Exiled to the island of Elba, he plotted his return. By 1807, Napoleon controlled an empire that stretched from the River Elbe in the north, down through Italy in the south, and from the Pyrenees to the Dalmatian coast.īeginning in 1812, Napoleon began to encounter the first significant defeats of his military career, suffering through a disastrous invasion of Russia, losing Spain to the Duke of Wellington in the Peninsular War, and enduring total defeat against an allied force by 1814. In 1802, he established the Napoleonic Code, a new system of French law, and in 1804 crowned himself as emperor of France in Notre Dame Cathedral. After becoming first consul in February 1800, he reorganized his armies and defeated Austria. By 1799, France was at war with most of Europe, and Napoleon returned home from his Egyptian campaign to take over the reins of the French government and save his nation from collapse. The Corsica-born Napoleon, one of the greatest military strategists in history, rapidly rose in the ranks of the French Revolutionary Army during the late 1790s. Napoleon Bonaparte, the former French emperor and arch-foe of Great Britain, died on St.
