seemed as starting out of the ground, or the tre-
mendously heavy fire we threw into them, La
Garde, who had never before failed in an attack
suddenly stopped. Those who from a distance and
more on the flank could see the affair, tell us that
the effect of our fire seemed to force the head of
the Column bodily back.Napoleon was crushed at Waterloo, and his 100-
day rule ended. Once again he was exiled, this time to
the island of St. Helena, where he was kept a prisoner
and wrote his memoirs as his health declined. Suffer-
ing from cancer of the stomach (and possibly, as some
historians claim, from severe arsenic poisoning), Napo-
leon Bonaparte died on St. Helena on 5 May 1821. His
remains were first buried there, but in 1840 they were
taken back to France and installed in the Invalides in
Paris next to his son.
Historian Michael Lee Lanning sums up Na-
poleon’s influence on world history: “As emperor of
France, Napoleon Bonaparte dominated European
political and military life for more than two decades.
His military genius led him to conquer most of the
Continent and extend French control into Asia and
Africa. Napoleon not only captured massive [amounts
of ] territory; he also exported his military and political
ideas and techniques and influenced armies and gov-
ernments throughout the world. In doing so, he clearly
established himself as one of the most influential mili-
tary leaders of all times.”
Historian Robert Asprey’s two-volume work on Na-
poleon is perhaps one of the greatest on this mysterious
and little-understood man. Asprey writes, “Napoleon
Bonaparte has been too often remembered as either [a]
demi-god or devil incarnate.”
References: Asprey, Robert B., The Rise of Napoleon
Bonaparte (London: Little, Brown and Company, 2000);
Palmer, Alan Warwick, Russia in War and Peace (London:
Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1972); Shosenberg, James W.,
“Napoleon’s Masterstroke at Rivoli,” Military History 13,
no. 5 (December 1996): 34–40; Petre, F. Loraine, Na-
poleon & the Archduke Charles: A History of the Franco-
Austrian Campaign in the Valley of the Danube in 1809
(London: Arms & Armour Press, 1976); Keegan, John,
The Face of Battle: A Study of Agincourt, Waterloo and the
Somme (New York: Penguin Books, 1984); “Waterloo,”
18 June 1815: Napoleon’s Last Throw—Charge of the Im-
perial Guard, 7 p.m., in Eyewitness to History, edited by
John Carey (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press,
1987), 291; Smith, Robert Barr, “ ‘A Damned Nice Thing’
at Waterloo,” Military History 12, no. 2 (June 1995): 62–
69; Lanning, Michael Lee, “Napoleon I,” in The Military
100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Military Leaders of
All Time (New York: Barnes and Noble Books, 1996), 8–
13; Kintz, P., J. P. Goulle, Fornes, P. Ludes, et al. “Letter to
the Editor: A New Series of Hair Analyses from Napoleon
Confirms Chronic Exposure to Arsenic,” Journal of Ana-
lytical Toxicology 26, no. 8 (2002): 584–585.Narses (ca. a.d. 478–573) Byzantine commander
Little is known of Narses’ life; he was apparently born in
Armenia about a.d. 478, but he is not mentioned in his-
tories until his entry into the imperial household of Byz-
antine emperor Justinian I. A eunuch, Narses advanced
to become the chamberlain [an officer who manages the
household of a monarch] of the imperial court. Justin-
ian, convinced of his abilities after Narses put down
the Nika riot of 532, soon named him as the emperor’s
treasurer. In 538, believing that Narses was completely
trustworthy, Justinian sent him to Italy to oversee the
movements of his leading commander, belisarius. Al-
though he was recalled in 539, in 551 Narses was sent
back and named as Belisarius’s successor as the head of
the Byzantine army. As the new commander, he defeated
the Ostrogoth king Totila (552) and the Franks and the
Goths at Capua (554), thus reestablishing Byzantine
control over Italy. Historian André Corvisier, who wrote
perhaps the longest biography of Narses, describes the
victory over Totila:At Taginae (552), in central Italy, Narses’ Byz-
antine army of 15,000 encountered the Ostro-
gothic army of King Totila. The two armies went
into line of battle across a shallow valley. Narses
formed his heavy infantry into a phalanx to block
the foot of the valley, ordering some of his heavy
cavalry to dismount and join the infantry. Over
4,000 archers were massed on either flank with
the remaining heavy cavalry in their rear. The
Ostrogoths placed their heavy cavalry in front of nARSeS