Napoleon I- Emperor of France

Napoleon I, (born August 15, 1769) revolutionized military structure and training, funded the Napoleonic Code, the forerunner of later civil law systems, restructured the educational system, and forged the enduring Concordat with the Pope.

 

Napoleon enacted a number of reforms that have endured in France and most of Western Europe. Although he left France little larger than it had been at the start of the Revolution in 1789, his driving passion was the military expansion of French dominion, and despite this, he was almost universally regarded during his lifetime and until the end of the Second Empire under his nephew Napoleon III as one of history's greatest heroes.

 

A short time after the Genoese ceded Corsica to France, Napoleon was born there. He was the second surviving child and the fourth born to Letizia Ramolino and lawyer Carlo Buonaparte. In the sixteenth century, his father's ancient Tuscan noble family immigrated to Corsica. Letizia, a stunning and independent woman, had been married to Carlo Buonaparte at the age of 14, and the couple finally had eight children to raise in extremely trying circumstances. 

 

A group of Corsicans led by Pasquale Paoli resisted the French annexation of their homeland. When Paoli was forced to leave, Carlo Buonaparte joined Paoli's party but eventually made peace with the French. He received the governor of Corsica's protection, which led to his appointment as assessor for the Ajaccio judicial district in 1771. Joseph and Napoleon, his two oldest boys, were admitted by him to the Collège d'Autun in 1778. Napoleon, a Corsican by birth, ancestry, and early associations, continued to view himself as a foreigner for some time after moving to continental France, despite having received the same education as other Frenchmen starting at age nine. 

 

Napoleon did not share the customs or prejudices of his new country, despite the propensity to regard him as a reincarnation of some Italian condottiere from the 14th century. He retained a Corsican temperament but was first and foremost, via both his education and reading, a man of the 18th century. Napoleon attended three different institutions for his education: 

 

Autun for a brief period, Brienne Military College for five years, and the Military Academy in Paris for one year. In February 1785, during Napoleon's year in Paris, his father passed away from stomach cancer, putting his family in a difficult situation. Napoleon, who wasn't the oldest son, became the family's head before he became 16 years old, despite not being the oldest. He graduated from the military academy in September, taking 42nd place out of 58 students. He was promoted to second lieutenant of artillery in the La Fère regiment, which served as a sort of artillery officers' training facility. 

 

Napoleon continued his education while imprisoned at Valence by reading extensively, especially works on strategy and tactics. In Lettres sur la Corse ("Letters on Corsica"), he also expressed his love for his native island of Corsica. In September 1786, he returned to Corsica, and he did not re-join his regiment until June 1788. The unrest that would eventually lead to the French Revolution had already started by that point. Napoleon, who read Rousseau and Voltaire, thought that political change was necessary but, as a career commander, he doesn't seem to have felt the need for drastic social reforms. 

 

Napoleon requested a leave of absence and joined Paoli's party in September 1789 after the National Assembly, which had been called to establish a constitutional monarchy, let Paoli to return to Corsica. Paoli, who believed the young guy to be a foreigner and whose father had abandoned his cause, had no pity for him. Napoleon returned to France after his defeat and was made first lieutenant of the 4th artillery regiment, which was stationed in Valence, in April 1791. He immediately joined the Jacobin Club, a debate group that at first supported a constitutional monarchy, and quickly rose to the position of president while delivering speeches critical of aristocrats, monks, and bishops. 

 

He received permission to return to Corsica for another three months in September 1791. He was appointed a lieutenant colonel in the National Guard but soon developed a rift with Paoli, the head of the guard. In January 1792, when he did not make it back to France, he was recorded as a deserter. However, France invaded Austria in April, and his transgression was pardoned. Napoleon, who had received a promotion to captain via favoritism, chose not to re-join his regiment. Instead, in October 1792, he went back to Corsica, where Paoli was establishing a dictatorship and was ready to secede from France. 

 

Napoleon, on the other hand, sided with Paoli's opponents, the Corsican Jacobins. The Buonaparte family fled to France after Paoli had them sentenced to "perpetual execration and infamy" when civil war broke out in Corsica in April 1793. Although the family did not stop using the spelling Buonaparte until after 1796, Napoleon Bonaparte, as he may now be known, reconnected with his regiment at Nice in June 1793. He vehemently pushed for joint action by all republicans collected around the Jacobins, who were growing more extreme, and the National Convention, the Revolutionary assembly that had overthrown the monarchy in the previous October, in his then-current work Le Souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire). 

