Biography of Napoleon Bonaparte

Napoleon's father Carlo Buonaparte was Corsica's representative to the court of Louis XVI
Napoleon was born in the town of Ajaccio on Corsica, on 15 August 1769, one year after the island was transferred to France by the Republic of Genoa.[1] He was named Napoleone di Buonaparte (in Corsican, Nabolione or Nabulione), though he later adopted the more French-sounding Napoléon Bonaparte.[note 1] Napoleon wrote to Pasquale di Paoli—leader of a Corsican revolt against the French—in 1789: "I was born when my country was dying. Thirty thousand French, vomited on our shores, drowning the throne of liberty in waves of blood- such was the horrid sight which first met my view."[1] His heritage earned him popularity among Italians during his Italian campaigns.[2]
The family were minor Italian nobility of Tuscan origin, which had moved to Florence and broke into two branches; the original branch, Buonaparte-Sarzana, were compelled to leave Florence after the defeat of the Ghibellines and came to Corsica in the 16th century, when the island was still a possession of Genoa.[3]
His father Carlo Buonaparte, an attorney, was named Corsica's representative to the court of Louis XVI in 1778, where he remained for a number of years. The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, Maria Letizia Ramolino, whose firm discipline helped restrain the rambunctious Napoleon.[4][1]
Napoleon had an elder brother, Joseph, and younger siblings Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline and Jerome. He was baptised Catholic just before his second birthday, on 21 July 1771 at Ajaccio Cathedral.[5]
Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background and family connections afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to a typical Corsican of the time. On 15 May 1779, at age nine, Napoleon was admitted to a French military school at Brienne-le-Château, a small town near Troyes. He had to learn French before entering the school, but he spoke with a marked Italian accent throughout his life and never learned to spell properly.[6] During these school years Napoleon was teased by other students for his Corsican accent and he buried himself in study.[7][note 2] Upon completing the school in 1784, Bonaparte was admitted to the elite Ecole Militaire (Military college) in Paris. Though he had initially sought a naval assignment, he studied artillery and completed the two-year course of study in one year.[8] An examiner judged him as "very applied [to] abstract sciences, little curious as to the others; a thorough knowledge of mathematics and geography."[9][note 3]
Early career
Upon graduation in September 1785, he was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fere artillery regiment and took up his new duties at the age of 16.[10] Napoleon served on garrison duty in Valence and Auxonne until after the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, although he took nearly two years of leave in Corsica and Paris during this period. He spent most of the next four years in Corsica, where a complex three-way struggle was playing out between royalists, revolutionaries, and Corsican nationalists. Bonaparte supported the Jacobin faction and gained the rank of lieutenant-colonel of a regiment of volunteers. After coming into conflict with the increasingly conservative nationalist leader, Pasquale Paoli, Bonaparte and his family fled to the French mainland in June 1793.[11]
Through the help of fellow Corsican Saliceti, Napoleon was appointed artillery commander of the French forces besieging Toulon, which had risen in revolt against the republican government and was occupied by British troops.[12] He spotted an ideal place for French guns to be set up so they could dominate the city's harbour, and the British ships would be forced to evacuate. The assault on the position, during which Bonaparte was wounded in the thigh, led to the recapture of the city and his promotion to Brigadier General. His actions brought him to the attention of the Committee of Public Safety, and he became a close associate of Augustin Robespierre, younger brother of the Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre.[13] Following the fall of the elder Robespierre he was briefly imprisoned in the Chateau d'Antibes in August 1794, but was released within two weeks.[14] He also became engaged to Desiree Clary, later Queen of Sweden and Norway, but the engagement was broken off by Napoleon in 1796.[15]
13 Vendemiaire
Main article: 13 Vendemiaire
Bonaparte was serving in Paris when royalists and counter-revolutionaries organised an armed protest against the National Convention on 3 October 1795. Bonaparte was given command of the improvised forces defending the Convention in the Tuileries Palace. He seized artillery pieces with the aid of a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat, who later became his brother-in-law, and used it to repel the attackers, 300 of whom died and the rest fled.[16][note 4] The defeat of the Royalist insurrection extinguished the threat to the Convention and earned him sudden fame, wealth, and the patronage of the new Directory, particularly that of its leader, Barras. Napoleon was quickly promoted to General de Division and within six months, he was given command of the French Army of Italy. Also, within weeks of Vendemiaire he was romantically attached to Barras's former mistress, Josephine de Beauharnais, whom he married on 9 March 1796.[17]
First Italian campaign
Main articles: French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1796 and French Revolutionary Wars: Campaigns of 1797
Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy leading it on a successful invasion of Italy. At the battles of Montenotte and Lodi, he defeated Austrian forces, then drove them out of Lombardy and defeated the army of the Papal States.[18] Pope Pius VI had protested at the execution of Louis XVI, so France retaliated by annexing two small papal territories.


