Bonaparte, a giant in the world of revolutionary men; or a tyrannical despot bent on absolute control of the world?

The life of a man like Napoleon Bonaparte did not happen by mere chance; he is a product of a revolution. His rare talent came into existence with a slim chance of any success; but he came in at the right moment, and was brought up for the perfect time and cause. He took opportunity when it was given, and he understood luck. He seemed to have the rarest kind of luck; Napoleon came close to death by the hands of the revolution but ultimately he became the death of it. This is no mere life of a man who had power handed to him, nor had the same situation befallen previous figures in history. He was given a chance and rose by merit. His ambition and his hunger for more power grew. This ambition would be his most powerful and yet his most destructive weapon in his vast arsenal. His belief in himself would see him through his failures in his homeland to becoming a general of the army of Italy. His military failure in

Egypt guided him back to France to take control. The would ultimately boost his ego until his final failures in his Russian campaign of 1812, the Battle of Nations, and finally

Waterloo. Even this would not be the resting place of his belief of his masterful destiny; he would create legends, myths, and make himself iconic in history. His ego, his confidence, self determination, and ambition would all be his sword and his support in the course of his life; but in the end it would be his downfall.

Napoleon knew what he was going for; from the time he got his moment at Toulon to the

100 days he reigned after his escape from his island prison. He said “Ability is nothing, without opportunity” (Napoleon Bonaparte). He had a tendency to make his own opportunities, rather than wait around for them to come knocking at his door. The siege of Toulon was a perfect example of his masterful control of a situation and creating his success from nothing.

Frightfully egotistical, proud, ambitious, aspiring to everything he would go far, in favorable circumstances.A school report would say about Napoleon: “From youth he always thought he was destined for greatness.” In his youth he always questioned himself and where he would go. He considered suicide multiple times because of his melancholy. Napoleon was in despair about his future, he thought his life would never move or progress. He feared an ordinary life of obscurity.

To see how Napoleon’s ego was both his driving force and his doom, we should start at the Siege of Toulon. He had not long ago been exiled from his homeland of Corsica, due to his actions in both politics and the military. He would reenlist and be assigned as an artillery captain and sent to help recapture the loyalist city of Toulon on September 7 1793. The city had opened its ports to the British and Spanish naval and land forces. Toulon was France’s greatest naval arsenal, and it being under Bourbon and British control threatened the very existence of the revolution. The previous generals, Carteaux and Doppet, were placed solely for political reasons, not for merit. Their assaults on Toulon failed multiple times. Twenty-four year old Napoleon replaced a senior French gunner, and made a sound plan to drive out the British Navy, which was stationed in the harbor. His plan was to seize the L’Eguilette heights, a promontory commanding the harbor There he could bombard the fleet under Admiral Hood which was anchored below, forcing them to retreat and thus causing Toulon to fall. It was a simple plan in design and requirements, but none of his commanding officers or generals would listen. The generals at

Toulon were totally incompetent and would be be replaced several times with more inferior generals until finally one of some skill was placed. He listened to Napoleon's plan and was naturally for it. This was Napoleon’s first great chance. Aristocrat officers were fleeing the country so there was a vacuum of officers allowing the entrance of others who could prove their worth and merit in the line of fire. Bonaparte suffered a wound in the thigh from an enemy bayonet. His intuition proved correct, the attack had forced the British fleet to retreat out of

Toulon. His attack sank ten ships. In just three months Napoleon was promoted from captain to brigadier general. He had his first major painting commissioned, showing himself leading a charge on the fort. This is important: he gets past the old, incompetent, failed commanders. He designs a way to win, leads the victorious attack, and has a painter immortalize the glorious day for personal publicity. His name would be mentioned in Paris; he was now a somebody in

France.

This early success at Toulon fueled his ambition for even greater power, his urge for order, eliminating chaos and disorder. This would lead him to be called on again by the Republic to squash a riot in Paris. He rose to the occasion and demonstrated supreme abilities in defeating the mob, thus leading to his promotion to a full General and Commander of the Army of the

Interior at the age of 26. Bonaparte was now a force to be reckoned with. His newfound confidence only enhanced his belief in destiny, his destiny to lead. His version of personal

Manifest Destiny would only fuel his ego to new heights.

