[[quoteright:306:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/napoleon_map_5533.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:306:Napoleon studying a map. The most dangerous thing in the world.]]

The wars between NapoleonBonaparte and various states in Europe in the early nineteenth century. Can be summed up as "UsefulNotes/{{France}} and whoever they'd conquered at the time vs. everybody else in Europe." The early years overlap somewhat with the wars of the FrenchRevolution. Known before [[WorldWarOne 1914]] as "The Great War" before that conflict usurped the title.

[[foldercontrol]]

[[folder: Primary Conflicts]]
* The War of the Second Coalition[[hottip:*:(The War of the First Coalition was against Revolutionary France, as was the first part of this war)]] (1798-1801) Austria, Russia, Turkey, Portugal, Britain and Naples vs. France and Spain
** Trying to get him out of the country, the Republic sends Boney to [[UsefulNotes/HistoryOfModernEgypt invade Egypt]] (triggering changes that would ripple through the Middle East and the world for two centuries), tries for Syria, but ultimately fails.
* The War of the Third Coalition (1805): Austria, Great Britain, Russia, Sweden vs. France and Spain
** Austria and Russia lose the Battle of Austerlitz. Austria gives France some land and the name for a train station.
** As a consequence of this war, the HolyRomanEmpire is dissolved and Napoleon builds the Confederation of the Rhine from his German allies.
** At Trafalgar, Lord Horatio Nelson gets a famous victory, putting Napoleon off invading Britain, but is killed by a sniper in the process.
* The War of the Fourth Coalition (1806-1807): Prussia, Saxony, Russia, and Sweden vs. France, Spain and the Confederation of the Rhine
** Napoleon conquers Prussia and after a hard-fought campaign forces Russia to terms. To get at Britain, he imposes an economic blockade, the "Continental System".
* The Anglo-Russian War (1807-1812)
** Russia declares war after the British attack on Denmark, but little happens except a trade embargo.
* The Peninsular War (in Spain: The War of Independence) (1808-1814): The British help Portugal and Spain against the French, but as the latter are no longer great powers, this does not count as a coalition.
** Napoleon bites off more than he can chew south of the Pyrenees. After a long and bloody slog, he loses. Meanwhile, seeing the motherland occupied in a war to the knife, the Spanish colonies in the Americas begin the fight for ''their'' independence.
* The War of the Fifth Coalition (1809): Great Britain and Austria vs. France
** Napoleon suffers his first defeat in the field at Aspern-Essling, but resoundingly wins at Wagram.
* The War of the Sixth Coalition (1812-1814): Great Britain, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, German States and Russia vs. France and its remaining allies. There is a lot to be said for this to be subdivided into two parts:
** The Russian Campaign (at the outset called "The Second Polish War" by Napoleon (the 1806/07 campaign thereby [[RetCon becoming the First one]]); known in Russia as "The Patriotic War", WorldWarTwo named "The Great Patriotic War" after it there) (1812): France, Austria, Prussia, the Grand Duchy of Warsaw, the Confederation of the Rhine and various other satellites vs. Russia and Great Britain.
*** Napoleon tries to invade Russia. He loses to the hot and cold weather; Moscow is burned by the retreating Russians.
** The German and French Campaigns (1813-1814): Great Britain, Russia, Prussia and Sweden, later joined by Austria and other German states vs. France and its remaining allies.
*** Napoleon's armies are destroyed and France is ultimately occupied. Boney is sent to Elba.
* The War of the Seventh Coalition (The Hundred Days): Great Britain, Prussia, the Netherlands, Russia, Sweden, Austria and German States vs. France
** Bonaparte escapes, takes power and invades Belgium, where he's defeated at Waterloo by [[TheDukeOfWellington Wellington]] and Blücher. He's exiled to St. Helena, where he dies.
* The Wars of 1813-1815 are collectively known as the Wars of Liberation in Germany and Austria.
[[/folder]]

[[folder: Spin-Offs and Side-Shows]]

There were a number of wars going on concurrently that often interacted with the Napoleonic Wars proper:
* The Quasi-War or Franco-American War (1798-1800): An undeclared naval war resulting from French anger because of America's sensible (or ungrateful?) neutrality during the War of the First Coalition.
** Put an end to the French privateering against US shipping that had been going on since 1797.
* Irish rebellions (1796-1798; 1803): Attempts by French-aided Irish nationalists to overthrow British rule. The French sent an army and fleet in 1796 but were unable to land thanks to the weather. Two years later open rebellion broke out but the French arrived too late and in too small numbers properly aid the Irish, who were crushed by the British. In 1803 the Irish made a final attempt (this time ''without'' French aid) but the rising was betrayed by informers and its leaders arrested and executed.
** Many of the Irish nationalist leaders were Protestant. The rebellion, the suppression of which was aided by Scottish volunteer units, also acted as midwife to the rise of Orange Lodges and other Loyalist organisations.
* The League of Armed Neutrality (1801): Russia, Prussia, Austria, Denmark, Portugal and Sweden attempt to preserve their interests against both sides.
** Brought to an abrupt end by Nelson capturing the Danish fleet off Copenhagen and the deposition and murder of Czar Paul I. France's ally Spain invades Portugal in a campaign that is regarded as a bit of a farce, the "War of Oranges", and forces the Portuguese to yield.
* The War in Haiti (1801-1803)
** Bonaparte takes advantage of the brief peace in Europe to send an army to reimpose slavery. It is destroyed by the Haitians and tropical diseases, ensuring the independence of the second republic of the Western hemisphere. Since all of his territory in mainland North America is now indefensible, Boney decides to sell the whole lot to the United States.
* Barbary Coast wars: The pirates of the Barbary Coast city-states attack US ships in the Mediterranean and demand ransoms and tribute for the captured passengers. The new US Navy attacks the Barbary city-states and brings an end to the practice of paying tribute to the pirate states.
