Napoleon Timeline October 31, 2007
Posted by cantueso in art, law, war.trackback
1769
Napoleon was born in Corsica.
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He received a military education, was praised as a soldier, imprisoned as a rebel and then promoted to general when France went through years of terror, revolutions, and war .
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This is Napoleon in Egypt, where he and his armies got stuck because the British burnt his ships and he could not get back to the mainland.
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1799
At the age of 30 he seized control of the government first as a ruler and five years later as the emperor of the French.
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By 1812
Napoleon had overrun all of Europe with his armies, but he lost against Nelson at Trafalgar and he suffered decisive defeat in Russia, where half a million of his his men died in the snow : remember the Beresina.
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1812
Defeat in Russia
The orange curve represents Napoleon’s advancing army starting out with 400,000 men. The black curve represents Napoleon’s fleeing army reaching Lithouania with 4,000 men.
It was so cold that the soldiers tried to sleep in the bellies of their dead horses. They did not wake up again.
… 
The ground froze. When it thawed, the transports got stuck in mud. The guerrilla attacked from left and right. For the pictures see http://luoghisensibili.wordpress.com/
The generals went on horseback, but the army …. w a l k e d all the way from Paris to Moscow and back. When the horses slid on the ice, the generals also walked and dragged their exhausted horses along. The guerrilla caught the stragglers.
No news from Paris. Nothing from the allies, nothing from the other army corps. The guerrilla intercepted the communications : no letters, no food, no spares. Napoleon never lost his optimism, nor the confidence of his men.
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Here he is camping at a Russian Orthodox church. See that bed in the background? The painting is called “Bad news from Paris”. That is the meaning of all those papers on the floor.
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1812
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But he decided to leave his army and race back to Paris in a sledge accompanied by a friend who wrote down the story. The friend’s name was Caulaincourt and the book well worth reading. Back in Paris Napoleon enlisted men and funds for more wars, but the Europeans started to collect their wits, and France was invaded :
Headlines “The Morning Post” of 1813 :
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1814
Napoleon was confined to the island of Elba, but he escaped and started another war. Then he lost the battle of Waterloo against great Wellington in 1815 and was banished to a remote place in the South Atlantic Ocean. He died 6 years later, nobody knows whether of arsenic or boredom.
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The French Empire with its clients and allies comprises all of Europe, except those gray patches.
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Even before he failed in Russia, Napoleon had trouble in Spain :
People everywhere fought him with knives and sickles and were executed as rebels and terrorists.
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The best that this lawless genius left behind was a code of law that lasted 200 years in France and is the source of legislation in one of the States.
The painting by David shows him putting a crown on his wife’s head, with her looking as if she were praying to him, which she likely was.
Before Napoleon picked her up, she had led a rather eventful life as a lady of expensive habits.
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The grey paintings are from the Bourbaki panorama murals in Lucerne about a French army taking refuge in Switzerland and getting disarmed. The painting of the Madrid shootings is by Goya from Wiki .
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Added April 29, 2009
A battle formation according to Oleg Parhaiev. That flag is certainly the Tzar of Russia’s. The picture is from a great web page at http://napoleonistyka.atspace.com/Russian_cavalry.htm
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There is more information at http://www.napoleonguide.com/battle_beresina.htm, a great site. I would never otherwise understand a battle description.
Thanks a lot for that reference. It is an excellent web page. They even have information on uniforms. And the writing is very clear. Do you happen to know the author?
This is how Victor Hugo saw Napoleon , though I think he later recanted :
“…half-naked worker sent by God to eliminate in
one single day ten
centuries of misery, without fear, without pity,
true, immense and
sincere….”
(snip snip)
…..you who with terror saved freedom: you who bear
that somber name:
necessity!”
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Translated from “Cuatre-vingt treize”. It is truly awful, that submission to power. But Hugo was a great poet.
I cannot understand why Napoleon is still held in high esteem. Didn´t he set out to become a world ruler? And he failed just like some before him and like Hitler later and for the same reasons. The cost must also have been similar: millions of anonymous men dead.
Thanks Cantueso, I’m glad to see my photo in this post.