At 26 he had come and done what few thought was possible. He would never have been able to achieve this under the Ancien Regime, where aristocrats dominated military appointments. This combination of success and belief in his own ability gave young Napoleon such strong feelings about his own destiny. He refers to it much through his life in his recollections of many of his greatest achievements. Toulon would only be the beginning of his drive to power, his rise to the world of giants.

The next key for Napoleon’s developing mindset was the Battle of Lodi. This was not one of his most tactically sound battles, nor his best show of skills. This battle, though, was by far the most influential on his ambition not in superior military skill but his belief in his destiny. His ego soared and he became confident in his right to change the world, if not rule it.

He chased the Austrians out of Italy. They hoped to slow him down from reaching their main force by placing their rearguard in the small Italian town of Lodi. It was a sound position. The

Austrians fortified the narrow bridge with fourteen cannons and three battalions. They dared and encouraged him to attack it. He did not have an elaborate plan of action for taking the town or position but made a simple frontal assault on the bridge itself. Everything would depend on the courage of his troops. This was a safe bet. He had won them over with a quick string of victories.

He would see here if he had won their faith. Bonaparte was a master at motivating his soldiers to do almost anything, so this was the test. The more victories Napoleon and his troops won against the Austrians. Harder it became to stop them; they had been chasing the Austrians for weeks.

Now they felt it was their moment to finally catch up with their enemy. Bonaparte’s men would charge over the bridge, hyped up and enthusiastic, charging the cannons and facing death. The young general would be in the thick of it all. Napoleon was always in the front of all the conflict with his men, which usually considered the corporals’ job. This was a man with absolute courage, wherever he was needed, he was there. Many times death was knocking at his door, cannonballs landing beside him and shots grazing him, but not once did he falter in fear, or move back to the rear to protect himself. Halfway across the bridge the French forces fell back; then in a second attempt they broke through. The French tore into the Austrians, who thought they had been safe behind the bridge. This not only sent a message to the Austrian soldiers who fought, but also to the generals and Emperor. It was an important victory for young Napoleon mentally.

He had imposed his will on his own men and the men of the Austrians. He had won the respect of his troops in this battle, and was given the nickname “little corporal.” This is the moment when he becomes convinced he has a lucky star, and destiny has chosen him to do great things.

“They haven’t seen anything yet,” Bonaparte sad to one of his generals, “in our time no one has the slightest conception of what is great. It is up to me to give them an example.” This was the spark. At the battle of Lodi he became convinced he was a man of destiny, Bonaparte would say

“from that moment I foresaw what I might be already. I felt the earth flee from beneath me as if I were being carried into the sky.” Napoleon would never be the same after this battle, nor would his thought process of what he could be. He would never again feel such a feeling as this, until his victory at Austerlitz. With an exalted sense of his own destiny, he was determined to follow his start to the heights of power. “Great me become great, because they have been able to master luck,” Bonaparte would say, “What the vulgar call luck is a characteristic of genius.”

Napoleon was a master when it came to propaganda. He ordered paintings of his image after every battle, glorifying himself as the hero who had delivered the victory. He created many newspapers, which promoted him and his agenda. Napoleon himself wrote a few of the articles published. He would continue to be a mastermind in the publicity field for his entire career. His ego and his ambition continued to swell as he continued his conquest of Italy. Finally he chased the Austrians to within twenty-five miles from . Their Emperor, Francis I, sued for peace. Napoleon negotiated a peace without the direction of the government of France. He did not let up until he got what he wanted in the treaty, which came from him showing his raging temper. “All events hang by a hair, I believe in luck, the wise man neglects nothing which helps his destiny,” as Bonaparte would later quote.

By the end of 1797, twenty-eight year old Napoleon Bonaparte returned to Paris, giving her the treaty. This left only Great Britain as her enemy, leaving a fragile peace on the continent. In just one and a half years he led his ragtag, dispirited army over hundreds of miles and defeated the army of Austria without ever losing a battle. These events would set up the foundation of Napoleon’s belief in his destiny. He thought his abilities were unmatched, his energy unchallenged, his equals were none and his men would fight for him no matter the risk.

