Student Question
How was Napoleon Bonaparte an effective leader?
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Napoleon Bonaparte was an effective leader due to his exceptional military strategy and significant domestic reforms. He demonstrated military brilliance by winning pivotal battles like Austerlitz and revolutionizing artillery use. Domestically, he implemented the Napoleonic Code, which reformed civil laws, and established institutions like the Bank of France. Despite his successes, his ambitious nature led to his downfall, as seen in his declaration as "Consul for Life" and eventual defeat at Waterloo.
Napoleon Bonaparte was a great leader partially because of his prowess on the battlefield that helped build a French empire, although it was short-lived; and also because of the reforms he brought to France.
Napoleon came to power after he organized the French National Guard and was subsequently appointed commander of the French army in Italy. He had been an exceptionally bright student as a young man, and had passed his examinations at the Brienne royal military academy within a single year, something not done before. Among his military accomplishments, he defeated the combined armies of Austria, Britain and Sweden at the Battle of Austerlitz and later destroyed the old Holy Roman Empire reorganizing it into the Confederation of the Rhine. On the battlefield, he personally determined the position of every cannon and every detachment of cavalry.
Domestically, Napoleon instituted a number of civil reforms, including the institution of the
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Domestically, Napoleon instituted a number of civil reforms, including the institution of theCode Napoleon in 1804 which assured the security of personal wealth and private property, and guaranteed all male citizens equal protection of the law. He also instituted the Bank of France and established a political bureaucracy which he himself controlled. He further signed the Concordat of 1801 with Pope Pius VII which allowed French Catholics freedom of religion, although Napoleon himself appointed bishops and church officials within France. Perhaps his most far reaching accomplishment was the establishment of the metric system, still in use in many countries.
Napoleon's primary weakness was his ambition. He once commented:
It is said that I am an ambitious man but that is not so; or at least my ambition is so closely bound to my being that they are both one and the same.
His ambition led him to declare himself "Consul for Life," and to have himself painted attired as a Roman emperor. His ambition and ruthless policies towards those who opposed him led Ludvig van Beethoven to erase his dedication of his Third Symphony to Napoleon. Beethoven reported shouted when he did so:
So he is also nothing more than an ordinary man. Now he will trample on the rights of mankind and indulge only his own ambition: from now on he will make himself superior to all others and become a tyrant.
Beethoven's words were virtually prophetic.
How was Napoleon Bonaparte an effective leader?
Above all else, Napoleon Bonaparte (1769-1821) was a superlative military strategist and one of the greatest battlefield commanders in history. He first came to prominence when, as the artillery commander of French forces at the Siege of Toulon (1793), he recognized the importance of a hill occupied by the British that, if captured, would give his guns a clear shot at the enemy ships in the harbor. Napoleon's assault (in which he received a thigh wound) was successful: The city was captured, the British fleet was forced to evacuate, and the 24-year-old was promoted to brigadier general. He next put down a royalist rebellion in 1795--using primarily cannon grapeshot--which earned him the command of the Army of Italy. He captured most of Italy before marching into Austria, which culminated in the Treaty of Leoben.
Shortly afterward, Napoleon entered the political arena, purchasing two newspapers before initiating a coup d'etat that left him as the most powerful figure in France. After a second peace treaty with Austria, Napoleon returned to Paris, where he planned a naval invasion of the British Isles. Recognizing that the French navy was incapable of fulfilling his plans, he made plans to invade Egypt and eventually take control of British-held India. After capturing Malta, an important base of operations in the Mediterranean, he subdued Egypt and other areas of the Middle East before he was forced to return to France following the French navy's defeat on the Nile.
Napoleon instituted many social and political reforms upon his return to Paris, improving roads, sewers and schools as well as civil laws, which became known as the Napoleonic code. Crowning himself Emperor Napoleon I in 1804, he reestablished a "hereditary monarchy" designed to keep his descendants in power following his death. He established alliances in the Middle East and successfully defeated the combined armies of the Third, Fourth and Fifth Coalitions. His military luck ended with losses in Russia and at the Battle of Leipzig, and he was forced to abdicate. His return from Elba also ended in disaster at the Battle of Waterloo, and Napoleon's political and military career came to and end.
His application of conventional military ideas to real-world situations effected his military triumphs, such as creative use of artillery as a mobile force to support his infantry. He referred to his tactics thus: "I have fought sixty battles and I have learned nothing which I did not know at the beginning. Look at Caesar; he fought the first like the last." He was adept at espionage and deception and could win battles by concealment of troop deployments and concentration of his forces on the 'hinge' of an enemy's weakened front. If he could not use his favourite envelopment strategy, he would take up the central position and attack two co-operating forces at their hinge, swing round to fight one until it fled, then turn to face the other.
Militarily, Napoleon revolutionized the use of artillery and cavalry techniques; destruction and maneuvering of troops over a broader base during invasions became a trademark which further impacted the political nature of war.