On November 6, 1804, the French plebiscite adopted the 12-year Constitution of the Republic, the French Republic became the French Empire, and Napoleon was crowned Emperor.
It was such a wild boy in the countryside who became the "Emperor of the French" step by step with his own strength.
According to the traditional European system, Napoleon's claim to the emperor is not legitimate, and the emperor of France can only be a Bourbon dynasty, so Napoleon's new king needs the pope to wear a crown crown for him to ascend to the throne, and the concept of the divine right of the monarch is also better proof of its legitimacy.
But he wanted to take the opportunity to break the situation that the clerical power had interfered in the secular regime for personal gain for hundreds of years, so there was the scene of snatching the crown from the pope and crowning himself.
In 1805, Napoleon was crowned King of Italy, and Napoleon's move to become King of Italy infuriated Austria.
In August 1805, the defeated Austria brought together Britain and Russia to form the Third Coalition. The Austrian and Russian armies marched on Ulm, Bavaria, respectively.
Napoleon quickly dispatched his forces to encircle the Austrians at Ulm and to victory at the Battle of Ulm on 20 October before the Russians arrived for reinforcements. The Russians retreated in a hurry, and then the French army took advantage of the victory to pursue, and the soldiers occupied the Austrian capital Vienna without bloodshed.
The Austrian Emperor Francis II, who had escaped from Vienna, arrived in Olomouc with a retreating Austrian army, while Tsar Alexander I also led an army to Olomouc.
The Combined Russian-Austrian Forces, reinforced by the Russians, took up positions in Olomouc.
In the face of the Russian-Austrian army, Napoleon first pretended to fear the strong strength of the coalition forces and demanded negotiations. The purpose was obvious, to prevent the Russians from continuing to retreat, in order to create conditions for the search for warplanes.
The arrogant Alexander I was eager to fight, and under his repeated supervision, on November 27, the Russian army marched to the east of Brno without waiting for the arrival of the follow-up troops, trying to detour the French army from the south.
As for how to fight the next battle, the Russian-Austrian army was controversial, and the experienced commander-in-chief Kutuzov advocated avoiding the battle for the time being, not making contact with Napoleon, and waiting until another group of Russian and Austrian reinforcements arrived, especially after Prussia entered the war on December 15.
The young and vigorous Tsar Alexander I, believing that Napoleon's French army was exhausted and greatly weakened in combat effectiveness, and the participation of the Prussian army in the war, had been determined, and that in the case of the superiority of the allied forces, they did not take the initiative to attack but avoided fighting, and did not deserve his wisdom, and he demanded that the attack on the French army be immediately turned.
Napoleon was overjoyed to hear the disagreement of the Allied forces. He also realized that if he wanted to take advantage of the fact that his reinforcements had not yet arrived for a decisive battle, he must take some deceptive measures to make the other side get on the trap.
To this end he ordered the French to retreat from the forward positions and demanded armistice negotiations. Seeing Napoleon's move, many generals in the Allied General Command believed that Napoleon was afraid and the French army was vulnerable.
In December, the Battle of Austerlitz, known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, broke out.
The victory at the Battle of Austerlitz was definitely a major part of Napoleon's military history. After the defeat of the Austrian Francis II canceled his title of "Holy Roman Emperor", the history of the Holy Roman Empire ended, the third anti-French alliance collapsed, and Napoleon became the hegemon of Europe, which was the peak of Napoleon's life.
In 1806, Napoleon formed the Rhine Alliance, and Britain on the other side of the ocean feared that France was becoming increasingly powerful, and in September of the same year, Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Switzerland formed the Fourth Anti-French Alliance. The European war resumed in October.
The Fourth Coalition was less thrilling, as Prussia was anxious to go to war and did not wait for the Russians to assemble, so that Napoleon could take advantage of the opportunity to defeat Prussia first and then repel Russia. The prussian command was chaotic, the Russians were cowardly and avoided battle, and the coordination between the two sides was ineffective, and the Fourth Anti-French Alliance quickly collapsed.
From the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805 to the Battle of Friedland in 1807, Napoleon defeated the three European powers of Austria, Prussia and Russia, dealing a heavy blow to the European feudal system. As Engels said, Napoleon was a "great conqueror" for the feudal kingdoms of Europe at the time.
The war enabled the French Empire to obtain a large amount of land and reparations, greatly expanded the territory and territory of France, and the supremacy of the French First Empire in Europe was determined.
Napoleon was not satisfied with this, and in 1808, in the name of protecting Spanish territory and resolving royal conflicts, the French army invaded Spain and occupied the capital Madrid.
Napoleon made his eldest brother Joseph Bonaparte King of Spain, and a massive riot broke out in Spain.