 

The National Convention troops captured Marseille at the end of August 1793, but they were stopped before Toulon because the royalists had enlisted British forces there. Because the National Convention's artillery commander was injured, Bonaparte obtained the position through Antoine Saliceti, the commissioner to the army, a Corsican delegate and a family friend of Napoleon's. In September, Bonaparte was elevated to the rank of major, and in October, adjutant general. He was wounded by a bayonet on December 16, but the British troops fled Toulon the following day after being hounded by his guns. 

 

On December 22, Bonaparte, then 24 years old, received a promotion to brigadier general in honor of his crucial role in the town's capture. The commissioner of the army, Augustin de Robespierre, praised the "transcendent quality" of the young republican commander in a letter to his brother Maximilien, who was by then the government's de facto leader and one of the key players in the Reign of Terror. Bonaparte was named commandant of the artillery in the French Army of Italy in February 1794. On September 9th, year II, Robespierre was forced from office in Paris (July 27, 1794). When the news reached Nice, Bonaparte, who was considered as Robespierre's protege, was detained on a charge of treason and conspiracy. Despite being set free in September, he was not given back his command. He declined an invitation to command the artillery in the Army of the West, which was battling the counterrevolution in the Vendée, in March of the following year. 

 

He went to Paris to defend himself because it appeared that the position had no future for him. Living on half pay was challenging, especially because he was having an affair with Julie Clary, the bride of his older brother Joseph, and Désirée Clary, the daughter of a wealthy businessman from Marseille. Because of his strong desire and his connections to the Montagnards, the more radical members of the National Convention, Napoleon was unable to get a satisfactory command despite his efforts in Paris. The Sultan of Turkey was the next person he thought about approaching for help. 

 

On the eve of its dispersal in October 1795, the National Convention submitted the new constitution of year III of the First Republic to a referendum along with decrees mandating that two-thirds of its members be reelected to the new legislative assemblies. At the time, the Directory of Napoleon I Bonaparte was still in Paris. In order to stop these measures from being implemented, the royalists launched a revolt in Paris in the hopes that they would soon be able to restore the monarchy. Given dictatorial authority by the National Convention, Paul Barras was unable to rely on the interior commander and instead nominated Napoleon Bonaparte second in command after learning of his contributions at Toulon. 

 

Napoleon thus saved the National Convention and the republic by shooting down the insurgents' columns as they marched on it (13 Vendémiaire year IV; October 5, 1795). When Bonaparte was appointed commander of the Army of the Interior, he was subsequently informed of all political developments in France. He eventually rose to the position of the Directory's respected military adviser. The gorgeous Creole Joséphine Tascher de La Pagerie, who was the mother of two children and the widow of General Alexandre de Beauharnais (guillotined during the Reign of Terror), was also introduced to him at this time.

 

From every angle, Bonaparte's new life was beginning. He was chosen to serve as the Army of Italy's commander in chief in March 1796 after demonstrating his commitment to the Directory. He had been attempting to land that position for a number of weeks so that he could personally carry out a portion of the campaign plan that the Directory had chosen on his recommendation. On March 9, he wed Joséphine, and two days later he enlisted in the army. When Bonaparte arrived at his headquarters in Nice, he discovered that his army, which on paper had 43,000 soldiers, actually only had about 30,000 malnourished, underpaid, and poorly supplied soldiers. 

 

He issued his first order to his men on March 28, 1796: "Soldiers, you are naked and poorly fed." You will have control over wealthy regions and important cities, and there you will discover honor, glory, and prosperity. Will you, soldiers of Italy, lack guts and tenacity? 

 

On April 12, he launched an offensive, decimated and divided the Austrian and Sardinian soldiers, and then marched on Turin. Sardinian King Victor Amadeus III requested an armistice, as a result, Nice and Savoy, which had been under French control since 1792, were annexed by France at the peace treaty signed in Paris on May 15. While pursuing his campaign against the Austrians, Bonaparte took Milan but was delayed at Mantua. He made armistices with the Duke of Parma, the Duke of Modena, and lastly Pope Pius VI while his army was besieging this massive citadel. He developed an interest in Italy's political system around the same period. 

