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Brief
biography
Map of
key battles & French Empire in
1810
Rise of
Napoleon 1795-1805
After
Trafalgar - success on land in Europe
1805-12
Fall and
final defeat 1812-15
Napoleon's
legacy in Nord-PasdeCalais
Brief biography
1769 - 1821
Napoleon Bonaparte was born to a humble family on the
poor island of Corsica. By 1804, he was Emperor of France,
and came to control the greater part of Western Europe,
bringing modernising reforms in the name of the ideals of
the French Revolution - "liberty, fraternity, equality."
In 1812 his failed invasion of Russia
brought disaster. Enemies united against him, and by 1814
his Empire was destroyed. He died in exile - but his ideas
lived on.
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Napoleon Bonaparte
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MAP: French Empire at its
greatest extent, c.1810
showing major battles of the Napoleonic Wars.
Click on
events in RED.
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Rise of Napoleon
1795-1805
At the time of the
French Revolution, Napoleon was a lowly army cadet. The
revolution opened the army to promotion on the basis of
talent - in the old regime, you became an officer through
noble birth, patronage or by bribing officials. As a
military genius with ruthless ambition, Napoleon rose
rapidly in the revolutionary armies. France was being
attacked on all sides as the kings of Europe feared the
revolution would spread, and that its ideas of liberty and
equality would appeal to their own subjects. It was a time
of great opportunity for an ambitious young army
officer.
1795 - appointed commander of
French revolutionary forces in Italy
1797 - appointed to command French forces for
invasion of England
1798 - sailed down the Mediterranean to invade
Egypt.
1799 - followed by British Admiral
Nelson, who defeated the French fleet at the
battle of the
Nile - ending hopes of extending
the French Empire in the Middle East and blocking British
trade with India. Napoleon returned to Paris. Things were
going badly for the French, and he led a military coup which
overthrew the weak government (the "Directory"), replacing
it with a military junta called the Consuls.
1802 - after successfully beating off the hostile
coalition led by Britain, the Consuls made a temporary
peace.
1803 - to raise money for another war everyone
expected, Napoleon sold the French colony of Louisiana in
north America - a huge area from New Orleans up the
Mississippi to the Canadian border. The USA bought it for $3
million (the "Louisiana Purchase"), borrowing the money from
British and Dutch bankers!
With his war chest full, Napoleon planned to invade
England. He massed a "Grand Armée" camped on the
hills above Boulogne, and set about building a flotilla of
barges by which they could invade England. This set off
panic reaction across the Channel, with enormous resources
poured into strengthening defences against invasion - the
Royal Military Canal around Romney Marsh, the ring of
coastal gun turrets called Martello Towers, and huge
fortifications on the hills either side of Dover
harbour.
1804 - elected "Consul for life", then crowned
himself as "Emperor of France" in Paris, in the presence of
the Pope.
1805 - British Admiral Nelson
defeats combined French and Spanish fleets in the
battle of
Trafalgar.
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After Trafalgar -
success on land in Europe 1805-12
1805 - Napoleon was forced to abandon plans to invade
England (he realised he could not stop the British fleet
attacking his troop-carrying barges as they crossed the
Straits of Dover).
Meanwhile he had already marched his army eastwards, and
defeated the Russians and Austrians at the
battle of
Austerlitz.
1806 - With opposition to the east
greatly weakened, Napoleon united most of the small German
states into the "Confederation of the Rhine" under his
control. He destroyed the Prussian army at the
battle of
Jena, and took over Prussia's
Polish territories.
To undermine the British war effort, he started the
"Continental System": his Customs Officers were
ordered to stop British goods being landed in France or
anywhere in Europe under French control. He hoped this
embargo would ruin British trade and industry, which
provided the wealth that enabled Britain to keep a powerful
navy and large armies.
1807 - He made peace with Britain's other potential
coalition ally, Russia. Napoleon agreed to allow Russia a
"sphere of influence" round its borders. He established a
Duchy of Warsaw to keep most of Poland under French
control.
1808 - He invaded Spain and Portugal, setting up his
brother as King of Spain.
1809 - A British expeditionary
army into Spain was beaten at
Corunna,
and almost driven into the sea. Reorganised under the Duke
of Wellington, the British fought through the peninsula
until 1814, helped by fierce resistance by Spanish peasants
who waged a guerrilla war that tied
up French forces.
1810 - Napoleon was at the height of his powers. His
main enemy Britain was almost isolated: France had made
peace with Britain's main former coalition allies: Russia,
Austria and Prussia, having weakened them in decisive land
battles. The French Empire ruled over 10 million of Europe's
175 million inhabitants. Only Britain's continued sea power
stopped France taking over the distant Spanish and Dutch
colonies in America, India and the Far East to create an
even bigger world empire.
