After the battle of Friedland, where Napoleon defeated the Russians, Alexander of Russia negotiated this treaty that would bring peace to Russia. Although the plan was for the three to have equal power, Napoleon quickly became the most powerful.īattle of Austerlitz, where Napoleon defeated the Third Coalition (actually the first coalition mounted against him, rather than against the Revolutionary troops.) Generally viewed as one of his most brilliant battles, the Battle of Austerlitz was fought in what is now the Czech Republic, with Napoleon trouncing the armies of the Austrian and Russian Empires. This was his first major victory.Ĭoup d’état that established Napoleon as First Consul of France, part of a triumvirate that included Cambacérès and Lebrun. Napoleon took over the French “Army of Italy,” drove the Austrians and Sardinians out of Piedmont, defeated the Papal States, and occupied Venice. Helena in the South Atlantic, where he died in 1821. He spent the rest of his life in exile on the island of St. This brief return to power is known as the Hundred Days, but ended definitively with the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. The next year, he escaped from Elba and marched on Paris, collecting an army as he went. He was sent in exile to the island of Elba. The defeat at the Battle of Leipzig the next year was the death knell for the Emperor, and he abdicated the next April after the Allied Coalition invaded France. The disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812 marked a turning point. Over the next ten years, the armies of France under his command fought almost every European power, and acquired control of most of continental Europe by conquest or alliance. In 1799, he led a coup d'état and was appointed First Consul within a few years he named himself Emperor and set out to claim an empire. He rose quickly to general, gaining fame and power as he won victory after victory. He attended France's prestigious Ecole Militaire and was serving in the army when the French Revolution started.

Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the island of Corsica in 1769 to an Italian family that was given French noble status nine years later.

Frederick william iii congress vienna