Bonaparte needed a new enemy to conquer and set his eyes eastward in hop of finding new glory. “What I have done now is nothing,” Bonaparte said, “I’m only at the beginning of the course I must run. I can no longer obey, I have tasted command and I cannot give it up.” To describe the meaning of the Battle of the Pyramids, Napoleon said “Think of it, soldiers; from the summit of these pyramids, forty centuries look down upon you.” This battle would pit him against not only the Mamuluks, but Turkish forces and neighboring tribes.

The Mamluks waited for Napoleon and his army as he headed for Cairo. They called him and his men “donkey boys.” The Mamluks charged toward Napoleon’s cannons with arms from the Middle Ages; it was a meeting of the Europe of the future and the Egypt of the past. Napoleon organized his men into five gigantic squares, with the Mamluks riding in circles around his men. The Battle of the Pyramids would only last an hour but resulted in five to six thousand Mamluks dead and only thirty Frenchmen killed. Three days later Napoleon led his army into Cairo. “I was full of dreams,” Bonaparte said, “ I saw myself founding a new religion, marching into Asia riding an elephant, a turban on my head and in my hand a Koran.” This shows how far he had gone from the young artillery commander at Toulon. Now he saw himself as some new prophet, or Alexander the Great, a conqueror who was destined to impose his vision through victory. But even his genius could not stop the British Admiral Nelson from destroying his entire fleet off the coast of Egypt, ultimately stranding the young general in the hostile nation.

He would make several attempts to get back to Europe, one going through Jordan, present day

Israel, Iraq, and the lower part of present day Turkey. His campaign would be a failure ultimately, causing him to retreat back to Cairo. Going through Napoleon’s mind now was the disbelief he was stuck in a backwater country. His chances of power were slowly slipping away, his dreams were vanishing, and his destiny was fleeing from him.

His fear that he would spend the rest of his days in Egypt propelled him to find a way out, break through the British fleet, and make it back to Paris to continue his destiny. He would make his escape, but at a high price. Napoleon would slip onto a ship, and sneak through the British fleet that was blockading his army and small feet. Abandoning his 30,000 men to their fate, he wrote a letter explaining why: “Paris is in need of me, and I must depart Bonaparte would continue, but we all must do our part.” N reality his campaign in Egypt had provided him with nothing great to the French, and would be considered one of Napoleon’s great blunders by historians. When Bonaparte made it to France though, he would herald it as one of his greatest military achievements. The French were exultant about Napoleon’s great battles at the pyramids.

HE was a new high in the French people’s eyes. After this great propaganda campaign he and several others led a great coup d’état, which would catapult him into power. When Napoleon took over as Consul for Life he would say “the Revolution is over, I am the Revolution.” If Napoleon had not had his great ego, he might had seen his leaving his men back in Egypt differently. Instead he claimed it was all a great success, like all his other personal propaganda about his better victories. He needed the total faith and obedience of his men, so they had to believe he’d keep winning, and the mess in Egypt was sold as another success. Taking over France was just another step he had to take to get what he wanted: order and control. They very ego that had brought him this power would become a weakness. He thought he was invincible.

By the time of the battle of Austerlitz, Napoleon had united France under his control. He rebuilt France through economic, political, and domestic reforms. He had beaten the

Austrians and forced them into another peace, and finally made Great Britain sue for peace. For the first time in a decade Europe was in peace. Many expected him to fall from power just as fast as others had before him, but Napoleon was not about to let that happen. HE would centralize his control of France, concentrating and reforming many of the old regime’s ways, reinstating the church under him. His reorganizing of the administration did what few of his rivals did, creating equality among his people that allowed everyone the chance to use their abilities.

“A career open to all talents, without the distinctions of birth. A man should have the chance to rise on the basis of his ability,” Napoleon would say. He was king in all but crown and title, but that was soon to change for the young Napoleon was going to take it a step further.

“If I have any ambition,” he said, “it is so natural to me, so instrumentally linked with my existence that is like the blood that circulates in my veins.” On December 2, 1804,

Napoleon Bonaparte crowned himself Emperor of France at just thirty-five years old. His faith in his guiding start had been justified. Riding the tide of the revolution that shocked all of Europe, the young lieutenant from Corsica had ascended to general, married the love of his life,

Josephine, and with victory after victory on the battlefield, he had made himself the most powerful man in France. His presence was enormous; he was considered ambition in motion, going as far as considering himself invincible.

