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A short biography of Napoleon Bonaparte

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Last Updated:  9 July 2022

You may hate him or love him… but you can’t ignore Napoleon Bonaparte, the former French emperor! Born in 1769 in Corsica from the minor nobility, Napoleon rose to fame during the French Revolution and proclaimed himself emperor in 1804. His legacy is still visible in France. Think about the Code Napoleon still in use today. Or the Arc de Triomphe that he commissioned (but never saw completed). Here is a (very) brief biography of Napoleon Bonaparte…

A (very) short biography of Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on the 15th of August 1769 .

Born two years before it would have been Italian as the Mediterranean island became part of France in 1767.

This military genius who graduated from the Ecole Militaire in Paris became a general at the young age of 26.

From First Consul to Emperor

Napoleon was elected First Consul of France for life in 1802. In December 1804 he crowned himself emperor of the French at Notre-Dame cathedral . The coronation brought the 1st Republic to an end. France was now under a military despotism presided over by an absolute monarch. His court was re-established in the Tuileries .

During the 10 years of his reign, he successfully conquered Spain, Germany, Poland, Austria, and Italy.

Napoleon is known for having translated the great principles of the French Revolution into law, giving France a new civil code: the Code Napoléon . His work still remains in force not only in France but also in other countries. He re-established public worship and religious tolerance, making an agreement (the Concordat ) with the Pope in 1801.

But the emperor’s greatest mistake was the invasion of Russia in 1812. The great distances and severe cold of Russia caused the loss of most of his army.

Napoleon was defeated at Leipzig in 1814. Forced to abdicate, Napoleon was banished to the tiny Mediterranean island of Elba off the coast of Italy for a kingdom and granted a pension for life.  

In February 1815, Napoleon returned to France for “ Les Cent Jours ” (The Hundred Days).

After a few victories, Napoleon was lured into a confrontation with the Allied armies, commanded by the Duke of Wellington, at Waterloo in Belgium, on the 15th June 1815.

Napoleon’s exile and death

Napoleon abdicated on the 22nd June 1815 and was taken in exile by the English under guard to the lonely island of St. Helena in the South Atlantic, a British possession.

Napoleon Bonaparte died on the 5th May 1821  in St. Helena.

In his will, Napoleon had asked to be buried in Paris on the banks of the Seine “ in the midst of the French people [whom I] loved so much “. However, the British governor insisted that he should be buried on the island, in a place called the Valley of the Willows.

Placed in a solitary spot, the tomb of Napoleon was covered by three bare slabs placed level with the soil. These slabs can still be seen today in the garden of Les Invalides .

The ‘retour des cendres’ in 1840

Then in 1840, King Louis-Philippe was granted from the British the agreement to repatriate Napoleon’s remains to France. The ‘ retour des cendres ‘ (returning of the ashes) is an episode that relates the return of the mortal remains of Napoleon in the Hôtel des Invalides , Paris.

When the mortal remains of Napoleon was transferred from St. Helena Island to France, the tomb was set up in the St. Jérôme chapel, a side-chapel of the Dome church of Les Invalides.

Architect Louis Visconti had a circular hollow cut beneath the dome to create a sort of an open crypt. In its centre would be placed a large sarcophagus containing the remains of the emperor.

Napoleon’s coffin was moved to the dedicated crypt in 1861 during a ceremony presided by his nephew, Napoleon III.

>> Get your Tickets for Les Invalides: the Army Museum [Priority Entrance], Napoleon’s tomb and see war memorabilia! <<

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This is very nice bio on Napoleon Bonaparte….. ❤❤😇😇

You’re welcome!

This was a great biography of Napoleon Bonaparte which helped me to do my history holiday homework…

Thank you, glad the article helped! 🙂

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Napoleon Bonaparte

French military general Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself the first emperor of France in 1804. His Napoleonic Code remains a model for governments worldwide.

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Latest News: Napoleon Movie in Theaters Now

Napoleon has received some flack for its historical inaccuracies , such as showing the titular character shooting at pyramids. “If you want to really understand Napoleon, then you should probably do your own studying and reading,” Phoenix previously told Empire magazine . “Because if you see this film, it’s this experience told through Ridley’s eyes... What we were after was something that would capture the feeling of this man.”

Quick Facts

Early life and military education, how tall was napoleon, napoleon’s rise to power, wives: empress josephine and marie-louise, napoleonic code, napoleonic wars, exile on st. helena, death and tomb, napoleon movies, who was napoleon bonaparte.

French General Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the world’s greatest military leaders who became the first emperor of France, from 1804 to 1815. Born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, he attended military schools in France and eventually embraced his adopted home. Bonaparte steadily rose to power in the tumult of the French Revolution before seizing power in a 1799 coup. He was elected consul for life in 1802, then proclaimed the French emperor two years later. As a political leader, Bonaparte broadly transformed French society, most notably ushering in the Napoleonic Code that still serves as the basis of civil codes around the world today. During the Napoleonic Wars, the famed military tactician expanded France’s footprint before a string of critical losses forced him into exile. Bonaparte spent the final years of his life on the remote island of St. Helena, where he died in 1821 at age 51.

FULL NAME: Napoleon Bonaparte BORN: August 15, 1769 DIED: May 5, 1821 BIRTHPLACE: Ajaccio, Corsica SPOUSES: Josephine de Beauharnais (1796-1809) and Archduchess Marie-Louise (1810-1821) CHILDREN: Charles, Alexandre, and Napoleon II ASTROLOGICAL SIGN: Leo HEIGHT: 5 ft. 7 in.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born Napoleone Buonaparte in Ajaccio, on the French island of Corsica, on August 15, 1769. He was the fourth, and second surviving, child of Carlo Buonaparte, a lawyer, and his wife, Letizia Ramolino. Napoleon eventually had seven surviving siblings.

Around the time of Napoleon’s birth, the French’s occupation of Corsica had drawn considerable local resistance. Napoleon’s father had at first supported the nationalists, siding with their leader, Pasquale Paoli. But after Paoli was forced to flee the island, Carlo switched his allegiance to the French. After doing so, he was appointed assessor of the judicial district of Ajaccio in 1771, a plush job that eventually enabled him to enroll his two sons, Joseph and Napoleon, in France’s College d’Autun.

In 1779, young Napoleon began attending the military college of Brienne, where he studied for five years. He excelled as a student yet struggled to fit in with his classmates who were the children of French nobles and bullied Napoleon for being a foreigner.

At age 15, Napoleon moved on to the military academy in Paris. While Napoleon was still there, his father died of stomach cancer in 1785. This propelled Napoleon to take the reins as the head of the family. Graduating early from the military academy, Napoleon, now second lieutenant of artillery, returned to Corsica in 1786.

Back home, Napoleon got behind the Corsican resistance to the French occupation, siding with his father’s former ally, Pasquale Paoli. But the two soon had a falling out, and when a civil war in Corsica began in April 1793, Napoleon—now an enemy of Paoli—and his family relocated to France, where they assumed the French version of their name: Bonaparte.

drawing of napoleon bonaparte standing in profile wearing a large hat, coat with tails and knee length pants

Napoleon stood about 5 feet, 7 inches tall, making him slightly taller than the average Frenchman of his time.

Much has been made of Napoleon’s height, and legends claim that he was unusually short, giving rise to the term “Napoleon complex,” an inferiority complex sometimes associated with people of short stature. Some historians attribute the myths about Napoleon’s height to British propaganda.

Napoleon’s return to France began with a service with the French military, where he rejoined his regiment at Nice in June 1793. The turmoil of the French Revolution , which began four years prior, created opportunities for ambitious military leaders like Napoleon. The young leader quickly showed his support for the Jacobins, a far-left political movement and the most well-known and popular political club from the French Revolution.

A year after France was declared a republic, King Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. Ultimately, these acts led to the rise of Maximilien de Robespierre and what became, essentially, the dictatorship of the Committee of Public Safety. The years of 1793 and 1794 came to be known as the Reign of Terror , in which as many as 40,000 people were killed. Eventually, the Jacobins fell from power, and Robespierre was executed.

Trusted Military Leader

In 1795, the French revolutionary government known as the Directory took control of the country. Napoleon, who had previously fallen out of favor with Robespierre, came into the good graces of the Directory that same year after he saved the government from counter-revolutionary forces. For his efforts, Napoleon was soon named commander of the Army of the Interior. In addition, he was a trusted advisor to the Directory on military matters.

In 1796, Napoleon took the helm of the Army of Italy, a post he’d been coveting. The army—just 30,000 strong, disgruntled, and underfed—was soon turned around by the young military commander. Under his direction, the reinvigorated army won numerous crucial victories against the Austrians, greatly expanded the French empire, and squashed an internal threat by the royalists, who wished to return France to a monarchy. All of these successes helped make Napoleon the military’s brightest star.

Failed Egypt Campaign

On July 1, 1798, Napoleon and his army traveled to the Middle East to undermine Great Britain’s empire by occupying Egypt and disrupting English trade routes to India. But his military campaign proved disastrous: On August 1, Admiral Horatio Nelson’s fleet decimated Napoleon’s forces in the Battle of the Nile.

Napoleon’s image and that of France were greatly harmed by the loss, and in a show of newfound confidence against the commander, Britain, Austria, Russia, and Turkey formed a new coalition against France. In the spring of 1799, French armies were defeated in Italy, forcing France to give up much of the peninsula. That October, Napoleon returned to France as his troops continued fighting.

Coup of 18 Brumaire

portrait of napoleon bonaparte as emperor napoleon i, he stands next to a throne while wearing a long red and white cape, a regal outfit, and a golden crown, he holds a long golden staff

Shortly after his return to France, Napoleon participated in an event known as the Coup of 18 Brumaire. The bloodless coup d’etat, heavily orchestrated by Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, overthrew the newly Jacobin-controlled Directory on November 9, 1799. Napoleon and Sieyès ushered in a new government called the Consulate to be led by three members—themselves and Pierre-Roger Ducos. Napoleon’s brother Lucien Bonaparte also assisted the cause.

When Napoleon was named first consul, he became France’s leading political figure in a position that amounted to nothing less than a dictatorship. Under the new guidelines, the first consul was permitted to appoint ministers, generals, civil servants, magistrates, and even members of the legislative assemblies. Sieyès and Ducos were reduced to figureheads. In February 1800, the new constitution was easily accepted.

At the Battle of Marengo in June 1800, Napoleon’s forces defeated the Austrians and drove them from the Italian peninsula. This military victory cemented Napoleon’s authority as first consul.

Napoleon proceeded to transform France’s economy, legal and educational systems, and even the Church, as he reinstated Roman Catholicism as the state religion through the Concordat of 1801. He also negotiated a European peace, partially through the 1802 Treaty of Amiens that struck a (short-lived) truce with the war-weary British.

