Napoleon
Napoleon redirects here. For other uses see Napoleon (disambiguation).
Napoleon Bonaparte (1769 - 1821) was emperor of France as Napoleon I from 1804 to 1814 and ruler over much of Europe.
Napoleon was born on Corsica (in the city of Ajaccio), which had only recently been sold to the French by Italy. His family was a member of the minor Corsican nobility. His father arranged for Napoleon's education in France. Napoleon moved to France at the age of nine. He initially considered himself a foreigner and outsider; accusations of foreignness would dog him through his life. He had become an officer in the French army when the French Revolution began in 1789. Napoleon returned to Corsica, where a nationalist struggle sought separation from France. Civil war broke out, and Napoleon's family had to flee to France. Napoleon supported the revolution and quickly rose through the ranks. In 1793, he freed Toulon from the royalists and the British troops supporting them. In 1795, when royalists marched against the National Convention in Paris, he had them shot.
Nicknamed "the Little Corporal", Napoleon was a brilliant military strategist. When appointed commander-in-chief of the ill-equipped French army in Italy, he managed to defeat Austrian forces repeatedly. Austria, led by Archduke Charles, had to negotiate an unfavorable treaty; at the same time, Napoleon organized a coup in 1797 which removed several royalists from power in Paris.
In 1798, Napoleon invaded Egypt in order to undermine Britain's access to India. An indication of Napoleon's devotion to the principles of the Enlightenment was his decision to bring scholars along on his expedition: among the other discoveries that resulted, the Rosetta Stone was translated. Napoleon's fleet in Egypt was completely destroyed by Nelson at The Battle of the Nile, so that Napoleon was land-bound. A coalition against France formed in Europe, the royalists rose again, and Napoleon returned to Paris without his troops in 1799; in November of that year, a coup made him the ruler and military dictator of France. According to the French Revolutionary Calendar, the date was 18 Brumaire.
He instituted several lasting reforms in the educational, judicial, financial and administrational system. His set of civil laws, the Napoleonic Code or Civil Code, has importance to this day in many countries.
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In 1800, Napoleon attacked and defeated Austria again; afterwards, the British also signed a peace treaty.
In 1802, Thomas Jefferson was prepared to purchase New Orleans from Napoleon who had recently established himself as the undisputed ruler of France, and also acquired the Louisiana area from Spain. Jefferson sent James Monroe to Paris to assist in the negotiations of the Louisiana Purchase. The renewal of the war between the English and French was inevitable, and Napoleon had just faced a major military setback in the west when his army sent to conquer Santo Domingo and establish a base in the western world was destroyed by a combination of yellow fever and fierce resistance led by Toussaint l'Ouverture. With his western forces diminished, Napoleon knew he would be unable to defend Louisiana and suddenly decided to sell the entire territory to the United States. The American negotiators were prepared to spend $2 million for New Orleans, but were dumbfounded when the entire region from the Gulf of Mexico to Canada and from the Mississippi River to the Rocky Mountains, which instantly doubled the size of the US, was offered for less than $20 million.
After Napoleon enlarged his influence to Switzerland and Germany, a dispute over Malta provided the pretext for Britain to declare war on France in 1803, and support French royalists opposed to Napoleon. Napoleon however crowned himself Emperor in 1804, in a bizarre scene when he took the crown out of the hands of Pope Pius VII and placed it on his own head.
A plan by the French, along with the Spanish, to defeat the British on the sea failed dramatically at Trafalgar, and Britain gained lasting control of the seas. A coalition against Napoleon had formed in Europe again, Napoleon attacked and secured a major victory against Prussia and Russia at Austerlitz. As a result, Napoleon became the de-facto ruler over most of Germany. Napoleon marched on through Poland and then signed a treaty with the Russian tsar Alexander I dividing Europe between the two powers.
Napoleon attempted to enforce a Europe-wide commercial boycott of Britain called the Continental System. He invaded Spain and installed his brother as king there. The Spanish rose in revolt, which Napoleon was unable to suppress. The British invaded Spain through Portugal in 1808 and, with the aid of the Spanish nationalists, slowly drove out the French. While France was engaged in Spain, Austria attacked in Germany and, after initial success, was defeated at the battle of Wagram.
Alexander I of Russia had become distrustful of Napoleon and refused to cooperate with him in against the British. Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. The Russians under Kutuzov retreated instead of giving battle. Outside of Moscow on 12 Sept., the battle of Borodino was fought. The Russians retreated and Napoleon was able to enter Moscow, assuming that Alexander I would negotiate peace. Moscow began to burn and within the month, fearing loss of control in France, he left Moscow and the French Army suffered a ruinous retreat; the Army had begun as over 500,000 men and in the end less than 10,000 crossed at Berezina. Encouraged by this dramatic reversal, several nations again took up arms against France. The decisive defeat of the French came at the Battle of Leipzig in 1813, also called "The Battle of Nations".
In 1814, an alliance between Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria against Napoleon was formed. Although the defense of France included many battles which the French won, the pressure was overwhelming. Paris was occupied on 31 March. The marshals asked Napoleon to abdicate. The Allies demanded unconditional surrender and on 11 April Napoleon agreed. He was exiled to Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean, under a treaty that let him keep the title of "Emperor" but restricted his empire to that tiny island. Once there and cut off from communications, he became concerned about what was happening to his wife and, more especially, his son, in the hands of the Austrians and so returned to the mainland, where the armies sent to stop him received him as leader, and arrived at Paris and governed for 100 days.
His final defeat was by Wellington at Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Napoleon was imprisoned and then exiled by the British to the island of Saint Helena. There, with a small cadre of followers, he dictated his memoirs and criticized his captors. In the last half of April 1821, he wrote out his own will and several codicils (a total of 40-some pages) himself. His last words were: "France, the Army, Josephine."
Recent analysis of a lock of Napoleon's hair preserved after his death, combined with descriptions of his symptoms in the months before his death, indicates that he was probably killed by arsenic poisoning. Arsenic was at the time sometimes used as an undetectable poison, administered over a long period of time. However, arsenic was also used in some wallpaper, as a green pigment, and even in some patent medicines, and so the question of whether he was murdered remains unanswered -- he may have dosed himself with a commercial tonic containing arsenic because of his illness, which some authorities now think was hepatitis.
He married: (1) Josephine de Beauharnais and (2) Marie-Louise of Austria. He had no children with
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Josephine (which was why he divorced her) and only one with Marie-Louise: Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles Bonaparte (1812-1833), King of Rome (known as Napoleon II of France although he never ruled). Napoleon did have at least two illegitimate children: Charles, Count Léon, (1806 - 1881) (son of Catherine Eléonore Denuelle de la Plaigne [1787 - 1868]) and Alexandre Joseph Colonna, Count Walewski, (1810 - 1817) (son of Maria, Countess Walewski [1789 - 1817]).
He had asked in his will to be buried on the banks of the Seine, but when he died in 1821 he was buried on Saint Helena. In 1840 his remains were taken to France and entombed in Les Invalides, Paris.