Napoleon at the Bridge of the Arcole, by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, (ca. 1801), Louvre, Paris
Bonaparte ignored the Directory's order to march on Rome and dethrone the Pope. It was not until February of the following year that General Berthier captured Rome and took Pius VI prisoner. The Pope died of illness while in captivity. In early 1797, Bonaparte led his army into Austria and forced it to sue for peace. The resulting Treaty of Campo Formio gave France control of most of northern Italy, along with the Low Countries and Rhineland, but a secret clause promised Venice to Austria.[19] Bonaparte then marched on Venice and forced its surrender, ending more than 1,000 years of independence. Later in 1797, Bonaparte organised many of the French-dominated territories in Italy into the Cisalpine Republic.
His series of military triumphs was a result of his ability to apply his knowledge of conventional military thought to real-world situations, as demonstrated by his creative use of artillery tactics, using it as a mobile force to support his infantry. As he described it: "...Although I have fought sixty battles, I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning. Look at Caesar; he fought the first like the last."[20] Contemporary paintings of his headquarters during the Italian campaign depict his use of the Chappe semaphore line, first implemented in 1792. He was also adept at both intelligence and deception and had a sense of when to strike. He often won battles by concentrating his forces on an unsuspecting enemy, by using spies to gather information about opposing forces, and by concealing his own troop deployments. In this campaign, often considered his greatest, Napoleon's army captured 160,000 prisoners, 2,000 cannons and 170 standards.[21] A year of campaigning had witnessed breaks with the traditional norms of 18th century warfare and marked a new era in military history.
While campaigning in Italy, General Bonaparte became increasingly influential in French politics. He published two newspapers, ostensibly for the troops in his army, but widely circulated within France as well. In May 1797 he founded a third newspaper, published in Paris, Le Journal de Bonaparte et des hommes vertueux.[22] Elections in mid-1797 gave the royalist party increased power, alarming Barras and his allies on the Directory.[23] The royalists, in turn, began attacking Bonaparte for looting Italy and overstepping his authority in dealings with the Austrians. Bonaparte sent General Augereau to Paris to lead a coup d'etat and purge the royalists on 4 September (18 Fructidor). This left Barras and his Republican allies in firm control again, but dependent on Bonaparte to maintain it. Bonaparte himself proceeded to the peace negotiations with Austria, then returned to Paris in December as the conquering hero and the dominant force in government, more popular than the Directors.[24]
Egyptian expedition
Main article: French Invasion of Egypt (1798)
In March 1798, Bonaparte proposed a military expedition to seize Egypt, then a province of the Ottoman Empire, seeking to protect French trade interests and undermine Britain's access to India. The Directory, though troubled by the scope and cost of the enterprise, readily agreed so the popular general would be away from the center of power.[25]


