Napoleon. Video .

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Napoleon

Transcript of Napoleon. Video .

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Napoleon

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Video

http://www.history.com/videos/napoleon#napoleon

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Background

Napoleon only stood 5ft 2 – 5ft.3

His personality made up for his short falls.

He would be recognized as one of the greatest military geniuses, along with Alexander the Great, Hannibal of Carthage, and Julius Caesar of Rome.

In only 4 years (1795-1799) Napoleon rose from an officer in the French army to master of France.

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Napoleon Seizes Power

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in 1769 on the Mediterranean island of Corsica.

When he was nine years old, his parents sent him to a military school.

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In 1785, at 16, he finished school and became a lieutenant in the artillery.

When the revolution broke out, Napoleon joined the army of the new government.

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Hero of the Hour

On October 1795 he had a chance for glory.

When the royalist marched on the National Convention, a government official told Napoleon to defend the delegates.

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Napoleon and his gunners greeted the thousands of royalists with a cannonade causing mass confusion and royalist fleeing, leaving Napoleon the “Hero of the Hour”.

Napoleon would continue to move his way up the ranks.

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Coup d'états By 1799, the Directory had lost control of the

political situation and confidence of the French people.

When Napoleon returned from Egypt, his friends urged him to seize political power.

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He surrounded the national legislature and drove out most of its members.

Of the three Consuls, Napoleon took the title of the first and assumed the powers of a dictator.

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Napoleon Rules France

Napoleon did not try to return the nation to the days of Louis XVI, but he kept many of the changes that had come with the Revolution.

He supported laws that would strengthen the central government and achieve some of the goals of the Revolution.

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First task was to get the economy on a solid footing.

He set up efficient methods of tax collecting and established a national banking system.

He established government-run public schools- lycees.

He brought back religion.

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Napoleonic Code

Napoleon thought that his greatest work was his comprehensive system of laws- Napoleonic Code.

This gave the country a uniform set of laws and eliminated many injustices.

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However, it limited liberty and promoted order and authority over individual rights.

Ex: Freedom of speech and of the press, established during the Revolution, were restricted under the code.

It also restored slavery in the French colonies of the Caribbean.

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Expanding

He decided to make himself Emperor, and the French voters supported him.

Napoleon was going to create and Empire.

He wanted to control the rest of Europe and to reassert French power in the Americas.

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He offered to sale the Louisiana Territory to the U.S. and Presidents Jefferson offered $15 million.

He would get money and punish the British, it was a win win for Napoleon.

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Turn to Europe

He turned his sights to the rest of Europe.

Fearful of his ambitions, the British persuaded Russia, Austria, and Sweden to join them against France.

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In a series of brilliant battles, he crushed them.

In time, Napoleon’s battlefield successes forced rulers of Austria, Prussia, and Russia to sign peace treaties.

This would enable him to build the largest European empire since Rome.

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Battle of Trafalgar

Napoleon lost only one major battle- Battle of Trafalgar.

It was a naval defeat, which brought about

1. It ensured the supremacy of the British navy fir the next 100 years

2. It forced Napoleon to give up his plans for invading Britain.

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During the first decade of the 1800s, the French Empire was huge but unstable.

Napoleon was able to maintain it at its greatest extent for only five years. (1807-1812).

Then it quickly fell apart.

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Background Napoleon is worried about what would

happen to his empire after he died.

He was worried that it would fall apart unless he had an heir.

His wife Josephine had failed to provide him with a child.

So, he divorced her and created an alliance with Austria and married Marie Louise (grandniece of Marie Antoinette) She gave birth to a son, named Napoleon II

who he named king of Rome.

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First Costly Mistake He was very ambitious, which eventually led to

his down fall.

Napoleon set up a blockade to prevent trade and communication between Great Britain and other European nations- Continental System.

He believed that it would make continental Europe more self-sufficient.

Napoleon really intended to destroy Great Britain’s economy.

His blockade did not work too well, smugglers managed to bring cargo from Britain into Europe.

Napoleon’s allies and even his family disregarded the blockade.

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The blockade on weakened the British trade, not destroy it.

Britain came up with their own blockade that was even better than the French.

British navy stopped neutral ships bound for the continent.

American ships were among those who were stopped by the British navy.

Angry, the U.S. Congress declared war on Britain in 1812.

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Second Costly Mistake

The Peninsular War was an effort to get Portugal to accept the Continental System, he sent an invasion force through Spain.

The Spanish people protested.

Napoleon removed the Spanish king and put one of his brothers on the throne.

For 6 years the guerrillas, Spanish peasant fighters, struck at French armies in Spain.

They were not an army that Napoleon could fight inn open battle.

They worked in small groups that ambushed French troops and then fled into hiding.

To add more trouble, Britain sent troops to aid the Spanish. Napoleon lost about 300,000 men during this time.

This would weaken the French Empire.

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Third Costly Mistake The invasion of Russia

Even though Alexander I had become Napoleon’s ally, the Russian czar refused to stop selling grain to Britain.

Also, the French and Russian rulers suspected each other of having competing designs on Poland. (Remember during the Enlightenment period Poland was very weak and it was ruled by the nobles but disappeared as an independent country for a while). Because of this Napoleon had this

brilliant idea to attack Russia.

Napoleon marched his army of 420,000 soldiers into Russia.

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People who had once welcomed the French as their liberators now felt abused.

The Spanish, German, Italians and other conquered people turned against the French

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March to Moscow As Napoleon advanced, Alexander pulled back,

refusing to be lured into an unequal battle.

As they retreated the Russians preformed the scorched-earth policy- burning grain fields and slaughtering livestock so the enemy had nothing to eat.

They finally clashed, and after several hours of fighting, the Russians fell back allowing Napoleon to move on to Moscow.

When Napoleon entered Moscow, seven days later is burnt into flames.

Rather then to surrender Russia’s “holy city”, Alexander destroyed it.

Napoleon stayed there until October when e decided to go back home.

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As the snow and temperatures fell, the Russians mercilessly attacked Napoleon.

Many died in these attacks, but more dropped from exhaustion, hunger, and cold.

By the middle of December the last surviving soldiers straggled out of Russia.

Napoleons army had gone from 420,000-10,000.

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Napoleons Downfall

Napoleon was quickly taken advantage of.

Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Sweden joined forces against him.

Austria also declared war on Napoleon, despite the marriage between him and Marie Louise.

Napoleon managed to raise another army, but most of his troops were untrained and ill prepared.

He was going to attempt to fight more battles, but his generals refused.

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The Hundred Days

The British army prepared for battle near the village of Waterloo, Belgium.

Napoleon attacked, but the British defended its ground all day.

Later that day Prussia’s army arrived. Britain and Prussia attacked the French.

2 days later Napoleon’s troops gave way.

This ended Napoleon’s last chance for power, which is known as the Hundred Days. The British shipped Napoleon to St. Helena in the

South Atlantic where he lived out his days in exile.