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This article is about Napoleon I. For other uses, see Napoleon (disambiguation).
"Napoleon Bonaparte" redirects here. For other uses, see Napoleon Bonaparte
(disambiguation).

Napoleon

The Emperor Napoleon in His Study at the Tuileries by

Jacques-Louis David, 1812

Emperor of the French

1st reign 18 May 1804 – 6 April 1814

2 December 1804
Coronation
Notre-Dame Cathedral

2nd reign 20 March 1815 – 22 June 1815

King of Italy

Reign 17 March 1805 – 11 April 1814

26 May 1805
Coronation
Milan Cathedral

Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine

In office 12 July 1806 – 19 October 1813

President of the Italian Republic

In office 26 January 1802 – 17 March 1805

First Consul of France

In office 10 November 1799 – 18 May 1804

Jean Jacques Régis

Co-Consuls
Charles-François Lebrun
 15 August 1769
Born
Ajaccio, Corsica, France

5 May 1821 (aged 51)

Died
Longwood, Saint Helena, United Kingdom

15 December 1840
Burial
Les Invalides, Paris, France

Joséphine de Beauharnais
(m. 1796; div. 1810)
Spouse

Marie Louise of Austria (m. 1810)

Issue
Napoleon II
Detail

Full name
Napoléon Bonaparte

House Bonaparte

Father Carlo Buonaparte

Mother Letizia Ramolino

Roman Catholicism
Religion
See details
 Signature

Coat of arms

Napoléon Bonaparte[a] (/nəˈpoʊliən ˈboʊnəpɑːrt/,[1] French: [napɔleɔ̃ bɔnɑpaʁt]; 15 August

1769 – 5 May 1821) was a French statesman and military leader who rose to prominence
during the French Revolution and led several successful campaigns during the French
Revolutionary Wars. He was Emperor of the French as Napoleon I from 1804 until 1814 and
again briefly in 1815 during the Hundred Days. Napoleon dominated European and global
affairs for more than a decade while leading France against a series of coalitions in the
Napoleonic Wars. He won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, building a
large empire that ruled over much of continental Europe before its final collapse in 1815. He
is considered one of the greatest commanders in history, and his wars and campaigns are
studied at military schools worldwide. Napoleon's political and cultural legacy has endured as
one of the most celebrated and controversial leaders in human history.[2][3]

He was born Napoleone di Buonaparte (Italian: [napoleˈoːne di ˌbwɔnaˈparte]) in Corsica to a

relatively modest Italian family from minor nobility. He was serving as an artillery officer in
the French army when the French Revolution erupted in 1789. He rapidly rose through the
ranks of the military, seizing the new opportunities presented by the Revolution and becoming
a general at age 24. The French Directory eventually gave him command of the Army of Italy
after he suppressed the 13 Vendémiaire revolt against the government from royalist
insurgents. At age 26, he began his first military campaign against the Austrians and the
Italian monarchs aligned with the Habsburgs—winning virtually every battle, conquering the
Italian Peninsula in a year while establishing "sister republics" with local support, and
becoming a war hero in France. In 1798, he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a
springboard to political power. He orchestrated a coup in November 1799 and became First
Consul of the Republic. After the Peace of Amiens in 1802, Napoleon turned his attention to
France's colonies. He sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States, and he attempted to
restore slavery to the French Caribbean colonies. However, while he was successful in
restoring slavery in the eastern Caribbean, Napoleon failed in his attempts to subdue Saint-
Domingue, and the colony that France once proudly boasted of as the "Pearl of the Antilles"
became independent as Haiti in 1804. Napoleon's ambition and public approval inspired him
to go further, and he became the first Emperor of the French in 1804. Intractable differences
with the British meant that the French were facing a Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon
shattered this coalition with decisive victories in the Ulm Campaign and a historic triumph
over the Russian Empire and Austrian Empire at the Battle of Austerlitz which led to the
dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against
him because Prussia became worried about growing French influence on the continent.
Napoleon quickly defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, then marched his
Grande Armée deep into Eastern Europe and annihilated the Russians in June 1807 at the
Battle of Friedland. France then forced the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to sign the
Treaties of Tilsit in July 1807, bringing an uneasy peace to the continent. Tilsit signified the
high-water mark of the French Empire. In 1809, the Austrians and the British challenged the
French again during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but Napoleon solidified his grip over
Europe after triumphing at the Battle of Wagram in July.

Napoleon then occupied the Iberian Peninsula, hoping to extend the Continental System and
choke off British trade with the European mainland, and declared his brother Joseph
Bonaparte the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted with British
support. The Peninsular War lasted six years, featured extensive guerrilla warfare, and ended
in victory for the Allies against Napoleon. The Continental System caused recurring
diplomatic conflicts between France and its client states, especially Russia. The Russians
were unwilling to bear the economic consequences of reduced trade and routinely violated the
Continental System, enticing Napoleon into another war. The French launched a major
invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The campaign destroyed Russian cities, but did not
yield the decisive victory Napoleon wanted. It resulted in the collapse of the Grande Armée
and inspired a renewed push against Napoleon by his enemies. In 1813, Prussia and Austria
joined Russian forces in the War of the Sixth Coalition against France. A lengthy military
campaign culminated in a large Allied army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig in
October 1813, but his tactical victory at the minor Battle of Hanau allowed retreat onto
French soil. The Allies then invaded France and captured Paris in the spring of 1814, forcing
Napoleon to abdicate in April. He was exiled to the island of Elba off the coast of Tuscany,
and the Bourbon dynasty was restored to power. Napoleon escaped from Elba in February
1815 and took control of France once again. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh
Coalition which defeated him at the Battle of Waterloo in June. The British exiled him to the
remote island of Saint Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died six years later at the age of
51.

Napoleon's influence on the modern world brought liberal reforms to the numerous territories
that he conquered and controlled, such as the Low Countries, Switzerland, and large parts of
modern Italy and Germany. He implemented fundamental liberal policies in France and
throughout Western Europe. His Napoleonic Code has influenced the legal systems of more
than 70 nations around the world. British historian Andrew Roberts states: "The ideas that
underpin our modern world—meritocracy, equality before the law, property rights, religious
toleration, modern secular education, sound finances, and so on—were championed,
consolidated, codified and geographically extended by Napoleon. To them he added a rational
and efficient local administration, an end to rural banditry, the encouragement of science and
the arts, the abolition of feudalism and the greatest codification of laws since the fall of the
Roman Empire".[4]