Napoleon Bonaparte: short biography

Do you want to know more about the life of one of the most important military that history has given, in this lesson from a PROFESSOR we will tell you in a summarized way the life of Napoleon Bonaparte (August 15, 1769 - May 5, 1821), a figure who came to conquer almost all of Europe in a very short interval of weather. But it is that, in addition to being one of the greatest military men in history, he was also the creator of the civil code that we have, in addition to being one of the first interested in the history of the pharaohs. So join us and discover the short biography of Napoleon Bonaparte.

Index

1. The start in the army and the campaigns in Italy
2. The expedition to Egypt
3. Napoleonic France
4. The creation of the Empire
5. The decline of the Empire and the death of Napoleon

We are going to do a brief review of the biography of Napoléon Bonaparte talking about his beginnings in the military career. In 1779 (with only 10 years of age) he entered the military school of Brienne and Paris after having learned to speak Italian. He would graduate as a lieutenant in 1785. With the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 he will march to Corsica where he will accuse the deputies of high treason.

In 1793 he triumphed over the English at the Battle of Toulon, being a battalion leader and provisional artillery commander of the Nice regiment. After the victory, he was promoted to brigadier general in 1796; that same year he married Josefina Beuharnais and shortly after his campaigns began in Italy.

Furthermore, also the same year he forced the Sardinians to sign the Cherasco armistice, defeats Austria and inaugurates the policy of territorial redistribution after winning the battles of Castiglione, Arcole and Rivoli.

In the Biography of Napoleon de Bonaparte one of his first military feats was in Egypt. In 1798 he began the expedition against Egypt from Paris, landing in Alexandria and shortly after he would triumph in the battle of the pyramids. Although he had a first victory, he would be defeated by Admiral Horatio Nelson at the Battle of the Nile at Abukir.

He tries to invade Acre, Syria in 1799 but fails. In this way he will return to Egypt and this time he will face the Turkish troops successfully in Abukir but the news about the political instability in Paris forces him to return.

Within this period it is inevitable not to comment on the finding of the Rosetta stone, which was the key that opened the way to decipher the hieroglyphics.

He would take advantage of the aforementioned instability and the unpopularity of the French Directory to give a coup on Brumaire 18 (November 9), 1799. In this way he appointed himself consul of the government of the new plebiscitary republic. He reorganizes the state and creates some administrative institutions.

During this period, he led the fight against the second coalition of European countries and in 1800 he killed the Austrians at the Battle of Marengo (Milan). In 1802 he continued to carry out legal reforms of civil norms, that is, he created the civil code, in addition to acting on commercial and criminal norms.

In other areas, he becomes consul for life by signing the peace of Amiens with England, he proclaims himself president of the Italian republics and annexes the territories of Piedmont, Parma and Plasencia.

On December 2, 1804 he is crowned at Notre Dame by Pope Pius VII, rather he is he will crown himself emperor of the French. Shortly after he gave up his idea of ​​conquering Great Britain, due to his naval defeat at Finisterre in 1805 for, although it had the Spanish Crown as an ally, they suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Nelson in Trafalgar. But not everything will be defeats, as Prussia surrendered at Jena in 1806.

He signed a treaty with Russia and Prussia in 1807 after the peace of Tilsit, by which he recognized his dominance over Europe. He established a continental system of countries and with their allies, in which his objective was to blockade Great Britain.

Spanish invasion by Napoleon Bonaparte

Returning again to the political issue we will find the invasion of Spain with the excuse of attacking Portugal (an ally of Great Britain). In the Bayonne Treaty of May 5, 1808, King Charles IV abdicated in favor of Bonaparte, who placed his brother, José I. But the usurpation of the Spanish throne caused the start of the War of Independence (element that would make his entire empire collapse).

In the process of this war they never completely subdued the Spanish territory, since Cádiz always remained in Spanish hands, In this way the French were definitively expelled from the peninsula on May 22, 1813 and with the army Jose I was expelled or Pepe bottle as it was commonly known.

Attempts to invade Russia

Another of the strong points of his defeat was when Alexander I in 1812 decided to breach the Treaty of Tilsit and in this way we will find Bonaparte's intention to invade Russia. We will find a single battle during the Russian campaign, on December 7, 1812, in which the Russians are defeated. Thus Napoleon will occupy Moscow, which had been abandoned by the Tsar's government and previously razed so that the Napoleonic troops would have nothing to supply themselves with. In such a way Napoleon he was forced to return and while he made the return trip, the troops perished due to the cold winter and sporadic attacks by the Russian Cossacks.

We finish this short biography of Napoleon Bonaparte reaching the twilight of his life.

Once back in France, we will find a tired Napoleon and with an army of only 400,000 men, yet he faced a coalition in the Battle of Lützen on May 2, 1813 from which he emerged victorious, although shortly after he was defeated at the Battle of Leipzig between October 16-19, 1813. In this way the allies took Paris on May 31, 1814 and he was forced to abdicate.

Napoleon was exiled to the island of ElbaAlthough he managed to escape from captivity and regain power in March 1815, this period is known as the hundred-day reign. For on June 18, 1815 he was definitively defeated at the Battle of Waterloo, at the hands of the duke of wellington and this time the British so that nothing would happen again, they locked him up on the island of Santa Elena, where he would die in 1821, supposedly poisoned.

To this day his remains rest in the Invalides of Paris.

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