The Battle of Austerlitz as also called the Battle of the Three Emperors. It would be Napoleon’s most famous and greatest battle of all his campaigns, other than his major defeat at Waterloo.

In an attempt to stop Napoleon from invading Britain, the third coalition was created, headed by Great Britain. It had supplied the Russians and Austrians with the funding to conduct war with the young Emperor. For all their planning, and even gathering forces that outnumbered Napoleon’s, they still had the gravest of issues conducting attacks together and in sequence, as well as fighting under one another. Napoleon’s tactics and conduct of battle would benefit from this. These problems would be most evident and used to the advantage of a military genius of both strategy and war. In a clean swoop he moved all his forces, which amounted to

100,000 men, from Boulogne, leaving 10,000 behind to act as decoys. He knew his forces could not go toe-to-toe in a frontal assault, or in any other theater that wasn’t of his choosing. In order to win a decisive victory he must have the coalition fight on his terms, and that’s what he did.

He pulled his army facing England and led them eastward to face the

Austrian/Russian threat; ultimately this army would later become his Grande Armee. He would march 700 miles in just forty days and face two of Europe’s largest armies. He would take

General Mack of the Austrian forces at in one quick swoop. Twenty-seven thousand men surrendered. Napoleon would go on to tell the defeated general: “I did not intend to fight any but the English, until your master came along and provoked me; all empires come to an end. Now nothing stood in his way to Vienna. Then he chased the Russian General Kutuzov across the

Rhine as he escaped after hearing of his ally Mack falling to the hands of the young Emperor.

Kutuzov would regroup with the rest of the main force, led by Tsar Alexander I of Russian and

Emperor Francis I of Austria. Now Napoleon, with 73,400 men, was preparing for an attack by the Russians and Austrians who had forces 85,200 strong. They believed they would crush his army with sheer force. The battle of Ulm to them was a fluke; they were prepared to make

Bonaparte pay.

He would find a place to fight his battle; Napoleon would look over an area and find his battlefield. It was in-between the towns of Brino and Austerlitz. Bonaparte told his

Marshalls, “Gentlemen, examine this ground carefully. It is going to be a battlefield, you will have a part to play in it.” Napoleon was outnumbered, but if he could control the battlefield, make the Tsar attack him when, where, and how he wanted, he could win the day. Napoleon’s plan was to give up his high ground on the Pratzen Heights, in a daring gamble to get the

Russians to attack his weaker right flank. When his forces moved off the heights, the Tsar’s forces took the high ground. It seemed Napoleon knew his man well.

The night before the battle, Napoleon dined on his favorite campaign dish: potatoes fried with onions. His soldiers settled in and did their camp chores. He had already inspected the troops and sited some of the cannons himself. He appeared a model of confidence and optimism to his men, facing such overwhelming odds. As he rode past his men, they cheered, waving torches in the air and shouting “Long live the Emperor!” The camp lit up with light. It was December 2 1805. This was the first anniversary of his coronation. Napoleon told an aide “This is the finest evening of my life.” He had faith in his men to go to battle the next day, and win his victory to eliminate the threat in the east and solidify his control of Europe once and for all. His men’s morale seemed unassailable. This was a moment where he knew he could not lose, not matter what. Bonaparte was confident in his plan.

December 3, 1805 began as a foggy, cool day. Napoleon’s soldiers woke early, shaking off hunger and fatigue. Each man was preparing for a fight he knew may be his last. The

