...The Rise and Fall of Napoleon Bonaparte The great French military leader Napoleon Bonaparte had initially capitalized on the changes of the French Revolution to improve the lives of French citizens. But over time, Napoleon's lust for power overcame his good economic, political and military accomplishments, and his transformation into a selfish dictator led to his fall. Napoleon was born on 15th August 1769 at Ajaccio on the island of Corsica, he was the second son (having 7 siblings) of a lawyer who had minor connections to the aristocracy and was far from wealthy (Dugdale). His family was radical in outlook and as a young man he strongly identified with his Corsican heritage. Thanks in part to his mother’s adultery with the French military governor Comte de Marbeuf he began his military education at Brienne military academy and later in 1784 at the Military school in Paris, and he worked hard to complete his studies in a further year rather than the required three years (Dugdale). This was the natural choice of service for the young Bonaparte as he was gifted at science and mathematics, which were essential skills for any artillery officer of the time (Dugdale). The young Napoleon spent much of the next 8 years in Corsica supporting the Corsican rebel Pasquale Paulo who had been a patron of Napoleon's father. When the revolution broke out the Bonaparte family fled to France and Napoleon became opposed to Pasquale. He would quite likely have...
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...impact of Napoleon on Europe The Napoleonic Empire came into existence following the coronation of Napoleon Bonaparte as Emperor of France at Notre Dame in 1804. The frontiers of the ancien regime had been expanded up to and beyond France’s natural borders, with the momentum of expansion following in direct correlation with the pace of France’s military conquests under the leadership of Bonaparte himself. The ‘Great Empire’ is often referred to as a single entity embracing French controlled Europe, but territories were in fact separated depending on the levels of French control. Territory ruled directly from Paris was known as the pays reunis which compromised of France’s natural frontiers (borders of the Rhine, Alps and Pyrenees) as well as annexed territories of Piedmont, Parma, Papal States and Holland after 1810. It was also divided into the pays conquis, which were nominally independent satellite states and formed a zone protecting the borders of the French Empire from attacks from countries such as Britain. These were ruled by Frenchmen who were usually close to Napoleon as a family member or as a close friend, such as Jerome Bonaparte who was King of Westphalia and Joachim Murat who was King of Naples. When discussing impact, the effects of Napoleon and his policies on factors such as economies, religion and nationalism in satellite states that composed the Napoleonic Empire will be taken into account, whether positive or negative on the states. Napoleon changed...
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... Crook comments that Napoleon’s rise to power had “acquired an aura of inevitability”1, and such inevitability was aided by the fall of the French monarchy, the failings of the Directory, and more importantly, Napoleon’s personal ability and appeal to employ such opportunity. This essay will argue that his rise to power was indeed very much aided by the failings of the Directory, but it was Napoleon who recognized such failures and used these to his advantage that ensured his rise. It will begin with a short background of the origins and result of the French Revolution. It will then summarize the failings of the Directory and how Napoleon used such failings to rise to power. ! ! The French Revolution! ! To evaluate the Directory’s impact on Napoleon’s rise to power it is essential to examine France in the late 18th century, a time of uprisings and turmoils. There was a general public discontent in the French monarch, Louis XVI, due to his inability to find a solution of the impoverished France. France was in such a state because it spent a large sum on warfare, namely the funding of the American War of Independence. This Pyrrhic victory almost bankrupted France. While the King taxed the poor, the royal family and the nobles still lived in luxurious lifestyles. After a series of events, the King was overthrown. ! ! Napoleon Under the Directory! ! After the overthrown, the 1795 Constitution was passed by voting. It also established the Directoire, the Directory,...
