The Rise & Fall Of Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte | The Man Who Would Rule Europe | Timeline

hi everybody I'm Dan snow and I'm guessing that if you're watching this then you like me are fascinated by the life of Napoleon from his early years an ambitious young military officer using his tactical genius and specialist knowledge of artillery during the siege of tulong all the way through to his crushing defeat at the mighty Battle of watero and it's these battles and much more that has been gloriously captured in the upcoming film release Napoleon in cinemas from the 22nd of November I really can't recommend it enough so get out there and watch this Epic

film on the biggest screen you can find as soon as [Music] possible I have a presentment that one day this small island will astonish Europe This Prophecy of the French philosopher Jean jaac rouso came true on the 17th of August 1769 in the corsan capital A jaako a child was born who would astonish Europe and the whole world that child was the Second Son of Carlo and letia [Music] bonapart they named him [Music] Napoleon Napoleon is a true icon his name his deeds his appearance and even his romantic life have entered the popular Consciousness and

remained there hero or villain Liberator or oppressor idealist or power hungry conqueror writers artists and filmmakers have all contributed to the Mystique surrounding him every facet of his remarkable life has been scrutinized analyzed and in many cases romanticized more books have been written about Napoleon than any other human being every generation writes its own version of Napoleon as uh lenberg once said a book is a mirror and if a monkey looks in you can't expect an apostle to look out and what happens is that each generation looks into Napoleon's life as its own mirror and

there Finds Its Own image Dr David Chandler some years ago said that Napoleon was great man but a great bad man he's a multifaceted Diamond an undoubted genius the master of so many uh skills he also had a large streak of Darth Vader running down him these days there are some Scholars who have gone as far as to make explicit comparisons between Napoleon and Hitler there was a degree of Megamania a determination to dominate uh one's opponents and an unwillingness to to accept limits and in all of those cases it is possible to draw direct

comparisons between Napoleon and Hitler unfortunately particularly in the English-speaking world uh a lot of the image of Napoleon is that of someone who was an aggressive uh warmonger but the fact of the matter is Napoleon was a very positive force in history many of the wars if not most of the so-called Napoleonic wars were actually coalitions against Napoleon uh various groupings of of Nations Often bankrolled by England who were trying to rid uh Europe of the one true Progressive force uh that it had dur during those times it's very easy to look back and judge

him um according to the standards that we have today he is remembered for his military skills and for his legislative skills um but I think people always find reason to be able to um qualify those achievements and those skills by the darker side of his character and I think for that reason he's often referred to as that great bad man in 1794 Sergeant Andros Juno Napoleon's secretary wrote to his father about his new employer he is one of those men whom nature is sparing and whom she does not throw upon the Earth but with centuries

between them few would argue with this description but his his rise to ultimate power was no foregone conclusion his family though modestly welltoo by local standards held no Sway in the largest sphere of French society Napoleon's childhood was essentially that of a middle class family living on a relatively small island of Corsica uh not long before Napoleon's birth only a year so before Napoleon's birth Corsica had been transferred from control of Italy to control of France indeed had Napoleon been born you know years earlier he would have been a subject of the Republic of Genoa

the people who actually ran Corsa and thus an Italian the real power in Napoleon's early upbringing was his mother latasia she was a strong woman she was determined that her children would succeed uh and later in life Napoleon would write about her with not only love but profound admiration for the the will that she exhibited throughout his career as a school boy Napoleon had shown great early promise but still needed the help of an influential Patron to make progress the person who was instrumental in getting him to France to schooling because the family had not

the money to do it was French governor who was very friendly with Napoleon's mother he used his influence to get Napoleon accepted into the military academy at Breon Bon was the most mediocre of the 10 Frenchies Napoleon was mocked for his thick corsan accent and soon grew homesick for a boy of that age going into a boarding school atmosphere anyway is a traumatic experience to go into a hostile atmosphere where he was in the minority must have been even worse the French students laughed at his accent he had always been a difficult child in the

sense that he wished to dominate his surroundings he was now thrust into a situation where that was extremely difficult the result was that he withdrew within himself and eventually devoted himself with fucious fervor to his studies he soon made a good impression on his superiors though particularly the inspector of military schools very regular in his conduct has always distinguished himself by his interest in mathematics he has a sound knowledge of history and geography he is very poor at dancing and drawing he will make an excellent sailor he also began to show early signs of leadership

one story tells how he led his followers in a pitch snowball battle that took an ugly turn when snow covered rocks were thrown Napoleon had wanted to join the Navy but his skill at mathematics LED his teachers to suggest that his future lay with the artillery the most prestigious branch of the military after 5 years of Bon he graduated at the age of 15 and went on to the echol military the Pari his nomination was signed by King Louie the 16th the e was academically far in advance of Briel again Napoleon felt out of place

amongst the snobbish young gentleman but it did not stop him graduating with distinction after only one year his achievement in gaining a commission in the artillery should not be underestimated few students passed the test for admission but on 1st September 1785 Napoleon became a left tenant in the lafur regiment his military career proper had begun at Valance where the lafair regiment was stationed Napoleon spent a year learning the artillery officer's craft whilst increasing his already formidable knowledge of History meanwhile things were happening in France that would soon influence young leftenant bonapart future the background of

Napoleonic Society is in some ways a very static one in that there is a society in which hierarchy plays an amazing role by our standards which is socially very inegalitarian but also there are signs of change I mean it is no accident that people have Associated the term Enlightenment with this period and the notion there is of talent individual Talent as opposed to lineage playing a role people were beginning to pick the scabs that covered the absolute monarchy and to look underneath for instance we have Jean jaac rouso whose writings greatly influ influenced political opinion

in France in this period also we have voler and others who were similarly irreverent since the war of American independence in which France um dabbled very actively against the British with a core under the French General Rambo many of the officers and Men returning from America had had firsthand experience of a benevolent uh Progressive Republic the 1780s saw a rise in political turbulence the first stirrings of the French Revolution could be heard French society was about to be turned on its head as Napoleon is growing up in the 1770s and 1780s what he Witnesses at

firsthand is the terminal delegitimation of the French monarchy as those traditional and legal resources of legitimacy which had sustained the French monarchy for more than a millennium uh fade and crumble France before the Revolution was an economic Basket Case the the uh budget was terrible the King was entirely too timid when it came to raising taxes on the one group of people who could really afford to pay them which was the nobility and for that matter the clergy uh most of the taxes were paid by the group of people least able to pay them which

was the Third Estate which was the Paris working class or The Peasants but it also included the middle class the merchants the lawyers and and and doctors and other sorts of folks the political disqui brought about by the teachings of Russo volter and the returning French officers from America had polarized the situation extremely and the climate was ripe for U something to happen though Napoleon couldn't have known at the time the revolution would provide the perfect springboard for a young man of exceptional ability for the next few years Napoleon divided his time between military service

in France and long periods of leave back home in Corsica he had inherited his father's passionate belief in corsan nationalism this now developed into a growing sense of solidarity with the Revolutionary factions whose influence was steadily growing he took an active interest in corsac politics and longed for the return of the corsan resistance leader Pascal POI a man who drew his strength from such classical authors as Levy and plutar I defy Rome Sparta or thieves to show me 30 years of such patriotism as Cora can boast and he clearly was deeply impressed by POI uh

and that certainly exercised an influence on him that's a a real a real influence yes I'm quite sure that Napoleon was um extremely proud in his early years of his course econom origin it was um a very proud society and it still is today and uh the this didn't wash off him at his early stage several times he went back to Corsica taking enormous leaves of absence from the military uh and and he fancied himself a leader uh patriotic leader uh trying at one time to Ally himself with the the leader peoli and so on

uh he wrote a history of Corsica he he never forgot those roots I think initially his his C can fervor uh was perhaps encouraged by the way that he was treated whilst he was at military school he was very much the poor boy um he had the Italian accent uh he was socially inferior and uh quite often his peers wouldn't let him forget that that I think created the chip on his shoulder uh and I think he harbored an ambition and this may well have affected the way that he grew up later to become local

boy making good it's interesting to note that Napoleon was somebody who's from the outside he was a corsan interesting parallel there Stalin from the Republic of Georgia in the caucuses Hitler of course from Austria sort of Outsiders who nevertheless try and reinvent themselves as patriotic figures who encapsulate the National Drive in May 1788 Napoleon returned from Corsica and took up a posting at the artillery school at [Music] alone his Republican sympathies were strengthening [Music] rapidly his reputation as a supporter of the Revolution was [Music] growing he had heard about what had gone on in America

and uh he was uh extremely aware of the fact that should the existing structure crumble something else might come in its place whereby other people shot to the surface and even at this early stage I think Napoleon was so aware of his uh his capabilities compared to other people that he embraced the revolution the Jacobin in order to be on the top of the wave when it rolled forward throughout the early part of his career he showed a talent for impressing influential people at oone he met the second of these he made a very positive

impression on the commandant of the artillery School the leftenant general Baron D and uh he was influential in Napoleon's career in later life already Napoleon could see the advantages of having the big guys on your side on his way up Napoleon impressed some quite important patrons I think there's no doubt that that was due essentially to his talent there was a talent and a drive there that people recognized more than one of his teachers wrote watch this person he will be successful he will accomplish great things uh and they were proven right Napoleon's Talent blossomed

under dutti's benevolent tutelage his young Protegé continued to impress and in September 1791 duti gave Napoleon permission to return home back in Corsica Napoleon immersed himself completely in Ireland politics now a fully fledged Jacobin supporter of the Revolution he tried to win the corsan people the right of self-government whilst remaining an officer in the French army to this end he displayed great cunning and resourcefulness he managed to obtain an official appointment as an agitant major assigned to corser he campaigned for National Guard to be formed and with extensive bribery was elected a leftenant colonel in

the second Battalion he hoped to become a close associate with his childhood hero POI but two things happen firstly poy didn't want to know because the bonap partes that is Napoleon's father had deserted POI after the French conquest of the island that's the first thing that happened and the second is that it turns out that as the politics of Corsica develop poy it turns out to be very much on the right POI was still rousing up the pro- royalist and anti-french governmental forces it came to a civil war on the island the newly returned Pascal

pooli put his support behind the royalist counterrevolutionaries violent riots followed and Napoleon was obliged to use Force against his fellow corsicans it made him deeply unpopular and signaled the beginning of the end of his love affair with both Corsica and POI Napoleon returned to France where he lobbied influential people in the war Ministry to ensure he kept his job in the Army he was rewarded for his efforts with promotion to the rank of captain of the fourth artillery regiment whilst the future emperor of France was climbing the ladder of influence King Louie was fast slipping

down it on 20th of June 1792 a mob attacked the twery abused the king and forced him to wear the cap of Liberty Napoleon witnessed Lou humiliation The Experience made him uneasy the king came out of it well but an incident like this is unconstitutional and a very dangerous example worse was to follow on 10th of August the mob returned sacked the palace and slaughtered the king's Swiss guard it was a scene of unspeakable barbarity Napoleon Witnesses this uh from a room uh out looking out over the tuler palace and he's horrified at what he

sees he knows very well as a military person one good volley from the guard would have would have dispersed the crowd at relatively small loss and and that would have been the end of it the excesses of the mob horrified Napoleon as he said afterwards all the king had to do was Mount his horse and it would have been over and from that point on Napoleon was extremely distrustful of the power of uncontrolled masses of people and and that fear of the mob will stay with him all the way to the very end even when

he is leaving on exile he fears uh that an angry mob might attack his cousin and and and kill him and at one point he is in Disguise on the way to Elba for fear of of an angry mob in September 1792 Napoleon yet again got the authorities to Grant him leave to go back to Corsica ostensibly to help his family in reality he still harbored political Ambitions on the island by now relations with his old hero POI were strained a split was inevitable when it came Napoleon was forced to flee the island with his

family in tow leaving their Estates and property behind them it marked the end of his involvement with his homeland to say as some do that Napoleon chose France as opposed to choosing Corsica is therefore a slight bending of the truth he was kicked out in disgrace it must have been deeply disillusioning for him without a a territorial or a a a locational pole star around which to um Center himself it's similar in a way one should be careful about drawing two close analogies with Adolf Hitler but there are certain similarities and that is one of

course that uh Hitler was a was a a German patriot who found himself outside Germany and um the same kind of problem of identity we find in Napoleon in June 1793 he returned to France to begin the next stage of his remarkable career he was still only 23 the revolution had by no means taken control of the whole of France and a state of virtual Civil War existed in many places for Napoleon this continued factionalism weakened France and made her more vulnerable to attack from her neighbors at a time when she needed to be United

and strong Napoleon wrote a philosophical essay L de in which he attacked the wrongheadedness of those who fought against the new regime instead he advocated unquestioning support for it and an end to civil conflict advance to the walls of peran to make the Spaniard who has been puffed up by a little success dance the [Music] Caron it was a revolutionary writing uh basically a discussion taking place over a supper in the village of boair and the main protagonist is arguing in favor of France unifying behind the Revolution and casting aside these ideas of bringing back

the the royalist government Napoleon wrote that I believe because that's the way he felt he wanted a unified France and I think in many ways he was right because that time uh the French armies were fighting um for the life of the Revolution if they were to lose those revolutionary Wars early on uh then France probably would have reverted back at a very early stage to an absolute monarchy or as near near to it as possible uh and it would have been stifled very early on and so I think he believed it was everybody's Duty

it was I think a genuine reflection of Napoleon's attitude towards republicanism at that point it was not his political Manifesto it was not Hitler's mind Camp it was not Ma's Little Red Book in any way shapable form um Napoleon was highly intelligent intellectual who read a great deal uh read voraciously and liked to reread texts again and again he he read GTA's Sorrows of young vera for example on several occasions and Russo's uh L Louise so he's he's an intellectual and he likes to put pen to paper as intellectuals too writing Luper de Boker was

an astute move on the young Captain's part while it undoubtedly reflected his true feelings it was exactly the kind of thing that would appeal to France's new revolutionary Masters it certainly appealed to the Republican lawyer Antonio christoforo saletti he was a fellow Coran who had represent Ed the island in the Estates General in Paris like Napoleon he was a disillusioned supporter of poi no longer welcome in his homeland he had returned to Paris and become a member of the convention the new legislative body of the Republic his job was to ensure that the officers of

the Revolutionary Army were Towing the party line it was a very hard School revolutionary Warfare indeed a general for example was much more likely to be executed by his own side than to be shot by the hapsburgs by the austrians indeed if he were fighting the austrians the chance of getting killed were remote but there was there was a real chance of being killed by one's own site in 1793 to4 generals were being uh executed left right and center and further down the um chain of command officers of for example major bonap parts um rank

to were being um excluded locked up and so on so this is this is a very fluid very difficult very dangerous situation saletti and his colleagues were feared men their bad opinion could lead to dismissal or even death but to find favor was also to find Advantage saletti is one of those interesting people in Napoleon's career there were a number of people who helped Napoleon rise to power over the years like comp marbu for example and and others saletti is one of the most important he becom representative on Mission he is one of the major

players in the southern part of France where Napoleon is stationed and he's also a fellow corsac and so there's a tie there and they get to know each other quite well and on several occasions it is saletti that gives Napoleon an opportunity to prove himself Napoleon once said when an officer was recommended to him as a man of exemplary skill and courage he said but is he lucky uh which in a way is a very acute question uh great commanders great politicians need to be lucky they need to be the right people in the right

place at the right time and it turned out in 1793 that Napoleon was in the right place at the right time and helped on by salich and if he had not been there to give Napoleon as it were the first helping hand up into the saddle then who knows what might have [Music] happened [Music] [Laughter] in 1793 the strategically important port of tulong gave Napoleon the chance to meet opponents of the Revolution headon a counterrevolution in the town had led to the citizens admitting the British Navy under Admiral hood on 27th of August they proclaimed

the boy Louis the 17th as king put yourself in the position of France here's two long one of your major cities a coastal city on the Mediterranean Coast declaring itself under the protection of your dreaded enemy England and allowing British soldiers to come in and occupy the town well you're not going to allow that to happen unchallenged and so of course the French has sent an army down there to OU the British from their position had too long being held it would have threatened the you know the French Revolutionary position across the entire southern region

of France Napoleon was dispatched to tulan as part of an ammunition Convoy commanded by General Jean Baptist CAU on the way however he stopped to make some personal calls among those he visited was cichetti during the siege of tulong 1793 saletti was one of the um Representatives on Miss in other words political commissars as they had them in the Russian forces later on who was with the Armed Forces at The Siege to urge them on to do their best Napoleon happened to trot along and pass sales's window so to speak saletti knew his capabilities and

was very pleased to give him command of the artillery in The Siege Napoleon jumped at the chance here was the opportunity to show his true metal against military commanders who had risen through traditional channels whom he knew to be mediocre one of the problems with the Revolutionary Army in those days is that the very best generals tended to be either dead by way of the guillotine uh or to have left the country there were still of course some very good ones but there were also some that weren't so good and those that were down at

the tone campaign were those that weren't so good CAU was just the sort of military man Napoleon was destined to replace conservative and unimaginative he had little of his energetic new artillery Commander flare or expertise CAU and his fellow officers had done nothing more than impose a blockade Napoleon by now major bonapart intended something very different Napoleon I think was always an opportunist I don't think he ever conceived for himself a grand strategy and I'm not even sure that even at the height of his power did he have a coherent a plan of what he

was going to do with himself with Europe with the world opportunities arose he seized them milk them for all they were worth and then moved on to the next one that was his temperament that was his personality that's what he did best and so in 1793 when the opportunity arises to uh ex to expel the British from the port he sees that with both hands and made the very most of it the problem of course though was again he didn't have very good commanders and while he came up with some excellent ideas his commanders sort

of Hemm and haw and they said oh this young upstart you know we'll we'll sort of ignore him they couldn't ignore him entirely though because he had the political connections he got the job because of saletti and Augustine robis Pierre Napoleon understood also his political power and he actually wrote to Paris and said you you've given me idiots for generals get me some good generals down here who know what they're doing his request was granted in the form of a welcome face from the past general Jean dutti dutti was now elderly and in poor health

and was quite content to let Napoleon have free reign CAU had been replaced by General domeier who was Nally in charge of the forces at tulong but there was no doubt who was really in control of events now at last the young man from Corsica could come into his own Napoleon lost no time in seizing his opportunity the weak spot in Ton's defense was leet a fortified prometer between the inner and outer Harbors if it fell both Harbors would become untenable for the Defenders if Napoleon could take leilet too long would [Music] follow the focus

of the prometer defenses was Fort mulgrave known to the French as little jalter Napoleon took full advantage of the hilly terrain to site new batteries and had soon assembled a formidable array of artillery he shelled Admiral Hood's ships with great accuracy then he brought the guns in close and began began a softening up barrage against the fort The Defenders replied with a fusel a from 20 guns and four mortars during the 48h hour exchange of artillery fire Napoleon Hur his first brush with death when the wind from a cannonball knocked him off his [Music] feet

by 17th December Napoleon judged his artillery had done its work he recommended that domeier finish off the job with an infantry charge duia L CAU was a hesitant Commander the charge was half-hearted and losses were heavy Napoleon himself then led a second charge with only 2,000 which took them to the walls of the fort after 2 hours of vicious hand-to-hand fighting and many more casualties the fort was taken one of the Wounded was Napoleon himself never far from the thick of the action he had been stabbed through the leg by a Pike at first it

was feared that amputation would be necessary fortunately a surgeon offered the second opinion that the wound was not as serious as was first thought he he couldn't have done what he did in 1793 at tulong without of course Military Support he didn't do it all by himself uh there was the Army and most important of all there were the guns for him to use uh the Revolutionary armies had inherited from the old regime a magnificent artillery both in terms of his organization and in terms of his ordinance in terms of his Hardware but it was

