NAPOLEON
Napoleon Bonaparte
From Corsica
Small Fry
• 5’2” – 5’6”
• Napoleon Complex
Military Genius
• Large Armies =
superior cavalry and
infantry
• Rapid Movement
• Lived off the land his
armies invaded
• Diversified Battle Plan
• Great Motivator
Achievements in Egypt
Rosetta Stone
Napoleon crowned emperor of France
Napoleon’s Empire
1st Defeat
Battle of Trafalgar (Lord Nelson)
Trafalgar Square
- London
Continental System
2nd Defeat: Russia
Due to Russian winter & scorched-earth policy; Of 610,000
French troops only 100,000 survived
1st Exile
Elba
Replaced by
Louis XVIII
Napoleon’s Return
The Hundred Days
- Returned and raised
army of 340,000
Final Defeat
Battle of Waterloo (Duke of Wellington)
Napoleon
after his final
defeat
The Duke of
Wellington
Last Exile
St. Helena
Napoleon’s Legacy
Napoleonic Code
– 1st successful civil law
code
– Equality, religious
toleration, abolished
feudalism
– Copied by many countries
including US (Which state
uses it?)
– Liberal allowances for
divorce (Who was the first
to get divorced?)
Napoleon’s Legacy
Social changes:
Public schooling
Gave peasants land
Jobs based on merit
Welcomed émigrés back
Women lost rights
Religious changes:
Tolerated Catholics, yet still state control
Which president is this?
Notice anything familiar?
Congress of Vienna
• Meeting held to decide what to do about Europe
now that France has been defeated
– Britain (Castlereagh and Wellington)
– Austria (Metternich)
– Russia (Tsar Alexander I)
– France (Talleyrand) get together
• Austrian prince Clemens von Metternich
lead this group
The Dancing Congress
Congress of Vienna
Goals:
1. To preserve peace by returning old
kings of Europe to power (legitimacy)
2. To restore the balance of power in
Europe by encircling France with huge
buffer countries to stop them from
attacking in the future (small countries
are forced to join bigger ones – Austria
and the Netherlands both grow in size)
What went right?
• No major conflicts for 99 years (18151914)
What went wrong?
• Napoleon’s conquests sparked
nationalism (intense national pride) in
the people of Europe.
• These people did not want to merge
with other countries.
• This will result in many conflicts
including the First World War.