Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the 15th of August 1769 on the island of Corsica, just one year after the Republic of Genoa ceded the island to France through the Treaty of Versailles. His family, the Buonapartes, were of Italian origin, with paternal ancestors descending from a minor Tuscan noble family and maternal ancestors from a noble family in Lombardy. His parents, Carlo Maria Buonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino, lived in the Maison Bonaparte in Ajaccio, where Napoleon was born. He had an elder brother, Joseph, and six younger siblings: Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline, and Jérôme. Five more siblings were stillborn or did not survive infancy. Napoleon was baptized as a Catholic under the name Napoleone di Buonaparte. In his youth, his name was also spelled as Nabulione, Nabulio, Napolionne, and Napulione. Napoleon was born one year after the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to France through the Treaty of Versailles. His father supported Pasquale Paoli during the Corsican war of independence against France. After the Corsican defeat at the Battle of Ponte Novu in 1769 and Paoli's exile to Britain, Carlo became friends with the French governor Charles Louis de Marbeuf, who became his patron and a godfather to Napoleon. With Marbeuf's support, Carlo was named Corsican representative to the court of Louis XVI, and Napoleon obtained a royal bursary to a military academy in mainland France. The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, whose firm discipline restrained a rambunctious child. Later in life, Napoleon said, "The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother." Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to a typical Corsican of the time. In January 1779, aged 9, Napoleon moved to the French mainland and enrolled at a religious school in Autun to improve his French, his mother tongues being Corsican and Italian. Although he eventually became fluent in French, he spoke it with a Corsican accent, and his French spelling was poor. In May, he transferred to the military academy at Brienne-le-Château where he was routinely bullied by his peers for his accent, birthplace, short stature, mannerisms, and poor French. He became reserved and melancholic, applying 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". One story of Napoleon at the school is that he led junior students to victory against senior students in a snowball fight, which allegedly showed his leadership abilities. But the story was only told after Napoleon had become famous. In his later years at Brienne, Napoleon became an outspoken Corsican nationalist and admirer of Paoli. In September 1784 Napoleon was admitted to the École militaire in Paris where he trained to become an artillery officer. He excelled at mathematics and read widely in geography, history and literature. However, he was poor at French and German. His father's death in February 1785 cut the family income and forced him to complete the two-year course in one year. In September he was examined by the famed scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace and became the first Corsican to graduate from the École militaire.
Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fère artillery regiment. He served in Valence and Auxonne until after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 but spent long periods of leave in Corsica, which fed his Corsican nationalism. In September 1789 he returned to Corsica and promoted the French revolutionary cause. Paoli returned to the island in July 1790, but he had no sympathy for Bonaparte, as he deemed his father a traitor for having deserted the cause of Corsican independence. Bonaparte plunged into a complex three-way struggle among royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. He became a supporter of the Jacobins and joined the pro-French Corsican Republicans who opposed Paoli's policy and his aspirations to secede. He was given command over a battalion of Corsican volunteers and promoted to captain in the regular army in 1792, despite exceeding his leave of absence and a dispute between his volunteers and the French garrison in Ajaccio. In February 1793, Bonaparte took part in the failed French expedition to Sardinia. Following allegations that Paoli had sabotaged the expedition and that his regime was corrupt and incompetent, the French National Convention outlawed him. In early June, Bonaparte and 400 French troops failed to capture Ajaccio from Corsican volunteers, and the island came under the control of Paoli's supporters. When Bonaparte learned that the Corsican assembly had condemned him and his family, the Buonapartes fled to Toulon on the French mainland. Bonaparte returned to his regiment in Nice and was made captain of a coastal battery. In July 1793 he published a pamphlet, Le souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire), demonstrating his support for the National Convention which was heavily influenced by the Jacobins. In September, with the help of his fellow Corsican Antoine Christophe Saliceti, Bonaparte was appointed artillery commander of the republican forces sent to recapture the port of Toulon, which was occupied by allied forces. He quickly increased the available artillery and proposed a plan to capture a hill fort where republican guns could dominate the city's harbour and force the allies to evacuate. The successful assault on the position on 16, the 17th of December led to the capture of the city. Toulon brought Bonaparte to the attention of powerful men including Augustin Robespierre, the younger brother of Maximilien Robespierre, a leading Jacobin. He was promoted to brigadier general and put in charge of defences on the Mediterranean coast. In February 1794, he was made artillery commander of the Army of Italy and devised plans to attack the Kingdom of Sardinia. The French army carried out Bonaparte's plan in the Second Battle of Saorgio in April 1794 and then advanced to seize Ormea in the mountains. From Ormea, it headed west to outflank the Austro-Sardinian positions around Saorge. After this campaign, Augustin Robespierre sent Bonaparte on a mission to the Republic of Genoa to determine the country's intentions towards France.
