• Napoleon constructed a plan to try and defeat Britain economically.
• This economic block was put all over the west coast of Europe but stops right after Italy.
• Britain also blocked its own European ports from the French empire.
• This system stopped supplies from going in and out of Great Britain (France’s enemy).
• The two forces attacked neutral ships to try and stop any attempts at trading. 
• At the end this system did not make Britain very weak.
• Britain was able to maintain trade through there Navy.
• With limited trading happening all items in Europe became more scarce which created resentment against the French empire.
• This system was one of many attempts to bring down the British.
• The continental system created a lot of pirates and crime.

• Napoleon witnessed this first hand. 
• Scorched Earth can be done in 2 ways.
• 1st being burning the land as you enter it.
• 2nd being burning the land as you retreat.
• This tactic really effected napoleons army in many ways.
• 1 of which being starvation, and the other is freezing to death.
• Napoleon could have survived but it was too late because  they had set camp in the scorched territory, leaving them with no Resources.
• The Scorched Earth tactic was used a lot by the Russians during Napoleon’s lifetime.
• Russians would commonly camp the scorched grounds to kill off any people who are food deprived.
• This tactic also started the downfall of Napoleon.

• Napoleon respected his mother and put two of his sisters in charge of small territories (throne of Naples) but still he believed that women were generally inferior to men.
• He thought women should play domestic roles, inside the family 
• Thought women were powerful as they could seduce men but didn’t think that women were intelligent 
• A woman’s place was in the home, as a wife and as a mother. She was expected to be there for her husband and to be modest and pleasing in her dress. 
• He believed women main person was to produce children (in an interview he said the best woman in the world, are those that born the greatest number of children)
• Napoleon told his first wife, that “the wife was made for the husband, the husband for his country, his family, and glory.”
• One of Napoleon’s companions in exile on St. Helena recounted an 1816 conversation in which Napoleon engaged in “playful warfare with one of the ladies present” by “affecting to declaim against women.” 
• Napoleon was rude and bossy toward women who did not conform to his expectations
• Ecouen was one of several boarding schools established by Napoleon for the daughters of members of the Légion d’Honneur (curriculum was about religion and domestic skills)
• He got rid of a lot of rights of women that were created after the revolution (like owning land) 
• In his Napoleonic code he made legal control over women’s lives and property firmly in the hands of fathers or husbands 

1. Napoleon’s Russian campaign had ended in disaster.
2. The Russian campaign was one of his reasons for abdicating the throne.
3. European monarchs had accepted his demands for exile.
4. Napoleon was exiled to the island of Elba which he chose.
5. Napoleon was accompanied by 1000 men in his exile, which was another demand of his.
6. He was ruler of Elba and controlled its economy.
7. He traveled from France to Elba aboard a ship named the Undaunted.
8. Napoleon arrived on the island of Elba on May 3, 1814.
9. The population of the island was 12,000.
10. He spent his time in his palace, building a navy and army, and designing flags.
11. He was on Elba for about 10 months before his escape.
12. When the British general who was supposed to keep watch on him left for Italy, he sailed to the Alps along with 1000 men on 7 ships.
13. When he reached the Alps he started planning his return to France.

1. Napoleon had a really bad campaign back in Russia, which was one of the reasons why he abdicated.
2. When he was banished, he offered to step down so that his son could be the leader, but was refused.
3. Before he was sent to exile, he had some demands, which other monarchs accepted.
4. Napoleon himself chose the island that he would be exiled to Elba, which he himself chose.

1. Napoleon was given the title of Emperor of the Mediterranean Islands
2. Ultimately ended up spending around 10 months on the island

• An American named Robert Fulton went to France, and designed the first practical submarine, the Nautilus. The Nautilus could dive to a depth of 25 feet, and could place explosives under ships.
• Before Fulton created the submarine, Napoleon was not interested in it. But, after Fulton created it, Napoleon wanted more demonstrations of it. By that time, Fulton dissembled it, since he wanted to make improvements on it.

• The French Army used muskets called Charleville muskets, which were inaccurate at long range, and took a long time to reload. The British were able to create a new type of rifle, called the Baker Rifle. These rifles were accurate and had increased range.
• This rifle was used by the British 95th Regiment, who served in the Peninsular War and the Battle of Waterloo. 

