Life of Napoleon

domingo, 12 de septiembre de 2010

Napoleon were born the 15 of August of 1769 in Ajaccio, capital of the present Córcega, in a numerous family of eight brothers, the family Bonaparte or, with their italianizado last name, Buonaparte. Five of them were men: Jose, Napoleón, Lucien, Luis and Jerónimo. The children were Elisa, Paulina and Carolina. Under protection of the greatness of Napolione - therefore they called in its language vernáculo-, all were going to accumulate honors, wealth, fame and to also allow thousand madnesses. The mother, Maria Leticia Ramolino, were a woman of remarkable personality, to which Stendhal chose by its character signs and ardent.

Carlos Maria Bonaparte, the father, always with economic oppression by his uncertain rough estimates in the law, borne thanks to the possession of some earth, demonstrated to have few aptitudes for the practical life. Their difficulties in front of worsened when taking party by the nationalistic cause from Córcega their new metropolis, France; congregated around a national hero, Paoli, the islanders defended it with the arms. In accordance with the defeats of Paoli and the persecution of her side, the mother of Napoleón had to face during his first lightings the laborious incidences of the fled ones by the steep island; of their thirteen children, those eight only survived. Subjugated the revolt, the French governor, count of Marbeuf, the letter played to be attracted the patricias families of the island. Carlos Bonaparte, who religaba his ínfulas of property to the small nobility with ancestors in Toscana, took advantage of the opportunity, traveled with a recommendation of Marbeuf towards the metropolis to credit them and obtained that their two older children entered quality of scholarship holders in the School of Autun.

The scholastic merits of Napoleón in mathematics, to which very it was become fond of and that got to constitute a species of second nature for him - of great utility for their future military specialty, the artillery, facilitated their enter the Military school of Brienne. It left to the seventeen years with the appointment second lieutenant and a destiny there trimming in the city of Valence.

Its Youth

Its anxious youthful stage ran between goings and comings to France, new quarterings with the troops, this time in Auxonne, the vortex of the Revolution, whose violent explosions knew during a stay in Paris, and the independentistas conflicts of Córcega. In the anxious confrontation of the factions insulares, Napoleón was created irreconciliables enemies, among them he himself Paoli, when breaking this one with the republican Convention and praising/pouring off the young official by the Frenchified factions. The distrust towards the paolistas in the family Bonaparte went away trocando in furious antagonism. Napoleón was raised by means of you intrigue with the headquarters of the military service and wanted to machine-gun to its adversaries in the streets of Ajaccio. But it failed and it had to flee with his, to escape to the fire of its house and an almost safe death at the hands of his infuriated compatriots.

Installed with its family in Marseilles, malvivió between great economic shortages that sometimes located on the brink of madness the misery to them; the horizon of the familiar availabilities used to finish in the houses of persistence, but the Bonaparte did not lack anger nor resources. It was able to reincorporar itself to rows with the captain degree and acquired an ample reputation with occasion of the siege of Tolón, in 1793, when choking a contrarrevolucionaria revolt supported by the English; the attack plan proposed to general inexperimentados was his, the execution also and the infallible success.

In recognition to its merits it was promoted brigadier general, it was destined to him to the separate military command of artillery in the army of Italy and traveled in special mission to Genoa. Those contacts with the Robespierre were on the verge of being to him fatal when falling the jacobino Terror, the 9 Termidor, and seeing themselves jailed by a time in the strength of Antibes, while its suspicious connection was explained. Released through another privateering, the commissioner of the Convention Salicetti, the Napoleón young person, with twenty-four years and without office nor benefit, returned to begin in Paris, as if he left There from

zero found to the refined Josefina Tascher of the Pagerie, of as shining reputation as ambiguous, that also overwhelmed its sentimental emptiness. She was a native Creole lady of the Martinica, that had two children, Hortensia and Eugene, and whose first husband, vizconde and general of Beauharnais, had been guillotined by the jacobinos. Much more behind schedule Napoleón, that declared not to have felt a deep affection by anything or by anybody, would confess to have loved enthusiastically in its youth Josefina, that had been about five years to him. Between its lovers Barras was counted, the strong man of the Directory arisen with the new republican Constitution of 1795, that at that time walked to the search of a sword, according to its literal expression, to which to handle properly for the preservative crease of the republic and to steal it to the continuous attempts of coup d'etat of realists, egalitarian jacobinos and radicals. The election of Napoleón was precipitated by one of the frightful insurrections of the popular masses of Paris, when finalizing 1795, to which the monarchists with their own destabilizing aims added themselves. Ordered to repress it, Napoleón conducted an operation of wall and annihilation to cannon shots that the capital flooded in blood left. The Convention had been saved.

