Few rulers in European history have embarked on such an ambitious expansion of their empire in such a short space of time as Emperor Napoleon I of France between 1803 and 1815. The Napoleonic Wars pitted the French Empire in direct opposition to a variety of separate coalitions of fellow European powers, including Britain, Austria-Hungary, Prussia, Spain, Portugal, Russia and the Netherlands - with the result being that between 4.9million and 7million people perished. Napoleon Bonaparte himself was one of the most experienced military leaders in history - he fought in more than 60 battles throughout his career, losing just seven - and the Corsican-border French Emperor managed to conquer the majority of the continent before his eventual demise in 1815. Defeating five of the seven European coalitions who opposed him, Napoleon's decline began in 1814 after a disastrous invasion of Russia forced him to retreat into France and briefly forced him to abdicate, but the final blow came at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815 when The Duke Of Wellington masterminded a brilliant victory for the opposing powers. The Napoleonic Wars not only resulted in several million deaths - they also forced the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, the emergence of a dominant British Empire, the decline of the Spanish Empire, and an upsurge of nationalism in Italy and Germany. Essentially, this 12-and-a-half-year period of wars in Europe set the world on to the destructive path it would follow over the next 150 years...
NUFC editor for WhatCulture.com/NUFC. History graduate (University of Edinburgh) and NCTJ-trained journalist. I love sports, hopelessly following Newcastle United and Newcastle Falcons. My pastimes include watching and attending sports matches religiously, reading spy books and sampling ales.
