Napoleon Bonaparte on the Battlefield of Eylau, 1807
In 1798, the French government, afraid of Bonaparte's popularity, charged him to invade Egypt in order to undermine Britain's access to India. An indication of Napoléon's devotion to the principles of the Enlightenment was his decision to take scholars along on his expedition: among the other discoveries that resulted, the Rosetta Stone was translated. He was defeated by Cezzar Ahmet in Syria near the Castle of Saida. Napoléon's fleet in Egypt was completely destroyed by Nelson at The Battle of the Nile, so that Napoléon became land-bound.
A coalition against France formed in Europe, the royalists rose again, and Napoléon abandoned his troops and returned to Paris in 1799; in November of that year, a coup d'état made him the ruler and military dictator ("First Consul") of France. According to the French Revolutionary Calendar, the date was 18 Brumaire. Napoléon instituted several lasting reforms in the educational, judicial, financial and administrational system. His set of civil laws, the Napoleonic Code or Civil Code, has importance to this day in many countries. The Code was largely the work of Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, who held the office Second Consul under Bonaparte from 1799 to 1804.
Struggle in Europe
Struggle in Europe, rise to emperor In 1800, Napoléon attacked and defeated Austria again; afterwards, the British also signed a peace treaty. In 1802, Napoléon sold a large part of northern America to the United States as part of the Louisiana Purchase; he had just faced a major military setback when his army sent to conquer Santo Domingo and establish a base in the western world was destroyed by a combination of yellow fever and fierce resistance led by Toussaint L'Ouverture. With his western forces diminished, Napoléon knew he would be unable to defend Louisiana and decided to sell (see Louisiana Purchase).
After Napoléon had enlarged his influence to Switzerland and Germany, a dispute over Malta provided the pretext for Britain to declare war on France in 1803 and support French royalists who opposed Napoléon. Napoléon, however, crowned himself Emperor on December 2, 1804. Claims that he seized the crown out of the hands of Pope Pius VII during the ceremony in order to avoid subjecting himself to the authority of the Pontiff are apocryphal; after the Imperial regalia had been blessed by the Pope, Napoléon crowned himself before crowning his wife Josephine as Empress. Then at Milan's cathedral on May 26, 1805, Napoléon was crowned King of Italy.
Battle of Trafalgar
A plan by the French, along with the Spanish, to defeat the British Royal Navy failed dramatically at the Battle of Trafalgar (21 October 1805), and Britain gained lasting control of the seas. By 1805 the Third Coalition against Napoléon had formed in Europe; Napoléon attacked and secured a major victory against Austria and Russia at Austerlitz (2 December 1805) and, in the following year, humbled Prussia at the Battle of Jena-Auerstedt (14 October 1806). As a result, Napoléon became the de facto ruler over most of Germany. Napoléon marched on through Poland and then signed a treaty with the Russian tsar Alexander I, dividing Europe between the two powers.
In the French part of Poland, he established the restored Polish state of Grand Duchy de Varsovie with the Saxonian King as a ruler. Then on May 17, 1809 Napoléon ordered the annexation of the Papal States to the French empire.
Battles in Spain, Austria, and Russia
Napoléon attempted to enforce a Europe-wide commercial boycott of Britain called the "Continental System". He invaded Spain and installed his brother Joseph Bonaparte as king there. The Spanish rose in revolt, which Napoléon was unable to suppress. The British invaded Spain through Portugal in 1808 and, with the aid of the Spanish nationalists, slowly drove out the French. While France was engaged in Spain, Austria attacked in Germany, but after initial success suffered defeat at the Battle of Wagram (6 July 1809).
Alexander I of Russia had become distrustful of Napoléon and refused to co-operate with him against the British. Napoleon invaded Russia in 1812. Napoleon didn't take into account the advice of Poles, who predicted long-term war instead of quick victorious campaign. They proposed to gradually retrieve former Polish areas from the Russian hands and build there the base for the further war. As Poles predicted, the Russians under Kutuzov retreated instead of giving battle. Outside of Moscow on 12 September, the Battle of Borodino took place. The Russians retreated and Napoléon was able to enter Moscow, assuming that Alexander I would negotiate peace.
Moscow began to burn and within the month, fearing loss of control in France, Napoléon left Moscow. The French Grand Army suffered greatly in the course of a ruinous retreat; the Army had begun as over 500,000 men, almost half of it was Polish, but in the end fewer than 10,000 crossed the Berezina River (November 1812) to escape. Encouraged by this dramatic reversal, several nations again took up arms against France. The decisive defeat of the French came at the Battle of Leipzig, also called "The Battle of the Nations" (October 16-19 1813).
Defeat, Exile in Elba, Return and Waterloo
In 1814 Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Austria formed an alliance against Napoléon. Although the defense of France included many battles which the French won, the pressure became overwhelming. Paris was occupied on 31 March 1814. The marshals asked Napoléon to abdicate, and he did so on April 6 in favor of his son. The Allies, however demanded unconditional surrender and Napoléon abdicated again, unconditionally, on April 11. In the Treaty of Fontainebleau the victors exiled the Corsican to Elba, a small island in the Mediterranean 20 km off the coast of Italy. They let him keep the title of "Emperor" but restricted his empire to that tiny island.
Napoléon tried to poison himself and failed; on the voyage to Elba he was almost assassinated. In France, the royalists had taken over and restored King Louis XVIII to power. On Elba, Napoléon became concerned about his wife and, more especially, his son, in the hands of the Austrians; the French government refused to pay his allowance and he heard rumors that he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic. Napoléon escaped from Elba on February 26, 1815 and returned to the mainland on March 1, 1815. The French armies sent to stop him received him as leader. He arrived in Paris on March 20 with a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000 and governed for the Hundred Days.
Napoléon's final defeat came at the hands of Arthur Wellesley, 1st Duke of Wellington and of Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher at the Battle of Waterloo in present-day Belgium on 18 June 1815. Off the port of Rochefort, Napoléon made his formal surrender while on the HMS Bellerophon, July 15, 1815. Napoléon's exile to Elba is the inspiration for the famous palindrome: "Able was I ere I saw Elba."