The Whiff of Grapeshot
After the Fall of Maximilien Robespierre in July 1794, Bonaparte's association with leading Jacobins made him politically suspect to the new regime. He was arrested on the 9th of August but released two weeks later. He was asked to draw up plans to attack Italian positions as part of France's war with Austria, and in March 1795 he took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by the Royal Navy. From 1794, Bonaparte was in a romantic relationship with Désirée Clary, whose sister Julie Clary had married Bonaparte's elder brother Joseph. In April 1795 Bonaparte 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 the Vendée region. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general, and he pleaded poor health to avoid the posting. During this period, he wrote the romantic novella Clisson et Eugénie, about a soldier and his lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Clary. In August, he obtained a position with the Bureau of Topography, where he worked on military planning. On the 15th of September, he was removed from the list of generals in regular service for refusing to serve in the Vendée campaign. He sought a transfer to Constantinople to offer his services to Sultan Selim III. The request was eventually granted, but he never took up the post. On the 3rd of October royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the National Convention. Paul Barras, a leader of the Thermidorian Reaction, knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and made him second in command of the forces defending the convention in the Tuileries Palace. Bonaparte had seen the massacre of the king's Swiss Guard during the Insurrection of the 10th of August 1792 there three years earlier and realized that artillery would be the key to its defence. He ordered a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat, to seize cannons, and Bonaparte deployed them in key positions. On the 5th of October 1795, 13 Vendémiaire An IV in the French Republican calendar, he fired on the rebels with canister rounds (described by Thomas Carlyle as "the whiff of grapeshot"). About 300 to 1,400 rebels died in the uprising. Bonaparte's role in defeating the rebellion earned him and his family the patronage of the new government, the French Directory. On the 26th of October, he was promoted to commander of the Army of the Interior, and in January 1796, he was appointed head of the Army of Italy. Within weeks of the Vendémiaire uprising, Bonaparte was romantically involved with Joséphine de Beauharnais, the former mistress of Barras. Josephine had been born in the French colonies in the Lesser Antilles, and her family owned slaves on sugar plantations. The couple married on the 9th of March 1796 in a civil ceremony. Bonaparte began to habitually style himself "Napoleon Bonaparte" rather than using the Italian form "Napoleone di Buonaparte." Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy. He went on the offensive, hoping to defeat the Kingdom of Sardinia in Piedmont before their Austrian allies could intervene. In a series of victories during the Montenotte campaign, he knocked the Piedmontese out of the war in two weeks. The French then focused on the Austrians, laying siege to Mantua. The Austrians launched offensives against the French to break the siege, but Bonaparte defeated every relief effort, winning the Battle of Castiglione, the Battle of Bassano, the Battle of Arcole, and the Battle of Rivoli. The French triumph at Rivoli in January 1797 led to the collapse of the Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli, Austria lost 43% of its soldiers dead, wounded or taken prisoner. The French then invaded the heartlands of the House of Habsburg. French forces in southern Germany had been defeated by Archduke Charles, Duke of Teschen in 1796, but Charles withdrew his forces to protect Vienna after learning of Bonaparte's assault. In their first encounter, Bonaparte pushed Charles back and advanced deep into Austrian territory after winning the Battle of Tarvis in March 1797. Alarmed by the French thrust that reached Leoben, about 100 km from Vienna, the Austrians sued for peace. The preliminary peace of Leoben, signed on the 18th of April, gave France control of most of northern Italy and the Low Countries and promised to partition the Republic of Venice with Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and forced its surrender, ending 1,100 years of Venetian independence. He authorized the French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark. 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. Bonaparte extracted an estimated 45 million French pounds from Italy during the campaign, another 12 million pounds in precious metals and jewels, and more than 300 paintings and sculptures. During the campaign, Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics. He founded two newspapers: one for the troops in his army and one for circulation in France. The royalists attacked him for looting Italy and warned that he might become a dictator. Bonaparte sent General Charles-Pierre Augereau to Paris to support a coup d'état that purged royalists from the legislative councils on the 4th of September, the Coup of 18 Fructidor. This left Barras and his republican allies in control again, but more dependent upon Bonaparte, who finalized peace terms with Austria by the Treaty of Campo Formio. Bonaparte returned to Paris on the 5th of December 1797 as a hero. He met Charles Maurice de Talleyrand, France's foreign minister, and took command of the Army of England for the planned invasion of Britain.
The Egyptian Gambit
After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided that France's naval strength was not yet sufficient to confront the Royal Navy. He decided on a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East and join forces with Tipu Sultan, the Sultan of Mysore, an enemy of the British. Bonaparte assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions". The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to the Indian subcontinent. In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. His Egyptian expedition included a group of 167 scientists, with 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 Hospitaller Malta on the 9th of June 1798, then controlled by the Knights Hospitaller. Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured an important naval base with the loss of only three men. Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and landed at Alexandria on the 1st of July. He fought the Battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks, Egypt's ruling military caste. This helped the French practise their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids on the 21st of July, about from the pyramids. Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of the Mamluks' Egyptian cavalry. Twenty-nine French and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed. The victory boosted the French army's morale. On the 1st of August 1798 the British fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two vessels of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile, preventing Bonaparte from strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean. 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 discovered that many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, so he ordered the garrison and some 1,500, 5,000 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning. Men, women, and children were robbed and murdered for three days. Bonaparte began with an army of 13,000 men. 1,500 were reported missing, 1,200 died in combat, and thousands perished from disease, mostly bubonic plague. He failed to reduce the fortress of Acre, so he marched his army back to Egypt in May. Bonaparte was alleged to have ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned with opium to speed the retreat. Back in Egypt on the 25th of July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir. Bonaparte stayed informed of European affairs. He learned that France had suffered a series of defeats in the War of the Second Coalition. On the 24th of August 1799, fearing that the Republic's future was in doubt, he took advantage of the temporary departure of British ships from French coastal ports and set sail for France, despite the fact that he had received no explicit orders from Paris. The army was left in the charge of Jean-Baptiste Kléber. Unknown to Bonaparte, the Directory had sent him orders to return from Egypt with his army to ward off a possible invasion of France, but these messages never arrived. By the time he reached Paris in October, France's situation had been improved by a series of victories. The republic, however, was bankrupt, and the ineffective Directory was unpopular. Despite the failures in Egypt, Bonaparte returned to a hero's welcome. The Directory discussed Bonaparte's desertion but was too weak to punish him. Bonaparte formed an alliance with Talleyrand and leading members of the Council of Five Hundred and Directory, Lucien Bonaparte, Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, Roger Ducos and Joseph Fouché, to overthrow the government. On the 9th of November 1799 (18 Brumaire according to the revolutionary calendar), the conspirators launched a coup and the following day, backed by grenadiers with fixed bayonets, forced the Council of Five Hundred to dissolve the Directory and appoint Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos provisional consuls.