 

A group of Italian "patriots" led by Filippo Buonarroti had a plan to "republicanize" it, but that idea had to be put on hold after Buonarroti was detained for his involvement in François-Nol Babeuf's plot against the Directory. After that, Bonaparte limited the Italian patriots' freedom of action without completely dismissing them. He established a republican government in Lombardy while keeping a close eye on its rulers, and in October 1796 he founded the Cisalpine Republic by joining the papal realms of Modena and Reggio nell'Emilia with the French army-occupied Bologna and Ferrara. 

 

The British had evacuated Corsica, so he dispatched an expedition to reclaim it. Four times, from the Alps, Austrian soldiers attempted to liberate Mantua, but Bonaparte always routed them. Mantua submitted after the last Austrian loss, which occurred at Rivoli in January 1797. He then advanced toward Vienna. When the Austrians requested an armistice, he was around 100 kilometers (60 miles) away from that capital. In exchange for recognizing the Lombard republic and ceding the southern Netherlands to France under the terms of the preliminary peace treaty, Austria acquired portion of the former territory of the old Republic of Venice, which had been divided among Austria, France, and Lombardy. The northern Italian republics were then united and restructured, and Bonaparte supported Jacobin—radical republican—propaganda in Veneto. 

 

Some Italian patriots thought that these changes would eventually result in the establishment of an all-encompassing "Italian Republic" that would be styled after the French. In the meantime, Bonaparte became worried over the royalists' electoral victories in France in the spring of 1797 and counselled the Directory to obstruct them, if necessary, with force. In order to support the coup d'état of 18 Fructidor, year V (September 4, 1797), which removed the royalists' allies from the executive and legislative branches of government while also raising Bonaparte's profile, he dispatched General Pierre Augereau to Paris along with a number of other officers and soldiers. 

 

As a result, Bonaparte was free to decide how to end the Campo Formio Treaty with Austria. However, the treaty dissatisfied the Directory because it gave Venice to the Austrians and failed to guarantee France's control of the left bank of the Rhine. On the other hand, it helped Bonaparte reach the height of his popularity because he had brought France victory following a five-year war on the Continent. Only the naval conflict with the British persisted. Bonaparte was given leadership of the force that had been gathered for this purpose in the English Channel by the directors, who wished to launch an invasion of the British Isles. 

 

He declared in February 1798 that the operation could not be carried out until France gained control of the sea after a brief reconnaissance. Instead, he recommended that France seize Egypt and threaten the passage to India in order to attack the sources of Great Britain's wealth. The directors, who were happy to be rid of their ambitious young commander, supported this plan, which was seconded by Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand, the foreign minister Thanks to a few fortuitous coincidences, the expedition initially had remarkable success: on June 10, 1798, Malta, the magnificent fortress of the Hospitallers, was conquered, on July 1, Alexandria was stormed, and the entire Nile delta was swiftly occupied. 

 

Napoleon was forced to remain in the territory he had seized, however, as Admiral Horatio Nelson's fleet completely destroyed the French squadron that was anchored in Abqar Bay on August 1. He then went on to transfer Western political institutions, administration, and technical know-how to Egypt. However, in September, Turkey, which was nominally Egypt's suzerain, declared war on France. In February 1799, Bonaparte marched into Syria to stop a Turkish invasion of Egypt and possibly try to travel back to France via Anatolia. At Acre, where the British withstood a siege, his advance toward the north was blocked, and in May Bonaparte started a disastrous retreat toward Egypt. 

