Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - Napoleon Bonaparte

Episode Date: March 4, 2024

In 1804, one of the most significant individuals of the 19th century placed a crown upon his head in the Cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris and declared himself Emperor of the French.  He went on to revolutionize France and French society, which profoundly affected all of Europe.  His influence was so great the era and the wars of the period were all named after him.  Learn more about Napoleon Bonaparte, his life, and his accomplishments on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Sponsors Sign up today at butcherbox.com/daily and use code daily to choose your free offer and get $20 off. Visit BetterHelp.com/everywhere today to get 10% off your first month. Use the code EverythingEverywhere for a 20% discount on a subscription at Newspapers.com. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Cameron Kieffer   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 1804, one of the most significant individuals of the 19th century placed a crown upon his head at the Cathedral of Notre Dame and Paris and declared himself Emperor of the French. He went on to revolutionize France and French society, as well as profoundly affecting all of Europe. His influence was so great that the era and the wars of the period were all named after him. Learn more about Napoleon Bonaparte,

his life and his accomplishments on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. What if your perceptions about the past were wrong? ThruLine is a podcast that takes you back in time to uncover the parts of the story that may have gone unnoticed. It effectively turned day into night. And how it shaped the world now. Time travel with us every week on the ThruLine podcast from NPR. One of the areas of history that I haven't done many episodes on is the Napoleonic era. I recently began trying to compile a list of all of the possible topics from this period,

and the list was getting pretty long. I began to think about what order I should tackle the topics and how much I should zoom in or out for each one. And then I realized before getting into these topics, it might be best to do an overview episode on The Life of Napoleon, as he is the unifying element to almost all of these stories. So this episode will simply try to provide a very brief thumbnail biography of the life of Napoleon Bonaparte. There is no way you can do the entire life of Napoleon justice given the time constraints of this podcast. There are entire podcasts that cover the life of Napoleon that have over 100 hours of content.

And rather than saying, and this will be a future episode, let me just say up front that there are probably somewhere between 10 to 15 future episodes that will be referenced in this episode. Different episodes from his rise and fall, the reforms he implemented, battles he fought, and how the rest of Europe acted. So with that, Napoleon Bonaparte was born on August 15th, 1769, in Ajaxio, the largest city and the capital of the island of Corsica. The thing to know about Napoleon and his family from this period of his life is that they were actually Italian, not French. The spelling of his first and last name was different, and he only changed it once he was well into his 20s. It was originally Napoleone Bonaparte. The island was under control of the city of Genoa, and for centuries, and it wasn't conquered by France until 1769, just three months before Napoleon

was born. Napoleon's family came from Tuscany in Italy, and Napoleon grew up speaking Corsican as his first language as well as Italian. But he didn't speak French. He came from a large family with seven brothers and sisters, many of whom were appointed to high-ranking positions after Napoleon rose to power. At the age of nine, he was sent to school in France, where he quickly learned to speak French. He was often bullied for speaking French in his thick Corsican accent, which led him to spend a lot of time alone, reading, and on his studies. He attended a military academy at Brienne Le Chateau, and then transferred to the Ecole Militaire in Paris, where he graduated in 1785, completing two years of study in just one year, and becoming the first Corsican to graduate. Upon graduating,

he was given a commission in the French army as an artillery officer with the rank of second lieutenant at the age of 16. During his early years, he was an outspoken Corsican nationalist who advocated for the independence of Corsica. However, he eventually became committed to the French Revolution. He was promoted to captain in 1792, and then to Colonel in 1793, when he was given command of the French Republican forces in the city of Toulon, which the British were besieging. He organized a daring raid on a hill overlooking the harbor, which allowed the French guns to drive the British out. It was his first major action as a military leader, which drew the attention of higher-ups in the French Republican government.

