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He was born in Corsica, a small island in the Mediterranean. When Napoleon was born it was only a few months after France annexed the island. Napoleon was not rich, but despite that he got a scholarship to a famous military school.
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Napoleon is rising through the ranks like the mad lad he is. In 1792 he became a captain, two years later (1794) he became a brigadier general. Then woAh another two years later he became the commander of the French army in Italy.
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Napoleon's armies defeated the Papal States and the Austrian allies, now France has control over Northern Italy. Because Napoleon was so good at his job, his soldiers did the same.
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France absolutely loved this guy, so much they gave him control over a army planning to invade Britain. But Napoleon was like, theres no way in hell we can defeat Britain how about Egypt instead???
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Since France couldn't really take over Britain directly, he was like, why don't we take over Egypt instead? Egypt laid on Britain's spice route to India, and Britain's most important colonies were here. In the end Napoleon never got Egypt. Britain also had a very powerful control over the Mediterranean, and defeated the French naval forces. Defeated big time, Napoleon returned to Paris.
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Remember the French Revolution? Cool that's still going on, until now. Napoleon took part in the coup d etat, which overthrew the Directory and set up a new and improved, totally not corrupt consulate. In theory it was a republic, but actually it was a absolute power. You know what people thought was a good idea, Napoleon being consul. He appointed officials, controlled the military, conducted foreign affairs, and influenced legislature.
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Napoleon was in control for this time span.
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Napoleon is crowned emperor of France, I bet this will go smoothly.
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The French empire had three parts: French empire, dependent states, and allied states.
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I am Russian so this is a happy moment, ok. So Russia was all like "Screw your Continental System, were not doing that". So then Napoleon was like "Well I guess the second best option is to invade them". Your so smart Napoleon its not like your gonna invade the largest, and one of the most powerful countries in the world. So its June, 1812, and Frances Grand Army with 600,000 men entered Russia. And Russia was like "Nah m8, were not gonna fight you, instead, were gonna burn down OUR OWN (pt1)
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VILLAGES". So the Russians kept on pushing back hundreds of miles, they had to fight at some point, so they did. When they fought at Borodino, the French won, and many lives were lost. So the French reached Moscow right, and they find it on fire. When you need to avoid your problems, pull a Russia and set your city on fire. So since everything was on fire, Napoleon was outta there, oh except winter kinda happened. So since they were in the most brutal winter on earth, they arrived with 40,000
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So because of the whole situation in Russia, Europe was kinda like "Since the French are really vulnerable right now, lets take Paris", and so they did. Now you can assume since Napoleon kinda ruined France, people were a little upset. So upset that they just sent him to a remote island, where theres no possible way he could leave, except he did.
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I love ABBA, anyways its June 1815, and guess what if you didnt guess by the title, theyre in waterloo, Belgium. And they're fighting the British and the Prussians under the Duke of Wellington. And like the hilarious situation that happened in Russia, Napoleon absolutely crashed and burned.
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So the French have had enough, they were like "Ok man, you failed us twice, time to go time out in St.Helena". And so he remained in time out until his death in 1821. that was a roller coaster oh my god
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So Napoleon just slipped right back into France, and the new king was not having it, so he sent some soldiers to capture him. But that didn't stop Napoleon, oh no no no, he was all like" Viva l'Empereur! Viva l'Empereur!", and the feelings were mutual with the soldiers so they did the same. So the gangs all back together, Napoleon enters Paris feeling pretty good about himself.
