Napoleon Bonaparte
A Military Genius
By: Brandon Davis
I have neither given or received unauthorized aid on this work
Brandon Davis
Mr. Logsdon
World History
6 November 2017
Napoleon Bonaparte: A Military Genius
Napoleon Bonaparte, or Napoleon I, was a general for France during the French Revolution, and would later become the Emperor of France in 1804. After a series of victories in Italy against the Austrians, young Napoleon was recognised by the 5 Man Directory. He later invaded Egypt, but the French were stranded and later defeated by the British. Later, in 1799, Napoleon led the French into Ottoman led Syria, where his invasion also failed, and Napoleon returned to France. When Napoleon returned to France, during the Coup of 18 Brumaire, Napoleon became First consul of France. After Napoleon successfully defeated the Austrians in Italy, his position in First consul was cemented in place. After he was officially Emperor of France in 1804, Napoleon’s reign had begun. Almost immediately after he gained power he sold the Louisiana territory for funds. In 1805, the British destroyed Napoleon’s fleet, but in the same year Napoleon successfully defeated the Austrians and Russians, which caused the Holy Roman Empire to be dissolved and form the Confederation of the Rhine. After a series of successful victories, Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. After a brutal winter, only one sixth of Napoleon’s army made it out of Russia, in one of the biggest failed invasions in history. At the same time, the British helped the Spanish and Portuguese defeat the French, which later resulted in Napoleon’s exile from France, to Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean. Less than a year later, Napoleon sailed back to France, where the king, Louis XVIII, immediately fled, and Napoleon assumed power. Four months later, Napoleon attacked coalition forces in Belgium, and a few days later he was defeated in the Battle of Waterloo. Napoleon was then exiled to an island much farther away in the Atlantic, called Saint-Helena, where he died a few years later. Throughout Napoleon’s life, he was able to soar through the ranks of the French Military during the French revolution, become Emperor of France, and was able fend off and defy almost all of Europe for over a decade.
Born on August 5, 1769 in Ajaccio, on the island of Corsica, shorty after the cession of the island into France. Napoleon was the fourth child to Carlo Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino. Napoleon’s father opposed the French occupation of the island, and after the revolutionary that he followed fled, Carlo had to come to terms with the French government. Later he gained protection from the Governor of Corsica, and became Assessor of the Judicial District in 1771. In 1778, he got both Napoleon and his brother, Joseph, into the Collège d’Autun. After a short time at the Collège d’Autun, Napoleon decided to go to the military college of Brienne for 5 years. Afterwards, Napoleon went to the military academy in Paris for a year, and finished 42nd in a class of 58. During this year, Napoleon’s father died of stomach cancer, and although Napoleon was not the oldest child, he became the head of his family when he was only 16. After college, Napoleon was assigned as Second Lieutenant in an artillery regiment.
During the French Revolution, Napoleon was mostly on leave, and was at home in Corsica. During his time back on the island, Napoleon became affiliated with the Jacobins. After a clash with the Governor of Corsica, Pasquale Paoli, in 1793, Napoleon and his family fled back to mainland France, and he returned to duty. While Napoleon was in France, he became closely associated with Augustin Robespierre, Maximilien Robespierre’s brother. Because of his close relations with the Robespierre brothers, Napoleon was promoted to Brigadier General in the French army. When Maximilien Robespierre’s government fell in 1794, both he and his brother were guillotined. Napoleon was later put on house arrest due to his close ties to the brothers. Later, in 1795, Napoleon helped the revolutionary government to suppress a royalist insurrection in Paris, and was later promoted to major general.
