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c. 1700
|     | Holland and England are now producing the magnificent ocean-going merchant vessels known as East Indiamen

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Principal-agent problems plagued early modern corporations. The existing literature emphasizes the potential benefits provided by private trade in aligning the interests of company agents to those of their principals. We contribute to this line of work by analyzing the organizational and social mechanisms that may help address principal-agent problems in the presence of private trading opportunities. Drawing on personnel records of more than half a million seafarers employed by the Dutch East India Company (VOC) over nearly a century, we show that monitoring was effective in reducing desertion when private trade was conceived as a market activity subordinated to hierarchy. Social bonds were more effective in preventing desertion when the company elevated private trade above hierarchy. Our analysis clarifies how early corporations could maintain control over a geographically dispersed and diverse labor force in the absence of modern tools of organizational governance.

Reference:
Filippo Carlo Wezel and Martin Ruef. 2017. Agents with Principles: The Control of Labor in the Dutch East India Company, 1700 to 1796, American Sociological Review, 82(5): 1009-1036: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/0003122417718165

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Agents with Principles: The Control of Labor in the Dutch East India Company, 1700 to 1796

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Principal-agent problems plagued early modern corporations. The existing literature emphasizes the potential benefits provided by private trade in aligning the interests of company agents to those of their principals. We contribute to this line of work by analyzing the organizational and social mechanisms that may help address principal-agent problems in the presence of private trading opportunities.

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1700 Charles II

Narrative history in HistoryWorld
Charles II, the childless king of Spain. leaves all his territories to Philip of Anjou, a grandson of the French king, Louis XIV

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Born in 1661, King Charles II of Spain was the last Habsburg ruler of the country. Born into a family whose inbreeding was of epic proportions, he suffered severe deformities that led to him being known as El Hechizado, the bewitched. Charles II became King of Spain at the age of three, after his father died in 1665. Charles II often suffered from ill health and much of his reign consisted of others ruling the country in his stead. This led to internal political struggle within his family over who would call the shots. His mother and illegitimate half brother's feud led to political turmoil and arranged marriages for the young, sick king. Poor King Charles II suffered through ill health, political unrest and two dead wives before he died in 1700. Childless, his will named Phillip Anjou as successor to the throne, leaving the Spanish Empire in uproar and reeling into the War of Spanish Succession. Read on to learn more about his tragic life and reign.

40. He Was the Epitome of Habsburg Inbreeding

The Habsburgs were notorious for marrying cousins, uncles, aunts, whatever, to keep power within their family. Case in point: All of Charles' great-grandparents were descended from the same parents: Philip I and Joanna of Castile. Basically, their children had all married their cousins, who had all married their cousins (or someone of a close relation). By the time Charles came along, he was more inbred than if his parents had been brother and sister.

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40 Odd Facts About the Inbred King Charles II of Spain

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Born in 1661, King Charles II of Spain was the last Habsburg ruler of the country. Born into a family whose inbreeding was of epic proportions, he suffered severe deformities that led to him being known as El Hechizado, the bewitched. Charles II became King of Spain at the age of three, after his father [...]

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1701
Act of Settlement
ban Catholics from the throne

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War of the Spanish Succession

In the late 1690s, the declining health of childless King Charles II of Spain deepened the ongoing dispute over his succession. The main rivals for the Spanish inheritance were the descendants of Louis XIV of France and the Austrian Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, but the matter was of the utmost importance to Europe as a whole.

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The Question of Spanish Succession

The question of Spanish succession at the turn of the 18th century was linked directly to the question of balance of powers in Europe, and led to a major European war that ended the European hegemony of France.

Learning Objectives

Describe the reasons why there was conflict over who should take the Spanish throne

Key Takeaways

Key Points

In the late 1690s, the declining health of childless King Charles II of Spain deepened the ongoing dispute over his succession. The main rivals for the Spanish inheritance were the descendants of Louis XIV of France and the Austrian Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor, Leopold I, but the matter was of the utmost importance to Europe as a whole.

In 1698 and 1700, Louis XIV and William III of England attempted to partition Spain in the effort to avoid a war. Charles II of Spain opposed partition and on his deathbed offered the empire to Philip, Duke of Anjou and Louis's grandson, who became King Philip V Spain.

Although most European rulers accepted Philip as king, tensions mounted, mostly because of a series of Louis's decisions. Britain, the Dutch Republic, the Holy Roman Emperor, and the
petty German states formed another Grand Alliance and declared war on France in 1702.

With losses, victories, and significant financial costs on both sides, as well as a fragile Grand Alliance, French and British ministers prepared the groundwork for a peace conference, and in 1712 Britain ceased combat operations.

By the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and the Treaty of Rastatt (1714), the Spanish empire was partitioned between the major and minor powers. The Austrians received most of Spain's former European realms, but the Duke of Anjou retained peninsular Spain and Spanish America, where, after renouncing his claim to the French succession, he reigned as King Philip V.

The partition of the Spanish Monarchy had secured the balance of power and the conditions imposed at Utrecht helped to regulate the relations between the major European powers over the coming century.

Key Terms

Treaty of London: A 1700 treaty, known also as the Second Partition Treaty, attempting to restore the Pragmatic Sanction following the death of Duke Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria. The Pragmatic Sanction had undermined the First Partition Treaty (the Treaty of Hague). Under the new treaty, Archduke Charles (later Charles VI), the second son of Emperor Leopold I, was to become king of Spain when Charles II died, and acquire her oversees colonies.

Treaty of Utrecht: A series of individual peace treaties, rather than a single document, signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession in the Dutch city of Utrecht in 1713. The treaties between several European states, including Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Savoy, and the Dutch Republic, helped end the war.

Treaty of the Hague: A 1698 treaty, known also as the First Partition Treaty, between England and France. The accord attempted to resolve who would inherit the Spanish throne, proposing that Duke Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria be the heir. Moreover, the agreement proposed that Louis, le Grand Dauphin, would get Naples, Sicily, and Tuscany, and Archduke Charles, the younger son of Emperor Leopold I, would get the Spanish Netherlands. Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, would take Milan, which in turn ceded Lorraine and Bar to the Dauphin.

Treaties of Rastatt and Baden: Two peace treaties that in 1714 ended ongoing European conflicts following the War of the Spanish Succession. The first treaty, signed between France and Austria in the city of Rastatt, followed the earlier Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, which ended hostilities between France and Spain on the one hand, and Britain and the Dutch Republic on the other hand. The second treaty, signed in Baden, was required to end the hostilities between France and the Holy Roman Empire.

Grand Alliance: A European coalition consisting (at various times) of Austria, Bavaria, Brandenburg, the Dutch Republic, England, the Holy Roman Empire, Ireland, the Palatinate of the Rhine, Portugal, Savoy, Saxony, Scotland, Spain, and Sweden. The organization was founded in 1686 as the League of Augsburg in an attempt to halt Louis XIV of France's expansionist policies. After the Treaty of Hague was signed in 1701, it went into a second phase as the Alliance of the War of Spanish Succession.

Background

In the late 1690s, the declining health of childless King Charles II of Spain deepened the ongoing dispute over his succession. Spain was no longer a hegemonic power in Europe but the Spanish Empire-a vast confederation that covered the globe and was still the largest of the European overseas empires-remained resilient. Ultimately, the main rivals for the Spanish inheritance were the heirs and descendants of the Bourbon King Louis XIV of France and the Austrian Habsburg Holy Roman Emperor Leopold I. However, the inheritance was so vast that its transference would dramatically increase either French or Austrian power which, due to the implied threat of European hegemony, was of the utmost importance to Europe as a whole.

Rival Claims and Partitions

The French claim derived from Louis XIV's mother, Anne of Austria (the older sister of Philip IV of Spain), and his wife, Maria Theresa (Philip IV's eldest daughter). France had the stronger claim, as it originated from the eldest daughters in two generations. However, their renunciation of succession rights complicated matters, although in the case of Maria Theresa, the renunciation was considered null and void owing to Spain's breach of her marriage contract with Louis. In contrast, no renunciations tainted the claims of the Emperor Leopold I's son Charles, Archduke of Austria, who was a grandson of Philip III's youngest daughter, Maria Anna. The English and Dutch feared that a French or Austrian-born Spanish king would threaten the balance of power, and thus preferred the Bavarian Prince Joseph Ferdinand, a grandson of Leopold I through his first wife, Margaret Theresa of Spain (the younger daughter of Philip IV).

In an attempt to avoid war, Louis signed the Treaty of the Hague with William III of England in 1698. This agreement divided Spain's Italian territories between Louis's son le Grand Dauphin and the Archduke Charles, with the rest of the empire awarded to Joseph Ferdinand. The signatories, however, omitted to consult Charles II, who was passionately opposed to the dismemberment of his empire. In 1699, he re-confirmed his 1693 will that named Joseph Ferdinand as his sole successor, but the latter died six months later. In 1700, Louis and William III concluded a fresh partitioning agreement, the Treaty of London. It allocated Spain, the Low Countries, and the Spanish colonies to Archduke Charles. The Dauphin would receive all of Spain's Italian territories. On his deathbed in 1700, Charles II unexpectedly offered the entire empire to the Dauphin's second son, Philip, Duke of Anjou, provided it remained undivided. Anjou was not in the direct line of French succession, thus his accession would not cause a Franco-Spanish union. Louis eventually decided to accept Charles II's will, and Philip, Duke of Anjou, became King Philip V of Spain.

Although most European rulers accepted Philip as king, tensions mounted, mostly because of a series of Louis's decisions. Louis's actions enraged Britain and the Dutch Republic. With the Holy Roman Emperor and the petty German states, they formed another Grand Alliance. French diplomacy, however, secured Bavaria, Portugal, and Savoy as Franco-Spanish allies. Around the same time, Louis decided to acknowledge James Stuart, the son of James II, as king of England on the latter's death, infuriating William III. While William died in March 1702, the Austrians, the Dutch, and English allies formally declared war in May 1702.

War of the Spanish Succession

By 1708, the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy had secured victory in the Spanish Netherlands and in Italy and defeated Louis XIV's ally Bavaria. The Allies suffered a Pyrrhic victory at the 1709 Battle of Malplaquet, with 21,000 casualties, twice that of the French. French forces elsewhere continued to fight despite their defeats. The Allies were definitively expelled from central Spain by the Franco-Spanish victories at the Battles of Villaviciosa and Brihuega in 1710. France faced invasion, but the unity of the allies broke first. With the Grand Alliance defeated in Spain and its casualties and costs mounting and aims diverging, the Tories came to power in Great Britain in 1710 and resolved to end the war. Eventually, France recovered its military pride with the decisive victory at Denain in 1712. Yet French and British ministers prepared the groundwork for a peace conference, and in 1712 Britain ceased combat operations. The Dutch, Austrians, and German states fought on to strengthen their own negotiating position, but, defeated by Marshal Villars, they were soon compelled to accept Anglo-French mediation.

Peace Treaties

The 1713 Treaty of Utrecht recognized Louis XIV's grandson Philip, Duke of Anjou, as King of Spain (as Philip V), thus confirming the succession stipulated in the will of Charles II. However, Philip was compelled to renounce for himself and his descendants any right to the French throne. The Spanish territories in Europe were apportioned: Savoy received Sicily and parts of the Duchy of Milan, while Charles VI (the Holy Roman Emperor and Archduke of Austria) received the Spanish Netherlands, the Kingdom of Naples, Sardinia, and the bulk of the Duchy of Milan. Portugal had its sovereignty recognized over the lands between the Amazon and Oyapock rivers, in Brazil. In addition, Spain ceded Gibraltar and Minorca to Great Britain and agreed to give to the British the Asiento, a monopoly on the oceanic slave trade to the Spanish colonies in America. In North America, France ceded to Great Britain its claims to Newfoundland, the Hudson's Bay Company, the Acadian colony of Nova Scotia, and the formerly partitioned island of Saint Kitts.

After the signing of the Utrecht treaties, the French continued to be at war with Emperor Charles VI and with the Holy Roman Empire until 1714, when hostilities were ended with the Treaties of Rastatt and Baden. Spain and Portugal remained formally at war with each other until the Treaty of Madrid of February 1715, while peace between Spain and Emperor Charles VI, unsuccessful claimant to the Spanish crown, came only in 1720 with the signing of the Treaty of The Hague.

The War of the Spanish Succession brought to an end a long period of major conflict in Western Europe. The partition of the Spanish Monarchy had secured the balance of power, and the conditions imposed at Utrecht helped to regulate the relations between the major European powers over the coming century.

William of Orange and the Grand Alliance

William III's main goals in the conflict over the Spanish succession were to ensure the Protestant accession in England and curb the power of France and Louis XIV.

Learning Objectives

Explain William's stake in the War of the Spanish Succession and the goals of the Grand Alliance

Key Takeaways

Key Points

As William III's life drew towards its conclusion, he, like many other European rulers, was concerned with the question of succession to the throne of Spain. He sought to prevent the Spanish inheritance from going to the descendants of either Louis XIV or Leopold I, as he feared this would upset the European balance of power.

Fearing the growing strength of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis XIV turned to William. The two signed two treaties partitioning Spain, but Charles II of Spain's decision to choose Louis's grandson as his successor made Louis ignore his treaty with England.

While the Tory-dominated House of Commons was keen to prevent further conflict, to William III, France's growing
strength made war inevitable. From his perspective, losing the hard-won securities overturned the work of the last twenty years.

As tensions mounted, Britain and the Dutch Republic grew enraged by Louis's actions and decisions. With the Holy Roman Emperor and the petty German states, they formed another Grand Alliance. Securing the Protestant succession and curbing Louis's ambitions was recognized by the Grand Alliance as one of England's main war aims.

Before the War of the Spanish Succession was even declared, William died. His successor, Anne, continued William's policies to assure the Protestant succession in England and curb the French hegemony.

The War of the Spanish Succession resulted in the partition of the Spanish Monarchy, which secured the balance of power and helped to regulate the relations between the major European powers over the coming century.

Key Terms

Grand Alliance: A European coalition, consisting (at various times) of Austria, Bavaria, Brandenburg, the Dutch Republic, England, the Holy Roman Empire, Ireland, the Palatinate of the Rhine, Portugal, Savoy, Saxony, Scotland, Spain, and Sweden. The organization was founded in 1686 as the League of Augsburg in an attempt to halt Louis XIV of France's expansionist policies. After the Treaty of Hague was signed in 1701, it went into a second phase as the Alliance of the War of Spanish Succession.

Treaty of London: A 1700 treaty, known also as the Second Partition Treaty, attempting to restore the Pragmatic Sanction following the death of Duke Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria. The Pragmatic Sanction had undermined the First Partition Treaty (the Treaty of Hague). Under the new Treaty, Archduke Charles (later Charles VI), the second son of the Emperor Leopold I, was to become king of Spain when Charles II died, and acquire her oversees colonies.

Treaty of Rastatt: A peace treaty between France and Austria, concluded in March 1714 in the Baden city of Rastatt, that put an end to the state of war between them following the War of the Spanish Succession. The treaty followed the earlier Treaty of Utrecht of April 1713, which ended hostilities between France and Spain on the one hand, and Britain and the Dutch Republic on the other hand. A third treaty at Baden was required to end the hostilities between France and the Holy Roman Empire.

Treaty of Utrecht: A series of individual peace treaties, rather than a single document, signed by the belligerents in the War of the Spanish Succession in the Dutch city of Utrecht in 1713. The treaties between several European states, including Spain, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Savoy, and the Dutch Republic, helped to end the war.

Treaty of Hague: A 1698 treaty, known also as the First Partition Treaty, between England and France. The accord attempted to resolve who would inherit the Spanish throne, proposing that Duke Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria be the heir. Moreover, the agreement proposed that Louis, le Grand Dauphin, would get Naples, Sicily, and Tuscany, and Archduke Charles, the younger son of Emperor Leopold I, would get the Spanish Netherlands. Leopold, Duke of Lorraine, would take Milan, which in turn ceded Lorraine and Bar to the Dauphin.

William III of England and the Spanish Succession

William III (1650-1702) was sovereign Prince of Orange from birth, Dutch Stadtholder ( de facto hereditary head of state) from 1672, and King of England, Ireland, and Scotland from 1689 until his death. As his life drew towards its conclusion, William, like many other European rulers, was concerned with the question of succession to the throne of Spain, which brought with it vast territories in Italy, the Low Countries, and the New World. The king of Spain, Charles II, had no prospect of having children, and among his closest relatives were Louis XIV and Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor. William sought to prevent the Spanish inheritance from going to either monarch, as he feared it would upset the balance of power.

Partitions

Fearing the growing strength of the Holy Roman Empire, Louis XIV turned to William, his long-standing Protestant rival. England and the Dutch Republic had their own commercial, strategic, and political interests within the Spanish empire, and they were eager to return to peaceful commerce. Louis and William sought to solve the problem of the Spanish inheritance through negotiation based on the principle of partition (at first without prior reference to the Spanish or Austrian courts), to take effect after the death of Charles II.

William and Louis agreed to the First Partition Treaty (Treaty of Hague), which provided for the division of the Spanish Empire: Duke Joseph Ferdinand of Bavaria would obtain Spain, while France and the Holy Roman Emperor would divide the remaining territories between them. However, when Joseph Ferdinand died of smallpox, the issue re-opened. In 1700, the two rulers agreed to the Second Partition Treaty (Treaty of London), under which the territories in Italy would pass to a son of the king of France and the other Spanish territories would be inherited by a son of the Holy Roman Emperor. This arrangement infuriated both the Spanish, who still sought to prevent the dissolution of their empire, and the Holy Roman Emperor, to whom the Italian territories were much more useful than the other lands. Unexpectedly, Charles II willed all Spanish territories to Philip, a grandson of Louis XIV. The French conveniently ignored the Second Partition Treaty and claimed the entire Spanish inheritance.

William III's Stand

The news that Louis XIV had accepted Charles II's will and that the Second Partition Treaty was dead was a personal blow to William III. However, after the exertions of the Nine Years' War, the Tory-dominated House of Commons was keen to prevent further conflict and restore normal commercial activity. Yet to William III, France's growing strength made war inevitable. England also had its own interests in the Spanish Netherlands, and ministers recognized the potential danger posed by an enemy established to the east of the Strait of Dover who, taking advantage of favorable wind and tide, could threaten the British Isles. From William III's perspective, losing the hard-won securities overturned the work of the last twenty years.

Although the French king's ambitions and motives were not fully known, English ministers worked on the assumption that Louis XIV would seek to expand his territory and direct and dominate Spanish affairs. With the threat of a single power dominating Europe and overseas trade, London now undertook to support William III's efforts to reduce the power of France. As tensions mounted, Britain and the Dutch Republic grew enraged by Louis's actions and decisions. With the Holy Roman Emperor and the petty German states, they formed another Grand Alliance. This European coalition, consisting at various times of various European states, was originally founded in 1686 as the League of Augsburg. It was formed in an attempt to halt Louis XIV's expansionist policies. In 1701, it went into a second phase.

Even after the formation of the Grand Alliance, the French king continued to antagonize his European rivals. Around the same time as the Alliance was formed, the Catholic James II of England (VII of Scotland)-exiled in Saint-Germain since the Glorious Revolution-died, and Louis XIV recognized James II's Catholic son, James, as King James III of England. The French court insisted that granting James the title of King was a mere formality, but William and English ministers were indignant. Securing the Protestant succession was soon recognized by the Grand Alliance as one of England's main war aims.

The War of the Spanish Succession

However, before the War of the Spanish Succession was even declared, William died. Anne, Mary II's younger sister and William's sister-in-law through his marriage to Mary, ascended to the British throne and at once assured the Privy Council of her two main aims: the maintenance of the Protestant succession and the reduction of the power of France. By the same token, Anne continued William's policies, and many leading statesmen of William's later years remained in office, which turned out fundamental to the success of the Grand Alliance in the early stages of the war.

The Austrians, the Dutch, and English allies formally declared war in May 1702. By 1708 the Duke of Marlborough and Prince Eugene of Savoy had secured victory in the Spanish Netherlands and in Italy, and had defeated Louis XIV's ally Bavaria. France faced invasion, but the unity of the allies broke first. With the Grand Alliance defeated in Spain and its casualties and costs mounting and aims diverging, the Tories came to power in Great Britain in 1710 and resolved to end the war. French and British ministers prepared the groundwork for a peace conference, and in 1712 Britain ceased combat operations. The Dutch, Austrians, and German states fought on to strengthen their own negotiating position, but, defeated by Marshal Villars, they were soon compelled to accept Anglo-French mediation. By the terms of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) and the Treaty of Rastatt (1714), the Spanish empire was partitioned between the major and minor powers. The Austrians received most of Spain's former European realms, but the Duke of Anjou retained peninsular Spain and Spanish America, where, after renouncing his claim to the French succession, he reigned as King Philip V. The European balance of power was assured.

The Peace of Utrecht

The Treaty of Utrecht, which initiated the end of the War of the Spanish Succession, strengthened the balance of power in Europe by securing two major goals: Louis XIV's acknowledgement of the Protestant succession in England, and safeguards to ensure that the French and Spanish thrones remained separate.

Learning Objectives

Describe the terms of the Peace of Utrecht and their significance across Europe

Key Takeaways

Key Points

The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) was a European conflict triggered by the death of the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II, in 1700. As he had reigned over a vast global empire, the question of who would succeed him had long troubled ministers in capitals throughout Europe.

The balance of victories and losses shifted regularly over the course of the war, with both sides exhausted militarily and financially. As early as 1710, the Tories initiated secret talks with the French, seeking mutual ground whereon Great Britain and France could dictate peace to the rest of Europe.

The Congress of Utrecht opened in 1712, but it was not accompanied by an armistice. One of the first questions discussed was the nature of the guarantees to be given by France and Spain that their crowns would be kept separate.

The treaty, which was in fact a series of separate treaties, secured Britain's main war aims: Louis XIV's acknowledgement of the Protestant succession in England, and safeguards to ensure that the French and Spanish thrones remained separate.