• To improve the quality and quantity of food, Napoleon offered a prize of 12,000 francs to whoever found a better way of preserving food than salting/smoking it.
• French chef Nicholas Appert found out that food could be preserved by bottling food, which is now known as canning food.

• French surgeon Dominque Jean Larrey believed that by giving fast attention to heavily wounded people could save their lives. To try and accomplish this, Larrey invented ambulance volantes to transport wounded to treatment centers.
• Larrey said that no matter if someone was a hostile, or an ally, they would be treated through the volantes. 

• Frenchman Claude Chappe and his brothers made a system of towers, so semaphore messages could be sent. This increased the speed of communications over long distances.
• Napoleon expanded this system across France, and was able to communicate with his generals in the field. This system was very close to real time communication.

1. The Banque De France was created on January 18, 1800, in Paris, France, by Napoleon Bonaparte when he was named the Emperor of France.
2. The first reason why the bank was made was so it could help fund Napoleon’s military campaigns
3. The second reason is it would help stabilize and give control of the French financial system
4. The third reason he established the banking system was so he can have an efficient tax collection system
5. Some of the positive effects of the Bank was it was all founded by the gold and silver of Napoleon, leading to no shortage of money
6. Napoleon allowed the bank to give loans and banknotes at low interest, and suppress inflation using this
7. This new system put in by Napoleon helped to make sure everyone had common necessities, at a low price
8. The establishment of the bank lead to the breaking of one of the biggest recessions for France and helped the economy to recover
9. The last effect is that it improved paper money, gained security, and discourage counterfeiters
10. Overall the bank helped to stabilize the economy and help to prosper, and today it has a solid financial system

• The whole point of Napoleon’s invasion of Russia was to get to Moscow in order to loot the city and capture officials as a display of power to force use of the continental system.
• His arrival into the capital made it abundantly clear that his original idea for the invasion is not going to plan.
• When the Grande Armée got there on September 14, the city was deserted by most of its 275,000 inhabitants.
• Soon after midnight, it became clear that a fire had broken out in the city. Napoleon and his army could only watch as the flames spread.
• The perpetrators were Russian patriots who started and stoked the fires themselves. This was a form of scorched earth policy or burning important resources in order to impede invaders.
• This certainly worked as French forces were chased out of the city by the flames, leading them to the outskirts where they had to stay until the flames died out.
• The fire lasted 3 days and more than 2/3s of the Russian capital was destroyed. This, as the patriots hoped, severely weakened Napoleon’s army. Supplies, food, and shelter were all but gone and morale was shattered.
• Napoleon was left there waiting for a surrender from Czar Alexander but it didn’t come even after a month of holding these city. 
• Napoleon wrote to the czar about how he could burn the beautiful city of Moscow but Alexander’s reply was that it “illuminated his soul”, refusing negotiations.
• The Grande Armée was spent and starving from a long period without a supply line and the limited stores in the capital being burnt or empty after desertion but horses were especially left hungry since no food was left for them in the quickly oncoming Russian winter.
• On October 19, Napoleon started his retreat, cementing Napoleon’s first major loss. After a streak of French victory, their attempt at capturing Moscow and subjugating Russia was a complete failure that left over 400,000 of his soldiers dead and the start of his tumble form power is said to have begun here.

Www.history.com/this-day-in-history/napoleon-enters-Moscow

1. Napoleon was sent into exile after having a disastrous campaign in Russia and all the monarchs in Europe agreed to the decision.
2. Though Napoleon was abdicated from being emperor of France, he was still able to be emperor of Elba.
3. Napoleon ended up being in Elba for 10 months before he made his escape with his men.
4. Napoleon didn’t dislike the island and in fact, he even had company as his mom and sister moved to the island as well and they lived in lavish, luxurious mansions.
5. Napoleon was also able to make many improvements to the island such as their infrastructure.
6. Napoleon was able to boost Elba’s agriculture and he developed mines there.
7. Napoleon made sure that everyone was educated on Elba and he taught law to layers, science to scientists, and religion to Popes.
8. There were 18 marines that had accompanied Napoleon and he had many small ships with him which he had referred to as his navy and referred to the 18 marines as his guard.
9. The island’s school and their legal system were overhauled and improved by Napoleon so it was effective and efficient.
10. The people at Elba respected Napoleon a lot as he had done so much for them and the people conduct a parade every year during his anniversary for respect.

