The Many Sides of Napoleon Bonaparte The Uncommon Commoner

The world has never seen a man quite like Napoleon Bonaparte, a man of modest height who rose to dominate or threaten the international powers of his age. Napoleon was well suited to his times, a common man with extraordinary ambition. In time, this ambition would be his undoing. But at the height of his power, Napoleon ruled over 70 million people. The last rulers to control as much European territory and people were the Caesars of the Roman Empire more than a thousand years before. Napoleon rose to these heights because of his ability, not because of any royal connections or noble birth. The Outsider

He was born at a time when his island home, Corsica, was a conquered colony of France. The Bonapartes were poor nobles on an even poorer island. He was the third son of Carlo Bonaparte who was Corsica’s representative to the court of Louis XVI at Versailles. Carlo was wowed by the fantastic riches he saw at Versailles. To the loyal Corsican Napoleon, his father’s fascination with court life at Versailles was almost as bad as the poor business decisions Carlo continually made. When Carlo died, Napoleon was just 15, and the Bonaparte family was penniless. Young Napoleon never forgave his father.

Before his death, Carlo did at least one important favor for his son. He secured a spot for the young man at a French military academy. But his time there was terrible. Napoleon had nothing in common with his peers, the sons of French nobles, who viewed him as poor foreigner who spoke French with heavy Italian accent. The

proud Corsican became a loner who resented those around him. In time this resentment became the incredible determination that would make him famous. The French Revolutionary

Then, when he was 20 years, the Revolution began. He distrusted the mobs, but appreciated the changes – the end of privilege for nobles and clergy in the Old Regime and the recognition of Corsica as a full member of French society, not just a royal colony.

As aristocrats (including military officers) fled the country from the Reign

of Terror, opportunities opened up for Napoleon, who rose from captain to brigadier general in just three months.

He wrote an article that supported Maximilien Robespierre. He hated the Terror, but he hated the mob rule that Robespierre was combating even more. Just as his career was stalled, a mob of royal supporters threatened the revolutionary government in Paris. Leaders of the government turned to Napoleon for help, and he answered by using cannon on the royalist mob….never before had riots been silenced with cannon.

This action finally made a name for Napoleon. The Social Ladder Climber

Humorless, untutored, a little creepy in his seriousness (in the eyes of French society), it was at this point that he met Josephine, an aging aristocratic woman who was sinking into debt. She agreed to marry Napoleon in spite of not really loving him. He needed her powerful connections (and was genuinely in love with her) and she needed someone to financially protect her.

The “Little Corporal” and Military Genius

In the early 1790’s European kingdoms such as Austria and Prussia were at war with revolutionary France. These traditional monarchies were fighting to restore order and monarchy while the revolutionaries sought to spread “Liberty, Equality and Fraternity!” and enrich France through invasion. This was the backdrop against which Napoleon built his reputation as military genius.

In 1796 (two days after his wedding), Napoleon was leading France’s armies against Austrian forces in Italy. He dressed in a simple colonels’ coat, and his simple attire appealed to his ordinary soldiers. In battle he was wherever he was needed, often right at the front helping to direct the cannon. He was nearly killed by cannon fire on numerous

occasions. His willingness to take risks and fight shoulder to shoulder with his men inspired them to fight harder. They rewarded his trust in them with devotion and begin to refer to their new leader affectionately as the “little Corporal.” Napoleon won victory after victory. With each one he became more and more convinced of his great destiny and the inability of his enemies to defeat him.

The Image Manipulator Napoleon understood the importance of his public

image. With each new victory, he commissioned paintings to celebrate them, understanding the power of artistic images to shape public opinion. He started two newspapers, one for his army and another for the people back in France. Each was a tool for getting his version of the story told.

As he conquered areas of Italy driving out the Austrians, he told Italians that he came in the name of liberty. At the same time, he sent wagonloads of Renaissance treasures back to France…to the museum that would become the Louvre.

He would throw temper tantrums (real or acted, it’s not clear) in negotiations with foreigner diplomats to get his way. The diplomats thought he was a madman and often gave him what he wanted. The African Campaigner

He went to Egypt to conquer Turkish and British controlled areas and to cut off trade to British India. Along with his army, he took a large team of scientists and surveyors to study the exotic land of Egypt. While there, one researcher discovered a mysterious black stone which turned out to be the key to deciphering mysterious Egyptian writing hieroglyphics, the Rosetta Stone.