His reforms proved popular: In 1802, he was elected consul for life, and two years later, he was proclaimed emperor of France on May 18, 1804. He was officially crowned Napoleon I during his coronation at Notre Dame Cathedral on December 2 of that year.

portrait of josephine de beauharnais sitting and looking straight ahead with one hand up in front of her chest

As Napoleon was rising in the ranks, his personal life was also taking shape. He met Josephine de Beauharnais, the widow of General Alexandre de Beauharnais (guillotined during the Reign of Terror) and a mother of two children, at a party in 1795. He was quickly smitten and despite her initial reservations— Josephine described Napoleon as “altogether strange in all his person”—they married on March 9, 1796, in a civil ceremony.

Their union was tempestuous from the outset, with Napoleon’s military campaigns forcing him away from home for long periods. Although he often complimented Josephine in letters from the battlefield, both of them engaged in extramarital affairs. Napoleon had at least two children out of wedlock—Charles Léon Denuelle in 1806 and Alexandre Walewski in 1810.

Josephine was known for holding lavish parties and spending money on clothing and property, including the Malmaison estate near Paris in 1799. Despite their arguments, the two stayed together as Josephine maintained a positive perception among the public. When Napoleon crowned himself emperor in 1804, he insisted upon placing a crown upon Empress Josephine as well.

Despite his new title, not all was going to plan for Napoleon. He faced mounting pressure from his family to separate from Josephine, who was in her 40s by this point, because she was unable to give him a legitimate son and, thus, an heir. So in December 1809, Napoleon arranged for the annulment of their marriage.

drawing showing napoleon bonaparte standing with his seated wife and infant son in a crib nearby

Following the annulment, Napoleon searched in haste for a new bride. His first choice was Anna Pavlovna, the 15-year-old sister of Russian Tsar Alexander I. But after delays and excuses, he instead selected Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria, 18, due largely to political motivations. Marie-Louise was the great-niece of Marie Antoinette . She dreaded the idea , writing in her diary that just looking at Napoleon would be the “worst form of torture.” However, she complied and married Napoleon by proxy in a civil ceremony in March 1810.

Marie-Louise gave Napoleon the heir he desired, as the couple had a son—Napoleon II, King of Rome—on March 20, 1811.

Despite his marriage to Marie-Louise, Napoleon continued his correspondence with Josephine and made unannounced personal visits to Malmaison. In 1813, he even brought his young son to meet her, as their struggle to produce an heir “had cost her so many tears.” This stoked jealousy in Marie-Louise, who remained married to Napoleon until his death.

Continuing the societal reforms he made, Napoleon instituted the Napoleonic Code, otherwise known as the French Civil Code, on March 21, 1804. The sweeping set of laws ended the feudal system and addressed property rights, family law, and individual freedoms. It forbade privileges based on birth, declaring all men to be equal and stating that government jobs must be given to the most qualified. Men were entitled to religious freedom and placed in charge of the women and children in their families. Women were largely left without rights, though they did have limited liberties in divorce proceedings.

The Napoleonic Code applied in France and its growing number of territories. Napoleon correctly predicted that his code, more so than his many military victories, would have a lasting legacy. Parts of it are still in use around the world today. The terms of the code are the main basis for many other countries’ civil codes throughout Europe and North America.

napoleon rides a bucking horse and points on finger in the air, he wears a military uniform including a hat and red cape

The Napoleonic Wars were a series of European wars lasting from 1803 to Napoleon’s permanent abdication of power in 1815.

In 1803, in part to raise funds for war, France sold its North American Louisiana Territory to the United States for $15 million, a transaction known as the Louisiana Purchase . Napoleon then returned to war with Britain, Russia, and Austria.

In 1805, the British registered an important naval victory against France at the Battle of Trafalgar , which led Napoleon to scrap his plans to invade England. Instead, he set his sights on Austria and Russia, beating back both militaries in the Battle of Austerlitz.

Other victories soon followed, allowing Napoleon to greatly expand the French empire and paving the way for loyalists to his government—including his brothers and other family members—to be installed in Holland, Italy, Naples, Sweden, Spain, and Westphalia.

Invasion of Russia

In 1812, France was devastated when Napoleon’s invasion of Russia turned out to be a colossal failure—and the beginning of the end for Napoleon. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Napoleon’s Grand Army were killed or badly wounded: Out of an original fighting force of some 600,000 men, just 10,000 soldiers were still fit for battle.

News of the defeat reinvigorated Napoleon’s enemies, both inside and outside of France. Some attempted a failed coup while Napoleon led his charge against Russia and as the British began to advance through French territories. With international pressure mounting and his government lacking the resources to fight back against his enemies, Napoleon surrendered to allied forces on March 30, 1814.

First Exile

About a week later, on April 6, Napoleon was forced to abdicate power and went into exile on the island of Elba off the Italian coast in the Mediterranean Sea. His exile didn’t last long, as he watched France stumbled forward without him.

In March 1815, Napoleon escaped the island and quickly made his way back to Paris. King Louis XVIII fled, and Napoleon triumphantly returned to power. But the enthusiasm that greeted Napoleon when he resumed control of the government soon gave way to old frustrations and fears about his leadership.

drawing showing napoleon bonaparte retreating on horseback

On June 16, 1815, Napoleon led French troops into Belgium and defeated the Prussians; two days later, he was defeated by the British, reinforced by Prussian fighters, at the Battle of Waterloo .

It was a humiliating loss, and on June 22, 1815, Napoleon abdicated his powers for good. In an effort to prolong his dynasty, he pushed to have his young son, Napoleon II, named emperor, but the coalition rejected the offer.

After Napoleon’s abdication from power in 1815, fearing a repeat of his earlier return from exile on Elba, the British government sent Napoleon to the remote island of St. Helena in the southern Atlantic Ocean. He lived there for the rest of his life.

For the most part, Napoleon was free to do as he pleased at his new home. He had leisurely mornings, wrote often, and read a lot. But the tedious routine of life soon got to him, and he often shut himself indoors.

According to historian Kate Williams’ 2014 book Ambition and Desire: The Dangerous Life of Josephine Bonaparte , Napoleon continued to show great affection for his ex-wife , who died of pneumonia at her Malmaison estate in May 1814. He had portraits of Josephine placed throughout his residence and even ate off plates with her likeness on them.

Starting in 1817, Napoleon’s health began to deteriorate. In early 1821, he was bedridden and growing weaker by the day. That April, he dictated his last will: “I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of that French people which I have loved so much. I die before my time, killed by the English oligarchy and its hired assassins.”

Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, on the island of St. Helena at age 51. Allegedly, he uttered his ex-wife Josephine’s name as his final word.

During his final weeks, he experienced symptoms such as vomiting, incessant hiccups, and blood clots. Physicians who conducted his autopsy ruled stomach cancer, exacerbated by bleeding gastric ulcers, as the cause of Napoleon’s death. According to PBS News Hour , Napoleon’s cancer was in an advanced state, and his family history of gastric carcinomas supported the autopsy results.

However, researchers have posited alternative theories regarding his demise. In 1961, Swedish dentist Sten Forshufvud and Drs. Hamilton Smith and Anders Wassen analyzed a sample of his hair and published an article suggesting he might have died from arsenic poisoning. Although other experts have rebuffed this theory, it has led to conspiracies surrounding Napoleon’s death.

a large coffin rests in a viewing area with tourists looking on

Despite what he requested in his last will, Napoleon was initially buried on St. Helena on May 9, 1821, in the Geranium Valley, now known as the Valley of the Tomb. In 1840, he was exhumed by order of French King Louis-Phillippe , and Bonaparte’s remains were transferred back to mainland France, arriving on December 15 .

Napoleon’s tomb is located in Paris in the Dôme des Invalides . Originally a royal chapel built between 1677 and 1706, the Invalides were turned into a military pantheon under Napoleon’s reign. In addition to Napoleon Bonaparte, several other French notables are buried there, including: Napoleon II, the King of Rome and Napoleon’s son; Napoleon’s brothers Joseph and Jérôme Bonaparte; Generals Henri-Gratien Bertrand and Géraud-Christophe-Michel Duroc; and the French Marshals Ferdinand Foch and Hubert Lyautey.

Not surprising given his place in world history, Napoleon has appeared on the big screen many times with depictions ranging from purposefully humorous to based in realism.

Marlon Brando and Dennis Hopper were cast as Bonaparte in the 1950s movies Désirée (1954) and The Story of Mankind (1957), respectively. The general also appears in films such as Waterloo (1970), Time Bandits (1981), and The Count of Monte Cristo (2002).

In terms of more fantastical portrayals, Napoleon is a character in the 1989 cult comedy Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure, in which the title characters played by Alex Winter and Keanu Reeves decide to abduct historical figures for their high school project through the use of time travel. He also appears as an antagonist in the 2009 sequel Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian .

In 2023, director Ridley Scott helmed a new biopic simply titled Napoleon that released in theaters on November 22. The movie stars Joaquin Phoenix as the French emperor and Vanessa Kirby as Josephine and focuses heavily on their tumultuous relationship. Napoleon marked a reunion for Phoenix and Scott, who worked on the 2000 classic Gladiator also starring Russell Crowe .

  • I am never angry when contradicted; I seek to be enlightened.
  • I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of that French people which I have loved so much. I die before my time, killed by the English oligarchy and its hired assassins.
  • A revolution is an idea which has found its bayonets.
  • A great people may be killed, but they will not be intimidated.
  • He who fears being conquered is certain of defeat.
  • Love does more harm than good.
  • A man is not dependent upon his fellow creature, when he does not fear death.
  • It is the cause, and not the death that makes the martyr.
  • Even when I am gone, I shall remain in people’s minds the star of their rights, my name will be the war cry of their efforts, the motto of their hopes.
  • Men of genius are meteors, intended to burn to light their century.
  • Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever.
  • In choosing a wife, a man does not renounce his mother, and still less is he justified with breaking her heart.
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Biography

Napoleon Bonaparte Biography

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“France has more need of me than I have need of France. “

Born in Corsica and trained as an artillery officer in mainland France, he rose to prominence under the First French Republic. He distinguished himself as a military commander fighting in Italy. In 1799, Bonaparte staged a coup d’état and installed himself as First Consul; five years later he crowned himself Emperor of the French. In the first decade of the Nineteenth Century, he turned the armies of the French Empire against every major European power and dominated continental Europe, through a series of military victories epitomised in battles such as Austerlitz. He maintained France’s sphere of influence by the formation of extensive alliances and the appointment of friends and family members to rule other European countries as French client states. It appeared that through Napoleon’s tactical genius, nothing could stop the French as they won a series of military victories.