A series of separate treaties signed between 1714 and 1720 ended conflicts that continued in the aftermath of Utrecht between states involved in the War of the Spanish Succession.

Utrecht marked the rise of Great Britain under Anne and later the House of Hanover and the end of the hegemonic ambitions of France. It also secured the balance of power and helped to regulate the relations between the major European powers over the coming century.

Key Terms

War of the Spanish Succession: A major European conflict of the early 18th century (1701/2-1714) triggered by the death in 1700 of the last Habsburg king of Spain, Charles II. The Austrians, the Dutch, and English allies formally declared war against France and its allies in May 1702.

Grand Alliance: A European coalition consisting (at various times) of Austria, Bavaria, Brandenburg, the Dutch Republic, England, the Holy Roman Empire, Ireland, the Palatinate of the Rhine, Portugal, Savoy, Saxony, Scotland, Spain, and Sweden. The coalition was founded in 1686 as the League of Augsburg in an attempt to halt Louis XIV of France's expansionist policies. After the Treaty of Hague was signed in 1701, it went into a second phase as the Alliance of the War of Spanish Succession.

treaties of Rastatt and Baden: Two peace treaties that in 1714 ended ongoing European conflicts following the War of the Spanish Succession. The first treaty, signed between France and Austria in the city of Rastatt, followed the earlier Treaty of Utrecht of 1713, which ended hostilities between France and Spain on the one hand, and Britain and the Dutch Republic on the other hand. The second treaty, signed in Baden, was required to end the hostilities between France and the Holy Roman Empire.

Asiento: The permission given by the Spanish government to other countries to sell people as slaves to the Spanish colonies, between 1543 and 1834. In British history, it usually refers to the contract between Spain and Great Britain created in 1713 that dealt with the supply of African slaves for the Spanish territories in the Americas.

Background: The War of the Spanish Succession

The War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714) was a European conflict triggered by the death of the last Habsburg King of Spain, Charles II, in 1700. He had reigned over a vast global empire and the question of who would succeed him had long troubled ministers in capitals throughout Europe. Attempts to solve the problem by partitioning the empire between the eligible candidates from the royal Houses of France (Bourbon), Austria (Habsburg), and Bavaria (Wittelsbach) ultimately failed, and on his deathbed Charles II fixed the entire Spanish inheritance on Philip, Duke of Anjou, the grandson of King Louis XIV of France. With Philip ruling in Spain, Louis XIV would secure great advantages for his dynasty, but some statesmen regarded a dominant House of Bourbon as a threat to European stability, jeopardizing the balance of power.

To counter Louis XIV's growing dominance, England, the Dutch Republic, and Austria-together with their allies in the Holy Roman Empire -re-formed the Grand Alliance (1701) and supported Emperor Leopold I's claim to the Spanish inheritance for his second son, Archduke Charles. By backing the Habsburg candidate (known to his supporters as King Charles III of Spain) each member of the coalition sought to reduce the power of France, ensure their own territorial and dynastic security, and restore and improve the trade opportunities they had enjoyed under Charles II.

Peace Talks

The balance of victories and losses shifted regularly over the course of the war, with both sides exhausted militarily and financially, also as a result of a series of earlier wars waged in Europe. As early as August 1710, the Tories initiated secret talks with the French, seeking mutual ground whereon Great Britain and France could dictate peace to the rest of Europe. France and Great Britain had come to terms in October 1711, when the preliminaries of peace had been signed in London. The preliminaries were based on a tacit acceptance of the partition of Spain's European possessions.

The Congress of Utrecht, opened in January 1712, followed, but it was not accompanied by an armistice (only in August did Britain, Savoy, France, and Spain agree to a general suspension of arms). One of the first questions discussed was the nature of the guarantees to be given by France and Spain that their crowns would be kept separate, but matters did not make much progress until July, when Philip signed a renunciation. With Great Britain and France having agreed upon a truce, the pace of negotiation quickened and the main treaties were finally signed in April 1713.

Treaty of Utrecht

The treaty, which was in fact a series of separate treaties, secured Britain's main war aims: Louis XIV's acknowledgement of the Protestant succession in England and safeguards to ensure that the French and Spanish thrones remained separate. In North America, where the War of the Spanish Succession turned into a war over colonial gains, Louis XIV ceded to Britain the territories of Saint Kitts and Acadia and recognized Britain's sovereignty over Rupert's Land and Newfoundland. In return, Louis XIV kept the major city of Lille on his northern border, but he ceded Furnes, Ypres, Menin, and Tournai to the Spanish Netherlands. He also agreed to the permanent demilitarization of the naval base at Dunkirk. The Dutch received their restricted barrier in the Spanish Netherlands and a share of the trade in the region with Britain. Prussia gained some disputed lands and Portugal won minor concessions in Brazil against encroachments on the Amazon from French Guiana. In addition, Spain ceded Gibraltar and Minorca to Great Britain and agreed to give to the British the Asiento, a monopoly on the oceanic slave trade to the Spanish colonies in America. Above all, though, Louis XIV had secured for the House of Bourbon the throne of Spain, with his grandson, Philip V, recognized as the rightful king by all signatories.

Aftermath

Utrecht marked the rise of Great Britain under Anne and later the House of Hanover and the end of the hegemonic ambitions of France. The lucrative trading opportunities afforded to the British were gained at the expense of Anne's allies, with the Dutch forgoing a share in the Asiento and the Holy Roman Empire ceding Spain to Philip V and being forced to reinstate the Elector of Bavaria. After the signing of the Utrecht treaties, the French continued to be at war with the Holy Roman Empire until 1714, when hostilities ended with the treaties of Rastatt and Baden. Spain and Portugal remained formally at war with each other until the Treaty of Madrid of February 1715, while peace between Spain and Emperor Charles VI, unsuccessful claimant to the Spanish crown, came only in 1720 with the signing of the Treaty of The Hague.

Weakened Spain eventually grew in strength under Philip V, and the country would return to the forefront of European politics. With neither Charles VI nor Philip V willing to accept the Spanish partition, and with no treaty existing between Spain and Austria, the two powers would soon clash in order to gain control of Italy, starting with a brief war in 1718. However, the War of the Spanish Succession brought to an end a long period of major conflict in western Europe; the partition of the Spanish Monarchy had secured the balance of power, and the conditions imposed at Utrecht helped to regulate the relations between the major European powers over the coming century.

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The question of Spanish succession at the turn of the 18th century was linked directly to the question of balance of powers in Europe, and led to a major European war that ended the European hegemony of France.

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Queen Ann
succeded to the throne

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1708 The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies

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1708 The Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies

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The East India Company ( EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company ( HEIC), East India Trading Company ( EITC), the English East India Company or the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company, Company Bahadur, or simply The Company, was an English and later British joint-stock company. It was formed to trade in the Indian Ocean region, initially with the East Indies (India and South East Asia), and later with Qing China. The company ended up seizing control of large parts of the Indian subcontinent, colonised parts of Southeast Asia and Hong Kong after the First Opium War, and maintained trading posts and colonies in the Middle Eastern Gulf called Persian Gulf Residencies.

Originally chartered as the "Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East-Indies", the company rose to account for half of the world's trade, particularly in basic commodities including cotton, silk, indigo dye, salt, spices, saltpetre, tea, and opium. The company also ruled the beginnings of the British Empire in India. In his speech to the House of Commons in July 1833, Lord Macaulay explained that since the beginning, the East India Company had always been involved in both trade and politics, just as its French and Dutch counterparts had been.

The company received a Royal Charter from Queen Elizabeth I on 31 December 1600, coming relatively late to trade in the Indies. Before them the Portuguese Estado da Índia had traded there for much of the 16th century and the first of half a dozen Dutch Companies sailed to trade there from 1595. These Dutch companies amalgamated in March 1602 into the Dutch East India Company (VOC), which introduced the first permanent joint stock from 1612 (meaning investment into shares did not need to be returned, but could be traded on a stock exchange). By contrast, wealthy merchants and aristocrats owned the EIC's shares. Initially the government owned no shares and had only indirect control until 1657 when permanent joint stock was established.

During its first century of operation, the focus of the company was trade, not the building of an empire in India. Following the First Anglo-Mughal War, the company interests turned from trade to territory during the 18th century as the Mughal Empire declined in power and the East India Company struggled with its French counterpart, the French East India Company ( Compagnie française des Indes orientales) during the Carnatic Wars of the 1740s and 1750s in southern India. The battles of Plassey and Buxar, in which the company defeated the Nawabs of Bengal, left the company in control of the proto-industrialised Mughal Bengal with the right to collect revenue, in Bengal and Bihar, and a major military and political power in India. In the following decades it gradually increased the extent of the territories under its control, controlling the majority of the Indian subcontinent either directly or indirectly via local puppet rulers under the threat of force by its Presidency armies, much of which were composed of native Indian sepoys. The company invaded the Dutch island of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in 1795.

By 1803, at the height of its rule in India, the East India company had a private army of about 260,000-twice the size of the British Army, with Indian revenues of £13,464,561 (equivalent to £229.9 million in 2019) and expenses of £14,017,473 (equivalent to £239.3 million in 2019). The company eventually came to rule large areas of India with its private armies, exercising military power and seizing administrative functions. Company rule in India effectively began in 1757 and lasted until 1858, when, following the Indian Rebellion of 1857, the Government of India Act 1858 led to the British Crown's assuming direct control of the Indian subcontinent in the form of the new British Raj.

The company's army played a notorious role in the unsuccessful Indian Uprising (also called the Indian Mutiny) of 1857-58, in which Indian soldiers in the company's employ led an armed revolt against their British officers that quickly gained popular support as a war for Indian independence. During more than a year of fighting, both sides committed atrocities, including massacres of civilians, though the company's reprisals ultimately far outweighed the violence of the rebels. The rebellion brought about the effective abolition of the East India Company in 1858.

In 1577 Francis Drake set out on an expedition from England to plunder Spanish settlements in South America in search of gold and silver. In the Golden Hind he achieved this but also sailed across the Pacific Ocean in 1579, known then only to the Spanish and Portuguese. Drake eventually sailed into the East Indies and came across the Moluccas, also known as the Spice Islands and met with Sultan Babullah. In return for linen, gold and silver, a large haul of exotic spices including cloves and Nutmeg were traded - the English initially not knowing of their huge value. Drake returned to England in 1580 and became a celebrated hero; his eventual circumnavigation raised an enormous amount of money for England's coffers, and investors received a return of some 5000 per cent. Thus started what was an important element in the eastern design during the late sixteenth century.

Soon after the defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the captured Spanish and Portuguese ships with their cargoes enabled English voyagers to potentially travel the globe in search of riches. London merchants presented a petition to Queen Elizabeth I for permission to sail to the Indian Ocean. The aim was to deliver a decisive blow to the Spanish and Portuguese monopoly of Far Eastern Trade. Elizabeth granted her permission and on 10 April 1591 James Lancaster in the Bonaventure with two other ships sailed from Torbay around the Cape of Good Hope to the Arabian Sea on one of the earliest English overseas Indian expeditions. Having sailed around Cape Comorin to the Malay Peninsula, they preyed on Spanish and Portuguese ships there before returning to England in 1594.

The biggest capture that galvanised English trade was the seizure of a large Portuguese carrack, the Madre de Deus by Sir Walter Raleigh and the Earl of Cumberland at the Battle of Flores on 13 August 1592. When she was brought in to Dartmouth she was the largest vessel that had been seen in England and her cargo consisted of chests filled with jewels, pearls, gold, silver coins, ambergris, cloth, tapestries, pepper, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, benjamin (a tree that produces frankincense), red dye, cochineal and ebony. Equally valuable was the ship's rutter (mariner's handbook) containing vital information on the China, India, and Japan trades. These riches aroused the English to engage in this opulent commerce.

In 1596, three more English ships sailed east but all were lost at sea. A year later however saw the arrival of Ralph Fitch, an adventurer merchant who, along with his companions, had made a remarkable fifteen-year overland journey to Mesopotamia, the Persian Gulf, the Indian Ocean, India and Southeast Asia. Fitch was then consulted on the Indian affairs and gave even more valuable information to Lancaster.

On 22 September 1599, a group of merchants met and stated their intention "to venture in the pretended voyage to the East Indies (the which it may please the Lord to prosper), and the sums that they will adventure", committing £30,133 (over £4,000,000 in today's money). Two days later, "the Adventurers" reconvened and resolved to apply to the Queen for support of the project. Although their first attempt had not been completely successful, they nonetheless sought the Queen's unofficial approval to continue. They bought ships for their venture and increased their capital to £68,373.

The Adventurers convened again a year later, on 31 December, and this time they succeeded; the Queen granted a Royal Charter to " George, Earl of Cumberland, and 215 Knights, Aldermen, and Burgesses" under the name, Governor and Company of Merchants of London trading into the East Indies. For a period of fifteen years, the charter awarded the newly formed company a monopoly on English trade with all countries east of the Cape of Good Hope and west of the Straits of Magellan. Any traders in breach of the charter without a licence from the company were liable to forfeiture of their ships and cargo (half of which went to the Crown and the other half to the company), as well as imprisonment at the "royal pleasure".

Sir James Lancaster commanded the first East India Company voyage in 1601 aboard the Red Dragon. After capturing a rich 1,200 ton Portuguese carrack in the Malacca Straits the trade from the booty enabled the voyagers to set up two " factories" - one at Bantam on Java and another in the Moluccas (Spice Islands) before leaving. They returned to England in 1603 to learn of Elizabeth's death but Lancaster was Knighted by the new King James I. By this time, the war with Spain had ended but the company had successfully and profitably breached the Spanish and Portuguese duopoly, with new horizons opened for the English.

In March 1604, Sir Henry Middleton commanded the second voyage. General William Keeling, a captain during the second voyage, led the third voyage aboard the Red Dragon from 1607 to 1610 along with the Hector under Captain William Hawkins and the Consent under Captain David Middleton.

Early in 1608 Alexander Sharpeigh was appointed captain of the company's Ascension, and general or commander of the fourth voyage. Thereafter two ships, Ascension and Union (captained by Richard Rowles) sailed from Woolwich on 14 March 1608. This expedition would be lost.

Company ships docked at Surat in Gujarat in 1608. The company established its first Indian factory in 1611 at Masulipatam on the Andhra Coast of the Bay of Bengal; and a second at Surat in 1612. The high profits reported by the company after landing in India initially prompted James I to grant subsidiary licences to other trading companies in England. However, in 1609 he renewed the East India Company's charter for an indefinite period, with the proviso that its privileges would be annulled if trade was unprofitable for three consecutive years.

In 1612, James I instructed Sir Thomas Roe to visit the Mughal Emperor Nur-ud-din Salim Jahangir (r. 1605-1627) to arrange for a commercial treaty that would give the company exclusive rights to reside and establish factories in Surat and other areas. In return, the company offered to provide the Emperor with goods and rarities from the European market. This mission was highly successful, and Jahangir sent a letter to James through Sir Thomas Roe:

Upon which assurance of your royal love I have given my general command to all the kingdoms and ports of my dominions to receive all the merchants of the English nation as the subjects of my friend; that in what place soever they choose to live, they may have free liberty without any restraint; and at what port soever they shall arrive, that neither Portugal nor any other shall dare to molest their quiet; and in what city soever they shall have residence, I have commanded all my governors and captains to give them freedom answerable to their own desires; to sell, buy, and to transport into their country at their pleasure. For confirmation of our love and friendship, I desire your Majesty to command your merchants to bring in their ships of all sorts of rarities and rich goods fit for my palace; and that you be pleased to send me your royal letters by every opportunity, that I may rejoice in your health and prosperous affairs; that our friendship may be interchanged and eternal.

-  Nuruddin Salim Jahangir, Letter to James I.

The company, which benefited from the imperial patronage, soon expanded its commercial trading operations. It eclipsed the Portuguese Estado da Índia, which had established bases in Goa, Chittagong, and Bombay - Portugal later ceded Bombay to England as part of the dowry of Catherine of Braganza on her marriage to King Charles II. The East India Company also launched a joint attack with the Dutch United East India Company (VOC) on Portuguese and Spanish ships off the coast of China, which helped secure EIC ports in China. The company established trading posts in Surat (1619), Madras (1639), Bombay (1668), and Calcutta (1690). By 1647, the company had 23 factories, each under the command of a factor or master merchant and governor, and 90 employees in India. The major factories became the walled forts of Fort William in Bengal, Fort St George in Madras, and Bombay Castle.

In 1634, the Mughal emperor Jahangir extended his hospitality to the English traders to the region of Bengal, and in 1717 completely waived customs duties for their trade. The company's mainstay businesses were by then cotton, silk, indigo dye, saltpetre, and tea. The Dutch were aggressive competitors and had meanwhile expanded their monopoly of the spice trade in the Straits of Malacca by ousting the Portuguese in 1640-1641. With reduced Portuguese and Spanish influence in the region, the EIC and VOC entered a period of intense competition, resulting in the Anglo-Dutch Wars of the 17th and 18th centuries.

Within the first two decades of the 17th century, the Dutch East India Company or Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie, (VOC) was the wealthiest commercial operation in the world with 50,000 employees worldwide and a private fleet of 200 ships. It specialised in the spice trade and gave its shareholders 40% annual dividend.

The Dutch Company maintained that profit must support the cost of war which came from trade which produced profit.

Competition arose in 1635 when Charles I granted a trading licence to Sir William Courteen, which permitted the rival Courteen association to trade with the east at any location in which the EIC had no presence.

In 1689 a Mughal fleet commanded by Sidi Yaqub attacked Bombay. After a year of resistance the EIC surrendered in 1690, and the company sent envoys to Aurangzeb's camp to plead for a pardon. The company's envoys had to prostrate themselves before the emperor, pay a large indemnity, and promise better behaviour in the future. The emperor withdrew his troops, and the company subsequently re-established itself in Bombay and set up a new base in Calcutta.

Eventually, the East India Company seized control of Bengal and slowly the whole Indian subcontinent with its private armies, composed primarily of Indian sepoys. As historian William Dalrymple observes,

We still talk about the British conquering India, but that phrase disguises a more sinister reality. It was not the British government that seized India at the end of the 18th century, but a dangerously unregulated private company headquartered in one small office, five windows wide, in London, and managed in India by an unstable sociopath - [Robert] Clive.

Slavery 1621-1843

The East India Company's own archives suggest that its involvement in the slave trade began in 1684, when a Captain Robert Knox was tasked with purchasing 250 slaves from Madagascar to be transported to St. Helena. However, according to the Encyclopædia Britannica, it was the early 1620s when the East India Company began transporting slave labor to and using it in its facilities across Asia and the Atlantic. Allen (2015) suggests that it was 1621.

The East India Company also supplied the Anglo-African slavers with a substantial proportion of the trade goods, used to barter for slaves till abolition at the start of the 19th century, with Indian cottons the most significant element in exchange for African slaves, accounting for up 30% of the total exported value, by the mid-eighteenth century.

According to Bonnie Pinkston's paper, the East India company continued to use slaves across their territories until abolition. This would be 1843 when the British India - Indian Slavery Act of 1843 came into force, and this is confirmed by the explicit exclusion of the East Indian Company's territories from the United Kingdoms Slavery Abolition Act of 1833, abolishing slavery in most of the British Empire. The East India Company did pass an Act in 1811 ending the transportation of new slaves into its territories.

Professor Richard B. Allen's book European Slave Trading in the Indian Ocean 1500-1850 includes sources on the British East Indian Company's involvement and other European nations' activities. In 1758, 500 people were transported to Bombay to meet a shortfall in local labour. The East India Company was facing financial difficulties, so an order came from the directors to purchase and transport these slaves.

In 1613, during the rule of Tokugawa Hidetada of the Tokugawa shogunate, the British ship Clove, under the command of Captain John Saris, was the first British ship to call on Japan. Saris was the chief factor of the EIC's trading post in Java, and with the assistance of William Adams, a British sailor who had arrived in Japan in 1600, he was able to gain permission from the ruler to establish a commercial house in Hirado on the Japanese island of Kyushu:

We give free license to the subjects of the King of Great Britaine, Sir Thomas Smythe, Governor and Company of the East Indian Merchants and Adventurers forever safely come into any of our ports of our Empire of Japan with their shippes and merchandise, without any hindrance to them or their goods, and to abide, buy, sell and barter according to their own manner with all nations, to tarry here as long as they think good, and to depart at their pleasure.

However, unable to obtain Japanese raw silk for import to China and with their trading area reduced to Hirado and Nagasaki from 1616 onwards, the company closed its factory in 1623.

In September 1695, Captain Henry Every, an English pirate on board the Fancy, reached the Straits of Bab-el-Mandeb, where he teamed up with five other pirate captains to make an attack on the Indian fleet on return from the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. The Mughal convoy included the treasure-laden Ganj-i-Sawai, reported to be the greatest in the Mughal fleet and the largest ship operational in the Indian Ocean, and its escort, the Fateh Muhammed. They were spotted passing the straits en route to Surat. The pirates gave chase and caught up with Fateh Muhammed some days later, and meeting little resistance, took some £50,000 to £60,000 worth of treasure.

Every continued in pursuit and managed to overhaul Ganj-i-Sawai, which resisted strongly before eventually striking. Ganj-i-Sawai carried enormous wealth and, according to contemporary East India Company sources, was carrying a relative of the Grand Mughal, though there is no evidence to suggest that it was his daughter and her retinue. The loot from the Ganj-i-Sawai had a total value between £325,000 and £600,000, including 500,000 gold and silver pieces, and has become known as the richest ship ever taken by pirates.

In a letter sent to the Privy Council by Sir John Gayer, then governor of Bombay and head of the East India Company, Gayer claims that "it is certain the Pirates ... did do very barbarously by the People of the Ganj-i-Sawai and Abdul Ghaffar's ship, to make them confess where their money was." The pirates set free the survivors who were left aboard their emptied ships, to continue their voyage back to India.

When the news arrived in England it caused an outcry. To appease Aurangzeb, the East India Company promised to pay all financial reparations, while Parliament declared the pirates hostis humani generis ("enemies of the human race"). In mid-1696 the government issued a £500 bounty on Every's head and offered a free pardon to any informer who disclosed his whereabouts. When the East India Company later doubled that reward, the first worldwide manhunt in recorded history was underway.

