hi I'm John Green and this is crash
course European history so the word
revolution is a funny one because it
literally means a full turn of 360
degrees like you end a revolution where
you started out but in history
revolution means radical change
stark departures from the world that was
and the messy often violent embrace of a
new world the French Revolution was in
different ways both kinds of revolution
in the end an absolutist government was
replaced by an absolutist government but
the change that emerged from the
revolution was real and lasting it
helped usher in a world where people saw
themselves as citizens of a community
rather than subjects of a king and
eventually a rising military star named
Napoleon Bonaparte would prove that
having your dad be king of France was
not the only way to become ruler of
France
[Music]
Napoleon grew up poor in Corsica but he
loved reading and managed to secure a
scholarship to a military academy as a
kid he spoke Corsican and Italian and
didn't start learning French until he
was 10 and he was bullied for his
accented French and for his overall tiny
nasaw though despite what you may have
heard about Napoleon complexes Bonaparte
would eventually end up being around 5
feet 7 inches tall about average for an
18th century man he entered the army as
a second lieutenant in 1785 and began to
rise through the ranks throughout the
tumultuous years of the French
Revolution by the time he was 24 in 1793
he was a brigadier general working under
the Committee for Public Safety which as
you'll recall killed a lot of the public
in the name of Public Safety and then in
1798 Napoleon crossed into Egypt with an
entire army at his command aiming to
disrupt Britain's access to India in
addition to lots of soldiers Napoleon
also brought with him scientists and
linguists and other scholars to advance
knowledge and also carry off Egyptian
riches the Egyptians were impressed by
the openness of these scholars but in
general the French completely appalled
the local people with their crude ways
and drunkenness and even as Napoleon
flattered Egyptians by declaring himself
a worshipper of Islam he ultimately
stole and desecrated many Egyptian
artifacts although later he also stole
and desecrated lots of artifacts from
around Europe he loved a plundered
artifact at any rate ultimately Napoleon
had to return to France in 1799 as his
army and navy were defeated by the
British and the Egyptians and that
timing turned out to be perfect to the
directory which you'll recall was a
five-person Committee governing France
after the collapse of robes piers
Committee for public safety was
overseeing a still floundering economy
and fighting wars on many fronts
Napoleon helped overthrow the
Directorate in 1799 and quickly became
First Consul and then took as his first
task mending fences with the Catholic
Church he agreed to the Concordat of
1801 which recognized Catholicism as the
primary French religion it also
validated the sale of church lands and
the state's payment of
and salaries if they swore to uphold the
French government and that was important
because it ensured him the support of
one of France's most important
institutions and you'll recall our
discussions about how even dictators
need support from within their holdings
but it's also telling that Napoleon
would eventually be excommunicated by
the Catholic Church for annexing papal
lands for France Napoleon was also
popular with the people he offered a
solution to decades of instability and
economic decline
he won majorities when he had his
candidacy for office and other decisions
approved by plebiscite or vote cast by
men over the age of 21 in 1802 he had
himself declared consul for life and in
1804 Emperor did the center of the world
just open up is there a bust of somebody
who actually believes himself to be the
center of the world in there it is it's
Napoleon himself Stan got this in Paris
I can tell because it says souvenir de
Paris so this bust of Napoleon complete
with its armed lessness and being cut
off at the torso and everything is
extremely Roman ish and this was part of
found Napoleon justified his dictatorial
form of government he said no we're just
going back to the Roman Empire to the
good old days of ancient Rome and
dictators do this a lot from the Russian
words are which comes from the word
Caesar to 20th century dictators when
your leaders start talking about
reviving the glory of the Roman Empire
get nervous oh look it's half French
half roman Napoleon so during the French
Revolution leaders promoted the ancient
Roman idea of vr-2 that is the sacrifice
of personal interest for the good of the
Republic or the whole Napoleon continued
all that Roman imagery but switched it
from the Roman Republic to the Roman
Empire you can even see this in his
journey from being a consul to being an
emperor he was portrayed in lavish
costume and crowned with the laurel
leaves of a conquering hero Empire style
in furniture arose and women donned slim
white dresses free from corsets and
voluminous petticoats in imitation of
Roman statuary and Napoleon saw himself
as a modern Justinian the famed ancient
wall giver so to that end he set out to