Later that year, Napoleon led the French army to defeat the larger Austrian army in a series of battles in Italy. In 1797, France and Austria sign the treaty of Campo Formio, which the french gained territory from. After Napoleon’s success in Italy, the 5 Man Directory offered him to lead an invasion of Britain, but Napoleon declined because he determined that the French Navy was not big enough to fight the much more superior navy of Great Britain. Instead of this, Napoleon proposed an invasion of Egypt to try to knock out Britain’s trade routes to India. The invasion of Egypt looked promising at first for Napoleon’s army, until the Battle of the Nile in August 1798, in which the British decimated Napoleon’s fleet, stranding his troops in Egypt which ended his campaign in the desert-nation. After this defeat, Napoleon immediately set his sights on Ottoman held Syria, and in early 1799 he invaded. But his hopes were immediately crushed in the failed siege of the Acre in modern day Israel, and Napoleon retreated soon after.
Soon after Napoleon returned to France, in November 1799, Napoleon and his group overthrew the 5 Man Directory, in what would be known as the Coup of 18 Brumaire. The Directory was replaced with a 3 member consulate, and Napoleon became First Consul, making him the biggest political figure in France. After Napoleon defeated the Austrians in June 1800, in what would come to be known as the Battle of Marengo, Napoleon was able to push the Austrians out of Italy. Additionally, the Treaty of Amiens was signed in 1802, in which the British and French agreed to be at peace. Both of these events helped solidify Napoleon’s power in France. On top of this, Napoleon helped to calm France down after the revolution. He centralized the government, supported science and the arts, and helped to once again improve the relationships of the Pope and France. Napoleon also instituted the Napoleonic code, which ended privileges at birth, instituted freedom of religion, and instituted a civil service that made government positions went to the most qualified in the field. In 1802, Napoleon instituted an amendment in the French Consul that made him First Consul for the rest of his life. In 1804, Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of France in a very extravagant ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris.
In 1803, Napoleon sold the Louisiana Territory to the Americans for 15 million dollars, in what is known as the Louisiana Purchase. He did this to raise funds for future wars. Two years later, in October 1805, the superior British navy once again decimated Spain’s and Napoleon’s fleets in the Battle of Trafalgar. But Napoleon was not easy to give up, and in December of the same year he defeated the Austrians and Russians in the Battle of Austerlitz, which is still considered one of his biggest victories to this day. The battle dissolved The Holy Roman Empire, and replaced it with Napoleon’s Confederation of the Rhine. In 1806, Napoleon tried to wreak havoc on Britain's Economy by setting up port blockades against British trade. This was called the Continental System. A year later, Napoleon defeated the Russians in Friedland, Austria, and Alexander I was forced to sign the Treaty of Tilsit. Later, in 1809, Napoleon defeated the Austrians in the Battle of Wagram. During these years, Napoleon reinstated French aristocracy, and gave titles to his loyal friends and family as he kept accumulating territorial gains.
Things all start to go downhill for Napoleon, in 1810, when the Russians pull out of the Continental system. In an attempt to retaliate, Napoleon leads a massive army (made of roughly 600,000 French soldiers) into Russia in the summer of 1812. Instead of fighting, the Russians kept retreating deeper and deeper into Russia whenever Napoleon’s army attempted to attack. Because of this, Napoleon’s troops kept marching deeper and deeper into Russia, although they were not prepared for such a long and harsh trip. Although the Russians lost in the Battle of Borodino, the Russians lured in the French into Moscow, which was already evacuated beforehand. The Russians set fires all across the city to deprive the French of supplies. After the French waited a whole month for the Russians to surrender, the Russian winter began to haunt the French army. After Napoleon realized that his army was starving, freezing, and exhausted, he ordered them to retreat. Although Napoleon had already lost, his army was suddenly harassed by both the Russian Army and the brutal Russian winter on his way out of Russia. By the time he made it back to France, his massive 600,000 strong army was reduced to about 100,000 men. Even though Napoleon didn’t lose a single battle to the Russians, he still lost the war, and his empire, to them.