The Emperor's Coronation
On the 13th of December, Bonaparte introduced the Constitution of the Year VIII, under which three consuls were appointed for 10 years. Real power lay with Bonaparte as first consul, and his preferred candidates Cambacérès and Charles-François Lebrun were appointed as second and third consuls who only had an advisory role. The constitution also established a Legislative Body and Tribunate which were selected from indirectly elected candidates, and a Senate and Council of State which were effectively nominated by the executive. The constitution was approved by plebiscite on the 7th of February 1800. The official count was over three million in favour and 1,562 against. Lucien, however, had doubled the count of the "yes" vote to give the false impression that a majority of those eligible to vote had approved the constitution. Historians have variously described Bonaparte's regime as "dictatorship by plebiscite", "absolutist rule decked out in the spirit of the age", and "soft despotism". Local and regional administration was reformed to concentrate power in the central government, censorship was introduced, and most opposition newspapers were closed down to stifle dissent. Royalist and regional revolts were dealt with by a combination of amnesties for those who lay down their arms and brutal repression of those who continued to resist. Bonaparte also improved state finances by securing loans under a promise to defend private property, raising taxes on tobacco, alcohol and salt, and extracting levies from France's satellite republics. Bonaparte believed that the best way to secure his regime was by a victorious peace. In May 1800, he led an army across the Swiss Alps into Italy, aiming to surprise the Austrian armies that had reoccupied the peninsula when Bonaparte was still in Egypt. After a difficult crossing over the Alps, the French captured Milan on the 2nd of June. The French confronted an Austrian army under Michael von Melas at the battle of Marengo on the 14th of June. The Austrians fielded about 30,000 soldiers while Bonaparte commanded 24,000 troops. The Austrians' initial attack surprised the French who were gradually driven back. Late in the afternoon, however, a full division under French General Louis Desaix arrived on the field and reversed the tide of the battle. The Austrian army fled leaving behind 14,000 casualties. The following day, the Austrians signed an armistice and agreed to abandon northern Italy. When peace negotiations with Austria stalled, Bonaparte reopened hostilities in November. A French army under General Jean Victor Marie Moreau swept through Bavaria and scored an overwhelming victory over the Austrians at the battle of Hohenlinden in December. The Austrians capitulated and signed the Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801. The treaty reaffirmed and expanded earlier French gains at Campo Formio. On the 26th of January 1802, following the Consulte de Lyon, Napoleon was declared president of the Italian Republic. Bonaparte's triumph at Marengo increased his popularity and political authority. However, he still faced royalist plots and feared Jacobin influence, especially in the army. Several assassination plots, including the Conspiration des poignards (Dagger plot) in October 1800 and the Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise two months later, gave him a pretext to arrest about 100 suspected Jacobins and royalists, some of whom were shot and many others deported to penal colonies. After a decade of war, France and Britain signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing the Revolutionary Wars to an end. Under the treaty, Britain agreed to withdraw from most of the colonies it had recently captured from France and her allies, and France agreed to evacuate Naples. In April, Bonaparte publicly celebrated the peace and his controversial Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII under which the pope recognized Bonaparte's regime and the regime recognized Catholicism as the majority religion of France. In a further step towards national reconciliation (known as "fusion"), Bonaparte offered an amnesty to most émigrés who wished to return to France. With Europe at peace and the economy recovering, Bonaparte became increasingly popular, both domestically and abroad. In May 1802, the Council of State recommended a new plebiscite asking the French people to make "Napoleon Bonaparte" consul for life. (It was the first time his first name was officially used by the regime.) About 3.6 million voted "yes" and 8,374 "no." 40, 60% of eligible Frenchmen voted, the highest turnout for a plebiscite since the revolution. France had regained her