As Napoleon found success on land, the British Admiral Lord Nelson attacked and destroyed Napoleon’s ships, trapping his army in the Middle East. Napoleon ended up abandoning 30,000 soldiers in Egypt and went back to France, eluding the British navy which controlled the Mediterranean Sea. He

used his newspapers to trumpet the great success of his operations in Egypt and silence any criticism. The Military Dictator

After a takeover of the French government (a coup d’état helped by his brother who was a law maker in the national legislature), he led his army against a new threat from Austria, crossing the Alps on the back of a mule in just six days. His victory against the Austrians forced them and the British to sign peace treaties with France. He had been in control of France only six months, but for the first time in 10 years, all of Europe was at peace. This made his fame and French people’s devotion to Napoleon grow even more.

The Masterful Reformer

He went home to France to direct the construction of parks, bridges and other public works projects in Paris. He also laid the groundwork for a schooling system, a central bank and his civil law code. The simply written Napoleonic Code tidied up centuries of

French law and gave all people equality in the French courts. And wherever he marched his armies, the Napoleonic Code and the ideals of the French Revolution went with him. The code was his proudest accomplishment.

He also returned Catholic Church lands and made peace with the Pope. He ensured religious freedom for all faiths in France. For a time, great thinkers of his day saw in Napoleon all the hopes of the French Revolution. He became the Enlightenment realized in human form. The Limiter of Freedoms

The changes he made to French society made it clear that Napoleon believed people should be able to rise on the basis of their abilities rather than their birth, just as he had done. But he did not

tolerate criticism of him. He carefully controlled the press. Nor was he as committed to liberty as some had hoped. For financial reasons, he reestablished slavery in French colonies such as Haiti (which started a war there). Furthermore, free elections were not really free under Napoleon’s rule.

The Emperor of France

In 1802, the French people voted in a plebiscite (a yes or no vote) to give Napoleon the title First Consul for Life (sort of like President for Life). There were no other names on the ballot. A carefully arranged vote of the French Parliament in 1804 made Napoleon emperor of France. The Pope himself came to France to officiate the coronation, but Napoleon crowned himself. The composer Beethoven, who had been a fan of the French leader, was so disgusted that he scratched out his dedication to Napoleon on the original manuscript of his 3rd Symphony…with such vigor that he ripped a hole in the paper.

Napoleon believed that his own glory, the glory of France and the spirit of the Revolution were one and the same.

Everyone else in Europe with crown on his head was anxious to crush the Revolution in France. Napoleon inherited that problem from the French Revolutionary government that had replaced King Louis XVI. But Napoleon’s invasions made other nations fear the French that much more. In Britain, even the common folk feared Napoleon as a kind of legendary “boogeyman.” Parents would threaten their children to behave or “Napoleon will come and get you.” Extensive (and expensive!) watch towers were constructed on the coasts to prepare for the inevitable French invasion.

The Continental Power Broker

In areas that he conquered, he swept away the feudal privileges and put in place his civil code. But he did not govern in the name of liberty. He had 44 palaces at the height of his power. He named his brothers to thrones of Holland, Naples, Westphalia, and Spain.

Repeatedly, Britain got the best of France at sea. Because he did not control the narrow channel between England and France, he could not send his vastly superior army to invade Britain. When Napoleon could not conquer Britain militarily, he tried to bring it to its knees financially. He would use his enormous influence on the continent of Europe to blockade Britain. He set up the Continental System which did not allow any area under French control to trade with the British. But without ships, such a blockade was very difficult to enforce, and over and over again, even leaders who were allied with Napoleon secretly traded with the British. The Over-Reacher

Part of what got Napoleon into trouble was enforcing this blockade. That and ambition and arrogance. He could not understand that other people might love their country as much as he loved his. This love of country, called “nationalism,” was something that Napoleon inspired in both his own country and in those that he conquered. Those conquered were often grateful for some aspects of Napoleonic rule (like the freedoms found in the Napoleonic Code), but eventually they grew tired of

their French conquerors. When Portugal

refused to support the Continental System, Napoleon invaded. He thought of Spain and Portugal as backward and superstitious countries that

were stuck in the Dark Ages. He believed the Spanish and Portuguese would welcome him as a liberator. However, the war that the French fought on the Iberian Peninsula was utterly different from what they had faced in all their other battles.