have the most celebrated jurists under
his guidance produce a rational
of laws completed in 1804 the code
Napoleon aka the Napoleonic Code
standardized the laws of citizenship
family and property the code made rules
for financial transfers and mortgages
and for other legal transactions
concerning property standards across
France instead of differing from
province to province and legal
standardization facilitated modern
economic development but the other two
sections on family and citizenship
stunned many for the way they
impoverished and curtailed most of the
rights of women under the Napoleonic
Code women had no right to their own
property once they were married
not even wages they earned themselves
they could not serve as witnesses in
court nor have control over or
guardianship of their own children they
had to live with her husband's directed
them to live if they committed adultery
they were sent to jail but men in
contrast would only be charged with a
crime if they brought a sexual partner
into the family home I'm not making this
up lest you think that history is simply
a march toward more people having more
rights not always but by creating laws
that specifically targeted the economy
the Empire was seen as paving the way
for modernization and other institutions
followed individual schools were founded
for higher education in engineering
science and technology and for
developing a cadre of advanced teachers
Napoleon also sponsored the creation of
leases or high schools countries in
Europe and really around the globe
imitated the French legal and
educational systems as they strove to
become modern as well and I know this
may not seem like a huge deal but
consider how different the world becomes
as more people have access to education
there are more potential innovators to
solve big problems and more people who
can use the tool of writing to share
their perspectives with wide audiences
and more teachers to train and educate
future generations of professionals and
experts on the other hand it's worth
remembering that half of the population
women were denied not just most of the
new opportunities in France but also
many of the rights they previously had
so Napoleon initially succeeded in
France because he quelled the political
chaos by making himself an emblem of
authority and order right out of the
dictator playbook he also created a
police state with strict censorship and
spies opera
in everyday life and he restored the
minar kacal systems of aristocratic
titles and hierarchies even giving back
titles to some of the old aristocracy
who could help revive the appearance of
ceremonial grandeur and so in all those
ways Napoleon was returning to Louis the
14th absolutism so the Revolution did
turn all the way around ending where it
started in that sense while members of
Napoleon's family often became wealthy
entitled his enemies were frequently
exiled from France the most famous of
his exiled enemies was Germaine de Stahl
the wealthiest woman in Europe and one
of the most accomplished to stall never
stopped criticizing the dictator
although at first she found him
fascinating and even thought she might
become his companion early on she probed
him for an expression of admiration of
her talents by asking what kind of woman
he valued the most and he responded the
one with the most children and pointedly
gazed at her chest
after that she denounced his brutal
nature to whoever would listen rallying
opponents around her but Napoleon didn't
just have plans for France he wanted to
conquer and colonize all of Europe and
the British Isles he amassed a huge army
by drafting young men between the ages
of 20 and 24 then earned their complete
devotion by fighting alongside them in
at least 60 battles as he conquered
German and Austrian territory he brought
men from those areas into his armies -
and by 1806 he had ended the Holy Roman
Empire after defeating Austria in
several battles most thoroughly at the
battle of Austerlitz in 1805 then he
went on to defeat Prussia in 1806 and
Russia in 1807 after they declared war
on France and succession Napoleon then
forced or inspired reforms in these new
holdings such as the end of serfdom
legislating religious toleration and
creating schools to advance scientific
and technological study any unified
German states excluding Austria in the
Confederation of the Rhine and he
imposed the Napoleonic Code and the
metric system and other institutions for
Standardization that really helped to
unify Europe what is the metric system
Stan says it's just something Europeans
do like soccer and ensuring that all
citizens have health care one of the big
effects of Napoleon's European ambitions
was that it inspired a lot of
nationalism among his new subjects who
mostly opposed his dictatorial regimes I
mean for one thing most of these newly
conquered lands were run by one of
Napoleon's brothers who would serve a
surrogate monarch and if you're gonna
live in a dictatorship you want to at
least be dictated by the dictator
himself not some brother it's like going
to see a matinee of a Broadway show and
instead of getting the big star you get
some understudy at any rate this is
important because people began to think