“Circumstances–what are circumstances? I make circumstances.”

However, in 1812, the French invasion of Russia led to a reversal of fortunes. His army succeeded in advancing to the outskirts of Moscow, but it was a hollow victory. The Russians had retreated into the interior, leaving a desolate and empty city. Cold and worn down with illness, his Grande Armée was forced into a long and painful retreat through the deep freeze of the Russian winter.

In 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at Leipzig, and the following year the Coalition invaded France, forcing Napoleon to abdicate and making him an exile in the island of Elba. However, less than a year later, Napoleon escaped Elba. After his escape, an army was sent by Louis XVIII to arrest Napoleon, but Napoleon was able to sway his former army and they dramatically joined up with Napoleon. On returning to Paris, Louis XVIII fled and Napoleon regained power. Almost straight away, eight European countries joined forces against him to make a coalition army led by the Duke of Wellington .  It was at Waterloo, in June 1815, that the Duke of Wellington decided to turn and fight Napoleon. The Battle of Waterloo was a close-run affair, with the outcome uncertain at one stage. But, the arrival of the Prussian army helped to swing the battle against the French, and Napoleon was eventually decisively beaten and ousted from power.

Napoleon spent the last six years of his life under British supervision on the island of Saint Helena, where he died. His autopsy concluded he died of stomach cancer, though Sten Forshufvud and other scientists have since conjectured that he had been poisoned with arsenic.

Despite his military prowess and empire building, he was also conscious of a more spiritual perspective on life.

“Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him. ”

Napoleon scored major victories with a modernised French army and drew his tactics from different sources. His campaigns are studied at military academies the world over, and he is regarded as one of history’s great commanders. While considered a tyrant by his opponents, he is also remembered for the establishment of the Napoleonic code, which laid the administrative and judicial foundations for much of Western Europe.

Commentary on Life of Napoleon

Napoleon was a colossal figure of nineteenth-century Europe. He had an unfettered conviction in his own destiny and that of Europe. He paved the way for a very impressive modern European Empire. In doing so, he swept away much of the old feudal systems and customs of Europe. Napoleon helped to usher in a new era of European politics. He established a Napoleonic code of religious tolerance, rational values and a degree of liberalism. Yet, he was a man of paradoxes: his naked ambition led to costly wars with 6 million dead across Europe. His liberalism and tolerance were imposed with ruthless efficiency and conquest of foreign lands. Sri Aurobindo later summed up the paradox of Napoleon by saying, “Napoleon was the despotic defender of democracy.”

Eventually, his ambition outreached his ability, leading to his humiliation in the severe Russian winter and later against the British at Waterloo.

The Duke of Wellington , the British Commander at Waterloo was asked who he thought was the best General of all time. Wellington’s reply was revealing in its unmitigated praise for Napoleon.

“In this age, in past ages, in any age, Napoleon!

Citation: Pettinger, Tejvan . “Biography of Napoleon”, Oxford, UK. www.biographyonline.net, 01/10/2013 updated 22 September 2017

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Napoleon

More words have been written about Napoleon Bonaparte than almost any other historical figure. But for those with limited time resources, here's a short primer on the wildly ambitious French military leader with help from Peter Hicks, historian and manager of international affairs for the Fondation Napoléon in Paris.

Born in Corsica, Arrives in France

Marriage to josephine, hero of the italian campaign, visions of empire in the exotic east, from first consul to emperor, napoleon helped make modern france, france versus the world, in russia, napoleon was beaten by retreat, exile to elba, triumphant return and final defeat at waterloo, death on st. helena, an island prison.

Napoleon was born Napoleone di Buonaparte Aug. 15, 1769, on the island of Corsica, only recently bought by France from the Italian city-state of Genoa. Young Napoleon, the son of a prominent Corsican family, was sent to mainland France for school, where his Parisian classmates made fun of his provincial accent.

"Instead of calling him Napoleon, they called him 'straw on the nose,'" says Hicks, "mispronouncing his name in French with a Corsican accent."

After graduating from the French military academy and becoming part of the French Revolution , Napoleon dropped the extra vowels in his Italian-sounding name.

Napoleon was six years her junior when he met 32-year-old Paris socialite Marie-Josephe-Rose de Beauharnais , who already had two children : Eugène, born in 1781 and Hortense, born in 1783. Their father, Alexandre de Beauharnais, had been executed in 1794 during France's Reign of Terror. Napoleon and Josephine married in 1796 and Napoleon became stepfather to her children.

In the course of time, it was discovered that Josephine was incapable of having more children. Napoleon would divorce her in 1809 to marry Austrian Archduchess Maria-Louise, banking on her to produce him an heir, which she did with the birth of a son, Napoléon François Joseph Charles Bonaparte, later Napoleon II, in 1811. Napoleon was said to have loved Josephine for the rest of his life and her name was reportedly the last word on his lips when he died in 1821.

But back to the battlefield.

Napoleon rose through the ranks of the French army and was promoted to major general after helping to quash a royalist coup in Paris. In 1796, at just 26 years old, he was sent to Italy to mount a last-ditch campaign against France's bitter rival Austria. He found the French troops exhausted and unpaid but whipped them into excitement with promises of glory and riches to be won.

Despite being outnumbered almost two-to-one by Austrian and Italian Piedmontese fighters, Napoleon used speed and cunning to separate the enemy forces and ruthlessly attack their weak points. Napoleon's armies could cover up to 30 miles (48 kilometers) a day compared to just 6 or 7 (10 or 11 kilometers) for the Austrians and Italians.

"They sent a young madman who attacks right, left and from the rear," complained a Piedmontese officer. "It's an intolerable way of making war."

When the Austrians and Italians surrendered, Napoleon demanded payment in gold, which he gave to his fighting men, sealing their loyalty. Word of his exploits spread far and wide.

"Napoleon really burst onto the scene with the staggering success of the first Italian campaign, which put him on the radar with the rest of Europe," says Hicks. "Everybody wanted to know, 'Who is this guy?'"

Napoleon

It didn't take long for Napoleon to begin seeing himself as the French incarnation of Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great . He could have made a play for emperor in 1797, but felt the moment wasn't quite right in Paris. So he rallied his armies and set off for Egypt, where he hoped to cut off British trade with India.

Napoleon scholar Jean Tulard called the Egyptian campaign, "probably the craziest expedition in the history of France." Napoleon marched 35,000 troops across the desert from the port city of Alexandria toward Cairo. At the Battle of the Pyramids, he faced a wall of 10,000 fearless Mameluke fighters on horseback.

"Soldiers," Napoleon shouted to his troops, "from the height of these pyramids, 40 centuries look down upon you."

The French, following Napoleon's ingenious battlefield strategies, crushed the saber-wielding Mamelukes and took Cairo. But while Napoleon was daydreaming of conquest — "I saw myself founding a new religion," he later wrote , "marching into Asia riding an elephant, a turban on my head, and in my hand the new Koran" — the British struck back, destroying the French fleet docked in the Mediterranean.

Stranded in Egypt, Napoleon decided to pick more fights with the locals. He took on the Turks in Syria and bombarded the centuries-old walls at the ancient city of Acre. But by 1798, morale was low and a civil war was raging back home. Napoleon saw an opening for his triumphant return, so he abandoned his troops in Egypt and secretly made for France.

The Egyptian campaign wasn't a total wash, though. Napoleon's soldiers, while digging to reinforce a fortress wall in 1799, made an accidental discovery in the Nile Delta — the Rosetta Stone .

When Napoleon arrived in France in October 1798, he found his country in chaos. The state coffers were empty, a coalition of enemies was on the attack, and the French central government lead by a five-man Directory was divided and crumbling. France needed a strong, authoritarian leader and Napoleon knew just the right guy for the job.

In a matter of weeks, he plotted with two of the Directors and some wealthy backers to hatch a coup d'etat. They convinced the legislature that another royalist coup was imminent, pretense for relocating the government to a country palace and sending in troops to "protect" them.

First, Napoleon made a ham-handed speech presenting himself as France's savior, which the constitutional body violently rejected, crying "down with the dictator!" and "death to the tyrant!" He returned the next day with more troops, and in a complicated series of political maneuvers , convinced the deputies to dissolve the Directory and create a new three-person consul with Napoleon at its head.

After rallying the army to defeat the Austrians, Napoleon earned the title of "First Consul for Life" and decided it was time to bring monarchy back to post-Revolution France. On Dec. 2, 1804, after literally snatching the crown from the hand of Pope Pius VII, Napoleon named himself Emperor of France.

While still First Consul, Napoleon created several new state institutions and spearheaded reforms that pulled the country out of chaos by consolidating power in a strong central government.

Among the big changes were to bring religion back to France through a pact with the Pope. Not only did Napoleonic France recognize Catholics, but welcomed Protestants and Jews on equal footing.

Under Napoleon, France created its first central bank, the franc was introduced, and taxes were collected in a fair and timely manner. The messy post-Revolution legal system was codified under what's known as the Civil Code or the Napoleonic Code . On the flip side, women lost almost all legal rights and slavery was reintroduced in French colonies.

"Government was settled along a top-down structure — and it was very much one man at the top," says Hicks, "but Napoleon's reforms brought financial security, and also political and social stability."

Napoleon's rule of France was dominated by nonstop fighting with European rivals, chiefly Britain, Austria, Prussia and Russia. The Napoleonic Wars spanned from 1796 to 1815 and were bankrolled by Britain, the major economic and military power of the day.

"Britain was happy to have Europe fighting itself so it could run the rest of the world," says Hicks. "Britain paid other countries to do the fighting against France, but the other guys didn't need much encouraging. They found Napoelonic France quite challenging."

The British formed coalition after coalition against the French Empire, but Napoleon managed to keep the upper hand and even win more territory until 1812, when he made a fateful and failed gamble in Russia.

When the Russian czar Alexander I backed out of Napoleon's blockade of British goods in 1811, Napoleon was livid. Against the advice of his generals, Napoleon chose to invade Russia with one of the largest European armies ever assembled, an estimated 600,000 soldiers from France, Italy, Germany and Poland.

Napoleon's army charged into Russia in the blazing heat of the summer. The Russians, overwhelmed by the sheer number of enemy fighters, fell back in retreat, burning the towns and countryside behind them. Exhausted and without towns to raid for supplies, the French forces suffered from disease and desertion.

Finally, the two armies met at the Battle of Borodino, where Napoleon threw his men into a brutal, all-day assault that cost tens of thousands of lives on both sides. The Russians finally relented and Napoleon marched triumphantly into Moscow, only to find the city in flames.

