He was the man who established the First French Empire.
To the French people he was a hero.
To the French royalty he was their demise.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a scourge to European leaders, but the countries he conquered joined
a vast empire spanning from Spain into Russia.
Along with his control over Europe, Napoleon Bonaparte conquered territories in the West
Indies, Americas, and Northern Africa.
Napoleon may have been the greatest conqueror history has ever seen.
Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 on Corsica, an island in the Mediterranean
Sea.
Just before his birth the island of Corsica was conquered by French forces, making baby
Napoleon and his family subjects of King Louis XV.
At the age of nine Napoleon joined a military school in France.
He excelled in math and history and after seven years he received a commission as an
officer in the artillery division of the French Army.
Then in the summer of 1789 the French Revolution began as Parisian mobs stormed the Bastille.
The French Revolution concluded with the removal of the monarchy.
The country was relabeled as a republic, to be governed by an assembly known as the Convention.
Louis the XVI was guillotined in 1793 and the French monarchy died with him.
With the dismantling of the monarchy and aristocracy France was thrown into what became known as
The Reign of Terror.
It is estimated around 300,000 suspects were arrested and 17,000 people were executed during
this time.
It is during this tumultuous period that Napoleon began to gain fame.
His first major victory came when he defeated Royalist forces supported by the British Navy
at the port of Toulon.
After the battle he was celebrated as a war hero.
In 1795 Napoleon gained even more fame when he fired upon Royalists and defeated anti-Republic
forces that threatened the new government.
His battles against the forces that opposed the new republic gained him favor with the
leaders in the new government.
Young general Bonaparte was appointed Commander in Chief of the French Military, a turn of
events eerily similar to the rise to power of Emperor Palpatine in Star Wars.
It was seven days later when Napoleon married his first wife Josephine de Beauharnais- although
they would later be divorced because she did not birth a male heir for Napoleon.
With his new power and prestige bestowed upon him by the French government, Napoleon Bonaparte
began his military conquest of the region.
He started by defeating Austrian forces and forcing Philipp von Cobenzl to sign the Treaty
of Campo in 1797, which gave France control over the majority of the Austrian nation.
By 1799 Napoleon had acquired vast new territories for France in Europe.
He shifted his focus to Egypt where he hoped to dominate the Eastern Mediteranian and disrupt
British control of India.
During this campaign French soldiers discovered the Rosetta Stone by accident.
The Rosetta Stone was brought to Europe and eventually translated, unlocking the mysteries
of Egyptian hieroglyphics.
Upon returning to France in 1799 Napoleon began to create a plan to overthrow the French
government.
This plot would come to be known as the Coup d’état of 18 Brumaire.
Napoleon succeeded in dismantling the current governing body and set up a new government
called The Consulate with himself as First Consul.
Napoleon had now conquered easterm Europe and the French government.
By now Napoleon had been First Consul for almost a year.
In this time he had instituted many popular reforms, such as free secondary education
and creating the Bank of France to improve the stability of the empire.
On December 24, 1800 though Georges Cadoudal led monarchist rebels in an attempt to assassinate
Napoleon Bonaparte with a homemade bomb.
The assasination was planned to kill Bonaparte while he was at the opera.
As Napoleon sat in the Theater of the Republic and the Arts in Paris watching the premier
of The Creation by Joseph Haydn an explosion erupted outside of the building.
The assasination plot had failed and would be called The “Infernal Machine” plot.
It ended with the death of several people outside the theater, but left Napoleon unharmed.
This marked the first time that a bomb had been used for an assassination attempt, and
it was during this period in world history that the word terrorism was first used in
its current form.
The term became synonymous with acts that attempted to dismantle or destroy a leader
or ideology.
After gaining almost absolute power and surviving more than one attempt on his life, Napoleon
set his sights on conquest once again.
In 1802 Napoleon sent French forces to the West Indies to secure and protect France's
interests in the region.
He had decided it was time for an empire in the Americas and began to assert dominance
in the New World.
He was mildly successful, but before Napoleon could make his American Empire a reality he
had a realization.
His Navy was not powerful enough to defeat the British.
France suffered several defeats at the hands and ships of the rival nation.
Napoleon decided to consolidate his military and sold the Louisiana Territory to the United
States, which would come to be known as the Louisiana Purchase.
In return for the land Napoleon received money that France badly needed.
In 1804 The Consulate was transformed into an empire and Napoleon was officially named
Emperor of The First French Empire.
The following year what was left of Austria and Russia allied themselves with the British.
Napoleon decided it was time to bring the rest of Europe to their knees and began plans
to invade England.
But in a major defeat at the Battle of Trafalgar, the British naval fleet commanded by Admiral
Nelson destroyed the French Navy and ended Napoleon’s plans to invade England.