of themselves as for instance German in
part because they didn't want to think
of themselves as French Napoleon's goal
was to colonize the entire continent and
he had mostly succeeded but Spain was
still unconscious tum' when in 1807
Napoleon struck with an army of some
100,000 men Spanish and Portuguese
Royals both left their capitals Napoleon
installed yet another brother Joseph as
king and resistance swelled with help
from the British and Arthur Wellesley
who would later become the Duke of
Wellington and you can actually see how
different communities responded to
Napoleon differently in art like Jacques
Louie dahveed painted triumphant moments
in Napoleon's career including his self
coronation as Emperor but Spanish
painter Francisco Goya depicted
Napoleonic rule as a reign of terror his
third of May 1808 shows a French firing
squad mowing down peasants and clergy
alike Koya remained a chronicler of
Spanish resistance and French barbarism
as tens of thousands of French troops
had to occupy the conquered kingdom
because of Spanish hatred of the
conquerors let's go to the
thought-bubble
despite ongoing problems Napoleon became
determined to conquer and absorb all of
Russia especially since it had opted out
of his countenance system he built an
army of some 600,000 to 700,000 men from
across his lands and began his invasion
in June of 1812 having trudged hundreds
of miles troops were exhausted and
overcome by the heat and the Russians
refused to engage in battle instead they
retreated practicing so-called scorched
earth tactics by burning and destroying
any resource including food and
livestock that could be of use to the
invaders finally at Borodino the two
sides engaged in what was ultimately a
very costly victory for the French who
lost 30,000
while the Russians lost 45,000 but two
French were thousands of miles from home
territory and so reinforcing and
resupplying their army proved difficult
foreign recruits who were not as loyal
to Napoleon began melting away as winter
approached and conditions worsened the
remaining 100,000 ich invaders marched
on from Borodino some 70 miles from
Moscow but on reaching their destination
they found the city consumed by fire
shelter and other necessities were once
again in short supply
still Napoleon waited for Tsar Alexander
the first to surrender and agree to
terms but when that surrender failed to
materialize Napoleon led his depleted
starving and frostbitten army westward
to Poland many had died many other
soldiers had deserted and more French
troops would be killed by the cossacks
as they retreated only 40,000 of
napoleon's soldiers reached poland alive
in 1813 thanks thought-bubble
so the European powers took note of the
Emperor's bedraggled forces and formed a
coalition that included Russia Austria
Prussia and Sweden and in 1813 their
armies backed by British financing
defeated French forces at Leipzig this
battle was waged because Napoleon
refused to accept the Allies terms which
would initially have allowed him to
continue to rule France but instead in
early 1814 he abdicated and headed for
exile on Elba an island in the
Mediterranean
a year later he escaped returned to
France gathered an army and confronted
the powers once more
finally surrendering on July 15th 1815
after being defeated at Waterloo
Napoleon was living in exile on the
distant island of Saint Helena when he
died on May 5th 1821 32 years to the day
after the meeting of the estates-general
that set the French Revolution into
motion consider all that happened in
those 32 years and you'll understand why
this period of French history is seen as
so important to world history decades
after his death Napoleon's remains were
lavishly returned to France placed in
the Church of the dome in the heart of
Paris and eventually Rhian cased in a
grander sarcophagus under the church's
golden dome itself why well remember
that under him French achievements were
massive in terms of education commitment
to science standardisation modernization
of the economy and opening the door to
opportunity for ordinary people
well ordinary men French museums were
packed with loot from across Europe and
Egypt plundered by Napoleon's armies in
fact those museums are still packed with
that loot and there were all the
unforgettable early military victories
to look back to as well as the revival
of French cultural glory that led to the
imitation of French things throughout
the world I mean Muhammad Ali the ruler
of Egypt who'd been part of the effort
to drive Napoleon and his forces from
the country would begin programs in
direct imitation of Napoleon's and the
creation of a true citizens army
entranced by the heroism of its leader
also endured while his lightning attacks
remained a model to future military
innovators and the Napoleonic Code was
imitated worldwide as Napoleon's body
was Rhian tombed and splendor and pomp
one worker expressed france's general
worship of the dictator I've got the
Emperor in my guts for better and for
worse we still have Napoleon in our guts
thanks for watching I'll see you next
time thanks for watching crash course
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I'll see you next time
you