Napoleon bonapart who took those tools both human and material uh in the summer of 1793 and put them to good use um Napoleon in the The Siege of Tong shows the mixture of ability drive and political positioning which is to help take him right through to supreme power in France here was a remark remarkable young officer with the potential to do great things for the new Republic General domeier in particular was impressed I have no words to describe bonapart Merit much technical skill an equal degree of intelligence and too much gallantry there you have a

sketch of this rare officer at this point in time there was a great seething in The Cauldron of of um French politics people came they were beheaded they fell into disgrace and uh it was anybody's game so uh at that point Napoleon was one of those on the rise his main concern of course was to build on his reputation as a conqueror of tulong and to make sure that political Capital as much as possible could be extorted from it well there were PL there were plenty more twists and turns in Napoleon's career to come after

too long but one thing it showed was was that he was brilliant at exploiting a success and making and personalizing it making it look as though it was his achievement and his achievement alone uh that is something which every charismatic Hero has to learn how to do to make the most of their Charisma there was a level above which Napoleon would not have risen uh were it not for the French Revolution if you look at French generals over the previous Century there hadd been people like the Marshal Duke derisha a member of the Risha family

or marshal sax an illegitimate son of the king of Poland these were not people born uh you know in the humble backgrounds of Napoleon so he really gets his opportunity through the revolution in the Revolutionary years there is a determination to push forward people however young and Napoleon is Young Who are talented in December 1793 Napoleon was given the provisional rank of general of Brigade receiving his full commission in February 7 1794 with the help of alasan Rob spear the chance for Foreign Service beckoned Austria was one of several European monarchies to whom revolutionary France

posed an enormous threat if she were to develop expansionist Tendencies a sizable Austrian presence in Northern Italy also threatened the new Republic a French army under General dbio was sent to deal deal with it his general of artillery was the young Brigadier General bonapart who used the subsequent campaign to impress the authorities still further with his tactical abilities and skill at planning his new Commander was full of the highest praise it is to the ability of the general of artillery that I owe the clever combinations which have secured our success the campaign itself proved inconclusive

but Napoleon's progress seemed inexorable yet all was not plain sailing in August 1794 squabbles amongst the new government led to the fall of the hardliners among them the robes spear Brothers following that there was a great backlash against anyone that had anything to do with the robis piers and the terror well Napoleon in fact was good buddies with with Augustine Rob pier and so um he found himself under investigation as a possible as a terrorist as they were as they were called after the collapse of the uh rist regime in the summer of 1794 um

indeed ironically he finds that it's his old Patron cicheti who is in charge of investigating him saliceti thought feared that he might also be caught up in this Whirlwind as a precaution he used the pretext of Napoleon's supposed um misappropriation of funds to arrest him he defended himself vigorously he wrote letters to saletti and to others letters to his brothers saying how can anyone possibly claim that that I am anything but a patriot uh you know if if if robis Pierre my friend had had turned against France I personally would have been happy to execute

him uh and so on well there was nothing to the charges what Napoleon had been doing was was perfectly routine military St and after about a fortnight he was found innocent and released maintaining his rank of General I think cachet's interest lay with cichetti first and the revolution second in the same way as bonapart did in the same ways as many of the other characters that features in the revolution were there I don't think there was any great friendship between cichet if it suited him to have bonapart as an ally he had him as an

ally if it suited him to have him thrown in jail he had him thrown in jail and if it suited him to have him released afterwards so he had him released afterwards had he been in Paris this is one of those interesting little turning points in history had Napoleon been assigned to Paris somehow or been brought to Paris somehow there's a good chance I believe he would have gone to the guillotine because they were sending people to the guillotine just about like they had been during the terror for the first time in his career the

rising star was under a cloud and an unsettled period followed he found himself in debt and forced to accept the financial help of friends he became depressed if this continues I shall End by not stepping aside when a carriage rushes past he also fell foul of the minister of War Francois ALB although Napoleon had been cleared of treason alry still distrusted him he crossed Napoleon off the list of artillery officers and transferred him to an infantry regiment not happy about about this and quite understandably so he immediately rode into Paris to see the um military

secretary as we would call him today who dealt with the postings and he looked at Napoleon and said U you are too young you should make way for your elders and betters who have deserved the rank and thepoon would say listen you know nothing ages a man faster than the battlefield you're talking to the hero of tone you're talking to someone who was a soldier do not hold my youth against me put me into the into the field Where I Belong fortunately albre was soon replaced by the comp the Ponte kulong Napoleon went to see

him and outlined a plan to get rid of the austrians from Italy the minister was cautious General your ideas are brilliant and bold but they need to be examined calmly take time and draw me up a report within half an hour Napoleon had completed it he was appointed a general staff position at the bureau typographic it was hardly The Chosen area of an artillery officer but it gave Napoleon access to the cream of Parisian Society including the influential Salon presided over by his old associate Paul Bara more importantly for Napoleon he was in the right

place at the right time he found himself in Paris at a time when there was a major royalist Resurgence which expressed itself at The Ballot Box uh and the powers that uh powers that were in Paris were greatly alarmed by by this by this royalist threat and it was to Napoleon who happened to be there that they turned while the leaders of the convention including Bara uh understood that they needed someone who could defend them they were not not really truly capable of doing it barah was made the commander of the Defense Forces but but

but he was not a good General and he knew it poon he knew not only had the military ability to act quickly and decisively but he also would be willing if necessary to fire on French citizens to protect the government now Napoleon understood that this was the kundy face on the one hand he was being asked to to defend to save the government of France on the the other hand to do that he was going to have to kill French citizens and he he understood that this was a problem and and this could go against

him but here he decided to protect the government directly was to his advantage and to the advantage of France and so he sent his young Captain mura off to grab the cannon that were located nearby these Cannon Napoleon posted very carefully so that when the mob appeared in front of the um government buildings he just blasted them away with his famous whiff of grape shot this whiff of grape shot took over 200 lives the aversion he had acquired to mob action when he had seen the king humiliated uh stealed his reserve and he was a

No Nonsense man he just stamped all over them he had to kill French citizens but he was the hero of the day the French government owed him their very survival and they would reward him quite nicely in the long term Bara realized what a hero Napoleon now was and how potentially dangerous promote this man or he will promote himself Without You Napoleon's reward was the command of the army of the Interior with the appointment came money celebrity and of course future opportunity Napoleon had proved himself to be absolutely ruthless in the support of the Republican

cause he was prepared to literally go over corpses to achieve the government's aims he was regarded as a totally faithful and utterly ruthless um reliable army officer with whom the government could do business Napoleon is now one of the most popular people in France he is in demand everywhere wherever he goes people will cheer him he is invited to participate in the various salons he is invited to any number of balls of course he is friends with barah who was perhaps the most powerful man in France at the time uh the two were seen together

all the time barah is quite the the social organizer as well he's always throwing various parties uh and and he invites Napoleon to these and it is at one of these parties of course where he meets barra's Mistress of the time a woman of Beauty named Josephine Napoleon had truly arrived he was still only 26 he had packed more into his youthful career than most of his contemporaries would achieve in a lifetime for anyone else it would have been a remarkable achievement for a young man of obscure Origins and few social advantages it was little

short of astounding he wrote to his brother Joseph confiding his happiness and his hopes for the future people are very satisfied with the new Constitution which promises happiness tranquility and a long future for France but his early promise and Rapid rise were to prove only a Prelude the world didn't yet know what an extraordinary force would soon be Unleashed upon it it wouldn't have long to wait [Music] by the age of 26 Napoleon bonapart had risen from the obscurity of his corsan Origins to the status of a national hero he had military genius coupled with

an almost Machiavellian flare for manipulating people and events in just 16 years he had risen from military Cadet to General of France wealthy and charismatic he was potentially the most powerful force in the land the boy General would soon find himself in Northern Italy facing an old enemy Emperor Francis of Austria as far as Francis was concerned French policy in the early years of the revolutionaries threatened not just Habsburg interests of the of the Austrian ruling Dynasty but also the German princes to the west of the Empire and he was determined to protect them it's

also worth pointing out though I don't think this was a top factor for Francis that Marie antoinet was a member of the Habsburg family the central Axiom of revolutionary foreign policy was hostility to Austria and that was personalized in a kind of viscral hatred of mar antoan which helps to explain why they cut a head off in October 1793 so um Napoleon inherits that from the revolution uh this instinctive loathing of the austrians the French had mobilized an enormous number of men almost certainly the largest uh Army that Europe had seen certainly since the Roman

Empire the French are forced the Spanish and the prussians out of the war but they've been unable to deal with either the British or with the austrians the austrians had moved into Northern Italy and were threatening uh to move against France it was very clear that the powers of Europe were not happy with the French Revolution uh and they were not really going to be happy until the bbon had been uh put back onto the throne so Napoleon still had opportunities for achieving military Glory uh all he had to do was get himself off to

Italy his mind though was not wholly preoccupied with war he had fallen in love with a 32-year-old widowed mother of two Mari Joseph Rose De Bohan a former Mistress of his old friend Paul Bara to a woman whose physical charms were already waning the young hero of the Republic must have seemed the perfect catch and on 9th March 1796 they were married 2 days after the ceremony following a wedding night interrupted by Josephine's dog Fortune Napoleon left Paris for Italy the newly married General was about to embark on the next phase of his glittering career

the campaign in Italy was a two-fold affair in part it was an attempt to export the ideals of the French Revolution to other parts of Europe perhaps more importantly it was seen as a means of swelling the depleted coffers of the French government a war in Italy would give French troops the chance to live off the land on foreign soil and saving France the expense of funding their Provisions at the same time there will be plenty of scope for plundering the campaign also had a non-military purpose to distract the attentions of the French people from

food shortages and government mismanagement at home in the period prior to Napoleon's first Italian campaign France was still having serious troubles he'd saved the government from one royalist Uprising but the fact is there was still a lot of people who were unhappy with the directory the directory was seen as corrupt it was seen as ineffective inefficient the taxation system in fact the whole economic system was still not under control and the government had repealed the law of the maximum this law stated that there was only a certain price that could be charged by dealers for

Commodities such as bread or flour meat Etc when they removed the maximum of course the good old human instinct of uh me first everybody else last came to the four and prices shot up the strains of war and of War finance and of people being taken away to fight um exacerbated ated what was already a situation of great political instability it was very important for France's generals to win battles the more that they won battles it would not only as it were create Prestige for the regime but also a su a sense that it was

successful and that therefore it was unwise to to oppose it so that foreign victory was important for internal stability equally there was a good reason for the French civilian regime in Paris to keep the armies outside France maintained at other people's expense at the expense of the belgians of the Dutch of the Germans and of the Italians because they came home hungry looking for jobs looking for homes fit for Heroes uh then the regime might well find themselves with uh uh a problem on their hands they couldn't handle Napoleon inherited 37,000 badly equipped and demoralized

troops he gained their trust and respect by presenting himself to them as as a soldier I am a soldier because that is the special faculty I was born with that is my life my habit I have commanded wherever I have been I commanded when 23 years old at the siege of tulong I commanded in Paris I carried the soldiers of the army of Italy with me as soon as I appeared among them I was born that way the army of Italy was very much one which Napoleon P pushed forward I mean he had inherited a

force which had been slightly bedraggled to put it mildly short of supplies from the previous campaigns um and also not the key force that was supported at that stage by the Revolutionary government they put much more resources into campaigning north of the Alps um so in many senses Napoleon reformulated his army and drove it Forward he planned the strategy he planned the tactics in his early days he in a sense was his own staff unlike his British counterparts Napoleon could identify with his troops and went out of his way to make them aware of the

fact he knew how to win the hearts and minds of those under his command rhetoric with the promise of reward was a good place to start you are hungry and ill-fed the government owes you much it can give you nothing your patience your courage are admirable but they procure you no glory no Fame shines upon you I want to lead you into the most fertile Plains in the world Rich provinces great cities will lie in your power you will find there honor glory and riches this was just what the demoralized army of Italy needed to

hear to help him in the Italian campaign Napoleon gathered around him hugely talented senior officers one of the benefits of the revolution in France had been the democratization of the professions men of Merit whatever their Origins could rise to the top 1796 after four years of wild and bloody conflict on all of France's borders the commanders in the French army at all levels had elbowed fought and dared their way up through the ranks to the position that they now occupied they may have had the morals of organ Grinders and the manners of their monkeys and

they frequently did but they were a military meritocracy they were the right men at the right time it was a star studied cast and we can go to any one of 30 or 40 examples and you can see what sort of potential these guys had the campaign in Italy in 1796 shows what a commander of Genius can do to sway a campaign to change the course of a war because according to the Grand strategy of the directory the Italian the army of Italy that Napoleon commanded in 1796 was something of a sideshow the main two

main thrusts were coming north of the Alps um from the ran Mel and the sombre M uh but it's Napoleon through his Relentless energy his seizure of the opportunity uh his his skill and again it has to be said his luck uh turns what was intended to be a Backwater into the major theater Napoleon swept through Northern Italy in what was probably the most masterful campaign of his career the austrians and their Sardinian allies were beaten in a series of early victories in which Napoleon made repeated use of a tactic which would serve him well

in the future he concentrated his forces for a decisive blow against the enemy's Center by the end of April 1796 the sardinians had had enough and made peace with the Armistice of [Music] cherasco the battle of ldi fought the following month proved somewhat indecisive Napoleon comes uh to the river Ada at Loi and finds this long narrow bridge with an Austrian Force at the other end of it to cut a long story short the bridge is successfully stormed um and it has to be said that the French soldiers involved including senior commanders showed very great

heroism gallantry above and beyond the Call of Duty and driving the austrians out I think at the time ly was not perceived as being uh any great Victory or or battle in its own right indeed it wasn't a great Victory it failed to achieve the objective which was to destroy the Austrian Army the Austrian Army managed to get away what L represented was the furthest advance in the first stage of the 1796 campaign if you look at Loi strictly from a military point of view it was a relatively minor action it was after all an

action across a bridge against an Austrian rear guard it was successful but it didn't have a huge military impact but the impact it had on Napoleon was tremendous for a variety of reasons it was at Loi where Napoleon himself went down and set the cannon into position uh a a job normally done by a Corporal and so his soldiers began to call him the little Corporal uh it was at Lo that Napoleon gave some fiery speeches and personally directed The the advance across the bridge uh and he wrote later on that it was only at

Loi that he began to see himself as being capable of achieving great things after it was over and they'd broken the Austrian position on the far bank and captured most of the artillery in the aftermath of that action Napoleon felt that if he could do that he could do anything think Lodi is an important part in the painting of the Napoleonic legend by Napoleon um it was when he in his own mind thought that he was something other than just a mere General L also did wonders for the confidence of his troops after a string

of Victories the army of Italy began to believe that they were commanded by a general who was invincible Napoleon personifies the Charisma of the charismatic hero it wasn't just the self-confidence which he possessed himself which led him to order engagements like the attack on the Bridget Loi it was the confidence which he could Inspire in others that what he was asking which to a normal human being would seem impossible was possible because he commanded it and he was involved in it he had the ability to inspire his uh his subordinate commanders and indeed the rank

and file defeats which they would not have been capable of any under any other commander and so Wellington says what was it Napoleon was worth 40,000 men on the field of battle and I and I I think he was that Bridget Lo is a brilliant example of that capacity of a truly charismatic leader to enable Ordinary People to achieve extraordinary exploit within weeks the austrians have been driven from Lombardy and part of the French army settled down to begin a lengthy Siege of the city of Mantua for Napoleon the way to Milan was now open

the triola Flies over Milan Pavia Kom and all the towns of Lombardi a bitter personal blow soon followed the directors of the Republic wrote to Napoleon from now on he would have to share command of the army of Italy with General franois kelman Napoleon was deeply AG grieved to give Kellerman and myself joint command in Italy would mean ruining everything I can't agree to serve with a man who believes himself to be the best General in Europe and in any case I'm sure that one bad General is better than two good ones War like government

is a question of tact fearing Napoleon might resign the directors relented Napoleon actively propagated an image of himself uh through friends back in Paris through the print media which had developed enormously under the revolutionary era as the great General the successful General a Great Hero and there was an emphasis on a mixture of skill and heroism and a determined attempt to win as it were the propaganda war that was very important now in this Napoleon was not alone it's fair to say that by the late 1790s pretty well all the generals of leading generals of

the Revolutionary armies were in some respects political generals they had to be they had to be linked to factions in Paris not least in order to ensure their continued uh position and in order to ensure a measure of support supplies a measure of reinforcements all all of them were trying to propagate a favorable impression Napoleon though was particularly good at this and to a certain extent this enabled him to push what became eventually a personal foreign policy he was the first military commander I believe to create his own newspaper uh the ker of Italy uh

and so he was a and that was distributed of course widely among the among the Army and indeed was sent back to Prime public opinion back in France we're now talking about 1796 he's acting as a political General already he's very careful that his men should see the the progress of the campaign and place it in a wider strategical context in the way in which he wanted them to there was of course in Italy as there had been in many of the German states a fairly widely spread uh benevolent attitude towards republicanism in Northern Italy

this was a similar position and when Napoleon initially arrived and took over the Italians greeted him with Open Arms they were fairly weary of the Austrian yoke as some of them saw it and were ready for change change they got because in Napoleon's knapsack was an order from the government saying strip the place bare and send it back to France his armies were Unleashed on their cities in an orgy of plundering food drink and clothing were seized to satisfy the troops immediate needs they also seized gold and other valuables booty to the value of of

40 million Franks found its way back to Paris for the great majority the overwhelming majority of the Italian people the French army came in 1796 not as liberators but as conquerors and above all as exploiters in one way or another there were various forms of exploitation there was official exploitation as it were organized by the Army commissars in the form of requisitions and looting and the conscription of forced labor and then there was as it were freelance unofficial exploitation on the part of the common soldiers and indeed their officers in the form simply of pillaging

and looting and rape and murder and all the other horrors of War this was an Army which arrived with nothing uh and yet it erupted into the richest one of the richest parts of Europe in a very short time there were many outbursts of civil unrest against the French occupation this was put down by force once again we have our friend of the Revolutionary governments coming forward with the sword to flatten opposition there were obviously some people who threw in their lot with the revolution there were indeed some radicals for whom revolutionary France was the

power that they looked to but it's fair to say that among the bulk of the populace uh the French at that stage were bitterly unpopular for the first time in years the Army could be properly paid the little Corporal standing in the eyes of his men Rose still further there were no lengths to which their loyalty would not stretch but Napoleon had made many enemies the government knew their commander in Italy was not a man to be crossed lightly as he had shown over the business with General Kellerman pleased though they were with the tide

of booty that flooded back to Paris they could not have ignored the future threat posed by a popular and successful General with a loyal well-paid Army at his back the government recognized that suddenly there was uh a legion out there that was more devoted to its Commander than it was to the government because the government had never paid them but Napoleon paid them the government didn't let him uh get away with murder as he did they were his because he's so successful because he's so popular he's also potentially dangerous and in that government's lack of

stability any strong force could challenge that government for power and there was a great concern that Napoleon might well do that as the campaign developed Napoleon began to show very alarming signs of political Independence Napoleon begins to act more and more not as a general but as his own foreign minister as his own Chancellor of the ex cheer as as it were a government on the move as a paretic government and so he negotiates um with the Pope with the king of Naples uh and so on and so forth with various Italian principalities with without

referring back uh to Paris for permission to do so soon the austrians under General vza began a Counterattack their main objective was to relieve the besieged Garrison at Mana but in battle after battle vza proved a poor match for the little corpal and a French army brimming with confidence on 15th September vza with the French at his heels broke through the ranks of the beses and entered Mana at first it seemed a Savor had arrived the net effect was that VSA and his 14,000 men including a fair amount of Cavalry um unable to defeat the

blockading force were forced into the Fortress thus doubling the Garrison therefore the rations and supplies which had been calculated to last shall we say six months quite adequately would now last only three for months vza and 20,000 austrians HED up in Mana living on horse flesh in January 1797 28,000 austrians under General aliny and 177,000 Men commanded by General proa set out to relieve the city Napoleon had only 20,000 men to pit against them for war of their approach Napoleon sent 10,000 men under batt Zuber to rivy a plateau on which he could range his

artillery against the advancing enemy at dawn on 14th of January Napoleon attacked the guns and Cavalry under the command of General quason noich the move almost failed as kosanovich turned Napoleon's Left Flank only the timely arrival of masena after a 20m allight March reversed events together Napoleon and Mna broke quas danovich is core and another whilst General Ray took care of a third core under General Luca the austrians retreated leaving 8,000 dead wounded or captured marching a day and a half non-stop Napoleon and masena advanced on Mana pra's 177,000 troops were routed and most were

taken prisoner aliny also suffered heavy losses on 2nd February vza surrendered mana and its Garrison of 18,000 what differentiated Napoleon's approach to Warfare in Italy in 1796 from that of his subordinate commanders those who previously commanded the army of Italy and most important of all his enemies was the speed with which he thought and the speed with which he made his men move and act and the aggression which he built into the culture of the army of Italy driving them on making them move faster think faster than his enemies I think it was almost an

instinctive skill to to to see what's happening to feed into an equation all the various problems and to see where the weak clink was and where to press at it and Napoleon showed again and again during that campaign 1796 in Italy that he was thinking 10 times faster than his than his enemies Northern Italy though stripped bare by its liberators was finally free Napoleon now proceeded to establish a series of new Italian republics he had no actual brief to do this but could argue that he was fulfilling his orders by exporting the ideals of the

