Napoleon Bonaparte - real name - Napolione di Buonaparte (born in 1769 - died in 1821)
Emperor of France, politician and genius commander. Thanks to the victorious wars, he significantly expanded the territory of the empire, made most of the states of Western and Central Europe dependent on France. He made a huge contribution to the theory and practice of military art.
Nowadays, his name is associated with immense ambition, with despotic power, with cruel and bloody wars, with an irrepressible thirst for conquest, it brings to mind the horrors of Zaragoza, the plunder of enslaved Germany, the invasion of Russia. However, it also reminds of the courage and courage shown in many battles, of the talent who knew how to dare, of the statesman who inflicted crushing blows on old Europe.
“My life is foreign to villainy; During my entire reign there was not a single action for which I could answer at the trial, I say this without shame, but even with some honor for myself, - wrote a prisoner of St. Helena about himself. "… Of course, there will be mistakes in my life, but Arkol, Rivoli, pyramids, Marengo, Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland are granite: the tooth of envy will do nothing about it."
The military genius of Napoleon Bonaparte, thanks to whom he exerted a tremendous influence on the course of political and military life in Europe for 20 years, was recognized not only by his contemporaries, but also by subsequent generations. In particular, the French writer Stendhal wrote about him: “This man, endowed with extraordinary abilities and the most dangerous ambition, the most amazing in his talent person who lived since the time of Julius Caesar, whom he, we think, surpassed. It was rather created in order to endure adversity with courage and dignity than to be in prosperity, not succumbing to intoxication."
Napoleon was born on August 15, 1769 in the Corsican city of Ajaccio in the family of a small nobleman Carlo Maria Buonaparte and Letizia Ramolino. This happened three months after the conquest of Corsica by the French. The family was not rich and had many children, and the father, trying to give his sons an education at public expense, took the two elders - Joseph and Napoleon - to France in December 1778.
After a short stay at Autun College, Napoleon was placed on a scholarship to the Brienne Military School, where he stayed for 5 years. A distinctive feature of the boy was isolation and unsociability. Peers did not like the Corsican, they laughed at his small stature, accent, violent disposition. Therefore, the future French emperor had to assert his position in fights, where he had no equal.
Napoleon spent his free time reading books and studied very well. He loved subjects such as mathematics, geography and history. In October 1784 he entered the Paris military school, choosing the specialty of artillery. But he managed to study there for only one year. In connection with the death of his father, the young man, having passed the exam in absentia for the entire course and received the rank of junior lieutenant, was forced to return home to help the family.
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These were the times when revolutionary events were brewing in Paris. Political life was raging on the island: under the leadership of Paoli, the struggle of the Corsicans against the French continued. All Napoleon's attempts to get closer to Paoli ended in failure. In 1791 he was awarded the rank of lieutenant, and two years later, due to an acute conflict with the Corsican separatists, he and his family were forced to flee from Corsica to France. The mother with the youngest children settled in Marseilles, and Napoleon himself soon received an appointment to Nice as a battery commander.
The countdown of his military glory dates back to the siege of Toulon, captured by royalist rebels with the support of the British. The siege plan was developed by Captain Bonaparte (this is how Napoleon changed the pronunciation of his surname since 1796), assistant to the chief of artillery of the Republican army that was besieging the city. Skillfully placed batteries made it possible to storm the city and capture it on the fourth day of the siege. This was the young commander's first victory. At 24, he becomes a brigadier general and chief of artillery in the Alpine Army.
However, fortune is changeable. After the counter-revolutionary coup on 9 Thermidor (June 27), 1794, the hero of Toulon was fired from the army and arrested for his connection with the Jacobins. But one of the members of the Barras Directory took the brigadier general to his assistant, and on October 5, 1795, Napoleon decisively suppressed the royalist revolt in Paris with artillery. He was promoted to divisional general and appointed chief of the Paris garrison, commander of the internal troops.
One day in the summer of 1795, General Bonaparte appeared at the house of Theresa Talien, which was reputed to be the most influential Parisian political salon. There he met one of his frequent visitors. It was a 32-year-old Creole woman, Marie-Josephine Tachet de la Pagerie, married Viscountess Beauharnais, the widow of a general who laid his head on the guillotine in 1794. By this time, Napoleon's life experience was not great, especially with regard to women, and the new acquaintance seemed to him extraordinary, charming, the true embodiment of aristocracy.