* Wars in India
** To wit, the Fourth Anglo-Mysore War (1798-1799), the First and Second Kandian War (1803-1804, 1815), the Second Anglo-Maratha War (1803-1805), the Vellore Mutiny (1806), and the Anglo-Nepalese War (1814-1816). Sir Arthur Wellesley, later the Duke of Wellington, wins his first laurels in the first of these.
* War between Russia and Persia (1804-1813)
** Persia loses most of its possessions in the Caucasus.
* Another Russo-Turkish War (1806-1812)
** Fought mainly in what is now Romania. In the end the Russians make a slight gain, but are generous because they want to get the war over before the French invasion starts. Overlaps with internal conflicts and a SuccessionCrisis in Turkey.
* The Anglo-Turkish War (1807-1809)
** The British destroy the Turkish fleet, but their attacks on Constantinople and Egypt fail.
* The Russo-Swedish War for Finland (1808-1810)
** Finland becomes Russian, the king of Sweden is deposed in a coup. The CrowningMomentOfAwesome was a Russian army marching across the frozen Baltic sea from Finland to northern Sweden.
* The Swedish campaign in Norway 1808-09, resulting in defeat for the swedish army, though better equipped than the Norwegian farm militia.
** The British blockade of Norway, which basically left Norway on their own. Norway had to cope without Danish help when the Swedes invaded from the East. The years after the Swedish campaign is remembered in history as the "years of need" in Norway, with people starving to death all over the country. The experience bolstered the national sentiment come 1814.
* The treaty of Kiel, ratified in january 1814, which dissolved the union between Denmark and Norway at gunpoint. Sweden was compensated for the loss of Finland by gaining Norway.
** A new Swedish campaign in Norway followed suit in 1814. This time, the Swedish army had a new and more experienced french general on their side.
** Not to mention that Norway used their spare time to draft their own constitution the same spring, which the Swedes grudgingly acknowledged the same autumn. This constitution was a constant {{take that}} from Norway to Sweden the next 90 years or so.
* The Spanish American Wars of Independence (1808-1829)
** Largely a consequence of the Peninsular War.
* The Anglo-Swedish War (1810-1812)
** Following a French ultimatum, Sweden declares war on the United Kingdom, but on paper only.
* The [[WarOf1812 War of 1812]] (sometimes called The Second War of American Independence or Mr. Madison's War) (1812-1815)
** America declares war on Great Britain and attempts to invade British Canada. Spins into a conflict involving the British Empire, the United States, and a number of Native American groups allied to either side. Ends with failed invasions of each other's territory by both sides--during which the Americans burned down UsefulNotes/{{Toronto}}[[note]]Then called York and at the time capital of Upper Canada[[/note]] and the British torched UsefulNotes/WashingtonDC--and a military stalemate. The Treaty of Ghent restores the status quo. Perhaps one of the stupidest conflicts in history, seeing as the British had actually ended the policies which provoked before it broke out, but due to the slow pace of communications in those days, the America didn't find out until after it had invaded Canada. (And similarly due to slow communications, the great American victory at the Battle of New Orleans, which launched the career of AndrewJackson, was fought shortly ''after'' peace had been declared.)
[[/folder]]

----
!!These wars contain tropes such as:

* AbnormalAmmo: In 1809 Tyrolean insurgents for sniping used rifled air-guns (which in peacetime were used mainly for poaching). Napoleon ordered that anyone caught with such a gun should be immediately shot.
** Also Henry Shrapnel's top-secret invention, the "spherical case" ammunition.
* AFatherToHisMen: Many. Napoleon himself was one, so was Nelson, as was Wellington (in his own way). Special props must go to the beloved General Rowland Hill, whose adoring troops called him "Daddy Hill". When one of his officers was injured, Hill sent him a lunch hamper during his convalescence. When a serjeant delivered him a dispatch, he gave the man a pound, a hot meal, and a bed for the night for his trouble.
* BadassBoast: General Malet, leader of an abortive coup in October 1812 responding to the tribunal's question who his accomplices were: "All of France, and you yourself, if I had succeeded."
** Also TheDukeOfWellington's made a while after the Battle of Waterloo, and referring to Napoleon's beloved column formation:
-->'''Wellington''': Napoleon came on in the same old way, we fought him in the same old way, and we beat him in the same old way.
** Napoleon, in addition the many he made himself, made one on behalf of Sir Sidney Smith, who was vital to the Turkish defence of Acre:
-->'''Napoleon''': That man made me miss my destiny!
* BadassBookworm: Marshal Davout looked like one, having grown bald at a young age and having to wear glasses, but he was arguably Napoleon's best lieutenant and not called the "Iron Marshal" for nothing. At Auerstedt his corps single-handedly threw back the main Prussian army.
* BadassGrandpa: Generalissimo Suvorov was 70 years old when he led a Russian army across the Alps to smash the Revolutionary French army at the Trebbia and Novi in 1799. Field Marshal Blücher was 72 when he led the Prussian army to victory at La Belle Alliance - two days after they had to pull him from beneath a dead horse.
* BadassMustache: Blücher and French general Lasalle, both hussars. Also Napoleon's [[TropeNamer Old Guard]].
* BatmanGambit: A strategy frequently used by Napoleon, most famously against the Russian and Austrian armies at Austerlitz.
* BattleInTheRain: Several.
* BlingOfWar: The armies of the Napoleonic Wars had the fanciest, most colorful and elaborate uniforms in history with those of hussars(light cavalry), being the most ornate. However, this had some use due to the exorbitant amounts of smoke quickly covering the battlefield from [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_powder black powder]] being used in muskets since [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smokeless_powder smokeless powder]] had yet to be invented - the bright uniforms helped soldiers be able to continuing see their comrades and thus aided morale.