Battle of the Nile by Thomas Luny
In May, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. His Egyptian expedition included a group of 167 scientists: mathematicians, naturalists, chemists and geodesers among them; their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone and their work was published in the Description of Egypt in 1809.[26] This deployment of intellectual resources is considered by Ahmed Youssef an indication of Bonaparte's devotion to the principles of the Enlightenment, and by Juan Cole as a masterstroke of propaganda, obfuscating the true imperialist motives of the invasion.[27] In a largely unsuccessful effort to gain the support of the Egyptian populace, Bonaparte also issued proclamations casting himself as a liberator of the people from Ottoman oppression, and praising the precepts of Islam.[note 5]
En route to his campaign in Egypt, Napoleon seized Malta on 9 June 1798. Requesting safe harbor to resupply his ships, he waited until his ships were safely in port, and then turned his guns on his hosts. The Knights of Malta were unable to defend themselves from this attack.
On 1 July, Napoleon landed successfully at Alexandria, temporarily eluding pursuit by the British Royal Navy. After landing he successfully fought The Battle of Chobrakit against the Mamelukes, an old power in the Middle East. This battle helped the French plan their attack in the Battle of the Pyramids fought over a week later, about 6 km from the pyramids. Bonaparte's forces were greatly outnumbered by the Mamelukes cavalry - 20,000 against 60,000 - but Bonaparte formed hollow squares, keeping supplies safely on the inside. In all, 300 French and approximately 6,000 Egyptians were killed.[28]
While the battle on land was a resounding French victory, the British Royal Navy managed to win at sea. The ships that had landed Bonaparte and his army sailed back to France, while a fleet of ships of the line remained to support the army along the coast. On 1 August the British fleet under Horatio Nelson fought the French in the Battle of the Nile, capturing or destroying all but two French vessels. With Bonaparte land-bound, his goal of strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean Sea was frustrated, but his army succeeded in consolidating power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings.[29]


Bonaparte Before the Sphinx, (ca. 1868) by Jean-Leon Gerome, Hearst Castle
In early 1799, he led the army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and northern Israel) and defeated numerically superior Ottoman forces in several battles, but his army was weakened by disease—mostly bubonic plague—and poor supplies. Napoleon led 13,000 French soldiers to the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish, Gaza, Jaffa, and Haifa.[30]
The storming of Jaffa was particularly brutal. Though the French took control of the city within a few hours of the attack beginning, the French soldiers bayoneted approximately 2,000 Turkish soldiers trying to surrender. The soldiers then turned on the inhabitants of the town. Men, women, and children were robbed and murdered for three days, and the massacre ended with even more bloodshed, as Napoleon ordered 3,000 Turkish prisoners executed.[30]
With his army weakened by the plague, Napoleon was unable to reduce the fortress of Acre, and returned to Egypt in May. To speed up the retreat, he took the controversial step of ordering the poisoning of plague-stricken men along the way; it is not clear how many died.[31] His supporters have argued this decision was necessary given the continuing harassment of stragglers by Ottoman forces. Back in Egypt, on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir.[32] With the Egyptian campaign stagnating, and political instability developing back home, Bonaparte left Egypt for France in August 1799, leaving his army under General Kleber.[33]
Marriages and children


Napoleon's second wife, Marie Louise with her son Napoleon II
Napoleon married Josephine de Beauharnais in 1796, when he was 26. He formally adopted her son Eugene and cousin Stephanie after assuming the throne, and arranged dynastic marriages for them. Josephine had her daughter Hortense marry Napoleon's brother, Louis.[96]
Napoleon's and Josephine's marriage was unconventional, and both were known to have affairs. Josephine agreed to divorce so he could remarry in the hopes of producing an heir.[97] Therefore in March 1810, he married Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria by proxy; he had married into the family of German rulers.[note 23] They remained married until his death, though she did not join him in exile. The couple had one child Napoleon Francis Joseph Charles (1811–32), known from birth as the King of Rome. He was later Napoleon II though he reigned for only two weeks. He was awarded the title of the Duke of Reichstadt in 1818 and had no children himself.
Napoleon acknowledged two illegitimate children:
• Charles, Count Leon, (1806–81) by Louise Catherine Eleonore Denuelle de la Plaigne
• Alexandre Joseph Colonna, Count Walewski, (1810-68) by Countess Walewski.
He may have had further illegitimate offspring:
• Emilie Pellapra, (1806-71) by Françoise-Marie LeRoy
• Karl Eugin von Mühlfeld, by Victoria Kraus
• Hélène Napoleone Bonaparte (1816-1910) by Countess Albine de Montholon
• Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire, whose mother remains unknown
sumber: wikipedia