Tsar, sitting on his command post on the Pratzen Heights, was eager to make battle orders for his men to move from the high ground to attack the French far right flank, which was anchored in the small village of Telnitz. Napoleon was prepared for this move; he had a surprise ready for the advancing Russians. He had two divisions of soldiers he summoned from Vienna to cover the seventy miles in just two days. He had reinforced the areas with the divisions where they were least expected. This caught the Russians by surprise. “So far,” Napoleon said, “the enemy is behaving like they were conducting maneuvers on his orders.” He had wanted the enemy to attack his right flank. He reinforced it with more than enough men to continue with his other plans, to attack the Pratzen Heights where few defenders were left. He watched and waited to spring his trap. In the haze hidden in the lower field awaited 17,000 French troops. Bonaparte gave the orders to advance, “in one sharp blow,” Napoleon said, “the war is over.” The fog was dense; the French could hardly se in front of themselves. Soon though they appeared in the sunlight as if out of nowhere, and attacked the Heights. Causing chaos, they sent the Tsar falling back. Ultimately losing control of his army, he would no longer participate in the battle. “Finding themselves attacked when they thought they were the attackers,” Napoleon said, “they looked upon themselves as if half defeated.” By 9:30 am the French controlled the Pratzen Heights, destroying the center of the allies’ position. Napoleon swept across the battlefield and attacked from behind. By five pm, Austerlitz was silent. Nine thousand Frenchmen were either killed or wounded along with sixteen thousand Austrians and Russians. The Tsar and the Russians retreated, but the Emperor Francis I stayed and sued for peace from the little Corsican artillery lieutenant, who had made himself an emperor only one year before. Napoleon would write to

Josephine “I have defeated the Russian and Austrian armies commanded by two emperors, I’m a little tired.”

Austerlitz had raised his star to new heights; he had won his greatest victory, the victory of which Bonaparte would always be most proud of. “Soldiers,” Napoleon said, “I am pleased with you; you have decorated your eagles with an immortal glory, you will be greeted with joy, and it will be enough for you to say ‘I was at the battle of Austerlitz,’ for people to reply there goes a brave man.’”

He was coming to his imperial zenith of power by the time of this battle, although he did not see or know it till the end of this great clash. The third coalition would be destroyed after the battle: Russia’s stomach to fight would be lost; Austria would sue for peace terms; and ultimately it brought Napoleon unprecedented power in Europe.

Shortly after the battle of Austerlitz, Prussia declared war on Napoleon in a vain attempt to dislodge Bonaparte’s control of Europe. The Prussians mustered 200,000 men to face

Napoleon’s Grande Armee (or grand army). In less than three weeks Napoleon would destroy the

Prussians’ forces, breaking their backbone to fight and ultimately crushing all Prussian military might. “The idea that Prussia could take the field against me by herself,” Napoleon said, “seems so ridiculous that it does not merit discussion.” With the Prussians in ruins, they surrendered to

Napoleon. Shortly after followed suit.

His ambition would never be satisfied though, “among the established sovereigns war aims never go beyond possession of a province or a fortress, with me the stake is always my existence and that of the whole empire,” Bonaparte continued, “conquest alone made me what I am, conquest alone can keep me there.”

In 1807 Napoleon’s empire stretched from the Atlantic coast to the steppes of

Russia, from the North Sea to the Mediterranean. He ruled over seventy million people: French,

Italians, Dutch, Germans, and Poles. There had been no greater empire since the days of Rome.

Consumed with pride and power he dreamed of uniting all of Europe under French rule. His rising star had reached its zenith. He believed he was infallible, a superhuman, protected by his destiny. His pride was unassailable because this was a former little artillery lieutenant who has made it to the top. “Ambition is never content,” Napoleon once said, “even on the summit of greatness.” He was thirty-eight years old, intoxicated with absolute power, the ruler of almost all of Europe. It seemed nothing would stop him from achieving anything.

Napoleon would go on to fight far more campaigns, wage new wars, force new treaties and go as far as marching on the Russian city of Moscow. His time in Egypt had not taught him about a fight going too far. Unable to match his army, the Russians burned their crops and retreated until his army’s strength was spent and they could battle it to a standstill in the bloody fight at Borodino. Napoleon was forced to retreat, but the winter weather and constant attacks ravaged his army. Once more he left them to get back to Paris, claiming he’d won his battles with the Russians. His power, though, would not last. With time and old age his energy and ideas would start to age and fall victim to history’s great destroyer of men: time. Returning from exile, his dreams of rebuilding all that was lost was shattered at Waterloo. Soon everything he had fought for and created would be lost. Ripped away from the man who spent his life creating it, he would watch helplessly on an island as the European powers dismantled it.

Napoleon Bonaparte rose to dominate Europe because of his self-belief, because his troops ad nation also had faith in his invincibility. IN the sands of Egypt or across the burnt fields in Russia he should have learned some caution; but he could not change his nature. He was a risk taker and a fighter. Caution or retreats were for lesser men; he wanted victory and glory.

“Death is nothing, but to live defeated and inglorious is to die daily.”