Just weeks later, he was promoted to the rank of Brigadier General at the age of 24. Napoleon had been allied with the Robs-Pierre brothers, who led the reign of terror during the French Revolution. After their downfall in July 1794, his prospects diminished, and he was eventually removed from the list of generals in the French army. However, his talents and competence were eventually called upon in October 1795 when royalist supporters rose up and threatened the Tullerese Palace, where the National Convention was in session. Napoleon, using artillery, managed to clear the streets of protesters using what he described as, quote, a whiff of grape shot. Grapchot is a cluster of smaller shot similar to a shotgun rather than a single cannonball. The whiff of grape shot

killed 1400 royalists. His defense of the National Convention made a lot of. His defense of the National Convention made his fortunes rise once again and turned him into a celebrity. He was promoted to commander of the interior and given command of the army of Italy. In March 1796, he also married a widow by the name of Josephine de Beauharnet. Immediately after getting married, he left for Italy to take command of the French army. It was in Italy that he was able to exercise his abilities as a field general for the first time, and he recorded a series of victories in rapid secession. And I'm lumping together a lot of history here, but his success increased his fame,

men also brought him into French politics. On September 4th, 1797, he backed what became known as the coup of 18 Fructador, using the French Republican calendar, which removed elected royalists from the legislature. In December, he returned to Paris, where he began plotting an invasion of England with the French foreign minister, Charles Maurice de Talleyrand. Napoleon realized that France couldn't compete with the British Navy, so he proposed an expedition to take Egypt, which would significantly hamper British trade with India and possibly then lead to an alliance with the princes of India which could oust Britain from their greatest colony. Napoleon took Malta, which was a British fortification, and one of series of battles in Egypt. However, in August 1798,

the British under Admiral Horatio Nelson devastated the French Navy at the Battle of the Nile, which cut off French reinforcements by sea. He and his army worked their way up the coast to Syria, conquering towns along the way, but eventually had to retreat back to Egypt. While all of this was happening, things were not going well back in Europe. A group of European powers known as the Second Coalition had issued a series of stinging defeats to the French army. There was concern that the French Republic may fall to the Second Coalition, which wanted to restore the French monarchy. On his own volition, without receiving any orders, Napoleon left Egypt for France on August 24, 1799, taking advantage of a brief period where the British ships had pulled away from the French coast.

unbeknownst to him, orders had actually been sent for his return, but he had never received them. The Republic was not in good shape when he arrived in Paris, and the ruling five-person council known as the directory had become very unpopular. As arguably the most popular men in France and the one who commanded the greatest loyalty in the French army, he was called upon by a small group of French leaders to take over the country. On November 19, 1799, he conducted the coup of 18 Brumère, which overthrew the directory and legislature and established himself as first consul of France. Napoleon appointed two other consuls, but they were only advisors. He wrote up a document known as the Constitution of Year 8, which was put up for a vote via plebiscite to the French people.

It passed overwhelmingly with 3,011,7 in favor and 1,562 against. But over half the electorate didn't vote, and most people assumed that the results were rigged. Napoleon now had all the powers of a dictator, and the coup of 18 Brumere is the point at which most historians mark the end of the French Revolution. In 1800, Napoleon led his troops across the Alps to expel the Austrians from Northern Italy, something he managed to do in a shockingly short amount of time. This included several brilliant battles, including the Battle of Marengo, where outnumbered French forces defeated a numerically superior Austrian force. After the invasion of Italy, there was a lull in conflict in Europe, and Napoleon engaged in several

overseas affairs. After attempting to re-institute slavery in the colony of San Doming, aka Haiti, and sending troops to reestablish French control, he eventually gave up and Haiti declared itself independent in 1804. In 1803, he had sold the territory of Louisiana to the United States to raise money. He experienced resistance from both the right and the left within France, including several assassination plots. In 1802, he had himself declared consul for life, in another rigged election, and then in 1804, with another rigged plebiscite, he was declared Emperor of the French. Not Emperor of France, mind you, but Emperor of the French. He was coronated on December 2nd, 1804, Notre Dame, in the presence of the Pope, and he, not the Pope, put the crown upon