The Russian winter arrived early and with a vengeance. Napoleon's army, fully unprepared for temperatures as low as -22 degrees F (-30 degrees C), froze to death by the thousands. Starving soldiers killed each other over horsemeat. And throughout the ordeal, Cossacks raided the retreating French army, dealing devastating blows to its flanks and rear.

Of Napoleon's invading army of 600,000, only 100,000 made it out of Russia alive.

After barely escaping total disaster in Russia, Napoleon came home to fight off another coalition of European foes: Britain, Russia, Prussia, Sweden and Austria. With diminished forces, he held off the coalition for a year before the enemy marched on Paris itself and Napoleon's generals refused to follow him into a final battle.

On April 12, 1814, Napoleon abdicated his throne and was exiled to the tiny island of Elba between Italy and Corsica. Hicks says that Napoleon's expulsion to Elba was "kind of a joke," less of a punishment for Napoleon than a strategy engineered by the Russians to destabilize Austrian-controlled Italy.

"Cartoons at the time compared Napoleon on Elba to Vesuvius next to Naples," says Hicks. "It's going to blow up, and it did."

After less than a year in exile, Napoleon sailed from Elba with 1,000 supporters and landed on the French mainland, where he was met by exultant crowds. King Louis XVIII, who had been installed by the coalition allies in Napoleon's place, skipped town without a fight. The Emperor was back, but not for long.

What followed is known as the Hundred Days Campaign, Napoleon's last desperate grasp at power. With coalition forces amassing against him, Napoleon decided to strike first by invading Belgium. He had some luck against the Prussians in a preliminary battle, but then he came up against the British outside the Belgian town of Waterloo.

The British army, under the command of the formidable Duke of Wellington, numbered 68,000 troops at Waterloo, roughly the same size as Napoleon's force. But Napoleon didn't know that the Prussians were waiting in the wings with 72,000 more enemy troops. Napoleon might have won if he had ordered the attack on the British line sooner, but he opted to wait and let the muddy ground dry. Those extra hours gave the Prussians time to join the fight and rout the French.

On June 22, 1815, Napoleon abdicated the throne for the second and final time.

Napoleon

The British weren't going to take any chances with Napoleon's second exile. They chose the remote tropical island of St. Helena, thousands of miles from France off the coast of Africa. There, in a ramshackle estate called Longwood, a single prisoner was guarded by 2,800 men and a Royal Navy squadron of 11 ships.

Napoleon died May 5, 1821, likely from stomach cancer. He was 51 years old. He was buried on St. Helena, but his remains were eventually returned to France where he was entombed at Les Invalides among the great French leaders of all time.

Napoleon wasn't nearly as short as his enemies made him out to be. Historians believe he stood 5 feet, 6.5 inches (169 centimeters), which was average for his day.

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Napoleon's biography 1. The Youth of Napoleone

Napoleon was born on August 15th, 1769 in Ajaccio   Ajaccio , Corsica, the younger son of Carlo Bonaparte , a lawyer of the Supreme Council of Corsica, and Letizia Ramolino . He was baptized in    Inside the Ajaccio Cathedral the cathedral    The Ajaccio Cathedral of the city on July 21st, 1771, the year the Bonaparte family was given its noble status by the Board of Corsica.

Napoleone Buonaparte in 1788

The young Napoleon made his first trip to France in December 1778. He was admitted the following January 1st to the college of Autun, Burgundy, where his father had registered him after having obtained a scholarship. In May 1779, Napoleon joined the military school of Brienne    Military School of Brienne , which prepared children of the nobility for a military career. He demonstrated a remarkable aptitude for mathematics.

He left this institution in October 1784 to enter the Royal Military School    Military School of Paris of Champ-de-Mars in Paris in the Company of gentlemen cadets.

The year 1785 was a sad one for Napoleon, as he mourned the death of his father Charles, probably of stomach cancer, leaving a widow with eight children and little income. In the fall, Napoleon received his wings of second Lieutenant and was assigned to the artillery regiment of La Fere, stationed at Valence, Rhone Valley.

In 1786, his first leave saw him off to Corsica, which he had left nearly eight years ago. He returned to Paris the following year.

In June 1788, Lieutenant Bonaparte rejoined his regiment, stationed at Auxonne, a small town in Burgundy. In 1789, troubled year, he was responsible for suppressing riots in the region, and then returned to Corsica, where he participated in the political turmoil that was stiring the island. He demonstrated at the time an insular nationalism, supporting the action of Pasquale Paoli , with whom he had an inconclusive interview in July 1790.

Napoleon Bonaparte in 1792

Back in Auxonne, Napoleon was promoted to first Lieutenant in June 1791 and transferred to the 4th Artillery Regiment in Valence. On the occasion of a new leave, he joined a battalion of National Guard of Ajaccio, with which he took part in the clashes, which forced him to return to Paris in May 1792 to defend himself. He was reinstated in the army in July 1792 with the rank of Captain and sent to Ajaccio.

His break with Pasquale Paoli, whose supporters had ransacked Bonaparte's house, forced him to flee the island with his family in June 1793. While his family was moving towards Toulon, he joined his regiment in Nice. After a mission in Avignon, he was appointed by the National Convention in command of artillery in Toulon, Provence, with the rank of Battalion chief. Under the command of General Jacques Dugommier , Napoleon took a decisive part in the expulsion of the English fleet with his talent as a gunner. He fought alongside future marshals and generals of the Empire, as Auguste Viesse de Marmont , Jean-Andoche Junot , André Masséna , Louis-Gabriel Suchet and Claude-Victor Perrin . He was rewarded for his great deeds with the rank of Brigadier general.

Napoleon Bonaparte in 1795

Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon standing with hand in vest

  • Occupation: Emperor of France
  • Born: August 15, 1769 at Ajaccio, Corsica, France
  • Died: May 5, 1821 at St. Helena, United Kingdom
  • Best known for: A brilliant military commander, conquered much of Europe
  • Nickname: Little Corporal

Napoleon on horse leaving Russia

  • Napoleon is famous for being fairly short, probably 5 feet 6 inches tall. However, he would have been average height during the time period that he lived.
  • Today, when someone seems to be overcompensating for being short they are said to have a "Napoleon complex."
  • His birth name was Napoleone di Buonaparte. He changed the name to be more French when he moved to mainland France.
  • He married his first wife, Josephine, in 1796. She became the first Empress of France, but he divorced her in 1810 and married Marie-Louise of Austria.
  • The famous composer Beethoven was going to dedicate his 3rd Symphony to Napoleon, but changed his mind after Napoleon crowned himself emperor.
  • He wrote a romance novel called Clisson et Eugenie.
  • Listen to a recorded reading of this page:

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History Books » Historical Figures

The best books on napoleon, recommended by andrew roberts.

Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

Napoleon: A Life by Andrew Roberts

How did Napoleon Bonaparte, an upstart Corsican, go on to conquer half of Europe in the 16 years of his rule? Was he a military genius? And was he really that short? Historian Andrew Roberts , author of a bestselling biography of Napoleon , introduces us to the books that shaped how he sees l'Empereur —including little-known sources from those who knew Napoleon personally. Read more history book recommendations on Five Books

Interview by Charles J. Styles

The best books on Napoleon - The Campaigns of Napoleon by David G Chandler

The Campaigns of Napoleon by David G Chandler

The best books on Napoleon - Talleyrand by Duff Cooper

Talleyrand by Duff Cooper

The best books on Napoleon - With Eagles to Glory: Napoleon and His German Allies in the 1809 Campaign by John H Gill

With Eagles to Glory: Napoleon and His German Allies in the 1809 Campaign by John H Gill

The best books on Napoleon - Private Memoirs Of The Court Of Napoleon by Louis François Joseph Bausset-Roquefort

Private Memoirs Of The Court Of Napoleon by Louis François Joseph Bausset-Roquefort

The best books on Napoleon - With Napoleon in Russia: Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza by Armand de Caulaincourt

With Napoleon in Russia: Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza by Armand de Caulaincourt

a short biography on napoleon bonaparte

1 The Campaigns of Napoleon by David G Chandler

2 talleyrand by duff cooper, 3 with eagles to glory: napoleon and his german allies in the 1809 campaign by john h gill, 4 private memoirs of the court of napoleon by louis françois joseph bausset-roquefort, 5 with napoleon in russia: memoirs of general de caulaincourt, duke of vicenza by armand de caulaincourt.

If you were to explain the significance of Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) to someone who knew nothing about him, what would you say?

I’d set aside his military achievements—conquering half of Europe in the 16 years of his rule between 1799 and 1815—as all of those had completely disappeared by the time of the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Instead, I’d concentrate on those aspects of his rule that can still be seen in France and in much of Western Europe today.

I argue that although he didn’t have much to do with the French Revolution itself, as he was too young, he nonetheless kept the best bits of the Revolution—equality before the law, religious tolerance, meritocracy—for France and the countries that France conquered. The Code Napoleon was still in effect in the Rhineland until 1900, for example, and it underlies modern European legal systems to this day.

He got rid of the worst bits, like the mass guillotining, the Reign of Terror, the various mad ideas they had like the ten-day week, abolishing Christianity, and so on. He was the person who brought France into the 19th century with huge reforms of administration and finance. He was a moderniser.

You mentioned his relationship with the Revolution. I think there’s something paradoxical about it. He’d declare things like “I am the Revolution”, and the Napoleonic Code did enshrine revolutionary principles like civic equality into law. But didn’t he also curtail the rights of women and reinstate slavery in the Caribbean sugar colonies? Some would argue that the main constitution itself was structurally undemocratic, with an unelected senate, even if it was put to the people in a plebiscite.

The Code Napoleon was not good for women , but then they were hardly over-endowed with rights before the Revolution. He went on to abolish slavery , of course, not once but twice. He did reinstitute it in 1802, but abolished it again in 1814. So, he had an in-out/in-out policy with slavery. When I say a ‘moderniser’, I mean a moderniser in the context of the times, not a moderniser in the context of Tony Blair.

Joining the dots between the French Revolution and Napoleon’s ascendency, how did France go from establishing a Republic and executing their king to welcoming an emperor barely a decade later?

I think his military successes first in Italy in 1796 and also in 1800 as well as his creation of the civil code were essential to understanding how they able to recognise that he wasn’t a king . Being an emperor and being a king were very different things. They were perfectly happy to have an empire, which they saw as being based on republican principles, with a Napoleon rather than Bourbon at the top of the tree.

So, there wasn’t any lingering republican resistance?

No, there was—especially in the army. The French army was considered to be highly republican. There was resistance from people like Marshal Bernadotte to Napoleon calling himself an emperor in December 1804. But it was not unpopular in the rest of the country.