1. The Continental System was Napoleon’s idea after he could militarily harm Britain, he wanted to economically harm them so he closed all his ports to trading with Britain.
2. Some people consider this the first step of his downfall since Britain had a stronger navy and was fitter at sea.
3. The Continental System ended up being a failure due to smugglers and uncooperative allies.
4. The Continental System led to the Peninsular War, which destroyed France's morale and prestige.
5. Napoleon used all his ships to control the blockade causing him loose focus on other regions, which then turned into a Russian invasion (1812)
6. France was more damaged by the Continental System than Britain, it ended up backfiring.
7. The Continental System caused an against unemployment protest movement in Britain.
8. The Continental System all started with Napoleon's Berlin Decree in 1806.
9. The Continental System fostered the development of beet sugar manufacturing and machine spinning textiles.
10. There were many different decrees that extended the Continental System, like the Warsaw Decree (1807), the Milan Decree(1807) and the Fontainebleau Decree (1810)

• Entered Russia on June 24, 1812
• There were 650,000 people who crossed the Niemen River with him to fight approximately 200,000 soldiers on the Russian side. 
• Eventually, Napoleon realized he needed to retreat out of Moscow on October 19, realizing the army could not survive the winter
• The army was down to 100,000 troops by this time
• The winter came fast that year, making the retreat even harder
• The army was dying fast that winter from exhaustion and desertion. 
• The retreat back led to soldiers disappearing in the snow 
• In one of the letters from the book, we could see soldiers were also rushed into battle and had little time to contact their families
• Soldiers were promoted based on merit in the military
• The common infantry revolved around small units that would attack from as far as 100 yards
• The French army had an Imperial Gaurd which was a small, elite army directly under Napoleon. Most honored soldiers. 

1. The scorched-earth policy is a military tactic that involves destroying anything that may be useful for the enemy.
2. The Russians used the scorched-earth policy to defeat Napoleon’s army by seizing and destroying their own resources, just so that Napoleon’s army would not be getting any extra food or shelter on the way.
3. On September 14, the French entered a deserted Moscow. All but a few thousand of the city’s 275,000 people were gone.  This hints at the scorched-earth policy as almost the whole city’s population exited the city. 
4. At 2:00 A:M when everyone was in the middle of sleeping, Napoleon was informed that a fire had broken out in the city.  The fires started to grow and it was told to us that the Russians had started the fires.  This event confirms that the Russians are using scorched-earth policy to make sure Napoleon’s army runs out of resources and dies out by the time they even get close to the Russian army.
5. A few days later, the flames had stopped.  However, over half of the city was demolished.  This made Napoleon slightly tense as he knew that they were too committed to retreat; they would have to push towards the Russians and possibly run out of resources to survive.
6. Napoleon then wrote a letter to Alexander I about Moscow’s current state and a negotiation.  Alexander responded back saying that he will never negotiate with Napoleon and that he will always be against him.
7. Napoleon stayed in Moscow for a month, waiting for a reply from Alexander I of France about the negotiation.  As he was slowly but surely running out of supplies, he decided to head out of the ruined city.
8. While retreating from the battle at Maloyaroslavets, Napoleon’s army continuously suffered from the merciless Russian army.   The French army suffered from hunger, sub-zero temperatures, and the deadly lances of the Cossacks.   This continues the idea of scorched earth policy as the Russians lured Napoleon's army far into eastern Russia during the cold winter.  The natural weather would help suppress Napoleon from attacking the Russian army.
9. The decimated army reached the Berezina River late in November, near the border with French-occupied Lithuania. However, the river was unexpectedly thawed, and the Russians had destroyed the bridges at Borisov.  The Russians destroying the bridges resulted in more delay for Napoleon to get back to France.
10. The Russians largely abandoned their pursuit after that point, but thousands of French troops continued to succumb to hunger, exhaustion, and the cold. In December, Napoleon abandoned what remained of his army and raced back to Paris.  This tells us that the Russians stopped fighting the French; now there is no more scorched earth policy being used against the French.