Napoleon Was Sent to French Military Schools

Napoleon was sent to French military schools at Brienne and Paris. He received his commission in the artillery in 1785. After the outbreak of the French Revolution, he attempted to join the Corsican patriots led by Pasquale Paoli, but his family was thought to be pro-French. A political event was to reopen his career overnight. In Oct. 1795, a royalist Parisian rebellion attacked the Convention, and Paul Barras convinced the Convention to place Bonaparte in command of the troops. Napoleon dispersed the mob with what he called "a whiff of grapeshot" -- which killed about 100 insurgents. He was given command of the army of the interior. After drawing up a plan for an Italian campaign, he was, made commander in chief of the army of Italy with Barras's help.

He left for Italy in March 1796. Assuming command of an ill-supplied army, he succeeded within a short time in changing it into a first-class fighting force. The brilliant success of his Italian campaign was based on three factors: his supply system, which he made virtually independent of the financially exhausted Directory by allowing the troops to live off the land; his reliance on speed and massed surprise attacks by small but compact units against the Austrian forces; and his influence over the morale of his soldiers.

Now the idol of half of Europe, Bonaparte returned to France His plan for an incursion of Britain across the channel was canceled, and he made substitute strategy to crush the British Empire by striking at Egypt and, eventually, at India. Bonaparte sailed in May 1798, succeeded in evading Horatio Nelson, and took Malta on the way to Egypt. Shortly after landing at Aboukir (Abu Qir), he won a brilliant victory over the Mamluks in the battle of the Pyramids (July, 1798). His successes, however, were made useless when the French fleet was destroyed (Aug. 1 -- 2) by Nelson in Aboukir Bay.

Great Britain had never succumbed, and the Continental System proved difficult to enforce. Napoleon's first signs of weakness appeared early in the Peninsular War (1808 -- 14). The victory of 1809 over Austria had been costly, and the victory of Archduke Charles at Aspern (May, 1809) showed that the emperor was not indomitable. Forces were gathering everywhere to cast off the Napoleonic yoke.