See map
of French Empire in 1810
Fall of
Napoleon 1812-15 |
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Catastrophe in Russia
and the Fall of Napoleon 1812-15
Map
of French Empire in 1810
1812 - Napoleon decided to
invade Russia. They had stopped boycotting British goods,
and Napoleon suspected they were going to re-join the
coalition with Britain. He led the Grand Army from Poland,
beating the Russians at the
battle of
Borodino at the gates of Moscow.
But the Russians beat him with a "scorched earth" policy,
destroying everything so there was no food or shelter for
the French army. Napoleon was forced to
retreat from
Moscow. In the cruel Russian
winter, only 100,000 men out of 600,000 made it back to
France.
Starving French soldiers wrapped in blankets huddle
round a campfire
in the icy snow as the Russians deliberately burn food
supplies and houses in their path.
1813 - Encouraged by the French
catastrophe, Prussia and Austria switched sides, allied with
Britain who financed them to declare war on France. Napoleon
won several early battles, but the enlarged coalition routed
him in the "battle of Nations" at
Leipzig.
Together they invaded France, and French public opinion
turned against Napoleon and his endless wars.
1814 - Napoleon was forced to
abdicate and was exiled to the Mediterranean island of
Elba.
Britain and the coalition put the Bourbon king Louis XVIII
on the French throne, but his court's desire to return to
the old days soon made them very unpopular with the French
people.
1815 - Napoleon was encouraged
to return to France, and regained power for 100 days. His
armies were narrowly beaten in the
battle
of
Waterloo, only because the
British army led by the Duke of Wellington was joined at the
last minute by an army from Prussia.
Napoleon fled to Paris, abdicated,
surrendered to the British, and was banished to the lonely
south-Atlantic island of St. Helena where he died in
1821.
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Napoleon's Legacy
in Nord-Pas de Calais Back
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Summary
Administration
Public
Art Galleries
New
industries
Monuments
Summary
Napoleon Bonaparte is often portrayed as a power hungry
conqueror like Hitler or Stalin. If his empire had lasted,
Nord Pasde Calais would well inside France, instead of on
the borders.
His defenders say his aim was to spread
the libertarian ideals of the French Revolution. Like the
old regime in France, most of Europe was ruled by corrupt
feudal regimes, where hereditary kings, aristocrats and
bishops took most of the land and wealth of their countries
for themselves by "right of birth". These feudal leaders
stifled the development of new industries, and kept the mass
of peasants in grinding poverty with little freedom. A
talented peasant had virtually no chance to acquire
property, make money or get a better job.
Napoleon set out to build a federation of
free peoples in a modern Europe
united under liberal governments. In the states he created,
he granted constitutions, introduced law codes, abolished
feudalism, created efficient
governments and fostered education, science, literature and
the arts. But his way of achieving it was to concentrate
power in his own hands. This led to
his downfall, because there were too few democrats in the
new states he set up to defend his modern-style governments
when things got difficult.
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Administration
Napoleon was a superb civil administrator. The ideals of
the French Revolution - liberty, equality, and the dignity
of man - were often called "the Enlightenment", and he
spread this across Europe. Napoleon had the chance to
advance on his ability when he joined the revolutionary army
- he gave the same opportunity to many young men throughout
Europe when he reformed the professions and government
administration. Old feudal privileges and corruption were
swept away - entry to a job depended on success in open
public exams.
One of his greatest achievements was his
supervision of the revision and
collection of French law into codes, which incorporated
freedoms gained by the people of
France during the French revolution, including religious
toleration and the abolition of serfdom. The famous "Code
Napoleon" still forms the basis of French civil law.
Napoleon also centralized France's
government by appointing prefects to administer regions
called departments: in the North these were Pas de
Calais and the Nord, and the prefects were based
in Arras and Douai - the old capital of
Flanders became the prefecture of the Nord later in the 19th
century.
Napoleons lasting reforms also included
state grammar schools called "Lycées" - often set up
in properties confiscated from the church or aristocrats,
and staffed with teachers who were civil servants who had to
pass the new exams.
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Public Art
Galleries
Napoleon decreed that France's artistic treasures should not
be hidden away in the houses of the aristocracy and the
bishops and other church leaders. As the French Empire
extended over the Continent, other countries' treasures were
also seized and brought back to Paris.
Many of these renowned masterpieces were
allocated to form the basis of public art collections in the
towns of Arras and Lille.
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The public art gallery in Arras was established in the
former monastery building confiscated from the Church.
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New
industries
When he boycotted British goods throughout Europe, Napoleon
made sure new industries were set up to provide alternative
supplies. Some of these new industries were in Nord Pasde
Calais, and have lasted to this day, like sugar
beet, chicory coffee, tobacco,
and gin.
The policy also led to a great deal of smuggling.
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Monuments
-La Colonne de la Grande
Armée
The French troops raised money from their own pockets to
erect a memorial column on their campsite in honour of their
leader. Started in 1804, it was completed under king
Louis-Philippe (1830-1848) [more
background information]
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