Napoleon Bonaparte

His career runs through the best-known battles of the era. He broke an Austro-Russian army at Austerlitz in 1805 and defeated the Prussians at Jena in 1806, won a bloody battle against the Russians at Borodino in 1812, and was beaten by the allied armies at Leipzig in 1813 and by the British and Prussians at Waterloo in 1815.²

How did Napoleon rise to power?

Napoleon rose through the army of the French Revolution. Commissioned into an artillery regiment in 1785, he made his name at the siege of Toulon in 1793, helped crush a royalist rising in Paris in October 1795, and won fame commanding the Army of Italy from 1796. In November 1799 he took power in the coup of 18 Brumaire.³

He was born on 15 August 1769 in Ajaccio and entered the military school at Brienne in 1779. Toulon, retaken from the British and their allies in December 1793, brought him promotion to general. In March 1796 he married Josephine de Beauharnais and took command of the Army of Italy, beating the Austrians and Sardinians at Montenotte, Lodi, Arcole and Rivoli before the Peace of Campo Formio in October 1797.⁴ › Battle of Montenotte, 1796

In 1798 he led an expedition to Egypt. He won the Battle of the Pyramids in July, but Nelson destroyed the French fleet at Aboukir Bay in August, and in 1799 Napoleon failed to take Acre. He sailed back to France in August 1799 and in the coup of 18 Brumaire (9 to 10 November) overthrew the Directory, becoming First Consul.⁵

In 1802 he was made consul for life. On 18 May 1804 he was proclaimed Emperor of the French, and on 2 December 1804, in Notre-Dame in the presence of Pope Pius VII, he took the crown from the altar, placed it on his own head and then crowned the kneeling Josephine.⁶

What were Napoleon's greatest victories?

Napoleon's best-known victory is Austerlitz on 2 December 1805, where he broke an Austro-Russian army in a single day. Others include Rivoli in Italy (1797), Marengo (1800), the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt against Prussia (1806), Friedland against Russia (1807) and Wagram against Austria on 6 July 1809.⁷

At Austerlitz the allies drew troops off the Pratzen heights in the center to attack the French right near Telnitz and Sokolnitz, where the French right, with Davout's troops, held them back. Napoleon then sent Soult's corps up the heights, and they took them. Russian counterattacks failed, and by the afternoon the allied retreat had turned into flight.⁸

In 1806 he defeated the Prussians at Jena while Davout beat a second Prussian army at Auerstedt on the same day, and the French entered Berlin. After the hard-fought battle of Eylau in February 1807 he beat the Russians at Friedland in June, then met Tsar Alexander I on a raft on the Niemen and made peace at Tilsit.⁹

What was Napoleon famous for?

Napoleon is famous for campaigns that made France the master of much of continental Europe, and for his reforms at home. The best known is the Civil Code of 1804, renamed the Code Napoléon in 1807, which brought French civil law together in a single code. His armies fought from Spain and Portugal to Moscow.¹⁰

The Civil Code was promulgated on 21 March 1804. It was followed by codes of civil procedure (1806), commerce (1807) and criminal procedure (1808) and a penal code (1810). J. Holland Rose traced the Civil Code's influence on the laws of Italy, the Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, Spain and Latin America.¹¹

He also put his family on thrones. His brother Joseph became King of Naples in 1806 and King of Spain in 1808, Louis became King of Holland in 1806, Jérôme King of Westphalia in 1807, and his brother-in-law Murat King of Naples in 1808. From Polish lands taken by Prussia he created the Duchy of Warsaw in 1807.¹²

Did Napoleon ever lose a battle?

