Napoleon I’s Achievements

Napoleon I is one of the most famous figures in history. An ambitious, charismatic leader, Napoleon was also a reformer, revolutionizing the French military, reorganizing French education, and sponsoring the Napoleonic Code, a model of later civil-law codes. His driving passion, however, was to expand French dominion through military conquest.

After graduating from military school in France, Napoleon was made second lieutenant of artillery in the regiment of La Fère when he was only 16 years old. Later influenced by his readings of Voltaire and Jean-Jacques Rousseau, he believed a political change was imperative in France but, as a career military officer, he seems not to have seen the need for radical social reforms. He achieved his first military successes during the French Revolution. Napoleon supported the National Convention, the new governmental body of France that had abolished the monarchy. His distinguished military service helped him rise through the ranks. In 1795 he put down an insurrection against the National Convention in Paris. He was regarded as a hero for saving the National Convention and the republic.

In 1796 a new governing body, the Directory, made Napoleon the commander of the French army in Italy, which was then fighting the Austrians and their allies. The Italian campaign showed Napoleon’s military genius. He bewildered his enemies with his rapid movements. He eventually carried the war into Austria itself and had advanced to within 80 miles of Vienna when the enemy surrendered. He concluded the Treaty of Campo Formio, which gave France more territory. After a failed invasion of Egypt, he returned to France, where the political situation had become unstable. The Directory had lost its popularity among the people. Napoleon saw an opportunity for self-advancement. He joined in a plot that, in November 1799, overthrew the Directory. In its place was set up a government called the Consulate, with Napoleon as the first of the three consuls. Within three years he was made first consul for life. Napoleon instituted reforms in post-revolutionary France, starting with a complete overhaul of military training. He also centralized the government, reorganized the banking and educational systems, supported the arts, and improved relations between France and the pope. His most significant achievement was the Napoleonic Code, which streamlined the French legal system. Continued political opposition from royalists and others soon convinced Napoleon that the best way to discourage conspiracies against him would be to transform the life consulate into a hereditary empire. On May 18, 1804, the French empire was proclaimed. Napoleon was consecrated emperor of France by Pope Pius VII in Notre-Dame Cathedral on December 2.

Napoleon continued a series of conflicts known as the Napoleonic Wars. Russia, Austria, and Sweden joined Britain to counter France in what was known as the Third Coalition. The British navy, under Horatio Nelson, destroyed the French fleet at Trafalgar on October 21, 1805. Napoleon was forced to look for other means to defeat his enemy. Austria and Russia were defeated at Austerlitz on December 2. Napoleon crushed the Prussians, who had entered the war in September 1806, at Jena and Auerstädton October 14, and the Russians at Friedland on June 14, 1807. His triumphs were marked by the Treaties of Tilsit in July that brought most of Europe to his feet. Napoleon led an army of about 600,000 into Russia in 1812, winning the Battle of Borodino, but he was forced to retreat from Moscow with disastrous losses. His army greatly weakened, he was met by a strong coalition of allied powers, who defeated him at the Battle of Leipzig (1813). After Paris was taken by the allied coalition in 1814, Napoleon was forced to abdicate and was exiled to the island of Elba. In 1815 Napoleon escaped from Elba and, in the Hundred Days campaign, tried to restore his empire. But British and allied forces crushed the French army at the Battle of Waterloo. This time, Napoleon was exiled to the South Atlantic island of Saint Helena, where he died in 1821.

Napoleon was an absolute monarch whose ambition raised France to new heights but then brought about devastating military defeats that nearly destroyed the country’s armies. Napoleon, however, left durable institutions on which modern France was built up, including the Napoleonic Code, the judicial system, the central bank and the country’s financial organization, military academies, and a centralized university. Napoleon changed the history of both France and the world.