From the rupture of the Peace of Amiens and the coronation of the Emperor through Trafalgar and Austerlitz, Jena and Tilsit, the Continental System and the ulcer of the Peninsular War, the catastrophe of the Russian campaign and the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, to the first abdication and Elba, the Hundred Days, and the final defeat at Waterloo. Slide across the years to read the major events of the wars that convulsed Europe for a decade and made the modern continent.
On 18 May Britain declares war on France, shattering the fourteen-month Peace of Amiens. The quarrel over Malta, Napoleon's expansion in Italy and Switzerland, and the closure of continental markets to British trade prove irreconcilable. Bonaparte, First Consul for life, masses an invasion army at Boulogne and gazes across the Channel at England.
On 18 May Britain declares war on France, shattering the fourteen-month Peace of Amiens. The quarrel over Malta, Napoleon's expansion in Italy and Switzerland, and the closure of continental markets to British trade prove irreconcilable. Bonaparte, First Consul for life, masses an invasion army at Boulogne and gazes across the Channel at England.
On 18 May Britain declares war on France, shattering the fourteen-month Peace of Amiens. The quarrel over Malta, Napoleon's expansion in Italy and Switzerland, and the closure of continental markets to British trade prove irreconcilable. Bonaparte, First Consul for life, masses an invasion army at Boulogne and gazes across the Channel at England.
Around 1803 AD
The Final Recess secularises the ecclesiastical states
The Louisiana Purchase
France and Britain make peace
The Code Civil and the execution of the duc d'Enghien
Act of Union with Ireland
The French withdrawal and the struggle for Egypt
From the rupture of the Peace of Amiens and the coronation of the Emperor through Trafalgar and Austerlitz, Jena and Tilsit, the Continental System and the ulcer of the Peninsular War, the catastrophe of the Russian campaign and the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig, to the first abdication and Elba, the Hundred Days, and the final defeat at Waterloo. Slide across the years to read the major events of the wars that convulsed Europe for a decade and made the modern continent.
On 18 May Britain declares war on France, shattering the fourteen-month Peace of Amiens. The quarrel over Malta, Napoleon's expansion in Italy and Switzerland, and the closure of continental markets to British trade prove irreconcilable. Bonaparte, First Consul for life, masses an invasion army at Boulogne and gazes across the Channel at England.
On 2 December, in Notre-Dame de Paris and before Pope Pius VII, Napoleon takes the crown from the altar and places it on his own head, then crowns Josephine empress. The French Republic becomes the French Empire. David immortalises the scene on a canvas thirty feet wide.
On 21 October, off Cape Trafalgar, Admiral Nelson signals 'England expects that every man will do his duty' and drives his columns through the Franco-Spanish line. Eighteen of Villeneuve's thirty-three ships are taken or destroyed; not one British vessel is lost. Nelson, shot on the deck of the Victory, dies as victory is won. Britain will rule the seas for a century.
On 2 December, the first anniversary of his coronation, Napoleon lures the Austro-Russian army onto the Pratzen Heights above Austerlitz, then splits it in two with a stroke through the centre. Feigning weakness on his right, he shatters the allied left on the frozen ponds. It is the masterpiece of his career; the Third Coalition collapses and Austria sues for peace at Pressburg.
On 14 October the army of Frederick the Great, unreformed since his death, is destroyed in the twin battles of Jena and Auerstedt. Napoleon enters Berlin on 27 October. From the Prussian capital he issues the Berlin Decree of 21 November, proclaiming the Continental System: the whole of Europe is closed to British commerce.
After the bloody draw of Eylau in February and the decisive victory of Friedland in June, Tsar Alexander I sues for peace. On 7 July, on a raft moored in the middle of the river Niemen at Tilsit, the two emperors meet and divide Europe between them. Russia joins the Continental System; Prussia is stripped of half her lands. Napoleon stands at the summit of his power.
Having lured the Bourbons into abdication and placed his brother Joseph on the Spanish throne, Napoleon provokes the rising of the Dos de Mayo in Madrid on 2 May, crushed by Murat's cavalry and immortalised by Goya. But the whole country rises in guerrilla war. In July a French army surrenders at Bailén — the first capitulation of the Empire in the open field.
Encouraged by Spain, Austria renews the war and checks Napoleon at Aspern-Essling in May — his first personal defeat. But on 5-6 July, in the greatest battle yet fought in Europe, half a million men clash at Wagram outside Vienna. Napoleon wins, and the Peace of Schönbrunn follows. To seal it he divorces Josephine and marries the Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria.
On 24 June, angered by Russia's abandonment of the Continental System, Napoleon leads the largest army Europe has ever seen — some 600,000 men of twenty nations — across the Niemen into Russia. The Russians refuse battle and retreat, burning the land behind them. The bloody, indecisive slaughter of Borodino on 7 September opens the road to Moscow.
Napoleon enters Moscow on 14 September to find it deserted and set ablaze. After waiting five weeks for a peace that never comes, he orders the retreat on 19 October. Winter, hunger, and the Cossacks turn the withdrawal into a catastrophe; at the crossing of the Berezina in late November the army is nearly annihilated. Of the men who crossed the Niemen in June, barely one in ten returns.
From 16 to 19 October, at Leipzig, the armies of Russia, Prussia, Austria, and Sweden — some 350,000 men — surround Napoleon's 200,000. It is the largest battle in Europe before the First World War. Overwhelmed and abandoned by his German allies, the Emperor retreats across the Rhine with a broken army. Germany is lost; the war moves to the frontiers of France.
Despite a brilliant defensive campaign in France, Napoleon is overwhelmed by numbers. The allies enter Paris on 31 March. Deserted by his marshals, the Emperor abdicates unconditionally at Fontainebleau on 6 April. By the Treaty of Fontainebleau he keeps the title of Emperor and is given the tiny Mediterranean island of Elba to rule; the Bourbon Louis XVIII is restored to the throne of France.
On 1 March Napoleon lands near Cannes with a thousand men and marches north. The troops sent to arrest him defect to their old commander at Grenoble; Marshal Ney, who promised to bring him back in an iron cage, embraces him instead. On 20 March Louis XVIII flees and Napoleon re-enters the Tuileries. The Congress of Vienna declares him an outlaw, and Europe mobilises for one last war.
On 18 June, on a muddy field in Belgium, Napoleon hurls his army against Wellington's Anglo-allied line at Waterloo. The British squares hold through a long day of cavalry charges. In the evening Blücher's Prussians arrive on the French right; the Imperial Guard, sent forward in a last assault, is broken. 'La Garde recule' — and the army dissolves in rout. It is the end.