Once the French invaded, the Portuguese royal family escaped to Brazil (and ran the government of Portugal from there for the next 13 years). The Spanish government at first cooperated with Napoleon’s forces, but when he ordered his troops to take control of Spanish forts (effectively turning on his Spanish allies),

the Spanish army and peasants also rose up against the French forces. Spanish freedom fighters escaped to the hills and fought a “guerilla war” (a term invented here) against the superior French army, striking and disappearing into the countryside. Both sides committed horrible acts of violence against each other. The torture of prisoners became common. Britain sent troops to help their Portuguese allies fight the French. The war went on for seven long years and ended only with Napoleon’s downfall. The Invader of Russia

Napoleon’s trade ban of Britain hurt economies all over Europe. Furthermore, all of France’s allies could see that Napoleon’s Continental System was set up primarily to help France. In 1810, Russia decided to back out of the Continental System to resume their lumber exports to the British. Napoleon was already fighting a war in Spain to enforce the Continental System, but he couldn’t let the Russians get away with such independent thinking. So, he amassed and army like no other the world had seen, the Grand Armeé, with more than 500,000 soldiers. What force on earth could stand in his way? Certainly no army in Europe could.

He planned the usual quick campaign capped by a decisive, humiliating victory for France. Against his best military planners’ advice, he began the long march into Russia in June of 1812. He didn’t anticipate being there long, so his troops were not prepared for winter. Nor did he anticipate how the Russians would fight the Grand Armeé. Instead of battles, the Russians retreated and destroyed their own towns, villages and farms, burning grain fields and killing livestock – anything that Napoleon might use to feed his army was destroyed for hundreds of miles. This “scorched-earth” policy was very costly to the Russians, but just as costly to Napoleon’s troops. Thousands deserted or died of starvation along the way. Rather than surrender the “holy city” Moscow, the Russian Czar burned it, too. Napoleon waited in the burned-out city for a month, hoping Czar Alexander would negotiate a peace deal, but the Russians ignored him.

Finally, in October, with supplies already low, Napoleon’s forces turned west for the journey home. On the way, Napoleon’s soldiers died by the thousands at the hands of attacking Russians soldiers. Many thousands more froze to death in the brutal Russian winter. A ragtag band of perhaps 10,000 soldiers walked out of Russia in December. Some estimates claim that only one in five soldiers survived the ordeal. Napoleons rivals at home and the powers of Europe could see that he was vulnerable, and by the next year, French forces had been driven from Germany and Napoleon was no longer emperor.

The Island Prisoner

Islands played an important role in Napoleon’s life. He was born on one. His chief enemy was an island nation, Great Britain, a kingdom and a people he could not dominate because he could not reach them. Following the retreat from Russia he was defeated and exiled on an island near Corsica. After an escape and a brief return to power (a period known as the “100 Days”), he was defeated once and for all at the Battle

of Waterloo. His final home was the remote island of St. Helena off the coast of Africa in the South Pacific. There he

spent the remaining 6 years of his life dictating his memoirs to his son Napoleon II. The Problem to Be Solved

The great powers of Europe (Austria, Russia, Prussia, France and Great Britain) met in Vienna to work out a peace agreement that would prevent any more Napoleon’s from upsetting the peace of Europe and to limit the spread of French Revolutionary ideas. At this meeting, known as the Congress of Vienna, Klemens von Metternich of Austria and other European diplomats redrew the boundaries of European kingdoms, and created a balance of power between the five great powers so that no one power could overpower the others. They also restored the many monarchs

that Napoleon had replaced with his family members. By most measures, the Congress of Vienna was a success. The work of these diplomats kept Europe at peace for more almost 50 years. The patriotic feelings of nationalism that awoke with the age of Napoleon would eventually rise in a whole new series of revolutions that swept through Europe in the mid 1800’s and rise again with nations competing militarily with each other late in the century.

The Complicated Legacy

Millions of Europeans were inspired by the ideals that Napoleon brought to them. His code helped to shape written law all over the world. He was a brilliant administrator who stabilized the shaky French economy. He set up an educational system to train government officials. The best and brightest would be public servants, not those with the most wealth or best connections. He instilled the French with national pride and inspired millions more outside of France to desire their own national identity (even though that meant kicking the French out of their countries). His ambition completely upset the old monarchies of Europe, who would spend the rest of the 1800’s trying to put the revolutionary genie back into the bottle.

However, France was embroiled conflict after conflict under his leadership. He betrayed the principles of the French Revolution when it suited him. He married for influence sake and divorced when his wife could not provide him an heir. He was arrogant, power-mad and image conscious rather than being dedicated to the truth. And in the end, three million French soldiers and millions of other Europeans died to bring him glory.

Though he was one-of-a-kind and a man of his age, he blazed a trail that others would follow, men of ambition who would use the zeal

of their people and new military power to shape the world according to their personal vision.