English, Dutch and Danish factories at Mocha

An 18th-century depiction of Henry Every, with the Fancy shown engaging its prey in the background

Depiction of Captain Every's encounter with the Mughal Emperor's granddaughter after his September 1695 capture of the Mughal trader Ganj-i-Sawai

The British East India Company unsuccessfully attempted to annex Afghanistan in 1839.

The prosperity that the officers of the company enjoyed allowed them to return to Britain and establish sprawling estates and businesses, and to obtain political power. The company developed a lobby in the English parliament. Under pressure from ambitious tradesmen and former associates of the company (pejoratively termed Interlopers by the company), who wanted to establish private trading firms in India, a deregulating act was passed in 1694.

This allowed any English firm to trade with India, unless specifically prohibited by act of parliament, thereby annulling the charter that had been in force for almost 100 years. When the East India Company Act 1697 (9 Will. c. 44) was passed in 1697, a new "parallel" East India Company (officially titled the English Company Trading to the East Indies) was floated under a state-backed indemnity of £2 million. The powerful stockholders of the old company quickly subscribed a sum of £315,000 in the new concern, and dominated the new body. The two companies wrestled with each other for some time, both in England and in India, for a dominant share of the trade.

It quickly became evident that, in practice, the original company faced scarcely any measurable competition. The companies merged in 1708, by a tripartite indenture involving both companies and the state, with the charter and agreement for the new United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies being awarded by Sidney Godolphin, 1st Earl of Godolphin. Under this arrangement, the merged company lent to the Treasury a sum of £3,200,000, in return for exclusive privileges for the next three years, after which the situation was to be reviewed. The amalgamated company became the United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies.

In the following decades there was a constant battle between the company lobby and Parliament. The company sought a permanent establishment, while Parliament would not willingly allow it greater autonomy and so relinquish the opportunity to exploit the company's profits. In 1712, another act renewed the status of the company, though the debts were repaid. By 1720, 15% of British imports were from India, almost all passing through the company, which reasserted the influence of the company lobby. The licence was prolonged until 1766 by yet another act in 1730.

... on the 1st March, 1801, the debts of the East India Company amounted to 5,393,989 their effects to 15,404,736 l. and that their sales had increased since February 1793, from 4,988,300 l. to 7,602,041 l.

Outstanding debts were also agreed and the company permitted to export 250 tons of saltpetre. Again in 1673, Banks successfully negotiated another contract for 700 tons of saltpetre at £37,000 between the king and the company. So high was the demand from armed forces that the authorities sometimes turned a blind eye on the untaxed sales. One governor of the company was even reported as saying in 1864 that he would rather have the saltpetre made than the tax on salt.

The Seven Years' War (1756-1763) resulted in the defeat of the French forces, limited French imperial ambitions, and stunted the influence of the Industrial Revolution in French territories. Robert Clive, the governor-general, led the company to a victory against Joseph François Dupleix, the commander of the French forces in India, and recaptured Fort St George from the French. The company took this respite to seize Manila in 1762.

In its first century and half, the EIC used a few hundred soldiers as guards. The great expansion came after 1750, when it had 3,000 regular troops. By 1763, it had 26,000; by 1778, it had 67,000. It recruited largely Indian troops and trained them along European lines. The military arm of the East India Company quickly developed into a private corporate armed force used as an instrument of geo-political power and expansion instead of its original purpose as a guard force. Because of this, the EIC became the most powerful military force in the Indian subcontinent. As it increased in size, the army was divided into the Presidency Armies of Bengal, Madras and Bombay, each of which recruited its own infantry, cavalry, and artillery units. The navy also grew significantly, vastly expanding its fleet. Although heavily armed merchant vessels, called East Indiamen, composed most of the fleet, it also included warships.

The company, fresh from a colossal victory, and with the backing of its own private, well-disciplined, and experienced army, was able to assert its interests in the Carnatic region from its base at Madras and in Bengal from Calcutta, without facing any further obstacles from other colonial powers.

It continued to experience resistance from local rulers during its expansion. Robert Clive led company forces against Siraj Ud Daulah, the last independent Nawab of Bengal, Bihar, and Midnapore district in Odisha to victory at the Battle of Plassey in 1757, resulting in the conquest of Bengal. This victory estranged the British and the Mughals, since Siraj Ud Daulah was a Mughal feudatory ally. That led to the Battle of Buxar.

With the gradual weakening of the Marathas in the aftermath of the three Anglo-Maratha wars, the British also secured the Ganges-Jumna Doab, the Delhi-Agra region, parts of Bundelkhand, Broach, some districts of Gujarat, the fort of Ahmednagar, province of Cuttack (which included Mughalbandi/the coastal part of Odisha, Garjat/the princely states of Odisha, Balasore Port, parts of Midnapore district of West Bengal), Bombay ( Mumbai) and the surrounding areas, leading to a formal end of the Maratha empire and firm establishment of the British East India Company in India.

Hyder Ali and Tipu Sultan, the rulers of the Kingdom of Mysore, offered much resistance to the British forces. Having sided with the French during the Revolutionary War, the rulers of Mysore continued their struggle against the company with the four Anglo-Mysore Wars. Mysore finally fell to the company forces in 1799, in the fourth Anglo-Mysore war during which Tipu Sultan was killed.

The last vestiges of local administration were restricted to the northern regions of Delhi, Oudh, Rajputana, and Punjab, where the company's presence was ever increasing amidst infighting and offers of protection among the remaining princes. The hundred years from the Battle of Plassey in 1757 to the Indian Rebellion of 1857 were a period of consolidation for the company, during which it seized control of the entire Indian subcontinent and functioned more as an administrator and less as a trading concern.

A cholera pandemic began in Bengal, then spread across India by 1820. 10,000 British troops and countless Indians died during this pandemic. Between 1760 and 1834 only some 10% of the East India Company's officers survived to take the final voyage home.

In the early 19th century the Indian question of geopolitical dominance and empire holding remained with the East India Company. The three independent armies of the company's Presidencies, with some locally raised irregular forces, expanded to a total of 280,000 men by 1857. The troops were first recruited from mercenaries and low-caste volunteers, but in time the Bengal Army in particular was composed largely of high-caste Hindus and landowning Muslims.

Within the Army British officers, who initially trained at the company's own academy at the Addiscombe Military Seminary, always outranked Indians, no matter how long the Indians' service. The highest rank to which an Indian soldier could aspire was Subadar-Major (or Risaldar-Major in cavalry units), effectively a senior subaltern equivalent. Promotion for both British and Indian soldiers was strictly by seniority, so Indian soldiers rarely reached the commissioned ranks of Jamadar or Subadar before they were middle aged at best. They received no training in administration or leadership to make them independent of their British officers.

During the wars against the French and their allies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the East India Company's armies were used to seize the colonial possessions of other European nations, including the islands of Réunion and Mauritius. Many East India ships were seized by the French based on these islands during the Napoleonic Wars. They were taken by the British in a hard fought campaign by 1811 and the French threat defeated. In the middle of 1809 the Colonial Governor of India, the 1st Earl of Minto wanted to conquer the lucrative Dutch owned Spice islands famous for nutmeg, mace and cloves. For the EIC the occupation of these islands meant not only a curtailment of Dutch and French trade and power in the East Indies but also an equivalent gain to the company of the rich trade in spice. In 1810 the islands including Banda Neira, Ambon and Ternate fell to a British invasion with little loss. The following year Java fell to the British which completed the conquest of the Dutch East Indies. Minto appointed Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles as lieutenant governor of Java. The British held on to the islands until the end of the war - the Anglo-Dutch Treaty of 1814 meant that they were handed back to the Dutch. The EIC nevertheless had uprooted a lot of the spice trees for transplantation throughout the British Empire. By the 1790s the EIC had established a number of spice gardens in Penang; by 1815 the gardens had significantly expanded to 13,000 nutmeg trees and as many as 20,000 clove trees.

There was a systemic disrespect in the company for the spreading of Protestantism, although it fostered respect for Hindu and Muslim, castes, and ethnic groups. The growth of tensions between the EIC and the local religious and cultural groups grew in the 19th century as the Protestant revival grew in Great Britain. These tensions erupted at the Indian Rebellion of 1857 and the company ceased to exist when the company dissolved through the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act 1873.

In the 18th century, Britain had a huge trade deficit with China. Therefore, in 1773, the company created a British monopoly on opium buying in Bengal, India, by prohibiting the licensing of opium farmers and private cultivation. The monopoly system established in 1799 continued with minimal changes until 1947. As the opium trade was illegal in China, Company ships could not carry opium to China. So the opium produced in Bengal was sold in Calcutta on condition that it be sent to China.

The company established a group of trading settlements centred on the Straits of Malacca called the Straits Settlements in 1826 to protect its trade route to China and to combat local piracy. The settlements were also used as penal settlements for Indian civilian and military prisoners.

In 1838 with the amount of smuggled opium entering China approaching 1,400 tons a year, the Chinese imposed a death penalty for opium smuggling and sent a Special Imperial Commissioner, Lin Zexu, to curb smuggling. This resulted in the First Opium War (1839-42). After the war Hong Kong island was ceded to Britain under the Treaty of Nanking and the Chinese market opened to the opium traders of Britain and other nations. The Jardines and Apcar and Company dominated the trade, although P&O also tried to take a share. A Second Opium War fought by Britain and France against China lasted from 1856 until 1860 and led to the Treaty of Tientsin, which legalised the importation of opium. Legalisation stimulated domestic Chinese opium production and increased the importation of opium from Turkey and Persia. This increased competition for the Chinese market led to India's reducing its opium output and diversifying its exports.

Regulation of the company's affairs

The British government issues a series of regulations over the years.

The company kept good financial statistics.

Although the company was becoming increasingly bold and ambitious in putting down resisting states, it was becoming clearer that the company was incapable of governing the vast expanse of the captured territories. The Bengal famine of 1770, in which one-third of the local population died, caused distress in Britain. Military and administrative costs mounted beyond control in British-administered regions in Bengal because of the ensuing drop in labour productivity.

At the same time, there was commercial stagnation and trade depression throughout Europe. The directors of the company attempted to avert bankruptcy by appealing to Parliament for financial help. This led to the passing of the Tea Act in 1773, which gave the company greater autonomy in running its trade in the American colonies, and allowed it an exemption from tea import duties which its colonial competitors were required to pay.

When the American colonists and tea merchants were told of this Act, they boycotted the company tea. Although the price of tea had dropped because of the Act, it also validated the Townshend Acts, setting the precedent for the king to impose additional taxes in the future. The arrival of tax-exempt Company tea, undercutting the local merchants, triggered the Boston Tea Party in the Province of Massachusetts Bay, one of the major events leading up to the American Revolution.

Despite stiff resistance from the East India lobby in Parliament and from the company's shareholders, the Act passed. It introduced substantial governmental control and allowed British India to be formally under the control of the Crown, but leased back to the company at £40,000 for two years. Under the Act's most important provision, a governing Council composed of five members was created in Calcutta. The three members nominated by Parliament and representing the government's interest could, and invariably would, outvote the two Company members. The council was headed by Warren Hastings, the incumbent governor, who became the first governor-general of Bengal, with an ill-defined authority over the Bombay and Madras Presidencies. His nomination, made by the Court of Directors, would in future be subject to the approval of a Council of Four appointed by the Crown. Initially, the Council consisted of Lieutenant General Sir John Clavering, Sir George Monson, Sir Richard Barwell, and Sir Philip Francis.

Hastings was entrusted with the power of war and peace. British judges and magistrates would also be sent to India to administer the legal system. The governor-general and the council would have complete legislative powers. The company was allowed to maintain its virtual monopoly over trade in exchange for the biennial sum and was obligated to export a minimum quantity of goods yearly to Britain. The costs of administration were to be met by the company. The company initially welcomed these provisions, but the annual burden of the payment contributed to the steady decline of its finances. Governor Hastings proved a major reformer. According to historian William Dalrymple :

He got quickly to work, beginning the process of turning the EIC into an administrative service. Hastings first major change was to move all of all the functions of government from Murshidabad to Calcutta....Throughout 1773, Hastings worked with extraordinary energy. He unified currency systems, ordered the codification of Hindu laws and digests of Muslim law books, reformed the tax and customs system, fixed land revenue and stopped the worst oppression being carried out on behalf of private traders by the local agents. He created an efficient postal service, back a proper cartographic survey of India by James Rennell and built a series of public granaries, including the great Gola at Patna, to make sure the famine of 1770-71 was never repeated.... Underlying all Hastings' work was a deep respect for the land he had lived in since his teens....Hastings genuinely liked India, and by the time he became Governor spoke not only good Bengali and Urdu but also fluent court and literary Persian.

East India Company Act 1784 (Pitt's India Act)

Relationship to the British government: the bill differentiated the East India Company's political functions from its commercial activities. In political matters the East India Company was subordinated to the British government directly. To accomplish this, the Act created a Board of Commissioners for the Affairs of India, usually referred to as the Board of Control. The members of the Board were the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Secretary of State, and four Privy Councillors, nominated by the King. The act specified that the Secretary of State "shall preside at, and be President of the said Board".

Internal Administration of British India: the bill laid the foundation for the centralised and bureaucratic British administration of India which would reach its peak at the beginning of the 20th century during the governor-generalship of George Nathaniel Curzon, 1st Baron Curzon.

Pitt's Act was deemed a failure because it quickly became apparent that the boundaries between government control and the company's powers were nebulous and highly subjective. The government felt obliged to respond to humanitarian calls for better treatment of local peoples in British-occupied territories. Edmund Burke, a former East India Company shareholder and diplomat, was moved to address the situation and introduced a new Regulating Bill in 1783. The bill was defeated amid lobbying by company loyalists and accusations of nepotism in the bill's recommendations for the appointment of councillors.

The Act of 1786 (26 Geo. 3 c. 16) enacted the demand of Earl Cornwallis that the powers of the governor-general be enlarged to empower him, in special cases, to override the majority of his Council and act on his own special responsibility. The Act enabled the offices of the governor-general and the commander-in-chief to be jointly held by the same official.

This Act clearly demarcated borders between the Crown and the company. After this point, the company functioned as a regularised subsidiary of the Crown, with greater accountability for its actions and reached a stable stage of expansion and consolidation. Having temporarily achieved a state of truce with the Crown, the company continued to expand its influence to nearby territories through threats and coercive actions. By the middle of the 19th century, the company's rule extended across most of India, Burma, Malaya, Singapore, and Hong Kong, and a fifth of the world's population was under its trading influence. In addition, Penang Island, ceded from the Kedah Sultanate in Malaya, became the fourth most important settlement, a presidency, of the company's Indian territories.

East India Company Act 1793 (Charter Act)

East India Company Act 1813 (Charter Act)

asserted the sovereignty of the British Crown over the Indian territories held by the company;

renewed the charter of the company for a further twenty years, but

deprived the company of its Indian trade monopoly except for trade in tea and the trade with China

required the company to maintain separate and distinct its commercial and territorial accounts

opened India to missionaries

The Industrial Revolution in Britain, the consequent search for markets, and the rise of laissez-faire economic ideology form the background to the Government of India Act 1833 (3 & 4 Will. 4 c. 85). The Act:

removed the company's remaining trade monopolies and divested it of all its commercial functions

renewed for another twenty years the company's political and administrative authority

invested the Board of Control with full power and authority over the company. As stated by Professor Sri Ram Sharma, "The President of the Board of Control now became Minister for Indian Affairs."

carried further the ongoing process of administrative centralisation through investing the Governor-General in Council with full power and authority to superintend and control the Presidency Governments in all civil and military matters

initiated a machinery for the codification of laws

provided that no Indian subject of the company would be debarred from holding any office under the company by reason of his religion, place of birth, descent or colour

vested the Island of St Helena in the Crown

British influence continued to expand; in 1845, Great Britain purchased the Danish colony of Tranquebar. The company had at various stages extended its influence to China, the Philippines, and Java. It had solved its critical lack of cash needed to buy tea by exporting Indian-grown opium to China. China's efforts to end the trade led to the First Opium War (1839-1842).

The English Education Act by the Council of India in 1835 reallocated funds from the East India Company to spend on education and literature in India.

This Act (16 & 17 Vict. c. 95) provided that British India would remain under the administration of the company in trust for the Crown until Parliament should decide otherwise. It also introduced a system of open competition as the basis of recruitment for civil servants of the company and thus deprived the directors of their patronage system.

Under the act, for the first time the legislative and executive powers of the governor-general's council were separated. It also added six additional members to the governor-general's executive committee.

The Indian Rebellion of 1857 (also known as the Indian Mutiny or Sepoy Mutiny) resulted in widespread devastation in India: many condemned the East India Company for permitting the events to occur. In the aftermath of the Rebellion, under the provisions of the Government of India Act 1858, the British Government nationalised the company. The Crown took over its Indian possessions, its administrative powers and machinery, and its armed forces.

The company remained in existence in vestigial form, continuing to manage the tea trade on behalf of the British Government (and the supply of Saint Helena) until the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act 1873 came into effect, on 1 January 1874. This Act provided for the formal dissolution of the company on 1 June 1874, after a final dividend payment and the commutation or redemption of its stock. commented on 8 April 1873:

It accomplished a work such as in the whole history of the human race no other trading Company ever attempted, and such as none, surely, is likely to attempt in the years to come.

The East India College was founded in 1806 as a training establishment for "writers" (i.e. clerks) in the company's service. It was initially located in Hertford Castle, but moved in 1809 to purpose-built premises at Hertford Heath, Hertfordshire. In 1858 the college closed; but in 1862 the buildings reopened as a public school, now Haileybury and Imperial Service College.

In 1818, the company entered into an agreement by which those of its servants who were certified insane in India might be cared for at Pembroke House, Hackney, London, a private lunatic asylum run by Dr George Rees until 1838, and thereafter by Dr William Williams. The arrangement outlasted the company itself, continuing until 1870, when the India Office opened its own asylum, the Royal India Asylum, at Hanwell, Middlesex.

The East India Company was one of the most powerful and enduring organisations in history and had a long lasting impact on the Indian Subcontinent, with both positive and harmful effects. Although dissolved by the East India Stock Dividend Redemption Act 1873 following the rebellion of 1857, it stimulated the growth of the British Empire. Its professionally trained armies rose to dominate the sub-continent and were to become the armies of British India after 1857. It played a key role in introducing English as an official language in India. This also led to Macaulayism in the Indian subcontinent.

Once the East India Company took over Bengal in the treaty of Allahabad (1765) it collected taxes which it used to further its expansion to the rest of India and did not have to rely on venture capital from London. It returned a high profit to those who risked original money for earlier ventures into Bengal.

Hastings learned Urdu and Persian and took great interest in preserving ancient Sanskrit manuscripts and having them translated into English. He employed many Indians as officials.

Widespread corruption and looting of Bengal resources and treasures during its rule resulted in poverty. A proportion of the loot of Bengal went directly into Clive's pocket. Famines, such as the Great Bengal famine of 1770 and subsequent famines during the 18th and 19th centuries, became more widespread, chiefly because of exploitative agriculture promulgated by the policies of the East India Company and the forced cultivation of opium in place of grain. When the Company first arrived, India produced over a third of the world's GDP. Critics have argued the company damaged the Indian economy through exploitive economic policies and looting.

The English East India Company flag changed over time, with a canton based on the flag of the contemporary Kingdom, and a field of 9-to-13 alternating red and white stripes.

From 1600, the canton consisted of a St George's Cross representing the Kingdom of England. With the Acts of Union 1707, the canton was changed to the new Union Flag-consisting of an English St George's Cross combined with a Scottish St Andrew's cross-representing the Kingdom of Great Britain. After the Acts of Union 1800 that joined Ireland with Great Britain to form the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the canton of the East India Company flag was altered accordingly to include a Saint Patrick's Saltire.

There has been much debate about the number and order of stripes in the field of the flag. Historical documents and paintings show variations from 9-to-13 stripes, with some images showing the top stripe red and others showing it white.

The East India Company's original coat of arms was granted in 1600. The blazon of the arms is as follows:

"Azure, three ships with three masts, rigged and under full sail, the sails, pennants and ensigns Argent, each charged with a cross Gules; on a chief of the second a pale quarterly Azure and Gules, on the 1st and 4th a fleur-de-lis or, on the 2nd and 3rd a leopard or, between two roses Gules seeded Or barbed Vert." The shield had as a crest: "A sphere without a frame, bounded with the Zodiac in bend Or, between two pennants flottant Argent, each charged with a cross Gules, over the sphere the words Deus indicat" ( Latin: God Indicates). The supporters were two sea lions (lions with fishes' tails) and the motto was Deo ducente nil nocet (Latin: Where God Leads, Nothing Harms).

The East India Company's later arms, granted in 1698, were: "Argent a cross Gules; in the dexter chief quarter an escutcheon of the arms of France and England quarterly, the shield ornamentally and regally crowned Or." The crest was: "A lion rampant guardant Or holding between the forepaws a regal crown proper." The supporters were: "Two lions rampant guardant Or, each supporting a banner erect Argent, charged with a cross Gules." The motto was Auspicio regis et senatus angliæ (Latin: Under the auspices of the King and the Senate of England).

When the East India Company was chartered in 1600, it was still customary for individual merchants or members of companies such as the Company of Merchant Adventurers to have a distinguishing merchant's mark which often included the mystical "Sign of Four" and served as a trademark. The East India Company's merchant mark consisted of a "Sign of Four" atop a heart within which was a saltire between the lower arms of which were the initials "EIC". This mark was a central motif of the East India Company's coinage and forms the central emblem displayed on the Scinde Dawk postage stamps.

During the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, the East India Company arranged for letters of marque for its vessels such as the Lord Nelson. This was not so that they could carry cannon to fend off warships, privateers, and pirates on their voyages to India and China (that they could do without permission) but so that, should they have the opportunity to take a prize, they could do so without being guilty of piracy. Similarly, the Earl of Mornington, an East India Company packet ship of only six guns, also sailed under a letter of marque.

