Napoleon Bonaparte

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Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte, the son of Carlo and Letizia Bonaparte, was born in Ajaccio, Corsica on August 15, 1768. In 1779, he was sent to a military school in Paris. He was made fun of by the French there, and gave him the dream of power. Napoleon was waiting for the right time to achieve greater power, and that moment came when the French monarchy was overthrown.
Napoleon’s parents were radicals, and both died soon after he turned 16, therefore leaving him the estate. His first battle was when he directed the artillery siege of Toulon in 1793, and afterwards he was promoted to brigadier general. In 1795, he scattered a group of rioters by firing a grapeshot, a shot gun version of a cannon, into the crowd. Napoleon was then made commander of the Italian army and won four straight battles against the Austrians. In 1797, Austria surrendered to France when Napoleon was just 80 miles from the capitol. When the fight was taken to Egypt, he again won the battle of the pyramids, but lost his fleet of ships in his next fight over the battle of the Nile. He returned home to France to see that the French government was really messed up. "In 1799 he abolished the Directorate and set up a consulate." He was not happy and wanted more power, so he went after the rest of Europe, but had settled with many treaties. Those treaties had put France at peace with all of Europe. Then in 1803, war broke out again in Europe, and Britain allied with the other countries of Europe to fight against France. "Napoleon brought those European countries to their knees and forced them to sign humiliating treaties, and now, Britain was the only country left not under Napoleon’s rule."
One of Napoleon’s few bad campaigns was when he went into Russia, and instead of the Russians just letting the French capture them, they used guerrilla tactics and also the weather, to fight France. Once Napoleon finally defeated the Russians, he went to Moscow, only to see it in flames. The Grand Army, which was originally made up of 500,000 troops, now had a short of supplies and shelter from the harsh winter. Because of that, they had returned to France being known as "One of Napoleon’s worst blunders." Europe noticed that Napoleon was now weak, and they allied against him and came out victorious, and the European’s forced Napoleon the abdicate power on April 6, 1814.

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