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Emperor of the French

Napoleon I

France 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821

In 1814: Commander-in-chief of the French armies

In 1814 Napoleon was forty-four. He had lost one army in Russia and another in Germany, and now he faced the invasion of France itself with a few seasoned regiments and a mass of raw conscripts.

Historians often say that February 1814 found him at his best. He made forced marches through the mud, chose his moment exactly, and beat four Allied corps in five days. In the end he could not overcome the arithmetic: three or four Allied soldiers for every Frenchman, a capital that would not hold out, and marshals who were tired of war.

On the timeline

15 August 1769 Born in Ajaccio, Corsica
15 May 1779 Enters the military school at Brienne
1 September 1785 Commissioned in the artillery
19 December 1793 Toulon retaken
5 October 1795 13 Vendémiaire
9 March 1796 Marries Joséphine de Beauharnais
10 May 1796 Battle of Lodi
15–17 November 1796 Battle of Arcole
14–15 January 1797 Battle of Rivoli
21 July 1798 Battle of the Pyramids
9 November 1799 Coup of 18 Brumaire
14 June 1800 Battle of Marengo
2 December 1804 Crowned Emperor
2 December 1805 Battle of Austerlitz
14 October 1806 Jena and Auerstedt
14 June 1807 Battle of Friedland
7 July 1807 Treaty of Tilsit
5–6 July 1809 Battle of Wagram
1 April 1810 Marries Marie-Louise of Austria
20 March 1811 Birth of the King of Rome
24 June 1812 The invasion of Russia
7 September 1812 Battle of Borodino
14 September 1812 Enters Moscow
16–19 October 1813 Battle of Leipzig
25 January 1814 Napoleon leaves Paris for the front
29 January 1814 Battle of Brienne
1 February 1814 Battle of La Rothière
10 February 1814 Battle of Champaubert
11 February 1814 Battle of Montmirail
12 February 1814 Combat of Château-Thierry
14 February 1814 Battle of Vauchamps
17 February 1814 Combat of Mormant
18 February 1814 Battle of Montereau
24 February 1814 Napoleon re-enters Troyes
7 March 1814 Battle of Craonne
9–10 March 1814 Battle of Laon
13 March 1814 Reims retaken
20–21 March 1814 Battle of Arcis-sur-Aube
31 March 1814 Paris capitulates
4 April 1814 The marshals’ revolt
6 April 1814 Unconditional abdication
11 April 1814 Treaty of Fontainebleau
12–13 April 1814 A night at Fontainebleau
20 April 1814 Farewell to the Old Guard
4 May 1814 Napoleon lands on Elba
1 March 1815 Returns from Elba
18 June 1815 Battle of Waterloo
15 October 1815 Arrives on St Helena
5 May 1821 Dies at Longwood

Battles

Brienne La Rothière Champaubert Montmirail Château-Thierry Vauchamps Mormant Montereau

In the writing of the time

“I shall be on the Vistula” · Napoleon (reported)
“A thunderbolt alone could have saved us” · Napoleon, on St Helena (reported)
The Act of Abdication · Napoleon
Farewell to the Old Guard · Napoleon

Sources

Wikidata (dates of birth and death, portrait identifiers)
F. Loraine Petre, Napoleon at Bay, 1814 (London: John Lane, 1914) · Public domain. The main source for strengths, losses and movements on this site.
Images: Wikimedia Commons. The licence for each image is checked at build time and linked from its caption.

Wikidata record Q517 · All people