Napoleon

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15, 1769 in Corsica. His family had mild nobility and was well off. After his graduation from religious school, he went to military school to become an artillery officer. He was able to graduate the two year course in only a year because of financial reasons. He was commissioned to be a second lieutenant in a French artillery unit. Then the French Revolution of 1789 began. Napoleon eventually came to be a leader in among the revolutionaries. After the revolutions he became the leader of France and sought to conquer the entire European continent.

The Siege of Toulon was where Napoleon gained his initial power within the French army. After that battle, he began to have more and more power and influence among the officers in the French army. In 1799 Napoleon led a coup that had the sole purpose of overthrowing the government. The same government that Napoleon had fought to establish during the Revolution of 1789. He was granted the power of a dictator, but he ruled as a monarch more than a dictator. Napoleon was supposed to be a leader with a consulate and advisors that he was supposed to listen to, but he wanted all the power for himself and quickly disposed of his advisors. At the beginning of Napoleon’s reign, there was peace in Europe. But Napoleon became power hungry, and sought to conquer the European continent.

Eventually Britain, Russia, and Austria became allies and formed the Third Coalition. Their goal was to stop Napoleon from overtaking the continent. Napoleon’s only allies were the ones that he conquered, and they all eventually gained freedom and left him. Napoleon managed to lead his armies to victory because of his brilliant military mind and his blind ambition for power and ...

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...nterests of France”(The Rise and Fall of Napoleon). If Napoleon had not been so greedy and power hungry, he never would never have been defeated. Even though he managed to escape from exile and regain power, and “War was renewed during Napoleon’s ‘Hundred Days,’ but his army was defeated decisively at the Battle of Waterloo(Biesinger), and he was exiled again, this time to Saint Helena, and he stayed there until he died. His last words were “I wish my ashes to rest on the banks of the Seine, in the midst of the French people which I have loved so much…I die before my time, killed by the English oligarchy and its hired assassins” (Godechot).

Napoleon was one of the greatest military leaders of all time. If he had not been so greedy, he could have ruled for a long time and been very successful, but alas he wanted more than her could have and it lead to his downfall.