overseas colonies under Amiens but did not control them all. The French National Convention had voted to abolish slavery in February 1794, but in May 1802 Bonaparte reintroduced it in all the recovered colonies except Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe which were under the control of rebel generals. A French military expedition under Antoine Richepanse regained control of Guadeloupe, and slavery was reintroduced there on the 16th of July. Saint-Domingue was the most profitable of the colonies a major source of sugar, coffee and indigo but was under the control of the former slave Toussaint Louverture. Bonaparte sent the Saint-Domingue expedition under his brother-in-law General Charles Leclerc to retake the colony, and they landed there in February 1802 with 29,000 men. Although Toussaint was captured and sent to France in July, the expedition ultimately failed due to high rates of disease and a string of defeats against rebel commander Jean-Jacques Dessalines. In May 1803 Bonaparte acknowledged defeat, and the last 8,000 French troops left the island. The former slaves proclaimed the independent republic of Haiti in 1804. As war with Britain again loomed in 1803, Bonaparte realized that his American colony of Louisiana would be difficult to defend. In need of funds, he agreed to the Louisiana Purchase with the United States, doubling the latter's size. The price was $15 million. The peace with Britain was uneasy. Britain did not evacuate Malta as promised and protested against Bonaparte's annexation of Piedmont and his Act of Mediation (the 19th of February),Acte de Médiation ; Médiation , Historical Dictionary of Switzerland which established a Swiss Confederation. Neither of these territories were covered by Amiens, but they inflamed tensions significantly, as did Bonaparte's occupation of Holland and apparent ambitions in India. The dispute culminated in a declaration of war by Britain in May 1803. Bonaparte responded by reassembling the invasion camp at Boulogne and ordering the arrest of every British male between 18 and 60 years old in France and its dependencies as a prisoner of war. In February 1804 Bonaparte's police made a series of arrests in relation to a royalist plot to kidnap or assassinate him that involved the British government, Moreau and an unnamed Bourbon prince. On the advice of his foreign minister, Talleyrand, Napoleon ordered the kidnapping of the Duke of Enghien, violating the sovereignty of Baden. The duke was quickly executed after a secret military trial, even though there was no proof he had been involved in the plot. Enghien's kidnapping and execution infuriated royalists and monarchs throughout Europe and drew a formal protest from Russia. Following the royalist plot, Bonaparte's supporters convinced him that creating a hereditary regime would help to secure it in case of his death, make it more acceptable to constitutional monarchists, and put it on the same footing as other European monarchies. On the 18th of May the senate proclaimed Napoleon Emperor of the French and approved a new constitution. The following day, Napoleon appointed 18 of his leading generals Marshals of the Empire. The hereditary empire was confirmed by a plebiscite in June. The official result showed 3.5 million voted "yes" and 2,569 voted "no". The yes count, however, was falsely inflated by 300,000 to 500,000 votes. The turnout, at 35%, was below the figure for the previous plebiscite. Britain, Russia, Sweden and the Ottoman Empire refused to recognize Napoleon's title. Austria, however, recognized Napoleon as Emperor of the French in return for his recognition of Francis I as Emperor of Austria. Napoleon's coronation, with the participation of Pope Pius VII, took place at Notre Dame de Paris on the 2nd of December 1804. After having been anointed by the pope, Napoleon crowned himself with a replica of Charlemagne's crown. He then crowned Joséphine, who became the second woman in French history, after Marie de' Medici, to be crowned and anointed. He then swore an oath to defend the territory of the republic; to respect the Concordat, freedom of worship, political and civil liberty and the sale of nationalized lands; to raise no taxes except by law; to maintain the Legion of Honour; and to govern in the interests, wellbeing and the glory of the French people. On the 17th of March 1805 Napoleon declared himself King of Italy and crowned himself with the Iron Crown of Lombardy at the Cathedral of Milan. Austria saw this as a provocation because of its own territorial interests in Italy. When Napoleon incorporated Genoa and Liguria into his empire, Austria formally protested against this violation of the Treaty of Lunéville.