At the same time as Napoleon’s disastrous invasion of Russia, the Spanish and Portuguese were able to force Napoleon out of the Iberian Peninsula, with the help from the British, which ended the Peninsular War. The Spanish and Portuguese were able to fend off the French with militias of peasant workers who used Guerrilla warfare to ambush French troops. Soon after Napoleon’s defeats in the Iberian Peninsula and Russia, Napoleon lost the decisive Battle of Leipzig, or Battle of Nations, and soon after retreated to France. Now having lost all of his power outside France, and surrounded by coalition forces, France is invaded, and Paris was captured in March 1814. A month later, on April 6th, 1814, Napoleon signs the Treaty of Fontainebleau unwillingly, and was forced to abdicate the throne. Soon after, he was exiled to the small Mediterranean island of Elba, just off the coast of Italy, which he was given sovereignty over.
Just under a year after Napoleon was exiled, on February 26, 1815, he escaped Elba and sailed to France with over 1,000 supporters. On March 20 of the same year, he returned to Paris, where he was welcomed back by cheering crowds. Soon after Napoleon’s arrival, the newly crowned Louis XVIII fled, and Napoleon’s 100 day campaign started. As soon as coalition forces heard the news of Napoleon’s return, they prepared to go to war once again. Napoleon prepared a new army hastily, and planned to strike preemptively before coalition forces could prepare, beating them and redeeming his empire. In June 1815, Napoleon’s forces invaded Belgium, where both British and Prussian troops were stationed. At first the invasion looked good for Napoleon when he won the Battle of Ligny on June 16. But things quickly changed two days later, on June 18, in the Battle of Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo began after a long rainstorm, and Napoleon halted his order to attack until midday to let the waterlogged ground dry. This delay gave the Prussians enough time to march an additional 30,000 troops into Waterloo, making their army outnumber Napoleon’s by about 26,000 men. Although Napoleon led a strong attack on the British, the influx of Prussian reinforcements quickly flipped the battle on it’s head. By the end of the battle, about 50,000 men were dead. Napoleon was reportedly ill during the campaign in Belgium, which may have led to some of his poor tactical decisions and indecisive acts helped lead to his defeat in the town of Waterloo. The Battle of Waterloo ended Napoleon’s military career, one of the greatest that has ever existed. It is even proclaimed that Napoleon rode away from the small town in tears. Just 4 days later, on June 22, 1815 Napoleon was once again forced to abdicate, this time to the remote, British held territory of St. Helena, far off the coast of Africa. He later died on the same island on May 5, 1821, where he was buried on the island, against his will. Nonetheless, his remains were returned to France and entombed in a crypt in Les Invalides, located in Paris, in 1840.
Throughout Napoleon’s military career, he was able to defy all of Europe, and is still able to set the standard of a military leader that we still look to today. He was able to go from being a Jacobin, to a prominent military figure in France, and through a coup become 1st Consul of France before making himself the Emperor of France a few years later. He was able to defy all of Europe for over a decade, fending off coalition forces, and was able to use his tactical genius to win many battles, despite all of the odds against him. He was able to take a shattered, broken, and revolution ridden France and rebuild it into one of the greatest empires to ever exist. His Napoleonic Code was able to get rid of the privileges of the Estates, instituted banking reform, and allowed freedom of religion. Napoleon’s genius tactics helped keep his empire alive for such a long time, and he was able to win what very few men throughout history were capable of winning. At the same time, he did have some negative contributions. First, he forced himself to power, and suppressed all opposition against him. He also closed down all press he did not approve of, and used propaganda to glorify himself with his successes and blamed his failures on others. He created a Napoleonic aristocracy where his family members became Kings, Queens, Princes, and Princesses. He also mowed down protesting mobs with cannons, doing anything in his power to suppress opposition. He even used bags filled with sharp metal, and launched it in cannons, killing with terrifying effectiveness. But not everything Napoleon did was bad. I chose to write about him because he revolutionized warfare and tactics. He was able to fend off and defeat coalition forces many times, and his Napoleonic code was able to reform France into a stronger country, as he rebuilt France from the ashes the revolution left behind. He was able to win many battles, but his mistakes of invading Russia, which his advisors advised him not to do, and the Peninsular war, caused him to lose his great empire very quickly. Although he tried to redeem France with his failed 100 day campaign, he will always be remembered as perhaps the greatest military leader of all time.