How long did napoleon dominate europe

Napoleon's military strategy had always been based on concentrating his own and the enemy's forces to his advantage and delivering a decisive blow, as at Austerlitz or Wagram. Such an approach was completely inapplicable in Spain, where even at the moments of greatest French power the rebels always held some territory, however little, and the guerillas could never be decisively subjugated.

In fact, the military term guerilla was coined at this period is the word's first recorded usage to describe the fighting style of the Spaniards who resisted the French occupation, for the word guerilla is the diminuitive of the Spanish word guerra, which means war.

Similarly, during the height of the Napoleon's empire nationalist sentiments emerged all over the continent, as people again desired the British goods the Continental System deprived them of, and became increasingly disgusted with Napoleon's egomania.

Though, as was mentioned above, the ruler's of European states nominally declared war on Britain much of public sentiment was more anti-French than anti-British.

In Britain, opposition to Napoleon who was often referred to as "Old Boney" became almost a national religion. While the British lower classes were suffering due to highly exploitative working conditions, long hours at monotonous and dangerous jobs, and little job security during the Industrial Revolution and might have rebelled otherwise, the opposition to Napoleon's control of almost all of Western Europe greatly unified Britain and prevented such a rebellion from happening.

While Britain was helped along a liberal path, Spanish resistance took the form of conservatism, as the Spanish fought to restore the old Bourbon family to the Spanish throne. The reaction against Napoleon was so great that many intellectuals started to reject French Enlightenment Rationalism in favor a new intellectual trend called "Romanticism. Rather, Herder claimed, each nation had its own particular "genius. Furthermore, Napoleon showed the Germans the kind of power that could be achieved through a strong centralized state.

Napoleon thus helped to inspire the previously loosely federated Germans to form a nation-state, which was created under Bismarck in Two notable exceptions to the general rule that French dominance created local nationalism were Italy and the Grand Duchy of Warsaw. The Italians, lacking a unified history and broken into several states under Napoleon, never developed a strong anti-Napoleon nationalist movement.

Moral right and wrong are hard to distinguish: Napoleon was a dictator, but not a particularly evil one. He encouraged many developments we today consider quite positive. The Napoleonic Wars were instigated by France, but each nation fought to protect and expand its own national interest. The wars were punctuated by constantly shifting alliances. Sometimes Prussia fought France, and sometimes it was neutral. Austria, led by the crafty Metternich, tried to improve relations with France towards the end the Napoleonic era.

Russia initially opposed Napoleon, then sided with him, and then turned against him again. The only constant through the fifteen years of Napoleon's rule was the continued enmity between England and France. Instead of a war between irreconcilable values, the Napoleonic Wars were fought with essentially the same motivation driving all sides: greed. The period was typified by "Realism" in diplomacy and war, for all sides were simply trying to win whatever advantages they could.

If anyone won the Napoleonic Wars, it was Britain. Britain emerged in as a commercial powerhouse with the world's preeminent navy and a large colonial network. Search The Canadian Encyclopedia. Remember me. I forgot my password. Why sign up? Create Account. Suggest an Edit. Enter your suggested edit s to this article in the form field below. Accessed 12 November In The Canadian Encyclopedia.

Historica Canada. Article published December 13, ; Last Edited March 04, The Canadian Encyclopedia , s. Retreating Russians set fires across the city in an effort to deprive enemy troops of supplies. After waiting a month for a surrender that never came, Napoleon, faced with the onset of the Russian winter, was forced to order his starving, exhausted army out of Moscow.

During the disastrous retreat, his army suffered continual harassment from a suddenly aggressive and merciless Russian army. At the same time as the catastrophic Russian invasion, French forces were engaged in the Peninsular War , which resulted in the Spanish and Portuguese, with assistance from the British, driving the French from the Iberian Peninsula.

Napoleon then retreated to France, and in March coalition forces captured Paris. On April 6, , Napoleon, then in his mids, was forced to abdicate the throne.

With the Treaty of Fontainebleau, he was exiled to Elba, a Mediterranean island off the coast of Italy. He was given sovereignty over the small island, while his wife and son went to Austria. On February 26, , after less than a year in exile, Napoleon escaped Elba and sailed to the French mainland with a group of more than 1, supporters. On March 20, he returned to Paris, where he was welcomed by cheering crowds. Napoleon raised a new army and planned to strike preemptively, defeating the allied forces one by one before they could launch a united attack against him.

In June , his forces invaded Belgium, where British and Prussian troops were stationed. However, two days later, on June 18, at the Battle of Waterloo near Brussels, the French were crushed by the British, with assistance from the Prussians. He died there on May 5, , at age 51, most likely from stomach cancer.

During his time in power, Napoleon often posed for paintings with his hand in his vest, leading to some speculation after his death that he had been plagued by stomach pain for years.

But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! Subscribe for fascinating stories connecting the past to the present. Napoleone di Buonaparte was born on Corsica on August 15, , just 15 months after France had purchased the island from the Italian city-state of Genoa. After taking power in , French leader Napoleon Bonaparte won a string of military victories that gave him control over most of Europe. He annexed present-day Belgium and Holland, along with large chunks of present-day Italy, Croatia and Germany, and he set up dependencies in