He crowned himself emperor in 1804 after seizing political power in France in a 1799 coup d’état. Napoleon successfully waged war against various coalitions of European nations and expanded his empire as he was a shrewd, ambitious and a skilled military strategist.
However, Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba and abdicated the throne two years later after a disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812. He briefly returned to power in his Hundred Days campaign in 1815.
He got abdicated once again and was exiled to the remote island of Saint Helena after a crushing defeat at the Battle of Waterloo, where he died at 51.
Napoleon’s Education and Early Military Career:
On August 15, 1769, in Ajaccio, on the Mediterranean island of Corsica was the place where Napoleon Bonaparte was born. Carlo Buonaparte (1746-1785), a lawyer was his father, and Letizia Ramolino Bonaparte (1750-1836) his mother as he was the second of eight surviving children of the family.
His family was not wealthy even though his parents were members of the minor Corsican nobility. France acquired Corsica from the city-state of Genoa, Italy one year before the birth of Napoleon. A French spelling of his last name was later adopted by Napoleon.
Napoleon attended school in mainland France as a boy where he learnt the French language. In an artillery regiment of the French army he became a second lieutenant after graduating from a French military academy in 1785.
The revolutionaries proclaimed a French republic after overthrowing the monarchy within three years of the French Revolution which began in 1789. Napoleon was largely on leave from the military and home in Corsica during the early years of the revolution, where a pro-democracy political group named Jacobins got familiar with him.
In 1793, the Bonaparte family fled their native island for mainland France, where Napoleon returned to military duty following a clash with the nationalist Corsican governor, Pasquale Paoli (1725-1807).
Napoleon became associated with the brother of revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre (1758-1794) who was a Jacobin and a key force behind the Reign of Terror (1793-1794) which was known as a period of violence against enemies of the revolution, Augustin Robespierre (1763-1794) in France.
Napoleon got promoted to the rank of brigadier general in the army during this time. However, Napoleon was briefly put under house arrest for his ties to the brothers after Robespierre fell from power and was guillotined (along with Augustin) in July 1794.
In 1795, Napoleon was promoted to major general after he helped suppress a royalist insurrection against the revolutionary government in Paris.
Napoleon’s Rise to Power:
France’s revolutionary government had been engaged in military conflicts with various European nations since 1972. In 1796, Napoleon commanded a French army against one of his country’s primary rivals, in a series of battles in Italy eventually defeating the larger armies of Austria.
The Treaty of Campo Formio was between France and Austria in 1797, resulting in territorial gains for the French. The Directory who were the five-person group that had governed France since 1795, offered to let Napoleon lead an invasion of England during the following year.
Napoleon determined that the superior British Royal Navy would decimate France’s naval forces as they were not ready to take on a war head on. Instead, in an effort to wipe out British trade routes with India he proposed an invasion of Egypt.
In July 1798 at the Battle of the Pyramids Napoleon’s troops scored a victory against Egypt’s military rulers, the Mamluks; soon, however, his forces were stranded as the British nearly decimated his naval fleet at the Battle of the Nile in August 1798.
In early 1799, an invasion of Ottoman Empire-ruled Syria was launched by Napoleon’s army, which ended with a failed siege of Acre, located in modern-day Israel.
That summer, the ever-ambitious and cunning Napoleon opted to abandon his army in Egypt and return to France with the political situation in France marked by uncertainty.
The Coup of 18 Brumaire:
Napoleon was part of a group that successfully overthrew the French Directory in an event known as the coup of 18 Brumaire, in November 1799.
5'7" Napoleon became first consul as the Directory was replaced with a three-member Consulate making him France’s leading political figure. In June 1800, Napoleon’s forces defeated one of France’s perennial enemies, the Austrians, and drove them out of Italy at the Battle of Marengo.
Napoleon’s power as first consul was cemented as his helped in his victory. Additionally, the war-weary British agreed to peace with the French (although the peace would only last for a year) with the Treaty of Amiens in 1802. Post-revolutionary France restored stability with Napoleon's work.
He centralized the government; supported science and the arts; sought to improve relations between his regime and the pope (who represented France’s main religion, Catholicism), which had suffered during the revolution and even instituted reforms in such areas as banking and education.
The Napoleonic Code which streamlined the French legal system and continues to form the foundation of French civil law to this day was one of his most significant accomplishments.
In 1802, Napoleon made a constitutional amendment making him the first consul for life. Two years later, in 1804, in a lavish ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris he crowned himself emperor of France.
Napoleon’s Marriages and Children:
In 1796, Josephine de Beauharnais (1763-1814), a stylish widow six years his senior who had two teenage children married Napoleon. In 1809, more then a decade later when Napoleon and his wife had no offspring with each other, he had their marriage annulled so he could produce an heir after finding a new wife.