** The Napoleonic Wars also saw the institution of the Legion of Honour and the Iron Cross.
* BloodKnight: Sir Thomas Cochrane spent the early years of the war fighting French for the Royal Navy. After the war ended, bored, he spent his time fighting in the independence struggles of various imperial possessions - he helped lead Chile to freedom (to this day, there is a ship of the Chilean Navy named the ''Almirrante Cochrane''), captured the most powerful Spanish warship in the Pacific, directly leading to Peru's freedon, he helped the Brazilians defeat the Portugese, became Marquess of Maranhao, then burned the Bazilian merchant fleet and raided their treasury when they didn't pay him his prize money, and he fought for the Greeks against the Turks. He then took command of the North American Squadron, and was almost given a command in the ''Crimean'' War, but Parliament was worried he would do something suicidally brave and lose his entire command. He also drafted the "Secret War Plan", which was so brutal that Parliament had it locked away, to be used if and only if the mainland UK was threatened. It apparently involved rockets and poison gas.
* BraveScot: See BloodKnight above.
* BritsWithBattleships: ''Especially'' the battleships. The Royal Navy's finest hour - it won a string of crushing victories against numerically superior fleets and kept up a blockade of Europe for almost twenty years. In its spare time, it made serious inroads into ending the slave trade. When one well-wisher gave Napoleon a chair, embroidered with a French Eagle strangling a British Lion:
-->'''Napoleon''': But it should be the other way round! The Lion is strangling the Eagle! The Eagle can barely leave his nest!
* ButtMonkey: Norway. Blocked by the British Navy for years and nearly starved to death in the process, and later handed over to Sweden after the Treaty of Kiel (January 1814). Denmark was forced to give the country away ''at gunpoint'' (A Swedish army had just turned northwards and conveniently stopped close to the Danish border in december 1813). The Norwegians inverted the trope when beating the Swedes in 1809 and drafting their own constitution in 1814, which Sweden accepted with a grudge. During the constitutional assembly, Norway expected Britain to intervene on their behalf, but Britain chose to side with Sweden, and the rest is history.
** The British House of Commons debated this issue for three days straight at the very end of April 1814. Dispatches reached Norway at the beginning of May, and the assembly hurried up to get their draft ready before the Swedes invaded. They made it in a fortnight, and that is why Norway has it`s national day at May 17.
** The Danes themselves had this status. When, by 1807, they had the last non-British battlefleet in Europe, it was only a matter of time before someone invaded to take it off them. Napoleon made a decent head start, agreeing with the Tzar at Tilsit that he could snatch the Danish fleet, and so the Crown Prince of Denmark deployed the Army to the South of the country...which meant it could do nothing when the British invaded from the North and [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bombardment_of_Copenhagen bombarded the city for three nights]]. The Danes gave up their fleet, which was returned to Britain and inducted into the Royal Navy.
* TheCaptain: Many, many captains - Sir Edward Pellew, Sir Israel Pellew, Nelson when he held the rank, Thomas Hardy (not that one), Eliab Harvey, and possibly the daddy of them all, Sir Thomas Cochrane, whose life served as inspiration for both [[Literature/AubreyMaturin "Lucky" Jack Aubrey]] and Literature/HoratioHornblower.
* CastingCouch: Manuel Godoy became Spain's political and military top guy until 1808 because he was [[EvilMakesYouUgly Queen Maria Luisa]]'s lover. King Charles IV [[IgnoranceIsBliss was oblivious and considered the "Prince of Peace" his trusted friend]].
* TheCavalry: Desaix' division at Marengo, the Prussians at Eylau and Waterloo.
** Murat's cavalry charge at the Battle of Eylau is notably epic. Imagine a frontal assault on a crumbling line by ''[[OverNineThousand eleven thousand horsemen.]]''
* TheChessmaster: Metternich, Talleyrand, Canning.
* ChildSoldiers: The "Marie-Louises" of the 1814 campaign in France. British Midshipmen often served from age 12, joining active service ships at 14.
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: Even allowing for the general frequency of [[HeelFaceTurn about-faces and switches of alliance]], some examples were considered beyond the pale at the time.
** Saxony switched sides in the a few months into the war of 1806, after the double defeat of Jena and Auerstedt. The elector became a king by the grace of Napoleon and in the peace of Tilsit in 1807 he gained some territories at the expense of his erstwhile ally Prussia. The Prussians were naturally miffed at this, especially as the king of Saxony refused to join the anti-Napoleonic alliance in the spring of 1813, and subsequently Prussia tried not just to regain the territories it had lost to Saxony in 1807, but also to annex as much of Saxony as it could. In the meantime the Saxons fell out of favour with their French allies, because a Saxon brigade - against the king's orders - deserted the French Army in the middle of the battle of Leipzig (October 16-19, 1813). Even though the brigade was too small to make a real difference and even though it did not actively fight on the Allied side at Leipzig, Napoleon used them as scapegoats for his defeat and even coined the word "saxonner" for deserting allies under fire. At the Congress of Vienna, Prussia succeeded in gaining nearly half the territory of Saxony, but when Blücher ordered the Saxon contingent of his army to be divided up in accordance with the new borders, these troops mutinied, which led to the Saxons being sent back to Germany and not participating in the Waterloo campaign. Modern historians tend to look more friendly at the way the Saxon soldiers reacted to unusual circumstances and conflicts of loyalty.
** For his enemies (and former friends) Napoleon was a king of this trope. For Corsican nationalists and their leader Paoli he was a traitor to the cause. In the coup of 18 Brumaire, he betrayed his erstwhile allies in the ''Directoire''. After Austerlitz he entered into an alliance with Prussia, handing them over the electorate of Hanover as the price for declaring war on Britain; shortly after he secretly offered Hanover back to the British. When the Prussians found out, they hastily declared war on him, only to suffer total defeat. Also in 1806, Napoleon goaded Turkey to declare war on Russia to open a second front, but in 1807 he made peace with Russia, but a peace that did not include Turkey, which had to continue its war until 1812. And in 1808 he betrayed Spain and the Spanish royal family, some of his most faithful allies, in order to install his brother Joseph as its king.