The Austerlitz Masterpiece
By September 1805 Sweden, Russia, Austria, Naples and the Ottoman Empire had joined Britain in a coalition against France. In 1803 and 1804 Napoleon had assembled a force around Boulogne for an invasion of Britain. They never invaded, but the force formed the core of Napoleon's Grande Armée, created in August 1805. At the start, this French army had about 200,000 men organized into seven corps, artillery and cavalry reserves, and the élite Imperial Guard. By August 1805 the had grown to a force of 350,000 men, who were well equipped, well trained, and led by competent officers. To facilitate the invasion, Napoleon planned to lure the Royal Navy from the English Channel by a diversionary attack on the British West Indies. However, the plan unravelled after the British victory at the Battle of Cape Finisterre in July 1805. French Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve retreated to Cádiz instead of linking up with French naval forces at Brest for an attack on the English Channel. Facing a potential invasion from his continental enemies, Napoleon abandoned his invasion of England and sought to destroy the isolated Austrian armies in southern Germany before their Russian ally could arrive in force. On the 25th of September, 200,000 French troops began to cross the Rhine on a front of . For the French, this spectacular victory on land was soured by the decisive victory that the Royal Navy attained at the Battle of Trafalgar on the 21st of October. After Trafalgar, the Royal Navy was never again seriously challenged by Napoleon's fleet. French forces occupied Vienna in November, capturing 100,000 muskets, 500 cannons, and the intact bridges across the Danube. Napoleon then sent his army north in pursuit of the allies. Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Francis I decided to engage Napoleon in battle, despite reservations from some of their subordinates. At the Battle of Austerlitz on the 2nd of December, Napoleon deployed his army below the Pratzen Heights. He ordered his right wing to feign retreat, enticing the allies to descend from the heights in pursuit. The French centre and left wing then captured the heights and caught the allies in a pincer movement. Thousands of Russian troops fled across a frozen lake to escape the trap, and 100 to 2,000 of them drowned. About a third of the allied forces were killed, captured or wounded. The disaster at Austerlitz led Austria to seek an armistice. By the subsequent Treaty of Pressburg, signed on the 26th of December, Austria left the coalition, lost substantial territory to the Kingdom of Italy and Bavaria, and was forced to pay an indemnity of 40 million francs. Alexander's army was granted safe passage back to Russia. Napoleon went on to say, "The battle of Austerlitz is the finest of all I have fought". Frank McLynn suggests that Napoleon was so successful at Austerlitz that he lost touch with reality, and what used to be French foreign policy became a "personal Napoleonic one". Vincent Cronin disagrees, stating that Napoleon was not overly ambitious for himself, "he embodied the ambitions of thirty million Frenchmen". Napoleon continued to entertain a grand scheme to establish a French presence in the Middle East in order to put pressure on Britain and Russia, possibly by forming an alliance with the Ottoman Empire. In February 1806, Ottoman Emperor Selim III recognized Napoleon as emperor. He also opted for an alliance with France, calling France "our sincere and natural ally". That decision brought the Ottoman Empire into a losing war against Russia and Britain. A Franco-Persian alliance was formed between Napoleon and the Persian Empire of Fat′h-Ali Shah Qajar. It collapsed in 1807 when France and Russia formed an unexpected alliance. In the end, Napoleon made no effective alliances in the Middle East. After Austerlitz, Napoleon increased his political power in Europe. In 1806, he deposed the Bourbon king of Naples and installed his elder brother, Joseph, on the throne. He then made his younger brother, Louis, king of Holland. On the 12th of July he established the Confederation of the Rhine, a collection of German states intended to serve as a buffer zone between France and Central Europe. The creation of the confederation spelled the end of the Holy Roman Empire. Napoleon's growing influence in Germany threatened the status of Prussia as a great power and in response Frederick William III decided on war with France. Prussia and Russia signed a military alliance creating the fourth coalition against France. Prussia, however, committed a strategic blunder by declaring war when French troops were still in southern Germany and months before sufficient Russian troops could reach the front. Napoleon invaded Prussia with 180,000 troops, rapidly marching on the right bank of the River Saale. Upon learning the whereabouts of the Prussian army, the French swung westwards thus cutting the Prussians off from Berlin and the slowly approaching Russians. At the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt, fought on the 14th of October, the French convincingly defeated the Prussians and inflicted heavy casualties. With several major commanders dead or incapacitated, the Prussian king proved incapable of effectively commanding the army, which quickly disintegrated. In the following month, the French captured 140,000 soldiers and over 2,000 cannon. Despite their overwhelming defeat, the Prussians refused to negotiate with the French until the Russians had an opportunity to enter the fight. Following his triumph, Napoleon imposed the first elements of the Continental System through the Berlin Decree issued in November 1806. The Continental System, which prohibited European nations from trading with Britain, was widely violated throughout his reign. In the next few months, Napoleon marched against the advancing Russian armies through Poland and fought a bloody stalemate at the Battle of Eylau in February 1807. After a period of rest and consolidation on both sides, the war restarted in June with an initial struggle at Heilsberg that proved indecisive. On the 14th of June Napoleon obtained an overwhelming victory over the Russians at the Battle of Friedland, inflicting casualties of up to 30% of the Russian army. The scale of their defeat convinced the Russians to make peace with the French. The two emperors began peace negotiations on the 25th of June at the town of Tilsit during a meeting on a raft floating in the middle of the River Niemen which separated the French and Russian troops and their respective spheres of influence. Napoleon offered Alexander relatively lenient terms, demanding that Russia join the Continental System, withdraw its forces from Wallachia and Moldavia, and hand over the Ionian Islands to France. In contrast, Prussia was treated harshly. It lost half its territory and population and underwent a two-year occupation costing it about 1.4 billion francs. From former Prussian territory, Napoleon created the Kingdom of Westphalia, ruled by his young brother Jérôme, and the Duchy of Warsaw. Prussia's humiliating treatment at Tilsit caused lasting resentment against France in that country. The treaty was also unpopular in Russia, putting pressure on Alexander to end the alliance with France. Nevertheless, the Treaties of Tilsit gave Napoleon a respite from war and allowed him to return to France, which he had not seen in over 300 days.