In addition, the company had its own navy, the Bombay Marine, equipped with warships such as Grappler. These vessels often accompanied vessels of the Royal Navy on expeditions, such as the Invasion of Java.

At the Battle of Pulo Aura, which was probably the company's most notable naval victory, Nathaniel Dance, Commodore of a convoy of Indiamen and sailing aboard the Warley, led several Indiamen in a skirmish with a French squadron, driving them off. Some six years earlier, on 28 January 1797, five Indiamen, the Woodford, under Captain Charles Lennox, the Taunton-Castle, Captain Edward Studd, Canton, Captain Abel Vyvyan, Boddam, Captain George Palmer, and Ocean, Captain John Christian Lochner, had encountered Admiral de Sercey and his squadron of frigates. On this occasion the Indiamen also succeeded in bluffing their way to safety, and without any shots even being fired. Lastly, on 15 June 1795, the General Goddard played a large role in the capture of seven Dutch East Indiamen off St Helena.

East Indiamen were large and strongly built and when the Royal Navy was desperate for vessels to escort merchant convoys it bought several of them to convert to warships. Earl of Mornington became HMS Drake. Other examples include:

Their design as merchant vessels meant that their performance in the warship role was underwhelming and the Navy converted them to transports.

Unlike all other British Government records, the records from the East India Company (and its successor the India Office) are not in The National Archives at Kew, London, but are held by the British Library in London as part of the Asia, Pacific and Africa Collections. The catalogue is searchable online in the Access to Archives catalogues. Many of the East India Company records are freely available online under an agreement that the Families in British India Society has with the British Library. Published catalogues exist of East India Company ships' journals and logs, 1600-1834; and of some of the company's daughter institutions, including the East India Company College, Haileybury, and Addiscombe Military Seminary.

The Asiatic Journal and Monthly Register for British India and its Dependencies, first issued in 1816, was sponsored by the East India Company, and includes much information relating to the EIC.

Andrews, Kenneth R. (1985). Trade, Plunder, and Settlement: Maritime Enterprise and the Genesis of the British Empire, 1480-1630. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 978-0-521-25760-2.

Chaudhuri, K. N. (1965). The English East India Company: The Study of an Early Joint-Stock Company, 1600-1640. London: Cass.

Chaudhury, S. (1999). Merchants, Companies, and Trade: Europe and Asia in the Early Modern Era. London: Cambridge University Press.

Dalrymple, William (March 2015). The East India Company: The original corporate raiders. "For a century, the East India Company conquered, subjugated and plundered vast tracts of south Asia. The lessons of its brutal reign have never been more relevant." The Guardian

William Dalrymple The Anarchy - The Relentless Rise of the East India Company, Bloomsbury, London, 2019, ISBN 978-1-4088-6437-1.

Dodwell, Henry. Dupleix and Clive: Beginning of Empire. (1968).

Furber, Holden. John Company at Work: A study of European Expansion in India in the late Eighteenth century (Harvard University Press, 1948)

Gardner, Brian. The East India Company : a history (1990) Online free to borrow

Greenwood, Adrian (2015). Victoria's Scottish Lion: The Life of Colin Campbell, Lord Clyde. UK: History Press. p. 496. ISBN 978-0-7509-5685-7.

Harrington, Jack (2010), Sir John Malcolm and the Creation of British India, New York: Palgrave Macmillan., ISBN 978-0-230-10885-1

Marshall, P. J. Problems of empire: Britain and India 1757-1813 (1968) Online free to borrow

Misra, B. B. The Central Administration of the East India Company, 1773-1834 (1959)

Oak, Mandar, and Anand V. Swamy. "Myopia or strategic behavior? Indian regimes and the East India Company in late eighteenth century India." Explorations in economic history 49.3 (2012): 352-366.

Philips, C. H. The East India Company 1784-1834 (2nd ed. 1961), on its internal workings

Riddick, John F. excerpt and text search The history of British India: a chronology (2006), covers 1599-1947

Riddick, John F. Who Was Who in British India (1998), covers 1599-1947

Ruffner, Murray (21 April 2015). "Selden Map Atlas". Thinking Past.

Risley, Sir Herbert H., ed. (1908), The Indian Empire: Historical, Imperial Gazetteer of India, 2, Oxford: Clarendon Press, under the authority of H.M. Secretary of State for India

Risley, Sir Herbert H., ed. (1908), The Indian Empire: Administrative, Imperial Gazetteer of India, 4, Oxford: Clarendon Press, under the authority of H.M Secretary of State for India

Robins, Nick (December 2004). The world's first multinational, in the New Statesman

Sharpe, Brandon (23 April 2015). "Selden Map Atlas". Thinkingpast.com.

St. John, Ian. The Making of the Raj: India Under the East India Company (ABC-CLIO, 2011)

Steensgaard, Niels (1975). The Asian Trade Revolution of the Seventeenth Century: The East India Companies and the Decline of the Caravan Trade. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. ISBN 978-0-226-77138-0.

Stern, Philip J. The Company-State: Corporate Sovereignty and the Early Modern Foundations of the British Empire in India (2011)

Sutherland, Lucy S. "The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics." Economic History Review 17.1 (1947): 15-26. online
Sutherland, Lucy S. (1952). The East India Company in Eighteenth-Century Politics. Oxford: Clarendon Press.

Farrington, Anthony, ed. (1976). The Records of the East India College, Haileybury, & other institutions. London: H.M.S.O.

Stern, Philip J. (2009). "History and historiography of the English East India Company: Past, present, and future!". History Compass. 7 (4): 1146-1180. doi:10.1111/j.1478-0542.2009.00617.x.

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The East India Company ( EIC), also known as the Honourable East India Company ( HEIC), East India Trading Company ( EITC), the English East India Company or the British East India Company, and informally known as John Company, Company Bahadur, or simply The Company, was an English and later British joint-stock company.

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| 13-George I the first Hanoverian King of England

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The first great awakening takes place both in  Great Britain and North America.
They were a series of christian and evangelical revivals that swept across britain and its thirteen North American colonies

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Global conflict arising from colonial rivalries between France and Britain as well as territorial disputes between Prussia and Austria.
It was fought not only in Europe but North America and Asia.

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1769–1770 James Cook explores and maps New Zealand and Australia.

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1769–1770 James Cook explores and maps New Zealand and Australia.

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In 1769, Cook was in charge of an expedition that aimed to map and claim the land first described by Abel Tasman over a hundred years prior. After several expeditions, British colonies were stablished in southern Oceania

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1776 - The United States Declaration of Independence

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1776 - The United States Declaration of Independence

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July 4, 1776. The Declaration explained why the Thirteen Colonies at war with the Kingdom of Great Britain regarded themselves as thirteen independent sovereign states, no longer under British rule.

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United States Declaration of Independence - Wikipedia

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The 1823 facsimile of the engrossed copy of the Declaration of Independence

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1776 Adam Smith publishes 'The Wealth of Nations'

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1776 Adam Smith publishes 'The Wealth of Nations'

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The book named 'An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nathions', often shortened to simply 'The Wealth of Nations' is the magnum opus of the Scottish economist and philosopher and is regarded until this day as a fundamental work in classical economics.

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1780 - 1782: The Rebellion of Túpac Amaru II
It was an uprising of native and mestizo peasants against the Bourbon reforms in the Spanish Viceroyalty of Peru. While Túpac Amaru II, an early leader of the rebellion, was captured and executed in 1781, the rebellion continued for at least another year under other leaders. The ultimate death toll is estimated at 100,000 Indians and 10,000–40,000 non-Indians.

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The French Revolution (French: Révolution française [ʁevɔlysjɔ̃ fʁɑ̃sɛːz]) was a period of social and political upheaval in France and its colonies beginning in 1789 and ending in 1799.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/French_Revolution

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1789 - The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

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1789 - The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen

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(French: Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human civil rights document from the French Revolution.[

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Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a portrait by Jean-Jacques-François Le Barbier

The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen de 1789), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human and civil rights document from the French Revolution; the French title can be translated in the modern era as "Declaration of Human and Civic Rights". Inspired by Enlightenment philosophers, the declaration was a core statement of the values of the French Revolution and had a significant impact on the development of popular conceptions of individual liberty and democracy in Europe and worldwide.

The declaration was initially drafted by Marquis de Lafayette with assistance from Thomas Jefferson, but the majority of the final draft came from Abbé Sieyès. Influenced by the doctrine of natural right, human rights are held to be universal: valid at all times and in every place. It became the basis for a nation of free individuals protected equally by the law. It is included at the beginning of the constitutions of both the French Fourth Republic (1946) and French Fifth Republic (1958) and is considered valid as constitutional law.

The content of the document emerged largely from the ideals of the Enlightenment. Marquis de Lafayette prepared the principal drafts in consultation with his close friend Thomas Jefferson. In August 1789, Abbé Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès and Honoré Mirabeau played a central role in conceptualizing and drafting the final Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen.

The last article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen was adopted on 26 August 1789 by the National Constituent Assembly, during the period of the French Revolution, as the first step toward writing a constitution for France. Inspired by the Enlightenment, the original version of the declaration was discussed by the representatives based on a 24-article draft proposed by the sixth bureau [clarify ], led by Jérôme Champion de Cicé. The draft was later modified during the debates. A second and lengthier declaration, known as the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1793, was written in 1793 but never formally adopted.

Print of the 17 articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in 1789 (Musée de la Révolution française)

The concepts in the declaration come from the philosophical and political duties of the Enlightenment, such as individualism, the social contract as theorized by the Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and the separation of powers espoused by the Baron de Montesquieu. As can be seen in the texts, the French declaration was heavily influenced by the political philosophy of the Enlightenment and principles of human rights, as was the U.S. Declaration of Independence which preceded it (4 July 1776).

These principles were widely shared throughout European society, rather than confined to a small elite as in the past. This took different forms, such as ' English coffeehouse culture', and extended to areas colonised by Europeans, particularly British North America. Contacts between diverse groups in Edinburgh, Geneva, Boston, Amsterdam, Paris, London, or Vienna were much greater than often appreciated.

Transnational elites who shared ideas and styles were not new; what changed was their extent and the numbers involved. Under Louis XIV, Versailles was the centre of French culture, fashion and political power. Improvements in education and literacy over the course of the 18th century meant larger audiences for newspapers and journals, with Masonic lodges, coffee houses and reading clubs providing areas where people could debate and discuss ideas. The emergence of this " public sphere" led to Paris replacing Versailles as the cultural and intellectual centre, leaving the Court isolated and less able to influence opinion.

Assisted by Jefferson, then American diplomat to France, Lafayette prepared a draft which echoed some of the provisions of the U.S. declaration. However, there was no consensus on the role of the Crown, and until this question was settled it was impossible to create political institutions. When presented to the legislative committee on 11 July 1789, it was rejected by pragmatists such as Jean Joseph Mounier, President of the Assembly, who feared creating expectations that could not be satisfied.

Conservatives like Gérard de Lally-Tollendal wanted a bicameral system, with an upper house appointed by the king who would have the right of veto. On 10 September, the majority led by Sieyès and Talleyrand rejected this in favour of a single assembly, while Louis XVI retained only a " suspensive veto"; this meant he could delay the implementation of a law but not block it. With these questions settled, a new committee was convened to agree on a constitution; the most controversial remaining issue was citizenship, itself linked to the debate on the balance between individual rights and obligations. Ultimately, the 1791 Constitution distinguished between active citizens and passive citizens. As a result, it was never fully accepted by radicals in the Jacobin club.

After editing by Mirabeau, it was published on 26 August as a statement of principle. The final draft contained provisions then considered radical in any European society, let alone France in 1789. French historian Georges Lefebvre argues that combined with the elimination of privilege and feudalism, it "highlighted equality in a way the (American Declaration of Independence) did not". More importantly, the two differed in intent; Jefferson saw the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights as fixing the political system at a specific point in time, claiming they 'contained no original thought...but expressed the American mind' at that stage. The 1791 French Constitution was viewed as a starting point, the declaration providing an aspirational vision, a key difference between the two revolutions. Attached as a preamble to the French Constitution of 1791, and that of the 1870 to 1940 French Third Republic, it was incorporated into the current Constitution of France in 1958.

The declaration defines a single set of individual and collective rights for all men. Influenced by the doctrine of natural rights, these rights are held to be universal and valid in all times and places. For example, "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good." They have certain natural rights to property, to liberty, and to life. According to this theory, the role of government is to recognize and secure these rights. Furthermore, the government should be carried on by elected representatives.

When it was written, the rights contained in the declaration were only awarded to men. Furthermore, the declaration was a statement of vision rather than reality. The declaration was not deeply rooted in either the practice of the West or even France at the time. The declaration emerged in the late 18th century out of war and revolution. It encountered opposition, as democracy and individual rights were frequently regarded as synonymous with anarchy and subversion. This declaration embodies ideals and aspirations towards which France pledged to struggle in the future.

The declaration is introduced by a preamble describing the fundamental characteristics of the rights, which are qualified as "natural, unalienable and sacred" and "simple and incontestable principles" on which citizens could base their demands. In the second article, "the natural and imprescriptible rights of man" are defined as "liberty, property, security and resistance to oppression". It called for the destruction of aristocratic privileges by proclaiming an end to feudalism and to exemptions from taxation, freedom, and equal rights for all "Men" and access to public office based on talent. The monarchy was restricted, and all citizens had the right to participate in the legislative process. Freedom of speech and press were declared, and arbitrary arrests were outlawed.

The declaration also asserts the principles of popular sovereignty, in contrast to the divine right of kings that characterized the French monarchy, and social equality among citizens, "All the citizens, being equal in the eyes of the law, are equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents," eliminating the special rights of the nobility and clergy.

Article I - Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be founded only upon the general good.

Article II - The goal of any political association is the conservation of the natural and imprescriptible rights of man. These rights are liberty, property, safety and resistance against oppression.

Article III - The principle of any sovereignty resides essentially in the Nation. No body, no individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.

Article IV - Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others: thus, the exercise of the natural rights of each man has only those borders which assure other members of the society the fruition of these same rights. These borders can be determined only by the law.

Article V - The law has the right to forbid only actions harmful to society. Anything which is not forbidden by the law cannot be impeded, and no one can be constrained to do what it does not order.

Article VI - The law is the expression of the general will. All the citizens have the right of contributing personally or through their representatives to its formation. It must be the same for all, either that it protects, or that it punishes. All the citizens, being equal in its eyes, are equally admissible to all public dignities, places, and employments, according to their capacity and without distinction other than that of their virtues and of their talents.

Article VII - No man can be accused, arrested nor detained but in the cases determined by the law, and according to the forms which it has prescribed. Those who solicit, dispatch, carry out or cause to be carried out arbitrary orders, must be punished; but any citizen called or seized under the terms of the law must obey at once; he renders himself culpable by resistance.

Article VIII - The law should establish only penalties that are strictly and evidently necessary, and no one can be punished but under a law established and promulgated before the offense and legally applied.

Article IX - Any man being presumed innocent until he is declared culpable if it is judged indispensable to arrest him, any rigor which would not be necessary for the securing of his person must be severely reprimanded by the law.

Article X - No one may be disquieted for his opinions, even religious ones, provided that their manifestation does not trouble the public order established by the law.

Article XI - The free communication of thoughts and of opinions is one of the most precious rights of man: any citizen thus may speak, write, print freely, but shall be responsible for such abuses of this freedom as shall be defined by law.

Article XII - The guarantee of the rights of man and of the citizen necessitates a public force: this force is thus instituted for the advantage of all and not for the particular utility of those in whom it is trusted.

Article XIII - For the maintenance of the public force and for the expenditures of administration, a common contribution is indispensable; it must be equally distributed to all the citizens, according to their ability to pay.

Article XIV - Each citizen has the right to ascertain, by himself or through his representatives, the need for a public tax, to consent to it freely, to know the uses to which it is put, and of determining the proportion, basis, collection, and duration.

Article XV - The society has the right of requesting an account from any public agent of its administration.

Article XVI - Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers determined, has no constitution.

Article XVII - Property being an inviolable and sacred right, no one can be deprived of private usage, if it is not when the public necessity, legally noted, evidently requires it, and under the condition of a just and prior indemnity.

Cartoon from 1791 mocking the distinction between active and passive citizens[23]

While the French Revolution provided rights to a larger portion of the population, there remained a distinction between those who obtained the political rights in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and those who did not. Those who were deemed to hold these political rights were called active citizens. Active citizenship was granted to men who were French, at least 25 years old, paid taxes equal to three days work, and could not be defined as servants. This meant that at the time of the declaration, only male property owners held these rights. The deputies in the National Assembly believed that only those who held tangible interests in the nation could make informed political decisions. This distinction directly affects articles 6, 12, 14, and 15 of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, as each of these rights is related to the right to vote and to participate actively in the government. With the decree of 29 October 1789, the term active citizen became embedded in French politics.

The concept of passive citizens was created to encompass those populations excluded from political rights in the declaration. Because of the requirements set down for active citizens, the vote was granted to approximately 4.3 million Frenchmen out of a population of around 29 million.[citation needed ] These omitted groups included women, the poor, domestic servants, enslaved people, children, and foreigners. As the General Assembly voted upon these measures, they limited the rights of certain groups of citizens while implementing the democratic process of the French First Republic. This legislation, passed in 1789, was amended by the creators of the Constitution of the Year III to eliminate the label of an active citizen. The power to vote was then, however, to be granted solely to substantial property owners.

Tensions arose between active and passive citizens throughout the revolution. This happened when passive citizens started to call for more rights or openly refused to listen to the ideals set forth by active citizens. Women in particular were strong passive citizens who played a significant role in the revolution. Olympe de Gouges penned her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in 1791 and drew attention to the need for gender equality. By supporting the ideals of the French Revolution and wishing to expand them to women, she represented herself as a revolutionary citizen. Madame Roland also established herself as an influential figure throughout the revolution. She saw women of the French Revolution as holding three roles; "inciting revolutionary action, formulating policy, and informing others of revolutionary events." By working with men, as opposed to working apart from men, she may have been able to further the fight for revolutionary women. As players in the French Revolution, women occupied a significant role in the civic sphere by forming social movements and participating in popular clubs, allowing them societal influence, despite their lack of direct political power.

Women's rights

The declaration recognizes many rights as belonging to citizens (who could only be male). This was despite the fact that after the Women's March on Versailles on 5 October 1789, women presented the Women's Petition to the National Assembly in which they proposed a decree giving women equal rights. In 1790, Nicolas de Condorcet and Etta Palm d'Aelders unsuccessfully called on the National Assembly to extend civil and political rights to women. Condorcet declared "he who votes against the right of another, whatever the religion, color, or sex of that other, has henceforth abjured his own". The French Revolution did not lead to a recognition of women's rights, and this prompted de Gouges to publish her Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen in September 1791, modeled after the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen. It is ironic in the formulation and exposes the failure of the French Revolution, which had been devoted to equality. It states: "This revolution will only take effect when all women become fully aware of their deplorable condition, and of the rights, they have lost in society."

The Declaration of the Rights of Woman and of the Female Citizen follows the 17 articles of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen point for point. Camille Naish has described it as "almost a parody... of the original document". The first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen proclaims that "Men are born and remain free and equal in rights. Social distinctions may be based only on common utility." The first article of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman and the Female Citizen replies: "Woman is born free and remains equal to man in rights. Social distinctions may only be based on common utility". De Gouges also draws attention to the fact that under French law, women were fully punishable yet denied equal rights, declaring, "Women have the right to mount the scaffold, they must also have the right to mount the speaker's rostrum".

The declaration did not revoke the institution of slavery in the French colonies, as lobbied for by Jacques-Pierre Brissot's Les Amis des Noirs and opposed by the group of colonial planters called the Club Massiac, because they met at the Hôtel Massiac. Despite the lack of explicit mention of slavery in the declaration, it inspired the slave uprisings in Saint-Domingue in the Haitian Revolution, as discussed in C. L. R. James's history of the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins. In Louisiana, the organizers of the Pointe Coupée Slave Conspiracy of 1795 also drew information from the declaration.

Deplorable conditions for the thousands of enslaved people in Saint-Domingue, the most profitable slave colony in the world, led to the uprisings known as the first successful slave revolt in the New World. Free persons of color were part of the first wave of revolt, but later formerly enslaved people took control. In 1794, the convention was dominated by the Jacobins and abolished slavery, including in the colonies of Saint-Domingue and Guadeloupe. However, Napoleon reinstated it in 1802 and attempted to regain control of Saint-Domingue by sending in thousands of troops. After suffering the losses of two-thirds of the men, many to yellow fever, the French withdrew from Saint-Domingue in 1803. Napoleon gave up on North America and agreed to the Louisiana Purchase by the United States. In 1804, the leaders of Saint-Domingue declared it an independent state, the Republic of Haiti, the second republic of the New World. Napoleon abolished the slave trade in 1815. Slavery in France was finally abolished in 1848.

The vast amount of personal freedom given to citizens by the document created a situation where homosexuality was decriminalized by the French Penal Code of 1791, which covered felonies; the law simply failed to mention sodomy as a crime, and thus no one could be prosecuted for it. The 1791 Code of Municipal Police did provide misdemeanor penalties for "gross public indecency," which the police could use to punish anyone having sex in public places or otherwise violating social norms. This approach to punishing homosexual conduct was reiterated in the French Penal Code of 1810.

In 2003, UNESCO added the 1789 version of the declaration (the first printed version) to its Memory of the World International Register, recognising it as documentary heritage of global importance.

Magna Carta (England, 1215)

Statute of Kalisz (Poland, 1264)

Henrician Articles and Pacta conventa (Poland, 1573)

Petition of Right (England, 1628)

Bill of Rights (England, 1689)

Claim of Right (Scotland, 1689)

Virginia Declaration of Rights (United States, 1776)

Pennsylvania Declaration of Rights (United States, 1776)

Bill of Rights (United States, 1789)

Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of Franchimont (modern-day Belgium, 16 September 1789)

(exiled "Belgian" Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen Belgian and Liégeois revolutionaries in Paris, 23 April 1792)

Proclamation of Połaniec - Proclamation that sought to abolish serfdom in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (Poland, 7 May 1794)

("Batavian" Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen Batavian Republic, The Hague, 31 January 1795)

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Blanning, Timothy C. W (1997). The French Revolution: Class War or Culture Clash?. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 978-0-333-67064-4.