** For Napoleon's supporters, Talleyrand and Fouché suffered from this.
* CitadelCity: A few. Cadiz became one as it ended up the last free city in Spain, whilst the Spanish cities of Ciudad Rodrigo and Badajoz proved formidable obstacles to the British Army (though not formidable enough, as the inhabitants of Badajoz found out to their cost).
* ColourCodedArmies: Austrians dressed in white, British in red, French in dark blue, Hanoverians in red (conveniently, since they had [[TheHouseOfHanover same ruler as the British]]), Italians and Neapolitans in white, Portuguese in brown, Prussians in dark blue, Russians in dark green, Spanish in white, then dark blue. Note that these are only the colours for line infantry, other arms of service could have different colours and there were countless subversions for special units. This could lead to confusion, for instance in one battle in the Peninsula, a Swiss regiment in French service, which wore red uniforms, got uncomfortably close to the British redcoats before they were recognized, shot upon and driven back. On their retreat they were then fired upon by the French who mistook them for attacking British infantry.
* CourtroomAntics: UsefulNotes/TheLawsAndCustomsOfWar as interpreted then had an elaborate code for Prize Law. At one time an American privateer brought suit in a ''British'' court for the ransom he had been promised for a capture during the War of 1812 (which was a subtheater of this war). He was granted it.
** Well we always knew lawyers were {{Pirates}}.
* DeadpanSnarker: Talleyrand, feared for his wit.
** The Duke of Wellington too. When later asked the best way to deal with sparrows infesting the Crystal Palace, the ageing Duke gave the one word reply "sparrowhawks."
* {{Determinator}}: Marshal Oudinot, wounded 24 times during the Wars of 1792-1815, yet lived to the age of eighty. In 1795/96 alone he took two bullets and nine sabre-cuts.
** Lieutenant-Colonel William Inglis of the 57th (West Middlesex) Regiment of Foot is the TropeNamer for term 'die hard'. At the battle of Albuera in Spain he was wounded by canister shot. Despite his injuries, Inglis refused to retire from the battle but remained with the regimental colours, encouraging his men with the words "Die hard 57th, die hard!" as they came under intense pressure from a French attack. The 'Die Hards' subsequently became the West Middlesex’s regimental nickname.
** Sir John Moore at La Corunna. After Britain's first disastrous campaign in Spain, he led his battered army through an uncharacteristically harsh winter, managed to keep it mostly intact, and, as he fought a delaying action to allow his men to embark for England, was hit by a cannonball which turned him into a real-life [[{{Batman}} Two-Face]]. He stayed awake and directed the battle, finally dying when the last of his men were embarked. Marshal Soult was so impressed, he raised [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Tumba_de_John_Moore.jpg a monument to him in the town of Corunna]], which stands to this day.
* DraftDodging: At the time, draftees in France could hire a substitute if they had enough money. In many other countries a lot of the middle and upper class was legally exempt anyway.
* DyingMomentOfAwesome: Nelson expired from a sniper's bullet just after winning the Battle of Trafalgar with his last words being [[TearJerker "Thank God I have done my duty"]].
** Later, Marshal Michel Ney asked for, and recieved, permission to direct his own firing squad with his last words being "Soldiers of France! This is the last order I shall give you. Ready, Aim, Fire!"
** Marshal Murat had a slightly funnier one: "Soldiers! Do your duty! Straight to the heart ({{Beat}}) [[TheFightingNarcissist but spare the face.]] Fire!"
** Scottish General Sir John Moore was hit by a cannonball at Corunna, which apparently laid waste to near his entire left side. Moore however stayed awake and composed for the next several hours until the battle ended, all the while still giving orders before finally dying.
* EarthIsABattlefield
* EliteMooks: In particular, the Old Guard for Napoleon. The British Guards regiments, as well as the Light Division, where these for the British.
* TheEmperor: Napoleon, obviously.
** Franz I of Austria also proclaimed himself as one.
** Though the official style of "King-Emperor" had not come into use, King George III of England had the largest Empire, though he was a constitutional monarch.
* EpicFail: Napoleon's Russian campaign. Let the numbers speak for themselves: his forces at the start of the campaign: 600 000. His forces at the end of the campaign, that is, half a year later: 6 000. WhatASenselessWasteOfHumanLife.
* EverythingsBetterWithPrincesses: Queen Louise of Prussia (1776-1810). When she died, she was even called [[TropeNamer the Queen of Hearts]] by August Wilhelm von Schlegel.
* EvilOverlord: Napoleon, to his opponents.
* EyepatchOfPower: Nelson, of course (despite not wearing an actual eyepatch- he probably had a detached retina, meaning the afflicted eye looked normal on the outside). And Mikhail Kutuzov, the Russian field marshal who perfected the scorched earth tactic that led to Napoleon's crushing defeat.
* FightingForAHomeland: The Poles did a variety of it, and were among the most loyal of Napoleonic troops. Also to an extent peoples of the conquered territories.
* FightingIrish: A third of the British Army of Portugal was composed of Irishmen. Notable regiments include the Royal Enniskillen Dragoons, the Royal Irish, and the Connaught Rangers.
** On the other hand plenty of Irish fought ''against'' the Britain, whether as rebels in Ireland itself (especially in 1798) or directly in French service - the ''Légion irlandaise'' was the only group of foreign soldiers in the French military to whom Napoleon ever gave an eagle.
