The meteoric rise of Napoleon Bonaparte, France's most iconic general

Napoleon Bonaparte was born in the city of Ajaccio, on the island of Corsica, on the 15th of August 1769.

His father was a lawyer called Carlo, and his mother was Maria-Letizia Ramolino.  

At the time, Corsica was owned by France and had only recently been taken away from the control of the northern Italian city of Genoa in 1768.

This had occurred in 1768, just a year before Napoleon's birth.

A number of Corsicans were angry at French dominance and launched an armed resistance against them, led by a local noble called Pasquale Paoli.

Napoleon’s father was one of the resisters.

However, Paoli was eventually forced to flee from Corsica for his own safety.

As a result, many of the resisters, including Carlo, decided to accept French rule.

Napoleon’s father then worked hard to earn his family a respected position in French society, and managed to gain official recognition of the Bonapartes among the French nobility.

Due to this, Carlo’s children were able to enroll in schools on the French mainland.  

In 1778, Carlo’s eldest sons, Joseph and Napoleon, were successfully accepted as students to the Collège d’Autun in France.

The nine-year-old Napoleon spent three months there, where he focused on developing his mastery of the French language.

Then, he entered the military college at Brienne-le-Château. He spent five years studying for a career in the army before transferring to the École Militaire in Paris for one additional year, where he focused on becoming an artillery commander. 

While he was in Paris, Napoleon received word that his father had died in February 1785.

Then, in September of 1785, at the age of 16, Napoleon graduated from the military academy to begin his military career. 

Napoleon’s first appointment was as second lieutenant of an artillery regiment in Valence.

In September 1786, he returned to Corsica and didn’t return to France until June 1788.

Then, in May 1789, the French Revolution broke out. While Napoleon had sympathies for the revolutionaries, he initially remained loyal to King Louis XVI, which he thought was important to do if he wanted to get military promotions. 

However, when a new political body, known as the National Assembly, took charge of France in 1789, Napoleon became more aligned with the revolution.

During this time, Napoleon made several visits back to Corsica and continued his military duties.

By 1791, he joined one of the most extreme revolutionary groups, called the Jacobin Club, where he developed an appreciation of the aims of the revolution. 

In September of 1791 he once more visited Corsica where Paoli had returned to power.

Unfortunately, Paoli had not forgiven the Bonapartes for Napoleon’s father’s failure to continue the resistance against France years prior.

Then, in April of 1793, Paoli started a civil war against the French revolutionary government, and he banished the Bonaparte family.

Napoleon, and the rest of his family, fled to mainland France. 

Napoleon rejoined his artillery regiment at the city of Nice in June 1793. By this time, a new political body had taken charge of France, called the National Convention, which had abolished the French monarchy.

King Louis XVI had been executed on the 21st of January 1793. Not all French people were happy with the National Convention and pockets of armed resistance appeared around the country. 

Suddenly, Napoleon’s role in the army would place him in a unique position to enjoy the military glory he had sought since his graduation. 

By August of 1793, the National Convention’s armies had captured the city of Marseille from the resistance, but they failed to capture Toulon.

The royalist rebels had found an ally in the British, which had been supplying them with food and ammunition to prolong the resistance.  

The commander of the National Convention’s artillery was suddenly wounded during the siege of Toulon.

The commissioner to the army, Antoine Saliceti, who was a long-time friend of the Bonapartes, promoted Napoleon to the position of artillery officer in October of 1793.

Now in command, Napoleon attacked the city with a new artillery attack. The British troops found it impossible to defend the city and evacuated Toulon on the 17th.

Despite being wounded in the fighting on the 16th of December, Napoleon helped to capture Toulon on the 18th of December 1793.  

In recognition of his part in the victory, the 24-year-old Napoleon was promoted to a brigadier general.

In February of the following year, Napoleon was appointed as artillery commandant of the Revolutionary army of Italy. 

In July 1794, with the death of the architect of the Reign of Terror in Paris, Maximilien Robespierre, Napoleon was arrested due to his association with Augustin Robespierre, Maximilien's brother.

While he was eventually set free in September 1794, he did not regain his previous military position.

Without direction, Napoleon spent time in Paris, looking for a new military command. 

A year later, in October 1795, when the National Convention was due to hand over political power to the new Directory system, a sudden royalist uprising occurred, which aimed to overthrow the government.

A politician called Paul Barras was handed dictatorial powers by the National Convention in order to crush the armed revolt.

Barras called upon Napoleon to lead the troops in the streets of Paris against the rebels.  

Excited about his new commission, Napoleon ordered an artillery unit to take up position at a bridge that the rebels needed to cross in order to overthrow the Convention.

As the armed royalists approached on the 5th of October (called 13 Vendémiaire at the time), Napoleon gave the order to fire on them.

In response to the artillery fire, the rebels fled, and Napoleon was credited with saving the revolutionary government. 

Napoleon’s achievements on 13 Vendémiaire earned him the respect of the new Directory government.

As a reward, he was given command of the Army of Italy in March 1796.

Thrilled with a new opportunity to win military glory, Napoleon joined his forces at the city of Nice, but was shocked to find that his force of 30,000 men were under-trained and unprepared for a genuine military campaign. 

Napoleon spent an intensive month of training and provisioning to get his army ready, before finally invading Italy on the 12th of April 1796.

