Napoleon And His Grand Army example essay topic

Napoleon Bonaparte Corsica is a rugged island in the Mediterranean, which lies sixty miles off the coast of Italy. The Corsicans are proud and independent people. In 1768, when the French took over the island from Genoa, an Italian state, the Corsicans rebelled and fought for their freedom. But they were unsuccessful.

Their leader, Pasquale Paoli, was driven into exile. Several months later, on August 15, 1769, Napoleon Bonaparte was born in Ajaccio, a major port on the island. He was the second-born son of the family. His real name was Napoleon Buonaparte, but as a young man, he decided to give his name a French spelling.

He did this because he had his mind set on a military career in France, and he didn't want his Italian-sounding name to stop his progress. In 1796, he changed it permanently to Napoleon Bonaparte. When Napoleon was nine, his father decided he should go to school in France to get an education befitting their birth. But he didn't have the money to pay for his schooling.

He petitioned the king, Louis XIV, for a scholarship for Napoleon. The king had set up a special fund for the sons of French nobles, granting them money to attend military school. Now that Corsica belonged to France, the Bonaparte were French citizens and were eligible for this scholarship. Napoleon was excited about his future. Still, he was apprehensive.

He had never left the island before, and he didn't know how to speak French. So before he could further his training, he would have to learn the language. To do this his parents were sending him first to a school in Autun in southern France. There the students were mean, they had laughed at his Corsican accent and mocked his poor clothes and rough manners. When Napoleon had learned to speak French fluently, he went to study at Brienne, it a training school for the Military College in Paris. He found that the students there were even crueler.

They looked down on him because he was of Corsican nobility. Taunting Napoleon, they called him a 'slave' because his home had been conquered by the French. Napoleon was very sensitive. He withdrew more and more into himself. Soon he stopped trying to make friends. In a corner of the school yard, he set up a private garden, which he closed off with a wooden fence.

One of its stakes he nailed a sign that read 'Napoleon's Country'. He spent his days there, reading one book after another. The other students knew better than to come near his garden. Anyone who dared to was immediately warned with a scowl to leave.

One student, though, decided to challenge Napoleon. While his companions egged him on, he barged into the garden and started to tear it apart. With a vicious look in Napoleon's eye, He threw himself at the boy. He sent him hurtling through the fence, splintering it in several places. The boy sprawled on the ground.

Jumping on him, Napoleon pummeled him with his fists until the boy gave up; then Napoleon let him go. As the years at Brienne went by, he slowly gained the respect of his fellow students. Napoleon's mother was left penniless, with eight children to take care of. Napoleon decided to earn his military commission as quickly as possible so that he could start helping her out financially. Working day and night, he completed the courses at the Military College within the year, though the program usually took two to three years. At sixteen he graduated with the rank of lieutenant and was assigned to an artillery unit.

Napoleon had specialized in artillery at the Military College, because he understood its importance in warfare and wanted to learn how cannons could most effectively be used in battles. During the next few years he devoted himself to reading about military science, history, and political theory. Napoleon was garrisoned in various cities in France, but he also spent much of his time in Corsica. When he was on military duty he often worked from four o'clock in the morning until ten at night.

Forwarding his meager salary to his mother, he saved only a little to pay for new books for himself. He was so poor he ate only one meal a day. On June 11, 1793, Napoleon settled his family near the southern city of Marseilles and then returned to his artillery unit in the north. By this time, Napoleon was a captain, but his salary was still very low. Whatever money he saved, he sent to his mother. Napoleon was in Marseilles on military duty when a revolt against the Jacobin government broke out in the Mediterranean port city of Toulon.

Napoleon was called into action to replace an artillery officer who had been wounded in battle. Napoleon commandeered all the cannons and soldiers he needed for the attack. Napoleon ordered his men to bombard the fort of L'Eguillette. Soon it was his. Now he controlled the key position in the harbor, he told his men to aim for the British ships. Realizing he could destroy their fleet, the British abandoned Toulon.

The city fell on December 19, 1793. Napoleon had captured it in less than three days. Napoleon's capture of Toulon brought him to the attention of the Jacobin leaders in Paris. They praised his quick action against the British. In gratitude they promoted him to the rank of brigadier general. Napoleon was only twenty-four.

He was one of the youngest generals in France. Victorious, he envisioned a great career in the French military. Some of Napoleon's fellow officers denounced him to the authorities. Jealous of his promotion to brigadier general, they accused him of being a Jacobin, Napoleon is arrested and put in prison. Two weeks later, Napoleon received word that had been cleared of all charges, and was immediately set free. However, Napoleon's career suffered a setback.