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...people. e. They believed that governments should practice the ideals of the French Revolution f. Liberty, equality, and brotherhood. 4. Nationalism: the belief that people should be loyal. g. loyal mainly to their nation h. That is, to the people with whom they share a culture and history—rather than to a king or empire. 5. nation-state: an independent i. geopolitical unit of people j. Having a common culture and identity. 6. the Balkans: the region of southeastern Europe k. Now occupied by Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, and Romania. l. The European part of Turkey, and the former republics of Yugoslavia. 7. Louis-Napoleon: the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte m. Won the presidential election. n. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte took the title of Emperor Napoleon III. 8. Alexander II: Nicholas’s son o. decided to move Russia toward modernization and social change p. Alexander and his advisers believed that his reforms would q. Allow Russia to compete with Western Europe for world power. Questions:- 2. European governments used the army to suppress them by force. European governments used the army to suppress them by force. Disunity among the individuals as well as lack of support from the peasant class and the strength of the reactionary powers. Disunity among the individuals as well as lack of support from the peasant class and the strength of the...
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...Background: Napoleon Bonaparte was the fourth born among his eight siblings, born from a noble family. His father was Carlo Bonaparte, who was a gentleman of Ajaccio, Corsica, whose family of Tuscan origin had settled there and later on married him to Laetitia Ramolino who was a young girl of the island. His father had inherited a lawsuit which focused on the task of recovering an estate which the French church had taken possession of. His mother, Madame Bonaparte, played a significant role in the shaping and upbringing of Napoleon as she was a firm and determined lady who was extremely thorough when it came to matters of order and economy amongst her family. (Markham, 1966) “I was born,” said Napoleon, “when my country was perishing. Thirty thousand Frenchmen were vomited upon our soil. Cries of the wounded, sighs of the oppressed, and tears of despair surrounded my cradle at birth.” During the time of his birth, the Corsicans who were led by the Patriot Paoli led a revolt against the French, who at that time were the masters of the island. Napoleons father was part of the revolt and played a significant role by sharing his fortunes of his chief to the end of the struggle of 1769. They were defeated and they, including Napoleons Family fled to the mountains. As time passed by, the Corsicans submitted and the Bonaparte’s went back to Ajaccio where Napoleon was born. (Markham, 1966) In order for his father to gain support from the French government, he humbled himself...
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...Napoleon was nothing more than a dictator in his rule of France between 1799 and 1815. How far do you agree? “History is a version of events which everyone has agreed on” - Napoleon Napoleon was nothing more than a tyrant as he exploited France in pursuit of his own ambitions to achieve a dynasty in his name. A dictatorship is often associated with repression and the workings of a police state. Both of these were, in fact, being used in France . For example Napoleon vigorously censored the press and even the theatre. When Napoleon took power, Paris had a vibrant newspaper business, by the end of his reign there were only four newspapers left due to his denial of a free-press and all of these had been under his control. These newspapers were censored and used by Napoleon for propaganda. He also had spies and informers working for his Ministry of Police, he used special courts and arbitrary imprisonment which really supports the concept of a police state under a dictatorship. Implementing these resources allowed Napoleon to repress any opposition to his rule and crush any civil unrest Considering these facts only it would appear that Napoleon was nothing but a tyrannical dictator , but , this would not necessarily be a fair judgment as throughout his reign he continued to use certain administrative bodies which limited his freedom of action , such as the Senate and the Legislative Body which suggests he didn’t have or want overall power as a dictator for matters such as...
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...Did Napoleon and Robespierre preserve or destroy the ideals of the revolution Napoleon is one of the greatest figures in the history of revolution. He rose from a poor background to become the most revered leader in France and Europe at large. He led the French people against the ancient regime which was monarchical in nature. Napoleon was able to deliver France into a pure democracy. He served a lot of revolutionary ideals such as denouncing state religion, preserved religious freedom, and founded Lycee, enhanced liberty, among many others. Similarly, Maximilien Robespierre was another major revolutionary figure in France. Before he got into power, he fought for the rights of the poor and oppressed. He was able to attract the attention of the urban workers known as sans-culottes. He was able to overthrow the Jacobin government in his revolutionary mission. However, both of these leaders destroyed ideals of the revolution when they got into power. They practiced authoritarian rule by limiting freedom, equality and putting their family in leadership positions. This was a total diversion from the core...