French Revolution he set up two republics the C Alpine and C badine he wrote largely on his own the Constitutions of these two uh States and he appointed all the um officials he was beginning to get to like playing with the clay of the world and forming into his own images if you go to the Museum of the resurgo uh you in Milan you will see several rooms dedicated to Napoleon as the first of those forces who led to the unification of Italy he put the government of Northern Italy into Italian hands and so I

would say his his uh image among Italians and his legacy among Italians is really quite positive Napoleon's military adventures in Italy had been wildly successful he had enriched the nation won the Loyalty of his troops and lived in Milan like the emperor he would one day become in December 1797 Napoleon returned to Paris in Triumph although he had brought glory and wealth to France his return was unsettling for a weak government that had every reason to worry about the presence of a hugely popular and ambitious General with time on his hands the directory decided he

needed a project to occupy his great gifts but distract him from any political Ambitions the project they chose was the invasion of England and Napoleon was given the role of planner in Chief Napoleon saw Britain as the key power that had built up opposition to France in the 1790s Britain after all had subsidized uh France's opponents on the continent uh Britain was the leading commercial and Maritime and oceanic power in the world the power best placed through its control over International Trade to finance opposition and and the British government under um William pit the younger

was a determined opponent the constancy of the British government this time has to be applauded they were iron hard Napoleon recognized that until he could get across the channel that little spit of water and land an army large enough to conquer the place there was going to be no peace uh the war in many ways was doing the British a great deal of good it had allowed them to mop up Dutch and French colonies in the West Indies at the cap of hope in the Indian Ocean India itself um the British ruled the seas in

a way which they had never done before so why should they hurry to come to to come to terms so so ultimately if the French were uh to secure the gains they'd made between 1792 and 1796 they would have to come to terms for the British uh if if peace could not be achieved by negotiation then perhaps there has to be some kind of military action and the most obvious military action of course would be to invade across the English Channel his plan conceived with the aid of the Irish rebel leader wolf tone involved a

fleet of 65 purpose-built gunboats and 250 fishing boats which together would carry 24,750 men in 1797 98 however the prospect of a French invasion of Britain was was dramatically lessened by a series of British Naval victory um in 1797 uh British squadrons um defeated both the Dutch and the Spanish fleets at camper down and Cape St Vincent and the the French had been relying in part on their Allied Naval strength in order to cover any Invasion um quite clearly any invasion of Britain which could not guarantee control over the sea would be astonishingly vulnerable he

very quickly realized as he saw the Royal Navy uh three Deckers cruising up and down the channel that his gunboats and his fishing boats were going to be blown out of the water as soon as he set foot on the water so to speak and after studying the problem for some time and realizing that he could not with the French Fleet in its existing state achieve Supremacy on the channel for more than about two seconds he advised the government against it however hard we try we will not achieve Naval Supremacy in a few years to

undertake an invasion of England without being masters of the sea would be the boldest and most dangerous operation ever carried out with the invasion of England ruled out for the foreseeable future it was left to charl ton the new foreign minister to propose an alternative his suggestion appealed greatly to Napoleon the conquest of Egypt the British control of Egypt gave them the opportunity to get to India and their trade routes and so on and gave them greater control of the Mediterranean if the French could take Malta which was a very strategically located island in the

Mediterranean and throw the British out of Egypt then it would be possible to pretty much end England's ability to control the Mediterranean and do great damage to her economically as well you could point out that pre-revolutionary French governments had been interested in Egypt or one could go for a more cynical and mellian interpretation and argue that essentially Napoleon wished to keep control of his army that the easiest way to keep control of his army was to take it somewhere and engage in operations that might also build up his own personal reputation I think both of

those are true but I think there is a third factor which in a sense is almost more important and that is Napoleon's absorption with himself it has been called his Oriental complex some have have seen it as the desire to emulate his Idol Alexander the Great I'm sure that he was uh aware of the parallels that would be brought to bear if he were to go to Egypt and be successful against the British Not only would he strike a blow against the British where he could that is to say on land but as he said

to one or two of his associates just think then there's India where Alexander had been so certainly the parallel was there Napoleon was always Keen to use historical parallels he had a um a taste for using high-f flown rhetoric about what he was doing and certainly he liked to talk about um great conquerors of the past Alexander and tambaran and so on and so forth whether that really influenced what he did in 1798 I I very much doubt Egypt was also a very fascinating and mysterious country to the Western World in those days we didn't

have egyptology like we do today you didn't have uh tourists routinely going and seeing the Pyramids of Giza and so on uh in fact when Napoleon took his soldiers he also brought with him a small army of scientists and engineers and artists their primary purpose was to study and record Egypt's wealth of historical and cultural data naturally their work would reflect well on the little Corporal who had brought them there at 3:00 a.m. on the night of 30th of June with 55,000 men in squal weather at marabut 8 mi from Alexandria Napoleon reviewed his troops

and marched on Egypt's Second City the French were in luck one of the gates of the city had been left open by lunchtime Napoleon had taken the city with only 200 of his men wounded leaving Alexandria in the capable hands of Jean Baptist clay bear Napoleon turned South and began the long and terrible march to Cairo I saw soldiers dying in the sand from lack of water and food the intense heat had forced them to abandon their booty and many others tired of suffering simply blew their brains out the French hadn't really thought through what

the Egyptian Invasion would entail the French had not sent a land force uh to North Africa since the Crusades um Napoleon was well aware that in terms of Firepower um his army was likely to beat any force that the mamuk rulers of Egypt could deploy against it but in terms of infrastructure um he was dependent on the resources that he could gain there so the march to Cairo was a disaster they had a extreme heat and not nearly enough drinkable water um men went crazy men died of thirst men committed suicide uh it was it

was not a pretty sight uh and when they finally did get to the Nile many of them drank far too much water too quickly and also got sick after two weeks they found themselves in the shadow of the Great Pyramids at Giza facing a combined Army of Turks and Egyptians 24,000 strong Napoleon Drew up two divisions of infantry in Hollow squares six deep with guns at the angles he kept a third division in reserve before the battle he sought to inspire his men soldiers from the height of those pyramids 40 centuries look down on you

the elite of the Turkish Egyptian Army were 8,000 mamalukes men whose whole lives and wealth were dedicated to fighting their leader was Murad Bay a man who could behead an ox with a single blow of his cimeter at his signal the mamalukes charged the French squares as they reached them Napoleon swept in from the rear with the reserve division cutting the m L off from their main [Music] Army he then ordered his artillery to open fire the 16,000 Egyptians who had never seen heavy guns panicked and fled we we see here a discrepancy of military

technology and organization and although um the enemy fought with conspicuous gallantry and indeed tenacity uh the French had little difficulty in dealing with them the battle of the pyramids lasted just 2 hours but secured Lower Egypt for the French with the loss of only 200 men Napoleon marched triumphantly on to Cairo bad news awaited him a British Fleet under Horatio Nelson had surprised the French in the Bay of abukir 13 out of 17 French warships have been destroyed it was one of the most decisive annihilating battles in all of Naval History uh a wonderful example

of all the qualities that Napoleon showed on land were displayed by Nelson uh in a maritime capacity uh in Commander seed daring Enterprise energy uh wonderfully motivated subordinates and it led to a catastrophic deflet on the part of the of the French and as a result from that time on napon was trapped in Egypt the campaign ground on but by March 1799 Egypt was under Napoleon's control the Egyptians named their new leader sutan El cabier Napoleon now turned towards Syria intelligence had reached him that the Turks were planning to mount a two-fold attack via Sea

from roads aided by the British and on land via Palestine and Sinai Napoleon's plan was to meet and promptly defeat the land Army in Syria then he would deal with the Seaborn threat the invasion of Palestine and then after that the French forces actually moved on into Syria the invasion of Palestine was characterized by a number of episodes which can leave you with very different impressions of Napoleon there was the massacre of over a thousand Turkish prisoners in Gaza which suggests a different degree of Cruelty and hostility towards particularly um non-europeans that of which there

are other signs in Napoleonic rule I mean his treatment of the um black West Indians of Hai um in attempt to reconquer those was a good example of his fundamental ambivalence about non-europeans he could do pretty well anything and no one would find out about it or if they found out about it they'd find out through a carefully edited version which he was providing and it was the interests of him and indeed all around him to put the best possible gloss on what we would regard as today as completely unacceptable atrocities I don't think anyone

will ever know the truth the whole truth of what actually happened at Gaza uh the the best account I think suggests that it was in a way an act of compassion uh on their part to to slaughter the prisoners in that there was there were no supplies there was no water uh for them they would have died anyway um that's one possible way of looking at it I think the fact is that so many layers of myth and counter myth have been piled onto it that we should never know what really happened there's also the

very famous um visit to sick and wounded people in Jaffa and which was you know much painted um and that presented an image of Napoleon was almost a kind of sort of Christlike Redeemer figure um and you know was designed to complement the idea of him being a great warrior uh and this I think quite rightly as it has been pointed out this is um a miracle working gesture he's presenting himself as a as someone who is so special that he can heal wounds it's a healing gesture as well as a compassionate gesture the French

army enjoyed rapid if hard one success in Syria before reaching the city of AA The Garrison there was defended by the Turks with 250 guns and 800 English Sailors under Sydney Smith Napoleon decided to try and C capture it he had only 12 guns ammunition was so scarce he had to scavenge for spent enemy cannon balls to use three times the French breached the castle walls three times they were driven back nine more guns arrived by sea but still the French could not get a foothold in acre on 7th of May 30 anglo-turkish ships arrived

with reinforcements Napoleon cursed his men calling them effeminate but it was no use he reluctantly abandoned The Siege and returned to Egypt the the image of Napoleon is uh is that this was a total failure and certainly uh there there was a failure at the siege of Aer uh but the reality is he stopped The Invasion he prevented the Turks from moving further south and on into uh Egypt and he at least temporarily solidified his position uh which allowed him to return to Egypt uh in time to defeat the second Turkish Invasion which came by

sea on 25th of July Napoleon with 8,000 men met a Turkish force of 9,000 at aukia his first offensive drove the Turks back to Mount vizir mura received a bullet from a pistol in his lower jaw but fought on Bravely after the battle he could even turn it into a joke tell all the young ladies that even if Moray has lost some of his good looks they won't find that he has lost any of his bravery in the war of Love Napoleon's victory was decisive 5,000 Turks were drowned some 2,000 were killed on the battlefield

and 2,000 were captured no amount of success on land was going to compensate for the fact that he was now isolated Egypt had not proved a staging point on the way to India never would have been there was no French Fleet in the Red Sea there was no particular way in which the grand plans that he entertained in at least in his imagination could have been furthered equally he was now vulnerable and he was distant from the center of political development in Paris so it was time to go uh there was nothing left for him

uh in Egypt on the other hand back in France uh with the war resuming at the end of 1798 and going very badly indeed for the revolution for the Republican government in the early months of 1799 there was clearly work for him to do there uh and that's why he that's why he went back once safely back on French soil Napoleon received the hero's welcome that was becoming almost customary many already saw Napoleon as a potential leader of France but even with popular and Military Support he could could not risk overplaying his hand the weakness

at the center of French politics had created a complex web of factions each with its own agenda these did not necessarily include Napoleon but events were moving in his favor Emanuel Joseph sier the man who had betrayed robes spear was now the most influential member of the directory with another member Ro Duo he planned a coup but he needed someone with military nouse and muscle to complete the triumverate it has been argued could be argued perhaps should be argued that it was only a matter of time before a general arrived to restore order in France

so when bonapart comes back from Egypt in 1799 as still with the aura of success around his head somewhat tarnished by the disasters in Egypt he's the man to go for after all he was already noted for his willingness to use Force um famously the the remark about the whiff of grape shop and grape shot and the use of cannon on the Paris streets in 1795 to support the government and although that did not prove necessary in 1799 he was The crucial muscle the overthrow of the directory was planned for November 1799 the month of

buum in the new calendar but the coup did not pass off as smoothly as the plotters had envisaged in the chamber of the Council of 500 voices were raised against them Napoleon himself addressed them and was physically assaulted he escaped only with the aid of his loyal troops who purged the Chamber of dissenting voices those who were left forly approved the replacement of the directory by the new regime three consuls sier Duco and Napoleon would now govern France sier saw Napoleon as very much the junior partner not surprisingly Napoleon saw himself differently Napoleon cooperated completely

in the overthrow became uh the leading member of the government elbowed the two others aside cast them into the Dustbin of history and emerged as the first conso with uh pretty absolute [Music] powers Napoleon became first Consul on 25th December 1799 he was now de facto ruler of France he's able to secure his authority so easily because he's not associated in people's minds with any particular political grouping he's only associated with military Victory and so he could be all things to all people and so to the left he could do things things which made them

uh made him appeal to them he could do things to the right like concluding a Concord act with the Pope which would lead to reconciliation with the Catholic church and all those Millions who still supported it in France he could appeal to pretty well everybody and put it together in a package so that they could all say well perhaps we're not getting everything we want but we're getting enough uh including of course most importantly military Victory sealed by the greatest the invinci Napoleon bonapart to make them continue supporting him within months the renewed Austrian threat

in Italy saw him back on the battlefield with a force of 24,000 and greatly outnumbered he faced the austrians at marango once again the gods Smiled On him what could have been a humiliating defeat was turned into a resounding Victory but the Austrian threat was not about to go away the stage would soon be set for one of the crowning achievements of an already illustrious [Music] career by 1800 Napoleon was securely established as first Consul of France it had been a meteoric rise he could now shape the country according to his will and put his

own stamp on the course of world events the Napoleon's Heroes were the likes of Alexander the Great and Charlamagne Visionary men who combined ambition with overwhelming military skill now Napoleon was poised to make a similar contribution to world history his genius as a soldier and tactician had won him a host of Victories forging in the process an army that was both battle hardened and fiercely loyal to its young Commander by 1800 the world was at Napoleon's feet he was a national hero of unparalleled popularity he had defeated the austrians he had defeated the British he

had opened up Egypt to the world and now he had taken control of a French government that was almost universally unpopular he was going to be the savior of France There's No Return of the royalist to France uh the church at this time still is uh effectively in Exile so many of the values of the Revolution are still upheld by Napoleon um and I think he's seen very much as as the flag of the Revolution still at that time now Napoleon did not want to be another regime that went out within a year two years

3 years four years what he wanted to try and do was to stabilize what he saw as the achievement of the Revolution while removing some of what he saw as it excesses in December 1799 Napoleon had stated to the French people citizens the revolution is confined to the principles which commenced it it is finished he had drawn a line under the Revolution and it was for him dead I think outside France the response to Napoleon Caesar of power at Brew 1799 was surprisingly favorable um they didn't know what was coming and remember they were looking

back on a terrible decade of Bloodshed inside and outside France so when Napoleon arrives and announces that the revolution is over there were a lot of people who wanted to believe him and to believe that stability had returned to France at last there had always been a deeply conservative streak in Napoleon's makeup his love of power outweighed any commitment he may have had to democratic principles yet it was not power for its own sake that drove him it gave him the freedom to influence the future of France and the events of a new century as

first Consul he had that power and immediately set about using it he had uh introduced or shall we say improved the secret police under fuche and he had uh a steady flow of information about anybody who could be um a danger to his rule he introduced a fairly rigid censorship and uh from some 70 Parisian journals he reduced them down to about three in a very short space of time uh nobody was allowed to publish anything that was in conflict with the principles of the government his government I think Napoleon recognized that he had an

opportunity due to the fact that France had become so polarized opinion had been so polarized by the terror especially um that so much had unraveled during the course of the 1790s that there was a tremendous op opportunity for someone who stood above parties uh to take all those unraveled strands and put them back together again and that can be seen in the fact that he was prepared to use anybody any talents no matter where they came from so long as they served his purpose he's always in control but I don't think he Bears a grudge

against what had gone before whether it was the directory um or indeed the old regime for that matter wanted the supporters of the old regime of the burbons to be part of his Grand Coalition if you will he wanted as much as anything to have a United France and for a Time the old regime was actually fairly favorable toward Napoleon largely because they thought once he brought stability once he got rid of some of the more radical elements of the revolution ution that he Napoleon might very well bring back the king in fact Louie the

future Louis VI 18th wrote to Napoleon and said ah well done my lad now why don't you bring me back and all will be well and Napoleon wrote back very politely saying sorry uh but if you came back it would be over the bodies of a 100,000 dead Frenchmen I mean there was no way once they realized that the Napoleon was not going to be a conduit for the return of the Louis then they turned on Napoleon and they made a number of efforts to assassinate Napoleon the most famous of these efforts of course was

the so-called infernal machine on Christmas Eve 1800 Napoleon and Josephine were to attend a performance of heiden's creation they traveled in separate coaches the royalists had rigged up an infernal machine a bomb attached to a barrel of gunpowder it was time to blow up the two coaches together by sheer Good Fortune a gap opened up between the coaches by the time they arrived Napoleon and Josephine were unscathed but 52 bystanders were maimed or killed that explosion however that effort gave Napoleon an opportunity to eliminate some of his opponents there was of course a good deal

of opposition to the Napoleonic regime after 1799 after all most French people involved in politics after 1789 had got used to a culture of Confrontation uh to a culture of conflict and they couldn't simply change in 1799 and so of course a great deal of opposition went on almost as a matter of instinct there was opposition from the right I need hardly say uh from diard Catholics and royalists there opposition from the left from old style uh Jacobins there's opposition from pretty well every possible quarter he always understood that other generals would see him in

that position and say well gee that could have been me you know and maybe it should have been me but it wasn't and and Napoleon had to deal with that generals whom he did not trust lost office lost their positions in the army or were placed in positions where they were not able to take individual independent initiatives and of course once he was in control of the army and he actively pushed the careers of those people who he who he could rely on then he wasn't really concerned greatly about any other possible Center of resistance

on the left you had the jacobine you had the diard revolutionaries who weren't at all sure that a military uh man uh is more or less the single leader of France was what they had in mind the Pol Ian's desire for order which was undoubtedly good for the nation may have raised the hackles of some of the jacobine who thought that maybe the revolution should come back in a more pure form the Jacobin had a secret Ally Joseph fé Napoleon's hated chief of police he covered up for them and tried to divert Napoleon in the

direction of the royalists after all they had been behind the infernal machine I don't think the Jacobins were um a threat after 1799 they're they're they're few in number they enjoy little support on the streets of Paris which Napoleon was very careful to keep quiet through a combination of bread and circuses and although they make a great deal of noise I don't think they amounted to very much it it helped Napoleon it it helped him to keep the right and the center right under control by pretending that they're potentially very very dangerous and if they

don't keep Napoleon Empire then it'll be back to the days of the terror and so on and so forth 130 Republicans were branded terrorists a death sentence in all but [Music] name Napoleon next turned his attention to the Catholic Church stripped of its influence and Prestige by the revolution it had been rendered vir powerless Napoleon decided to reinstate it to a position of influence Napoleon's um resumption on behalf of France of of Catholicism uh was in sense a political measure he saw this as a way to to to stabilize the situation and he was correct

um to actually follow an anti-church policy an anti-religious policy was not a way to enhance the stability of the regime he'd seen at firsthand especially in Italy uh the force of Catholicism as an ideology and the Catholic Church as an institution in mobilizing popular opposition to the French regime and he realized that if there if true domestic stability were to be returned to France then some kind of arrangement with the Roman Catholic Church would have to be initiated at that point in time Napoleon saw that there could be money to be made by allowing the

church back into France but it was not going to be the old church with its feudal rights and with its property it was going to be Napoleon's Church like Henry VII's Church of England it was Napoleon's Church of France and it did what he said the pope wanted Napoleon to recognize the church as the dominant religion but Napoleon wouldn't do that instead he recognize the church as the religion of the overwhelming majority of French citizens now that might seem like just a matter of semantics but it made a big difference to the people that Napoleon

needed for support remember this was not a popular move among the intellectuals among the Jacobin the revolutionaries uh and among many of the middle class who feared that the next step might be to give back the church lands which they now owned so it was that at midnight on 15th July 8 181 Napoleon entered into a concordat with Pope PAs iith to those who still supported the principles of the Revolution this smacked of betrayal but as Napoleon had guessed the official restoration of their religion proved hugely popular with the Ordinary People of France who flocked

to the newly opened churches at nraam on Easter Day 18002 a Mass was held to celebrate the new concordat afterwards Napoleon asked General delmare whether he thought the service had been a success pretty Monkish Mumy the only thing missing were the million men who died to overthrow what you are now setting up again there was massive opposition to the concordat inside France from the left from the old Jacobins because the concordat was the most visible sign that Napoleon was prepared to compromise with the old regime here with the dominant ideology of the old regime and

so there was a good deal of muttering and not all of it under their breath on the part of a number of senior generals for example many of whom were Jacobin by by orientation but even these sentiments did nothing to deflect Napoleon on 4th of August 18002 following a landslide Victory and a pleite Napoleon was made consul for life in effect he was now emperor of [Music] France the church was now firmly back at the center of French society equally importantly it was also under the thumb of the new Consul but the restoration of the

