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Napoleon

From Ajaccio to Saint Helena, 1769–1821

Map of Napoleon Play it on the globe →

Fifty-two years, from a boy born one year after Corsica was sold to France to a man dying on a rock 1,800 km from the African coast. In between, an empire that reached from Hamburg to Rome and fell apart in eighteen months. The territory is built from real administrative units — French departments, Italian provinces, Polish voivodeships, Croatian counties — so the Illyrian Provinces and the annexation of the Papal States are shaped, not sketched. They are still modern borders standing in for old ones: at this scale that holds, and a crisp line would be more false than a blur.

How this is made →
80events
1 January 1769 – 31 December 1821span
Wars & Empirescategory
The EmpireSatellites and clientsUnder the armiesVictoriesDefeats and lossesA life

What is on the map

  • 17 A life
  • 35 Victories
  • 28 Defeats and losses

Chronology

  1. Ajaccio: Napoleone Buonaparte is born. Corsica has been French for one year — Genoa sold it in 1768 — and without that sale he would have been an Italian subjectbirth▸
  2. At nine he enters the military school at Brienne. He speaks Corsican, learns French there, and is mocked for his accent the whole timelife▸
  3. Paris, École Militaire: he graduates in one year instead of three. Forty-second of fifty-eight, but the first Corsican ever to do itlife▸
  4. Artillery second lieutenant at Valence, aged sixteen. He reads Rousseau and writes a history of Corsicalife▸
  5. The Bastille falls. He is twenty, an officer in an army that is about to stop existingpolitics▸
  6. Toulon: a twenty-four-year-old captain takes the battery commanding the harbour and drives the British out. He comes away a brigadier generalbattle▸
  7. Arrested as a Robespierrist after Thermidor. Two weeks in prison, then nothing: for a year he is a general without a commandlife▸
  8. Paris, 13 Vendémiaire: he breaks up the royalist rising on the steps of Saint-Roch with cannon. The "whiff of grapeshot" earns him command of the Army of Italypolitics▸
  9. He marries Joséphine de Beauharnais in a civil ceremony. She is six years older and has two children; he leaves for Italy two days laterlife▸
  10. Montenotte: his first victory in overall command, won by prising the Piedmontese and the Austrians apartbattle▸
  11. Lodi: he takes the bridge over the Adda at the head of the grenadiers. It was there, he would say, that he began to think himself a superior manbattle▸
  12. He enters Milan to applause and sets up the Transpadane Republicpolitics▸
  13. Castiglione: he beats Wurmser by marching faster than the Austrians can countbattle▸
  14. Arcole: three days on a marsh causeway. The flag on the bridge is real, the painting is forty years laterbattle▸
  15. Rivoli: the last Austrian army in Italy destroyed in a single day. Mantua surrenders two weeks laterbattle▸
  16. Campo Formio: Austria gives up Belgium and recognises the Cisalpine Republic. In exchange it gets Venice, a republic eleven hundred years old, which he has just traded awaytreaty▸
  17. The Pyramids: the Mamluks charge the French squares and shatter on them. "Soldiers, forty centuries are looking down on you"battle▸
  18. Aboukir: Nelson destroys the fleet at anchor and the Army of Egypt is cut off. The expedition is over the day after it begandefeat▸
  19. Acre: two months of siege and not one breach. It is the first thing he cannot takedefeat▸
  20. Rosetta: an engineer officer notices a stone with three scripts. It will take twenty-three years to read, and it begins Egyptologydiscovery▸
  21. He leaves the army in Egypt without telling it and sails for France. Thirty thousand men stay behindlife▸
  22. Brumaire: the coup at Saint-Cloud. He is jeered, nearly lynched, and his brother Lucien saves it by calling in the troops. By evening he is First Consulpolitics▸
  23. He crosses the Great St Bernard with forty thousand men and the guns dragged inside hollowed-out tree trunkscampaign▸
  24. Marengo: the battle is lost until five in the afternoon, then Desaix arrives and dies winning it. The bulletin will be rewritten three timesbattle▸
  25. Lunéville: Austria recognises the left bank of the Rhine as French. The Holy Roman Empire loses a third of its princestreaty▸
  26. Concordat with Pius VII: France is Catholic again, but the Church land already sold stays sold. It is a peace paid for by the popepolitics▸
  27. Consul for life, by plebiscite. Three and a half million yes, eight thousand nopolitics▸
  28. He sells Louisiana to the United States for fifteen million dollars: two million square kilometres at three cents an acre. He needs money against Britainpolitics▸
  29. The Civil Code. Equality before the law, property, divorce — and a wife legally a minor. Half of Europe still runs on itlaw▸
  30. He has the duc d'Enghien seized on neutral soil and shot in the moat at Vincennes. "Worse than a crime: a blunder"execution▸
  31. Notre-Dame: he crowns himself in front of the pope, who came from Rome for it. The gesture is calculated, and David's painting softens itpolitics▸
  32. Milan: he puts the iron crown of the Lombard kings on his own head. "God gave it to me, woe to anyone who touches it"politics▸
  33. Ulm: he surrounds an entire Austrian army and makes it surrender almost without a fight. Twenty-six thousand prisonersbattle▸
  34. Trafalgar: Nelson destroys the combined fleet and dies. From here Britain is out of reach, and the war moves entirely onto landdefeat▸
  35. Austerlitz: he feigns weakness on the right, lets the allies come down off the Pratzen, and cuts them in two. The masterpiece, on the first anniversary of the coronationbattle▸
  36. The Confederation of the Rhine: sixteen German princes leave the Empire. The Holy Roman Empire, founded in 800, dissolves the following monthpolitics▸
