Rise And Fall Of Napoleon example essay topic

The Rise and fall of Napoleon The age of Napoleon. From 1799 to 1815, Napoleon dominated French and European history... The event that brought him to power happened ten years after the French Revolution... Tanks to the French Revolution, it made possible his first rise in the military and then to the great power in France. The rise of Napoleon. Napoleon was born in Corsica in 1769.

He obtained a high-class scholarship to study at a military school in France... During his education, as a lieutenant the others didn't love him because he was short, he had an Italian accent and he wasn't as rich as the others... During the next several years, Napoleon spent a lot of time reading the works of the philosophes and educating himself in military affairs by studying the campaigns of important military leaders form the past... The French revolution and the European War presented Napoleon new opportunities...

He rose quickly through the ranks and in 1792, he became a captain, after a short time, he became an artillery commander. At twenty-five years old, he received the rank of brigadier general in 1794... The year after, he saved the National Convention from Parisian mob and the next year, he was made commander of the French army in Italy... He defeated the Austrians and dictated peace to them in 1797...

Due to its energy, charm and ability to understand complex issues, He won the confidence of his men... In 1797, Napoleon returns to France known as a conquering hero and was given an army training to invade England... Smart as he was, he knows that the French troop weren't ready for this kind of invasion. Instead, he proposed instead to strike indirectly at Britain by conquering Egypt and menacing India, an important source of British wealth... The British had the upper hand on the naval forces and controlled the seas and by 1799, they had cut off supplies from Napoleon's army in Egypt. Knowing that he won't win, Napoleon abandons his army and return to Paris...

He participated in the coup d'etat that led to his dictatorship of France and he was only thirty years old... With the coup of 1799, Napoleon directly controlled the entire executive authority of government... In 1802, he was made consul for life and in 1804, when he returned to France, he crowned himself Emperor Napoleon 1. After that, the government's regime was far more autocratic then monarchic. The domestic Policies of Emperor Napoleon.

Napoleon often said that he had maintained the gains of the revolution for the French people. The ideal of republican liberty had been destroyed by Napoleon's autocracy. Napoleon and the Catholic Church. Napoleon made peace with the Catholic Church in 1801, the worst enemy of the revolution... After that, Napoleon opened negotiations with Pope Pius VII to reestablish the Catholic Church in France. After the negotiations, both sides gain advantages.

The pope gained the right to depose French bishops. The Catholic Church was also permitted to hold processions again and reopen the seminaries... By signing the Concordat, the pope admitted the accomplishments of the revolution, which means that the pope agreed not to raise the question of the church lands taken during the revolution. A new code of laws. The civil Code, also known as the Code Napoleon, kept most of the revolutionary gains by recognizing the principle of the equality of all the people before the law, the right of individuals to choose their profession, abolition of serfdom and feudalism and religious toleration... The Civil Code reflected the aspirations for a uniform legal system, legal equality, and protection of property and individuals...

The Civil Code was unreasonable for the women's because their punishment was greater then the men's penalty. For example a women can be imprison or get divorced if she was caught in adultery, and a men could only be accused if he moved his mistress into his home. The French Bureaucracy. Napoleon worked on rationalizing bureaucratic structure of France by increasing a powerful centralized administrative machine... Taxes were collected by professional gatherer hired by the state who dealt directly with each individual taxpayer...

Administrative centralization required a bureaucracy of capable officials and Napoleon created one. He also created a new aristocracy based on merit in the state service. Tanks to that, Napoleon created more then three thousand nobles between 1808 and 1814 and 60% of them were military officers... Napoleon destroyed and preserved aspects of the revolution. Even if equality was preserved, Napoleon used the conscription for the military, which make it clear that the majority of the equality has been lost. Napoleon's Empire and the European Response.

Napoleon became consul in 1799; France was engage at war with a European coalition of Russia, Great Britain, and Austria... After that, Napoleon saw the need for a pause, a time of peace. But in 1803, war was once again open with Britain, Austria, Russia and the Prussia... After battles at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena and Eylau from 1805 to 1807, Napoleon's army was victorious.

Napoleon's Grand Empire. The Empire was composed of 3 important parts: the French empire, a series of dependent states and allied states... The grand empire consisted of an enlarged France extending to the Rhine in the east and including the western half of Italy north of Rome... Dependent states included the Netherlands, the kingdom of Italy, Spain, the Swiss Republic, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, and the Confederation of the Rhine... Allied States were the states defeated by Napoleon and were forced to join his fight against Britain... Napoleon made his brother Jerome, king of the new German state of Westphalia.

Problems: Great Britain and Nationalism. Napoleon's empire collapses almost as rapidly as it had been formed... The first reason of the fall of Napoleon Empire was the survival of Great Britain and the force of Nationalism. The Britain's survival was tanks to its sea power and as long as the Britain had the upper hand in the naval forces, they were almost invulnerable to military attacks. Napoleon tried several time to take the Britain on the sea but failed...

The second important factor was the nationalism. This political event aroused during the French Revolution. Nationalism involved the unique cultural identity of a people based on a single language, religion, and national symbols. These political events made complications for the French Empire. The fall of Napoleon. The fall of Napoleon came in 1812 with his invasions of Russia...

When Napoleon's army engaged with the Russian, they burned their own villages so Napoleon's forces couldn't obtain any food supply... Arriving at Moscow, The French forces didn't find any food supply and therefore they were forced to retreat... They counter the deadly winter in Russia and only 40 000 soldier out of 600 000 could come back... Napoleon's defeat occurred in April 1814... He was allowed to rule the island of Elba, off the cost of Tuscany. Napoleon, bored on Elba, return to France and when the troops were sent to capture him, Napoleon convince them to follow him once more.

He decided to attack his enemy first with his army and on June 18, at Waterloo, Napoleon's forces was defeated by the British and Prussian army.