Napoleon Bonaparte was the most famous man of the 19th century. At the peak of his power,

he personally controlled more of the European continent than anyone since the great empires

of Rome. Today, most people see him as an ambitious little man with an outsized ego,

others see him as a forerunner of the great aggressor of the 20th century, Adolf Hitler.

This portrait is as flawed as it is unfair. Napoleon Bonaparte was born on the 15th of August

1769 on the Mediterranean island of Corsica. Ironically, the island, long connected to the city

state of Genoa, Italy, only became part of France the year before he was born. But for

this twist of fate, Napoleon would never have been a French citizen, let alone its emperor.

His parents sent him to the mainland at the age of 9 where he studied to be a soldier.

His facility in mathematics, organisation and map reading marked him for future success.

The French Revolution, with its overworked guillotine, provided a unique opportunity for

advancement, that is for anyone who could keep his head, literally. Napoleon did. He became

a general by the age of 24. At the age of 26, he achieved a series of stunning victories

in Italy against an Austrian army that had come to destroy the revolution and return

the French royal family, the Bourbons, to the throne. These victories made him a national

hero. As shrewd a politician as he was a general, by the first month of the new century,

at the tender age of 30, Napoleon was the undisputed leader of France. He crowned himself

Emperor, on December 2nd, 1804, turning the French Republic into the French Empire with

a bonapart line of succession. Napoleon's establishment of a French Empire only increased

the fears of the royal houses of Europe and of France's historical enemy, Britain.

As a result, in September 1805, Austria invaded Bavaria, a French ally, and Russia joined

the attack. Napoleon and his Grand Armée, roundly defeated them at the Battle of Ausstilitz.

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