Catholic church was only the first area of National Life on which Napoleon determined to put his stamp he saw himself in the tradition of the LA givers of the ancient world introduced in stages the code Napoleon would ratify a new legal system in many areas of French life marriage education the Jey system Napoleon had an official explanation for introducing the code the revolution had bred a spirit of extreme individualism it is necessary to throw upon the soil of France a few blocks of granite in order to give a Direction to the public Spirit there are

many misconceptions about Napoleon and the code Napoleon Napoleon didn't write it himself a body of legislation had already been started in 1792 and continued from then on it was in 1792 and 1793 that the old feudal rights were Swept Away Napoleon did not sweep them away as his popularly uh believed he merely ensured that they were embodied into his new code Napoleon which as I say was lying around in the parliamentary system when he came along what he did he ramrodded it through in 90 sessions so that it was a coherent and wellth thought out

document which was passed into law as what else the code Napoleon the codification of French laws under the under the consulate it becomes the civil code is a very good example of how Napoleon went to work he got the best people he organized them he in he motivated them he controlled them he made he kept them he kept them up to their work not least by uh chairing some of the sessions himself and then he was able to enforce it throughout France uh through a new centralized bureaucratic system introduced after 1799 based on the prefects

I however much the code reported to benefit the French people as a whole it was not a move towards democracy and Freedom the only people who really benefited were those Napoleon saw as the social and economic backbone of his new Society the wealthy middle classes who had done so well out of the Revolution at its root the French Revolution was a middle class Revolution with middle class ideals and Napoleon was also at his root a middle class leader his goals his ideals his policies were geared toward the middle class nowhere is this more true than

in the field of Education a lot of folks don't realize that Napoleon made great strides to reorganize and reform and improve the French educational system and that the curriculum ought to be that geared toward Preparing People to be members of the middle class to be government workers to military leaders uh and short to be the leadership Cadre of of France under Napoleon this is not unlike the system uh anywhere in the world today education is largely a middleclass kind of institution in 1802 Napoleon introduced a new honor System the Legion of Honor someone suggested it

should be an exclusively military honor Napoleon disagreed if we make a distinction between military and civil honors we shall be instituting two orders whereas the nation is one if we award honors only to soldiers that will be still worse for then the nation will cease to [Music] exist it met with Fierce criticism especially from the left it was not egalitarian but among the population at large it was popular in all 30,000 people were decorated it was Napoleon who once said it is with bobles that men are LED and he is obviously quite right I mean

you give a guy a star to pin on his coat and uh he feels 10 ft tall rather like iron crosses in World War II the Leon Don was introduced in four grades there was um the chaler the officer the commander the grand eag legal and Grand officer and it was open to all those on the field of battle who had achieved something of Daring and of note in that way it was extremely Democratic and uh somebody who' won the Leon Dair could look to having uh Field Marshal baton maybe slipped into his napsack a

day or two afterwards it was deeply resented by the old Jacobins as a sign that Napoleon was abandoning the egalitarian ideals of the Revolution and I think it has to be said that that is that is that is right he was creating an elite and singling them out through uh the award of medals through the award of whole hierarchy of titles and uniforms and so on and so forth Napoleon may have been a national hero to the French but he was not a man of the people he created an even greater distance between him self

and the people when he introduced a new nobility the notables these were local citizens who by virtue of their wealth paid the highest taxes in return they were given titles official positions and huge official salaries on Sunday 2nd December 184 in the Cathedral of nraam Pope P iith crowned Napoleon as emperor of France almost as if the revolution had never happened there was now a single ruler a state Church an honor System and a new nobility but whatever the similarities it was not the old France it was a very new entity ruled by the greatest

military Genius of the age he was about to prove the point yet again in in spectacular [Music] Style [Applause] up until now that the French army had been made up of a series of armies so you had the army of Italy the army of the Interior um the army of Germany and so on with Napoleon now being the virtual dictator and the Supreme military commander it was important that there was just one Army and that became the Grand Army the grandet was an effective Army it was particularly well structured in the development of the core

system which was was essentially a building on the earlier idea of the division the point about the core is that it enabled a commander of a core to contain within that um the three independent arms um infantry Cavalry and artillery so that as as an individual core they could as it were cover the bases it was a standardized system which has been accepted throughout the world as being the best way to do the job it's still used today and is unbeatable the grand Army was nothing unique uh what Napoleon was was he was a great

user of other people's ideas and many of the concepts adopted within the Grand Army had been tried out in the 18th century and indeed the famous core system um that spoken about quite often with Napoleon was experimentally tried out uh first by Maro in the in the German theater so the idea of a core was not something that was unique to Napoleon but it certainly was a good idea and Napoleon was was certainly the first one to admit that if it's a good idea it should be used in 1803 despite an interim period of Peace

Britain and France were once more at War by 1805 Britain had been joined by Austria Russia and Sweden in the third Coalition for the second time Napoleon began to make plans for the invasion of Britain work began on the construction of specially designed vessels a potential Invasion force of over 150,000 troops was to be assembled as he quickly learned Naval Warfare demanded different skills from Land Warfare Napoleon invested vast amount of money and time in preparing The Invasion uh in the Years up to 1803 there is no doubt that he meant to do it he

even had the idea of digging a tunnel under the channel which was abandoned fairly rapidly so yes certainly he intended to do it but his his Admirals kept saying to him you know we can't just push the boats out and make them do what you want we have to have the right wins at the right time and this Napoleon could never comprehend coordinating forces at Sea was not like moving units on a battlefield obviously once they were out of sight of land it was virtually impossible to know where they were and you know impossible unless

you could get a quicker ship to catch up with them to send them messages so the coordination of Naval forces was very difficult one of the problems that Napoleon had was that there was no tradition of Naval power in France they had a Navy certainly they had some very very fine fighting ships they even had a few good commanders but they didn't have anything at all like the tradition of England they had been starved of adequate Naval supplies they couldn't renew the rigging on the boats the spars were rotten in some cases the hulls were

uh creaking and leaking the crews were rebellious under the spirit the new spirit of republicanism many of the officers had immigrated to save their necks uh many other able officers prefered to go into the Merchant Marine which they could happily do U because there at least was some money to be made from capturing foreign prizes and and then with the imposition of a British blockade by the Royal Navy the French navy is cooped up in Port starved of resources starved of men uh and with no training and so every time the French navy goes to

Sea and takes on the or almost every time they go to Sea and take on the Royal Navy they get a bloody nose uh and that leads in part to the uh disaster at the Battle of the Nile abukir Bay in 1798 and then most spectacularly of course to Trafalga it was already clear prior to Trafalga that the situation did not permit an invasion of Britain indeed the French army was already moved into Germany for the M Alit campaign so that in fact the fleet which sailed out of Cadiz which was a French and Spanish

fleet was not intended to invade Britain it might have been that if that Fleet hadn't been destroyed that subsequently it would have been used in an attempt to cover an invasion after the defeat of Austria but actually in 1805 by the time of fala what Napoleon is most concerned about is to get ships into the Mediterranean to help his campaign in Italy with the threat of invasion removed you can argue that the British no longer had any incentive to come to peace terms with Napoleon uh that they had all of the reasons in the world

not to come to peace terms the British were determined to maintain a balance of power on the continent and to do this they could not tolerate a France that was too strong it was not enough just to have Naval dominance because if Napoleon could control all of the continent he could establish a Navy it might take some time but he could do it and then it might be possible for to have an invasion as the Allies made plans of their own in Mainland Europe it must have seemed that the emperor's attention was diverted elsewhere but

Napoleon's Grand arm had used its time on the channel Coast to rest and retrain it could and would now be employed to devastating effect intelligence reports had reached Napoleon at baloy that the Coalition planned an ambitious multi-pronged attack a force made up of British Russian and Swedish troops would attack Handover from the [Music] north an austri aan Army under General Mack would invade Bavaria supported by a large Russian contingent another Austrian Army was to strike towards Lombardy from Northern Italy whilst a force under Arch duuke John of Austria attacked the Tyrell in the South a

mixed nationality force would launch an assault on Naples Napoleon with the grand arm at its fighting Peak preempted the coalition's plan Land by making a Swift and decisive move against General Mack in Bavaria he would remove Mack from the game even before his Russian support had arrived the Allies lacking Napoleon's intelligence Network believed wrongly that he would strike first in Italy they were completely unprepared once more the little Corporal descended like a thunderbolt once more the austrians reeled before him it's hard to imagine moving tens and tens of thousands of soldiers all the way from

the uh French uh Coastline into Germany in secrecy but he to a very large extent accomplished that he also accomplished it in an incredibly short period of time a mere matter of weeks now the first Austrian Force he encountered was at um uh under the command of General Mack General Mack had not a clue that Napoleon was about to encircle him he almost literally wakes up one morning and discovers that the French have him surrounded so as ma realizes that his lines of communication have finally been severed by Napoleon's movements to larier um apart from

a fleeing Cavalry Force under the arch Duke Ferdinand ma realizes the game is up and with his 25,000 Men He Sur he surrenders uh to Napoleon presenting himself as the unfortunate General Mack and that Napoleon does take great Glee in returning his sword and sending him back to the Emperor of Austria with the news of his own uh demise the maneuver um around the rear of the Austrian Force at ol in 1805 was a masterpiece of planning and reflects nothing but glory on the grand arm for from Napoleon through beier and the general staff all

the way down to the guys who were trudging along the roads it was a masterpiece its importance lay not in uh taking the city of ULM which is in a very in a position very difficult to defend anyway but its importance lay in the capture of the unfortunate General Mack 25,000 austrians the demoralization which pervaded the entire Austrian Army after this debark and the moral ascendancy that he won over his Austrian and Russian foes when he went forward to fight them again at aitz the action against Austria had brought Prussia perilously close to joining the

Coalition Napoleon decided on another preemptive strike to weaken the Russians before Prussia could add her weight to that of the Allies he moved towards the Russians who were advancing under General Kut when he learned of the Austrian collapse at M cutof retreated keeping one step ahead of the pursuing French he doubled back across the danu cleverly eluding Napoleon and linking up with the army of General box Howen near the town of alotz for once Napoleon had been outmaneuvered on 23rd November 185 at Brun 45 km from alots the grand arm rested after their long march

from the French Coast they were exhausted and outnumbered but their finest Hour was coming now at this point Napoleon's position is not nearly as good as it had been earlier his lines of communication are much longer his soldiers are much tireder he sent various portions of his army out into other areas searching for the main body of austrians and Russians who have now entered the frey so by the time he gets to alitz he's got a little bit of a problem he he no longer has the dominant Force he's no longer got the element of

surprise and so he has to resort to some other way of assuring Victory Napoleon's early skill as an artillery officer had trained him to understand how landscape could be used against an enemy he surveyed the area around Brun gentlemen examine this ground carefully it is going to be a [Music] battlefield dividing his Force he ordered onethird of his army under salt mura and Lan to take possession of the village of alitz and the adjacent praton Heights they would to be set up to look like sitting ducks to the numerically Superior Russians cleverly Napoleon cultivated the

appearance of weakness receiving Russian envoys and apparently Keen to consider peace terms the Russians didn't know that 22,000 reinforcements would arrive unseen and unsuspected the French are made to look even weaker when Napoleon withdrew them from the pratts and Heights now you don't normally give up The High Ground in a battle if you've already got it unless you're about to leave and so he gives up The High Ground and the the Russians and the austrians are astounded you know they said what okay fine so so they immediately of course move on to the prson heights

without looking over the whole area I've stood on the prson heights You Can See For Miles the Trap was set the bait had been brilliantly prepared General Cut's Russian Bear needed little urging to take it the Russians attacked the French right but was soon hit by a c attack this meant the Russians had to take reinforcements from the pratson heights Napoleon with the main body of his army is shielded below the base of the proon heights behind a slight Ridge and a fortuitous thick fog the austrians and Russians have no idea he's there when enough

of the Allied Forces have descended down after the French right flank Napoleon gives the order and his forces storm the proen heights they realize the mistake up there on the hill and they try to recall some of their soldiers to defend the prson heights but it's too late Napoleon is able to force his way onto the pron Heights splitting the armies of his opponents in half he sends some folks after the retreating Russians they were able to retreat more or less in decent order but then he de sends on the austrians he's now got them

sandwiched in between the forces they thought they were pursuing and the forces of Napoleon up on top of the hill and they are crushed as the day wore on the Russian Retreat turned to shambolic nightmare harried by the French the Russians fled South towards the frozen lake surrounding the heights Napoleon ordered the French artillery to shoot holes in the ice in a horrific finale an insult to those who had fought so bravely large numbers of men and horses died in the icy waters when the British prime minister pit heard the news he was shattered roll

up that map of Europe it will not be needed these 10 years alitz has been seen by some as Napoleon's finest Hour this of course is always a tricky issue I mean is is greatness to judged or military greatness to be judged in terms of Victory or sometimes in judged with in terms of staving off defeat in very difficult circumstances he had demonstrated that he was so far above his opponents he was so Superior to them in planning in conception in managing his assets on the battlefield and off it uh in judging the character of

his enemies in manipulating their weaknesses and reducing their strengths yes this has got to be his finest it epitomized Napoleonic Warfare in terms of the Mena material used in terms of his strategy in terms of tactics on the battlefield this was it this was the perfect example of how a battle could be fought how a battle should be fought there's no textbook lesson that can be derived from it it was just something that was perfect with the military plans of the Coalition in TAS Austria sued for peace as her Russian allies retreated through Poland to

lick their wounds for Napoleon the political map of Europe was waiting to be drawn according to his own designs I do not believe that Napoleon ever negotiated a peace he was incapable of doing so he negotiated trues when it Suited Ed him but that was only a view with a view to making War later on terms more advantageous to himself I don't think that he was psychologically capable of ever making peace with any other with any other power and the reason for that is that I don't think although however mad this may sound that he

had aims that was the secret to success in Warfare according to clitz was limited aims and that's what Fredick the great for example had done he he he he used War as an instrument when he achieved his objective he stopped but Napoleon had no objectives he allowed success in war to generate those objectives and once they've been attained if he were still winning as he of course he was until until the end he went on to some more aims there was there was no sense of any clear coherent uh aim which would enable him to

say I've achieved what I wanted to achieve so I can now make peace alitz is followed by peace with Austria and a rather difficult peace in terms of the Austrian loss of territory humiliation uh but War continues with Russia and in 1806 is to be widened by the entry of Prussia into the war on 7th of August 186 Prussia declared war on France and began to mobilize an army of 146,000 men within weeks Russia and Britain had joined her in the fourth Coalition once again the grand arm and its seemingly Invincible command would take to

the [Applause] field the politics of 1806 are very complex the prussians didn't particularly want to fight Napoleon but um Napoleon pushed and intimidated and bullied them and they themselves tried to respond to the opportunities of Russia and Britain being at War um with France and in the end Prussia comes into the war now Prussia had not been in the war since 1795 her military in the meantime had not really been developed whereas the French military had become much more proficient and Napoleon takes out there's no other term that one can use really Prussia in 1806

in a extraordinarily successful campaign on 13th October Napoleon received news that a large Russian Force had gathered at Jenna a town on the river Sal near lipic a furious battle ensued the prussians under Prince hoen L fought bravely but were no match for the numerically Superior Grand arm by midday the French had the upper hand the prussians exposed and outnumbered began to suffer terrible losses soon they were in Retreat once again Napoleon had emerged Victorious this time there was a sting in the tail he had believed that at Jenna he had faced the main Prussian

Force the that night on returning to his headquarters he received astounding news Way Away about 20 km away to the north at AET davu with his first core had in fact blundered into the major part of the Prussian Army davu was one of Napoleon's most competent core commanders his achievements this day were absolutely legendary with his One Core occupying the vital ground of henhouse he held the field against almost the entire Prussian Army and inflicted extremely heavy casualties against it Napoleon refused at first to believe that uh he had only attacked and beaten a smaller

part of the Prussian Army and that davu had done the man's job that day and if you look at the Battle honors of the French regiments involves there you will find that they all get y nobody gets our this was not at all surp surprising I mean the same could be true of could be said of the 1800 campaign of Morango it's this was part of the pattern of military activity that the person at the top generally claims the credit for their subordinates at home the news of his victory against Prussia did not provoke the

same enthusiasm as his exploits at aitz the French people unlike their Emperor were War weary conscription had seen a steady stream of young men March off to feed Napoleon's War Machine soon they would be marching to Poland there the Russians under General benon were waiting for them on 6 February 187 in a howling blizzard the two armies met in one of Napoleon's bloodiest encounters yet at ilow what began as a skirmish ended in a fullscale battle with terrible loss of life in many ways IA was comparable to gettsburg it was an accident um both armies

were in the neighborhood of um the town of Ila at this time the French did not intend to provoke a battle on the evening of the day the Russians were close up to IO but not in possession all of a sudden uproll Imperial headquarters the Russian Patrol which discovered them alerted headquarters and um there was a an attempt to evict them this dragged more and more people in from both sides and it developed into an extremely nasty Affair very close fought very bloody an awful lot of dead and wounded Ela was a blood Fest it

was a disaster for both sides it was fought in a snowstorm it was a an oldfashioned slug each other until you both drop kind of affair at the end the casualties on both sides were enormous did anyone one really gain any strategic Advantage You could argue perhaps the French gained a little bit but nothing that could justify the the Carnage on the field it was really one of the the least advantageous and least happy battles if you will of the entire Napoleonic epic even Napoleon for whom war was akin to a natural state was appalled

by the Carnage at Ila the countryside is covered with dead and wounded this is not the pleasantest part of War One suffers and the soil is oppressed to see so many sufferers rather than press the campaign against the Russians he withdrew to Winter quarters on the face of it IA was yet another victory in Napoleon's battle role of Honor but it had been a costly and fortunate Victory on top of that the Russian threat had not been elimin minated with the end of winter the campaign resumed another French Victory followed at the Battle of fre

land this time the outcome was more decisive the Russians now sought peace this came with the signing on 3rd July 187 of the Treaty of tilset it left Napoleon virtually master of Europe with an even Freer hand to shape the political map of the continent all this had come at a high price blood misery and warfare marked the little corporal's rise the one could not have happened without the other I feel myself driven toward an end I do not know as soon as I have reached it as soon as I shall become unnecessary an atom

will suffice to Shatter Me till then not all the forces in mankind can do anything against me there's a view of Napoleon held by some that he was a warmonger that he was only interested in Conquest that he wanted to capture all of Europe for his own benefit for his own aggrandisement I don't believe that and I think history will show clearly that that's not the case Napoleon saw War as a means to an end there are different ways of looking at history One Way generally sees violence as a necessary way way to overcome an

old order in order to create the new my own view is that that is a belief rather than an analysis one could equally argue that people underrate the ability of existing systems to engender change and that therefore the violence that one sees in episodes such as um you know Napoleon or or later the violence of the 20th century revolutions uh were not ones that one should necessarily see as Progressive forces and in some respects they actually made it harder to advance whatever one might regard as [Music] Progressive by 1808 whatever was driving Napoleon had taken

him to the throne of France a position of unequal influence in Europe and a further string of military victories these had been the years of his Zenith more was to follow but in future the most powerful man in Europe Europe wouldn't have everything his own [Music] way by 1807 Napoleon Was preparing to attack Portugal that country's long-term alliance with England was becoming a thorn in the emperor's flesh it thwarted his ambition to enforce the Continental System throughout Europe and cut off all trade with England what the British would done is they blockaded trade going to

France and France's allies but at the same time they'd sold vast quantities of material to anybody willing to buy it and you know par by smuggling it often but also to sort of as it were allies or intimidated Powers who are quite happy to do things by the you know by the back door napoleons determined to stop this the continental system was simply a boycott by the entire continent so Napoleon hoped of British goods he realized that especially after tfala there was no way in which he could get out the British directly because of Britain's