Censer, Jack; Hunt, Lynn (2001). Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press.

Dalton, S. (2001). "Gender and the Shifting Ground of Revolutionary Politics: The Case of Madame Roland". Canadian Journal of History. 36 (2): 259-282. doi:10.3138/cjh.36.2.259. PMID 18711850.

Doyle, William (1989). The Oxford History of the French Revolution. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Fremont-Barnes, Gregory (2007). Encyclopedia of the Age of Political Revolutions and New Ideologies, 1760-1815. Greenwood. ISBN 978-0-313-04951-4.

Jefferson, Thomas (1903). Ford, Paul (ed.). The Works of Thomas Jefferson, Vol. XII: Correspondence and Papers 1808-1816 (2010 ed.). Cosimo Classics. ISBN 978-1-61640-215-0.

Jourdan, Annie (2007). "The 'Alien Origins' of the French Revolution: American, Scottish, Genevan, and Dutch Influences". The Western Society for French History. 35 (2). University of Amsterdam. hdl:2027/spo.0642292.0035.012.

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Levy, Darline; Applewhite, Harriet (2002). "A Political Revolution for Women? The Case of Paris". The French Revolution: Conflicting Interpretations (5th ed.). Malabar, Fla.: Krieger Pub. Co. pp. 317-346.

Ludwikowski, Rhett (1990). "The French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen and the American Constitutional Development". The American Journal of Comparative Law. 2: 445-462. doi:10.2307/840552. JSTOR 840552. S2CID 143656851.

Popkin, Jeremy (2006). A History of Modern France. Upper Saddle River: Pearson Education.

"Active Citizen/Passive Citizen". Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution. Project History. 1791.

Schama, Simon (1989). Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution (2004 ed.). Penguin. ISBN 978-0-14-101727-3.

Gérard Conac, Marc Debene, Gérard Teboul, eds, La Déclaration des droits de l'homme et du citoyen de 1789; histoire, analyse et commentaires (in French), Economica, Paris, 1993, ISBN 978-2-7178-2483-4.

McLean, Iain. "Thomas Jefferson, John Adams, and the Déclaration des Droits de l'Homme et du Citoyen" in The Future of Liberal Democracy: Thomas Jefferson and the Contemporary World (Palgrave Macmillan, 2004)

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Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen - Wikipedia

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The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (French: Déclaration des droits de l'Homme et du citoyen de 1789), set by France's National Constituent Assembly in 1789, is a human and civil rights document from the French Revolution; the French title can be translated in the modern era as "Declaration of Human and Civic Rights".

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The Dutch East India Company is dissolved.

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(1801) Britain is rising as an industrial power.

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(1801) Britain is rising as an industrial power.

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The Industrial Revolution began in Great Britain, and many of the technological innovations were of British origin. By the mid-18th century Britain was the world's leading commercial nation, controlling a global trading empire with colonies in North America and the Caribbean, and with the major military and political hegemony on the Indian subcontinent.
The development of trade and the rise of business were among the major causes of the Industrial Revolution.

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1804: Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of the French.

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1804: Napoleon crowns himself Emperor of the French.

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Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 - 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French emperor and military commander who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars. He was the leader of the French Republic as First Consul from 1799 to 1804, then of the French Empire as Emperor of the French from 1804 until 1814, and briefly again in 1815. His political and cultural legacy endures as a celebrated and controversial leader. He initiated many enduring reforms, but has been criticized for his authoritarian rule. He is considered one of the greatest military commanders in history and his wars and campaigns are still studied at military schools worldwide. However, historians still debate whether he was responsible for the Napoleonic Wars in which between three and six million people died.

Napoleon was born on the island of Corsica into a family descended from Italian nobility. He was resentful of the French monarchy, and supported the French Revolution in 1789 while serving in the French army, trying to spread its ideals to his native Corsica. He rose rapidly in the ranks after saving the governing French Directory by firing on royalist insurgents. In 1796, he began a military campaign against the Austrians and their Italian allies, scoring decisive victories, and became a national hero. Two years later he led a military expedition to Egypt that served as a springboard to political power. He engineered a coup in November 1799 and became First Consul of the Republic. In 1804, to consolidate and expand his power, he crowned himself Emperor of the French.

Differences with the United Kingdom meant France faced the War of the Third Coalition by 1805. Napoleon shattered this coalition with victories in the Ulm campaign and at the Battle of Austerlitz, which led to the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire. In 1806, the Fourth Coalition took up arms against him. Napoleon defeated Prussia at the battles of Jena and Auerstedt, marched the Grande Armée into Eastern Europe, and defeated the Russians in June 1807 at Friedland, forcing the defeated nations of the Fourth Coalition to accept the Treaties of Tilsit. Two years later, the Austrians challenged the French again during the War of the Fifth Coalition, but Napoleon solidified his grip over Europe after triumphing at the Battle of Wagram.

Hoping to extend the Continental System, his embargo against Britain, Napoleon invaded the Iberian Peninsula and declared his brother Joseph the King of Spain in 1808. The Spanish and the Portuguese revolted in the Peninsular War aided by a British army, culminating in defeat for Napoleon's marshals. Napoleon launched an invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. The resulting campaign witnessed the catastrophic retreat of Napoleon's Grande Armée. In 1813, Prussia and Austria joined Russian forces in a Sixth Coalition against France, resulting in a large coalition army defeating Napoleon at the Battle of Leipzig. The coalition invaded France and captured Paris, forcing Napoleon to abdicate in April 1814. He was exiled to the island of Elba, between Corsica and Italy. In France, the Bourbons were restored to power.

Napoleon escaped in February 1815 and took control of France. The Allies responded by forming a Seventh Coalition, which defeated Napoleon at the Battle of Waterloo in June 1815. The British exiled him to the remote island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic, where he died in 1821 at the age of 51.

Napoleon had a lasting impact on the world, bringing modernizing reforms to France and Western Europe and stimulating the development of nation states. He also sold the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, doubling the size of the United States. However, his mixed record on civil rights and exploitation of conquered territories adversely affect his reputation.

Napoleon's father, Carlo Buonaparte, fought for Corsican independence under Pasquale Paoli, but after their defeat he eventually became the island's representative to the court of Louis XVI.

Napoleon's family was of Italian origin. His paternal ancestors, the Buonapartes, descended from a minor Tuscan noble family that emigrated to Corsica in the 16th century and his maternal ancestors, the Ramolinos, descended from a minor Genoese noble family. His parents Carlo Maria Bonaparte and Maria Letizia Ramolino maintained an ancestral home called " Casa Bonaparte", known nowadays as Maison Bonaparte, in Ajaccio. Napoleon was born there on 15 August 1769. He was the family's fourth child and third son. He had an elder brother, Joseph, and younger siblings Lucien, Elisa, Louis, Pauline, Caroline, and Jérôme. Napoleon was baptized as a Catholic, under the name . In his youth, his name was also spelled as Nabulione, Nabulio, Napolionne, and Napulione.

Napoleon was born one year after the Republic of Genoa ceded Corsica to France. The state sold sovereign rights a year before his birth and the island was conquered by France during the year of his birth. It was formally incorporated as a province in 1770, after 500 years under Genoese rule and 14 years of independence. Napoleon's parents joined the Corsican resistance and fought against the French to maintain independence, even when Maria was pregnant with him. His father Carlo was an attorney who had supported and actively collaborated with patriot Pasquale Paoli during the Corsican war of independence against France; after the Corsican defeat at Ponte Novu in 1769 and Paoli's exile in Britain, Carlo began working for the new French government and in 1777 was named representative of the island to the court of Louis XVI.

The dominant influence of Napoleon's childhood was his mother, whose firm discipline restrained a rambunctious child. Later in life, Napoleon said, "The future destiny of the child is always the work of the mother." His maternal grandmother had married into the Swiss Fesch family in her second marriage, and Napoleon's uncle, the cardinal Joseph Fesch, fulfilled a role as protector of the Bonaparte family for some years. Napoleon's noble, moderately affluent background afforded him greater opportunities to study than were available to a typical Corsican of the time.

Statue of Bonaparte as a schoolboy in Brienne, aged 15, by [Louis Rochet fr] (1853)

When he turned 9 years old, he moved to the French mainland and enrolled at a religious school in Autun in January 1779. In May, he transferred with a scholarship to a military academy at Brienne-le-Château. In his youth he was an outspoken Corsican nationalist and supported the state's independence from France. Like many Corsicans, Napoleon spoke and read Corsican (as his mother tongue) and Italian (as the official language of Corsica). He began learning French in school at the age of around 10. Although he became fluent in French, he spoke with a distinctive Corsican accent and never learned to spell in French. Consequently, Napoleon was routinely bullied by his peers for his accent, birthplace, short stature, mannerisms, and inability to speak French quickly. He became reserved and melancholy, applying himself to reading. An examiner observed that Napoleon "has always been distinguished for his application in mathematics. He is fairly well acquainted with history and geography ... This boy would make an excellent sailor".

On completion of his studies at Brienne in 1784, Napoleon was admitted to the École Militaire in Paris. He trained to become an artillery officer and, when his father's death reduced his income, was forced to complete the two-year course in one year. He was the first Corsican to graduate from the École Militaire. He was examined by the famed scientist Pierre-Simon Laplace.

Early career

Upon graduating in September 1785, Bonaparte was commissioned a second lieutenant in La Fère artillery regiment. He served in Valence and Auxonne until after the outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789. Bonaparte was a fervent Corsican nationalist during this period. He asked for leave to join his mentor Pasquale Paoli, when Paoli was allowed to return to Corsica by the National Assembly. But Paoli had no sympathy for Napoleon, as he deemed his father a traitor for having deserted the cause of Corsican independence.

When Corsica declared formal secession from France and requested the protection of the British government, Napoleon and his commitment to the French Revolution came into conflict with Paoli, who had decided to sabotage the Corsican contribution to the Expédition de Sardaigne by preventing a French assault on the Sardinian island La Maddalena. Bonaparte and his family were compelled to flee to Toulon on the French mainland in June 1793 because of the split with Paoli.

Siege of Toulon

In July 1793, Bonaparte published a pro-republican pamphlet, Le souper de Beaucaire (Supper at Beaucaire), which gained him the support of Augustin Robespierre, the younger brother of the Revolutionary leader Maximilien Robespierre. With the help of his fellow Corsican Antoine Christophe Saliceti, Bonaparte was appointed senior gunner and artillery commander of the republican forces that arrived at Toulon on 8 September.

He adopted a plan to capture a hill where republican guns could dominate the city's harbour and force the British to evacuate. The assault on the position led to the capture of the city, and during it Bonaparte was wounded in the thigh on 16 December. Catching the attention of the Committee of Public Safety, he was put in charge of the artillery of France's Army of Italy. On 22 December he was on his way to a new post in Nice, promoted from colonel to brigadier general at the age of 24. He devised plans to attack the Kingdom of Sardinia as part of France's campaign against the First Coalition.

13 Vendémiaire

Some contemporaries alleged that Bonaparte was put under house arrest at Nice for his association with the Robespierres following their fall in the Thermidorian Reaction in July 1794. Bonaparte's secretary Bourrienne disputed the allegation in his memoirs. According to Bourrienne, jealousy was responsible, between the Army of the Alps and the Army of Italy, with whom Bonaparte was seconded at the time. Bonaparte dispatched an impassioned defence in a letter to the commissar Saliceti, and was acquitted of any wrongdoing. He was released within two weeks (on 20 August), and due to his technical skills, was asked to draw up plans to attack Italian positions in the context of France's war with Austria. He also took part in an expedition to take back Corsica from the British, but the French were repulsed by the British Royal Navy.

By 1795, Bonaparte had become engaged to Désirée Clary, daughter of François Clary. Désirée's sister Julie Clary had married Bonaparte's brother Joseph. In April 1795, he was assigned to the Army of the West, which was engaged in the War in the Vendée-a civil war and royalist counter-revolution in Vendée, a region in west-central France on the Atlantic Ocean. As an infantry command, it was a demotion from artillery general-for which the army already had a full quota-and he pleaded poor health to avoid the posting.

Journée du 13 Vendémiaire, artillery fire in front of the Church of Saint-Roch, Paris, Rue Saint-Honoré

He was moved to the Bureau of Topography of the Committee of Public Safety. He sought unsuccessfully to be transferred to Constantinople to offer his services to the Sultan. During this period, he wrote the romantic novella Clisson et Eugénie, about a soldier and his lover, in a clear parallel to Bonaparte's own relationship with Clary. On 15 September, Bonaparte was removed from the list of generals in regular service for refusing to serve in the Vendée campaign. He faced a difficult financial situation and reduced career prospects.

On 3 October, royalists in Paris declared a rebellion against the National Convention. Paul Barras, a leader of the Thermidorian Reaction, knew of Bonaparte's military exploits at Toulon and gave him command of the improvised forces in defence of the convention in the Tuileries Palace. Bonaparte had seen the massacre of the King's Swiss Guard there three years earlier and realized that artillery would be the key to its defence.

He ordered a young cavalry officer, Joachim Murat, to seize large cannons and used them to repel the attackers on 5 October 1795- 13 Vendémiaire An IV in the French Republican Calendar. 1,400 royalists died and the rest fled. He cleared the streets with "a whiff of grapeshot", according to 19th-century historian Thomas Carlyle in The French Revolution: A History.

First Italian campaign

Bonaparte at the Pont d'Arcole, by Baron Antoine-Jean Gros, (c. 1801), Musée du Louvre, Paris

Two days after the marriage, Bonaparte left Paris to take command of the Army of Italy. He immediately went on the offensive, hoping to defeat the forces of Kingdom of Sardinia (1720-1861) before their Austrian allies could intervene. In a series of rapid victories during the Montenotte Campaign, he knocked Piedmont out of the war in two weeks. The French then focused on the Austrians for the remainder of the war, the highlight of which became the protracted struggle for Mantua. The Austrians launched a series of offensives against the French to break the siege, but Bonaparte defeated every relief effort, winning the battles of Castiglione, Bassano, Arcole, and Rivoli. The decisive French triumph at Rivoli in January 1797 led to the collapse of the Austrian position in Italy. At Rivoli, the Austrians lost up to 14,000 men while the French lost about 5,000.

The Treaty of Leoben, followed by the more comprehensive Treaty of Campo Formio, gave France control of most of northern Italy and the Low Countries, and a secret clause promised the Republic of Venice to Austria. Bonaparte marched on Venice and forced its surrender, ending 1,100 years of Venetian independence. He authorized the French to loot treasures such as the Horses of Saint Mark. On the journey, Bonaparte conversed much about the warriors of antiquity, especially Alexander, Caesar, Scipio and Hannibal. He studied their strategy and combined it with his own. To a question from Bourrienne, asking whether he preferred Alexander or Caesar, Bonaparte said that he placed Alexander in the first rank, the main reason being his campaign in Asia.

His application of conventional military ideas to real-world situations enabled his military triumphs, such as creative use of artillery as a mobile force to support his infantry. He said later in life: "I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning. Look at Caesar; he fought the first like the last".

Bonaparte could win battles by concealing troop deployments and concentrating his forces on the "hinge" of an enemy's weakened front. If he could not use his favourite envelopment strategy, he would take up the central position and attack two cooperating forces at their hinge, swing round to fight one until it fled, then turn to face the other. In this Italian campaign, Bonaparte's army captured 150,000 prisoners, 540 cannons, and 170 standards. The French army fought 67 actions and won 18 pitched battles through superior artillery technology and Bonaparte's tactics.

Bonaparte sent General Pierre Augereau to Paris to lead a and purge the royalists on 4 September-the Coup of 18 Fructidor. This left Barras and his Republican allies in control again but dependent upon Bonaparte, who proceeded to peace negotiations with Austria. These negotiations resulted in the Treaty of Campo Formio. Bonaparte returned to Paris on 5 December 1797 as a hero. He met Talleyrand, France's new Foreign Minister-who served in the same capacity for Emperor Napoleon-and they began to prepare to invade Britain.

Egyptian expedition

Bonaparte Before the Sphinx (c. 1886) by Jean-Léon Gérôme, Hearst Castle

After two months of planning, Bonaparte decided that France's naval strength was not yet sufficient to confront the British Royal Navy. He decided on a military expedition to seize Egypt and thereby undermine Britain's access to its trade interests in India. Bonaparte wished to establish a French presence in the Middle East and join forces with Tipu Sultan, the Sultan of Mysore, an enemy of the British. Bonaparte assured the Directory that "as soon as he had conquered Egypt, he will establish relations with the Indian princes and, together with them, attack the English in their possessions". The Directory agreed in order to secure a trade route to the Indian subcontinent.

In May 1798, Bonaparte was elected a member of the French Academy of Sciences. His Egyptian expedition included a group of 167 scientists, with mathematicians, naturalists, chemists, and geodesists among them. Their discoveries included the Rosetta Stone, and their work was published in the Description de l'Égypte in 1809. En route to Egypt, Bonaparte reached Malta on 9 June 1798, then controlled by the Knights Hospitaller. Grand Master Ferdinand von Hompesch zu Bolheim surrendered after token resistance, and Bonaparte captured an important naval base with the loss of only three men.

Bonaparte and his expedition eluded pursuit by the Royal Navy and landed at Alexandria on 1 July. He fought the Battle of Shubra Khit against the Mamluks, Egypt's ruling military caste. This helped the French practise their defensive tactic for the Battle of the Pyramids on 21 July, about 24 km (15 mi) from the pyramids. Bonaparte's forces of 25,000 roughly equalled those of the Mamluks' Egyptian cavalry. Twenty-nine French and approximately 2,000 Egyptians were killed. The victory boosted the French army's morale.

On 1 August 1798, the British fleet under Sir Horatio Nelson captured or destroyed all but two vessels of the French fleet in the Battle of the Nile, preventing Bonaparte from strengthening the French position in the Mediterranean. His army had succeeded in a temporary increase of French power in Egypt, though it faced repeated uprisings. In early 1799, he moved an army into the Ottoman province of Damascus (Syria and Galilee). Bonaparte led these 13,000 French soldiers in the conquest of the coastal towns of Arish, Gaza, Jaffa, and Haifa. The attack on Jaffa was particularly brutal. Bonaparte discovered that many of the defenders were former prisoners of war, ostensibly on parole, so he ordered the garrison and some 1,500-5,000 prisoners to be executed by bayonet or drowning. Men, women, and children were robbed and murdered for three days.

Bonaparte began with an army of 13,000 men. 1,500 were reported missing, 1,200 died in combat, and thousands perished from disease-mostly bubonic plague. He failed to reduce the fortress of Acre, so he marched his army back to Egypt in May. To speed the retreat, Bonaparte was alleged to have ordered plague-stricken men to be poisoned with opium. Back in Egypt on 25 July, Bonaparte defeated an Ottoman amphibious invasion at Abukir.

Ruler of France

While in Egypt, Bonaparte stayed informed of European affairs. He learned that France had suffered a series of defeats in the War of the Second Coalition. On 24 August 1799, fearing that the Republic's future was in doubt, he took advantage of the temporary departure of British ships from French coastal ports and set sail for France, despite the fact that he had received no explicit orders from Paris. The army was left in the charge of Jean-Baptiste Kléber.

Despite the failures in Egypt, Bonaparte returned to a hero's welcome. He drew together an alliance with Talleyrand and members of the Council of Five Hundred: Emmanuel Joseph Sieyès, his brother Lucien, Roger Ducos and Joseph Fouché. They overthrew the Directory by a coup d'état on 9 November 1799 ("the 18th Brumaire" according to the revolutionary calendar), closing down the Council of Five Hundred. Napoleon became "first consul" for ten years, with two consuls appointed by him who had consultative voices only. His power was confirmed by the new " Constitution of the Year VIII", originally devised by Sieyès to give Napoleon a minor role, but rewritten by Napoleon, and accepted by direct popular vote (3,000,000 in favour, 1,567 opposed). The constitution preserved the appearance of a republic but, in reality, established a dictatorship.

French Consulate

Bonaparte, First Consul, by Ingres. Posing the hand inside the waistcoat was often used in portraits of rulers to indicate calm and stable leadership.

Silver coin: 5 francs_AN XI, 1802, Bonaparte, First Consul

Bonaparte established a political system that historian Martyn Lyons called "dictatorship by plebiscite". Worried by the democratic forces unleashed by the Revolution, but unwilling to ignore them entirely, Bonaparte resorted to regular electoral consultations with the French people on his road to imperial power. He drafted the Constitution of the Year VIII and secured his own election as First Consul, taking up residence at the Tuileries. The constitution was approved in a rigged plebiscite held the following January, with 99.94 percent officially listed as voting "yes".

In the spring of 1800, Bonaparte and his troops crossed the Swiss Alps into Italy, aiming to surprise the Austrian armies that had reoccupied the peninsula when Bonaparte was still in Egypt. After a difficult crossing over the Alps, the French army entered the plains of Northern Italy virtually unopposed. While one French army approached from the north, the Austrians were busy with another stationed in Genoa, which was besieged by a substantial force. The fierce resistance of this French army, under André Masséna, gave the northern force some time to carry out their operations with little interference.

After spending several days looking for each other, the two armies collided at the Battle of Marengo on 14 June. General Melas had a numerical advantage, fielding about 30,000 Austrian soldiers while Bonaparte commanded 24,000 French troops. The battle began favourably for the Austrians as their initial attack surprised the French and gradually drove them back. Melas stated that he had won the battle and retired to his headquarters around 3 pm, leaving his subordinates in charge of pursuing the French. The French lines never broke during their tactical retreat. Bonaparte constantly rode out among the troops urging them to stand and fight.

