preview

Napoleon's Rise to Power

Decent Essays

Napoleon Bonaparte was born Napoleone di Buonaparte in Corsica, August 15, 1769. His family consisted of his father, a lawyer and member of the Nobility, his mother, his sister and his seven brothers. He was a small child, and often was teased by his classmates when he was enrolled in military college at a very early age in 1777, and it is believed that this influenced the determination he had to win later in life. Later, he went to Ecole Militaire from 1784 to 1785. Also in 1785, his father died. Even so, he graduated with the rank of second lieutenant. At this time, great things were expected of Napoleon. However, no one could have guessed that this 16-year-old would go on to make history.
Napoleon was a rising star in the French …show more content…

When they finally fought, Napoleon did win, but found the capital in flames. He ordered a retreat, and while they withdrew, he lost more than 400,000 soldiers to the Russian winter and starvation.
Then, when the army was sufficiently weak, an alliance of Russia, Britain, Austria, and Prussia ambushed them, easily seizing defeat.
Napoleon returned to France, but the Russian-British alliance soon took Paris, and after realizing that he could not recreate his army, he abdicated and went into exile. King Louis XVI's brother was allowed to rule again as King Louis XVIII.
However, once King Louis XVIII came to power, many emigrates returned and demanded revenge on revolutionaries. Napoleon took this chance to return to France as well, where discontented soldiers welcomed him with open arms. In March 1815, he began to rebuild his army. It took him one hundred days. However, the British allies acted quickly, and he was crushed in June at the Battle of Waterloo.
The Battle of Waterloo was the infamous conflict that marked the official end of Napoleon's reign. It pitted Napoleon's Armee du Nord against an army of British allies commanded by the Duke of Wellington, as well as a Prussian army under Gebhard von Blücher's command. The French army was easily outnumbered, with their 72,000 men pitted against Britains 68,000 and Prussia's 89,000. However, Wellington sid that "Napoleon was

Get Access