* FiveManBand: The Anti-Napoleonic Alliance
** TheHero: United Kingdom (Fought longest and hardest against Napoleon)
*** Arguably also the TokenGoodTeammate, given the fact that most of its' allies were absolute monarchies.
** TheLancer: Sweden (The Swedes maybe were bad at figthing in the start but they were the Britons' most loyal allies, and even remained at their side when Russia, Austria and Prussia pulled a FaceHeelTurn)
** TheSmartGuy: Prussia (The Germans had some of the most gifted commanders at the time)
** TheBigGuy: Russian Empire (The Russians had the highest numbers of troops and mostly relied on [[ZergRush zerg rushes]]. They were for some time TheBrute of Napoleon's FiveBadBand but changed side when Napoleon thought [[YouHaveOutlivedYourUsefulness they had outlived their usefulness]])
** TheChick: Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (Naples was conquered in just a year after their king declared war against Napoleon, and Sicily had to rely on the Royal Navy in order to not be conquered as well).
** SixthRanger: Portugal (Portugal had been in an alliance with United Kingdom since the 13th century, and so its forces fought alongside the British against Napoleon in Spain)
** TagalongKid: United Kingdom of the Netherlands (Wasn't created until 1814 and so many Dutch and Belgians found it difficult to fight Napoleon at Waterloo. Arthur Wellesley however said their difficulty were more of inexperience reather than incompetence)
* TheFightingNarcissist: Joachim Murat was a noted dandy and possible homosexual, whose last words were an entreaty for the firing squad to leave a good-looking corpse. He was also a fine cavalry commander and BadAss.
* FrenchJerk: Napoleon
* FromNobodyToNightmare: Napoleon. He went from being the son of a Corsican patriot to overlord of most of Europe.
** From the French perspective, the Duke of Wellington. After Napoleon has defeated all of Britain's top generals, forcing Craddock into a shrinking perimeter around Lisbon, killing Sir John Moore, Nelson is dead, this young officer fresh out of India returns to Europe after destroying the Maharatha Empire. "Ah," observed Napoleon, "but reputations made in India rarely stand up to a musket volley in Europe". He changed his tune before the end.
** Marshal Massena was a cabin boy from Nice, the son of a shopkeeper, who enlisted in the French Army as a private, and who climbed all the way to the top.
* GaulsWithGrenades
* TheGreatWall: The [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lines_of_Torres_Vedras Lines of Torres Vedras.]] A series of linked forts, ''steepened hills'', flooded valleys and British garrisons between Marshal Massena's army and the Portugese capital, stretching all the way across the Portugese. It was a steal at £100,000, and a Russian squadron in Lisbon harbor [[FiveFingerDiscount kindly "donated"]] all their cannons to arm it. The British also, thoughtfully, took all the food in Portugal behind them and poisoned all the rivers and wells they could find. They were built in total secrecy, and the British government was as suprised as Marshal Massena when Wellington announced he had retreated behind them.
* GreyAndGreyMorality: The whole conflict. The structures Napoleon put in place in many of his territories were far more benign and enlightened than those which had already existed - for instance, he pioneered Jewish emancipation on the Continent, and tried to help out the Poles against their twin oppressors, the Russians and the Prussians (and the Irish against the British.) On the other hand, he was an unrepentant imperialist, and his conscripts were surprisingly poorly disciplined off the battlefield (some say deliberately so), with RapePillageAndBurn being their pastime of choice when they entered new territories and their method of choice for dealing with guerillas (especially in Spain and Germany).
* TheGump: Don Miguel Ricardo de Álava y Esquivel KCB MVO holds the honour of being the only man to have fought at both Trafalgar and Waterloo (for ''opposite sides''). He served as a naval aide-de-camp to Admiral Alava (his father) at Trafalgar, and was captured along with the Admiral when the British took the ''Santa Ana'' midway through. When the French invaded his homeland he became Spanish military attache to TheDukeOfWellington, serving with him right up until Waterloo.
* GunboatDiplomacy: Both sides made heavy use of this, but one particularly illustrative example can be seen in the little known case of the Second Battle of Copenhagen in 1807. After Nelson's crushing victory at Trafalgar, the remaining French and Spanish warships fled back to port. Napoleon's planned invasion of Great Britain was nipped in the bud. However, Denmark possessed one of the most powerful remaining navies in Europe. It was also small and conveniently easy to invade. Both sides, therefore, scrambled to gain the Danish fleet. Napoleon set the ball rolling by bullying the Tsar into revoking his objection to a French seizure of Denmark's navy as part of the Treaties of Tilsit. The British offered the Danish Regent (Crown Prince and future King Frederick VI) a whopping great sum of money in return for the ships...but also let him know that a large fleet was gathering at the Nore. The Crown Prince Napoleon then moved his army to the Danish border in preparation for offering the Danes [[SarcasmMode a fair deal on the issue.]] Unfortunately, this backfired on him - the Danish Crown Prince deployed the Danish army to Holstein in Southern Denmark so as to resist the French...and so Denmark was powerless to stop the British invasion fleet laying siege to Copenhagen and then burning much of it to the ground. Stunned, the Danes meekly gave up their Navy to Britain.
* HandicappedBadass: One-armed, one-eyed Lord Nelson, one-eyed Field Marshall Kutuzov and one-legged General Daumesnil come to mind; the latter replied to a summons of surrender: "I'll give you Vincennes if you give me back my leg." Also very remarkable was the Archduke Charles, who was the Austrian Army's best general and became the first to inflict a defeat in the field on Napoleon despite suffering from recurrent epileptic fits. Marshall Massena of France lost one of his eyes to Napoleon in a hunting accident (sound familiar, Dick Cheney?).
* HeelFaceTurn: Almost every state in Europe seems to do this at least once, except Britain, which was consistently anti-France the whole time.
* [[HeroicBSOD Heroic BSOD]]/[[VillainousBreakdown Villainous Breakdown]]: Several. You can decide who was a hero and who was a villain yourself (See GreyAndGreyMorality above)
** Marshal Massena apparently had an ''epic'' one of these when he saw [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lines_of_Torres_Vedras the Lines of Torres Vedras]], Britain's secret defenses which blocked the routes into the Portugese capital, behind which all of the British Army and the Portugese population had retreated, taking all the food. Allegedly he simply stood, slack-jawed, for several minutes, before throwing a huge screaming fit at his intelligence staff. He spent the next few months desperately trying to find a crack, whilst scraping Portugal bare for forage, a feat of logistics which Wellington was very impressed by.