On Josephine, Napoleon made the impression of an awkward, frivolous young man. But it was impossible to remain only a widow of Beauharnais: she had children - a son and a daughter, they had to be raised, and the money she loved so much was not enough even for the most necessary. Marrying a revolutionary general would firmly insure her, the wife of an executed aristocrat, from the persecution of the new regime.
1796, March - Napoleon married Josephine. At the same time, their marriage contract was full of deliberate inaccuracies: for the sake of his wife, who was 6 years older than Napoleon Bonaparte, the birth years of the “young” were incorrectly indicated: the groom attributed 2 years to himself, the bride subtracted 4 - and the difference disappeared. But although Napoleon was carried away by the strong feeling that completely captured him, he did not for a moment forget about the test ahead of him. For the first time he was entrusted with the command of the army: there could be no third choice to win or die. Three days after the wedding, he was already racing south, to the location of the French army.
The Italian campaign became for him, in fact, the first serious experience of fighting a large foreign army. For two weeks in six battles, the French defeated the Austrian troops and entered Milan. By June, Lombardy was completely cleared of the Austrians, and their last stronghold, Mantua, surrendered in February 1797. Now Bonaparte moved his troops towards Vienna.
During the campaign, he redrawn the map of Italy, creating the Cisalpine Republic, formed a number of puppet governments and plundered Italian artistic treasures, thereby financing the military operations of France. 1797, October 17 - a peace treaty was signed between Austria and France, while Napoleon Bonaparte himself negotiated peace.
After the triumph of the Italian campaign, which turned him into a brilliant commander and hero, Buonaparte immediately removed the extra letters from the name and surname, so that nothing would remind him of his Corsican origin.
From now on, his dreams extended to dominion over France, and there, you see, over the whole world.
The combination of subtle political calculation and semi-fantastic design gave rise to a plan for a campaign in distant Egypt in Napoleon's head, having conquered which, he believed, it would be possible to defeat England. A year after the victorious Italian campaign, in May 1798, Napoleon set out on a new campaign. In June, he captured Malta, and a month later he landed in Alexandria. Together with the army, scientists, researchers and artists arrived in Egypt, thus laying the foundation for a new science of Egyptology.
In the Battle of the Pyramids, the French defeated the Mamluks, and Bonaparte became the de facto ruler of Egypt. With his inherent wisdom, he ensured the preservation of Islamic laws, wore a turban and attended a mosque, which delighted the local population.
For several months he did not know anything about affairs in Europe, and when he learned from a random newspaper that England, Austria and Russia had started a new war against France, he hastily returned to Paris to overthrow the Directory in a month and become the sovereign dictator of France.
Napoleon Bonaparte has changed. While still in Italy and Egypt, he believed in his great destiny. If earlier he needed only Josephine, “alone or together with Paris,” as the Russian poet said, now he spoke differently: “I have only one passion, only one mistress - this is France. I sleep with her. She never cheated on me, she gives her blood and wealth to me”.
Josephine at that time directed all her efforts to ensure that the luxury, wealth and splendor of the Tuileries Palace overshadowed all the palaces of the European monarchies. Now a courtyard was created here - the courtyard of the first consul. Napoleon's birthday was declared a national holiday. And Madame Bonaparte had four ladies-in-waiting, of course from old aristocratic families. Instead of the words "citizen" and "citizen", the addresses "madam" and "monsieur" returned. And now it was not Citizen Bonaparte who was in power, but Napoleon. It’s unheard of: after all, only kings are called by name, and this dodger, playing in the republic, founded a new dynasty.
1800 May - A new Italian campaign begins. Crossing the Alps, in the battle of Marengo, Bonaparte was able to defeat the Austrian army, which was almost twice his strength. Northern Italy became French again. At the same time, he began transformations in the domestic and economic policy of the country.
A body of civil laws known as the Napoleonic Code was adopted; a concordat was concluded with Pope Pius VII, according to which Catholicism became the state religion; administrative reform was carried out with the establishment of departments accountable to the government of prefects and the appointment of mayors to cities and villages; a system of secondary schools, lyceums and higher educational institutions - Normal and Polytechnic schools; a state bank was established to store the gold reserve and issue paper money; the tax collection system was reformed.
