Soon after Napoleon graduated the French Revolution started and Napoleon’s family was condemned because they did not support Corsica’s independence from France. For their stance, the family fled Corsica to France shortly after the start of civil war in April 1793. When Napoleon came to France he returned to military duty and became associated with the Jacobins, a political party in France. Napoleon became associated with them because he defeated the British in Toulon in 1793. Because of his role in that battle, Napoleon

Napoleon’s victory over Austria in 1809 was very costly and hurt him in the Peninsular War (1808-1814). In the Peninsular War, Napoleon started to show signs of weakness, he suffered his first defeat in a long time by Archduke Charles at Aspern (May, 1809). This defeat started many countries to gather their forces to throw Napoleon off the throne. Napoleon’s allies also started to show signs of turning away when Russia did not accept Napoleon’s plan, Napoleon gathered the largest army that Europe had ever seen – the 500,000 man Grand Armee. Napoleon pushed back the army of Czar Alexander I deeper into Russia starting in June, 1812, destroying much of the land in the process. On September 14, 1812 Napoleon entered Moscow and burned almost the whole city down, leaving it uninhabitable. By this time Napoleon had ran out of food, a place to house his troops, and only 100,000 troops remained. Napoleon tried to send a messenger to the Czar for peace but it was unsuccessful so Napoleon had to secure the Berezina River as an escape route.

In early 1796 Napoleon married Josephine de Bauhinias, the widow of a guillotined French revolutionary. Shortly after Napoleon married he left for Italy in March 1796. Napoleon came to Italy and discovered his army was ill-supplied. Napoleon soon shaped up his army to become a first-class fighting force through 3 factors – making his troops live off the land, his military tactics, and his influence of the morale of his soldiers. The year 1796 was the beginning of Napoleon’s many battle victories. In May 1796, Napoleon rushed across North Italy, making Sardinia sign a peace treaty for its region. Napoleon scored two more victories at Lodi (May 10) and Milan (May 14). Napoleon went through Milan and laid siege on Mantua from July 1796 to the fall of Mantua on February 1797. After the victory at Mantua, plus the victories at Arcole (November 1796) and Rivoli (January 1797), Napoleon started to cross the Alps mountain range towards Vienna. When Napoleon realized his army was moving too slow and had a chance of being attacked from behind he made a peace treaty between France and Austria which was called the Treaty of Campo Formio.

During this time the situation in Europe was getting very bad as the French were thrown out of Italy by the forces of the Second Coalition (Russia, Austria, Britain, Turkey, Portugal, and Naples) and Napoleon’s political allies were almost out of power. Without telling anyone Napoleon went back to France, leaving his commanding officer General Kleber in charge of the Egypt problem which was hopeless. When Napoleon returned to France his political allies were already out of power so he started a new group called the Consulate, and he made himself the first consul. As Consul, Napoleon made it known that he was a civilian ruler. He made many changes to the government including centralizing the administration, appointing officials from m

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