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...Introduction As indicated in the discussion of the French Revolution, there is a logical and long-range pattern that revolutions follow. Therefore, understanding the pattern of past revolutions can help us anticipate events in current revolutions, more specifically the final stages of the process now taking place in Russia and China. One word of caution, however: these are likely trends, not absolute certainties. Outside events (e.g., a major war) and other historical forces unique to Russia and China respectively, could divert events in a very different direction from what is indicated here. Still, this pattern generally holds up and should serve as a guide in how we deal with nations still undergoing this process. That being said, following is a comparison of the French Revolution, which after 82 years finally reached a stable democratic form of government by 1871, and the Russian Revolution, which after 92 years is presumably in its final stage of evolution toward democracy. Forces leading to revolution Both countries shared three elements that helped lead to war: 1) Both regimes were burdened by heavy debts incurred from wars. In France’s case, this was the debt incurred by its support of the American Revolution. For Russia, this was the even higher cost in lives and money suffered during the first three years of World War I....
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... | | | | | | | | |The Campaigns of Napoleon | | |During his long career Napoleon Bonaparte conquered most of Europe and became such a feared soldier that his opponents in Britain, Russia, Austria and Prussia had| | |him declared 'an enemy of humanity'. This section on his military campaigns covers the important details and battles of the wars that led to Napoleon Bonaparte | | |becoming the greatest leader of armies in history. | | |First Coalition | | |1792 to 1797...
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...Napoleon Bonaparte: the best of leaders; the worst of leaders 1 comment Posted in Leaders from History | 1 comment I must confess that I have a bit of thing about Napoleon. A quick check on Amazon will show you (reassuringly, perhaps, for me) that I am not alone. There are a lot of books about Napoleon. If you are a student of leadership, then you come up against Napoleon like a student of modern art comes up against Picasso. There is simply no way around the man. But why? Firstly, Napoleon had a very large canvass to work on. The French revolution was a truly remarkable event. It began as an essentially liberal revolution, but was hijacked (as revolutions so often are) by homicidal fanatics: Robespierre and his fellow Jacobins. When Napoleon seized power in a nearly botched but nevertheless bloodless and generally welcomed coup, he became the leader of a nation that was beset on all sides by the old monarchies of Europe, desperate to snuff out this terrifying, king-killing, unthinkable republic in its midst. The French people were equally desperate to retain their new and bitterly hard-won freedoms from the essentially feudal rule of the Bourbon kings and the Ancien Régime. A significant sector of society was also keen to keep its hands on the financial benefits that they had accrued by buying up, at a very good price, the lands and estates previously owned by the monarch, the aristocracy and the church. Napoleon found himself at the head of nation that was predisposed to welcome...
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...CHAPTER 1 Italy in the early nineteenth century INTRODUCTION In September 1870, the troops of King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy entered Rome. Italian unification, the bringing together different states of the Italian peninsula under one government, was complete. The Risorgimento, the reawakening of Italy, had reached its climax. However, the creation of the new Italian state was neither inevitable nor had it been planned. Although Italian unification had taken place, there was little enthusiasm for the new state among the Italian people. In 1861, an Italian politician named Massimo d’Azeglio remarked to Victor Emmanuel: ‘Sir, we have made Italy. Now we must make Italians.’ The story of what follows is of how Italy was made, but it is also a story of division and the failure to ‘make Italians’. THE STATES OF THE PENINSULA Towards the end of the eighteenth century the peninsula of Italy was home to a number of states. The Kingdom of Sardinia (Piedmont) From its capital city of Turin, the House of Savoy ruled this relatively poor part of Italy. Despite its poverty, successive rulers built up a strong army and governed with an effective civil service. The island of Sardinia was particularly backward and was sparsely populated. Until 1815, the important port of Genoa was part of the Republic of Genoa. It was politically separate from the Kingdom of Sardinia. Lombardy and Venetia In the 1790s, Lombardy was part of the Austrian Empire. Its capital, Milan, was the second largest city of that...