Realizing that the British Navy was again too powerful, Napoleon turned his attention
to conquering Russia and the Holy Roman Empire.
In 1805 French forces defeated Tsar Alexander I of Russia and Holy Roman Emperor Francis
II at the Battle of Austerlitz.
This eventually led to Tsar Alexander I signing a treaty with Napoleon and giving Napoleon
control of all of Eastern Europe.
There was a time of relative peace in the First French Empire until 1812 when Russia
withdrew from the treaty and once again allied itself with Britain.
Napoleon made the decision that Russia must be invaded and completely conquered if he
was going to maintain control of the region.
The invasion led to the bloodiest battle of the Napoleonic Wars.
The Battle of Borodino was fought just outside Moscow.
The Russian forces were estimated to have suffered around 45,000 casualties, while the
French lost approximately 30,000 men.
Although both sides took great losses Tsar Alexander I refused to surrender and Napoleon
refused to abandon his conquest.
But then the Russian winter did what the Russian army could not.
Due to lack of supplies and resources the French army was forced to retreat from the
bitter Russian winter and Napoleon returned to Paris.
In 1813 the combined forces of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden defeated Napoleon’s
armies in Europe.
This forced Napoleon to abdicate his throne on April 11, 1814.
The European leaders decided to banish Napoleon to the Mediterranean island of Elba.
However, due to his craftiness and help from loyal supporters Napoleon escaped captivity
and returned to France in 1815.
He reclaimed the throne in what was known as the “Hundred Days.”
After returning to France Napoleon re-established his power and began his conquest once again.
He swept across Europe meeting British forces and their allies at the Battle of Waterloo.
The British commander, the Duke of Wellington, decided to wait for Napoleon to attack rather
than use precious men and resources in an advancing assault.
Napoleon’s desire for conquest pushed him to take the offensive.
He sent his forces into battle.
At first Napoleon was largely successful using infantry and cavalry charges.
His men were disciplined and believed in their leader.
Wellington and his generals were confident that the battle was going to be lost due to
the unrelenting French attacks.
However, in a stroke of lucky timing, Prussian forces joined the British Army and helped
them repel the French advances.
Napoleon decided to use his Imperial Guard, the force always reserved to decide battles,
to end the war.
But due to a miscalculation, Napoleon split his Imperial Guard instead of sending them
into battle together.
This led to both smaller forces being defeated and a retreat by the French Army.
The Battle of Waterloo made Great Britain the dominant global power for the next one
hundred years.
After Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo the leaders of Europe decided he needed to be
sent further away.
Napoleon Bonaparte was exiled to Saint Helena, a remote volcanic island in the South Atlantic
Ocean.
The British kept two Navy frigates on patrol of the island at all times, to ensure that
Napoleon stayed in exile.
Napoleon eventually died of cancer on May 5, 1821 on Saint Helena at the age of fifty-one.
He was originally buried under three stone slabs beneath two willow trees, but later
his body was moved back to France where his remains to this day.
Due to Napoleon’s fame he became a legend.
As with all legends incredible stories were told and myths created about the man.
Conspiracy theories that Napoleon was poisoned instead of dying from natural causes spread
like wildfire.
People believed that his remains were stolen on the way back to Europe and secretly buried
at an undisclosed location in Paris.
You have probably heard the claim that Napoleon was extremely short.
This was actually one of the myths that came out of the Napoleonic legends.
It was true that Napoleon was called “le petit caporal,” or “the little corporal.”
But this name had nothing to do with his height.
Instead, his men used it as a term of endearment.
It was said that when Napoleon died he was five feet two inches tall - two inches shorter
than Kevin Hart.
However, it has been determined that the measurement provided was in French inches, which at the
time were longer than English inches.
When the measurement is converted, Napoleon was closer to five feet six inches tall (making
him two inches taller than Kevin Hart… sorry Kevin).
This means that Napoleon was actually average height for a male in Europe at the time he
was alive.
Was Napoleon the greatest conqueror ever?
His military, political, and social accomplishments were impressive and some still exist today.
He survived several assasination attempts and escaped exile only to return to Europe
and very nearly take back his Empire.
Regardless of his height or legends, Napoleon Bonaparte was most assuredly a force to be
reckoned with in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.
He conquered vast amounts of land across Europe, controlled several territories overseas, and
marched deep into Russia.
Europe had not been unified under one ruler since the Roman Empire, and Napoleon Bonaparte
was the first conqueror to succeed in creating an Empire in Europe and abroad where so many
before him had failed- even if only briefly.
Now go check out our video on Genghis Khan or Julius Caesar and decide for yourself who
was actually the greatest conqueror of all time!
Don’t forget to tell us who you decided was the best in the comments.