I really enjoyed your own biography of Napoleon , which was awarded the Grand Prix of the Fondation Napoléon. It’s an excellent read and continues to be an international bestseller in both UK and US editions. It was also one of the first books to build upon the publication of some 33,000 of Napoleon’s letters. I’m curious to know what you found to be the most striking revelations from them. Did they overturn any major myths?

There are still dozens of myths and misconceptions about Napoleon. But what I came across most powerfully among the letters was his capacity for compartmentalising his mind. He could completely ignore what was happening at the time, even during or after battles or when the Kremlin was burning, and concentrate on running parts of his empire, or on setting up the rules of a girls’ school, or on telling a prefect that he shouldn’t be seen at the opera with his mistress. He had this incredible capacity for, as he put it, pulling out a drawer in his mind, dealing with whatever was in it, and then closing it again.

If we’re talking about myths, I suppose the main one to get out of the way is his height!

Yes, he was the average height of a Frenchman of the day. He was not small. The way in which he was portrayed by Gillray and Rowlandson and the other British caricaturists of the day was to make him look small for political reasons. He was precisely my height, actually; he was five feet, six inches. The French inch is ever so slightly different from the English inch, which was another reason why he was thought to be small. But when his corpse was measured by however many doctors there were, it was recognised that he was a perfectly normal, average height.

Your first book choice is The Campaigns of Napoleon by David Chandler. Can you tell us about this one and why you’ve recommended it?

It’s a totally comprehensive history of all of Napoleon’s campaigns. Chandler wrote it, I think, in the late 60s, and yet it still holds up very well as an overall history of Napoleon’s fighting. Perfectly understandably, it doesn’t include everything else about Napoleon—the politics, the personality, the 27 mistresses and all the rest of it—nor is it intending to do that. It’s just doing the military side of it all. But it is an absolutely encyclopaedic run-through of all of Napoleon’s battles.

So, this is a must-have for military history buffs?

It is indeed. David Chandler reissued it several times and updated it with the latest thought on Napoleon’s battles. If there was something new said on the Battle of Austerlitz or something like that, he would then reissue the book with that new information in it. So, you want to buy the last iteration of it before David died.

Napoleon is often labelled a “military genius”. Notwithstanding his ultimate defeat, what is the best way to support that judgement?

I think the fact that he was able to fight so many different kinds of battles. The reason that he’s a genius is that he managed to win battles whether he outnumbered the enemy or was outnumbered by the enemy, whether he was moving forwards or backwards, whether or not he was having his right or left flank enveloped, or whether he was enveloping the enemies. Or sometimes he could do a double-envelopment, which is one of the most difficult manoeuvres in warfare. He managed to pull that off.

“It is an absolutely encyclopaedic run through of all of Napoleon’s battles”

Napoleon had equal dexterity when it came to commanding infantry, cavalry, and artillery, even though he was himself educated as an artilleryman. He’s also extremely good in coalition warfare—in striking at the hinge between his enemies but also keeping his own coalitions in order. His invasion of Russia involved something like 20 countries. You have, therefore, a commander who is incredibly dextrous and capable of adapting to whatever military circumstance he’s facing.

In terms of his military weaknesses, we undoubtedly have naval warfare, but he also had difficulty with guerrilla insurgencies in the Peninsular War.

That’s right and, of course, the guerrilla insurgencies in the Russian campaign as well. He was no good at sea. At all. He just didn’t understand how ships worked. That was a huge lacuna in his capacity and his knowledge. As is what we now call “asymmetrical warfare”, where the enemy doesn’t actually put up an army in the field.

Would you say Napoleon was deluded about his own naval capabilities?

Yes. He didn’t recognise that he was rubbish at sea at all. He thought that you could tell an admiral to do things at sea in much the same way that you could tell a general to do things on land. But, of course, the whole process is very very different—not least because of the wind!

There were various points in your book where Napoleon is still trying to fund naval expansion and is putting men out in ships for warfare despite them never having been at sea before.

That’s right. To give him his due, though, he was up against the Royal Navy which was at the peak of its efficiency. Britain was putting one third of its national spend into the navy. With admirals like the Earl of St Vincent and Collingwood and obviously Nelson, they had endless extremely talented admirals and an extremely can-do attitude towards maritime fighting in the period of fighting sail. Napoleon was really up against an absolutely superb organisation in the Royal Navy. One has to give him his due, but there are no Napoleonic naval victories.

The Napoleonic Wars are very complex and involve coalitions taking on Napoleon at different points. How much can we say with generality about what provoked them?

Here was somebody who was a profoundly radical force that each of these legitimist monarchies like the Hapsburgs of Austria and the Romanovs of Russia and the Hohenzollerns of Prussia were extremely nervous about. They saw what had happened to the Bourbons in France, and they didn’t want it to happen at home. So, this cold wind of modernisation that Napoleon unleashed on Europe was something that they were very keen to try to . . . whatever you do to a wind. That’s the reason.

So, he has inherited international hostility already because of the Revolution?

That’s right, yes. But also, they didn’t see him as a legitimate monarch. There were no ‘Bonapartes’ before him. His statement that he wanted to be the Rudolf of his dynasty, i.e. the founding father like Rudolf Hapsburg had been, was seen to be impossibly pretentious—not least because Rudolf came from the 13th century and they were in the 18th century.

There are two cases of Napoleon launching an offensive war. The rest of the time, people are declaring war on him. So, would you say this image of Napoleon stomping across Europe, declaring war on everybody, annexing their territory and so on, is completely wrong?

Yes, completely wrong. He started the Peninsular War and he started the 1812 Russian campaign. Other than that, each of the wars was started by the coalitions against him.

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And the cases where Napoleon does initiate a war seem largely to do with enforcing the ‘Continental System’—his attempt to weaken Britain economically by blocking trade—rather than building an empire for empire’s sake.

Precisely, yes. He didn’t believe in empire for empire’s sake; he recognised that he could overstretch French resources very dangerously and very easily. But he did want to try to force England to the negotiating table. The way he thought he could do that was to hit us in our pocket and try to cut us off from all European markets.

That’s why he invaded Portugal, which was unwilling to take part in the Continental System—being a very old ally of England’s, going back to 1383—and it’s also why, ultimately, he invaded Russia after the tsar ripped up the Tilsit agreement and started trading openly with Britain. It’s a fascinating thing that, as you say, the two aggressive wars that Napoleon started began for mercantile protectionist reasons. It was to try to force the merchants of London to put pressure on the Whig and Tory governments to make peace with him.

But the problem with enforcing this policy of economic strangulation against the Brits was their sea power.

Exactly. When you can land anywhere at all, when you can set up various places off the coast of Italy and off the coast of Germany which are effectively massive freebooting piracy operations of free-trade in everything, it’s just something that is not going to work. His attempt to stimulate local production and an industrial revolution in France was also something that never truly got off the ground.

Britain and France are continuously at war from 1803 onwards until Napoleon’s defeat at Waterloo in 1815, a period of war unmatched in any of the other coalitions. What do you think is the main motivation for why the Brits are so uncompromising?

That’s right. They had been at war since 1793; it was only the Peace of Amiens in 1802–1803 that interrupted that very long period from 1793–1815. And it’s the same reason that we’ve fought against Philip II of Spain or Louis XIV of France before, and then after that with the Kaiser and Hitler. You can’t have the European balance of power so badly hegemonized by one power that they’re able to control the channel ports, because that’s a constant invasion threat to us.

Let’s move on to your next book. This is Duff Cooper’s biography of the diplomat Talleyrand, whose political life encompasses the rise and fall of Napoleon and beyond.

Talleyrand had a totally extraordinary political life. He supported six different separate regimes in his career and, naturally, got a reputation for being a turncoat. Some people have argued, including Duff Cooper in this brilliant biography, that he did have some central messages that he believed all his life—like liberalism and an affection for the English-style constitution. But the key reason to read this book is that it’s literature as much as history. It’s a beautifully written evocation of an era that Duff Cooper, having been British ambassador to Paris, knew well and actually saw the last glimmers of.

It’s incredible that Talleyrand flees the Reign of Terror, goes to England and then to America, returns to France in 1796 and manages to become foreign minister within a year.

And stays foreign minister or in the diplomatic sphere in some way or another for the rest of his life. He thereby met almost all the important people in Europe and was at the table when all the great decisions were made. He was born an aristocrat and was later an unfrocked bishop. He had a lame foot rather like Byron and Goebbels which apparently turns you into a sex maniac; he turned his niece into his mistress which I think today would have him defenestrated but, nonetheless, no one seemed to hold that against him either.

What does the book tell us about the relation between Talleyrand and Napoleon? What are the main ways we can trace his influence on Napoleon as foreign minister or vice-elector?

It tells us that it was always rocky. Napoleon, quite rightly, didn’t trust him. Talleyrand was working especially with the Russians behind Napoleon’s back. Despite being extremely witty and obviously wonderful company, he was a dangerous person to have working for you. Talleyrand generally thought that France should be at peace and, of course, that’s very difficult when you’re the foreign minister of a conqueror.

I don’t see that you can call Napoleon a warmonger given that, as we’ve said, of the seven wars of the coalitions he only started two. But I think there was a legitimist jihad against him and against the French Revolution. And he had to fight those. But, overall, Talleyrand was someone who, as a good negotiator and a diplomat, wanted peace.

And was willing to betray Napoleon’s military secrets in the process?

He was willing to betray absolutely everybody in the process. It wasn’t just Napoleon; he betrayed five different regimes in the course of his life. I’m certain that had he lived any longer, he would have betrayed the July Monarchy as well.

It’s surprising that when Napoleon found out Talleyrand was selling military secrets to his enemies, he didn’t exile or execute him.

This is another reason to recognise that Napoleon is not a proto-Hitler in the way he’s been portrayed by many British historians. If he were a proto-Hitler, he would have shot Talleyrand and Fouché (his police minister) years before. Napoleon was a dictator politically, in that he dictated the laws of France and what happened. But I don’t think he has anything in common with the 20th-century dictators like Lenin, Mussolini, Hitler , and Stalin.

But what about atrocities like executing thousands of prisoners of war in Jaffa, for instance?

When you say “for instance”, that implies that there were 20 or 30 Jaffas but there weren’t. There’s one at Jaffa and then, after that, in 1796 in Padua, Italy, he also let the troops run riot. But other than that, there just aren’t the mass executions. There aren’t the 40,000 people who died during the Reign of Terror, for example.

“Napoleon was a dictator politically in that he dictated the laws of France and what happened. But I don’t think he has anything in common with the 20th-century dictators”

I go into Jaffa in some detail in my book about how the men who he executed had earlier promised to fight against France. And then, six weeks later, they were captured fighting against France. According to the very harsh rules of law in the late eighteenth century, they forfeited their lives.