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...republic state. In 1803, The Black Napoleon was laid to rest in Fort de Joux, France. Francois-Dominique Toussaint Breda, also more commonly known as Toussaint L'Overture, achieved the legacy of being the preeminent figure of that Haitian Revolution, through education, his brilliance as a military genius, and a political mastermind, paving the way to the second republic state in the Western Hemisphere: Haiti. He was born into slavery May 1743 in the French colony of Saint-Dominique on the Breda Plantation, near Cap-Haitien, with the birth name Francois-Dominique Toussaint Breda. Sources believe that Toussaint could be the eldest son of Gaou Guinon, a African prince who had been captured in war and sold into French slavery. Toussaint's success is credited from the education he received, even though he was a slave. The priest and former slave Pierre Bapitiste Simon, taught Toussaint how to read and write French, from a young age. Under the...
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...Revolutions Unit Paper Alex Koscick March 4,2012 Revolutions Paper Between the French, English, and American Revolutions, there were likes and dislikes between why they occurred in the first place, and how they came to an end. This paper will compare and contrast these wars, and help explain these likes and dislikes. One of the first similarities in why these great Revolutions begun, is that the people were unanimously angered by something that their government had done, (Monarchies in this situation.) The second similarity of the cause of these revolutions is that they the common folk felt that they weren't even within their rights to make their own choices, or that they didn't have a voice in their government. The third similarity in the causes of these revolutions is that all of these countries had enough people, to be able to make a large impression if they rose up. I believe myself that if they didn't have the forces to execute such an uprising, they probably wouldn't have even tried to take down their respective government/monarchy. Some general similarities, not necessarily based on causes and effects, are the following. All of the Revolutions discussed, were fought by the common people. All overthrew a monarchy ( King & Queen.) These next following sentences will explain some of the different reasons that the Revolutions discussed were caused. Singularly, one of the main reasons the English Revolution began was due to the fact there was an heir...
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...Revolutions 159 Revolutions 1688-1815 Chapter 15 W Louis XIV’s bedroom in Versailles. Each day officially began with a ceremony of getting him out of bed, his “rising,” and ended with a similar retiring ceremony at night. The small fence was to keep the onlookers at a safe distance, somewhat like a fence at a zoo. hen William and Mary ascended to the British throne in 1688 it was hailed as “the Glorious Revolution” for no blood had been shed and the British had a nation with greater political freedom than any other in Europe. Their ascent to the throne was quickly followed by a Declaration of Rights which guaranteed things like trial by jury and parliamentary representation to all British citizens. John Locke, the author and philosopher who supplied much of the intellectual foundation of the glorious resolution wrote in his Second Treatise on Government: “Man being born, as has been proved, with a title to perfect freedom, and an uncontrolled enjoyment of all the rights and privileges of the law of nature, equally with any other man, or number of men in the world, hath by nature a power, not only to preserve his property, that is, his life, liberty and estate, against the injuries and attempts of other men…” Locke further contended that the role of government is to preserve these rights and that the power of government is a result of the individual citizens collectively agreeing to be ruled. In July of 1776 Thomas Jefferson would modify Locke’s treatment of natural...
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...The French Revolution The people of France suffered many hardships before, during, and even after the French Revolution, which “was a period of major political and social change.”[1] Desperate for some relief to the adversity that many faced each day, groups began to meet and ideas began to form as to how the unhappy people could bring a reformation to the country that they believed was possible of greatness. Between the years of 1789 and 1815, France was a country ripe with upheaval in a series of trials and triumphs. To better illustrate the events that occurred during the French Revolution, one might attempt to examine three of the most important proceedings, which are the social background of French society leading up to the revolution, the ambitions of the people, and the various chaotic dictatorships and temporary solutions that France endured. French society consisted of three main groups of people who adhered to a hierarchical system each with different ideas of what their country should aspire towards. The First Estate, also known as members of the clergy, was one of the wealthier groups, as it was able to derive incredible amounts of money from the French administration by employing ministerial fees and by being absolved from payment of most taxes. The First Estate also possessed approximately ten percent of the land in France. The Second Estate, also known as the nobility, was fairly wealthy and governed an area of thirty percent. The Third Estate...
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