The Peninsular Trap
After Tilsit, Napoleon turned his attention to Portugal, which was reluctant to strictly enforce the blockade against its traditional ally Britain. On the 17th of October 1807, 24,000 French troops under General Jean-Andoche Junot crossed the Pyrenees with Spanish consent and headed towards Portugal to enforce the blockade. Junot occupied Lisbon in November; the Portuguese royal family had already fled to Brazil with the Portuguese fleet. In March 1808 a palace coup led to the abdication of the Spanish king, Carlos IV, in favour of his son Fernando VII. The following month, Napoleon summoned Carlos and Fernando to Bayonne, where in May he forced them both to relinquish their claims to the Spanish throne. Napoleon then made his brother Joseph King of Spain. By then, there were 120,000 French troops garrisoned in the peninsula and widespread Spanish opposition to the occupation and the overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons. On the 2nd of May an uprising against the French broke out in Madrid and spread throughout Spain in the following weeks. In the face of brutal French repression, the uprising developed into a sustained conflict. Joseph travelled to Madrid where he was proclaimed King of Spain on the 24th of July. However, following news of a French defeat by regular Spanish forces at the Battle of Bailén, Joseph fled Madrid several days later. The following month, a British force landed in Portugal and on the 21st of August they defeated the French at the Battle of Vimiero. Under the Convention of Cintra, the French evacuated Portugal. The defeats at Bailén and Vimiero convinced Napoleon that he had to take command of the Iberian campaign. Before leaving for Spain, he attempted to strengthen the alliance with Russia and obtain a commitment from Alexander that Russia would declare war on Austria if she attacked France. At the Congress of Erfurt in October 1808, Napoleon and Alexander reached an agreement that recognized the Russian conquest of Finland and called upon Britain to cease its war against France. However, Alexander failed to provide a firm commitment to make war with Austria. On the 6th of November Napoleon was in Vitoria and took command of 240,000 French-led troops. After a series of victories over Anglo-Spanish forces, they retook Madrid on the 4th of December. Napoleon then pursued a retreating British army which was eventually evacuated at Corunna in January 1809. He left for France on the 17th of January, leaving Joseph in command. Napoleon never returned to Spain after the 1808 campaign. In April, the British sent another army to the peninsula under Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington. British, Portuguese and Spanish troops engaged the French in a protracted series of conflicts, while a brutal guerrilla war engulfed much of the Spanish countryside, a conflict in which atrocities were committed by both sides. Napoleon later called the Peninsular campaign, "the unlucky war [that] ruined me." It tied up some 300,000 French-led troops from 1808 to 1812. By 1814, the French had been driven from the peninsula, with over 150,000 casualties in the campaign. The overthrow of the Spanish Bourbons caused alarm in Austria over Napoleon's ambitions while France's military difficulties in the Peninsular encouraged Austria to go to war. In the early morning of the 10th of April 1809, the Austrian army crossed the Inn River and invaded Bavaria. The Austrian advance was disorganized, and they were unable to defeat the Bavarian army before the French could concentrate their forces. Napoleon arrived from Paris on the 17th of April to lead the French campaign. In the following Battle of Eckmühl he was slightly wounded in the heel, but the Austrians were forced to retreat across the Danube. The French occupied Vienna on the 13th of May, but most of the population had fled and the retreating army had destroyed all four bridges across the river. On the 21st of May, the French attempted to cross the Danube, precipitating the Battle of Aspern-Essling. Both sides inflicted about 23,000 casualties on each other, and the French were forced back. The battle was reported in European capitals as a defeat for Napoleon and damaged his aura of invincibility. After six weeks of preparations, Napoleon made another attempt at crossing the Danube. In the ensuing Battle of Wagram (5, the 6th of July) the Austrians were forced to retreat, but the French and Austrians each suffered losses of 37,000 to 39,000 killed, wounded or captured. The French caught up with the retreating Austrians at the Battle of Znaim on the 10th of July, and the latter signed an armistice on the 12th of July. In August, a British force landed in Holland but lost 4,000 men, mainly to illness, before withdrawing in December. The Treaty of Schönbrunn in October 1809 was harsh for Austria which lost substantial territory and over three million subjects. France received Carinthia, Carniola, and the Adriatic ports of Trieste and Fiume (Rijeka); the part of Poland annexed by Austria in the third partition in 1795, known at the time as West Galicia, was given to the Polish-ruled Duchy of Warsaw; and the territory of the former Archbishopric of Salzburg went to Bavaria. Austria was required to pay an indemnity of 200 million francs, and its army was reduced to 150,000 men. In November 1809, he announced his decision to divorce Joséphine, and the marriage was annulled in January 1810. Napoleon had already commenced negotiations for the marriage of Tsar Alexander's sister Anna, but the tsar responded that she was too young. Napoleon then turned to Austria, and a marriage to the Austrian emperor's daughter, Marie Louise, was quickly agreed. The marriage was formalized in a civil ceremony on the 1st of April and a religious service at the Louvre on the following day. The marriage to Marie Louise was widely seen as a shift in French policy towards stronger ties with Austria and away from the already strained relationship with Russia. On the 20th of March 1811, Marie Louise gave birth to the heir apparent, François Charles Joseph Napoleon, King of Rome. With the annexation of the Papal States (May 1809, February 1810), Holland (July 1810) and the northern coastal regions of Westphalia (August 1810), mainland France further increased its territory. Napoleon now ruled about 40% of the European population either directly or indirectly through his satellite kingdoms.