There’s a stereotype about Napoleon being indifferent to the immense human cost incurred by trying to establish French hegemony in Europe. Do you think this is misguided?

Yes, I think it’s hugely misguided. I think that commanders throughout history have had to harden their hearts to the inevitable losses made, but I don’t think he ever threw men into battle willy-nilly. He was one of the great commanders in history and one of the great soldiers of all time. Great soldiers don’t do that. And he was personally affected. There are times when he’s in tears in his tent after a battle, in the same way that Wellington was.

The idea of him being some cold-hearted unemotional figure profoundly misunderstands him, as does the idea of him being humourless. Throughout my book, there are something like 80 or 90 Napoleon jokes. He was constantly making humorous remarks that even 200 years later remain extremely funny.

I enjoyed the one where, in the midst of battle, an officer has his helmet thrown off by the impact of a cannonball, only for Napoleon to casually remark “It’s a good job you’re not any taller.”

That’s very good. There’s also the one with the cardinal archbishop of Paris who writes this oleaginous letter to him before the coronation. Napoleon makes a note on a piece of paper which says “please pay 12,000 francs to the archbishop out of the theatrical fund.”

Let’s move on to your third book. This is With Eagles to Glory: Napoleon and His German Allies in the 1809 Campaign by John H. Gill.

This is a tremendously detailed military history of the Danube campaign of 1809. This was a very important campaign because it knocked the Austrians out of the Napoleonic Wars for the third time. The only way for them to deal with Napoleon after that was for the archduchess Marie-Louise to marry Napoleon and try to bring him into the system like that. He fought a lightning campaign up the Danube, capturing Vienna, fighting battles such as Aspern-Essling and Wagram. This is Napoleon at his classic best. You can see him in this book just outmaneuvering the Austrian army again and again.

One of the distinctive things about this book is that it drew a lot of attention to the 30,000 German troops fighting on behalf of Napoleon.

Yes, this book is an important corrective to the idea that Napoleon’s forces were all French. They certainly weren’t. When Napoleon invaded Russia, only something like 55% of his army were French. He invaded Russia with 615,000 men which was the same size as Paris at the time. It’s very important to see the Napoleonic Wars as coalition wars, both on his side and against him. The book does lots of other things as well, but it certainly underlines that very important factor about Napoleon’s wars.

These soldiers were all supplied from the Confederation of the Rhine. Can you tell us about that and when it was established?

It was established at the time of the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in August 1806. After the Holy Roman Empire vaporised out of existence, it became Napoleon’s tool—his vehicle—for bringing together the north German states. He called himself the “Protector” of the Confederation. They stayed as such for nine years or so before it itself collapsed at the time of the 1813 campaign. The battles of Leipzig and Dresden were pretty much the death-knell for the Confederation of the Rhine.

I want to ask about military culture and attitudes towards Napoleon among soldiers from the client states. Presumably the German troops didn’t have the same patriotic fervour motivating them as French soldiers, but they weren’t indifferent either.

There’s a huge difference. Some of them some of the time are just as enthusiastic about Napoleon as the French. The Polish lancers, for example, believed that Napoleon was going to make Poland an independent state and give it its own sovereignty for the first time since it had been sliced up in the partitions. And so, they were incredibly excited about fighting for Napoleon. In fact, Napoleon is the only individual named in the Polish national anthem. That’s a good one for a pub quiz!

Whereas others, like the Westphalians and certainly the people who came from Hannover, whose actual legal head of state was George III, were an awfully lot less excited about being effectively pressganged into fighting for a foreign leader. So, you have this huge difference between people. And, of course, as well as changing from country to country, it changed from year to year and unit to unit. What Gill does very well in this book is to investigate that. 30,000 men is no small number.

Your last two books are written by people who had great proximity to Napoleon. Let’s look at Private Memoirs Of The Court Of Napoleon by Louis François Joseph Bausset-Roquefort. This seems a fairly unknown book.

Yes, it’s a very little-known book but an extremely interesting one. Bausset was Napoleon’s palace chamberlain who followed him around the campaigns and lived in his palaces. He knew the family very well indeed and wrote these memoirs even though it was dangerous to do that once the Bourbons had been restored. He was still an admirer of Napoleon and is the living personification of the untruth of the epithet that “no man is a hero to his valet.”

Bausset definitely did admire Napoleon—not blind hero-worship by any means, but he was somebody who saw Napoleon for what he was. This book explodes many of the myths about Napoleon being a vicious and unpleasant individual. Instead, he comes across as a good employer, a witty man, and someone who had normal human emotions.

I suppose it says a lot about a person when all of your personal servants are begging to go into exile with you.

Well, exactly. And not just any old exile. One could understand why they might have wanted to go to Elba, which is a perfectly nice, warm, pleasant place. One would go on holiday to Elba, but nobody would go on holiday to Saint Helena. This is a windswept, godforsaken, tiny, eight-by-ten-mile island plopped bang in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. It takes six days by boat to get there from Cape Town, or at least it did before the airport came in. And a very boring journey it is too, I can tell you. And these 21 servants were basically fighting each other for the right to accompany into exile. It shows the charisma of the man.

You mentioned that Bausset goes with him on the campaigns, but what do we find out about Napoleon in a more domestic setting?

That he was a kind husband and a loving father. He was not the domestic monster that the Bourbon literature has been so keen to present him as; many books, I’m afraid, have taken it for granted to be true.

There are some quite eccentric arrangements in Napoleon’s imperial household as well. I’m thinking of his first wife Josephine’s menagerie.

Yes, having orangutans around at lunchtime, zebras in the fields, and black swans at Malmaison. That was her idea, of course, but he indulged it and paid for it. But having exotic animals at that time was very much a royal pursuit and it had been for years. I think Cosimo III de’ Medici had a hippopotamus or something along those lines. It was a way of proving your wealth and status to have unusual animals around. Josephine did actually dress the orangutan in a chemise and have it come to tea parties.

You mentioned that this was to flaunt wealth and status. Was that a slightly sore thing to do considering the tensions building up to the Revolution?

Napoleon saw it as part and parcel with being an emperor. He wanted to present a glorious image to the people, although, when it came to his domestic interests, he wasn’t flamboyant at all. He’d wear a colonel’s uniform most days and didn’t like to spend more than half an hour at lunch or dinner, which was very unusual for a French monarch. He was pretty ascetic; he never got drunk. He wasn’t constantly wearing those clothes that you see in the coronation painting by Ingres.

Let’s go on to your final choice. This is the Memoirs of General de Caulaincourt, Duke of Vicenza.

These are fascinating. Caulaincourt was the ambassador to Russia and was also Napoleon’s master of the horse. He was an aristocrat, born and bred. At least according to his memoirs, he was the person who informed Napoleon not to invade Russia. The memoirs were only published in 1935, and there’s no reason why he should have lied in them, owing to the fact that they were never going to be published in his lifetime.

Once he had warned Napoleon, he came with him and was the only person on the sledge that accompanied Napoleon back to France from the catastrophe of the 1812 campaign. It’s in his sledge that we get Napoleon saying “from the sublime to the ridiculous is just one small step.” The memoirs are immensely well-written, encapsulating and pretty crushing for Napoleon’s reputation with regard to the 1812 campaign.

So, it’s not a panegyric?

Not in the slightest. But equally it’s not a denunciation. Caulaincourt stayed with Napoleon up until the 1814 abdication and is a trustworthy source. He’s not anti-Napoleon. It seems that he kept scraps of paper that he used as his notes for this book. It’s a pretty fabulous and invaluable source for the period.

The Russia campaign is regarded as one of the worst defeats in military history. Can you give an outline of the factors that made it so catastrophic?

Napoleon went into Russia on June 21, 1812 with 615,000 men, and by the time he crossed the river Niemen back in the other direction in December, he had lost over half a million of those men. In that sense, you have to go back to the ancient world to see such an enormous military catastrophe.

“Napoleon went into Russia on 21 June 1812 with 615,000 men. By the time he crossed the river Niemen back in the other direction in December, he had lost over half a million of those men”

In a nutshell, the reason was that he was drawn further and further into Russia. He captured Moscow, something that Hitler never did, but he stayed there too long. He won a battle called Maloyaroslavets and decided the next day to retreat back via Borodino, which was a big battle that he’d won on 7 September. It turned out to be the wrong route back and his army was encompassed by blizzards. Although he won each of the formal engagements, the army was swallowed up by the snows of Russia. It’s a story of cannibalism and utter despair and disaster, with a few flashes of redemption such as the crossing of the Berezina river. Otherwise, it’s up there with Xenophon.

We’ve mentioned it already, but it’s important to keep in mind that Napoleon wasn’t marching on Russia to try and annex it. He was trying to force Russia’s compliance with the Continental System.

Yes, he had no territorial desires. He had an army twice the size of the Russian one, and had defeated the Russians twice before. Napoleon only intended to fight on the outskirts; he only intended to go in 50 miles or so and wanted a three-week campaign. Instead, it turned out to be a six-month campaign and carried on for literally thousands of miles there and back. It’s a classic example of mission creep.

The Russians also pursued a scorched earth policy, rather like they did in 1941 and 1942, which meant that there was mass starvation. Napoleon lost 100,000 of the troops of his central thrust to typhus—a horrible disease where a louse will bury itself into your skin and then defecate in your skin and then die. You then die about four days later in immense pain. It’s a horrible way to go.

With armies in those days, everyone had lice. If the weather’s too cold for you to change your clothes more than once every six weeks or so, then you’re going to get lice. The soldiers all huddled together, very close to one another, because it was so cold outside. So, their lice jumped from one soldier to another. There wasn’t a single person, including the emperor, who didn’t have lice. They didn’t work out a cure for typhus until 1911; it wasn’t properly diagnosed until over a century later. It was, in every way, an absolute nightmare of a campaign.

It’s largely remembered for the merciless winter, but the immense heat of the summer advance was almost as damaging.

That killed a lot of horses. And, of course, it’s almost entirely a horse-and-bullock-drawn invasion. The heat and the thirst were appalling on the way into Russia, yes. It was biblical.

There are three more years before Waterloo in 1815 but, in your view, was the Russian campaign the turning point?

Yes. Up until 1811, Napoleon was the master of Europe. From December 1812 onwards, he was on the skids. You can’t lose half a million men and not expect your throne to topple.

But he went out fighting.

He did. The 1814 campaign involved small numbers of men but, nonetheless, he won four battles in five days there. He was back to his old form. These were significant, rather brilliant military victories. But, in the end, with the whole of Europe against him and invading, he was fought to a standstill and then very comprehensively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo.