 

Due to the fact that Bonaparte was defeated at the Battle of the Nile, a new alliance of Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Turkey and France was formed. In the spring of 1799, the French soldiers in Italy were routed and forced to leave the majority of the peninsula. Unrest developed in France as a result of these setbacks. The individuals of moderate views were removed from the Directory by the coup d'état of 30 Prairial, year VII (June 18, 1799), and men who were regarded as Jacobins were added. However, things were still unclear, and one of the new directors, Emmanuel Sieyès, was sure that only a military dictatorship could stop a return to the monarchy: 

 

"I am hunting for a sabre," he declared. Bonaparte decided on his course of action quickly. In addition to saving the republic, he would disband his army and return to France in order to gain power and profit from the altered situation. He actually left Egypt on August 22, 1799, in defiance of the Directory's orders since the Directory had actually ordered his return but he hadn't received the order. Surprisingly, the British were unable to intercept their two frigates, and on October 14 Bonaparte arrived in Paris. The threat of invasion had been avoided by French successes in Switzerland and Holland by this point, and the counterrevolutionary uprisings within France had largely failed. 

 

Therefore, the desire to save the republic could no longer be used as justification for a coup d'état. However, Sieyès had not abandoned his plan, and he now possessed his "sabre." The coup was planned by him and Bonaparte beginning at the end of October, and it was carried out on November 9 and 10, 1799, when the directors were forced to resign, the members of the legislative councils were scattered, and a new administration, the Consulate, was installed. Bonaparte and Sieyès and Pierre-Roger Ducos, two of the departing directors, made up the trio of consuls. But Bonaparte became in charge of France going forward. 

 

Bonaparte, who was 30 years old at the time, had short, close-cropped hair and was described as "the tiny crop-head" because of his appearance. His personality was mostly unknown, but people trusted him because he had always prevailed (the Nile and Acre were forgotten) and because he had successfully negotiated the great Treaty of Campo Formio. He was supposed to restore order, put an end to unrest, and solidify the Revolution's political and social "conquests." He was incredibly clever, quick to make decisions, tirelessly diligent, and insatiably ambitious. 

 

Because he had attained the greatest position in the state at such a young age, he appeared to be the man of the Revolution. He was not to forget it, but more than a Revolutionary, he was an 18th-century man, the most intellectual despot of them all, and a real descendant of Voltaire. He rejected parliamentary discussion, popular will, and popular sovereignty as concepts. However, he placed more trust in reasoning than in reason, and it might be stated that he preferred "men of talent"—such as mathematicians, lawyers, and statesmen—to "technicians" in the real sense of the word. 

 

He disliked and loathed the masses and thought he could shape and steer public opinion anyway he pleased. He felt that an enlightened and firm will could accomplish anything with the support of bayonets. Although he has been referred to as the most "civilian" general, in reality, he was always a soldier. Bonaparte created a dictatorship on France, although the constitution of the year VIII (4 Nivôse, year VIII, December 25, 1799) drafted by Sieyès initially concealed its true nature. 

 

This constitution did not mention "liberty, equality, or fraternity" or guarantee "rights of man," but it did comfort Revolution supporters by stating that the sale of public property was final and preserving the law against émigrés. It gave the first consul enormous power while giving his two colleagues merely a minor role. The first consul, Napoleon Bonaparte, was in charge of appointing ministers, generals, civil servants, magistrates, and members of the Council of State. Although their members were supposed to be chosen by universal suffrage, Bonaparte had a significant influence over who was chosen to fill the three legislative assemblies. The constitution was put to a vote and won by a landslide in February 1800. 

 

The administrative reform work carried out by the Consulate at Bonaparte's request was more significant for France since it would last longer than the constitution. The prefects, who continued the legacy of the intendants of the ancien régime, were in charge of overseeing the administration of the départements and serving as the tools of centralization. The judicial system underwent a significant transformation: whereas judges had previously been elected from the outset of the Revolution, they were now to be appointed by the administration, with their independence guaranteed by their immovability from office. The police force was significantly improved. 

 

The franc was stabilized, the collection of direct taxes was transferred to special officials rather than the towns, and the Banque de France, which is jointly held by the state and shareholders, was established. The university faculties were reinstated, secondary education was given a semi military framework, and education was converted into a significant public service. But primary education was still disregarded. Voltaire and Bonaparte both thought that the populace required a religion. He was not particularly religious, however he had stated his desire to convert to Islam while in Egypt. 

 

However, he believed that France needed its religious harmony to be restored. He attempted to convince Pope Pius VI to rescind his arguments against the French priests who had embraced the Civil Constitution of the Clergy, which in effect nationalized the church, as early as 1796, when he and the pope were concluding the armistice in Italy. Pius VII, who replaced Pius VI in March 1800, was more amenable than his predecessor, and the Concordat of 1801 was concluded 10 months after talks with him were initiated to reunite the church and the Revolution. 