  37. Jena and Auerstedt, the same day: the Prussia of Frederick the Great stops being a power in six hoursbattle▸
  38. From Berlin he proclaims the Continental System: no port in Europe open to the British. It is the decision that will take him to Spain and to Russiapolitics▸
  39. Eylau: fought in a blizzard, twenty thousand dead, no winner. The first time the bulletin cannot call it a victorybattle▸
  40. Friedland: the Russians fight with a river at their backs and end up in itbattle▸
  41. Tilsit: on a raft in the middle of the Niemen he divides Europe with the tsar. The Duchy of Warsaw is born, and Prussia loses half its territorytreaty▸
  42. Junot enters Lisbon; the Portuguese court sailed for Brazil two days earlier with fifteen thousand peoplecampaign▸
  43. Madrid, Dos de Mayo: the city rises and is shot down. Goya will paint the executions of the following nightunrest▸
  44. Bayonne: he forces the Spanish Bourbons to abdicate and puts his brother Joseph on the throne. The country will never accept himpolitics▸
  45. Bailén: twenty thousand French surrender to a Spanish army. The first capitulation of an imperial army, and Europe reads about itdefeat▸
  46. He retakes Madrid himself, but the Spanish war does not end: the guerrilla begins, and so does the wordcampaign▸
  47. Aspern-Essling: Archduke Charles throws him back across the Danube. His first personal defeat in the open field, and Lannes dies in itdefeat▸
  48. Wagram: a hundred thousand rounds of artillery in two days. He wins, but by attrition, no longer by manoeuvrebattle▸
  49. Rome is annexed to the Empire and Pius VII, who excommunicated him, is taken away at night. He stays a prisoner for five yearspolitics▸
  50. Schönbrunn: the Illyrian Provinces are created, from the Isonzo to Dubrovnik. France has a frontier on the Adriatictreaty▸
  51. He divorces Joséphine: she has given him no children. They both weep, and she stays empress by decreelife▸
  52. He marries Marie-Louise of Austria, eighteen, great-niece of Marie Antoinette. The revolutionary has married into the Habsburgslife▸
  53. He annexes his brother Louis's kingdom: Holland was not enforcing the Blockade. Family is not enough to trustpolitics▸
  54. He annexes the North Sea coast as far as Lübeck to shut down smuggling. The Empire reaches the Balticpolitics▸
  55. Nasce il figlio, re di Roma dal primo respiro. Cento colpi di cannone su Parigi; ne regnerà zero giornilife▸
  56. He annexes Catalonia: four French departments with Barcelona as a county town. They last two yearspolitics▸
  57. He crosses the Niemen with six hundred thousand men, the largest army ever assembled in Europe. Fewer than a third are Frenchcampaign▸
  58. Borodino: seventy thousand killed and wounded in a day, the bloodiest battle yet fought. The Russians withdraw in good order, which is what mattersbattle▸
  59. He enters Moscow and finds it empty. That night the city starts to burn: the Russians set it alight, and it burns for four dayscampaign▸
  60. He leaves Moscow after five weeks of waiting for a peace that never comes. Outside it is already late Octobercampaign▸
  61. In Paris General Malet announces that the emperor is dead, and for a few hours everyone believes it, ministers included. Nobody thinks of his sonunrest▸
  62. The Berezina: they cross on two bridges built by sappers standing in freezing water. The army gets across, the Grande Armée does notdefeat▸
  63. He recrosses the Niemen. Of June's six hundred thousand, about twenty-five thousand come back fit to fightdefeat▸
  64. Lützen: he wins again, but with eighteen-year-old conscripts and no cavalry — the horses stayed in Russiabattle▸
  65. Vitoria: Wellington distrugge l'esercito di Spagna. Beethoven ci scrive sopra una sinfoniadefeat▸
  66. Leipzig, the Battle of the Nations: half a million men, four days, and the Saxons changing sides in the middle of the line. Germany is lostdefeat▸
  67. The allies enter France. The Campaign of France begins, which many rate his finest work as a general — forty thousand men against three hundred thousandcampaign▸
  68. Paris capitulates. He does not defend it: there is nothing left to defend it withdefeat▸
  69. Fontainebleau: he abdicates unconditionally. They leave him the island of Elba and the title of emperor — of eighty-six square kilometrespolitics▸
  70. He tries to poison himself with a phial carried back from Russia. The poison is old and does not worklife▸
  71. He lands on Elba and in ten months gives it roads, a mine, a garrison and a flag. He governs twelve thousand peoplelife▸
  72. He lands at Golfe-Juan with seven hundred men. At Grenoble the regiment sent to stop him comes over: he opens his coat and tells them to shoot their emperorcampaign▸
  73. He is carried shoulder-high into the Tuileries as Louis XVIII flees. Twenty-three days without a shot firedpolitics▸
  74. Ligny: he beats the Prussians but does not destroy them, and Blücher retreats in the wrong direction — towards Wellingtonbattle▸
  75. Waterloo: the cavalry charging squares that will not break, the Guard thrown back for the first time, and the Prussians arriving in the afternoon. It ends in a daydefeat▸
  76. He abdicates a second time, in favour of the four-year-old son he will never see againpolitics▸
  77. He gives himself up to the British aboard the Bellerophon at Rochefort, hoping for exile in England. They never let him set foot ashorelife▸
  78. St Helena: eighteen hundred kilometres from the African coast, the remotest inhabited land the British know of. He lives at Longwood, in a damp house, watched at all timeslife▸
  79. The second Treaty of Paris: France goes back to its 1790 borders, pays seven hundred million and stays occupied for five yearstreaty▸
  80. He dies at fifty-one. The last words recorded are "France, armée, tête d'armée, Joséphine". The body returns to Paris in 1840, through two million peopledeath▸

Background reading: the parent article.

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