Maritime Supremacy but he believed with some justification that the British economy rested on export or die and so if he could prevent the British from exporting their manufactured goods to the continent the British economy would get into difficulties and the British would be forced to make peace on Napoleon's terms he thus at the Treaty of tilsit and in the Berlin decrees introduced the Continental System whereby no Continental power was allowed to trade either in British goods or handle British ships um or British goods coming in Vine neutrals the only problem is that a trade embargo

of this nature is a two-edged weapon it cuts both ways and the big question was who was going to die first and as it transpired the ruination it brought upon the Continental Nations largely accepting a French I must say because Napoleon robbed Peter to pay Paul and made sure that the French system survived least damaged but it drove the htic towns into bankruptcy it ruined Holland uh human beings being what they were smuggling was Rife so the continental system was naked commercial Warfare my motto is France first if English Commerce triumphs on the Seas that

is because the English dominate the oceans it is therefore logical that since France is superior on land she should make her trade dominant there otherwise all is lost it was a system very very difficult to enforce because in effect what Napoleon was trying to do was to police the entire Coastline of the continent of Europe some parts of that Coastline were directly under his control as the as in France for example and there it was relatively straightforward to keep British goods out but it was a very different matter trying to keep let to say British

goods out of triest which could then make their way across the Alps and Into the Heart of Europe or to keep British goods out of Scandinavia and wherever one whenever one hole was stopped up another one appeared so it was very difficult to to seal off the continent from British goods Portugal is an obvious loophole and therefore Napoleon's terms troops have to be sent to Portugal Portugal was traditionally Britain's best Ally on the continent it was a major trading partner of Britain and it depended for British troops on its security the British had sent troops

there in the 1700s they sent a big Force there in 1762 Portugal's opponent was Spain and Spain had traditionally looked to France uh bourbon Dynasty had ruled both both um States throughout Century until Louis the 16th was deposed in France um Spain then went to war with the French but following her defeat Spain moved increasingly into the French sphere of influence although it was a sphere of influence which was very much set by a bullying manner by the French Napoleon had other motives for invading Portugal he could move from there to Spain where he could

take advantage of the political chaos chaos in the country and absorb it into his French Empire Napoleon becomes interested in the idea of overthrowing the borong in Spain and replacing them by a member of his own family one of his brothers now this reflects first of all Napoleon's dynasticism he was very interested in the second half of the 1800s of pushing his family into kingdoms or princip alties he had created um in Holland for example Naples West failure and so on but it also reflects in a sense which the factor one can often see with

autocratic individuals and dictators which is a lack of willingness to accept the imperfections and imprecisions of a relationship the Spanish Throne was occupied by the demented Charles IV but the real power lay in the hands of Queen Maria Louisa and her lover Manuel de Godoy the Spanish or rather their ruling click which included Godoy the prince of peace they were in favor of working together with Napoleon against the British one because of the long history of conflict with us on the sea uh two because of our long conflict on religion and thirdly because they felt

that they could make some or God or felt he could make some quick bucks out of helping the French invade Portugal from which he was going to get a slice Napoleon believed there was widespread support in Spain for the country to join the Continental System in this region he seriously overstretched his support another little blind spot of his I think you know it was a case of uh if I say jump you jump and in this particular case he said you who will not have British goods but public taste become so dependent upon things like

coffee uh tea spices silk cotton manufactured goods which were U made in Britain at a fraction of the cost they could made in Europe there was a ready market for people wanted these things and they were not really after a couple of months they were not really that sold on the ponon system that they would say okay we are going to deprive ourselves of all these luxuries of life and just so that you can win the war because they knew damn well that Napoleon wasn't depriving himself of these Commodities and neither was France Napoleon certainly

miscalculated very badly over Spain he made the mistake of supposing that because the royal family in Spain was self-evidently decrepit uh that the rest of the country was in the similar condition and he also seriously underestimated the attack attachment that a large bulk of the Spanish population felt towards not so much Charles IV as towards the his Elder son and air the prince of the asteras Ferdinand we we forget sometimes that Napoleon had a lot of support from certain elements of Spanish Society namely the educated middle class who were really quite tired of the oppressive

nature of the church this was after all the Church of the Inquisition uh which was you know just exactly the opposite of of of the the the ideals of of the the French uh government and and so those people supported Napoleon but what Napoleon failed to take into account was that they were a relatively small group of people the common people of Spain really wanted nothing to do with the French with Napoleon these these really wonderful intellectual ideas of equality and freedom were really nothing compared to their deep religious beliefs and their deep sense of

of patriotism for their Nation not only had Napoleon underestimated the level of resistance in Spain he had also underestimated the terrain the Iberian Peninsula was much more rugged than Napoleon had imagined the landscape was wild vegetation was sparse it would be impossible for an army to live off the land and with the rudimentary Supply and logistic systems of the 19th century that was a serious error Napoleon miscalculated in his uh invasion of Portugal and Spain largely because of his overconfidence he had become so used to being right so used to being Victorious at this stage

that he ignored the advice of others who knew better he apparently was also and I find this hard to believe very ignorant of the actual physical conditions in Spain he misjudged its size He was unaware of the Primitive state of the roads He was unaware of the barrenness of the country it has been said of Spain that uh Spain is a place where small armies get defeated and large armies starve and he apparently hadn't heard this or if he had he'd chosen to ignore it the armies could not live off the land they had uh

great difficultly in moving around uh and consequently by it the very nature of the territory in Spain by its geography it was bound to be a crack a tougher nut to crack than let us say Bavaria Austria or or Prussia or indeed anywhere in on the great North North German plane during the summer of 1807 Napoleon did a deal with Godoy they would cooperate to partition pugal and Godoy agreed to provide Napoleon with soldiers and supplies in return he would be granted all pugal south of the river tagos as a result of the secret pact

in November 1807 a French army of 25,000 under Andros Juno Advanced through Spain towards Portugal Juno was a hothead who had earned himself the nickname the storm he arrived at Lisbon on 30th November to find that the entire Portuguese Fleet had left and so an army under General Juno was sent across Spain to Portugal and occupied the Portuguese Capital with very little resistance other than curiously enough um a Russian Fleet uh that was acting in a neutral capacity um which refused to uh to leave the harbor but um the Portuguese government fled to Brazil and

uh it was it was a very simple occupation of Portugal by by the French meanwhile in Spain plots were a foot to have Charles deposed his son ferand supported such moves by 1808 popular Rising against Godoy forced the royal family to seek Exile in France Napoleon posing as a mediator between Father and Son met them at Bayon there he ordered Charles to abdicate and Ferdinand to renounce a succession he then declared his brother Joseph bonapart king of Spain with his brother Jerome already installed as king of West faia Brother Louie occupying the Throne of Holland

and even his stepson Yan deputizing his Viceroy of Italy the bonapart family now effectively controlled Europe This was nepotism on a spectacular scale naturally Napoleon sincerely believed in the benefits of French rule as shown in a letter to Jerome the previous November the peoples of Germany as well as those of France Italy and Spain desire equality and demand liberal ideas I have been managing the Affairs of Europe long enough to be convinced that the burden imposed by the privileged classes is contrary to the wishes of General opinion be a constitutional King having established Joseph as

king of Spain he dispatched Marshall mura with an army to take Madrid and impose French rule if Napoleon thought the decision would be popular he was mistaken Napoleon horribly miscalculated the effect that his putting Joseph on the throne would have when the people thought Napoleon was going to support Ferdinand who they rather liked over others then that was fine with the Hispanic people but once they realized that it was going to be king Jose then then the deal was off and the Spanish people were were not going to support the French the response is not

what he had anticipated it becomes quite possible to seize the royal family but there is a popular reaction in Spain the French use enormous Force against it famous paintings of course of the shooting of people in Madrid by Goya um but widespread popular resistance both by regular and by irregular Spanish forces ensure that Napoleon has to send large amounts of troops into Spain on 2nd May the Spanish people rose up against M's army they killed 150 of M's mamalu Cavalry before the uprising was put [Applause] down Mass executions followed and resistance the French was stiffened

this effectively developed into a civil war between Spanish liberals and reactionaries worse was to follow at Balin on 19th July 1808 some 40,000 Spaniards surrounded 9,000 raw French recruits and forced them to surrender it's the first time that the French army has been decisively defeated and indeed surrenders uh to the Spanish Army send shock waves through Europe um and of course it's it's a very embarrassing um occurrence as far as Napoleon's concerned and that encourages uh the Spanish Army in the pursuit uh of the fight against the French there was only one solution the emperor

himself would have to intervene Napoleon hastily persuaded SAR Alexander I to keep the austrians in check while while he personally took a 100,000 veterans from the grand arm and marched to Spain in Cadiz the Spaniards turned to Britain for help the Spanish had every reason to believe that the British would help simply on past record namely that the British appeared to have Limitless amounts of money and a limitless will to support the opponents of revolutionary France and then of Napoleon and although there were certainly a good deal of argument um in White Hall as to

whether the Spanish uh should be assisted I don't think there was ever any doubt that they would be at this stage there was no unified Spanish opinion there were Regional hunas who uh were doing their own thing in Independence of uh the central Hunter there was a widespread rejection of French rule and French interference in Spanish Affairs and the hunter of the asuras approached Britain with a plea for support to fight against the French so the climate was ripe uh the Spanish hinters thought for Britain to come in and give them a hand to throw

the French out Sir Arthur Wellesley the future Duke of Wellington was dispatched with a force of 14,000 men in August they defeated Juno at [Applause] Fiera despite his promising start to the campaign wellesly was recalled and replaced by Sir John Moore Napoleon now had 200,000 troops deployed on the river EO the recapture of Madrid should have been a formality instead Moore with 28,000 men used diversionary tactics to draw off the French before retreating to cor there on 11th January 1809 a famous rear guard action was fought more and 6,000 of his men were killed but

the British forces succeeded in withdrawing and Napoleon could hardly claim it as a victory his immediate hopes of crushing Spain and Portugal were unresolved and he presently withdrew from the campaign writing shortly afterwards Napoleon noted the error of his ways the error committed in Spain was not that of proceeding too rapidly but that of proceeding too slowly after my departure had I remained there a few months I would have taken Lisbon and Cadiz United all parties and pacified the country in his latter years in his Memoirs written on St helina Napoleon saw it rather differently

with hindsight he correctly analyze the situation as a French Victory the Spanish War ended in 1809 in 3 months I had beaten and dispersed the four Spanish armies of 160,000 men taken Madrid and Saragosa and forced General Moore to rebark after losing half of his army his stores and Military chests Spain was conquered what Napoleon thought he could do in 188 was to take control of Spain and thus Portugal very quickly and with a minimum of effort eff it turned out that he could not take control and that in the six years which it which

then the C the campaigns lasted it would prove to be not so much an ulca which is the common metaphor but it was really a source of hemorrhaging it just hemorrhaged and hemorrage and hemorrhaged men and money in the past Napoleon had relied on all his Wars making profits he would make war at the expense of one country uh to create a war chest to take on another one but in the case of Spain Not only was there no money to be distracted it became a net and very serious strain on his financial resources and

more seriously ultimately on his military resources Joseph as king of Spain now took over command of the army it was a disaster the new king of Spain remained inactive wasting four months he should have marched on Cadiz Valencia and Lisbon political means would then have done the rest when the naon himself within Spain he was not defeated militarily when Napoleon was there it really was like uh the Duke of Wellington is reported to have said that his hat on the battlefield was worth 50,000 men uh the fact was that Napoleon was very successful when he

left he left his Marshals in charge and his brother the king and there was infighting there was a real lack of unity of command and so as Aon result where you could have had tremendous French victories instead you ended up with French losses and it turned out to be a disaster with French forces inactive wellesly returned to the peninsula and soon established a foothold in Portugal it was a worrying development for Napoleon the Anglo Portuguese Army became as skillful and battle hardened as the French army the Spanish Expedition under s John Moore is unsuccessful in

Portugal on the other hand the British are more successful they land an expeditionary force it defeats the French and by the time the French arrive larger French forces arrive the British are well prepared for them and although it is to be a long process um this is to be the basis of the eventual driving of the French out of Spain and what was has been termed the Spanish ulcer an ulcer in the sense that it took uh a continual amount of French resources to try and cope with the situation there British forces under wellsy were

able to defeat French forces and to resist French forces at a time when the rest of Europe was not doing so and that was a permanent question mark about the stability of the Napoleonic achievement in Spain the regular Spanish armies presented little problem for Napoleon's vastly Superior forces it was The Irregular forces soon to be termed guerillas who proved a constant harassment with their lightning raids on supply lines the Spanish Countryside is so rugged that it lends itself very much to gorilla Warfare there's lots of places the gorillas can hide not just in the Villages

but in the mountains and the valleys and what have you and it's very difficult to be able to police there's also lots of vulnerable Convoy routes the great North Road for example from Bayon down to to Madrid went through numerous defiles uh which could be easily ambushed and at the height of the um the peninsula War uh simple convoys themselves would require whole brigades as an escort to be able to ensure that um not just convoys but even even Messengers were able to get through with with u important orders from the emperor uh and of

course this created a great drain on Manpower and to try and combat It the French showed little quarter to the Spanish peasants that were caught uh in the act of Guerilla Warfare and this uh this little compassion that they showed was reciprocated in kind by the Spanish themselves and uh W be tied any French soldier that was caught by the Spanish peasant or Guerilla he came to a very bloody and ugly end captured French soldiers were stoned to death others were blinded with Pikes or castrated and left to bleed to death it was a cruel

and vicious way of waging psychologic iCal Warfare morale was Rock Bottom they existed in a series of isolated forts cut off from one another if you sent out a battalion to do something and never came back if you sent out a division they saw nothing their correspondents went to drift it was placed immediately on Wellington's table uh he was capable of outmaneuvering them which he frequently did it was a very very depressing sapping experience for the French and the armies not surprisingly many in the French army were beginning to lose their enthusiasm for this war

men such as Marshall MacDonald I had a very strong objection to the manner in which the war was carried on in Spain my objection had its roots in the dishonesty or what in high places is called policy which caused the invasion of the country however the noble and courageous resistance of its inhabitants triumphed over our efforts under arms the biggest problem with Spain from Napoleon's point of view was not just the loss of men but the loss of prestige the loss of the ARA of invincibility he had gone into Spain he personally had been quite

successful in his own campaign but once he left the whole thing began to unravel he was being booted out of the country or the French were being booted out of the country by a combination of of course the British soldiers under Wellington but also by the uprising of the very people to whom he had hoped to bring the enlightenment of his regime now we can all argue that these people would have been better off with King Joseph and under French control in terms of individual liberties and the lack of Oppression of the church and so

on but the fact of the matter is they didn't see it that way and they ultimately were able to Prevail and this was a huge body blow to Napoleon's Prestige this really gave hope to a number of his old enemies that aha this guy can be defeated after all Napoleon soon faced problems from a new quarter Austria although defeat AIT seemed to have dented the power of the hapsburg Empire within 3 years the Austrian Arch duuke Charles had begun to rebuild the Army he created a Frontline force of 150,000 Men supplemented by regiments of mobile

skirmishers and Sharpshooters after the catastrophic failures at olm and aitz in 185 the austrians really did make a big effort to put their house in order a really major off effort by their standards they are starting to learn from the experiences of the past decade or so and so so During the period of 1806 through to um the end of 1808 beginning of 1809 the Austrian Army learned from um its betters looked at the French system of um uh general staff and organization and adopted many of the good features of the French army and uh

applied them to the Austrian Army this made the Austrian Army far more flexible uh and a much more able to react in the face of the enemy than it had previously done so before so by 1809 um whilst Napoleon still maintained a certain contempt for the Austrian army they were by far a more efficient fighting machine Napoleon was beginning to find himself committed on too many fronts the Army was left with insufficient hardened troops raw recruits were drafted in a large proportion of the grand arm had been absorbed into Spain itself many of the elite

units and very experienced units were fighting down there so that when Napoleon had to put together an army uh many of them were formed from raw conscripts that had seen very little action and had received very little training the French army after the camp of booy any new conscripts enjoining it were expected to be trained on the march to their units uh they would be they would join up they'd be issued with um two pairs of boots a pair of pantaloons given a knapsack um formed up in maybe a group of half a dozen to

a dozen men under a sergeant or a Corporal and they'd be marched off to the unit now that March depending on where the unit was could take upward of two or three months and as they got closer to the unit so the units with which they were marching would grow and they undergo drill and weapon training on the March so by the time they arrived at the unit they'd had undergone some basic instruction uh but there'd been no formal instruction in the same way as the Army had received at the camp of Bin um so

they were very much uh a raw um army supplemented with experienced ncos and officers this was uncharacteristic of Napoleon and went against everything he believed in every war ought to be methodical because every war ought to be conducted in Conformity with the principles and rules of the art and with an object it should be carried on with the forces proportion to the obstacle that are foreseen Napoleon was running into a structural weakness which had Afflicted the French war effort ever since the French Revolutionary Wars began in 1792 and that was that they were overstretched when

that War began the population of France was about 28 million it was probably the most populous state in Europe but there were lots of other states quite close and so when they try as they do increasingly in the 79 90s and then more spectacularly under Napoleon to bring a large part eventually the whole of the European continent under their direct control they are trying to do it from a base which is too narrow and too shallow and that leads to overexertion Napoleon unwisely feels that he has suppressed Spanish opposition and it therefore seems possible for

him to turn in 1809 and deal with the austrians um the austrians had not wanted to go to war with France again they had been badly beaten in the uh 1805 campaign but Napoleon is not satisfied with their position and it's fair to say that there is a revist uh tradition or not tradition group within Austrian policy circles who interact with French aggression and Lead there to another war in February 1809 the the Austrian Emperor Francis II decided his army now stood a good chance of beating the French he then delayed for 2 months before

sending Arch dukee Charles with an army of 200,000 into Bavaria the idea was to attack the French before the Imperial Guard arrived from Spain meanwhile another Austrian Army commanded by Arch dukee John was to hold Italy Napoleon was still in Paris leaving the Army in Bavaria under the command command of Marshall Bertier he was no field commander and Napoleon was soon forced to take over inflicting heavy losses on the Austrian Army the presence of a general is indispensable he is the head the whole of the Army on 12th May the French entered Vienna aware that

Archduke John was now moving his army from Italy Napoleon attempted to create a bridge head across the danu at The Villages of asper and esling his army soon found itself outnumbered Napoleon had rushed forward on a wave of victories in 1809 to Vienna which he immediately took and he pushed further on as fast as he could to the danu determined to thrust across it as fast as he could he was a believer in E equals mc² kinetic energy he was going to smash the arch dukee before the arch dukee could re uh think things however

he underestimated the gravity of the obstacle he had to conquer that was the river danu this River was in flood and his Bridges were flimsily built and were repeatedly broken by the uh Stonefield boats and the water Mills sorry flower mills which the austrians floated down stream to smash his um Communications with his main Army on the Western Bank he thrust M's division across and told told him to OCC told him to occupy the uh the twin Villages of asper esling and create a bridge head it's his intention that that bridge head should be there

until the rest of the army could come across but with the collapse of the ponon bridges overnight Napoleon wasn't able to do that the austrians attacked first taking Napoleon unawares there were losses of 20,000 killed or wounded on each side it was a humiliating defeat for the French and news quickly spread throughout Europe what Napoleon learned from aspan was that he needed to take the Austrian Army very seriously this was the first true reverse in a major battle that Napoleon had suffered which was undeniably a defeat for the first time in a major battle Napoleon

was unequivocally defeated by the austrians who showed they really had learned something from the defeats of 1805 so Napoleon recognized that he had to pull back regroup reorganize and show and take the austrians seriously and and that he did he then Drew breath pulled back onto the island of lobau and rethought things determined to go ahead in a much more methodical matter manner with more um more permanently built Bridges across the river to stop pil his ammunition to bring up the cannon to concentrate his forces from Italy and from various parts of bohemia ready for

the final knockout blow at vagram Napoleon wouldn't be hurried into a second confrontation for 6 weeks he laid careful preparations as he waited for reinforcements to arrive the austrians hoped that hatred of the French would cause uprisings throughout Germany they especially looked for support from the prussians the prussians held back they could see that Napoleon was not yet defeated they decided to remain neutral on 5th July Arch dukee Charles had set up a defensive position in the village of vagram Napoleon was now ready for action the Battle of Wagram was impending which would in all

probability determine the question of peace and it would afterwards be a proper time to negotiate with the Holy sea and to bring these Troublesome Affairs to a close a two-day battle dominated by the artillery of both sides followed at last Napoleon broke through the Austrian Center although the French were victorious there were heavy losses on both sides 40,000 austrians and 30,000 French yet Charles was still able to withdraw attacked 880,000 men and demand an Armistice vagram was that was touch and go and although it was a French Victory the arch Duke Charles uh retreated in

good order and certainly lived to fight another day it there was no need uh for the political will of the austrians to collapse as it did in 1809 and to throw the hands up and IND spare and say oh we've been beaten again they hadn't really been beaten yet the pece of shern split up parts of Austria between Bavaria France and Russia and the continental system was imposed upon the Habsburg Empire Napoleon's enemies were already detecting signs of weakness he had set himself a hectic pace and was now finding it difficult to maintain he still

had belief in his own infallibility and a tendency to underestimate the opposition by this time 1809 Napoleon had realized that he himself had only a certain uh limited time left for Waging War at this intensity physically there was going to come a time when he couldn't carry on he was however extremely pleased with the performance of his Grand arm it uh didn't need any more tweaking the commanders who could do the jobs were in the right situation and the whole organization responded to what he commanded it to do so from that point of view he

was happy I think he remains living in something of a Fool's Paradise in 18009 it had been a very close call against the austrians and he'd been defeated at aspan but the signs were there for the really farsighted the clear sighted military observers to read someone like clovix for example who could see what was going wrong with the Napoleonic War Machine uh the Spanish El was still busily hemorrhaging away uh there was no sign that that was being brought under control and there was even more ominous sign which Napoleon was very slow to pick up

and that is that the rhetoric of Liberty was moving from one side to another on the one hand we can see bonapart trying to put Joseph onto the Throne of Spain and thereby making it seem as this is now Warfare for the sake of the bonapart dynasty rather than for the interests of France least of all the interests of humanity Liberty equality and fraternity on the other hand we see the Spanish and then in 1809 we see the austrians and others allied with them advancing their cause as the cause of Liberty they stealing as it

were the rhetoric from the French in June 1809 he sent Marshall maena Prince of esling to Spain with 130,000 men at busaco he faced an Anglo Portuguese Army of 880,000 the French launched their attack the two armies were of an equal force but the position at Bako was very strong the attack failed and the next morning the Army turned the lines by proceeding on to kinra the enemy then affected his Retreat on Lisbon burning laying waste the country from the French point of view it was a total shambles when Napoleon had continuing problems with Holland

in 1806 he had placed his brother Louie on the throne within a year he was writing to reprimand him a prince who gets a reputation for good nature in the first year of his Reign is laughed at in the second the love that Kings Inspire should be verile partly an apprehensive respect and partly a thirst for reputation when a king is said to be a good fellow his Reign is a failure beginning in 186 Napoleon began placing his numerous relations on the Thrones of Europe he puts Joseph in as king of Naples in 186 switches

