History UsefulNotes / NapoleonBonaparte

* See UsefulNotes/NapoleonBonaparteAndTheNapoleonicWarsInFiction.

!!Works of art he's stolen or commissioned:
* ''Art/TheGhentAltarpiece''

* French historian Thierry Lentz, director of the Fondation Napoléon, is famous for his detailed debunkings (including via books) of both approximations and pseudo-history about Napoleon and his wars.

* PraetorianGuard: First there was his Consulary Guard, which was created to protect him and was engaged in battle as soon as Marengo in 1800. Then it became the Imperial Guard and grew considerably in size to become the elite spine of Napoleon's armies. And within the Imperial Guard, there was the [[OldSoldier Old Guard]], the group of veterans from his early battles nicknamed the "Grognards" ("grumblers"), recognizable with their above average size and huge bearskin. They were the only soldiers who were allowed to complain directly to the Emperor himself, who always camped with them near the battlefields, and the best equipped unit as well. From Austerlitz in 1805 to the disastrous Russian campaign in 1812, Napoleon used them less and less (the French expression for "sending the Guard to battle" was "faire donner la Garde"), then they saw heavy fighting between 1813 and 1815. French films featuring the Old Guard generally don't miss a beat in their depiction of these guys.

* FrontlineGeneral: After becoming Emperor, he stood out among European monarchs by directly going to the field himself when at war to manage his armies and devise strategies and tactics (not by fighting at the frontline himself of course, but by camping the closest he could to the battlefield), while the other monarchs delegated such tasks to their high ranking officers and stayed in their capital cities. He always camped with his Old Guard and [[AFatherToHisMen developed a close bond with them]], causing the faith in him to trickle down in the army since the Guard was its spine. The Old Guard even often feared for his life when he was too close to the front and sometimes outright refused to listen to his orders if he didn't move away to safety first. Several novels and live-action works have depicted this.

Befitting the name of the events, he won most of these wars and the vast majority of his battles, rapidly gaining control of a united continental Europe, creating a land empire of a size and dimension that had not been witnessed ([[UsefulNotes/GenghisKhan in the west]]) since the end of [[UsefulNotes/TheRomanEmpire the Western Roman Empire]]. One of the greatest military commanders in history, his campaigns are still studied at military schools worldwide, and he remains one of the most celebrated and controversial political figures in Western history. In civil affairs, Napoleon consolidated the foundational liberal reforms of the Revolution in France, and through his conquests was spread across Europe and the world. His lasting legal achievement, the [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code Napoleonic Code,]] has been adopted in various forms by a quarter of the world's legal systems. At the same time, he is criticized as a warmongering imperialist, an autocratic tyrant, and setting the precedent for the military to overthrow the French Republics in a coup d'etat.

* French historian Thierry Lentz, director of the Fondation Napoléon, is famous for his detailed debunkings (including via books) of both approximations and pseudo-history about Napoleon and the wars.

Much as he feared, the other European nations sent him further away to UsefulNotes/{{Saint Helena|Ascension And Tristan Da Cunha}} [[PutOnABusToHell in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean]] where he was expected to die forgotten and powerless. [[https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/06/15/napoleon-had-his-own-american-dream (Personally, Napoleon wanted to emigrate to America and live out his days in genteel retirement.)]] He did die there eventually of stomach cancer.[[note]]There are of course theories of arsenic poisoning or ''accidental'' arsenic poisoning? Well, [[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleon#Cause_of_death he died]], in any case.[[/note]] But he would not be forgotten to say the least. In his retirement, Napoleon spent his time dictating his memoirs which were published posthumously and which on his death, became bestsellers in Europe, followed in turn with other accounts by visitors who enjoyed the spectacle of a former world conqueror made into a harmless, decaying old man who spent his days gardening and passing snide comments on the English governor which were generally unfair. His remains were brought back to France and buried in the Hôtel des Invalides in UsefulNotes/{{Paris}} in 1840, on the initiative of Adolphe Thiers and King Louis-Philippe.

It's fairly common to see Napoleon as a tyrant and a precursor to 20th-century dictators, but the balanced historical verdict falls in the middle. It cannot be doubted that Napoleon proved willing, even indifferent, to sacrificing thousands and later millions purely in pursuit of his own greatness. But it's pointed out by more than a few historians that despite being the namesake, the Napoleonic Wars weren't entirely his fault,[[note]]As everyone notes, it was the British who declared war on France first, breaking the Peace of Amiens[[/note]] and that the conflicts often triggered and kept re-occurring because neighboring powers broke treaties they signed with him first, mostly because [[RichBitch they refused to see him]] as anything other than a Corsican upstart, which more or less meant that he had to stay on the war footing. Napoleon's reforms did much to better the lives of his subjects and soldiers and in his own way, he sought to enforce the building of stable Europe, as well as support limited national sovereignty. Poles remember him fondly as an ally in their struggle for independence - to this day Napoleon is the only foreigner mentioned in the Polish anthem, of course that might be because the Polish national anthem [[CultOfPersonality was written during the Napoleonic era]] and that the short-lived Duchy of Warsaw [[NostalgiaFilter increased in value]] in the century of suppression that followed. As noted above, Napoleon emancipated Jews in many of the areas he conquered, especially in Germany (where he is still seen as a hero by German Jews), though controversy still remains about his motives in doing so and his personal attitudes towards the Jews.

* PraetorianGuard: First there was his Consulary Guard, which was created to protect him and was engaged in battle as soon as Marengo in 1800. Then it became the Imperial Guard and grew considerably in size to become the elite spine of Napoleon's armies. And within the Imperial Guard, there was the [[OldSoldier Old Guard]], the group of veterans from his early battles nicknamed the "Grognards" ("grumblers"), recognizable with their above average size and huge bearskin. They were the only soldiers who were allowed to complain directly to the Emperor himself, who always camped with them near the battlefields, and the best equipped unit as well. From Austerlitz in 1805 to the disastrous Russian campaign in 1812, Napoleon used them less and less (the French expression for "sending the Guard to battle" was "faire donner la Garde"), then they saw heavy fighting between 1813 and 1815. French films featuring the Old Guard generally don't miss a beat in their depiction of these traits.