** Wellington had a little one after the retreat from Burgos castle, the siege of which was his only decisive defeat. He also reportedly wept seeing the British casualties after the nasty Siege of Badajoz.
** Nelson was incredibly upset by the loss of his arm, telling the King that "a one-armed Admiral shall never be useful". The King, in a rare moment of lucidity, told him to man the fuck up and get back out there. He did.
** Napoleon being taken back to exile in St Helena. Apparently he found it very difficult to deal with.
** Many of Napoleon's Old Guard when they heard the news of his death - on its return to France, his coffin was followed by all the remainder of them, wearing the threadbare uniforms they had been ordered to burn by their new Royalist masters.
* [[LieBackAndThinkOfEngland Lie Back And Think Of Poland]]: Polish patriots encouraged the reluctant Maria Walewska to become Napoleon's mistress.
* LoveItOrHateIt: Napoleon Bonaparte himself.
** GermansLoveDavidHasselhoff: Much of Europe hates Boney. The Poles? They mostly vary between [[HeroWorshipper hero worship]] and "we love him, but...".
* MagneticHero: Nelson, Napoleon. Napoleon got the most magnetic during his 100 Days, when the army sent to capture him, swore fealty to him instead. Wellington too, pulled this off, despite being infamously cold.
* MagnificentBastard: Napoleon, Talleyrand, Several of the Marshalls had their moments, but the best example is Bernadotte.
* MajorInjuryUnderreaction: See Sir John Moore's DyingMomentofAwesome above
** Also Wellington and Uxbridge at Waterloo:
-->'''Wellington''': By God, sir! You've lost your leg!
-->'''Uxbridge''': By God, sir! So I have!
* MamaBear: Agustina de Aragón, The Maid of Zaragoza. During the First Siege of Zaragoza, Agustina, the wife of a fallen Spanish artilleryman, took his place at the gun at a moment where several Spanish soldiers were running away, loaded the gun and fired it, killing several Frenchmen at point blank range. This is sort of a {{badass}} version of Molly Pitcher.
* MotherRussiaMakesYouStrong
* MoreDakka: This was a factor in Britain's success against numerically superior French armies. The standard French formation was a large column, which marched straight at the enemy. This had the advantage of being intimidating, but also meant that only the men on the front and flanks of the column could fire. The British adopted a "thin red line", which meant every single soldier could bring his musket to bear. Add the fact that, whilst the French had to beg, borrow, and steal enough saltpetre to make gunpowder, the British got all of theirs from India, which was rolling in the stuff, and whose export Britain controlled. This meant that most French soldiers' first experience of live-firing was on the battlefield, whilst the British practiced with live ammo ''every day''. As [[{{Sharpe}} Richard Sharpe]] said, three rounds a minute in any weather was not to be trifled with.
* MySisterIsOffLimits: One French soldier suspected that one reason for German hatred of French in some quarters was that it had been common for peasant girls to be seduced (willingly or otherwise) by billeting French soldiers ''in the presence of their families'' without them being able to retaliate. Such an [[ThisIsUnforgivable insult]] demanded a RoaringRampageOfRevenge as soon as the [[KillItWithIce failed invassion of Russia]] made that feasible. At the least it is doubtful that Frenchmen were always thought to be pleasant company.
* TheNapoleon: Averted with the real Napoleon. His legendary short stature, from which the trope name and the related term "Napoleon Complex" come from, was just that - a legend. He was 1.70m tall, which was just above average for France at the time. A combination of his unusually short legs and British propaganda gave the impression that he was tiny. He did, allegedly, get shorter towards the end of his life - even before his probable arsenic poisoning, he did not agree with the miserable climate of St Helena, and the years of boredom at Longwood House took a terrible toll on him.
** Played completely straight by Nelson, though- 5'4" and hardly over 100lbs- but unlike most examples of this trope, he was proud of it (as well as the fact that he was one-handed, half-blind, very emotional and got terribly seasick- he considered that all this emphasised his courage in getting his job done anyway)
* NapoleonBonaparte: [[{{Understatement}} Had a minor role.]]
* NobleFugitive: Whoever got run out of their country by Napoleon's last conquest.
* NotInTheFace: When Joachim Murat (one of Napoleon Bonaparte's generals, as well as his brother-in-law) was executed by firing squad for sedition against the Kingdom of Naples, he specifically said "Aim for the heart, but avoid the face". Although Murat was considered something of a vain dandy, this was more an example of him being flippant in the face of death to cap off a long life of general badassery. He also faced the firing squad unblindfolded.
* [[ObnoxiousInLaws Noxious In-Laws]]: During the Wars of Liberation, Napoleon was up against his father-in-law, Emperor Franz I of Austria.
** Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law deserted Napoleon in 1814 on the advice of his sister Caroline Bonaparte. During the Hundred Days he chose an inopportune moment - just when Napoleon was trying to convince everybody that he wanted peace - to rally to his cause and start an ill-fated war in Italy.
** Napoleon's brother Louis was also a kind of son-in-law to him, having married Hortense de Beauharnais, Josephine's daugther from her first marriage (mother of Napoleon III). Napoleon installed Louis as king of Holland, but since Louis adopted his new subjects' views and sabotaged Napoleon's efforts to impose a trade embargo against Britain, Louis was deposed and Holland annexed to France in 1810.
* NoPartyLikeADonnerParty: On the retreat from Russia, some French soldiers are reported to have resorted to this.
* OffWithHisHead: The thing everyone remembers Robespierre for.
** During the Napoleonic Wars the preferred methods were the "dry guillotine", i. e. deportation to French Guyana, and the firing squad. Notable people shot that way were the Duke of Enghien, the book-seller Palm, who refused to divulge the name of the author of a pamphlet, Tyrolean resistance leader Andreas Hofer, General Malet, and Marshals Murat and Ney.
