Transcript Napoleon Forges an Empire

Napoleon Forges an Empire
KEY IDEA A military genius,
Napoleon Bonaparte, seized power
in France and made himself
emperor.
Napoleon Bonaparte
 Napoleon Bonaparte was
born in Corsica in 1769.
He was twenty years old
when the revolution
began.
 His parents sent him to
military school in
northern France. At age
16 he became a lieutenant
in the military.
 When the revolution
broke out, he joined the
army of the new
government
The Charismatic Leader
 Napoleon Bonaparte
was a very
charismatic person
that attracted the
admiration of his
men. He was a very
eloquent speaker.
His speeches inspired
his men to great
victories.
The Charismatic Leader
 He was very generous
to his troops. He often
rewarded them with
medals of honor and
valor for their action
on the battlefield.
 He often took medals
off of his won chest and
presented it to a
soldier. He kept extra
medals in his pockets
for such occasions.
Napoleon- Savior of the
Republic
 In October of 1795,
royalist rebels began to
threaten the National
Convention. Napoleon
and his soldiers chased off
the attackers
 For this, he was hailed as
the savior of the French
republic.
 In 1796, the Directory
appointed Napoleon to
lead the French army
against the forces of
Austria and Sardinia.
Hero of the Hour
 Napoleon and his
army swept across
Europe, easily
defeating the
Austrian troops.
 He then turned his
attention to Egypt.
His goal was to
disrupt Great
Britain’s trade with
India. He suffered a
series of defeats in
Egypt. His naval
forces were defeated
by the British navy.
Hero in Egypt?
 Despite his
defeats, he sent
reports to the
Directory boasting
of the stunning
victories against
the British troops.
Coup d’Etat
 By 1799, the unsettled French
government had lost the people’s
support.
 The Directory had begun to lose
control of the political situation
and the confidence of the French
people.
 Abbé Sieyès urged Napoleon to
seize control of the government.
Napoleon Takes Control
 Napoleon and his
wife Josephine
used their social
position to set the
plan in motion.
 They convinced
the Directory to
put Napoleon in
charge of the
entire military.
Josephine
 The day after he was given complete
command of the French military, his
troops drove out the members of the
chamber of the national legislature.
 Under coercion of Napoleon and his
soldiers, the national legislature voted to
dissolve the Directory.
 In its place, the legislature established a
group of three consuls, one of whom was
Napoleon.
 He then enjoyed complete power over the
country.
 Under this new government,
Napoleon quickly assumed the role
of dictator as the “first consul” of the
French Republic.
 Great Britain, Austria and Russia
feared Napoleon’s new power. They
formed an Anti-French, Second
Coalition against him.
 In 1802, after several French
victories, the coalition agreed to
peace.
Napoleon Restores Order
 Once the peace treaties were signed, and the
outside threats were diminished, Napoleon
was free to focus on restoring internal peace
in France.
First Consul
Napoleon acted as if
he was a democratically
chosen leader. In 1800
in a plebiscite vote of
the people, he was given
the power to approve a
new constitution. This
election put the power
of France firmly in the
hands of the First
Consul-Napoleon.
Napoleon’s Reforms
 He made several changes that
were meant to build on the
Revolution’s good ideas. He
supported laws that strengthened
the central government at the
same time supporting some of the
goals of the revolution.
Napoleon’s Reforms
 His first concern was to
strengthen and stabilize the
economy: He made tax
collection more fair and orderly.
As a result, the government
could count on a steady supply
of money.
 His second goal
was to reduce
government
corruption: He
removed dishonest
government
workers.
His third goal was to improve the education
of French children: He started new public
schools (lycees) for ordinary citizens.
 His fourth goal
was to restore the
position of the
church: He gave
the church back
some of its power.
He sighed a new
Concordat with
Pope Pius VII
promising a new
relationship
between the
church and the
government of
France.
The Napoleonic Code
 He wrote a new set of laws that gave
all French citizens the same rights.
 Although this set of laws gave the
country a uniform set of laws, the new
laws took away many individual rights
won during the Revolution --For
example, they limited free speech and
restored slavery in French colonies.
Napoleon Becomes Emperor
 In 1804, Napoleon
declares himself
emperor and
surprisingly, the
French people
support him.
 On December 2,
1804, dressed in a
robe reminiscent of
ancient Roman
emperors, Napoleon
is crowned emperor
by the Pope.
Napoleon Becomes Emperor
 In a gesture
designed to signal
his importance
over the pope’s, he
takes the crown
from the pope and
places it on his
own head.
Expansion of the French Empire
 Napoleon had
hoped to make
his empire
larger in both
Europe and the
New World.
In 1801, he had sent soldiers to retake the
island of present-day Haiti. During a civil
war, slaves on the island had seized power.
But Napoleon had to give up on his plan. Too
many of his soldiers died in battle or from
yellow fever.
 As a result of the peace treaty signed with
Great Britain in 1802, France regained
some of it New World territory.
 He needed to raise money to pay for his
military campaigns so in 1803, he offers to
sell the largest part of France’s North
American land—the huge Louisiana
Territory—to the United States for 15
million dollars.
 Napoleon saw another benefit to sale of
this land. He saw it as a way to inflict a
punishing blow to Britain’s colonial
aspirations in the New World- to keep his
old enemy down.
Signing of the Louisiana Purchase
Napoleon Conquers Europe
 In 1804, he began to quickly captured
country after country. He annexed the
lands in the Austrian Netherlands,
parts of Italy and set up a puppet
government in Switzerland.
 The European nations joined against
him. Once again, Great Britain,
Russia, Austria and Sweden joined in
a coalition to defeat Napoleon.- The
Third Coalition is formed.
The Coalition Seeks Peace
 In a series of battles, Napoleon crushed the
coalition forces.
 After Napoleon won a major battle in Austria in
1805 (the Battle of Austerlitz), almost all of his
European enemies agreed to a peace treaty.
Great Britain Remains Defiant
 Only Great Britain
refused to sign the peace
treaty. Britain believed
that its navy was strong
enough to defeat
Napoleon’s forces.
 At the Battle of Trafalgar,
Napoleon lost a very
important sea battle off of
the coast of Spain.
He was out maneuvered by the same British naval
commander who had defeated him in the Egypt
campaign- Commander Horatio Nelson.
The French Navy is Defeated
 Although this was Napoleon’s only
loss, it prevented him from ever
invading and conquering Britain.
 The destruction of the French fleet
assured the supremacy of the British
navy for the next hundred years.
 His obsession with defeating Great
Britain eventually led to his demise.
The Battle of Trafalgar
 By 1812, only Great
Britain and the
Ottoman Empire,
Portugal and Sweden
were free from
Napoleon’s control.
 He established puppet
governments in many
countries. His own
brother was made King
of Spain. This
appointment had global
ramifications and led to
the revolutions in South
America and Mexico.
 Other countries such a Russia, Prussia and Austria
were loosely attached to Napoleon’s empire through
alliances and easily manipulated by threats of
military action. By 1811, Napoleon had built the
largest empire in Europe since the Roman Empire