The economic policy of Napoleon Bonaparte was aimed at ensuring the primacy of the French bourgeoisie in the European market. For this, a continental blockade of England was introduced, to which all states dependent on France were to join. 1796-1809 - the period of the greatest flowering of Bonaparte's physical and spiritual powers.
He alone did what a hundred people could hardly do. The first consul could be content with two or three hours of sleep per day, and if necessary, he could not sleep for three days. Meanwhile, hostilities continued, and Napoleon always acted unexpectedly for the enemy, seizing the initiative into his own hands: on October 20, 1805, the French defeated the Austrians at Ulm, on December 2, the Russian-Austrian troops at Austerlitz.
The more Napoleon's fame expanded and his power was consolidated, the more Josephine clung to the title of Napoleon's wife. While he, no longer loving her, every year more and more cheated on her. They changed roles: Josephine's indifference, which once tormented Napoleon so much, was replaced by the unbridled passion of an aging woman. She was especially afraid that one of the many favorites, having given birth to a son, would take her place.
But Napoleon was able to pacify Josephine, with whom at that time he could not yet, and did not want to part. He gave her all the assurances required and, in order to completely calm him down, offered to marry her daughter Hortense to his younger brother Louis, and then adopt children from this union. This ingenious version of political marriage took into account everything except the mutual inclination of the parties. The marriage of Hortense and Louis was unhappy, and the couple soon actually separated. But this happened later, but for now Napoleon was able to drown out his wife's suspicions.
1804, December - by decree of the Senate he was proclaimed emperor of France. The silver coins that were issued after this event were marked: “French Republic. Emperor Napoleon I. Josephine became empress, brothers Joseph and Louis became princes of the imperial house. They were now entitled to their own palaces and courtyards.
The emperor, however, moved further and further away from his wife and found solace in the company of numerous mistresses who could not refuse the newly-made French emperor.
The Warsaw winter of 1807 will forever remain in Bonaparte's memory. After difficult crossings along winding winding roads among endless forests, living rooms flooded with light, the sounds of polonaise, French speech natural for the Poles, admiration, enthusiastic expectations … This winter, the 19-year-old wife of an elderly Polish count Maria Walewska entered his life. And 38-year-old Napoleon Bonaparte felt that he could be loved not because he was the emperor, but for his own sake.
The second meeting between the emperor and Walewski took place in Vienna two years later. This was preceded by her letter in which she asked if he wanted to see her. Napoleon sent a reply in which he asked to come as soon as possible, assuring her of complete devotion and love. Maria Valevskaya has arrived. And after a while it turned out that she was pregnant.
At first, Bonaparte was happy: finally, he will have an heir to the imperial crown, the successor of the dynasty. But big politics intervened in the fate of the unborn child. Napoleon began to be overcome by vain thoughts: would the French people accept the son of a Polish countess as the heir to the throne? Wouldn't that offend feelings of French grandeur? These doubts returned the emperor to the thought, which had amazed his vanity and had already become familiar: only a princess of one of the oldest European imperial dynasties can be the mother of the heir to his glory and throne.
He said goodbye to Valevskaya hastily, almost coldly, explaining hastily that urgent state affairs require him to return to Paris. Not a word was said about the future. Soon, Maria had a son, who went down in history under the name of Count Walewski, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Second Empire. But he did not go further than this, since Napoleon III - the nephew of the great emperor - was not inclined to encourage the success of a direct descendant of the founder of the dynasty. Count Walewski had to step aside. He got lost in the crowd of petty court nobility and died in 1868.
Napoleon Bonaparte, returning to Paris, immediately forgot both about his son and about the woman, without whom, as he recently thought, there was no life. Apparently, he was even pleased that he had not succumbed to sentimentality and unforgivable weakness. It was time to crown the edifice of the empire with a splendid marriage.
1808 - Napoleon instructed his minister Talleyrand to inform the Russian tsar that he was going to divorce Josephine and asked for the hand of one of the grand duchesses, "to strengthen the deeds and dynasty of the emperor with a new marriage union." The Grand Duchess Catherine, the only one of marriageable age, was not averse to becoming a French empress, but Alexander I would never have agreed to sacrifice his beloved sister to the Minotaur.