Military Career

That general of twenty-seven years transformed bodies of desarrapados men hungry and demoralized into a formidable war machine that crushed Piedmont in less than two weeks and repelled to the Austrians beyond the Alps, of victory in victory. Their campaigns of Italy would pass to be matter forced of study in the military schools during innúmeras promotions. Or as much more significant that their overwhelming victories in Lodi, in 1796, in Arcole and Rívoli, in 1797, were their political reorganization of the Italian peninsula, that again carried out refundiendo the secular divisions and the old states in dependent republics die of France. The ray of the war was revealed simultaneously like the genius of La Paz. Most disquieting it was the independent character of its management: it did and it undid according to its own criteria and not according to the directions of Paris. The Directory began to be irritated. When Austria was forced to request La Paz in 1797, no longer a strict control was possible on a caudillo raised to the category of legendary hero.
Napoleón in the campaign of Egypt
Napoleón showed a threatening propensity to be the sword that it executes, the government whom it administers and the head that it plans and it directs, three people in a same nature of inigualada effectiveness. For that reason, the Directory columbró the possibility of moving away to that threat accepting its plan to cut to the vital routes of the British power - those of the Mediterranean and India with an expedition to Egypt. Thus, the 19 of May of 1798 embarked course to Alexandria, and two months later, in the battle of pyramids, it dispersed to the chaste one of mercenarios soldiers who operated the country in name of Turkey, the mamelucos, to go into soon in the Syria desert. But all their possibilities of success were colapsadas by the destruction of the French square in Abukir by Nelson, I emulate English of Napoleón in the naval scenes.
The misfortune left it isolated and being consumed of impatience before the fragmentary news that received from Europe. There the second coalition of the monarchic powers had recovered the conquests of Italy and the French inner policy boiled of conspiracies and candidates to assault a State in which the only stabilizing force that reduced was the army. Finally it was decided to return to France in the first boat that could evade the blockade of Nelson, saturated of passage in his native island and nobody dared to judge by desertion and abandonment to him of its troops, while it raised again from Córcega Paris, now like undisputed hero.

TIme Line

Conquests

Great Britain, irritated by the hostility of the actions of Napoleón, resumed the naval war with France in April of 1803. Two years later, Russia and Austria were united to Great Britain in the Third coalition. Napoleón discarded its plan to invade England and directed to its armies against the forces south wind-Russians, to whom it defeated in the battle of Austerlitz the 2 of December of 1805. It conquered the kingdom of Naples in 1806 and named king to its older brother, Jose; king titled of Italy (1805), disintegrated old Provinces United (today the Netherlands), which in 1795 he had constituted like Republic of Batavia, and founded the kingdom of Holland, to the front of which he located to his brother Luis, and settled down the Confederation of the Rin (who grouped to most of the states German) that was under his protection. It was then when Prusia and Russia forged a new alliance and attacked the confederation. Napoleón annihilated to the prusiano army in Jena and Auerstedt (1806) and the Russian in Friedland. In Tilsit (1807 July), it established an agreement with the czar Alexander I by whom the territory of Prusia was reduced enormously (it is seen Treated about Tilsit); also it incorporated new states to the Empire: the kingdom of Westfalia, governed by its Hieronymite brother, and the ducado one of Warsaw, among others.
During this time Bonaparte it had imposed the Continental System in Europe, that consisted of a blockade on the British merchandise in order to ruin the powerful commerce of Great Britain. It conquered Portugal in 1807 and in 1808 it named to its brother Jose king of Spain, after obtaining the abdication of Fernando VII in Bayonne and invading the country, leaving Naples as he compensates for its brother-in-law, Joachim Murat. The arrival to Spain de Jose Bonaparte broke out again the war of Spanish Independence. Napoleón was transferred to Spain during a time and obtained several victories, but the fight started again after its game, extending during five years the war between the French troops and the Spaniards (supported by Great Britain), playing a fundamental role the guerrilla warfare. This conflict supposed a great human wearing down (it has been considered in 300.000 losses) and economic for France that contributed to the final weakening of the Napoleonic Empire.
Bonaparte won to the Austrians in Wagram in 1809, turned the conquered territories the Ilirias Provinces (at the present time part of Slovenia, the Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Serbia and Montenegro) and conquered the Pontifical States. After repudiating to Josefina, it contracted marriage in 1810 with Maria Luisa, archiduquesa of Austria and daughter of the emperor Francisco I of Austria, pertaining to the house of Hapsburg. With this connection it tied its dynasty to the oldest of it real houses of Europe, with the hope of which his son, born in 1811 and to whom granted the title of king of Rome like heir of the Empire, outside better accepted by the ruling monarchs. The Empire reached its Maxima amplitude in 1810 with the incorporation of Bremen, Lübeck and other territories of the north of Germany, as well as with the kingdom of Holland, after forcing to abdicate to its brother Luis I Bonaparte.

The Coalitions

The coalitions were formed by some European powers against the French Revolution.

During this period whose duration is from 1789 to 1815 they made seven coalitions that are the following:

• First: First of these seven was formed in Pilnitz in 1791, after Luis XVI was guillotined, it was between the Kingdom of Prussia and Austrian Empire to which Spain, Sardinia, England and Sicily adhered to them this only lasted until year 1797 because it was dissolved by treaties of Basel that signed France with Spain and Prussia.