** Prussian rebel leader Ferdinand von Schill was decapitated after being killed fighting in the streets of Stralsund in 1809. The head was preserved in a jar at Leyden university until it was returned to Germany many years later for burial.
* OfficerAndAGentleman: The Duke of Wellington. In his army, RapePillageAndBurn was punished by the Gallows. It didn't make him immediately popular with his men, but it was necessary in securing the cooperation of his Spanish and Portuguese allies. This policy slipped at the Sieges of Badajoz and San Sebastian, where his army, who had taken the city, took advantage of his confusion as to whether the very nasty battle had been won (smoke obscured the battlefield, and the French flag hadn't been taken down) to steal anything not bolted down, rape anything alive and anything that was dead if it was still fresh, and burn everything they couldn't nick or rape. Indeed, the two instances remain the worst war crimes ever perpetrated by the British Army. Wellington eventually restored order by erecting a gallows in the main square, and finding some particularly nasty looters to hang.
* PetTheDog: A famous anecdote about the Iron Duke could be a textbook example of this trope: Wellington was taking a country stroll, alone, when he happened upon a young boy weeping bitterly over a pet toad. Wellington asked the boy what the matter was, and scolded him for behavior unbecoming of a young gentleman. The boy replied that he was going away to school tomorrow, and he was worried that his pet toad would starve without him. Wellington dried the young man's eyes and told him that he would undertake to look after the toad in the boy's stead. The boy had been at school a few days when his spirits were cheered by the following message from the Duke:
-->'''Missive''': Field Marshal the Duke of Wellington begs to inform William Harris that his toad is alive and well.
* {{Pirates}}: The Napoleonic Wars were the last major conflict in which [[{{Privateer}} privateers]] played a larger role. The most famous one was Robert Surcouf of Saint-Malo, who operated mainly in the Indian Ocean and captured or sank 47 ships. By the standards of the day he started out as an actual pirate since he did not have a letter of marque when he took his first four British ships.
* PluckyMiddie (all [[PluckyMiddie Plucky Middies]] seem to come from this period)
* {{Plunder}}: What every [[FatherNeptune hardy British seaman]] wants.
** Also, as George Bernard Shaw put it, the French soldiers' motivation was "not because every soldier carries a field marshal's baton in his knapsack, but because he hopes to carry at least half a dozen silver forks there next day."
* PolesWithPoleaxes: Polish volunteers served in the French army after the Third Partition of Poland in the hope of restoring their nation. In 1807 Napoleon established the Grand Duchy of Warsaw.
* PraetorianGuard: the original duty of the Napoleonic Guard. Also the British Guards regiments.
* LaResistance: Spanish [[TropeCodifier guerillas]] and Russian partisans.
** Also Tyroleans (1809) and sometimes Vendéans.
* TheRevolutionWillNotBeCivilized: Spanish partisans and Irish rebels.
* RedOniBlueOni: Nelson's red to Wellington's blue. Similarly, Napoleon's red to Bernadotte's blue.
** Rather ironic given the uniform of the British Army was red, and the uniform of the Royal Navy was blue.
* RousingSpeech: Damn you, Napoleon...
** "Soldats, songez que du haut de ces monuments, [[AncientEgypt quarante siècles]] vous contemplent" [[hottip:*: Keep in mind that forty centuries are beholding you from the top of those monuments]]. Right before ordering the attack, at the Great Pyramid battle in Egypt.
** After Austerlitz battle, his speech ends this way : " [...] il vous suffira de dire : 'J'étais à la bataille d'Austerlitz' pour que l'on vous réponde : 'Voilà un brave' ". [[hottip:*: "you'll just need to say 'I was in Austerlitz' and people will answer 'this is a brave man"]]
*** On the opposite side, Lord Nelson gave a rousing signal before the Battle of Trafalgar: 'England expects every man to do his duty.'
* SecretPolice: brought to a new efficiency in this era.
* SecretWeapon: Britain had two famous ones, the Shrapnel case shot and the Congreve rocket (based on those that Indian states had used against the British Army), and one not so famous one, the Lines of Torres Vedras, a series of linked forts which sealed off Lisbon from the invading French armies and starved them. Austria had its "Repetierwindbuechse" air rifles, which were just about the only guns at the time that could fire multiple shots at a time. Napoleon on the other hand wasn't a fan of such things, being famously contemptuous of both the rifle and the steam engine.
* SelfMadeMan Napoleon himself. He rose from the son of nigh-impoverished nobility, vilified for being a Corsican when France had only recently conquered it, to become Emperor of France. Primarily through a mixture of luck, good public relations and, oh yes, being very, very good at winning battles.
* TheSiege: Several, obviously, the most well-known ones being the defense of Kolberg in 1807 and the two sieges of Saragossa in 1808/1809.
** Napoleon Bonaparte won his first laurels at the siege of Toulon during the War of the First Coalition, while in that of the Second Coalition his campaign into Syria failed because his army could not take Acre.
* SnowMeansDeath: The Retreat from Moscow.
** Also the horrific battle of Eylau, 8 February, 1807.
* TheSoundOfMartialMusic: Other than the British Army, the Austrian Army spent more time fighting the French than any other.
* {{Spinoff}}: The WarOf1812
** And a few others, see above.
* TheStarscream: Napoleon himself was one to the Directory (as DragonInChief), and he was to get two of his own: Bernadotte and Talleyrand.
* StiffUpperLip (Wellington): Because he is the most QuintessentialBritishGentleman of them all.
* SweetPollyOliver: Several documented instances.
* [[TakeALevelInBadass Lose then Retake a Level in Badass]]: The Prussian Army.
** One Russian observer said "They are [[FrederickTheGreat Frederick's]] Prussians again".
* WarriorPrince: Quite a few of the traditional kind, i. e. members of imperial, royal and ducal houses, and some of the other kind, i. e. former noblemen and commoners who got a royal or princely rank conferred on them by a certain former member of the minor nobility of Corsica.