Yes. He failed to take Acre in 1799, and his invasion of Russia in 1812 ended in a disastrous retreat. The allied armies defeated him at Leipzig in October 1813, which led to his first abdication in April 1814, and the British and Prussian armies defeated him at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.¹³

The Grande Armée crossed the Niemen into Russia in June 1812. The Russian armies fell back, burning stores as they went, until they stood at Borodino, where Napoleon won a costly battle in September. He entered Moscow, but the city burned and Tsar Alexander would not negotiate. Napoleon left Moscow in October. The retreat, under repeated Russian attacks, through a winter his men were not equipped for and across the Berezina in late November, destroyed most of his army. On 5 December he left it and hurried back to Paris.¹⁴

In 1813 Prussia and then Austria joined the war against him. He won at Lützen and Bautzen, but lost the Battle of Leipzig, the "Battle of the Nations," in October. In 1814 the allies invaded France and took Paris; in April he abdicated and was exiled to the island of Elba.¹⁵

In February 1815 he left Elba and in March he was back in Paris, beginning the period known as the Hundred Days. On 16 June he beat the Prussians at Ligny, but on 18 June the British-led army under Wellington and the Prussians under Blücher defeated him at Waterloo. He abdicated again on 22 June and in July gave himself up to the British navy aboard HMS Bellerophon.¹⁶

How did Napoleon die?

Napoleon died at Longwood on Saint Helena, the British island in the South Atlantic where he had been held since October 1815, on 5 May 1821, aged 51. The autopsy the next day found an ulcerated, cancerous stomach, and a 2021 review of the autopsy reports by gastrointestinal pathologists concluded that he died of stomach cancer.¹⁷

At Longwood he dictated his memoirs and quarreled with the governor, Hudson Lowe. Theories that he was poisoned with arsenic have long circulated, but the 2021 review found that the reports of the British doctors and of his physician Francesco Antommarchi allow a final diagnosis of advanced stomach cancer with bleeding. In 1840 his remains were brought back to France and placed in Les Invalides in Paris.¹⁸

Why Napoleon won

Four methods recur in his victories, all visible in the campaigns above.

• Corps that could fight alone. In 1805 he organized the Grande Armée into seven corps under marshals such as Davout, Soult and Lannes. At Austerlitz Davout held the right flank against larger numbers while Soult's corps took the Pratzen heights.¹⁹
• Speed of march. In the autumn of 1805 the army marched from the Channel coast to the Danube fast enough to surround the Austrian general Mack at Ulm, who capitulated in October.²⁰
• Dividing his enemies. In April 1796 he struck between the Austrian and Sardinian armies near Montenotte, and within weeks Sardinia signed an armistice at Cherasco.²¹
• An artillery training. He was commissioned into the La Fère artillery regiment in 1785 and first made his name as an artillery officer at Toulon.²²

From Corsica to Saint Helena

1. 1769Born in Ajaccio, Corsica, on 15 August.²³
2. 1799Seizes power in the coup of 18 Brumaire and becomes First Consul of France.²⁴
3. 1804The Civil Code is promulgated in March; proclaimed Emperor in May and crowned in December.²⁵
4. 1805Wins at Austerlitz, defeating the Austrians and Russians.²⁶
5. 1812Invades Russia and loses most of his army in the retreat from Moscow.²⁷
6. 1813Is defeated by the allies at Leipzig, the Battle of the Nations.²⁸
7. 1814Abdicates and is exiled to the island of Elba.²⁹
8. 1815Returns for the Hundred Days, is defeated at Waterloo by Wellington and Blücher, and is sent to Saint Helena.³⁰
9. 1821Dies at Longwood on Saint Helena on 5 May.³¹

Legacy

Historians judge him in very different ways. Jean Tulard wrote that the administrator was perhaps superior to the general, and that his most striking gift was his sense of propaganda. J. Holland Rose placed the cause of his fall in "the character of the man and of his age." How he measures up to Julius Caesar, another soldier who seized a state, is the question in Napoleon vs Caesar.³²

Napoleon looked back to earlier masters. The Maxims of War published under his name tell officers to study the campaigns of Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Gustavus Adolphus, Turenne, Eugene and Frederick, and on Saint Helena he dictated critiques of Caesar, Turenne and Frederick the Great.³³

Meet the others who share that standard in the greatest military commanders in history, or read his battles in full among the greatest Napoleonic battles. Which commander do you most resemble? Find out in our Which Commander Are You quiz.

More head-to-head comparisons: Genghis Khan vs Napoleon, Hannibal vs Napoleon, Napoleon vs Alexander the Great, Napoleon vs Wellington and Nelson vs Napoleon.

Based on the works listed above; where sources differ, we say so. See our editorial policy.