enemy, and Napoleon’s forces marched into Berlin.
Fighting against Russia was less victorious: At Eylau (8
February 1807), a clash in a horrific snowstorm ended
indecisively, but Napoleon followed this up with a major
victory at Friedland (14 June 1807), and Russia was
forced out of the war. Under the Treaties of Tilsit (July
1807), half of Prussia’s territory was given to the French,
and Prussian Poland was given its independence.
Napoleon now stood as the conqueror of most of
continental Europe. He placed his brother Louis on the
throne of Holland, his brother Jerome on the throne of
Westphalia, his brother Joseph on the throne of Naples,
and, in 1808, made Joseph king of Spain. In 1806,
he declared the Holy Roman Empire to be ended. At
Aspern-Essling (21–22 May 1809), Napoleon’s forces,
although not defeated, were forced to withdraw before
the Austrians under Archduke Charles, marking Napo-
leon’s first reverse; in this battle, Marshal Jean lannes
was killed by a cannonball. However, Austria failed to
defeat Napoleon at Wagram (6 July 1809).
The first real signs of French vulnerability came
in the Peninsular War (1808–14), when Napoleon’s
troops were routed in Spain and Portugal in 1808 and
1809 by British forces. Nevertheless, he decided to in-
vade Russia, following the end of the peace with Russia
established under the 1807 Treaties of Tilsit (expanded
by the 1808 Congress of Erfurt). When Russia refused
to remain in the Continental System, Napoleon’s grand
scheme for a single economic system in Europe, and
continued to trade with Britain, he gathered an army of
500,000 men and marched on Russia in June 1812. As
with Adolf Hitler and the Germans 130 years later, Na-
poleon’s forces moved quickly into Russia, forcing Gen-
eral Mikhail kutuzoV to rapidly withdraw his troops.
On 7 September 1812, at Borodino, a small village west
of Moscow, the two great armies met in a bloody but
indecisive battle: The French lost some 33,000 killed
and wounded, while the Russians lost 45,000 men. Ku-
tuzov withdrew further, and Napoleon entered Moscow
on 14 September. However, he found a city destroyed
by the fleeing Russians; there were no supplies, and the
Russian winter was rapidly killing off his army. After
trying to arrange for peace with Czar Alexander I of
Russia, Napoleon gave up and began a hasty withdrawal
back to France. Kutuzov used guerrilla strikes to harrass
the French, but he did not dare take them on. When
the French army finally returned to France, Napoleon
had just 10,000 soldiers of his original 500,000. The
Russian disaster spelled the beginning of the end for
his reign.
Sensing Napoleon’s vulnerability, the Prussians
joined the Russians, British, and Swedish in a fourth
coalition. At Leipzig (16–19 October 1813), these
combined armies forced the French troops to retreat.
An offer was made for Napoleon to retain France’s old
borders; when he refused, the coalition armies marched
into France and took Paris on 31 March 1814. Napo-
leon abdicated his throne on 11 April and went into
exile on the island of Elba, while Louis XVIII was in-
stalled on the French throne. The Congress of Vienna
was established to redraw the borders of Europe, but as
the congress was meeting, Napoleon, backed by some
of his generals and followers, escaped from Elba, landed
at Cannes, and proceeded to Paris. He entered the city
on 20 March 1815 and began a period of rule known
as the Hundred Days, during which he reassembled the
French army and set out to reestablish the empire he had
once ruled over. However, on 18 June 1815, the forces
under the command of Arthur Wellesley, duke of Wel-
lington, to face Napoleon at Waterloo. Of this battle,
Captain H. W. Powell, a British officer of the 1st Foot
Guards, later wrote:There ran along this part of the position a cart
road, on one side of which was a ditch and bank,
in and under which the Brigade sheltered them-
selves during the cannonade, which might have
lasted three-quarters of an hour. Without the
protection of this bank every creature must have
perished.... The Emperor [Napoleon] prob-
ably calculated on this effect, for suddenly the
firing ceased, and as the smoke cleared away a
most superb sight opened on us. A close column
of Grenadiers (about seventies in front) of la
Moyenne Garde, about 6000 strong, led, as we
have since heard, by Marshall [Michel] Ney, were
seen ascending the rise au pas de charge shouting
“Vive l’Empereur.” They continued to advance
till within fifty or sixty paces of our front, when
the Brigade were ordered to stand up. Whether
it was from the sudden and unexpected appear-
ance of a Corps so near them, which must havenApoleon bonApARte