The mere thought that the Russian Grand Duchess would replace the slut Josephine in Napoleon's bed made him indignant. Therefore, he hastily betrothed Catherine to a petty German prince, the Duke of Oldenburg. The Viennese court, on the other hand, readily responded to Talleyrand's similar hints. And the pedigree of the not very beautiful Maria Louise of Austria suited the French side quite well.
1809, December 15 - the emperor divorced Josephine, and on April 1, 1810, a solemn act of formalizing a civil wedding with Marie Louise took place in Saint-Cloud, and the next day in the Louvre, a church ceremony. In this regard, great celebrations took place throughout the empire, but neither the people, nor the army, nor even the obedient elite in everything did not approve of this marriage. The "Austrian", a princess from the House of Habsburgs, again became Empress of France. Was this why Marie Antoinette was executed so that 15 years later her niece, who bears almost the same name, would ascend the throne of France? There was something about this marriage that was offensive to the French nation.
Politically, the "Austrian marriage" did not and could not give the advantages that Napoleon Bonaparte hoped for. He did not strengthen the prestige of the dynasty either within the country or outside it. Apparently, at first Napoleon was absorbed in a new situation that changed a lot in his life. It is quite possible that marriage to a young girl gave new strength to the aging emperor.
But this did not last long. Maria Louise was completely indifferent to her husband. She unquestioningly fulfilled his requirements, conscientiously performed marital duties, but nothing more. In March 1811, she gave birth to a son to Napoleon, for whom his father had already prepared the throne of the Roman king. But even the long-awaited fatherhood did not bring happiness to Bonaparte, he felt even more lonely than before.
After Austerlitz, Napoleon himself said: “There is a time for success in military affairs; I will be fit for another six years, after which I myself must stop. " But he didn't stop. At the end of June 1812, Napoleon's troops crossed the Russian border. And then there was Borodino, the flight from Moscow, the disastrous crossing of the Berezina. Almost half a million French soldiers were killed in Russia - the "Grand Army" practically ceased to exist. And when in December 1812 in Warsaw Stanislav Pototsky asked the emperor: “Your Majesty! How could all this have happened? " - Napoleon replied: "There is only one step from the great to the ridiculous."
1813 Bonaparte was still fighting in Europe. In May he struck a surprise blow at the Allied forces at Lutzen, in October the famous "Battle of the Nations" took place at Leipzig. In the battles at Saint-Dizier, at Brienne, at Chamaubert, the French emperor again showed remarkable talent as a military leader. And yet, in April 1814, after Russian troops occupied Paris, it fell. Napoleon signed a treaty retaining the title of emperor for him and giving him the island of Elba for life, and he immediately departed there.
But the obligations assumed under the Fontainebleau agreement were not fulfilled. Napoleon Bonaparte was separated from his wife Maria Luisa and his son. In Paris, they feared the future of Napoleon II, and in order to make it impossible for the successor of the Bonaparte dynasty to appear on the throne, it was decided to turn the son of the French emperor into an Austrian prince. His father was to be replaced by his grandfather, Emperor Franz, in whose palace the future Duke of Reichstadt was brought up.
But finally a great commander, statesman, a man of extraordinary fate, Napoleon Bonaparte left the historical scene in July 1815 after a failed attempt to regain power as a result of a military coup. Six years after that, on the rocky island of St. Helena lost in the ocean, the life of a man who survived his glory still glimmered. It was the agony of a prisoner doomed to a slow death that stretched out over many months. He died all alone on May 5, 1821 from stomach cancer.
There is no doubt that Napoleon was a man of genius. But other equally gifted people lived in France at that time. Among them, for example, was Massena, recognized by military authorities as a much more capable commander than the emperor, and Moro, as a strategist who was in no way inferior to Bonaparte. However, only Napoleon had an amazing ability to hypnotize the masses, instill in them with nothing unshakable self-confidence, almost always reaching the point of self-denial, to the loss of the instinct of self-preservation. Bonaparte skillfully used this ability, it was in it that the secret of his brilliant victories was hidden.
Napoleon constantly risked his life, risked and won. So it was before the fateful campaign to Russia, where happiness turned away from him. Constant successes, which he always very skillfully decorated, made him popular among the people, and he skillfully used it to climb to such a height that he did not dare to dream of at the beginning of his life.
O. Ochkurova, G. Shcherbak