* WeHaveReserves: Everyone started to introduce {{Conscription}} in a race to get as many [[WeHaveReserves Reserves]] as possible. Culminating in [[KillEmAll The Battle of the Nations]] at Leipzig
* WillTheyOrWontThey: The alliance between Russia and Sweden, two ancient enemies. This drove the British mad, until Napoleon decided the matter for them.
* WhyDontYouJustShootHim: Boney actually said he should have done this with Talleyrand long after it was too late.
* TheWoobie: Denmark. First tried to be neutral and was attacked twice by the British, who at the second go set fire to Copenhagen using saturation bombardment. Driven into an alliance with Napoleon, it then lost Norway to Sweden in 1814.
* WoodenShipsAndIronMen: The definitive era of same.
* WorthyOpponent: Napoleon's thoughts on the Prussians.
* YouHaveFailedMe: Possibly Admiral Villeneuve, disastrous French commander at Trafalgar, who "committed suicide". His method seems rather suspect. [[TheCoronerDothProtestTooMuch According to the official verdict, he first stabbed himself in the heart, then stabbed himself in the left lung six times.]]
* YouKilledMyFather: Exiled Duke Frederick William of Brunswick raised a free corps which was uniformed all in black in memory of his father, who had been killed in 1806 while in command of the Prussian Army. The "Black Duke" and his corps fought on the Austrian side in 1809, then, after the Austrians sued for peace, fought its way from Bohemia to the North Sea, to be shipped to the Iberian Peninsula to continue fighting there. In 1813/14 the Black Duke returned to Brunswick, but was killed at Quatre Bras on 16 June, 1815, once again fighting the French.
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!!In fiction:

* Napoleon's official army bulletins. There is a good reason why the expression "to lie like a bulletin" entered the French language under his reign.
* Creator/{{Stendhal}}'s ''Literature/TheCharterhouseOfParma'' shows its hero as an unwitting observer of the battle of Marengo in 1800, a device that Tolstoy later copied.
* ''WarAndPeace''
* ''Literature/LesMiserables'' - contains an account of Waterloo. Creator/VictorHugo also wrote an epic poem that was highly influential on the popular image of that battle in France.
* Theodor Fontane's first novel, ''Before the Storm'', is set in Prussia in the winter of 1812/13. ''Schach von Wuthenow'' presents the country as ossified on the eve of the war of 1806.
* The ''Conscript of 1813'' and ''Waterloo'' by Erckmann and Chatrian. One of the most realistic 19th century novelizations of the last years of the wars from the perspective of an unassuming Alsatian recruit.
* The ''Brigadier Gerard'' books by Creator/ArthurConanDoyle
* ''BloodyJack''.
* ''The Man of Destiny'' by George Bernard Shaw
* ''Goya'' by Lion Feuchtwanger (also filmed)
* ''Literature/HoratioHornblower''
* ''Literature/FevreDream''
* ''Literature/SevenMenOfGascony''
** Delderfield also wrote ''Too Few for Drums'' featuring a PluckyMiddie ON LAND!
* ''{{Sharpe}}''
* ''Conquest'' aka ''Marie Walewska'' - Greta Garbo plays Napoleon's Polish mistress
* ''TheDuellists''
* ''Literature/AubreyMaturin''
* ''{{Waterloo}}''
* The ''{{Temeraire}}'' series follows the Wars of the Third and Fourth Coalitions [[InSpiteOfANail fairly closely]] (with the obvious exception of the [[DragonRider draconic air forces]]) before going completely OffTheRails in the fourth book.
* ''Literature/TheTalesOfEnsignStal'': A collection of poems about the Finnish war.
* Polish national epic ''Pan Tadeusz'' is set in Lithuania before and during Napoleon's invasion of Russia.
* ''Literature/HonorHarrington'' started out as the Napoleonic Wars [[RecycledInSpace In Space!]] Though the Napoleon expy actually fails and sends things OffTheRails.
* Lauren Willig's ''PinkCarnation'' series follows on from ''Literature/TheScarletPimpernel'' and tracks the adventures of similarly-named spies in Britain, Ireland, France and India during the Napoleonic Wars. Napoleon himself appears in the first book.
* Theatre/{{Tosca}}, the {{opera}} by GiacomoPuccini, is tangentially related: the war affects it, though it hardly affects the war.
* Norwegian playwright {{Henrik Ibsen}} wrote an epic poem based on stories from the British blockade of Norway. The poem, ''Terje Vigen'', is arguably Ibsen´s greatest {{tear jerker}}, relating the story of a fisherman trying to breach the blockade by rowing to Denmark for supplies for his family. The Brits intervene, of course, and the antagonist spends the rest of the war in prison, only to find his family dead when returning home. The rest of the poem tells of his resentment and eventual revenge on the British lord who made him miserable. They all figure it out in the end, though. English translation: http://www.sitater.com/home/ibsen/vigen/idx_eng.htm

!!Non-Fiction
* Lots of participants wrote memoirs and histories afterwards. Thanks to the advances of public education, these included several junior officers and even some [=NCO=]s and privates.
* More books have been written about Napoleon than about anyone else in history.

!!TableTopGames
* The first proper wargames were developed in Germany during the Napoleonic wars as educational aids for officers.
* MiniaturesWargaming got its start with Napoleonic miniatures.
* One of Avalon Hill's first board wargames, in the early 1960's, was - you guessed it - "Waterloo", based on the Hundred Days campaign. The NapoleonicWars have proven an especially popular subject for map-and-counter (and, later, computer) wargaming ever since.
* On a related note, the battle of Waterloo/La Belle Alliance is especially well-documented in part because William Siborne, who made dioramas of the battle with miniature soldiers, got every surviving participating officer he could get his hands on to write down what they had done and seen there.
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