On his release he was transferred to another department, which humiliated him. When he tried to complain, the government put him on the reserve list of the military, this meant he was paid only when he was called up for duty. For weeks afterwards, he wandered miserably around the streets until he received an offer from Paul-Francois Barras, an aristocrat from southern France to prepare for the defense of the government; and Napoleon accepted it. Napoleon planned his strategy. He ordered his men to bring him all the cannons they could find and set half of them on top of all the tallest buildings near the palace.

The rest of them mounted on the bridges of the Seine. Then he assigned his soldiers to their posts. When everything was ready, he waited. On October 5 the Royalists began swarming down the avenues leading up to the palace. Armed with clubs and muskets.

Napoleon ordered his men to fire. The cannons made a loud roar. Grapeshot scattered over the mob, Mowing down hundreds of people. The rest fled in panic. Less than two hours later, all was quiet. Napoleon was famous overnight.

On October 16, 1795, the grateful Directory named him a major general. Shortly afterward, he was appointed commander-in-chief of the Army of the Interior. Put in charge of stopping antigovernment riots in France, he was also responsible for defending France from foreign invasions. Napoleon was only twenty-six years old. He was one of the youngest generals to ever hold such a high position in the history of France. The Directory gave him full command over all the soldiers garrisoned in France.

After the long years of bloodshed caused by the Revolution, the people of Paris could finally relax. Gratefully they began celebrating this new era of peace. Throughout the fall of 1795, there were hundreds of public balls given in Paris. One night Napoleon attended a reception given by a prominent woman of the city, Madame Tallien. Among the guests, Napoleon noticed a beautiful woman, Josephine de Beauharnais.

Napoleon fell madly in love with her. After a few months of passionate courtship, they married on March 9, 1796. Inside the wedding ring he gave her were engraved the words 'To Destiny'. Unfortunately their honeymoon lasted only two days.

It was cut short because Napoleon received orders to head a military expedition against the Austrians in Italy. The French feared that the Austrians were planning to march their army across Italy into southern France. So they sent Napoleon to stop them. Napoleon's soldiers marched into Italy. Convinced he could defy and conquer the great Austrian army, they eagerly went into battle. In fourteen days they won six battles.

They marched across Italy, conquering city after city, and finally driving the Austrians out of the country. Moreover, France's southern border was now secure. After routing the Austrians, Napoleon decided to take on France's other great enemy, Great Britain. He decided to weaken them economically since the French can't attack them directly. Therefore he decided to conquer Egypt-the Britain's gateway to India, since much of British's wealth comes from India. If the British can't reach India, then they will lose a great deal of their resources and won't have goods to trade.

On May 19, 1798, Napoleon sets out to conquer Egypt with an army of forty thousand men. Joining the military expedition are hundreds of scholars and scientists whom he hired to study Egyptian culture. Then on July 21, 1798, his troops defeated the Mamelukes at the Battle of the Pyramids. However, he learned that on August 1, 1798, Lord Nelson had destroyed his entire fleet at Abukir Bay in the mouth of the Nile. Only two of his four hundred ships had survived the British naval attack. Napoleon had built roads and hospitals throughout the country.

In August, 1799, Napoleon received words that there was trouble in France. So he left his troops behind in Egypt and sailed back to France on one of the remaining two ships. Napoleon overthrows the Directory, and he has himself named First Consul of France. He immediately set to work on reorganizing the country. He reduced taxes, founded the Bank of France to stabilize the economy, opened schools and universities, established public programs to give jobs to the unemployed, and commissioned jurists to draw up a civil code unifying all of France's laws. Known as the Code Napoleon, it became the foundation of the country's legal system and is still in use today.

In the spring of 1800, Napoleon received an urgent message from his military officers in Genoa. The Austrian army was planning to march across Italy and invade France. So he decided to give the Austrian a surprise attack. Napoleon leads his army over the Alps in five days. Marching into Italy, Napoleon led them into battle against the Austrians near the town of Marengo on June 14, 1800. The Austrians were surprised and unprepared for battle.

Napoleon attacked their rear army, in charge of supplies. He knew the Austrian artillery would be at the front. Just as he had planned, he'd cut the front from its supplies and the rear from its artillery. Despite this advantage, the battle of Marengo was a long, hard contest between the two forces, but Napoleon was finally victorious.

He returned in triumph to France. On December 2, 1804 Napoleon crowns himself emperor in the presence of Pope Pius VII. The magnificent coronation ceremony is held at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. Austria and Great Britain were the two greatest enemies of France. They declare war on France in 1803. Napoleon first met the Austrians in battle.

Near Ulm in Germany., he demolished their army in 1805. The enemy he hated even more was Great Britain. He wanted to destroy their navy, but their navy is too strong. On October 21, 1805, the British's fleet destroy the entire French fleet at Trafalgar, off the coast of southwestern Spain. Napoleon was so mad that he and his navy are defeated. And he decided to beat the British on land.