Joseph to Spain in 188 and puts his brother-in-law mura on the throne of Naples he creates a kingdom for brother Jerome in West failure and he puts his brother Louie on the throne of the Netherlands and that was a that was a tough uh that's a tough assignment for for Louie the Dutch were notoriously truculent they'd been subjected to all manner of discrimination and exploitation uh by the French French since their Conquest in 1794 to5 uh and most importantly the Dutch were suffering very seriously as a result of the continental system and the blockade of

England the trouble with Louie and his over dutchness had bubbled up before um the final break in 18010 and as early as 1807 Napoleon was aware by his network of spies that uh Louie was perhaps not only allowing but encouraging smuggling to save his realm from bankruptcy he sent one of two rather heavily worded uh warning shots across Louis bow um but eventually because Louie refused to come to heal in 1810 he called into Paris and forced him to abdicate and he absorbed uh the kingdom of Holland into Metropolitan France as he kept on absorbing

bits of the coast meanwhile things were not going well in Napoleon's private life the empress Josephine was now into her 40s and the likelihood of her producing more children was slim he had an illegitimate son through his mistress Maria wva but he needed a younger bride who would bear him a legitimate male Heir he told Josephine of his intention to obtain a divorce I still love you but in politics there is no heart only head the divorce was quite amicable Napoleon insisted that Josephine should still retain the title of empress and maintain her court at

malel even before the divorce Napoleon had set about searching for a new wife at one point he contemplated a match with the 6 16-year-old Anna sister of tar Alexander the tar seemed all in favor of the marriage but his mother began to have serious misgivings over her daughter's happiness and whether she would be free to practice the Orthodox religion in Paris it was decided that Anna should wait until she was 18 before she was married Napoleon now turned his attentions to Austria Francis II had an eligible daughter Mari Louise in contrast to the fiercely independent

Josephine Mari Louise was nervous and somewhat empty-headed antoan tibaldo the prefect of Marseilles and a staunt republican was one who attended the ceremony among High State officials I was not the only one to remain cool about his marriage which created so many anxieties as far as men of the Revolution were concerned neither Instinct nor LED them to see any good in it well when the news breaks um in 1810 that Napoleon is going to marry the daughter of the emperor Francis I it's a a sensation Mary Louise's great artt Mari Antoinette had been executed as

recently as 1793 uh so this was a a a very peculiar event indeed and cuse shock horror uh throughout aristocratic circles um in Europe they they they trembled with indignation and horror at the event remember that Napoleon was corsac and he had this Corsican sense of the importance and the Loyalty of family he really believed I think that if he could tie himself to the Emperor of Austria that he would never again have to worry about Austria being an enemy joining a coalition against him that family ties would be much more important than geopolitical considerations

I don't think the marriage to Mar Louise had any effect on his conduct of policy whatsoever he was very attached to her in fact the correspondence between them is really rather touching I mean clearly he did admire her perhaps even love her she certainly fell in love with him uh was greatly impressed by sexual press apart from anything else um but I don't think had any impact on Napoleon's policy he continued to treat the hapsburgs as if they were his vassals and that was really the only relationship that Napoleon could tolerate he could not tolerate

a union between equals it had to be uh a Lord and vassel situation and he was always the Lord the wedding took place in April 1810 the Austrian Ambassador Prince schwartzenberg laid on a lavish fate to celebrate the Union in the garden of his hotel in Paris however some GW draperies caught fire and there were several deaths despite the tragedy Mari Louise enjoyed her wedding night in July 1810 she became pregnant on 20th of March 1811 she went into labor Mari Louise gave birth to a healthy son who was named the king of Rome when

Josephine heard the news she sent her congratulations Napoleon Overjoyed wrote back my son is plump and healthy he has my chest my mouth and my eyes I am at the summit of my happiness 1811 in some respects is the high point of the Napoleonic position there are still opponents Britain has in no way been defeated there is still intensive opposition in Iberia in Spain and Portugal but if one puts that to one side what is striking is that most of Europe is under French control or French hegemony there is then one other power Russia now

Russia SAR Alexander had reached a deal um with Napoleon on the barge on the river Neiman where they'd met the tset agreement in 1807 and for want of a better word this is an agreement about spheres of influence um much of Europe under the French sphere of influence but obviously a Russian sphere of influence to the east having said that Napoleon isn't satisfied he is a man who finds it very difficult to accept that anything other than what he wants and in particular in the case of the Russians he is dissatisfied because they are not

anymore paying attention to the Continental System they feel that trade with Britain is important to um their economy and from 1810 Napoleon is building up his army again now initially it looks as though he intended in 1810 not to attack Russia but just to intimidate Russia it's in 1811 that he starts more actively planning for [Music] War by 1812 the Treaty of tilsit between France and Russia had held for 5 years but cracks were beginning to appear both Napoleon and SAR Alexander I had Grand personal Ambitions and neither was too scrupulous about the methods he

would use to fulfill [Music] them in 187 at tilset Napoleon and Alexander the first in effect had done deal and that was that Napoleon would dominate Western central and southern Europe and Alexander the first would dominate the East with a view to looking to the conquest of Constantinople in other words they treated each other on the surface at least as equals despite the fact that Napoleon had just defeated Alexander the first he was offering a as it were a partition uh of the world but with every year that passed after 187 it became clear that

Napoleon simply couldn't tolerate that kind of relationship and he regarded Alexander I as a vassel not as an equal or as an ally in 1810 following his divorce from the empress Josephine Napoleon had contemplated a marriage to thar's sister Anna instead he had contracted a union with Mari Louise of Austria much to the Zar [Music] displeasure nor was Alexander pleased at Napoleon's unwillingness to help him take Constantinople he also feared Napoleon's plans to enlarge the grand duche of Warsaw and revive an independent Poland Poland uh in 187 was only a fraction of its former self

it had been a massive Kingdom stretching fa Fairway down into Russia across into the Ukraine and gradually over the preceding Century it had been Whitted away into Political insignificance Napoleon recognized that there was a pool of ardent Manpower support to be drawn from the poles he created the Grand duche of warsa uh which he gave to the king of Saxony to look after for him um this was on the western borders of Russia and thear was not happy about this Recreation because he could see that at some point somebody might take it in their minds

to say okay from a grand duche of Warsaw you're now again the kingdom of Poland and we'll have half of Western Russia to make you up a small section of the grand arm was still stationed east of the Elba Prince Joseph Anton poniatowski one of the marshals Napoleon later called Intrepid Heroes warned the emperor that Alexander planned a preemptive strike against them I thought that the French Empire which I had created by so many victories would be dismembered at my death and the scepter of Europe would pass into the hands of AAR unless I drove

back the Russians beyond the nier and raised up the Throne of Poland the natural barrier of the empire na poan very much knew that the Russians always objected to polish nationalism and the fact that he maintained the duchy of warsa they even Incorporated aspects of the Polish Army and his own Army was a continual thorn in the side of the of the Russians Zar on 15th of August 1811 the Russian Ambassador kakin had an audience with an oppon oon at the twery he put forward Alexander's proposal that France should hand over part of the duy

of Warsaw Napoleon was Furious even though your armies were to camp on the heights of mon marra I wouldn't yield an inch of Warsaw not a village not a mill don't you know that I have 800,000 troops if you're counting on allies where are they Napoleon is increasingly looking to first in intimidation and to then Conquest it's fair to say that his advisors cautioned him against conquest or cautioned him against invasion they argued that it was militarily a difficult task but also that it diplomatically was in many senses would be foolish Napoleon however was having

none of this for reasons that I don't completely understand napoleons seems to have ignored or refused to understand several warnings of the nature of the campaign of 1812 thear himself told Colin Napoleon's foreign secretary that he would draw the French into Mother Russia and they would face the Wrath of the weather and of the peasantry he said your French soldier is brave and fights well but he has never had to experience the kind of campaign that he will have if he tries to come into Mother Russia reason that Napoleon went for Russia despite having been

reminded of the catastrophes which overtook Charles the 12th of Sweden when he tried it uh were that uh he believed his own propaganda by this point he thought that if he bent his mind to a problem long enough and worked at it hard enough he would break it and thus regardless of all the voices raised against it he pushed ahead Napoleon was never a person to take advice least of all about military matters he'd always been proved right in the past and again we have a a very striking analogy between Napoleon's attitude towards advice of

this kind and that of Hitler after 1939 who was constantly ignoring advice uh from his advisers not least about the possibility the feasibility of a campaign in Russia in after 1941 uh so I think it's it's it's it can be explained only in terms of Napoleon's peculiar psychology especially after it has enjoyed now what a decade or more of apparently unbroken unbroken [Music] Success Napoleon said about organizing Provisions this time he would not repeat the mistake of Spain and rely on living off the [Music] land he gave orders to his director of War Administration to

supply enough Provisions to last 400,000 men 50 days as well as the basics of bread and rice he requisitioned 6,000 wagons to carry enough flour for 200,000 men for 2 months and 2 million bushels of oats for his horses this was on 13th January 182 and Napoleon expected it to be ready in time for what he referred to as the second polish [Applause] war in April 1812 Alexander issued an ultimatum to Napoleon EV evacuate all troops from Prussia and the grand duche for Napoleon though there was no going back the grand arm consisted of three

groups the first Army group comprised 250,000 men the second 150,000 and the third 165,000 Small Wonder he thought himself invincible in 1812 prior to the invasion which occurs in late June begins in late June he organizes a formidable Coalition and calls on troops from throughout Napoleonic Europe um both the prussians and the austrians are droned into supporting uh The Invasion and large numbers of men are deployed for example from Napoleon's Kingdom of Italy from the various German principalities large numbers of poles now the size of the resulting Army is a matter of some controversy we

do not have an accurate uh figure the usual figure given is about 600,000 men I think it's certainly fair to say that we're probably talking of over half a million men in the invading force in 1812 Austria Prussia Germany Switzerland and Italy marched under the French Eagles was it not natural that I should think the moment had come to consolidate the great edifice I had raised but on which Russia would lean with all her weight as long as she could send her numerous armies at pleasure to the odor on 24th June 1812 the grand arm

crossed the river nimen at kovno Napoleon traveled in a green four-wheeled covered carriage pulled by six limousine horses es Marshall Bertier traveled with him acting almost as his private secretary as the emperor dictated his dispatches to him so fast did they travel that water regularly had to be poured over the wheels to cool them Napoleon was a stickler for the tiniest detail when it came to the care of his men finding on one occasion that there was a shortage of medical dressings he berated his Quarter Master on average a wounded man needs 33 dressings these

Brave fellows are going to face death for me the grand arm had everything it needed for the campaign that it was undertaking the problem was getting the supplies to the soldiers in the front it was such an enormous Army that it absolutely clogged the roadways such as they were uh and the baggage train in the rear could never get up to the front and keep the men supplied so there were some serious problems that way there is such a thing as an army that is simply too big for the task at hand and I think

you can argue very successfully that the Grand Army of 1812 going into Russia probably should have been about half the size of it that it was Napoleon's Hope was that he could lure the Russians into position from which he could split them up and defeat them he believed he could force the Zar into signing a peace treaty in just N9 weeks what Napoleon really wanted to do is do what he had done against Austria in 1805 and Prussia in 1806 which is to advance on the opponent's capital and to dictate terms a short quick war

is what his army was prepared for and what his resource base permitted and that was what he invaded Russia for he hoped to envelop the opposing armies close to the frontier and having destroyed them or defeated them to then have a rapid advance in other words to have the equivalent of his Al and then his Advance on Vienna and that was what he hoped for in 1812 and that meant that was one of the reasons why the French Advance on the French allies advanc on such a broad front uh in order to give them a

basis for envelopment to the north the Russian first Army was under the command of barlay Dali it consisted of 125,000 men and 600 guns to the South Prince P gracian led the second Army comprising another 47,000 soldiers it is easy sometimes to overestimate the string and power of the Russian army that Napoleon faced it also was a divided Army under de and Bon it didn't always have as good a communication amongst its leaders in fact those two generals really didn't like each other at all and so there wasn't nearly the cooperation between them uh that

there might have been uh two or three times uh Napolean soldiers should have been able to trap or encircle one or the other of those two branches of the Russian army but they always managed to slip out more because of problems on the French side than because of Any Brilliance on their side the fact of the matter was that the Russian army was not all that great and had they ever stopped to give full battle they almost certainly would have been defeated the Russian army was a badly LED Army of robots the Russian soldier was

a peasant who was press ganged effectively into into the army had no say in the matter he wasn't a volunteer here uh and he just did as he told it was uh indicative of the peasant system uh that was prevalent in Russia at the time and indeed went on being prevalent into the middle of the 19th century uh the Russian peasant was very much programmed uh to fight as he was directed all all that the officer core had to do was to push the Russian soldier in the right direction and he would go or tell

him to stop there and he would stop uh the Russian soldier had no initiative whatsoever um he wouldn't run away unless he was told to run away uh and he wouldn't Advance unless he was told to advance Napoleon was in good spirits on 9th June he wrote to Mari Louise from dansik my health is very good despite my cares and exhaustion I feel there is something missing the sweet habit of seeing you several times a day Napoleon hoped to fight baray at vilner but the Zar had already ordered his Commander to withdraw from there with

180,000 men barklay marched to vpsk from there he moved on to smolin where he joined up with P graci's second Army Napoleon pursued them it was then that I executed the fine maneuver which was the counterpart of of one I directed at lsho in 1809 using the forest of Babinski as a shield I turned the left of the Russian army crossed the kniper and advanced on smolin I reached the city 24 hours before the Russians who happened to be in smolin succeeded in defending it for one day which gave Barkley D time to reach it

the graci accused Barkley of cowardice when the latter ordered the evacuation of smolin after 2 days of fierce fighting in B graci's eyes it was tantamount to treason and a betrayal of the heroic Russians who had died on the night of 17th 18th August the fleeing Russians burned smalin there's no doubt that during the early stages of the campaign in 1812 the Russians were in no position to face the overwhelming might of the uh of the Grand Army and so they did the sensible thing and retreated and it remains a point of some controversy as

to whether this was a deliberate strategy on their part luring Napoleon ever further into the uh wastes of Russia uh where they could perish of their own accord or uh whether it was something they did because they could do no other they couldn't stand and fight because they would get crushed so they keep moving backwards until eventually they have to stop for the good reason that Moscow as the ancient Capital could not be abandoned without fight as the French army Advanced deeper into Russia they found Villages burnt and additional food unobtainable thousands of horses died

the Russians devis what turned out to be the best policy which was using the space of Russia to pull back and of course it ensured that by the time that Napoleon's forces met the major Russian Field Army he had lost large numbers of men Napoleon though had lost little of his confidence I have a good job ruling the Empire I could be in Paris enjoying myself blazing about instead Here I Am with You camping out and in action like anyone else I can be hit with a bullet I'm trying to rise above myself everyone in

his own station must do the same that's what greatness means when it comes to of the Russian campaign the most important Battle of course was the Battle of borodino but we need to remember that Napoleon never should have been at borino to begin with the absolute furthest he had ever any intention of going with smolin and before smolin was Villa at Villa and again at smolin he almost was able to force the battle that he needed and each time the Russians managed to escape now it's Molin the question was do you stay here for the

winter or do you go forward you could argue very successfully I think that this was one of Napoleon's major miscalculations in going forward but he still didn't have that battle it was so close and yet still so far and so he determined that he would pursue the Army all the way to Moscow if necessary under pressure from his ministers Alexander halted the withdrawal and concentrated on saving Moscow barlay dalii was replaced by General kusov who was still smarting from his defeat at aitz on 6th September the two armies faced each other near the village of

borodino Napoleon was unwell the dauria still troubled him and he had a feverish chill his spirits lifted with the arrival of a package a portrait of his young son the king of Rome he proudly showed it to his fellow officers gentlemen if my son were 15 believe me he would be here in person that night he had only 2 hours sleep at 3:00 a.m. in the biting Wind and Rain he reconed the surrounding Countryside the air area was heavily wooded making it unsuitable for Cavalry also the Russians were dug in on sloping ground their batteries

protected by routs the armies were almost equally matched in numbers the Russians had 120,000 men and 640 guns the French 133,000 men and 587 guns Napoleon's plan was that his stepson Eugen would attack the village of borodino making the Russians think that the main French thrust was coming from their right instead Napoleon planned to send his main Force against the Russian Center and left Marshall Dava would attack Prince PG gracian whilst Prince poniatowski Cavalry would circle behind P graci's lines borino was a very disappointing battle from uh the point of view of the admirers of