Just to end, what do you consider to be Napoleon’s greatest achievements that have endured?

I think the beauty of Paris is very largely down to him. He rebuilt Paris. We love going and taking our loved ones there and crossing the four bridges that he built and seeing the fountains and great buildings like the Madeleine Church. That’s a testament to him. He designed the Arc de Triomphe , but it was only built after his death. Although as an Englishman I prefer English common law, nonetheless the whole of French and European law is much more closely built on the Napoleonic Code than anything that had gone before, including Roman law. Napoleon is someone who every Frenchman should be proud of. Other things like the Légion d’honneur and the Conseil d’État are still around. In fact, the numbering of its houses in its streets from the Seine outwards is all down to him. There are also the reservoirs. Even 200 years after his death, it’s difficult to imagine Paris or France without the influence of Napoleon Bonaparte.

October 28, 2019

Five Books aims to keep its book recommendations and interviews up to date. If you are the interviewee and would like to update your choice of books (or even just what you say about them) please email us at [email protected]

Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts

Andrew Roberts is a British historian and journalist. He is a Visiting Professor at the Department of War Studies, King's College London, a Roger and Martha Mertz Visiting Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and a Lehrman Institute Distinguished Lecturer at the New York Historical Society. He has written or edited nineteen books—including internationally bestselling biographies of Napoleon Bonaparte and Winston Churchill—which have been translated into 23 languages.

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Napoleon: A Life

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Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte, also known as Napoleon I, was a French general and emperor who conquered large parts of Europe in the 19th century. 

Famed for his tactical brilliance and quick thinking in desperate situations, he went down in European history as one of the foremost military strategists of the time.

This article will be of immense use for candidates preparing for the Civil Services examination .

Some important world history-related articles are linked below:

Early Life of Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica, an island located on the Mediterranean Coast, on August 15, 1768,  to Carlo Bonaparte and Letizia Romalino Bonaparte. Despite being part of the Corsican nobility, Napoleon’s family were of modest means. 

Napoleon did his schooling in mainland France, graduating from the military academy in 1785. He was commissioned as a second lieutenant of an artillery detachment in the French Army. He was on leave when the French Revolution broke out in 1789, during which he became involved with the Corsican branch  of the Jacobins , one of many pro-democratic parties in France at the time. At the time, the Bonaparte family had gotten into a dispute for their pro-democratic leanings with the monarchy supporting the governor of Corsica. The result was them fleeing Corsica for mainland France in 1793, where Napoleon returned to active military duty

Napoleon came into contact with Augustine Robespierre, the brother of the infamous Maximilien Robespierre. Maximilien Robespierre would herald the Reign of Terror, a period of anarchy marked by violence against and execution of those considered the enemies of the French revolution .

But when the Robespierre brothers fell from power and were guillotined in July 1794, Napoleon was placed under house arrest for a brief period of time due to his association with them. In 1795, he suppressed a monarchy-backed uprising against the revolutionary government, being promoted to a major general as a result.

Rise of Napoleon Bonaparte

The French government was fighting against other European monarchies since 1792. In a series of battles taking place in Italy during 1796, Napoleon led a French army to victory over the much better equipped and larger armies of Austria. The Treaty of Campo Formio signed between France and Austria led to territorial gains for France.

The Directory, a five-member group that governed France since the Reign of Terror ended in 1795, directed Napoleon to lead an invasion of Great Britain. Knowing the French Navy was inadequate to deal with the far more superior British Royal Navy, Napoleon instead proposed an expedition to Egypt, then a British Protectorate. Taking Egypt from the British would effectively cut them off from their vital trade with India, causing widespread economic hardship on the British Isle. Landing in Egypt in 1798, the French army won the Battle of the Pyramids in June of that year.

But during the Battle of the Nile in August, the French Navy was nearly wiped out following the engagement with the British Navy. Later, Napoleon would launch an invasion of Syria in 1798. Syria was then a province of the Ottoman Empire. This campaign would be a failure as well.

With the political situation in France deteriorating, Napoleon decided to return to France. He then became part of the group that overthrew the Directory in 1799.

Now a three-member group called the Consulate ruled France with Napoleon becoming first consul, a position consolidated by his victory over Austria at the Battle of Marengo in June 1800.

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UPSC 2023

Napoleon I, Emperor of France

A constitutional amendment made in 1802 made Napoleon first consul for life. In 1804, he crowned himself, emperor of France, during a lavish ceremony at the Cathedral of Notre Dame

Seeking to restore stability in post-revolutionary France, he centralized the government by introducing reforms in banking and education, supporting science and art. His most significant accomplishment was the creation of the Napoleonic Code, which transformed the French legal system and continues to be the be basis of the legal system in France and most of Western Europe to this day.

The Napoleonic Wars broke out in 1803, lasting until 1815. It was a series of conflicts between the French Empire and a coalition of European nations.

On October 1805, the French fleet was annihilated during the battle of Trafalgar, nullifying the threat of invasion of the British Isles. The Battle of Austerlitz in December of that year, however, solidified his reputation as one of the greatest generals in European History.  A combined army of Austrians and Russians was defeated by the French and the termination of the Holy  Roman Empire that resulted would be a catalyst for the unification of Germany in 1871

Seeking to defeat his British rivals through economic means, Napoleon devised the Continental System in 1806, which blockaded Europeans ports from British Trade. Subsequent victories in 1807 and 1809 against the Russians and Austrians resulted in French territorial gains in central and Eastern Europe

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Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte

The Russian withdrawal from the continental system gave Napoleon  casus belli for Napoleon to launch an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. It proved to be a costly mistake as the Russians switched to scorched-earth tactics to deny the French army any hope of preparing for the brutal winter that would follow. By September of that year, both sides had suffered enormous casualties.

The French Army did eventually take Moscow but all they found was an empty city, with its population having evacuated further east. Seeing little point in residing in Moscow, Napoleon retreated back towards the west under constant attack by the Russians. Only 100,000 of the original 600,000 managed to reach the safety of the empire.

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Further setbacks for Napoleon awaited him with the defeat of his armies in Spain. Napoleon’s forces were again defeated in 1813 during the Battle of Leipzig by a coalition force of Austrian, Prussian, Russian and Swedish troops. He was forced to abdicate his throne when the coalition forces captured Paris. He was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Italy while his wife and son were sent to Austria

On February 26, 1815, Napoleon escaped to mainland France, where he was welcomed to Paris by cheering crowds. He began a campaign to reconquer lost French possessions in Europe shortly after. 

The French Army invaded Belgium in 1815 in order to defeat a combined British and Prussian army. In the engagement that followed the Prussians were defeated at Ligny but on June 18, at the Battle of Waterloo, the  French were crushed by the British through Prussian support. The battle permanently ended Napoleon’s threat to Europe.

In June 1815, Napoleon was dethroned once again.

Napoleon Bonaparte: UPSC Notes – Download PDF Here

Final years of Napoleon Bonaparte

In October 1815, Napoleon was exiled to Saint Helena, a remote island in the South Atlantic Ocean. He passed away while there on May 5, 1821. He was 51 at the time. The likely cause of his demise is said to be stomach cancer, although it was speculated with no sufficient evidence that he was poisoned. Although his last wish was to be buried on the banks of the Seine, he was buried on the island. In 1840 his remains were returned to France and given a state funeral. 

Frequently Asked Questions  about Napoleon Bonaparte

Why is napoleon famous, who defeated napoleon.

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Was Napoleon Bonaparte Really Short?

Napoleon's Height Revealed

Claude Gautherot / Leemage / Getty Images

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Napoleon Bonaparte (1769–1821) is chiefly remembered for two things in the English-speaking world: being a conqueror of no small ability and being short. He still inspires devotion and hatred for winning a series of titanic battles, expanding an empire across much of Europe , and then destroying it all as a result of a failed invasion of Russia . A magnificent disrupter, he continued the reforms of the French Revolution (arguably not in the spirit of the revolution) and established a model of government that remains in some countries to this day. But for better or worse, the most famous thing most people believe about him is still that he was short.

Was Napoleon Really Unusually Short?

It turns out that Napoleon wasn't particularly short at all. Napoleon is sometimes described as being 5 foot 2 inches tall, which would definitely make him short for his era. However, there is a strong argument that this figure is wrong and that Napoleon was actually about 5 foot 6 inches tall, no shorter than the average Frenchman.   

Napoleon's height has been the subject of many psychological profiles. He’s sometimes cited as the chief example of "short man syndrome," also known as a "Napoleon complex," whereby short men act more aggressively than their larger counterparts to make up for their lack of height.   Certainly, there are few people more aggressive than a man who defeated his rivals time after time across almost an entire continent and only stopped when dragged to a very small, far away island. But if Napoleon was of average height, the easy psychology doesn't work for him.

English or French Measurements?

Why is there such a discrepancy in historic descriptions of Napoleon's height? As he was one of the most famous men of his era, it would seem reasonable to assume that his contemporaries knew how tall he was. But the problem may have been due to a difference in measurements between the English and French-speaking worlds.

The French inch was actually longer than the British inch, leading to any height sounding shorter to the English speaking world. In 1802 Napoleon's doctor Jean-Nicolas Corvisart-Desmarets (1755–1821) said Napoleon was "5 foot 2 inches by the French measure," which equates to about 5 foot 6 in British measurements.   Intriguingly, in the same statement, Corvisart said that Napoleon was of short stature, so it may be that people already assumed Napoleon was small by 1802, or that people assumed the average Frenchmen was much taller.

The Autopsy

Matters are confused by the autopsy, which was carried out by Napoleon’s doctor (he had numerous doctors), Frenchman François Carlo Antommarchi (1780–1838), who gave 5 foot 2 as his height.   But was the autopsy, which was signed off by a number of British doctors and in a British owned area, in British or French measures? We don’t know for sure, with some people adamant the height was in British units and others French. When other sources are factored in, including another measurement after the autopsy in British measurements, people generally conclude with the height of 5 foot 5–7 inches British, or 5 foot 2 in French, but there is still some doubt.  

"Le Petit Caporal" and Larger Bodyguards

If Napoleon's lack of height is a myth, it may have been perpetuated by Napoleon’s army, because the emperor was often surrounded by much larger bodyguards and soldiers, giving the impression of him being smaller. This was especially true of the Imperial Guard units which had height requirements, leading to them all being taller than him. Napoleon was even named the " le petit caporal,"  often translated as "little corporal," even though it was a term of affection rather than a description of his height, further leading to people assuming he was short. The idea was certainly perpetuated by the propaganda of his enemies, who portrayed him as short as a way of attacking and undermining him.

