The rise and fall of Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon Bonaparte was not only one of the best military captains ever known to the world but he was also a social and administrative genius who brought about measures that are still in vogue.

His military victories saw the French expand their empire across Europe and Napoleon brought established mighty rulers to heel.

Napoleon Bonaparte’s military genius was widely acknowledged and his rule was essentially underpinned by the force of his arms.

He also was an exceptional ruler having uncommon understanding of governance affairs and the patterns of administration he devised were emulated the world over.

His intellectual brilliance was celebrated far and wide with very few people matching the ingenuity of his mind. He is also known as the workaholic of history and his energy was exceptional in every respect.

It is quite surprising that given his gifts and achievements he ultimately failed as the supreme ruler and was banished to the prohibitive island and died in isolation and ignominy.

Despite his unprecedented victories, the matter of fact is that by the end of the Napoleonic era, France had been fighting her neighbours and her own people continuously for over 30 years.

The generation that had grown up in the shadow of the revolution had also lived in the shadow of perpetual war. First to fend off invaders set on restoring the Bourbon monarchy, then to conquer territory in the interests of glory and revolutionary values.

Without doubt, it was an exhausting experience.

Hundreds of thousands of young men had been conscripted into the army and were then lost
on the battlefields of Europe. The nation was growing weary, its resources run ning out and its people unable to indefinitely sustain even such successful wars.

It is now acknowledged that Napoleon suffered from over-ambition.

He had a grand vision for himself and his country and wanted to be a new Alexander the Great or Julius Caesar. Only the most ambitious of endeavors could have the impact his heroes had achieved. It was this that led him to a succession of wars that spanned a continent.

It led him to attain much but also to go too far.

No time was left to consolidate what had already been taken. Wars were launched on multiple fronts, most famously the invasion of Russia while his troops were fighting the British in the Iberian Peninsula.

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The Emperor bit off more than he could chew and ultimately the entire efforts became unsustainable.

It became gradually clear that Napoleon lost his flexibility. In his early campaigns, Napoleon was an agile commander who showed great intellectual and tactical flexibility.

Through swift and cunning movement, he outmaneuvered his enemies strategically, avoiding fights he did not want, and tactically, gaining dominance on the field of battle.

Throughout his Italian campaigns, he picked off Austrian armies piece by piece, using flanking movements to overcome defensive positions.

As he grew older, his mental agility faded. On several occasions, he resorted to trying to win by throwing thou sands of men straight at the enemy.

It led to great losses in his armies and less dramatic successes in battle.

One crucial factor was that Napoleon was let down by his colleagues and other functionaries associated with his empire.

He expected a great deal of the people around him, both in their willingness to follow his agenda and their ability to achieve it. These unrealistic expectations saw parts of his schemes for Europe fall apart.

Napoleon’s Marshal Bernadotte, made Crown Prince of Sweden, sided with the Russians against his former leader. Napoleon’s older brother Joseph, who had proved himself as an accomplished King of Naples, was unable to do the impossible and win around the conquered Spanish.

Another brother, Louis, failed to reinforce the Continental blockade when King of Holland, and looked after Dutch interests instead. Their youngest brother, Jerome, made errors as a general, both in his approach to the invasion of Russia and his leadership of troops at Waterloo.

To his detriment Napoleon consistently underrated the efficacy of British naval power. From the start, the British Navy far outmatched that of France. An oceanic superpower whose fleet dominated the seas, Britain repeatedly beat France. The most famous defeats were both delivered by Admiral Nelson, who destroyed Napoleon’s transport fleet at the Battle of the Nile and then smashed a Franco-Spanish force at Trafalgar, where the British Ad miral lost his life.

British control of the seas limited France’s ability to maneuver globally and allowed them to land troops in the Spanish Peninsula. It gave the British a huge edge in economic warfare.

Very soon in his rule it became apparent that Napoleon was fighting and losing an economic battle.

Napoleon recognised the only way he could defeat the British was by crippling their economy. That way, he could destroy their ability to wage war.

As a mercantile nation, the British were reliant upon international trade. Napoleon, therefore, tried to win the economic war through the Continental System, a blockade of British trade at ports across Europe. It was easier to enforce in some areas than others. Anywhere directly controlled by France, Napoleon could order the system into place.

Elsewhere, he had to win cooperation through diplomacy.

American and British ships clashed during the war of 1812 with Napoleon’s blockade being a factor which contributed to the start of that war. The system was full of holes. Occupied territories became resentful of the imposition, stirring opposition to the French.

France’s Atlantic ports were hit hard by the British counter-blockade, their trade and supporting industries badly savaged. In the Netherlands, Napoleon’s brother failed to crack down on smuggling, while in Russia the Tsar gave up on the blockade as unhelpful for his nation. Not only did the Continental System fail to cripple Britain, it also damaged France’s own economy. Britain was left free not just to fund her forces but to subsidize those of her allies.

Napoleon’s arrogance resulted in all other European powers ganging up against him with the seemingly endless French invasions finally mobilised the other great powers of Europe to unite.

After a series of failed alliances, they came together in the Sixth Coalition.

Between the driving determination of Tsar Alexander of Russia; the international influence of Austria; the freshly mobilized and experienced armies of Prussia; and the financial and military power of Great Britain, this alliance was finally able to push Napoleon’s troops back into France and defeat them there. He had offended too many people, leaving his nation without potential allies.  The Coalition finally brought together enough strength to bring him down.

The most potent difficulty that brought about Napoleon’s fall was his inherent inability to compromise. Towards the end, Napoleon refused any chance to salvage his achievements. Rather than sue for peace, he continued fighting the Coalition, even as they crossed the French borders.

His followers had to remove him from power rather than face destruction.

His return in the Hundred Days War followed a similar pattern. The swift collapse of the Bourbon regime and Napoleon’s popularity were powerful bargaining chips.

Europe was tired of war. If he had been willing to negotiate, he might have secured his return, or at least left the throne to his son.

Napoleon always had to win on his terms. Ultimately, that led him to lose.