The Russian Catastrophe
Tsar Alexander saw the creation of the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, Napoleon's marriage alliance with Austria, and the election of the French Marshal Jean-Baptiste Jules Bernadotte as Crown Prince of Sweden as attempts to contain Russia. In December 1810 Napoleon annexed the Duchy of Oldenburg, which Alexander considered an insult as his uncle was the duke. Alexander responded by allowing neutral shipping into Russian ports and banning most French imports. Russia feared that Napoleon intended to restore the Kingdom of Poland while Napoleon suspected Russia of seeking an alliance with Britain against France. In late 1811 Napoleon began planning an invasion of Russia. A Franco-Prussian alliance signed in February 1812 forced Prussia to provide 20,000 troops for the invasion, and in March Austria agreed to provide 30,000 men. Napoleon's multinational grande armée comprised around 450,000 frontline troops of which about a third were native French speakers. Napoleon called the invasion the "Second Polish War," but he refused to guarantee an independent Poland for fear of alienating his Austrian and Prussian allies. On the 24th of June Napoleon's troops began crossing the Nieman river into Russian Lithuania with the aim of luring the Russians into one or two decisive battles. The Russians retreated 320 kilometres east to the Dvina river and implemented a scorched earth policy, making it increasingly difficult for the French to forage food for themselves and their horses. On the 18th of August, Napoleon captured Smolensk with the loss of 9,000 of his men, but the Russians were able to withdraw in good order. The Russians, commanded by Field Marshall Mikhail Kutuzov, made a stand at Borodino, outside Moscow, on the 7th of September. The battle resulted in 44,000 Russian and 35,000 French dead, wounded or captured, in one of the bloodiest days of battle in Europe up to that time. The Russians withdrew overnight, and Napoleon later stated, "The most terrible of all my battles was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves worthy of victory, and the Russians worthy of being invincible". The Russians retreated to Tarutino, and Napoleon entered Moscow on the 14th of September. The following evening, the city was set on fire on the orders of Governor Feodor Rostopchin. Alexander, in St Petersburg, refused to negotiate a peace, and after six weeks Napoleon's army evacuated Moscow. After capturing Maloyaroslavets with the loss of 4,000 to 10,000 men, Napoleon retreated towards Smolensk. The French were attacked by Cossacks and peasants and suffered from the intense cold, disease and lack of food and water. Around 40,000 to 50,000 troops reached Smolensk on the 9th of November, a loss of about 60,000 in three weeks. Napoleon also heard that an attempted coup by General Claude François de Malet in Paris had only narrowly failed. From Smolensk, Napoleon's army headed for Vilnius, where there was a French garrison of 20,000. In late November, under attack from all sides by Russian forces, the grande armée managed to cross the Berezina river on pontoon bridges in temperatures reaching . On the 5th of December, shortly before arriving in Vilnius, Napoleon left his disintegrating army for Paris. In the following weeks, the remnants of the grande armée, about 75,000 troops, crossed the Nieman into allied territory. Russian military losses in the campaign were up to 300,000, and total military deaths from both sides were up to one million. The French, pursued by the Russians, withdrew from most of Poland and Prussia over the winter of 1812, 13 while both sides rebuilt their forces. Sweden and Prussia declared war on France in March 1813. In April Napoleon assumed command of an army of 200,000 troops and defeated the coalition at the battles of Lützen and Bautzen. Britain formally joined the coalition in June followed by Austria in August, but the allies were again defeated in the Battle of Dresden in August. The coalition, however, had a growing advantage in infantry, cavalry, reserves and armaments. In the largest battle of the Napoleonic wars, the coalition was victorious at the Battle of Leipzig (the 19th of October). Although coalition casualties were 54,000 men, the French lost 38,000 killed or wounded and 15,000 taken prisoner. Up to 50,000 more were lost to death, illness and desertion during the French retreat to the Rhine. The Frankfurt proposals were peace terms offered by the coalition in November 1813 under which Napoleon would remain emperor but France would be reduced to its "natural frontiers." That meant that France would retain control of Belgium, Savoy and the west bank of the Rhine, while withdrawing from Spain, Holland, Italy and Germany. Napoleon did not accept the terms, and the allies crossed the Rhine into French territory on the 1st of January 1814. Wellington's British forces had already crossed the Pyrenees into south-western France. In north-eastern France, Napoleon led about 70,000 troops against a coalition army of 200,000. After a defeat at the Battle of La Rothière, the French won a series of victories in February which induced the coalition to offer peace on the basis of France's 1791 frontiers. Napoleon, however, decided to fight on. After a series of battles in March, the allies forced Napoleon to retreat at the Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube (20, the 21st of March). The coalition then moved towards Paris, whose defence was under the command of Joseph Bonaparte. On the 29th of March, a coalition army of 200,000 began their attack on the Belleville and Montmartre heights. Empress Marie Louise fled Paris that evening with her son, the king of Rome. With an army of only 38,000 to defend the capital, Joseph authorized the French marshal Auguste de Marmont to capitulate on the 31st of March. The following day, the allies accepted Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord as head of a provisional government. On the 2nd of April the French Senate passed the Acte de déchéance de l'Empereur, which declared Napoleon deposed. Meanwhile, Napoleon was in Fontainebleau with an army of 40,000 to 60,000. He contemplated a march on Paris, but on the 4th of April his senior commanders persuaded him to abdicate in favour of his son, with Marie Louise as regent. Tsar Alexander, however, demanded an unconditional abdication, and Napoleon reluctantly complied on the 6th of April. In his farewell address to the soldiers of