A coalition of Austrian and Sardinian armies were quickly defeated and the King of Sardinia signed a peace treaty in Paris on May 15.

As a result, Nice and Savoy were officially handed over to France. Bonaparte marched further into Italy and captured Milan.

He signed peace deals with the duke of Parma, the duke of Modena, and even with Pope Pius VI.

The important city of Mantua was placed under siege.

The newly captured regions of Italy were given new government systems that were closely modelled on the French revolutionary system and were called ‘Republican regimes’.

In October 1796, Napoleon created the ‘Cisalpine Republic’, which absorbed the territories of Modena, Bologna and Ferrara. 

The armies of Austria tried to recapture Mantua on four separate occasions but were defeated by Napoleon each time.

After a crushing defeat at Rivoli in January of 1797, Mantua finally surrendered to the French.  

Napoleon decided to take the fight directly to Austria and marched towards the capital city of Vienna.

When he was around 100 kilometers from the city, the Austrians asked for peace.

Napoleon was happy to do so, but asked for humiliating terms. Austria had to hand over the southern Netherlands to France, and officially recognise Napoleon’s newly reorganised Italian territories.

The Austrians had no choice but to sign the Treaty of Campo Formio on the 17th of October 1797, and Napoleon’s First Italian Campaign came to an end with an overwhelming French victory. 

Napoleon’s popularity with the French people was now at an all-time high. However, France was still at war with Britain, who was the greatest sea power of the age.

The Directory considered sending Napoleon on an invasion of the British Isles.

However, Napoleon refused to do so until the British navy lost control of the English Channel. 

As an alternative, Napoleon proposed that he should lead an invasion of the Ottoman-control territory of Egypt.

At this time, Egypt was strategically important to Britain due to its location, which allowed access to India.

By capturing it, Napoleon hoped to cut off a key source of wealth needed to maintain the vast British navy.

Napoleon spent the winter of 1797-8 mustering an army and a navy in complete secrecy.

He had to make sure that the massive British fleet in the Mediterranean Sea did not know about the expedition.

Once had set out from the port of Toulon on the 9th of May 1798, he managed to successfully avoid contact with the British fleet.

On the way to Egypt, the French quickly took control of Malta and, on the 1st of July, 1798, the French landed 35,000 soldiers in Egypt.

The French fleet was ordered to wait for further orders in Abu Qir Bay. 

The important Egyptian coastal city of Alexandria was captured by Napoleon on the night of July 1.

Then, on July 3rd, Napoleon marched his soldiers south toward the capital city of Cairo.

They arrived on the outskirts of the city on the 21st of July and encountered a defending army of 10,000 Mamelukes cavalry.

A battle took place, which became known as the Battle of the Pyramids, as the ancient structures could be seen nearby.

In less than an hour, Napoleon had won, and three days later, he captured Cairo. Egypt was now under his control.

Unfortunately, the British fleet fought the French ships on August 1 and completely destroyed them in the Battle of Abū Qīr Bay.

The British Commander, Admiral Horatio Nelson, called this the Battle of the Nile. With the loss of his ships, Napoleon was trapped in Egypt.  

In an effort to find an escape route, Bonaparte marched his army into Syria in February 1799.

He failed to capture the city Acre, which was held by the British and, by May, Napoleon’s forces were in a sorry state.

His control of Egypt and Syria was slipping away. The French commander then heard that a new coalition of Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and the Ottomans had declared war against France.

French armies in Italy were quickly defeated in 1799 and Italy broke away from French control.

Napoleon also received worrying news about political development in Paris. The Directory government had been dominated by radical elements who were expelling politicians of opposing views.

It was said that it was plagued by corruption and inefficiency, which was causing widespread dissatisfaction among the people of France.

One of the directors, called Emmanuel Sieyès, argued that the army needed to step in and restore order.  

Knowing that his Egyptian expedition was on the brink of failure, and convinced he was best placed to restore political order in Paris, he decided to abandon his army in Egypt and return to France.

He finally arrived in Paris on the 14th of October 1799 and received a hero's welcome among the people. 

During the rest of October, Napoleon formed a political alliance with two other leading politicians: Roger Ducos and Emmanuel Sieyés.

Together, they planned to overthrow the Directory, which they believed was now too corrupt.

On the 18th of the month of Brumaire (9th November 1799) Napoleon confronted the councils of the Directory and demanded that a new government be formed.  

In response to his demands, a fight broke out and Napoleon reportedly received a scratch across the face.

News quickly spread throughout the streets of Paris that the councils had attacked France's most famous general. 

Napoleon and two other men then seized control of the councils and set up a provisional government in order to force changes through.

The old directors were forced to resign, the councils were disbanded, and a new government, called the Consulate, was to replace it.

The three members of the coup, Bonaparte, Sieyès and Ducos, were the three Consuls of the provisional version of the Consulate, who put together the new system.

However, when the full Consulate system was put into effect, Napoleon had already used his influence to replace Sieyès and Ducos, who he had begun to see as threats to his own growing power.

So, Napoleon would be given the role of First Consul in the new government, which held most of the power, while Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès was as the Second Consul, and Charles-François Lebrun was the Third Consul.

In reality though, these other two men would hold little influence, and it would be Napoleon that would go on to rule France for over a decade.