Late in the afternoon, a full division under Desaix arrived on the field and reversed the tide of the battle. A series of artillery barrages and cavalry charges decimated the Austrian army, which fled over the Bormida River back to Alessandria, leaving behind 14,000 casualties. The following day, the Austrian army agreed to abandon Northern Italy once more with the Convention of Alessandria, which granted them safe passage to friendly soil in exchange for their fortresses throughout the region.

Although critics have blamed Bonaparte for several tactical mistakes preceding the battle, they have also praised his audacity for selecting a risky campaign strategy, choosing to invade the Italian peninsula from the north when the vast majority of French invasions came from the west, near or along the coastline. As David G. Chandler points out, Bonaparte spent almost a year getting the Austrians out of Italy in his first campaign. In 1800, it took him only a month to achieve the same goal. German strategist and field marshal Alfred von Schlieffen concluded that "Bonaparte did not annihilate his enemy but eliminated him and rendered him harmless" while attaining "the object of the campaign: the conquest of North Italy".

Bonaparte's triumph at Marengo secured his political authority and boosted his popularity back home, but it did not lead to an immediate peace. Bonaparte's brother, Joseph, led the complex negotiations in Lunéville and reported that Austria, emboldened by British support, would not acknowledge the new territory that France had acquired. As negotiations became increasingly fractious, Bonaparte gave orders to his general Moreau to strike Austria once more. Moreau and the French swept through Bavaria and scored an overwhelming victory at Hohenlinden in December 1800. As a result, the Austrians capitulated and signed the Treaty of Lunéville in February 1801. The treaty reaffirmed and expanded earlier French gains at Campo Formio.

Temporary peace in Europe

After a decade of constant warfare, France and Britain signed the Treaty of Amiens in March 1802, bringing the Revolutionary Wars to an end. Amiens called for the withdrawal of British troops from recently conquered colonial territories as well as for assurances to curtail the expansionary goals of the French Republic. With Europe at peace and the economy recovering, Bonaparte's popularity soared to its highest levels under the consulate, both domestically and abroad. In a new plebiscite during the spring of 1802, the French public came out in huge numbers to approve a constitution that made the Consulate permanent, essentially elevating Bonaparte to dictator for life.

Whereas the plebiscite two years earlier had brought out 1.5 million people to the polls, the new referendum enticed 3.6 million to go and vote (72 percent of all eligible voters). There was no secret ballot in 1802 and few people wanted to openly defy the regime. The constitution gained approval with over 99% of the vote. His broad powers were spelled out in the new constitution: Article 1. The French people name, and the Senate proclaims Napoleon-Bonaparte First Consul for Life. After 1802, he was generally referred to as Napoleon rather than Bonaparte.

The brief peace in Europe allowed Napoleon to focus on French colonies abroad. Saint-Domingue had managed to acquire a high level of political autonomy during the Revolutionary Wars, with Toussaint L'Ouverture installing himself as de facto dictator by 1801. Napoleon saw a chance to reestablish control over the colony when he signed the Treaty of Amiens. In the 18th century, Saint-Domingue had been France's most profitable colony, producing more sugar than all the British West Indies colonies combined. However, during the Revolution, the National Convention voted to abolish slavery in February 1794. Aware of the expenses required to fund his wars in Europe, Napoleon made the decision to reinstate slavery in all French Caribbean colonies. The 1794 decree had only affected the colonies of Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe and Guiana and did not take effect in Mauritius, Reunion and Martinique, the last of which had been captured by the British and as such remained unaffected by French law.

In Guadeloupe slavery had been abolished (and its ban violently enforced) by Victor Hugues against opposition from slaveholders thanks to the 1794 law. However, when slavery was reinstated in 1802, a slave revolt broke out under the leadership of Louis Delgrès. The resulting Law of 20 May had the express purpose of reinstating slavery in Saint-Domingue, Guadeloupe and French Guiana, and restored slavery throughout most of the French colonial empire (excluding Saint-Domingue) for another half a century, while the French transatlantic slave trade continued for another twenty years.

Napoleon sent an expedition under his brother-in-law General Leclerc to reassert control over Saint-Domingue. Although the French managed to capture Toussaint Louverture, the expedition failed when high rates of disease crippled the French army, and Jean-Jacques Dessalines won a string of victories, first against Leclerc, and when he died from yellow fever, then against Donatien-Marie-Joseph de Vimeur, vicomte de Rochambeau, whom Napoleon sent to relieve Leclerc with another 20,000 men. In May 1803, Napoleon acknowledged defeat, and the last 8,000 French troops left the island, and the slaves proclaimed an independent republic that they called Haiti in 1804. In the process, Dessalines became arguably the most successful military commander in the struggle against Napoleonic France. Seeing the failure of his efforts in Haiti, Napoleon decided in 1803 to sell the Louisiana Territory to the United States, instantly doubling the size of the U.S. The selling price in the Louisiana Purchase was less than three cents per acre, a total of $15 million.

The peace with Britain proved to be uneasy and controversial. Britain did not evacuate Malta as promised and protested against Bonaparte's annexation of Piedmont and his Act of Mediation, which established a new Swiss Confederation. Neither of these territories were covered by Amiens, but they inflamed tensions significantly. The dispute culminated in a declaration of war by Britain in May 1803; Napoleon responded by reassembling the invasion camp at Boulogne and declaring that every British male between eighteen and sixty years old in France and its dependencies to be arrested as a prisoner of war.

French Empire

During the consulate, Napoleon faced several royalist and Jacobin assassination plots, including the Conspiration des poignards (Dagger plot) in October 1800 and the Plot of the Rue Saint-Nicaise (also known as the Infernal Machine) two months later. In January 1804, his police uncovered an assassination plot against him that involved Moreau and which was ostensibly sponsored by the Bourbon family, the former rulers of France. On the advice of Talleyrand, Napoleon ordered the kidnapping of the Duke of Enghien, violating the sovereignty of Baden. The Duke was quickly executed after a secret military trial, even though he had not been involved in the plot. Enghien's execution infuriated royal courts throughout Europe, becoming one of the contributing political factors for the outbreak of the Napoleonic Wars.

To expand his power, Napoleon used these assassination plots to justify the creation of an imperial system based on the Roman model. He believed that a Bourbon restoration would be more difficult if his family's succession was entrenched in the constitution. Launching yet another referendum, Napoleon was elected as Emperor of the French by a tally exceeding 99%. As with the Life Consulate two years earlier, this referendum produced heavy participation, bringing out almost 3.6 million voters to the polls.

A keen observer of Bonaparte's rise to absolute power, Madame de Rémusat, explains that "men worn out by the turmoil of the Revolution [...] looked for the domination of an able ruler" and that "people believed quite sincerely that Bonaparte, whether as consul or emperor, would exert his authority and save [them] from the perils of anarchy."

Coronation

Napoleon's throne room at Fontainebleau

Napoleon's coronation, at which Pope Pius VII officiated, took place at Notre Dame de Paris, on 2 December 1804. Napoleon wore a golden laurel wreath throughout the proceedings, representing victory, peace and civic virtue. For the coronation, he raised a replica of Charlemagne's crown over his own head in a symbolic gesture, but did not wear it atop the wreath. All present rose spontaneously, the men waving their hats. Joséphine, Napoleon's wife, knelt in front of him to receive her crown on her head, the event commemorated in the official painting by Jacques-Louis David. Joséphine became only the second queen to be crowned and anointed in French history, other than Marie de' Medici.

War of the Third Coalition

Napoleon in his coronation robes by François Gérard, c. 1805

Great Britain had broken the Peace of Amiens by declaring war on France in May 1803. In December 1804, an Anglo-Swedish agreement became the first step towards the creation of the Third Coalition. By April 1805, Britain had also signed an alliance with Russia. Austria had been defeated by France twice in recent memory and wanted revenge, so it joined the coalition a few months later.

Before the formation of the Third Coalition, Napoleon had assembled an invasion force, the Armée d'Angleterre, around six camps at Boulogne in Northern France. He intended to use this invasion force to strike at England. They never invaded, but Napoleon's troops received careful and invaluable training for future military operations. The men at Boulogne formed the core for what Napoleon later called La Grande Armée. At the start, this French army had about 200,000 men organized into seven corps, which were large field units that contained 36-40 cannons each and were capable of independent action until other corps could come to the rescue.

A single corps properly situated in a strong defensive position could survive at least a day without support, giving the Grande Armée countless strategic and tactical options on every campaign. On top of these forces, Napoleon created a cavalry reserve of 22,000 organized into two cuirassier divisions, four mounted dragoon divisions, one division of dismounted dragoons, and one of light cavalry, all supported by 24 artillery pieces. By 1805, the Grande Armée had grown to a force of 350,000 men, who were well equipped, well trained, and led by competent officers.

Napoleon knew that the French fleet could not defeat the Royal Navy in a head-to-head battle, so he planned to lure it away from the English Channel through diversionary tactics. The main strategic idea involved the French Navy escaping from the British blockades of Toulon and Brest and threatening to attack the British West Indies. In the face of this attack, it was hoped, the British would weaken their defence of the Western Approaches by sending ships to the Caribbean, allowing a combined Franco-Spanish fleet to take control of the English channel long enough for French armies to cross and invade. However, the plan unravelled after the British victory at the Battle of Cape Finisterre in July 1805. French Admiral Villeneuve then retreated to Cádiz instead of linking up with French naval forces at Brest for an attack on the English Channel.

Napoleon and the Grande Armée receive the surrender of Austrian General Mack after the Battle of Ulm in October 1805. The decisive finale of the Ulm Campaign raised the tally of captured Austrian soldiers to 60,000. With the Austrian army destroyed, Vienna would fall to the French in November.

Austrian commander Karl Mack had gathered the greater part of the Austrian army at the fortress of Ulm in Swabia. Napoleon swung his forces to the southeast and the Grande Armée performed an elaborate wheeling movement that outflanked the Austrian positions. The Ulm Maneuver completely surprised General Mack, who belatedly understood that his army had been cut off. After some minor engagements that culminated in the Battle of Ulm, Mack finally surrendered after realizing that there was no way to break out of the French encirclement. For just 2,000 French casualties, Napoleon had managed to capture a total of 60,000 Austrian soldiers through his army's rapid marching. Napoleon wrote after the conflict: "I have accomplished my object, I have destroyed the Austrian army by simply marching."

The Ulm Campaign is generally regarded as a strategic masterpiece and was influential in the development of the Schlieffen Plan in the late 19th century. For the French, this spectacular victory on land was soured by the decisive victory that the Royal Navy attained at the Battle of Trafalgar on 21 October. After Trafalgar, the Royal Navy was never again seriously challenged by a French fleet in a large-scale engagement for the duration of the Napoleonic Wars.

Following the Ulm Campaign, French forces managed to capture Vienna in November. The fall of Vienna provided the French a huge bounty as they captured 100,000 muskets, 500 cannons, and the intact bridges across the Danube. At this critical juncture, both Tsar Alexander I and Holy Roman Emperor Francis II decided to engage Napoleon in battle, despite reservations from some of their subordinates. Napoleon sent his army north in pursuit of the Allies but then ordered his forces to retreat so that he could feign a grave weakness.

Napoleon at the Battle of Austerlitz, by François Gérard, 1805. The Battle of Austerlitz, also known as the Battle of the Three Emperors, was one of Napoleon's many victories, where the French Empire defeated the Third Coalition.

It imposed an indemnity of 40 million francs on the defeated Habsburgs and allowed the fleeing Russian troops free passage through hostile territories and back to their home soil. Napoleon went on to say, "The battle of Austerlitz is the finest of all I have fought". Frank McLynn suggests that Napoleon was so successful at Austerlitz that he lost touch with reality, and what used to be French foreign policy became a "personal Napoleonic one". Vincent Cronin disagrees, stating that Napoleon was not overly ambitious for himself, "he embodied the ambitions of thirty million Frenchmen".

Middle-Eastern alliances

Napoleon continued to entertain a grand scheme to establish a French presence in the Middle East in order to put pressure on Britain and Russia, and perhaps form an alliance with the Ottoman Empire. In February 1806, Ottoman Emperor Selim III recognized Napoleon as Emperor. He also opted for an alliance with France, calling France "our sincere and natural ally". That decision brought the Ottoman Empire into a losing war against Russia and Britain. A Franco-Persian alliance was formed between Napoleon and the Persian Empire of Fat′h-Ali Shah Qajar. It collapsed in 1807 when France and Russia formed an unexpected alliance. In the end, Napoleon had made no effective alliances in the Middle East.

War of the Fourth Coalition and Tilsit

The initial military manoeuvres began in September 1806. In a letter to Marshal Soult detailing the plan for the campaign, Napoleon described the essential features of Napoleonic warfare and introduced the phrase le bataillon-carré ("square battalion"). In the bataillon-carré system, the various corps of the Grande Armée would march uniformly together in close supporting distance. If any single corps was attacked, the others could quickly spring into action and arrive to help.

Following his triumph, Napoleon imposed the first elements of the Continental System through the Berlin Decree issued in November 1806. The Continental System, which prohibited European nations from trading with Britain, was widely violated throughout his reign. In the next few months, Napoleon marched against the advancing Russian armies through Poland and was involved in the bloody stalemate at the Battle of Eylau in February 1807. After a period of rest and consolidation on both sides, the war restarted in June with an initial struggle at Heilsberg that proved indecisive.

On 14 June Napoleon obtained an overwhelming victory over the Russians at the Battle of Friedland, wiping out the majority of the Russian army in a very bloody struggle. The scale of their defeat convinced the Russians to make peace with the French. On 19 June, Tsar Alexander sent an envoy to seek an armistice with Napoleon. The latter assured the envoy that the Vistula River represented the natural borders between French and Russian influence in Europe. On that basis, the two emperors began peace negotiations at the town of Tilsit after meeting on an iconic raft on the River Niemen. The very first thing Alexander said to Napoleon was probably well-calibrated: "I hate the English as much as you do". Their meeting lasted two hours. Despite waging wars against each other the two Emperors were very much impressed and fascinated by one another. "Never," said Alexander afterward, "did I love any man as I loved that man."

Alexander faced pressure from his brother, Duke Constantine, to make peace with Napoleon. Given the victory he had just achieved, the French emperor offered the Russians relatively lenient terms-demanding that Russia join the Continental System, withdraw its forces from Wallachia and Moldavia, and hand over the Ionian Islands to France. By contrast, Napoleon dictated very harsh peace terms for Prussia, despite the ceaseless exhortations of Queen Louise. Wiping out half of Prussian territories from the map, Napoleon created a new kingdom of 2,800 square kilometres (1,100 sq mi) called Westphalia and appointed his young brother Jérôme as its monarch.

Prussia's humiliating treatment at Tilsit caused a deep and bitter antagonism that festered as the Napoleonic era progressed. Moreover, Alexander's pretensions at friendship with Napoleon led the latter to seriously misjudge the true intentions of his Russian counterpart, who would violate numerous provisions of the treaty in the next few years. Despite these problems, the Treaties of Tilsit at last gave Napoleon a respite from war and allowed him to return to France, which he had not seen in over 300 days.

Peninsular War and Erfurt

The settlements at Tilsit gave Napoleon time to organize his empire. One of his major objectives became enforcing the Continental System against the British forces. He decided to focus his attention on the Kingdom of Portugal, which consistently violated his trade prohibitions. After defeat in the War of the Oranges in 1801, Portugal adopted a double-sided policy.

Unhappy with this change of policy by the Portuguese government, Napoleon negotiated a secret treaty with Charles IV of Spain and sent an army to invade Portugal. On 17 October 1807, 24,000 French troops under General Junot crossed the Pyrenees with Spanish cooperation and headed towards Portugal to enforce Napoleon's orders. This attack was the first step in what would eventually become the Peninsular War, a six-year struggle that significantly sapped French strength. Throughout the winter of 1808, French agents became increasingly involved in Spanish internal affairs, attempting to incite discord between members of the Spanish royal family. On 16 February 1808, secret French machinations finally materialized when Napoleon announced that he would intervene to mediate between the rival political factions in the country.

Marshal Murat led 120,000 troops into Spain. The French arrived in Madrid on 24 March, where wild riots against the occupation erupted just a few weeks later. Napoleon appointed his brother, Joseph Bonaparte, as the new King of Spain in the summer of 1808. The appointment enraged a heavily religious and conservative Spanish population. Resistance to French aggression soon spread throughout Spain. The shocking French defeats at the Battle of Bailén and the Battle of Vimiero gave hope to Napoleon's enemies and partly persuaded the French emperor to intervene in person.

Before going to Iberia, Napoleon decided to address several lingering issues with the Russians. At the Congress of Erfurt in October 1808, Napoleon hoped to keep Russia on his side during the upcoming struggle in Spain and during any potential conflict against Austria. The two sides reached an agreement, the Erfurt Convention, that called upon Britain to cease its war against France, that recognized the Russian conquest of Finland from Sweden and made it an autonomous Grand Duchy, and that affirmed Russian support for France in a possible war against Austria "to the best of its ability".

Napoleon then returned to France and prepared for war. The Grande Armée, under the Emperor's personal command, rapidly crossed the Ebro River in November 1808 and inflicted a series of crushing defeats against the Spanish forces. After clearing the last Spanish force guarding the capital at Somosierra, Napoleon entered Madrid on 4 December with 80,000 troops. He then unleashed his soldiers against Moore and the British forces. The British were swiftly driven to the coast, and they withdrew from Spain entirely after a last stand at the Battle of Corunna in January 1809 and the death of Moore.

Napoleon would end up leaving Iberia in order to deal with the Austrians in Central Europe, but the Peninsular War continued on long after his absence. He never returned to Spain after the 1808 campaign. Several months after Corunna, the British sent another army to the peninsula under Arthur Wellesley, the future Duke of Wellington. The war then settled into a complex and asymmetric strategic deadlock where all sides struggled to gain the upper hand. The highlight of the conflict became the brutal guerrilla warfare that engulfed much of the Spanish countryside. Both sides committed the worst atrocities of the Napoleonic Wars during this phase of the conflict.

The vicious guerrilla fighting in Spain, largely absent from the French campaigns in Central Europe, severely disrupted the French lines of supply and communication. Although France maintained roughly 300,000 troops in Iberia during the Peninsular War, the vast majority were tied down to garrison duty and to intelligence operations. The French were never able to concentrate all of their forces effectively, prolonging the war until events elsewhere in Europe finally turned the tide in favour of the Allies. After the invasion of Russia in 1812, the number of French troops in Spain vastly declined as Napoleon needed reinforcements to conserve his strategic position in Europe. By 1814 the Allies had pushed the French out of the peninsula.

War of the Fifth Coalition and Marie Louise

After four years on the sidelines, Austria sought another war with France to avenge its recent defeats. Austria could not count on Russian support because the latter was at war with Britain, Sweden, and the Ottoman Empire in 1809. Frederick William of Prussia initially promised to help the Austrians but reneged before conflict began. A report from the Austrian finance minister suggested that the treasury would run out of money by the middle of 1809 if the large army that the Austrians had formed since the Third Coalition remained mobilized. Although Archduke Charles warned that the Austrians were not ready for another showdown with Napoleon, a stance that landed him in the so-called "peace party", he did not want to see the army demobilized either. On 8 February 1809, the advocates for war finally succeeded when the Imperial Government secretly decided on another confrontation against the French.

In the early morning of 10 April, leading elements of the Austrian army crossed the Inn River and invaded Bavaria. The early Austrian attack surprised the French; Napoleon himself was still in Paris when he heard about the invasion. He arrived at Donauwörth on the 17th to find the Grande Armée in a dangerous position, with its two wings separated by 120 km (75 mi) and joined by a thin cordon of Bavarian troops. Charles pressed the left wing of the French army and hurled his men towards the III Corps of Marshal Davout.

In response, Napoleon came up with a plan to cut off the Austrians in the celebrated Landshut Maneuver. He realigned the axis of his army and marched his soldiers towards the town of Eckmühl. The French scored a convincing win in the resulting Battle of Eckmühl, forcing Charles to withdraw his forces over the Danube and into Bohemia. On 13 May, Vienna fell for the second time in four years, although the war continued since most of the Austrian army had survived the initial engagements in Southern Germany.

After the setback at Aspern-Essling, Napoleon took more than six weeks in planning and preparing for contingencies before he made another attempt at crossing the Danube. From 30 June to the early days of July, the French recrossed the Danube in strength, with more than 180,000 troops marching across the Marchfeld towards the Austrians. Charles received the French with 150,000 of his own men. In the ensuing Battle of Wagram, which also lasted two days, Napoleon commanded his forces in what was the largest battle of his career up until then. Napoleon finished off the battle with a concentrated central thrust that punctured a hole in the Austrian army and forced Charles to retreat. Austrian losses were very heavy, reaching well over 40,000 casualties. The French were too exhausted to pursue the Austrians immediately, but Napoleon eventually caught up with Charles at Znaim and the latter signed an armistice on 12 July.

The French Empire at its greatest extent in 1812:

The resulting Treaty of Schönbrunn in October 1809 was the harshest that France had imposed on Austria in recent memory. Metternich and Archduke Charles had the preservation of the Habsburg Empire as their fundamental goal, and to this end, they succeeded by making Napoleon seek more modest goals in return for promises of friendship between the two powers. While most of the hereditary lands remained a part of the Habsburg realm, France received Carinthia, Carniola, and the Adriatic ports, while Galicia was given to the Poles and the Salzburg area of the Tyrol went to the Bavarians. Austria lost over three million subjects, about one-fifth of her total population, as a result of these territorial changes.

Napoleon turned his focus to domestic affairs after the war. Empress Joséphine had still not given birth to a child from Napoleon, who became worried about the future of his empire following his death. Desperate for a legitimate heir, Napoleon divorced Joséphine on 10 January 1810 and started looking for a new wife. Hoping to cement the recent alliance with Austria through a family connection, Napoleon married the 18-year-old Archduchess Marie Louise, daughter of Emperor Francis II. On 20 March 1811, Marie Louise gave birth to a baby boy, whom Napoleon made heir apparent and bestowed the title of King of Rome. His son never actually ruled the empire but given his brief titular rule and cousin Louis-Napoléon's subsequent naming himself Napoléon III, historians often refer to him as Napoleon II.