• Second: Second coalition was formed in March of year 1799 by England, that had not lowered the arms in the war before France. Sicily, Russia, Turkey and Austria also participated. This was undone after the defeat of Marengo and different treaties of Lunéville, with Austria in 1801. Soon in 1802 France signed with England the treaty of Amiens.

• Third: The third coalition was formed in Saint Petersburg on April of 1805 between England, Russia, Prussia and Austria. This third league was defeated by the Napoleonic army in Austerlitz and both parts signed the treaty of Presburgo in December of 1805.

• Fourth: The following alliance lasted a year, it began in September of 1806 and it finalized in 1807, July. This was conformed by Sweden, England, Prussia and Russia. It was dissolved with the treaty of Tilsit after the battle of Friedland.

• Fifth: The fifth confederation lasted from April of 1809 to October of that same year. This finished with the defeat of the Austrians in Wagram and the peace of Schönbrunn.

• Sixth: The following agreement was formed between European Sweden, Russia, Prussia, England, Austria and some other powers in March of 1813, and it was dismantled in April of 1814. The result of it was the abdication of Napoleon and its confinement in the island of Elbe.

• Seventh: Seventh of the coalitions was formed in Vienna in 1815 after the return from Napoleon to Paris when he escaped from the island of Elbe. Napoleon was defeated in the battle of Waterloo. This was the last one of the coalitions since Napoleon was taken as prisoner to the distant island of Santa Elena and he couldn’t retake the power

Hundred days

Separated from his wife and son, who had come under Austrian control, cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and aware of rumours he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon escaped from Elba on 26 February 1815. He landed at Golfe Juan on the French mainland, two days later The 5th Regiment was sent to intercept him and made contact just south of Grenoble on 7 March 1815. Napoleon approached the regiment alone, dismounted his horse and, when he was within gunshot range, shouted, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish.”The soldiers responded with, "Vive L'Empereur!" and marched with Napoleon to Paris; Louis XVIII fled. On 13 March, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon an outlaw, and four days later Great Britain, the Netherlands, Russia, Austria and Prussia bound themselves to put 150,000 men into the field to end his rule.

Napoleon arrived in Paris on 20 March and governed for a period now called the Hundred Days. By the start of June the armed forces available to him had reached 200,000, and he decided to go on the offensive to attempt to drive a wedge between the oncoming British and Prussian armies. The French Army of the North crossed the frontier into the United Kingdom of the Netherlands, in modern-day Belgium.

Napoleon's forces fought the allies, led by Wellington and Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher, at the Battle of Waterloo on 18 June 1815. Wellington's army withstood repeated attacks by the French and drove them from the field while the Prussians arrived in force and broke through Napoleon's right flank. Napoleon's was defeated because he had to fight two armies with one, attacking an army in an excellent defensive position through wet and muddy terrain. His health that day may have affected his presence and vigour on the field, added to the fact that his subordinates may have let him down. Despite this, Napoleon came very close to clinching victory. Outnumbered, the French army left the battlefield in disorder, which allowed Coalition forces to enter France and restore Louis XVIII to the French throne.

Off the port of Rochefort, Charente-Maritime, after consideration of an escape to the United States, Napoleon formally demanded political asylum from the British Captain Frederick Maitland on HMS Bellerophon on 15 July 1815.

The Lasts Days

In 1815 the adventure arrived at its aim, with the decisive victory of British and prusianos in the battle of Waterloo. A continental peace based on the restoration of the old monarchies was outlined in the horizon, beginning by the Borbones in France. The only obstacle seemed to constitute it the same person of Napoleón Bonaparte. Instead of fleeing, the abdicated emperor preferred to give itself to the British authorities, trusting that they would grant some agreed residence to him with his dignity, although outside watched. Instead of that, the English government decided to put it in a boat in the direction of a lost island in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean: Santa Elena.

There it spent Napoleón its last six years of life. Fearing that was escaped, the British officials, commanded by Hudson governor Lowe, they maintained a monitoring strict, that it got to be obsessive, and as opposed to which they did not serve don't mention it the indignant protests of the old emperor. For this one it was not easy to happen of its life like sovereign of practically all Europe, when it crossed the battlefields from Madrid to Moscow and resided in the middle of the fastuosa cut of the palace of the Tullerías, to pass a day after shut in other in a modest residence, corroded by the humidity, and under a tropical climate that was to him depressing. Even so, Napoleón tried to imitate its old life of cut thanks to the company of the small circle of the military and secretaries who accepted to follow to him in their exile. Among them was the count of You marry Them, who gathered in writing the memories of the Emperor, a work that was decisive for the survival of the fame of Napoleón during century XIX.

Aquejado of diverse ailments, in 1821 Napoleón passed away in that remote island. Two decades later its body was repatriated to rest definitively in the Hotel of the Disabled, in Paris.