his head. By 1805, European relations had gotten worse, and a third coalition formed against France, consisting of the United Kingdom, the Austrian Empire, the Russian Empire, Naples, Sist, in Sweden. Again, Napoleon led the French in a series of victories, the most notable of which was the Battle of Austerilates on December 2nd, which resulted in Austria leaving the coalition. The next several years saw a fourth and fifth coalition with the war expanding to the Iberian peninsula. He installed his brothers as rulers in multiple countries. Louis was appointed King of Holland in 1806, Joseph was the King of Naples in 1806 and the King of Spain in 1808, and Jerome became the king of Westphalia in 1807. His sister Eliza was even appointed the Grand Duchess of Tuscany

in 1809 as well. The war in Spain took a huge toll in terms of money and men, but by 1810, Napoleon ruled directly or indirectly about 40% of Europe. That year, he annulled his marriage to Josephine, who was unable to produce him an heir, and he married the daughter of the Austrian emperor Marie Louise. She bore him a son, Napoleon II, in 1811. And for those of you unfamiliar with this period in history, I just glossed over a whole lot that took place between 1805 and 1811, but suffice it to say future episodes. 1812 saw the beginning of the end for Napoleon.

After actions against French shipping and an alliance with the British, Napoleon felt it was necessary to invade Russia. Russia is a long way from France, and the supply lines grew very thin the further away the French troops went. The Russians were able to continuously retreat into the Russian hinterland, destroying crops along the way to prevent the French from living off the land. They even burned Moscow, so Napoleon couldn't take it. And that winter was extremely cold, with temperatures reaching minus 40,

which happens to be the exact same temperature in both Fahrenheit and Celsius. Napoleon lost 300,000 of his own men, and the total number of deaths from the Russian campaign on both sides, including civilians, was approximately 1 million people. With France weakened by the Russian campaign, a sixth coalition was formed, which ultimately proved successful. The coalition offered peace terms

that allowed Napoleon to remain emperor within the traditional borders of France, but he refused, which resulted in further French losses, culminating with his abdication on April 14th, 1814. The Brabant dynasty was reinstated in France with King Louis XIII.

Napoleon was exasped. exiled to the tiny island of Elba in the Mediterranean, where he was allowed to retain the title of Emperor of Elba. He arrived in Elba in May 1814, but he didn't remain there long. In February 1815, he and 700 men escaped and arrived in France. He was confronted with the 5th Regiment, which had been sent to stop him. In what has to be one of the greatest moments in history, he got off his horse, walked up to them alone within gunshot range and said, quote, Here I am, kill your emperor if you wish. The entire regiment shouted,

Viva la Emperor, and switched sides to join Napoleon. Napoleon marched to Paris with an ever-growing army and began a period of rule known as the Hundred Days. Napoleon decided to go on the offensive to split the coalition and marched into Belgium where he fought the combined British and Prussian armies at the Battle of Waterloo. The British forces fought most of the day, until the Prussians arrived and defeated the French.

Napoleon was finally done. The British wanted to execute him, but the other European powers agreed to have him exiled once again, this time to the very remote island of St. Helena, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Africa. He arrived there in October 1815 and remained there until his death on May 5, 1821, at the age of just 51. The story of Napoleon Bonaparte is pretty much,

much the story of Europe in the first two decades of the 19th century. Love him or hate him, and there are people in both camps still today. You can't deny that he left an indelible mark on history. The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Peter Bennett and Cameron Kiefer. Today's review comes from listener Wilkins songs on Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, thanks, Gary. Wonderful podcast.

It didn't take me long to exhaust all unplayed episodes, and now I'm fully in round two. I've learned a great deal and humbly feel enlightened relative to my pre-everything everywhere daily self. My thanks again and keep them coming, Greg, from Gail's Ferry, Connecticut Completionist Club. Population, potentially just me. Thanks, Greg. Many experts agree that to truly learn something you probably have to go over it several times. I know that several members of the Completionist Club have told me that they've gone through the entire catalog two or even three times. Remember, if you leave a review or send me a boostagram, you two can have a read on the show.