Napoleon's Last Stand

How one reckless gamble ended an emperor’s career

- Charles J Esdaile

Napoleon Bonaparte was a man whose vaulting ambition saw him conquer Europe – but it would also be his downfall. In just over 100 days, the ‘Nightmare of Europe’ would escape from prison with a small band of brothers and reconquer France, prompting all the great powers of Europe to unite together to bring him down once and for all.

Lasting from 1804 to 1814, Napoleon built an empire that covered vast swathes of the continent and by 1810 it was easier to list the regions he didn’t dominate – Portugal, Sicily, Sardinia, and the British, Russian and Ottoman Empires. This was not bad for the ‘Petit Corporal’ from Corsica, who only secured a commission in the French artillery in 1787.

Napoleon enjoyed a series of accelerated promotions as a result of the French Revolution. By early 1796, he was the commander of all the French forces manning the Italian frontier. Gifted with extraordinary tactical genius, he won a string of great victories that knocked both Austria and Piedmont out of the War of the First Coalition. Similar success in Cairo fighting the Battle of the Pyramids in 1798, during a doomed attempt to conquer Egypt, cemented his reputation as one of Revolutionary France’s greatest heroes.

However, while Napoleon was enjoying these personal victories, France as a whole was struggling.

While he was off gallivanting in Egypt, Austria and Russia had rejoined the War of the Second Coalition and had retaken Italy. It was clear that France needed a much stronger government than the one that had emerged from the bloody chaos of the Revolution.