Napoleon which country

Britain, where Napoleon did not impose his system of laws and regulations, was slower in adopting the metric system. Bit by bit, Napoleon's armies carried parts of the French Revolution throughout Europe, provoking a kind of "Revolution without revolution" on the continent. All of this was done without concentration camps, and Fouche's secret police was almost entirely for spying, almost never for killing. As attempts to take over Europe go, Napoleon's can be seen as a fairly positive event in many ways.

From , other than the continued threat posed by Britain, Napoleon's dream of a unified Europe, envisioned by poets and kings such as Dante and Charles V, appeared a distinct possibility. It is important to note, however, that the process of making conquered peoples loyal to a foreign regime is not quite as easy as the above description may have made it sound.

In fact, just as Napoleon's empire reached its greatest size his system of satellite kingdoms ruled by members of his family was beginning to crumble.

Napoleon's displeasure at Louis Bonaparte's too independent behavior as king of Holland, especially in circumventing the Continental System, led to his deposition and the annexation of the kingdom to France in July His brother Joseph was merely a shadow king of Spain, where the tide of war ebbed and flowed between Napoleon's marshals on the one hand and British, Spanish, and Portuguese forces supported by Spanish guerillas on the other.

Napoleon's military strategy had always been based on concentrating his own and the enemy's forces to his advantage and delivering a decisive blow, as at Austerlitz or Wagram. Such an approach was completely inapplicable in Spain, where even at the moments of greatest French power the rebels always held some territory, however little, and the guerillas could never be decisively subjugated.

In fact, the military term guerilla was coined at this period is the word's first recorded usage to describe the fighting style of the Spaniards who resisted the French occupation, for the word guerilla is the diminuitive of the Spanish word guerra, which means war. Similarly, during the height of the Napoleon's empire nationalist sentiments emerged all over the continent, as people again desired the British goods the Continental System deprived them of, and became increasingly disgusted with Napoleon's egomania.

Though, as was mentioned above, the ruler's of European states nominally declared war on Britain much of public sentiment was more anti-French than anti-British. Freedom of religion was guaranteed under the new constitution; Protestants would be able to practice their religion, and Napoleon took steps to emancipate the Jews.

This had been done initially during the Revolution itself in the first constitution. Napoleon would take additional steps in this direction. The new constitution also called for freedom of profession. It dealt the final deathblow to the old guilds, and it was a bow toward the new forces of commercial capitalism and industrialization in France. What it did was to signal to liberal economic elements that this was going to be a regime that would adopt policies that were favorable to business, favorable to trade, to commerce, to break whatever residual powers lingered of the old guild system in France.

For Napoleon, it was quite clear the genie could not be put back in the bottle; the Revolution had happened. Still, Napoleon believed you could not have a legitimate government, post-Revolution, without a constitution. His regime was built on a claim to popular sovereignty, embedded in the Constitution, embedded in the elections, embedded in the plebiscites, all of which gave to this Napoleonic regime a very radical progressive bent.

Napoleon also would continue a policy that had really been emphasized during the Revolution: an emphasis on education. This was also part of one of the other great social claims of the Napoleonic regime. This was to be a regime in which careers were open to talent. What really mattered was the man of talent, the man of ability, willing to take chances and to achieve. Learn more about how Napoleon seized power in France in The regime also instituted a reform of the French administration.

A rational centralized administration was created under Napoleon. He created a very efficient system of taxation, not a very exciting sort of reform, but obviously, considering the history of France in the 18 th century, it was absolutely essential. He returned France to a system of centralized administration, where local officials were appointed from Paris. In fact, under Napoleon, one sees the most centralized of all of the various French regimes of the 18 th century and into the 19 th century.

After a decade in which relations between the various French revolutionaries and the Church were strained to put it mildly , Napoleon was determined to restore good relations with the papacy, to bring the Church back into the mainstream of French political life.

It was not to be the state religion; the constitution that would be drafted called for freedom of religion—but it acknowledged that Catholicism was the religion of the majority of the French people.

This concordat with the Vatican was enormously popular in France. Learn more about when Napoleon declared himself emperor.

But if these factors were consistent with the Revolution, other aspects of this Napoleonic regime were not. Following his return to France, Napoleon participated in an event known as the Coup of 18 Brumaire, a bloodless coup d'etat that overthrew the French Directory. The Directory was replaced by a three-member consulate after a series of political and military machinations orchestrated in large part by Napoleon's brother Lucien Bonaparte.

Additionally, with the Treaty of Amiens in , the war-weary British agreed to peace with the French although the peace would only last for a year. Napoleon then returned to war with Britain, Russia and Austria. In , the British registered an important naval victory against France at the Battle of Trafalgar , which led Napoleon to scrap his plans to invade England. Instead, he set his sights on Austria and Russia, and beat back both militaries in the Battle of Austerlitz.

Other victories soon followed, allowing Napoleon to greatly expand the French empire and paving the way for loyalists to his government to be installed in Holland, Italy, Naples, Sweden, Spain and Westphalia. On March 21, , Napoleon instituted the Napoleonic Code, otherwise known as the French Civil Code, parts of which are still in use around the world today. The Napoleonic Code forbade privileges based on birth, allowed freedom of religion, and stated that government jobs must be given to the most qualified.

The Napoleonic Code followed Napoleon's new constitution, which created the first consul — a position which amounted to nothing less than a dictatorship. Following the French Revolution, unrest continued in France; in June of , a coup resulted in the left-wing radical group, the Jacobins, taking control of the Directory.

Working with one of the new directors, Emmanuel Sieyes, Napoleon hatched plans for a second coup that would place the pair along with Pierre-Roger Ducos atop a new government called the Consulate. With the new guidelines, the first consul was permitted to appoint ministers, generals, civil servants, magistrates and even members of the legislative assemblies. Napoleon would, of course, be the one who would fulfill the first consul's duties.

In February , the new constitution was easily accepted. He also negotiated a European peace, which lasted just three years before the start of the Napoleonic Wars. His reforms proved popular: In he was elected consul for life, and two years later he was proclaimed emperor of France. In France was devastated when Napoleon's invasion of Russia turned out to be a colossal failure — and the beginning of the end for Napoleon. Hundreds of thousands of soldiers in Napoleon's Grand Army were killed or badly wounded: Out of an original fighting force of some , men, just 10, soldiers were still fit for battle.

News of the defeat reinvigorated Napoleon's enemies, both inside and outside of France. A failed coup was attempted while Napoleon led his charge against Russia, while the British began to advance through French territories.

He then joined the army where, following the outbreak of the French Revolution, he rapidly rose through the ranks. By he was commander of the French army and, in an attempt to disrupt British trade routes with India, he conquered Ottoman-ruled Egypt in , despite the fact the British destroyed the fleet from which he had just landed his forces, in the action called the Battle of the Nile.

His sole opponent was Britain. Britain, isolated from her allies, agreed to return territorial conquests to France, Spain and Holland. But by May the treaty had collapsed because Britain refused to evacuate Malta and Napoleon failed to guarantee Dutch independence.

Britain again declared war on France, later followed by Austria and Russia. Napoleon planned an ambitious scheme to invade England in