Napoleon Bonaparte Research Paper

1155 Words5 Pages
Many have drawn comparisons between Napoleon Bonaparte and Adolf Hitler, leaders who aggressively expanded and acquired territory during a transition period in their country and created empires that shook the world for a time but eventually failed. However, these two powerful figures differed greatly in considerable aspects including their backgrounds, their rise to power, and their ultimate defeat. Europe during the time of Napoleon Bonaparte showed signs of momentous changes. In 1789, France engulfed itself in an ultimately-unsuccessful revolution that dethroned the king and catapulted the country through several radical phases. Much of the continent, especially Western Europe, had already been introduced to new Enlightenment thoughts focusing…show more content…
A coalition of countries including Austria, England, Spain, Russia, and the German states formed to prevent the revolution from spreading across Europe. Napoleon’s strategic thinking was highlighted during the Egyptian Campaign. The French government wanted to attack England, but Napoleon insisted on an Egyptian campaign to threaten England’s trade routes with India. This was not his last attempt to attack England economically. He later became the first consul of France and then the emperor. Once Napoleon’s power increased, England, Austria, and Russia joined together in an alliance, wary of his significant influence. Napoleon personally led battles against these three nations, defeating combined Austrian and Russian forces in December 1805. One of Napoleon’s major accomplishments includes creating the Code Napoleon, a set of civil codes for the people of France. Hitler’s rise to power in Germany seemed purely political. After the surrender of Germany in World War I, Hitler’s embarrassment turned to outrage at the action. In 1919 he attended a meeting of the National Socialist German Workers’ (Nazi) Party. He spent time in prison after attempting to overthrow the government with the Nazi Party, a place where he brooded over the German loss and wrote the autobiography that made clear his radical ideas. By 1921 he earned the leadership position in the anti-Semitic party, which…show more content…
Through a series of conquests, Napoleon found himself in control of not only France itself, but also Spain, parts of Italy, and German states. However, he made major enemies with England—who he could not defeat militarily—and Russia. He issued the Continental System which he designed to weaken England economically by restricting the British goods allowed into the rest of Europe. In 1810, the Russian tsar, Alexander I, withdrew from the Continental System and began trading with England again. Napoleon, infuriated by the tsar’s action, launched his army toward Russia in 1812, an endeavor which failed miserably and led quickly to his downfall. At the Battle of Waterloo in Belgium on June 18, 1815, Napoleon, along with his French Army, suffered a major defeat to combined British and Prussian forces, indicating the end of his power and France’s domination of Europe. In September 1814 the Congress of Vienna, led by Metternich of Austria, set out to reconstruct the Europe that Napoleon’s conquest left behind. While trying to acquire living space for Germans, Hitler targeted the Sudetenland, a region of Czechoslovakia that included many German-speakers. Unlike when Napoleon began to expand aggressively, countries did not join together in an effort to defeat him early on. England’s prime minister responded to Hitler’s aggression with a policy of

More about Napoleon Bonaparte Research Paper

Open Document