the Old Guard on the 20th of April, Napoleon said: With the Treaty of Fontainebleau of the 11th of April 1814, the allies exiled Napoleon to Elba, an island of 12,000 inhabitants in the Mediterranean, off the Tuscan coast, where they made him sovereign. The following night, Napoleon attempted suicide with poison he had carried after nearly being captured by the Russians during the retreat from Moscow. Its potency had weakened with age, however, and he survived to be exiled, while his wife and son took refuge in Austria. He was conveyed to the island on HMS Undaunted and disembarked at Portoferraio on the 4th of May. In the first few months on Elba, he drew up plans for administrative reforms, road and building works, and improvements to the island's mines and agriculture, but results were limited by lack of funds. When Napoleon learned that Joséphine had died in France on the 29th of May, he was distraught and locked himself in his room for two days. Napoleon understood that French King Louis XVIII was unpopular. Realizing that his wife and son would not be joining him in exile, cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, aware of rumours he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon escaped from Elba in the brig Inconstant on the 26th of February 1815 with about 1,000 men and a flotilla of seven vessels. On the 1st of March 1815 Napoleon and his followers landed on the French mainland at Golfe-Juan and headed for Grenoble through the foothills of the Alps, taking the route now known as Route Napoléon. The 5th Regiment intercepted him just south of Grenoble on the 7th of March. Napoleon approached the battalion alone and called to them, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish!" The soldiers responded with, "Vive l'empereur!" and joined Napoleon's men. On the 14th of March Marshall of the Empire Michel Ney, who weeks earlier had boasted that he would bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron cage, joined Napoleon along with an army of 6,000. On the 13th of March the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon an outlaw. Four days later, Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia each pledged to put 150,000 men into the field to end his rule. Louis XVIII, however, fled Paris for Belgium in the early hours of the 20th of March after realizing that he did not have enough reliable troops to oppose Napoleon. Napoleon entered Paris that evening. Napoleon appointed a government and introduced constitutional changes which were approved by plebiscite in May. A Chamber of Representatives was also indirectly elected that month on a highly restrictive property franchise. Napoleon's priority was to raise an army to face the coalition, but the law did not allow conscription and he was only able to raise about 300,000 men, mostly raw recruits and national guards. On the 12th of June Napoleon led about 124,000 men, known as the Army of the North, into Belgium, aiming to drive a wedge between Wellington's army of 112,000 British, German and Dutch troops and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher's force of 130,000 Prussians and Saxons. After engagements at the Battle of Ligny and Battle of Quatre Bras, Napoleon confronted Wellington at the Battle of Waterloo on the 18th of June. Wellington's army withstood repeated attacks by the French until, late in the afternoon, Blücher's Prussians arrived in force on Napoleon's right flank. The coalition forces broke through Napoleon's lines, inflicting a devastating defeat. Napoleon returned to Paris and found that the legislature had turned against him. Realizing that his position was untenable, he abdicated on the 22nd of June in favour of his son. He left Paris three days later and settled at Joséphine's former palace in Château de Malmaison. By the 28th of June, the Prussian army was at Senlis, just north of Paris. When Napoleon heard that Prussian troops had orders to capture him dead or alive, he fled to Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, considering an escape to the United States. However, when he found that British ships were blockading the port, he surrendered to Frederick Lewis Maitland on on the 15th of July 1815. Napoleon was held in British custody and transferred to the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, from the west coast of Africa. Napoleon and 27 followers arrived at Jamestown in October 1815 on board HMS Northumberland. The prisoner was guarded by a garrison of 2,100 soldiers while a squadron of 10 ships continuously patrolled the waters to prevent escape. In the following years, there were rumours of escape plots, but no serious attempts were ever made. Napoleon stayed for two months at a pavilion in Briars before he was moved to Longwood House, a 40-room wooden bungalow. The location and interior of the house were damp, windswept, rat-infested and unhealthy. The Times published articles insinuating the British government was trying to hasten his death. Napoleon often complained of his living conditions in letters to the island's governor Hudson Lowe while his attendants complained of "colds, catarrhs, damp floors and poor provisions". Napoleon insisted on imperial formality. When he held a dinner party, men were expected to wear military dress and "women [appeared] in evening gowns and gems. It was an explicit denial of the circumstances of his captivity". He formally received visitors, read, and dictated his memoirs and commentaries on military campaigns. He studied English under Emmanuel, comte de Las Cases, for a few months but gave up as he was poor at languages. Napoleon circulated reports of poor treatment in the hope that public opinion would force the allies to revoke his exile on Saint Helena. Under instructions from the government, Lowe cut Napoleon's expenditure, refused to recognize him as a former emperor, and made his supporters sign a guarantee they would stay with him indefinitely. Accounts of Napoleon's treatment led in March 1817 to a debate in the British Parliament where Henry Vassall-Fox, 3rd Baron Holland, made a call for a public inquiry. In mid-1817, Napoleon's health worsened. His physician, Barry O'Meara, diagnosed chronic hepatitis and warned Lowe that Napoleon could die from the poor climate and lack of exercise. Lowe thought O'Meara was exaggerating and dismissed him in July 1818. In November 1818, the allies announced that Napoleon would remain a prisoner. Napoleon died of stomach cancer in 1821, aged 51.