He wed Marie Louise (1791-1847) who was the daughter of the emperor of Austria in 1810. Napoleon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte (1811-1832), who became known as Napoleon II and was given the title king of Rome was given birth by her in the following year.
Napoleon had several illegitimate children in addition to his son with Marie Louise.
The Reign of Napoleon I:
From 1803 to 1815, France was engaged in a series of major conflicts with various coalitions of European nations known as the Napoleonic Wars.
In 1803, Napoleon sold France’s Louisiana Territory in North America to the newly independent United States for $15 million partly as a means to raise funds for future wars, this transaction later became to be known as the Louisiana Purchase.
In October 1805, at the Battle of Trafalgar the British wiped out Napoleon’s fleet. However, Napoleon achieved what is considered to be one of his greatest victories at the Battle of Austerlitz in December of that same year, defeating the Austrians and Russians armies.
The victory resulted in the creation of the Confederation of the Rhine and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. Beginning in 1806, with the establishment of the so-called Continental System of European port blockades against British trade Napoleon sought to wage large-scale economic warfare against Britain.
In 1807, Alexander I (1777-1825) was forced to sign a peace settlement, the Treaty of Tilsit following Napoleon’s defeat of the Russians at Friedland in Prussia. In 1809, resulting in further gains for Napoleon with the French defeating the Austrians at the Battle of Wagram.
Napoleon reestablished a French aristocracy (eliminated in the French Revolution) during this year and as his empire continued to expand across much of western and central continental Europe so he began handing out titles of nobility to his loyal friends and family.
Napoleon’s Downfall and First Abdication:
Russia withdrew from the Continental System in 1810. In the summer of 1812 Napoleon led a massive army into Russia in retaliation. The Russians adopted a strategy of retreating whenever Napoleon’s forces attempted to attack rather than engaging the French in a full-scale battle.
As a result, despite being ill-prepared for an extended campaign Napoleon’s troops trekked deeper into Russia. In September, in the indecisive Battle of Borodino both sides suffered heavy casualties.
Napoleon’s forces shockingly discovered that almost the entire population of the city was evacuated when they marched on to Moscow. In an effort to deprive enemy troops of supplies the retreating Russians set fires across the city.
Napoleon after waiting a month for a surrender that never came, was forced to order his starving, exhausted army out of Moscow after facing with the onset of the Russian winter. His army suffered continual harassment from a suddenly aggressive and merciless Russian army during the disastrous retreat.
Only an estimated 100,000 made it out of Russia from Napoleon’s 600,000 troops who began the campaign. French forces were engaged in the Peninsular War (1808-1814) at the same time as the catastrophic Russian invasion.
This was resulted in the Spanish and Portuguese driving the French from the Iberian Peninsula, with assistance from the British.
The Battle of Leipzig, also known as the Battle of Nations was followed by this loss in 1813, in which Napoleon’s forces were defeated by a coalition troops that included Austrian, Prussian, Russian and Swedish troops. In March 1814 coalition forces captured Paris after Napoleon's retreat to France.
Napoleon was forced to abdicate the throne in his mid-40s on April 6, 1814. He was exiled to Elba which was a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy with the Treaty of Fontainebleau. His wife and son went to Austria while he was given sovereignty over the small island.
Hundred Days Campaign and Battle of Waterloo:
On February 26, 1815, Napoleon escaped Elba and sailed to the French mainland with a group of more than 1,000 supporters after less than a year in exile. He returned to Paris on March 20 where he was welcomed by cheering crowds.
Napoleon began what came to be known as his Hundred Days campaign after the new king, Louis XVIII (1755-1824), fled away. A coalition of allies such as the Austrians, British, Prussians and Russians began to prepare for war upon Napoleon’s return to France considering the French emperor an enemy.
Napoleon planned to strike preemptively after raising a new army and, defeating the allied forces one by one before they could launch a united attack against him. In June 1815, British and Prussian troops were stationed in Belgium where his forced invaded.
On June 16, in the Battle of Ligny where Napoleon’s troops defeated the Prussians. However, on June 18 two days later, the French were crushed by the British at the Battle of Waterloo near Brussels, with assistance from the Prussians. Napoleon was once again forced to abdicate on June 22, 1815.
Napoleon’s Final Years:
Napoleon was exiled to the remote in the South Atlantic Ocean in the British-held island of Saint Helena in October 1815. He died there most likely from stomach cancer on May 5, 1821, at age 51.
Despite his request to be laid to rest “on the banks of the Seine, among the French people I have loved so much,” Napoleon was buried on the island. In 1840, his remains were returned to France and entombed in a crypt at Les Invalides in Paris, where other French military leaders are interred.
Written by: Gourav Chowdhury
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