Invasion of Russia

In 1808, Napoleon and Tsar Alexander met at the Congress of Erfurt to preserve the Russo-French alliance. The leaders had a friendly personal relationship after their first meeting at Tilsit in 1807. By 1811, however, tensions had increased, a strain on the relationship became the regular violations of the Continental System by the Russians as their economy was failing, which led Napoleon to threaten Alexander with serious consequences if he formed an alliance with Britain.

By 1812, advisers to Alexander suggested the possibility of an invasion of the French Empire and the recapture of Poland. On receipt of intelligence reports on Russia's war preparations, Napoleon expanded his Grande Armée to more than 450,000 men. He ignored repeated advice against an invasion of the Russian heartland and prepared for an offensive campaign; on 24 June 1812 the invasion commenced.

In an attempt to gain increased support from Polish nationalists and patriots, Napoleon termed the war the Second Polish War-the First Polish War had been the Bar Confederation uprising by Polish nobles against Russia in 1768. Polish patriots wanted the Russian part of Poland to be joined with the Duchy of Warsaw and an independent Poland created. This was rejected by Napoleon, who stated he had promised his ally Austria this would not happen. Napoleon refused to manumit the Russian serfs because of concerns this might provoke a reaction in his army's rear. The serfs later committed atrocities against French soldiers during France's retreat.

The Russians eventually offered battle outside Moscow on 7 September: the Battle of Borodino resulted in approximately 44,000 Russian and 35,000 French dead, wounded or captured, and may have been the bloodiest day of battle in history up to that point in time. Although the French had won, the Russian army had accepted, and withstood, the major battle Napoleon had hoped would be decisive. Napoleon's own account was: "The most terrible of all my battles was the one before Moscow. The French showed themselves to be worthy of victory, but the Russians showed themselves worthy of being invincible".

The Russian army withdrew and retreated past Moscow. Napoleon entered the city, assuming its fall would end the war and Alexander would negotiate peace. Moscow was burned, rather than surrendered, on the order of Moscow's governor Feodor Rostopchin. After five weeks, Napoleon and his army left. In early November Napoleon became concerned about the loss of control back in France after the Malet coup of 1812. His army walked through snow up to their knees, and nearly 10,000 men and horses froze to death on the night of 8/9 November alone. After the Battle of Berezina Napoleon managed to escape but had to abandon much of the remaining artillery and baggage train. On 5 December, shortly before arriving in Vilnius, Napoleon left the army in a sledge.

The French suffered in the course of a ruinous retreat, including from the harshness of the Russian Winter. The Armée had begun as over 400,000 frontline troops, with fewer than 40,000 crossing the Berezina River in November 1812. The Russians had lost 150,000 soldiers in battle and hundreds of thousands of civilians.

War of the Sixth Coalition

There was a lull in fighting over the winter of 1812-13 while both the Russians and the French rebuilt their forces; Napoleon was able to field 350,000 troops. Heartened by France's loss in Russia, Prussia joined with Austria, Sweden, Russia, Great Britain, Spain, and Portugal in a new coalition. Napoleon assumed command in Germany and inflicted a series of defeats on the Coalition culminating in the Battle of Dresden in August 1813.

Napoleon after his abdication in Fontainebleau, 4 April 1814, by Paul Delaroche

Napoleon withdrew into France, his army reduced to 70,000 soldiers and little cavalry; he faced more than three times as many Allied troops. Joseph Bonaparte, Napoleon's older brother, abdicated as king of Spain on 13 December 1813 and assumed the title of lieutenant general to save the collapsing empire. The French were surrounded: British armies pressed from the south, and other Coalition forces positioned to attack from the German states. By the middle of January 1814, the Coalition had already entered France's borders and launched a two-pronged attack on Paris, with Prussia entering from the north, and Austria from the east, marching out of the capitulated Swiss confederation. The French Empire, however, would not go down so easily. Napoleon launched a series of victories in the Six Days' Campaign. While they repulsed the coalition forces and delayed the capture of Paris by at least a full month, these were not significant enough to turn the tide. The coalitionaries camped on the outskirts of the capital on 29 March. A day later, they advanced onto the demoralized soldiers protecting the city. Joseph Bonaparte led a final battle at the gates of Paris. They were greatly outnumbered, as 30,000 French soldiers were pitted against a combined coalition force that was five times greater. They were defeated, and Joseph retreated out of the city. The leaders of Paris surrendered to the Coalition on the last day of March 1814. On 1 April, Alexander addressed the . Long docile to Napoleon, under Talleyrand's prodding it had turned against him. Alexander told the Sénat that the Allies were fighting against Napoleon, not France, and they were prepared to offer honourable peace terms if Napoleon were removed from power. The next day, the Sénat passed the Acte de déchéance de l'Empereur ("Emperor's Demise Act"), which declared Napoleon deposed.

Napoleon had advanced as far as Fontainebleau when he learned that Paris had fallen. When Napoleon proposed the army march on the capital, his senior officers and marshals mutinied. On 4 April, led by Ney, the senior officers confronted Napoleon. When Napoleon asserted the army would follow him, Ney replied that the army would follow its generals. While the ordinary soldiers and regimental officers wanted to fight on, the senior commanders were unwilling to continue. Without any senior officers or marshals, any prospective invasion of Paris would have been impossible. Bowing to the inevitable, on 4 April Napoleon abdicated in favour of his son, with Marie Louise as regent. However, the Allies refused to accept this under prodding from Alexander, who feared that Napoleon might find an excuse to retake the throne. Napoleon was then forced to announce his unconditional abdication only two days later.

In his farewell address to the soldiers of Old Guard in 20 April, Napoleon said:

"Soldiers of my Old Guard, I have come to bid you farewell. For twenty years you have accompanied me faithfully on the paths of honor and glory. ...With men like you, our cause was [not] lost, but the war would have dragged on interminably, and it would have been a civil war. ... So I am sacrificing our interests to those of our country. ...Do not lament my fate; if I have agreed to live on, it is to serve our glory. I wish to write the history of the great deeds we have done together. Farewell, my children!"

Exile to Elba

The Allied Powers having declared that Emperor Napoleon was the sole obstacle to the restoration of peace in Europe, Emperor Napoleon, faithful to his oath, declares that he renounces, for himself and his heirs, the thrones of France and Italy, and that there is no personal sacrifice, even that of his life, which he is not ready to make in the interests of France.
Done in the palace of Fontainebleau, 11 April 1814.

In the Treaty of Fontainebleau, the Allies exiled Napoleon to Elba, an island of 12,000 inhabitants in the Mediterranean, 10 km (6 mi) off the Tuscan coast. They gave him sovereignty over the island and allowed him to retain the title of Emperor. Napoleon attempted suicide with a pill he had carried after nearly being captured by the Russians during the retreat from Moscow. Its potency had weakened with age, however, and he survived to be exiled, while his wife and son took refuge in Austria. He was conveyed to the island on HMS Undaunted by Captain Thomas Ussher, and he arrived at Portoferraio on 30 May 1814. In the first few months on Elba he created a small navy and army, developed the iron mines, oversaw the construction of new roads, issued decrees on modern agricultural methods, and overhauled the island's legal and educational system. A few months into his exile, Napoleon learned that his ex-wife Joséphine had died in France. He was devastated by the news, locking himself in his room and refusing to leave for two days.

Hundred Days

Separated from his wife and son, who had returned to Austria, cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and aware of rumours he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic Ocean, Napoleon escaped from Elba in the brig Inconstant on 26 February 1815 with 700 men. Two days later, he landed on the French mainland at Golfe-Juan and started heading north.

The 5th Regiment was sent to intercept him and made contact just south of Grenoble on 7 March 1815. Napoleon approached the regiment alone, dismounted his horse and, when he was within gunshot range, shouted to the soldiers, "Here I am. Kill your Emperor, if you wish." The soldiers quickly responded with, "Vive L'Empereur!" Ney, who had boasted to the restored Bourbon king, Louis XVIII, that he would bring Napoleon to Paris in an iron cage, affectionately kissed his former emperor and forgot his oath of allegiance to the Bourbon monarch. The two then marched together toward Paris with a growing army. The unpopular Louis XVIII fled to Belgium after realizing that he had little political support. On 13 March, the powers at the Congress of Vienna declared Napoleon an outlaw. Four days later, Great Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia each pledged to put 150,000 men into the field to end his rule.

Napoleon returned to Paris and found that both the legislature and the people had turned against him. Realizing that his position was untenable, he abdicated on 22 June in favour of his son. He left Paris three days later and settled at Joséphine's former palace in Malmaison (on the western bank of the Seine about 17 kilometres (11 mi) west of Paris). Even as Napoleon travelled to Paris, the Coalition forces swept through France (arriving in the vicinity of Paris on 29 June), with the stated intent of restoring Louis XVIII to the French throne.

When Napoleon heard that Prussian troops had orders to capture him dead or alive, he fled to Rochefort, considering an escape to the United States. British ships were blocking every port. Napoleon surrendered to Captain Frederick Maitland on HMS Bellerophon on 15 July 1815.

Exile on Saint Helena

Napoleon on Saint Helena, watercolour by Franz Josef Sandmann, c. 1820

Napoleon was held in British custody and transferred to the island of Saint Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, 1,870 km (1,162 mi) from the west coast of Africa. Napoleon and 27 followers arrived at Jamestown, Saint Helena, in October 1815 on board HMS Northumberland. The prisoner was guarded by a garrison of 2,100 soldiers while a squadron of 10 ships continuously patrolled the waters to prevent escape. In the following years, there were rumours of escape plots, but no serious attempts were made.

Napoleon stayed for two months at Briars pavilion before he was moved to Longwood House, a 40-room wooden bungalow. The location and interior of the house were damp, windswept, rat-infested and unhealthy. published articles insinuating the British government was trying to hasten his death. Napoleon often complained of his living conditions in letters to the island's governor, Hudson Lowe, while his attendants complained of "colds, catarrhs, damp floors and poor provisions".

Napoleon insisted on imperial formality. When he held a dinner party, men were expected to wear military dress and "women [appeared] in evening gowns and gems. It was an explicit denial of the circumstances of his captivity". He formally received visitors, read, and dictated his memoirs and commentaries on military campaigns. He studied English under Count Emmanuel de Las Cases for a few months but gave up as he was poor at languages.

Napoleon also circulated reports of poor treatment in the hope that public opinion would force the allies to revoke his exile on Saint Helena. Under instructions from the British government, Lowe cut Napoleon's expenditure, refused to recognize him as a former emperor, and made his supporters sign a guarantee they would stay with the prisoner indefinitely. Accounts of the mistreatment led, in March 1817, to a debate in parliament and Lord Holland's call for an inquiry.

Napoleon's health continued to worsen and in March 1821 he was confined to bed. In April he wrote two wills declaring that he had been murdered by the British, that the Bourbons would fall and that his son would rule France. He left his fortune to 97 legatees and asked to be buried by the Seine.

On 3 May he was given the last rites but could not take communion due to his illness. He died on 5 May 1821 at age 51. His last words, variously recorded by those present, were either France, l'armée, tête d'armée, Joséphine ("France, the army, head of the army, Joséphine"), or qui recule... à la tête d'armée ("who retreats... at the head of the army") or "France, my son, the Army."

Antommarchi and the British wrote separate autopsy reports, each concluding that Napoleon had died of internal bleeding caused by stomach cancer, the disease that had killed his father. A later theory, based on high concentrations of arsenic found in samples of Napoleon's hair, held that Napoleon had died of arsenic poisoning. However, subsequent studies also found high concentrations of arsenic in hair samples from Napoleon's childhood and from his son and Joséphine. Arsenic was widely used in medicines and products such as hair creams in the 19th century. A 2021 study by an international team of gastrointestinal pathologists concluded that Napoleon died of stomach cancer.

In 1840, the British government gave Louis Philippe I permission to return Napoleon's remains to France. Napoleon's body was exhumed and found to be well preserved as it had been sealed in four coffins (two of metal and two of mahogany) and placed in a masonry tomb. On 15 December 1840, a state funeral was held in Paris before a crowd of 700,000 to one million who lined the route of the funeral procession to the chapel of the Esplanade des Invalides. The coffin was later placed in the cupola in St Jérôme's Chapel, where it remained until the tomb designed by Louis Visconti was completed. In 1861, Napoleon's remains were entombed in a sarcophagus in the crypt under the dome at Les Invalides.

Napoleon was baptized in Ajaccio on 21 July 1771. He was raised as a Catholic but never developed much faith, though he recalled the day of his First Communion in the Catholic Church to be the happiest day of his life. As an adult, Napoleon was a deist, believing in an absent and distant God. However, he had a keen appreciation of the power of organized religion in social and political affairs, and he paid a great deal of attention to bending it to his purposes. He noted the influence of Catholicism's rituals and splendors. Napoleon once said "religion is a sort of inoculation or vaccine which, while satisfying our sense of the supernatural, guarantees us from the charlatans and the magicians".

Napoleon had a civil marriage with Joséphine de Beauharnais, without religious ceremony. Napoleon was crowned Emperor on 2 December 1804 at Notre-Dame de Paris in a ceremony presided over by Pope Pius VII. On the eve of the coronation ceremony, and at the insistence of Pope Pius VII, a private religious wedding ceremony of Napoleon and Joséphine was celebrated. Napoleon's half-uncle, Cardinal Joseph Fesch, performed the wedding. This marriage was annulled by tribunals under Napoleon's control in January 1810. On 1 April 1810, Napoleon married the Austrian princess Marie Louise in a Catholic ceremony. Napoleon was excommunicated by the pope through the bull Quum memoranda in 1809, but later reconciled with the Catholic Church before his death in 1821. While in exile in Saint Helena, he is recorded to have said "I know men; and I tell you that Jesus Christ is not a man." He also defended Muhammad ("a great man") against Voltaire's .

Seeking national reconciliation between revolutionaries and Catholics, Napoleon and Pope Pius VII signed the Concordat of 1801 on 15 July 1801. It solidified the Catholic Church as the majority church of France and brought back most of its civil status. The hostility of devout Catholics against the state had now largely been resolved. The Concordat did not restore the vast Church lands and endowments that had been seized during the revolution and sold off. As a part of the Concordat, Napoleon presented another set of laws called the Organic Articles.

Arrest of Pope Pius VII

In 1809, under Napoleon's orders, Pope Pius VII-who had excommunicated Napoleon that year, following his annexation of the Papal States-was placed under arrest in Italy. In 1812 the prisoner pontiff was transferred to France, being held in the Palace of Fontainebleau. Because the arrest was made in a clandestine manner, some sources describe it as a kidnapping. In January 1813, Napoleon personally forced the pope to sign a humiliating "Concordat of Fontainebleau" which was later repudiated by the pontiff. The pope was not released until 1814, when the Coalition invaded France.

Religious emancipation

He stated, "I will never accept any proposals that will obligate the Jewish people to leave France, because to me the Jews are the same as any other citizen in our country. It takes weakness to chase them out of the country, but it takes strength to assimilate them". He was seen as so favourable to the Jews that the Russian Orthodox Church formally condemned him as " Antichrist and the Enemy of God".

One year after the final meeting of the Sanhedrin, on 17 March 1808, Napoleon placed the Jews on probation. Several new laws restricting the citizenship the Jews had been offered 17 years previously were instituted at that time. However, despite pressure from leaders of a number of Christian communities to refrain from granting Jews emancipation, within one year of the issue of the new restrictions, they were once again lifted in response to the appeal of Jews from all over France.

Personality

Pieter Geyl wrote in 1947, "It is impossible that two historians, especially two historians living in different periods, should see any historical personality in the same light." There is no dispute that Napoleon was ambitious, although commentators disagree on whether his ambition was mostly for his own power and glory or for the welfare of France. Historians agree that Napoleon was highly intelligent with an excellent memory, and was a superior organizer who could work efficiently for long hours. In battle, he could rapidly dictate a series of complex commands to his subordinates, keeping in mind where major units were expected to be at each future point.

He was an inspiring leader who could obtain the best from his soldiers and subordinates. The Duke of Wellington said his presence on the battlefield was worth 40,000 soldiers. He could charm people when he needed to but could also publicly humiliate them and was known for his rages when his plans were frustrated. Historian McLynn sees him as a misogynist with a cruel streak which he often inflicted on women, children and animals.

There is debate over whether Napoleon was an outsider who never felt at home in France or with other people. Taine said Napoleon saw others only as instruments and was cut off from feelings of admiration, sympathy or pity. Arthur Lévy replied that Napoleon genuinely loved Joséphine and often showed humanity and compassion to his enemies or those who had let him down. He had the normal middle class virtues and understood the common man.

Similarly, historians are divided over whether Napoleon was consistently ruthless when his power was threatened or surprisingly indulgent in some cases. Those arguing for a ruthless personality point to episodes such as his violent suppression of revolts in France and conquered territories, his execution of the Duc de Enghien and plotters against his rule, and his massacre of Turkish prisoners of war in Syria in 1799. Others point to his mild treatment of disloyal subordinates such as Bernadotte, Talleyrand and Fouché.

Many historians see Napoleon as pragmatic and a realist, at least in the early years of his rule. He wasn't driven by ideology and promoted capable men irrespective of their political and social background, as long as they were loyal. As an expert in military matters, he valued technical expertise and listened to the advice of experts in other fields. However, there is a consensus that once he dominated Europe he became more intolerant of other views and surrounded himself with "yes men". Towards the end of his reign he lost his realism and ability to compromise.

Various psychologists have attempted to explain Napoleon's personality. Alfred Adler cited Napoleon to describe an inferiority complex in which short people adopt over-aggressive behaviour to compensate for lack of height; this inspired the term Napoleon complex. Adler, Fromm and Reich ascribed his nervous energy to sexual dysfunction. Harold T. Parker speculated that rivalry with his older brother and bullying when he moved to France led him to develop an inferiority complex which made him domineering.

Appearance and image

A friend who first met him as a young man said Napoleon was only notable "for the dark color of his complexion, for his piercing and scrutinising glance, and for the style of his conversation". He also said that Napoleon was serious and sombre. Johann Ludwig Wurstemberger, who accompanied Napoleon in 1797 and 1798, noted that "Bonaparte was rather slight and emaciated-looking; his face, too, was very thin, with a dark complexion... his black, unpowdered hair hung down evenly over both shoulders", but that, despite his slight and unkempt appearance, "[h]is looks and expression were earnest and powerful."

Denis Davydov considered him average in appearance:

His face was slightly swarthy, with regular features. His nose was not very large, but straight, with a slight, hardly noticeable bend. The hair on his head was dark reddish-blond; his eyebrows and eyelashes were much darker than the colour of his hair, and his blue eyes, set off by the almost black lashes, gave him a most pleasing expression ... The man I saw was of short stature, just over five feet tall, rather heavy although he was only 37 years old.

During the Napoleonic Wars, he was depicted by the British press as a dangerous tyrant, poised to invade. A nursery rhyme warned children that Bonaparte ate naughty people; the " bogeyman". He was mocked as a short-tempered small man and was nicknamed "Little Boney in a strong fit". In fact, at about 170 cm (5 ft 7 in), he was of average height.

In his later years he gained weight and had a sallow complexion. Novelist Paul de Kock, who saw him in 1811, called Napoleon "yellow, obese, and bloated". A British captain who met him in 1815 stated "I felt very much disappointed, as I believe everyone else did, in his appearance ... He is fat, rather what we call pot-bellied, and although his leg is well shaped, it is rather clumsy ... He is very sallow, with light grey eyes, and rather thin, greasy-looking brown hair, and altogether a very nasty, priestlike-looking fellow."

Napoleon instituted numerous reforms, many of which had a lasting impact on France, Europe and the world. He reformed the French administration, codified French law, implemented a new education system, and established the first French central bank, the Banque de France. He negotiated the Concordat of 1801 with the Catholic Church, which sought to reconcile the majority Catholic population to his regime. It was presented alongside the Organic Articles, which regulated public worship in France. He also implemented civil and religious equality for protestants and Jews. In May 1802, he instituted the Legion of Honour to encourage civilian and military achievements. The order is still the highest decoration in France. He introduced three French constitutions culminating in the reintroduction of a hereditary monarchy and nobility.

Administration

After several attempts by revolutionary governments, Napoleon officially introduced the metric system in France in 1801 and it was spread through western Europe by his armies. The new system was unpopular in some circles, so in 1812 he introduced a compromise system in the retail trade called the mesures usuelles (traditional units of measurement). In December 1805, Napoleon abolished the Revolutionary calendar, with its ten-day week, which had been introduced in 1793.

Napoleonic Code

Napoleon's civil code of laws, known from 1807 as the Napoleonic Code, was implemented in March 1804. It was prepared by committees of legal experts under the supervision of Jean Jacques Régis de Cambacérès, the Second Consul. Napoleon participated actively in the sessions of the Council of State that revised the drafts. The code introduced a clearly written and accessible set of national laws to replace the various regional and customary law systems that had operated in France.

In the field of military organization, Napoleon borrowed from previous theorists such as Jacques Antoine Hippolyte, Comte de Guibert, and from the reforms of preceding French governments, and then developed what was already in place. He continued the Revolutionary policies of conscription and promotion based primarily on merit.

Napoleon was regarded by the influential military theorist Carl von Clausewitz as a genius in the art of war, and many historians rank him as a great military commander. Wellington considered him the greatest military commander of all time. Cobban states that he showed his genius in moving troops quickly and concentrating them on strategic points. Conner states that his principles were to keep his forces united, keep no weak point unguarded, seize important points quickly, and seize his chance. Owen Connelly, however, states, "Napoleon's personal tactics defy analysis." He used his intuition, engaged his troops, and reacted to what developed.

Napoleon's educational reforms laid the foundation of a modern system of secondary and tertiary education in France and throughout much of Europe. He synthesized academic elements from the Ancien Régime, The Enlightenment, and the Revolution. His education laws of 1802 left most primary education in the hands of religious or communal schools which taught basic literacy and numeracy for a minority of the population. He abolished the revolutionary central schools and replaced them with secondary schools and elite lycées where the curriculum was based on reading, writing, mathematics, Latin, natural history, classics, and ancient history.

