle of the southern Atlantic Ocean. A great conference was held in Vienna by representatives of the victorious kings and emperors of Europe, where they sought to undo any potentially good things that Napoleon had set in place, and tried to revert things to how they were in the "good old days".

[edit] Public opinion

Like many conquerors and generals, Napoleon is both loved and hated: as an enlightened despot he tends to be loved for his enlightenedness and hated for his despotism.

Many scholars argue that the Napoleonic Wars brought France to ruin, but others claim that Napoleon did not actively seek those wars. The blithering stupidity of attacking Russia suggests otherwise; but that's what you get for starting a land war in Asia.

[edit] External links

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