Napoleon there was none of the clever preliminary diplomatic political maneuvering to get the enemy into the right position this was just going to be a bloody slogging match uh davu suggested that there should be a great sweep around the southern flank unfortunately for davu he was shot down in flames by Napoleon who considered it to be too complicated what Napoleon wanted was something very simple we'll just go and crush them on the morning of the battle Napoleon's officers were arrayed in their most glittering Uniforms on the face of it this was Folly they will be

sitting Targets on the other hand their deeds of Glory would be more visible still unwell Napoleon took up position a mile from the southern Russian routs with a view of the central third of the battlefield and the main French batteries in front of him at 5:30 a.m. Napoleon ordered them to open fire the Russians replied at once the Earth trembled borodino is one of the great battles of the century more than a th000 cannon I think about 1,227 at about 23 33,000 men fought on that day and that was a pretty unprecedented force it also

incidentally therefore caused unprecedented problems for command and control it's very difficult for armies after all they don't have radios I mean instructions are sent by men on Horseback attempts at signaling instructions are not easy on a battlefield of that type particularly once you've got you've fired the cannon and you've got a lot of smoke up um it's very difficult to control and command what's going on and I think it's fair to say that Napoleon did not show his best side as general ship as planned eane launched his assault on borodino Dava attacked the redout known

as the three arrows where Prince buan and 30,000 Russians were waiting the's horse was killed under him and he was swiftly replaced by Jean rap Napoleon's Aid who was himself wounded in the meantime Marshall nay had captured the southernmost gun imp placement mura and the Cavalry was sent to help him hold it the Russians refused to surrender Napoleon determined to root them out they are citadels that have to be demolished with Cannon Napoleon remained behind his own lines listless and indecisive nay was Furious why is the Emperor in the rear of the army if he

is no longer a general then he should go back to the twery and let us be generals for him by 10:00 Eugene had taken bardino and Prince P gracian lay mortally wounded poniatowski though was unable to take the three arrows from behind shortly after 10 nay begged Napoleon to attack the three Arrows with his guard Napoleon consulted Marshall besier commander of the Guard besier councel Prudence will you risk your last reserves 800 miles from Paris no suppose there's another battle tomorrow instead Napoleon sent a fresh division under General fron it was not enough for nay

to be able to force a victory action was set centered on the great redout this was defended by barlay Dali with 75,000 men and 27 guns amongst those who attacked the great redout was captain franois of the first division when we reached the crest of the Ravine we were riddled with Cas shot from this battery and others flanking it but nothing stopped us despite my wounded leg I did as well as any voltiger in jumping away from round shot as it ricocheted into our ranks whole files half platoon even went down under the enemy's fire

and left huge gaps General bonamy at the head of the 30th halted Us in the middle of the grape shot he rallied us and we charged again a Russian line tried to stop us but at 30 yd range we fired a volley and passed through then we dashed towards the redout and clambered through the embes franois and his division were driven from the redout franois fainted from loss of blood and was taken from the field to have his wounds tended the surgeons were kept busy Dominique Larry the senior surgeon amputated 200 limbs during the course

of the battle the great redout was finally captured in the late afternoon following a fierce assault from Prince Eugene and mura the Russians were allowed to withdraw towards Moscow in good order Napoleon wins the Battle of borodino technically because the Russians leave but the Russians leave because they are most of all wanting to keep their army intact and since they do that you have to argue that it was at best a draw one side wins holds the battlefield and goes on to MOS Moscow but the other side keeps the Army intact to fight yet another

day after the battle the dead were counted the Russians had lost 44,000 men the French 33,000 amongst the corpses the occasional Soldier still clung to life finding a wounded Russian Napoleon ordered his wounds to be tended when his Aid objected the emperor reprimanded him after a victory there are no enemies only men it was the quality and determination of the Russians that in inflicting heavy casualties that really led to the important net effect of the battle which is that it is a far weaker Napoleon and in some ways almost a psychologically exhausted Napoleon that advances

on Moscow at last on 13th September he reached the outskirts of Moscow sergeant bugoy of the Old Guard was overwhelmed by his first sight of the Russian Capital the sun was reflected on all the domes spires and gilded palaces many capitals I have seen such as Paris Berlin wara Vienna and Madrid they only produced an ordinary impression on me but this was quite different the effect was to me in fact to everyone magical 2 Days Later the French entered Moscow it seemed strangely deserted the governor ropin had ordered a mass evacuation of the city of

its population of a quarter of a million only 15,000 remained Napoleon made himself at home in the Kremlin and waited for Alexander to seek peace in instead he had to contend with a series of fires within the city started on the orders of ropin aware that the Flames were rapidly approaching his ammunition wagons Napoleon ordered everyone to leave the Kremlin he headed for the petrovsky palace 6 mil north of the Blazing City 80% of the houses in Moscow were destroyed in the fire the Kremlin suffered little damage and on 18th September Napoleon and his army

were able to return there now in many senses this was a great Triumph and after all if One Compares it to 1941 you know nobody else has subsequently been able to seize Moscow but in many senses what was he now to do he hadn't really thought through the political strategy because a military result capturing the opponent's Capital was not itself enough unless your opponent was willing to negotiate and one of the problems was that Napoleon had no way to force his opponent to negotiate and in fact had no re real terms to offer him hadn't

really thought through a peace strategy he sends out his emissaries they're all turned back it is clear that Napoleon is not going to get the negotiations for which he had hoped now he has to decide what do you do he was between a rock and a hard place at that time if he stayed in Moscow he would or his army would just die away if he withdrew to smolin this was a massive blow against his Prestige and although he ignored the fact his army was down to about 30% of its marching value at this stage

and it was in a pitiful condition I don't think he could have wintered in Moscow there certainly wasn't Supply there to sustain them through the winter it was bound to be a very long one and of course the situation had not been helped by the fact that the retreating Russians had fired the city before they pulled out yeah I think it's clear that it was a deliberate act and it wasn't it wasn't an accident so with a large part of Moscow burned down the countryside around stripped bare they couldn't stay for long Napoleon hung on

and hung on expecting hoping and eventually probably praying that Alexander first would be sending emissaries to negotiate a peace but with every day that passed it became less likely the emperor remembered the fate of Charles I 12 of Sweden who had lost horses Cannon and 2,000 men to the cold of a Russian winter he grew impatient ignoring Sound Advice confident in his own judgment we shallan repeat Charles the 12's mistake when the Army has rested while the weather is still temperate we shall to return via smolen to Winter in Lithuania and Poland Napoleon began to

study weather patterns in Russia it was now October frosts often set in by November he had to move at once on 15th October 3 Ines of snow fell on Moscow still expecting a reply from the Zar Napoleon stayed put 3 Days Later mura was called F unawares by an attack from KUTV he lost 2,500 men Napoleon at once gave the order to leave Moscow at 2: p.m. on 19th October the grand arm many clad in sheep skin jackets fur Bonnets and fur lined boots began to file out of Moscow They Carried sugar and Brandy and

their wagons were loaded with treasure looted from the Russian Capital there were enough Provisions to last the troops 20 days days but less than a weak supply of fodder for the horses the March was orderly but slow on the sixth day they were attacked by a band of 5,000 cacs they could so easily have captured Napoleon but preferred the loot in the French wagons in the end they were dispersed by two squadrons of French [Music] cavalry further trouble awaited Napoleon now he has another problem he wants to take the southern route back he doesn't want

to go back through borodino and smolin the land had been ravaged there were dead bodies everywhere this is not a winning proposition plus it's further north it's colder he wants to go to the South he has a skirmish with the Russian army he wins that Skirmish the Russians go beyond a ridge he's convinced that the Russian army is blocking his path to the South and so he heads North the way he didn't want to go had he sent someone to wreck an order over the ridge he would have discovered the Russian army had gone and

the way was open to go back through Minsk and through a much warmer and more hospitable climate with more food and so on as October Drew to a close snow was succeeded by severe Frost and bitter winds by 6 November the temperature was down to -22° C snow fell in enormous flakes we lost sight of the sky and of the men in front of us lips became cracked noses were frostbitten many were permanently blinded by the glare they also faced risks from the Surfs who were under orders from their masters to offer Hospitality to the

French they were then to get them drunk and slit their throats an English Observer with kutu witnessed some of the atrocities I saw 60 dying naked men whose necks were laid Upon A fell tree while Russian men and women with large sticks singing in chorus and hopping around with repeated blows struck out their brains supplies were rapidly running out a many at the congeal blood of dead horses others disemboweled The Wretched animals and sheltered from the cold inside the hollowed carcasses dead soldiers were unceremoniously stripped of their clothes and their bodies left for the wolves

the French army was unfortunate in uh the winter of 1812 1813 in so muches that it was one of the coldest winters that that that Russia had suffered in recent times they suffered very badly they also suffered from the fact that Napoleon believed that the whole campaign would be over before the winter came and so they marched into Russia with very little winter clothing and uh the tales tell of valuable paintings being burnt just simply to be able to keep them warm during the very very cold night the retreat itself did not have to be

a debark but it was in part because of the weather and the effect of the weather extreme cold as far I me think about the people from the Kingdom of Italy for example the effect of extreme cold on troops who were unprepared for it psychologically but also simply not did not have the necessary clothing um also the attacks by the Russians now there has been the argument that the Russians could would have been more successful they could almost have destroyed all of the uh French forces but nevertheless they still killed a lot and a lot

[Music] died What Remain of the army reached smolin on 8th November ahead lay the Barina River and two two armies of Russians were moving in from the North and the South by the time the grand arm or what was L to reach smen on the way out of Russia it was in an absolutely pitiful State smalin contained large magazines which were specifically designed to be used by the Army but the officials in charge of those magazines um refused to believe that this horde of dirty unwashed ragged star starving men were the grand arm they thought

they were stragglers so they closed the doors of the magazines to these unfortunates who were literally fighting for their lives the result was that several of these magazines were stormed and um looted plundered wherever alcohol came into the game the guys died like flies because they were in such emaciated poor physical condition so far as the Grand Army was concerned Napoleon had led them into what seemed to them to the majority of them anyway to into hell and although I think Napoleon is still capable of commanding the Loyalty of those in his immediate Entourage and

the veterans who' served with him in the Glory Days for the great majority of the Grand Army most of whom were not even French why should they feel any sense of affinity with the man who' done that to them many within the French ranks were talking of capitulation and Napoleon was forced to address his troops in a speech that made a deep impression on sergeant bgo of the Old Guard it was a splendid moment and for a Time made us forget our miseries by the time the French reached the Barina River it was a raging

torrent 300 yards wide there were 49,000 men and 250 guns left under three commanders 144,000 Russians were moving in upon them Napoleon now needed to hold off an enemy that outnumbered him 3 to one whilst Bridging the river and getting his men to safety Napoleon heard there was an unmarked Ford 9 Mi up River it was 100 yd wide and 6 ft deep at its deepest point Point as a decoy operation he sent Marshall alino 6 Mi Downstream to fell trees and make as much noise as possible it worked the following day Admiral chichikov who

was stationed on the opposite bank took his force of 34,000 men [Music] Downstream Napoleon set to work to build two Bridges his men worked solidly for 24 hours pausing only briefly for the occasional ration of wine the crossing of the berena in late November 1812 by Napoleon in the face of the closing forces of Russia was a masterpiece of luck and human endeavor by carefully sending out false signals and uh making dummy preparations to cross the river Upstream from his intended uh bridging point is to to yenka uh Napoleon won himself a day the inertia

of the Russians and their unwillingness to believe the reports that they received about the true state of the Russian army also played into his hands kusov and the other Russian commanders could not believe that the massive half million strong Grand was now nothing but a skeleton and a a pack of refugees on the the afternoon of 27th November Napoleon and the guard crossed the river discipline broke down as men rushed for the bridges 2 Days Later The Crossing was complete apart from 8,000 igr and stragglers men women and children who refused to cross and were

cut down or captured by Prince viken Stein and his army of CeX in the meantime in Paris General Claude Malay attempted a coup with the assistance of 1200 National Guards armed with Forge papers announcing Napoleon's death he arrested the prefect of police when news reached Napoleon his first thoughts were for his young son he determined to return to Paris at once with a temperature down to-2 85° Centigrade Napoleon set off by sleigh SED in bare skin privately he admitted he had made two key mistakes the first had been in July I should have remained in

VPK by now Alexander would have been on his knees to me the dividing of the Russian army after the Neeman Crossing amazed me as the Russians had not been able to defeat us and as kutasov had been forced on on the Zar in place of Barkley who was the better Soldier I believe that a people who allowed a bad General to be fored on them would certainly ask for terms his second mistake he felt was staying too long in Moscow I thought I should be able to make peace and that the Russians were anxious for

it I was deceived and I deceived myself on 18th December he arrived back in Paris where he was United with his wife and son in a way the fact that Napoleon was not toppled by a coup uh in his Capital when it became known that the Russian campaign had ended in disaster is a tribute to the remarkable longrange power of His Charisma and the Loyalty of those who served him in the central institutions mura had been left in charge of the remnant of the army where he struggled to maintain discipline when the Russians stormed vilner

mura handed over command to euan and returned to Naples Prince Von scharenberg withdrew his Austrian troops Marshall Bertier summed up the general mood every human effort is lost one can only resign oneself only 25,000 men made it back across the nen about 160,000 horses and 1,000 guns had been lost the defeat of Napoleon was to help in the short term engender a powerful upsurge of Russian nationalism but in the longer term it plays a major role of molding our interpretation of his his personality and his policies it's interesting to consider how we would have perceived

Napoleon had he not invaded in 1812 but it is a testimony to the legacy of that Invasion on our Collective imagination that we cannot do so writing his Memoirs on St Helena Napoleon did not regard the Expedition as a total failure the campaign of Russia was the most glorious the most difficult and the most most honorable to the goals of all that are recorded in ancient or modern history Intrepid Heroes morray nay poniatowski it is you that the glory of the victory is due the underlying objective of Napoleon in Russia as Napoleon in um Austria

in 1809 as Napoleon in Spain all the way through was the survival of his own self of his own Dynasty on his newly won Thrones he was clear in his own mind that he would have to continue doing this and after Russia who would it be still good old [Music] Britain on 11th April 1814 Napoleon boarded HMS undaunted at Fu and set sail for the island of Elba to begin his Exile his journey from Paris was fraught with danger as royalist mobs stoned his coach and hanged him in effigy by the end of April Louis

the 18th had been restored to the French throne at the invitation of the French [Music] Senate a month later the first Treaty of Paris was signed France was to be contained within in the borders of 1792 all the lands conquered by Napoleon were lost France found herself isolated in Europe it was all over on the 6th of April 1814 Napoleon abdicated his armies had been defeated in eastern France by overwhelming Invasion forces particularly austrians and prussians and with Russian support British troops had invaded Southern France Napoleon's Marshals were no longer reliable and indeed it was

in fact a collapse among his his governing group and his military High command that helped force him to abdicate that was it the Allies they didn't execute him but he was sent into what was by any standards a humiliating Exile the man who had been emperor of the French who'd been crowned with the crown of Charlemagne who'd been king of Italy was now left as a principality a small island Elba off the coast of Italy he was in a pretty terrible mental condition he had never himself really truly lost in the 184 campaign but yet

he was in a position where everything he had fought for was about to be denied him the Allies were refusing to allow him to reunite with his wife Marie Louise they were refusing to allow him to unite with his son the king of Rome maral who was one of his trusted Marshals and Friends had allowed himself to be talked into giving up uh huge numbers of men to the Allies the Revolt of the marshals Marshall nay and the others coming to him and saying listen fella it's over it's all done with uh we're no longer

going to to campaign for you and give it up although he had accepted Exile as inevitable Napoleon had no intention that it should be permanent for the time being though he settled down in his new home the town of Porto fario where he was greeted enthusiastically by the local population his first impressions of the island were not promising there were signs of deprivation and poverty everywhere Napoleon resolved to improve the lot of his new hosts Napoleon had a resiliency to him he was able to pick up his spirits and after he uh was exiled to

Elba he undertook being the Emperor of Elba with a passion he built roads and fortifications and he went around the town talking with people he received delegations of visitors he did everything he could to make it work but there were problems uh he was certainly a very busy man and kept himself very busy he didn't dwell on his Misfortune the misfortunes of his past I think at the same time he was very much harboring uh an intent to leave the island at some stage and he was certainly keeping a watchful eye out for what was

going on in France he becomes aware of the growing unpopularity in fact he'd never been particularly popular of Louis VI 18th in France and he also as his psychological strength you know recovers and physical strength recovers becomes more and more feels curtailed in Elba more and more determined to regain his position Napoleon's help began to improve as the spring water at podio helped to relieve his daera he began supervising improvements to his house in Porto Faro which he had decorated to look like an Egyptian temple he set aside rooms for his wife and son confident

that they would soon be joining him he also continued to remain in contact with Josephine who still kept Napoleon's apartments at malmon just as he had left them but they were never to meet again on 29th May the former Empress died of diptheria aged only 50 Napoleon did however have two female companions on Elba his 64-year-old mother letia and his sister Pauline but still Napoleon longed to see his wife and son but Mari Louise remained in Austria Napoleon constantly wrote to her she didn't reply in January 18155 she sent Napoleon a formal New Year greeting

and then disappeared from his life forever Napoleon blamed his father-in-law for turning Marie Louise against him a keen supporter of the marriage when Napoleon was at the height of his power Emperor Francis repudiated it now that his fortunes were at a low E money was becoming a problem for Napoleon and his family the Treaty of Fontan blue had given Napoleon a fairly sizable pension which to be was to be paid by the French Louis the 18th Louis the 18th refused to pay anything to Napoleon now the British among others urged Louie please pay the pension

don't give this Corsican ogre a chance an excuse to cause more trouble Let Him Live peacefully in Elba and leave us alone but again for reasons that don't make any sense at all uh the French refused to do that Louie had refused to pay Napoleon the agreed um pension of 2 million Franks so what was Napoleon to do sit on Elber and starve or have a last throw of the day he chose the throw Louis VI 18th gout ridden and sexually impotent was proving to be an unpopular Monarch the return of Louis the 18th sent

hoist all all kinds of warning signals for revolutionaries old and new in France um it was I forget who it was who said that the trouble with the bbor was they'd forgotten nothing and learned nothing and that did seem to be the case in the immediate aftermath of Louis the 18's return he does make a number of concessions um to revolutionary political culture he he does acknowledge that something has happened between 1789 and 1815 we can't just put the clock right back to 1789 but he's a desperately undistinguished man uh seriously obese um although an

intelligent man lazy self-indulgent as lacking in Charisma as Napoleon was brimful of it he makes a number of serious errors gratuitously offending a number of old Soldiers especially those who are still serving and close to him uh all kinds of alarm Bells clang that maybe despite promises which have been made made that the Banu the the lands which were confiscated from the church and the emigra back in the 1790s would be re expropriated from their new owners Louie himself was a pretty well-meaning fellow actually but the immigrates were not well-meaning they were coming back these

former Nobles and clergymen and they were starting to demand their land back they wanted all of their old privileges back and Louie to his credit tried to Stave that off but to a lot of the Frenchmen it was like wait a minute we fought a revolution and we had Napoleon and now they want it to go back as if 20 years of History didn't exist that Napoleon began to believe that going back to France was the best thing for him and the best thing for France faithful to my motto everything for the French people I

resolv to return to France not for the ambitious purpose of regaining my throne but to place myself between the factions I had always thought that France wished only for equality and I had given her perfect equality I had now learned from events that she was likewise desirous of Liberty and I resolved to make France the freest nation in the world on 15th February 1815 Napoleon's former foreign minister Hugh Bernard maray sent a secret ambassador to Elba begging him to return Napoleon was cautious as a keen student of History he knew that few Exiles had staged

successful comebacks but if maray thought he could succeed he resolved to take the chance his mother agreed you're doing the right thing better to die sword in hand than in an unworthy retirement at dusk on 26 February Napoleon set sail on the inconstant on March the 1st napoleons little Entourage in three ships and maybe a thousand men sets foot on French soil for the first time in almost a year now Napoleon has to be concerned about how he is going to return he needs at all costs to avoid any fighting as soon as there's any

kind of a pitch battle he's probably done for he needs to develop the sense among the French and among those people in the rest of Europe that he is coming back because the people want him and so he takes a fairly out of the way route uh through the mountains up toward groby the Army set off at midnight eager to reach his goal as soon as possible unsurprised Louie Napoleon headed straight across the Alps with only brief stops for food and sleep they marched on through snow and ice climbing to 3,500 ft by 4th March

they had reached Dyne where they were warmly welcomed in another two days they would be in groby Napolean issued a proclamation calling on the French army to join him if the people and army don't want me at the first encounter 30 or 40 of my men will be killed the rest will throw down their musket I shall be finished and France will be quiet if the people and the Army do want me and I hope they will the first Battalion I meet will throw itself into my arms the rest will follow Louis the 18th found

out very quickly uh that Napoleon had landed on at onti as the new semaphore system instituted well began in 1794 uh had spread the news to Paris very quickly and up he gets and moves as fast as his his corpulent bulk would allow and I can't say I blame him after all his brother had been executed in January 1793 as indeed had several other members of his family including his sister-in-law the queen maranet and his cousin the Duke of oon and uh many other uh friends and family so uh I don't blame Louis VI 18th

for cutting and running after all there were still a lot of radicals of old Jacobin in Paris um who would have welcome the opportunity to finish the job and to Seer the head of another member of the bour family Louie was pragmatist he was aware of the increasing popular support which Napoleon was receiving he also did not wish to plunge his country his newly adopted country into Civil War these factors weighed heavily with him and he decided to uh lay lay down the throne lay down the crown and leave the country Marshall sult now minister

of War planed to intercept Napoleon at Leon he sent a message by semaphore Telegraph to groby ordering guns to be dispatched to Leon surprisingly the Press thought the whole business scarcely worth a mention an act of Madness which can be dealt with by a few rural policemen he goes along the Mountain Road and quite honestly his reception at first is rather mixed people who see him as he goes through their towns or along the roads are rather curious at all this who Napoleon his back what's that all about uh and and they're not exactly wowly

enthusiastic because they don't really know what to make of it all but the further he goes he begins to pick up more and more people he has interviews with people along the way and he begins to talk about how he no longer wants to to to uh conquer territories he simply Wants to Rule France he wants to bring back the revolution he wants to bring back Enlightenment to the people of France he says I'm old and I'm fat I really don't need to conquer any more territory and I happen to think that that's true I