 

The pope acknowledged the French republic and demanded that all past bishops resign, new prelates were to be chosen by the first consul and inaugurated by the pope, and Rome formally approved the sale of the clergy's property. In actuality, the Concordat recognized religious liberty and the state's secular nature. Under the Consulate, the civil law codification, which had been started in 1790, was finally finished. The Napoleonic Code, which was enacted on March 21, 1804, gave the great Revolutionary achievements of individual liberty, freedom of work, freedom of conscience, the lay character of the state, and equality before the law permanent form, but it also protected landed property, gave employers more freedom, and showed little concern for workers. 

 

It upheld divorce but gave women only a few restricted legal rights. The army was given the closest scrutiny. The Revolution's structure, which included forced conscription with the option for replacement by substitutes, conscripts being mixed in with veteran soldiers, and everyone being eligible for promotion to the highest levels, was preserved by the first consul. However, the establishment of the Academy of Saint-Cyr to train infantry commanders made it simpler for the sons of affluent families to enlist. 

 

Additionally, the National Convention militarized the École Polytechnique in order to provide officers for the engineers and artillery. However, Bonaparte had no qualms about integrating cutting-edge technological innovations into his army. He put his faith in the "legs of his soldiers" since a quick-moving army was the core of his strategic plan. 

 

Due to Russia's withdrawal from the anti-French coalition, the first consul spent the winter and spring of 1799–1800 reforming the army and planning for an attack on Austria alone. He quickly assessed the situation and recognized the Swiss Confederation's strategic value because it would allow him to outflank the Austrian army in Germany or Italy as he saw fit. He chose Italy because of his prior triumphs. Before the snow melted, he led his army via the Great St. Bernard Pass and suddenly materialized behind the Austrian army besieging Genoa. A second French army routed the Austrians in Germany in December after the Battle of Marengo in June gave the French control of the Po basin all the way to the Adige. 

 

The Treaty of Lunéville, which was signed in February 1801, recognized France's claim to the Rhine, Alps, and Pyrenees, which Julius Caesar had granted to Gaul as its natural borders. Austria was compelled to sign it. The only country still at war with France was Great Britain, but it quickly became weary of the conflict. Hostilities were ended by preliminary peace talks that were completed in London in October 1801, and the peace treaty was signed on March 27 in Amiens. Europe had a return to peace in general. 

 

The first consul's reputation grew even more, and his associates suggested that he be given a "symbol of national gratitude" at his recommendation. The topic of whether Napoleon Bonaparte should serve as consul for life was put to the French people in a referendum in May 1802. A resounding vote in August gave him the authority to choose his successor as well as the extension of his consulate. In contrast to the British, who saw the Treaty of Amiens as the absolute limit they would never, ever go past, Bonaparte had a different idea of what international peace was. Even some of the compromises the British had to make were hoped to be reversed. 

 

On the other side, for Bonaparte, the Treaty of Amiens signaled the beginning of a new French hegemony. To the chagrin of British businessmen, he was first and foremost keen on reserving half of Europe as a market for France without decreasing customs duties. He also planned to retake Saint-Domingue (Haiti; ruled from 1798 by the black leader Toussaint Louverture), invade Louisiana (which Spain ceded to France in 1800), possibly retake Egypt, and at the very least, to increase French influence in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean. He expanded France's natural borders into continental Europe by annexing Piedmont, forcing a more centralized form of government on the Swiss Confederation, and offering shares of the secularized ecclesiastical states to the German princes who had lost land along the Rhine as a result of the Treaty of Lunéville. 

 

The growth of France during peacetime concerned Great Britain, which deemed it hardly bearable that one state could control the continent's shoreline from Genoa to Antwerp. However, the Malta issue served as the immediate catalyst for the Franco-British split. The British should have returned the island to the Hospitallers in accordance with the Treaty of Amiens after it fell under British control after the French occupation ended, but they refused under the pretext that the French had not yet abandoned important Neapolitan ports. Thus, the British declared war on France in May 1803 as a result of deteriorating Franco-British ties.