He retained the revolutionary higher education system, with grandes écoles in professions including law, medicine, pharmacy, engineering and school teaching. He introduced grandes écoles in history and geography, but opposed one in literature because it wasn't vocational. He also founded the military academy of Saint Cyr. He promoted the advanced centres, such as the École Polytechnique, that provided both military expertise and advanced research in science.

Female education, in contrast, was designed to be practical and religious, based on home science, the catechism, basic literacy and numeracy, and enough science to eradicate superstition.

Memory and evaluation

There is debate over whether Napoleon was "an enlightened despot who laid the foundations of modern Europe" or "a megalomaniac who wrought greater misery than any man before the coming of Hitler". He was compared to Adolf Hitler by Pieter Geyl in 1947, and Claude Ribbe in 2005. Most modern critics of Napoleon, however, reject the Hitler comparison, arguing that Napoleon did not commit genocide and did not engage in the mass murder and imprisonment of his political opponents. Nevertheless, Bell and McLynn condemn his killing of 3,000-5,000 Turkish prisoners of war in Syria.

A number of historians have argued that his expansionist foreign policy was a major factor in the Napoleonic wars which cost six million lives and caused economic disruption for a generation. McLynn and Barnett suggest that Napoleon's reputation as a military genius is exaggerated. Cobban and Conner argue that Napoleon had insufficient regard for the lives of his soldiers and that his battle tactics led to excessive casualties.

Critics also cite Napoleon's exploitation of conquered territories. To finance his wars, Napoleon increased taxes and levies of troops from annexed territories and satellite states. He also introduced discriminatory tariff policies which promoted French trade at the expense of allies and satellite states. He institutionalized plunder: French museums contain art stolen by Napoleon's forces from across Europe. Artefacts were brought to the Musée du Louvre for a grand central museum; an example which would later be followed by others.

Many historians have criticized Napoleon's authoritarian rule, especially after 1807, which included censorship, the closure of independent newspapers, the bypassing of direct elections and representative government, the dismissal of judges showing independence, and the exile of critics of the regime. Historians also blame Napoleon for reducing the civil rights of women, children and people of colour, and reintroducing the legal penalties of civil death and confiscation of property. His reintroduction of an hereditary monarchy and nobility remains controversial. His role in the Haitian Revolution and decision to reinstate slavery in France's overseas colonies adversely affect his reputation.

Propaganda and memory

In England, Russia and across Europe-though not in France-Napoleon was a popular topic of caricature.

Hazareesingh (2004) explores how Napoleon's image and memory are best understood. They played a key role in collective political defiance of the Bourbon restoration monarchy in 1815-1830. People from different walks of life and areas of France, particularly Napoleonic veterans, drew on the Napoleonic legacy and its connections with the ideals of the 1789 Revolution.

Las Cases, who was with Napoleon in exile, eventually published The Memorial of Saint Helena which depicted Napoleon a liberal, visionary ruler for European unification, deposed by reactionary elements of the Ancien Régime.

Datta (2005) shows that, following the collapse of militaristic Boulangism in the late 1880s, the Napoleonic legend was divorced from party politics and revived in popular culture. Concentrating on two plays and two novels from the period- Victorien Sardou's Madame Sans-Gêne (1893), Maurice Barrès's Les Déracinés (1897), Edmond Rostand's L'Aiglon (1900), and André de Lorde and Gyp's Napoléonette (1913)-Datta examines how writers and critics of the Belle Époque exploited the Napoleonic legend for diverse political and cultural ends. International Napoleonic Congresses take place regularly, with participation by members of the French and American military, French politicians and scholars from different countries. In January 2012, the mayor of Montereau-Fault-Yonne, near Paris-the site of a late victory of Napoleon-proposed development of Napoleon's Bivouac, a commemorative theme park at a projected cost of 200 million euros.

Long-term influence outside France

Napoleon was responsible for spreading the values of the French Revolution to other countries, especially through the Napoleonic Code. After the fall of Napoleon, not only was it retained by conquered countries including the Netherlands, Belgium, parts of Italy and Germany, but it has been used as the basis of certain parts of law outside Europe including the Dominican Republic, the US state of Louisiana and the Canadian province of Quebec. The code was also used as a model in many parts of Latin America. The reputation of Napoleon in Poland has been favourable, especially for his support of independence, opposition to Russia, his legal code, the abolition of serfdom, and the introduction of modern middle class administration.

Dieter Langewiesche described the Napoleonic code as a "revolutionary project" that spurred the development of bourgeois society in Germany by the extension of the right to own property and an acceleration towards the end of feudalism. Napoleon reorganized what had been the Holy Roman Empire, made up of about three hundred Kleinstaaterei, into a more streamlined forty-state Confederation of the Rhine; this helped promote the German Confederation and the unification of Germany in 1871.

The movement toward Italian unification was similarly precipitated by Napoleonic rule. These changes contributed to the development of nationalism and the nation state.

Napoleon directly overthrew remnants of feudalism in much of western Continental Europe. He liberalized property laws, ended seigneurial dues, abolished the guild of merchants and craftsmen to facilitate entrepreneurship, legalized divorce, closed the Jewish ghettos and made Jews equal to everyone else. The Inquisition ended as did the Holy Roman Empire. The power of church courts and religious authority was sharply reduced and equality under the law was proclaimed for all men.

Napoleon indirectly began the process of Latin American independence when he invaded Spain in 1808. The abdication of King Charles IV and renunciation of his son, Ferdinand VII created a power vacuum that was filled by native born political leaders such as Simón Bolívar and José de San Martín. Such leaders embraced nationalistic sentiments influenced by French nationalism and led successful independence movements in Latin America.

From 1796 to 2020, at least 95 major ships were named for him. In the 21st century, at least 18 Napoleon ships are operated under the flag of France, as well as Indonesia, Germany, Italy, Australia, Argentina, India, Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

By wanting to make his dynasty the most ancient in Europe, Napoleon ousted numerous houses in favor of his own family. Talleyrand commented that "either these newly created sovereigns respected his overarching plan and became its satellites, which made it impossible for them to take root in the country entrusted to them; or they must reject it. ... Each new creation thus became a source of dissolution in Napoleon's fortune."

Wives, mistresses, and children

Napoleon was first engaged to Désirée Clary, the younger sister of his brother Joseph's wife, in 1795. After meeting Joséphine ( Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de La Pagerie) later that year, he broke off the engagement to Désirée. He then married Joséphine in 1796, at the age of 26.

Joséphine was a 32-year-old widow whose first husband, Alexandre de Beauharnais, had been executed during the Reign of Terror. Five days after Alexandre de Beauharnais' death, the Reign of Terror initiator Maximilien de Robespierre was overthrown and executed, and, with the help of high-placed friends, Joséphine was freed. Until she met Bonaparte, she had been known as "Rose", a name which he disliked. He called her "Joséphine" instead, and she went by this name henceforth. Bonaparte often sent her love letters while on his campaigns. He formally adopted her son Eugène and second cousin (via marriage) Stéphanie and arranged dynastic marriages for them. Joséphine had her daughter Hortense marry Napoleon's brother Louis.

Joséphine had lovers, such as Lieutenant Hippolyte Charles, during Napoleon's Italian campaign. Napoleon learnt of that affair and a letter he wrote about it was intercepted by the British and published widely, to embarrass Napoleon. Napoleon had his own affairs too: during the Egyptian campaign he took Pauline Bellisle Fourès, the wife of a junior officer, as his mistress. She became known as "Cleopatra".

On 11 March 1810 by proxy, he married the 19-year-old Marie Louise, Archduchess of Austria, and a great-niece of Marie Antoinette. Thus, he had married into a German royal and imperial family. Louise was less than happy with the arrangement, at least at first, stating: "Just to see the man would be the worst form of torture". Her great-aunt had been executed in France, while Napoleon had fought numerous campaigns against Austria all throughout his military career. However, she seemed to warm up to him over time. After her wedding, she wrote to her father: "He loves me very much. I respond to his love sincerely. There is something very fetching and very eager about him that is impossible to resist".

Napoleon acknowledged one illegitimate son: Charles Léon (1806-1881) by Eléonore Denuelle de La Plaigne. Alexandre Colonna-Walewski (1810-1868), the son of his Polish mistress Maria Walewska, although acknowledged by Walewska's husband, was also widely known to be his child, and the DNA of his direct male descendant has been used to help confirm Napoleon's Y-chromosome haplotype E1b1b1c1*. He may have had further unacknowledged illegitimate offspring as well, such as Eugen Megerle von Mühlfeld by Emilie Victoria Kraus von Wolfsberg and Hélène Napoleone Bonaparte (1816-1907) by Albine de Montholon.

1. He established a system of public education, abolished the vestiges of ^ feudalism, emancipated Jews and other religious minorities, abolished the Spanish Inquisition, enacted legal protections for an emerging middle class, and centralized state power at the expense of religious authorities.

2. He abolished the free press, ended directly elected representative government, exiled and jailed critics of his regime, reinstated slavery in France's colonies except for ^ Haiti, banned the entry of blacks and mulattos into France, reduced the civil rights of women and children, reintroduced a hereditary monarchy and nobility, and violently repressed popular uprisings against his rule.

3. Although the ^ 1768 Treaty of Versailles formally ceded Corsica's rights, it remained un-incorporated during 1769 until it became a province of France in 1770. Corsica would be legally integrated as a département in 1789.

4. Aside from his name, there does not appear to be a connection between him and ^ Napoleon's theorem.

5. ^ He was mainly referred to as Bonaparte until he became First Consul for life.

6. This is depicted in ^ Bonaparte Crossing the Alps by Hippolyte Delaroche and in Jacques-Louis David's imperial Napoleon Crossing the Alps. He is less realistically portrayed on a charger in the latter work.

7. One night, during an illicit liaison with actress ^ Marguerite Georges, Napoleon had a major fit. This and other more minor attacks have led historians to debate whether he had epilepsy and, if so, to what extent.

1. Parker, Harold T. (1971). "The Formation of Napoleon's Personality: An Exploratory Essay". French Historical Studies. 7 (1): 6-26. doi:10.2307/286104. JSTOR 286104.

2. ^ Carlyle, Thomas (1896). "The works of Thomas Carlyle - The French Revolution, vol. III, book 3.VII". Archived from the original on 20 March 2015.

3. ^ Holt, Lucius Hudson; Chilton, Alexander Wheeler (1919). A Brief History of Europe from 1789-1815. Macmillan. p. 206. August 1802 referendum napoleon.

4. De Rémusat, Claire Elisabeth, ^ Memoirs of Madame De Rémusat, 1802-1808 Volume 1, HardPress Publishing, 2012, 542 pp., ISBN 978-1-290-51747-8.

5. ^ Chandler 1966, p. 328. Meanwhile, French territorial rearrangements in Germany occurred without Russian consultation and Napoleon's annexations in the Po valley increasingly strained relations between the two.

6. Richard Brooks (editor), ^ Atlas of World Military History. p. 156. "It is a historical cliché to compare the Schlieffen Plan with Hannibal's tactical envelopment at Cannae (216 BC); Schlieffen owed more to Napoleon's strategic maneuver on Ulm (1805)".

7. ^ Hope, John; Baird, D. (28 January 1809). "Battle of Corunna". Vol. 15, no. 4. Cobbett's political register. pp. 91-94.

8. ^ John Lynch, Caudillos in Spanish America 1800-1850. Oxford: Clarendon Press 1992, pp. 402-403.

9. Todd Fisher & Gregory Fremont-Barnes, The Napoleonic Wars: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. p. 144.

10. David Watkin, ^ The Roman Forum. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 2012. 183.ISBN 978-0-674-06367-9 books.google.com/books?id=cRrufMNLOhwC&pg=PA183

11. ^ Latson, Jennifer (26 February 2015). "Why Napoleon Probably Should Have Just Stayed in Exile the First Time". Archived from the original on 25 June 2016.

12. ^ "Hundred Days | Napoleon, Waterloo, Reforms | Britannica". www.britannica.com. Louis XVIII fled to Ghent on March 13, and Napoleon entered Paris one week later.

13. Lugli, Alessandro; et al. (4 March 2021). "The gastric disease of Napoleon Bonaparte: brief report for the bicentenary of Napoleon's death on St. Helena in 1821". Virchows Archiv. 2021 (479): 1055-1060 - via Springer.

14. ^ Bennett, Michael (2020). War Against Smallpox: Edward Jenner and the Global Spread of Vaccination. Cambridge University Press. p. 168.

15. ^ Confidential Correspondence of the Emperor Napoleon and the Empress Josephine: Including Letters from the Time of Their Marriage Until the Death of Josephine, and Also Several Private Letters from the Emperor to His Brother Joseph, and Other Important Personages. With Numerous Illustrative Notes ... Mason Brothers. 1856. p. 359. Alexander, Caesar, Charlemagne, and I have founded empires. But on what did we rest the creations of our genius? Upon force. Jesus Christ founded his empire upon love; and at this hour millions of men would die for him

16. Nigel Aston, ^ Religion and revolution in France, 1780-1804 (Catholic University of America Press, 2000) pp. 279-315

17. Nigel Aston, ^ Christianity and revolutionary Europe, 1750-1830 (Cambridge University Press, 2002) pp. 261-262.

18. ^ Parker, Harold T. (1971). "The Formation of Napoleon's Personality: An Exploratory Essay". French Historical Studies. 7 (1): 6-26. doi:10.2307/286104. JSTOR 286104.

19. ^ Hallock, William; Wade, Herbert T (1906). "Outlines of the evolution of weights and measures and the metric system". London: The Macmillan Company. pp. 66-69.

20. ^ Hastings, Max (31 October 2014). "Everything is Owed to Glory". The Wall Street Journal. Archived from the original on 13 November 2014.

21. Sudhir Hazareesingh, "Memory and Political Imagination: the Legend of Napoleon Revisited". French History, 2004 18(4): 463-483

22. ^ Laurent, Ottavi (8 February 2012). "A New Napoleonic Campaign for Montereau". Foundation Napoleon. Archived from the original on 29 September 2013.

23. ^ Talleyrand, Chares-Maurice de (1953). Mémoires du Prince de Talleyrand (in French). Vol. 2. Paris: Henri Javal. pp. 41-50.

24. ^ Lucotte, Gérard; Macé, Jacques & Hrechdakian, Peter (September 2013). "Reconstruction of the Lineage Y Chromosome Haplotype of Napoléon the First" (PDF). International Journal of Sciences. 2 (9): 127-139. ISSN 2305-3925. Archived (PDF) from the original on 6 April 2014.

References

Biographical studies

Historiography and memory

Specialty studies

Dwyer, Philip (2015b). "'Citizen Emperor': Political Ritual, Popular Sovereignty and the Coronation of Napoleon I". History. 100 (339): 40-57. doi:10.1111/1468-229X.12089. ISSN 1468-229X.

Fulghum, Neil (2007). "Death Mask of Napoleon". University of North Carolina. Archived from the original on 26 July 2013.

Glover, Richard (1967). "The French Fleet, 1807-1814; Britain's Problem; and Madison's Opportunity". The Journal of Modern History. 39 (3): 233-252. doi:10.1086/240080. S2CID 143376566.

Hindmarsh, J. Thomas; Savory, John (2008). "The Death of Napoleon, Cancer or Arsenic?". Clinical Chemistry. 54 (12): 2092. doi:10.1373/clinchem.2008.117358.

Watson, William (2003). Tricolor and crescent. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 978-0-275-97470-1.

External links

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 - 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French emperor and military commander who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led successful campaigns during the Revolutionary Wars.

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Spanish American wars of independence.

Spain's authority in its American colonies declines. armed uprisings from Mexico to Argentina.
Without Spain in control, the British are able to do more business in Latin America, rescuing Britain from Napoleon's economc boycott.

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Napoleon Bonaparte dies at the age of fifty-one under British authority on the island of St. Helena, the reported cause: stomach cancer.

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Louis XVIII dies and is succeeded by his reactionary brother,
Charles X.

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1760 to 1820

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British soldiers shot and killed several people while being harassed by a mob in Boston. The event was heavily publicized by leading Patriots such as Paul Revere and Samuel Adams

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The Boston Tea Party was a political and mercantile protest by the Sons of Liberty in Boston, Massachusset, on December 16, 1773. The target was the Tea Act of May 10, 1773, which allowed the Britissh East India Company to sell tea from China in American colonies without paying taxes apart from those imposed by the Townshend Acts.

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1789 , 30 April. First President of the United States - George Washington

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1789 , 30 April. First President of the United States - George Washington

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On April 30, 1789 George Washington was unanimously elected by the electoral board as the first president of the United States.

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1789, 26 August . Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

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1789, 26 August . Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen.

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Napoleon Bonaparte leads the Battle of Montenote, where he has his first victory as a commander.

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The War of the First Coalition (1792-1797)

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1808 Joseph from Nápoles as King of Spain.

Napoleon makes King Charles IV and his son, Ferdinand prisoners and moves his brother Joseph to the throne in Spain.

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Irish potatoe famine (great hunger)

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1810 Abolition of the Slave Trade across the South Atlantic.
Allied with the Portuguese against Napoleon, the British negotiate an agreement with the Portuguese calling for the gradual abolition of the slave trade across the South Atlantic.

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Louis-Napoleon (Bonaparte's nephew) is declared Emperor Napoleon III. He wanted to create a dynasty. France is no longer a republic. It is called the Second Empire.

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Charles Darwin has been sitting on his Origin of the Species for 21 years. He has it published.

It is a work of scientific literature which is considered to be the foundation of evolutionary biology. Darwin's book introduced the scientific theory that populations evolve over the course of generations through a process of natural selection.

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Karl Marx, a german economist and philosopher published, in three volumes, the book called 'Capital. A Critique of Political Economy' also called 'The Capital' considered one of the basis of not only communist ideology but materialist sociology.

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On January 15, 1865, as part of the American Civil War, the Confederacy lost Fort Fisher (in North Carolina), its last major port.

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1875
Thomas Edison invents the light bulb

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TELEPHONE

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William Lloyd Garrison and The Liberator. https://www.ushistory.org/us/28a.asp

- In Boston, abolitionist Willian Lloyd Garrisons begings publishing an anti-slavery newspaper, "The Liberator".
In 1833, he met with delegates from around the nation to form the American Anti-Slavery Society.

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CHARLES DICKENS

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Dickens' Criticism of the 1834 Poor Law in Oliver Twist Dickens criticised the 1834 poor law in many different ways within the first five chapters. He does this firstly by cleverly portraying the Victorians attitudes towards the poor. He does this in chapter 1 by referring to Oliver as 'the item of mortality' suggesting how lowly his position in society is. Also the difficulty of Oliver's birth and the fact his mother dies, gives us some idea of the dangers of child birth in Victorian society and the amount of negligence his mother receives from the surgeon. Another way he shows the attitudes towards the poor is by describing the unfeeling and clearly drunk nurse who was 'tasting in the corner' instead of taking care of Oliver and his dying mother. Dickens characterisation is another form of criticism he gives the poor law. He gives the characters names which reflect the type of person they are and the lives they lead. He does this very well in chapters two and three where he describes Mrs Mann. He describes her as nothing but a common thief that steels money from...

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Dickens' Criticism of the 1834 Poor Law in Oliver Twist

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Dickens' Criticism of the 1834 Poor Law in Oliver Twist Dickens criticised the 1834 poor law in many different ways within the first five chapters. He does this firstly by cleverly portraying the Victorians attitudes towards the poor. He does this in chapter 1 by referring to Oliver as 'the item of mortality' suggesting how lowly his position in society is.

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1859 Charles Darwin publishes 'On the Origin of Species'

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1859 Charles Darwin publishes 'On the Origin of Species'

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Charles Darwin publishes 'On the Origin of species by means of selection or the preservation of favored races in the struggle of life' changing forever how we think about the evolution of living organisms in our planet.

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The British conquest of Egypt, also known as the Anglo-Egyptian War, occurred in 1882 between Egyptian and Sudanese forces under Ahmed 'Urabi and Great Britain.

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Education. Universal rights

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The Eiffel Tower is inaugurated in Paris on May 15th. It remained the world's highest construction until the Chrysler Building was erected in New York in 1930.

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1859. Charles Darwin has been sitting on his
Origin of the Species for 21 years. He has it published.

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Prohibition in the United States is abolished.

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Born in 1661, King Charles II of Spain was the last Habsburg ruler of the country. Born into a family whose inbreeding was of epic proportions, he suffered severe deformities that led to him being known as El Hechizado, the bewitched. Charles II became King of Spain at the age of three, after his father died in 1665. Charles II often suffered from ill health and much of his reign consisted of others ruling the country in his stead. This led to internal political struggle within his family over who would call the shots. His mother and illegitimate half brother's feud led to political turmoil and arranged marriages for the young, sick king. Poor King Charles II suffered through ill health, political unrest and two dead wives before he died in 1700. Childless, his will named Phillip Anjou as successor to the throne, leaving the Spanish Empire in uproar and reeling into the War of Spanish Succession. Read on to learn more about his tragic life and reign.

40. He Was the Epitome of Habsburg Inbreeding

The Habsburgs were notorious for marrying cousins, uncles, aunts, whatever, to keep power within their family. Case in point: All of Charles' great-grandparents were descended from the same parents: Philip I and Joanna of Castile. Basically, their children had all married their cousins, who had all married their cousins (or someone of a close relation). By the time Charles came along, he was more inbred than if his parents had been brother and sister.

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40 Odd Facts About the Inbred King Charles II of Spain

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Born in 1661, King Charles II of Spain was the last Habsburg ruler of the country. Born into a family whose inbreeding was of epic proportions, he suffered severe deformities that led to him being known as El Hechizado, the bewitched. Charles II became King of Spain at the age of three, after his father [...]

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It was a global war that began as a conflict between Great Britain and the Thirteen Colonies, which declared independence as the United States of America