think he realized that his only real chance number one to gain the the support of the French people and number two to have the people of the rest of Europe allow him to reach turn without contesting it was to convince them that he only wanted to rule France itself two mornings later in the village of cap Napoleon was wakened with urgent news Pierre C in command of the advanced guard reported that a battalion of the Fifth Line regiment was only a few miles north under major delsar despite having 1100 men to dear's 700 Napoleon was

in no mood mood to fight his own countrymen he had a deep apparance of Civil War he ordered Cambron not to open fire instead he ordered his polish Lancers to advance slowly delsar withdrew his men and Napoleon ordered the Lancers to wheel and return unfurling his tricka Napoleon commanded the guard's band to strike up the mares as the men of the fifth stood in trans Napoleon rode forward and dismounted someone recognized the former Emperor and gave the order to fire Napoleon opened his familiar gray overcoat and exposed his white waste coat as a Target to

the soldiers and he says you know soldiers of the fifth regiment uh if you wish to kill your Emperor here I am and there's a moment of silence somebody Cries Out Viv ler long live the emperor and all chaos Breaks Loose they all mob him him uh the officer that had been trying to get them to fire of course is totally out of it at that point uh and all of the soldiers go to him waving their shakos on the tips of their baronets the soldiers rushed to embrace him they tore the white Cades from

their hats and replaced them with the trickolo ribbons Bann by King Louie which they still carried in their knapsacks they were hankering all these old Soldiers after the Glory Days from 796 to 1809 when they had rampaged all over Europe raping murdering looting pillaging and getting patted on the back for it they weren't terribly interested in peace and poverty so when Napoleon appeared all the Old Glory immediately was received by them they were hungry for him to come back they they thought no further than let's have another glorious battle and win it so one by

one 10 by 10 regiment by regiment they fell under his spell and flopped to his banners the reaction of of many of the French people was one of uh Here Comes an adventurer a gambler um and very little attention was paid to it particularly within Paris itself um but as as his Advance uh towards Paris uh continued and so the numbers that went across to him increased uh then I think he was looked towards as a potential um not savor but certainly a restorer at 7:00 that evening Napoleon learned that a dense column of troops

had been sighted marching South in battle formation although clearly outnumbered Napoleon prepared to resist them and ordered his men into defensive positions he was in luck he recognized their Commander as Char de laed doer Colonel of the seventh Regiment of the line the young officer at once surrendered and embraced Napoleon together they combined forces and handed over the regimental colors marched onto groby where they found the town stoutly defended by 2,000 men a band of local peasants some 2,000 strong marched up and down under the walls he walks in Triumph through the gates uh of

groby uh the the officials of gryl refused to open the gates for him and so the citizens tear them down and later present Napoleon with the the shattered pieces of wood that made up the gat and said since they would not open the gates for you we have destroyed them and here they are uh Napoleon said uh that that he was once he got to gryl he was once again a reigning Prince before he had been an adventurer now he was a reigning Prince well because the game's up I mean Napoleon is advancing the the

population realized that they don't have to put up with this this bbon monarchy anymore there is an alternative uh and that alternative is in Napoleon Napoleon entered to a tumultuous reception at an inn he was hoisted onto the shoulders of the cheering citizens and carried upstairs in Triumph and his return to the throne now seemed assured but an obstacle lay in his way in the shape of his old comrade Marshall nay there were several of his old Marshals who um decided not to throw their hands in with him um for various reasons and be for

one accompanied the king to gent other leading figures had had enough of Napoleon and his incessant War making they had become rich they had become fat cats but they'd never been able to enjoy it uh you can't enjoy being a fat cat when you're being frozen to death on the steps of Russia so now they had their Estates they wanted to enjoy them The Lure of uh Napoleon had faded for them and they decided that they wanted know more of him Marshall nay who had been his uh trusted Marshall the bravest of the Brave in

in Russia and so on had become rather comfortable with his lifestyle with Louis VI 18th and swore to Louis the 18th that he would go and bring Napoleon back in an iron cage and he proceeded to try to do that but he soon discovered that his soldiers were about to have none of it and if he tried to bring Napoleon back in an iron cage there would be he'd have a little revolt on his hands so he switched his position gave a proclamation to his soldiers soldiers we are about to join the great failinks that

is marching toward Paris will you join me and regain the glory of the Empire etc etc and of course Napoleon was real glad to have nay because that was the last real obstacle between him and Paris Napoleon had promised to be in Paris by 20th of March and at 9:00 that that evening 20,000 wildly cheering citizens greeted his entry into the city he had covered the route from kpet antib in half the normal time what we have just achieved is the people's doing and yours all I did was to understand and appreciate you once more

he was emperor of France he sails to France lands on the provance coast and goes north by March 20 he is in Paris not a shot has been fired to stop him Louis VI 18th had sent Marshall nay but Mark to capture him as Marshall nay had promised to do uh but Marshall nay turned back to support Napoleon um and Louis the 18th is forced to flee when he gets there he's very much aware of the fact that if he's going to operate uh once again as head of state he's going to have to operate

in a constitutional monarchy environment and to that end he makes a number of overtures to the Liberals to see if he can get their support the Liberals certainly would be difficult to win over one of the most articulate of their number was Benjamin constant he has reappeared this man died in our blood he is another a tiller another genis KH but more terrible and hateful because he has at his disposal the resources of civilization instead of ordering constant's imprisonment Napoleon invited him to the twery to reassure him and to explain intentions the new constitution the

Act adal was drawn up and on 12th April a pleite was held the result was overwhelming over 1.3 million voted in favor a mere 4,26 against even Benjamin Kosta was satisfied Napoleon went to Great Lengths after his uh reinstatement in Paris to put the clock back to 1813 18 early 1814 he um obliterated all the reforms in the Army which Louie had put through he gave the regiments back their sacred old numbers which had been rubbed out by the uh by the um King he gave them back their tricular Cade under which they'd fought so

bravely uh he called them to Arms to defend France not defend him to defend France against the allies and their call was pretty much irresistible for Frenchman they flock to his banners what he seeks to do is to reestablish his old regime the bonapartist O regime suitably modified he makes all kinds of concessions to contemporary public opinion he um indicates that he will not be running such a tight ship but it won't be so much of a police state there will be more freedom of opinion and all the other civil liberties there will be more

constitutional representation and consultation and so on there will be uh less of the militar militaristic uh Ambitions of the past um all this rhetoric pours from him in a constant stream whether anybody believed or not is a is a different matter but this is a very short period remember it is only a 100 days and um the his major uh of course his the thing he had to spend most time on was getting some kind of army together to prevent uh retribution from the Duke of Wellington and Marshall bler during Napoleon's Exile France had signed

an alliance with England and Austria and many in England were reluctant to break it now that Napoleon was once more Emperor one English Member of Parliament was typical of the general consensus bonapart has been welcomed back to France as a liberator it would be monstrous to declare war on a people in order to impose a government they do not want tyon however wished to turn the Allies against Napoleon he was at a ball with Wellington metan and Zar Alexander when news of Napoleon's return reached Vienna ton persuaded England Austria Russia and Prussia each to put

150,000 men in the field to crush the emperor forever the emperor sent his special Envoy mon Tron to metonic to sue for peace he also wrote a letter in his own hand to the prince Regent in England methanic refused to see the envoy the prince Regent's letter was returned unopened war was now inevitable there was one real flaw in his strategy and it was something he really couldn't avoid because he needed to act fast when it came to the timing for leaving Elba but the Congress of Vienna was still going on so all of the

these leaders of the various coalitions against him were still where they could quickly make decisions he sent letters pleading for peace he sent letters you know to to his father-in-law the Emperor of Austria saying my my father-in-law please send my wife to me please send my son to me I want to have peace I want nothing else sent the same thing to the Emperor of Russia and so forth and so on but they were having none of it they declared him an international Outlaw whatever that is and said we are not just going to fight

France we are not just fighting Napoleon we're going to crush him we're going to send armies against him so Napoleon couldn't avoid having to fight in order to maintain his position it's not clear that there was ever really any alternative to the resumption of War certainly the Allied powers in Vienna had no intention of you know responding to any peace tentative peace tentatives from Napoleon and they began planning uh to a war to put Louis VI 18th back on the throne Napoleon in turn tries to rebuild the Army an army that has been devastated by

years of fighting an army that for example the horses lots of the horses had been eaten or had died on the invasion of uh of Russia and the French calary was Never As Good again attempts to build an army but he also knows that he has to strike f P after all against him there will definitely be the British the austrians the Russians the prussians as well as a host of other lesser allied powers from King Louie Napoleon inherited an army of 100,000 soon it had expanded to 300,000 loyal Frenchmen who had flocked to the

colors of their own valtion in early June English and Prussian forces began to assemble in Belgium ready to launch an invasion on France receiving word that the austrians and Russians were not yet fully mobilized Napoleon decided to attack first what he decides to do is to try and defeat the opposing armies in what is then Belgium he decides to try and defeat those in order to provide such a convincing account of his own military success that will rally support to him within France and encourage other powers in Europe to accept his return to power and

deal with him the austrians and the Russians are the European powers that are slowest to deploy their troops have the longest to go furthest to go and also their armies are just slow to deploy and in Belgium there are two forces that he has to engage there's a Prussian Army under Marshall bler and there is a force a mixture of British Dutch and some Allied German units under Arthur welney now Duke of Wellington neither of them are brilliant forces the key units in the British army including many of the units that fought under uh Welsley

and the peninsula are in fact at that time still in North America just after the end of the 1812 war with the Americans so there is an opportunity and what Napoleon determines to do is to try and defeat the forces opposed to him separately and he has to do that in a sense because they outnumber him two to one on 11th June he left Paris 2 days later he arrived at Aang where an army of 125,000 was waiting for him at dawn on 15th June he took the Russians by surprise and captured shoir the prussians

were uh surprised by Napoleon's rapid Advance sha partially the fault of the commander on the spot partially the fault of the Prussian High command who exposed him in that position and failed to support him in report in response to his reports of increased activity they were thrust back towards yingi the following day the prussians took up their position at Leni with Wellington at Katra bra 7 miles to the Northwest Napoleon planned that nay who commanded the left should attack Katra before pressing onto Brussels the French invade Belgium on the 15th of June the next day

contact battle the prussians are at ligy Napoleon attacks them he wants an attack on front flank and rear to destroy the prussians Marshall nay is supposed to move via Catra to push back the British there or any British that might be there and to attack the um the prussians in the flank and rear he doesn't do so nay hesitated and a 1:00 Napoleon sent a second order I'm surprised at your long delay in carrying caring out my commands there is no time to lose attack with greatest impetuosity everything in front of you nay was only

initially fighting against a very small force and he could have easily swept them aside and taken the campaign North to Wellington himself but for some reason nay was quite timid he seemed convinced that he was facing the major part of napole of excuse me of Wellington's army and as a result he was reluctant to move forward it was a little unlike the the the Brash uh bravest of the Brave Marshall nay but the fact is he stalled and delayed and was very timid and in the meantime Wellington in fact was sending more and more soldiers

into the area so that by the time Marshall nay finally decided to do anything about it he was facing a pretty formidable force of British and other soldiers Wellington was coming up with with increasing forces and by 5:00 that that evening Wellington had uh superiority of about 3 to2 over and the opportunity was gone Napoleon on the other hand uh was fighting the prussians at Len and he was having a great deal more success the the prussians retreated Napoleon though outnumbered came within an ace of capturing bler nay's vacillation though meant that he had to

abandon his plan to take Brussels the next day he visited the wounded prussians in Len he gave them Brandy and directed that their wounds should be dressed he then detached 30,000 men under Emanuel deushi to pursue the remaining prussians I would submit that he could have sent Gushi Marshall Gushi with his soldiers an immediate uh attack had nothing else it would have shown them exactly where the prussians were going and they could have you know done in a few more of them but he waited and he waited and he waited until the next morning finally

he gets around to telling Gushi to pursue Marshall bler of the prussians now it takes grui hours to get his soldiers up and going it's early afternoon anyway before the pursuit continues and they don't know for sure exactly where the prussians went this is important because it's this delay that really allows the prussians under Marshall bler to move into position where they ultimately can support the forces of Wellington at waterl Napoleon then decides that he will turn on the British ining rain Napoleon and nay pursued the English as they retreated towards Brussels 6 miles further

on Wellington took up a position on m sanan a piece of High Ground near the village of watero Napoleon made his headquarter ERS to the south at a nearby farm called Layon next morning as Napoleon breakfasted with his generals his brother Jerome brought fresh intelligence bla planned to march from wavra to join Wellington stupidity after a battle like leeny it is impossible for them to join forces we have 90 chances in our favor and not 10 against us the British and the austrians are special in this sense that they had been fighting more or less

continuously since 1792 in the case of the austrians 1793 in the case of the British had expanded gigantic sums of treasure and oceans of blood uh over the previous quarter of a century the austrians had gone bankrupt in 1811 uh the British were suffering serious financial difficulties uh as indeed all the powers were so there's a there's a general determination to put a stop to this Menace once and for all uh the G warhorse BL had decided to go much against his chief of staff's um advice his chief of staff was G now who who

harbored some resistance Who acting together with the British bla ordered them to make for PL Noir for watero as fast as they could and to join the battle of final battle against [Music] Napoleon at 11:00 after an hour's sleep Napoleon woke refreshed and took up position on High Ground near the farm of rosor mounted on his white mayor Desir he surveyed the field he must have been extremely confident the rain had stopped and his army was numerically Superior having 72,000 men against 68,000 he also boasted 90 more guns at 11:25 Napoleon gave the signal for

his guns to open fire whilst Jerome attacked the enemy's right in order to draw off troops from Wellington Center the bombardment continued for an hour and a half then Napoleon ordered the cobol's first core to attack Napoleon in the end is to be castigated for the French tactics at um watero in particular it's to be argued that successive frontal attacks played to the strength of the defensive Firepower of the British and Allied Forces and that he didn't outmaneuver his opponents there's some some truth in that I mean it could have been a battle that could

have been he could have tried to make much more of an attempt to outflank his opponents or to attack them hard in the flank he doesn't why well in part time he wants a quick battle he wants to engage them before they can Retreat um in part his actual physical and mental State he's ill he's tired he's run down and I think it's fair to say that there are also specific problems with the French army um it's it's a new one the it is underpowered in terms of artillery uh the artillery itself the deployment is

delayed by overnight rainfall which has ensured that the soil the clay soil has become a bit waterlog so that delays the battle but having said that it is still a battle that has to be fought the artillery pounding had caused surprisingly little damage in the English ranks knowing the power of the French artillery Wellington had drawn his men back on the reverse slopes he then moved them to the top of the ridge where they fired down on delong's troops inflicting substantial losses the guard um were confronted by some opponents who were not exactly slouches themselves

and the British Army's reputation for musketry was beautifully upheld at watero they shot the guard to pieces and the guard couldn't take it and they crumbled and fled as the French retreated the Scots grades pursued them Napoleon sent in the sixth and Ninth kassier against them the Scots were wiped out but at a price the French had lost 5,000 [Music] men at 1:30 in the afternoon Napoleon moved his headquarters to labal Alliance there a surprise awaited him Jerome's intelligence had been correct Buca's Advanced guard had arrived suddenly Napoleon was forced to fight on two fronts

the appearance of bler on the scene at waterl in 1815 in a way is of symbolic import bler was a very elderly gent by the standards of Napoleonic Warfare and yet he possessed uh the necessary reserves of physical stamina and moral courage to get his army which man Forman was probably the best Army in any of the Allied combat units or indeed and certainly Superior to Napoleon's troops to get them going and to get them there in time bla was a very interesting extremely aggressive and bloodthirsty person who hated Napoleon and the French and was

seeking to avenge as he saw it a deep sense of humiliation inflicted uh on Prussia by Napoleon after 186 so in a way blure personifies a major change which has taken place in the way in which the old regime Powers waged War now they have learned all the lessons of French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Warfare and are applying them with deadly effect against those that created them in the first place nay launched the main assault against Wellington even though horse after horse was shot from beneath him at 6:30 his efforts were awarded when he captured the

farm of La Sant Napoleon needed to act swiftly before blooker's main Force arrived his plan was to send five italan of guards up the slopes of M sanan under the command of Marshall nay despite quick and accurate fire from the English the guards pressed on at this point a second Prussian core under the graph Von Zan arrived and attacked the guards from the right at the same time Wellington sent three regiments of husars charging down the hill where they broke one of the guards squares news rapidly spread the guards once thought Invincible had been been

scattered in confusion Napoleon now knew all was lost he tried to retreat in good order one could always ask the hypothetical question what would have happened had um the prussians not arrived I think what I would say is that late in the day a final breakthrough even if it had occurred as a result of the French commital of the guard against the British would not have been uh the enormous blow that it would have been earlier in the day because it would not have been possible to exploit the victory um as one would have been

able to do if one had had you know many hours of daylight left Napoleon's first instinct was to Rally his troops at shalis and continue fighting but there were already fears that back in Paris the assembly might surrender in his absence he hastily returned to the capital arriving at 7:00 on the morning of 21st June the strain of battle and three sleepless nights had taken their toll Napoleon was a very sick man Louie Dava his faithful minister of War urged Napoleon to dissolve the assembly instead he demanded they Grant him full Powers they refused the

Allies would never make peace whilst Napoleon remained Emperor he was given an ultimatum abdicate or be deposed seeing no alternative Napoleon agreed to abdicate Napoleon retreated to Malon on 3rd July he arrived at rfor to find it blockaded by the English warship the bapon he does try to make a run for it an elaborate plan was devised by which he would be whisked away in a frig uh to the United States of America and take refuge there but when he gets to the coast um instead he's he's recognized and he surrenders to the British uh

on the bolerophon I come like the Mystic to throw myself on the hospitality of the British people I place myself under the protection of their laws Napoleon was taken by the British uh to St Elina 6,000 miles from nowhere uh with no Prospect of ever returning the British to their credit didn't put him in a prison or have him executed but to their enormous discredit they put him on an unhealthy Island and they treated him as though he were a common prisoner instead of a former Emperor they didn't do that with other kings uh and

monarchs who sought Asylum Napoleon had sought Asylum uh with the British and the British government had refused it I wonder whether he remembered something he'd said earlier contemptuously about the austrians whom he had just defeated for the nth time he said the trouble with the austrians is that they're always one Army and one idea behind the rest of Europe but the French historian Alber SEL added the austrians always had an army and they always had an idea it was Napoleon who ran out of both his last years were spent in Exile on St Helen where

he had Leisure to brood upon his mistakes and Pen his Memoirs where had it all gone so wrong I have fought 60 battles and I assure you that I have learned nothing from all of them that I did not know in the First on 5th May 1821 after a long and painful illness Napoleon died some authorities say it was through inhaling arnic fumes from the wallpaper in his room over over a long period others claim he was deliberately poisoned the common belief for many many years was that he died of stomach cancer the belief now

is increasingly among Scholars of of this period that he was poisoned by arsenic which weakened his condition and then at the very end he was given a series of relatively common uh substances which finally did him in and caused him to die when 4 days later his coffin was lowered into the Earth the root was lined with English soldiers their heads bowed in respectful silence a great man had died a legend was about to be born we often position Napoleon in terms of a grand trajectory of military history you move from Frederick the Great and

the prussians in the mid 18th century to the revolutionaries French revolutionaries in the 1790s and the St start of popular Warfare then we move to Napoleon and then we move on eventually in the 19th century to the prussians as they become the Germans and mka and the wars of German unification and the idea is it's quite clear Napoleon is The Cutting Edge for his period of modernity military modernity he is going to succeed and in the end he has only stopped when other powers have um sort of developed their forces to match what the french

can do Napoleon was a a a spirit of Enlightenment Napoleon was trying to reform to improve the lives of people he fought Wars because in many cases those wars were foed upon Him by these various coalitions that didn't want Improvement in the lives of people the austrians and the Russians and the prussians were afraid that their own people would get the idea of freedom and equality and and and and the Liberty given under the civil code and so on Napoleon is seen by people throughout the world even today as the father of modern Europe maybe

is the father of the European Union as someone who stood for moving out of the old order and into the New Order was it an imperfect move of course was Napoleon imperfect of course he was he did overextend he did get a little greedy maybe he shouldn't have done this or done that but if you take him as a whole if you look at Napoleon as a whole you see someone who added a great deal of positive impetus to the history of the world and there's not very many people in world history that you can

truly say that about the poleon is one of them the world is in the final analysis better off for his having [Music] existed