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Emperor Napoleon

Napoleon was born on 15th August 1769 and was a French military and political leader who had significant impact on modern European history. He was a general during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns against the first and second Coalition.

In late 1799, Napoleon staged a “coup d'état” and established himself as First Consul; five years later he became the Emperor of the French. In the first decade of the nineteenth century, he turned the armies of France against almost every large European power, taking over continental Europe through a long stretch of military victories and through the construction of wide spread alliance structures. He appointed close friends and several members of his family as monarchs and important government figures of French-dominated states.

The devastating French invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point in Napoleon's luck. The campaign wrecked the Grande Armée, which never got back to its previous strength. In October 1813, the Sixth Coalition defeated his forces at Leipzig and then invaded France. The coalition forced Napoleon to resign in April 1814, banishing him to the island of Elba.

Less than a year later, he returned to France and regained control of the government in the Hundred Days (les Cent Jours) prior to his final defeat at Waterloo on 18 June 1815.

Napoleon spent the remaining six years of his life under British regulation on the island of St. Helena. Napoleon developed relatively few military advances, although his placement of artillery into batteries and the elevation of the army corps as the standard all-arms unit have become accepted policies in virtually all large modern armies. He drew his best tactics from a variety of sources and scored several major victories with a modernized and reformed French army. His campaigns are studied at military academies all over the world and he is widely regarded as one of history's greatest commanders.

Aside from his military achievements, Napoleon is also remembered for the founding of the Napoleonic Code (Code Napoléon), which laid the bureaucratic fundamentals for the modern French state.

A great leader and commander Napoleon died on the 5th May 1821 and was buried at Les Invalides, Paris. The cause of Napoleon's death has been uncertain on a number of occasions. Francesco Antommarchi, the physician chosen by Napoleon's family and the leader of the post mortem examination, gave stomach cancer as a reason for Napoleon's death on his death certificate.

In the later half of the twentieth century, a different theory arose speculating that Napoleon was the victim of arsenic poisoning.