Additional References

  • Corso, Philip F., and Thomas Hindmarsh. "Correspondence RE: Napoleon's Autopsy: New Perspectives." Human Pathology 36.8 (2005): 936.
  • Jones, Proctor Patterson. "Napoleon: An Intimate Account of the Years of Supremacy 1800–1814." New York: Random House, 1992. 

Cherian, Alisha. “It Turns out That Napolean May Not Have Been Short After All.”   What's Up , May 2014. National Library Board.

Knapen, Jill, et al. “ The Napoleon Complex: When Shorter Men Take More. ”  Psychological Science , vol. 29, no. 7, 10 May 2018, doi:10.1177/0956797618772822

Holmberg, Tom. “First-Hand Descriptions of Napoleon.”   Research Subjects: Napoleon Himself , The Napoleon Series , July 2002.

Lugli, Alessandro, et al. “ Napoleon’s Autopsy: New Perspectives. ”  Human Pathology , vol. 36, no. 4, pp. 320–324., Apr. 2005, doi:10.1016/j.humpath.2005.02.001

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Was Napoleon Short? Origins of the &#8216;Napoleon Complex’

By: Una McIlvenna

Updated: July 25, 2023 | Original: November 13, 2019

Napoleon Bonaparte Painting

One of the world’s most instantly recognizable cultural icons, Napoleon  Bonaparte is usually depicted with one hand in his waistcoat—and short and aggressive. His supposedly small stature and fiery temper has inspired the term the Napoleon Complex, a popular belief that short men tend to compensate for their lack of height through domineering behavior and aggression.

But was Napoleon really short?

In fact, he was probably of average height. According to pre–metric system French measures, he was a diminutive 5′2.” But the French inch ( pouce ) of the time was 2.7 cm, while the Imperial inch was shorter, at 2.54 cm. Three French sources—his valet Constant, General Gourgaud, and his personal physician Francesco Antommarchi—said that Napoleon's height was just over ‘ 5 pieds 2 pouces ’ (5’2”). Applying the French measurements of the time, that equals around 1.67 meters, or just under 5’6”, which is a little above average for a French man in the early 1800s .

British Cartoonist James Gillray's Famous Depictions

So if Napoleon was of average height, where does the legend of his small stature come from? It was, in fact, largely the work of one man: the British cartoonist James Gillray (1756-1815). Gillray’s caricatural depictions of the French general were so popular and influential that at the end of his life Napoleon said that Gillray “did more than all the armies of Europe to bring me down.”

From the start, Gillray satirized Napoleon as a thundering, boastful character, if not necessarily short. In 1798, the English Admiral Horatio Nelson destroyed the French Fleet at the Battle of the Nile. In Gillray’s cartoon, “Buonaparte hearing of Nelson’s Victory swears by his Sword to Extirpate the English from off the Earth,” Napoleon brandishes a bloody sword and boasts of the many military victories he has already carried off—so many that the speech bubble threatens to overwhelm the image. But in this image, he is more muscular than small. It was a later cartoon that ushered in the diminutive image we are so familiar with today.

Gillray’s cartoon “Maniac-raving's-or-Little Boney in a strong fit” (1803) was a satire of a genuine diplomatic incident that had occurred on March 14, 1803, at the Tuileries palace in Paris. In front of hundreds of European dignitaries, Napoleon vented his rage at Lord Whitworth, the British ambassador:

“On the appearance of Lord Whitworth in the circle, he approached him with equal agitation and ferocity, proceeded to descant, in the bitterest terms, on the conduct of the English Government—summoned the Ministers of some of the Foreign Courts to be witnesses to this vituperative harangue—and concluded by expressions of the most angry and menacing hostility….this brutal and ungentlemanly attack… terminated by the First Consul [Napoleon] retiring to his apartments, repeating his last phrases, till he had shut himself in; leaving nearly two hundred spectators of this wanton display of arrogant impropriety, in amazement and consternation.”

Gillray’s cartoon depicts a tiny Napoleon wearing boots that dwarf him, tearing his hair out in rage. He is surrounded by overturned furniture that is as big as he is, with speech bubbles swirling around him filled with manic raging thoughts about Britain. The name “Little Boney” would stick, and Gillray from that point on continually depicted the French Emperor as diminutive, raging and boastful—like a child throwing a temper tantrum.

Napoleon cartoon by James Gillray

Described as “probably the most famous political cartoon of all time,” Gillray’s 1805 cartoon, “The Plumb-pudding in danger, or, State epicures taking un petit souper , ” shows the British Prime Minister William Pitt the Younger and Napoleon carving up the world into spheres of influence. Napoleon is drawn as half the size of his British counterpart, having to stand up to be able to use his carving knife, which is actually a sword. While Pitt’s share of the globe is much bigger than Napoleon’s, it is telling that Napoleon easily takes all of Europe (except Britain and Ireland).

Fear of French Conquest

British anxieties over Napoleon’s breakneck conquest of continental Europe and his evident intent to install relatives and favorites in positions of power were manifest in Gillray’s 1806 cartoon, “Tiddy-Doll, the Great French-Gingerbread-Baker; Drawing Out a New Batch of Kings.” It portrays Napoleon as a baker, whipping up gingerbread monarchs while his assistant, French Foreign Minister Talleyrand kneads up Poland, Hungary and Turkey.

While the name “Tiddy-Doll” referred to Tiddy-Dol Ford, a famous London gingerbread street hawker, the depiction of Napoleon a small, doll-like figure could only heap ridicule on him, despite the fears of his seemingly unstoppable power that the cartoon clearly responds to.

And it worked. Shortly after these cartoons appeared, Napoleon sent a flurry of diplomatic notes across the English Channel demanding that the British government censor its press. Needless to say, British ministers ignored him.

a short biography on napoleon bonaparte

Gillray’s image of Napoleon as a small man was so popular that other cartoonists took it up. An anonymous 1811 cartoon, “Bony's visions or a great little man's night comforts,” shows Napoleon having night terrors as the cracks in his empire had begun to show. Among the many fearful figures swirling around him, a demon holds up a placard inscribed with the horrors of political satire, among which “Gilray's Caricatures” is listed.

The enduring influence of Gillray’s satire that reduced the once-inexorable and mighty general Napoleon Buonaparte to a tiny, raving figure shows how mockery can be a powerful weapon against the powerful. 

a short biography on napoleon bonaparte

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Explore the extraordinary life and times of Napoleon Bonaparte, the great military genius who took France to unprecedented heights of power, and then brought it to its knees when his ego spun out of control.

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One of the biggest Apple TV Plus movie events of the year finally has a streaming date — Ridley Scott's epic Napoleon arrives on March 1

Watch this war epic at home.

Napoleon

After months of waiting, one of Apple TV Plus’ biggest movies of the year is finally launching on the streaming service, and there’s not long left to wait. 

Napoleon will be coming to Apple TV Plus on March 1, 2024, after its theatrical run last November. For that, Napoleon managed to get nominated for three Academy Awards and received four BAFTA nominations. Directed by Ridley Scott, well-known for films including Alien, Blade Runner, and Gladiator, Napoleon is a huge epic spanning almost 3 hours. It stars Joaquin Phoenix as the titular commander and Vanessa Kirby as Joséphine Bonaparte. 

Though it is not yet confirmed when this will arrive, Apple TV Plus is also due to receive a four-hour-long cut of Napoleon , with extra scenes and a more robust story. This is one of a handful of the best movies on Apple TV Plus this year, with Martin Scorsese’s Killers of the Flower Moon already on there and Apple Original Argylle anticipated to arrive in the future. 

Is Napoleon good?

Napoleon’s reviews were broadly positive on the first premiere with The Guardian’s Peter Bradshaw giving it five out of five stars. By contrast, The New Yorker’s Anthony Lane liked it less, stating: “If the movie falters, it’s because, as a bio-pic, it cannot do otherwise. Even the most expert of storytellers is defeated by the essential plotlessness of the form: one damn thing after another.”

As well as this, Michael Broers, an Oxford historian who worked on the film spoke to TIME , where he claimed much of the movie is historically inaccurate. This was done to make the movie more watchable for its audience. In that interview, Broers said: “There were some things where Scott had to kind of play fast and loose with chronology, but it made it much easier for viewers to follow.”

On Rotten Tomatoes , Napoleon didn’t fare quite so well, currently sitting at 58%, according to 329 reviews. 

If you’re going into Napoleon looking for a highly accurate account of parts of Napoleon Bonaparte’s life, you will likely be left a little unsatisfied but, if you want a well-told war epic that is performed skillfully by a fantastic cast, Napoleon might just be for you. 

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a short biography on napoleon bonaparte

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    Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821), also known as Napoleon I, was a French military leader and emperor who conquered much of Europe in the early 19th century. Born on the island of Corsica,...

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    French General Napoleon Bonaparte was one of the world's greatest military leaders who became the first emperor of France, from 1804 to 1815. Born on the Mediterranean island of Corsica, he...

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    Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; [1] [b] 15 August 1769 - 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French emperor and military commander who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars.

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    Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) was a Corsican-born French general and politician who reigned as Emperor of the French with the regnal name Napoleon I from 1804 to 1814 and then again briefly in 1815. He established the largest continental European empire since Charlemagne and brought liberal reforms to the lands he conquered at the cost of the destructive Napoleonic Wars (1803-1815).

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    Napoleon Bonaparte, (15 August 1769-5 May 1821) later known as Emperor Napoleon I, was a French military and political leader who is considered one of the most influential figures in European history. "France has more need of me than I have need of France. " - Napoleon

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    Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Corsica, an island located on the Mediterranean Coast, on August 15, 1768, to Carlo Bonaparte and Letizia Romalino Bonaparte. Despite being part of the Corsican nobility, Napoleon's family were of modest means. Napoleon did his schooling in mainland France, graduating from the military academy in 1785.

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    Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) is chiefly remembered for two things in the English-speaking world: being a conqueror of no small ability and being short. He still inspires devotion and hatred for winning a series of titanic battles, expanding an empire across much of Europe, and then destroying it all as a result of a failed invasion of Russia.

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    Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 in France. He revolutionized military organization and training, sponsored Napoleonic Code, reorganized education and est...

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    British Cartoonist James Gillray's Famous Depictions The Rise of Napoleon So if Napoleon was of average height, where does the legend of his small stature come from? It was, in fact, largely...

  24. One of the biggest Apple TV Plus movie events of the year ...

    On Rotten Tomatoes, Napoleon didn't fare quite so well, currently sitting at 58%, according to 329 reviews.. If you're going into Napoleon looking for a highly accurate account of parts of Napoleon Bonaparte's life, you will likely be left a little unsatisfied but, if you want a well-told war epic that is performed skillfully by a fantastic cast, Napoleon might just be for you.