Napoléon I
Napoléon
Bonaparte was born on 15 August 1769 to a noble Corsican family in Ajaccio,
but moved to France to train for the army. One examiner noted his deep
interest in the 'abstract sciences, little curious as to the others;
a thorough knowledge of mathematics and geography'.
In 1795 Bonaparte successfully defended the Revolutionary government in Paris from Royalist sympathisers and the following year led the successful Italian campaign which brought an end to over 1000 years of Venetian independence. In March 1798, he launched a new campaign to invade and take possession of Egypt, a province of the Ottoman Empire. He tried to gain popular support, issuing proclamations that portrayed him as a liberator from Ottoman oppression and praising Islam.
As well as an impressive military force, Napoléon assembled such a huge corps of scientists to accompany his Egyptian campaign. Some have suggested that he went to North Africa deliberately in search of some ancient knowledge. Or that the lavish team of academics was a cover – a kind of Enlightenment smokescreen – designed to hide his imperialist motives. In any case, in 1798 Napoleon founded the Institut de l'Egypte and about 50 members of his expedition became founder members. Among their discoveries was the Rosetta Stone, the essential clue in the decipherment of Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.
Weakened by the disorganisation of the Revolution and the devastation of the Terror, without Napoléon Bonaparte France was ripe for foreign conquest. The answer was obvious.
Back in France, on 9 November 1799, Napoléon seized power in a military coup d'état. At first known as First Consul, in 1804 he became Emperor Napoléon I of France.
That was not enough, however.
Napoléon's Grande Armée repulsed the other European powers' opportunist attacks and, driven on by the Emperor, they transformed Amsterdam, Hamburg and Rome into French colonial capitals. He became president and then king of Italy and de facto leader of the Swiss and Rhineland federations. He appointed family members to thrones throughout conquered Europe, even extending his influence over Prussia and Austria.
But in taking his army into Russia, Napoléon over-reached himself. Defeat was assured by 'General January and General February'. The British – with their own brilliant strategists Wellington and Nelson – remained strong enough to mount the decisive defeat in western Europe.
In 1814, an alliance of the United Kingdom, Russia, Prussia and Austria so frightened the French government that they forced Napoléon to abdicate. He tried to pass on the throne to his son, Napoléon II, the king of Rome, but was prevented. He attempted suicide. The poison was slow to act and he began to vomit. A doctor came. Napoléon asked the doctor for a further dose of poison, but was refused. Slowly he recovered, still maintaining that he would prefer to die than sign away the throne.
On 3 April 1814 he was exiled to the outrageously inappropriate island of Elba, in the Tyrrhenian Sea between Corsica and Tuscany, less than a day's sailing from the south of France. And he was allowed to keep the title of Emperor.
Emperor of what?
He could still dream …
