Napoleon

Napoleon I was a French military and political leader who had significant impact on modern European history. He was a general during the French Revolution, the ruler of France, King of Italy, Mediator of the Swiss Confederation and more. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, he turned the armies of France against almost every major European power, dominating continental Europe through a lengthy streak of military victories. His campaigns are studied at military academies all over the world and he is widely known as one of history’s greatest commanders. The disastrous French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon’s fortunes. There was a lull in fighting over the winter of 1812–13 while both the Russians and the French recovered from their massive losses. A small Russian army harassed the French in Poland and eventually 30,000 French troops withdrew to the German states to join the expanding force there. The 1812 fight destroyed the Grande Armée (the French Army), which never regained its strength from before. In October 1813, the Sixth Coalition (which included Prussia, Russia, the United Kingdom, Spain, and Portugal) defeated his forces at Leipzig and then invaded France. They forced Napoleon to give up his thrown in April 1814, sending him to the island of Elba to stay. Less than a year later, he returned to France and regained control of the government in the Hundred Days prior to his final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

Vocabulary