The British government intervened in the Spanish dispute in 1808 and landed on Montego Bay on 8 August, and the Duke of Wellington, with the support of local nationalists, gradually drove the French troops out of the Iberian Peninsula.
Just when Napoleon was caught in the quagmire of Spain, the austrian Empire, which had been defeated repeatedly, organized the Fifth Anti-French Alliance in early 1809, and the Austrian Empire sneaked into the French territory in the Rhine region behind it, and Napoleon was forced to withdraw from Spain and lead an army to the East.
Napoleon defeated the Austrians in five battles in April, and then at the Battle of Wagram, Napoleon successfully reversed defeat and led the French army to a decisive victory again. The capture of the Austrian capital, Vienna, forced Austria to sign the Peace of Vienna, ceded land again, and the fifth anti-French alliance collapsed.
In 1810, Napoleon decided to rest his troops and marry the Austrian princess Marie Louise, and the Franco-Austrian alliance led to the peak of the First French Empire. Napoleon became the hegemon of Europe, becoming napoleon the great with Julius Caesar and Alexander the Great.
Napoleon coped internally with the economic crisis that had begun to emerge, annexing the Netherlands externally, annexing the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, and enlisting Sweden to declare war on Britain.
Britain and Tsarist Russia, especially Tsarist Russia, were in close collusion, always wanting to one day regain control of Europe. Without control of Russia, the hegemony of the French Empire would be difficult to consolidate, and its fierce enemy, Britain, would not be defeated.
A strong desire to build a world empire drove Napoleon to constantly go to war.
In May 1812, Napoleon led an expedition to Russia with an army of 570,000 in 12 languages. Napoleon crushed the Russian forces that stopped him.
On September 7, 1812, Napoleon led the French army to a tactical victory at the extremely difficult and vast Battle of Borodino, but both sides suffered heavy losses.
On September 16, Napoleon entered Moscow. However, strategically, the Russian commanders Kutuzov, Barclay and others abandoned the capital, withdrew with Tsar Alexander I with the remaining senior Russian generals and most of the residents, gradually penetrated into the Russian hinterland, and adopted the tactics of clearing the field to save the remaining living forces of the Russian army.
The Russians sneaked up on the French everywhere, intercepted vehicles, and destroyed the French traffic supply lines, forcing the French garrisons everywhere to be overwhelmed and panicked. And winter was approaching, and hunger and cold posed a threat to the French army.
Napoleon held out in Moscow for more than a month, and was forced to lead the remnants out of moscow on October 19 for a strategic retreat. The French had tried to retreat through the unspoiled southern part of Russia, but the retreat turned into a major rout.
The winter was extremely cold, windy and rainy, the French army froze to death and starved to death during the retreat, and countless people were captured by Cossack cavalry and guerrillas, and fewer than 30,000 people finally returned to France.
Napoleon's war of aggression against Russia ended in disastrous defeat. Napoleon's expedition to Moscow was the culmination of his military power development, and the failure of the expedition to Moscow heralded the beginning of the decline of his world domination.
After Napoleon's crushing defeat on the Battlefield in Russia, Alexander I decided to immediately defeat France once and for all and dominate Europe.
In 1813 , Britain , Russia , Prussia , and Sweden formed the Sixth Coalition. In August of the same year, the Austrian defection also joined.
In October, Napoleon fought a decisive battle in Leipzig with allied forces, with about 600,000 troops on both sides. The battle was a general battle against Napoleon's oppression and domination, called the "War of Nations." The French were defeated.
On March 31, 1814, the Allies entered Paris. Former Foreign Minister Of Napoleon, Talerand, formed a provisional government, and Napoleon abdicated and was imprisoned on the island of Elba in the Upper Mediterranean. Louis XVIII succeeded to the throne and the Bourbon dynasty was restored.
Napoleon retained the title of "Emperor", but his territory was limited to the island of Elba.
On 26 February 1815 Napoleon escaped from the island and returned to France on 1 March with 700 soldiers.
The returning Napoleon was warmly welcomed by the military and the people. Louis XVIII repeatedly sent troops to intercept him, but most of the army saw him and turned against him.
When Napoleon returned to Paris on 20 March 1815, he already had a regular army of 140,000 men and a volunteer army of 200,000 men, and Louis XVIII fled in a hurry, and the "Hundred Days Dynasty" began.
The European countries quickly formed the Seventh Coalition, with an army of 700,000 men, while France had only 284,000 men.
On June 18, 1815, a fierce battle broke out in Waterloo, Belgium, and the French army was defeated. Napoleon was forced to abdicate for the second time and was exiled to the island of St. Ellen in the South Atlantic. The restoration lasted only a hundred days and was called the "Hundred Days Coup."< Napoleon thus completely collapsed.