First he wanted to destroy each power in turn so that all Great Britain's allies would be crushed. Because he had already decimated Austria's army at Ulm, he wanted to annihilate what was left of their forces. So Napoleon ordered his troops to march into Vienna and occupy the capital of the Austrian Empire. The Austrian emperor appealed to Czar Alexander I, the ruler of Russia, for help. When Czar's forces arrived in Austria, their combined armies were far greater in number than Napoleon's. On the morning of December 2, 1805, Napoleon lead his army to cut the Russians off from the Austrians, drive the Russians through the pass, and then blast them until they surrender.

Just as he'd predicted, the enemy was forced to surrender by nightfall. In the battle of Austerlitz, the Austrians had eight thousand of their soldiers died and fifteen thousand more were wounded. It was the greatest victory of Napoleon's career. Over the next few years Napoleon maintain his power over Europe.

In 1806 he won a decisive victory over the Prussians at Jena. He defeated them again the following year in Poland. Napoleon forced them to give him control over their territories in the eastern Europe. Napoleon decided to establish a blockade against British goods throughout Europe. By closing the port of all the countries he'd conquered to British imports, he hoped to ruin the British economy.

Napoleon also wanted the Russians to close their ports to British trading vessels, and join his blockade. Czar and Napoleon had made a promise known as the Treaty of Tilsit. Unfortunately, in 1812, Napoleon learned that the Russian had secretly permit English imports. Therefore, Napoleon made his plans to invade Russia.

Gathering the largest army ever assembled, he march on to Moscow. After marching thousands of miles across Europe, Napoleon and his Grand Army finally marched into Moscow on September 14. He soon found that the long-awaited city was a ghost town, ransacked and deserted. He also found that two thirds of the city was destroyed before Napoleon's troops were finally able to occupy it. Months went by no response.

Napoleon's soldiers were growing restless. Because their most of their supplies went out and they had no shelter to protect them from the increasing cold weather. Many were forced to kill and eat their own horses. So Napoleon decided to ordered his advance scouts to locate the position of the enemies. Several days later his scout reported back and said that their enemy his moved much farther inland. As it began to snow, Napoleon finally realized that he had fallen into a trap.

So he ordered a retreat on October 19, but some of his troops can't suffer anymore from the cold, disease, and to malnutrition and were left to die. It was the greatest disaster in military history. Because his army was shattered, Napoleon's enemies quickly banded together in a new alliance to take advantage of France's military weakness. The six members of the league - Spain, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Austria, Great Britain, and Prussia - threatened invasion on all sides. In addition the British Duke of Wellington was scoring a number of victories against the French forces stationed in Spain. He was driving them farther and farther north toward the French border.

If he continued, Napoleon knew, he would invade France in a matter of months. Therefore Napoleon conscripting 350,000 new soldiers from within his empire. His new recruits had no military experience. Many were barely sixteen years old.

Napoleon marched his troops into Germany in the spring of 1813 to meet the enemy head on. His inexperience army managed to defeat the allies in three battles. Napoleon's military genius and the bravery of his young soldiers made them victorious. It ended with Napoleon's defeat on October 18, 1813. When he ordered a retreat from Leipzig, the allied armies pursued his troops back to France. Napoleon was able to fight off an invasion for several months, but on March 31, 1814, Paris was finally occupied by the allies.

On the night of April 12, he tried to commit suicide by taking poison. Although he was violently ill, he recovered by the morning. On the night of February 26, 1815, he fled Elba with a small army. Landing in France the next week, he marched north to Paris in twenty days.

The allies also began marching against France. Napoleon decided to fight them separately, he first defeated the Prussians and drive them out. Two days later, on June 18, 1815, his troops attacked the British army at Waterloo in Belgium. As the day wore on, neither side achieving a clear victory.

However, the Prussians, who had managed to regroup their forces, came to the rescue of their allies. After they swarm into the battle, Napoleon's attempt to reclaim the throne became known as The Hundred Days, ending with his great defeat at Waterloo. On June 22, 1815, Napoleon was again forced to abdicate. Aware that the allies would be much harsher in their terms this time, he tried to escape to the United States. Napoleon hoped to get to America by booking passage on a merchant ship out of the French port of Rochefort, on the Atlantic. Napoleon secretly fled to Rochefort, but when he arrived in the town, he learned that the British were blocking the port and wouldn't let any ship sail without first inspecting it to make sure he wasn't aboard.

On July 14, 1815, he decided to surrender to the British authorities. And he was being exile to St. Helena, a remote island lost in the South Atlantic. After nearly six years of lonely exile, Napoleon died on May 5, 1821, of stomach cancer at the age of 51. He was buried on St. Helena. Twenty years later, however, the British allowed his remains to be brought back to Paris, in state.